Note: 1. Please, please review. 2. Sorry about the lateness. Had to move to another state again and of course the laziness is always an issue. 3. This is my first attempt at writing something, shall we say "adult". Observe the new rating and please tell me what you think. It's hard (snicker) work. So get the kids out of the room and wash up when you're done.
Survival Skills: Bent
Six days. Royce had been gone for six days. Isabelle stood naked navel deep in the mikvah scrubbing dirt from her skin and attempting to not let her mind dwell on that fact. The cold air from the darkness behind her stung her bare shoulders and she nestled deeper into the warm water.
The first day she spent, as Royce suggested, exploring the dark half of the room. Armed with a torch, the ridiculously big machete and her rifle she followed the reliefs on the wall in the darkness. The reliefs seemed to tell a story of some kind of disaster. Pictures of barren wastelands and other Lilith like creatures on their knees looking up towards the heavens adorned the walls. The final picture stood beside a yawning mouth of a large cave opening. The picture on it was a puzzling array of the smaller wingless creatures laying in rows like an assembly line being held captive by larger Lilith creatures. Isabelle took the picture as some kind of warning of what might lie beyond and headed carefully into the cave. There were caves that were scared to people back home on Earth. She hoped it was scared here as well and she was not walking into an old death camp. She had visited Auschwitz once and these two places had a very different feel to them. For one thing, no one had built a temple-like structure of this size in front of the entrance to the camp in Germany.
The ground crunched as she took her first step into the abyss of darkness, the torch light dancing on the rough sides of the cavern. Looking down, she discovered a substance that reminded her of seashells and they seemed to create a pathway. The path of shells curved and bent though the cave and she noticed that the off shoots leading off in other direction did not have the shells.
It seemed like hours later before she stumbled, ankle throbbing, to a halt in front of a door. A large metal door, that reminded her of a hatch on a ship, complete with a turn wheel and dogs. She stood in front of the door for a moment, before shaking off her befuddlement. A strange metal door at the end of a natural cave, at the end of an ancient temple, was just another thing to add to the list of things she didn't understand on this planet.
She stepped closer to the door and debated her options. She could leave it closed and go explore one of the dark shell-less passages. She wasn't a spelunker and she would undoubtedly get horribly lost. Besides, if there was another way out this would most likely be the direction. She could wait for Royce and see what he thought. That option rankled her feminist sensibility to no end; she was a big girl and could make a decision by herself. She could open the door and see what was on the other side. She knew she was going to take this option even as all the bad things that could happen raced through her head. She smiled to herself and shook her head. You buy your ticket, you take your chances, Isabelle.
She propped up the torch besides the door and touched the door. It was cold, very cold. Icy air gust steadily around the sides of the obviously non airtight door making her shiver and wish she was dressed warmer. With an effort that left her breathing fast and her arm aching she managed to turn the large cog wheel. The dogs securing the door to the metal frame popped open with a screech. She took a second to rub her hands together trying to warm them up before she pulled the heavy door open. Inside was dark and she stood behind the door, accessing the interior for any dangers. She tossed in the torch to get a better look, unwilling to blindly step into an unknown area. Not all tickets were worth the price of admission.
The frosted air swirled as the torch lit up a small metal passageway and bounced off another door at the end. Her eye spotted what appeared to be gray cloth on the immediately on the other side of the door ground. She stepped around the door, rifle at the ready, to get a better look. The white cold air parted and the leathery shrunken face of a man greeted her. She took a step back in surprise only to have the heavy door hit her in the back, pushing her forward as it swung suddenly to close. She gripped the door frame and pushed the door back with her back, glad she hadn't walked in yet and gotten trapped inside. That was probably how the dead man on the ground got here. She used the machete as a makeshift door stop and once she was satisfied she wouldn't end up trapped she stepped inside.
She crouched down and inspected the area first. The metal wall behind the mummy was splattered with dry blood, but the rest of the small room was clean. She noted that the freezing air came from a small wire covered vent above the inner door. The room reminded her of a walk in freezer. Deciding to inspect the inner door in a moment, she turned her attention to the remains.
