skateboarding elf prince (ikaro) wrote in warrantlogs, @ 2015-10-20 11:26:00 |
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She can’t believe he’s on her bloody ship. Here! On the Whiskey Sour! It’s—well, it’s not an outrage. But it sure is something. Kira kicks her foot against the wall of her bunk. She lies sprawled on her back, knees bent against her chest, heels resting on the wall, her blonde ponytail hanging over the edge of the mattress. The bed is unmade, of course: not just that, but the cot is bare, her dirty sheets balled up on the floor awaiting whatever bored moment she decides to dedicate to laundering them. Judging by the empty bag of sesame crackers on the bed next to her, and the half-read magazine open on her chest, she has been in the position for quite some time. Most of it decidedly not reading, but rather, obsessing over what she was going to do about James Wu. She’d spent the last three days, since he’d come on board with his assignment, in quiet contemplation. Or, if she was being honest with herself, absolute ravenous curiosity and longing. She was annoyed, even if she couldn’t place why, and also weirdly happy, and a host of other emotions she wasn’t prepared to confront without a few shots of vodka to make the journey towards honesty slightly more lubricated. The next shove of her foot against the wall sends her sliding off the mattress and onto the floor with a thunk and a small strangled cry. Pulling herself to her feet, she grumbles—to who, she doesn’t know, Cody isn’t even there—and rubs her sore tailbone. Obviously, that’s Jim’s fault too. Her feet are shoving into socks and slippers before she can give it a second thought. Perhaps she ought to freshen up a little—late at night, most of the crew asleep, and her in sweatpants and an oversize Wazid Blowie tee and open dressing gown, she is less than the picture of feminine beauty—but it’s just Jim, she thinks. She doesn’t care. And she also knows she looks good anyways. Still, at the last minute, she rummages through some of her drawers for a lipstick and smears it on, smacking her lips together before sliding the door open and creeping down the hall. She’s surprised. The door to Jim’s room is ajar, the light on; she stand to the side and peeks in. No Liam, but no Jim, either. He must have gone to the mess for water, she thinks, or to brush his teeth in the bathroom. It dawns on her how stupid she’s being. It was a year ago. She turns and, disguising her footsteps under the hum of the ship, starts to tip-toe back towards her quarters. He was not in the mess, in fact, but the weight room—he was not a late-night exerciser by nature, but it seemed like the first spare half hour he'd had to himself since boarding the Whiskey Sour, and there was a knot of tension in his shoulders he could only shake with some time spent on the heavy bag. The open door was an accident—he still wasn't used to the heavy weight of them, the extra force required to make them click shut—and the light on, forgetfulness. He was discombobulated. He wouldn't have been so thoughtless back on Ganymede. But the triple whammy of being in space, on his first ship, and seeing Kira again, had thrown him for a loop. Several loops. He was still in one, probably. He pads back still damp and tousled from the training room's showers, scrubbing at the ends of his hair with a towel, and stops short when he sees Kira—of all people; but then again, who was he kidding? With his luck, of course it was her—lurking outside of his and Liam's cabin. Liam and Jaime were cloistered up in the engine room, figuring out if the systems could handle the new flight path, or if they'd have to dock over on Mars for some new parts. The other rooms were shut, their occupants sleeping or reading or elsewhere on the ship. Jim stares at Kira for a moment. If he wanted to say something to her, it was now or never. If only he knew what he wanted to say. "Uh," he tries instead, clearing his throat. "Did you—need something?" “Ahh!” She jumps, clutching her chest with one hand, and spins to face him. Her face grows red from the surprise and, she has to admit, the humiliation of being caught mid-snoop. “Holy shit, you scared the fucking piss out of me!” "Sorry, sorry!" he blurts, laughing, a bubble burst between them—if he had met Kira while she was gloating, or staring imperiously down at him, or mocking him, or trying to flirt, or, god forbid, flirting with some other crew member just because she knew it would bother him (and it would, wouldn't it? He hates to admit it), they would have gotten off to such a rocky start, he's not sure they would have ever recovered. And he needed to recover, to get along with this woman, despite everything. How was he going to prove himself among the crew if he was always irritated with her? Or—whatever it was he felt, a year later. But he had caught her with her defenses down, and it reassured him: she was still Kira. She hadn't changed much. Her hair was shorter; her skin paler. Less opportunities to tan out in space, he imagined. Still. He rubs the back of his head, hand coming away damp from his hair. "What're you doing up this late?" Kira scratches the back of her neck, almost mimicking his movement. She is, honestly, too absorbed in her own embarrassment at being caught even to survey him, and her gaze ducks away uncertainly. “Uh. Pilot’s hours. They get kind of weird.” "Ah," he says, and lapses into silence. He rocks back on his heels. Kira isn't blocking the door, but it would be weird, at this distance, to just go in while she was standing