| Domestics |
| Summary: | Leyla and Mark finally sit down and talk about her living arrangements. |
| Date: | 7 Mar 2042 AE |
| Related Logs: | Blow Ups, The Slow Spiral, Far Away Home, Peapods, The Lady's Return. |
| Players: |
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| Engineering - ChEng's Office |
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| It's Mark's office. There might be a garish shirt on the wall. Or a jiggly dancing girl on the desk. The world may never know. |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #374 |
It's not that Leyla is invading his space persay. It's that she's simply making use of an empty desk while that desk happens to be free. At least she's not sitting at the ChEng's seat. Which makes writing at the desk a bit dodgey, but eh. The ChEng's office has been commandeered, Leyla's paperwork spread over the top, some plans, some paperwork, some handwritten notes on an FTL drive.
Mark is wiping his brow with a rag when he steps through the hatch of his office. He doesn't even notice anyone at the desk right away because the thing is in his face. A moment later he startles, stuffing it in his pocket as he see's Leyla. "Good Lords," he chuckles. His steps angle over towards her to plant a kiss on her head as he passes. "How goes, Ley? Gettin some work done?" He moves around her to his seat to flop into the chair and open the laptop on his desk.
Leyla's response to the the kiss is a smile, and what might amount to the same as a kiss for the woman. A hand, that just for a moment, settles on his chest. Open and willing contact as much a sign of Leyla's trust and affection as any brush of her lips. Lips which quirk, as she looks to her hand and the splotch of grease now transferred from his coveralls to her skin. A nonchalant shrug, before she simply wipes the grease onto a leg of her duty greens, and settles on the paperwork. "Sort of. I've been working on a SAR and EVA plan for a ship we found in the Pelios Run. Trying to find as much information as I can about the class of ship and its feasibility from the recon Flasher and I brought back, to see if we can either salvage it, or strip it for parts including its FTL drive."
Mark tilts back in his chair, listening. He smirks at the greasy smudge. "Sorry." He's dirty. He knows it. He probably would have showered first if he'd known. "Oh yeah, that's the ship you and your ECO found at those coordinates." A clear of his throat. "Kinda odd to find that thing where you did, isn't it? Kinda makes me wonder how significant it might be. If you need an engineer's perspective on its condition, let me know." That's about all he can do for her.
"I like you dirty." She's from the BC, yo. Not a metrosexual in sight. "If I wanted someone clean, I'd have picked someone in Legal. Maybe Tactical." No, she wouldn't have. It would always have been the engineer. Which begs the question why Leyla has missed a few of her sleep cycles in the bunk they share. "That's what I've told Marko. Not only where it put down, but the fact that the EVAC happened after, I believe, the Cylons departed. But I know you've a more encyclopedic knowledge of this stuff than I do. But I know we can't keep running these FTL drives the way we have. And if we can salvage this one…"
"Good. Its how you get me. I'll take you any way I can get you, though." Mark winks at her and slides closer in the rolling chair, pushing himself over towards her to bounce gently off her chair with a grin. "Eh. I didn't work on a lot of civilian ships. Most of my focus was warship design. But the principles are the same. As for FTLs.. Ehhhh." He tilts his hand back and forth. "The drive cores on these things are pretty stable. Like I told the CAG last night, I'm more concerned about the stress on Corsair and Elpis. We've got good systems on the Cerb and Praetor. But I'm not losing sleep over them keeping up." Yet. "Not like you've been losin' sleep. Where you been off at? Bunk was just startin to seem warm and cozy."
"You always get me just the way I am." She's not much of a primper or a preener. She is, however, turning her chair to meet the engineer's. "I've never been one for letting perfectly good salvage go to waste. And I know how much work went into getting the Elpis up and running. I don't know how much of the trouble she's been having with her drive was a result of having to cut it out of another ship. After it had been bombed on Aerilon. We could use this backup. If it would fit." A hand rises, flicking a few strands of Mark's hair away from his forehead, "Not losing sleep. Just." Leyla pauses, as if she needed to try to find the right words, "You know there's only you for me, don't you?"
"As evidenced by our bunk." Not 'his'. She lives there, too. "I kinda like your idea of salvage, too. Its oddly calming. Those little sculptures you build and have around the bunk?" He nods a few times, smiling. An engineer probably -would- like little things like that. His eyes close as she moves his hair. Easiest way to get the man to pass out, bar none. Though her last words find him reopening his eyes as his hand lifts out to take hers. "Sure hope so. But I can definitely see why another guy might be interested. You're one of a kind, beautiful. Why? What's up?"
"There isn't anyone else." Leyla's hand settles into yours, fingers intertwining. Yes, she took the gloves off before she came in. "Not like that. Not before. And not in the future. Not for me." And that's as true a declaration of devotion as Leyla will ever make. She's made her choice. At the end of the worlds. "I remember being at home. When we would have the children over. Have you ever had a child come to you in the night, slip into bed with you to keep the nightmares away, Mark?"
Mark takes up her hand and gives it a gentle kiss with a smile. "Nobody else for me, either. You're the coolest, smartest person I know. That and you're sexy in a pillowfight." He gives her a quick wink, squeezing her hand as he continues to relax. Though the mention of a kid gets a quirk of his brow. "Actually- I had no idea they did that. I've never really been around kids."
