2goodarms | [Dejah's room]

"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.

She feels it, and without opening her eyes, without thought or hesitation, she wraps her hands around the old scar. Firm, as if she could stem the flow of blood from a non-existent wound. She pulls him in close to her, and holds tight.

"It's all right." You are safe here. You are loved here.

I know, he wants to say, but --

But he succeeded against everything that scar represents. But the warmth flowing from Dejah's voice cradles him as securely as her arms. And whenever he tells her the whole story...

He'll just have to worry about that later. Not now. Not here.

Curtis wraps his arms around Dejah; his eyes sting unexpectedly as he leans into her.

She pulls his head down to her shoulder, smoothing her hands over the scruff of his head, crooning under her breath. She cannot bear to see him in pain, especially not the cruel blade of memory. It slicest at the most tender flesh.

"Curtis, my beloved, tell me what happened to your arm."

"I can't."

Quiet, wretched agony twists through his words. The shadow shivers.

"I will. Eventually. Please not right now."

She nods, holding tight to him. What more can she ask? This has been an incredible day for the two of them.

She pulls back and takes his hands in hers, draws him back to the bed to sit. And when they're seated, she pulls him in again, kissing his brow and his cheeks. What more can either of them ask for, but time and patience?

He sighs, a little shaky, unutterably relieved. Thank you.

Curtis lets his hands drift back to her arms, close to the spot he left off. He draws them higher to the swirls on her shoulders, follows the lines in to her collarbone, back up and around to the top of her spine. He lets a few pieces of hair run through his fingers; when his left hand finally gets the memo, and he can differentiate between the individual strands, a tiny smile returns to his face.

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