[Log] You Missed
Who: Aivey, E'sere
When: Day 25, Month 8, Turn 3, 7th Pass
Where: E'sere and Aivey's Weyr, Five Mines Hold
What: E'sere meets Aivey when she comes home post-Donavon.
It's morning. Very early morning. Very early morning when E'sere should be just departed from the Weyr. And if not 'just' departed, he should be on his way out. Or such is Aivey's hope as she arrives home. Her hair is down, bits and pieces are still damp from a recent bath. More evidence comes in the faint redness of her skin - what little of it can be seen for all that her new mainland wear consists of an oversized long sleeve shirt and too-long pants.
But E'sere's still there, still seated on the edge of his bed, though he is dressed, at least--maybe he's on the verge of leaving. But his eyes are too intently on the entrance, and Morelenth's too: both of them expectant in manner, the bronze wary and the rider simply biding his time until Aivey arrives. And when she does, the bronze quickly moves to slip out--he doesn't want to be here, plainly--and E'sere dons a cheerful smile and stands. "Aivey. Where have you been? What happened about dinner?" he asks her, looking mildly hurt for all his apparently pleasure at having her return to him at last. "I was worried."
Aivey's movements halt, and in that seconds pause where her head bows she also closes her eyes. "I'm sorry," she says then, looking back to him with a small, weak smile. "I didn't - I didn't have a chance to meet you. I was busy trying to figure a way out to help." She shifts a little too, turning to put the blood-spotted shoulder out of his view, "I left Asshole to keep you company. Why aren't you at drills?"
"I wanted to wait for you, to see you," says E'sere plaintively, stepping over to Aivey, holding his arms out to slide around her. "You should have come, anyway--helping can wait. You didn't want to see /me/?" A pause. "Did you at least figure out something to help us?" he finally asks, taking a step back and maintaining that slightly hurt expression at her excuses.
"To see if I had any news for you?" Aivey assumes of his first. She pushes up onto the tips of her toes to offer a peck, though as soon as he steps back, she does too. "I think so. It should work, hopefully. If not there's... other things that can be done." His hurt expression garners her interest, and beneath that, guilt. Guilt that she does her best to hide. "I'll make it up to you tonight, I promise. I might even have some good news to share."
"Because I /missed/ you," E'sere corrects, with a small smile. "Good news, though? That makes me hopeful. Do I at least get a hint as to what it is?" He tilts his head, /looks/ hopeful, too, in contrast to her quickly-buried guilt. He adds tantalizingly, "I have something for you, if you'll tell me... You'll like it, very much."
And the quickly-buried guilt resurfaces. With a vengeance. Aivey's attempt at a smile fails miserably, all of which might just be indication that she's not about to deliver anything good. "I don't - I don't deserve it E'sere. Whatever it is. I don't." She moves further away, as though trying to separate her taint from his pristine-ness, "I figured out a way to keep you... to get you where you wanted to be but I-" She stops there, drawing her arms tightly around her, "I got upset.. angry before that and that's why I didn't - why I didn't come home last night. But you'll be ok now. I know you will be, E'sere. Derek'll - he'll call on you a little more now and Donavon won't be a problem."
"Won't he?" E'sere asks lightly of Donavon, as he turns away and returns to the bed to kneel down and gather something up which is quickly hidden again. "And you say you don't deserve a present. If you didn't before, you certainly do now, Aivey, love. If you've fixed everything already, in one night? With your father and with Donavon? This is the very least I can do. Close your eyes, and hold out your hands--it's a surprise. You're going to love it, I know," he instructs her as he stands back up and turns around again, the gift still well-hidden as he beams excitedly at her.
"I don't." Aivey says again, only it falls on deaf ears and as she watches E'sere retreat, a helpless look is thrown ledgewards. No escape is possible, though, because E'sere recovers far too quickly. "With Donavon. Not so much my da - Derek, but hopefully soon. He's a hard man to-" And its here Aivey stops to regard E'sere and all his excitement. There's a minor twitch of her features; irritation or confusion or guilt or even suspicion - it's hard to say before its gone and Aivey instead forces a smile and holds out her hand. "I don't deserve it. Whatever it is." She obeys, though, closing her eyes and tucking her free hand across her stomach.
E'sere steps back closer finally and notes Aivey's positioning, eager grin maintained until he can observe her eyes closed firmly. Then it fades by degrees, though the good cheer remains in his voice. "Are you ready? Keep them closed tight; I don't want you to ruin it," he tells her brightly, as he reaches one hand to trace lightly over her outstretched forearm, brushing her wrist and hand. Another second, and then he abruptly tightens his grip on her wrist and in the same motion moves to slide the edge of the knife--her 'gift'--down the smooth skin of that forearm, in mimicry of the cuts already on her other, hidden arm. "Donavon," he says flatly, "was never the problem."
To her credit, Aivey doesn't move. Not when the hand tightens around her wrist, not when the knife cuts her forearm and not when the not-a-secret-secret is spilled. "You missed." is all she says, her voice strained though not from having just been cut. She opens her eyes and looks at him, "Go ahead, take another shot."