Leyla's smile is sad, wistful, remembering a family now long gone from Tauron. "It's all about comfort. About feeling safe from fear. I suppose it's not much different than what I did with you, you remember? The first night after I left the berthings?" When she came seeking shelter from the storm, "That's how it's always been with Bunny and I. When the nights got to bad, and the memories too painful, he would come to me to sleep. To keep the nightmares away. Nightmares of Leonis. And the cylon experiments there. His lover was…one of them." Leyla wasn't there herself, but she's seen and heard the accounts of the human experiments done there.
Mark listens, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand. Hard to forget the night she came to him. He looks to where they are joined and keeps his eyes there while she finishes. In silence he mulls over the idea of Leyla sharing a bunk with another man. Even one just looking for comfort. "And when you left the bunks, this fella Bunny lost his security blanket?" He finally looks back up to her. Its hard to read that voice. He hasn't moved his expression or body much since he sat down.
Leyla isn't going to try to sugarcoat anything. Try to explain the way things are, sure. But she's never going to be anything less than honest with Mark. "Yes. Bunny told me once, that I reminded him very much of him." There's a oddness there, as if Leyla weren't still, quite sure how. "They were childhood sweethearts, he and Bunny." A shake of her head, "He used to stay with Maggie, Captain Quinn, but with Sam living with her now, and the new baby, it's been hard for him." Leyla finally looks up, whether or not Mark actually look back at her, "It's never been anything even close to what we have, it wouldn't ever be."
"He said that you remind him of his childhood sweetheart? A guy?" Mark is trying to understand but that just found him oddly. A childhood sweetheart for him was probably a pile of rubble and a dog that would play with him. "So Bunny makes a habit of sleeping around- and I don't mean sexually- with different women? Does he ever stay with guys?" He's trying to understand. Get an idea of what she's saying. Mark knows already what's been implied and what is -being- implied but his concept of it just isn't there yet.
"I don't think he meant literally. I mean," she offers, looking down at herself, "I know my breasts are small, but…" A shake of her head, "It was the anniversary of his death, or at least, of the day he found him on Leonis. He said we had the same poetic nature." Again, that shake of her head, more to the idea, then to the answer to Mark's question, "Probably most of the women in the wing, at some point of another. Most of the ones he spent the most time with have died, since…I know he has someone else he stays with, in the Marines. One of their Lieutenants there. Guys? I think he's stayed with Boots a few times. But I imagine most men would find it a bit odd." Whereas women, genetically predisposed to nurturing, it's easier.
"That's smack you're talking about the breasts which I happen to -really- like. So, you know.." He gives her a nod. At least he's keeping his own mood light. Or trying to. Mark lowers his eyes, then, to look back to their hands. His thumb still caresses hers. The man isn't going anywhere. After quite a few long seconds, he does finally look back to her. "And this is important to you? That you be there to do this for him?"
"I'm glad to know you like them. I don't think we have a cosmetic surgeon left in the fleet." A quirk of her lips. A smile in answer to his lightness. "Yes it is. I know it's hard to understand. He's a grown man, a good pilot. One of the best in the wing. But…he's broken, Mark. And I don't know that that part of him can ever be fixed. To have seen that. After I left the berthing, I never said anything to him. And afterwards I thought…if I had seen you like that. I would want someone to help keep the nightmares away. he knows I won't always be able to be there, and I'm trying to work out a schedule. Because one, I know I'm not the only one he has to support him, but also, because as much as I care about Bunny, you come first. You have to. Always. If you would rather I didn't…I'll understand. But I hope you will too."
Mark shakes his head when she finishes. "Look." He takes a long breath. "You say this is important to you, hon. I believe you. This guy Bunny needs help, he needs help. Nobody made it out of Warday intact. I was at that place on Leonis. Its where I was rescued from." The man finally looks back to her. "I get nervous and uncomfortable with the idea, but if this is something you do, then you do it. I don't want to change the person you are. I never have wanted to. I guess- I guess you've got my blessing for it but I do want you home whenever you can be. You're mine babe. In a lot of ways." He squeezes her hand. "I wanna have more pillow fights."
The touch to her hand is returned, before Leyla pulls free, rising to her feet, which doesn't increase her height so much, so it's alright. A nudge of her knee to spread yours, but only so she can come in close, cup your face with her hands. Her voice, her tone, her expression is serious, her head tilted down, to be able to meet yours eyes, if you allow, to cup and raise your face to hers. "When you're home, I'm going to be home. I'll make it work. I care about Bunny, I do. But it's not the way I care about you. I'm yours, in every way that matters. But you're mine too. And I'm not willing to give that up. Not ever. Not until you decide." And then a light smile, playful, "I don't see any pillows around…but how about if we dog the hatch for a little while?"
Mark doesn't fight her. He really can't. She has her own charms over him, whether she knows it or not. But with him, especially, its the little things. Moments like this. His own eyes lift to her and he smiles a little more. "Babe, I made you a promise. I won't leave you. You made a big leap to me and I couldn't possibly drop you. Besides, you look fantastic nekkid. Stunningly hot clothed, but wow." Her suggestions to the hatch, though, gets a similar smile in reply. "Oh I think we can make time for that. Let's see about it." That smile spreads to a grin as he moves to rise from the chair.