Chapter 20 #2
Fia nodded, and he gestured her in before sitting on the edge of his bed. She sat beside him and reached out for one of his arms and held it in her grasp, his palm up and her thumbs resting on either side of his wrist.
“Is the pain in the joints, or more in the muscles?” she asked, slowly tracing up along his forearm.
She mapped out where his skin ended, and the defined lines of his augmentations began with her claws.
His flesh was soft, hot, and reactive. The streaks of the bio-metallic plating within were unyielding.
Not cold, but the warmth in them felt different.
Like it sapped the heat from what was around it.
“It’s just everywhere. My muscles get tight, they spasm, and then they ache like I got punched in them. The joints get stiff, and moving them feels almost gritty. Like there’s sand wedged between the cartilage.” He winced a little as he flexed his hand. “This feels really nice, though.”
Fia did her best not to smile like a fool. “This is just my touch. There is no electricity yet.”
“Still … feels nice.”
She caught the rapid flutter of his pulse under her thumbs, and she knew her own raced in kind. It felt like an invitation, and she wanted to answer it. To climb her touch farther up towards his chest, his neck, his face. But she was here to help, not to indulge.
Human signals were confusing. If she overstepped, if she touched when it was unwanted, she would have ruined her attempt at kindness. It would make him think she did not care for him in the deeper ways, the ways that matter.
“If it is too much, tell me. I will not take it personally if you do not enjoy this. I will stop,” she murmured, softly but insistently.
Her thumbs swept back down towards his hands, and she let a tiny trickle of electricity flow from her touch into the base of his palm.
Cautiously, slowly stroking in arcs along the lines she had read to follow.
Slow, smooth, and following the shape of the anatomy as best she could recall from the diagrams.
His shoulders drooped as he breathed out a long, trembling sigh. “No, that’s … God. That’s really, really good. You know, I think I’m learning that I’ve gotta indulge more often. First, the spa. Now, this? I always brushed it off as useless fluff. But, goddamn. This is nice.”
“It is a good trade. I teach you how to relax, you teach me how to embrace a life of crime.” She returned to her starting position, following the lines of metal and muscle with more pressure.
“It has been a difficult adaptation. But you have made it easier for me to find my footing here. The world outside of the Fleet, here in Tau Ceti, is too bright and loud. Too sprawling to make sense of. But you have helped me find my place in it.”
“Yeah, well, you really found that footing yourself. Getting back to your roots. Are you thinking of joining up with TCIP once we find this guy?”
An icy pinprick of pain stung her throat at the prospect.
It should be comforting to return to something that could help her people.
It is the excitement of action, of purpose, that had made her heart thunder when they were in The Vesper.
She never was one for stagnation, for living in ease.
She needed to feel as if she were making an impact. Otherwise, she would fall apart.
And he is a kind man, who might follow me headlong into that conflict. And if he got hurt … it is too complicated to drag him with me. But that is a painful truth I can face another day. Not now.
“Turn around. Your back also ails you, yes?”
He nodded and obliged, turning on the bed to face away from her. She reached out with her fingers splayed, working quick strokes of pressure and crackling energy into his muscles.
It was a good thing he couldn’t see the way her eyes were wide and ravenous for every inch of skin he showed her. She was fighting the impulse to slide her tongue down the curve of his spine, to see what the lines of augmentation that splayed across his form would feel like beneath her lips.
For a moment, she neglected to even pretend the touch was therapeutic.
Her breath trilled in her throat as she flexed her fingers and drew a slow, wandering arc from the nape of his neck down his shoulder blade with the tip of her claws.
He shuddered and breathed out a tightly held gasp, and Fia felt the world grow a few degrees hotter around her.
“You always dodge questions by rubbing on people, Fia?” he asked with a husky laugh that melted into a groan. “Not that I’m judging. In fact, you can deflect all night if you keep that up. Christ…”
He made a delicious noise. Not quite a moan, not quite a grunt, but a soft, breathy utterance that throbbed immediate need between her legs. But she was here to mend him, not mount him.
