Angelo's exhaustion finds refuge in the gentle caress of Skyler's fingertips, folding over his reaching hands as if in prayer.

It makes for a weird juxtaposition with the coiled cruelty behind Skyler's gritted teeth, far from holy - no matter which god you pray to.

And Rocket might as well pray to all of them, because they'd find no mercy in hers.

Not after yesterday. Not when even the warm sunset golds that spill into the kitchen fail to erase the shadows from beneath Angelo's eyes. Instead they reflect coldly in a gaze that rises to demand the pilot's attention. Bloodshot eyes rimmed in grim purpose.

"No. No, you won't." Neutrality had become her policy in the midst of rising tensions. Skyler had never pretended at righteousness, and the position had offered her a wealth of opportunities. If she played her cards well.

If she was willing to burn for it.

She'd thought, perhaps foolishly, that neutrality had provided her loved ones with safe passage through the inevitable conflicts that would rise. 

She'd thought wrong, and they had burned for her instead.

Fingers find the empty spaces between Angelo's own and squeeze, throat tight with the knowledge of what her mistakes had nearly cost. Her. Him.

"If they crossed this line, they'll cross others." She remembers amicable chatter in a high-end establishment within Sootopolis, remembers the strange feeling of recognition in another. But Cillian Quinn is only a small, insignificant part of a much bigger entity. 

"We'll teach them to hurt for it." 

angelo vestri

☉

Angelo's words are a siren's call, drawing her gaze to the way vengeance shapes his lips, to the hidden shadow that flickers ever so faintly behind mischievous blue. She finds herself looking for it, entranced by the razor-sharp edge of violence that simmers quietly, underneath.

Quietly matching it. Craving it.

His thumb slowly grazes over the skin of her fingers, and she shivers.

Her entire being is locked into perfect attention. This, him - reminded her that beauty existed, too, in destruction. That love was as much a gentle ray of sunshine on a winter's day as it was the cold edge of a knife in the dark.

Looking at Angelo now, she could see both.

Hers.

Even as he swears vengeance, she finds her fingers wandering into brown locks, soft as the wind. The last of his words are swallowed by the whisper of her lips sliding lightly across his as she leans forward - uncaring for the edge of the table digging painfully into her torso.

"Yes," comes the near inaudible whisper, as her forehead touches his, "yes." Did it matter where this path took them? Did it matter that she'd damn the world before she did him?

That was everyone else's problem, not hers. And, right now, it was Team Rocket's.

The throwback to the time she'd punched Matias surprises a peal of laughter out of her, cutting through the previous tension. Her lips hook onto a thread of amusement, curling into something with too many teeth to be a smile.

"I make no promises, Angel. My fist has been known to act out on occasion," The attempt at innocence falls woefully short, especially when she continues, "but since you asked so nicely, I'll try to behave."

Sunset gold catches on wayward curls as she leans back down to brush a finger over his cheekbone, to bask in the simple fact of his continued existence.

"I love you, angelo vestri ." 

angelo vestri

☉