Let me lay down beside you
For ar_drabbles challenge 64, Kobol. So, bsg_aussiegirl, how'm I doing on the "learning to do RCT" front?
He had never thought of sleeping with a woman as intimate. He had shared co-ed pilot bunkrooms, slept with Carolanne for years. Intimacies were for the waking hours; sleep was just oblivion.
The waking hours with Laura Roslin were easy. Sitting with her under a tarp, offering her unrequested forgiveness, reaching a détente. Tasting the syllables of "Laura" on his lips instead of spitting out the slander of "schoolteacher" or saluting the formality of "Madam President." Afterwards speaking of his near-death and hers approaching, of what still had to be done, the conversation of two veterans drafted to fight a last great war.
They spoke and watched the rain fall outside their tarp. They spoke as darkness fell. His answers came slower as his strength flagged. Her answers were punctuated by barely-suppressed gasps of pain. He tried to take his pain medication without her noticing, she tried to take her chamalla without his noticing. They laughed when they discovered how poor they both were at this subterfuge.
When her answers tapered off entirely he moved closer, curious about what chamalla did to a person. She was asleep, curled up with a hand beneath her cheek like the little girl she once had been. In his head things shifted, thoughts and ideas and suppositions, and he felt he learned more about Laura in scant minutes than he had learned about Roslin in months. He wondered if she'd ever allowed someone to see her this way, unguarded, the masks set aside. He doubted it -- he'd never let anyone see him that way, either.
He stretched out behind her, his arm and his jacket draped over her like a blanket. He hoped she'd wake in the night, turn over, watch him sleep, and learn the secrets he was still afraid to voice.
He had never thought of sleeping with a woman as intimate. He had shared co-ed pilot bunkrooms, slept with Carolanne for years. Intimacies were for the waking hours; sleep was just oblivion.
The waking hours with Laura Roslin were easy. Sitting with her under a tarp, offering her unrequested forgiveness, reaching a détente. Tasting the syllables of "Laura" on his lips instead of spitting out the slander of "schoolteacher" or saluting the formality of "Madam President." Afterwards speaking of his near-death and hers approaching, of what still had to be done, the conversation of two veterans drafted to fight a last great war.
They spoke and watched the rain fall outside their tarp. They spoke as darkness fell. His answers came slower as his strength flagged. Her answers were punctuated by barely-suppressed gasps of pain. He tried to take his pain medication without her noticing, she tried to take her chamalla without his noticing. They laughed when they discovered how poor they both were at this subterfuge.
When her answers tapered off entirely he moved closer, curious about what chamalla did to a person. She was asleep, curled up with a hand beneath her cheek like the little girl she once had been. In his head things shifted, thoughts and ideas and suppositions, and he felt he learned more about Laura in scant minutes than he had learned about Roslin in months. He wondered if she'd ever allowed someone to see her this way, unguarded, the masks set aside. He doubted it -- he'd never let anyone see him that way, either.
He stretched out behind her, his arm and his jacket draped over her like a blanket. He hoped she'd wake in the night, turn over, watch him sleep, and learn the secrets he was still afraid to voice.