I don't want to be weyrmates.

[reyce]

Issa gets the urge to do some cleaning, but the domesticity rekindles an old fight - and it's more fierce this time around. By comparison, talking about Diya and Benden seems like safer subject matter, afterwards.

6-3+-2007 (Issa, Reyce):
Another bottle clinks back into place in the cabinet of the sideboard, dustd clean just like its neighbors. All of Issa's long-untouched wine became the target of her cleaning efforts after she'd already swept through the bedroom area, each bottle dragged out and lined up in an array of differently colored glass. She worked through them all, thoroughly and carefully cleaning each one, before they began to slide back onto the swiped shelves. She does this in silence, but a grunt sounds as she uses the edge of the counter to haul herself upright again, followed soon by a audibly satisfied sigh as she stands back to survey her work. The rag she carries has grown dingy with all that work, but Issa doesn't show any signs of stopping, turning to the ledge's entrance for an inspection. "I think I'm going to see if my mother can help me get a new curtain," she comments, rag draped over her wrist so she can finger the edge of said curtain, "I think this one is starting to get moldy." Oshisyth on her couch lifts her head from her own cleaning to give her rider and the curtain a once-over, but after a few seconds she turns uncaring back to her talon-preening.

Little did Issa know that Reyce has been hiding his clean streak from her for over a turn. Once the endeavor was made clear to him, he pitched in full force, and the neat rows and stacks that inhabit his clothes press have been spreading out through the bedroom ever since. At first it was simply the linens, her oft-unmade bed ripped apart and reconstructed from the ground up, with sheets straightened, coverings fixed, and pillows piled high at the head. Now he has begun to prowl through more ambitious territory, tugging her bookcase away from the wall so he can glare at the dust that snuck in behind it. Hearing Issa's voice, he withdraws from his examination and whips aside the curtain to the outer weyr. "How about this one?" There's a beat, during which this could be taken as a slight on the curtain, before he adds, "I can't tell." He shrugs, giving the curtain a quick flip, and steps back inside his chosen domain. His voice floats back to her: "Need to dust."

Issa gives up her close scrutiny just seconds after he asks her judgement on the far curtain and makes her way slowly across to the alcove. Sliding the curtain aside to accomodate her bulk, she leans against the side of the doorway and with a simple, "Here," to warn him, tosses the dust rag his way. "Careful of the basin," she tells him idly as she gathers up this curtain into her grasp. He'll have to watch for other breakables, too, for that's where she keeps her mirror, her jewelry box, those tiny perfume bottles. She scans the curtain first, isolating the tiniest splotches across the section in her hands, then gives it a little sniff. "Not as bad as the big one," she decides, letting her eyes run up to the top, where a few of the loops holding it to its rod have broken away into a sag, a development that appeared after one of Oshisyth's flights not long ago. "But I might as well get rid of it, too. I want them to match anyway." She lets the edge fall free again and pushes it back further, letting in more of the brighter glowlight from the main room for Reyce to see by. "I think I want a really dark brown this time," she continues, turning now to watch him clean as she lets herself enjoy a brief break.

The breakables have been moved safely to the bed, sinking into the comforter and perhaps highlighting how much he fluffed it to give the bed that soft, fresh, welcoming look. Reyce catches the dust rag she throws at him, then trails his eyes up the rest of the way to find her where she stands, making a small but not wholly insignificant detour to the bed on his way. "Moving it," he says of the basin, throwing the rag over his shoulder while he does just that and sets it on the floor. Then the books are coming away in careful bunches, stacked on the floor (away from the basin, lest disaster strike) till the whole bookshelf is clear. For apparently, his plan extends beyond the wall, and the bookcase is also to be dusted. He drops to his knees and wedges himself in to carry out the task. "Okay," he answers her plan for the dark brown. "Work fine." Reyce, whose outfits are ordered by what colors other people told him to wear, is more likely offering bland encouragement than a real opinion. "You have the curtain down, could get a cleaner out for the pole. Gone dark." Mold he does not notice, but tarnish - apparently - he does.

As one who's occasionally told him what colors to wear, Issa surely knows this and so lets his opinion of the brown go uncommented on. Her face tilts up, head braced against the stone, and she quietly runs her gaze along the length of that pole. "Yeah," she agrees while looking out toward the pole for the other curtain, then repeats, "Yeah. I'll have to wait until I get the new ones, first. It's too cold to go without curtains now." With a soft grunt she pushes out of her lean and walks in past the shelves he cleans, her sights set on the wardrobe. "Could you get up there, too?" she asks-- or more like directs-- after a few moments of pondering climbing on top of his clothespress to do the job herself. Just to make sure, she points a finger at the top of the wardrobe when he looks.

A grunt acknowledges the wisdom of waiting, but Reyce doesn't stop his dusting until she asks him a direct question. As he turns his head, his nose must pass through one of the invisible clouds of escaping dust, for his answer is delayed by a harsh and sudden sneeze. And then another, blown off with a heavy snort as Reyce squeezes his eyes closed and shakes his head. One of those eyes soon cracks open, though, and fixes on the indicated dresser. "Yeah. Behind it, too, you want to try moving the stuff out." Though by 'stuff' he means clothing, and if she attempts to move the dresser itself he'll be up in an instant to get in the way. As long as she doesn't, all is well and good and progresses in silence until Reyce suddenly injects, "Thinking. Where've we got room for anything." He frowns at his dust rag, giving it a hard swipe that brings finality to his shelf-cleaning project. Setting a hand on his knee, he pushes himself up and turns to survey the dresser she's settled him on next.

Issa considers it, make no mistake, turning her slanted smile from him to visibly size up the dresser, even laying a hand on that side to give it a shove and see how heavy it really is. But he won't need to spring to her assistance anytime soon, for she decides that it is, in fact, too much for her back to handle and resigns herself to emptying drawers to lighten the load instead. After the door bangs predictably into the foot of the bed, she begins to unload whole stacks of shirts, underwear, and pants onto the bed next to the breakables. She pauses over a couple of thick sweaters, a hand pressing down firmly to keep them from toppling, and draws her attention to his comment. "What do you mean by 'anything'?" she asks, turning more slowly to retrieve one last pile. The hanging clothes are glanced over, but she doesn't touch them, instead giving him a nod and saying, "See if that's enough."

