Orrie likes arrows (sagittal) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-05-22 23:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | green arrow, lady |
Who: Valerie and Orin
What: Talking, drinking and falling overboard
Where: Orin's boat and the water
When: Say now
Warnings: None
Valerie was tired; she felt vulnerable, uncertain, ill at ease. Therefore she took her time getting ready. She told Orin five.. or was it fifteen minutes? Whatever she’d told him, as soon as she was a little more awake and she’d dusted some of the nightmare from the corners of her eyes, she realized she needed more time to put her armor on. The car idled and the driver waited as Valerie brushed out a silk shirt and high-waisted black skirt, and then they waited a little more after she had the cosmetics on so she could pack some ingredients in a paper bag. She got out at the dock not long after in heels that shone and hair brushed up and curled. Armor in place.
There was only one boat on the dock that was lit, and it wasn’t the yacht Orin had taken her out on before. It was at the end of the dock, identifiable as some shade of blue, even in the hours before sunlight, and it was much smaller. A cruiser, she was only 48 feet, which was much smaller than the yacht that took up most of the dock with its bulk. Inside, there wasn’t any movement, no indication someone was waiting, not beyond the lights and the sound of the motor turning in the water slowly. The end of the boat was even with the dock, which meant it was a simple step onto the port deck. The door to the cabin was closed, but not locked, and the maritime radio could be heard every so often, announcing storms and ice and whale sightings.
Valerie knew very little about boats. She had never married a man of the water, and she stayed on land, where she had been born and where she thought she belonged. Yet she liked Orin’s ocean; she wasn’t sure if that was because she thought of it as his or not. She wore a thick black coat and yet she still felt it as she walked alongside the dock and stepped onto the deck. She didn’t like that he wasn’t there to welcome her, because she felt as if she was trespassing. She was annoyed at him though she had not seen him yet; typical. “Orin.” It was not loud, and she did not knock.
He’d known she was coming - of course he had, but he’d stayed in the forward cabin, a small affair that required climbing through a very small door, just to find a mattress and a low roof. He’d been lying there, on that damn mattress, on his back, his hands folded over his stomach. He’d been thinking that it was a damn foolhardy thing to bring her here, to one of the two places he could actually escape to, but it was too late to go and get the other boat running, the respectable boat, the boat Orin Monarch should be in.
When he heard her, he sat up, nearly hitting his head, and he crawled out of the forward cabin and through the main cabin. He stopped in the small doorway, and he pushed it open, knowing full well she was just on the other side. “Waiting on an invitation?” he asked. He was dressed in old jeans and a gray shirt that had some print left on it, white faded letters and the name of a university in the South.
She held the bag through the door, expectant, as if that’s why she had called him. “You said I could cook,” she said, a little resentfully, looking into the tiny space, even smaller than where she had first met him. She didn’t survey him with distaste, because after a moment she stepped out of her shoes and bent to pick them up. “You weren’t sleeping,” she said, smiling up at him. “It seems like neither of us do.”
He motioned back to the corner, to the opposite side of the steerage, where a small gas stove, oven and sink were inset into the wood, along with some counter space and a small fridge. “Going to have to make small batches,” he said, moving aside to let her in, but not moving away. “I think I’ve had my fill of sleep,” he said, taking the bag from her and stepping back once he did, putting the bag on the counter, and walking over to the tarnished silver wheel. He didn’t ask if she minded moving, and he’d already undone the lines and raised anchor. It was just a matter of easing out of reverse and hitting open water.
Valerie moved inside without a trace of claustrophobia, accustomed as she was to small, even tiny places. She left her shoes on the step behind her, and she came next to him at his elbow. She didn’t touch him, but she came close, sweet powder and rose, and she looked at the dials and the measurements. They didn’t mean anything to her. She turned away without comment and went to her bag.
He kept glancing over at her, keeping an eye out to see if she had a reaction like the last time, but he didn’t say anything to interrupt whatever womanly thing she was planning on doing over there. His hands moved on the wheel like someone born to it, which he might as well have been, and he kept his eyes on the water, clearing the dock and sending in their route to marine control. Once the course was laid in, he glanced over to see how she was doing with the stove that hadn’t been used in recent memory. The boat was old, ten years at least, even if it was kept up well, and it was obvious it hadn’t come from the showroom recently.
Valerie kept most of the things inside the bag to save space, putting it all the way to the corner so that she didn’t trip over it. She went through his cupboards before she did anything, seeing what she had available. She listened with interest that she didn’t show to his rustling and shifting about, and only once did she look up and around with concern at the boat. It made an ominous creaking as it banked, only once, but he steadied it and she went back to what she was doing without comment. A skillet, a mixing bowl.
He walked over to her, and he looked over her shoulder. “You still don’t strike me as the baking kind. Where’d you learn?” he asked, part curious, part fishing.
“Here and there. I bought books. When you want something done right, learn how to do it yourself. If possible.” She raised her brows to him. “Where’d you learn how to sail?”
“My old man, and then my uncle,” he replied, the one sentence more honesty than he usually handed out in a week. “Seems my whole damn family’s come to town recently,” he said, giving even more without thinking about it, and then rubbing his temple as he moved away from her and leaned back against the counter beside her.
She looked at him with what appeared to be sympathy. “For the wedding?”
He shook his head, watching her while she worked. “Nah, they’re just relocating like a damn swarm.” He didn’t sound happy about it.
She made a thoughtful noise, hrm, through her nose, and poured some things into a mixing bowl. “You don’t like them? Your family?”
