Everything Right is Wrong Again (Nel + Murdoch)

[Nel Sayo]

She let out a yelp when he caught her ankle, and nearly tripped over both of them, but his grabbing hands steadied her, and then she wasn't fighting him at all. But then, she'd never really fought him, not even when she probably should have. Her limbs just went loose in his hands, and when he turned her about she might have stared stubbornly at his chest, but she didn't try to jerk away. Or hit or kick or thrash. She just stood there, and listened, as she'd always done, and when her eyes finally lifted to meet his, they were incredibly sad. “You're so stupid,” she said again, with a sigh. “I don't – I don't want you to send me away again. I know, I know, you want to keep me safe and get me out of here, I know, but I don't want to go without you. I don't want you to stay without me.” Because then they'd be sure to kill him. And then he'd let them. “I know you're sorry.” She sniffed, and pushed at him so that he'd let go of her, because she wasn't going anywhere. “I just want you to stop worrying about me, and start worrying about us.” They were an us, her eyes said. And he couldn't argue his way out of that one. There was an us, a we, a shit, we are in trouble, but he couldn't just push her out of the apartment this time. Whatever happened, it would not doubt happen to them.

[Murdoch]

He let her go when she pulled away, because he heard the truth in her words - she wouldn't leave him. And that was all he needed to hear. To Eloab with his plans to get her out, to do what he could to save her. He didn't want her to leave, even if it might save her life. Would have let her do it, but he'd learned his lesson about making her.

"Okay," he said softly, and couldn't help the calloused hand that raised to cup her cheek. "Okay. What should we do then?"

It was an admission, a promise, as good as an oath that he wouldn't do it again. They would get out of this together, or not at all.

[Nel Sayo]

“Well I don't know,” she mumbled tiredly. “I hadn't thought that would be so easy.” The wind whistled out of her sails, then, and she just stepped right into him and wrapped her arms about his waist, half a wilt and half an embrace, because she'd always enjoyed hugging him more than kicking him. And he'd become the home for her when she didn't have one. He'd replaced ocean breezes and the rocking waves, and so pressing her face against his chest was just enough to make her feel a little bit better, despite the looming darkness ahead of them. “I tried climbing out the window,” she murmured, after a minute. “Didn't work.”

[Murdoch]

His arms came around her, and this time, without Johnny looming over them and danger in front of their faces, he let himself relax into it. A season ago he never would have admitted that she'd become home to him as well, that she'd shaken him out of the limbo he'd forced himself into when he fled to Syliras. A decade and more he'd built his walls, kept people at bay with a dagger and a charming smile, and this ridiculous little Konti girl had fought her way past both of them without any care for the damage he did her in the process. Now, able to see the idiocy of his decisions and the pain he'd caused her, no one could fault him if he clung to her a little, wrapped his arms around her a little more tightly than he ever had before.

In Syliras, when he'd hugged her, he was always aware of what it meant. Calculating, gauging reactions, figuring out cost versus risk, every action carefully weighed. It had never mattered that he wanted to hug her - it had mattered that it was advantageous to hug her, perhaps to keep her quiet and happy. But that was the thing about hugging a Konti - she had always been able to tell that while it felt like a hug he was giving her, it also felt a little hesitant. He might have given himself over during love-making, but affection for affection's sake was never something he'd done; affection was always given for the sake of something, even if it was just to keep her happy and quiet.

But here in this death-trap, he pulled her close because it was what he wanted to do, and Nel could feel the difference in the set of his arms and the wild thudding of his pulse against her cheek. He meant it. It was as if all the hang-ups and emotional pit traps that used to set him off or keep him from connecting had been purged from his system, leaving what she'd seen all along: the man the lurked underneath.

"Yeah, he's pretty good about watching the obvious exits," he chuckled into her hair, inhaling the salty perfume of her skin. It didn't seem to matter how long she was away from the sea, the scent of sand and sun permeated her body. He'd awoken from dreams with it on his tongue. Then - "We'll get out of this," he murmured, pulling back just enough to press a kiss to her brow. And then he ducked his head another few inches, finding the cool softness of her mouth, and when he kissed her his breath rushed out in a sigh of contentment, as if he'd found exactly what he'd been looking his whole life for - and perhaps he had. And, even more startling, this time he knew it.

[Nel Sayo]

When he kissed her, the last thread of her composure simply snapped. She'd have held that little line taught as long as she needed to, fought to keep her grip on it no matter what happened, but it was like he just pushed past it and severed right through it, and even as he breathed out his contentment against her lips, tears were standing in her eyes. He wasn't the Murdoch who'd shoved her out of his apartment. She could feel the difference. In his arms and his hands when he hugged her and pulled her close, in his skin where it had been warm beneath her cheek, and in the very heart of him, which Nel had always been able to see into, even if she'd never said as much. Saying so, before, would have gotten her growled at or ignored – at best, a pat on the head and a subject change; at worst, a smack. Now, though, she could sense his want with such profound clarity that it startled right through the tenuous hold she had on herself. She'd always felt that he wanted her, somewhere deep underneath everything else – beneath the weighing and judging and balancing, the careful game he played for himself, dancing on the knifed edge between what he wanted and what he thought he deserved. What he thought had always been louder than what he hoped for. But now he wanted her, and that want rang in her ears as sure as if he held it like a bell. She hadn't felt anything that strong, that sure, since Syon had been alive. The pirate's life-force had been so impossibly strong that she could always find him in a crowd, could always feel him before she saw him. And in his heart, he had wanted her most of all, and loved her best. That sense of being wholly cared for had been the thing that kept her safe, that helped the shadows of her childhood dissipate so that she could become the girl she was, so quick to smile and laugh despite the harshness of the world. An echo of that safe feeling came with the press of Murdoch's mouth to her own, and she simply burst into tears for having not felt it in so long. “I'm sorry,” she mumbled, twisting a little away from him and wiping at her cheeks. “I'm – I don't even – you feel – weird.” That was the best she could do, really, without going into details that she wasn't yet willing to share. She'd known, of course, that he wondered what she'd been pretending all that time they spent with each other, though completely apart. What she'd been imagining, what she'd told herself she could get from him, what she wanted most of all, and she just wasn't ready to give that to him yet.

