dejah_thoris | Prodigal

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Prodigal

After a long day in the forge, and a long night of pacing the corridors of the bar looking for Curtis, Dejah had come back to her rooms and tried to work on the prostheses. She'd made significant progress, building the initial layer of isolates and imprinting the neurological signature she'd recorded the very first day onto the layer itself. It took an incredible amount of focus and when she was done, she lay her tools on her work bench. Bleary-eyed and exhausted, she made her way to the bed.

She didn't wake for many hours. Not even the recurring image of Curtis's shy smile melting into the leering grin of Matai Chang could manage to stir her from sleep. It was late in the day when she rolled over and peered at the window. The sun was going down. Or was it coming up? She couldn't tell.

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Damn. She wasn't kidding when she said she got a lot done. It feels like every time Curtis blinks, another part of the arm materializes.

Tentatively, he reaches to touch the prosthesis, sliding his fingers over the metal plating. That's going to be a part of him soon. Uneasiness flickers again, then vanishes just as fast; it's a tool, she told him, no different than a crutch or an umbrella hook.

(Except for how much goddamn nicer it looks.)

"Right now?" he asks, and immediately thinks, that's a dumb question, of course right now.

Dejah can't help but think her face is going to ache later from all the smiling. The metal beneath his fingertips is not cool to the touch. It's a little warm in fact. It's not smooth as glass, but has a brushed, matte finish.

"Here, hold it like this." She shifts it into his lap, palm up. "We're going to have to construct a stand for you, so if you want to take it off, it'll be easier to put back on. Now, the pendant is still keyed to your neurosignature." She slips the device, now on a thin silver chain, around his neck, tucking it under his shirt so it's against his skin.

After a moment, a pale blue light start to flicker down through the device, like water wicking through fabric, seeping along the individual threads.

Curtis watches the light spiderweb up the prosthesis. His hand rises to rub at the chain trailing under his shirt. "Does that mean it'll do the same thing it was doing the first time?" he asks. "Like, I think about moving my hand and -- "

The fingers of the prosthesis twitch.

" -- Jesus!" He jerks back without thinking. The prosthesis wobbles. Just before it topples off his lap, some signal from Curtis' brain hits the neurotransmitter: the fingers grab onto Curtis' leg, the disembodied arm steadying itself.

Curtis just stares.

"Oh!" Dejah laughs, delighted. There's nothing quite like seeing a project start to come together. "Be careful, I don't think there are any sharp edges, but -- just in case. There should be no sensation. Just motor control."

Curtis carries on staring. Watching the arm move, seemingly independent of everything around it, is...he's not gonna lie, it's really fucking disturbing. It's like watching a severed limb twitch.

Very, very gingerly -- and focusing on keeping his breath steady for much more unpleasant reasons now -- Curtis reaches to grasp the prosthesis, pulling it closer to his stump. Maybe it'll be easier to handle if it looks like it's attached to him.

Dejah looks so proud. And she should be. This thing's a fucking marvel. He doesn't want to act like a dick about it.

The metallic hand curls into a fist and her smile falters. Her delight fades entirely when she glances to his face and sees the quiet horror behind his eyes. "Here, let me." Gentle as ever, she takes the prosthesis and helps him maneuver it to where it should be. (And if he jerks away from it, it won't land on the floor.)

"It will take some getting used to, we knew that. Just take a deep breath, like before, and use your other hand to mirror what you want it to do. If you'd prefer, please just tell me and I'll shut it down."

Shit.

"Sorry," he mumbles, and shakes his head. "It's fine."

It definitely feels better to have the arm where it's supposed to be. It's easier for his mind to smooth over the small gap between the end of his folded sleeve and the beginning of the prosthesis. Taking the instructed deep breath, he wiggles the fingers of his right hand.

After a beat, the fingers of the metal hand ripple in a brief echo.

The horror vanishes as Curtis breaks into a grin.

Her smile returns, subtle but unsure. She didn't think. She watches him like a hawk for the rest of the demonstration.

"The delay will be nonexistent when the connection is integrated with your neural pathways. Once the core is installed properly, it will be begin to learn and adapt to you."

"Okay." He rotates his wrist, turns his palm face-up; again, there's the fractional delay before the prosthesis follows suit. Curtis bends his elbows to test the joint, then cups the back of the metal hand with his real one.

It's so good, to look at something like this and think, this is mine.

"This is fucking incredible."

"You'll also be able to feel feedback from the limb once it's integrated. All of the devices I've made using the Ninth Ray isolates, they all have a kind of -- they respond in incredibly subtle and complex ways. The more you listen to them, the more they learn and respond to what you need from them. It becomes an almost symbiotic relationship."