He wandered back over to the steering wheel, and it was as much a stalling tactic as a need to adjust for the wind that was blowing hard against the port side of the boat. “No, I like them just fine. Whole bunch of men, more like me than Adam is. Good bunch,” he admitted, not clarifying why they bothered him.
She made that soft sound again, the quiet one, almost lost against the rattle of spoon against bowl. “Then?” She couldn’t imagine what would be the problem, if they were a good bunch, and not disappointed in him for canceling the wedding.
“I don’t want people getting hurt on account of me, and I don’t want people sticking their noses in my business,” he said, leaving out the fact that he didn’t much care for the idea of folks who knew his past littering the city.
“Ah,” she said, understanding. He didn’t want them to find out about Arrow. That made sense.
“The Morgensterns, they’re a real close bunch,” he said, the fondness in the words undeniable. He’d been lucky, he knew, to be raised by people who treated him as their own and actually meant it. “Me and Adam, we ain’t been seeing eye-to-eye lately,” he admitted, for no good reason than he was on the water and tired, both of which made him relaxed.
The scent of baking, nutmeg and cinnamon, joined the strange salt water aura of the boat. Valerie expertly cracked an egg into a bowl with one hand, the delicate shells coming apart into her palm and forefinger. “On what?” she asked, curiously.
“On anything,” he admitted, jaw tightening a little as he directed the boat through waters that were choppy enough to cause some tilt and sway. “You going to talk to me about that dream at all?” he asked, then, glancing over at her to catch any reaction in her body to the question.
Adam Morgenstern had not struck Valerie as a particularly warm or giving person. Orin was not giving, but he was certainly warm, and he had a volatile personality that she imagined might bring him into conflict with his more ambitious sibling. His inquiry about dreams had immediate effect, and she stiffened with the next egg still in her hand. “...Which one?”
“Come on, woman,” he said. “We’re really going to pretend we don’t remember?” He did not sound like he didn’t remember.
“I’m not pretending.” She washed egg off her hand and started mixing, handily avoiding slopping on her silk shirt. “What do you remember?”
“How long you been around?” he asked, not directly answering her question.
Smoothly. “I told you, I came up from California a few months ago.”
He leaned back against the wall beside the steerage, and he just looked at her, just waited. She knew what he meant, and they both knew she was avoiding the real question. He waited for her to try again.
She didn’t. It wasn’t a question she wanted to answer, and he knew that. Resisting, she kept stirring, and then she put the bowl down to grease the skillet and get out half a loaf of bread. “You mean you haven’t sent a private detective after it by now?”
“I’m waiting for you to fess up,” he said truthfully. He could have done just that, of course. Send someone hunting, but he hadn’t, not even with the marriage contract. He hadn’t thought she could do him any real harm, no matter what she was hiding in her past, and he was a patient man - most of the time.
“Funny, I was waiting for you to do the same.” Valerie had to admit that she was more curious about this man than when she had thought he was only Orin Monarch, or only Arrow. Oddly enough she didn’t think he would hurt her, either, not any more than he had. “...You give me a truth, and I’ll give you one. Why boats?”
“You don’t think you got enough truth on me already, woman?” he asked, because damn if that wasn’t the funniest thing he ever heard. “I like the water,” he added. “Got used to it being the only sound around for awhile. Now, go on. How long you been around?”
“My mother came to this country around 1885, and I was probably born about ten years after, give or take.” Valerie watched the oil pop on the skillet. “I need a drink for this conversation.”
He stepped away from the steerage, and he opened one of the cupboards to her left. The bottle he pulled out was old, whiskey and not the best vintage. It was half empty - a veritable gallon of the stuff - and he found two shot glasses beside it, smoky with age and disuse. He poured one for each of them, and he downed his in one swallow. “Now that’s damn emasculating,” he said of her age, but the corner of his lip was turned up in a shadow of a grin.
Valerie had lived in a time when people were killing themselves with cough syrup to try to get a buzz. She glanced at the label once and then took her shot too, not even coughing as she turned back to the skillet. “I don’t see why.” Giving a final whisk or two to make sure everything was still well blended, she started dunking the bread into the mixture and letting it fry.
He leaned his hip against the counter, sideways and an elbow helping bear his weight. “Because you aren’t supposed to see a little boy when you look at me, honey,” he said, a touch of wounded pride in the words, even if they were unintentional. His entire family had moved over to humanity before anyone had to worry about not aging, at least noticeably, and the concept of someone who’d lived that long was foreign to him.
That made Valerie chuckle. She flipped the first piece of french toast and put it on a waiting plate. “All men are little boys, darling, and not because of their age.”
He made an unimpressed sound, and he reached out and grabbed her waist, pulling her to him, french toast be damned. “That right?”
She laughed again, just because he was so absurd to be concerned about such a thing. She tipped her chin up to him and smiled up into his eyes. Infuriating man. “It’s going to burn.”
He didn’t give a damn, and he just gave her a very male, very possessive grin, green eyes darkening slightly at the new nearness, hand sliding down to her ass.
“You’re not going to like it when it smells up this place,” she warned, wriggling a little and doing her best not to laugh again.
He held her still a moment, even through the wriggling, and then he smacked her ass once and let her go. He chuckled, low and confident, and then he walked back to the steerage and adjusted the course. “When did you cross over from the motherland?” he asked. He knew people lived forever in Musings, so he wasn’t so surprised by her confession, especially given the dream.
