Fic? Set in Atia-verse.
Title: And Then She Fell
Rating: PG-13, I guess
Characters/Paring: The Orgasm House
Summary: Having your eyes opened isn't always a good thing.
They kiss one night before she finally goes to bed (it's not like it hasn't happened before, not supposed to be anything special) and she totally understands what the fuss is about, what everyone was telling her. Like a bud blooming, Beato said. It makes perfect sense.
It was how she felt right before she transformed, energy crackling under just under her skin, every nerve on fire. It's like she imagines having her strength back would feel like. The most powerful she's ever felt.
The weakest she's ever felt.
Weren't you supposed to to be able to tell if the other person felt it too, this magic? Did she miss that class, or did the Academy forget to teach her this damn lesson too? She should have asked Kia when she had the chance.
Kia. Her boss/teacher/landlord and friend. More, really. Like the big brother she never had mixed with . . . something that sparked, made her head spin sometimes. Family, but not. Family didn't kiss her breathless just to tease, and definitely didn't make her chant his name over and over like some perverse prayer when he-
Yeah, that was Kia. A Terran, a powerless one at that, who could charm damn near anyone given enough time. Which wasn't ever a problem, but . . .
Dirk loved him, like the love the people talked about on the network, and were looking for all the time. The real, true, accept you as you are kind of stuff that her parents had. The kind she never even dreamed of having before this place (strength yes, glory certainly, but not this). And she supported it. Hell, she wanted them together too. It made sense to her. Like . . . the sea and the shore. They were damn near yin and yang, and there's no room for other colors in that. (It's too much to ask for her to think about Louise, the spector over all of this, right now.) She just couldn't make herself fit. She wasn't a Terran, she wasn't even supposed to want to fit.
She was much too proud to admit her fear to them leaving her, too strong to focus on it, but it was there. You didn't live on Atia with getting some scars on your heart, after all. Even if you were an immortal Ctarl-Ctarl, who was still an eighteen year-old girl under that.
And so, Aisha's the one to break off the dizzying, maddening, kiss. She has to force herself to stop touching him at all, and it's annoying how much she wants it to continue. It's only the best kiss she's had since she's gotten here (and that means ever), and it makes her heart shift. She was Alice, and this was some hellish version of Wonderland, because she knows what down this rabbithole already. Her heartbeat's loud enough for the dogs to hear, and her ears twitch. She takes a step back, eye contact is made.
His eyes meet with hers, gorgeous, a bright blue, darkening with something that she can't recognize. The ambassdor abandoning her now. There are questions there, ones she's not prepared to answer. Then her heart flutters, and she knows she's so fucked. Cupping her hands over her mouth, she heads to her room, steps feeling like lead.
It's a coward's retreat, she knows. Still, she locks the door.
Sleep doesn't come, her longing to rest just as unrequited as her feelings are.