2goodarms | [Dejah's room]

Curtis nods. He rests his hand just below the pendant. They rise and fall with the movement of his chest.

The tingle feels like getting too close to one of the bare electrical wires that hung just above the Tail's topmost bunks. That wire took out more than one person over the years: a snap, a buzz, a scream, another body plummeting down. This will hurt, he tells himself, but he'll get through it.

He touches the pendant.

"Ah -- "

His hand slams closed around the stone in a single convulsive stroke, the searing pain racing up the remains of his left arm, setting everything afire in its path. He's back in the engine room with blood pouring over his arm, choking down every scream that wants to rip free, staring at Timmy's face and thinking just a little longer, just a little longer and it'll be over --

She sucks in a breath, and covers his good hand with hers, holding him secure as the blue shards of light bleed into skin. His entire body has gone rigid, and his skin pale.

She watches as the isolates pull the prostheses in until metal meets flesh. The core knows what his good arm looks like, and begins to fill in the gaps. It's all working exactly as she designed.

Only she didn't plan on having to be here, helpless, as he writhes in quiet agony.

"Breathe. Almost there. Almost. Just breathe."

His neck's locked up; he can't even nod. When Curtis breathes, it hisses loud between his teeth.

That's as much noise as he'll let himself make. Even though the engine's chewing on his whole shoulder, the whole left side of his body, desperate to devour him and take back what he stole -- he can see Dejah just above him, and the reassurance of her words chases after the fire to try and soothe the pain. Almost done. Almost over. Breathe. Breathe.

And then, as sudden as the pain arrived, it cuts out. The memory cramps the upper half of his arm, but even that's fading like a bad dream.

Shakily, after two more breaths, Curtis lifts his right hand to his forehead and wheezes, "Shit. You weren't kidding."

Her hand smoothes up the prostheses, up to the junction of metal and flesh. The characteristic blue glow flows under his skin, all the way to his collarbone and around to what she assumes is his scapula in the back.

"I'm so sorry. But Curtis..." Her hand caresses back down to his new forearm and wrist. "Can you feel that?"

That bright thread of hope sings in her voice.

The last of the pain vanishes. His stump feels...heavy, like it's pinned by a weight, and there's a weird tingling below it like the phantom twitches he gets every so often.

But then it starts to resolve into something else, and Curtis' eyes widen.

It's not like all the deliberate direction of the test runs: think move, watch the fingers move, think lift and watch the elbow bend, like he's sending commands to some impersonal computer. He can feel the softness of the bed pressing against the lower half of his arm. If he concentrates, he thinks he can even feel the sheets. And over top of it --

Oh.

He doesn't have to think move, turn, grasp. His left hand turns over beneath Dejah's and catches her fingers in his, and he can feel every one of them, the pressure of her touch, the softness of her skin, almost everything.

The room blurs a little. He's beaming, so hard his face hurts, and his voice trembles for an entirely different reason when he whispers, "Oh my god."

The blue glow shifts up and down his arm as the new nerves learn and recalibrate accordingly. She watches as the realization washes over him, and the emotion in his voice brings tears to her eyes. She runs her fingers through his, light as a feather, tracing the seams that mimic the lines of his palm.

This is the sweetest blow she's ever struck against the Thern and their legacy.

Her gaze moves back to his face and she mirrors that grin back to him.

Edited 2015-09-28 02:43 (UTC)

"Dejah -- " He can't get any farther than that. Curtis reaches up (slowly, as his shoulder muscles catch and bear weight they haven't carried for months now) and rests his new palm against her cheek. The light shimmers, a stray bit of blue catching on her face.

Then his other hand joins the metal one, both hands, two hands cradling her face, and, laughing, Curtis draws her down into a long kiss.

Edited 2015-09-28 03:00 (UTC)

She closes her eyes, leaning into his touch, her breath shivering in her throat. It's not as warm as his flesh hand, but it's getting there. She nuzzles against his wrist and lets him pull her in. She returns his kiss, her cheeks wet, her heart pounding.

He can feel the surge of love flowing from her as surely as he can feel her lips against his.

Edited 2015-09-28 03:05 (UTC)

It's unreal. For decades, he couldn't fathom ever being this happy, or this secure and safe. Did anything like this happen before the freeze? Has he ever felt like this?

His eyes shine bright when they part. Curtis skates his new fingers over her hair, then lets them drift lower. Very gently, he traces the shape of the tattoo along the side of her face, following the intricate feathers and swirls from temple to jaw and back up.

He's never done that before. He couldn't. It would've been too awkward to reach across her face with his right hand.

Her hand covers the back of his and she holds very still, eyelashes fluttering at the feel of his fingertips along her cheek. Words fail her. She should be asking all sorts of questions, gathering data, getting feedback.

She swallows, but it doesn't help. She hadn't realized how terrified she was until just this moment that he would take this from her and leave, never to look back again. But his touch... she can't stop the flow of tears.

She barely manages to choke out, "How does it feel?" Beneath her words, he can hear her relief, her overwhelming joy, and the deepest wellspring of her heart overflowing.

"It's amazing," he breathes.

It'll need some fine-tuning: the dampness on Dejah's cheek just feel like a warm spot, not like tears. With the same care, he draws his thumb under her eye to wipe them away.

"Hey. What is it?"

All the things he could choose to do with his new hand, and he touches her face. He could make a fist, interlace his fingers, grasp and punch and reach, and he chooses to touch her face.

She sniffles, wipes a hand over her eyes, shakes her head. She can't tell him how she's dreamed of feeling his fingertips tracing all over her body, following her clan markings, her scars, her skin. She's getting ahead of herself again, and she knows it. She takes a breath, lets it go, nuzzling into his new palm. It doesn't smell like him, yet.

