A crunch broke the comfortable silence that had long settled between Soap and Corvo, the latter breaking in half a piece of toast he'd swiped from the kitchen before settling down in the booth across from where Soap sat. Sunlight streaming in through the stained-glass windows illuminated the page on which Soap wrote, a sizeable crumb from Corvo's lunch narrowly missing a freshly-inked sketch of a hagfish as it landed on the paper. The tip of the fountain pen in Soap's hand glinted in the light as he lifted it, moving to tilt his journal with one hand and shake the crumb from the page. Corvo's hand, darting across the table, stopped him before he could, and he pressed the pad of his forefinger against the page, the crumb clinging to his finger as he lifted it.

"Sorry about that."

Soap scoffed, levelling his journal once again as Corvo withdrew his hand. He looked up as Corvo, not one for wasting a single morsel, placed his finger in his mouth. Corvo's eyes flickered up to meet Soap's gaze.

His eyes were deep brown, so dark they could've easily been mistaken for black, framed by short lashes and heavy brows that raised expectantly at Soap's silence. The stained-glass windows cast a golden glow over his face, the tired bags under his eyes that never seemed to go away, the light wrinkles that had settled in the corners. A soft tingle swept through Soap as he was suddenly aware of how deeply those dark eyes peered into his, and over him washed the distinct feeling of being looked into rather than looked at. Corvo withdrew the finger from his mouth after a few moments, wiping the tip dry with his thumb and tilting his head. A few strands of hair fell free of where they'd been tucked behind his ear, falling in front of his face. His eyes were half-lidded, and Soap felt his tongue turn into cotton.

"Soap?"

Soap jolted out of his trance, shaking his head with a clear of his throat. "Yeah," he muttered, blinking and shaking his head once more before looking back down at his journal. "You're good."

Corvo snickered, the sound followed by another crunch as he bit into his toast.

The furious scratching of pen on paper filled the small room in the tower as Soap rushed to finish his sketch, struggling to balance his journal on his knee as he sat cross-legged on the floor of Emily's room. Letting out a frustrated grunt when his journal stubbornly tilted at the wrong angle, Soap switched knees, attempting to balance the book on his left rather than his right. The journal tilted the moment he pressed his pen against the paper, angled away from the late afternoon light that streamed in through the window on the far side of the room.

"I bet I'll finish before you," came Emily's taunting voice from in front of him. The child was on her belly on the floor across from Soap, a pen clutched tightly in her fist as she scrawled the finishing touches on her own drawing. It was a race; whoever could finish the drawing first, would claim the prize of the last apricot tartlet, gifted by Callista from her stash of food taken from home.

"Yeah?" Soap tossed a glance Emily's way, feeling a cocky smirk tug on the edges of his lips. "You sound sure about that."

Emily looked up to meet Soap's gaze, beaming. "That's 'cause I know I will!"

The cocky smirk slipped into a softer smile at Emily's wide-toothed grin, a low scoff sounding from Soap's throat. Emily's dark brown eyes stared right into his, wrinkles appearing in the corners as her round cheeks puffed up with the exaggerated expression. She had Corvo's eye color, so dark they looked black at first glance; and, Soap assumed, she had her mother's long lashes and delicate brow that arched high over her round eyes. Her eyes glittered with determination, her grin bordering on cocky, and a warm lightness settled in Soap's chest.

He almost didn't have the heart to tell her his sketch was practically done.

"We'll see about that, lass," Soap replied, and Emily's head dropped as she returned to her work.

They crossed paths in the taproom, Soap nearly bumping headlong into Makarov as he stepped into the pub after his daily visit with Piero. Makarov, heading outside, jerked away from Soap at the last minute, and a nauseating shock shot through Soap's gut as Makarov's shoulder collided with his arm.

"Watch it!" Makarov snapped, jolting away as if he'd been shocked. A sharp prickle climbed up the back of Soap's neck and he turned to glare down at Makarov, unable to help the deep feeling of disgust that welled in his core from being so close to the terrorist.

Makarov's odd-eyes were profoundly cold, the colors of glacial ice plucked straight from the northern seas and sharp as glass. Crow's-feet had long settled into the corners of his eyes, exaggerated by the sneer that threatened to break on his face. The high arch of his brows mirrored Soap's own displeasure, his glare unrelenting as he held Soap's gaze. His mere presence was smothering; it was getting harder and harder for Soap to draw air into his lungs.

"Get out of my way," Soap growled, shouldering past Makarov and making it a point to jostle him further. Makarov hissed something under his breath, then disappeared out the door behind Soap, letting it swing shut between them.

Opia: The ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.