Valerie was more amused than anything at that, and for some reason she felt some sense of accomplishment. Perhaps this fish was not quite off the hook. She turned back to the grill, and she had her hands full saving that bit of toast and mixing the contents of the bowl up again (adding a drop of vanilla), so she had time to think. She knew she didn’t want him to know about her ability, and living so long in this world was going to mean something. However, lying about Musings might be difficult; she could make things up, but he would catch her in the lie soon enough, because his family was all from there, and unlike her, he’d lived there and had accurate memories. “...I didn’t. My mother did.”
Okay, that didn’t make a damn lick of sense. “Woman, you can’t be that old and be born here. ‘Least not looking like you do,” he said, giving her a once over from head to toe, one that left no doubt that whatever had fallen apart between them, it had nothing to do with his appreciation of her as a woman. “You know the most important thing I got to hide. Why keep lying to me?” he asked. “Can’t be on account of you being worried about my money, because I already handed that over, too,” he told her, and the water outside became stiller and darker, as the ocean did when land was far enough away to be some kind of memory.
She had quite a few french toast stacked up on the plate by now, and she put the egg mixture aside and turned the griddle off. She caught the look out of the corner of her eye and it made her feel marginally better about the situation. “We need to sit down somewhere and eat before this gets all soggy.” She got a shaker of powdered sugar out of the bag as she considered her answer, and straightening, she said, “It has something to do with Musings, I’m sure, but I promise you, I’ve never been there.”
There wasn’t anywhere to go off course that was dangerous, not this far out, and he walked over and took the plate from her hand, carrying it over to the small wooden table behind the wheel. He placed the plate down, and he grabbed the whiskey and brought it to the table, also, pouring two fresh glasses and sitting down. There was one set of silverware tucked in a wooden holder that was built into the table, and he cut the french toast on the serving plate and took a bite as he watched her. “That buy you enough stalling time?” he asked her, grinning afterward. “Damn good,” he added, motioning with the fork, then holding it out to her.
Of course the french toast was good, she’d just made it. She sat down too, placing the accompanying syrup and powder sugar shaker down on the tiny table next to her whiskey. She took the fork in manicured fingers and looked down as she cut a piece of french toast and dabbed it in syrup. “I answered. I was working on your question.” She met his eyes, arching both brows up.
“You’re telling me you were born over here, and you just quit aging one fine day?” he asked, because if there was one thing every fool knew about leaving Musings, it was that you’d age and die. It’s what kept the portal from being flooded, mortality, and if she was saying she kept it while being over here, well, that was something damn dangerous, even if she didn’t realize it. “‘Cause if you are, you better not tell a damn soul. You hear me?” he asked, unconcerned with her question just then, hand closing over hers on the fork. “Well?”
The look she gave him was all irritation. She didn’t know what Musings was like, or why anyone left. There wasn’t perspective. “It is not as if I advertise it.” She loosened her fingers as if to give the fork back. She wasn’t sure he really understood what the implications were. She’d certainly thought immortality through, and so far it hadn’t been all that pleasant. Not torture, certainly, but not pleasant.
“Quit being so damn defensive,” he told her, tightening his fingers on hers when she loosened them. “I’m telling you that folks will kill to stay alive, especially over here where they got power like gods. If they figured out there was a way to come over here and be powerful, while not dying? We’d all be in a mess of trouble.”
“There’s not a way, as far as I know,” she said, looking down at his hand over hers and looking uncertain for the first time. If it was fear, she hid it well. “It’s just me.” She shifted her hand, not to try to extract it, but just to see if she could. “...Do you have a power like the gods?” There wasn’t any overtone or implication in the question.
He was willing to believe her ability was staying alive. It wasn’t so far-fetched, not given what he’d seen, and he sat back and poured himself a fresh shot. He should lower the anchor, he thought, as he tipped it back; the thought was followed by in a minute, and he rested his arm and elbow on the back of his chair as he considered her question. “Nothing that great,” he said. “I can get around better than I should be able too - jump from building to building, climb walls, land on my feet.” He shrugged. “Not real impressive compared to living forever.”
“When forever comes,” Valerie said, “we’ll know that it’s living forever. Until then, it’s living long. So far, anyway.” She didn’t sound as smug or as elated as she should be, considering she’d just told him that she didn’t age. “Yours sounds like it does a good job of keeping you alive.” She kept the so far out of that observation. She offered him the fork.
“Lets me do what I do without falling off roofs, and it keeps me from getting caught as often as I should,” he admitted. “Means I get fewer bruises on my handsome mug,” he joked, taking the fork from her and taking another bite of the french toast. He looked at her a moment, as if he was trying to decide something, and then he handed her the fork again. “How many kids and husbands you got? Because that’s a whole damn lot of years.”
“No kids. I’m very careful.” That was kind of an understatement; she made sure she was conveniently looking down at her plate when she answered, dragging the fork through the syrup in a gentle spiral. “How many girlfriends have you had?” She knew he hadn’t been married, she had been sure to look.
“Lost count,” he said, and then he chuckled. “That’s a lie. We talking committed women I was willing to wake up next to for more than a day or two in a row?” He poured them each a shot. “One, but it was a long damn time ago.” Pause. “You don’t want kids?” And it sounded exactly like the loaded question it was.
One woman worth waking up with, and a long time ago. That was some very tough competition, and Valerie suspected she knew who it was. She didn't say as much, however, sacrificing fork for shot glass. She swallowed it down and squinted slightly against the burn before she answered. "No," she said. "I would be hell at parenting." She knew how Orin admired large families, and avoided his eyes.
