Cinnamon Swirl #27, Berry Punch #2, Strawberry Banana #14
Author: winebabe
Title: I Give With My Hands What I Say With My Eyes
Story: The Gemini Occurrence
Rating: PG
Flavor(s): Cinnamon Swirl #27: eye of the beholder; Berry Punch #2: butterflies in your stomach; Strawberry Banana #14: fortunetelling
Word Count: 2056
Summary: 2018; Adelina reads Genevieve's cards.
Notes: Adelina Garland/Genevieve Kessler-Downing. Pre-main canon.
"Do you do this a lot?" Genevieve asks, stepping aside to let Adelina in from the rain.
"Don't sound so nervous," Adelina says and laughs, pulling her hood down. "It's not black magic. It's the art of divination."
"I like magic," Genevieve insists. She locks the front door behind her; the extra moment it'll take Jude to open the door is all the time she needs. "I'm just nervous about what it'll say."
"Geni." Adelina pronounces the nickname like 'Jenny,' sweet and soft as she puts a hand on Genevieve's upper arm. "I think you've seen too many movies. Reading Tarot is more like asking a Magic 8 Ball, but with more than just yes or no answers. It offers guidance; it's not going to tell you that you'll die next Tuesday."
"Well, I wouldn't really mind if it did tell me that," Genevieve grumbles, and Adelina gently rubs her arm.
"You're still such a child, Geni. Come on, let's read your cards."
The shades in the sitting room are open but still it's dark; the rain hits the windows and streams down against the backdrop of dark gray clouds. Genevieve and Adelina sit down on the floor, where the coffee table used to be, and Genevieve lights candles around them in a circle. The shadows sway in the flickering light, and the room fills with the smell of smoke from the matches and the artificial scent of rose from the candles. They each have glasses of wine beside them, filled to the brim with thick, red liquid, and Genevieve drinks hers greedily.
Adelina smirks as she shuffles the cards, but doesn't say anything. Genevieve's flair for the dramatic hasn't been lost on her since they met, and really, the whole thing does add to the atmosphere. "Do you have a question ready?" she asks.
"I don't know how to word it," Genevieve admits, "but I want to know what's going on with me and Jude. I don't love him. I thought I did, maybe, or maybe I never did--I don't know. I just..." She trails off, tucking her long hair behind her ears. "I can't be with someone forever if I don't love them."
Adelina nods and thinks for a moment. "Well, let's see. Maybe you should ask the cards what insight they can give you into your marriage? I have the perfect spread for that."
"Okay," Genevieve says. "Do I have to actually ask them?"
"No," she replies and laughs, setting six cards face-down on the floor.
Genevieve idly traces her finger around the soulmate device in her arm, running her nail against the skin in the shape of a heart. The dull, glimmering surface only serves to remind her of what a failed marriage she has; nightly she sits at her mirror, carefully pinning up her hair before bed, and wonders if she's made the right choice.
She was young, when they met, drawn in by his handsome smile and warm eyes. Her name spilled from his mouth like honey when he spoke it, and she longed to hear him say it more often, just begging him to form the word after long days apart. No one had said her name like that. No one had looked at her the way he had, and she'd mistaken his predatory gaze for intensity. The startling speed of her heartbeat hadn't been love, lust, or anything in between. She hadn't seen right away that the reaction had always been fear.
"Are you ready?" Adelina asks, and Genevieve nods her head. "This is card the Star Guide spread. I'll explain what each card position means as I get to it. Okay?" Again, Genevieve nods, and Adelina reaches out to place her fingertips onto the first card. "This card represents the present situation." Adelina flips the card over, and Genevieve cranes her neck to read it.
"The Emperor."
Adelina nods. "The Emperor reversed," she corrects. "There's a power imbalance in your relationship. Jude is a strong authority figure for you, much like your father--which I know, because we've spoken about this. You're feeling powerless, unhappy. He's not a bad man, I don't think, but he's too possessive and too overbearing. You're a possession to him."
Genevieve presses a hand to her lips, nodding. "You got all that from one card?"
"Well," she says and laughs, "you've told me a bit here and there. It definitely makes sense why the card would show up, but believe me, this is mostly interpretation. While the cards have common meanings, they are unique to each situation. It'll all come together in the end."