[Murdoch]

His lips curved a little when she turned away to wipe at her tears, though he kept an arm around her waist. Not quite a smile, but something between amusement and understanding. "I know," he chuckled, lifting a hand to wipe at her tears, too. The first swipe was just a gentle swish of a thumb - but then he twisted his hand and wiped them away with the rest of his fingers, a slightly teasing gesture as his smile widened to match. "It's still me, though. I'm just not so thoroughly unhinged. Kind of refreshing, ain't it?" he chuckled, dipping his head to nuzzle the last tear away with the tip of his nose. His breath tickled across her cheek, followed swiftly by his lips.

[Nel Sayo]

“It's...weird,” she decided quietly, utterly disconcerted by it, simply because it was so different. She knew, of course, that it was still him. But there was a lot to adjust to, and she was still shaking a little bit, completely overwhelmed by the events of the day, and what she knew was going to eventually come. She exhaled thinly, though, and turned her face into his, closing her eyes to let herself simply be comforted by the fact that he was there. And he wanted to comfort her, just for her sake, not because he thought it might get him something. That, at least, she could marvel at. “I'm so sorry,” she murmured. “That all this happened, Doc. You didn't bring anything on yourself, you didn't do anything. Some people just like hurting everyone they can – it isn't your fault that he wants to hurt you.” People were cruel, and cruelty rarely ever needed encouragement, just a target.

[Murdoch]

He chuckled a little as she offered him a little comfort in return, and though he didn't quite agree with her words he could at least recognize now that she said them because she cared - and, more importantly, it didn't throw him into some sort of defensive fit.

"Don't be sorry," he murmured, pulling her around to tuck her under his arm once more. He needed to sit - he'd been walking for the better part of half a season, and he was exhausted. For someone who wasn't used to walking more than from his apartment to the Spinning Coin, the last few weeks had been hell on his body. If nothing else, it'd served to burn away what little softness city living had left on his body. He was a little thinner, a little harder now, his hipbones standing out above the top of his pants, but it didn't leave him looking unhealthy. If nothing else, he looked even more ready for the ring.

He pulled her out of the bathing chamber and back into the main room, releasing her to pace across and collapse on the edge of the bed. "I was a stupid kid," he murmured, "and maybe that's a good enough excuse, but it doesn't change the fact that I started all of this. And I wasn't even smart enough to cover my tracks. What sort of idiot doesn't change their name at least?" he chuckled dryly, rubbing a hand over the almost-beard that'd grown over his cheeks during his travels. "It may not be my fault, but I'm not entirely innocent. You, however, have nothing to apologize for," he said, tired eyes rising to meet hers as he offered a smile. "Except if you've drunk all the wine. Then we're gonna have a fight," he said with a wink.

It faded, though, as he considered what she said. "You know, for all that Johnny's an evil son of a bitch, he never does anything without a reason. He wants something," he mused, trying to figure out what that might be. "He plans on fighting me, and selling me afterwards - he certainly wasn't lying about that. What we need to figure out is what he stands to gain from it. Who the buyer is, and what they're offering. And if we can get someone else to make a better offer," he mumbled.

[Nel Sayo]

She shuffled along beneath the curl of his arm til he got to the bed, but when he sat down, she carried on to the sidebar, beneath which one could find the suite's stash of alcohol. While he spoke, she was already yanking the cork out of a bottle of wine and filling a glass for him. Which she pressed into his hand even as he expressed wanting some. And then she bent down and kissed the top of his head, climbing onto the bed beside him. “I'll help,” she said, a little bit at a loss. “I don't...know where I am.” The tail of her voice shook with bewildered laughter, and she shrugged a little helplessly. “I wasn't ever...I mean, this isn't my kinda slavery, you know.” A joke, kind of, which was funny only because Doc was usually the one cracking jokes when times got difficult.

[Murdoch]

Doc laughed a little, though it didn't sound quite as desperate as perhaps it should have. But his fingers curled around the wineglass, and then he shifted it to his other hand so he could curl them instead around the curve of her hip.

"Well, let's keep our fingers crossed that it doesn't turn into that sort of slavery. Not that I'm not pretty enough, but still," he snorted, knowing the reasons that Konti were so highly valued, and more than willing to resume his penchant for badly-timed jokes. "We'll figure something out. I just can't think right now," he murmured.

He downed two gulps of wine, sighing after he swallowed and turning to rest his forehead against her shoulder. "Did you miss me?" he quipped, nudging his nose against her arm like an errant puppy - something he used to do whenever she got cranky with him in Syliras. At least that never changed.