2010-06-22 - Less Than Lovers, More Than Friends

 Tanith O'Gasmeter, off-mic: "Huh? What was that noise?"

 Rachel Miu Athha transmits, "Noise?"

 Tanith O'Gasmeter transmits, "Uh, nothing, I just... I thought I heard someone banging on a wall or something. There's a lot of... I'm not used to, like. The sounds of an island. Oh my god that made me sound like I'm retarded."

 Rachel Miu Athha transmits, "It's okay. Are you on the Argama? I'm down at the port, I've got to finish some checks before I hand the Gernsback back..."

 Juku Reimaru transmits, "Probably someone's 'victory celebration'"

 Tanith O'Gasmeter transmits, "Oh, uh, um, I got some leave, so I'm, I'm... I don't know, I don't think it's 'sightseeing' when it's just, like, the docks."

 Rachel Miu Athha transmits, "Oh, okay. I'll be free after I get it loaded, if you wanted to see more of the island?"

 Macua Huitl transmits, "It's like how Earthnoids find colonies disturbingly quiet I guess, My family bounced between the Neo colonies and the old brazil proper on earth."

 Tanith O'Gasmeter transmits, "Uh, sure, that would be, that'd be cool!"

 Tanith O'Gasmeter transmits, "This is my, like, second time on Earth ever. It's..."

 Tanith O'Gasmeter transmits, "It's so..."

 Tanith O'Gasmeter pauses and the sound of her scratching her temple can faintly be heard.

 Tanith O'Gasmeter transmits, "It's so /big/."

 Rachel Miu Athha transmits, "You don't realize it until you're actually there, right?"

 Tanith O'Gasmeter transmits, "Well, yeah, I mean... on TV and from space and stuff it's, it's like, you know, a... ball, or something."

 Macua Huitl transmits, "Then you land and realise how huge it is?"

<Radio: A - K Chat> Tanith O'Gasmeter transmits, "Yeah! Yeah."

Dawn has risen on the Orb Union.

Forces are organizing and reorganizing and regrouping after the brutal battle that saw the A-LAWS pushed out of the cluster of Pacific islands; the wounded are tallied as quickly as the casualties and machines are scuttled to salvage the scrap. Judau is probably sneaking in there somewhere on his bad leg with plans to take some of it for himself.

But on the docks of Onogoro's military port, there are a few ships docked. One, the AEUG's Argama, having dropped into the Earth's atmosphere for the final and greatest push that Katharon has made in a year's time. Another is a launch from the Mithril flagship, the Tuatha de Danaan. There to collect the M9s that survived the battle, one after another is lined up in the hold until the last one, a pink and black model with a little bit more equipment, the hold closes with a heavy and water-sealed CLANG.

Some pilots wander the docks, some headed for the shuttle's crew cabin and some heading back to the island for a little bit of leave. One among the latter is a tall girl with white hair, skin a dusky hue and eyes the color of gold. Her flight suit is a little more snug on the body with the emblems of the Orb Union screened on the right hip and Mithril on the left, a patch or two worn underneath the left spaulder of the set. There's an extra layer of padding over the chest which does nothing to mask or minimize her figure. The accented areas are a bright pink, close to the hue of the Murasame... and matching that of her M9E Gernsback CIS-Type.

That is Rachel Miu Athha, carrying the matching headgear and letting her thoughts wander off in one direction and another while chatting on the earpiece radio tucked into her ear. She isn't heading /to/ the Argama, per se, but Amuro's young protoge-- even if Quattro Bajeena is providing her a new guiding hand-- is passing near it, keeping her eyes peeled for a certain young navigator.

VMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

The noise of the machine is all but lost in the clamor of the busy docks. It's only as the sound comes up behind Rachel, quickly and with no particular fanfare, that it becomes extremely obvious. It hangs in a low register and refuses to waver, becoming the sort of static drone where the brain tricks the ear into trying to convince the brain that patterns are being hewn from and drawn with an invariably straight line. This is the sound of a hoverboard. It is not loud, but it's the sort of sound that can be felt as much as heard, like a twitch of the inner ear.

Atop the machine is Tanith O'Gasmeter, Argama navigator, and as of several hours ago, enjoying her first-ever shore leave. The girl seems a little taller than she did when last Rachel met her -- but then, she's elevated around six inches off of the ground by the flat metal board on which she stands -- sneakered feet are bolted in by restraints that couldn't possibly hold a grown body in place if it came to it.

Tanith's hairstyle flutters in the breeze, occasionally blowing away from her eyes and revealing dark sunglasses underneath, as if her bangs weren't protection enough from the bright tropical sun. Her attire is as it usually is when she's not working -- that is, graced with casual flamboyance. Her neon yellow shorts showcase a dangerous amount of lean, skinny leg; her t-shirt hugs tight to her body, white with metallic gold designs in intricate, loopy lines. It's nowhere near as fetishistic as Rachel's flightsuit -- as sexually provocative manners of dress go, Tanith just seems to be beating the heat.

The dark, molded shape of Rachel's outfit, though, certainly provokes the caramel-skinned bottle-blonde. A quiet sound of realization rises from her throat when she recognizes the hairstyle of the person she's bearing down on -- and her board pulls around to face Rachel head-on, cutting her off like a mobile suit trying to get the drop on another.

