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[Dejah's room]
Time passes. Asleep, half-dazed by the Voice of Barsoom, Curtis has even less sense of how long he stays in Dejah's bed.
(In his dreams, everything's warm and bright, even the smallest spaces of the train; nothing aches, and voices ring all around him.)
When he finally wakes up, utter disorientation smacks into him headlong -- where am I? what the fuck am I sleeping on? -- before he feels the warm body next to him and, like a compass swinging north, reorients around the soft sound of Dejah's breath. Sleep took care of the last side effects: he feels completely steady, awake, his calm returning as he looks over at Dejah.
(In his dreams, everything's warm and bright, even the smallest spaces of the train; nothing aches, and voices ring all around him.)
When he finally wakes up, utter disorientation smacks into him headlong -- where am I? what the fuck am I sleeping on? -- before he feels the warm body next to him and, like a compass swinging north, reorients around the soft sound of Dejah's breath. Sleep took care of the last side effects: he feels completely steady, awake, his calm returning as he looks over at Dejah.
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He stays quiet for a while. The shadow flattens, disappears into a background static barely detectable over their emotional link; he relaxes into her touch, a little at a time.
"There was someone in the Tail who..."
He stops there.
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Her hand continues exploring, marking the scar tissue above where the isolates melt into his body. Assured that there's no irritation, no pain, her hand drifts back along the top of his shoulder. She's memorizing every freckle, every tiny scar all the way to the side of his neck, trailing up into his hairline. Peace. Contentment. Safety.
Nothing exists but the two of them, here and now.
"Someone who?" she prompts, gently.
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And as far as reactions to trauma go, better to go mute than -- well.
"And there was another guy, Painter -- we all just called him that 'cause he was an artist. He'd grab paper during the junk deliveries and make his own charcoal. Sketched stuff all the time. He's how we ended up documenting half the shit that went on back there.
"Anyway, he figured out how to make tattoo ink and asked Grey if he wanted to put words on his skin. And he did."
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Any story ever written... An idea bubbles to the surface of her thoughts.
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A beat, just to enjoy the feel of Dejah's hand in his hair.
"That feels nice."
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"You would look beautiful with your own clan markings."
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Peaceably -- even as the shadow reemerges at the edge of his words: "Nah. I don't like spending too much time in the past."
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"They would be beautiful," she insists. "Your stories are painful, horrific even. But they are yours and they are beautiful. Without them, you would never have found your way -- to me." Her words are barely more than a breath, shimmering with that same bright thread of hope.
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"The scar's enough," he says at last. "My arm's enough. Maybe I would've gotten here anyway, I don't know."
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"Forgive me. I can't help but imagine what you would look like if you decided you loved Barsoom and wanted to embrace our ways. You are beautiful to my eyes, scars and all, regardless of whether or not you ever set foot there."
He wouldn't even need the Voice of Barsoom to hear the sorrow and grim determination warring in her voice. That silver thread is so tiny, but she refuses to let go of it.
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"Hey." Curtis turns his head just enough to drop a light kiss on her throat. "It's okay."
He's still going to visit -- assuming she's still willing, after he tells her everything. Maybe he'll want to stay. Maybe, given enough time, he'll be able to make that final leap, and fulfill the other desire twining through Dejah's voice.
And even if he doesn't...
He can't let himself put it to words yet, but she can hear it, and feel it. The deep fondness reflected back at her. The growing devotion.
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Is that what this is? Has having Curtis so close opened old wounds? Spilling memories of happier times like so much fresh blue blood? No. No, certainly it echoes those times, but it is different. New. Precious and rare.
She shakes her head, her grip not lessening a bit. "It's not okay, but that's all right. It will be. I promised you, I want us to be happy, and we may not always be. But I will always work to bring us back there. You have my word on that, Curtis Everett."
Another complex storm of emotion washes over him, and amid the darker emotions, hope and love shine through like the moons of Barsoom. Full and bright, shedding holy light on the shadow, driving it back. There is no war she has fought that she has not won. No love that she has declared that has gone unrequited. She is Dejah Thoris, and she will not bow her head in defeat.
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It's not a question of deserving or not-deserving, though, or whether some tail-section hick has a right to something from the Front. He's off the train. He wants this. He can have it; she's offering it freely. Her ferocity and determination warm him just as much as the love and hope.
If Dejah bringing him back to happiness has any kind of catch...he'll willingly take it upon himself.
What they're building is worth it.
He pulls back enough to settle both hands on her hair, gazing into her eyes, feeling the truth of her words -- and then he kisses her, full and warm.
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She sinks into the lush softness of his kiss, telling him in this quiet way how good he feels, how much better her life is with him in it. She will never get tired of telling him that, and it shows, in her breath and in her hands. In the way her body molds to his.
Tomorrow they will walk into the desert together. They will face whatever comes, together.