"Should be," Reyce supposes, turning to the curtain near him. He sweeps it back again, making sure that's it firmly positioned out of the way. Then he moves forward, closing the doors and slipping around her to the far side of the dresser. "Kid," he says, his eyes avoiding hers but his hand reaching out towards her stomach. Since he's not watching his aim, it only makes it so far as to brush her arm. "Just, don't know where you want it." His latter words grind down as he puts his weight into the heavy dresser, the bunch of muscles visible all along his back and limbs. The first push proves to be the hardest, as the dresser stubbornly grinds into motion and then begins to rough its way over the stone floor, leaving - as Reyce pushes it all the way into the entrance, and out of his way - a pale patch of dust where it stood and showering more dust on Reyce's head while he moves it.

Issa settles into a lean against the bed in between the sweaters, sitting back to simply watch as her holder boy proves his use. "I don't know," she responds, quietly thoughtful, "I hadn't thought about it really." Her eyes flick from the swiping motions of his rag to the rest of the room, studying the small amount of empty space left over. "There'd be room in that corner for a small crib," she decides, nodding her chin in the direction of his clothespress, taking up now-valuable real estate.

To get past the dresser, Reyce has to clamber over the bed, but when he turns to consider this, a frown crosses his face. A hand crosses absently to the opposite elbow, rubbing at dust that's gotten on his clothes since he began this task. He moves forward carefully, avoiding the simple route over the bed in favor of pressing his body up tight against the side of the dresser and stepping over, with particular care not to touch anything. Only once he's safely there does he stop to consider the space Issa indicated, his lips pressing together. "How're we gonna fuck?" he asks swiftly, suddenly, his eyes jumping from the indicated space to the nearby bed, then up to her face. He pulls his lips together, restraining any further words, and lifts his posture slightly to look at her.

Issa answers him with a soft chuckle, letting it linger for a beat before she tells him, "We'll manage." Her hands drift across to unfold a disheveled sweater and rearrange it more carefully. "The baby'll have to stay nearby until it can sleep through the night." Whether or not he expected to have his sleep as well as his sex life interrupted by this baby, she doesn't seem to be bothered by this; nothing out of the ordinary, to judge by her tone. "After that, we can find some other way. I don't know," she repeats again, surveying not only this space now, but that beyond the curtain and past the edge of the wardrobe. "I might have to think about moving weyrs, if it turns out to be too crowded." Caught up in considering that option, she remains distractedly staring, brows drawn down just a hair.

Reyce is not mollified by this answer, and continues staring at her for a second or two before he rededicates himself to his cleaning. Already darkened by several uses, the rag has become as much foe as friend, and Reyce has to keep manipulating it as he searches for unused portions to use on the wall. "Going to be an Instructor," he brings up, his voice grumpy due to the dust rag. He clears his throat harshly, an excuse for his rough tones, and continues. "Usually get a room but thought, don't really need it." His eyes flick towards her to check that he doesn't really need a room, but after fleeting eye contact they dodge away again. "Just to meet students, they don't get something. I don't know. Didn't like the ground weyr but it might be better, kid starts walking, and they go to people need them more but would be a few empty ones, maybe Oshisyth wouldn't like it, could say anyway it's because I didn't take a room we need one. Don't have to, don't want to, but might be there." By now he's given up using the rag for much wiping, and is just gathering the dust into tiny balls that he then picks up through the cloth and gathers at the center, near the center of his (cloth-shielded) palm.

Issa watches him closely after that momentary eye contact, conducting a study of the back of his head as he goes about his cleaning. But her hands have been idle too long and when she puts that refolded sweater down, she turns to face the bed and pick up another, busying herself with that while she lets him finish speaking. "Yeah," is all she offers first, the syllable dragged a bit while she begins to rearrange a stack of undershirts. "It might be helpful, too," she muses, "if the weyrlings ever needed to find me. And we'll have to move into one soon, anyway, for the last month. Can't fly after that." One of the shirts she passes gets frowned at as she fingers a hole near the hem; tossing it aside from the rest she says, "I don't know, maybe," despite all of her arguments for why it's best. She passes another glance up at him. "So you'd be moving all the rest of your things in, then?" she asks, voice kept quiet and even.

"'S a thought," Reyce murmurs unobtrusively, and undemandingly, when she gives the idea a 'maybe.' He's picked up all the dust he's going to get, so he retreats from the newly cleaned corner and sets the dirty rag on the floor next to his clothes press. Then it would be a simple matter of repeating his previous contortions to get between the dresser and the bed, but her question sounds and he glances up, meeting her eye. "Yeah," he says slowly, a bit carefully, as he watches her. He gives it a little shrug and turns to step up over the bed again, hanging onto the dresser and putting his back to her. "You want." His feet set down on the other side and he positions himself behind the dresser again.

Issa's little shrug answers his, her eyes falling to the straightened piles she's creating again. The impending stone-scraping must be noted, for she doesn't bother answering him until the wardrobe has been returned to its normal position. "Do you think it's smart?" she asks, lifting an eyebrow at the shirt she's folding over her arm before she lifts the expression so briefly to him. "I mean, what'll you do during a flight then?" Down goes that shirt and up comes another, the switch monopolizing her attention. It's such a complicated task, after all.

The wardrobe doesn't get to move very far before she asks her question, and Reyce pauses with a deep breath caught between his lips. "No," he admits, letting his breath out at the same time in a whoosh of air. He's been pushing the wardrobe, but now he turns to apply his shoulder to the job. "Mean there's those problems. Be dumb keeping a room I only use - a little." His mouth purses on the word - clearly a replacement for something else - and his brows draw together as though tugged by a string. "Guess I'll find somewhere in the lower caverns, couch or something. Caucus if I need to. Won't, though, you don't think I should." He gives the wardrobe a heavy push with his shoulder, sending it sliding back across the floor towards its place.

Issa leans to the side to watch as the wardrobe slides to its final placement, judging how well it matches to where it lay before. Apparently it meets standards, for she doesn't comment on it, and instead merely tilts a finger at the top to lightly remind him of that part of the dusting yet to be done. "It doesn't matter to me," she claims, "you already have most of your things here, anyway. Won't change much." Calmly, she glances up at him before turning her face down again, expression half-hidden by draping hair. "If you're not careful, though, people might start thinking we're actually weyrmates." Unlike her first cool pronunciation of the word, this time it comes out with a subtle note of disdain. Folding, folding, she moves onto her next pile, shaking out a pair of pants before neatly creasing them into a small square.