The mummy sat upright in the corner, the fabric covered legs draped across the bottom of the raised door frame. A tattered brown jacket still covered the torso and around the waist was a belt half filled with bullets. Isabelle had seen a documentary a long time ago when she was working for the CIA about the American wild west. The outfit this man wore looked very similar to the outfits she saw the actors wear. An old rifle lever action lay across his lap. Her mind suddenly leaped to the hammock that was already hanging when she first dragged Royce in and the question that nagged at her since she first saw it. This man may have been the one to set it up a long time ago. The hunters have been bringing people here for a long time.
She sighed, rolling her neck and debated her options again. She couldn't leave the man here, in this cold tomb of a room. It didn't seem right and besides walking over a dead body to get to the other door was creepy. She slid the rifle from under his hand, felling a little bad about looting a corpse. It was for a good cause, she needed a weapon better than a machete and her own rifle was sort on ammo. It still felt like desecrating a tomb, however.
The movement of the mummy's hand sliding away from the rifle caused its head to slump down reveling a large meaty hole in the back of his head. She quickly looked away and swallowed back the bile that churned in her throat. The blood on the wall and the haphazard placement of the rifle suddenly made sense. He shot himself instead of starving to death, brave man, she thought. Taking a fortifying breath shebegan to delicately scavenge what she could from the rest of the remains. The ammo belt, she was him was happy to see, still had over half the shells in it. She also found some icy oil in a bag, some old coins and a faded black and white picture of a man and a woman in the mummy's breast pocket.
She carefully dragged the body out of the room and down one of unmarked passages. She stood awkwardly for a moment over the remains. She had nothing to use to bury the body and she didn't see enough rocks to cover it up. She briefly thought about setting up a pyre outside, but that would attract a lot of unwanted attention. In the end she left him where he lay, at least he was out of the cold. She walked back to the cold room, retrieved the machete and watched as the door swung violently shut. Exhaustion hit her and she wondered how long she was down in the bowels of a mountain. She made her way back to the antechamber and splashed water from the mikvah on her face and scrubbed her hands. Promising herself a longer wash in the morning, she fell exhausted and aching into the hammock and slept and dreamed.
Upon awaking she ate the last bit of meat from Lilith's earlier visit two days and stepped into the antechamber intending to soak in the warm clean looking water of the pool. She didn't know what kind of weird bugs or bacteria that the pool might be harboring and this point, she didn't care. She felt filthy. However, half way to her destination, she heard the now familiar sound of Lilith calling out to her. Isabelle greeted the creature and was surprised to find a bow and a handful of arrows shoved at her, as she exited. Lilith stepped back into the light of the sun and motioned for Isabelle to follow. Isabelle sighed and glanced longingly at the pool of warm water before stepping out to follow. I guess it's time to earn my keep.
The first day on the hunt was a learning process for both females. Isabelle came back to the temple much later, sans meat. She did, however, have a sack full of the purple colored vegetable and a new knowledge base. She now understood the best places the vegetable grew and how to harvest them. She also figured out how to hold the bow in a way that didn't cause her broken arm to immediately flare with pain. She ate the purple plant for dinner with her mind on a to-do list for the next day. She would be successful on the hunt tomorrow. She would find out what was behind that second door in the cold room. She would figure out if the old rifle was salvageable. She would try not to worry about Royce.
She stood up out of the mikvah five days later and scoffed at her own hubris. She managed to fail at everyone of her to do list, except one. The old rifle, surprisingly, worked great. After she cleaned it up, she stood outside in the damp air and took aim at a hunk of wood. She ignored the visions that filled her head of a catastrophic event that would blow her face off and fired, hitting right where she aimed. She brought the rifle as well as the bow instead of her own sniper rifle when she hunted with Lilith; it weighed less and had more ammo. Though, she mostly chose the stealth of the bow over the fire power of the rifle.