He didn’t take that to mean she didn’t want children, and he grinned at her as she avoided his eyes. “You’d do fine,” he told her, and he wasn’t sure about it, even as he said it. But it was important enough to him that he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. “Not like I’m the model dad, either,” he said, worrying about Willow, like he did every day. He knew she was safe, and he talked to his aunt and uncle once a day to make sure of it, but he still worried. “I’m real glad Willow’s East,” he admitted.
Valerie didn't want children. She didn't want to lose Orin, either, even if perhaps she already had and this was just a delusion. She didn't clarify, and instead wiped sticky fingers on one of the cloth napkins she'd brought. A moment later she was reaching for the bottle. "But she's well?"
“Far as I can tell. It’s safer for her there, even if she does insist on running around shooting arrows at people.” He grinned, some obvious pride there. “You didn’t ask about the woman,” he added, putting a booted foot on the rail of her chair and using it to tug it (and her) toward him. “Why is that? Always took women to be nosy creatures.”
"You make a lot of assumptions about women, I notice," Valerie observed, managing to snatch bottle and glass before it spilled as she slid along the floor. "Particularly since you've only really known two, from the sound of it." She tipped the bottle up and poured. "I also am not very interested in talking about my former lovers, so it's less convenient to ask," she admitted.
“I’ve only wanted to wake up next to two. Difference, honey,” he said, watching her pour the drink once he’d gotten her close enough so that her knees were between his. “I know women. How many husbands?” The subject change was quick, without warning, and he grinned a grin that was not very friendly; he clearly did not care for the topic.
She didn’t like it either. She nudged the inside of his knee to try to distract him, but it didn’t work as well as she would of hoped. “Three.” She picked up her third glass and offered him the bottle. “If I did what you do with as many men, even if I didn’t care whether or not I woke up with him, they’d call me a whore.” The whiskey managed to burn this time, and she took a breath in some surprise.
“Seeing as you been around a hell of a long time, I’d think you would have seen how that’s changed over the years,” he said. “Or do you think it’s still frowned on, a woman being open like a man?” He took the bottle, and he poured himself another shot. This time, he did stand, and he went out to the stern and lowered anchor, returning to shut the motor off a few seconds later. He downed the shot as he sat down. “What happened to them?” The husbands, of course.
“Please. It changes, but not that quickly. Secretly, half the world thinks any woman having sex is a whore, and men like to hear it.” Valerie turned and spread her legs out in the existing kitchen space. She wanted a cigarette, and she had not wanted a cigarette in a very long time. She turned her head and looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “I don’t think my past is much of your business, darling.”
“Since when?” he asked, green eyes sliding from her face, to her legs and lingering, then back to her face. “Far as I know, everything you do is my business.” And damn if he didn’t actually feel that way.
“On the contrary. Do I show up at your business meetings, or pry into your Arrow business?” The look didn’t trouble her, she was used to it, and to prove her point she turned an ankle and the nylon gleamed a little in the low light. “Do I appear screaming at those clubs where you find the women you prefer to forget?”
“That was before,” he said, because it was before. For him, at least, it had all changed. Things were different, and she couldn’t rewind that clock, even if she wanted to - at least not for him. Orin Monarch had pretended he didn’t give a damn. He didn’t need to pretend anymore.
That surprised her. She tipped her head. “Before what?”
“Before you knew,” he said, and he didn’t think he needed to clarify beyond that. Orin Monarch was a front; she had to know that already.
She knew he thought that, but it was still the bull it had been before. He might not enjoy the clubs so much, but he didn’t mind all the women all over him. She gave him a look all skepticism. “Some of it, maybe.”
“What’s that mean?” he asked, and there was something dangerous in the question, something that said be careful. He didn’t open up often, and there was a tenseness in his shoulders that said throwing it in his face now would be a very bad idea.
Valerie didn’t take warnings well. She didn’t like it when people told her she couldn’t do this, and she shouldn’t do that. However, she wasn’t a child to take the challenge just because it was a challenge. “You enjoy the distraction,” she said. After two glasses of whiskey on top of her previous, she took a break and mopped up some syrup with a finger.
“Women?” he asked, because he wanted to be real damn clear what they were walking about.
“Women.” She sucked the syrup off her finger.
“See, I know I recall telling you what I wanted, and you told me men didn’t want that. Why the hell should I try to change your mind when there’s not a damn thing I can do to make you think different?” he asked. “I’m tried and convicted, aren’t I, honey?” he asked, legs sprawled and reaching for the bottle, which he opened and took a direct swig from.
She gave him a searching look, and looked away to think about it. She took another fingertip of syrup, idle this time and not for a purpose, and frowned slightly over it. Perhaps the prejudice went both ways. “The way you’re going is not the way to get what you want, then,” she said, finally, holding out the glass for another. She was starting to feel it now; it took her a while. Something to do with the blood, probably.
“How am I going?” he asked, because he hadn’t been trying to convince her of a damn thing before. He’d told her how he felt, and she’d thrown it back at him, and there was anger and bite in the question, anger and bite which he didn’t bother trying to hide.
The vehemence of the return surprised her. She hadn’t been trying to hurt him. She too was being honest. “If you want a woman to settle down with you and make children, fucking women in clubs is not the way to do it.” She sat back with her glass, watching his face, brow furrowed.
“Wanting something isn’t the same as needing to do something to keep folks safe. What I want is too damn dangerous for me to have,” he said, and if she thought he’d been vehement before, it was nothing compared to vehemence now. “Being a Mask is dangerous, Valerie.”