Reyce follows the crook of her finger and drags his clothes press flush against the wardrobe so he can use it as a step. He's just about to place his second boot on top when she tacks that final comment on. His weight shifts, the lifted foot once again descending to land with a soft thud on the hard floor. The other boot stays lifted, balancing him as he leans in against the dresser's side, his elbow stretched up to hang over the top corner. "Yeah, thought you weren't done with that," he answers darkly, his voice dropped so low it falls right in with the soft rustle of folded clothing. His expression closes against her, his eyes narrowing and lips drawing firmly closed.

Issa slides her eyes, similarly thinned, over to Reyce as she tops off one of the last of her piles with a soft pat. "Don't worry," she says, even mimicing his dark, quiet voice while she goes about carefully gathering that pile into her hands. "I'm as done with it as you are." Without looking at him she waddles around the corner of the bed and opens the door, the wooden thump forming the final check on the wardrobe's proper position. "I'm just saying," she continues, only a tiny bit of that bristling tone remaining, while she opens the second door and cuts herself off from view, "that's what people are going to think if we suddenly move into a ground weyr together, and you without another room. You'll have to deal with it without yelling at them." The last is delivered as a joke, but it's extremely dry and half concealed by the sliding sounds of the drawer as she replaces her clothes.

A breath sneaks in through Reyce's firmly ordered countenance, his eyes blinking just a margin wider even though she's disappeared behind those dresser doors. "Then, I'm not done with it," he decides, pushing into the nearest door. It's on what's nominally 'his' side of the dresser, so presumably she has fewer clothes to replace there, but he still checks his action carefully so he won't slam into her. Once she's visible again, he stops, though he leans on his door heavily while he eyes her. "Listen to yourself, you're pissed. Both pissed; I'm pissed. Try to talk to you about it and you don't want to hear what I think. People say things and you can't stop them, they call me what they want, but I asked /you/ to call me something else. And you do but you're mad about it; you talk like that, you're mad about it." The door starts yawning open as soon as he moves his weight off it, straightening to face her, but when it swings into his back he gives a sharp jab backwards with his elbow that smacks it into place. After a small jolt at the sound, Reyce settles himself with a sharp roll of shoulders and rests his stare on her.

Issa straightens when he pushes his way past the door, the clothes now deposited in their rightful place in the bottom drawer, and, after brushing away a stray curl, looks at him calmly. With one hand on the bed she takes up an easy lean that has her head tilting just slightly as she returns that stare. "What should I call you, then, Reyce?" she asks, the plodding pace of her words denying the irritation he accuses her of-though if he caught it before, he'll catch it again now, deeply buried, a dark twinge under the indifference of her tone. Before he can answer she offers some suggestions of her own. "Man-who-lives-with-me-and-shares-my-bed? He-who-I-have-sex-with-on-a-regular-basis? Bedwarmer?" She's bored with them all, and turns back to the menial task of restoring her clothes to their proper place to prove it.

Reyce slips sideways, wedging himself between her and the dresser while her back is turned. As he sometimes can with effort, he moves soundlessly, but without leaving her peripheral vision it's unlikely that the sight of him there will be a surprise when she turns back around. "What you want," he says once she's facing him. "Bedwarmer, that's what you want." His eyes flick past her, to the bed that's given him this most recent nickname, the bed that he just made, and get stuck staring soberly at the fluffy pillows. "That what you want?" he repeats, his voice dipped into its quietest tones, when he finally returns his gaze to Issa.

Issa turns back with a stack of shirts, letting a breath huff out between them when she sees he's blocking her way. Her weight shifts fully onto one hip while she gives him a blandly displeased, "No," that tells him that should have been obvious to begin with. "You know what, let's not even worry about it," she says, calm once more, "I don't have to call you anything." She waits a moment more, but if hasn't moved by then, she lets out another deep breath and shifts her weight impatiently onto one hip.

Reyce's eyes turn down to the clothes she's holding - and he's blocking - but until that impatient hip moves, neither does he. It's as though he decided to take her shifting as some kind of cue, for he scoops the clothes neatly out of her arms and turns to put them in their place. Or at least what he thinks is their place, though it's mostly guesswork. "You don't," he agrees as he turns, putting his hand down on the settled pile of clothes and pushing them lightly down in their place. "Be different if you didn't want to call me anything, different from you're tired of dealing with it so you stop. Don't even know - just, talk with you one time. Don't even know how to have a conversation that means anything, it's not how's your day been then we're lost." His fingers have begun to drum down rapidly on the stack of shirts, and they punctuate the silence on his end as he turns a look over his shoulder.

Issa lets the shirts go without a fight, but listens blankly instead of picking up more. Both of her hands brace against the foot of the bed, pressing wrinkles down into his neat job and causing one of her piles to lean precariously sideways. "Maybe we should stick to how's your day been, then," she retorts with dry sarcasm, waiting a full few seconds to meet his eye, to watch his reaction. Then, almost as if it were rote repetition, she blandly adds, "Talk if you want to talk. Ask."

Whatever his initial reaction was, it's lost by the time she looks up at him. Reyce's eyes have closed, and as she waits there he lifts a hand to his forehead and rubs at an eyebrow. Only one of those eyes cracks open, and finds a slit between fingers to stare through, when she speaks again. It lingers on her for a while, far less than her few seconds, then his hand drops away and he turns, pushing his way silently past the doors. Before he goes, he stretches an arm back to grab the dust rag where he left it, but that's it. He turns past Oshisyth's couch and, without looking at the green, goes outside. Moments later comes the faint, dull sound of a rag being struck on the outer ledge, no doubt yielding up its supply of dust to the cold air.

An exasperated breath chases him out of the room, Issa rolling her eyes before she watches him retreat through the open curtain. Some time after he steps out onto the ledge she moves from her stiff, leaning position. The business of putting away her clothes is dragged to the forefront again, this time with drawers hastily pulled out and angrily slammed shut again. After that, she turns to the shelves, righting them as she solemnly waits for Reyce to return.