She broke the last item on her list almost immediately. As she crept quietly through forest with Lilith high above waiting for her to flush out an animal, she couldn't help but think how much easier it would be if they shared the same language or at least a similar pattern of hand signals. Then she remembered that with Royce she barely needed any of those to communicate. She managed to keep her mind off of him, for the most part, during the day, but at night when she had nothing else to keep her mind occupied her thought would inevitability drift to him until she fell asleep. Not worrying about Royce was like not breathing. If a person holds their breath long enough they will pass out. Once that happens, the body inhales the oxygen it needs to survive. Even then her dreams were filled with him.
The hunts proved to be mostly fruitless endeavors. Although the two females had finally stumbled onto a workable relationship, involving a few whistles and hand signals. They had really only managed to kill two of the rabbit-like creatures that inhabited the area, including the one that now boiled in a pot over the hearth.
The second door in the cave proved to be much harder to open than the first. This door had a clear locking mechanism that kept the turn wheel from, well, turning. She tried to finesse the lock open using her abysmal lock picking skills. She tried to use a hunk of wood as a lever on it. She even tried brute force, but the turn wheel refused to budge more than a few centimeters. All her efforts only caused considerable pain in her broken arm. She suspected that the only one that could open the door was someone who bared a striking resemblance to the reliefs in the wall, Lilith.
Three days ago after another unsuccessful hunt Isabelle managed to coax Lilith into the antechamber. Isabelle hoped Lilith would be able to shed some sort of light on the mystery of the cold room and the eerie reliefs. However, the winged creature examined the reliefs with curiosity and true bafflement. When she came to the final wall relief, Lilith reach out and touched the stone edifice. Isabelle watched as the other woman's eyes tear up, before the she creature fled from the room. She found Lilith the next morning and again this morning staring at the last relief before they continued outside for their hunt. Whatever was going on in the Lilith's head was a complete mystery to Isabelle and she felt guilty for introducing such a state onto the creature.
She shook off the melancholy thoughts, dried off and donned her beat up pants and shirt. The smell of her half of the rabbit creature wafted into the antechamber. Lilith had divided it up before she left for the day. She grabbed the rifle she had kept next to the pool while she bathed and walked towards the smell. She heard the loud noise of wood hitting stone from the alarmed door entrance and she gracefully spun, crouched down and raised her weapon towards the sound in one movement.
She heard a muffled "Damn." Then a much clearer. "Is?"
She smiled, lowered the weapon and stood up. The bag she had given Royce was flung into the room just before the man himself stepped in.
"You're late."
"Sorry about that."
He sagged against the wall besides the door and closed his eyes. The mask that was dangling from his fingers dropped with a clank to the ground. She tilted her head in concern and studied him. "You look like hell."
Dark circles colored his eyes. A week long beard covered his face and his hair had taken on a decidedly wild man appearance.
"Royce?" She slung her rifle into her elbows and stepped over to him.
"I'm fine." He said and scrubbed his hand over his tired eyes. "I haven't slept more than a few hours since I left. I'm just tired."
She reached up and touched his neck. He looked down at her when he felt her warm fingertips.
"Okay. Then you should get in the pool, wash up and go to sleep." She nodded over to the pool. "I'll bring some food over."
He nodded and Isabelle bent down to grab the sack of supplies.
"Is that a new gun?" He eyed the rifle on her back.
"Sort of. I'll tell you all about it later. I can handle this. Get in the pool." She said when he reached for the sack. He nodded and turned to the water.
She stumbled into the small room with the full sack and wondered how Royce had managed to carry it as far as he did. She sighed and dropped it to the side of the room, deciding to go through it later. She made quick work carving up the meat and putting it in the bowls. The teasing comment she had prepared regarding his wild hair died on her lips as she walked into the antechamber. He stood bare chested and waist deep in the middle of the mikvah. She watched the water dripped down his bare chest as he slicked his wet hair back. She was suddenly and profoundly glad he was here, alive and healthy.