She shakes her head again, smiling. She leans in to steal a few gentle kisses.

Curtis smiles, hesitant but warm, and stretches up to meet her for the kiss. His new hand combs through her hair, settling on the back of her neck, as he rests his other hand on her hip.

(He can do both. He doesn't have to choose one or the other anymore.

And that doesn't make his sacrifice on the train any less.)

"It's kind of weird," he says eventually, half-laughing. "Just when I was getting used to one arm."

She settles on his chest, her laughter felt more than heard. Her hand keeps smoothing over his shoulder and new arm, tracing the blue light as it flickers and shimmers beneath the panels she crafted with own two hands. When she speaks, he can feel the quiet wonder in her voice.

"Well, you will have to get used to having two again. At least for a few hours a day. There is no pain?"

Edited 2015-09-29 01:55 (UTC)

"I'll adapt," agrees Curtis, peaceable, before stretching to kiss the crown of her head.

He watches her fingers move, following the glow like she's following the lightning-quick path of his nerves, and sighs, completely content. When she crosses the boundary of flesh to metal, he can feel the change: her touch feels duller on the lower half of his arm, like he's got a bandaged wrapped around it. But he can still feel her hand on a place that didn't exist until a few minutes ago.

This is goddamn incredible.

"Nah. No more pain."

For a quiet moment, she relaxes against him, going almost boneless. She's still twisted oddly at the waist, her feet on the floor, but he can still feel how she's letting him take her weight. Trusting him to hold her.

But it only lasts a breath, maybe two, and then she's sitting up.

"Come on. Sit up. I want to see you use it. See if there are any glitches we need to iron out."

He snorts out a fond laugh -- of course; back to business -- and pushes himself up with both hands once Dejah's upright.

"I think the sensors or, uh, whatever part of it registers touch? I think they need more fine-tuning," he admits. He extends his metal palm to Dejah. "I can feel stuff, but there's definitely a difference between my skin and this."

She takes his hand in hers, running her fingers over it, frowning a little bit.

"I think... Perhaps, you just need to... Do you remember I told you, the core will learn? So, take my hand." She reaches for his right hand. "There. Now, where did it feel different?"

There's a shimmer running under her voice. Veiled longing. That ache again.

Curtis has to fight down a shiver of his own when he picks up on that longing. Later. Focus.

He folds his hands around Dejah's, squeezing lightly. Thin frown lines etch themselves in his forehead as he tries to pinpoint the differences. "I don't know," he says at last. "It just feels like -- I don't know, like the volume's turned down on this hand."

He bounces his left hand a little without letting go of hers.

"I have to squeeze harder to feel the same stuff. And it's not as refined, you know?"

"So, squeeze with your right hand and left hand at the same time. And just as we did with the test runs, let your right hand inform your left. The core will adapt and learn. You should feel an improvement almost instantly."

She laces her fingers through his and meets his gaze, her blue eyes shining bright.

Edited 2015-09-29 03:27 (UTC)

Curtis nods. He bows his head, closes his eyes to keep his focus.

The pressure on Dejah's hands increases -- unevenly at first, his left hand overcompensating for the dulled feedback, but soon it levels out into a steady, firm grip. He sketches small circles with his right thumb, studying the texture of Dejah's skin, then mimics the motion with his left thumb.

"Huh," he says after a moment, softly pleased.

She's right. Already, his new hand's picking up on details it missed the first time around.

She can't help but smile. This reminds her of that first time he came to her rooms. So many memories of that day.

She gently shifts her hands through his, palm to palm, letting him feel the way the arm works, feel the way it takes in new information and incorporates it into the model. She watches his face as he concentrates, fixing this moment in her mind.

"It should also limit the pain input from your left hand, but pain serves to remind us not to damage ourselves, so... Just be aware of that. It also may be a bit stronger than your right arm for that very reason. The musculature is more resilient than a human arm." She's speaking softly now, not wanting to intrude on his concentration.

"Makes sense," he murmurs.

He's glad at least some pain input will stick around. It wouldn't be right to feel everything except pain. Living thirty-five years with pain being the signal to fix what's broken -- he still needs that.

Curtis slides his fingers to her wrists. Then higher, to her forearms, tracing the tattoos like he traced the one on her face; like she traced the light racing along his new arm. The pressure deepens, lightens, deepens again.

Ostensibly it's to calibrate his arm better. Ostensibly.

Dejah's breath hitches and she catches her lower lip between her teeth. Her own fingertips keep contact with his forearms, new and old, pausing only to lightly caress the deep scar just below his elbow.

Her eyelids flutter shut and she can feel herself reaching for him in that space between. That space she's known only as a cold void, an hollow place haunted by memories. It's the faintest of impressions, but it's warm and it's solid and she knows it's him.

He traces over the years of her life, like he could read her story with just the tips of his fingers. Breathe. Just breathe.

Edited 2015-09-29 23:42 (UTC)

Concentrating on the feel of her skin, the layers of muscle beneath, the way she shifts under his touch...yeah, when there isn't even a hint of the detachment they tried to maintain the first time Curtis visited, he's having a hard time remembering to shift his focus from his right hand to his left, carrying the information between the two.

(That just means he has to keep touching her. Damn.)

Both hands just above her elbows, Curtis stills when her fingers light on his scar. A small noise, not quite a wince, forms in the back of his throat: it doesn't carry any pain, but she can feel an aversion as deep as the mark, so deep it touches the shadow swimming under his thoughts.

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