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 Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2012 11:42 pm
Stumbling back to his dorm had been a harrowing experience. Robert'd been healed, but only physically - and his clothes still looked like he'd been through war. As soon as he closed his door, he stripped down to nothing but underwear, and climbed back into his bed. The covers were pulled up as far as they could go, covering even his head, and for a moment, nothing happened.
Then the dam broke.
Robert curled up into a tight ball underneath his covers, and sobbed loudly. Big, sloppy wet tears fell from his face as he let out all the pain his heart had been filled with in the past two days. There was no shame in crying like a loud, obnoxious baby when there was no one there to hear it, or see it.
He just really needed a good cry.
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Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 12:19 am
To say the last few days had been harrowing would have been the understatement of the century. It was her greatest fear that Robert would die young, as was the occupational hazard of being a hunter -- it was her ever-constant nightmare that she wouldn't be there to tell him she loved him one last time. So when she'd stepped through the portal, returning to Deus Ex Central, and it had been sympathy and not apathy with which she was greeted, Petra's blood had immediately run cold. It had been a simple information-recovery mission, and having been assigned not hours after her 'interaction' with Caelius a few days prior, she'd been almost thankful for it. The irony wasn't lost on her. Tearing almost viciously through the corridors, the empty infirmary bed which met her upon finding Robert's room had nearly set her into a state of an emotional breakdown, until a passing nurse had informed her that her fiance had left earlier that morning.
The relief was an unsteady tempest of residual fear in her gut -- it took nearly the entire walk back to their dorm before she could walk calmly without a strong mental focus.
Pushing open the door slowly, Petra took a half-step inside the room before she heard the loud sobs raking the air, her hand freezing on the light switch. She recognized Robert's voice, and more importantly the distress in the tears she knew were over no trivial matter, and it was only the fact that this meant he was alive which kept the fear at bay. The unsettled tempest, however, rose before she could catch herself, churning angrily to leave the blood rushing in her ears. "... Robert?" she finally called gently, unable and unwilling to keep the concern from her normally-monotonous tone. Stepping further into the room, the moon trainee pressed the door closed with a gentle click, looking back at the dark room. Her eyes were slow to adjust, but she waited for only a few breaths before she started to cross the room, making her way towards the bed and the sound of her distressed fiance.
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Interesting Conversationalist
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Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 12:47 am
The sound of the door opening was the first clue that his sobs had to stop, but there was no way to turn off that faucet quickly enough, once it had been allowed to run. He tried, but his body heaved of it's own accord, and he only managed to quiet it down at a slow pace, until the sound of her voice stilled him completely. He didn't move, nor did he make any effort to respond, because he knew his voice would have sounded pathetic and broken right then. So instead, he shuffled closer to the wall; not to get away from her, but simply to give her room if she chose to come check on him. Which she would. There was no doubt in my mind she was going to be there for him, and he'd moved simply because he was sure. But the blanket remained covering his whole body, and he remained buried and curled up in a tight ball underneath it. He sniffed, one last time, and started to rub his face with his hands to brush the tears away. When she eventually came to him, the least he could do was not look like a complete blubbering mess.
His lips parted, and he tried to say something, but just as he'd expected his voice did nothing but crack. So he shut his mouth again, and fell silent, waiting for her. He waited for Petra, a broken ball of a man who still held to the warm thread of comfort her mere existence and presence gave him. The comforting knowledge that any moment now, she was going to touch him, and hold him, and remind him with every breath that this was why he lived. That Clarice was right; things would be okay.
Eventually.
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Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 1:13 am
Petra went still as the sound of the shuffle of Robert's movement reached her, listening for a moment in case any little sound was lost to her own footsteps. Only when she was sure she wouldn't miss any whispers or other telling signs did she continue forward again, a little quicker this time, her feet automatically finding the places where the floor was not covered by clothing or unfinished mission reports. The fact that he had not explicitly answered her made the storm of worry grow stronger still, but she suppressed the feeling -- if something was wrong, as there most certainly was, he did not need to feel her distress coupled with his own. It could only make him feel worse, not better, and he might even refrain from telling her at all, to try to save her from whatever it was that was upsetting him.
The mattress dipped a little as she placing a palm on the bed they shared most nights, leaning her weight forward a little. Her eyes had adjusted enough to allow her to see the ambiguous shape under the covers, Robert's curled body tenting the sheets into a protective cocoon. That, in itself, broke her heart a little more -- he had moved over a little, to share his sanctuary with her. Lifting her free hand, Petra rested it ever so gently on the blanketed form of his shoulder, ghosting it over his body in a soft petting motion before taking the edge of the blanket, raising it with the carefulness of someone touching something delicate to slide underneath with the same care. The bed was warm from where he had been laying, and she could feel where the mattress was damp from his tears as she moved to press the length of her body against him, curling a little around his balled-up form.
