Stone Cold

Make Do

Today was the fifth and final day of withdrawal, and though Athena was noticeably doing a better job of keeping down her small portions of food and the chills had almost completely subsided, the cyro was still quite shaken in terms of her depleted strength. As a solution, however, Miss Peregrine had agreed to allow her out of the restraints so she could join the others on the daily walk. She was, however, to continue wearing the collar, but at least for the foreseeable future (if not longer) that seemed to be one of her new normals. That along with the dinner chains of course. 

The headmistress's one requirement for Athena to be able to join the walk, however, was that the brooding dead riser accompanies her. Though resistant, the cyro could tell by just how easily he caved that the boy really didn't mind if it meant spending the entire time attached to the girl's hip, even if it meant having to help hold her up when she began to get dizzy or felt increasingly weak. One time in particular, however, Enoch could have sworn the girl had passed out. 

"BloodWorth?" 

There was no response but the feeling of her muscles going limp as her weight got heavier in his arm around her waist, it became apparent she had seemingly lost conciseness. Not wanting to alarm anyone, however, the dead riser turned to the closest person for assistance. 

"Claire," Enoch called to the girl who had been holding his hand as they walked. Since they were at the back of the group and no one else had seemingly noticed their delayed pause, he knew that he was going to have to tell someone where they had gone off to.

"Will you go tell the bird that Athena got tired so I helped her back to the house?" 

As the blonde's ringlet curls bobbed up and down with her head, the seven-year-old turned back towards the group and began running to catch up with the rest, her black Mary Janes's kicking up dust on the dry dirt path. 

As the dead riser looked back down to the angel with the blue-blonde hair in his arms, he noticed her icy blue hugh of irises looking up at him, though he could easily tell that by the way they frantically scanned her surroundings, the cyro was completely unaware of her blackout. 

"W-wha-?" But the dead riser quickly cut her off, silencing her by simply shifting her weight into his grasp. 

"Don't worry about it BloodWorth. You passed out, but I caught you. Now go back to sleep, I was enjoying the quiet." 

Hitting him lightly in the chest, Athena tried to retort his request, however, her newfound elevation caused the cyro's breath to hitch and her arms to cling to the dead riser's neck.

"Can't keep your hands off me?" Enoch stated smugly. Athena however, instead of sending him either an infamous mocking stare or simply chewing him out for literally all of the shit they are in because of him, nestled her face into the crook of his neck, elevating herself by adjusting herself in his arms. Mumbling into the bare skin, she made sure that if anyone was nearby, no one was going to pick up on her words except for the dead riser she was about to leave flustered. 

"You sure it isn't the other way around?"

Though the cyro couldn't necessarily see the boy's face, she could feel the heat radiating off his neck as the blood rushed up to his face. She had him right where she wanted him, but more than that, she finally had the upper hand in their two-person tango. She was in the position to take what she wanted in contrast to previously letting herself be walked all over. 

Little did she know, however, that this was all her words were going to escalate to. Under normal circumstances, just about any jab she took at him got under Enoch's skin, however now, after facing all the two had over the past week, what the cyro had yet to realize was that their relationship now meant more to Enoch than it ever had before. He had seen her at her lowest of lows, yet had never led his feelings for her astray. No, they were seemingly always present, but a wave of new anger accompanied them. It wasn't so much anger, however, as much as it was a combination of confusion and irritation. The more the cyro played with his heart, the thicker the wall around it became, and with it, the better he leveled the playing field between them. He now knew what it felt like to love her and walk away, so that's what he would do. Even if she caved, he wasn't to cave with her. After all, at the end of the day, she was far quicker at repairing walls than he ever could be.