A/N: Sorry about the wait. I have a job and a life and things after Christmas left me with little leisure time to write. I promise the next chapter will be more timely. I hope I didn't lose readers during my hiatus!
Re-l slid back into her chair smoothly, sitting away from him as he watched her from his place at the door. She was pale and transparent as the blood gathered at her nape flared under his gaze and for a moment he just watched her as she struggled through a bite, trying her best to ignore him. She barely looked fazed, her poker face was immaculate, but the occasional breath or the comfort shift could be heard through the hum, and the proximity was enough to make her idle. Vincent pushed off of the door and strode to his place across from her, taking his eyes from her back for a moment to find his seat. He had neglected to fix his outfit from being tied at his waist, and she looked at him vacantly with a mouth full of processed meats.
He smiled in his usual way, eyes unfocused and timid, commencing eating to continue the silence. She remained stoic, keeping her mind occupied with the fork working between the shreds of flat, pale-pink chunks. Vincent flicked his eyes up at her a couple times himself, feeling the thrum beneath them hide her tapping foot and her pulse. The breath in her throat was held longer each time she noted his eyes, almost as though with every glance she was becoming further aware of his presence. She feared nothing in particular about him, but the more they traveled like this, the longer his eyes held hers and the hotter her neck became. He was patient, calm and collected, but in wait of something and the longer he waited the longer his stares became and she felt them long after his eyes returned to his plate.
She dared a glance up at him, catching his gaze in action this time and holding it as she swallowed back. "Just how many supplies do we have?" she asked, her voice characteristically unshaken.
"A good month, as long as we keep our meals tight," he replied. "And repairs will have to wait until we have scrap, naturally." He poked at his canned meat with consideration.
"Anything major?" she inquired, relaxing a bit under this new guise of conversation.
"Minor things. The railing, a bit of wear and tear in the hull," he replied in a dry tone. These things were hardly new to her, she had been aware of them, but it was not as though either of them had family to make small talk of.
"Nothing you can't manage," she agreed, finishing the last of her meal and sliding the plate aside.
Vincent flashed a smile. "Is that a compliment?"
"Look, I'm not saying you're the epitome of manliness, but you can slap some metal together," Re-l retorted, but her lips curled in a way at the sides and she shrugged, leaning inward on her elbows for comfort.
"And what is the epitome of manliness to you, Re-l?" he threw back quite unexpectedly, and for a moment she could not answer. Her eyes, quite accidentally, fell from his eyes to the broad of his shoulders and the bare flesh of his arms—bare muscle and bone. She looked up again, unsure as to how to approach the question.
He was tall, certainly. Taller than her, taller than most men—something she could not easily recognize before. And strength he could hardly be told he lacked in, given the nature of his strength. His handiness also held merit, given his mechanical knowledge. And he provided far more than she did, not only being best at scavenging for useful items but also in pinpointing fallen domes. She barely grasped the concept of her own words, and found herself retracting the more she thought on the subject.
"Given that you are the only man on this thing, I take it back," she said as a joke, settling back in her chair.
He pushed his empty plate away and leaned in on his elbows. He looked at her that unusual way he had been, his green eyes stuck on hers as he muttered the words. "The only 'man'?"
"Oh, you're right, I forgot about the proxy thing—my bad," she replied condescendingly, leaning away from the table with her arms crossed. Her darkened gaze intensified the longer he remained there. He shifted to place his head in his hand and continued to just hold her attention, dazing beneath her.
"It's an easy thing to forget, I guess," he deadpanned, blinking at her slowly. Her spine straightened at the rumble in his tone, and her face broke porcelain perfect for a moment as her teeth suctioned her cheek in the light embarrassment she felt. Her eyes looked less glassy and oblivious. Her lips parted for a breath and her chest filled slow and easy as he kept his eyes to hers. A table separated them, and he dared not remove the barriers yet.
"Oh, done eating?" she said in a softer voice than intended.
"Yeah, but I think I will rest for a couple hours before relieving Kristeva," Vincent said, pushing upright. Re-l nodded. "I've been tired lately."
"Then go lay down," she replied as sharply as she could manage, though her tone fell. "Honestly, I am thinking of winding down for the night myself." She stood up and angled herself toward the bathroom. "It's not really late yet, but I suppose I could just sit in bed and write until I am tired."
She escaped to the bathroom, pulling the door closed behind her. She faced her reflection as he cheeks flushed and her mouth pinched. She flipped on the water. Vincent was alone in the middle of the Rabbit, the door in his eyes as she contemplated his situation. She brought the water to her face while he brought his hand to his lip, and the sound between them was not enough to hide in. She rubbed the blue from her eyes and looked again, fresh face left beneath the dark. Young. Beautiful. Pure. She undid her hair and fluffed it, letting out the crinkles as she ran her wet hands through it to tame it. Pure. The word filled her mind as she touched her chest.
Vincent rose from the table and approached the door, balling his knuckles for knocking, but he felt stalled. Re-l looked further into the reflection, planting her hands on the edge of the sink as her mind returned to forgotten moment of her mind—the truest meeting of Vincent. How his eyes bore into her, how the weight of his height pressed her down harder than the thumb at her lip, and the tears that filled her eyes as she felt her heart pound harder now at the base of her chest, only to be mimicked now in the bathroom of the Rabbit. She was flustered. She was ashamed by it. And as she opened the door, breathing sense into her body, she felt the touch of that hand again at her shoulder, stopping her short as she absently took exit without bothering to look up.
