We used to wait. (Chapter 5/?)
title: We used to wait. (Chapter 5/?)
author:
apodixis
spoilers: Through all seasons, though this takes place in an AU starting at the very end of season 2.
pairings: kara/lee, kara/sam
overall fic rating: R/NC-17
word count: 4,755
notes: See http://apodixis.livejournal.com/685.html for more information.
summary: If God isn't leading the fleet to Earth, can they ever find it?
Caprica: 30 years before the Fall.
A year after that night at the bar and Dreilide found himself working for tips at a restaurant in Caprica City. The past few months were much of the same to him; he worked just enough to afford rent, food, and something of a casual alcohol habit, and spent the rest of the time trying to get down onto paper the notes he heard in his head. Late at night when the restaurant had said its goodbyes to the last of upper crust of Caprican society, Dreilide stayed late to hear how his latest additions sounded outside the cramped fit of his apartment.
On his way back at a time closer to dawn rather than dusk, he stopped at an all night diner a few blocks from the apartment he called home. He came here the nights he knew that sleep was going to avoid him and leave him just as exhausted as if he got none. Dreilide nodded his head to the waitress behind the counter, a young woman he had gotten to know during his late night visits when he was usually the sole customer. But he wasn’t alone that night, and as he went to take his usual seat at the third booth to the left, he noticed the mop of blonde hair busy between smoking a cigarette and eating what was left of her plate of eggs and a side of toast.
There wasn’t a second of hesitation as his steps continued on past the booth he was used to spending his nights in and the soft sound of his shoes followed him down to the very last table. He slid in without a word, settling his bag on the cushioned space between him and the wall as he moved to slip his coat off and made himself comfortable. He had the second sleeve off by time he looked up and those brown eyes were on him as she bit into a triangle of toast. It was a look he couldn’t read and for a second he wondered if this really was the woman he remembered from a crowded bar or if it was just a similar looking face. The panic rose up in his chest for a moment, but her head gave a motion of ascent towards him in acknowledgement as she sipped her coffee, maintaining the familiar silence.
“How many kids did you scare off tonight?”
She pondered the question for a moment and he saw the gears turning in her head as she recalled the last and only other time they met. They’d spent a few hours trading quiet glances and generalities about their lives. Every step he took in towards her, figuratively of course, she took another back, keeping him at arm’s length. Oh he’d learned plenty about her. She was a marine, had been for quite some time. A lifer, as she had called herself. She was down on Caprica on a bit of shore leave before she returned to the monotony of life on a battlestar. It hadn’t been her first choice of placements, preferring life on a base, but you rarely got what you wanted in the military. He’d asked her why she wasn’t with friends then, celebrating her return to soil and away from the black, but she had shrugged her shoulders and changed the subject. Dreilide got the hint.
“A handful.” Socrata spoke short and to the point as she continued to eat, her cigarette recently extinguished. The waitress brought him his own cup of coffee and refilled the blonde’s, leaving them in a temporary kind of peace.
“Only? That’s kind of disappointing.” Despite himself, he smiled at her and he decided to make himself busy by preparing his cup. Sugar went first, stirring the murky liquid with the small spoon before adding just enough milk until it turned a caramel color. “So how long are you here this time?”
“Don’t know yet. I’m stationed at the base out in Delphi for now.”
Dreilide nodded absentmindedly as he drew the steaming cup to his mouth for a tentative sip to test the temperature. Finding it cool enough, he went in for a longer sip before replacing it on the table, his fingers tracing over the handle.
“Do you always travel late at night with that much cargo?” His hand lifted suddenly, gesturing at the duffel bag beside her, packed full with what he assumed were her only worldly belongings.
“My ship was late getting in tonight and none of the transports were running out of the city. I’m kind of shit out of luck until morning.”
His stomach fluttered at the opening laid out before him. On one hand, he didn’t doubt a woman on the verge of giving a kidney shot to an unsuspecting kid in a bar would absolutely tear him apart for such a presumption. And on the other hand, Dreilide realized he couldn’t stand to not know if she would revert back to the behavior he’d seen in her before or soften up and take the risk.
“Look, I live a couple blocks from here. It isn’t great, it isn’t horrible. But you wouldn’t have to sit here for the next six hours contemplating life over an old cup of coffee.” He studied her face as he spoke, ready to shut himself up should her expression turn sour. “There’s no question you could beat me to within an inch of my life if I even so much as stepped out of whatever line you’ve got set for me…so I’m offering. There’s a couch. It’s actually a pretty comfortable couch.” He felt the pull of his mind starting to ramble so he shut himself off, eyes averted to his coffee then back up to her own face a moment later.
Socrata stilled as he spoke, her lips pursed as if in distaste to what she was hearing. She kept silent as usual, fork dragging across the off-white of her well worn plate, pushing around the remains of the very early breakfast she had treated herself to. It hadn’t been good, she remembered what good food was, but it had been better than most things she’d eaten over the last few months.
In a moment of unprecedented vulnerability, she let her mask down and let her shoulders slump with a sigh pushing past her lips. For once, her mannerism didn’t seem distant and calculated like he knew she needed for the career and lifestyle she found herself in. Her elbows rested against the table and her head into her hands, fingers pushing away her hair from her face as a glimpse of utter exhaustion washed over her in an instant.
