Helena Chu (lostchu) wrote in thefield, @ 2009-03-27 10:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | cross, helena, z - 1st tribe - day 12 |
Warm, Safe And Comfortable
Who: Cross and Helena
When: After sunset
Where: In the tree
What: Being stubborn and chivalrous
Rating: G
Parting ways with Kenneth, Helena watched as people climbed the tree in the near-darkness. It was always dangerous to wait this late to climb, footing wasn't so sure, but there had been a sort of festive air tonight. The return of the eastern party had soothed a lot of fear and doubt. Helena really didn't feel good about the meeting. It was never more obvious to her than it was tonight that she was no inspirational leader. The camp was divided, which was exactly what she hadn't wanted to see happen. She supervised Rowan, Quinn and the meat being stowed safely in the tree before climbing herself. She lingered on the branch that led to her and Rowan's hammock but in the end she diverged. Scrambling over and under, using the dangling vines to hoist herself up to loop around the trunk a ways, she found herself on the western branches. There were some empty hammocks up this way. She'd let Rook, the new guy, have the twin sized comforter she'd found. It was still a bit dirty but a day in the tree had dried it out. Sophie had arrived with her own bedding and so was fine. Helena hadn't lied when she'd said there was spare bedding for Cross. There was, her own duvet was empty now that Annie was gone. "Cross," she said, watching him getting himself organised to crawl into his old wicker hammock.
Cross was so dead tired that he didn't think even the Laughers would keep him awake tonight, foul noisy beasts that they were. He was relatively clean, though his clothes could, as always, use a decent wash, and he was currently pulling his heavy work shoes off and tying them to a nearby, narrow branch. Most of the time he slept with them on, in case he needed to get up suddenly during the night, but tonight his feet throbbed, delayed reaction from all the walking they'd done, and he was going to hope that danger wouldn't abruptly strike. He was lost in his own head, not really listening to the muffled conversations going on all around him, and he yawned as he got the last shoe secured. Then someone said his name, and he turned his head. Helena. "Yeah?" he replied, his voice soft.
"I promised you a nicer place to sleep tonight, remember?" she said in a hushed tone, walking out on the branch without holding on to the one above her. Helena's balance had improved dramatically over the days she had been living in the climber. She could walk it's lower branches without worry and even climb up or down the tree mostly asleep. She pointed up about another ten or twelve feet toward the south side of the tree. There was a fluffy white duvet hammock, unweighted down with a body. "C'mon, I'll show you how to get in to it safely, alright?" Their conversation blended seamlessly with those around them and the night sounds of the forest. In the far western distance, there may have been a chuckle starting.
Cross was mildly confused, and that mixed with the sleepiness that was evident in his expression. "You said somethin' about a blanket," he mumbled. He blinked at her and then glanced around through the darkness that surrounded them, trying to see if there was anyone who didn't have a hammock and bedding. He didn't see anyone out of one at the moment except for himself and Helena. "Why d'we have to go up there?" Normally he was reasonably sharp, but at the moment the situation wasn't clicking in his brain.
Helena paused, her hand braced on the trunk, she turned to look at him. "Oh, you don't have to. It's up to you. I ended up giving the blanket to one of today's new arrivals. I didn't realize that he didn't come with anything but his boxer shorts." She cringed in sympathy. Her own pjs were a pair of boxer shorts and a t-shirt. It didn't give one a lot of protection from barked shins and all of the other joys of life in the wilderness. "The only soft bed left tonight is my old hammock, the one I let Annie use when I started to spend the nights with Rowan." Her tone was soft and mild but her regret when she mentioned her friend was palpable. Tomorrow, she decided, she would sit down with her friend and have a long talk. She'd apologize. For tonight, Helena just wanted to brood on where she hadn't handled everything correctly. She needed to fix it in stone in her mind so that she didn't repeat the same mistakes.