Valerie lifted one shoulder. “Be miserable then.” She pushed her fingertips through her hair, and then she said, with abandon, “I’m just telling you what I think. If you don’t like it, fine. I didn’t say anything to Arrow, did I?”
“Be miserable then?” he repeated, and put the bottle on the table with a loud bang and went back to raise the anchor. His anger was a tangible thing, and he turned one before going out the door of the cabin and onto the deck. “You aren’t listening.”
Valerie raised her voice to match his, angry because he managed to startle her with the collision of bottle to table. “Yes I am, you just told me you want something different but you’ve got to be Arrow, so instead of trying to make it work you’re just going to be an asshole on public television and break hearts.” She wanted to throw something at him, but she refrained, even as she uncrossed her ankles and drew her heels back on the floor in front of her.
“I don’t break anyone’s damn heart,” he insisted. “I tell women right up front what I’m about, and don’t you go making this a blame game, woman.” He went out on the deck angrily, and he started hoisting the anchor, but he was partially drunk, and he muttered as he did it, unintelligible. The rope burned his fingers, and he cursed as he let go, losing his balance and falling right over the damn railing with a loud splash into frigid waters.
Valerie was banging dishes into the sink when she heard the curse--and then what she thought was a splash. Yes, that was a splash. “Shit.” She kicked her shoes out of the way and ran out onto the deck, widening her knees as much as the skirt allowed so she didn’t fall over. “Orin!”
The water was shock cold, despite the fact that the air was starting to warm, and it sobered him and made him sluggish all at once. He splashed once, and then he stopped; just like that. It was familiar, this aching sting taking over his body, and all he knew was that he did not want to go back there, go through that again. His head went under the water, and he thought he heard her scream, but it was distant and once, and he thought he’d imagined it.
Valerie had swum around in some swimming pools thick with chlorine, and then she walked down some white sandy beaches. Splashing in the green shallows was not the same as diving into the cold dark over the rail, and she knew that if she went down there she would just end up one more body. “Orin!” She looked around for one of those round floating things you threw in to help people drowning. “ORIN.”
The boat had no visible preservers or jackets, but there was a white box built into the deck near the motor that had no lock. It was the only place on the deck large enough to hold anything useful, and it the water he heard his name again. Once. Twice. He made an effort to reach for the surface the second time, breaking out if the water once, his arm touching the side of the boat without finding purchase on anything.
She pulled on the box but she didn’t have time to do anything about it, because she heard another small splash and whirled around. “Orin!” She didn’t hear herself saying it, but it didn’t matter. She ran back to the side and she saw him slide back. Stupid man, of course he wanted to be on a boat, in the water, where she couldn’t get help. She made a lunge for his arm and slipped as wet fingers came off his elbow. She gave a screech as her feet came off the deck and she tipped forward.
He felt her hand, which was something, and it made him kick his feet upward and tread water for a full second before she tipped. He saw her, salt burning his eyes and sharp needles of pain all over his body, and he managed a “NO!” before the waves dragged him under again.
The water was colder than Valerie thought possible, and when it knocked the breath out of her, she panicked. She didn’t remember how to stay afloat, and she flailed her arms to try to get back up, but she wasn’t sure which way was up. She opened her mouth to scream but that turned out to be a mistake.
He had a brief, flashing thought that she might be the most damn infuriating woman ever to live, and he figured it was just his damn luck that she ended up being his. It took a herculean effort to find her arm in the water, and even then he just dragged her under with him, tired and frozen from the effort to get a good grip on her wrist. She weighed a ton, and he wanted to chastise her for wearing whatever the hell she was wearing.
She would have bitched at him that it was silk, thanks, very good silk, and it didn’t weigh anything. Once she felt his arm she realized that she’d been trying to swim the wrong way, and choking on so much sea water, she kicked and got up to the surface, sputtering. She wanted to curse at him, stupid man and his damn boat, but she didn’t have the breath to do it. She clawed at his arm and then hauled, not that she was much good at it, because she just sank with another shout.
He tightened his fingers around her wrist - maybe tight enough to break, definitely tight enough to bruise - and he put everything he had into yanking her up and onto the edge of the rail, just at the corner where it curved and went lower. He couldn’t do more than give her ass a shove - a hard one - as he went under again, and if the damn woman didn’t get herself on the boat in that ridiculous garment he was going to drown her himself. Somehow.
The grip hurt like hell, and she almost screamed again, but this time she remembered to keep her damn mouth shut in the water. She kicked at the water and nearly hit her head on the railing, but she got a slippery grip on it and gasped through the stinging salt before looking back to see what had become of him.
He went down, of course, and the water went still for a full half-minute.
Valerie waited, catching her breath, for him to surface again, but when seconds went by and she didn’t see him, she panicked again. “ORIN!”
He heard her call his name, even in the cold dark, and he tried to find the strength to surface again, which he did only to yell at her to go get something dry out of the cabin before she froze to death or fell in the damn water again. One blue hand reached out of the water and grabbed of the icy wet railing, his grip slipping almost immediately.
Valerie lunged again and her hand slipped over his wrist, but caught his sleeve. Her fingers were numb and her nails were blunted by acrylic. “Damn you,” she shouted at him, choking on the water, “get up!”
He managed to get half of his body up, using her grip to find his own, better one on the railing. He still didn’t have enough in him to pull himself up, not yet, and he barked at her with chattering teeth and blue lips. “Get out of that fucking get up, woman,” he told her. “Towels,” he added, a one-word order.
