justin. (salzig) wrote in warrantlogs, @ 2016-01-15 21:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | justin salt, sahra bhatt |
WHO: Sahra and Justin.
WHEN: A couple days after leaving Earth.
WHERE: The Tequila.
WHAT: carlyraejepsenireallylikeyou.mp3
WARNINGS: NONE I DON'T THINK??
No matter how weird things were between them, Justin couldn’t help but worry about Sahra. He didn’t want anything bad to happen to her on a normal day, let alone chasing after a bounty, and he also knew that being chased through a literal maze of bones was not high on her list of favorite activities. He couldn’t stifle the need to protect her any more than he could the desire to see her smile, or to bump into her in the corridors of the ship, or to have her sitting on the galley counter in the evenings, watching him cook. All of it had been conspicuously absent, even before the trip to Earth. He thinks he might go crazy if he doesn’t see her soon. So despite caution that she needs rest—that she probably doesn’t want to see him, anyways—he digs a bar of dark chocolate out of his drawers, stops in the med bay for an ice pack and the kitchen for a tea towel, and then makes his way to the pilot’s cabin, knocking gently with his knuckles on the door. "It's open," she calls, sticking a finger in her book once she finishes the paragraph. Now that they were on their way back home, Rafe taking over, she was under strict orders for bedrest, at least for a few days. Her ankle didn't hurt so badly anymore—but she was also taking the opportunity to be as lazy as she wanted, so maybe it was just that she wasn't really using it. She looks up as the door opens, expecting Macy or Reggie or Campbell checking in—and there is Justin. Her face falls in surprise for a moment before she can collect herself. "Oh—" Her expression stops him in his tracks. He holds his offerings in his hands, awkward, neither entering nor making a run for it. “Hey, sorry, I just brought this ice—I shouldn’t’a—” "No! No, it's fine!" she says quickly, gesturing for him to come inside. "I just wasn't—expecting you. That's all. Come in, seriously. Is—" Her eyebrows shoot up. "Did you bring me chocolate?" Justin glances down at the package in his hand. “Uh, yeah. I mean, guessin’ you still like chocolate.” "Then you must stay," she says, reaching for it. "I've never turned away a man bearing chocolate and I don't intend to start now." “Phew.” His relief is apparent, and only a little exaggerated. “For a second I was gonna say you’re real sick if you’re gonna turn down a bar of this stuff.” She smiles. For a moment, their awkwardness is almost forgotten. Almost. "Come on, I just twisted my ankle," she says, nodding for him to pull up the spare chair. "I'll be right as rain in a few days. And there's no reason I can't have chocolate every single one of those days. In fact," she adds, shifting delicately on her pillows to make herself comfortable. "I think I should have more chocolate. It aids the healing process. Rene will vouch." “I’ll wait until I talk to him, huh,” he says, laughing, raising his eyebrows, and sits in the indicated chair, dragging it over to the head of her bunk. He hands her the chocolate. “Here, take this. Oh, and this.” "Thoughtful," she says, leaning forward to pack the icepack down around her ankle, and winces. "Still tender," she says, before he can ask. She knows, of course, that he will ask, and she can only stomach so much of his concerned face just now. "I'm fine, really." Despite her assurances, his concern does show, creasing his brow and turning his mouth down. He reaches for her ankle and adjusts the ice on it. “Don’t look fine,” he says, his hand lingering on the pack. She forces a laugh. "It's just a twisted ankle!" she says, and scoots back a few inches, propping herself against pillows and bunk wall. "I've had a lot worse." “Still don’t like to see you hurtin’, sweetheart,” he says, his frown deepening. He nods at the chocolate. “You gonna open that thing or what?” Ignoring the warm pit that turns over in her stomach at his assurance—as if she needed to be reminded, as if it wasn't abundantly clear to everyone, and yet they still weren't talking about it—she rips open the foil, breaks off a couple of squares. "Here. Finder's fee," she says, handing him one. He takes the small piece and pops it in his mouth—he liked to let it melt—somewhat limiting conversation, but Justin didn’t ever say a lot, anyways, so maybe it didn’t matter. The chocolate has flakes of sea salt in it and they pop on his tongue as the candy melts. When it’s all gone, he clears his throat. “So I guess you gotta rest—” She nods vaguely, watching him. "Doctor's orders," she says, and frowns. "Not that our doctor is really in any position to be ordering anybody around, but…" He winces, running his hand over his bearded cheek. “So much for avoidin’ trouble with that red bounty, right?” "I never