“I haven’t slept in two frakking days.” Her words were quiet, almost ashamed to admit being so open about a potential moment of weakness. A second passed and she nodded to herself, fingers brushing hair back into place. She sat up a little straighter. It was almost as if she sucked life right back into her, Dreilide noted, but he knew now that it was all an act. She’d showed her cards, given away her tell, and it was like if a light had been turned on in him. What made her seem so strong a moment before was glaring of her humanity now.
She stood up suddenly, hand shoved into the pocket of her black military issued pants to fish out a couple of wrinkled cubits. They were tossed to the table and in another breath she was reaching for her bag, slinging it and its heavily weighted contents over her shoulder. When she saw him remaining unmoved, a hand slid to her hip in irritation, her words barked out. “Let’s go, then. I’ve covered your coffee.”
Dreilide moved like a fire was lit underneath him now, repeating the motions of pulling his coat back on but not bothering with the seconds to button it closed. His own bag was at hand and he lead the way out of the shop, nodding to the waitress on the way out just as he had on the way in. His back pressed against the glass door to push it open, watching her follow as if she’d suddenly disappear if he wasn’t keeping watch.
“Well thanks for the drink, but don’t expect me to be grateful,” he said, a lilt to his voice.
They walked shoulder to shoulder down the dim street. Dreilide would have believed himself to have imagined it, but he heard the quiet sound of her laughing.
-
Back in the apartment, Socrata played the polite houseguest, setting her duffel bag aside and out of the way so it wasn’t a nuisance in the limited space offered. Her arms immediately went around herself, a physical indication to just how nervous and uncomfortable she was. Dreilide’s mouth upturned ever so slightly at this, only because he could read her now as her body language gave her away. His own nervous stomach began to tingle and he cleared his throat like it would have helped clear his head. His arm swept out in front of him, as if the grand reveal of the small living room was something awe-inspiring.
“Well, here it is. Bathroom’s to the right. Kitchen’s over there. Bedroom’s the door just on past the bathroom.” He began to unconsciously straighten his belongings, quickly gathering every spare sheet of paper strewn across his coffee table, arms of the couch, and the top of the upright piano nestled in the back of the room. “Sorry, uh, about the mess.”
Socrata hardly listened though, instead letting her finger tips brush over nearby surfaces as she passed, inspecting her surroundings. It was moment that made Dreilide nearly sweat, her by-the-book marine tendencies coming out. But she didn’t say a thing, not even about the clear lack of dusting on his part any time in the last six months. Instead she seemed transfixed by the pages he seemed so interested in tucking away, out of sight and out of mind.
“When you said you played piano last time, I didn’t really take you seriously.” It was a confession delivered with a smirk on her lips, admitting that what she saw changed her opinion of him from some school kid with a pipe dream of making it big into the man he actually was. “Play me something.”
Dreilide’s movements paused as he glanced up at her from the shuffling papers. He knew whatever makeshift kind of order he had for these pieces were long since gone, and when she left he’d spend an hour tirelessly trying to put it all back into a kind of sense. “You don’t want to hear it, trust me.”
“But I do!” She interjected almost too quickly and too forcefully and he could tell her guard was down. Whether it was by choice or a lack of sleep, he couldn’t be sure. Her hand blindly reached into the pile of loosely stacked pages of hand written sheet music and tugged at the first thing she found purchase on.
“Whatever’s on this page. Play this one.”
She’s handed him back a particularly worn piece of paper and he visibly blanched as he read over the first few notes in succession. “That one will never be done. Don’t even know why I keep it.” He mumbled the last sentence as he turned, setting the stack on the high piano back. “You should pick another.”
Socrata hugged the piece of paper to the chest of her fatigues, fingers extended outward like she was keeping it safe. “You saying I shouldn’t hear it only makes me want to hear it even more.” There was a glint to her eye now as she teased him. Though she had barely even touched a piano herself, she moved as though she spent years there, lifting the cover over the keys and sliding it into place to expose the full set of black and white. The paper went just above, taunting Dreilide from its position. Socrata sat down on the end of the bench, palm patting at the wood beside her as she looked up at him. “Your neighbors won’t mind. Play quietly.”
An inner war raged inside and a bite of his lip had him nodding as he sat beside her. He played much more complicated pieces all evening for complete strangers without making a mistake, but his palms felt a little bit too warm and fingers a little bit too stiff. All ten extend out towards the keys just after he rolled his shoulders in some attempt at relaxation before he pressed down on his first set of notes. Instantly, he knew they were incorrect, maybe a finger just a half inch off and depressing a key that ruined all the rest. His fingers recoil quickly and he whispered off a quick apology before starting over.
Beside him, Socrata waited silent and still as her eyes locked on his hands and how they seem to glide effortlessly over the piano’s keys. She wasn’t a musician, but she couldn’t hear a single note out of place aside from his false start, and soon her eyes closed as he played through the bars of handwritten notes. He didn’t play long before he came to an abrupt end with a sigh and her eyes reopened, head turning to take in his face. “Why’d you stop?”