“Own a boat,” she was saying, because it was taking too much energy to shout and most of that was caught up in the shaking. She hoisted the pencil skirt up as best she could with no regard to modesty and managed to get herself over the railing. “Fall in, stupid man.” She had no idea where the towels were, and stood there looking around, shivering.
“THE DAMN CABIN,” he yelled, managing to get his torso up higher, and damn if every bit of him that wasn’t numb didn’t feel like a million needles in his skin. Damn impossible woman. “DAMN IMPOSSIBLE WOMAN.”
She swore at him. She was just as cold, wet silk plastered to her skin, and she was having difficulty seeing through the salt and the bleeding mascara. She staggered toward the cabin as directed, looking back repeatedly to make sure he made it over the railing.
He managed to shove himself over, and he fell onto his back on the deck with a loud crash of back on wood. He didn’t feel it, which was more worrisome than if he had, and he looked toward the cabin door without trying to move. “Radio,” he said, as in radio for help, not thinking clearly enough to realize she probably didn’t have the slightest damn idea about how to use a maritime radio.
She didn’t have any fucking clue what he just said, and she didn’t care. She managed to find the towels only because she pulled every cupboard she saw until she found them, and staggering back through the mess, she pulled one over her shoulders, forgetting to take off her wet things and returning out on the deck, towels in her arms. She dropped them as she got next to him. “Get up,” she said, teeth clacking together.
He was going to kill her. It was as simple as that. The damn woman never listened. He tried to get up, just to peel those damn clothes off her, but he didn’t manage to do more than get his shoulders off the ground before he feel back with a groan and a curse. “Take the clothes off,” he repeated, a little clearer despite the chattering of his teeth. “Clothes. In the cabin.”
“What, yours?” she asked, blankly, not understanding and honestly afraid when he could not sit up. She didn’t want to take off what she had because then wouldn’t she be colder? Valerie knew her ability kept her a little more whole than most, but she didn’t really understand how or why. She was freezing and her extremities were numb, but at least she could move. She leaned over him, frightened and white, eyes ringed black. She pulled at his shirt. “What’s-s wrong?” She pulled a towel over him a second later, unable to decide.
He lifted a shaking hand to the front of her shirt, and he grabbed the cold, wet fabric and pulled. Buttons went everywhere, and he just kept pulling. “Change your DAMN CLOTHES,” he managed, and it sounded like a growled, pained thing. “Once you’re dry. Help me.” His hand fell back.
“Oh!” Valerie shed the towel, and for once, she didn’t think he was just trying to get her into bed. The silk came off in a heap and it took her several tries for the skirt zipper but after that, she managed pretty well. She was shaking in earnest now, but the towel was big. She still wasn’t warm yet and she wanted to sink into a hot bath, the most comfortable thing she could think of, but he wasn’t moving like she was and she wasn’t going to leave him on the damn deck. Taking a pained breath through her mouth, she started working on his sodden clothes.
He was going to kill her. Simple as that. No other damn option. The woman was going to die. He shoved at her, towel and all. “PUT ON CLOTHES.”
“YOU FIRST.” She ignored the shove and came back, rocking onto her knees again with difficulty, shrugging up the towel.
He growled, an annoyed sound, but he realized the longer she argued with him (when he was clearly right, dammit), the longer they both had to freeze. “Just help me up, infuriating damn woman,” he said, rolling onto his side in order to stand, but stopping when it felt like a million needles were sticking into his spine. He yelled, something low and in the back of his throat, and his hand gripped the edge of her towel, fingers closing around it.
That scared the hell out of Valerie. She gave up on his shirt as he attempted to roll upright, and he pulled her forward with him as he went back. She pulled the towels she’d brought up over him and then she put her hands against his skin under the scruff of the beard. “What’s happening?” the fear in her voice was clear, and she wasn’t going to try to move him again.
“Damn back’s asleep,” he said, because it felt like pins and needles, and it was something he’d experienced before. His teeth were chattering worse, and he wondered why hers weren’t. He didn’t have a real good idea of how much longer he was in than her, but he knew what it took to make it stop. “Just need to get where it’s warm, but slow.”
Valerie didn’t know anything about cold water survival, and she didn’t know how he’d fallen into the water, but she knew that there shouldn’t be anything wrong with his back if he was going to be okay. Her chest moved a moment as she breathed, watching him with wide eyes and trying to decide what to do. She might be able to help him so he didn’t die right there (she just wasn’t sure, his lips were blue), but she had to be very, very careful, or like in the ocean, she would die too. “Okay. We’ll get you inside.” But she didn’t move, not yet. Her palms were as cold and as numb as his, but something about her gaze tightened and changed in the black smears of her eyes, and the touch changed--warmed. Not too much, not too much...
He didn’t notice the changes in her, too intent on trying to pull himself up (and failing), but then a strange sort of feeling started seeping into him, something hot, like when you touch something that is too hot, right before your nerves process it. It was uncomfortable, and he tried to jerk away from it with a curse. “What the-”
He broke the contact and Valerie pulled her hands away. She blinked several times and took a hard breath in through her nose. The shivering hadn’t stopped, at least, not for long, and a second ago she had thought there was no way she could get colder. “I can’t lift you, give me your arm.” She tried to catch her weight on the flat of one foot and haul herself standing so she could drag him into the cabin.
By the time she spoke, he realized he could roll from his side onto his knees. It hurt, damn did it hurt, but he could manage it. “Go change your damn clothes,” he said again, but it was a little clearer this time. “And then you can tell me what in sam hell you just did.” Because she did something, that was for damn sure.