As she walked closer to the pool she noted that his clothes and weapon were heaped nearby. A quick glance into the crystal clean water confirmed her suspicion of his nakedness. She hastily placed a bowl of food by the edge and turned to leave.
"I will just let you get to your bath."
A wet hand shot out and grabbed her ankle. "Wait. Stay."
She turned back confused by what sounded like desperation in his voice.
"I haven't...I just need... Can you..." He dropped his hand away with a sigh and scrubbed at his face again. "Stay and talk to me for awhile. Okay?"
"Okay." She nodded. "Are you sure you're alright?"
He nodded and sunk deeper into the warm water. "Tell me about your "sort of" new rifle."
It suddenly hit her that he had been alone in the wilderness for six days. While, she had some sort of social contact with Lilith, he had no one. For all of his protest that he was better off alone when they first met here, he was now craving contact. She reset the door alarm and came to sit indian style at the edge of the pool.
Half way through her story of the mummy and strange doors she kicked off her boots and dipped her feet in the warm water. The edge of her pants got wet and without thinking, her mind still on her escapades over the past few days, she squirmed out of her pants and let her bare legs soak in the water.
"We managed to catch the rabbit thing this morning." She looked away towards the other room where the remnants of their dinner stewed and heard the movement of water. She looked up in time to see him glide in between her legs.
"Royce?"
"Your face looks better." He said, as his fingers drifted over the yellowed bruise.
"It feels better." Her fingers gripped the edge of the pool at his sudden proximity.
"How's the shoulder?" His hand slipped to her neck.
"Good."
"The arm?" He lifted her broken arm and eyed the cast.
"Broken, but healing."
"The hip?" He replaced her broken arm to the edge of the pool and slid his hand across her hip.
"Better." She swallowed.
"And the ankle?" He slid his hand further down her leg.
"Barely even feel it."
"Good, then I can do this." He covered her mouth with his own.
His wet hands slid up the outside of her thighs and she forgot what she wanted to say. His wet chest pressed into her dry shirt and she forgot why she was still dressed. He tasted like dirt and blood and she briefly wondered if he was hurt. She pulled him closer and wrapped her arms around his neck. The need for air pushed them apart and he placed his forehead on hers.
"Miss me?" She said jokingly, after she caught her breath. He responded with a grunt and began to kiss his way down her throat. He found a small scar just below her jaw line and traced it with his tongue. The paradoxical sensation of the rasp of his beard followed by soft lips made her shiver and she thought about changing her stance on facial hair. He tugged her closer to the edge of the pool and moved his hands to her thighs. His fingers brushed passed the line of scar tissue there and he felt her flinch, he remembered her similar reaction days earlier. He wasn't sure if this was the best time to bring up bad memories. They had the tendency to put an end to good moments and this could turn into a very, very good moment. But, damn it, he didn't want her flinching every time he got close to an area that was quickly becoming his favorite place to be.
He sighed and pushed away slightly. She blinked up at him.
"Tell me about this." He brushed his fingers over the scar again. She looked down at his hands and tensed. He saw her hesitation and slid her good hand away from where it rested on his shoulder to the scar on the front of his neck.
"Got this from a knife fight I almost lost in Iraq." Her brow scrunched and she traced the line with her fingertips. He moved her hand down his chest to his side where she felt another scar. "This was from some unfriendly fire in Colombia." He pulled her arm around him and moved it to yet another scar near the small of his back. He let go of her hand and wrapped himself around her. "That one was from a car wreck in Texas." He said into her dark hair.
They were silent for a moment as she tried to absorb all he was giving her. He angled his head down to her shoulder and kissed the almost healed scar there over her shirt.
"I know where this one came from." He mumbled into her shirt. He moved to her neck again and nipped at the scar he had found earlier. "Where did this one come from?"
She let out the breath she didn't realize she was holding.
