Obdurate Defiance

"Exactly!! Exactly! All that damn time and now we're finally in the same place for more than a week NOW! Like you couldn't be arsed enough to bother trying to stick around longer at any other damned point!!" Tisma had forgotten the food and was up and pacing now. "A communique every now and then saying 'Hey I'm alive!' is fucking wonderful. But damnit!" She kicked at the bulkhead next to the bathroom door. If she was anything she was frustrated. Frustrated that their paths always seemed to cross but never seemed to be going in the same direction. Frustrated with the fact that it took the damned world falling apart around them for anything to get anywhere. And finally frustrated with the fact that they had worked for Kyle for so long and that nothing had ever come of their relationship then.

Tisma cursed herself more than she cursed him because it was mostly her fault. Her fault for being too shy to speak up and say what was on her mind or too spacey to notice what was right in front of her face. It always came down to one or the other and she was getting sick and tired of it. Life used to be shiny. In fact Ti lived for the shiny things in life. It made things simple and fun. But lately everything was just looking dull and she hated that more than anything else. And maybe, just maybe, if she broke down and opened her mouth for once in her life it could be different. But frankly, she was just too afraid to.

So instead she kicked the bulkhead again!
 
Mieranor really would have liked to have stuck around all those times their paths crossed. Unfortunately, the type of employer who needed his brand of artillery tended to be the kind who couldn't afford to stay in one place for long. He grunted, running his free hand through his stubble and abandoning the uneaten portion of his bagel on his plate.

"I didn't have the option of comming you most of the time. Left messages with Killian whenever I could. You didn't even give me that. I'm lucky Killian liked you, otherwise I'd have never known what you were up to."

Reaching forward, he pulled her backward into a hug. "Calm, Tisma. The wall didn't do anything to you."
 
"The wall did plenty! It existed! That's enough!" Tisma tensed up immediately once he'd hugged her. It was like she was a live wire that couldn't relax for a second. Years and years of annoyance and frustration was coming out all at once. "You never asked me to come with you either. It's not like I couldn't have, it's not like my skills aren't able to move around easily. And before you say I could have tagged along if I wanted. No. I couldn't. I would've just been the damned puppy following you around waiting for you to drop a treat unless you'd actually asked me." She was starting to fidget now. It was so unusual for her to be like this she was starting to wonder if she'd actually lost it for once.

"I didn't want to be the stupid puppy!" She made to kick the wall again and fell short, letting out a frustrated noise she wriggled free from his arms. "For once. Just once I don't want to be the one pining away. I want someone to notice me to be blunt with me. I don't want to have feelings and not have those feelings returned." Tisma spun on him and looked at him dead on. "I don't want to just be the crazy girl that walks around space ports staring at ceilings and tripping into people....."
 
"I didn't ask you to come with me because I didn't figure you wanted to be a mercenary. Didn't want to drag you into bloody mess after bloody mess. You're too much of an optimist for that, and I'd have hated to see you broken." Mier dropped onto the bed, looking tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep.

"You're not a damn puppy, Tisma. And you're not just the crazy girl that stares at ceilings to me than I'm just the crazy mercenary with an adrenaline addiction and oversized handguns to you. Or at least I hope I'm not."
 
"The optimistic front is what I use to deal with those things. I've seen plenty of it before. I figure maybe if I try to look on the bright side of shit it won't bother me as much and it works most of the time."

Ti finally stopped pacing next to the table and picked up the coffee, nursing it in thought for a moment while he continued to speak. It seemed like they just had a knack for missing the boat in more ways than one.

"You think I'd be this bent out of shape about it if I thought that?" She set the coffee down afraid she'd chuck that at him as well. Was he really being this dense on purpose or was he naturally this way!? With an almost exasperated sigh she started the pacing again. She'd talked, she'd said her piece. She just really wasn't getting anything back from saying any of it at all making her wonder if the whole fiasco was just pointless. Glancing at the wall chrono she decided she was going to give it another twenty minutes tops before she buried herself under an engine again to try and work through her thoughts.
 
Mier grunted, acknowledging that Tisma had a point, as he grabbed his own coffee - which put the engineers' to shame - and chugged it.

"I wonder," he said thoughtfully, "if we could get ourselves one of those family quarters they excavated if we ambush Davis, or am I going to have to appropriate the room next to yours and remove the wall?"
 
Tisma stopped dead and stared at him as she tried to process exactly what it was he was suggesting. If she'd heard correctly he was implying they should move in together which was a pretty big leap from where they had been two seconds ago. Yes she'd gotten the hint that he cared, she'd caught it. But he hadn't really said much besides that. Sure she thought of him as more than an adrenaline junky mercenary. Quite frankly she was pretty sure she was in love with him and had been for some years now. But just because he thought she was more than what she was didn't exactly mean much. On the other hand he really wouldn't have suggested living together if he thought otherwise.

Suddenly it looked like something in her brain short circuited and the next thing she knew she as heading for the door.
 
Perhaps, Mier thought, suggesting we move in together wasn't the best way to broach the subject. He could practically hear the circuits frying in Tisma's brain. It sounded remarkably like a model 318 android faced with a logic contradiction.

"Oh, no," he said, grabbing Tisma around the waist and planting her firmly on his lap. "No more hiding under engines for you. You are going to sit right here until your mental circuit breakers kick back on, and then we're going to have a little talk."
 
Tisma squeaked as she was grabbed and planted, her plans foiled once more! What she wouldn't give to be under an engine right now. This was all just getting out of hand. At least engines were simple and didn't talk back!