She moved forward and caught him against her shoulder, towel still caught over her torso. “You’re hallucinating,” she said firmly, or as firmly as she could considering her teeth were still chattering. She was weak herself, and he was heavy, and she almost fell twice. “Lose weight,” she stuttered.
He knew he wasn’t hallucinating, even if he didn’t have the energy to tell her as much. The bathroom on the boat wasn’t a full bath, and it wasn’t going to do anything to get them warm. They should call marine patrol, and they should call them now. He thought maybe he said that aloud, but he didn’t, and he just managed to sit heavily in the chair by the steer. He pulled her on his lap, and he leaned heavily against the wall behind him, and he tried to reach for the radio.
Even without her wet clothes, she was freezing, and he still had his. Since he was upright she didn’t let herself stay curled against him for long; he was too wet and she was shaking too much to get comfortable, or even a semblance of it. She turned around and pulled the wet shirt off him, ignoring his efforts to reach for the radio, which she didn’t recognize for what they were. She looked at his face and he didn’t seem to be any better, even if he had moved, and it scared her so much that she put her palms on his chest again. The towel slid off her shoulder and she ducked her head so he couldn’t see what she was doing.
He let her fight with his shirt, and then he tried to reach for the damn radio again. He didn’t get very far before she had her hands on his bare skin. His mind was sluggish, more so than his body, and it took him a moment to notice the touch, and a moment longer to notice that shock of heat again. He managed to get one hand to her wrist, fingers closing around it like a vice, the skin he was touching red and angry from where he grabbed her earlier. “What are you doing?”
There was no bruising yet, too early, and she hadn’t noticed the pain in all the adrenaline. When he caught it he broke her concentration even faster than before, and the heat stopped as she pulled her other hand away with a cry of surprised pain.
He let go fastasthat. It took him a moment longer to look down, to see what had hurt her, and then he saw her wrist. He couldn’t tell if bone was broken, couldn’t tell if the red would just turn into a bruise once she’d warm through and time had passed. “Did I do that?” he asked, forgetting about the radio, and the heat from her fingers, and the needles against his skin that somehow made his teeth chatter.
She looked down at it. She didn’t know. “...No. It’s fine.” She didn’t try to touch him again, because he sounded sharp and clear, and she cradled her wrist under the towel without thinking. She was too cold to pull back entirely, though, and it took effort to slide off his thighs. “Get rid of the wet pants,” she ordered, as if she knew what the hell she was talking about.
He ignored her, and he reached for the radio, managing to get it and curl his fingers around it this time. He called out, because they both were risking hypothermia, and even if the worst was over, he was worried about her. He stared at her while he called for help, and he reached out and pushed at her hip. “Go put something on before they get here,” he said, and he did sound sharper, less chatter, a little less stiff.
The tone reassured her, and rather than attempting to stand, she just half-leaned against him and shook her head. “It’s too far.” She was too tired to get up and walk all that way, and she looked in his eyes to make sure that helplessness she saw on the deck wasn’t back. Reassured again, she blinked heavy eyes and looked away.
He dragged her back onto his lap, not realizing the denim was heavy and cold and would soak her towel through. His skin was warmer, at least, and he curled her back against his chest and stole as much of her heat as he offered. “You’re a damn nightmare, you know that?” he asked against her wet hair. “You don’t jump in the damn water when someone falls overboard.” He sounded worried now, mind too sluggish to think about covering that up.
“I didn’t jump, I was t-t-trying to pull you in.” She didn’t realize how stupid that sounded, and if she had, she would have been embarrassed to get close in the shelter of his chest. She was too numb to do much more than be distantly cross about the wet jeans, and she didn’t try to assist him again. She was starting to feel weak and tired rather than just cold, and that was a bad sign. As long as he was moving. She put her ear against his chest under his collarbone and shook. “How long ‘til they get here?”
He realized that he was better, but she was worse, and it worried him. “Five minutes,” he said, even though they’d said ten. It sounded closer, and she’d worry less, and he started trying to figure out if he could get up and carry her into the forward cabin, which was small and closed in, and bound to be warmer. It was only a few feet away, but it felt much damn farther than that, and he banged his head back against the wall twice, trying to clear his thinking. “Damn woman,” he just said, and he wasn’t sure what the hell it was in reference to; it didn’t matter.
The banging alarmed her, and she got her head up. “What the hell are you doing?” she demanded, sure he’d manage some sort of brain damage on top of everything else. “You said you sh-should take off the jeans, remember?” Ugh, her eyelashes were sticking together, she must look terrible.
He thought about, about taking off the jeans, but they weighed a damn ton, and she’d have to move. “It’s just a few minutes,” he said, chattering increasing again, arms tightening around her. “Just quit being difficult for five damn minutes.” He closed his eyes as he leaned his head back, and he was getting damn sleepy. “Did you love any of them?” Just like that, out of the blue, nothing preceding the question.
She had opened her mouth to scold him about closing his eyes as he spoke. “Don’t fall asleep! --Who?” She made a pathetic effort at pulling out of his grip. “Jeans.”
He didn’t move. “The husbands.” His voice was a bit slower, a bit lower, accent a bit thicker.