want to go back to Earth," she groans, flopping back into the pillows and breaking off another piece of chocolate. She bites it in half with a loud snap. "Mole people." “Least you can say you lived through it,” he laughs, and leans back in the chair, impulse to leave momentarily abated. “Makes for a pretty good story.” "Oh, yes, we'll be very popular at the next RAC barbecue," she says, popping the rest of the chocolate piece in her mouth. "It'll probably get around one of us was actually eaten by cannibals by May." Justin presses his lips together to keep from laughing. “How do we know one of us wasn’t? Been awhile since I saw Campbell…” "Oh, god," Sahra says, touching her cheek, perfectly aghast. She holds it for a long moment—there might have been a clap of thunder, or dramatic reverb, somewhere off the distance—and then bursts into laughter, doubling over on herself. If they were all being honest, Campbell was more likely to emerge carrying the severed head of the cannibal king under her arm than to ever actually succumb to them—and this, too, sends her into another fit of giggles. When she can speak again, she lifts her head, and smiles over at him. "It's—good to talk to you again, Justin. Thanks for coming by." He takes this for a dismissal, and stands, shoving his now painfully empty hands into his pockets. “It ain’t a problem, Sahra. Nice to hear your laugh again.” Her eyes follow him, wide in surprise. "Oh, you—you're going, then?" “Sounded like you wanted me to,” he says, raising his eyebrows. “Especially since we ain’t really talking right now…” For a moment, she considers just letting him go. It would certainly be easiest. It would certainly be in character for her. She looks away and smiles, tight and small. "I'm not really talking to anyone, it seems, lately…" she says. "Anya and I haven't spoken in weeks—I—" Her skin flushes. She waves this, all of it, off with a laugh, like it were simply a cloud of smoke she could blow out of her way. "Sorry, it doesn't matter. Seriously, I'm okay! You should get back to work, or—you know, whatever you were doing." He smiles, shrugging, glancing away—he can’t for long—his gaze wanders back to her, and he smiles again. “Sittin’ around workin’ up the courage to come up here and see you, mostly.” She nods back at the chair. "I won't bite." Justin sits back down, crossing one ankle over his knee and leaning back. “If you wanna talk—I know I ain’t your sister, but—” Sahra shakes her head quickly, waving this off, too. When was the last time she had confided anything, in anyone? She can't recall. "I'm fine. Really, I don't even know why I brought it up—it's fine." It’s plain to him that it’s not, but he doesn’t press her. Maybe someone else would; someone nosier, or better at being a confidante in the first place. He taps his knuckles against his mouth, unsure of what to say instead. “Yeah, of course. If you say so, then I believe you,” he says, finally, and almost does, actually. She nods, though he hasn't exactly asked her anything. Her fingers run listlessly over the chocolate wrapper, and a second later, for lack of anything better to say or do, she cracks off another square and bites it in two. "Here," she says around the chocolate, extending the bar to him. "Help yourself." He holds a hand up. “Brought it for you. You enjoy it.” "I am enjoying it, that doesn't mean I can't share—" Justin shakes his head, keeping the hand up. “Really, it’s for you, I don’t need any.” She frowns, frustrated, and leans forward. "Will you just—just take some? Why do you always have to be so—" He doesn’t take the chocolate. “So what?” "So—I don't know!" she blurts out, wishing she had gone with literally anything else. She shuts her eyes and leans back against the bed again, folding the chocolate wrapper back up so her fingers don't inadvertently melt it. "It doesn't matter. I'm just tired. It's fine." Justin laughs helplessly, shaking his head at her. “You keep sayin’ ‘it’s fine’, and maybe one of these times it’s gonna actually be fine. That the idea?” She purses her lips up at him. "Didn't you just say, 'if you say so, I believe you?'" “Wishful thinkin’, I guess.” He ducks his head, blushing at being caught in the lie. “Okay, I don’t believe you. You don’t seem fine, darlin’. You seem kinda fucked up. Like you’re goin’ through shit. And—shit, I just—I can’t stand seein’ you hurting—” "Oh, stop," she says at once, pressing her hand to her forehead. "Stop saying that—god, you just have to be so good, don't you?" His mouth gapes; he laughs again, startled. “Yeah, I do. And you know why.” She sighs loudly and scrubs her hands down her face. "No one's going to send you back to Pluto for being less than utterly dashing," she groans. Dashing? His lips curve up slightly. “Sure about that?” "If it were a crime," she sighs, a ghost of a smile moving over her mouth, "Ireland would probably have a life sentence. That