Commander (the_commander) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-09-25 09:33:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, commander tyra shepard, dani moonstar (mirage) |
You have to plan for the other side of that dark tunnel.
Who: Shepard and Dani
What: Talking about the future and themselves, all the feels
When: Last night
Where: Croft Manor
Status: complete
Rating: PG-13. Medical stuff, canon-related darkness, depression, etc.
Shepard lay in Dani’s bed, an arm around the other woman, her fingers making shapes across one of Dani’s tattoos. Her throat bobbed as she looked down into the woman’s hair. She smelled like grass and woods and homey things, and it was a scent that she was growing used to.
Knowing she was sick, that she could be taken away by something she couldn’t shoot or fight. It made things worse. The talk they both kept dancing around.
“Dani? You awake?”
"Mmm?" Dani grunted. As exhausted as the past few weeks had been and as exhausted as Shepard generally made her, she still had a hard time actually falling asleep sometimes. It was hard to do when the other woman was stil awake in bed with her, too.
She worried sometimes that if she didn't take advantage of the moments she had with Tyra, she'd regret it.
Dani shifted a bit, snuggling in closer to Tyra but lifting her face so she could look at the other woman, "Yeah, I'm still awake."
Shepard was most certainly sated, so there was little chance of anything happening unless Dani initiated. She did continue to explore the feathers on her back. The tattoo curled around her side and by the time the feather reached her shoulder, they had become birds. It was a source of constant fascination for her.
Shepard was silent at first, before she just plunged head long. "What do you want? Out of...whatever it is we have?"
There was another, smaller feather on her other shoulder that turned into a singular bird, as well. The tattoo pattern had caught Dani's eye sometime between Colorado and Las Vegas, and she'd felt like some part of it just spoke to her on a level she could never explain.
She didn't really know if she was the feather or the birds, but it expressed a need of hers. One that Alcohol wasn't really providing. Dani wasn't sure she'd found anything that had, "... I didn't know that you wanted whatever it is we have to have a label."
"Do you?" Shepard asked. She sat up, propping herself up by her elbow and looking down at Dani. She pulled her closer, then sat up against the wall and pulled Dani's head against her stomach. "You're the...I keep coming back to you. I think you deserve someone who's willing to....."
"I deserve?"
Dani rolled a bit, so that her head was on Tyra's lap but she could still look up at her face, "I don't deserve anything at all. And you shouldn't do what I deserve, you should... do what you want to do. I know you just got out of a relationship, you're dealing with shit... I've got Cancer, I'm dealing with shit..."
“We could deal with shit together,” Shepard said, wetting her lips with her tongue. She smoothed back Dani’s hair, gazing down at her. “You deserve a full...commitment. But there’s one thing that… if we want this to be more than just fuck buddies. It’s something really important to me.”
"Shepard... Tyra..." Dani's eyes were wet. She didn't even know when that had happened, but she blinked her eyes and tears started to roll out of them, completely without her permission.
"I really don't. I don't deserve anything. And I don't know... God."
She put a hand over her eyes, trying to sort out her feelings. Like always, she felt like she was split between two different sets of feelings that were threatening to go to war with each other, "Do you really want that? That kind of... I can't promise we'll get through this. I can't promise I won't pull some stupid shit and run out on you. I can't... tell myself that you'll always be there for me, either. Or that you should be. I definitely don't deserve for you to be."
"I know, I'm not asking you to promise me that. But you have to plan for the future. If you don't, that's as good as giving up." Tyra's voice was ragged and emotional. Not many people called her Tyra. She let Dani.
"You have to plan for the other side of that dark tunnel. Think of it as incentive, or a reward..." She thought about the times when she'd been alone in her cabin and the whole universe was crushing her. She couldn't breath, she couldn't think, she could only panic, and think of something to hold on to. It might not be the fate of the galaxy, but cancer was still a tragedy. A very personal one.
"I want… I want a family, Dani. Children. That's… really the only non-negotiable thing for me. Everything else we can work through or compromise on." She might never have her little blue babies in this world, but she could live with that. She really could. The realization startled her.
"It's so hard to look ahead like that," Dani admitted, in a whisper. It was like a confession, not just to Tyra, but also to herself. She'd never been confronted with the fact that she wasn't planning ahead so heavily than now.
Emma'd tried to point it out, too, but it had been easier to ignore coming from her. She squeezed more tears out of her eyes, "I wanted them, you know. There were a lot of things I wanted. A career, maybe working more with animals that got stuck in the wild, or maybe joining the military, becoming a cop... My ranger career is completely over now. I'm not sure working for Wrex is as fulfilling, though I like helping the kids. I've never been convinced that I'm that great a teacher. And..."
She paused, and worked her throat a bit, "I conjured up his greatest desire once, and it was a baby. Not just any baby, but a specific one that I think he never resolved things with, but I watched him hold the child in his arms. I watched, and I thought about what a great father he'd be. I thought about that stuff, but then I just ruined it all. And James is dead. My parents are dead. My grandfather is dead. I feel like there's no point..."
“Gods but there’s no point in anything because life is so finite. Sometimes I don’t even see a point in crawling out of bed in the morning.”