She didn't say anything else -- she knew she didn't need to.
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Interesting Conversationalist
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 8:05 am
As soon as Robert felt Petra's hand on his shoulder, he shuddered, and the tightness that curled up his body released him. Her one touch made him go limp, as if it had just been waiting for her. In a sense, he truly had. Petra was Robert's tether to the world, and he needed her now more than ever.
So he uncurled when she wrapped herself around him, and leaned back into her, letting her warmth soak his body for a moment. But it wasn't enough; it never was; and quickly, he turned around, pulling her immediately into his arms and wrapped every part of her into his body. His arms, his legs, every inch of him moved fiercely, tugging her against him with a desperate hold. There was no gentleness left in him; he was only left with raw, untempered emotion. It poured out of him with every touch. Every grip of her leg, pulling it up around him. Every cling of his fingers against her skin. The brush of his stubble against her cheek. Every move he made spoke volumes about his desperation for her, until finally he let out a great big sigh of frustration and buried his face into her bosom.
And then the crying returned. A vicious snarl of a sob wrenched from his chest, muffled by the softness of her chest. He shook, like a great earthquake within, letting all of his emotions out. And he remained so, for several minutes, until the tide of his tears finally ran dry, and he was left sniffling uselessly in her arms.
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Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 9:14 pm
Letting her body uncurl a little from where she had been pressed up against him, the moon trainee let her fiance turn over to snatch her up into a fierce hug, leaning into him with a gentle, reassuring firmness. There was none of his usual tenderness, no sweetness that betrayed how much he loved her, but the passion that was him, was Robert Morris was still burning strong. He engulfed her completely, his arms curled so tightly around her own smaller frame it was almost as if that embrace were a lifeline, the only way to force his heartache out of him, and she moved with him, moved to his every touch. She responded with the same fevered intensity, matching it as if it bled into her from him, her arms wrapping around his neck to pull his head tighter to her breast, lips burying into his hair to press kisses to the top of his head. He barely needed to brush the skin of her thighs before she had already curled them up over his hips, bringing their bodies together so that not an inch lay between them, she was pressed so flush against him.
It physically hurt her. Not his tight embrace, or the stubble of his cheek against her chest -- she was by no means soft, especially considering how rough their 'coupling' could get after a particularly nasty shouting match. It was the sobs that tore through him, his body shaking against her own, the frustration and heartache he could not appease which clutched at her very soul. And she could do nothing. Petra could do nothing but hold her fiance as tightly as he held her, touching him so purposely to reassure him that she was here, and that if he so chose she would never let him go, not for even the division leaders who now dictated every aspect of their lives. Leaning down to press her lips against his ear, she murmured softly to him, senseless words in a comforting tone as she ran her fingers through his hair.
Only after his tears subsided a little did her own fierceness quiet a little, her touch becoming softer and more calm. "It's ok..." she half whispered, her tone low and soothing. Anyone witnessing the scene might have been shocked by Petra's abnormal behavior... except that it wasn't abnormal at all. Of everyone who knew her, and whom she knew in return, he was one of the few whom demanded such attention, the only one whom she would display such affection for, rain or shine, alone or in a room full of people.
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Interesting Conversationalist
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Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2012 2:43 am
Petra held the key to Robert's relief, which magnified with every touch. He seemed to be calming down, until she whispered two words that he couldn't accept this time. It's okay. A sound left him, a cross between a whimper and a growl, and he tensed around her as his head lifted up to look at her. His eyes were wild, red, and filled with tears, but there was a madness behind them; a madness never seen before in his eyes. He was only just beginning to lose his grip on things.
"It's not okay!" His cracked voice whispered out harshly. "It's not okay, and it's not going to be okay, and it's just, it's just completely not okay. NONE of this is okay!" His hands snaked away and buried themselves into his hair, tugging violently. "I wanna go back." He growled through clenched teeth. "I wanna go back, I wanna go back. So I can say no, to that b*****d." His hands released his hair and he shuddered in fresh sobs. "I wanna tell Cael to ******** off, and keep him away from you, too. I wanna go back Pet. And I can't. I can't, I can't. It's not okay. It's not."
The tenseness dissolved, and he was once more losing himself in her embrace, letting the tears flow freely if only to get them all out now, while he still could.
"A little girl called me daddy, today. She didn't know, she was knocked out, but she thought- she thought I-" His throat closed up, and he couldn't finish the sentence. The soft sounds of crying continued for another minute, before he rose his head back up and glared at her angrily. "And do you know what? Her real father's dead. Because he was a Hunter. He's ******** dead, and it's all this horrible place's fault."
But suddenly, that one thought brought him unexpected comfort where he'd never thought he'd find it. His eyes lowered, and he rubbed them with the back of one hand while mumbling like a bratty child. "At least we won't be making any innocent children into orphans, when we die."
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