"He came to me this morning," says E'sere coldly. "Did you think he wouldn't? You're a fool, Aivey; you always have been. He told me exactly what happened." He takes a step back, knife still in hand though he doesn't attempt to hurt her again for the moment. "This is how you control him--try to blackmail him? seduce him? How many more times did you plan to fuck him in the name of keeping him in line?"
Aivey only looks at the knife now. "Yes. Yes. Just once." Aivey answers his questions succinctly, just not immediately. "Only the one time." The last question is the only amended one, yet it doesn't bring her focus from the knife to him.
"But you're a liar, so why should I believe that?" asks E'sere then, in that very even tone of his. He takes a step back forward, stopping inches from Aivey to look down at her. "I'd cut you more, but you like that, don't you? Just can't stop yourself. I suppose that's why you threw yourself at Donavon? It /is/ his, after all." The knife, lifted slightly to indicate it.
"No. I didn't - don't care about the knife. Or him." Aivey doesn't say what she does care about, still doesn't look from the knife as it's lifted in indication. "It was the only way. It - I didn't think you'd know and I thought it'd work." But then she's dumb. Or so the hollow expression suggests. "I'm sorry."
"So it's all right as long as I don't know," counters E'sere, arching a brow, the twist of his mouth very cold indeed. "So how many others have you fucked into submission, and they just don't have the balls left to come tell me about it?"
"That was the plan, yes." Aivey admits openly and a little too honestly, "That's always been the plan. For your own good." Aivey drops her attention from the knife to her sliced arm and blankly regards the cut, "Donavon. The only one that - after you... Donavon. Just him."
It's probably a good thing E'sere doesn't really know what he's doing with a knife past 'pointy end goes into other person.' He's still holding it, clenched in his right hand as he studies Aivey in cold fury. "The only one after I what? After I let you use me for whatever games you're playing now, for your own amusement? Like you played with Donavon?"
"Spilling blood was one way to get where I needed. Sex was another." Aivey explains quite reasonably, albeit like she was outside herself saying it as opposed to thinking and saying it. "Donavon was the only one after I - we - you... after I... we...." Stalling several times on the definition, Aivey falls silent before amending, "Donavon was the only one after the 'Reaches." Aivey is still quiet, still calm, still 'water off her back' to E'sere's anger if only to keep him from getting angrier. Or so is her hope, because she still avoids looking at him.
"Nobody else useful enough for you?" E'sere questions in reply. "I'm flattered, really. To think I beat out J'lor, K'tric, and how many other old, filthy, washed-up criminals?" he notes, voice dripping with sarcasm.
"You said you wanted Donavon taken care of," Aivey says, "Twist it if you'd like, but that was the only way to do that - I could've killed him, it would've been easier all around but you wouldn't want that." Aivey's eyes nearly slip to E'sere's. Nearly. "You wouldn't have known, ever. He wasn't suppose to tell... it was just that one time, and it would've kept him away from my father."
"No, it wouldn't!" says E'sere in desperation, throwing his hands up, glowering at Aivey still. "He's just--your father will like him even better now. He likes him better than me, he'll want me out of the picture so Donavon can have you. Well, I'm not going to play this game. I'll go find me someone else and go--go see J'lor."
"No." Aivey is firm on this, more firm than she's been on nearly everything else, and it even warrants the direct, looking straight through you eye contact. "My father isn't going to find out about this. You're not going to tell him and Donavon's not going to tell him." E'sere might not know how to use the knife he's holding, but Aivey does. Cut though the arm may be, it's with none other than that one which Aivey proceeds to grab the knife from E'sere, using the opposite to help blade the wrist until the knife is picked free. Promptly, its tip is angled against his chest. "If I'd have known Donavon couldn't keep his mouth shut, I'd have cut his tongue out. *You* weren't suppose to know."
Surprise shows sharply in E'sere's face as she steals the knife from him with comparative easiness. He doesn't look at all happy to have it in her hands instead of his, but he doesn't move away from the point now aimed at his chest. "Fuck you," he tells her eloquently. "If you go near him again I'll kill you both. I should, anyway. You can't treat me like this and get away with it, like I'm just some nobody who can't do anything about it."
"You'll try to kill me. Or I could kill you right now and be done with it all. I would - should, really. I'm expendable, aren't I? He's not? Logically I ought to be done with the both of you right now." As though to emphasize that point, Aivey presses the tip harder into his chest, tilts her chin upward another degree, "I did this because it was the only way to get what you wanted. He's nothing. That was nothing. There's nothing to do about nothing."
"Hypocrite," retorts E'sere, lip curling in a sneer. "I can't sleep with anyone else even in a flight, even when it's Morelenth, but you're allowed to go fuck who you please as long as you say it was for /me/?" A snort. He ignores her hold on the knife as though it's somehow beneath him now.
"There was nothing pleasant about it." Aivey says of the 'fuck who you please' statement, "Donavon isn't anything and it was for you, otherwise I wouldn't have done it. With him or anyone else. You-" Aivey emphasizes this point a little too harshly, perhaps forgetting herself that she has a blade wedged against his chest because a small, mark-sized stain might soon pool the area around the tip, "Are the only one."
