For Laura and Zaeed: #30 “I tried my best to not feel anything for you. Guess what? I failed.”
Some actor in a three year-old vid mumbles on the screen while Laura reclines on her bed and lazily pets Zaeed like a favored cat. A laugh rumbles in his throat at something she said and he runs his hand fondly across her leg.
“…so that one on my ankle was my third tattoo ever, if you can believe that,” she continues easily. “I’d never actually been to Earth before then, but some of the other kids said they were headed there on furlough and asked if I wanted to go too. So, naturally, yeah, I tagged along, and we landed in Paris, and… God, Paris is beautiful.”
He traces the flower on her ankle with a calloused finger. “La vie en rose,” he reads off the faded petals. “Life in pink, huh?”
“It was playing in some ‘Welcome to Earth’ vid they had on loop at the docking bay. First thing I heard when my feet touched good ol’ terra firma.”
Zaeed glances at the poorly-acted Shepard on the screen, then back up at the real one with her uneven teeth and tangled hair and bruises down her neck and shoulders shaped like his mouth. Something warm stirs in him, something that isn’t just lust anymore and hasn’t been for weeks, and as she rambles about her first time on Earth he finds himself with a fond smile.
“We’re not doing so great with that whole ‘no feelings’ thing, are we?”
She pauses, lips twitching and fingers halting. “What makes you say that?”
“Lookit us, luv. We’re so goddamn domestic.” He chuckles dryly. “Makes you a little sick, doesn’t it?”
“You can’t tell, but I’ve been fighting the urge to vomit since three.”
He squeezes her calf. “I mean it. Feelings and shit weren’t in the rules when we started this.”
She shrugs. “I’ll be honest, here. I wasn’t really trying that hard.”
He snorts. “Well, I was. Failed pretty hard, didn’t I?”
She sighs and continues pulling her fingers through his hair. “When the rules don’t fit anymore, you change the game or quit playing. Which are you feeling?”
He closes his eyes as she massages his scalp. “Whichever one gets me more of this, that’s for goddamn sure.”
She laughs brightly. “We’ll keep at it for a bit, hmm? See where it leads? Anything goes until it starts impacting the mission.”
“Fine by me. I can hide a relationship with the best of ‘em.”
“And that means you owe me dinner, Massani.”
He props himself up on his elbows. “What now?”
“You heard me.” She stretches lazily and interlaces their fingers. “When this is over, I want you to take me somewhere nice. Somewhere I can be seen as the elegant lady I am with my war conquest on my arm.”
He barks a laugh before he can stifle it and it turns into a coughing fit. When he recovers, he rasps, “Too late to change the game again?”
She grins and smacks his shoulder. He just crawls up her legs and pulls her tight against him as he settles back into the covers.
“You got a goddamn gorgeous smile, Laura,” he mumbles against the back of her neck. “Prettier ‘an a painting.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t want to see me in a dress.” She tilts her head back and he presses his lips to her shoulder. “Low cut… some lace… stockings with seams up the back…”
“Mmm.” He buries his nose in her hair. “I think I can do dinner.”
The screen flickers off after too many hours of the same marathon and not enough attention. Neither of them move to turn it back on. They just lie together in a tangle of limbs as she absently traces his tattoos and he mumbles a story she’s sure she’s heard most of before.
