Private Eulogic Episodes: The Unchanging Ache of Things

[Quietus]

The look she turned upwards at the question was pathetic, to be certain. Likely one of the most pathetic Aver had ever seen on her - surpassing even the day they'd gone to Onderon to wake Arathul. She did manage a nod.

Clothing was slowly, carefully stripped and the refresher turned to a blanching cold to reawaken the physical senses that had been dulled by alcohol. To stem the tide of a stomach willing to turn itself inside out just to be rid of its contents. To her credit, she did not throw up again. By the time she felt fractionally aware and living, Aver had drawn a hot bath. It might've been embarrassing to do this all in front of any other person in the known galaxy, but not Aver. Finding her standing there, bereft of her own clothing, waiting to help her into the tub and then join her, was nothing short of disgustingly endearing.

Qui could not even describe how deeply and greatly she appreciated the woman's presence, care, effort, and gestures.

So nearly an hour after she'd begun the harrowing journey to a cold shower, she was slowly, carefully stepping into a warm and soothing bath. The oversized tub continued to surprise with enough space for both, end to end. If Qui were in any other state beside the one she was in now she would have shared the same humor for them. There was simply no way in hell this would have happened 30 years ago.

She made an audible sound of comfort as she settled back against the curve of the tub end, head tipped back into the plush of a folded towel.

I can't remember the last time I used this bath tub...

 

[Aver Brand]

Showering was a slow, arduous affair. Aver practiced patience and left Qui to the cold clarity of the water as she disappeared to prepare the bath. A few precious minutes alone, for the both of them. To think. Or better yet, to avoid thinking.

She shook herself out of it when she heard the shower turn off. How long had she been staring at the tub? The water was nearly up to the edge. With a sigh, Aver shut off the faucet and turned to see her mate pad from the cabin. Miserable was still the word, but at least Qui looked slightly closer to a living being than a ghost.

One corner of her mouth quirked up at the comment. Desdemona was the right color, finally. Aver closed her eyes and let herself sink into the searing warmth up to the chin. It enveloped her limbs and seeped into her bones, burning away the residual detritus of borrowed pain.

When she tangled their legs together, the gesture was gentle, almost casual – but no less intentional for it. Aver flashed a grin across the sea of bubbles separating them, gun-calloused hands seeking out those worn from tools.

The pipes did sound weird, now that you mention it.

 

[Quietus]

Old pipes in a building not quite as old as her. At least it was still part of the upper city, used, and received regular maintenance. Des had been reluctant to give it up on account of the few good memories she had left of her childhood. When she'd spent time here it had been with her mother, for the most part, after their citadel home on Korriban that had once belonged to Silencia. This space had been theirs for a time, even if her father had deigned to occupy it here and there.

The decor was her mother's. The furnishings, the paintings, the kitchen layout. Down to the last baseboard and wallpaint color - everything here screamed Cerusia Shamalain. Not even her home on Honoghr did that. This place had felt frozen in time for as long as she could remember and she couldn't bring herself to bring it to modern day. This place predated her Masterhood, Halcyon Citadel, and even Cazador. It was where she went when she needed to be safe with her memories and emotions.

Now Aver was part of it.

Qui had sat silent in her musings, incapable of finding humor through all the detritus of everything else, but she did find her fondness for the Merc. It would be next to impossible to misplace that. Her hands squeezed back but no words came. There was too much and she felt too fallen apart to even determine where to start.

 

[Aver Brand]

They lounged in the scalding water and silence for a long while – Aver subsumed in the ebb of the bubbles and Qui, presumably, in her thoughts. Her grasp remained firm and sure throughout, the thumb drawing slow, soothing patterns over the back of a pale hand. She wasn’t in a terrible rush to find out what had happened, actually.

To be honest, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know at all. It was a strange thought. Her life – first by necessity and later by choice – had mostly been a series of head-on collisions. With problems, with people, with interstellar governments and galaxy-spanning syndicates and many, many versions of the former self.

But here she hesitated. Aver turned her closed eyes to the ceiling, blind to the nostalgic decor.

Doubt. What a filthy poison.

