Comfort

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(Many thanks to Terri and Jay for RPing this with me. Thanks, you two!--Maer)

Monday, 29 Apr 2520
The Lodge, St. Albans
Red Sun (Zhu Que) system
23:00 hrs, local time


Despite the banter we’d shared around the table over our hot drinks, it took me a while to get away from the lift works to seek out that bath I’d wanted. I gave the pulleys and the gear train and all the rest of it one last backward look before I quit the winch house and sought the upper floors of The Lodge where the staterooms were. Despite the fact I’d spent the bulk of the past twenty hours in freezing temperatures, I was sweaty and grungy from all the exercise we’d gotten on the trip and I was feeling it. I had nothing to change back into but the clothes I stood up in, but I didn’t care. My skin was crawling.

One thing about travelling light. No baggage to haul. Which thought only made me miss my gun, now locked away on Corone Mining property. There was still a chance I could retrieve it and when I did …. Damn. The next time I leave the boat, I’m leaving it behind.

The wind outside made the timbers of the old pile creak and I clutched air where my gun would have been, had I still possessed it.

Leave it behind. Right. Good luck with that.

I took the stair treads one at a time, admiring the carved woodwork of the balusters, and inspected the rooms as I came to them. The Lodge was a soaring chalet style building, meaning the accommodations opened onto a gallery running the length of the main room, with the doors on the left. It made for a less claustrophobic setting, but I didn’t think it was sufficient compensation for the racket from below in the morning when the Lodge was at its heyday. Vacations were made for sleeping in. At least, that’s how I would have run mine, had I been lucky enough to enjoy one.

The first door was a linen closet, stocked with linen. Hello. Clinic. Hospital beds, you dummy. The second revealed a no-frills room, outfitted with the aforementioned hospital bed and a cart moonlighting as a nightstand. Even so, one could see traces of opulence in the crown molding and the parquet floor. It didn’t have an attached bath, so I moved on.

The third room had the lights on low and by their glow I could see the bed was occupied. I made to duck out but a spill of blonde hair caught my eye and I looked again. It was Nika, stretched fully clothed on top of the covers, dead to the world. The wind made the Lodge creak and damned if a draft didn’t take possession of my booted ankles. Shrugging off the horror movie clichés for the moment, I quietly snuck over and pulled the corners of the spread over Nika. Her face was relaxed in sleep, her complexion pale from overwork and injury. I wrapped her up as best I could against the drafts and turned to go.

 ***

Perhaps she learned more from those years in the war than Rina might have believed. Blue eyes slit open as soon as the whisper of footsteps registers in her subconscious. People sneaking around as opposed to just walking through is what rouses her. As the blanket settles over her shoulders, Nika stirs briefly and murmurs, “Hey. Everything all right?”

 ***

“Everything’s fine.” I came back and tucked the covers a little tighter around her shoulders, where the material tended to gape and chill the neck. “Just looking for a place to soak out the day. Sorry I woke you.”

 ***

“Mmm,” Nika replies, her eyes closing drowsily once more. “Should get up,” she murmurs. “Gonna be sore if I sleep much more.” But she makes no attempt to actually move. There’s the faintest furrow of her brow. “Everyone else crashed?”

 ***

“Yes,” I said and perched a hip on the bed. It gave under me, decadently soft. “Or near enough as makes no difference. I just can’t stand sleeping dirty, is all.”

 ***

Nika smirks faintly. “Don’t care ‘bout dirty,” she admits. She’s too tired.

 ***

I watched her eyelids drift shut and her breathing deepened toward sleep. Perhaps it was the setting—a dark gloomy lodge with the blizzard howling outside—or maybe it was the soft light on Nika’s face, but she looked small and vulnerable and I couldn’t resist reaching out and stroking her hair. Snatches of song slipped through my memory, lullabies my mother would hum to me on the nights I lay restless after a bad dream or when I was ill. She stroked my hair then, too. I remembered the comfort of it, and seeing Nika lying fully clothed like a child just made me want to share it.

Over the past two years we’d grown from being strangers to crewmates to friends, and right now, I knew that had she been less tired, she’d no doubt protest. She was an adult and didn’t need coddling and as the lone girl behind four boys myself, I’d seen precious little of it growing up. But there was something in her face and in the line of her that called out for it just now, and I couldn’t help but answer it.