Tense enough to quiver faintly through his shoulders, E'sere is poised to refuse to back down until that blade finally nicks him. At once, he takes an unthinking step back, one hand clapping to the little wound as he stares at Aivey. "So you're going to kill me now? You could at least use poison again, so I'll die pretty and whole," he snaps back, hurt and still furious.
"I'd have to like you for that, remember?" Aivey counters, dropping the arm holding the blade when E'sere pulls back, "Besides, I'm fresh out. So either we come to an agreement on what to do with Donavon or we come to an agreement on what to do with each other. I'll let you make the call."
E'sere's hand remains on his wound, as he clutches it tightly and stares at Aivey. "Don't look at me," he tells her then, coldly. "You haven't needed my input on anything before--not to deal with Donavon the first time, for sure. Do whatever the hell you want."
After a moment, Aivey says "Alright, fine." A nod of her head prompts the blade being tucked away before the now-empty hand is waved at his chest. "Take your shirt off if you don't want to lose it. Sit down." Orders Aivey expects him to follow, or at least assumes he will.
She's got the knife, so though E'sere is leery, he moves to slide his shirt over his head, wincing as he does so. Once it's off, he sits and makes a very big show of inspecting the small tear in its front, the blood around it, and then his own chest and the little mark there, one hand pressed to it to halt the continued slow ooze of blood from it.
If he doesn't like that small tear... Aivey moves away, retreating a short distance to collect the jug of water kept stashed in a corner. It's brought back to him, his shirt-inspecting eyed and then given in exchange for the shirt. Her only explanation being: "I need something to use." There is the slightest of pauses, and a strained gentling of her tone, "Please."
E'sere does not look at Aivey at all, just continues to inspect his shirt and finally wad it up in his lap while he looks at his chest. "Just--no--don't even--there." The gesture he makes is vague, toward one of the other corners where the old island garments he's long since ditched are still folded up to be given away.
"It's already ripped," Aivey informs him before setting the jug down and moving to retrieve the discarded island wear. A shirt is fetched and in the transition of crossing back to the bronzerider and sectioned into several quarters before the knife is tucked back away. A majority are handed off to E'sere while a single band is wrapped around her own forearm. Then its too the water with the remaining scraps, Aivey now seeking to clean E'sere's most fatal wound. "You'll live," she informs him most seriously.
E'sere takes the strips of fabric with his free hand and stares at them blankly a long moment. He finally drops them aside and slides his hand aside to glance at the injury again, allowing Aivey that opportunity to begin dabbing at it. He draws away at once, though, slapping away her hand. "Leave me the fuck alone. I don't need you."
Aivey's stung expression lasts for all of a few seconds, but she soon recovers and resumes dabbing at E'sere's wound. Or at the very least attempts to. "Please," Aivey says again, "Just let me do this and then I'll go." There's a quick switch of her focus, from the blood to E'sere, "I'll go for good, alright?"
"Fine. Just--fine," says E'sere, scowling as he avoids Aivey's eyes still, but at least stops trying to push her away, in favor of sitting stiffly still and letting her go on without interference or encouragement, either.
Aivey does just that, dabbing and wiping and spotting until the blood stops and the relatively shallow wound is cleaned. The damp cloth is exchanged for a dry one which is folded into a square and pressed over the cut to dab it dry. And finally: "I am a fuck up. I always was and it won't ever change. I'm sorry. I really am." Aivey's not expecting much when she reaches for his hand, though it's only to raise it and press it against the cloth, "Hold that there or find a way to bind it - you won't need to, it's pretty much stopped bleeding but it's your shirt." His hand is released, Aivey seeking to grab the jug and stand.
"This isn't my fault," E'sere says stoically, as though as much to convince himself as her. "You're the one fucking this up, you're the one that's always fucked it up. Not me." He lets her press his hand to the wound, though, without comment, and doesn't move to stop her when she rises.
"I know." Aivey says, "Donavon thinks as much, too. I made sure he would-" A motion of a hand to the self-inflicted cuts, to herself in general, "He was - he was really loyal about it, you know. I can see why you'd keep him around. Maybe you oughta listen to him when it comes to picking your next girl."
"I don't need him giving me advice," snaps E'sere. "Or testing them out for me before I try them. You--just go. Go fuck somebody else up."
"Don't worry about him, then. He's loyal, E'sere. More than you'll ever know or realize, I think. If he's getting close to my father it's because it's helping you and that's all he lives for." Aivey lingers to add this, looking over her shoulder to E'sere to enforce the fact, "Go ahead and call me the slut, call me the bitch - I set him up and I screwed him and he's... he was a victim. Trust him 'cause he's all that's going to keep you alive." Once her point is said, Aivey leaves.
To that, E'sere says nothing, only stays seated where he is until Aivey is gone, still not quite looking at her. And though it's early still, and he should be going to his own day's work, he moves to lie back down in bed, eyes on the dark ceiling in silence.