charming fuck." Justin covers his mouth with one hand. “Yeah, but does he bring you dark chocolate?” She hesitates. There is something he isn't quite saying—but then, there was always something they weren't quite saying, wasn't there? It was no surprise, considering how little they seemed to say at all. "No, he doesn't," she says, after a moment. He doesn’t say anything further. What is there? He’s a man of so few words it’s a wonder he doesn’t forget them all, and she—doesn’t want to talk. Not to him. He leans forward, feet back on the floor, and squeezes her shoulder, his mouth pressed into a thin, stricken line. Sahra sighs heavily. This has all gone pear-shaped. It seemed like everything was lately—even their bounty. Who would have that chasing down a non-red level octogenarian would end up with half their crew in the med bay? Scooting forward, careful of her ankle—she reaches forward with one hand to adjust the ice pack, wincing slightly as her leg turns—she sets her hand on his knee, patting it gently. Companionably. Nothing more. "Talk to me, babe," she says quietly. "Forget about what's eating me. You're upset about something." “Worried ‘bout the crew,” he says, truthfully—many of them are far worse off that Sahra’s sprain—but it helps him avoid the obvious, that it is her. “Don’t like when the captain gets hurt. And that red bounty….” He trails off, his hand coming to rest on hers, on his knee, his fingers touching lightly to her wrist. Considerably more than companionable. "I'm worried about them, too," she says, chewing the inside of her lip. "But Reggie's been through worse. He's a tough old dog. We're all looking out for Rene. And Raine and Macy—I don't think you could bring either of them down even with a grenade launcher. Some weird centuries-old cave traps?" She blows air out the side of her mouth, pfft, and turns her hand over to give his a reassuring squeeze. "The Whiskey got that bounty, didn't they? It'll be fine." “Yeah, I know,” he says, and means it, these reassurances, at least, causing him some relief. “Thanks, darlin’.” She shrugs, and smiles, and after a moment, pulls her hand away. "Any time. Seriously." He flexes his hand, as if he’s not sure what to do with it without hers, its purpose all but lost. He glances up from it to her. “You mean that?” "Yeah," she says, reaching down to adjust the ice pack again. "Whatever we're—not talking about, we're still friends." It doesn’t seem like it, he wants to say, and, You’ve been avoiding me. He swallows and nods and looks away. A year ago—less than a year—she would have let this slide. Partly because she didn't want to pry, partly because it was none of her business; but mostly because she wouldn't have been able to tell. But they've known each other a long time now. She's starting to understand his swallows and nods and glances away. She sighs. "Come on, out with it. I just said you could talk to me." He looks at her. “I said you could talk to me and you didn’t. Don’t see why I should if you ain’t gonna do the same.” "I don't have anything to talk about," she says breezily. Justin laughs and pushes to his feet. “Okay, I’m gonna go. Shit, and I thought I was difficult.” "Justin, come on—" She moves, instinctively, to stand up after him. Her ankle flares up pain in protest, and almost as soon as she's pushed up, she doubles back over with a hiss. "Jesus—ow—" He’s there in a jolt, arm around her waist, helping her sit back down, and kneels in front of her when she’s off her feet again. “What’d you do that for?” he laughs, holding the ice to her ankle. "It was just—" another sharp intake of breath at the cold, and then as she resituates herself, putting as little pressure on her leg as possible. "Just a reflex—you're like seven feet tall, how was I supposed to stop you from here!" “You figured it out,” he says mildly, fingers absently rubbing at the top of her foot, below the ice pack. “Don’t get up again, darlin’, you’ll set yourself back a week.” "Are you going to storm off again?" she says, resting her hands on his arms, only partially for balance. He shakes his head. “Are you gonna keep pretending like you ain’t mad at me?” "I'm not mad at you," she says, and when she feels his shoulders tense, shakes her head quickly. "I'm not! I'm…" What is the word for this? Is there a word for this? Everything feels so inadequate. "Frustrated." “So talk to me,” he says, his voice verging, finally, out of patience. “Tell me what’s goin’ on! I can’t read your mind—” "I—" She shuts her eyes and lets out a long, irritated breath. "I don't—" This was impossible. She didn't know how to talk about this. She didn't even really know what this was. They had kissed on Christmas. They had kissed last year, too, and agreed—never acting on it again was for the best. And she'd been fine with that. But then they had, and now—now it's driving her to distraction. She can't look at him properly. He