"That is from a hand to hand training accident at Quantico." She moved his hand that had taken up residency on her waist, up under her shirt to another scar. "This is from an appendectomy in Tel Aviv." She felt him smile on her neck, before he tugged her shirt up and dipped down to replace his fingers with his lips. She sucked in a pleasantly surprised breath at the feel of his warm breath on her side. The hell with it, she thought and tugged her shirt up and over her head, tossing it near her pants. She slid his hand to the scar on the inside of her thigh. He stopped his perusal of her appendix scar and looked up at her. She had her eyes fixed on the far wall and took a breath.
"This is from a very bad day in Israel." She paused a second to collect her thoughts. He slipped down into the water and moved to the front of her knees, fingers tracing the old wound.
"Israel has a human trafficking issue. I was strongly encouraged to help the local police in Jerusalem in an undercover assignment. Nobody knew me, I could speak a different language and I guess I don't look half bad."
"You're beautiful." He interjected from his place by her knee.
She looked down at him with a small smile on her face and put her hand on his head. He nudged her knee with nose and she looked away.
"Truth be told I was happy to help. The CIA was involved and it was scary how easy it was for me to get in. I was to be sent to a house in the old city where I would be given the fake papers we had already bought. I was supposed to record everything on a little hidden camera. Things went bad when we got to the house. They tossed a bag over my head as soon as I got to the house, herded me into a car and took me somewhere else. Later I found out they shot the other undercover with me and the backup crew lost me in the confusion. It took them a few hours to find me. I guess I should feel lucky they found me at all. They tied me up and one of them said he did this kind of thing all the time and I should just relax. He said that if I fought back he would make it hurt. He didn't lie, it hurt."
Tears filled her eyes and Royce's jaw hurt with the effort it took not to show his anger at these unknown scum bags. He knew, of course, of all the sick bastards that inhabited the Earth. He just didn't like the thought of her being hurt by them. Not like that. Not his Isabelle. He put his arms around her waist and laid his head down on her lap.
"When they got done," She continued, "they would cut my leg. The last arrogant caralho left the knife on the table and I managed to free myself. I must have blacked out for a while, because the next thing I knew, the backup was bursting through the door and I was standing over two dead men."
"Good girl."
She looked down at him.
"You know, the first man I told had quite a different reaction."
"That guy was an idiot." He mumbled into her leg and she scratched though his hair.
"The police called it self defense. I saw a counselor and took a long leave to Brazil." She shrugged, not sure why she was sharing all this. "It was a long time ago I still have nightmares sometimes, but flashbacks are rare. I eventually even found a man that didn't recoil in horror when found out."
"Who?" He looked up, the thought that she might have a significant other back home made him unhappy. She smiled mysteriously at him.
"Just some guy with wild hair lying in my lap."
He growled at her tease and stood up fully, placing himself between her legs again. He balled up his fists on either side of her hips and he leaned into her personal space. "I don't think you could say anything that would scare me."
"We'll see, ahuvi. Hitgaagati elekha." She said and she watched his eyes dilate.
"That's not fair." He said and kissed her hard. He trailed down to her neck and felt her pulse increase on his lips.
"We, ah, should clean up the bowls." She said even as she leaned her head back to grant him better access.
"Later. There's something I need to do first." He traveled to her wounded shoulder and gave the mending flesh a kiss before wandering further south over the tops of her breast.
"What do you need to do?" She asked breathlessly.
"See if I can get rid of some more nightmares." He smiled wickedly up at her and his hand drifted down her sides to her open legs.
"What are you...oh!" She startled as his fingers traced the waistband of her panties. He kissed his way back up her neck. Arousal and embarrassment warred in her as she realized his intentions. His hand dropped lower to her thigh, his fingers curling under the seam of her underwear where they met her inner thigh.
"Wait!" She reached for his head. He halted movement and looked up.
"You don't have to. I mean no one's ever...I haven't washed..." She closed her eyes. Shit. What was it about this man that turns her into a stuttering fool?
"Trust me." He said and pushed away some of her hair that had fallen into her eyes. He leaned in closer, until they were cheek to cheek.