Return he does, with rag thoroughly beaten and free of dust, and climb up on his clothes press to resume his work on the top of the dresser. If beating the dust out helped his mood any, it hasn't helped enough to make him talkative again, and he concentrates silently on his cleaning.

Issa watches him come in out of the corner of her eye as she crouches down to rearrange her books, but she says nothing that would detract from his dedicated cleaning. But moments later, she stands with the shelves digging into her back, a couple of books from the bed held gently across her forearms, and says firmly, "I don't want to be weyrmates." Frank words are followed by swift silence and she stares at him evenly for several seconds before turning around to plop those books into place.

The dust rag just keeps sweeping, and the only sign that Reyce heard her is a muffled click inside his jaw as the teeth crush together. He doesn't look up. Soon the top of dresser is clean, though, and with nothing else yet assigned to him Reyce just stares at what he's done, the corners of his mouth drawn down as if weighted. The rest of his head follows slowly, till he's resting his face in the crook of an elbow, his arm lifted over the dresser. "I don't care!" he shouts. His fist slams down on the dresser, knocking the door open at a fast swing that thumps into the bed. Hunching his shoulders, he looks down at her from on top of the clothes press. "Don't care what you want, the hell is wrong this time, tired of asking and you giving me shit." He jumps down with a smart thump of his heavy boots, already knocking the door out of his way. "I'm not fighting with you and I'm not asking how's your day, if you won't talk there's no point." When his steps take him out into the weyr they stop suddenly, and his head turns one way, then the other. Then he does a full turn, his anger sucked dry leaving only a stern, solemn countenance. His eyes land on her when his feet bring him around, and he gazes silently.

Issa watches him erupt with a narrow expression, a book held suspended in the space between the bed and its intended shelf and her mouth held open in stunned silence. Slowly it closes to a grim line and as soon as he starts stalking out she looks down at the book she grips with new vigor. "That," she begins, her loud voice frigid, but with a fire bubbling beneath that suddenly bursts forth in the brunt force of the book hitting the top of the shelves, "was me trying," another burst and another book, hitting the cover of the first and bouncing off kilter, "to fucking talk." The next of her precious books doesn't get slammed down; instead she hurls it violently against the wall, the thing whapping down in a flurry of pages next to the wardrobe. "But maybe you're right," she says, huffing and flattening a curl out of her face as she broodingly returns to actually shelving the books that were so roughly treated moments earlier, "maybe there is no fucking point."

"Sounded to me like the end of talking," Reyce answers, stone cold. The thrown books haven't stirred him an inch, not even to blink. "I asked you to talk and you threw it back at me. Gave me shit." A pause, then his manner subtly shifts, becoming stiffly formalized, as all the little words he usually leaves out of his speech slip their way back in. "I'm not asking any more. If you want to talk, if that was your effort, make it. Otherwise there is no point." His hands hit his jacket pockets, a small informal opening in his stiff armor, and tuck into comfortable fists at the bottom, but it does little if anything to warm his demeanor.

There's only a few books left, but Issa stacks them in a taut, bristling silence; even her trinkets are put in place, her anger-heavy hand trembling with restraint for those tiny bottles and fragile mirror. A simple step takes her over the basin on the floor and away from the haphazardly arranged shelves; she leaves behind the fallen book and neatly made bed, her expression darkly even despite the flashing blue eyes that stare him down. "I was saying," she says with gritted calm, "that I don't want to be your weyrmate." She juts her stomach off to the side as she nears, allowing her to come right in front of him and to stare up sharply. "I thought I did, thought that's what I wanted. Nevermind that I /swore/ I never would. Nevermind that I," a finger jabs into her breastbone, "was always the one to run away from things, the one who never stuck around to make anything permanent. But I don't want you as my weyrmate, not anymore; that's what my fucking problem has been, Reyce. But thank you, thank you for reminding me why I ever even swore in the first place." He gets a beat more of her narrowed stare before she pushes past him into the weyr, turning over her shoulder to add sarcastically, "And that, in case you were wondering, is what the end of talking fucking sounds like," as she stalks toward the back of the chair where her boots lie.

Through it all, Reyce's eyes simply follow her, turning down to meet her stare directly when she steps up to him. When she goes behind him, though, he doesn't turn after her and before long his gaze breaks off, automatically returning straight ahead. "I never wanted my kid to grow up a bastard," he informs the air in front of him. "Didn't want to take the chance at all but I couldn't do it, swore instead that I'd marry the woman, keep the kid if I ever fucked up." He turns, finding his own jacket off the back of the couch and hefting it over his shoulders. "Can't marry you. Can't marry you and I'm not for weyr life, I can put it off but sooner or later I need Benden; even if I'm not Lord it's what I know. Couldn't call you wife. Couldn't call myself weyrmate, more of a reminder than I need." The jacket settles on him, and his eyes dart sideways to find her with her boots. "You could have talked, when I asked you to talk. Could have come inside if you wanted me with you. You could have asked what my problem was, but you didn't. My problem is you're only waiting for me, Issa, and if I don't make the right move you shut me out. You say things that get me and you want to ignore them after, and I'm not dealing with it. I'm not," he concludes with a simple shrug, before stepping forward to go out on the ledge. He slips past the curtain and waits out in the cold, either for her to catch up or one of her weyrling elevators to take notice.

It must be frustrating to watch those on elevator duty fly up on the relatively rare nighttime call to other ledges without ever catching sight of him. Because they won't, not after Oshisyth has reluctantly informed them that Reyce is just out to stretch and get some air. If he should peak back inside, he'd find Issa sitting on the floor leaned up against the dragon couch, Oshisyth's large head hovering right by her side, but it'll be many minutes more before she appears at the moldy curtain's edge. Her words sluggishly chase the disappearance of the sudden outpouring of light that announced her appearance in the first place. "Don't go," she pleads ever so quietly with him, halting near the now-closed seam of fabric and stone. She makes no effort to hide the fact that she's crying, the sleeve of the long man's coat she wears now that she's outgrown hers used as a handkerchief to blot the cold trails her silent tears leave across her cheeks.