He was scaring her again as he slowed down, more because she knew she didn’t have much more to give him. She wasn’t sure how much, but not a lot. “No. ...Maybe one.” There wasn’t much of a pause, but it was there. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Keep talking,” he told her, perfectly willing to use this conversation to keep them both awake, conscious until help arrived. Panic was starting to touch the corners of his mind as the pain subsided, the water and drowning and years of nothing but himself, and it made him shake more than he already was. “Which one? Why?” Pause. “Matters.”
“I don’t know. I just got to like him after a while. He was a nice man, nice to me. I c-can’t explain it.” She looked distressed, and she didn’t put her head down again, no matter how much she wanted to. She was watching him. “You seizing up again?” she demanded.
“Quit fussing,” he told her, and he almost laughed. “Quit being so damnably strong all the time.” He wouldn’t have said it if he’d been thinking, but he wasn’t, not really, and he didn’t give a damn, either. He assumed the husband, the one she liked, was dead, and he tugged her closer to his chest and held her there a moment. In the distance, marine sirens sounded, and he exhaled slowly. No island, no island.
She was happy that he did not ask about her first husband again, uncomfortable with the idea of sharing that memory, or what he might think about her leaving him. “How am I supposed to do that?” she mumbled, sighing quietly when she heard the siren. There, they could help. She didn’t have to give him anything else.
Help got there before he had a chance to answer her question. Two boats, paramedic and police, and by the time they’d entered the cabin, they’d already figured out what they were dealing with. The deck told the story, and they set about moving them both to the paramedic boat.
Inside, the boat was like a small hospital. A few small rooms and all white and antiseptic. The EMTs, two of them, made quick work of replacing wet clothes and towels with dry ones. Chemical heat packs were slipped under arms and over sensitive organs, and they were both wrapped in electric blankets. Valerie’s wrist was bandaged, after the EMT ascertained that it felt like a sprain, and after a half hour they were heading back to shore, hot drinks in their hands, in their respective rooms.
Orin, being Orin, didn’t stay put. Once his feet seemed to be listening again, he padded across the hall and stood in her doorway. “You’re a damn piece of work, woman,” he said, voice roughly fond.
Valerie had managed to have a quick soft word in the ear of the EMT who assisted her, using a handy lie about a bleeding disorder just in case they thought to check her circulation or in the off chance they needed to take blood for something. Valerie was not at all knowledgeable about health procedures and she was still under the (now medieval) impression that all doctors did their best to cut you open whenever possible.
To her relief, they had done no such thing, and when Orin arrived at the door Valerie was lying flat, sacrificing the hot drink in favor of a position that didn’t force her to try to keep her head up. She was weak but not tired, and the blanket hid the brief shallow breaths she was taking under the blanket. She shifted slightly to blink at him in the doorway, still raccoon since her makeup wasn’t much of a priority at the moment. “Me!” she replied, relatively softly. “You fell in!”
He padded heavily to the chair near her cot, and he dropped into it with the carriage of someone who was having trouble staying awake and upright. Everything weighed a damn ton, and he leaned his head back against the wall, so that he could see her better. “And what the hell did you do? Call for help? Throw over a vest? No, you tried to drown your own damn self instead.”
“I didn’t know how to do any of those things,” she said, defensively, slurring only a little near the end. “I didn’t fall, you pulled me in, you fool.” She said it fondly, though, and she shifted on one shoulder in an attempt to face him.
One of the paramedics came around to check vitals, and Orin closed his eyes during the affair, opening them a moment later when waves crashed behind his eyes. If she was watching, the fear was unmistakable on his face and in his gaze, and he stared past her for a moment before focusing back on her when the paramedic left. “You fell,” he finally said, remembering the conversation they’d been having.
Valerie tried not to tense when the paramedic returned, because she was certain they’d pull out needles at any moment, but this one left again with only his vitals check, and she focused on Orin just as a series of thoughts moved behind his eyelids. She wondered what so scared him, but she was not stupid enough to ask, not yet. “You pulled me,” she replied, staying awake with effort.
“You planning on ever agreeing with anything I say?” he asked, eyes heavy lidded and an almost-grin on his chapped lips.
It wasn’t working. Her eyes closed, and she focused on trying to get enough air without getting out of breath. “Not if you’re wrong.”
"You mean to tell me I'm always wrong, because you're always arguing, woman," he said, but he sat forward and squeezed her fingers affectionately. It wasn't an awkward gesture for him, being affectionate, and he sat back a second later and sighed. "They're going to want to take us to the damn hospital, you know."
She squeezed back, but not as hard as he had, and unobtrusively so it wasn’t too embarrassing for either of them. Almost dying has strange effects on people. Valerie vowed never to get drunk on a boat again. “I don’t want to go. I need to go home.” She didn’t have anything with her that was gold, and she was sure they didn’t bring her purse.
He nodded once. He didn’t much care for the damn hospital either. “I’ll have someone come check on us.” Us, plural. He wasn’t going to leave her alone in that damn apartment, not when she was like this. She could could damn well kick him out in the morning. He’d call Jonathan or Mathias. One surgeon had to be as good as another. Maybe having family in town wasn’t so damn bad.
That satisfied Valerie; she’d get home and take care of things herself, and if someone was just coming to check, they wouldn’t do anything invasive. She didn’t protest the plural or the assumption, giving a soft ‘mmhm’ in response instead. She shifted (with effort) off her shoulder and back onto her back, eyes closed, and took a breath.
He waited until her breathing evened, and he scooted the chair forward and touched her cheek with his knuckles. Life had gotten damn complicated lately, and he didn’t know what to do about it. He sighed, leaned his elbows on the bed and put his head in his hands. He’d worry about it once they hit dry land.