"Talk about what?!" She grumped for a moment before finally relaxing figuring if she was going to be forced to stay put she might as well be comfortable in the process.
 
"Talk about several things. Like our relationship, assuming you still want one, for example."
 
"What relationship? We are extremely good friends who have managed to somehow keep in touch with each other after both of us roaming the galaxy at our own whims. Or are you talking about the underlying relationship that somehow has you asking me to move in with you when neither of us has bothered to flat out tell the other what exactly it is that they are feeling." Tisma blew some hair our of her eyes and flopped over partially onto the bed while still being half draped over him.

"What's next on the agenda?"
 
"I meant the underlying relationship, actually. I would have thought that was fairly obvious." He reached over with one hand and started playing with Tisma's hair.

"As for what's next on the agenda...hmm. Picking out drapes?" He grinned. "Seriously, though. I think the current agenda ends with the discussion, unless you plan on pulling me into bed or something. Err, current positions notwithstanding."
 
"As long as they aren't pink I don't care what they look like. Though I don't know what windows we're going to put them over seeing as we're ohhh underground." There she went saving herself with sarcasm once more. She sighed and closed her eyes when he started to play with her hair. After a moment she tugged on his arm so he'd lay down next to her.

"So on with the discussion. Spill. Tell me what's on your mind. Enough with the cryptic and beating around the bush crap."
 
"Oh, like you've been any more forthcoming." Mier sighed and flopped back onto his back. "Anyways...let's start with Kyle and work forward. I like you. Rather a lot, which should be obvious. You somehow make grease stains look sexy, and you're usually incredibly fun to be around. It is entirely possible that I love you, though I'm not going to sling the word around until we, y'know, actually spend some time having an actual relationship beyond 'just friends.' Your turn."
 
"I don't do forthcoming about certain things, you know that. At least not at first." Tisma rolled over and into him, hiding a smile against his shirt when he said she made grease stains look good.

"Well clearly you're willing to hit fast forward for a little bit if you want me to live in the same quarters as you." She twisted her lips for a moment in thought before curling up closer. "I've pretty much liked you from the get go. And by like I mean like like. Not just friends like. But you know how I am, obviously. I don't often open up about myself. I like things shiny and talking about myself doesn't always end that way. Something about you caught my attention on that transport and well by the time we were done working together with Kyle.... I guess I was just really surprised and a little hurt it didn't go anywhere after that. I don't know." She snorted after a moment.

"Killian knows all this shit, y'know. I spilled my guts to him when he got me drunk one night. I'm surprised he never said anything to you just to spite me."
 
"Nah, Killian wouldn't do that. Mercilessly harrass you, yes. Spill about you, no. He's good like that. As for opening up, myself...I spent the majority of the last ten years around men whose idea of deep thoughts ran to 'how am I going to get in that stripper's pants.' And one woman who was extremely good at estimating penis size, which I frankly found disturbing."

He snorted. "And I'm pretty sure you didn't want to know that. But...yeah, I guess I kinda hoped it would go somewhere while we were working with Kyle. It just...never did."
 
"Well then....." Tisma rolled enough so that she could stare at the ceiling. Boots chose that moment to use Mieranor as a pillow, the purring could probably be heard two doors down as she settled in on him. Well at least the cat liked him, that was a start.

"So where does all of this leave us? It's not like we can have a nice little house with a white picket fence and a dog that brings us the newspaper while we eat breakfast in bed." In all honesty she never understood the fascination with such a thing like all the people in the books she read. Seemed rather dull. Of course there was no chance of that happening anyway since they were in the middle of a rebellion. Those little houses didn't exist anymore anywhere as far as she knew. She supposed they could paint a picket fence on the hull of a ship. The idea alone made her snort before sobering a little. In all honesty she didn't even know if they were going to be alive a week from now with the stuff that was starting to go down.

Maybe she was starting to lose her shiny exterior. As much as she wanted to look toward the future current events were making it harder to every day.
 
"Can you honestly imagine us living in a quaint little house somewhere? Even without the war? Nah, I figure we'll make the most out of what we can get. 'Live in the now,' and all that jazz."

He reached up and started idly scritching the now-purring Boots. "Have I ever mentioned that Boots has good taste?"
 
"Our quaint little house would involve painting a fence on a ship and roaming. That or it's be covered in torn apart electronics and weapons. Frankly I can't imagine myself old though. Kinda scary that I can't when I actually think about it."

Tisma reached over and poked at his cheek.

"That cat is a dirty traitor who doesn't know what's good for her!"
 
"Boots isn't a traitor. She just remembers who fed her yesterday. Anyways...I think anywhere we live will wind up covered in weapons and electronics. It's in our natures."

Mier snaked an arm under Tisma and pulled her in for a hug.

"To be perfectly honest, I don't know that we'd need to bother with roaming. Trouble seems to find us. It's like were electromagnets for trouble. Just watch, any minute now there's going to be some horrible crisis on the base."

The base's warning klaxons, of course, chose that precise moment to start blaring and his comm went off.

"I had to fucking say something," he groused as he answered his comm.

"What hap...you're shitting me. Armored cats the size of horses attacking the generator rooms. Are you sure you haven't been smo....yes, I know it relaxes you, but it also makes you see really fucking wierd shit. Remember the ant incident? ... We have tunnels? ... Right. Right, we'll deal with it. ... Yes ... Don't make me hurt you."

He hung up the comm and sighed. "I swear," he said as he levered himself up off the bed, "The universe has been dropping LSD today. Come on, we've got a giant kitty attack to foil. Bring Boot's catnip, maybe they'll go for it."
 
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