It does get frustrating, but Reyce seems to suspect the interferenece relatively quickly, and he ceases making an effort to get their attention. Instead he crosses his arms over his chest, his jaw firmed up, and doesn't move from his spot until that bright light punches a hole in the darkness. His feet shuffle him around until he's facing her; a moment's pause, and then he breaks towards her, crossing the distance between them in a few long strides. His hands seize the sides of her face, turning it up so he can see better as he takes over the tear-wiping from her. It's not a gentle caress that does it, but a rough pushing away with his thumbs. He doesn't even seem to care that some of those tears may be mixed with snot, for his thumb passes under her nose, too. Once he's chased away the slick trails that line her face, he meets her eye again. "I won't," he agrees, tightening the fingers that have locked the undersides of her jaw. His eyes scan over her face. "Needs to stop."

Issa's face turns up, but her eyes don't go so easily, dropped down nearly closed to watch the motion of his thumbs as a final few tears slide out into the open. "I know," she answers, just as mumbling and softly sorry, her lips barely moving along with the words. "I want..." she begins a beat later, but stops short, her eyes flickering up to meet his before she closes them off again. "I'm not very good at this, you know," she admits instead, the fidgeting hand at her side tentatively reaching up to make a grab at his jacket.

His hand reaches between them, catching hers where it lies and pressing it firmly to his chest, his own fingers closing hers over their target on his jacket. "I know," he tells her, his dark (and briefly, strained) laughter puffing over her head. His fingers resettle over hers. "Neither of us." Leaning forward, he touches his lips to her forehead, where they rest for a moment before he finally offers a soft, somewhat lingering kiss. Then he withdraws them. His thumb rubs the hand in his grasp, and he stands there in silence, his own eyes turned down to the ground and the air between them.

A stressed sigh leaves Issa as that kiss lands and her fingers clench down on his jacket to press into the skin beneath it. She breathes in a short sniff and draws herself up a bit straighter, though her gaze still avoids his, oriented at the moment on the creases her hand forms on his jacket. "I should have asked you told you. I don't know why I didn't. Why I don't." Though her voice gains back some of its volume it also gains a measure of babble, filling the space between pauses. "I think I might," she drags out, her head turning a fraction back toward the weyr as she looks off into the darkness, "might expect too much."

All it takes is a tucked chin to leave Reyce staring at the same thing she is, his hand dropping out of the way to allow hers more freedom. He stuffs both hands into his pockets, his breath catching a beat before he lets it all out in a sigh. He has nothing to say to that, so he swings his body sideways, dragging her hand around with his jacket and giving her shoulder a bump with his own. "Go inside," he murmurs, "can talk there. Going to get cold." For all she picked one of the nicer days of early winter to do her weyr cleaning, it's still freezing out here. He waits for her to move first, ready to walk at her side.

Issa scans the ledge, as if just realizing the chill all around them, and nods once to indicate her agreement for getting out of the cold. She shuffles into motion and turns to slip through the curtain, her hand sliding to the bottom edge of his jacket and lingering only long enough to insure that he follows her through before it drops away. The couch becomes the goal of her heavy waddling, her coat unbuttoned and shed along the way. It gets draped over the trunk immediately before she all but falls onto the cushions of the couch. A pillow is already to her back and she doesn't bother to rearrange it, simply tracking his progress by watching his feet as she swipes a knuckle past her dampened lower lashline.

His progress takes him to the fireplace, where he drops to one knee to get a good fire going. Reyce has had enough opportunity to practice this skill that it takes him very little time to get back up again, leaving a crackling fire in his wake. One of his knees cracks, also, as he gets up, and he grimaces as he gives it a quick stomp to knock the discomfort out of it, then goes to sit beside Issa on the couch. It's a bashful, awkward air that dominates, for he leans forward with his hands clasped between his knees and his eyes pointed down and forward, clearly aware of her beside him and just as clearly not sure what to do about it. Despite the growing heat of the flames, he doesn't move to take his jacket off quite yet.

"I'm tired of fighting, Reyce," Issa says quietly after they've spent far too long in silence, "I really am." She sits far back against the cushions, so, as much as she might try to keep them on neutral territory, her eyes can't help but focus on him out in front of her. Eventually she gives up fighting it and simply watches that slim view of his face. "But with the... the baby and the weyrlings and Five Mines and this mess with Ganathon, I just." She looks back to the hands she keeps draped in her lap in front of her belly. "I get stressed and never really have a chance to rest, to..." Her explanation attempt runs down swiftly into silence again as she stares at her hands.

Reyce sets his hands on his knees and pushes back with a huff of breath, his eyes closed and face turned up towards the ceiling. With his neck exposed, it's easy to watch the swallow that runs down his throat, bobbing with his adam's apple. "You think," he begins slowly, "might be time you cut ... back. Working full days and you're." He doesn't attempt to finish the sentence verbally, just touches his fingers to the top of her belly. His hand curls in down to the knuckles, resting on her ribs in that slim space below her breasts but above her belly. At last, his eyes turn up to her.

Issa watches his hand a while for a change of pace, but when he looks at her she's quick to return the gaze, the tiny frown tugging her brows a thoughtful one. "Maybe," she allows rather reluctantly, her lips thinning as she further considers the option, gaze wandering distractedly. "Yeah," she finally adds, the word dragged out under her breath only to be counterbalanced by a much more vocal, "Fuck." Her eyes swim on the edge of tears again and she hastily blinks them clearer. "Wingsecond, though," she complains, softly dismal, "That's the one thing I didn't want to screw up. I'm going to end up being one of those unreliable greenriders that gets pregnant and skips out just when she's really needed." A hand flips palm up with helplessness as she shifts her in her seat uncomfortably, turning slightly to the side so that her shoulder digs into the couch and that belly slides further in his direction.

Somehow, in that stretch of time spent outside, Reyce has forgotten all that he once knew about cuddling with Issa in her present state. It's still a careful, step by step process of working it back in again, so when she turns to him he turns back, moving with nearly mechanicized precision as he lifts an arm over her, shifting and nudging around her belly as he finds a comfortable hold. "They're old," he points out, his voice faint and his eyes fixed on his careful stomach work. "Don't need so much. Shouldn't." He gets into place and, with a sigh, lets his head drop sideways to the back of the couch. He lets his eyelids slip closed.