“That’s all I’ve got so far. I can’t ever figure out how the next part starts.” His face was defeated and he quickly pulled the cover of the keyboard back out, letting her know he wouldn’t be playing on despite her protestations, He was the more open one out of the complementary pair they made, but she could suddenly tell that sharing this left him a little open and raw, even for him. Or at least, for what she knew of him. His hand rested back on his legs and their fingers brushed just barely from their respective thighs. Socrata couldn’t help but realize this was the first time they touched since his hand settled on her arm a year ago when he pulled her back from the fight she had been ready to start.
She’s prided herself on being the ideal marine, at least when on duty. She obeyed orders. She was loyal. She didn’t back down or second guess herself when it came to her duties. It had been a decade since she fought at the end of the cylon war and she had long since said goodbye to her sense of fear when faced with death. But here and now in an apartment she was never in before and with a man she hardly knows, all common sense headed out the window.
Her hand slipt off her thigh and onto his, palming the back of his hand with a squeeze. It got his attention, eyes on her own that were heavy with a need for sleep and a little bit of something else. Dreilide hated to admit it, but he was unable to get that stern blonde out of his head for the last year. Part of him thought he dreamed her up, or at least some parts of her. As she sat next to him, though, smelling of cigarettes and generic military soap, he knew she was real.
He made the first move although he knew she was the predator of the two of them, most likely to lash out if being pressed into something she didn’t want. It was worth the risk. They both leaned in together but he closed that last inch of gap, lips brushing her own as he deferred to the side of caution. She didn’t turn him away, in fact her hand abandoned his own on his leg, letting fingers sift through his overgrown light brown hair as she pulled him in closer. Of all the things to think about, her first thoughts were that his hair cut was not anywhere close to regulation. It was a fleeting idea, though, and with her eyes closed tight she extended the kiss. She felt the brush of his unshaven skin to hers and the harshness of it woke her up just enough.
She was eager, he could tell by the way her other hand grasped at the suit jacket he still wore, before slipping inside it. Her fingers lingered on the buttons of his shirt and they pushed them back through the holes they were fastened to. Dreilide’s bravery grew and he let his own hand copy hers to tug the fatigue shirt open, recklessly pulling it out from where it was tucked in to her matching set of pants. Their lips broke and he panted against her jaw and pushed her shirt down off her shoulders to reveal the set of double tanks beneath. He was torn between enjoying the process of getting her undressed and cursing all the frakking layers he had to get through in order to find an expanse of skin on her.
Socrata was swimming in him, a mixture of exhaustion and desire pounding through every vein in her body as she let him lead. For once in her life, she relinquished control to someone who wasn’t a superior officer and allowed herself to just be. The cool air on her arms as she lost her shirt brought her back to the moment and all she thought about was just how long it was since she had a good frak. Far too long, she thought, and her decision was made. She was staying the rest of the night and it wasn’t going to be on that couch.
-
Hours later the, the sun peeked through the curtains that weren’t fully drawn. Dreilide was the first to stir and his head took a moment to put the situation in to focus. He laid on his side, free arm strewn across the back of the female beside him, asleep on her stomach. Socrata. He remembered it all slowly, the kiss and the urgency. He wasn’t sure what he loved more, the way she sounded when her whisper begged him to take her to bed or the way she looked beneath him afterward. A smile crept onto his face, a soft laugh quietly leaving his throat as he turned into her some more, kissing at the back of her neck and down along her spine.
She stirred eventually, a subdued groan given out as her hand groped blindly for the sheet bunched around her waist. She succeeded in pulling it up only a few inches before she abandoned her cause and turned her head on the pillow, eyes opening slowly as she took in the look of him first thing in the morning.
Before she gathered her things and ran, Dreilide leaned in and kissed against her cheek while he brushed the hair out of her face.
“I half expected you to be gone this morning.”
Her shoulder rolled up in both a shrug and a stretch. She looked unsure.
“If you’ve got somewhere to be…” Her voice trailed off but he cut in anyway, silencing any worried thoughts in her head.
“I don’t. I was planning on lying here with you.”
She smiled, a genuine smile this time. It was restrained, that much he knew, but it stunned him nonetheless. It had the power to induce his own lips to pull up in his own mutual look of happiness and suddenly he moved back in, kissed her shoulder blade and trailed fingers down the expanse of her back. His movements hitched as he felt the texture of her skin change, eyes shifting to take in the silvery scar tissue that extended along portions of her back. It alarmed him so much that his breath caught and he became concerned, like they were fresh wounds, still gaping and bleeding. They were old. Ancient, in fact, but it didn’t make it any easier to swallow.
Socrata rolled to her side and tugged the sheet up, sensing what he suddenly found. She covered herself to the throat and told herself she was just cold in justification. Her own eyes shut in an attempt to tune him and his inevitable questions out. She wasn’t sure how to avoid them without ruining the moment they managed to lock themselves into temporarily.
“What happened?” Dreilide whispered.
“Spent my first couple years in the ass end of the cylon war, what did you think?” She played nonchalant about it, letting the time between then and now insulate her from what she remembered and what she wished she didn’t.
“You seem too young to have been caught up in that.”
A snort escaped her and she laughed for just a moment, head shaking against her pillow. “Boy, you’re really working on the flattery here. Hate to break it to you but you didn’t just bed some twenty-something if you’re looking for a good brag.” Her eyes were still closed as she spoke, keeping up a barrier so she didn’t have to catch wind of the expressions across his face. “I didn’t get much training back then. They were kind of begging for bodies so we got bootcamp, a few months at an academy and they just sort of tossed us out all over the colonies to where they needed an eighteen year old for the cylons to play target practice with.”
