thisavrou_log | Sadcat Manor mingle log

We should take one.

[ His voice was somewhat distorted by the low thrumming that Shepard's fingers induced. Goddess, that was that was the most amazing thing after hours of hunching over diagrams, pipes and wires.

It takes a while to regather his thoughts, lost in the gentle kneading and the sound of his lover's breathing, the steady beat of her heart. On the very brink of drowsing off, he mumbles: ]

We could take one right now.

Right now? [Pressing her fingers into the tighter knots of his muscles, she hums a little chuckle as her strong fingers work to smooth them out.] What, just like this?

[She, in her borrowed sweats and t-shirt, he, still dripping gently from his fringe? ]

[ Nihlus is getting progressively more and more melted, eyes half closed in utter bliss. Still, after the longest, loudest and most contented chirring, he manages to spare some brain cells for an answer. ]

Mmm, no one else is going to see it, [ he points out, nosing her jawline. ] It'll be just for us.

[There's another laugh, almost a scoff, as he pushes against her face like some sort of overgrown cat. For a long moment, there's no sound—just a shuffle of Shepard slowly rearranging her body.

Then a pleasant little beep!: the omni-tool's sound-on photo mode, confirming a shot taken.

Should Nihlus open his eyes, he'll find Shepard half-smirking at her photo—which is indeed a picture of the two of them. One smiling human, one puddle of nearly-purring Turian.]

Think I captured your best side?

[ The 'beep!' surprises Nihlus enough that he actually blinks off the drowsiness, peering down at the screen, and-

There's a little... moment where he just stares at the picture. A light in his eyes, expression painfully open with something awful close to happiness.

It quickly flips to a faux-critical squint. ]

Hmm, no. No. I think, we need a couple more. Here, [ he reaches out and switches the camera setting to 'sequential'.

And that's pretty much all the warning Shepard gets before he suddenly turns, puts her in a headlock and blows a Turian equivalent of a raspberry against her cheek. ]

Edited (Wording ) 2017-11-01 07:46 (UTC)

[The movement is fast—and her reactions ever-so-slightly slower in the relaxed moment. There's a sharp intake of air as she goes to dodge--and only succeeds in getting clipped into the headlock further, both arms suddenly flailing, grappling for a hold as he executes his subvocal hazing.

Instead of her normal silent sparring, however, there's a peel of laughter, as she finally succeeds in hooking into him, extracting herself from his grasp. Hair a messy jumble and cheeks rosy-red, she's still scoffing as she exhales, smiling, pushing him away with mock-anger.]

Nihlus Kryik, you're a menace.

[ Ah, the downside of cowls: the rims always made excellent handholds. Still, that does little to stop Nihlus from cackling as she pushes him away, radiating smugness and affection. ]

You love it though, [ he chuckles, leaning down to press little pecks over her knuckles before pulling back slightly so that he could swing his legs over the backrest and slip into the empty spot next to her. There, Nihlus waits for her to sort out the images, draping an arm over the back of the couch, grinning broadly.

As the last of traces laughter fades off into a warm, comfortable silence however... he spots the Locked Out list over by the dinner table.

And the blank spot where Vetra's name had been.

Slowly moving to rest his cheek against his palm, Nihlus stares at it in silence for a bit. ]

Jane. [ It's so quiet, barely above a whisper. ] You think you have a bit of time for a talk?

Hmm? [Still sorting through the sudden onslaught of ridiculous photos, his tone gives her enough pause that she looks up, straight into his eyes.] Of course. What's on your mind?

[ There's a hard little lump in his throat and Nihlus swallows it down, closing his eyes briefly against her stare, idly drawing his thumb over a painted brow plate. ]

I just.

[ Alright. Alright, yeah. It was important to talk about it. Be open. Be honest.

Right?

The ringing sound of her laughter was still looping in the back of his mind and he smiles at it despite sinking weight under his chest. Shepard deserved to be happy. And if she's going to be happy with Vetra then he can swallow his pride.

It'll be alright. He just-

Needed to say it. ]

Jane... I. [ Opening his eyes once more, he stares into hers. ] I want you to know... that if there's anyone else that you'd like to see. Anyone other than me. That I'm okay with that.

[She blinks.

Opens her mouth. Tilts her head, brow knitted. Sees the serious look on his plates, and closes it. Blinks again.]

What?

[Struck nearly speechless, it's the best she can come up with. After another second of confusion, she manages to tack on:]

Where did this come from?

Love, Vetra's been flirting with you for a good while now.

[ And vying for her attention with incredible unsubtlety. J's network post had been pretty damn public.

Cycling in slow breath, Nihlus casts another glance at the list, expression distant. ]

And you seem to like her as well, so I figured that. Well. We should talk about whether or not we want this to be an open relationship.

No she hasn't. [It's an immediate answer, and she almost laughs with disbelief. But wait.

Wait wait wait.

Oh, god.

This paints several conversations in a very different light.]

Has she?

[The thought has barely begun to process before Nihlus continues, bumping her entire train of thought directly into an abyss. Her brow furrows again, this time in an angry confusion.]

What? Why? Is that what you want?