"I want to do this." His teeth nibbled on her earlobe and she moaned. "Out there, alone at night, this was all I wanted to do. This is where I wanted to be."
She gave in and bit down lightly on his shoulder. He considered the bite to be the green light from her and he'd actually get her to say it out loud soon enough. He slid his hand down her stomach and placed his open palm over the crotch of her underwear and found them, much to his surprise, wet. Her hips bucked involuntarily into his hand and he was awed briefly into stillness. He did this to her. This beautiful, damaged, tough, hot woman. She was wet and ready for him and he had barley even touched her yet.
Taking his sudden stillness that she had done something wrong, she blinked up at him. "Royce?"
He grunted and cleared his head of all the sentimental bullshit that was hitting him suddenly and kissed her. His fingers raked back up and toyed with the elastic briefly before plunging under them. He found the spot that made lightening shoot up her spine and arch into him. She tore her mouth away from his, closed her eyes and leaned her head back, her breath bouncing off the walls around them.
He looked down at her, offering up her neck, moaning and bucking under his hands. The sight made him harder than he ever thought possible. It took all his will power not to remove the scrap of fabric between them and plunge into her. Plenty of time for that later, he thought. Instead he pushed up her sports bra with his free hand and felt the weight of a bare breast in his palm. It felt perfect in his hand and she must have thought so as well, because she began to pant.
She looked down at him barely able to keep her eyes open and what she saw made her almost forget to breathe. He looked up at her, his eyes dark, with a predatory grin. He bent down and claimed a rosy nipple with his mouth. At the same time she felt him curl a finger in her. She broke apart a second later, moaning his name, arching up and pulling his head closer to her.
So intent was he on tasting her that her climax took him by surprise. Her grip on his head hurt but he would gladly endure the pain for a life time if it meant he got to hear his name come out of her mouth like that again. The sound almost made him come. He slowed the movement of his fingers as she came back down to herself and ease out from under her panties. The grip on his head loosened and he looked up at her. A marine Sergeant in a time of drunken revelry had once told him that a man shouldn't have to ask if a woman if she had come or not. If a man was doing his job right, he would know. Royce looked at the woman limp in his arms, rosy cheeked, closed eyed and he took pride in the fact that he had done his job.
Isabelle finally found the strength to open her eyes after the world shaking orgasm she had just experienced and found Royce smirking proudly at her. Her competitive nature flared up, she could give just as good as she got, and she brought his head up to her and kissed the daylights out of him. She broke away from him and used his dazed state to push him back into the pool.
"My turn." She said with her own predatory gleam and slipped into the water to stand in front of him. She anchored him to her with her casted arm around his neck and let her other hand travel down the plains of his chest, fascinated by the way the muscled clenched under her fingers. She felt his hands on either side of her face and she looked up at him.
"You don't hav..." She silenced him by standing on her toes and kissing him.
"Maybe in here, alone at night, this is all I wanted to do." She repeated, more or less, his own words back at him. He growled and gripped her to him. They both moaned as naked breast met naked chest. She felt him hot and hard against her stomach. He was a big man in general and when she slipped a hand under the water and felt him her palm she was happy to find that bigness extended everywhere.
Good things hardly ever happened to Royce and when they did he took the time to enjoy them. So when her little hand wrapped around him he had to reach his hands to the side of the pool to keep from falling into the water, shooting off like a fire cracker and ending it all too soon. This was a very good thing that he wanted to last as long as possible.
The height difference between the two of them put her at the perfect spot to feast on his neck and shoulders as she stroked him. She looked at him with her mouth on his shoulder, she found his eyes closed and muscles taunt. He was close, but he was holding back for some reason and that simply would not do.
"Do you like this?" She said huskily up at him. He nodded; bit his lip and his breath increased raggedly. She remembered the way he reacted to her earlier when she spoke to him in Hebrew. If he needed her to talk to him for him to experience what she just felt then that's what she would do.