He doubted that Socrata had ever talked much about this to anyone other than in an official capacity, so he made an attempt at keeping calm, trying not to let emotions betray him into something that would have surely scared her off.
“They sent me out to frakking Medra. You ever been there?” She paused, waiting for a mumble of acknowledgement or not before continuing on. “It’s a Gods damned jungle. Not only is it hot but the humidity is unbelievable. Of course the frakking toasters don’t care about that.” Her arm lifted and her forearm pressed across her eyes, blocking out the light of the room. “Cylons pushed us out of our base for awhile. We spent days out among the trees trying not to die of dehydration. The bugs,” she stopped for so long that Dreilide wasn’t sure if she was going to continue on, but she started up again just as his lips parted to prompt her to continue. “I still have nightmares about those frakking bugs. They’d get into your boots when you took them off to change your socks. I must’ve cleaned my gun a thousand times to keep them out of there. If you only got bit, you were lucky. One of the guys in my unit, they laid eggs under his skin. I remember just seeing him scratch and scratch at this red welt on his arm for days out there. By time he got to a doctor, a real doctor and not some field medic with a pack of gauze, they’d had to cut into the muscle to clean out the dead tissue.” She let the words sink in, not only for him but for herself as the images of it all flew on behind her closed eyelids. “Gods I’ll never forget the way what was left of his arm looked after surgery.”
Dreilide’s shallow breaths were exhaled in near silence as his own eyes shut, his brain trying to create moving images from the words she spoke. If this was the type of stuff she was willing to give out, he couldn’t imagine what she was holding back with. He knew then that there were be years of her life that he’d never be able to know and he didn’t know if he was thankful he would never have to imagine the horrors she endured, or upset that the possibility of knowing every secret this woman had would never come true.
He did the only thing he could think of, so he drew himself nearer to her and kissed the corner of her mouth, hand taking her own to remove the arm from over her eyes as he pinned it to her pillow. “It was a long time ago, Socrata. You don’t have to think about it anymore.”
Her breath left her throat with some force, her fingers squeezing his own as if in resistance to his attempt at brushing it under the rug. “And where the frak were you ten years ago? Most of us were out there dying and what were you doing? I bet you were just sitting in a frakking bar somewhere, complaining that we should make peace with the cylons!” Even she didn’t know where the outburst came from. Her eyes opened and locked with his as he stayed perfectly still.
How things had turned so completely, he wasn’t sure. He let go of her hand in a sign of good faith, but stayed as close as he was. “You’re right, I didn’t volunteer to fight. I was…” His words paused for a moment as he thought of what excuse to give. Even the truth wouldn’t placate her, that much he knew. “…I had some things going on at the time.”
She huffed out loud, head shaking as she rolled to her back, eyes skyward and on the white of his ceiling. “Don’t frakking tell me what I do and don’t have to think about anymore. You’ve got no idea, Dreilide. No Gods damned idea.”
“I don’t and I never said I did!” His tone matched hers and he breathed out a heavy, exaggerated breath as he fell to his back on the bed beside her, hands rubbing at his face as if to make sense of it all. He was immediately sorry for losing his calm. “Listen, I don’t want to fight with you. I can’t even imagine what happened to you out there. I’m not glad you went through it. Lying here with you, the last thing I want to know is how much pain you were in at some point in your life.” She opened her mouth to speak but he raised his hand to the air, cutting her off. “But it doesn’t mean I’d rather not know. And it doesn’t mean I’m not thankful you and everyone like you chose to serve the colonies.”
The room was quiet for the time being, the sound of their breathing the only tell that there was anyone even in it at all. Socrata sat up, feet planted on the floor as she turned to the side of the bed. She leaned forward, picking up the standard issue ladies briefs and made to slide them onto her legs when she felt his light touch at the familiar place on her arm.
“I want you to stay.”
Her spine arched forward and he watched her, reading the tension in her well muscled shoulders instead of mapping out every scar that crossed over the skin of her back. She seemed defeated as her fist gripped hard at the fabric in her hand, giving way to the nature of turmoil bundled up inside her ribcage. “You don’t need me here. It was great, but I know what this is. A one time thing and not only did I not have the decency to slip out at sunrise, but I just flipped out at you over nothing. I’ve overstayed my welcome.”
His head shook even though he knew she couldn’t see him since she faced away. His lips came down against a scar on her shoulder and his hand slid northward to her upper arm, giving her a squeeze of reassurance.
“You said on the walk here last night that you had a week to report for duty. So stay for a week. I work nights playing piano. I won’t drive you out of your mind all the time. Stay until you can’t stand me anymore.”
Socrata shook her head this time, at war with herself. “I can’t. I can’t, okay.”
“Mhm.” His unintelligible reply was further muffled as he kissed into the blonde hair that fell just past her shoulders. “Yes you can. It’s easy. You say you’ll stay, and you stay. It’s actually the easiest decision, because you have to do nothing.”