there. "So…" “So,” she echoes. Her arms cross loosely over her waist, her robe fluttering in the draft from one of the vents in the floor. “You’re here.” Jim shrugs and smiles uncertainly, just half of his mouth, as if he has forgotten the rest of it somewhere and hasn't yet noticed. "I was stationed here," he says. It might be an excuse, or an apology. It might not. She snorts. “Obviously.” "Well, if we're just stating obvious things," he says, raising his eyebrows. “Whatever,” she says, tossing her hands up and turning back around. “This was a dumb idea. Night.” Jim takes a step forward, tugging at the towel around his neck. "What was a dumb idea?" She leans against the wall, supporting herself on one palm. “Coming to see you—I mean, to talk, or, you know,” she says, although she doubts he does actually know, seeing as she didn’t quite know herself. He only blinks at her, his hands frozen in place. "Coming to see me?" he repeats. The idea of it—that she might want to address the tension between them with anything other than abject mockery or blatant ignorance—is outlandish. Absurd. Kira Davenport had next to no thoughts about him; she never had. That day in Ganymede last fall was a fluke. Any other explanation (that she'd hated it, that she hated him, that he was worse than bad, but forgettable, that she had sailed off into the stars and hadn't given him a second thought, even to dismiss him) was untenable. "Why?" “Why?” He rubs again at the back of his head. "Why'd you come to see me?" She narrows her eyes at him, inspecting him thoroughly for the first time since he’d hopped on the ship a few days ago. He looks older, slightly more filled out in his own body, stronger after another year’s (diligent, she guessed) physical training. That’s amusing, at least—his eagerness hasn’t faded. Still a schoolboy, she thinks. “To borrow a cup of sugar,” she says, rolling her eyes. “What else?” Jim's face shutters, from the eyebrows down: his brow sinks; his eyes dim; his mouth turns down. That bubble of relief he'd felt with her laughter pops at once. So it was going to be like this, huh. "Well, I'm pretty tired," he says, moving for his door, "and fresh out of sugar. So." “God, you’re still a wet blanket, huh,” she says, sighing back against the wall. She reaches over and slides his door shut in front of him, her lips pursed. “I didn’t actually want any sugar, idiot.” He looks at the door, at Kira, at the door again—considers for a moment just shoving past her and into his room, as he really was pretty exhausted, but then panics she might take it as some sort of invitation, and the absolute last thing he needed in his first week on deck was the ship's engineer rolling in while Kira Davenport tried to give him a blow job. "I'm not a wet blanket," he says instead, pursing his lips at her. "But—well, whatever you want to say, you should just go ahead and say it." “I—” She doesn’t even know what she wants to say. She hadn’t gotten that far. At least not the specifics. “I just—you’ve got a lot of nerve taking this assignment!” "Me?" he says, pulling back. "What—I didn't ask for it! I didn't even know you were on this ship!" “So if you had known, you would have rejected it?” She scowls at him, reaching over and poking him in the arm. “This is a great ship!” "So I should have rejected it if I'd known?" he says, fuming, and shakes her hand off. "Or I should have rejected it because it—it offends you? Or I shouldn't have rejected it at all? God! Make up your mind!" “Ugh! Whatever!” she snaps, stomping her feet lightly. “Just stay out of my way, alright!” Which was not at all what she had come here to say. She knows that much. "Hard to do that on the same ship!" he snaps. "Are you gonna be—are you gonna be like this the whole time?!" “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I’m not being like anything!” He waves his hands at her wildly. "Like this! Like—like this! So—!" She glowers up at him. He looks so much bigger than before. “What the fuck, did you get fucking taller?” "Yeah!" he says, stepping towards her, way too aggressive in his affirmation of his own height. "Yeah, I did! So what!" Kira doesn’t back away, just sticks her chin out a little farther. “So! You look hot, that’s what!” She scowls. “For once!” He stares down at her, splotchy red all over his cheeks and neck. His voice comes out strangled and tight. "Well—thanks!" “You’re welcome!” she says, her voice rising, eyebrows knit together in frustration. "So—" he says, and what few patches of his face haven't turned red flush with color, "so do you! I guess! Whatever!" “Great!” she says, standing up straight, and suddenly wishes she wasn’t in baggy pajamas. “I know!” "Great!" Kira props her hands on her hips. “So, are you going to—” He crosses his arms—his hand catches on his loose workout shirt, and he struggles for a full, horrifying fifteen seconds as he tangles his fist in the cotton and, cursing under his breath, untangles it again. "To what?" he says, still grimacing down at her, despite the shirt. She snickers at him, trying not to break into laughter, and waves her hand. “God. Nothing.” His frown and blush deepen, if it's even possible. "Just say it." “Are you going to—” Kira gulps and frowns, and taps the door to his room. “Go to bed soon?” Jim blinks. The fury goes out of him in a sputter, and he takes a half-step back, uncrossing his arms. "Uh," he starts, clearing his throat. He was planning to hit the sack soon, actually. But he shakes his head. "I'll probably be up a while." She nods, looking away absently. “I had insomnia for days when I