"You made me feel so good. I want you to feel that good." She purred to him. He shook his head and tightened his grip on the sides of the pool.
"I don't know when...This has to last..." He said breathlessly. Determined, she stood up on her toes again, maintaining her pace on him, and whispered into his ear.
"You fit so good in my hand. You are going to feel so good inside me. Come for me, ahuvi, come for me."
God help him, he did. Her words ricocheted around his head as he exploded in her hand. Inside me. Come for me.
She smiled into his neck when she felt his hot juice on her hand and stomach, before the water of the pool washed it away. Pity, she was curious what he tasted like. Next time she would just have to use her mouth for something other than talking dirty and by God there had better be a next time soon.
He brought her face to his, kissed her almost sweetly.
"What does ahuvi mean?"
She burst out laughing and Royce was stunned into a smile himself by the beauty of it. She grabbed his hand and pulled him to the edge.
"You'll have to find that out for yourself." She said as she pushed her bra back into place, pushed herself out of the pool and began to get dressed.
"That's not right." He said. How was he supposed to find out? A wicked image of her naked and hot bent over in front of him begging to tell him, flashed in his head. Before he got the chance to try out, his body chose that moment to remind him just how little sleep he had gotten and he yawned.
Isabelle, now fully dressed, looked down at Royce still in the pool as he rubbed his eyes like a little boy. She smiled and reached her hand down for him.
"Come on, I think it's time for bed."
He looked up at her, the feral glint back in his eyes and Isabelle remembered that while Royce was a lot of things a little boy was not one of them. He ignored her hand and lifted himself out of the water to stand naked and wet in front of her.
"Will you be joining me?" He asked as seductively as he could while holding back another yawn.
"I'm going to clean up here first, but yes." She said. She tried to maintain control of her hormones even though all she wanted to do was jump up in his arms and wrap her legs around him. Royce made it easier for her as the yawn he was fighting back escaped. She picked up his boxer-briefs and handed them to him.
"Here. Go to bed."
"Need any help cleaning?" He asked putting on his underwear and hoped she would say no, he really was tired.
"Nope." She said and got to work cleaning.
He walked bleary eyed to the small room and laid down in the hammock. He could hear her splashing and clattering in the other room and felt his muscles relax. He closed his eyes and willed sleep to come. After a few minutes, he gave up and turned his head and caught a glimpse of Isabelle as she wandered in and out of the room singing softly in Spanish, unaware he was awake. It took him a few days to figure out why he couldn't sleep out in the jungle. He'd never had any problem before, but then again he'd never gotten use to having anyone curled up next to him either. He was beginning to think he was turning to mush in his old age.
She walked into the room finally ready for bed and was surprised to see him still awake.
"You're still up?" The statement came out like a question and he nodded.
"Why? Was I being too loud?" Her hand skimmed down his face when she approached the hammock.
"No. Just waiting for you." He said and push backwards to give her space to lie down. She tilted her head and let out a confused smile before getting in next to him. He wrapped an arm around her waist and buried his nose in her hair.
"Much better." He said.
Isabelle felt his soft snores on her neck a few minutes later and closed her eyes to follow him into sleep.
Something had woken Royce up. His eyes were open and glancing around the room in a flash, assessing for any threat. He eyed his weapon as it leaned against the wall, the room was quite and nothing was out of place. He laid his head back down and closed his eyes, when he heard Isabelle whimper in her sleep besides him. He cursed himself silently for pushing her to talk about her past. He of all people knew some things came back at night to haunt if they were remembered in the day. He nestled his nose in her dark hair, wondering what he should do and hoped the nightmare would pass. She began to thrash about in their makeshift bed and Hebrew began hissing out of her mouth. Though he didn't know the words, he understood the pleading tone and he hated it. Fearing she might tumble them both out of the hanging bed, he put his hand on her hip and pulled her closer. Unfortunately this only seemed to make things worse.
"Is, wake up." He moved his hand up and brushed her hair out of her sweaty face. "Wake up. You're dreaming."