Dejah shifts one hand away, letting him take half the weight. She flexes her fingers and then shakes out her hand a few times.

"This is just the mechanical apparatus. The true test will be in the actual integration." She sounds like she's still concerned about that.

"Shit, if this is just the mechanical part," he starts to say -- then pauses, watching her shake out her hand as if stung.

"You okay?"

She brushes his concern off with a gentle deferral. "I'm fine. This is just the beginning. It looks like it's almost complete but -- again," she laughs, remembering the day she took the first measurements, "do you know how many nerve endings there are in the human hand? I have a lot more work to do before this is actually going to be ready for you."

He shakes his head -- in wonder, not argument -- and rubs his thumb over the metal wrist, where the pulse point would have been on his old arm.

"Did I tell you about the junk deliveries we'd get sometimes?"

(He's going somewhere with this, he swears.)

The offer to share his history is unexpected, but welcome, always welcome. Her demeanor shifts, softens.

"No?"

"They'd happen every...four years maybe? Five? Not that often."

His hand trails up to the elbow of the prosthesis.

"It's how we got most of our stuff besides food and water. They'd pile up all the crap the Front didn't want anymore and send it back. None of the good stuff -- I mean shit like tin cans and busted toys. And," his mouth takes on the bitter twist she's seen before, "they always handed it over like it was this gigantic gift from Wilford the Divine."

(The worst part: after having next to nothing for so long, those scraps were a gift.)

"Anyway, that's how we made fake arms and legs for people. Gilliam had an umbrella hook and a...I don't know, I think it was a chair leg."

Her eyes close as he talks and she tries to picture it, how to make an arm or leg for someone from someone else's refuse pile. His world draws up a sea of emotion for her, and she tries to set them all aside and just listen.

One hand rests on his knee, and she gives him her full attention.

"You keep talking about how much work you've still gotta do, but this is already better than anything I've seen. Ever."

He looks up.

"Even before the train, I think."

She meets his gaze, her brow knitted but the smile around her eyes still there. He speaks as if 'better' is some nebulous concept of the things everyone else gets to have and he doesn't deserve.

"You deserve better."

And if she can make it for him, she will. The idea of doing anything less never even occurred to her.

Edited 2015-06-19 20:46 (UTC)

I don't deserve shit.

He can't say that out loud. Dejah will just press more, trying to convince him otherwise. Instead, Curtis shifts the prosthesis back to his knees.

Once it's there -- once his hand's free -- he cups Dejah's cheek and leans in for a slow, soft kiss.

She recognizes the deflection for what it is, but it works nonetheless. She returns his kiss, savors it for the gift it is. If words can't convince him, maybe there's another way. Maybe he'll believe her hands, her breath, her touch. She closes her eyes and just as she listened before, she gave herself wholly to the moment. To him.

She's already fallen, she knows. She doesn't know when it happened, but she's here and there's no going back. She doesn't know how to do anything but trust her instincts and every sense she has says this is the right thing to do.

And this. His kiss. She doesn't want to question something that feels like this.

Edited 2015-06-21 04:40 (UTC)

Once the kiss breaks, Curtis rests forehead to forehead with her, eyes still closed. The quiet returns, like the relief of crawling into bed after a long day. It's...he doesn't want to say peaceful. Peace went extinct decades ago.

But it's close.

"Thank you for doing this," he whispers.

Edited 2015-06-21 16:18 (UTC)

Her hand finds its home on his cheek, strokes over his beard to come to rest on his shoulder.

When she speaks, her voice is equally quiet, almost reverent. "You're welcome. Thank you for letting me help."

He smiles as he finally opens his eyes. Pressing another brief kiss to her lips, he pulls back so he can retrieve the metal arm from his lap.

(Curtis is making a conscious effort not to think about moving the prosthesis. He imagines his left arm hanging limp, as still as if he'd dislocated his shoulder; he doesn't want a repeat of that moment when it twitched and jerked so far from his stump.)

Silently, he offers it back to her.

She takes it from him, deftly touching a series of points on the arm that make it go dark again. "Let me put this away. Don't go anywhere." Her tone was playful, not at all commanding.

She levers herself up off the couch, still favoring her right hand a touch. She returns the prosthesis to its stand and then comes back to sit beside him again.

Curtis, meanwhile, unhooks the pendant from around his neck. He presses it into Dejah's hand once she returns, curling his fingers around hers.

He seems content to stay that way a little longer, shoulder to shoulder, enjoying the quiet of the moment.

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