Critical failure!

Subject: Critical failure!
Author: Tungsten_Monk
Posted on: 2011-07-13 00:43:00 UTC

So much for doubts. Suicide got the idea, and while most of his thoughts that followed were generally incoherent, part of him definitely decided that the height difference was going to be a pain in the neck. His arms were already around Jenni; it was pretty simple to brace his back against the wall of the corridor and, shifting his hands on her hips, lift her up and rest her weight against one cocked leg. Now they were eye-to-eye.

"Much better," he murmured against her lips. "Problem solved."

Though he didn't say it, he meant both problems. The gray Generic Surface felt cold against his back, and most of Jenni's weight rested against his right leg, sending a few phantom pains flickering through the cybernetic limb. There was still the edge of awkwardness between them--the certain caution of two people who didn't quite know each other yet. But it was real, and there was one hell of a spark there, and Jenni . . . Jenni definitely knew what she was doing. In the middle of word worlds and fiction harpies and author wraiths and gods-damned Archir the Emerald, Suicide finally had his hands on something quantifiably, achingly real.

Hades' teeth, and there were religions that forbade this kind of business?

"Apology accepted," he added after a long moment. Ye gods, he did like green eyes.

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PPC Bleepka Bar, continued. by Neshomeh on 2011-07-01 22:57:00 UTC Reply

(( Continued from the original thread on the main Board. ))

The smoking comment got a raised eyebrow that very clearly translated to "over my dead body," but she was distracted from saying so by him turning the tables on her.

"I'm not shaky," she said quickly. This was a lie. Perhaps not so much on the outside, but inside there were definite butterflies, and not just from the hand and the intense look he was giving her. "Heck, I never did any real fighting, unless the assault on Medical counts, but that was more getting other people moving again. But that's getting ahead."

Ya rly. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-18 18:04:00 UTC Reply

((Cont'd from below to prevent comment trees)

Suicide had, out of long habit, stolen most of the blankets. When Jenni put her leg over his, he belatedly realized that she didn't have anything on or over her. After taking a moment to admire the picture she made, he untangled one of the blankets (it had gotten quite knotted before being kicked aside) and reluctantly pulled it up just far enough to hide the leg.

He raised his head just enough to grin down at her. "Yep. Bad influence, me. Let's see . . . I've influenced Nume into punching me in the face, and influenced you into lowering your standards enough to sleep with a Scythian helot. Not a bad start." He shifted his free hand under the blanket to Jenni's raised leg, running a rough palm over it and stroking along the lines of muscle that stood out beneath the smooth skin. Ye gods, that felt good. "So far I'm two for two on corruption. What d'you think I should do next? Besides keep you here as long as possible."

My standards, let me show you them. by Neshomeh on 2011-07-19 06:08:00 UTC Reply

Jenni grinned back. "Sorry to disappoint, but I didn't have to lower my standards to sleep with you. I just plain like you. Dock yourself a point." She shifted herself upward enough to plant a kiss on his mouth for emphasis on the most important of the things she'd said there.

Feeling fully awake now, she added, "And I think you should tell me what you want to happen while you've got me here. Apart from Henry, my routine usually involves tea, breakfast, and some days a shower, all of which I'm happy to share with you, but you don't seem ready for that much activity yet." That . . . well, sadly it made sense. She couldn't be distracted from healer mode too long. He did seem to be moving as little as possible, barring what was involved in petting her (which was very nice). She would see what he said, but she promised herself to show him what she could really do with her hands sooner than later.

Playing dodgeball. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-19 19:43:00 UTC Reply

Was she questioning his manhood? Eh, probably not, but she had definitely twigged to some part of what was going on with him. Living as long as Suicide technically had (barring a death or two) came with mixed blessings: women impressed by scars usually weren't quite as impressed with posttraumatic arthritis. (Ah, the words he'd learned when Medical was putting in his new limbs.)

Two possibilities occurred to him. One, he could execute a quick roll onto her (no hard task for anyone who'd spent time as a wrestling partner for pissy warrior types) and make good on demonstrating just how much activity he was ready for. Two, he could own up to the usual morning aches and see how she reacted. The former would be more fun in the short term, but it ran the risk of Jenni seeing it for the avoidance tactic it partially was. The latter, on the other hand, might get him something more than a hand massage--but possibly damaging his (so he believed) reputation as an unstoppable killing machine in the process. Decisions, decisions: waking up in bed with a woman like Jenni should not have given rise to that many questions.

There was always the middle path. Turning onto his side, he hooked one leg around hers and pulled her a little closer, echoing her earlier brief kiss with more intent and meaning. "I already told you," he said with a lazy smile, running a hand through her loose hair. "You wore the crazy right out of me. I feel perfectly gods-damned justified in taking my time waking up.

"And I'll be keeping that point, thanks. Nume expended some real effort in telling me how duplicitous and . . . clutches-y you were. A prize manipulator should know better than to sleep with someone they actually like." A gender-neutral pronoun with a double edge, he thought. Though he counted himself less a manipulator and more a maimer, really . . .

No tagbacks. by Neshomeh on 2011-07-20 08:08:00 UTC Reply

Ooh, touchy. She was onto something, and between the nabbing, the kissing, and what sounded almost like a challenge, he was trying to throw her off. He was putting forth a respectable effort, too. Her leg had ended up somewhere very interesting, and his kisses did wreak havoc on her concentration.

On the other hand, he'd made a crucial error by giving her access to his back. She debated the wisdom of taking advantage, but in the end she couldn't resist the opportunity to let him know she wasn't fooled and to fulfill her promise to herself. Some quick seeking with her fingers found a little-remembered spot just below the spine of the scapula, and she put her thumb knuckle into the muscle. This shoulder had undergone some reconstruction, if she remembered right, so she went cautiously to begin with. It would be awful to screw up and do something that caused true pain instead of the "hurts-so-good" of a well-done backrub. If he decided his pride could tolerate it, she would continue wherever she could reach.

"Sorry, still no point," she said. "Nume was just being an ass to protect some secret he thinks I might learn from you, and I'm not with you for that. My lustful motives remain pure." She grinned. Getting into a man's pants for its own sake wasn't usually considered pure, but usual was way less fun. "And you don't have to justify anything, by the way. I wasn't criticizing you."

More deadly than the male. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-20 19:14:00 UTC Reply

Oh, she had his attention, all right. Suicide tensed as she pressed her thumb into the hard knot of muscle: a momentary stab of pain shot through it, but as she gently twisted her fingers, the muscle began to relax and the pain became less sharp. An involuntary sound, a mixture of a sigh and a groan, escaped from his lips.

Both his shoulders had been shot in the first of the battles at the Gates, and that was only the beginning of the injury laundry list. Things had been fixed quite well--hell, he was alive, wasn't he?--but the residual aches remained, a consequence of simply being his age and still living despite the hell he'd put himself through. Now, tangled together with the pliable softness of Jenni, feeling the leaden pain of an old injury fade and shift like pack ice breaking up . . . He murmured something, an old Scythian curse, and almost unconsciously tightened his grip on her.

"Pure, huh," he managed to say. The mixture of pleasure and good pain--enough said. His constant paranoia whispered in his ear, telling him that it just meant she had access to his medical records and knew where to hit him, but Suicide could honestly acknowledge that right then, he didn't give a damn. Today was a good day to not die.

It's okay, I got your back. by Neshomeh on 2011-07-20 21:02:00 UTC Reply

That sound was music to her ears, and it brought a beatific smile to her face. She'd got it right. It was a relief, and she found herself relaxing. She hadn't realized how much she'd tensed up, unconsciously worrying that things might take a bad turn. Much encouraged, she tucked her head under his chin, wriggling as close as she could get to allow her arm as much freedom as possible. This was not the ideal way to go about this, but she wasn't quite sure he'd let go of her now, and she wasn't quite sure she wanted him to. It would do for a start.

"Okay, you got me," she said to his collarbone. "It's not all lust. I have a deep and abiding drive to care for others that sometimes gets me into trouble. I can't help it, so you'd better get used to it." She wasn't being facetious, despite how silly the claim could have sounded. It was the simple truth that defined her existence, pronounced in a moment of communion.

Sharing is caring. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-20 22:02:00 UTC Reply

The words sounded strange in Suicide's ears; awkward, maybe, like he wasn't quite sure the world fit into place around them. It didn't surprise him, somehow. She seemed to have momentarily dropped any defenses she had, and unguarded, spontaneous moments of heartfelt expression rarely sound like they do in the epics. He could understand someone having such a moment, and wasn't about to make fun of it. Campfires, winter hares and merchants' wagons, talk of the glue that held a phalanx together . . .

(It was that factor that kept Suicide's brain from screaming "HEALING SEX! Head for the hills!")

"'Mother to a nation,'" he said, his voice guttural as Jenni worked her magic on the knotted muscles. It was a quote, but likely one Jenni didn't recognize; he didn't think that myth had even been translated into Greek, let alone English. "Can't change who you are; shouldn't try." Well, quid pro quo and all that . . . He shifted a little, making them both more comfortable.

"I'm a patricide and deserve to be dead." A small, wry grin appeared, evident in his tone as he echoed her earlier words. "I'm going to keep trying, too, so you'd better get used to it."

Another straightforward pronouncement, devoid of the angst that usually accompanied phrases like 'I deserve to be dead.' He wasn't speaking out of emotion, but out of sheer metaphysical certainty. A father-killer was an unnatural thing; for the world to be right again, the murderer had to be murdered. E = mc2, where E equals death, m = paterfamilias, and c2 = the square of the velocity of the murdering son's knife arm in centimeters per second.

Caring is daring. by Neshomeh on 2011-07-20 23:00:00 UTC Reply

It wasn't as though she hadn't known to a degree; it wasn't a big secret with his name and history being what they were, so the sting of hearing him say it wasn't as much as it could have been—a static shock rather than touching a power line—but it was enough to make her pause while her worldview settled back into place around the admission. There were mitigating factors. The way he said it, it was clear it wasn't a matter of self-hatred, which she could not have stood, but simply a certainty that death was coming and it was just, so he might as well meet it halfway. Also, perspective was key: she was not mortal, and she would lose all her friends here eventually, whether she left first or something happened to them, whether they wanted it or not.

