taxonomites | 003. (visual) a list of the qualities a good girl lacks

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003. (visual) a list of the qualities a good girl lacks

"Hello, Taxon."

Leila greets anyone paying attention out there with a small smile, seated as she is on a grassy section in the forest, several paces away from the greenhouse Sol (and now Ambrose) has occupied, though it's not quite in view, thus making her location more difficult to distinguish. She's sleeveless, today, which means much of her white ink clockwork tattoo is exposed; she's proud of it, so she sees no reason not to show it off.

"So," she begins, "I've been wondering a few things: why do you think so many people here come from the same world? It's overwhelmingly dominated by people from Earth, and it seems to primarily be modern-day Earth, at that.

"Many of us seem to speak the same common language- our captors' idea of convenience, possibly? English isn't my first language, but I'm fluent enough in it. The relatively low level of apparent ethnic diversity can be rationalized, but if we're really all abducted by aliens, they certainly seem to have their preferences when it comes to targets, don't they? I don't have any answers here, but I'm certain I'm not the only one still asking questions. Maybe between us some sort of conclusion can be reached, eventually, and with data we can make progress- I'm aware by now I'm not the only scientist present, but if anyone else I have yet to meet happens to fall into the same profession, please introduce yourselves. I'm listening."

She's not going to admit she's the youngest researcher in her group at home and probably here, too, and thus knows the expertise of others is necessary, but she is aware, at least. This is followed by a careful, considering pause; Leila's been very detachedly amiable up to this point, and avoided being too technical, by her own standards, but now her tone changes to something cooler and more controlled, which in her is generally a tough-skinned cover for guardedness.

"Oh. One more thing. These glitches that people experience. How long do they usually last?"

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"That's not what I'm sorry for," he shrugs her off; it pains him to do it, and feels dishonest not to. Either he tells her now or he- he doesn't know. Ambrose scowls at nothing, trapped in indecision, and very badly regretting that he stopped.

She shakes her head, a little bit frustrated now, and pushes closer. Being right up in his face so quickly after that little incident is probably not the best plan, but no one is making the best possible decisions today, either.

"Then what are you sorry for? You look at me like--I don't even know what. Like you hate me or you want to pin me against the rocks or both at the same time, and I'm beginning to think it's personal. So what is it, Ambrose? I told you I wouldn't ask you any questions, but- you know what, I lied, I want to know this."

"I do," he says, wretched with grief and not hate, "I hate you. I hate you so much I can't see clear for it."

Not a thrillingly good idea, no, not when he's still of just the right angle to shove her backwards against the rock and stay there; he's not strong enough to keep her there if she shoves back, though it wouldn't be advisable with wet rock under their feet like this. He still does it, half instinctive.

"You don't remember and I wish you did. I wish I couldn't see that you don't. Hell's teeth, woman, I can't pick kinfolk out by smell."

There's a quick draw of breath when he pushes her back, a flinch that even Solomon has probably never seen before--but she lets it go with a shaky exhale, staring up at Ambrose with dark wounded-animal eyes. Her hair is wet and tangled around her face, and she's almost trembling with memory suppressed, memories she can't have.

"I don't understand." But she has information, and from information she can form a hypothesis. "What don't I remember? What--"

Leila stops, abrupt, swallowing hard.

"Ambrose, am I her?"

"Not any more," he says bitterly, his eyes on the stone behind her and under his bone-white hands instead of her face and those eyes.

Her breathing is ragged, now, with realization--like it physically hurts, which rapidly transcends 'like' and becomes a reality when the pressure builds at her temples. Leila makes a sound a little like a pained keen, the ghost of it, and touches a hand to her head, eyes closing, and she moves forward, against his shoulder. Her feet feel unsteady beneath her, and she is struggling to push back the flood of what she can't know, not without taking steps first. Unlike the Verbena, she's not granted with this knowledge.

"Then I guess you don't hate me at all, do you?" She hisses when the pressure changes, shifting, and hopes that constitutes progress. "What is this--"

Despite himself, indeed despite her, Ambrose responds to this without consciously deciding to; she moves and he moves too, enfolding her in against his chest.

"I'm sorry," he says, for this now and for things trying to make themselves known. "I'm so sorry."

God, it hurts, for one blinding instant--she cries out against his shoulder, in a way unlike the others he must have known with the woman he's spoken of before, the woman who was before she was Leila--but then relents, and she's so intensely grateful it's almost overwhelming. If she goes through with trying to see into the past, she'll have to prepare herself thoroughly beforehand.

"It wasn't your fault," she tells him, barely audible over the rush of water. "It was theirs."

Edited 2010-02-24 20:39 (UTC)

"It's the same as it ends," he says, without force simply because he's running out of whatever in him has the energy to be forceful now. It's an emotional exhaustion in many ways, but he does let the rock support most of their shared weight. "Are you all right?"