She smiled and let her underwear drop to the floor, leaning back into his body. His arms slid around her, passing on some of his warmth. Socrata didn’t verbalize her decision, but every muscle in her body told him what he needed to hear. She’d stay.
author:
apodixis
spoilers: Through all seasons, though this takes place in an AU starting at the very end of season 2.
pairings: kara/lee, kara/sam
overall fic rating: R/NC-17
word count: 4,755
notes: See http://apodixis.livejournal.com/685.html for more information.
summary: If God isn't leading the fleet to Earth, can they ever find it?
Caprica: 30 years before the Fall.
A year after that night at the bar and Dreilide found himself working for tips at a restaurant in Caprica City. The past few months were much of the same to him; he worked just enough to afford rent, food, and something of a casual alcohol habit, and spent the rest of the time trying to get down onto paper the notes he heard in his head. Late at night when the restaurant had said its goodbyes to the last of upper crust of Caprican society, Dreilide stayed late to hear how his latest additions sounded outside the cramped fit of his apartment.
On his way back at a time closer to dawn rather than dusk, he stopped at an all night diner a few blocks from the apartment he called home. He came here the nights he knew that sleep was going to avoid him and leave him just as exhausted as if he got none. Dreilide nodded his head to the waitress behind the counter, a young woman he had gotten to know during his late night visits when he was usually the sole customer. But he wasn’t alone that night, and as he went to take his usual seat at the third booth to the left, he noticed the mop of blonde hair busy between smoking a cigarette and eating what was left of her plate of eggs and a side of toast.
There wasn’t a second of hesitation as his steps continued on past the booth he was used to spending his nights in and the soft sound of his shoes followed him down to the very last table. He slid in without a word, settling his bag on the cushioned space between him and the wall as he moved to slip his coat off and made himself comfortable. He had the second sleeve off by time he looked up and those brown eyes were on him as she bit into a triangle of toast. It was a look he couldn’t read and for a second he wondered if this really was the woman he remembered from a crowded bar or if it was just a similar looking face. The panic rose up in his chest for a moment, but her head gave a motion of ascent towards him in acknowledgement as she sipped her coffee, maintaining the familiar silence.
“How many kids did you scare off tonight?”
She pondered the question for a moment and he saw the gears turning in her head as she recalled the last and only other time they met. They’d spent a few hours trading quiet glances and generalities about their lives. Every step he took in towards her, figuratively of course, she took another back, keeping him at arm’s length. Oh he’d learned plenty about her. She was a marine, had been for quite some time. A lifer, as she had called herself. She was down on Caprica on a bit of shore leave before she returned to the monotony of life on a battlestar. It hadn’t been her first choice of placements, preferring life on a base, but you rarely got what you wanted in the military. He’d asked her why she wasn’t with friends then, celebrating her return to soil and away from the black, but she had shrugged her shoulders and changed the subject. Dreilide got the hint.
“A handful.” Socrata spoke short and to the point as she continued to eat, her cigarette recently extinguished. The waitress brought him his own cup of coffee and refilled the blonde’s, leaving them in a temporary kind of peace.
“Only? That’s kind of disappointing.” Despite himself, he smiled at her and he decided to make himself busy by preparing his cup. Sugar went first, stirring the murky liquid with the small spoon before adding just enough milk until it turned a caramel color. “So how long are you here this time?”
“Don’t know yet. I’m stationed at the base out in Delphi for now.”
Dreilide nodded absentmindedly as he drew the steaming cup to his mouth for a tentative sip to test the temperature. Finding it cool enough, he went in for a longer sip before replacing it on the table, his fingers tracing over the handle.
“Do you always travel late at night with that much cargo?” His hand lifted suddenly, gesturing at the duffel bag beside her, packed full with what he assumed were her only worldly belongings.
“My ship was late getting in tonight and none of the transports were running out of the city. I’m kind of shit out of luck until morning.”
His stomach fluttered at the opening laid out before him. On one hand, he didn’t doubt a woman on the verge of giving a kidney shot to an unsuspecting kid in a bar would absolutely tear him apart for such a presumption. And on the other hand, Dreilide realized he couldn’t stand to not know if she would revert back to the behavior he’d seen in her before or soften up and take the risk.
“Look, I live a couple blocks from here. It isn’t great, it isn’t horrible. But you wouldn’t have to sit here for the next six hours contemplating life over an old cup of coffee.” He studied her face as he spoke, ready to shut himself up should her expression turn sour. “There’s no question you could beat me to within an inch of my life if I even so much as stepped out of whatever line you’ve got set for me…so I’m offering. There’s a couch. It’s actually a pretty comfortable couch.” He felt the pull of his mind starting to ramble so he shut himself off, eyes averted to his coffee then back up to her own face a moment later.
Socrata stilled as he spoke, her lips pursed as if in distaste to what she was hearing. She kept silent as usual, fork dragging across the off-white of her well worn plate, pushing around the remains of the very early breakfast she had treated herself to. It hadn’t been good, she remembered what good food was, but it had been better than most things she’d eaten over the last few months.
In a moment of unprecedented vulnerability, she let her mask down and let her shoulders slump with a sigh pushing past her lips. For once, her mannerism didn’t seem distant and calculated like he knew she needed for the career and lifestyle she found herself in. Her elbows rested against the table and her head into her hands, fingers pushing away her hair from her face as a glimpse of utter exhaustion washed over her in an instant.
