[oom] A Pot of Tea

[dejah_thoris]

This is the part of the project she enjoys the most.  The design phase, where ideas start to take form and the project takes on a certain life of its own.  She has compiled all the research she needs.  She's relatively certain she's aware of all the issues that must be addressed in the final design.  Now it's time to synthesize these ideas and put her pens to paper.  As form follows function, and evolution has handled refining the design, all she needs to do is adapt the technology to the original biological schematics.  Layers upon layers, she builds up the image, from structure to power, sensors to servos.  She can't help but put her own aesthetic into the work, and in sketching, she decides that she'll have to fabricate several of the parts by hand.

Woola found his way back and was snoozing in front of the fire.  She'd been up since the wee hours of the morning.  The rats had brought her morning meal without her even having to ask.  Now, she sat at her drawing board, her long hair pinned back from her face, speared through with a quill.  At her elbow, a growing stack of dirty tea cups that would have to be addressed sooner or later.

But not right now.  She wanted to get the last few pieces of the external forearm onto the vellum, just as she'd imagined it.

Comments

[2goodarms]

All he'd have to do is move his head half an inch. Just the smallest motion.

I can't --

Curtis moves.

He meets her lips with his own, just as soft; his hand slides to the back of her neck and curls there to steady them both. Everything seems to go quiet. Not like the suffocating soundlessness of the engine, but like an enormous crowd drawing themselves down into a hush, waiting, wondering what will happen next.

[dejah_thoris]

The space between heartbeats seems to stretch, and she lingers. She savors the lush softness of his mouth, the heat of his fingertips on her bare skin.

A kiss is a living, breathing moment, ultimately ephemeral but alive. She dared to breathe life into this kiss, closing her eyes and tilting her head. Telling him and asking him, in the same breath.

Stay with me just a while longer. Please.

[2goodarms]

He tries. Like the artificial days and nights he's constructed, Curtis has no idea how long the kiss truly lasts. But as his pulse speeds up, and he feels his breath coiling lower, the single thought surges back -- no.

He tears himself away, gasping in air as he bows his head.

[dejah_thoris]

He pulls away and her chest goes tight. She makes no attempt to hold tight to him, but she does not let him go. She rests her forehead against his and lets out a slow breath. Her hand trembles at the back of his neck.

"Too much?"

[2goodarms]

"Yeah," he whispers.

Forehead to forehead, though: that's fine. Keeping his hand against her neck, mirroring Dejah's posture, that also seems fine.

Maybe if she wasn't Front, he'd have fewer reservations. Maybe if he wasn't here. Maybe, maybe, too many fucking maybes, he just knows that he desperately needs to hurl himself back from the edge of this cliff before he falls.

[dejah_thoris]

She nods, rests against him. Her fingers caress the nape of his neck, so lightly over the soft hair.

"Too much."

So why does every inch of her skin ache now? Why is her mouth dry? Why does this feel like falling from the sky?

[2goodarms]

Some moments later, Curtis wills himself to move. It's so much harder than moving that half an inch: he slips his hand over Dejah's shoulder, pauses at her collarbone, then draws his fingers away.

It feels like he should apologize. He can't do that, either.

"So, um," he begins, and has no idea what to say next.

[dejah_thoris]

Her hands are slower to move, coming to rest on his chest. She does pull back a bit, putting some air between them. She finally drags her gaze up to meet his. A hopeful smile touches her eyes.

"I didn't imagine that, did I?"

[2goodarms]

He cracks a tiny smile.

"No," he says. "That...definitely happened."

[dejah_thoris]

"It did. It happened. I didn't dream it."

She flushes at the sight of his subtle grin, and her gaze drops.

"I should -- there's -- there are things you need to know about me, Curtis. If we -- you -- I mean, if you want this to happen again."

Please goddess let him want this to happen again.

[2goodarms]

The smile fades. The tension shifts higher in his chest, no longer as pleasant; he draws in a long breath, lets it out slowly.

"I don't know," he confesses.

It's not about wanting. God yes he'd like to do this again. But it's like looking ahead and seeing the tracks end abruptly in twisted metal: if they can move forward, he doesn't know how.

[dejah_thoris]

She understands. She truly does. When everything seems uncertain, it's hard to make plans for anything beyond the end of your nose. But it's also the only way she knows how to go on living.

"I do," she says, her hands falling to gather his between her palms.

"I don't know what this is, but I do know, I want to find out. Please forgive my arrogance, but -- it feels like something we both need far more than we'd ever like to admit."