won't talk to her. It feels stupid to dwell on it at all in the face of everything that was going on (and, to be fair, she hadn't really been thinking about it when running away from mole people and falling boulders), but she wasn't talking to her sister, she wasn't talking to him, she couldn't talk to anyone else for reasons she could never wholly understand, only that they drove her away from anyone, anyone, as soon as it seemed they might consider her anything more than a casual fling—she can't stand it. "I don't—want to not talk about this," she says, finally, her brow nearly stitched together, all the words she can't think how to say knitting themselves across her forehead. "I know we said we wouldn't—I know you don't want to—" “I want to,” he says quickly, squeezing her knee. “I wanna talk about it. I never said I didn’t want to. Just—y’know how it is for me, I never know what to say.” He smiles thinly, and meets her eyes. “We can talk about it. You can talk to me about anythin’, Sahra.” "All right," she says carefully, biting the inside of her cheek. "Then...let's talk about it." Justin glances at the bed beside her—he can’t kneel forever. Well, he could, but he doesn’t want to. “Mind if I—?” She follows his gaze, and moves aside so quickly she nearly re-twists her ankle. "No! No, of course, sit down." The chocolate, too, and her book, and the rumpled sheets—Christ, she was a mess—she shoves everything hastily to the side and pulls her hair over her shoulder. Why is this making her nervous? She wishes he could have just talked to her sister about any of this. Even a scolding for getting involved with the criminal element would have made her feel a little more normal. Of course, he doesn’t care about the sheets, or the chocolate, or the book—although, as he moves to sit at the edge of the bunk, his eyes catch on the cover, and he leans over her to pick it up, hardly able to contain his laughter. “The Accidental Gigolo? What is this?” "Oh my god—" She reaches to snatch it from him, blushing wildly. "It's—listen, it was the only one they had at the—at the store—and I'd just finished my last one—stop laughing!" He can’t. He giggles, angling away from her to hang onto the paperback, flipping through the pages. “Holy shit—this thing is raunchy! Quivering nimbus? The fuck is a quivering nimbus?” "I'm not exactly reading it for literary merit!" she says, reaching up after him. It's hopeless, of course. Justin is a giant. She pushes down on his knee to gain a little leverage, her hurt leg hovering awkwardly in mid-air to keep the ice pack in place. "I know it's trashy—just—!" Justin smiles, skimming a few more paragraphs, and then returns it to her, if only to stop her from leaping out of bed and injuring herself even further. “Let me know how it ends.” She snatches it back from him with a grimace, putting it protectively back into the corner of the bed. "How else?" she says, grimacing. "They fall in love." He nods and grips the edge of the bed, looking away, then back at her. “Yeah, they do.” "How would you know?" she says, not unkindly, though her smile is still not quite at full wattage. "I thought you didn't read these books." “I just looked through it,” he says, shrugging. “You watched me.” "All the way to the end?" He shrugs again. She bites her lip and shrugs, too. They were really very bad at this. "Well." “Well,” he repeats, and the silence stretches thickly between them, unshakeable, until Justin clears his throat. “So. We, uh. We kissed.” There it is. Sahra lets out a long, slow breath. "We did," she says, as if agreeing to some sort of business terms. "What do you...think...about that?" “Pretty good,” he says, smiling at her sidelong. “Little too much tongue.” "Eugh!" She groans and shoves at his shoulder. It's not unlike shoving a solid brick wall. "I'm a great kisser—I'm the best kisser in this star system—" He grins. “The best? How can you know? You been kissin’ everyone else, too?” "You doubt me?" she says, leaning away from him, her eyebrows high. "Some people might even tell you it's the only thing I'm good at. So I better be the best one from here to Alpha Centauri." “It ain’t the only thing you’re good at,” Justin says immediately, shaking his head. “Those people are dumbasses.” She scoffs and glances down at her hands in her lap. "Flatterer." “Is it still flattery if it’s just the truth?” he asks, tapping his fingers on her bed. “Cause then, sure.” For a few long seconds, she says nothing at all. Then, carefully, "Justin." He looks up. “Sahra?” She opens her mouth—closes it—rethinks what she's going to say. That isn't what she wants to say. What does she want to say? "I like you," she tries, and the sound of it in her mouth feels correct, and honest, and right. Like remembering a word that had been clinging to the tip of her tongue for days. "I like you," she says again, turning to him. "That's—what we've not