“I haven’t slept in two frakking days.” Her words were quiet, almost ashamed to admit being so open about a potential moment of weakness. A second passed and she nodded to herself, fingers brushing hair back into place. She sat up a little straighter. It was almost as if she sucked life right back into her, Dreilide noted, but he knew now that it was all an act. She’d showed her cards, given away her tell, and it was like if a light had been turned on in him. What made her seem so strong a moment before was glaring of her humanity now.
She stood up suddenly, hand shoved into the pocket of her black military issued pants to fish out a couple of wrinkled cubits. They were tossed to the table and in another breath she was reaching for her bag, slinging it and its heavily weighted contents over her shoulder. When she saw him remaining unmoved, a hand slid to her hip in irritation, her words barked out. “Let’s go, then. I’ve covered your coffee.”
Dreilide moved like a fire was lit underneath him now, repeating the motions of pulling his coat back on but not bothering with the seconds to button it closed. His own bag was at hand and he lead the way out of the shop, nodding to the waitress on the way out just as he had on the way in. His back pressed against the glass door to push it open, watching her follow as if she’d suddenly disappear if he wasn’t keeping watch.
“Well thanks for the drink, but don’t expect me to be grateful,” he said, a lilt to his voice.
They walked shoulder to shoulder down the dim street. Dreilide would have believed himself to have imagined it, but he heard the quiet sound of her laughing.
-
Back in the apartment, Socrata played the polite houseguest, setting her duffel bag aside and out of the way so it wasn’t a nuisance in the limited space offered. Her arms immediately went around herself, a physical indication to just how nervous and uncomfortable she was. Dreilide’s mouth upturned ever so slightly at this, only because he could read her now as her body language gave her away. His own nervous stomach began to tingle and he cleared his throat like it would have helped clear his head. His arm swept out in front of him, as if the grand reveal of the small living room was something awe-inspiring.
“Well, here it is. Bathroom’s to the right. Kitchen’s over there. Bedroom’s the door just on past the bathroom.” He began to unconsciously straighten his belongings, quickly gathering every spare sheet of paper strewn across his coffee table, arms of the couch, and the top of the upright piano nestled in the back of the room. “Sorry, uh, about the mess.”
Socrata hardly listened though, instead letting her finger tips brush over nearby surfaces as she passed, inspecting her surroundings. It was moment that made Dreilide nearly sweat, her by-the-book marine tendencies coming out. But she didn’t say a thing, not even about the clear lack of dusting on his part any time in the last six months. Instead she seemed transfixed by the pages he seemed so interested in tucking away, out of sight and out of mind.
“When you said you played piano last time, I didn’t really take you seriously.” It was a confession delivered with a smirk on her lips, admitting that what she saw changed her opinion of him from some school kid with a pipe dream of making it big into the man he actually was. “Play me something.”
Dreilide’s movements paused as he glanced up at her from the shuffling papers. He knew whatever makeshift kind of order he had for these pieces were long since gone, and when she left he’d spend an hour tirelessly trying to put it all back into a kind of sense. “You don’t want to hear it, trust me.”
“But I do!” She interjected almost too quickly and too forcefully and he could tell her guard was down. Whether it was by choice or a lack of sleep, he couldn’t be sure. Her hand blindly reached into the pile of loosely stacked pages of hand written sheet music and tugged at the first thing she found purchase on.
“Whatever’s on this page. Play this one.”
She’s handed him back a particularly worn piece of paper and he visibly blanched as he read over the first few notes in succession. “That one will never be done. Don’t even know why I keep it.” He mumbled the last sentence as he turned, setting the stack on the high piano back. “You should pick another.”
Socrata hugged the piece of paper to the chest of her fatigues, fingers extended outward like she was keeping it safe. “You saying I shouldn’t hear it only makes me want to hear it even more.” There was a glint to her eye now as she teased him. Though she had barely even touched a piano herself, she moved as though she spent years there, lifting the cover over the keys and sliding it into place to expose the full set of black and white. The paper went just above, taunting Dreilide from its position. Socrata sat down on the end of the bench, palm patting at the wood beside her as she looked up at him. “Your neighbors won’t mind. Play quietly.”
An inner war raged inside and a bite of his lip had him nodding as he sat beside her. He played much more complicated pieces all evening for complete strangers without making a mistake, but his palms felt a little bit too warm and fingers a little bit too stiff. All ten extend out towards the keys just after he rolled his shoulders in some attempt at relaxation before he pressed down on his first set of notes. Instantly, he knew they were incorrect, maybe a finger just a half inch off and depressing a key that ruined all the rest. His fingers recoil quickly and he whispered off a quick apology before starting over.
Beside him, Socrata waited silent and still as her eyes locked on his hands and how they seem to glide effortlessly over the piano’s keys. She wasn’t a musician, but she couldn’t hear a single note out of place aside from his false start, and soon her eyes closed as he played through the bars of handwritten notes. He didn’t play long before he came to an abrupt end with a sigh and her eyes reopened, head turning to take in his face. “Why’d you stop?”
