sahra. (geminid) wrote in warrantlogs, @ 2016-02-03 05:56:00 |
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When was the last time she’d slept? It felt like centuries before, like Sleeping Beauty in reverse, staying awake for days and months and years, a bramble of thorns growing up with each hour her eyes were wired open. There was no kiss; no curse. Nothing to wake up from. Her jaw ached where Black’s man had hit it; her body was sore and full of bruises, like coins in the bottom of a well, pressing against her skin. Fear electrifies her, a delayed reaction shot through with relief, both of them tumbling hand over fist to strike against the back of her teeth, sending tremors all through her body. She had known the Tequila would come. Of course they would come. Reggie wouldn’t abandon her. That certainty had kept her jaw firm and her eyes open for the last few days. What was there to fear? Her crew would come. What was there to fear about convicts, or a gun to her head, or a fist on her jaw, or the stern order to walk her mother to the airlock, to set her kindly inside, to open the lock and send her out? But now that they were here, she had no reason to put a check on her fear. She thought it would dissipate. She thought it would fizzle, and fade, and evaporate in the indisputable certainty of her family—her real family—here and whole and pulling her out of the brambles on sure fists. Instead it unfurls like a bolt of silk. Reassurance and terror suffuse her, every corner, every cell, relief on her palms, fear in her blood. She reminds herself, sitting in the hangar as the RAC crews shake hands with the migrants—she never thought she’d see the day—and ready to depart with bounties in tow, that she is safe. Anya had seen to her wounds, and seen to her, the two of them cloistered together until Sahra’s hands stopped trembling, until Anya could start working that relief down from her palms and into her veins. Her mother was alive. The crew and the passengers, except for those Black had killed before the Tequila and Kamikaze got there, were alive. Her shipmates were alive. Anya was alive. But she is so tired. She is still so pointlessly afraid. She stands in the hangar as people bustle around her, her home and not her home, and when she sees Justin it feels like a bell has been rung in her throat. There is blood on his knuckles. He shoves a hand back through wild hair. He doesn’t see her, yet. She starts for him on feet that aren’t quite her own. Justin doesn’t see her; he’s distracted. By the scattered groups of people around him, nursing wounds and bruised pride. By the adrenaline still coursing through his veins like a live wire threaded through him, electric twine, surging behind the needle of his anger and worry. By the exhaustion of caring for someone who didn’t seem to want to be cared for. He can’t help it; he’s pissed. And there she is—he takes in the sight of her, exhaustion rippling through her face, and everything else is overwhelmed by the sheer relief that she’s okay. She’s hurt, but she’s okay, she’s real, she’s here. She’s walking towards him. He pushes his hair back again and, when she’s nearly reached him, steps forward, Sahra’s hands rising, Justin’s reaching for her— And then their arms are around each other, Sahra sagging desperately against him, trembling, aware acutely that she shouldn’t, she should let go, there are people watching, her mother, the crew of the Anastasia, the crews of the Tequila and Kamikaze, and more importantly that he couldn’t want this, not really. Not really. He didn’t want her. She had accepted that. But just then she doesn’t care. Her breath comes in ragged patches. Her fear shudders down her spine. “I’m sorry,” she says, her jaw aching where it’s pressed against his shoulder. “I’m sorry—you’re here—of course you’re here, I just—” Justin closes his eyes, tucking his chin against her hair. It doesn’t have its usual perfume, but he breathes in anyways, his hands moving against her back. He would be shaking, but he needs to be still for her. He knows she needs him to be steady—so he is. His fingers rise to her back of her head, tips running against her scalp, then her neck. “Didn’t know if I’d see you again, darlin’,” he says, quietly, hoping no one else can hear. She almost says, I wasn’t either. She almost says, I haven’t been this scared in a long time. She almost says, I’ve never been happier to see anyone in my life. Which is not strictly true—only Anya had that dubious honor, fussy as she always was about it—and that sobers her. She tries to pull away from him, to laugh; she can’t. “I’m here now,” she says instead, holding together to his shoulders. “I knew you guys would come, but for a minute there—” Justin pulls back a little, his arms still wrapped around her, just enough space between them for him to see her face. “It’s my job to protect you,” he says, his forehead wrinkling. “I’d’a never left you behind.” She smiles. It’s watery and uneven, nothing at all like her normal smiles, and marred irrevocably by the purple-black bruise on her jaw. “Funny,” she says. “I don’t remember it being a gunner’s duty to protect the pilot. I could check with Macy…” She may be able to joke, but he can’t. Not right now. “You know that ain’t what I mean, sweetheart,” he says, frowning, and bends, just slightly, and kisses her, as gently as he is able. There is a joke, still, desperate and thin, clinging to the tip of her tongue like a bit of driftwood in a storm—she loses track of it completely. Not once in her life has anyone been able to kiss her into silence. This was Sahra’s domain. The flirt; the tease. What man could get the better of her? But of course, that was it, wasn’t it? He wasn’t getting the better of her at all. It wasn’t a competition to him. She wasn’t anything to be won. She stands there, frozen, her hands on the back of his neck. One of the Anastasia crew wolf-whistles. She barely hears it. When he pulls away, she follows, confused, elated—”What?” she starts, though neither of them had said