She gave Suicide a quick one-armed squeeze, then went back to work on him with gusto. "I know," she said. She did now. "I sure can pick 'em, huh?"

Physical therapy. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-21 05:30:00 UTC Reply

Suicide considered responding to that--maybe by pointing out that she'd picked a brain-damaged, 11% artificial man who had just mentioned his plan to follow up the pleasantry of the last twelve hours with a spot of trying to get himself killed--but something told him sarcasm, however lighthearted, wouldn't be appreciated at that moment. Furthermore, something very peculiar seemed to be happening to his verbal facilities: attempts to form words were being stifled halfway and turned into something approaching a moan.

Anybody who's suffered the pain and indignity of a major injury knows that, healed or not, that injury will be with you for the rest of your life. Break an ankle at ten, and it will still be aching sixty-five years later. This goes some way towards explaining why Suicide, who hadn't gotten eight hours in his-or-any-other-gods-only-knew-when and couldn't count all his collected injuries on both hands and feet, was having trouble expressing himself. He knew about working out muscle knots--a squire had to--but modern medicine had added some tricks even the Bacchan whores hadn't had.

Somehow he wound up lying on his stomach, Jenni leaning over him. He could feel the warmth of her breath on the back of his neck as she worked, smoothing out the aches and dodging neatly around the green-and-purple bruising still leftover from the gods-damned Archir incident.

"You know," he managed to say after a long pause, his voice hoarse, "this isn't going to guarantee you getting to work any faster." She hit a particularly sensitive spot, and he hissed between his teeth. "Perfect. Perfect. Gods, tell me you need something killed . . . I'll have its head on your desk by noon."

((Charming as ever. eyeroll Incidentally, Jenni's last line made me think of this famous scene-- http://youtu.be/kawnOGZb48o . Was that intentional?))

"If this is torture, chain me to the wall." by Neshomeh on 2011-07-21 22:35:00 UTC Reply

Good grief. From her kneeling crouch over his hips, Jenni shook her head, glad that he couldn't see the part amused, part disgusted expression on her face. Typical fighting man. She did appreciate the sentiment behind the tasteless offer, but . . . "No, my friend, I couldn't hold you to anything promised under duress. Actually, take a breather. And stop strangling my pillow."

She switched from directed pressure to broad, shallow sweeps up and down with her palms, giving him a chance to unclench and get his breath back. Once she got into the sort of work she'd been doing, she didn't mess around. Her hands told her what was necessary, and she did it, whatever the spasms and vocalizations. (As the latter went, "Perfect" was pretty damn good to hear.)

Meanwhile, she glanced at the time and grimaced. "Shards. We do have to wrap this up. I'm not late, but I have things to do before work, the chief among which is making sure Henry knows I didn't forget him. The Nursery's good, but they don't quite have the creche mentality down—too busy. Maybe Ilraen . . . never mind. Before that, I aim to have a quick wash and some breakfast. You can stay here as long as you want, or tag along. What do you say? And, anything in particular I should hit quick before I let you up?" Well, that might be overstating his ability to move just a bit, but the effect was temporary.

(( He works with what he's got. g And no, I'd never seen that before. Today's post title comes from Oliver & Company, though. ))

Mix things up a little. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-22 04:51:00 UTC Reply

Yep, he'd said something wrong. In a way, though, he'd almost expected it; there was a mental gap there, citizen to helot in its manner (there was no other way he could think of it, when a few years as a character were nothing compared to almost forty back home), and he couldn't be surprised that he'd made a misstep. Still, it didn't seem to have hurt Jenni . . .

Trying to curb his behavior in order to not offend someone was a relative novelty in his life. But Jenni was a citizen-woman and as good as a battlefield medic, a firm hand and a smile with a challenge in it. She was a friend.

And she had worked miracles. As she spoke, Suicide pulled his arms in and braced his palms against the mattress. The muscles still pulled oddly in his shoulders and biceps, but there was a wonderful freedom of movement. He moved slowly, not intending to give anything away to Jenni right away, while she told him she had to get up. That's right, she had work, and she needed to see her son. Well . . .

"I should let you go," he said. Then, in one smooth motion, he pushed off from the mattress and executed a quick roll. Jenni had still been crouched over him, and with his leg hooked around her, he landed her neatly on her back. Another twist put him on top, leaning over her. His ends of his long gray hair draped down onto Jenni's messy brown, creating an odd tiger-stripe on the pillow. He kissed her hard again, showing his appreciation for her particular talents. Reluctantly--very reluctantly--he let her up after a long moment.

"But it's damned hard," he added, leaving one last nip at her neck. Wait, was that a double-entendre? Somehow, it wasn't as big a concern as it had been the night before. "I've probably got another mission waiting, too." The unspoken Gods damn it was clear.

((Ahhh, Oliver. With the inspiration of Master Chief's voice, though, I had to steal another line.))

Going down. by Neshomeh on 2011-07-22 15:16:00 UTC Reply

Jenni yelped as she went over and reflexively put up her arms in defense, but of course that meant nothing to a big warrior like Suicide. His weight pushed her hands right down, and by that time she'd cottoned on to what had happened and wasn't worried about it anyway. She was impressed that he'd pulled it off, and that was about as far as she was able to think until he relented. The pass at her neck left her sighing in disappointment when he then moved off. Brat. Tease. If she didn't have things to do . . . but she did, and since he sounded every bit as frustrated as she felt, she forgave him for toying with her. This time.

"Yeah," she agreed breathlessly to everything, said and unsaid. Abruptly, she pushed herself upright and got off the end of the bed, and started assessing what had become of yesterday's clothes. "Well, if it hurts, do it fast and get it over with, as they say." Did people say that, or was it just the band-aid thing? Eh, whatever. "Come on. I know you can shift yourself now." She smirked at him. She'd almost extended a helping hand, but after the stunt he'd just pulled she immediately thought better of it. She'd be more of a challenge in the future, so help her.

Ropes of a woman's hair. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-22 19:44:00 UTC Reply

"That's not what I always heard," Suicide said, because honestly, if there was ever a phrase that cried out for an innuendo and an eyebrow raise that was it. And frankly, he remembered a few times where something that hurt had been . . . dammit, no point thinking about it now, not when they both had places to be and things to do. They'd probably baited the Universal Laws by having as much time as they had.

Still, Suicide took a moment to admire the picture Jenni made standing beside the bed--wearing a smirk and nothing else, a combination he definitely approved of--before reluctantly sitting up himself. Instead of standing up himself, though, he leaned over the edge of the bed and reached around Jenni to retrieve part of his uniform, taking the opportunity to trail a quick kiss across the smooth skin of her hip while he was in the neighborhood. Okay, okay, they really had to get up and that was technically not helping, but with Jenni still right in front of him he considered it extenuating circumstances.

Eventually, he managed to find all of his clothes (how the hell had his belt wound up all the way over there?) and began reassembling himself. Jenni had changed into fresh clothes and was brushing out her long hair, a hair tie already looped around a couple of fingers in preparation for making a quick braid.

A thought occurred. Suicide silently promised himself that, yes, they did have to go and all that, but . . . dammit . . . he literally was an old-fashioned guy. Ancient-fashioned, even.

"C'mere," he said, pulling Jenni down to sit on the bed next to him. She seemed surprised, but she complied.

Plucking the hair tie from her hands, Suicide ran his hands through the long dark-brown hair. It was clean--a change from what he'd usually worked with, back in the day--but there was also more of it, which he approved of. It took him a moment to remember how he used to begin (only one of his current hands had done this, and the years were hard on the body memory) but as he ran one strand through his fingers, it began to come back. Jenni habitually wore her hair in a braid, didn't she? Divide into three plaits, twist and weave, don't yank or the master you're doing this for will have you beaten with an olive branch. Out of habit, he used the more complicated braid that began at the crown: any loose hair in a fight could be damned dangerous.

In a way, it was a more intimate act than any of the (admittedly excellent) things they had gotten up to the night before. It was something he'd done only for the great men he'd served, usually when they'd broken an arm and couldn't dress their hair themselves. He was oddly unsure why he was doing it now . . . Something about the whole situation, sharing stories about last stands the way they had, had gotten a modicum of trust from him.

This means something. This is important. by Neshomeh on 2011-07-23 17:45:00 UTC Reply

"What . . . ?" she started as he sat her down. She kept finding herself playing catch-up with this man. This was the quickest realization so far—once he took the elastic tie from her it was quite plain what he intended—but also the most surprising, even more than being tackled minutes before. That fit with everything she expected from him. This was different.

He was so quiet. She wasn't sure what she thought he should say, but that was only part of it, an intent stillness that she felt from him. Why was he doing this? How did he know how to do this? The only times she could remember anyone braiding her hair for her had been times when she was small, and it was a mother- or sister-figure doing it. This didn't feel like those times. He wasn't patronizing her in the slightest, he was just . . . helping.

And he was good at it. It was a little uneven thanks to the angle created by sitting beside each other, but it was a good weave nonetheless: secure, but not so tight as to pull the scalp and be uncomfortable. This was another example of what she'd observed of his handiwork with a bandage before, such unusual dexterity and gentleness from someone so rough around the edges. Forget sarcasm; she really could pick 'em.

When he'd finished, she turned to face him and took his hands in hers, brushing the knuckles of each with a kiss. "Thank you."

(( Post title should really be "This means something . . . but what?" but then it wouldn't be a quote from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. ))

Nonverbal communication. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-25 18:32:00 UTC Reply

Suicide shrugged a little, unsure of how to respond. He knew only that it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time: it was a sign of partial trust, at any rate, and a good thing to do for someone who was going to be spending the day with psychotic patients and their possible hair-pulling tendencies. (He was speaking from personal experience. When he'd first awakened, inexplicably alive and incapable of understanding what anyone was saying, he'd grabbed his 'captors' by anything he could get his hands on.) That wasn't something that warranted thanks in his opinion; it was a given, a part of being in war with another living being.