Issa's head just falls to his shoulder with blunt force and her forearm gets folded against his chest as she just gives in to his rearranging. "It doesn't matter," she counters, "people will still say it. It doesn't just reflect on me." Thinking she's a representative for her gender, it's no wonder she's stressed. "But I need to," she admits much quieter, all reluctance leaking out in one heaving sigh. "Just half days or more work I can take up here with me," she mumbles, more to herself than to him, really, finishing softly, "something."

The way she crumples into his hold takes Reyce by surprise, and his head lifts the instant hers hits his shoulder. Without turning his jaw straight into her, though, it's hard to get a good angle on her face, and after rolling his eyes down sharply to catch sight of what he may, Reyce gives it up with another puff of breath and rolls his cheek into the couch again. "Half days." He lifts his hand to her face, abandoning his hold so he can test her with a light touch, then sweep a caress back through the curls he convinced her to grow out. "More work's the same thing; you take it up with you, worse." Finishing its sweep, his hand comes to rest at the back of her neck and his arm settles around her again, tucking her into place.

"Yeah," is all the muttered answer his insistence gets, but it seems convincing despite its shortness. She's silent after it, stirring only to draw in a deep sniff that serves as only a momentary interruption to the quiet. Far less fleeting, her voice returns more softly into the void. "I'm sorry it happened this way, Reyce."

Once again at a loss for words, Reyce holds onto Issa while he stares over her head. "Not sure what you mean, it," he admits slowly. A half-beat, then wryly, "Not sure what way, either." Beat. "Sorry, too." He twists himself back from their embrace, lowering his head and arching his back so he can put his face between them, looking down at her. "We're going to talk," he says - and there is, fortunately, more an attitude of prediction than dire threat in his words. After he says them, though, he puffs a laugh and lets his eyes cast to the side. His voice drops into a murmur that's almost as much directed at himself as her. "Dumb to keep saying it. Don't know what else, though, to do. Yeah?" That last is directed at her definitively, as his eyes suddenly remember her and turn up to look.

Issa slides her head back until her cheek presses into the very point of his shoulder, chin tilted up and bringing her eyes with it so that he doesn't have to hunch quite as much. "Yeah," she agrees softly, nodding faintly to emphasize the agreement that may escape her quiet tone. A knuckle stirs idly against him in her beat of silence, a small and almost unconscious caress across his ribs that might go unnoticed in another situation. "But I meant the..." Her shoulders quiver tighter on the sucked breath that interrupts her words. "The pregnancy." Her voice grows quieter to conceal the thick guilt that surfaces from somewhere and he might just catch a glimpse of barely contained tears before she ducks her face down again. "And all of it," she adds weakly, attempting to shrug off her apology now though her squinting eyes can't quite stop a few resolute tears from falling messily down her face.

The repositioning of her head allows Reyce to draw out of his hunch a bit, cracking his neck from side to side as he works the kinks out of it. Within moments, though, he's back in that same posture, grabbing her chin between his fingers as he tilts her face up towards him. There's no time for eye contact, as he pushes kisses onto her tear-spattered cheeks, scattering them around her eyes. "Don't want you sorry," he says, giving her chin a little shake. Another kiss follows, on the side of her nose. "Didn't plan it, either of us, but I don't want you sorry." His last kiss dashes off her cheekbone before both arms wrap around her, pulling her to him in a tight hug. "Chose to stay here, and I meant it. Hadn't happened I don't know, don't think I'd have stopped to think. So don't want you sorry." He presses his cheek firmly to the top of her head, letting the initial ferocity of his hug ease off while he holds her.

Issa's wet eyelashes flutter closed in response to his reassuring kisses, accepting them passively though his hug prompts her to draw her other hand to clench at the back of his jacket in return. "Yeah," she responds with a sniffly quiet from her tucked position. Despite all his forbidding of her being sorry, though, the occasional tear still patters onto the front of his jacket and a moment later adds with a dry bubble of laughter, "Then I'm sorry I can't fucking stop crying instead. I think I may just," she distracts from the heaviness by joking, but draws slowly to a halt there when she realizes that's what she's doing, ending it officially with a faint shrug. Her arm tightens around him and she takes a breath before quietly confronting it head on instead. "I think you shouldn't get a separate room. Think we should try it at least."

Reyce breathes a soft snort of laughter, but it's faint and just rustles her hair. After a moment he remembers to offer some token of physical reassurance, and one of his hands rubs up and down her shoulder in (it happens) time with her shrug. "Okay," he breathes into her, drawing his hand to a halt. The fingers wrap absently around her shoulder. After a few beats, he says, "Like your weyr. This one. Better than a ground weyr." His fingers release her shoulder, start trailing down her arm till they make a jump off near her hip. "But can we put the kid out here. Around the corner or something, we can still hear it." Now his fingers are tucking themselves in beneath the low curve of her belly towards her crotch - not suggestive (at the moment), but perhaps a bit possessive.

Issa slowly shakes her head as she brings it up again, her face brushing against his in her effort to make eye contact. "After it's older, but it has to stay close to begin with," she insists, blue eyes flickering away over the view she has of his face. Who knows where she got that bit of information in her head, but she sticks to it unlike some of the other stubborn assertions from earlier. "But we can work around it," she allows, jiggling the grip she has on his jacket, her head and a mass of curls tilting back down to his shoulder. "My father'll want to build us something, and I've seen him make wheels and things. So we could move the crib for a bit while it does sleep."

Reyce allows that eye contact, but he doesn't help it, keeping his own head in place while she moves. Only when she rubs against him, and for a moment goes against the grain of his stubble, does he break, giving his lips a quick wriggle. A dissatisfied rumble seeps out of him when she gives him such an insistent negative, but when his eyes turn up to meet hers, there's resignation in them. And that resignation is soon followed by a settling sigh, eased out through his nose. "Won't wake it up?" One would think that, having found some inroad for his libido, Reyce wouldn't question the possibility of a wheeled crib, but he does, in a cautious, reserved tone.

Up slants the corner of Issa's lip and she answers a breathy, "I don't know." Her hand loosens its hold on the back of his jacket and eventually pulls away completely, lifting to his shoulder instead, her palm sliding gradually down his arm. "We can try it. I have a feeling it's going to be a lot of trying," she says, the word also implying a lot of failing to go along with that trying, thanks to the way it's heavily drawn from her mouth. Her hand finally reaches his elbow, cupping it with a little squeeze as she glances down at it.

