(Prompt request: "de gustibus non est disputandum/there's no accounting for taste."

Nine/Theron. After Nathema.
Not safe for work. Look, I don't know either. I'm just the vector for their nonsense nowadays.)

de gustibus non est disputandum

The door to her quarters- no, their quarters, two in a room alone together for the first time in months and months (two hundred and fifty-four days if one was counting which of course she wasn't; that would be absurd, as though she didn't have anything else to occupy her time)- slides closed, the lock engaging with a soft click, and they're alone.

Theron stops for a moment, looking around the room like he barely recognizes it. It's all the same, though, save new linens on the bed and- oh.

"That's new," he says, staring at the golden chestplate on its armor stand. "It's… nice."

She can't help it; the words slip out like a hundred knives flung from her lips, months of simmering anger seeking an outlet. "An old Zakuulan technique, apparently- Arcann made it for me. A gift."

"Oh." A pause. "So-"

"I told him he should have finished it sooner. It might actually have been useful, then- it would have saved me a few nasty scars. I don't think he expected that." He smiles, then, the first time she's seen him smile since they returned to Odessen; mostly he's just looked tired. "But he insisted I keep it, so there it is."

"Oh," Theron says again, and looks at the couch. "I guess we- should we sit down? We should talk- I promised that I'd tell you-" He's tripping over his own tongue and it's funny, almost- after all the lies he's told to so many people, he barely manage a single sentence with her any more-

But it's only almost funny.

Is this what they are, now? What they've become?

"No." (It won't be. She won't let it be.) "I don't want to sit down."

He looks up, startled, as her stripped-off jacket hits him squarely in the middle of his chest; he sets it down on the couch. "Okay. But can we still talk?"

"I don't want to talk, either."

"I know you're angry, Nine, but please, I-"

She misses the last half of that, undershirt covering her ears as she pulls it over her head, but when she flings it at him she thinks he's starting to catch on. She does not throw her belt, just lets it fall down to the floor- the clasp would probably actually hurt him and Void, she's furious at him but not that kind of furious, wants to vent it not in knife cuts and blaster shots and vicious words but in teeth sinking in and nails raking sharp and her hands clenching tight in his hair (if she doesn't shave it all off first- that haircut ought to be a war crime).

"Shut up," she says, "and come to bed."

That stops him mid-sentence, his mouth half-open. "You don't want me to explain?"

"Explain later." She plants one raised foot on his upper thigh and he starts to unfasten her boot, reaching down toward the clasps, a reflex like breathing. "Fuck now."

Theron blinks.

And then he lifts her up and it's just like it always was- with no time to themselves since the end of it all she hasn't kissed him since Copero and Copero was grief made manifest, bitter on her lips and his kisses hurt, then, almost as much as the strikes of her fist must have hurt him. This, though-

It's like daylight.

(It's just been so long, alone in the darkness, that she'd almost forgotten what it looks like.)

He clears the steps up to the bed in four long strides, even with her legs wrapped around his waist and her mouth stealing the words from his as he speaks them.

"I did promise to make it up to you."

"You did." She falls back onto the bed as he lets her go, a little inelegant, sprawling, but she really doubts he much cares at this point. "Stop talking."

"And I missed your birthday. And Life Day. And our anniver-" When he has to pause mid-sentence to bat her trousers down from where they've landed on his head, he finally, finally quiets and looks at her properly. "You know, I figured you were going to throw something at me, but I kinda thought it'd be something breakable. A lamp, maybe. A bottle or six. Divorce papers."

She rolls her eyes, hooks one bare foot behind his knee until it buckles and he staggers forward. "Theron."

"I don't-" He catches himself on the edge of the bed, kneeling, still not quite giving way; she sighs and props herself up on her elbows. "I need to tell you something."

"No, you don't." That was rule number one from the moment they started having rules: there were always going to be things that were better left in the dark, awful things done out of necessity because that was what they were made for, both of them, why they fit so well together and why sometimes they had to agree to pretend not to know. Sometimes it was better that way. "You don't."

"I do. We promised."

Oh. Well. Rule number two, then.

She'd expected that, frankly. She's got eyes; she saw the way that pretty Chiss boy had looked at him and he could be so persuasive, her husband could, when he wanted to be- "Valss, wasn't it? Copero. You dropped him on me out of a shuttle. Rather rude of you."

His face falls. "You knew?"

"I had a feeling."

Theron starts to back away, starts to stand. "So-"

"So-" she sits up fully, wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him and then lets herself fall, dragging him down alongside her- "you've told me. Done. Over with. Come here."

"I had a whole speech ready, you know," he says a minute later, half-breathless. "I thought you'd be-"

She sinks her teeth into his throat. "Angry? Two hundred and fifty-four days, Theron Shan. Two hundred and fifty-four days alone in this bed. Of course I'm angry-" he gasps, then, her hands giving lie to her words- "but I'm willing to let you work it off."

"Force help me-" he shifts under her guidance, down and down and down the length of her body and yes, that's better, maybe it's stupid of her to let all of this go so easily (he could be so persuasive, her husband could, with his clever, clever tongue) but she missed him so fucking much, yes- "I don't deserve you."

"You know what they say-" she's already panting and she forces herself to breathe, measured and slow; oh, he's going to have to work much harder than that- "there's no accounting for taste."