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RP: The Wayward 1.2.2a Innocent Affections & Silver Linings

Enansel

Inactive Member
Anbruch - Late Night (After 1.2.1a)


A cold shower and a bottle of rum, or rather half a bottle of rum, that had been the plan. However his walk back to the ship had ended up with him returning with a tad more than anticipated. He attempted to be quiet while heading for his room, eventually slipping into it and deciding to leave the door open for the mean time. The only thing he kicked off were his boots and then he settled onto his bed facing the door and popped the cap from one of the beers he'd just bought. Not rum, but it would do in a pinch, and with a giant bag of salty chips he'd just have to call it a night.


After the overwhelming meeting with the others of the crew, and then being shown where she could sleep for herself, she couldn't rest easy. She had stayed in the engine room, mostly to just get to know the part of the ship she was most familiar with, though even that could only go for so long. Not used to being on her own, still, she decided to explore more of the ship. She had already left her boots in her own room, so her feet made little to no sound as she started to get to know more of the ship. Who was where and all. Seeing a door still open, she peeked in. Her intent was more to just see whom it was, not to intrude or anything. When she recognized the occupant, she smiled a little and started to walk off once more, not wanting to interrupt what he was doing.


"Analiese?" Quinn questioned when he caught her staring in at him from the door and then walking off. He set the bag of chips aside but took along his beer, double checking to make sure his coat was buttoned up before he poked his head out into the hall. "Where are you off to?" He asked. "You're welcome to come in. I wouldn't have left the door open otherwise."


Ana turned at his voice and smiled up at him shyly. She had let down her hair already, letting it fall once more around her shoulders. Peeking through the hair, she studied him with her heterochromic eyes and said softly, "I...I was just...exploring." She bit her lip lightly and looked a bit worried, "It...It's okay...right?"


Quinn gave her a soft, easy, reassuring smile. "I'm sure it's alright if you explore the ship." He answered, finding it almost enjoyable that he had something else to focus on besides himself and his terrible, awful, no good dinner encounter. "Do you want me to come explore with you?" There wasn't exactly all that much to see but if it made her feel better then he was more than happy to oblige.


Ana relaxed some as he reassured her. She knew that the captain had said she could explore, but with the late hour she wasn't sure if it would have been a good idea. When he asked to come with her, she nodded and said softly, "That would be nice. To learn more about the ship. Like...why are the rooms called quarters?" Ana moved along, putting her hands in her pockets as they walked around slowly, not in any hurry to get anywhere in particular.


"Hmm." He considered for a second and then fetched his datapad and walked with her wherever she decided to wander. "Never thought to ask that question myself." He admitted, looking it up once he'd drank enough of his beer that it wouldn't spill when he tucked it into a pocket so he had both of his hands to use. "I'll let you know when I find out." He glanced up, and around and then he pointed down to where they could go to the deck below. "Not much else to see really. This is a pretty small ship after all. Only thing down there is the medical bay and more rooms."


She nodded and glanced over at him. "Medical bay. Where you will be working." She looked at her hands, showing that there was still some grease on them, though she did try her best to clean them off. Where it was clean, there are a few small scars that can be seen, which he would have noticed long before now. "Well, now I know where to go when I need stitches."


His line of sight followed hers and his head bent down to look at her hands, his eyes adjusting for the distance and the lighting so he picked out the scars quite clearly. "I think a proper set of work gloves would be better, but yes I can stitch you back together." He let his eyes reset to their usual settings as he tucked his datapad away for a moment. "Want me to help you get the rest of that grease off?" He asked.


She shook her head at first, "Gloves just get in the way. Besides, I've never found any that were my size." She shrugged it off and tucked her hands back in the pockets. At his question, she looked up and tilted her head, "You have something that could help?" She was interested, now.


"Yes." He answered simply. "Trying to get Iodine off of my hands is even worse than stubborn grease." He elaborated and then he tilted his head. "Come on back to the room and I'll get you fixed up." He turned, but waited for her, before he headed back to the room he'd picked as his and went inside to poke through his bag. He hadn't even gotten around to putting anything up yet. "Ah! Here it is." He sat on the bed, holding a nondescript jar. He fished out one of his washcloths and held it out to her. "Get this wet and I'll show you a little magic."


Following him in, she looked around. She had already put up what little stuff she had and was still amazed by how much he was able to accumulate. She could see the guitar and violin cases and a small smile crossed her lips when she remembered going with him as he bought the smaller instrument. She took the wash cloth and went to his personal bath area, getting the cloth wet as instructed. Wringing it out as best she could, she took it back to him and held it out.