"You're welcome," he said after a moment. His mental list of modern behaviors reminded him that it was the appropriate thing to do, but Jenni could likely tell that that response--unlike the shrug, and the silence before--was rote. He felt like he'd said and done everything that really meant anything on that score already, and adding more words to it would make the whole thing moot. He'd said his best piece by already doing it.

"I told you last night," Suicide added, straightening up a little. "Quid pro quo, right?" He took the opportunity of Jenni being so close to steal another kiss, but the clock was relentlessly advancing and even his underdeveloped sense of duty was beginning to prod at him. Reluctantly, he stood up and checked his sheathed knife. "So much for getting dressed in a timely manner, I suppose. I hope you know that you're incredibly distracting."

No pressure. by Neshomeh on 2011-07-26 14:52:00 UTC Reply

Jenni got up after him, smiling a little uncertainly. She felt like she'd put a foot wrong, but somehow landed the right way up anyway, and without being able to explain any of it. He seemed almost as confused as she was, which was no help. Maddening. Well, no time to figure it out now. She would have to hope for another chance.

She shrugged at his last remark, and her smile took a firmer hold. "What can I say, I was made this way. You're not so bad yourself." She winked, and then reached out to touch his arm above the elbow in a forestalling gesture. "Listen, speaking of time . . . I know scheduling anything is impossible, but would you keep me posted when you're around? And feel free to just drop in. If I'm in the department, my door is usually open."

She refrained from spelling out just how much she was interested in seeing him again. When rule number one was "no promises," it seemed like that would be overstepping a boundary on her part. An open line of communication and standing invitation would have to do.

Not a gentleman . . . by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-26 17:44:00 UTC Reply

Now that was something he was on better terms with. Suicide paused when she touched his arm, running a hand through his shaggy gray hair (doing absolutely nothing for it; the man seemed to generate an internal scruffiness field).

"It's too late," he said cheerfully. "You've gone and fed me after midnight, and now you're stuck with me." The gremlin analogy seemed appropriate, especially considering that he'd left several bite marks. "The Universal Laws have probably lined up another mission for me, but--" He momentarily contemplated the virtues of when I get back versus if I get back, and decided to slither out of the issue by doing a quick rephrase "--but I'll be coming by again as soon as I can. I'd say feel free to drop by the RC, but--Mithiriel." The name spoke volumes: Lemon-Pledge-scented, Glare-of-Doom-wielding volumes.

He moved towards the door, but stopped himself halfway through the motion. Jenni still seemed a bit on edge, and it seemed to him that a couple of things hadn't been covered yet.

"Thanks," he said to her. The word came out oddly, a little blunt, but with feeling. "You're a good woman." Ouch, rhetoric was definitely not his bag--yet that was the only way to put it as far as he was concerned. He couldn't picture her telling someone to come back with their shield or on it, but citizen women were worthy for more than just their stoicism. There was something horribly ironic about him holding up standards for what made a 'good' person, especially considering that he routinely got rid of self-proclaimed good people, but he could only go by what he remembered and knew for himself. Like his own impending death, it was a certainty. "Friends?"

Thank goodness. by Neshomeh on 2011-07-27 20:52:00 UTC Reply

It might not have been great rhetoric, or even good English, but it got the job done. With each word, Jenni felt her lingering uncertainty fade and optimism take its place. Not explicitly, but tacitly, with bluff sincerity, he'd given her permission to look forward. That had been the hangup, and with that dealt with, she answered with a smile of unrestrained gladness.

"Perfect." There was no way she was not hugging him at this point. How did anyone not hug someone who'd just said you were good and wanted to see you again, and looked so damned adorably scruffy while doing it? Some things had to be spoken, but for two tactile creatures such as themselves, this was more eloquent than any words could ever be. The door could wait half a minute. Or a whole one. Or—

"Okay, no, really." She was laughing, but she brought up both hands on Suicide's chest and pushed herself firmly back a step. Even with the height difference making it less easy than it could have been, turning a hug into a kiss was as inevitable as the hug, and it took a real effort of will to stop there with the feeling of the newly-cemented connection vibrant between them. Yet, by the same token it was easier, too. She wasn't worried about losing it now, making it possible to reach over and quickly unlock and push open the door.

Jenni started to say something about going and doing his job (shield optional), but her eye caught a low shape in the hallway. Her mouth dropped open momentarily, but pressed shut again in a vexed expression before she spoke. "Fern. What brings you here?" Her tone suggested she already knew the answer.

Oh, bearing messages, as usual, the potted fern replied casually. The nurses have a little betting pool on your appearance and asked me to mark the time for them as a neutral observer. Elms will be quite pleased, but I'm afraid you've disappointed poor Mirrad. He expected you sooner.

Jenni hadn't blushed right away, but she did now. Mirrad's opinion meant something to her.

She stared a moment, looking puzzled. "We didn't see anyone. How did—?" The lightbulb went on, and she snapped her fingers, rolling her eyes at how oblivious she'd been. "Frank."

The fern ruffled its fronds in amusement. You didn't think you could escape notice, did you? In this department? They're putting up the banner in the break room, you know.

That was unexpected. "You mean the 'You Got Laid!' banner?" It did. "I thought we got rid of it after Suzine threatened us all with No-Drool Videos the last time!" She shook her head, fighting hard not to laugh, and turned to Suicide. "This is . . . I was in on inventing the thing. It didn't seem fair that only the guest should have to take the Walk of Shame, you know? Of course, I have no shame." She grinned. "You don't strike me as the type, either. Am I right?"

Caveman chic. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-27 22:06:00 UTC Reply

Jenni seemed to have figured out what he meant, and expressed her good mood in a manner that Suicide decided he could definitely become accustomed to. He was still wearing a grin when the door slid open and the Fern interrupted. His hand automatically went halfway to his knife--inevitable when something surprised him--but as it explained, its psychic 'voice' carrying just the tiniest hint of amusement, he understood what was going on.

Oh, he knew that one. The addition of the banner was a nice touch, he had to admit, but it was still a routine that was old even in his day. Didn't mean it wasn't funny, though.

"Someone once accused me of being shameful," Suicide observed, glancing around and taking his bearings. "He's dead now. Hey, Jenni, which way is the lounge?"

When she pointed it out, he nodded and took stock of himself and his resources. The Fern wouldn't be much help, but then plants never were. (Suicide was not racist or speciesist. Kingdomist, absolutely.) He himself was already a rumpled mess, and his hair . . . ahhh, the hair. Like Dienekes always said: nothing like long hair to make a handsome man more comely or an ugly man more terrifying. He ruffled his hair a little more, giving it the extra volume it needed to be really Wolverine-shaggy and manelike, and made sure the sleeves of his uniform shirt were pulled up for that 'no time, things to do' touch. The knife, in its curious white leather sheath, he shifted to his hip: "Very Byron Sully," as Dio had once said.

Taken all together, he was appeared the antithesis of someone who would even be caught in the same zipcode as the concept of shame.

"C'mon, Jenni," he said. "Let's go say hello." With a small grunt (no comments, please, it was still early for him) he picked Jenni up entirely. There was another of those wonderful surprised squeaks from her, but it didn't seem to bother her too much: it was obvious she'd sussed out what he was thinking, and probably shared it. Suicide arranged her as artistically as he could, finally settling on a hold that left Jenni halfway between bridal-style and a '50s damsel being kidnapped by the monster of the week. He strode off down the corridor, balancing her fairly easily and feeling decidedly cheerful. Rubbing his excellent night in the faces of everyone in the lounge sounded like a good start to the day.

Me Jane? by Neshomeh on 2011-07-28 07:20:00 UTC Reply

Jenni was happy to go along with the general order of "Let's go counter-harass your co-workers!" She wasn't sure she could pull off the damsel in distress thing he seemed to intend, though. She was far too put-together for it—and nobody was touching this braid—so she did her best to look like the arrangement was her idea, relaxed but poised and a little bit smug. Why yes, she had tamed the wild man with the power of love (well, eros, anyway); how perspicacious of you to notice. It was close enough to her old schtick to be worrisome to those who knew her well, but removed sufficiently to be safe. Yes, it would do.

The nurses' lounge wanted to be found. It was exactly where Jenni remembered it being yesterday, and the door was just slightly ajar—perfect for an adventurer-style surprise entrance. There weren't any Beholders on the other side, but there were several nurses who all jumped at the bang. Mirrad the former Ranger slipped seamlessly into a fighting stance, of course, but Parwill, Elms, and young Alex all looked like they'd had their tails stepped on, and Immac actually said "eek!" Alex was nominated by the Narrative Laws as the Obligatory Spit-taker, and since Parwill was sitting across from him at the room's single table, they shared in the honorary coffee-stain.

"Hi, guys!" Jenni said. "We heard you were throwing us a party. Love the decorations." She nodded at the banner, taped up on the wall above the coffee pots. It was pastel yellow with "You Got Laid!" in magenta letters, possibly one of the most offensive combinations short of Sue-colors, and dotted with excessively happy smiley-faces. "So true. Mm, so true." She grinned.

Elms, the curly-haired blonde standing under the banner with a roll of tape still in hand, was the least embarrassed of the lot—coming from a life as a barmaid would do that for you—but she still had the courtesy to be completely put out once she'd stopped being startled. "Jenni! Dammit, it's no fun if you're just going to advertise, woman! And what's with this guy? Someone assigned Charisma as a dump stat this morning." She leveled a skeptical look at Suicide over her blue glasses, no doubt speculating unfavorably on the rest of his character sheet.