"Yeah," Reyce agrees, in another whoosh of air that puffs over the top of her head. That elbow she has is the site of an old patch in his jacket, but even the patch seems to be wearing thin and as such provides an interesting array of texture, from the stitches that hold it to the roughed up yet soft feeling leather concentrated over the point of his elbow. He soon adds motion to the mix, reaching out to roll her with him as he decides he's tired of facing sideways on the couch, and falls to his back. There's plenty of room in his lap for Issa to swing her legs over, which seems to be what he's encouraging her to do as his own grip slides down to her knees, catching there and giving them a tug his way.

Issa pauses before responding to his guiding tug, leaning slowly sideways until she can reach her boots and push them off her feet. Then up she comes again, edging her legs up over his at the same time she nudges his arm down to support her lower back. His other hand she then pulls into her lap, alternately toying with his fingers and stroking the back while it lays flat over her leg. She watches this idle occupation from her lean against his shoulder for a long while, the upset tension in the lines of her face slowly calming in the silence. But something troubled lingers in her voice when she speaks his name, "Reyce?" Her hand flattens his down over the outside of her thigh and keeps it there as she looks up and tells him with a softly steeled note to her voice, "I want to know what you think about Diya." A beat later she promises more quietly, "I won't get mad."

Now that he's comfortable, and she's caressing his hand, Reyce allows himself to settle back and close his eyes. He would appear asleep, except that the hand she placed on her lower back keeps rubbing her occasionally, finding muscles he's long past identified as sore spots and giving them swipes with his thumb. One eye cracks open on his name, rolling in to focus on her face, but it shuts quickly at the request that follows, muscles his his jaw clamping down. There's a long few beats before he answers, speaking through his teeth. "That I'm not surprised." His arm continues to support her lower back, but the off-and-on massaging hand drops away. "Way I heard you talk about her she helped you out but she made out like some kind of hero; supposed to be your teacher but she taught you to rely on her, look up to her. Full of shit. Was Weyrwoman here and she did nothing, don't care if she believed in Instigator things she was in the best spot to look after them if that's what she wanted, put people up or try things carefully, and she just fucking left. And I hear you wishing she was here so you could do something and there's people getting beat up, dying thanks to Igen, everyone thinking Reaches got dispossessed and no wonder, the most senior queen exiled herself without a word, like she thinks it too. Exiles are stealing kids and now come North after eleven turns, get nothing good that way. What I think is she's about herself, wants to be worshipped, wants to be remembered, and doesn't pay attention to what doesn't help her think it." Although his voice moves freely through the rise and fall of anger, throughout his diatribe, Reyce's body simply grows tense: steeling him beneath her.

Issa listens without interrupting, though her hand redoubles it's efforts when his falls away, her thumb tracing slowly away at the lines of his fingers and once-injured knuckles. But that's the only attention she gives to his mounting tension, for otherwise she's focused on the couch just beyond her feet, eyes as distracted as her ears are attentive. A few blinks bring her back seconds after he's finished and, true to her word, it's an anger-free tone that marks the simple, "Okay," that accepts it all as she glances up at him. She settles again into thoughtful staring at the fire he started for them. "It's not all exactly right," she mutters so carefully a moment later, adding a quietly unprotesting, "but okay." Unprompted, she doesn't even attempt to correct his apparently mistaken thought.

When that first 'okay' comes to him so simply, Reyce pauses a breath, then lets his muscles slowly start to ease down. Suddenly he honks a snort over her head, one of the loudest laughs he's ever given blown out in response to her carefully muttered comment. Perhaps it's the tension that inspires such mirth - for eventually, tension does tend to make people giddy - but then again, it sounded suspiciously like there was just a sneeze or something caught in there with his laughter. In any case, before the simple but unusual noise has much time to register, Reyce pushes his nose into his shoulder and gives a sniff as he responds. "Didn't say I knew everything, but you asked what I think. Don't care if you correct it." The hand that has been lagging behind her returns to work now, finding her spine and digging his thumb along the side of it in a touch that moves gradually downwards, dragging her lower body's aches and pains away with it.

Issa's gaze startle back to him at the sound of his laughing snort or snorting laugh, blinking away phantom firelight images to look at him. Her lips lift more with confusion than with a mirth of her own while she studies him with slightly thinned eyes, but she eventually lowers her head cushion-ward again, focusing on her hand, which retreats from his and into her lap, while she says, "It's just It /was/ a mistake for her to leave; but you can't blame her for what happened on the island or with the exiles. She still has influence, sure, but not nearly as much as she had here. She's not 'weyrwoman' with them, she's just another rider. And, well" she hesitates, still not looking at him from her position against his side, her eyes instead wandering over the uncleaned corners of the weyr. "I don't think she ever really wanted me to rely on her as much as I did," she says, her voice more quietly steeled for the failing she claims as her own. With an uncomfortable shift she puts it to rest and leans more heavily into his massaging hand.

Issa's gaze startle back to him at the sound of his laughing snort or snorting laugh, blinking away phantom firelight images to look at him. Her lips lift more with confusion than with a mirth of her own while she studies him with slightly thinned eyes, but she eventually lowers her head cushion-ward again, focusing on her hand, which retreats from his and into her lap, while she says, "It's just... It /was/ a mistake for her to leave; but you can't blame her for what happened on the island or with the exiles. She still has influence, sure, but not nearly as much as she had here. She's not 'weyrwoman' with them, she's just... another rider. And, well..." she hesitates, still not looking at him from her position against his side, her eyes instead wandering over the uncleaned corners of the weyr. "I don't think she ever really wanted me to rely on her as much as I did," she says, her voice more quietly steeled for the failing she claims as her own. With an uncomfortable shift she puts it to rest and leans more heavily into his massaging hand.

Reyce fixes his eyes on her back, watching his hand while he listens to her words. "Goldrider's never going to be just another rider," he answers with a small shake of his head. "And a queen's got eggs. Saying what she did's no good to the people she left, no good to the ones she went to." He pulls a sigh, giving her a nudge to get over on her side, which would make it easier for his somewhat struggling hand to get an angle on her back. "Don't know really - the point of it. You asked, not trying to ... convince anything. Know that doesn't happen." He shrugs. And leaves out of his answer any mention of her reliance on Diya.

