IC Contact

[keep_nothing]

✉

CODE 🔋 3:27 AM

Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan

UNSETTLED HERO
"LADY VORKOSIGAN"

ADDRESS
THE RESIDENCE

MESSAGE
"This is Cordelia,
leave me a message."

TEXT

CALL

VIDEO

VOICE | TEXT | VIDEO | ACTION | ETC.

Comments

[keep_nothing]

15?

[use_everything]

Well. The way it was phrased was not particularly simple to achieve with two participants...

[keep_nothing]

Well, 15 could also lead to 27 too, so ...

[ She grins at him. ]

[use_everything]

I... hadn't considered that. How...?

[keep_nothing]

[ She raises her eyebrows. ] Oil.

[use_everything]

... Ah.

[He looks less scandalized and more very intensely interested.]

[keep_nothing]

Well, oil and a bit of rope, really, but only if you're not that flexible. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

[use_everything]

Who is that flexible to begin with?

It sounds like a backache. Might be worth trying though.

[keep_nothing]

Younger people, mostly, or at least more enthusiastic. I've had that one on my list for a while, after all.

[use_everything]

I'll find out if there's interest, then.

[keep_nothing]

Good God, Aral, don't ask him that off the bat. First he has to be comfortable with being involved with more than one person.

[use_everything]

I hadn't intended immediately. Frankly, I need to speak with Allison before anything at all.

[keep_nothing]

[ Her expression brightens in surprise and something like pride for Aral figuring out that more conversations need to take place. ]

How do you think she'll take it?

[use_everything]

[He. Tries to recall any particular resentment towards Gregor and comes up dry.





On the other hand, Tex and Jim were entirely another matter.]

... Absolutely no idea.

[keep_nothing]

[ She rolls her eyes fondly. ]

Good thing you'll be talking to her ahead of time then, hmm?

[use_everything]

That would be the idea. I've no wish for... unlevel heads.

[keep_nothing]

Unlevel? Is that speaking from some kind of experience?

[use_everything]

[He frowns at her.]

Yes. I was the unlevel one at the time. [Twenty, dumb and too willing to listen to people he shouldn't have.] I'm very aware of how it may go.

[keep_nothing]

[ She winces. Then reaches out to him, a hand cupping his cheek. ]

Sorry. I was attempting to tease about experience with multiple lovers.

[use_everything]

[His own hand lifts to cover hers. It's a gentle comfort to indulge in.]

My apologies. It shouldn't weigh as much as it does after all this time.

[keep_nothing]

Things like that just get more distant, but the weight of them doesn't really go away.

[ She brushes her thumb across his cheek. ] Is anything about this bothering you? Making you uncomfortable or unsure? You don't have to move forward yet if you're not.

[use_everything]

It is nothing so active as being bothered. Doubts rarely are.

...

If you did not trust me as much as you do, I doubt I'd have found the ability to trust myself at all with this.

Mostly, I wonder if it is okay to be happy with this.

[keep_nothing]

[ She leans in to press a soft kiss to his chin. ]

Why wouldn't it be okay?

[use_everything]

[He leans his forehead against hers. There were issues, hard and dark ones, that he hadn't found names for or in some cases, even knew of their existence. Questions of worth, the fingers of old ghosts, accusations that no one is still alive to make.

He doesn't have words for those. He picks the one he does.]

When you've seen the wrong of it [In many ways, his wife, Ges' attempts and later successes with Serg...] the right seems a bit unreal.

[keep_nothing]

[ She frames his face with her other hand, leaning right back. ]

Just stay with me here. We'll both help each other make it seem more real.