She hadn't time to react. He was poised above her, about to apologize but froze in place, watching her eyes still brimmed with tears hold back her nerves as the thumb pad kissed her collarbone. She craned her neck to look up at him, closer now than he had allowed himself to her. The heat of her body could be felt from this distance, and the longer he stayed there the less likely it was that he would be letting go. She exhaled and something moved in him, and thoughtlessly he pulled his hand from the doorway and snaked it into her hair as he moved forward slowly, touching her lips briefly with his to test her, then plunging forth powerfully, her hands finding his shoulders as he coiled around her. He pulled away for a moment, his hand still caught in her nape as he watched her eyes cloud over and he went in for another.
The tenderness in her lips held him in the doorframe as he struggled not to hurt her from his grip on her body. Her fingers were cold on his skin. The push of a third desperate encounter sent them further into the tiny compartment, him gripping the sink just to keep himself upright as she let herself be weightless against him. She was lost in the feeling of his hands tangled in her black hair and gripping tight to her hips as the sink pinned her body flat to him. Something brazened him, the way she looked beneath him, the way her hardened expression was erased for something soft and faded—the beauty of her form against the sink, reflected back at him. He whispered against her bottom lip, "I love you, Re-l," in such a way that made him melt against her, holding himself up by his forearms against the bathroom wall, nuzzled in the tangles of her hair.
She stared up into the light, warmed to her toes in a way she had never felt before. The word was said again—love. This time less a testament, more a plea—something to answer to. He held her against the sink and the wall, caught in the corner as if trapped. She felt his pulse wracking in his ribs, the warmth of his face and the weight of his body holding her frozen in his grasp. His eyes opened, but they stared to the floor, and she found herself looking to the reflection, watching him breath against her and she felt her heart pick up pace as she looked at the way he tensed against her. His dark hair melted with hers, pushed out of his face. He had a strong profile, something she noticed before the proxy inside him had been fully realized. But perhaps that was the nature of a proxy, to be ideal of the human eye.
She could not answer him the way he wanted, perhaps. The feeling she felt was nothing like the word love could portray. It was easy enough to say, but it was something she had used for Daedalus and Grandfather. The connotation alone left an ashy taste in her mouth. She instead wrapped her arms around him as far as they could reach beneath his, hugging him close to her. Vincent straightened, crooning over her again, looking down at her as she lifted up onto the pads of her feet to kiss him timidly. He allowed a stillness to settle between them as he took in this new information, something offered beyond words, and instead took them as they were laid out to him.
Re-l pressed herself against the wall and turned her face away, keeping steady eyes above her. Vincent recoiled himself, realizing as the spur died down how sudden the whole act was, but he remained somewhat attached to her with his arms and body close. She breathed out slowly, containing herself. "You know, I'm not exactly experienced in this kind of thing," she said stiffly. Admitting it out loud made the more timid nature of Vincent awaken. He was initially taken aback, and responded by pulling away from her. She could breathe now, but her eyes fell to the sink. "I was protected, more or less, back in Ramdeau. My only friend was Iggy. Romance bored me as a concept, I thought it nothing more than a social construct which is why so many people could keep Companion Autoreivs and be perfectly content."
"What about Daedalus…?" he asked softly. He couldn't help himself, the question had burned in his mind since the beginning. He felt the wording was rude, invasive even, but Re-l's face contorted.
"Nothing happened with Daedalus," she said quickly. "I'm not an idiot, I knew he was hoping something would happen, and I can't even say that if I had stayed in Ramdeau obediently that something might have happened. But he was more like a distant family member, someone I could rely on time to time."
Vincent looked down awkwardly, scratched the back of his head. He was internally relieved, but somehow his approach now seemed violently unwarranted. He peeked up at her sheepishly, bowed and flushed at the nature of this meeting. She appeared to be slowing her breathing now, regulating. Her eyes met his unblinking. Vincent pushed his back and cleared his throat. "Well, I am going to go ahead and go lay down," he announced.
"I think I will too," Re-l replied, folding her arms. "I might actually be tired enough to sleep."
He backed out first, allowing her to pass through before approaching the bed. She was first to meet the bed, to which she began the ritual of dressing down. Pulling the shirt up she realized, peeking beyond her arm, that Vincent had turned away. Something so mundane as seeing her undress for bed became a new embarrassment. She remembered when he first saw her undoing her buckles and escaped to the deck to avoid her wrath. Eventually it became a normality. And yet the amount of times he had seen the bare midriff and the slim legs, this time felt different, and not just for Vincent. Re-l, too, felt a tightness as he reached down to untie the sleeves and step out of his immigrant garb. She turned her head just as she heard the flop of fabric on the floor. She had only just begun to step out of her pants when she heard the rustling of blankets as he set up his place on the floor beside her bed. She turned, now full undone, only to find him standing beside the bedding waiting for her to step across it. And for a moment they just stared at each other, unsure as to how to approach normal life.
She bound across it in long strides, trying to curl into her blankets as quickly as possible. She heard the rustle of blankets and peeked over the cover to find his back to her. She curled up into a ball and thought again of the pressure on her lip, this time caused by more than a thumb. Fully awake and uncertain, her mind raced with the idea of his hands on her hips again, or the striking way she had been overpowered in the simplest of ways. Her hand rested on her lips. The hum of the Rabbit filled the space between breaths.