...what a question.

"I have no idea how to answer that," she says, truthfully, face pressed in against the side of his neck for a few moments afterward. It's too intimate, and she knows it, but she can't help herself. They are not anything like strangers or even acquaintances or friends. There are few labels for this.

"I'm not sorry you kissed me, though."

It's kind of like an admission, kind of like defiance.

In a burst of honesty that the American might be more at home with, Ambrose mutters, "I wish I hadn't stopped," against her ear.

"Oh," she says, like the confession is a simple fact to be factored into her plans. Leila follows this by tilting her head just slightly so that she can brush her mouth over his. Remarkably, she's very soft about it, and brief, but there are a thousand reasons for that right now and one of them is her uncertainty as to how he'll react.

He's unpredictable; she's unstable. Good combination.

Maybe Ambrose isn't sure how he'll react, either; at first he just doesn't. Of the warring impulses, though, the one that says forward is the one he listens to and he follows the movement like he's being dragged, his hand splayed on the rock for the support he very much does need.

She is, they are. He will remember for both of them, he tells himself.

For some reason it seems right that they should be like this--tucked behind the waterfall where the two of them can have their own little clandestine world. There are not any hotel rooms in Taxon, as far as Leila knows--no point--but it has a similar feeling, with a very different significance to what she's used to at home.

It starts soft, but it doesn't stay that way, especially when she preoccupies herself with the hollow of his throat.

(This is such a bad idea.)

There is a mildly heart-stopping moment where Ambrose grates, "I can't," but that's not what he means at all judging by the fact he feels for a flatter rock to sit on, dragging Leila with him to his lap. This is a terrible idea, and moreover no one ever gave Ambrose the memo on not being allowed to leave a mark.

(Sol avoids it, usually; it's only fair. Ambrose sinks his teeth into the side of her throat and he doesn't even have the kinfolk excuse - but then, there will be nothing of him but memories and bruises in the shape of his borrowed fingers and teeth when he's gone.)

In fairness, the rules in Taxon are different, but she and Sol still generally refrain from that--this is startling, but she can understand wanting to leave an impression in more ways than one. Furthermore, judging by the sound she makes, Leila doesn't really mind.

They haven't invented rollercoasters in Ambrose's time, but that's the closest approximation Leila can come up with for her experiences with him.

"Just--" Her hand is on the side of his face, and she looks at him for a long while, close enough that she doesn't have to raise her voice to be heard over the rush of water all around them. "Let me be good to you for a little while, okay?"

(Before he has to go back, she can give him this.)

Afterwards - much later, dry and clothed and stubbornly by his outdoor fire, having had to draw their aquatic adventures to a close sooner than he'd have liked given his own strength and the chill in the water and the air - Ambrose would be hard pressed to describe exactly how it is that he feels. Perhaps to avoid having to, then, he says little; more gradually than the sudden ability to ignite behind waterfall, he seems to have a sudden knack for finding Leila's skin as naturally as anything when she's within his reach.

Just- to see that she's there.

There she is, and she leans into his hand a little, unsure as to whether she should feel guilty. Leila has a tendency to really just do whatever (or...whoever) she wants when the whim strikes her, which has ended relationships before, but she's generally been completely absorbed by her relationship with Solomon, so other liaisons, if they happened, occurred purely when they were in their 'off-seasons'. And she'd shamelessly use those other men to make Sol jealous, so that probably says a lot about her priorities.

This is different.

"You okay?" she asks Ambrose, quietly.

You know, for the given value of okay right now.

"I'm..." Ambrose squeezes her shoulder, once, and pulls his hand back to lace his fingers together. "I am."

Not 'I am okay', just ... 'I am'.

That's enough, right now, Leila supposes. She combs her fingers through her hair, silent a while as she contemplates the events of the evening, and the ones that will continue to unfold.

"Do you want me to stay the night?"

"-yes." Not that the vampiric excuse has gone anywhere, but this time he doesn't bother citing it first. He's not quite relaxed with her, even now, but he's willing to admit that he doesn't want to be alone and that he'd rather be not-alone with her.

"In that case, you are eventually going to need a bigger bed," she informs him, rising, "I'm going to be sleeping half-on top of you."

"It's bigger than what we had," with an undercurrent of you spoiled trollop, albeit half-affectionate and half still, still wishing that she'd know that on her own.

"I see no reason I can't have a room that is just one big bed," she says, seriously, dragging her nails over his shoulder (she should stop doing that, but any iteration of him reacts so fascinatingly to it) as she walks past.

"I'm going to go get a drink. Do you want anything?"

"Something hot. I'm not choosy." His shoulders hunch up, a little; he keeps unwinding to a point, 'this far and no further', like he doesn't quite trust...something. Not Leila, precisely, who has been so patient and so kind.

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