"It's hard, I know it's hard," Tyra replied, her fingers brushing at Dani's cheeks. She felt a huge sense of relief that Dani had wanted kids. "But all of those things, they're still obtainable. They might seem out of reach, impossibly so, but they're not, you just have to stretch a little farther and shine the light a little brighter."
Shepard's vision had gotten blurry. She understood, on a fundamental level, how Dani felt. She let out a snort. "There's always a point, you just don't see it. You'd be a great mom, you know. That's not impossible."
"How can I be a great mom if I'm such a horrible person?" Dani asked. It was one of those things she thought she'd never say aloud. She'd just said a lot of things that she never thought she'd say aloud. Or even knew she was thinking.
"I almost... sometimes, I wish that they'd just killed me when they were done with me," She admitted in a whisper. She blinked a few more tears out of her eyes. Her voice was hoarse, and it was almost hard to hear what she was saying, "Because I think that's what I deserved. Climbing up out of that hole... when I started, it was because I wanted to be someone he'd respect again. And that'll never happen... I eventually realised that... that I had to do it to respect myself instead, but it's just so hard. I feel like everyone is judging me. Dying would have been easier, and sometimes when I try to look forward there's nothing there at all."
After a pause, she looked up into Shepard's eyes, "Sometimes all I see in the future is... hopefully that one year coin. Sometimes I'm scared I never get it. Now I'm scared I'm going to be running away from my choices and this fucking Cancer for the rest of my life. I'm scared that if I let you in with all of that, that you're just going to be a statistic. I'm scared that you deserve something more than me. I'm scared of a future where we're together and happy and have those kids you want. Terrified of it."
"You're not horrible. A horrible person wouldn't worry about that. A horrible person wouldn't want to make up for her mistakes." Tyra's hands resumed a gentle stroking of Dani's hair. She listened to the woman talk. She listened to her fears. The tone of her voice and how the words sort of spilled out. Her own words felt inadequate. Shepard, who could motivate an army, was at a loss as to how to motivate the woman curled against her. Now was not a time for quips or gentle teasing, nor was it a time for harsh reality and tough love.
"And you've done nothing to deserve death." Shepard could never say 'no one' deserved it, because she'd met plenty of people who had. "And you're right. You can't be someone other people can respect until you respect yourself. So what if it's hard. Nothing worth doing was ever easy. You've got this strength in you, Dani. I think you're afraid of it."
Her hand slid down Dani's throat, and over to her shoulder to stroke the tattoo there again. Her voice had gotten rougher and rougher the more she spoke, and she was far too emotionally drained to maintain a front. Dani's gaze into her eyes was making her entire center waver. It spread to her voice. "Don't shut me out. You can stop running, but it's a lot easier if someone is there with you. Not to hold your hand, but to have your back. Even if kids are kind of a big deal for me, I care about you."
The idea of kids and a house and maybe a couple of horses with this woman wasn't terrifying because she thought it was impossible. It was terrifying because it was possible. Dani sat up in the bed a bit and slid onto Tyra's lap, resting fully against her.
It was possibly the neediest Tyra had ever seen her. She rested her head against the other woman's shoulder, and wrapped her arms around her, "It's possible. That's the... fear. That it's possible. That there's hope. That you really do have my back. That we really might have something more. That there'd be kids, and some house somewhere. That's what scares me. I want to believe in it, but I'm so terrified that the second I do it'll fall out from under my feet again. And it'll be my fault somehow."
The neediness was a little frightening, if Shepard was willing to admit that, but she held Dani close and kept her breathing steady. “I can’t promise it won’t be rocky. That there won’t be moments where things do fall out from under us. I think we’re both too cynical and both too involved in strange things for that to not be a worry. But I can promise that…” She took a long breath. “I can promise that anything that does happen, we can work through it. If you really do want an it to work through.”
She’d tried to sleep her way back to normalcy, but that hadn’t really worked, at least not since that damn fuck in the hay. It felt like she’d been running away from something.
Dani hadn't even tried. Shepard was the only thing she had going for herself right now, and it was surprisingly enough for her. She'd been more bothered than she cared to admit when she found out that Tyra'd been sleeping with others, even if it made sense.
And maybe that was the biggest sign she needed. Nevermind that everyone else was already calling them 'girlfriends', because other people didn't define them. Just the fact that after that roll in the hay she'd never even wanted to sleep with someone else.
She took a deep breath, and let it out, "I want an it to work through. I think we already have an it and we need to admit it. We have an it. I... think it's stupid crazy and maybe even unhealthy but I don't want anyone else. I just want you."
"I'll need to cancel that date with the hot dancer then," Shepard said, her fingers trailing in lazy circles around Dani's stomach. She tried to be flippant with her tone, but it came out more emotional than she'd meant. "I always did have a thing for darker skin..."
"I always did have a thing for strong, badassed people who were stubborn as hell," Dani countered, with a bit of a grin.
Shepard’s hand slipped lower, and she slid down Dani’s body until she could kiss her. It was a kiss flooded with emotion.
It was best kiss.