Still thinking over what if anything else I want to do with this. For now, I decided to do some gratuitous Yuri/ Fiona.
It was the bathroom of the most disreputable flophouse in the most disreputable part of the city. It was currently lit by a single bulb that swung from the remains of a light fixture. It was enough to reveal the silhouetted of two figures behind the curtain, the woman known as Nightfall and the man who had identified himself as Urtico. They huddled together in one corner, bunching up the translucent fabric as they tended to each other's wounds. Streaks of blood could be seen from them both. "Hold still," came a male voice. "Just one more stitch… There."
"Good job, Urtico," a female voice answered. "Really, you're good at this."
"I learned first aid from my sister," the man answered. "She's better at it than I am. I'm very sorry for all this."
"For what?" the woman said. "The table collapsed, while I was on it. Or are you apologizing because Ostania's state factories can't make furniture that's as sturdy as a cardboard box from Westalis?"
"Don't talk about my country that way," the man answered. "And you didn't need to break the chair over my head."
"I told you, I'm really sorry about that…" She sighed. "Look, I want to know… How many times have you done this before?"
"Five, all in the line of duty," the man said. "Three times with a woman, different women, twice with the same man. And if you don't mind my saying, you hadn't done this in a while, had you?"
"I never really did anything like this," she said. "I don't know about your side, but for us, the no-holds, one-night blind scraw was out of style by the time Twilight was training me. Now, it can take 6 weeks of recon just to get approval for full contact. I never had to do more than two or three in a year. And yeah, it had been a while."
The man nodded. "Look, what can I call you besides your code name?" he asked abruptly. "It does not work for me, and the only other thing I can think of you as is Twilight's woman."
"Nobody knows my real name, not even him," the woman answered. "But you can call me… Frost. And I already knew you're Yuri Briar."
"Lady Frost, then," the man said. "You are strange, Frost. We read the books of the modern women in the west. You act like one of them, but you do not ask to be treated like one."
"Nope, I'm as old-fashioned as they come," Frost answered. "By the way, there's, ah… Look, there's a piece of the table… in your head. Here, I'll get it."
There was rustling as they squirmed, a grunt and a hiss. "There… Oh. Wow. Want me to do something about that, too?"
"Don't worry, it doesn't mean anything."
"Really. So being here, with me, doesn't have anything to do with this…?"
"It just happens. That's what the modern women say."
"And I said I'm old-fashioned. Here, let me take care of you…"
"You don't have to…"
"Well, I want to." There was a gasp and a throaty laugh.
"You will pull out your stitches."
"Then I guess you'll have to do them over again…" There was a wet thump, followed by rustling and an audible squeak. A tangle of scarlet swirls remained behind as the figures sank down. "There. Better?"
"Yes, of course… Please, I need a break." Urtico scrambled out of the shower. He promptly bent over, hands on his knees.
"Fine, time out," Frost said, peering out from behind the curtain. "But what's the hurry?" She laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Please, I need you to stop touching me right now," he said urgently.
"All right," she said. "But what is it? Just talk to me, I'm sure it will be better."
"No, it won't," Urtico said. "It is not your fault…" Nightfall covered her mouth as he hunched over the toilet and vomited.
After several minutes, Nightfall leaned against the shower wall, wrapped in a towel, morbidly watching Yuri. "So," she said, "you can keep going at that, too."
He looked up from his latest spew, his face ashen. "Please, do not talk," he said. "I told you, this is not your fault."
"Yeah, that wasn't where I was going at all," she said. She sighed. "All right, this isn't the first time I've seen this. Usually, talking does help. Why not ask me something?"
He looked up at her thoughtfully. "Well… what happens, hypothetically, if they send you to someone you want to be with?"
"Flattering yourself, aren't you?" Nightfall said. "Anyway, you're really getting it the wrong way round. I never had that kind of problem with the ones they send me to. They wouldn't want more than I give them anyway. But if my people thought I was losing my edge, or I was tired of the job, or if they just wanted a little room for new talent, they might give me a different kind of assignment, a really long-term assignment. You know, a civil servant, a factory manager, a professor. It's what we call the soft landing. There's talk that they've been trying to get Twilight to do it for a while. But like I said, not for me. Not for a very, very long time."
He nodded. "Yes," he said. "It's what we do, sometimes." He started to rise, but retched again. Nightfall leaned over.
"Dammit, that's getting full!" she cried out. "You gotta flush!" She pulled the handle. The bowl filled with murky fluid that she quickly realized was not draining nearly fast enough. She instinctively flushed again. The decidedly viscous mixture rose higher still.
Urtico made a valiant try with the plunger. Nightfall opened the tank and tried to turn the water off. She dropped the lid as the sludge spilled across the floor. He abandoned the plunger and took her hand. The door was knocked off one hinge as they beat a hasty retreat.
Nightfall stared at Urtico. "What the hell do you even eat?!"
He shrugged. "Mostly just stuff I put together myself," he said. "I'm not as good a cook as my sister…"
And Yuri leaned against the wall beside the bathroom door. "Doing okay?" he called out.
"Yes; keep talking, just don't ask me to say anything," Fiona Frost answered. A few minutes later, she emerged, smiling. "There, all better."
He drew his arms around her waist, revealing a bulge that did not yet show. "I am glad we waited to do this," he said. "Now that Yor can know…" He clasped the hand that bore his engagement ring.
Fiona nodded. "I needed to know," she said. "The doctor said the odds were 3 to 1 it wouldn't even take."
Yuri kissed her cheek. "I told you, our girl was always going to beat the odds," he said. "You know, we still haven't done anything, since we got back together."
She considered that. "I'd still rather wait till the real wedding night," she said. She grinned. "Just make sure they think we made this little bastard the old-fashioned way. Well, except Yor."
"Yes, I do not mind," Yuri said. "You know… I could take care of you."
"Only if you let me take care of you," Fiona answered with a smile.
"Well… you could…" He cleared his throat. "Tie me down and…" He mumbled the rest, blushing bashfully.
His Lady Frost lifted his chin and gazed into his eyes. He reached up and wiped a tear from her cheek. "Oh, you are the most wonderful man in the world!" she said.