Meet 'n' greet by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-28 19:14:00 UTC Reply

Nobody could ever accuse Suicide of being charismatic, but in the true sense of the stat, he was actually quite good at making a lasting impression on people. If anything he had, to use the Discworld term, charisn'tma: people had occasionally been known to stick around him just to see what destruction he would cause next. And he was more than enough of a jerk to enjoy the surprise and irritation of the nurses, who reacted just as badly to having the tables turned as the young Thebans and Astakians had when their pranks were foiled.

He set Jenni down easily, but kept his left arm around her shoulders. There was a mischievous spark in her eye as she surveyed the room, which Suicide definitely approved of. So she was capable of cruelty--or messing with people, anyway, which was at least something to build on.

"Morning to you too," he said cheerfully to Elms, and acknowledged the massed FicPsych personnel with a nod of the head. "And you have my sympathy. If this kind of thing's so rare around that you have to make a fuss about it, we probably should've gone elsewhere and rubbed it in anyone's face." A thought seemed to strike him, and he frowned for a moment before holding out his free hand to Elms. "Hell, where're my manners? Sorry about that. Nice to meet you all; I'm Agent Suicide."

Re: Meet 'n' greet by Neshomeh on 2011-07-29 18:35:00 UTC Reply

That got a reaction. The hand was met with a flat stare—nobody in that room was going to take such an abrupt reversal at face-value, and Elms was no exception—but any comment she might have made was cut off by a squeak from Immac, who was sitting at the table next to Parwill.

"Oh! I've heard of you!" she said, bouncing slightly in her chair. "You're the one whose partner came down with Bursar Disease, and you put that poor elf in here with a Dibbler pie. Nathonea told me all about it!" She was caught somewhere between excitement at making the connection and worry that Suicide was going to pull some sort of questionable pastry out of a pocket right then and there.

"Immie's from the Disc," Jenni said for Suicide's benefit, leaning contentedly against his side. This was going to be interesting. "'Course everyone's heard of Ithalond. I missed the Bursar Disease thing, though. Diocletian seemed sane enough when I saw her, allowing for circumstances."

"Agent Astreth vanished before completing her course of treatment, I believe," Mirrad intoned. The Minbari had relaxed once it became apparent that no attack was forthcoming, and stood with his hands folded serenely across the front of his cream-colored robe. At just under five and a half feet tall, he wasn't someone most people would expect to hold his own in the middle of a fight with someone like Suicide, but then again, he did have the 'bald man with a Denn'Bok' thing working for him. The others regarded him with clear respect when he spoke. "But no matter. Since our humorous prank seems to have rebounded on us, let us remember our own manners. Agent Suicide, please allow me to introduce Nurses Elms, Immac, and Parwill, and Intern Bjørnsen. I am Mirrad." He raised his hands, one laid over the other with the palms inward, thumbs raised and touching to form a triangle. "Congratulations on a successful . . . courtship. It seems I underestimated just how successful. Elms was very astute, however." His dark eyes definitely had a bit of a sparkle to them, for all his polite demeanor.

"I'm still not sure this is appropriate," Alex murmured into the remainder of his coffee. The edge of his keenness appeared dulled by the stains on his jacket cuffs and an impressive blush that spread all the way up to his hairline.

Elms overheard and rewarded him with a comradely slap on the back that almost spilled his cup. "Loosen up, kid. If you can't be nice and comfy with the things folk get up to at night of their own free will, you'll never hack it in this department. Jenni gets it, even if her taste is gods-awful. The Dibbler pie guy? Really? And since we're on the subject of the Disc, I gotta point out the whole Cohen the Barbarian thing." She shook her head sadly, though the effect was spoiled by the persistence of a shit-eating grin. Being reminded that she'd just won a tidy little betting pool did wonders for her mood. "I've lost respect for you, Jen, I really have."

(( I'm sorry, this lot could talk forever. >.>; If I let Jenni respond they will, so I'll stop here and give Su a chance to defend himself and/or her. Or just directly snark back at Elms, I suppose. g Also, everything I know about Parwill is on the FicPsych Personnel wiki page, so feel free to write him/her/whatever if inspiration strikes. Immac, too; she's your basic bubbly excitable type, not tricky to write. I figure she comes in handy for cases of wangst and emo-ness. ))

Sweet talk. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-31 01:08:00 UTC Reply

The handshake was rebuffed, to Suicide's complete lack of surprise, so he shrugged one shoulder and tucked the hand into a trouser pocket instead. He was hardly insulted or disappointed, not when everything was shaping up so nicely. The results of their entrance had been nicely chaotic, a couple of the nurses were clearly disappointed that their would-be moment of embarrassing had been defused, and at least one of them looked vaguely ill at the memory of Ithalond--which, to be fair, was entirely expected given what the Elf gone through. (Not long after the incident, Suicide had taken it upon himself to taste a Dibbler pie and had temporarily gained the will to live. It had been so unnerving that he'd privately promised himself that he'd be less hard on Ithalond.)

"Dio's fine," he said to Jenni. His arm was still draped around her, partially because it felt good and partially because he rather felt that the 'my territory' message hadn't quite been conveyed to the skeptical Nurse Elms enough yet. "She used to have her moments, though. Spending time on the Island Where Dreams Come True might not've been the brightest idea."

He gave a genial, no-loaded-pies nod to Immac, and was about to reply to Nurse Mirrad (in the years since he'd come to the PPC, several painful experiences had taught him not to underestimate short bald men with uncannily serene dispositions), but Elms' use of the shit-eating grin was deemed a matter for more urgent attention. That was his favorite expression, thankyouverymuch.

If you think this is bad, he added to her, his tone congenial, you should've seen me before I died the first time. I wouldn't question her taste, though: my masters always told me that when you find a woman who knows what she wants, the only thing you can do is give it to her as much as possible. The sad thing was, that actually counted as a masterfully subtle innuendo where Suicide was concerned.

((I'm sorry, I couldn't think of anything to do with them. fails Su would have to be maintaining about three different conversations at once for me to utilize them properly, I think.))

Age before beauty. by Neshomeh on 2011-08-01 06:25:00 UTC Reply

It got a laugh from both Jenni and Elms. The others variously smiled quietly, giggled, or pretended not to have heard. Elms nodded in approval—it seemed Suicide had earned himself some points.

"Wise man," Jenni remarked, giving him an affectionate scratch between the shoulder blades. "Elms, you're nineteen, aren't you?" she asked with a grin, remembering stories from the previous night. "The multiverse looks awfully different at nineteen. You just don't know what you're missing—but alas, I don't have time to enlighten you right now. Not that you lot don't deserve every filthy little detail, but I've got more important things to do."

Alex breathed an audible sigh of short-lived relief before Jenni added to Suicide, far too earnestly, "Of course, you could stay if you're feeling civic-minded. I'm sure the Flowers would understand. Educating the youth is very important." She couldn't resist, really. She could practically hear the wheels turning in the nurses' heads, calculating how likely was imminent trauma, how much Bleeprin it would take to erase it, and how quickly they would have to move to escape out the door.

Experimentation. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-08-02 16:54:00 UTC Reply

Elms was nineteen, eh? Suicide mentally resorted her into the "kid" category, but like Nume, she was a kid who had shown some excellent backbone. Still--ai Na'an, he was being condescended to by someone less than half his age. He really was getting old. When he was nineteen, he hadn't even expected to live to twenty, let alone to forty-something (how old was he, anyway?), and now he was the crazy old man people couldn't believe someone would sleep with. How times change, eh?

On the other hand, there were serious benefits to being the crazy old man . . .

"Tempting," he said, planting a quick kiss on the top of Jenni's head. "But we might give the callow youth PTSD if we tried to enlighten them." There was a moment of relaxation as the nurses breathed again. "But it looks like there's still plenty to do around here. And I know it's not the Medical department, but you do have plenty of drugs and supplies here, don't you? I did tell you I wanted to practice my field medicine. I thought I saw Legolas looking rather beat-up in the hallway, too." He gave Jenni his best charming grin, which wasn't very charming at all but got the message across. "I need to learn to use anesthesia some time, right?"

Time to go. by Neshomeh on 2011-08-03 14:43:00 UTC Reply

The moment of relaxation was followed by one of nervous anticipation. Even Parwill looked up from his—her—Parwill's breakfast to watch Jenni for an indication of how seriously they should take this development. It wasn't a question of whether they were being messed with or not, since Suicide's expression left no doubt, but rather how far it would go.

Jenni herself seemed to be in some doubt on that score, looking up at him with a fixed expression, but as it turned out that was only because she was trying not to laugh. She gave up after a moment.

"You know, if you want me to strap you down again, all you have to do is say so," she said with elaborate sweetness, eliciting a few groans and a facepalm from the nurses. (Mirrad notably did not react, but seemed to have designated himself the responsible adult in the room and merely kept an eye on things as he went about his own routine.) "But either way, I'm off." She turned to the room and gave them a wave. "Thank you all, you've been a wonderful audience. Elms, hide the banner before Suzine confiscates it, and better luck next time. Alex, let's talk when I get back, okay? Be somewhere findable."

The young intern nodded, cooperative in spite of looking pinched with apprehension. Yeah, he definitely needed some reassurance about all this. Later.

"As for you," she said to Suicide, "we did this dance already, but at least walk me out. I'm pretty sure you don't really want to stay here that badly. Trying to anesthetize random canons would be a good way to earn a one-way booking, though." She shook her head with a wry smile. "Mental images for the day. Thanks for that."

End of the line. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-08-05 01:27:00 UTC Reply

Jenni was indeed the mother of a two-year-old, so she was likely familiar with some version of the expression that briefly flitted across Suicide's face. It was similar to the one any small boy got when a parent would tell him to stop poking a helpless squishy animal with a stick. Fortunately, Suicide was not the type to pout (although there was definitely an aura of 'taking away my toys' about him), and he offered Jenni his arm with the kind of perfect, studied gentlemanliness that suggested he hadn't in fact been threatening people with gleefully non-advanced field surgery only moments before.

