A/N
I had far more important writing things on my plate today, but this idea popped into my head and wouldn't accept to be pushed away before I wrote it down. Then I figured, since it's now written and this lovely pairing needs far more material than it has, I could just as well post it on here.
And yes. I am a sucker for a strong female character with some tiny flaw that she herself is really self-conscious about. We just have to live with that, I'm afraid.
Be nice, people! :) To me, to them, to each other, and to everyone else!
"Are you okay?" was the first thing Bernard asked when he came by that night.
"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"
Theresa sat by the kitchen table, surrounded by a cloud of cigarette smoke, and the contents in the overfull ash tray revealed that she had been adding to that cloud for quite a while.
"Because you're clearly nervous about something..." Bernard said.
"Who says I'm nervous?"
"Well," Bernard began, motioning to the smouldering cigarette between her fingers, "if you keep using cigarettes as inhalers the way you do now... you're soon going to end up needing an actual inhaler," he finished in a tone that implied that he was only partially joking. "You don't smoke like that unless there's something that really upsets you. Care to tell me what it is?"
"No," she said sharply, got up from her chair and went to get a bottle of wine and two glasses. Bernard noted that she wouldn't put the cigarette down even for this brief interruption; she simply bit down on it and kept it in her mouth, blowing smoke out of the corner of her mouth like some archaic movie gangster boss.
This was not like Theresa at all.
"You're not even nervous," he concluded, taking the wine glasses from the cabinet before she got that far. "You're scared of something, aren't you?"
Theresa's eyes flickered from one side to the other as if she had been caught doing something she wasn't supposed to.
"Don't be ridiculous, Bernie," she snapped, inwardly berating herself for being so obvious, but she couldn't seem to get this fear under control. She knew it was irrational, she knew it was plain stupid, but she simply couldn't help it.
She put out the cigarette and immediately wanted another one, but resorted to fidgeting with her ring instead. It was nowhere near as satisfying to the nerves, but at least it wasn't a health hazard.
"I'm not being ridiculous," Bernard said slowly, and his brow furrowed, "I believe I'm being very right. What…" he cut himself off. "Oh."
Theresa told herself she wasn't going to ask, wasn't going to encourage him, but curiosity got the best of her.
"'Oh', what?"
"It's the annual flu shot, isn't it? You don't want to get it."
Theresa involuntarily shuddered at the words 'flu shot' and tried to make it look like she was merely stretching, but she knew she wasn't fooling Bernard. She used to tease him for being the "master of observations", but it wasn't just a joke, he really did notice the tiniest details. Sometimes it annoyed her, but most of the time she thought that was one of the reasons she was so attracted to him.
"Now why would that bother me?" she asked.
"You tell me," he said, shrugging, but he didn't take his eyes off her as he spoke. "As far as I know, all vaccines have been so well perfected the past twenty years there are no side effects at all anymore, and the procedure is quick as can be. A tiny prick and it's done."
He watched her closely as Theresa's face took on a pale, ashen shade.
"Ah, that's what I thought," he said. "You're scared of needles."
"I'm not fucking scared of needles," Theresa tried to laugh it off as a ludicrous accusation, but her laugh caught in her throat and almost sounded like a sob instead. Bernard put his hand on her shoulder, as gently as he could. Theresa didn't try to push it away, she only stood there, hanging her head as if ashamed.
"It's alright, Tess," he said, gently rubbing her arm to offer comfort. "Nothing to be embarrassed about."
"No?" She snorted. "Guess what, Bernard? I am. It's fucking mortifying, okay?"
"You can't help it. It's a phobia, and not a very uncommon one either," he said. "Would it help if I promised to go with you?"
"I'm not going, so that won't be necessary, but thank you anyway," Theresa said.
While speaking, she had opened the wine bottle (quite aggressively) and poured a healthy amount in both glasses. Then she took one, raised it in a mock toast, and drank deeply. Bernard noticed that her hand was shaking, but even if that and all other signs hadn't been there, he still would have reacted to her approach to the wine. It was a 2020 Merlot, one of the finer brands, not the type of beverage you'd gulp down. And even if it had been, he had never seen Theresa do anything as undignified as gulping down a drink. She didn't even do that with regular water if she had been out in the scorching sun most of the day.
"Theresa," he said in his calmest, most reasonable voice. Elsie doubtlessly would have flipped back at him like a vicious rubber band, telling him not to patronise her, but Theresa belonged to another generation, one that was used to listening to that kind of voice, although not necessarily agreeing with the speaker. "I get it. You're terrified, and then you add embarrassment to that fear, and that in turn makes you angry, so it's all a jumbled-up mix of helpless emotions."
"Watch who you're calling helpless," Theresa muttered and drank more wine. Bernard reached out and took the glass away from her, thinking she was indulging in a bit too many uninhibited self-destructive coping mechanisms at once.
"I am," he said, looking her straight in the eye. "Do I have to remind you how sick you were when you got the flu last year? Which I now understand was because you managed to avoid getting that shot."
"I wasn't that sick…"
"Tess, you passed out during a staff meeting," he reminded her pointedly. "Would you rather be that sick again, or get that one shot? It's that simple. With all the people we're getting into contact with on a daily basis, it's only a matter of time before we get the flu virus into Westworld, so which would you rather pick? The needle or the disease?"