[There's a sudden hitch in her voice that she hates, an extra octave of sudden worry that she wishes she could obfuscate.]

[ Watching Shepard as realization dawned over her face, confirming his observations, Nihlus offers her a patient little half smile and a shrug. ]

I'm willing, [ he says with with the utmost careful neutrality. ] To compromise.

[ The fact of the matter was that she clearly liked Vetra enough to override his very personal desire to keep her out of their personal living space. And maybe that was innocuous to Shepard, but it was all Nihlus could see right now. ]

I want you to be happy. More than anything else.

[For a full handful of seconds, she's silent, expression as surprised as if she were slapped full across the face.

Finally, there's movement—confusion, hurt, and a twitching of something else. When she finally responds, her voice is low, almost hoarse with a muffled, blanketed fury.]

What the hell are you talking about?

We go through all of that, everything, and, what? Suddenly you want to switch to an open relationship because someone flirts with me?

Why, Nihlus.

Edited 2017-11-04 10:08 (UTC)

[ The look on her face comes as a surprise. Nihlus watches as it changes, his own confusion starting to set in as fury drew itself over hers.

As far as he could see, his proposition was, while supremely uncomfortable for him, relatively innocuous.

... Wasn't it?

Maybe he's looking at this all wrong. He'd always been comfortable flitting from fling to fling prior to being dragged onto the Moira. And, sure, some of his lovers had friends, acquaintances and other lovers he didn't particularly like, but he'd never stuck around long enough for his opinions to matter.

But would Shepard be comfortable with that kind of setup? Would it work in a relationship that's lasting longer than a few nights every other month?

It was doubly confounding now, after weeks of preparing for this talk. Ever since the shared dream, Garrus' arms around them. And then the picture on the projector a day prior, Shepard's happiness reflected back from gray-blue eyes, her desperation to get that picture away from public view. The need for it was further cemented after Vetra's responses to J, after watching her flirting, their comfortable repartee. ]

You want to let her into this space. [ Out loud this time, accompanied with a helpless gesture at the list. ] Even though I made it clear I didn't.

[ In fancy script, no less. ]

This after she'd been hitting on you- and you seemed to like her. I thought...

[ Prioritizing Vetra's access over his comfort had seemed like an obvious shift in dynamics. ]

I thought we needed to talk about it at least.

I took her off the list because I thought it was just a mistake—or even a joke! Why would you--

[Holding up her hands, she takes a breath, centering, regrouping her thoughts. Focus, Shepard. Be what you want to see.]

I think, [She starts, choosing her words carefully, anger in her features sliding solidly on to a backburner,] that we need to talk about why Vetra was on there in the first place. You explain that, and maybe we can work forward from there.

It wasn't a joke and I don't tend to make mistakes in beautifully rendered pin-stripped lettering.

[ It comes out a lot more biting and bitter than he'd intended and Nihlus stops for a moment to take his own breath, pressing the heel of his palm against his brow plate.

Why? Why did everything related to Nyx bring this out so easily? ]

... Look, she and I got off on the wrong foot, okay?

[ Which doesn't explain anything. He knows it doesn't explain anything.

But how does he even begin to explain? Was it even reasonable for him to be feeling this way about the other Turian because of their conversations? Was it rational at all when just passing her in the hallway made him seethe?

Running his claws over the side of his fringe, Nihlus hesitates befor continuing. ]

A very, very wrong foot.

I don't know what happened, but it seems pretty clear that I need to.

[Shifting in place to cross her legs on the couch, she swallows a sigh, regulating her own breathing manually. Relax. Never assume malice when ignorance is still on the table.

From either of them.]

Start from the beginning. Take as much time as you need. But I want to know everything by the end.

It's not- [ He stops. Sighs. Starts again. ] It's not that big of a deal.

[ Be honest. That's all Shepard had asked of him. And if it was just petty nonsense he was getting worked up over, then she'd say, right? Right. And that would be the end of that.

With a flick of his wrist, he activates the ACE, sets the interface to one-hand mode. It takes a quick search to go through the conversation history he'd transferred from his TAB and with a deft swipe, he sends the files over to Shepard's device.

First, she gets a link to Nyx and his initial conversation. The second conversation quickly follows suit.

That done with and nerves on edge, he pushes off of the couch and goes to pace around the kitchen, waiting for her to go through them. ]

[Pulling up the two conversations, she fishes what looks like a single earplug out of her pocket, and carefully presses it into her ear canal, linking it to her own device.

That's how she watches the thread, curled up, listening in silence as Nihlus paces in the kitchen, attempting to busy his mind away from what she was watching. Throughout, there's little to no change in her expression—solemn, even—save for a few twitches in her brow, smoothing away just as quickly.

It takes about fifteen minutes before she seems satisfied, exhaling a single stream of breath as she gently tugs the earbud out.]

Neither of you come away from this looking good.

I know that.

[ Pulling up short like a Varren on a tight chain, Nihlus comes to an abrupt halt, taking a moment to iron out the seething resentfulness in his tones.

