Author's Note: Alright, this is my second try. I hope it lives up to the other, after seeing all the lovely notes of feedback I worked on this one between classes today, after eating lunch with a friend of mine, er hence the food.
I'm not sure what Abel's favorite sandwhich was, so I used one that I thought he would probably enjoy and the peanut butter reference from the manga. Also, you get to see some of Esther's thoughts in this one. So, enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Trinity Blood.
God Save the Sandwiches
Abel watched Esther as she paced under the stone arches of the Vatican. They had met for lunch in the courtyard. Of course, they had not planned on rain inviting herself to their outing and thus the pair had been forced out of the weather.
"All those sandwiches I made," Esther huffed. She had been unable to grab them because a certain priest had knocked them off the table in haste to get his tea to a drier condition. She turned to glare at him as he sipped the syrup-like beverage. "We could be eating them right now, but somebody had to save his tea!"
"Hm?" He looked up at her innocently. She huffed again, this time stomping a white boot and resuming her angry pace. She was muttering all sorts of things that Abel couldn't understand.
"I can't believe you sometimes!" she snapped.
"What did I do?"
"What did he do, he asks?" she spoke to herself. "What did you do? You knocked the lunch off the table in the rain Father Nightroad! All to save the tea!" She waved her soaked arms around. The storm had come from nowhere.
Abel bit back a laugh. Esther was rather cute when she was fussing at him about something. Her soaking red hair stuck to her pale skin and the habit was clinging more so than usual. She crossed her arms and shivered.
"I'm sorry Sister Esther. Forgive me?" he smiled.
"Well, I'm going to think about," she told him as she turned her nose up in the air. She had stopped walking now, he noticed, and was standing near the wall, looking depressed.
"Think about it?" he asked in disbelief. "So, you're not going to forgive me, for this one minor incident?"
"I don't know yet," she said.
"B-but Sister Esther, you need to forgive me. It's in the Bible."
"Don't you bring the Bible into this right now," the nun said. "I'm mad at you, you know."
"But Sister Esther," he pleaded. He was growing worried that she was serious about not forgiving him. He didn't want to make her mad on purpose. He couldn't handle Esther mad at him. He couldn't handle not having her in his life. "Sister Esther, please, I'm sorry." He set the tea cup down and moved closer to her. She walked away from him, to where he had been sitting, and watched the rain. "Star," he spoke softly.
"Don't call me that when I'm mad at you," she told him. Her voice sounded different. Abel tried to see around her shoulder, to tell if she was smiling. It sounded like it from her tone.
"But Sister Esther, I really am sorry about the tea."
"Father Nightroad, it's not just the tea," she told him. Her voice was quiet. "It's the fact that the tea became the top priority and I was left in the rain with the sandwiches. You're so...insincere sometimes. I swear, the only thing on your brain is that sugar." Even though she was trying to make a joke, Abel could still hear the sadness in her voice. "And now, I'm all soaked and cold and you're dry as a bone and one of the Professor's jokes." She turned around to face him. He could see her smiling now but that sadness still lingered in the air like perfume.
"Sister Esther, I'm sorry. Please forgive me," Abel told her in a serious tone. He bowed his head.
"Alright, I forgive you Father Nightroad. I was going to anyway."
"Thank you Sister Esther," he told her as he pulled her into a tight hug. He could feel her wet clothing pressing through his. "See there? Now I'm soaked too," he grinned.
"Oh hush," she shivered. Abel took his cape off and placed around the shivering girl's shoulders. "What are we going to do about lunch?"
"Maybe the sandwiches can be revived if you had them in that lovely basket. I'll check!" Before she could stop him, Able ran into the storm. Esther watched the priest with a sigh. Even if he was a little insincere sometimes, she couldn't help but find herself falling for him.
He was her savior after all. Just when she had been ready to give up in Istvan, he reminded her that she still had him on her side. She smiled warmly at the memory.
He looked around under the table in the pouring rain, his robes soaking through like hers. She clutched the cape around her a little tighter, inhaling his scent. He smelled like sugar. The stuff must have been flowing through his veins.