The fine muscles around her mouth tensed. It could be a sign of an imminent, scathing outburst of cursing, but Bernard wasn't so sure about that. Then she swallowed twice as tears began to rise in her eyes and he realised she had only tried to force her face into not showing emotion.
"Oh, come here honey," he said and held out his arms. The term of endearment slipped out of him unplanned, but rather than shying back at it –she was usually cautious of situations where it seemed their relationship had gotten "too" committed – it seemed to help Theresa lower her walls. She leaned into his embrace and pressed her face against his chest as the first tears began to flow. He held her tight and felt her body quiver with fear and breathless crying.
"I know it's not worse than a quick sting," she sobbed into his shirt. "I fucking know that, okay? Intellectually, rationally, I know that. It's just that… it's… I can't…"
"You just can't do it," he filled in. "I understand. That's the thing with phobias, they're not rational." He stroked her hair softly as her tears soaked through his shirt. "It's alright, Tess. It's okay."
He wasn't altogether surprised, to be honest. Well, a little bit at the intensity of her reaction, but not by it at large. He knew she really hated seeing blood and traces of violence on the hosts coming in for repairs and decommissions. As far as possible she kept her distance until the hosts coming in for decommission were cleaned up so she wouldn't have to look at blood and open wounds. The part of complete decommission where the hosts had their mental abilities removed – among crew it was nicknamed 'the Egyptian Treatment' because it involved a drill going far up the nasal cavity, the way ancient Egyptians allegedly removed the brain when creating mummies – was something Theresa dreaded. She was always present for it because the action demanded her personal authorisation, but Bernard knew that it bothered her on a profound level. On one occasion he had stood right behind her and seen a trace of tiny goose bumps creep up the back of her neck until she unwillingly shuddered and got a hand up to her own face, like an instinctive protective gesture. During the rest of the procedure, Theresa kept her left hand over her mouth and nose as if reassuring herself that the atrocities she watched was not being done to her.
She never said anything about it, and if her presence was demanded she would show up, she would give her orders without losing face. Professionally, Theresa didn't blink at ordering bloodier narratives if guests called for it, but personally, she didn't care for it at all. On a personal level, Theresa hated everything that related to injuries, violence, pain, and blood, and that included if the pain and blood were from a brief, harmless, even beneficial injection.
"I can't do it, Bernie," she sobbed, her voice thick and drenched with tears.
"Yes, you can," he murmured, gently rubbing her back. "Remember how sick you were last year? You were coughing for weeks." His fingers combed through her hair, slowly, gently, soothingly. "You barely ate. Lost so much weight your clothes didn't fit properly for a month. Your temperature was up to numbers I'd rather not see again."
She was quiet, thinking it over. Bernard let her, still stroking her hair softly.
"Worst fucking part was that I could barely breathe through one nostril lying down," Theresa added sardonically after a while. "It was so fucking annoying having to keep turning over just to get any air."
Bernard laughed, sensing her coming out of her blues and being susceptible to some lighter arguments.
"That too. And although I can't be sure, I think your use of tissues alone eradicated half the forest developments in the Northern hemisphere, so the planet at large can't afford you being sick like that again."
Theresa let out a sound that was something between a cough, a hiccup and a laugh, and she looked up at Bernard with bloodshot, overflowing eyes.
"Fuck you."
Bernard smiled – there was his Theresa, all cynical and blunt and foul-mouthed – and raised his eyebrows.
"Is that an insult… or a note on your to-do-list?"
Her grasp on him changed, her hands sank from a "help me I'm drowning"-grip to a suggestive, playful touch just above the waistline of his pants.
"Considering how very observant you are when it comes to my reasoning and intentions, Mr Lowe, why don't you tell me?"
Bernard knew part of her was indeed just trying to distract from the real issue here, but he felt he had pushed her as far as he could right now. She needed that distraction… and to be honest, so did he.
He kissed her, just a brief, airy kiss, meant only to tease her and make her want more.
"I think…" he gave her another one of those insufficiently gentle kisses, "you're looking for a distraction…" he kissed her again…. "and I think this is the way…" another kiss, and this time Theresa struggled to keep their lips locked longer, "that Miss Cullen prefers to be distracted."
"Whatever could have given you such an idea, Bernard…?" she whispered as he teased her with another kiss on the lips and then moved on to place a whole trail of brief, light kisses down her jaw and neck instead. She tilted her head back to allow him the access, her brown hair spilling across her shoulders. She was not aware of the fact that she looked like the melodramatic heroine on the cover of an old-fashioned romance novel, and she wouldn't have cared had she known, either. She felt vulnerable, strong, sexy, confident, and dominated, all in one. His touch was a promise that he would never break; he would give her everything she needed and then some. That's what he did. That's what he always did.
He kissed her again, and this time the kiss lingered, a drawn-out, passionate, layered declaration of, if not love, then at least genuine affection and desire.
"Alright, Bernie," Theresa murmured against his mouth. "You have my undivided attention. Do what you can to distract me."
Bernard, ever up to the challenge, took her to the bedroom and distracted her so well she promptly forgot everything about needles and phobias.
As she dozed off in the afterglow, Bernard watched her with a tiny little smile on his face. Theresa would be going to get that flu shot tomorrow.
And he'd be with her all the way.