"Okay," Genevieve says and takes another sip of her wine. "Let's keep going."
"This one," Adelina says, lifting up another card, "represents the causes of conflicts or obstacles." She flips the card over and sets it down. "The King of Swords reversed." She whistles and shakes her head. "Not good, not good."
"What? What's not good about this?"
"The King of Swords reversed represents manipulation, and potentially abuse. Someone who exploits their power and charm to get what they want, no matter the cost. Someone like Jude."
"Yeah," Genevieve says quietly. "Yeah, sounds like him."
Adelina pauses to take a sip from her wine glass, but doesn't say anything else. Genevieve looks distant and worried, holding her glass with both hands, sitting cross-legged and framed by two flickering candles on each side. "I still don't know why you married him in the first place, Geni," she says. "You're beautiful. You could have had anyone."
Genevieve blinks at her from behind her wine glass and whispers, "That's not true."
Adelina slowly turns over another card: the Six of Swords. "You're going to have to make a transition, something you might initially regret. Something that isn't easy. You have to give something up to be happy."
"I've already given up so much," Genevieve says, and Adelina smiles apologetically.
"I'm just interpreting the cards, Geni. It's not set in stone. You don't have to do anything."
Genevieve licks her lips and then nods. "I married Jude because my father told me to," she admits, and watches with veiled satisfaction as Adelina freezes, her hand hovering above the next card. "I married him because Daddy picked him for me, and I trusted Daddy. I saw how he treated my mom and I still thought he was doing what was best for me."
"It was an arranged marriage?" Adelina asks.
"Kind of," Genevieve says with a shrug. She won't meet Adelina's eyes. "Daddy introduced us when I was in high school still. Jude took me on dates sometimes, and he bought me nice things, and by the time we got married, I thought I was in love with him, I think. I thought I was making my own choice, but I guess I wasn't."
"You always have a choice, Geni," Adelina says. "You're so young. You can get divorced and start again. Trust me, it wouldn't be that hard, and I'd take care of you."
"No," Genevieve says, and Adelina sighs.
"Yes. I would take care of you. I would take you and run far away from here, if I needed to."
Genevieve watches her for a moment, sitting in eerie stillness, before she sets her wine glass down and crawls across the floor, kneeling on top of Adelina's tarot cards still spread across the rug. "You'd take me away from here?" she asks, and Adelina nods. "Why?"
"Because I care about you," Adelina whispers.
Genevieve cups a hand around Adelina's cheek. "I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't met you," she says, and Adelina doesn't have time to respond before Genevieve presses their lips together. They're sticky from the wine, stained red already, sweet. Adelina covers Genevieve's hand with her own and gently rubs her thumb across her knuckles.
The kiss is gentle, laced with desperation, and they both taste of wine and lip gloss. When Genevieve pulls away, Adelina takes her face in both hands and kisses her again, harder, and Genevieve giggles against her lips. She cracks her eyes open just enough to glance down at the heart on her arm; part of her expects it to be softly lit. Part of her expects Adelina to be her soulmate, but the heart is still dark against her skin.
It's okay, Genevieve tells herself. This is enough. And it is. When they pull apart, Adelina is flushed and Genevieve is woozy, groping blindly for her wine glass just to put something between Adelina and herself.
"Do you want me to read the rest of your cards?" Adelina asks breathlessly, and Genevieve nods, carefully inching backwards. "This one represents your strengths," she tells Genevieve, her voice growing stronger as she flips the card over. "The High Priestess. Your intuition is very important, and I think you may have been ignoring your inner voice. She's representative of higher powers, and I believe there may be something working outside of all of our control that will help you."
Genevieve still looks starry-eyed, sitting with her wine glass in hand, staring at Adelina. "Higher powers? What does that even mean?"
Adelina shrugs. "Do you believe in God? In Fate?"
"In soulmates?" Genevieve finishes for her, and Adelina nods. "I'm not sure what I believe in. I've never had to believe in anything."
"I don't know what I believe in, but I believe. I believe that there's so much more to life than what we know, than just being born, living, and dying. There has to be," Adelina says.