“That’s all I’ve got so far. I can’t ever figure out how the next part starts.” His face was defeated and he quickly pulled the cover of the keyboard back out, letting her know he wouldn’t be playing on despite her protestations, He was the more open one out of the complementary pair they made, but she could suddenly tell that sharing this left him a little open and raw, even for him. Or at least, for what she knew of him. His hand rested back on his legs and their fingers brushed just barely from their respective thighs. Socrata couldn’t help but realize this was the first time they touched since his hand settled on her arm a year ago when he pulled her back from the fight she had been ready to start.
She’s prided herself on being the ideal marine, at least when on duty. She obeyed orders. She was loyal. She didn’t back down or second guess herself when it came to her duties. It had been a decade since she fought at the end of the cylon war and she had long since said goodbye to her sense of fear when faced with death. But here and now in an apartment she was never in before and with a man she hardly knows, all common sense headed out the window.
Her hand slipt off her thigh and onto his, palming the back of his hand with a squeeze. It got his attention, eyes on her own that were heavy with a need for sleep and a little bit of something else. Dreilide hated to admit it, but he was unable to get that stern blonde out of his head for the last year. Part of him thought he dreamed her up, or at least some parts of her. As she sat next to him, though, smelling of cigarettes and generic military soap, he knew she was real.
He made the first move although he knew she was the predator of the two of them, most likely to lash out if being pressed into something she didn’t want. It was worth the risk. They both leaned in together but he closed that last inch of gap, lips brushing her own as he deferred to the side of caution. She didn’t turn him away, in fact her hand abandoned his own on his leg, letting fingers sift through his overgrown light brown hair as she pulled him in closer. Of all the things to think about, her first thoughts were that his hair cut was not anywhere close to regulation. It was a fleeting idea, though, and with her eyes closed tight she extended the kiss. She felt the brush of his unshaven skin to hers and the harshness of it woke her up just enough.
She was eager, he could tell by the way her other hand grasped at the suit jacket he still wore, before slipping inside it. Her fingers lingered on the buttons of his shirt and they pushed them back through the holes they were fastened to. Dreilide’s bravery grew and he let his own hand copy hers to tug the fatigue shirt open, recklessly pulling it out from where it was tucked in to her matching set of pants. Their lips broke and he panted against her jaw and pushed her shirt down off her shoulders to reveal the set of double tanks beneath. He was torn between enjoying the process of getting her undressed and cursing all the frakking layers he had to get through in order to find an expanse of skin on her.
Socrata was swimming in him, a mixture of exhaustion and desire pounding through every vein in her body as she let him lead. For once in her life, she relinquished control to someone who wasn’t a superior officer and allowed herself to just be. The cool air on her arms as she lost her shirt brought her back to the moment and all she thought about was just how long it was since she had a good frak. Far too long, she thought, and her decision was made. She was staying the rest of the night and it wasn’t going to be on that couch.
-
Hours later the, the sun peeked through the curtains that weren’t fully drawn. Dreilide was the first to stir and his head took a moment to put the situation in to focus. He laid on his side, free arm strewn across the back of the female beside him, asleep on her stomach. Socrata. He remembered it all slowly, the kiss and the urgency. He wasn’t sure what he loved more, the way she sounded when her whisper begged him to take her to bed or the way she looked beneath him afterward. A smile crept onto his face, a soft laugh quietly leaving his throat as he turned into her some more, kissing at the back of her neck and down along her spine.
She stirred eventually, a subdued groan given out as her hand groped blindly for the sheet bunched around her waist. She succeeded in pulling it up only a few inches before she abandoned her cause and turned her head on the pillow, eyes opening slowly as she took in the look of him first thing in the morning.
Before she gathered her things and ran, Dreilide leaned in and kissed against her cheek while he brushed the hair out of her face.
“I half expected you to be gone this morning.”
Her shoulder rolled up in both a shrug and a stretch. She looked unsure.
“If you’ve got somewhere to be…” Her voice trailed off but he cut in anyway, silencing any worried thoughts in her head.
“I don’t. I was planning on lying here with you.”
She smiled, a genuine smile this time. It was restrained, that much he knew, but it stunned him nonetheless. It had the power to induce his own lips to pull up in his own mutual look of happiness and suddenly he moved back in, kissed her shoulder blade and trailed fingers down the expanse of her back. His movements hitched as he felt the texture of her skin change, eyes shifting to take in the silvery scar tissue that extended along portions of her back. It alarmed him so much that his breath caught and he became concerned, like they were fresh wounds, still gaping and bleeding. They were old. Ancient, in fact, but it didn’t make it any easier to swallow.
Socrata rolled to her side and tugged the sheet up, sensing what he suddenly found. She covered herself to the throat and told herself she was just cold in justification. Her own eyes shut in an attempt to tune him and his inevitable questions out. She wasn’t sure how to avoid them without ruining the moment they managed to lock themselves into temporarily.
“What happened?” Dreilide whispered.
“Spent my first couple years in the ass end of the cylon war, what did you think?” She played nonchalant about it, letting the time between then and now insulate her from what she remembered and what she wished she didn’t.
“You seem too young to have been caught up in that.”
A snort escaped her and she laughed for just a moment, head shaking against her pillow. “Boy, you’re really working on the flattery here. Hate to break it to you but you didn’t just bed some twenty-something if you’re looking for a good brag.” Her eyes were still closed as she spoke, keeping up a barrier so she didn’t have to catch wind of the expressions across his face. “I didn’t get much training back then. They were kind of begging for bodies so we got bootcamp, a few months at an academy and they just sort of tossed us out all over the colonies to where they needed an eighteen year old for the cylons to play target practice with.”
