[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]

Curtis' expression -- currently on the more friendly side of neutral -- does a slow crash into ah, shit.

Already resigned, "What'd he say?"

And just how much of a lecture is Curtis going to have to give him?

[dejah_thoris]

Dejah watches his face fall, and a smirk arises. A proper grin, one that is hidden behind a more serious look. Or almost hidden. Her eyes give her away.

"Nothing too terrible. He shared some of your history with me. And he wanted to know -- 'what the deal was' between us."

[2goodarms]

Your history. It's an effort not to tense up. Curtis reaches for his mug to try and disguise the shift.

When he looks back to Dejah, though, a touch of wry amusement emerges. "What'd you tell him?"

[dejah_thoris]

She glances away, still unable to keep the smile from her lips. She looks back, down, anywhere but at him.

"He was very curious to know. I told him the truth. I do not know."

She shifts her mug a quarter turn in her hand.

"I mean, we are friends. And he knows -- that I care about you."

Understatement.

[2goodarms]

Curtis nods. He takes a sip of tea.

"Told him pretty much the same thing," he murmurs. "That we're just friends."

His mouth quirks.

"Guess he wanted to hear it from you, too."

[dejah_thoris]

Ah.

She deflates a bit.

Mmm tea.

"He was -- ah -- very adamant that I should -- um -- be careful."

[2goodarms]

He tries not to sigh -- first at Dejah's reaction, then at her words.

"Let me guess." Even more wry. "You break my heart and he'll kill you?"

Goddammit, Edgar.

[dejah_thoris]

Her hand moves of its own volition, lights on the back of his wrist just for a moment.

"No, it was nothing so dramatic. He was very respectful about it. He cares for you, that's all." Her words taper off.

[2goodarms]

I'm sure he was, he thinks, with an internal eyeroll. He's known Edgar too long to doubt: if given the choice between dramatic and restrained, he'll always go for dramatic.

The thought puffs away under Dejah's touch, like ice dissolving under the sun. For an instant, his mind stutters before regaining its equilibrium.

"Yeah," he agrees. "I know. He -- " Like the first time he tried to explain, Curtis finds himself faltering again. "We look out for each other."

It used to just be Curtis looking out for Edgar. But as Edgar got older, it shifted a little closer toward something mutual, equitable.

[dejah_thoris]

She sees -- something. It's too fleeting to be sure, but it was there. She wasn't imagining it.

"Good," she says. "You need someone to look out for you. And he is certainly formidable. Or will be."

She sips her tea, watching him over the rim of her mug with wide blue eyes.

[2goodarms]

"No, he's definitely already formidable," says Curtis; the small, crooked smile returns, then fades as fast as it arrived. "He was kind of my second-in-command during the fight."

He hated the way Mason said it. How she taunted him with it. Like Curtis tossed Edgar aside as easily as she would fling unwanted scraps back to the tail, like making that choice to keep going forward didn't mean anything.

[dejah_thoris]

Dejah cocks an eyebrow, watching him again. She has no doubt that Edgar's heart beats with the same valor as Curtis's, but at the same time, she's fairly certain it would take her all of two seconds to put him on the mat, bare-handed.

"Oh?"

[2goodarms]

Curtis looks her right in the eye.

"He fought hard," he says. "He fought well. It wasn't his fault he died."

[dejah_thoris]

She doesn't flinch from his gaze. Her tone is gentle, but still firm.

"Whose fault was it, then?"

[2goodarms]

He swallows. Don't look away.



"Mine."

[dejah_thoris]

She holds his gaze, gives herself entirely to the moment. He is a hard man, but she can't see him as a betrayer.

"Did you spill his blood with your own two hands?"

[2goodarms]

I might as well have.

I tried, once.

"We were over Yekaterina Bridge," he says, low. "That's how we used to mark the new year. One loop, starting and ending with the bridge."

He draws his thumb along the side of his mug, unconsciously tracing out the little wrenches and hammers, the tiny weapons printed over and over again.

"It got bad. There's a long tunnel after the bridge, they had night-vision goggles, we had nothing. At first. We managed to get some torches. That helped. We took down a bunch of the guards and managed to get a knife in Mason's leg."

(He forgets, as he's absorbed into the memory, that he's never mentioned Mason to Dejah before.)

"And I was going for her when Edgar started screaming."

[dejah_thoris]

She licks her lips, sets her mug down, folds her hands in her lap.

Still regarding him with that gaze.

She knows what it's like to make battlefield decisions, to send men to their deaths. She knows what it's like to see the funeral pyres.

[2goodarms]

"He was shouting for me by name."

All his attention's on the mug now.

"It wasn't just...screaming. He was calling for me to help. One of the guards had -- " Curtis mimes a blade, the side of his hand to his throat. "A knife on him. I saw it.

"And I turned my back on him and went for Mason instead."

[dejah_thoris]

Before he's even finished speaking, she's moving, shifting to sit beside him. Close enough to rest her hand on his arm.

"He chose to follow you into battle. He knew the consequences. You were their leader. You had a mission to complete. That mission was not to keep Edgar alive. He knew that."

[2goodarms]

"I know."

He draws a long breath. Stronger, "I know. But I was supposed to look out for him."

And maybe he wouldn't have followed Curtis into battle in the first place if he didn't fucking worship him so much.

[dejah_thoris]

Her words are stern, but not unkind. "You were supposed to look out for all of them. And you did."

Her hand lights on his chin and draws his gaze up. Her voice gentles.

"And you still lost. This is the way of war."

[2goodarms]

But nobody else died screaming for Curtis to save them. (Edgar, always trusting to the end that Curtis could do everything.)

This argument isn't a battle worth fighting, though. Especially when he knows she's right: war is as unjust as Wilford, and makes even less pretense of caring for those it carries. It's just...

It was Edgar.

"Least we took down the engine, too," he whispers.

[dejah_thoris]

"It was an honorable death."

Her thumb caresses his beard and he can see the pain and loss reflected in her gaze.

"And he's here now. Giving me hell in your defense." The corner of her mouth quirks up.

[2goodarms]

Without thinking, Curtis leans into her touch, taking a beat to rest against her hand -- and then he huffs out a breath of laughter.

"Almost like being home," he deadpans.