Genevieve quietly considers her words for a moment, staring into the dark liquid inside her glass. She thinks about all the angel statues back at home, the paintings and figurines her mother has all around the mansion. She thinks about the way her mother would point at sunlight filtering through the clouds and tell her that angels use sunbeams like stairs when they come to take souls to Heaven. She thinks about her mother, sitting in a patch of sunlight on the floor of her bedroom, crying.
"This represents other challenges you'll have to face," Adelina tells her, turning over another card. "The Tower. The foundation of your life may be breaking and falling apart. Everything as you've known it will crumble, but remember, with any destruction comes creation."
At this point, Genevieve feels numb. Her chest is tight and she knows, once Jude comes home, she'll have to avoid him. Adelina's right, she has to do something. She has to do something, but she's frightened.
Adelina turns the final card over, and Genevieve comes face to face with Death. Immediately, her thoughts run to murder, to killing Jude to escape him, and Adelina laughs.
"Don't take this card literally. This is the final outcome, and Death symbolizes a significant change. It doesn't mean death, Geni, don't look so scared." She smiles and reaches out to place a hand on Genevieve's. "One door will close, but another will open. Something will change, possibly unexpectedly. It's not a bad card."
"Oh, okay," Genevieve says, but she can't stop staring at the skeletal figure on the horse.
Adelina cleans up her cards and Genevieve sits quietly, thinking about her reading. Jude is a dangerous man; she's always known that, because any man with enough money is dangerous. With enough money, you can do just about anything. She knows she's lost her power by marrying him, because she's young and uneducated and beautiful. Her place is on his arm, a trophy wife, someone to make him look good. And he, in turn, makes Daddy look good because his only daughter married such a successful, wealthy man. Genevieve knows she's always been a pawn. She knows now, at least.
The rest of the reading is muddled in her mind as she tries to sort through it. She doesn't understand what she's supposed to do with her intuition, or how to enact the change that Adelina seems to think is so important, but she's too scared to ask about it. The higher power part especially confuses her, and she can't distance her thoughts from the literal interpretation of the Death card.
"So," Adelina says finally, "what did you think of your first tarot reading? Was it eye-opening?"
Genevieve downs the rest of her wine and then nods. "Very eye-opening."
Title: I Give With My Hands What I Say With My Eyes
Story: The Gemini Occurrence
Rating: PG
Flavor(s): Cinnamon Swirl #27: eye of the beholder; Berry Punch #2: butterflies in your stomach; Strawberry Banana #14: fortunetelling
Word Count: 2056
Summary: 2018; Adelina reads Genevieve's cards.
Notes: Adelina Garland/Genevieve Kessler-Downing. Pre-main canon.
"Do you do this a lot?" Genevieve asks, stepping aside to let Adelina in from the rain.
"Don't sound so nervous," Adelina says and laughs, pulling her hood down. "It's not black magic. It's the art of divination."
"I like magic," Genevieve insists. She locks the front door behind her; the extra moment it'll take Jude to open the door is all the time she needs. "I'm just nervous about what it'll say."
"Geni." Adelina pronounces the nickname like 'Jenny,' sweet and soft as she puts a hand on Genevieve's upper arm. "I think you've seen too many movies. Reading Tarot is more like asking a Magic 8 Ball, but with more than just yes or no answers. It offers guidance; it's not going to tell you that you'll die next Tuesday."
"Well, I wouldn't really mind if it did tell me that," Genevieve grumbles, and Adelina gently rubs her arm.
"You're still such a child, Geni. Come on, let's read your cards."
The shades in the sitting room are open but still it's dark; the rain hits the windows and streams down against the backdrop of dark gray clouds. Genevieve and Adelina sit down on the floor, where the coffee table used to be, and Genevieve lights candles around them in a circle. The shadows sway in the flickering light, and the room fills with the smell of smoke from the matches and the artificial scent of rose from the candles. They each have glasses of wine beside them, filled to the brim with thick, red liquid, and Genevieve drinks hers greedily.
Adelina smirks as she shuffles the cards, but doesn't say anything. Genevieve's flair for the dramatic hasn't been lost on her since they met, and really, the whole thing does add to the atmosphere. "Do you have a question ready?" she asks.