"Wonder if it'd be a little quieter up high?" Cross mused. He'd become marginally more alert with the conversation, and he was watching Helena. Most of the time he observed more than he spoke, and he was aware that she'd been thrown by the outcome of the meeting. He didn't really feel that she'd been at fault; it was more that with that many people, all with different backgrounds and varied expectations, there was no way everybody was going to be happy with any given solution. Her voice was as pleasant as always, but she didn't look particularly pleased right now, he thought. He hoisted himself up, the branch he was standing on dipping beneath his weight, and said, "Let's go see." He'd just leave his shoes where they were, since he didn't have the energy to untie them and then retie them somewhere else.
Turning to climb, Helena made her way slowly up the trunk from where they were. It was full dark now and the unnerving laughter was approaching at speed. She heard the new people raise their voices in alarm but whoever was sleeping near them seemed to shush them quick enough. Up on the correct branch she shuffled over as far as she could and waited for him to reach her side. There were climber leaves in the hammock and she leaned in to pluck them out. "If you hold on to this branch right here," she slapped it lightly. "You should be able to swing right in. I tied all of these knots super tight and reinforced them with climber vines. There's even a vine cage underneath it, just in case. You'll be perfectly safe up here," Helena moved back even further to allow him to climb in.
Cross stayed where he was, standing on a branch with his arms over his head, clinging to a vine-covered branch overhead. His sock feet were carefully balanced so he wouldn't slip. "You sleepin' with Ro?" he asked. So far as he knew, she'd been doing so for most of the nights they'd been here. Not that he was paying excessive attention to where Helena slept, of course not. Why would he do that?
"Usually, yeah," she said evading his eyes which somehow still managed to catch her despite the lack of light. "I think...I dunno, after that meeting I want to give her some space tonight." She sighed. "I really should have talked to her about my suggestion before hand. She looked so upset." Helena sounded miserable. "I don't want to do anything that will jeopardize her baby but I really think we can't stay here much longer." She thought she sounded rather petulant and she knew she should be having this conversation with Rowan, not Cross. She just wasn't up to it tonight. Tomorrow, she would sit down with her. "I thought I would go down to the lower branches and see if I can observe anything new about the laughers." The lower branches of the tree were safe enough. Some of them were as wide as sidewalks.
"You're gonna sit up and watch those things instead of sleepin'?" Cross' tone was mostly blank but infused with a touch of disbelief, as if he wanted to question whether or not she had good sense but was too polite to. "What're you gonna be fit for tomorrow then?" He obviously didn't think it was a good plan. "They're vicious and they want to eat you. Nothin' else to know about 'em." He exhaled a heavy breath, way too worn out to argue but feeling as if he had to anyway. "You want to give her some space," he said of Rowan, "fine, but I'm not takin' your bed then." It wasn't that he didn't get the fact that Helena was upset and regretful because she felt she'd handled things badly with Rowan, but his inner gentleman, rough around the edges though he might be, refused to lie down knowing that she wouldn't have a decent bed for the night.
"Cross," she said, her voice much softer and faintly chastising. "You've been walking for days. You deserve a decent sleep. Just, take the hammock for the night. I'm going to sit up for a while but if I need to sleep, I'll make it in to one of the wicker hammocks." It wouldn't be as comfortable but she'd been lucky enough to not have to sleep on one yet. That hardly seemed fair. She should try it tonight. "Just do me a favor and get a good night's sleep tonight and call it payment for the shoes." Tomorrow she'd find a way to secure the soles to her feet.
Cross tried to keep his voice down, because he knew there were people all around them-- well, mostly below them now that they'd climbed up here-- who were trying to get to sleep. They had to deal with enough noise at night without adding an argument to it. Well, it wasn't completely an argument, more like two stubborn people refusing to yield. "No," he said, sounding very decisive and tightening his grip on the branch he was holding. "Not happening." He found that he absolutely didn't like the idea of her going down there and sitting for God knew how long. What if she dozed off and fell out of the tree? His jaw tightened, and he said, "If you're goin' down there, I'm goin' with you." Not that he really wanted to do that, but he couldn't see climbing blithely into this hammock and going to sleep while she sat up and tortured herself over what she thought she'd done wrong.