first came on. It takes a while to get used to everything.” "Well…" He scratches the side of his nose and glances at the floor. "Actually, I'm pretty beat. But it sounded like you wanted to—talk. So…" “It’s fine,” she says, her lips pressing thinly together. “Go to bed.” Jim rubs his forehead. "Kira, come on…" “Either go to bed,” she says slowly, “or invite me in.” He hesitates, and then pushes the door open, and stands out of the way. She smirks, then slides past into his room, her slippers flopping on the floor. "Just for a little while," Jim says, following her in, and shuts the door within an inch of its seal. Just in case. The room is, like the other rooms on the ship, divided down the middle, Liam's bunk on one side and Jim's on the other. Liam had been there long enough to decorate as much or as little as he saw fit; but Jim's things—what few there were—were yet to be put in any kind of display. He had two smallish boxes of his belongings on the floor by his bunk, his dress uniform and cadets' coat hung in the open closet, recessed into the wall, a few books on starmapping and airship artillery on his half of the bookshelf, and, the only thing put up properly, a framed photograph of Jim and his mother on the shelf. He stands awkwardly for a few minutes while Kira peers around, then tries to start his usual nightly routine as if she weren't there. It is, of course, impossible. He ends up standing awkwardly near the spare chair against the wall, folding and unfolding his towel in his hands. "So...this is it," he says, and chuckles, and then stops that horrible noise at once. Kira sits down on his bed, her fingers curled over the edge, her eyes trained on him. “How do you like it?” He shrugs and looks around with a half-smile. "Would you believe it's bigger than most of my bedrooms?" She laughs. “You have multiple bedrooms?” Jim shakes his head, suddenly sheepish, his smile going tight at the edges. "No, we—moved around a lot." Kira squirms, picking at his blanket. “Oh. Right.” He clears his throat and tosses the towel into the small laundry bag in the open wardrobe. "It's weird sharing, though. I mean, with someone beside my mom. I guess it must be weirder for you, though," he adds, glancing back at her. "You're rooming with—a guy." She raises her eyebrows. Some things never did change. “So what?” She reaches up, flapping the shirt over her chest. “You jealous?” "Oh, yeah," he says, lifting his chin. "I've had a crush on Cody for years." “Well, now’s your chance. Don’t let me stand in your way,” she says, stretching her legs out in front of her, just enough to nudge Jim’s toe with her own. He jerks his head out to the hall. "You gonna put in a good word for me?" “You have to do your own seduction, James,” she says, and shakes her head. "Well," he says, and shrugs, pushing his hair back over his head. "That's not really my forte." She laughs, leaning back on his bed, propped up on her elbows. “No kidding.” He clears his throat again. He doesn't really know what to say to that without treading into uncomfortable territory. "So—you like this crew, huh?" he says instead, sitting down in the chair. Kira shrugs. “There’s a lot of new people.” "So...no?" “I didn’t say no.” "You didn't say yes, either." He laughs a bit. "I just want to know what I'm getting into here!" She considers for a few moments, running her thumb over her bottom lip. A smudge of lipstick comes off. “I do like it. You will too. I think. I don’t really—” She pauses, clears her throat. “I’m not the best judge of what you like and what you don’t.” He watches her hand for a second, and then rises, reaching for a box of tissues on the shelf. Propping his shoulders against the wall of the recessed bunk, he hands it to her, nodding vaguely at her lipsticked finger. "Well, I'll be here a while," he says, "so you'll probably figure it out." Kira wipes her finger on a tissue, crumples it up, and tosses it at Jim, smiling. He bats it out of the air with a half-hearted scowl. “How do you propose I do that?” "Talk to me? I mean, that's how most people get to know each other," he says, only a little mocking. "Usually with a lot less mockery than you're used to." “Sounds boring,” she says, faking a yawn. He shrugs. "Well—then maybe I'm boring." Kira scoots forward on the bed, resting her arms on her knees. “No, you’re not. I don’t think that.” He scuffs the floor lightly with his boot heel. "Could've fooled me." She rolls her eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?” "Come on," he says, pushing away from the bed to stretch his arms. "Back at the academy, all you did was make fun of me. And then, after graduation—" he pauses, chewing his bottom lip. After you kissed me is what he means, and other things, too: after you left, after you didn't reach out, after you flew off into space and forgot about him completely. Not that he'd expected some fairy tale from a single dockside kiss—but even he could admit he didn't like being forgotten. He shakes his head and shakes his shoulders out. "Ahh! It doesn't matter. It was a while ago, and—" he glances up at the clock on the wall—"it's pretty late." Suddenly, Kira doesn’t know what she’s doing here. Coming to talk in the middle of the night, trying to get along. She pushes to her feet at once. “Sure, whatever,” she says, wrapping herself within her robe and making for the door. “I’ll get out of your bloody way.” "Kira, come on, I didn't mean—" She ignores him, sliding the door open, then stops and looks at him over her shoulder. “Have a good night.” She shuts the door behind her with a click. |