Quinn took the cloth from her with a soft "Thank you" and then motioned for her to sit on the bed. He unscrewed the top of the jar and set it aside. Even someone with a terrible sense of smell would be able to pick out the pine sap and lavender that the rough looking paste inside smelled of. "Hands please." He added, lifting his head so she'd realize he was looking at her. Habit of course, his cybernetic eyes giving no typical indication of where he was looking unless the rest of his head moved too.


Ana sat down on the bed and leaned a bit closer as he opened the jar. She could smell the odd scents, not quite sure where to place them, though they were pleasant. She lifted her hands to him so he could clean the grease and waited. "What is that smell?"


"Pine Sap and Lavender." He said. "There's also some clover honey in there." He carefully swiped a little out on the corner of the wet washcloth and lathered it into a slight foam and then he carefully took one of her hands in his free hand and started rubbing the damp mixture into the remaining grease on her hands, carefully massaging it into her skin. It was rough and sticky to the touch at first but got smoother as he worked at it. He repeated the process on her other hand and then he tilted his head. "Go wash your hands."


She watched as he put the stuff on her hands and frowned a little. "It feels a little tingly." Getting up, she goes and washes her hands off, blinking as the rest of the grease goes with the stuff. She feels her hands after and looks over at him, "Now I see why you hands are smooth..." She blushes a little as she returns and once more sits on the edge of his bed.


Quinn grinned and got up to put the jar away and clean his own hands and the wash cloth. He set the cloth out to dry and returned to the bed to finish his beer. "Not entirely." He offered one of his big hands to her. "Look closer." He encouraged.


She took his hand in hers and studied it, running her fingers over his palm gently. "Well...a bit smoother than mine." She could feel the callouses from his playing on the guitar at his fingertips and frowned a little, then looked over at the instrument. "Are these...from that?"


Not only would she find the callouses on the tips of his fingers she'd also be able to notice that he had absolutely no fingerprints either. "Yes. I've played more than a dozen different instruments in my lifetime. The strings on my guitar are metal and without these I'd be in a world of hurt every time I decided to sing for my supper."


She puts her hand up to compare with his and notices the missing ridges that define one's fingerprints, though she wouldn't know what they were called. "You seem to be missing something...even with the callouses, your fingers are smoother looking than mine."


"My fingerprints?" He asked, glancing back towards his own hand. "Oh. Yes. The strings wear down the skin of my fingertips until it grows back flat and mostly smooth." He set the now-empty beer bottle aside in favor of leaning closer to her. "That's what the pattern of ridges and valleys on your fingers are. Fingerprints. Unique to every person."


Ana felt him lean closer as they talked, but didn't really think much of it. She was too fascinated by what she was now learning about fingerprints at the moment. Blinking, she studies her own fingers and says softly, "Now I understand why my mother would get mad at me...she knew I would touch things and she knew it was me, but I never knew how...especially when I didn't leave grease marks."


"Depends on what you were touching I guess." He said with a thoughtful look. He fished his datapad free from his pocket and turned around on the bed so he could sit beside her. He used his sleeve to clean the smudges and fingerprints off of the screen and showed it to her by making the light reflect off of the surface. "Now put your fingers to the surface and lift them off."


She stayed still as he shifted around and she tried not to shy away from him moving even closer. She focused on what he was doing and placed her fingers on the surface and then lifted them off, not sure what he was doing.


"Now look." He directed her attention to the marks left by the natural oils on her fingers. In just the right light she'd be able to see every line and gap that made up her prints. "Your finger prints." He said softly. "The oils in your skin come off on almost every object you touch in the same pattern as the ridges on your fingers." He watched her out of the corner of his vision, aware he was pushing at her personal space bubble but knowing it would have to be done at some point in time.


She looked at him, amazed. "And oils attract dust..which is what my mother would see when she was cleaning." She could feel her heart race at being this close to him, but she didn't fear him. She wasn't too sure what she was feeling at the moment. She licked her lips and turned her head back to the datapad. "So your prints...would be smooth?"


"Not exactly." He slid his fingers expertly across the datapad to pull up a little program that could pull someone's fingerprints off of the screen and display them in the program itself. He scrubbed the screen clean again and then laid his fingers across it. On the screen the rough calluses were just big blocks of color, but below them and stretching towards the edge of the screen, were the rest of the swirls and waves that made up the rest of his fingers and much softer and smoother palm of his hand. "The tips of my fingers are smooth, but the rest of my hand retains the ridges and valleys. See?"


She watched as the display came up on the screen and nodded with a small smile. She tried to lift his hand once more to place hers on his and compare their sizes. "It's amazing. Such large hands doing such delicate works of stitches and playing music."


He let her lift his hand away, grinning a little at her seeming willingness to touch him when she had some other goal to focus on. "Stitching people up and playing music isn't all they're good for." He mused softly, watching the little program render out her own finger and hand print for her to marvel over. After a long day, and a frustrating evening, this was shaping up to be a rather decent end to his night so far. Analiese's fascination over the little things reminding him there was joy to be taken in the little things in life.