She giggled a little. The sandwiches had been full of it. Sugar and butter were his favorite, next to peanut butter. Abel had retrieved the fallen basket as he ran back to her proudly.
"I think they're fine!" he told her excitedly as he opened the lid. Only the basket was wet. "God save the sandwiches!" he cried. Esther had to outright laugh as the priest held one close, as if it were the Holy Grail.
"You do love your food don't you?"
"Only when you make it." He took a bite out of one of them, relishing the taste. "Sister Esther, you make the best sandwiches for me."
"I make the only sandwiches for you."
"That's true. But they are the best ones I've had." She grabbed one from the basket as well, but she ate on autopilot. She knew that Abel probably didn't mean to come off as he did, insincere and with strange proportions in regards to what to save, but it still hurt when he did.
He wasn't Dietrich though, and for that she was thankful. But he could be so frustrating sometimes because he had just as many secrets. She had only glimpsed pieces of his dark side, his bad side. Not that she wanted to see more, because she had trouble imagining him in a bad mood, but she just wondered what he was hiding from her.
"Something wrong?" Abel asked.
"Hm? No, I was just thinking."
"Anything wrong? You're not mad at me are you?"
"No, I could never be mad at you for long," she smiled. "I was just thinking is all."
"May I inquire as to what?"
"Just, the reasons I came to Rome. It's nothing to worry about." She put on a brave face and hoped that it would convince him.
"Oh, okay." He returned to his sandwiches and her to her thoughts.
Her reasons for coming to Rome included death naturally, but what about love? She could have loved Dietrich at one time, but she didn't. He wasn't very promising when they were working together. But Abel was different. Abel had something...special.
But when he acted like this, she wondered if it was a hollow crush; If there were a possibility that he would or could ever feel for her back. Then there were of course women like Lady Caterina, who were beautiful and powerful. Lady Caterina was closer to Abel than anyone else seemed to be.
The more Esther seemed to dwell on it, the more she seemed to become depressed and yet, when she looked at him all of that seemed to float away.
Oh Abel, if you only knew. If you only knew what I was thinking about you, feeling about you. The thoughts bounced around in her mind. If only I knew that you felt the same. But, you're like a mystery to me. One that I'm not qualified to figure out. You are the best thing in my crashing world and you don't even know that. I can't tell you that I love you, not until I know that you feel the same.
"Sister Esther, are you sure you're feeling okay? You look a little sick?" Abel asked in a concerned voice, breaking her thoughts.
"Hm? Oh, I'm sorry. I guess it's this weather. I think I'm going to go and lay down. We'll take a rain check on lunch." Abel laughed.
"Rain check? Sister Esther, you're clever. Do you want me to escort you?"
"No, I'll be okay." They shared good-byes and Esther walked away in a normal pace until she rounded the corner, then she took off running to a dark part of the Vatican. She found a spot where she could crouch down and cry. "Oh Abel, why don't you let me in? All I want is to love you." She cried a little while before she composed herself and headed for her room, trying not to think about it.
Abel realized after she walked off, how much he missed her. Even if she was irritated with him, she was still great to have around. He packed the uneaten sandwiches back for later. Esther still had his cape. It wouldn't hurt for him to go and check to make sure that she had made it back to her room safely.
He got the feeling that she was upset with him about something other than sandwiches. It wasn't that he meant to do what he did, he just didn't think. When he was around her, his thoughts seemed to scramble some what. He couldn't function normally. She had some kind of effect on him.
Abel found her room and paused with his hand over the thick wood. He gulped and knocked on the wood softly. There was no answer. He tried a few more times with no answer.
Should he go in or come back later? Against his better judgment, he opened the door and looked in. The girl was sleeping soundly, her form rising and falling with every breath, in her bed.
Abel smiled when he realized that she was still wearing his cape. Instead of getting it back, he turned and exited the room quietly. He leaned against the wall outside of her room and sighed.
If only he knew how she felt...
"Sleep well my love," he whispered as he walked off to hide his sandwiches.
Author's End Note: Alright, so I hope you enjoyed it, whoever you are. I won't know unless you tell me.