01-24-2024, 09:13 PM
Natalie didn’t spend long showering, but she wasn’t surprised to find him asleep when she returned. She cleared the plate from his lap, noting the bloody jeans with at least a little distaste. Jay looked soft and unguarded in sleep. But she wasn’t sure it was peace that smoothed the lines from his face so much as pure exhaustion. Not that she'd ever dwell on his Dominion work, no more than she’d ever likely ask him about what he’d done in his tenure as a marine or legionnaire. Their time in America had been scant insight really; she’d never even seen inside his family home. But she thought she understood enough of the suburbia he’d chosen to leave behind to lead this kind of life, and why.
As she pulled a blanket up over him, it was afterwards she thought about; the bloody knuckles and splattered colour of still-healing bruises that she suspected did not have anything to do with the Custody and instead had everything to do with the ruined pain in his chest. She didn’t know how long he had been in the tunnels, but weeks had passed. She hated to think what he’d been putting himself through since then, though from the litany of drunken messages she had some idea – and Natalie was regrettably familiar with the spiralling madness of self-destruction. She wished he’d called; or maybe that she had, beyond that one message. But sometimes falling was the only way to get through it, and it only mattered where you crash landed in the end.
She didn’t linger, reluctant to risk waking him – he was an habitually light sleeper. Though she did glance back over at him when she realised he’d gone to the trouble of finding cutlery and laying a setting. The attempt at homeliness twitched half an amused smile to her lips; she didn’t think she’d eaten a single meal at the table since she’d been in the apartment. But it pulled like a knot behind her ribs too, one she didn’t pause to unpick or acknowledge. Instead she cleared up the food, and ate a little as she did so.
Afterwards she dimmed the lights down, and just used the glow of her screen to see. She’d cleared and cleaned everything away, but sat at the table, mostly because she didn’t want to disturb him on the sofa. There was always something to be getting on with, and she preferred it to the treachery of thoughts to be found in quiet times. Most of it was pedestrian, or related to the property and its renovation. But the networking itself was surprisingly time consuming. She didn’t enjoy it particularly, but she was good at it.
In the meantime she tried not to think about DeGarmo.
When Jay later roused, Natalie glanced up from the work on reflex. His sleepy half-grin fluttered all sorts of feelings inside, all of them foolish, so she only smirked and jibed at his unfathomable stomach. But her heart was beating fast inside, and she realised it was because she half expected him to make an excuse to leave now. Not an unkind one, but one that reestablished the tentative line he set between them. The desperate crash of emotion that brought them together was one thing; a connection too strong for their own good. But this was not a remote motel in a wilderness beyond the CCD, where such fantasies could take flight in moonlight’s embrace and dissipate safely by morning. He’d been joking about the booty call, she knew, but humour was a softer weapon than all the reasons he might have not to stay.
When he pat the cushion instead, it was her own inner reflection which cast her in a moment’s contemplation. Not surprise, but the stirrings of something more delicate, and she felt her guard slip as thoroughly as that red dress had puddled on the floor. For once she did not recoil from her own vulnerabilities laid bare. She thought about telling him she had a perfectly good bed, but in the end she just crawled in silently next to him. He was warm, and it felt like sinking into something safe. An entirely different kind of escape; one that battened down the hatches, and left just the two of them in a place she had never shared with another.
For a while she drifted in the sensation of his rhythmic breathing against her back. But it was the fingers drifting up and down her arm that melted her. She never felt them slow to a stop; she fell asleep first.
As she pulled a blanket up over him, it was afterwards she thought about; the bloody knuckles and splattered colour of still-healing bruises that she suspected did not have anything to do with the Custody and instead had everything to do with the ruined pain in his chest. She didn’t know how long he had been in the tunnels, but weeks had passed. She hated to think what he’d been putting himself through since then, though from the litany of drunken messages she had some idea – and Natalie was regrettably familiar with the spiralling madness of self-destruction. She wished he’d called; or maybe that she had, beyond that one message. But sometimes falling was the only way to get through it, and it only mattered where you crash landed in the end.
She didn’t linger, reluctant to risk waking him – he was an habitually light sleeper. Though she did glance back over at him when she realised he’d gone to the trouble of finding cutlery and laying a setting. The attempt at homeliness twitched half an amused smile to her lips; she didn’t think she’d eaten a single meal at the table since she’d been in the apartment. But it pulled like a knot behind her ribs too, one she didn’t pause to unpick or acknowledge. Instead she cleared up the food, and ate a little as she did so.
Afterwards she dimmed the lights down, and just used the glow of her screen to see. She’d cleared and cleaned everything away, but sat at the table, mostly because she didn’t want to disturb him on the sofa. There was always something to be getting on with, and she preferred it to the treachery of thoughts to be found in quiet times. Most of it was pedestrian, or related to the property and its renovation. But the networking itself was surprisingly time consuming. She didn’t enjoy it particularly, but she was good at it.
In the meantime she tried not to think about DeGarmo.
When Jay later roused, Natalie glanced up from the work on reflex. His sleepy half-grin fluttered all sorts of feelings inside, all of them foolish, so she only smirked and jibed at his unfathomable stomach. But her heart was beating fast inside, and she realised it was because she half expected him to make an excuse to leave now. Not an unkind one, but one that reestablished the tentative line he set between them. The desperate crash of emotion that brought them together was one thing; a connection too strong for their own good. But this was not a remote motel in a wilderness beyond the CCD, where such fantasies could take flight in moonlight’s embrace and dissipate safely by morning. He’d been joking about the booty call, she knew, but humour was a softer weapon than all the reasons he might have not to stay.
When he pat the cushion instead, it was her own inner reflection which cast her in a moment’s contemplation. Not surprise, but the stirrings of something more delicate, and she felt her guard slip as thoroughly as that red dress had puddled on the floor. For once she did not recoil from her own vulnerabilities laid bare. She thought about telling him she had a perfectly good bed, but in the end she just crawled in silently next to him. He was warm, and it felt like sinking into something safe. An entirely different kind of escape; one that battened down the hatches, and left just the two of them in a place she had never shared with another.
For a while she drifted in the sensation of his rhythmic breathing against her back. But it was the fingers drifting up and down her arm that melted her. She never felt them slow to a stop; she fell asleep first.