Wine into Water [Linna]

[Sarge Potteiger]

Brow furrowing slightly, not quite believing what he was hearing, Sarge slowly raised a singular brow as he looked up at her, palms rubbing together awkwardly. "It's funny how disclosure brings some closer, and pushes others further away."

Exhaling again slowly, his eyes lower in shame as his hands rub together a bit more fervently. "Yeah... it was half on purpose, half not. I keep some whiskey around, but after one or two I thought I wasn't going to have enough. So I went and got more. Didn't know how much it would take to forget, but I guess I found out."

There was a sigh. "Too much on the mind. I had to shut down."

 

[Linna Beorht]

Linna powered down the infolink. She'd pounded out three thousand words of decent analysis during the conversation, and her eye sockets throbbed. Her eyeballs themselves hurt.

"Sarge, I'm tired enough to cut to the chase. You are awesomely, thoroughly damaged, I recognize a kindred spirit, and I want to sleep on your couch. In the morning, we may have sex, but i will certainly work on my report. You will sleep soundly."

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

"Most likely why I contacted you - we're both damaged goods." He followed that with a self-depreciating chuckle and a shake of his head. Standing, he raised a curious, almost challenging brow at her. "You're more than welcome to crash at my place whenever you want; but what makes you so sure I'm going to sleep soundly?"

Very, very few people were ever that demanding of him. All of them were his bosses. Technically, she wasn't. Hence his curiosity.

 

[Linna Beorht]

"I told you I'm smart, right? Half a degree in six different fields? I'm not going to do anything as dumb as subject your system to sleeping pills or whatever. What I'd like to do is hypnotize you to sleep."

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

"...you're kidding me."

 

[Linna Beorht]

"I'm really not. I'm quite good at it." She put down the datalink and stood, smoothing the skirt around her legs. "Sarge, you need rest like I need spice. Will you let me try?"

The directness of her gaze, the steadiness of her voice, should have told him straight up that she knew exactly what she was asking.

"It can't make you do anything you don't want to do. So how badly do you want sleep?"

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

There was a long moment where he drew in short, sharp breaths, and sucked part of his right cheek to bite at it in near angry thought. She was right. She knew it. He clearly didn't like the answer he needed to give her.

Because that's what it was.

A need.

A need to sleep peacefully for once.

He sighs again. "Fine."

 

[Linna Beorht]

"Well then, take me to your bed." Again, straightforward, no cutesy little smirks that sought to make seduction self-aware and ironic and self-amused and entirely to pleased with itself. That kind of crap wasn't Linna's style, even when she was seducing. Which she wasn't.

She moved over to the bedroom and leaned against the wall, arms folded. "Lie down, get comfortable. I have everything I need right here. Give me a combat knife. It's shiny and you'll naturally focus on the blade."

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

Part of Sarge expected that smirk, just so he could laugh at her doing it. He knew it wasn't her style, and to see such an expression on her face would have filled him with the best kind of mirth. Doing as instructed, he went into the bedroom - as plain as any, and with only a few pictures of important people here and there.

She could look if she so pleased, they weren't hidden. The most obvious was a holo of a Zeltron with, surprisingly, brown hair. Thin, but with a wide mouth and expressive eyes. She seemed to shy away from camera, as though they simply weren't her thing.

Either way, Sarges favored bayonet was in his hand, held between forefinger and thumb, grip extended towards her.

He made himself as comfortable as he could, which was still tense for a normal person.

 

[Linna Beorht]

@[member="Sarge Potteiger"]

The picture of the Zeltron took her aback; so did the knife extended, point first, by a very tense man. Some part of her brain forgot that she knew this man, or at least a couple of his outermost layers. She flinched back, or at least the majority of her body did. As the rest of her brilliant brain processed his lack of aggression, though, she reached out and took the knife.

"All right," she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Now watch closely."

Hypnotism was tough to learn and somewhat simple, though not always reliable, to execute. She began.

Guess we'll find out whether he CAN be hypnotized...

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

His head cocked as she flinched, but it hardly seemed to faze him. That was a typical reaction to him having any sort of a weapon in his hand - especially a long blade like the one he favored. Thankfully for her, hypnotism relied on being able to focus without distraction.

Sarge was, as an assassin, quite well equipped to deal with this task.

Unless she dredged up a bad memory... well, he'd be out like a light in no time.

 

[Linna Beorht]

Hypnotism didn't necessarily dredge up memories, and her procedure was clean. She put Sarge to sleep with great economy of time, secured all notable harmful things and remaining dregs of liquor, and crashed on the sofa.

In the morning, she slept in. She wasn't, precisely, disciplined. She tended to wake up at around the time that she had crashed on the couch.

So she awoke very late in the morning.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

For the first time in a very long time, Sarge slept peacefully. No cold sweats. No nightmares. No sense of impending doom from a shadow coming into the room at night. Nothing. Just oblivion. Still, despite her hypnotism, his mind refused to rest long.

He awoke mid-morning, without a recollection of the night before besides a fading migraine that caused him to shy away from turning on the lights. Making sure the windows that looked out onto the Fondor Shipyards were covered by blinds, he stumbled out into the living room and paused.

Linna?

Blinking slowly as he peered at her, he vaguely recalled staring at the sheen of his ever-ready blade before oblivion overtook him. For once, he smiled genuinely. It was barely the faintest upturn to his lips, but it was the truest smile he could remember for long, cold years.

Walking over, he gives the barest hint of a kiss to her forehead and goes to make himself some breakfast. Unsure of when she'd wake, he merely leaves supplies out to make her some when she stirred.

And sure enough, no sooner did she wake than the sounds and smells of a cooking breakfast would reach her. He didn't normally cook for others, or even for himself, but he was thankful. He may as well show it.

 

[Linna Beorht]

Zeltron smell-sensitivity woke her as soon as breakfast got going. Wakefulness, of course, was a relative term. For Linna, waking up was usually pure chaos while trying to get ready for some kind of political operation at four or five in the morning. The dichotomy, the apparent contradiction, was resolved by a pipe and some ryll kor as she watched Sarge cook.

"I'd share, but I think you could live without it." She grimaced and took a drag on the pipe. The pipe was...professorial. Ornate. Suitable for Doctor Linna Beorht, the darling guest lecturer of a dozen campuses. They had most certainly not meant it for ryll kor.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

The man looked up as he got himself some water, shaking his head. It was evident he wasn't a fan of drugs, but it didn't really seem to bother him that she was doing them in his presence. Nor that she enjoyed them. He was... rather tolerant, apparently.

"Extra stimulation and looser inhibitions are two of the last things I need, I'm afraid." Taking a gulp of his water he sets some Trandoshani flatcakes sautéed with fruits in front of her. "Eat up, Linna. Not everyday that I cook. Hell, probably ain't even once a year."