been talking about, I think. So." Part of him feels stupid and childish, for the way he smiles at this. It’s so sweet and genuine and plain; there’s no other way to say it. “I like you, too, darlin’. You know I do.” "No," she says quickly, shaking her head. "I like you. God, what a stupid thing to say—I sound like a child—but I've liked you for ages, everyone knows it, and honestly I feel like a bit of an idiot pretending I don't. That—we don't. So—" “I never pretended not to,” he says, shaking his head. “I always liked you. But we talked about it before. We agreed we shouldn’t. It’d mess up the ship if it didn’t work out. Remember?” "Right," she says, folding her hands into the bedsheets, her lips in a thin line. "But—we're grown adults, for god's sake. We should be able to handle a relationship like sensible people. Shouldn't we?" He flushes slightly and pushes his hair behind his ear. “Ain’t nothin’ sensible about how you make me feel, sweetheart.” She can't help it. Her lips split wide in a smile, and blood rushes into her cheeks. "I mean it more than just wanting to hook up, you know," she says after a moment, looking over at him. “Oh, not me,” he says, smiling back at her, his hands folding in his lap. “Only do one night stands.” "God, if only I'd known, all this time…!" He laughs. “Sorry, I shoulda said!” Her laughter fades, but she keeps smiling at him. A heartbeat; then another. Holding her breath, like she's never touched a man in her life, she reaches over and places her hand quietly in his. Justin accepts it with ease, his thumb grazing over her knuckles, his large hand dwarfing hers, and then doubles over and kisses her wrist, bringing it up slightly to meet his mouth. “I’m glad you’re doin’ okay, Sahra,” he says, when he pulls away. He was trying to kill her, wasn't he? Sahra stares at her wrist like his lips had left behind a red, angry brand. She looks up at him, her eyes wide, chest pounding. And then she says, "Okay, fuck this," and leans forward, ignoring the throb in her ankle as she shifts, and presses her mouth firmly against his. He kisses her back warmly, hands leaving hers to hold the sides of her face and neck, for several long moments. And then he breaks away, laughing and flushing red and shaking his head, draws back from her, stands, but doesn’t leave. “Shit, Sahra.” She holds onto his wrists, just a little too tightly. "Let's do this," she says quickly. "Let's—let's try this. Whatever it is. It'll drive me crazy if we don't." Looking at her quietly, he almost says yes. That yes is stitched into his mouth where their lips had touched. He just can’t get it out. There’s too many other things stitched there alongside it. “I can’t,” he says, sadly, and bends to kiss her forehead. “Not now. It ain’t right.” Sahra stares up at him. Her hands go stiff on his. Her whole body goes rigid. It ain't right? How could he just say this—how could he say he liked her, that she made him senseless, how could he kiss her, and say all these lovely things—a horrible thought occurs to her. Was he humoring her? He was too nice to lie, too kind to drag her along. But he wasn't too kind to be straightforward with a girl who was pursuing him when he wasn't interested. She feels nauseous. Suddenly every moment between them over the last year and change is cast in a new light. Not two people who liked each other, avoiding their impulses for the sake of responsibility; but a flighty, pushy woman shoving herself at a man who was too decent to tell her to fuck off. Who valued his place in the crew too much to alienate any of them. Had she misjudged everything? She pulls his hands away and pushes back on the bed. "Please leave." His face falls even more, forehead wrinkling in distress, his hands hanging awkwardly between them. “Sahra, I’m sorry, you know how I feel—but none of the reasons have changed, nothin’s different—” "Get out!" she snaps, fuming. God, she wishes she could stand up just to shove him out of the cabin. She almost does—but the idea of collapsing on her hurt ankle in front of him, of him tenderly carrying her back to bed, replacing the ice pack, checking her leg—it's unbearable. "I just lay it all out for you, and you just—just—just leave, already! I take it all back!" “You can’t take it back,” he says, staring at her, standing there still only because he’s not certain she won’t try to get up after him. “That ain’t how life works, darlin’.” She stares at him, infuriated, embarrassed, and briefly considers throwing her book at him, just so he'll go. "I don't care. I want you to go!" Justin frowns, standing silently, for another moment, and then scratches at his beard and shrugs. “So I’ll go,” he says, turning towards the door. "Great," she snaps, flopping into her bed, her back to him. He pauses at the doorway, fingers tapping the wall, and looks back at her. “Get some rest,” he sighs, and pushes the door shut behind him. |