dejah_thoris | [M'ways] Room 1001

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[M'ways] Room 1001

It was after dinner and she'd finished up her work for the day. She shook out her hand, stretched the muscles of her fingers, hoping that the tendon would stretch with it. It hurt more and more with each passing day, but she had other things to worry about. Curtis was supposed to meet her after he'd worked out and checked on Edgar.

That was two hours ago. She finally broke down and touched two fingers to her bracelet. It pulsed blue and she got the sense he was in his room. Strange. She touched it again, just to be sure. No, he was there. Alive and attached to the pendant.

She decides to go down and say hello, find out if everything's okay. A few minutes later, she's knocking at his door.

"Curtis?"

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Dejah's chin drops and her eyebrows rise.

"You need to eat, love. Come on. Let's get something from the bar. I can leave a note with the bar and then check in with Woola while you eat. But you need to eat."

"I'm not hungry." He scrubs his hand over his hat, trying not to scowl. "I'm fine. Can we not do this now?"

She sighs and gives him a long look. "All right," she says, quiet. "But when you're a bastard later, I'm going to lock you in a room with a sandwich."

She tries for a bit of lightness. Something to break the dark spiral she can see him slipping into. She offers her hand to him, blue eyes searching his face for -- something.

He's exhausted and fraught enough that his old impulses nearly take control: reject everything Dejah's offering and run. Go be -- not alone somewhere, but not here.

Curtis smashes that impulse flat. (It's getting easier, he notes. That's something, too, at least.)

He takes her hand, fingers twining tight with hers. "Okay," he whispers. It's all he can say, right now.

She exhales, a modicum of tension leaving her body as he accepts her touch. She holds tight to his hand and leans her shoulder against his.

"If Woola finds something, he'll come find us. I'm sorry I didn't think of that sooner."

Her voice drops down to barely more than a whisper. "And when Edgar gets back, if you want, I can make him a pendant, too."

Curtis breathes out. "That might be a good idea," he mumbles.

If Edgar's okay with it. Maybe even if he's not, to be honest. He can't fucking lose the kid again, he can't.

She walks in silence beside him, biting back all the words she wants to pour over him, to try to assure him of things neither one of them can know for sure.

Instead, she tucks her hand into the crook of his arm and lays her head on his shoulder.

"Let's check inside again," she murmurs.

Like she checked that balcony over and over again. For years.

He nods. Stays silent.

What if the same force that dragged them here after death dragged Edgar somewhere else? Curtis doesn't really believe in an afterlife -- Milliways notwithstanding -- but he's overheard people describe the bar as a rest stop en route to whatever's next.

What if that's where Edgar went? To the whatever's next?

Her first instinct is to take the lead, holding the door of the bar open for him and cutting a swathe through the room straight for the bar. Woola appears a moment after they sit and his expression says his search was fruitless. Dejah sighs and lays a hand on the calot's broad brow.

"Thank you, my friend."

Woola shuffles around her to Curtis and gently nudges his leg.

Curtis musters up a tiny, unfelt smile.

"Yeah," he says, and leans down to give Woola another pat. "Good calot."

Not his fault Edgar's dropped off the face of the bar.

Woola can feel the waves of worry coming off Curtis and his Dejah, and it makes him grumble. He paces off towards the back door, and the moment someone opens it, he's through.

"He'll keep looking until we find him," Dejah says, her voice quiet. She catches his hand and brings it to her knee beneath the bar.

"Talk to me. Tell me what you're thinking."

Edited 2015-08-08 17:46 (UTC)

She always wants him to talk. A brief flare of irritation stings his mind; he shakes his head, keeps his fingers tight around hers.

"Same shit I already told you," he mumbles.

It's not worth repeating.

She swallows, tries not to sigh. They'd promised each other, they'd try to talk at the very least. And he's tried. She thinks. She hopes.

She asks bar for a couple of mugs of tea, Earl Grey to be specific.

"So did he ever tell you about our conversation by the lake?"

He draws in a lungful of the aromatic steam. Tries to relax; tries to remember the good stuff associated with that smell.

"I don't think so," he says, still low.

"I was collecting samples from my water traps at the lake side. He was watching me from the shore. Felt like I was being hunted somehow. So I tried to engage him. Invited him over to look at what I was finding. Started lecturing him about fish or something. I asked if he'd ever used a microscope. He made some crack about 'oh yes of course, right after piano lessons and before ballet'. I said, I took him more as a violinist and a swordsman."

"That's when he told me about Doris and Gerald." Her voice conveys how even recalling the story makes her heart ache.

Curtis swallows down a wince at Edgar's wisecrack and Dejah's response. Without being fully aware of it, he strokes the side of Dejah's hand with his thumb, an absent, soothing back-and-forth.

He nods, encouraging her to go on.

As always when she's with him, she's exquisitely aware of every little touch and breath, every glance, every ripple of energy captured in his shoulders or moving in his body. That tiny caress goes a long way towards soothing her, helping her feel like she's not on the outside, helpless, looking in.

"I was -- I was holding glass phials in my hand, while he told the story. And I wasn't paying attention. I just -- I guess I must have clenched my hand so tight, it cracked one of them. That's how I cut my hand. Edgar -- I guess he must have thought -- I don't know what he thought, but he helped me to the infirmary. Helped me with the dermal regenerator, though I think he was turning three shades of green while he did so."

"...oh, Dejah," he sighs, the noise sliding easily between disappointment, concern, and sympathy. He turns over his hand, still holding hers, to get a better look at her palm.

He remembers, now. Never seen anyone get so mad just from hearing a story about somebody they never knew, Edgar said. Like it's shit they did to her personally, Curtis agreed.

"How come you didn't go back if it's still hurting this much?"

That has to have been weeks ago. Maybe months. For all they know, Edgar accidentally sealed up a glass shard in there.

She crumples a little at his tone, at the care in his touch when he turns her hand over.

"It's nothing. I've had worse."

"So've I, but I'm still gonna go to a fucking doctor if they've got one around and something hurts this long."

There's no heat to the curse; it's a thoughtless adjective, nothing more.

She curls her hands around his, gentle, reverent.

"When I'm done with your arm, I'll get it looked at."

"Dejah." Still quiet, but firmer. "My arm can wait. Okay? You said it gets worse when you spend a lot of time working on things. I'm doing fine with one arm right now."

"It's just pain," she says, and immediately, sighs. "I am not weak. I do not...." Her words taper off and she shakes her head. "I won't let you go without for my comfort."

He's spent his entire life going without for someone else's comfort. She doesn't want to be a part of that, not if she can help it.

"You're not weak because you go to a doctor. Fuck's sake -- " He can feel his frustration peaking again, grits his teeth until it passes. "Why the hell wouldn't you want to stop hurting if you can?"

You grin and bear it because that's all you can do. You don't grin and bear it if someone -- something -- can give you relief.

Pride's one of the first things to go if you spend long enough in captivity.

She lifts her head, one hand rising to cup his jaw. This close, she leans in to touch her forehead to his temple. "All right. I'll go. But not now. Not until we know Edgar is safe."

It feels like admitting defeat. Like being selfish. But a part of her that sounds not unsurprisingly like John says that he's right.

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