She’s gonna tell you to cut it out in a minute. I privately acknowledged that she probably would, and stroked her hair some more. Might as well get the last lick in before she sends me packing so she can sleep.

 ***

As she drifted, the touch on her head drew those blue eyes to slit open one more time. But Nika doesn’t in fact protest, she merely sighs softly and finally drops the rest of the way into deeper slumber, as if the contact were appreciated.

 ***

I saw Nika acquiesce and as I stroked her hair, something inside me fell away, and finally breathed. I sat as I tried to get a handle on it, overwhelmed by a tenderness I rarely felt outside Mike’s embrace. Sister, it whispered to me. Mine, my heart answered and knew that it was true.

I’d stepped aboard the MakeMake two years ago on Bernadette thinking it was nothing more than a stop-gap job, one in an endless series of stop-gap jobs. By necessity I’d thrown my lot in with Nika and the others, and by choice I remained beyond the term of my original contract. By the time we’d acquired the ship, I’d already halfway bonded with Summer’s Gift and by the time Mike put the question to me, I was already hers.

For longer than I could remember, people—save one exception—were never easy for me to trust, accept, and claim for my own. My tour on the Gift had slowly changed that and like a snowball rolling down the slopes outside, once I’d opened up to Christian, further contact encouraged me to even more openness, gaining momentum until there was no chance in hell of stopping it. I was caught up in it now, and would stop only when I ran out of slope and crashed at the bottom. If I were lucky, I’d have gathered enough snow to cushion my fall. Friends who would help me pick up the pieces. I would do the same for them, were our positions reversed.

Christian. Now Nika. Who’s next?

I left when my back started weeping from the strain of my position and eased off the bed to avoid seizing up. Straightening was excruciating but salutary, a physical reminder that growth rarely came unaccompanied by pain. A bath would do wonders for it, I knew, and afford me some time to think. I tucked the covers against any persistent drafts and quietly let myself out.

 ***
 ***
 ***

Christian opens the door to the bathroom. He knows there’s someone in there, of course. He knows exactly who’s in there. He listened for a moment, heard the way she talks out loud to herself in Russian as she works through thought processes. Not full out conversations. A word here. A word there. Like listening to a radio going in and out. You know there’s so much more but you just can’t hear it all. “Long day.” Christian says by way of conversation after he slips inside and shuts the door.

 ***

I found what I wanted in the sixth room down, a place where I could sleep and bathe. The bath itself wasn’t palatial, but it covered all the bases. Shower, head, sink and tub. And what a tub. Big, made for two, as evidenced by the facing backrests sculpted out of the sloping sides. The fixtures were gold-plated enamel and turning the one marked hot, I saw that the Lodge did indeed boast all the amenities. I quickly rinsed the dust off the porcelain and when it was clean, I stoppered the tub to let it fill. I stripped down to the skin, leaving my boots standing up in the puddle of my coveralls. My vest and my clothes followed suit and into the tub I went.

I took the sloping seat facing the door—not being utterly stupid, no—and the tub gave softly under my weight, cushioning my aches. Yep. All the amenities. Including the soap. A pastel bar of it waited in a dish, perched neatly on the lip of the tub and sniffing it, I decided it didn’t smell too hideous. Not bad for something likely twenty years old.

Not too shabby. Now how about a washcloth, genius?

Too late, I realized I had jumped in before scrounging washcloth or towel. I muttered a gutter curse and applied the soap anyway as the water rose past my waist. Even without a cloth, cleaning up felt indescribably good and I quite frankly reveled in it. There being no knowing when I’d get the chance to indulge myself again, I didn’t spare the hot water or the soap. I turned the water off when it threatened to overflow and leaned back and let the bath soak the dirt off me. I listened to the wind moaning, dissonant and harmonious, and closed my eyes.

Bliss.

So of course, the Universe had to interrupt it. Jealous bitch.

“Long day,” came Christian’s voice followed by the soft thump of the door as he closed it.

Back to work.

I raised my head and opened my eyes and said, “And getting longer by the minute, apparently. You okay?”

 ***

“Still feel cold.” Christian admits. “I officially never want to come to this planet ever again. If I want to ski I’ll head to someplace where the temperature hovers near zero, not plunges below it.” He walks over to the towel rack and plucks the wash cloth off. “I’ll wash your back, if you want.”