The tiny Asian woman huffed an exasperated sigh. "Have you always been this stubborn?" she asked in a low voice. It might have been cutting if not for the obvious humor in her tone. "You aren't going to let me go my own way tonight at all?" She was hopeful he would but it didn't seem that way. Really, if she admitted it to herself, she didn't mind his tendency to worry and protect. She felt like she was sort of on her own here, despite the group. When people were looking to you for decisions and leadership and even protection, who protected you? She worried her lower lip as she stared at his motionless shape in the darkness.
Cross stared back at her just as hard, though it had gotten dark enough way up here in the tree that he could barely see her. "Always," he affirmed, his tone letting her know that was something that wasn't about to change. In his opinion, when someone couldn't seem to see what was in their own best interest, sometimes someone else had to point it out to them. Sitting up and staring at three-legged creatures couldn't be in anyone's best interest, for damn sure. He didn't answer her question directly, but said, "Look, I'm beat. You don't wanna bother Rowan tonight, no reason we couldn't both sleep up here." Sure, he was big, but she was small, and the hammock was wide enough that they could both fit. Might be pressed against each other a little, but it wasn't like he was going to try anything. He needed sleep. She needed sleep. What was the issue?
Helena was quiet for a few ticks, obviously considering what he said. "Alright," there was the give in, in her tone. Sort of a relaxing. They weren't fighting, this wasn't her husband, There was no need for her to feel like it had to be a fight. She and Edward might have been best friends, but he never liked her to have her way. It was exactly why their marriage hadn't survived their grief, why he hadn't understood when she'd stopped trying. Cross didn't know any of that, he was just being...practical and rational. Something she could expect from Cross no matter how exhausted he was. "You get in first though. I'm lighter." They most certainly would end up touching. She knew for a fact that once that second body got into the hammock, the first person ended up partially covered by that person when the hammock became a valley with nothing firm beneath it to control the angle of the bed. She was a slight little woman and the nights were cooler than the days. She was sorry to admit that she'd come to sort of depend on a little bit of body heat at night. "I promise I won't run," she said with a faintly teasing tone.
Cross paused for another thirty seconds or so, but he'd have to agree that it wouldn't make sense for her to get in first. He'd crush her when he followed, entirely without meaning to. When she said she wouldn't run, he smiled, though she likely couldn't see it in the dark. "I know you won't," he replied. "You know I'd come after you." With that, he shifted over and swung himself into the hammock as she'd instructed, settling himself as far to one side as he could. It was, as he'd known it would be, a futile effort. The hammock sank like a stone beneath his weight, which meant that Helena would be lying mostly on top of him once she got in, too. Not that that was a problem. They were going to be sleeping, like she and Rowan slept when they shared a hammock.
Helena grasped that same branch. "If I hurt you, I'm sorry. I'm all points." Elbows, knees, chin, even her shoulderblades. She'd gotten thinner for a while there but she thought, eating all of that meat over the past few days, she might be consuming enough to keep any more of her precious pounds from melting away. It was a little bit awkward but in the end she settled her slight weight against his right side. Annie's orange fleece hoodie was still bundled up near the head of the hammock and she pulled it down and tucked it under her head. "There. Is it better than the wicker hammock?" she asked him, practically whispering. The cloth hammocks had an amazingly insulating and intimate feel to them. She and Rowan often whispered conversations with each other for hours. Even the noisy laughers sounded a little more muffled up here. Cross radiated some delicious heat and she had to remind herself not to snuggle. Her hammock was plush and there was the faint aroma of her fabric softener clinging to the fibers. It smelled like lilacs and spring time, as well as the lingering scent of soap pods on Cross's skin.