Aver opened her eyes with a long exhale and watched her breath roil and mingle with the steam of the bath. The vortices played and dissolved without rhyme or reason – as good a diversion as any to fixate on and ignore her wandering thoughts.

Finally, another squeeze of the grasp that kept them connected in their quiet retreat to their own thoughts. Their mental link was a fine thread, the doors kept ajar not out of any resentment but for protection.

Do you want to tell me about him?

When faced with a knot to untangle, it was often just a matter of finding the first thread to unravel. The rest… would follow.

 

[Quietus]

This wasn't a knot to be untangled. It couldn't be. The years of pain had fused all manner of memory and heartache together into a painful, swollen amalgamation of twisted ether. It wasn't something that could be fixed or repurposed. It wasn't something that would heal or diminish over time. If nothing else, it had grown heavier and more painful over the centuries. But Aver didn't know these things, and the dull stare of listless green eyes spoke of those thoughts deeply dwelling within.

Qui didn't answer her in any general sense. No word, verbal or telepathic, and no gesture. The silence was answer enough.

By the time the water was no longer of a soothing level of hot, she wasn't even certain what she wanted. Part of her just wanted to drift down below the surface and never come back up. Might have been the lingering drunkeness talking. The other part of her wanted to sleep for a hundred years to escape these thoughts and feelings. Was this why Lorelei had gone into torpor? To escape the grief of Korran's passing? It struck her that it wasn't a terribly terrible decision, even if it had impressed some extraordinary inconveniences on the rest of her family to do so.

Aver's presence drew her back, as it was want to do. She was asking for what next.

I... Quietus gave a slow blink, eyes turning to look up at the woman who now stood outside of the tub, waiting to help her out, I'm tired...

 

[Aver Brand]

For a long time, there was nothing. No words, no thoughts, no motion. Barely even the two of them. The ache was all-consuming and pervasive, choking the life out of the place as if it hadn’t given up the ghost centuries ago.

Aver chewed on her lip throughout, anchoring herself to the here and now. The waves of pain crashing from her mate threatened to sweep her away like an unmoored pebble caught in the riptide. It was a profound feeling of helplessness. She tasted bile at the disarming emotion that mocked her every time she opened her eyes to look at Desdemona. Her fingers itched for a tangible problem to grasp, to wrap around and put together.

Or rip apart. She wasn’t gonna be picky at this point. Hackles raised, flesh prickling with unease, Aver was ready to start a gang war just to have something to focus on. Something to—

I'm tired...

No answers tonight, then. She bit her cheek to bite back a scream.

“Okay.”

Aver wrenched her body into motion and rose from the bath in a waterfall of cooling droplets, banishing them from silver skin with a gesture. She held out a towel for Qui, big enough for the woman to get lost in. Would’ve made her smile at any other time, but…

“Do you want to sleep alone?”

 

[Quietus]

The towel, much like Aver's presence, was an encompassing sort of comfort that Quietus wasn't entirely sure how to handle. For the moment that Aver helped wrap it over her shoulders she stood in the plush relief in a brief stupor of the sensation. She could feel it at the edges of her frayed nerves, just beyond the aura of malaise.

"Do you want to sleep alone?"

Words that struck through with such keenness that Aver might as well have used Sa Sevai to deliver them. A pale hand immediately latched on to her nearest wrist, strong with need but not quite yet at the verge of desperation.

Stay with me, Qui grimaced against the sudden rush that the thought of Aver leaving her side had given her. She was sure it was that, and not her hangover.

Please.

 

[Aver Brand]

The sudden grip on her arm nearly sent her reeling. Surprise colored her features as her gaze fell to the cold hand wrapped around her wrist, then to the wide eyes of her mate. So much white around the green, now, and so much red in that white.

Aver could barely reconcile the idea with the evidence of Qui crying. Harder still to process the wavering tone of her voice. Unpleasant reality gaped its jaws in a mirthless smile, daring her to pull away, to throw herself heedless into the numbing mire of excess existing just below the skin of this sleepless planet.

It would be easy to deny she was never even tempted; that the desperate desire to escape this suffocating apartment didn’t tug at every muscle of her body; that the frustration at her own uselessness didn’t make her fists ache for a bone or ten to break.