 ***

I bit my lip to keep from laughing at the thought of him kitted out for the slopes, because there really was no graceful way to walk in skis and Christian was nothing if not graceful. Sitting next to a roaring fire, his cheeks pinked by the exercise, however, did have a certain appeal and my amusement gentled. Aware he was still waiting for an answer, I gathered my manners along with my thoughts and leaned forward.

“Please.”

 ***

Christian perched on the edge of the tub. He’s in a t-shirt at the moment. It was the bottom layer of his winter protection. That is drawn off, pulled over his head and dropped to the side. “I don’t want it to get wet,” he explains. Then, the washcloth is dipped into the tub, soap is applied. Gently, he rubs the soft cloth up in slow, lazy circles. From left shoulder and right, down in a diagonal to the next level. Sensual and methodical.

 ***

I crossed my arms on my knees, closed my eyes and breathed deeply. After a decade of near famine the past few months were a veritable feast of touching and being touched, and feeling Christian scrub my back I marveled I had ever managed to live without it.

“You know,” I said softly. “I’m in big trouble and it’s pretty much our fault.”

 ***

“You’ll need to define ‘our’.” Christian says as his hand dips below the waterline. The washcloth works steadily but slowly down towards the small of Rina’s back. “‘Our’ as in the crew of the Gift? Or ‘our’ as in you and I?”

 ***

I put my forehead on my arms, moving to accommodate his hand.

“You and I.”

 ***

Christian smiles. A small one. Just because he knew the answer already and she knows he knew. “Alright. Let’s work out the problem.” He takes his hands away. Serious discussions of this nature should maybe not be done while in intimate contact.

 ***

“You’ve ruined me,” I said, turning my head to look at him. I could still feel it, what hit me when I stroked Nika’s hair, and it stirred and reached for Christian even as he drew back. “I’ve ruined me. And even now, I’m not sure what I can do about it. I’m....,” I sighed and looked away. “I don’t know how to describe it. I only know that it’s massive and I can’t stop it. It’s just dragging me along and there’s no jumping off.”

 ***

Christian inhales, holds his breath, and releases it. It’s an occupational hazard, truth be told. Being so good, so attentive, so skilled that people develop skewed ideas about what sex and relationships should always be like. “I haven’t ruined you. You’re capable of enjoying sex with someone else. When you’re with Mike again, you’ll realize that.”

 ***

Dammit, why does everything have to have a sexual connotation with you?” I slapped the water in frustration. I bit my lip and got a grip. I was never eloquent speaker even at the best of times and when the topic was personal, failed miserably at it. Knowing it didn’t lessen my irritation at his automatic assumption even though I realized how he could have arrived at it. “It’s not always about sex. You of all people should know that.”

 ***

“I know.” Christian says, quietly. He sinks down to kneel by the side of the tub. “I’m trying not to read you, though. I have been, since we started our relationship.”

 ***

If you want me to trust you, Christian, you’ll have to leave your Companion tricks at the door. I want to know that I’m dealing with the person, not the training. Can you do that? I’d asked him over a year ago, mere weeks after I’d left Mike on Salisbury, and in the year since I hadn’t given it much thought, not after I heard his reply: The training is part of who I am, Rina. I can’t stop that any more than you can stop being a mechanic.

And now Christian told me he’d been doing his level best to do just that. God, what could I say to him to make up for it?

“I’m sorry you felt you had to.” Maybe recompense wasn’t what the situation called for, but acknowledgment. “By the time everything started, I wouldn’t have dreamed of asking you to do it. As you said once, it’s a part of who you are, not just what you do, and you matter more to me than what you do.”

 ***

"I didn't just do it for you." Christian promises. "I enjoyed the exercise. It was interesting and I think I learned something about how relationships work outside of my workplace."

 ***

At first blush, it sounded like he'd just called me his personal lab rat. On closer inspection, however, I realized what he'd meant: even as I was flying blind, so was he, if only in different territory. So I swallowed the curse I would have leveled at his head and instead asked, "And what did you learn?"

 ***

"That there are times when surprises are fun." Christian smiles as he speaks, "And at times they're vexing. And that when you go beyond a certain level, it isn't as much about reading people as learning to understand a person."

 ***

“Aren’t they the same thing?” I asked before I could reconsider it. “Reading and understanding, I mean. Aren’t they the same?”

I leaned back into the tub seat and hunkered down up to my chin. The air had lain on my wet skin long enough to make me feel cold and the water, though no longer piping hot, felt warmer.