Issa leans closer in response to that nudge, as close as her domed belly will let her, which allows his arm a freer range. Curls press softly against his neck as she settles into that new position, a grunting tone entering her simple, "Yeah," as he finds a particularly tense muscle. "I know," she follows up quietly after, as easy as her earlier 'okay.' The hand from her lap lifts to his other side to hold her close, but she offers nothing more for the moment.

Since she released his other hand, Reyce now brings them both into play, going after that tense muscle he found before she spoke. As he continues his massage, gradually pulling up the back of her shirt so he can get to her skin more easily, he falls silent too, for a long while. Eventually, though, he must pause to limber up his hands - cracking his knuckles down towards his palm and rolling his wrist around - and when he does, he finally breaks into the silence. "Brother got searched at Telgar." His hands go back to work quickly, the heels of his palms pressing her. "Cailer. Going to do it." His eyebrows draw together in a small frown, focused for now on the small of her back.

As he breaks to crack his knuckles, Issa uses the chance to alter her position again, nudging softly against his neck before she draws herself up. The words surprise her into a pause, eyebrows arching up while her lips curve down into a small smile. Her legs slowly pull back into motion, kicking off his lap while she says, "Oh, that's great." She twists her back to him, allowing an even easier accessibility to those sore muscles, though she leaves her thigh flush against his and a hand there on his knee. "I met him, didn't I? The young, quiet one?"

The readjustment she makes lets her shirt fall down again, and with a grunt Reyce simply reaches down to grab the hem and pull it up over her head. He waits till she's done moving, glancing down to watch her thigh nudge against his own. "Don't know," he admits, giving the shirt a quick tug upwards that brings it to her armpits. She'll have a moment to lift those arms on his own before he starts doing it for her, tucking his hands under the shirt to follow the line of her arms as he hauls the shirt up. "Sounds like him," Reyce concludes, leaving her shirt next to him on the back of the couch. "Not usual, though, my father'd let him," he adds after a moment's firm massaging.

Issa sweeps her arms up easily when she gathers his intent, gathering her tossed curls into a neater bundle once she's free of it and her back is bared. She sighs quietly back into the massage when it resumes, and when he speaks again she turns an ear back to him, a view of her profile allowed though her eyes stare off at the hearth. "Why did he let him do it this time, then?" she asks, curiosity tugging her eyebrows higher again.

Reyce is silent for a while, brooding over her spine. He digs his thumb along it again, this time moving all the way down from the base of her neck. He's pressing hard enough to leave a tingling, enervated sort of feeling in his wake. "Think it's Coren," he says, his words gritted as he focuses his efforts on the current massage. "Think he's building up support, get Cailer what he wants. Guess he wants that." Reclaiming his thumb, he gives it a quick shake before transferring his attentions to the other side of Issa's spine.

"Mmm," Issa hums thoughtfully in response, her face turned forward again toward the back wall of the weyr. Her back moves minutely with each forceful push of his thumb but only a select few spots glean an appreciative little groan of their own. "He's still trying to maneuver his way in, then," she comments seconds later, her finger rapping down lightly into a squeeze on his knee. "Does he still thinks of you as a threat here?" she asks and one finger taps down atop his knee, indicating his more permanent move to High Reaches. "Or is he watching out for something else?"

Reyce pauses, breathing a light breath of laughter down her neck. "Probably not," he admits, pulling his fingers up to the top of her neck and ignoring her back for now. "Not much of one." His hand slides up to brush her cheek, a light caress and quickly dealt. On the way back, he grabs a stray lock of hair and pulls it behind her ear with him. "Think he's looking ahead. Hadn't thought of it, but might work," he continues, musing partially to himself now. A grunt draws him out of it, his fingers concentrating on her skin again. "Advantage Carlin's got is he's eldest. My father won't declare him, though. Coren gets brothers to declare for him, think it'd take the advantage."

Issa's smile is quicker still than that caress, just a small one, but one that pushes her cheek up under his fingers just the same. Her own fingers stop lying tamely across his knee and lift into a dancing sort of fidget, her nails pressing into his skin past the fabric of his pants. "You could play the same game, you know," she tells him, some manner of hesitance in the quiet of her voice. "Other brothers. Any of them want to come to Caucus, to meet eligible young daughters with a dowry." A shrug moves the muscles of her back under his hands.

There's a pause. Reyce's hands keep moving automatically, but his eyes have dropped down to the leg her hand rests on. "Issa," he begins softly. "I'm not in it anymore." His gaze transfers up to her shoulders, fixing on the motion of his hands as they knead back and forth.

"I know," Issa responds immediately, the fidget slowly transforming into a slowly scratching caress, "but you could be." Finally her hand slips to the inside of his knee, no longer active but just pulling it tightly to the side of her leg. "I'm just saying that it doesn't have to take away from this," his knee gets put under extra pressure for just a fleeting moment, "from what you have here. You could do both," she says with a quiet tone that speaks her finality for her; that's all, she has nothing more to add to it.

Reyce's knee nudges back against her, but he says, "No." He leans forward, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and dragging her back towards him, the other hand going to support her lower back as he leans her towards him. "Can't be in two places. Want to do someting, has to be something else." Now that he has her turned back, his eyes meet hers for a while, but when he's done speaking he turns his gaze to the couch. "It's okay," he adds, closing his hand over her shoulder.

Issa searches out his face with a hand as well as her eyes when she angles back in to him, the backs of her fingers skimming gently across the stubble at his jawline. It takes her only a beat to respond and she does so with a simple nod of her head, a smile thinned a bit with resignation. She conducts a few more quick-darting scans of his face before her lips hitch a bit higher and she murmurs lightly, "Come on, holder boy." It's what she's called him all along, and apparently what she'll keep calling him, for he gets dragged in close for a kiss, slow and oh-so-simple, after she says it. She continues on a softly heaved breath, "I'm tired. Let's go to bed." With his help, she heaves herself up and they make their way into the bedroom, where Issa gingerly picks up the toppled book from the floor and quietly finds a place for it on the shelf before they proceed to get ready for bed.