He doubted that Socrata had ever talked much about this to anyone other than in an official capacity, so he made an attempt at keeping calm, trying not to let emotions betray him into something that would have surely scared her off.
“They sent me out to frakking Medra. You ever been there?” She paused, waiting for a mumble of acknowledgement or not before continuing on. “It’s a Gods damned jungle. Not only is it hot but the humidity is unbelievable. Of course the frakking toasters don’t care about that.” Her arm lifted and her forearm pressed across her eyes, blocking out the light of the room. “Cylons pushed us out of our base for awhile. We spent days out among the trees trying not to die of dehydration. The bugs,” she stopped for so long that Dreilide wasn’t sure if she was going to continue on, but she started up again just as his lips parted to prompt her to continue. “I still have nightmares about those frakking bugs. They’d get into your boots when you took them off to change your socks. I must’ve cleaned my gun a thousand times to keep them out of there. If you only got bit, you were lucky. One of the guys in my unit, they laid eggs under his skin. I remember just seeing him scratch and scratch at this red welt on his arm for days out there. By time he got to a doctor, a real doctor and not some field medic with a pack of gauze, they’d had to cut into the muscle to clean out the dead tissue.” She let the words sink in, not only for him but for herself as the images of it all flew on behind her closed eyelids. “Gods I’ll never forget the way what was left of his arm looked after surgery.”
Dreilide’s shallow breaths were exhaled in near silence as his own eyes shut, his brain trying to create moving images from the words she spoke. If this was the type of stuff she was willing to give out, he couldn’t imagine what she was holding back with. He knew then that there were be years of her life that he’d never be able to know and he didn’t know if he was thankful he would never have to imagine the horrors she endured, or upset that the possibility of knowing every secret this woman had would never come true.
He did the only thing he could think of, so he drew himself nearer to her and kissed the corner of her mouth, hand taking her own to remove the arm from over her eyes as he pinned it to her pillow. “It was a long time ago, Socrata. You don’t have to think about it anymore.”
Her breath left her throat with some force, her fingers squeezing his own as if in resistance to his attempt at brushing it under the rug. “And where the frak were you ten years ago? Most of us were out there dying and what were you doing? I bet you were just sitting in a frakking bar somewhere, complaining that we should make peace with the cylons!” Even she didn’t know where the outburst came from. Her eyes opened and locked with his as he stayed perfectly still.
How things had turned so completely, he wasn’t sure. He let go of her hand in a sign of good faith, but stayed as close as he was. “You’re right, I didn’t volunteer to fight. I was…” His words paused for a moment as he thought of what excuse to give. Even the truth wouldn’t placate her, that much he knew. “…I had some things going on at the time.”
She huffed out loud, head shaking as she rolled to her back, eyes skyward and on the white of his ceiling. “Don’t frakking tell me what I do and don’t have to think about anymore. You’ve got no idea, Dreilide. No Gods damned idea.”
“I don’t and I never said I did!” His tone matched hers and he breathed out a heavy, exaggerated breath as he fell to his back on the bed beside her, hands rubbing at his face as if to make sense of it all. He was immediately sorry for losing his calm. “Listen, I don’t want to fight with you. I can’t even imagine what happened to you out there. I’m not glad you went through it. Lying here with you, the last thing I want to know is how much pain you were in at some point in your life.” She opened her mouth to speak but he raised his hand to the air, cutting her off. “But it doesn’t mean I’d rather not know. And it doesn’t mean I’m not thankful you and everyone like you chose to serve the colonies.”
The room was quiet for the time being, the sound of their breathing the only tell that there was anyone even in it at all. Socrata sat up, feet planted on the floor as she turned to the side of the bed. She leaned forward, picking up the standard issue ladies briefs and made to slide them onto her legs when she felt his light touch at the familiar place on her arm.
“I want you to stay.”
Her spine arched forward and he watched her, reading the tension in her well muscled shoulders instead of mapping out every scar that crossed over the skin of her back. She seemed defeated as her fist gripped hard at the fabric in her hand, giving way to the nature of turmoil bundled up inside her ribcage. “You don’t need me here. It was great, but I know what this is. A one time thing and not only did I not have the decency to slip out at sunrise, but I just flipped out at you over nothing. I’ve overstayed my welcome.”
His head shook even though he knew she couldn’t see him since she faced away. His lips came down against a scar on her shoulder and his hand slid northward to her upper arm, giving her a squeeze of reassurance.
“You said on the walk here last night that you had a week to report for duty. So stay for a week. I work nights playing piano. I won’t drive you out of your mind all the time. Stay until you can’t stand me anymore.”
Socrata shook her head this time, at war with herself. “I can’t. I can’t, okay.”
“Mhm.” His unintelligible reply was further muffled as he kissed into the blonde hair that fell just past her shoulders. “Yes you can. It’s easy. You say you’ll stay, and you stay. It’s actually the easiest decision, because you have to do nothing.”
She smiled and let her underwear drop to the floor, leaning back into his body. His arms slid around her, passing on some of his warmth. Socrata didn’t verbalize her decision, but every muscle in her body told him what he needed to hear. She’d stay.