Her shoulders slumped a little as she thinks about what other things big hands like his could do. She doesn't think that he would do the same things, but it still sent a shiver through her as she thought about it. She curled her hand in his as she looked at the datapad and saw her own small hand on the screen now. Blinking, she tilted her head. "I didn't touch the screen...did I?"


"You didn't have to." He focused on her for a moment, set his thumb on the datapad and after a moment a neat looking picture of her appeared on the screen. "You may have noticed my eyes aren't exactly ones you're used to seeing. They're cybernetic implants. Giant cameras really. They let me see tiny details, in varying light conditions, and can even take simple images. Run the image through the transmitter under the surface of my skin to the receiver on my datapad and tada, there you are on the screen, just the way I see you." Of course what he saw was a beautiful young woman, showing a child-like fascination with everything he had to show her.


She had gasped lightly when she saw her profile on the screen. She wouldn't have known he had viewed her as beautiful, but she could definitely tell he was focused on her at the moment. She then looked up to study his eyes more and nods slowly, "I had noticed your eyes weren't quite the same colors I am used to...but I didn't think anything of it." Tentatively, she reached up to touch his face near the eyes, though of course not trying to poke him in the eye. "Did it hurt?"


Quinn held very still when she reached up, allowing her touch and not seeming bothered that her fingers were so close to his eyes. "Yes." He answered her question honestly. "It hurt quite a bit, but it's better than not being able to see at all." He made sure she saw his touch coming before he settled his hand over hers and moved her fingers to touch the surprisingly smooth and hard outer casing of the cybernetics. "You can't hurt me by poking me in the eye." He still had the instinctive urge to pull away and close his eyelid though. He removed her finger and blinked a few times to let his natural tears clean away her fingerprint.


She blinked as he moved her finger to touch his eye and she could feel the smoothness. When he removed her finger, she lightly stroked his cheek and said softly, "I'm not sure I could hurt you." Her head was tilted up towards him as she spoke, her gaze focused on her own fingers as she touched his face.


Her fingers would get to feel the few gentle dips and scars on his face from his teenage years and the prickle of stubble he'd usually shaved off by that point in the time. He gave her a small smile at her words "You'd be surprised at how many ways you could hurt me." But she wouldn't, and he wouldn't hurt her, not if he could help it anyway.


She swallowed as his words contradicted hers, though she wasn't quite sure exactly what he means. Instead, she pulled back a little, though not enough to show she was closing off anything. She was just unsure of what to do. Searching for something else, she thought about all he had done for her already and figured the time was right. She kissed his cheek and then pulled back a bit more, watching him warily. Not sure what he would do with that small movement.


He was about to explain further when she decided to press a kiss to his cheek and then pulled back. He blinked, having to really think about it for a long moment before he gave her a goofy grin. "Not entirely sure what I did to deserve that, but you're welcome. I think." Clearly he wasn't about to complain about it.


Seeing his goofy grin, she blushed and smiled in return. "You have been helping me. So I...just thought...I should say...'Thank you.'" She hesitated as she watched him, doubt creeping in. "I did do right, didn't I? A kiss is a way of showing gratitude?"


"Yes" He nodded "A kiss, or a peck on the cheek some might call it, is one way of showing gratitude." He turned the screen for his datapad off and set it aside. "Since you're not one for being touched a 'thank you' in words would have been sufficient enough." Before she could misunderstand he added. "Not that I mind the kiss."


She nodded and even looked relieved when he said those things. Slowly, she got up from the bed, more needing to pace than to put distance between them. "It's not that I don't want to be touched. I actually miss that, at times. I'm just...It's just...back home, when a man touched me it was in punishment or to hurry me along. Then the three that kidnapped me...and one of them tried to...to..." She couldn't finish. Tears welled up in her eyes as she thought back to how she had to fight off Snake, but she kept it in. Even though she had come to trust Quinn, in spite of what limited knowledge she had of males, she wasn't sure she could break down fully with him yet.


Quinn sat quiet and patient on the bed, watching her get up and pace. He really couldn't stop the thunderous look that flickered across his face for a couple of moments at her words. He didn't get up and go attempt to comfort her, yet. "If it's any comfort to you I left that one carrying the sniper rifle with bruised balls, a broken nose, probably a concussion, a lovely headache and tied up in a back alley like a pig due to be roasted." And he said it all with a straight face too. He'd taken little pleasure in it, but it had been him or Snake, and Quinn liked living. "I can't promise I won't ever hurt you, that would be a lie in my line of work, but I can promise you I won't ever hurt you like he tried to." A lot of medical procedures hurt, like getting stitches, but he wasn't out to rape, beat or rush anyone along, let alone her.