[2goodarms]

"Dejah -- "

Curtis breaks off as his gaze drops to their hands. His heart thumps once, hard enough to hurt.

Soft, "What do you want?"

The instant after he says it, he realizes: he's not searching for a catch. He's not braced for a blow, He just wants to understand what she's looking for, after all this talk about her dead husband. Wants to know if, maybe, he can give it to her after all.

[dejah_thoris]

She draws in a breath, holds it for a long quiet moment, and lets it go again. She can only try to answer that question. She looks down to where she's still holding his hand and she turns it, idly, so she can trace the lines of his palm with her fingertips.

"I want -- someone I can love, who loves me not for what I have to offer, but for who I am. I want someone I can trust, who trusts me, not because I have power or influence, but -- because they know I would fight for them. I want someone who knows me. Not the idea of me, but the real me. And who still wants me, regardless." There may be a hint of dry laughter in that sentiment.

"And I want someone -- who makes me feel," she shakes her head, "like the air is too thin. Like there's pimalia moths caught behind my breast bone. Like I'm a little tipsy. And you make me feel like that. I haven't met anyone who makes me feel like that. But you do."

[2goodarms]

Curtis gnaws the corner of his lip, watching her fingertips skate over his palm.

It all sounds so simple. Her concerns are so utterly front; nobody had to worry much about power or influence in the tail, because they didn't have any to spare. If anybody was looking for a relationship -- not a trade -- you had to love somebody for who they were, because they usually had fuck-all to give in the way of material possessions.

It should be easy for him to offer what she's asking. Maybe it would, if she didn't keep saying shit like "love" and "trust."

Still quiet, he says, "I don't know if I can give you all that."

[dejah_thoris]

She swallows, nods. Her shoulders fall a bit, and she blinks hard a few times. It's a lot to ask of anyone, she knows, but he asked. And she told Edgar she would never lie to Curtis.

"What do you want? I mean, from me."

[2goodarms]

He sighs. This really would be easier with two arms, he thinks distantly, and settles for closing his fingers around Dejah's hand.

"The only thing I wanted for eighteen years," he says, "was to kill Wilford. I don't...I haven't thought about what else I want now that that's over. With anything. Or anyone."

Not beyond what everyone else here sees as painfully basic: a shower, a good night's sleep, a decent meal.

"I mean, if you're talking relationship shit, I never had anything like that on the train. Just quick fucks sometimes. You know?"

And that is definitely not going to be enough for...whatever this is.

[dejah_thoris]

Her head tilts to one side and the corner of her mouth quirks up. No, she really, really doesn't know.

"Would you like to try? I mean, we're building this arm together. Would you..." She laces her fingers through his, bites her lip. "It's a lot to ask. I know that. But I -- I want this. I want a chance."

[2goodarms]

He wets his lips. Looks up from their hands to study Dejah.

"Can I think about it?"

It's such a shitty answer. Curtis knows it as soon as it's out of his mouth. But...right now, it's the best he's got.

[dejah_thoris]

She meets his gaze. Goddess, his eyes are so beautiful. She swallows and nods again.

"Of course."

That was not a 'no'. It was a chance at a chance. And she'll take it. This feels like something rare and precious, and such things do not come without work. Without patience and perserverance.

"Of course." She squeezes his hand, tight.

[2goodarms]

Curtis exhales a breath that goes on much longer than he expects, and takes away more tension than he realized he was carrying. Good. All right. He has space to think, time to breathe. He can work with that.

The best solutions come when he can take a step back and watch, like counting doors on the train, and not fall into the necessary evils of snap decisions.

"Okay," he whispers, and chances another smile as he returns the squeeze. "Thank you."

[dejah_thoris]

In some ways, he is nothing at all like John. This the hunter's mind she's seeing. The mind of the tactician. She holds a great deal of respect for such a man.

And that smile hits her blood like a hit of strong drink, sends a flush of heat through her cheeks.

Goddess, she is in deep.

She dips her chin, and smooths her hands over his one last time.

"So, I hope to begin prototyping tomorrow. I'll be working in the forge, most of the day."

[2goodarms]

"Yeah?" The smile grows a fraction. "Want me to drop by?"

[dejah_thoris]

She looks up, the blue of her eyes deepening in intensity for a fraction of a second.

"If you like."

No pressure.

[2goodarms]

Deadpan: "I should be able to come to say hi between all the sleeping and the eating."

And, of course, answering the constant pepper of questions from Edgar. (Even if his answer is just shut up, Edgar.)

"It's a pretty packed schedule. But I think I can pull it off."