Dejah Thoris (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dejah_thoris) wrote2015-09-14 07:09 pm
dejah_thoris) wrote2015-09-14 07:09 pm
Entry tags:
[milliways] Through The Looking Glass
[After this.]
Dejah wakes and eats her breakfast on the terrace, looking out over the city. When she's done, she finds herself pacing the floor, waiting for the door to Milliways to show up again.
The moment the sun hits the far wall, it reappears in a shimmer of dust motes. Dejah smiles with relief. She grabs up the copper-clad box with the data crystals, and a few of her notebooks. She starts over the threshold, and at the last moment, she whirls around and grabs Curtis's hat off her pillow.
The whole place is bustling, so she looks for him in his usual place at the bar.
Dejah wakes and eats her breakfast on the terrace, looking out over the city. When she's done, she finds herself pacing the floor, waiting for the door to Milliways to show up again.
The moment the sun hits the far wall, it reappears in a shimmer of dust motes. Dejah smiles with relief. She grabs up the copper-clad box with the data crystals, and a few of her notebooks. She starts over the threshold, and at the last moment, she whirls around and grabs Curtis's hat off her pillow.
The whole place is bustling, so she looks for him in his usual place at the bar.
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Hallucinating the walls are bleeding and getting felled by a three-day migraine when you finally come out of it: the exact opposite of fun.
He does his best to help the sweater along, clumsily, reaching for Dejah again as soon as it's off. He's trying to suppress a smile with absolutely no luck. "This is way better."
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Her hands smooth down his undershirt, her gaze not meeting his, her smile secretive.
"How are you feeling?"
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The smile doesn't go anywhere, though, his own thoughts warm and secure and deeply, fondly content.
"But I'm good." Curtis settles his hand over one of hers, readjusts when he realizes he's a couple inches off the mark. "This is good."
She's got him.
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"Get comfortable."
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Horizontal's gotta be easier than vertical, anyway. The mattress seems to move an awful lot as he eases himself down, but he can't tell if that's normal bed behavior or 'mildly tripping on some bacterial strain from Mars' bed behavior. It's very...squishy. Curtis resists the urge to poke at it; his bemusement sings loud and clear.
Oh well.
After a little more squirming around, he figures he's as comfortable as he's gonna get and holds out his hand to Dejah.
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Her hand settles on his chest and she exhales. Just a breath, and still, he can hear her bone deep contentment as she relaxes against him.
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And then open again as he tries to focus on the ceiling.
"...Okay, the painting up there is moving, right?" he says. "It's not just me?"
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She nestles down beside him, her hand pulling him closer still. Like she has to hold onto him or he'll turn into mist.
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Completely different constellations, though. That's Mars, he thinks. A tiny piece of it; a tiny preview.
"Wow," he breathes, and hugs Dejah tighter.
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"Have I ever told you about my roof garden?"
She knows she hasn't. Talking about her home, the palace, her things, hasn't really been possible until very recently. He can feel the quiet thrill in her voice, the rush of taking the risk of opening up to him about such details.
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That little frisson of excitement lights her up as bright as sunlight through a broad window; as bright as her enthusiasm whenever she falls to talking about some new science project. Maybe it's just because he can feel it now, too, like a sense-memory of touch racing along his skin. But god, it's a beautiful sight.
He cups the back of her head, kissing her brow.
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"Yes. I know it's an indulgence, but when I started my botanicum -- my survey of all the plants in and around Helium -- I found that sketches just weren't enough. So I began to take specimens. I wanted a place where I could watch them through their whole life cycle. And well, it's been many years now, but it's a proper botanical garden. I even have students who tend to it as part of their research rotation. So I suppose it's not that superfluous."
And here's where it feels like an indulgence to her. It's a little thing just for her, and she feels selfish for enjoying it so much. "I like to go up on the roof at night and read. Maybe fall asleep under the stars."
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He's thinking of the greenhouse car, and the aquarium car: those bursts of life in all the gray, that twist of awe and envy and deep, abiding disgust at the extravagances of the Front. The envy and disgust flicker like the shadow of moth-wings in a bright light; the quiet awe blots them out as he imagines Dejah sitting in a thick garden under an unfamiliar sky.
(The Front would never feel selfish for spending time in a garden. They'd see it as their due.)
"It sounds beautiful," he whispers. "You think I could see it when we're there?"
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She twines her legs with his, as he did when they were lying on the mats together. The sole of her foot smoothes down the back of his calf, idly caressing him.
"What did you do -- on the train -- when you needed to be alone?"
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"I, um." A brief stab of -- something. Fear? It's so quick, like a skipped heartbeat. "I wasn't ever alone. The bunks had curtains, you could pull those shut, but that wasn't really...not like that."
Not like a whole garden.
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His mind holds too many dangers. If Curtis stepped off the path for too long, he'd be swallowed whole, and be of no use to anyone.
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"So, you were always with someone. Every hour of every day. Even when..." So many moments she can't imagine having to endure with only a scrap of cloth between her and someone else.
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"I got used to it." He opens his eyes -- has to blink a couple times as the room gives another grumbling lurch -- and smiles, crookedly. "I don't like being alone anymore. Completely alone, I mean."
No people. No sound. Just Curtis and his own thoughts.
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"You don't have to be. Ever again."
The words ripple with a baroque tapestry of emotion: diminishing rage at his past, a solemn promise, and hope like a bright silver thread, weaving them all together.
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He wondered before how Dejah could stand to feel so much. Years spent trying to stifle his own emotions -- keep the anger burning low, smash everything else for his own protection -- and now it's like he can feel everything. It overwhelms him. He almost doesn't know what to do.
"Yeah," is all he says, just above a breath, before he kisses her gently.
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How a man who has been through such horrors brings her such joy, she will never understand. Perhaps in helping him fight through the darkness, she's finding a way to remind herself what it means to walk in the light.
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Little by little, the lightheadedness of the Voice of Barsoom shifts to the vague, drifting feeling one feels just before sleep, with barely a gap between the two. Getting your head reconfigured to sense something you've never sensed before is hard fucking work; he woke up maybe three hours ago, tops, and he's already exhausted again.
It's okay, though.
It's safe here.
His breathing evens out to the rhythm of deep sleep, and still the smile lingers.
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Beneath the mask of sorrow and rage, he looks so young. He was barely eighteen when his world changed; barely more than thirty five now. He's been alive fewer years than she and John were married.
She rests her arm across his chest and closes her eyes, listening to the sound of his breath, steady and even. Of all the things she's imagined doing with him in this bed, this was not one of them. And yet, she can't imagine a more perfect moment than this. Here. Now. It isn't long before her eyes are drifting shut and her breathing matches with his, quiet wonder and joy still blanketing her thoughts.
[Cont'd here]