"I don't know how to word it," Genevieve admits, "but I want to know what's going on with me and Jude. I don't love him. I thought I did, maybe, or maybe I never did--I don't know. I just..." She trails off, tucking her long hair behind her ears. "I can't be with someone forever if I don't love them."
Adelina nods and thinks for a moment. "Well, let's see. Maybe you should ask the cards what insight they can give you into your marriage? I have the perfect spread for that."
"Okay," Genevieve says. "Do I have to actually ask them?"
"No," she replies and laughs, setting six cards face-down on the floor.
Genevieve idly traces her finger around the soulmate device in her arm, running her nail against the skin in the shape of a heart. The dull, glimmering surface only serves to remind her of what a failed marriage she has; nightly she sits at her mirror, carefully pinning up her hair before bed, and wonders if she's made the right choice.
She was young, when they met, drawn in by his handsome smile and warm eyes. Her name spilled from his mouth like honey when he spoke it, and she longed to hear him say it more often, just begging him to form the word after long days apart. No one had said her name like that. No one had looked at her the way he had, and she'd mistaken his predatory gaze for intensity. The startling speed of her heartbeat hadn't been love, lust, or anything in between. She hadn't seen right away that the reaction had always been fear.
"Are you ready?" Adelina asks, and Genevieve nods her head. "This is card the Star Guide spread. I'll explain what each card position means as I get to it. Okay?" Again, Genevieve nods, and Adelina reaches out to place her fingertips onto the first card. "This card represents the present situation." Adelina flips the card over, and Genevieve cranes her neck to read it.
"The Emperor."
Adelina nods. "The Emperor reversed," she corrects. "There's a power imbalance in your relationship. Jude is a strong authority figure for you, much like your father--which I know, because we've spoken about this. You're feeling powerless, unhappy. He's not a bad man, I don't think, but he's too possessive and too overbearing. You're a possession to him."
Genevieve presses a hand to her lips, nodding. "You got all that from one card?"
"Well," she says and laughs, "you've told me a bit here and there. It definitely makes sense why the card would show up, but believe me, this is mostly interpretation. While the cards have common meanings, they are unique to each situation. It'll all come together in the end."
"Okay," Genevieve says and takes another sip of her wine. "Let's keep going."
"This one," Adelina says, lifting up another card, "represents the causes of conflicts or obstacles." She flips the card over and sets it down. "The King of Swords reversed." She whistles and shakes her head. "Not good, not good."
"What? What's not good about this?"
"The King of Swords reversed represents manipulation, and potentially abuse. Someone who exploits their power and charm to get what they want, no matter the cost. Someone like Jude."
"Yeah," Genevieve says quietly. "Yeah, sounds like him."
Adelina pauses to take a sip from her wine glass, but doesn't say anything else. Genevieve looks distant and worried, holding her glass with both hands, sitting cross-legged and framed by two flickering candles on each side. "I still don't know why you married him in the first place, Geni," she says. "You're beautiful. You could have had anyone."
Genevieve blinks at her from behind her wine glass and whispers, "That's not true."
Adelina slowly turns over another card: the Six of Swords. "You're going to have to make a transition, something you might initially regret. Something that isn't easy. You have to give something up to be happy."
"I've already given up so much," Genevieve says, and Adelina smiles apologetically.
"I'm just interpreting the cards, Geni. It's not set in stone. You don't have to do anything."
Genevieve licks her lips and then nods. "I married Jude because my father told me to," she admits, and watches with veiled satisfaction as Adelina freezes, her hand hovering above the next card. "I married him because Daddy picked him for me, and I trusted Daddy. I saw how he treated my mom and I still thought he was doing what was best for me."
"It was an arranged marriage?" Adelina asks.
"Kind of," Genevieve says with a shrug. She won't meet Adelina's eyes. "Daddy introduced us when I was in high school still. Jude took me on dates sometimes, and he bought me nice things, and by the time we got married, I thought I was in love with him, I think. I thought I was making my own choice, but I guess I wasn't."
"You always have a choice, Geni," Adelina says. "You're so young. You can get divorced and start again. Trust me, it wouldn't be that hard, and I'd take care of you."
"No," Genevieve says, and Adelina sighs.
"Yes. I would take care of you. I would take you and run far away from here, if I needed to."
