Curtis and Edgar, initial treatment and visiting hours

[simon_doctor]

It's been a rough day for Curtis and Edgar. Fortunately, the Milliways infirmary is definitely set up to handle hypothermia and exposure.

[Icon above notwithstanding, Simon Tam is not actually appearing in this thread.]

Comments

[hate_gettin_older]

"Christ," he mutters even lower under his breath, and then with dogged patience: "That's for me and him to work out, why do you keep --"

A small, sharp pause. (And a feeling, not very comfortable, of an abrupt shift in perspective.)

"Is this a Jeddak thing?"

[dejah_thoris]

Her jaw clenches and her gaze falls to the floor. He doesn't understand.




Then again, maybe it's her that doesn't understand. Without a formal suit, without the troth, maybe she shouldn't assume their lives are so tightly bound. Regardless of what's happening between them.



She turns away and resumes her path along the floor.

[hate_gettin_older]

"No, wait," he insists, still low but a touch louder, struggling to sit up. "I'm serious, is it?"

[dejah_thoris]

She stops. Her hands still ache. Every inch of her seems to ache. She would so love to crawl into bed and sleep for a thousand years.

"I do not have to be Jeddak to care about what happens between you and him. He is..."

Her voice trails off.

[hate_gettin_older]

"So it's just about him then."

Leaden, as he subsides back into the bed.

[dejah_thoris]

She sighs, drops her chin to her chest.

"I want you both to be happy, Edgar. I want us all to be happy. But I know that's not going to happen overnight. And I know it will take work. And time. If I asked you what you wanted from me instead, I am afraid I could not grant your wish."

[hate_gettin_older]

A beat.

Faintly bewildered: "D'you think you could if I told you what I want from him?"

[dejah_thoris]

"No."


But it would at least be an answer.

[hate_gettin_older]

That frustrated incomprehension wells up again, with an undercurrent of hurt and loneliness.

"What do you want from me?"

[dejah_thoris]

She turns back to him, returns to stand at the foot of his bed.

"Another chance. To be your friend, or at least, someone you are comfortable with and who you respect."

This time, with the help of the Voice, he can hear the truth of her words.

[hate_gettin_older]

He looks up slowly, still uncertain, palpable truth or not.

[dejah_thoris]

She meets his gaze, studies his face. A stray thought makes her wonder what Curtis looked like when he was this age. Edgar's been through so much. He bears his own metal, gifted him by the Jeddak of the Thark, someone she knows and respects.

"What do you want from me?"

[hate_gettin_older]

Two conflicting answers rise up, one born of old hurt and one of anger. They struggle, briefly, and subside in mutual annihilation.



"I don't know yet." he mumbles, finally. "Maybe just ... time. To work this out."

[dejah_thoris]

She nods, her eyes closing briefly. "All right." She reaches for him then, rests a hand on the back of his.

"I'm glad you're all right." And then she's moving, shifting away.

[hate_gettin_older]

Another brief internal struggle, then --



"Wait."

[dejah_thoris]

She stops, melts back to where she was sitting. After a moment, she looks at him again.

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar swallows hard.



"You been looking out for him, yeah? All this time."

It's a question, but only barely.

[dejah_thoris]

She smooths a hand over her trousers, picks away an invisible piece of lint.

"Yes."

When one or the other of them can't sleep, the other stays up just to talk or to make a midnight run down to the bar for hot chocolate. Discussing plans for the cabin. There hasn't been a repeat of the night with the champagne, but it's never far from either of their thoughts.

"As much as he'll let me, anyway."

[hate_gettin_older]

It's the exhaustion that's making his vision blur, he tells himself, and tries to blink it away.

"Good."

[dejah_thoris]

She feels the waves of loss and quiet anguish coming off him as clear as the late evening breeze off the Warhoon.

"He's still here for you, Edgar. He always will be. Nothing that passes between him and I will ever change that."

[hate_gettin_older]

"What would you do?" he asks, entirely without meaning to. "If it were you?"

[dejah_thoris]

Her brow knits for a moment, and there's a tendril of warmth from her. Genuine concern and care. Is he honestly asking for her counsel?

"If I were you?"

[hate_gettin_older]

"Yeah. Or if ... if you found out something like that. About, about somebody like him."

[dejah_thoris]

"Edgar, I cannot tell you what to do. I can only tell you what I know."

She rests a hand on the bed, not wanting to invade his space again.

"I know you have been wronged. I know you have had a grave and everlasting wound. I know nothing, nothing anyone can do or say will bring your mother back. And I know it was Curtis's hand that held the knife."

She leans in, her voice quietly pleading. "I also know, he was younger than you are sitting here today. I know that he was also wronged, driven to madness by hunger. He was robbed of his childhood, his parents, and finally, his very humanity. I know in my heart that while he held the knife, the crime is not his."

[hate_gettin_older]

He was younger than you are. Something about that concept is sticking in his head, refusing to be processed.

He looks away, his sense troubled but not rejecting.