She looked over at him when he described how he left Snake. It was small comfort, though she does remember how he looked when he had made it back to Veronica's. Stepping up to where he is sitting on his bed, she looked at him and said softly, "I take comfort in the fact that you got away from him, by whatever means necessary." She lowered her gaze a little and added, "As for you hurting me, I can deal with the pain of being stitched up, when needed...that's par for the course in my line of work. But, I do believe you when you say you won't hurt me like he tried."


Quinn tilted his head and bent over a bit so that she was sort of forced to look at him and his gentle smile. "I don't like hurting people. Even those who clearly deserve it." He straightened up again and stretched, fetching another beer from it's case and carefully wiggling the cap off. "You should meet my sister some time, two feet shorter than me and she can throw me around like a rag doll."


Ana looked at him and a small smile formed on her lips in return. She could understand his nature, and for that she is even more willing to be open around him. When he mentioned his sister, she blinked and the distraction of imagining him being thrown like a rag doll made her start to laugh a little. "A rag doll? But...you're too big to be a rag doll."


Quinn chuckled. "No one is too big to be a rag doll, not even that nine foot giant of an ID-SOL we meet earlier." He meant Shadow. "Being small has it's advantages too. Most are usually quicker, lighter on their feet, have a lower center of gravity. Throw in some training and some muscle and I bet you could toss me around like a rag doll too if you wanted to."


She shivered at the mention of Shadow and whispered, "He scares me." She smiled, though, and blushed. "Though, I wouldn't want to throw you around like a rag doll."


"He scares me too, just a little." He returned her smile easily. "What would you want to do with me then?" He asked, sadly without exactly thinking this time around, but much too curious to strangle that particular question before it made it out.


Ana looked a little flummoxed at his question. She had to think about that for a moment before answering, for she wasn't really too sure what she wanted to do with him. "Um...maybe...eventually...kiss you." She nodded a bit. "Yes, kiss you." She watched him to see his reaction and held her breath, waiting.


He considered that for a moment and then she got another goofy grin of his. "I wouldn't mind if you kissed me." He said finally. "I'm not one to turn down the affections of a pretty woman like yourself."


She let out the breath in a small sigh of relief. She was really beginning to like his goofy grins. Feeling her heart race just a little as she took the small risk, she leaned forward and hesitantly place her lips on his. Long enough to make it a "real" kiss, but brief enough to pull back should he want to. What she didn't expect, for herself, was how much she wanted the kiss to continue.


Quinn returned the kiss in kind, tilting his head a little so that their noses weren't shoved up against each other. He only broke it for a moment so he could set his beer down where he wouldn't spill it and reached out to gently draw her into his lap, returning to the kiss for a little longer before he broke it a second time. "Better?" He inquired softly, lacing his long fingers together and settling them on her hip for the moment.


Ana had closed her eyes as they kissed, her body responding to his gentle pulling and settling on his lap. She drew in a shaky breath and nodded, a small shy smile forming. "Y-Yes." She panted softly as she leaned her head against his shoulder for a moment. She was shaking, but not in fear. For she knew she was safe, right here.


Quinn gave another small smile and laid his cheek gently against the top of her head, letting her sit there quietly for as long as she wanted to. Into the relative silence of the ship, and despite the thick layer of leather and cloth, Ana would most likely be able to pick out the echo of his slow and steady heartbeat.


Soon enough, Ana began to relax even more. She was still rather tired from all that had happened to her, so now that she felt safe, her body just started to let itself shut down for the night. Quinn's steady heartbeat a soothing lullaby.


Quinn really hated to disturb her from resting but he was going to have to get up sooner or later. "Do you want to stay for the night?" He asked, rubbing his thumbs gently against her hip so as to draw her attention to him for a moment or two longer.


Ana nodded, shifting a little to try to snuggle closer to him. "Please." She knew she should have gone back to her own room, but until it became familiar to her, she wasn't sure if she'd ever be able to sleep in it. Not yet.


Quinn smile a little. "You're going to have to get up for a moment." He gently encouraged her to get off of his lap so he could get up and fix the bed. "Make yourself comfortable and I'll be right back." He slid the door to his room closed first and then vanished into the bathroom to brush his teeth and get himself ready for bed.


Reluctantly, at first, she did get off his lap and then took off the pants. Though she could easily sleep in all her clothes, she figured at least sleeping in only her shirt and underwear would be more comfortable. She slipped in between the sheets on his bed and waited for him to return, trying to stay awake, but failing. She didn't take up much of his bed, surprisingly.


Quinn grinned to himself when he came out to find her fast asleep already. He set his boots, and extra clothes aside, turned the lights off and slipped up into his bed. He folded himself around Ana, tugging his coat around them to add another layer of warmth and finally he slid an arm around her. "Good Night." He murmured, holding her close and drifting off like that.
 
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