anything. “I thought—you—” Justin is a shade of red most tomatoes would envy. He shrugs, glancing away, smiling despite himself, and looses his hand from her, rubbing at the back of his neck nervously. “Dunno,” he says, sheepish, and shrugs again. “Just feels right.” She stares at him. Any other time, she might laugh this off, or launch herself at him again, consequences be damned. But she is so tired. It feels like she might never stop shaking. “Why?” His gaze rises to her. How do you answer a question with a thousand answers? Most of them he can’t put into words. Most of them he can’t admit to himself, not right now. He runs his hand down her arm, searching for what to say—he knows she’s patient, that she knows he needs to take his time. “‘Cause if you died here, I woulda regretted it for the rest of my life,” he says, finally. Sahra’s whole chest inflates with warm air. She reaches down and takes his hand, just to keep herself grounded. “God,” she says, laughing once, “are my cooking lessons going that badly?” He smiles, blushing again, curving his hand around hers, then shakes his head. “Can’t give up on my star student.” “You’ve got plenty of time,” she says, leaning her head against his chest. “I’ll be on the Tequila for a while, yet.” “Not gonna go runnin’ off again, to some other life?” he asks, his voice low, frowning down at her. She pauses, then lifts her head to look up at him curiously. “Reggie didn’t tell you,” she says, which is not quite a question. Of course the captain wouldn’t say—he wouldn’t betray her trust like that. Still. It’s a relief, somehow, that he didn’t, even if it meant Justin angry with her for keeping it from him. “Justin, this—” She glances around, nodding at the ship around them. “This is my home. Our home. Anya’s and mine.” Justin turns his head, taking in the hangar, and the people in it, with a new appreciation, his eyes searching for something he hadn’t known, before, he could search for—traces of Sahra in faces and metal. But he sees them now, apparent with the connecting of newly visible dots. “You coulda told me,” he says calmly. “I thought you trusted me.” “Of course I trust you!” she says at once, pulling a few inches away from him—hurt, somehow, at this accusation. The secret she’d kept was beyond trust, beyond any relationship she’d developed in the last ten years. It was woven into the very fabric of her. Until she’d come back to the convoy, she hadn’t even known what thread to pull to extract it. “It’s not—it’s not just my secret. It’s Anya’s, too. I had to fight her to even tell the captain. Of course I trust you.” “Guess your sister don’t really have much confidence in me, huh,” he says, not bitterly at all. He doesn’t blame Anya her prejudices; the fact that the Tequila’s crew is so accepting of him is still, sometimes, something he can’t believe. She shrugs and smiles gently, pulling her hair over her shoulder. “She doesn’t have much confidence in anybody,” she says. She does not mention that Anya still refers to Justin almost exclusively as that felon. She certainly doesn’t mention that Anya accused him of being the escaped prisoners’ inside man. “And it’s not...it’s not just that we’re from the convoy. I…” She glances around at the people around them. “I can’t talk about it here.” He nods understandingly. “I get it. You don’t have to.” And he means it. He understands that she can’t tell him everything, not here, maybe not at all. It doesn’t make it sting less—but he gets it, and he won’t pressure her for more. All he needs, really, is the guarantee of her safety. Sahra leans forward and presses her hands to his stomach, her forehead to his chest. For a moment she only stands there, supported against him—there were things they needed to talk about, she knows. Lots of things. But all she wants in that moment is to stand there, and to breathe. And then, sharply, she remembers—”Your hands!” She pushes back, looking down at them, distressed. “You were bleeding—” He follows her gaze to his knuckles. “Damn. Didn’t even notice.” He blushes again, and shoves his hands quickly into the pockets of his hoodie. “It don’t matter. Doesn’t hurt.” Some of her usual good humor wells up, insistent. “Really? Because I was thinking I might play nurse—” Justin can’t keep his laugh from bubbling out. “Long as you wear the outfit.” She blushes, her eyes widening, and she barely restrains a laugh. “How did you know I—?” “What?” He purses his lips, trying not to smile. “I was jokin’—you actually got a nurse’s uniform?” “It was for Halloween!” she says, blanching. “A few years ago—I just never got around to getting rid of it—don’t laugh!” “You’re not even real—” He’s trying not to laugh—and failing. The thought of her in candy stripes is too much not to, and this, plus his relief at seeing her, holding her, expanding in his chest like a supernova, run him headfirst into a fit of giggles. It’s the laughter of exhaustion, and he can’t help it at all. He claps his hand over his mouth, trying to contain it. Sahra covers her face, mortified in a way she very rarely is—until his laughter, absurd giggling for a man of his stature and general stoicism, startles her. She blinks at him like she’s never seen him before in her life—and then she, too, is giggling, her hand to her face (wincing as she touches her bruise on accident), pinching her lips shut, the two of them ridiculous and laughing in the middle of the hangar, completely out of place. But she can’t stop. Her fear slides off her wrist and shoulders. Relief unspools in her gut. There are still so many things wrong. When had she started crying? She doesn’t know. She is so tired. She is safe. She leans against his shoulder, her hands over her face, willing herself to stop before anyone sees. It takes Justin several moments to realize what she’s doing, and why, but when he does, it unlocks something in him, his gut wrenching, his laughter evaporating, and he slides his arms back around her, cradling her against his chest. “It’s okay, darlin’, it’s okay,” he whispers, and means it. |