 ***

"You're changing the subject." Christian points out, "You wanted to talk about us, not specifically about me. Tell me what you meant."

 ***

“I wasn’t changing the subject. More like I got sidetracked. Forget the reading versus understanding.” I sighed and closed my eyes and tried to explain it. “What I’d meant? What I meant is…complicated. Asking you not to read people is like asking me not to hear engines. It’s pretty much impossible unless we both work really hard at it. It’s too much a part of what we are and those that love us, love us despite or because of everything we do, not just the pieces and parts. I guess it’s a matter of accepting first, and knowing second.” I snorted and opened my eyes. “With you, I had to learn to accept you first, before I knew you. Knowing what I know about you now, I realize that I should never have asked you to lock away that part of you when you were with me. It’s like you asking me to deafen my ears and cut off my hands: unthinkable. That was a hard lesson for me to learn, but thanks to you, I managed it.” I closed my eyes again, to spare him embarrassment when I asked him my next question. “So…As an experiment in non-contractual relationships, how did I do?”

 ***

"I don't know. Experiment isn't over." Christian taps Rina on the nose with one slender index finger. "What have I made hard? Why have I made it hard?"

 ***

“Is this a trick question?” I cracked open an eye and tried to stifle my annoyance.

 ***

"No," Christian answers, "You said I made things hard. I'm asking for an explanation."

 ***

“No, I didn’t. Now who’s changing the subject?” I sat up again. “What I’d meant didn’t have anything to do with sex, Christian, though your response made it clear you assumed it did. What I’m trying to say is that now that I’ve let you in, I can’t keep other people out. First it was you, now it’s Nika and God knows who’s next. I’m not some sort of …of emotional boarding house, for Buddha’s sake, getting sucked into everyone else’s feelings. I don’t want to deal with conflicting loyalties and relational dilemmas. I want to keep things simple.”

I got nothing but silence from Christian and it didn’t bode well for my argument. I ran the washcloth through my hands as I tried to explain it.

“Do you know what I was doing before you found me here? I was tucking Nika in like a five year old and stroking her hair til she fell asleep. Me. Not Arden. Not you. Me, the hard-ass bitch without a sentimental bone in her body. But I saw her there, Christian,” I said, hearing the plea in my tone. “She was just so….” I shook my head. “I can’t explain it. She needed something. I had it to give. And I never saw it coming. Until you started working on me, I don’t think I could have done it.”

 ***

Christian holds up his hands in mock surprise. "Oh no! You want to comfort and help the people you live with, work with, and share your life with. The horror!" He lowers his hands, "You're changing. For the better. I don't see why this is a problem."

 ***

I looked down at the cooling water and dragged a fingertip through it, watching as it parted and collapsed on itself again.

“It’s a problem because it hurts.” I looked up from the water, frightened by my admission and angry at my fear. “You got a solution for that?”

 ***

"Run away. Isolate yourself. Hide." Christian says, "Be lonely. Miserable. Connecting to other people does hurt. It also is wonderful. You can't tell me you didn't feel it in your heart when you were comforting Nika. That swelling warmth?"

 ***

“No.”

Christian’s logic was the very devil…and it attracted and repelled at once. The devil was in the details, I knew, and it was in the details that one would find the truth. Truth: What I wanted was ultimately bad for me. Truth: What was good for me would inevitably hurt me. What had I thought as I’d slipped away to let Nika sleep? Another truth: Growth was unavoidable and seldom unleavened by pain. I remembered another night, another shredding of the soul, spent in the presence of a man who wasn’t—couldn’t—be here to walk me through it, however much I wanted him.

Was wanting Mike bad for me? Was his absence good for me? What price would I pay to let others in where he’d once had exclusive claim? I looked at Christian and saw the challenge in his eyes, and hated giving in to it.

“No, I can’t. Not anymore.”

 ***

"No, you can't," Christian agrees, obviously pleased that Rina came to this conclusion on her own. "Alright. We have cargo to drop off when we're done here. Then, we go to Salisbury. I think it’s time you and Mike had a talk. We need to find him."



This one was definitely a group effort and as a group, check out our work using the timeline links below.

Go Back to Birthday | Go to Gallows
Go to Peripatetica - Rina's Journal entry and RP log
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Go to Rina's Crew Page
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