"Think I can handle it," Cross said. Sure, she was small, but still there was a dainty femininity in her features, in the lines and slight curves of her body. Elbows and knees or not, he wasn't concerned about being hurt by her. She settled in, pressed warmly against his side. When she asked if this was better than the wicker hammock, he made a soft sound that was closer to a laugh than anything. "No comparison." He'd already noticed that the sound of the laughers was more bearable up this high and with thick layers of cloth blocking off the ground far below. He could almost imagine that there weren't numerous other people scattered all throughout the enormous tree; the impenetrable darkness meant that he couldn't see a thing past his own nose. He couldn't really even see Helena, which was strangely soothing. It meant he didn't have to worry about what expression might be on his face or if his eyes were on her for longer, possibly, than they should be. It was a temporary removal of a barrier that was always in place with him in broad daylight.
Every day in this place was long. Helena was beginning to believe that maybe this planet rotated slower than earth. She knew that should have some bearing on the gravity but maybe there was some science that could explain it. Or maybe it was all perception brought about by the state of their lives here. Nevertheless, falling into a hammock at night was always a relief and she sighed, that relief evident in the sound of her breath. The strangeness of the situation melted away and all that was left was the comfort of finally getting horizontal and the warmth of a trusted friend. Tonight the friend was different, but Cross was just as comforting as Rowan, if not more so. She hated to admit it, but Helena stuck so close to Rowan out of a need to protect her friend and her baby from any harm that might befall her. Helena didn't feel like she had to look out for Cross and so she was able to let go of the last of the tension that Kenneth hadn't been able to press out of her neck. "It's nice," she said drowsily, not specifying on what exactly she was enjoying.
It was nice, more so than Cross would've had sufficient words to explain. Not that he was much on words. He'd probably spoken more of them to Helena than to anyone here; it took time for him to build up a comfort level. He flexed one foot and then the other, then curled his toes, simple motions that were nonetheless relieving. He very rarely took off the heavy shoes, usually not until he went to bathe. "Yeah," he said, also not specifying what was nice. Lying down somewhere comfortable after all that walking, being reasonably clean, having his shoes off, the warmth of Helena's body pressed along his side... all of it was. He felt that he was going to sleep better than he had since he'd been here, and he could only hope he wouldn't snore. He grinned in the darkness, his eyes fixed on the vague, peculiar shapes of leaves that he could just make out overhead.
Since she couldn't really wedge her arm between them or tuck it behind herself in any sort of comfortable manner, she slid her hand across his broad chest and rested it on his opposite shoulder. The fabric of his t-shirt felt thin and flimsy. How long would their clothing last, wearing it every day? Not too long. It just so happened that Helena had belonged to a knitting group from work (the Knit'n'bitches as her coworker Sarah had called it) and thusly had learned to make all sorts of things over the last three years. She thought she could probably make clothes for people, blankets and things like that. She'd found the yarnballs today, plants that had woolly fibers in various colours. Her goal was to somehow spin them into yarn, or twist them. Then knit the yarn into usable garments. It was that thought, thinking about knitting, that pulled her down deeper toward sleep. "Shhh.." she murmured and her fingers stroked his shoulder just once. "Sleep now."
A soft chuckle escaped him. Cross couldn't help it. She'd shushed him as if he'd been babbling a mile a minute instead of uttering one word in the past three or four minutes. He didn't mind it though, actually found it rather charming. That as well as how she slid her arm over him, sleepy and unselfconscious about it. It took him nearly five minutes of careful consideration-- during which Helena could have very well fallen asleep, he wasn't sure-- to adjust the arm that was closest to her so that it was around her. It was a more comfortable position for him, though he was cautious with where his hand ended up. It wouldn't do for her to think he was trying to take advantage of the situation. He'd be mortified if she thought that.
The only sign that Helena noticed his arm around her was a soft sigh. She turned her body and her face into his body a little more and went entirely limp with just a slight twitch of her limbs. Almost like she had a physical disconnection with the waking world. Not long after, her breathing evened out, long and regular. She was warm and safe and comfortable. After almost two weeks of this place, those three boons were the closest thing to heaven.