But Aver refused to lie to herself. She dug her teeth in until the taste of iron drowned out the siren call of violence.

She pulled Qui into her arms, fluffy towel and all. When she tried to speak her throat closed up, heat driven through her chest like the point of an alchemized knife. It was her turn to cling to her mate, lungs burning with the effort of breathing through the shame of it all.

I’m sorry. Yes, I’ll… she swallowed and leaned back to look Des in the eye. Lips pressed together, Aver managed a small, lopsided smile. “Come to bed with me?”

 

[Quietus]

The wilted smile she offered back was about as much as she could offer. They were the words she'd wanted to hear. It had seemed the right decision at the time - leaving Aver out of her troubles - but now that the woman was here she couldn't stand the thought of her leaving. The pair slowly made their way to the bedroom, leaving a trail of water droplets and wet footprints on the floorboards between the open spaces of ornamental rugs and floor runners. Qui sunk onto the oversized bed without a care for her wet braids or the towel wrapped around her.

It was with overbearing defeat of body, mind, and soul that she seemed to melt into the mattress. Sleep had not been forthcoming since she'd left Thral, and Aver knew it had not been a friend to her for some time prior to that. The lack thereof had caught up to her, and though she desperately wanted to shut her eyes and drift into a dreamless state it simply wasn't possible.

His memories were burning behind her eyelids, even now.

She didn't know what to do. The Spice had been her answer before. The booze after.

Qui wondered, briefly, if there was rancor tranq in Aver's ship. You know, left over from one of their dates.

 

[Aver Brand]

Rancor tranquilizer… that brought back memories. Aver was tired enough to crack a smile at the thought.

But Qui… Qui was wrecked. Nightmares, spice, a bender, then an emotional breakdown. That kinda shet karks you right up.

She couldn’t complain, really. At least her body was fine, even if her mind was full of crap and anger for the issues she was incapable of solving. Very few obstacles in the galaxy that she couldn’t overcome, and of course this was one of them. The universe liked nothing more than to make jokes at her expense.

With a sigh, Aver rolled onto her side. She swept aside the blonde strands clinging to clammy skin and replaced them with the warmth of her palm.

“Des,” she began, as serious as anything, a deep furrow in her brow, “do you want me to knock you out?”

 

[Quietus]

Qui's gaze landed on the deep red lines slashed across her mate's left clavicle and took refuge in the thought that what had started as a terrible misunderstanding and heinous offense had turned into something ... good. She could remember the look on Aver's face the day she walked into her tent, nerves alight with anger. That smack. No one else in the galaxy could speak of striking the Beastia and living to tell the tale.

She wanted to dream of those things. Of her memories with Aver. The good and the bad ... though truly there were not many she would classify as the latter. Her hand reached out to trace the lines with her fingertips, unable to reciprocate the warmth Ygdris gave to her, but the sentiment was there.

I can't sleep ... she admitted, I haven't slept. I don't know what else to do.

That may or may not have been permission for Aver to knock her mate out.

 

[Aver Brand]

Electric blue eyes narrowed to a squint in the dusk that had fallen over the pair in the bedroom. The drawn curtains helped, but there was no denying that the day had passed them by. Luckily the pair of them were long-lived bastards, and could look forward to many more of them – plenty of them together.

A few days (weeks? months?) spent on grief and restoration were a small sacrifice in the grand scheme of things. And thankfully, Aver had gotten quite good at looking at the grand scheme of things as she’d gotten older.

“If you’re sure,” she said at length, lingering under the covers for a moment more before pulling away. They had certainly done dangerous, risky, and ill-advised things in the past, and likely would in the future as well. Between the two of them they were remarkably curious, averse to boredom, and (worst of all), absurdly difficult to kill.

It led to some… interesting decisions.

But that was mostly sex, and this clearly wasn’t and somehow that made it worse. Aver pursed her lips at the thought – at her own hesitation at the request. A quirk to examine. Later.

She could’ve used her hands. She certainly knew how. But there was enough resistance somewhere inside her (if pressed, she would admit it was behind her ribs) that it seemed better to pick something less… personal.

