"Here we are," Miles agrees, the exhaustion creeping into his voice with a croak. He's quiet a moment, shivering against Bel with a tired sound, though not as violently as before. "No, it should've opened from the inside. Loki should've been able to open it. But for some reason he couldn't."
And what a fun realization that was. After that, any chance of them getting out undetected and without reprimand had dropped dramatically. "I don't know," he sighs, finally, more weariness creeping into his voice than he'd been intending to permit. Damn it. "Captain Cúrre found us a few days later and let us out -- gave us the full medical, of course, along with the reprimands. Don't think she knew what we'd seen -- Loki locked the cabinet right back up. Her body was...damaged, electrical damage, it looked like. She was intact, but -- it didn't look good. I don't know what it means," he finally admits. "Not yet. There's too much I'm still missing."
A few shivers still run through him, and he lets out a slow, controlled breath against Bel's skin, his forehead pressed to their shoulder. It's still damned cold in the room, he's still cold, but it's a tolerable cold, such a dramatic difference that it feels warm by comparison. Bel is like a furnace against his thawing body, their bare skin gently radiating heat. Even with a topic of conversation at hand, it's difficult to distract himself completely from the very here and now, or from the fact that his cheek is pressed against the strap of Bel's bra. He tries to twist his mind away from the dissonance, dizzy from it, but where there isn't physical tension, there is emotional -- he feels a twinge of guilt at not having told Bel about his death himself. He shouldn't have let them hear it from someone else, let alone Ivan. Ye gods, he can only imagine how tactless that was.
That, at least, he can address. That's one tension he can tackle, even if he has to wade through guilt to get to it. Much though Miles' face is pleasantly warm where it is, he figures he ought to look Bel in the eye for a proper apology -- and he does. When he lifts his head from Bel's shoulder he is very looking them in the eye. Well, it's not like Bel designed this blanket cocoon to be roomy. Miles licks at his lips, glad for the relative dark.
"I should have said something sooner." It still feels odd to be speaking to Bel with his Barrayaran accent, but the context of this all is strange, impossible to pin down. Miles looks tired and resigned, but the corner of his mouth tugs down regretfully. "It just seemed a lot to dump on you on your first day here, on top of everything else, and it'd only been a week since I got out of cryo then, so I thought I'd hold off, sit on it, and..." Miles blows out his breath slowly, tension drawing him in taut again, until he realizes it and lets it out with the breath. "I'm sorry you had to hear it from Ivan. No one should ever have to hear that kind of thing from Ivan."
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And what a fun realization that was. After that, any chance of them getting out undetected and without reprimand had dropped dramatically. "I don't know," he sighs, finally, more weariness creeping into his voice than he'd been intending to permit. Damn it. "Captain Cúrre found us a few days later and let us out -- gave us the full medical, of course, along with the reprimands. Don't think she knew what we'd seen -- Loki locked the cabinet right back up. Her body was...damaged, electrical damage, it looked like. She was intact, but -- it didn't look good. I don't know what it means," he finally admits. "Not yet. There's too much I'm still missing."
A few shivers still run through him, and he lets out a slow, controlled breath against Bel's skin, his forehead pressed to their shoulder. It's still damned cold in the room, he's still cold, but it's a tolerable cold, such a dramatic difference that it feels warm by comparison. Bel is like a furnace against his thawing body, their bare skin gently radiating heat. Even with a topic of conversation at hand, it's difficult to distract himself completely from the very here and now, or from the fact that his cheek is pressed against the strap of Bel's bra. He tries to twist his mind away from the dissonance, dizzy from it, but where there isn't physical tension, there is emotional -- he feels a twinge of guilt at not having told Bel about his death himself. He shouldn't have let them hear it from someone else, let alone Ivan. Ye gods, he can only imagine how tactless that was.
That, at least, he can address. That's one tension he can tackle, even if he has to wade through guilt to get to it. Much though Miles' face is pleasantly warm where it is, he figures he ought to look Bel in the eye for a proper apology -- and he does. When he lifts his head from Bel's shoulder he is very looking them in the eye. Well, it's not like Bel designed this blanket cocoon to be roomy. Miles licks at his lips, glad for the relative dark.
"I should have said something sooner." It still feels odd to be speaking to Bel with his Barrayaran accent, but the context of this all is strange, impossible to pin down. Miles looks tired and resigned, but the corner of his mouth tugs down regretfully. "It just seemed a lot to dump on you on your first day here, on top of everything else, and it'd only been a week since I got out of cryo then, so I thought I'd hold off, sit on it, and..." Miles blows out his breath slowly, tension drawing him in taut again, until he realizes it and lets it out with the breath. "I'm sorry you had to hear it from Ivan. No one should ever have to hear that kind of thing from Ivan."