Her jaw clenched and a sound that could only be described as agony came from her throat. An uncomfortable sensation seized his chest and for one terrible second he was there with her in the dream. One filled with the pain, unseen faces and sour breath. He swallowed back his own tears and buried his face deeper into her hair. "Please wake up." He pleaded, willing her to wake. "Isabelle, wake up, baby. Wake up."
With a start that would have sent a slower man tumbling from the hammock, she shot up right and breathing hard. He quickly steadied the rapid swing of the hammock by bracing them with a leg to the ground. Her hands bunched at the fabric of her shirt and she cast a frantic look around the room.
"Is?" He asked and tentatively rested his fingers on her back. She spun her head around at the sound of his voice and looked down at him. Tears streaked down her face and recognition filled her eyes. "Royce?"
"You had a nightmare." He said lamely. She turned her head back around and her shoulders began to shake.
"Crap. No. Come here." He said, a piece of him wanting to cry with her and pulled her to him. She fell into his chest, her cast digging into his ribs and began to weep. All he could was hold her and hope she was strong enough to make it through. She calmed down a bit later and he thought she might have fallen back to sleep.
"I'm sorry." She mumbled into his chest, before pushing off him and spinning in the hammock to place her feet on the ground.
"It's okay." He said. She snorted angrily.
"No it's not. I don't cry like that. Ever. You probably think I'm a little girl. I just wish I wasn't so..." She cut herself off and stood up shaking her head.
"Wasn't so what?" He asked sitting up to face her.
"Nothing." She brushed her hair back from her face, her profile to him.
He grabbed her wrist and tugged her in between his legs. She refused to look at him.
"Wasn't so what?" He asked again firmly. She looked at him and bit her lip at the intensity of his gaze. He wasn't going to give up on this one and if he hadn't been listening for it he would have missed her whispered reply.
"Broken."
The strange sensation tugged at his chest again and he put his hands on her hips.
"You are not broken." He said assuredly. She huffed out a breath, sending an errant strand of hair flying and crossed her arms.
"You have no idea. I have a small one bedroom apartment back home. That's empty, except for a dead plant and a useless bachelor's in business management on the wall. I kill people for a living. I have nightmares almost every night. The longest relationship I had last only a few months and that ended really badly and now I have said way too much." She realized she was ranting for no good reason.
"Maybe a little bent." He conceded. "But not broken." She shook her head and looked up at the ceiling. He angled her head back down to look at him.
"I've seen broken. People with dead eyes and cold bodies, ghost just going through the motions of living. I saw it in the mirror after I left the marines. You still have life and laughter in your eyes. You still have warmth in your body. It's a little awe inspiring after everything you've been through, honestly." He paused. "When we get back I'm gonna punch this guy I keep hearing about in the face for being an idiot."
She smiled and laid her forehead on his. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. I'd gladly knock out any ex's you might have."
"It's a short list, but that's not what I was thanking you for."
"I know." He said and swung his legs back into the hammock. "Now come over here and share some of that warm body." He laid back, arms spread and waggled his eyebrows at her. She smirked down at him and walked under the hammock to get in on the other side. She slung her broken arm low on his stomach and rested her head next to his neck.
"You're not broken either, you know." She murmured sleepily into his shoulder a little while later.
He toyed with her fingers that extended from the cast softly. "Maybe."
"I mean it." She said again against his neck and trapped his fingers with her own. "If I'm not, then by your own definition, then neither are you."
"Alright, fine. I'm twisted and bent up to hell and back, but I'm not broken." Not anymore, he added in his head.
"Right." She nodded and wrapped her leg around his thigh, scooting closer. He wished he was more awake to take advantage of her legs wrapped around his. As it was, all he could do before nodding off was slide a hand on her thigh to keep it where it was. Isabelle watched him through half closed eyes as he fell asleep and wondered if bent people could be fixed. Before she lapsed into thankfully nightmare free sleep, she wondered if the universe sent them here to do just that.