He was in pain, he was exhausted, and she needed to ignore the pulse between her thighs that urged her to press against him. She didn’t even have to take his pants off. She just wanted to slide her hand down that dark line of hair that trailed down his stomach and disappeared below his zipper.
I cannot give him the life he deserves. He is self-sacrificing, and gentle, and I would ruin him.
She moved her touch back up to his shoulders, shifting pressure and increasing the intensity of the current into the stroke.
In response, he nearly folded forward in her grasp.
Apparently, that was the correct combination of things to do.
He let out a happy grumble and muttered something that sounded like, “I’m gonna pass out. ”
“Effective?” she asked, her smile wide with pride.
“So effective, I almost forgot you were dodging questions.”
He rose again, leaning back towards her. His broad shoulders tightened under her ministrations and looked absolutely delectable. Edible. She could sink her teeth into the taut muscle and skin if she had even a fraction less restraint.
“I do not know what you are talking about,” she retorted with another distracting sweep of her hand up towards his neck, working at the tension below his augmentation.
“I was asking if you were looking to join TCIP after we get this guy.”
“That is very likely.”
She couldn’t muster the will to tinge the words with warmth.
It hurt to say, and it hurt because she knew that was where she was meant to be.
Even if he wanted her here, she needed to fight for her people.
The fact that she was conflicted was a betrayal.
The fantasy of staying with him was a selfish indulgence in the face of her people’s suffering. Not only her people, but his as well.
“Doesn’t sound like you’re excited about it, Fi.”
She kept her eyes low, focused, but couldn’t ignore the sudden warmth on her cheek. His hand pressed against her skin. His hand. He had turned around and reached out to touch her. She found her tongue locked in her own mouth.
The risk of saying something that would make him pull away was too great. She just wanted to stay here, in this moment, where she was easing his pain and he was easing her loneliness.
“Fi, talk to me.”
The hand on her cheek slid down, and she felt his fingers cupping her chin to bring her eyes to meet his. Her own heartbeat was flickering against his fingertips, and his eyes were locked on hers.
“It is where I could have an impact. To do what I do best.”
Maybe there is a way I could walk both paths?
She breathed in, finding the courage in the swirling mire of fluttering nerves in her heart. The proposition on the tip of her tongue was a risk to ask, but one she had to take. She had to know.
“Theos is quite keen on your fabrication skills, too. Perhaps there is a place for you in the resistance as well?”
“I don’t think you … Fi, I’m not— I’m not a fighter, or anything. I’m just an engineer, and…” His voice wavered, and his gaze dropped away as he pulled his hand away from her.
The realization ached in her chest as she felt that narrow balance of possibility crumble.
“I know,” she murmured, sliding her hand up his arm to rest on his chest.
The thudding of his heart matched her own frenetic energy, and she curbed the urge to slide her fingers through the curls of dark hair against his deep, warm skin. The thundering of his pulse, the hesitation in his words. They were signals, boundaries. For once, she would respect them.
With a breath, she steeled herself, pulling a cool shroud over her disappointment. She was grateful there were no unbound Icthians aboard that could feel her heart cracking in the Chorus as she forced a smile.
“Much better for you to stay here. You are the best engineer and chef I could dream of having on my contact list. If you joined the rebellion, I would be on a waiting list for weeks to get my fix of your pancakes.”
She had offered a deflection, and she saw the relief in his expression bloom as he accepted it.
“Well, make sure you keep a nav pin on The Argent. You can always swing by between your super-soldier duties, you know? For old times’ sake.”
They returned to a quiet rhythm of touch and banter. Though the touch was less passionate, and the banter less intimate. They were just two motes in the universe, drifting close to each other but daring not to get too close, lest it bring ruin.
He is worth the risk. But I will not drag him down with me.