It's been a lifetime of this and he knows exactly how it looks. He hadn't snapped like that since his years under the Hierarchy and even then he'd been aware of what his behavior looked like, what it meant to lose control. It just hadn't mattered anymore then.

But it does now.

Nyx wasn't someone he could just spitefully ignore for the rest of however long they had here- not when she was trying to get involved with his lover.

Drawing himself up, Nihlus squares his shoulder. ]

Regardless of appearance, [ he says, subvocals set to perfect neutrality, resting his wrist against the small of his back. ] That had been my primary reasoning for putting her name on the list.

[ Secondary was that niggling, hateful little knot of suspicion that Nyx was getting close to Shepard to fuck with him- especially with the bid for the gun- but Nihlus doesn't voice that.

Instead, he takes a moment to swallow his pride, stifling the urge to clench his claws. ]

If that's going to be a problem, then I reiterate my willingness to compromise.

She's not exactly a dangerous entity, Nihlus.

[There's no standoffish neutral to her response—instead, it's a low, soothing voice, a verbal olive branch.]

And she's a friend—nothing more, nothing less. I'd just like to keep it that way.

[For a long moment, she watches him from the couch, practically standing in line-up at ease. Distant, shields up, the perfect military man. Slipping seamlessly into the skin of everything he hated.

Compromise.

Letting a sigh slowly out on the exhale, Shepard extends a hand out to him.]

Come here.

Say I were to take you up on this offer. Does it extend to you, too?

[ Vetra isn't a dangerous entity. She's just a snide, vaguely racist asshole that Nihlus didn't want to talk to, a criteria that sat far, far below their neighborhood genocidal ex-dictator with nasty history of reprogramming people.

Rationalization did little to stop the seething resentment, however. Shepard's correction did little to stop it either, the softness of her words smoothing down only the most jagged edges, leaving everything else in place.

Her friendship- or otherwise- with Vetra wasn't the problem. He'd said it wasn't the problem. This had only become a point of contention because he'd admitted it as the source of discomfort and that hadn't been his intention.

Then what IS your intention?

That his consciousness sounded a lot like Saren's flattest, unimpressed tones didn't do his mood any favors either.

Why are you clinging to this so hard?

Because Vetra's words had slipped under his guard and hit a button that hadn't been pressed in over a year. And it was fine when the assholishness was directed just at him, it had been easy to keep it internalized- but it wasn't fine now, when he suspected Vetra was trying to get to him through someone he cared about.

How much of it was paranoia? How much of it was real? He didn't have the proper distance to see.

She trusts Vetra. You don't have to like Vetra, but you need to trust Jane.

Nihlus lets himself hold onto to the snag of resentment for just a second longer. Lets himself be angry, lets it burn and hurt and fuel itself into a molten hot point of light. And then... he let's go. Lets it simmer off into static nothingness, disappearing into the depths with a wisp of smoke.

The sight of Shepard holding her hand out when he turns to face her again drains away the rest of the frosted tension in him, leaving only exhaustion behind.

Trust.

He takes her hand before he could let himself hesitate, lets the familiar warmth of it ground him, closing his eyes, centering himself. It takes a while, but when he finally pulls himself together enough to answer, his voice is soft, barely above a whisper. ]

If you're comfortable with it, then yes. But I'm not... exactly looking right now.

[There's a buildup, tension thrumming in the air like ambient electricity. Nihlus was, by and large, a logical man—but on his own terms. For a moment, she isn't sure what direction he'll fall in—when there's an exhale. Release.

Just like that, he's empty again, the rage and frustrations evaporating like, well... so much hot air. He takes her hand with just a beat of consideration, closing his eyes, the seeping exhaustion of an emotional torrent already soaked deep into his bones.

With a little tug, she pulls him toward her, shifting to make space enough for him to drop himself on to the couch.]

What a coincidence—neither am I.

[They'd never made any particular declarations about the terms of their relationship—but maybe it was time to state her own feelings on the matter a little more plainly.

Still holding his hand as he settles, she regards him with a quiet focus, as if weighing some options, constructing her next move. With a tilt of her head, she lets them fly.]

Do you really think that this is what I want? To be with lots of different people? That that would make me happy?

[It's beseeching, but not desperate. Worried, not angry. And something else clicks, even before the last question leaves her lips. Voice dropping softer, she sneaks her fingers in between his.]

Do you think you're not enough to do that on your own?

I mean, not necessarily lots of different people. [ Shepard gets an awkward one-shouldered shrug as he gingerly eases into the spot next to her once more, folding his long legs up under him. ] Just people you'd like to get know better. People you're comfortable with.

[ He offers a quiet little smile with the words, tentative but open.

A smile that dims sharply in the face of her next question.

Frozen, Nihlus just stares at her. As the seconds tick by and he finds he has no answer, panic begins to take root. ]

I- It's not-

[ Where did this come from?

He utters a sharp-edged laugh, the sound laced through with confusion and new anxiousness, neck arched in alarm.

Where-

Dragging up the memories of the past few minutes, Nihlus combs through them, trying to understand what he'd said or done to have given her the idea. ]

Jane, I- what do you mean?

Sadcat Manor mingle log

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

I lied, one more post

and i aint even angry

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)