"Nice to meet you all," he said, giving them his best "I'm not crazy, really" smile, which was about as close as he got to being normal in polite company. Once they were out of the room, though, he dropped it for something slightly more genuine, albeit definitely of the shit-eating variety.

"You're right," he continued contemplatively as he walked down the hall with Jenni. "I wouldn't want to stay here forever. Being surrounded by psych professionals means they might wind up curing me of my unsociable impulses, and then where would I be? Talk about curing yourself right out of a job. I can't see me going in for late-in-life retraining, getting one of those degree things."

That was a little loquacious for him, but hell, the world could sue him. He was in a good mood: he'd spent the night with a fascinating and quite flexible woman, he'd helped said woman scare her coworkers, and best of all, there was a good chance of a repeat. He liked her: she was a good woman, though there wasn't a way he could properly articulate that to her. The braid was a mute testimony to what had happened there.

It was getting on for what passed for morning in the PPC, and FicPsych was beginning to stir. Reluctantly, Suicide crossed the threshold. After a moment's hesitation, though, he turned and flicked the end of Jenni's braid lightly. "I'll be around," he said, risking that notorious moment of sincerity again. "Say hi to Henry and Ilraen for me, okay? And tell Ilraen that if he's gonna make a habit of psychotic breakdowns on missions, he and Nume need to work out some kind of buddy system. When he went to pieces on 'Ring Child,' it was a complete mess. No form at all." If Jenni squinted, she could possibly guess at how this was Suicide's form of trying to be friendly towards the other agents.

"Thanks," he added finally. A good night was at an end, but he had the sense that something even better might be getting started.

((If you want to cap this off, you can, but otherwise we can end it there. Michigan is beautiful, BTW!))

That's a wrap! by Neshomeh on 2011-08-05 17:16:00 UTC Reply

Amused at the stream of talk, Jenni raised an eyebrow at the words "professionals" and "degree," but she suspected the fact that FicPsych was just like the rest of the organization in that the majority of the nurses had no formal training was not something she should advertise. They did the best they could with what they had, and it so happened that their best was pretty good most of the time. She was proud to be one of them.

She exited the department with Suicide, and in a gesture that might have been a sign of shyness in anyone else, tucked her chin and raised a hand to the angle of her jaw in response to the touch to her hair. She didn't fully understand what had prompted him to braid it, so there wasn't anything she could say to acknowledge it that would make sense. Still, he seemed to get the idea.

She did recognize the gruff practical advice for the sign of goodwill that it was—Nume, Mr. Cold Fish himself, was an accomplished practitioner of the art—and she nodded. "Will do. While we're at it, thank Diocletian for letting me borrow you."

And that was that, really. "Thank you," she said back to him. "And hey, you know where to find me. I'll be seeing you." No overly dramatic last-minute gestures, just a smile, a wave, and a parting phrase with at least two distinct but related interpretations. Yes, she reflected as she started for the Nursery, this was definitely the start of something good.

(( Yay, conclusion! I just wanted to get the actual moment of walking away in there.

I'm glad you made the trip in one piece. Michigan IS pretty. If you ever have a yen to go camping, there are some great spots, especially in the north of the "mitten" and the Upper Peninsula. {= D ))

Alternative therapy. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-03 02:29:00 UTC Reply

"War's war," Suicide said, "and it's rare it doesn't get to you." His own expression conveyed, equally clearly, that he didn't believe she hadn't been affected and furthermore, that the curative properties of a good Sobranie were highly underrated by the medical community. (It was a very eloquent expression, involving the deployment of both eyebrows.)

"And nothing wrong with getting ahead." A grin edged its way back onto his face. "My RC's console had a terribly regrettable accident, so I don't have anywhere to be for a while." He gave her hand the slightest squeeze, but his expression was tending mischievous. "Still, if it's going to be problematic, try a different tack. We've broken through the hard part with the sadness and flashbacks. Now it's time for you to indulge in the other great pastime of people who've lived through a lot of shit--bitching about it and one-upping anyone who says they've lived through worse. That's therapeutic, right?"

First things first. by Neshomeh on 2011-07-05 21:14:00 UTC Reply

(( I'm back! This runs long, and I hope it's okay that I pushed through to the end of the tale without allowing chances for Su to respond. I figured he'd go along with just letting her get it over with. ))

"It probably is," she agreed cautiously, and started to say that she really hadn't done that much and didn't have anything to complain about, but her own thoughts gave her the lie. And he seemed to know it. She wondered when she had become so transparent. It wasn't the first time someone had suggested unburdening herself, but it usually took longer, and never before had anyone been quite so direct with an invitation to bitch and moan. She wasn't quite sure what to do with it.

She had to say something, though, so she picked a thought out of the tumult. It came with a return smile. "It's sweet of you to try to make things easier on me. I want to finish the story for you, though, and I think I'll satisfy both of us this way."

She took a deep breath to begin with. "So, the quarantine was lifted. We were able to get most of the canons home at last, and we got Immac and Parwill to Medical. I thought I would finally be able to take care of Derik beyond just keeping him from dying, but no. See, here's what I have to bitch about," she interjected with a lopsided grimace for Suicide's benefit. "Suzine didn't even give me five minutes to look in on him before I left, and then when I checked in a bit later I found out they'd lost him. A man who'd been in a catatonic state for a month suddenly decided to get up and take a walk—later I found out he'd been provoked by Leroux!Erik, and honestly I'm grateful that he was able to achieve what we couldn't for Derik—and they were too overwhelmed to deal with it. I could have killed Mirrad and Suzine when they told me, but there wasn't time. They needed anyone with any experience in Medical. And this, when we were just starting to pick up the pieces and we were all exhausted already, this is when the Sues invaded.

"For my part, like I said, I really didn't do more than anyone else. Dr. Fitzgerald declared that the doors would stay open so people could come to us in Medical, but his staff were too busy to take it further. I got the agents who could manage it to organize a defense, which Sedri led—I stayed with them because you can't get a possessed agent past a psychic—but fortunately we didn't need it. The Sues that did come our way were annihilated by Omicron. I don't know if he was one of Honesah's Daleks or something else, but anyway, he got the job done, and we were able to get back to the business of fixing people.

"I checked in on FicPsych, and found to my great relief that Derik had turned up again, minus Sue-induced good looks but plus a purpose in life after stumbling into a Reality Room. He fought his way back to the department and, of course, collapsed from the strain. Later he got up again after I'd dosed him with enough fellis juice to put down a gold dragon and helped defend the department." She shook her head at the man's insane tenacity, then looked at Suicide again, considering. "You'd like him, I think. He's a lot like you in some ways, and he could use a proper male friend. Remind me."

This was more a note to herself than to him, though, and she pressed on to avoid getting side-tracked.

"I had to go back to Medical, since more agents were coming in hurt from fighting the Sues. There were battles all over, but the big ones were in the cafeteria and the final stand at the Tomb of the Unknown PPC Agent. The only plan the agents had was to lure as many Sues as possible into the cafeteria and let Honesah's Daleks blast the hell out of them, and it worked as far as it went. I heard about it from Ilraen, after I found him and Nume standing around in the ward, looking forsaken."

At this point, her ability to cover her feelings ended. She cared about everyone she worked with, and she was personally invested in Derik, but those two were her friends, and she'd found them alive after a month of not knowing. Tearing up at the memory was inevitable. She wiped her eyes and kept talking through it, though.

"They'd seen fighting," she continued. "After being locked up for a month, they would have faced the Balrog Sue and been happy about it." She actually laughed. "If you can imagine the two of them charging down the corridors through a sea of Sues to get to the cafeteria, like some kind of screwed up knight and warhorse . . . well, that's not how Ilraen described it, but he can't hide anything from me. It can't have been anything but awkward, and I'm sure he never wants to do anything of the sort again. Nume was a damn mess. He'd got himself thrown from Ilraen's back and concussed, and he'd been off Bleepka for ten days by Ilraen's count. Poor guys." She shook her head, but she had a smile for relief that they were alive and relatively well after the ordeal.

"I don't really know anyone who was involved in the Battle of the Tomb, except Lux, and she's too flighty to give a good account. That broke the Sues, though. They'd painted it urple and wilver, I heard"—her lip curled at the insult—"and that incited everyone to a huge effort. The rest was just mopping up, and it was finally over." A puzzled frown crossed her face. "Lux did tell me the agents can-canned to 'Man of La Mancha' afterward. Trust Lux to be in the middle of something like that."

Shaking her head, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then looked up at Suicide again with her eyes still slightly wet. All the same, she looked satisfied at coming to the end. "Any questions?"

Honor your dead. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-06 01:03:00 UTC Reply

She held it together remarkably well, considering the yarn she was telling. Sure, a story of a victory ought to be good for the one telling it, but even victory could get bloody damned quickly. As she spoke, Suicide felt an old familiar chill touch the back of his neck: the idea of the Sues graffitting a tomb made him wish he had been there, if only to try doing something that Upstairs seriously frowned upon and was technically illegal everywhere except Mississippi.

He listened 'til the end, though. He always had time for stories about battles. Nume pulled through, did he? Good for him; maybe the kid actually had some stones on 'im, though Suicide wouldn't have guessed it by the way he threw a punch. Ilraen . . . the fuzzy centaur was still an unknown quantity, though Suicide made a mental note to not get on the wrong side of him. Derik he'd never met, but he got the impression that it wasn't a big issue at the moment.

Jenni's eyes were still watering. He silently handed her one of the bar napkins.

"Not really," he said, once she'd taken a moment to mop her eyes and calm down a little. "Those ghosts sound like they could do with being put to rest. Once a battle's over and done with, the best thing to do is to honor your dead, burn the corpses of anyone who dared to try and ... with you, and send a few heads back to their leaders to make sure they never try anything like it again." It occurred to him only after the fact that talking about severed heads might not be the best thing for Jenni to be hearing right then, but another part of him said '... it, catharsis is catharsis.'