It didn’t take a trip to the ship when you were a walking armory – just a trip to her abandoned belt and its extradimensional storage. Like Aver would ever go anywhere without the bare necessities: arms, armor, and first aid. Replenishing reserves was a trifling matter when you were the kingpin of a galactic drug monopoly.

One trip to the kitchen later, Aver sat back on the bed with a thin tablet in one hand and a glass of water in the other.

“You’ll be out for a day,” she warned, raising her brows. “At least.”

 

[Quietus]

Qui hadn't moved a muscle the entire time Aver was gone. Pale green eyes blinked at the pill offered but the telltale lofting of her brow never came. Drugs. She'd written them off mostly because they usually didn't work on her. At least, not for very long. That Aver claimed she would be out for a day ... or more, gave cause for some skepticism, but not too much. If it worked for Aver then it would at least work somewhat for her. She took the pill and swallowed it with a gulp of water.

Is this what you take, she asked curiously after her mate once the glass of water was removed to the nightstand and Aver had returned to her spot, when you can't sleep?

Was no secret Aver had trouble sleeping. There were very few secrets between them anymore.

 

[Aver Brand]

Is this what you take when you can't sleep?

Aver frowned at the question like a disgruntled cat. Keeping few secrets made them no less unpleasant to acknowledge. She shimmied deeper under the covers and plastered herself against Qui.

Yes. Sometimes. The admission came easy enough with her face hidden in the crook of a pale neck. The small golden hairs there always tickled a little, and Aver always smiled in turn. With a warm sigh, she closed her eyes and wrapped herself around the smaller woman.

And other times I’ll stay up doing all my admin work until I pass out. Shet happens. She shrugged her free shoulder and pressed a soft kiss against her throat. Go to sleep, sevgi.

 

[Quietus]

She could not recall Aver ever taking the pills when they were together. Though she supposed there would have been little need given how active they tended to be - both within the home and without. When they went out they usually did so with some misadventure in mind and rarely did that ever disappoint.

Go to sleep, sevgi.

There were so few people in the galaxy who could tell Desdemona Shamalain what to do she didn't even think she needed more than one hand to count them. Qui gave a shallow sigh and attempted to close her eyes, turning her thoughts upon those misadventures and rather forcefully keeping those memories on replay until the medication took hold.

She slept cold and motionless for just under three days. Dreamless, unimpeded sleep.

 

[Rune Shamalain]

To Aver's Comm:

How is she?

 

[Aver Brand]

Like any sensible person, Aver had left her mate to her much needed sleep when it became obvious the woman was out cold. She doubted the drug would’ve worked that well under normal circumstances, but… well, nothing about this situation was normal.

Firstly, she was doing her work from this apartment from the second time this year.

And secondly, there was a message from Rune Shamalain blinking on her holoscreen.

She’d been periodically glancing at the little flashing icon for the past hour, but other matters made greater demands on her time and attention.

Also, what the kark.

Finally, she was done. It was time to grab lunch, which meant cooking, which meant time to reply. She brought up the comm as the meat began its slow sear in the oven.

She’s sleeping. Day 2.

 

[Rune Shamalain]

Somewhere out in the broader galaxy, Rune Shamalain breathed a sigh of relief at the reply. Ever since departing Thral the man's mind had been reeling over what he'd seen in his Flow Walking visions. There were many things he'd not told his sister - some about herself, others about her mate. It wasn't his place to meddle, and meddle he had no intentions of doing. Respected and powerful as he was, he was no Lorelei Shamalain - the Empress of strategic meddling.

What a relief. he sent back.

A few moments pause more and then -

How are you?

 

[Aver Brand]

Relief was, indeed, the word. The merc squinted at the screen before checking on the meat again. Her stomach grumbled.

The ten mile run in the morning had done wonders for the wool in her head. And if Qui was still asleep in the evening, Aver also had a date with the local boxing gym. There was plenty of excess frustration left to exorcise, and an endless stream of noses she could break. Truly, Coruscant was a wonder.

Fine.

She ducked to the side as she opened the oven and flipped the meat. Kark, it smelled amazing.

You?

 

[Rune Shamalain]

Rune raised his brows at the answer. Fine. He hated that word, as any man who had been married to a woman should.

Skeptical.

Anything I can do to help?