notabricklayer | (no subject)

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He doesn't even have time to complain about the blatant cheating before exhaustion drags him under. And he stays there for hours, longer than a simple nap.

Slowly he wakes up, hitching himself up by stages. The dark behind his eyelids is still very inviting, but it is no longer irresistible when he blinks blearily at the ceiling.

The... ceiling? For a long moment he cannot remember where he is, or how he got there. It's familiar, but not the ceiling he has been staring at for the last week. Not the ship either... oh. Memory finally catches up with him, and he relaxes back against the bed.

Now. To get up. ... And, evidently, parade around the apartment stark naked.

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He blinks at her, a crooked grin spreading across his face.

"Woof?"

She bares her teeth at him for a moment, and then grins, excusing herself briefly only to return with a bottle of red and two glasses moments later.

"There."

She settles onto the pillows next to him, snatching a bite of cucumber after dipping it in the yoghurt.

"Feast."

"Thank you, darlin'." He stretches to steal another kiss before diving into the fantastic-smelling food. He takes a healthy portion of the produce along with everything else - actual real fresh veggies are a delicacy on-board ship, where they only appear on the menu when there's a crop ready in the hydroponics bay, or they pick up something on an away mission or at port.

A little bit of everything together for the first bite, and the resulting moan is almost orgasmic. Now that is good.

She smirks at him, watching him eat, tearing a piece of bread and stuffing it with some of the bird.

"I live in Istanbul now. Mostly because I like the food. And the coffee."

His body is craving nutrition, and he tucks in happily.

"If this is an example of it, I can understand why." Sure, he loves proper Southern cooking, but he's equal-opportunity when it comes to good food. And this? Is good food.

She smirks, and pops another olive in her mouth, rolling it around before biting into it. She eats more slowly, having pieced while she was cooking.

It's a joy to watch him tuck in with such vigour.

Once the initial hunger pangs are addressed, which takes up the majority of what he put on his plate in the first place, he can enjoy the treat at a more leisurely pace.

Slightly more leisurely, anyway. The cucumbers with the yogurt are rapidly gaining 'favorite' status. There's some things a nutrient bar just cannot touch.

All good meals have to come to an end sometime, and eventually he decides that one more bite might make him explode.

It's a tough call. Between moderately bland ship-board food and horrifically bland survival rations, this is Nirvana of the taste buds.

She's finished long before he is, and settles back on her elbows with a glass of wine close at hand.

"Feeling better, hmm?"

She idly tugs at his jeans with a toe.

He hums agreement, sprawling back against he pillows lazily. "Decidedly in the land of the living." Is his definitive, not-quite-professional prognosis. "Though I think that meal could rouse the dead."

Her fingers twitch an instinctive ward, her expression never shifting away from supreme contentment. She looks rather like the cat who ate the canary, it has to be said.

"Silver tongued devil," she drawls. "Still not going to cook for you. Often."

She tucks her nose in her wine glass at that confession.

He chuckles, and he wonders if anyone ever called her adorable. Maybe he'll get to be the first.

What is clear is how happy the whole situation has made him. He'd hardly be recognizable to the poor souls who had to put up with him after his control over his temper frayed away to nothing under the effects of the virus. Just being here, with her, and a good meal, and a comfortable spot in front of a warm fire - he's perfectly content.

And that's no simple thing, right there.

"Right, my turn tomorrow." He agrees, cheerfully.

She snorts, and shakes her head, also ridiculously happy and trying not to think too hard on the fact. Recognising such happiness is a temptation to the gods to destroy it. Thus, this is nothing more than a simple night spent with a friend.

"No. Next week. When you're better. This week, it's cold borscht and pig's feet for you."

He pouts at her, a gesture that clearly illustrates just how relaxed and unguarded he is. He doesn't exactly go around doing that on board ship.

"Is that supposed to be a threat? Darlin', I grew up on pan-fried opossum and pickled frog's legs. And what am I supposed to do with myself if I can't cook?"

"I don't know," she shrugs, deeply amused at his expression.

"Rest. Relax. Catch up on your reading. Sleep. Heal."

He snorts at that list - while he'll never spend his free time in crazy athletic stunts like Jim, he always has to be doing something with his free time. Lazing about reading old journals sounds like a sure-fire way to catch cabin fever.

But he's pretty sure he's going to lose that argument. Scratch that - he's already lost that argument, back when it first started, without so much as a prayer of winning even a small concession.

Still, he doesn't look too put-upon sprawled somewhat bonelessly on the pillows, no.

Her eyebrows rise, watching him work through that little bit of logic.

"Heaven forbid we actually have -- oh, how do you say it -- a conversation?"

They have been rather in the can't-keep-their-hands-off-each-other phase of the relationship, and while she doesn't feel the least bit guilty about having done so, she doesn't want him to think that's the only reason she's interested in his company.

He blushes, embarrassed and contrite. That probably, thinking back on it, was one of the more pig-headed moments he's had in a while. She surely has better things to do than entertain a broken-down doctor.

"Sorry, darlin'."

Her foot has been resting against his thigh and she nudges him a bit with it.

"What are you sorry for, hmm?"

She looks genuinely confused.

He sighs, shifting awkwardly to ease the complaints of joints that seem to tighten whether he's moving or not. He makes a mental note to up the dose of terakine before he crashes again, to keep from waking up completely immobile.

"For being an inconsiderate ass." He might be brutal when chewing out others, but to be fair, he uses the same standard on himself.

Her cheek falls to her shoulder, her grey eyes peering up at him. She's really not understanding what he's trying to say.

"How do you figure?"

"Here I am grousing about being cooped up, and you're the one volunteering to keep the idiotic invalid from doing something spectacularly stupid. I'm sure you could find something more interesting to do." He points out wryly.

She blinks at him for a moment, and then snorts under her breath.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe this is where I am supposed to be."

There may have been the hint of a question in that last sentence.

"Unless you'd prefer to do your healing in solitary confinement?"

She can take a hint.

He reaches out to catch her wrist, urgent as though she were threatening to leave right now. He knows his own psych profile. Solitary is not a good place for him.

But that's not the reason he doesn't want her to go.

"Hey now, I seem to remember a deal being made."

She feels both grasps, physical and the other, more emotional pull, as if they were one and the same. She looks down at his hand on her wrist, and back into his eyes, her expression unreadable.

"Lyonya. If I did not want to be here, there is nothing you could do or say that would keep me here. You understand?"

He watches her in return, unsure. Maybe it's a side-effect of the toll the virus took on his system. Maybe it's residual uneasiness of his own ability to maintain a long-term relationship of any sort, thanks to the disaster of his marriage. Maybe it's just the twitchiness from the dream-ghost's visit.

So he's trying to be reasonable. Trying. It's hard. He doesn't want her to go, and he's not sure... well. He's just not sure. His smile is awkward, a little strained, a little worried.

"I hope I do, darlin'."