"It sounds like it went as well as it possibly could have," he continued in a slightly quieter voice. "Unlike the other side, there's only so many PPC agents to go around." Three hundred versus ten thousand immortals? Quit thinking like that, Suicide, you can't blame every way you think on Thermopylae . . .

Re: Honor your dead. by Neshomeh on 2011-07-06 19:20:00 UTC Reply

Jenni wasn't the bragging sort, and even if she had been, as a healer her perspective on war was exclusively grim, whether her side won or not. Not that it wasn't necessary, not that she wasn't grateful they won, but her work didn't end when the battle was over. For that reason, even a victorious fight wasn't something she could truly be happy about.

With a minimum of fuss, she accepted the napkin and composed herself. Crying was a hell of a way to behave on a date, and the less said about it the better. On the heels of that thought, it struck her Suicide wasn't shying away or telling her to buck up or anything even the slightest bit marginalizing. That was heartening, and helped her get it together again without feeling humiliated.

"That's true," she replied, nodding. "But we lost far more to the macroviruses than we did to the Sues. If not for that I doubt if we would have so much as batted an eye at them before taking them down—it's not like it's the first time Sues have tried to come at us directly, after all, and it's a bad strategy to put us in a position where we have nowhere to go but through them. Not that I know much about strategy," she added, half-smiling. "That's just a law of nature."

Nothing to see here, move along. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-06 20:15:00 UTC Reply

"Not necessarily," Suicide said, his lips quirking a little at the corner. "But the nowhere-to-go-but-through-us strategy loses its appeal when it's not something you chose to do." Three hundred Peers, all fathers of sons. Molon labe. "And it's a lot more fun when you're on the other side of the line." Watching the Argives' phalanx crumple while the little bastards shat themselves in terror--that sure had been fun.

Jenni had left the now-dampened napkin on the bar top, and he swept it up into a pile with the mess he'd made of the coaster. The things someone said and did after a fight weren't accountable to them later: he'd seen Leonidas himself tremble at the knees, after all. A few tears were nothing, even after some time had passed.

"Medical must've been full, though," he said, whisking the unpleasant topic of last stands out of sight along with the torn and tear-stained paper. Talking in circles around something that could anger someone (and possibly get you whipped or threatened with pensioning by a pissed-off Peer) was a valuable skill for any veteran squire. "Not that I'd know. I keep meaning to spend more time there--damn hard to keep the field medic skills sharp when nobody will let you practice on them--but every time I try, someone locks the door and tells all the patients to be extra-quiet until I go away."

Practicing medicine. by Neshomeh on 2011-07-06 21:02:00 UTC Reply

Okay, so running her mouth about tight situations with ridiculous odds had been a stupid error. She should have known better; she knew enough about him to know better. Not something she would allow to happen again unless she decided she wanted to go opening old wounds—which, with her, was always a possibility if she decided the thing hadn't healed properly and needed purging. But definitely not right now.

Listening to him and watching his face change, she slipped her hand out from under his and put it on top, curling her fingers around his in a light grip. Her turn to be the stable, comforting presence again. She felt better for it.

She was also happy to let the conversation move on, and his tale of being shut out of Medical got a laugh. "No offense, but you'd have to take some serious retraining first. Believe me, I've practiced medicine in plenty of low-tech 'verses, and I cringe to think of the limitations." She really did. The times she could have saved somebody if she'd only had penicillin, or decent needles, or help that didn't swear by the panacean properties of extensive bloodletting . . . what a nightmare. Still, patients dying was just part of the job. She didn't like it, but she was able to view it objectively.

"Still," she went on contemplatively, "if what I saw of your work with a bandage is any indication, I'd say we could have used you then. Shards, the number of times I personally could have used a big, tough field surgeon stagger the mind. I've never been good with massive trauma. The odd broken bone, sure, but there comes a level of severity that takes more than just one woman with a bag."

She was rambling on again. How did this keep happening? She reached for her drink, which she'd forgotten temporarily, and drained about half of what was left.

Old-time religion. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-06 21:32:00 UTC Reply

She was trying to . . . comfort him? A strange idea, not so much wrong or irritating as just plain weird. Suicide couldn't think of the years he spent as a squire without some emotion, but he'd never gotten so far as to quantify or understand it. Still, the gesture was kindly meant, and Suicide appreciated it.

This was an odd business all around. So much minutiae; gestures here were small, voices were lower, the tone and inflection of everything was much more important than volume or force. Some of his old skills--like the talking-in-circles bit--were useful, but Suicide felt vaguely like he was out of his depth. It was less like chopping down a tree and more like the delicate work of flaying a man's arm for a quiver. The smallest nick or misused word could ruin the work before it was half finished, and it made him uneasy in some ways.

On the other hand, the woman whose company he enjoyed had just called him big and tough. That he could definitely live with.

"Battle's a good place to learn medicine," he responded. Had he been in lots of battles? Why, yes, and he wasn't above peacocking for her just a bit on that score. Or wait, was a nurse less likely to be impressed by all the injuries he'd inflcited? Shit. Mental Dio, help! "At least, that's what my masters always said," he added, while his mental Diocletian told him to leave her alone and sort out his own messes for once. "We didn't have any of the . . . technically, they're modern, aren't they? Present-day?" He grimaced a little at the idea. Not only was he in a different dimension, but Earth was more than two thousand years past his time. "The modern advances everyone here has. We'd douse a man in sour wine to ward off the affluent evils and sacrifice a black dog to Hecate if someone thought his wound was cursed. But you have anesthetic now. We didn't even have a word for anesthetic." He shook his head. "Actually, we did. It meant 'wineskin and a big rock.'"

He wondered if that would make her laugh again. Some strange part of him--the one that remembered his mother's wagon and appreciated Jenni's hand on his--wanted to make her laugh. It felt odd.

Gestures by Neshomeh on 2011-07-06 22:18:00 UTC Reply

It did get a laugh, because she'd been there (metaphorically speaking; she'd never actually been to ancient Greece) and knew it for fact. "Yeah, you make due with what you've got and hope for the best. That doesn't change in any time period. The only difference is what you have to work with. Which . . . " Inspired, she took his right hand palm-up and pressed her thumbs into the muscles. " . . . is often just these." A hand massage could technically be considered the use of wiles, she supposed, but what the hell, it was an enjoyable thing to do and almost universally pleasant for the receiving party.

"We take them for granted, but without them we'd be entirely other than what we are. Most people don't even think about the little muscles and tendons in here." She dug into the narrow spaces between the metacarpals, just to emphasize the point, being sensitive to any irregularities caused by previous injuries. Details and minutiae were something she was quite good at. "Then again, there's an awful lot of mysticism about the hands. Palm-reading, reflexology and such. Some of it isn't even total nonsense."

Handy. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-06 23:32:00 UTC Reply

Suicide's pupils dilated as Jenni pressed into a knot below the ball of his thumb, working through the pain and smoothing the muscle into place. His whole arm tensed for a moment, reacting automatically to foreign pressure, but as Jenni worked her magic the hand relaxed and the fingers spread. The Greeks might've created Western civilization, but between the hands and the laugh, Suicide's urges were rapidly tending very uncivilized.

Nume had said wiles. Suicide mentally marked the kid down for another point. Then he subtracted that point, because Nume had made those wiles sound like a bad thing.

Jenni was closer than ever, the two of them sitting facing each other while she worked her magic on his one remaining original hand. The left hand, regrown skin over a steel and carbon-fiber skeleton, dropped onto his knee--no, onto her knee, and slid upwards almost independent of thought. The denim fabric of her jeans felt rough: the new skin hadn't quite gained the protective coating of scars and calluses that the old layer had had.

The hand stopped at midthigh--barely. It took him about that time to remember that, hello, that wasn't the way people did things any more. Or was it? He couldn't remember, not with her turning his muscles to jelly with the skill of a Bacchan whore. Jenni's smile seemed mischievous.

"The only thing that separates us from animals," he said. His grin had an edge to it. "That's what the scholars say, isn't it?"

First truth, now dare. by Neshomeh on 2011-07-07 07:29:00 UTC Reply

If her smile tended mischievous, it might have been because she was enjoying watching him melt in front of her like this. No, scratch that. It definitely did, and she definitely was. These were not precisely the clutches Nume had been referring to—he never would have sat still for this much touching to know them—but they definitely fell under the heading. And this was just what she could do with one of Suicide's hands.

She was focused on what she was doing with his right, so it took a second or two for the mental proximity alert to go off on his roving left. Her breath hitched slightly when she noticed. Oh ho, so she was really on her game tonight. And he wasn't lagging behind. Her smile went from mischievous to devious.

"I think that's the brain, actually, but who's counting?" She leaned in just a hair and lowered her voice. "Are you going to let me get on with this, or do we need to go somewhere else?" Unhurriedly, never slacking on kneading the knots away, she glanced down at her thigh and back up again. This was simply to say "I see you hesitating there and I dare you to make up your mind." As far as she was concerned, civility was overrated, but drawing out the time before plunging into the wilderness had its charms, too.

Ladies' choice. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-07 18:40:00 UTC Reply

Jenni was in trouble in one respect: unless no clothes were involved at all, Suicide was not a believer in delayed gratification. He was right-handed, and Medical or not, the limb had been battered all to hell with the rest of him; what Jenni was doing felt damned good, and he aimed to reciprocate.

Yes, that expression was definitely mischievous. Ms. Robinson, it seemed, was trying to seduce him. Was he likely to get knifed if he-? Well, only one way to find out.

He leaned forward (just a little. Not much space between them by that point) and kissed her. He'd spent so much time in Suefics that some part of his mind half expected to taste strawberries, but the only taste that lingered on his tongue was the merest trace of the lime soda she had been drinking. The other senses, on the other hand? The hint of roughness where she'd absentmindedly bitten her own lip, the faint herby smell (tea, perhaps, or something from the infirmary), the sound of her heartbeat . . . was that his hand, creeping up the back of her shirt? Yes, it was.