Genevieve watches her for a moment, sitting in eerie stillness, before she sets her wine glass down and crawls across the floor, kneeling on top of Adelina's tarot cards still spread across the rug. "You'd take me away from here?" she asks, and Adelina nods. "Why?"
"Because I care about you," Adelina whispers.
Genevieve cups a hand around Adelina's cheek. "I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't met you," she says, and Adelina doesn't have time to respond before Genevieve presses their lips together. They're sticky from the wine, stained red already, sweet. Adelina covers Genevieve's hand with her own and gently rubs her thumb across her knuckles.
The kiss is gentle, laced with desperation, and they both taste of wine and lip gloss. When Genevieve pulls away, Adelina takes her face in both hands and kisses her again, harder, and Genevieve giggles against her lips. She cracks her eyes open just enough to glance down at the heart on her arm; part of her expects it to be softly lit. Part of her expects Adelina to be her soulmate, but the heart is still dark against her skin.
It's okay, Genevieve tells herself. This is enough. And it is. When they pull apart, Adelina is flushed and Genevieve is woozy, groping blindly for her wine glass just to put something between Adelina and herself.
"Do you want me to read the rest of your cards?" Adelina asks breathlessly, and Genevieve nods, carefully inching backwards. "This one represents your strengths," she tells Genevieve, her voice growing stronger as she flips the card over. "The High Priestess. Your intuition is very important, and I think you may have been ignoring your inner voice. She's representative of higher powers, and I believe there may be something working outside of all of our control that will help you."
Genevieve still looks starry-eyed, sitting with her wine glass in hand, staring at Adelina. "Higher powers? What does that even mean?"
Adelina shrugs. "Do you believe in God? In Fate?"
"In soulmates?" Genevieve finishes for her, and Adelina nods. "I'm not sure what I believe in. I've never had to believe in anything."
"I don't know what I believe in, but I believe. I believe that there's so much more to life than what we know, than just being born, living, and dying. There has to be," Adelina says.
Genevieve quietly considers her words for a moment, staring into the dark liquid inside her glass. She thinks about all the angel statues back at home, the paintings and figurines her mother has all around the mansion. She thinks about the way her mother would point at sunlight filtering through the clouds and tell her that angels use sunbeams like stairs when they come to take souls to Heaven. She thinks about her mother, sitting in a patch of sunlight on the floor of her bedroom, crying.
"This represents other challenges you'll have to face," Adelina tells her, turning over another card. "The Tower. The foundation of your life may be breaking and falling apart. Everything as you've known it will crumble, but remember, with any destruction comes creation."
At this point, Genevieve feels numb. Her chest is tight and she knows, once Jude comes home, she'll have to avoid him. Adelina's right, she has to do something. She has to do something, but she's frightened.
Adelina turns the final card over, and Genevieve comes face to face with Death. Immediately, her thoughts run to murder, to killing Jude to escape him, and Adelina laughs.
"Don't take this card literally. This is the final outcome, and Death symbolizes a significant change. It doesn't mean death, Geni, don't look so scared." She smiles and reaches out to place a hand on Genevieve's. "One door will close, but another will open. Something will change, possibly unexpectedly. It's not a bad card."
"Oh, okay," Genevieve says, but she can't stop staring at the skeletal figure on the horse.
Adelina cleans up her cards and Genevieve sits quietly, thinking about her reading. Jude is a dangerous man; she's always known that, because any man with enough money is dangerous. With enough money, you can do just about anything. She knows she's lost her power by marrying him, because she's young and uneducated and beautiful. Her place is on his arm, a trophy wife, someone to make him look good. And he, in turn, makes Daddy look good because his only daughter married such a successful, wealthy man. Genevieve knows she's always been a pawn. She knows now, at least.
The rest of the reading is muddled in her mind as she tries to sort through it. She doesn't understand what she's supposed to do with her intuition, or how to enact the change that Adelina seems to think is so important, but she's too scared to ask about it. The higher power part especially confuses her, and she can't distance her thoughts from the literal interpretation of the Death card.
"So," Adelina says finally, "what did you think of your first tarot reading? Was it eye-opening?"
Genevieve downs the rest of her wine and then nods. "Very eye-opening."