RESEARCH ( barry berkman.. ) ✔

o32. hear her voice..

Clear are the eyes which watch upon their adoration, for truer thoughts have not crossed our humane mind.

"You're writing again," Barry noticed, returning in his empty seat left to Addie's left. He took his water bottle from her lap and uncapped it, not bothering her private scribbles in a notebook with curious stares, but rather taking in her concentration turning rapidly into an uncontrollable smile. She paused her writing, having stopped the sentence at its end and now turned her head to Barry.

Their hair was still damp and was drying slowly. Adelaide had little waves curled into her pale brown hues with auburn roots and burned out ends from the times long ago when she thought blonde would look good on her at 3 AM. Barry knew about that story, becoming quite the knowledgeable man, for once, it what meant colors. Every nuance in Addie's hair, eyes, skin or lips, he knew by heart, yet each time he happened to throw his gaze her way, he never found the sight boring.

"I caught some inspiration," she scrunched her nose, dismissively shy, closing her notebook all the same. Adelaide kept the silence absently, watching Barry chug down the water, his head tilted back the slightest. She could still remember so clearly how his cheek feels, rubbing on her own, soft and abrasive, sharp but hardly scratching in unpleasant ways.

Outside, the rain has concealed them talking about marriage for the second time, wrapping the hints up in jokes and little laughs which however enjoyable, were turning Addie's stomach in a twist. Only once Barry lowered the bottle from his mouth, watering away the dryness of his throat and mouth from the sound mirroring lessons they have been trying in pairs, Adelaide decided to continue her little explanation and also pry her eyes away, instead looking at the stage's red frame of curtains.

"It's only a draft though," she held tighter to the little notebook sneak inside her jacket's pocket. Water came through and conjured frailty into the pages, but they were good enough for a faint pencil. "I'm not used to writing about anything else than... my shit past. And now that I finally left that chapter, I get to write about how I currently feel. It's odd."

To her admission, Barry almost felt unworthy to answer with words which would waste away in fading. Instead of using acting tools which taught him not to leave silent breaks too long, he took his time, scrunched himself into concentration and decided that though he did not want to pry and ask to see what she wrote, he did have one more curiosity. "How do you feel right now?"

Adelaide grimaced. Though it happened so recently, her past stupidity already amused her. "Being a hitman didn't really work for me, did it?" She smiled for Barry, apologizing for the thousand time that she preferred ignoring his worries and falling right into a trap which booked their remaining fall to illegal business only. "But I don't think that bothers me. On the contrary, I think I'm relieved. Even if we're in deep trouble because of me, we are working through this together quite nicely and that's a... relief."

Her gaze lowered towards the end, fixating on Barry's hand. The desire transmitted naturally and Barry felt it only normal to reach out and hold her hand, expectedly already off the notebook. Though he did not stop just at a squeeze. Instead, he lifted her hand and caressed his lips into a little peck over her cold knuckles.

Relief was close to happiness and much of an improvement from the despair and dreadful, carnal loneliness she depicted into her previous poems. Barry aimed for happiness for both of them, but in dangerous times, relief and perhaps safety could be counted as enough too, as long as they were still together.

"The others want to go to the bar again after classes," Barry lowered his hand holding hers, back on his right thigh. Everyone showed up that day, apart from Sally and he had long stopped himself from wondering if she was alright. After what she forced on him on Halloween, Barry would rather not voluntarily think or speak of her.