As a first kiss, it was definitely not perfect, but it made the point very effective. It might have gotten even better, too--if Dorf the bartender hadn't broken the spell by rapping hard on the bar and giving them both a stern look. "Not in here, you're not," he said flatly. "I just polished the bartop."

Suicide stifled an irritated groan. He had automatically tensed when he let Jenni go, his brain remembering similar situations where he'd nearly gotten killed before, but she didn't seem to be rethinking the knife option. "So what do you think?" he said. He was a little breathless, but there was a glint in his eye. "Your continuum or mine?"

Exodus. by Neshomeh on 2011-07-07 21:43:00 UTC Reply

Well, so much for plan A, then. That was all right. Plan B had been a possibility in her mind from the start, despite her decision not to actively nudge things in any particular direction—which had lasted up until a couple of minutes ago, to her credit. Oh well. Anyone would allow that it was difficult to keep one's resolve in the face of someone plainly volunteering to be nudged.

She leaned into the kiss, lifting her hands up to brush the sides of his jaw and neck on the way to cupping the base of his skull with her right hand and stabilizing herself on his shoulder with the other. It was awkward, what with being on the edge of how far the bar stools could support, but worrying about that was secondary to soaking up the sensations of warm, firm muscle under his uniform shirt, his hand on her back, and the musky, masculine scent of him overlaid with the brew he'd swallowed, still on his breath, and an indistinct hint of soap.

Until Dorf banged on the counter. Startled, she almost lost her balance as they both let go, and she didn't quite succeed at holding back her own annoyed grumble.

To Suicide, however, she responded with a grin and a glint of her own. "Hon, I'll show you around the whole multiverse if you want. For now, though, I did take the precaution of letting the Nursery know they might have Henry overnight, if you don't mind walking through FicPsych to get to my room."

She stood up in preparation for leaving.

Double-checking. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-11 19:09:00 UTC Reply

Some asshole with a snarky sense of humor had put "A Whole New World" on the bar's jukebox. What kind of jukebox even had "A Whole New World" on there, anyway? Suicide did his best to tune it out, which in the end, wasn't that hard. Jenni had casually passed a comment about why yes, she wasn't going to have a child possibly interfering with interesting nighttime activities (a good thing, Suicide supposed, since while not a merciful man he had no intention of accidentally turning Henry Robinson into Rorschach Jr.) and stood, one hand disentangling from his. The one simple motion, a smooth rise from the hips through the long line of the spine, had done wonderful things for his admittedly one-track imagination.

It also triggered some nasty thoughts. There were plenty of things Suicide disliked about his PPC duties, but only one he actively loathed--the way it made him question the reality of something. For a moment, paranoia clutched at his guts: between the universal laws and his myriad experiences with beautiful woman-shaped creatures who were not what they appeared, his survival instinct (yes, he had one, mangled as it was) gave a momentary shriek of panic. He squashed it, silently cursing the reaction, but he knew his body had tensed momentarily at the thought. Hopefully Jenni hadn't noticed.

Some great Scythian he was, doubting things simply because he had almost been killed numerous times by selfish would-be gods and goddesses who wanted to control the . . . best not to finish that thought. Simultaneously angry with himself and amused by the whole thing, he slid an arm around Jenni's waist, pulling her a little closer to him as they stepped out of the bar. She felt real: solid, well-shaped but not unearthly in the way that the fictional worlds often favored. That was good enough for him. No knife, either: that had to count for something.

Hang on a second, he said, stopping Jenni as they reached the first intersection in the halls. I just want to check something.

Suicide was eight inches taller than Jenni, and with both of them standing, he had to bend to kiss her again. Not that it was much of a hardship: she was just the same, the smell and the feel and the lips all too real, leaving him with the exhilarated feeling of being slightly drunk. A passing secretary whistled at them, but though Suicide's scruples had been satisfied, he didn't let Jenni go right away. This was a piece of narrative realism he could definitely spend some time lingering over.

Sorry about that, he said finally when they both came up for air. Not that he was actually unhappy with what he'd just done, but Jenni might have objections to being seen doing that kind of thing in the halls. Granted, she didn't look too unhappy right then. Definitely, he added, all in order.

Someone had triumphed akoniti, but he'd be damned if he knew who.

Re: Double-checking. by Neshomeh on 2011-07-11 22:42:00 UTC Reply

Mostly, Jenni was just confused, though not at all displeased at being kissed again, whistler or no whistler. She smiled even as she tilted her head in the universal gesture of not having a clue. "What . . . ?"

She didn't usually miss things when it came to reading people. True, her brain was flooded with happy chemicals at the moment, but that didn't usually stop her from putting two and two together. She had, in fact, noticed when he'd looked just for a moment like he was considering heading for the hills. He wasn't—what, nervous? That didn't seem to fit at all. . . . Shit. Maybe that head trauma was playing up, with the stress—good stress, surely, but still stress—she was putting on his system. Increased heart rate and blood pressure, hormone levels rising, brain sparking away . . . dammit, that would just figure.

Her expression turned doubtful, and she took a reluctant step back for a better view (though she left her hands where they'd automatically gone around his waist). "Look, uh . . . backpedaling is the last thing I want here, but it's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt, right? So, actually, that's the last thing I want. Please tell me if something's wrong, or if you have doubts, or anything." This was definitely odd, coming from her to a giant warrior who had just soundly kissed her and seemed happy about it, but then, men could be odd about covering up what was really going on in their heads, physically or psychologically. She smiled and added, "You won't lose man points or anything. That would be pretty much impossible." She winked at him.

Doubting the doubt. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-12 07:05:00 UTC Reply

Suicide mentally cursed again as Jenni's words cut through his newfound good mood. For a moment, he contemplated distracting her from the question; he figured he had a 55% chance of managing it, with a remaining 45% chance of it going horribly wrong and pissing her off. With someone he actually liked as much as he did Jenni, those weren't odds he liked.

Damn the woman; between her role as a psych nurse and just being who she was, she was infernally hard to contemplate lying to. And she seemed genuinely concerned, though how much she knew about his thoughts he couldn't guess. Extrasensory abilities, she'd said. Had she read his mind?

Once again, Suicide did his best to stamp down his paranoia. That way lay . . . well, madness was hardly a novelty, but madness of the second-guessing, self-doubting kind that always seemed to attend politicians and priests.

Though he had to admit, the idea of him being cautious was pretty damned funny.

"Just thinking," he replied, shaking his head a little at her mention of doubts. "It's a bad habit, I know." When Jenni gave him a not-buying-that look, he struggled to elaborate. "Still getting used to the PPC again," he said finally, doing his best to keep a dry tone. He'd lost his taste for any form of drama a long time ago . . . Shit, and he'd gone and left his lampshade back in the RC, too. Damn thing was never there when he needed. "This business of getting close to someone--" He ran one hand up the long smooth curve of her back, admiring the sweep of it "--is a lot simpler when there's no thinking about universal laws and suchlike."

He offered her a wry grin. "Too much time reading the Words, I guess."

Make a Will save and roll for Initiative, folks. by Neshomeh on 2011-07-12 09:06:00 UTC Reply

Jenni nodded in sympathy. She personally had a terrible history of complications when it came to getting close, and—she blinked, checking herself. Son of a bitch, she'd just about let it get the better of her, too. Well, nice try, universe, but not this time. It owed her, damn it, and no way was she letting it off the hook now, not when things had been going so well. Not that she could really blame either herself or him for having concerns, but since hers did not apply, that made things very simple.

Intently, she looked Suicide in the eyes. "In that case, you had the right idea in the first place, and for both our sakes I apologize sincerely for allowing this 'thinking' to continue. Let's fix that." Eight inches upward was a bit of a stretch, but she got up on her toes and wrapped her arms around the back of his neck, taking the initiative for a deeper kiss and trusting that he'd get the idea. How did that joke go, "if I said you had a nice body, would you hold me against you?" Eh, something like that.

And if this wasn't distraction enough to get around Headquarters successfully, then by all the Powers, that was Headquarters' problem!

Critical failure! by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-13 00:43:00 UTC Reply

So much for doubts. Suicide got the idea, and while most of his thoughts that followed were generally incoherent, part of him definitely decided that the height difference was going to be a pain in the neck. His arms were already around Jenni; it was pretty simple to brace his back against the wall of the corridor and, shifting his hands on her hips, lift her up and rest her weight against one cocked leg. Now they were eye-to-eye.

"Much better," he murmured against her lips. "Problem solved."

Though he didn't say it, he meant both problems. The gray Generic Surface felt cold against his back, and most of Jenni's weight rested against his right leg, sending a few phantom pains flickering through the cybernetic limb. There was still the edge of awkwardness between them--the certain caution of two people who didn't quite know each other yet. But it was real, and there was one hell of a spark there, and Jenni . . . Jenni definitely knew what she was doing. In the middle of word worlds and fiction harpies and author wraiths and gods-damned Archir the Emerald, Suicide finally had his hands on something quantifiably, achingly real.

Hades' teeth, and there were religions that forbade this kind of business?

"Apology accepted," he added after a long moment. Ye gods, he did like green eyes.

Scene change. by Neshomeh on 2011-07-13 07:57:00 UTC Reply

Jenni experienced a little thrill at how easily he plucked her up, like the effort was nothing. The voice of caution pointed out that he could probably do anything he wanted to her without breaking a sweat, and her only recourse would be a use of power, but she had no trouble shushing it. She felt supported and secure in his arms, and she was running the show for the moment. With him doing most of the work of keeping her in place, one hand was free to rake through the hair over his ear, combing it back from his face and adding a little flourish to this kiss.

The Narrative Laws supplied a passing agent shouting at them to "get a room!" This was summarily ignored.

And he forgave her balking and almost messing everything up, and took the trouble to say as much. How great was that? "I'm glad," she responded with warm smile to match her tone.

This close, she had to lean her head back to actually focus on his face. The awkwardness of this arrangement was becoming more apparent by the second. She shifted herself and slid back to the floor, then took him by the hand. "Come on. You can't be comfortable like that. We can do better."

She led the way—whatever thoughts she'd entertained about Headquarters, spending the rest of the night (such as it was) in the corridors was not on her agenda—and for a wonder it wasn't all that long before the double-doored entrance to Section 31 appeared. For an even greater wonder, whoever was supposed to be at the nurses' station had apparently nipped out for the moment, so they were able to slip into room C-14 without any embarrassing run-ins. No doubt the Ironic Overpower was storing up an extra helping of hilarious mishaps for later, but at the moment it wasn't worth worrying. Not this time, universe, not this time.

"Well, here we are," Jenni said once her door was safely closed and locked behind them.

The room was not large, but she'd arranged the furnishings such that it was effectively divided into a sleeping space at the far end and a working space they'd entered into. Each side had a rug, and she'd found spaces for a few useful plants (the non-sentient sort), which softened the harsh Generic Surface construction. The whole room held the complex herbaceous scent Suicide had noticed on her earlier, emanating in particular from a cupboard above her desk, but there was also a hint of the sweet smell that seemed ubiquitous in the presence of small children. The desk, sitting against the left wall, straddled the midline of the room, with a computer on the office side and a much-used hotplate and tea paraphernalia on the other. Also against the left-hand wall, nearest to them, there was a bookshelf that faced a two-seater couch on the right-hand wall—because what shrink's office would be complete without a couch?

The far end of the room showed signs of her hasty departure earlier. In the back right corner, a smallish wardrobe hung open, showing its slightly disheveled contents. Her white jacket hung over one of the doors. A child's bed sat in front of it against the right wall, with toys haphazardly dropped on top. Jenni's own bed against the back wall was festooned with a few discarded shirt options and a particularly bedraggled, brown, dragon-shaped plush toy.

She grinned apologetically. "Uh, sorry about the mess. Give me two ticks to pick up." She started with the fire-lizard plush, tossing him gently to Henry's bed.

(( Visual aid! ))

Heart of darkness? by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-16 09:10:00 UTC Reply

So this was it: the lair of the beast, the place that would've given Nume an aneurysm if he'd known Suicide was in it. It even had a dragon . . . albeit a plush brown one, which somehow didn't quite carry the level of menace Nume had predicted.

Jenni seemed a little embarrassed by the little bit of disorder-- a couple of discarded shirts and all that. Yes, she should never be allowed to come back to RC #2771a. Though Mithiriel was constantly on the lookout for disorder, both Suicide and Diocletian were used to living rough, and the socks under the console had recently discovered crop rotation and the three-field system. On the other hand, Jenni's room looked--well, civilized, for lack of a better word. These were the quarters of a woman who had traveled widely, found herself settling down (perhaps unexpectedly?), and done her best to make do in a limited space. The room fascinated him: so . . . normal. It said that if she'd been from his time, she would have been a respected citizen-woman who wouldn't have been caught dead with a foreign squire.

Nah, that wasn't right. Nobody who ended up with the PPC could qualify as respectable in any time, and he knew already that there were more unusual facets to Jenni than she was owning up to. So why was she fussing about a few pieces of clothing lying around? Who gave a damn about that?

He crossed the room quickly and wrapped his arms around Jenni again, trailing a kiss down the side of her neck. The sound she made was definitely not respectable, and was infinitely appreciated.

"Never mind the mess," he said. A few strands of hair had fallen down over her face, and he flicked them out of the way with his thumb. "I think we'll manage somehow. But if you're that worried about it, there's always--" his hands slid lower, enjoying the sensation of the fabric and smooth skin "--the floor."

[TM: . . . smooth, Su. facepalm I'm thinking a discretion cut soon?]

Fade by Neshomeh on 2011-07-16 20:28:00 UTC Reply

Jenni wasn't that worried about it. True, she was a woman who liked a certain level of order, and she generally maintained it for the purpose of letting her visitors know that she had everything under control and it was safe to relax. It was a habit she'd acted on without thinking. But of course, that was silly of her.

If he'd deliberately considered the best place for that kiss, he couldn't have done better, as her involuntary response proved. He had her full attention. She tossed aside the shirt dangling from her fingers, deciding she'd much rather deal with his instead, and went to work with a smile.

"Point taken," she muttered. "We're just gonna make it worse."

Whether someone actually remembered to hit the lights or if the narrative itself induced a fade to black, they would not later recall. Given the circumstances, the latter was probably most likely.

. . .

Jenni had set an alarm at some point, though. In most cases she woke at first light, but in a place with no sun that didn't work, so artificial methods had to suffice. Was she a morning person? Well, as a woman who routinely had things to do and places to be, taking advantage of the day just made sense, but she was not offensively chipper about it by any means, especially when it was dragging her from a very good night. The noise wasn't as loud or annoying as a console's beep, but in her head she cursed it just as thoroughly as any agent would have done a console. She'd ended up on the inside of the bed somehow—not her usual—so she had to stretch across Suicide to slap the damn thing silent. The brush of warm skin on skin just about made up for it.

(( Smooth enough, as it happens. g ))

Y helo thar. by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-17 02:40:00 UTC Reply

As usual, Suicide's awakening was accompanied by pain. He vaguely registered the shrilling of an alarm, but that took a distant second to the litany of other standard complaints--mainly joints that didn't want to move and prior injuries taking the opportunity to remind him of them. The phantom pain of old arrow wounds spread a dull ache across his shoulders.

On the other hand, Jenni was reaching across him, one arm extended and her chest brushing his as she reached to slap at the alarm. Now that was a good way to wake up.

Now other aches were making themselves known--aches of the much more preferable kind, the result of a willing and enthusiastic woman who had let him make good on every promise he'd been mentally making since that day in FicPsych. Was he too old for this kind of fooling around? Probably. Did he still feel like Herakles on earth? Definitely. Was he all right with the night being over? Not even a bit.

"Piss and blood," he muttered, raising his head from the rumpled pillow and shooting the alarm clock a death glare. Jenni had tried to retreat back to her side of the bed, but he rather preferred her where she was, and made his opinion known by running a hand down her back and grinning up at her. "You don't have to get up, do you? The patients aren't gettin' any crazier."

((sigh Smooth indeed. Sometimes I feel guilty for perpetrating this sleazy mofo. Then I remember how much fun this is and stop it. XD))

O hai. by Neshomeh on 2011-07-17 07:14:00 UTC Reply

While she was at it, Jenni flicked on the bedside lamp before—retreating? No no. Making some tactical readjustments. Lying half across a chest the size of the former squire's wouldn't stay comfortable for long. She settled down on her right side instead, head pillowed on his bicep while her left arm rested across his middle. She couldn't see very much from this angle, but given the choice between looking and cuddling, she took cuddling. Enthusiastic was a good word for the night's activities. Now, the path of least resistance had a special appeal.

"Mm, not as such," she replied, her voice hazy from sleep. "I mean, I can't stay here all day . . . as tempting as that is." Speaking of which, there was no chance that her hands, or at least the free one, would stay still for long, not with so much bare skin available for slow, casual exploration. She didn't understand how people could be as uptight as most of them were about touching in everyday life. The tactile sense was her favorite, bar none. She couldn't get enough.

"G'morning, by the way," she added, feeling a proper salutation was in order. "Sleep all right? I know I was worn out." She grinned—even if he couldn't see her face properly, he could probably feel it against his arm and hear it in her voice. As with the start of the evening, there had been trial and error, and there was room for improvement, but all Powers, learning was fun.

I can haz? by Tungsten_Monk on 2011-07-18 02:24:00 UTC Reply

Mmmmm. The aches were still there, but with Jenni's soft curves molded against him, they were hardly worth dwelling on. She'd pinioned his left arm quite neatly, especially since the feeling of her lips on the worn skin there was as strong an incentive as possible for not moving. If someone came barging through the door intent on mayhem, Suicide would have to throw her off before he could reach for the knife buried under his discarded clothes. At the moment, though, he was hard-pressed to give a damn.

(That same knife had provoked a Look from Jenni when she found it hidden in the small of his back last night . . . good times indeed.)

"Morning to you too," he said, shifting his weight a little to get comfortable on the rumpled sheets. He gave a slight hiss between his teeth as Jenni's wandering hand found one of the old disembowelment scars (not a good time) but didn't tense. That itself was a sign of how relaxed he felt.

"Slept like the dead," he added after a long moment. His voice was hoarse and rough; his body simply wasn't used to getting eight hours any more, especially not after having been so thoroughly worn out beforehand. He pulled Jenni a little closer and ran his right hand over the curve of her hip. "Better than I have in a while, in fact." A thought struck him, and he couldn't help grinning a bit himself as he stroked a thumb over Jenni's hipbone. "In fact, I think I might actually be sane this morning. So technically, you can say you've been on the clock this whole time . . . which means you're about due to come off shift and have some downtime yourself."

O rly? by Neshomeh on 2011-07-18 05:03:00 UTC Reply

At the hiss she paused her wandering and propped herself up on her right elbow to scope out what she'd touched. She hadn't been thinking about wounds and charts, but when she saw the extensive scar below his left ribs, and the others visible across his body, she matched them to the descriptions she'd read. A twinge of empathy momentarily intruded on her calm, but perhaps deliberately, Suicide didn't allow her time to dwell on it.

She was happy to snuggle closer. With all the moving around she'd done, despite her best intentions to be lazy, she'd almost completely lost her covering of blankets. She drew up her raised leg and crossed his thigh with it. Her hand went back to gently stroking his chest and abdomen, scars and all, with the occasional detour into light kneading where she sensed it would be appreciated.

His suggestion about having been on the clock got an all-too-ironic laugh. "Well, I'm glad, but . . . no . . . I don't think my bosses would approve at all. Shards, I wouldn't approve. Confusing business with pleasure is one sin I managed to avoid, and here you are encouraging me. You're a bad influence," she accused, looking down her nose with mock alarm. "Somebody should have warned me about you."