"Hey," Tanith says, waving as she floats in place. "So, uh. Leather convention in town?" The question is punctuated by the sort of nervous laugh that no one likes to let out and that everyone self-consciously regrets immediately after uttering.

It's the low hum of the hoverboard that alerts her that something-- someone-- is coming up behind her, though there isn't a whole lot in the area that would allow for a small vehicle to pass by; the small card-rental passenger cars and official military vehicles are the ones normally seen buzzing around the docks. Moreso, today, anyway.

Looking over her shoulder as Tanith comes buzzing by, following the Argama navigator all the way around until she stands-- hovers-- in front of her, the exhausted and underslept pilot's face merges gradually into a form of happy. She even smiles a little! Subdued as it may be. There's a slapped-on white adhesive bandage over her eyebrow, too.

'Leather convention in town?'

Rachel looks at Tanith for a few moments before blinking. "I... I don't think there is," she says, a bent finger rising to her lower lip and her expression becoming way, way too thoughtful for the moment.

"I'm glad you came out, Tanith. I was a little worried after... y'know. Hong Kong..."

Tanith adjusts the placement of her heels on the hoverboard -- with easy and well-tested responsiveness, it duly lowers itself to just an inch or two off of the ground, so that Tanith can stay closer to eye-level with her friend. When her bad joke fails, the shame of having told it doubles -- the dark-freckled cheeks of the spacenoid teen flush just a little bit. "I..." she starts to say, then resolves to bury it as quick as she can conversationally dig: "Never mind."

The blonde slips her feet out of the board's shackles and hops to the ground. Her heel swiftly comes down on the back-end of the sleek lustreless thing and sends it hurtling upward -- it lands under her arm just as its anti-gravs power down, in a motion that's so effortlessly cool that she must have spent weeks practicing it. Now standing on terra firma before Rachel, Tanith leans up slightly to have a look at the bandage on the pilot's face. "Maybe I was the one who should have worried about /you/," the navigator says, before letting her lips spread into a smile that displays white, shiny teeth.

"But no, seriously, it's good to see you in one piece, even if you're... um..." Tanith's smile fades into an overexpressed look of brief puzzlement, that telltale face of the search for the right word. "Well, I dunno how to say it, other than /this/ is a new look, you know?" Tanith reaches out and gives the shoulder of the dark uniform something between a tap and a palming.

While she does this, Tanith tries to keep her face from expressing the way that the simple gesture makes her conscious of the weight of her stomach inside her body.

The bandage is fresh as of the morning, the cut on her forehead well on the way to healing. Of course, it seems more like a formality, given the scarring on the girl's face... as much as it seems like it's starting to heal and recede from her face. Rachel looks from Tanith to roll her eyes up, pulling up her bangs for a moment to touch the disposable bandage. "Yeah, I... I got knocked around a few times, it was pretty rough. I'm gonna ask Cagalli about dropping off the Murasame at the Morgenroete facility for some bigger repairs, since it's kind of..."

If Tanith has been to the hangar at all in the last few days, she would know that Rachel doesn't even need to finish the sentence. The damage it's taken over the course of repeated battles across closer and closer nights rivals the amount of Gernsbacks that she'd put through the wringer.

Still, she smiles again, a bit more warmly. "I'm glad you're okay, too. It's been a busy week."

Tanith's hand would land on the larger, heavier, and molded layers of armor-- some of the only actual "armor-looking" armor on the suit-- before moving to the actual suit and the thick neck-bracing padding around the collar. Those golden eyes suddenly seem to gain comprehension as she stops and looks down at herself, her face getting the slightest shade of red.

"Oh, well... T-Tessa gave it to me, a-and something like this is pretty normal for a Mithril pilot, a-and even though I'm still technically with the AEUG I've gotta wear the right gear for the M9, s-so this is sort of it, officially..."

Yes. The "official" push-up bra of chestplate armor.

Her gaze shifts off to her left, a gloved finger attempting to scratch her cheek. "I'm gonna be back on the Argama as soon as everything's ready to go here, so I'll be able to get another one of those cooking lessons pretty soon," she says, smiling again and giving a nod.

The mention of Cagalli makes Tanith's smile falter just a tiny bit, but she tries to pass it off as something else by scratching the corner of her lip. Considering the generally unsubtle manner of the girl, this may be as close as she can get to a successful ruse when it comes to hiding her feelings. This does not take into account the fact that both young women are wired into a higher plane of psychic reality.

"Yeah, I'll say. They didn't give me much time in the, you know... I guess they thought I wasn't experienced enough yet." Tanith shrugs after her hand leaves Rachel's shoulder -- having run her thumb on the plasticine nature of the shoulder pad in some unexplained effort to prolong contact. "But, um, yeah, no, cooking, we can totally -- yeah." Tanith has never exactly been the most eloquent speaker in the universe -- her tendency has been to prize quantity over quality with regard to her own speech. Still, she's suddenly acutely self-conscious about how tongue-tied she gets around Rachel, as if fifteen years of communication were wiped out and reduced to the unformed babbling of an infant.

"But, uh, I have some leave time, actually, and I thought I might... cash it in, you know?" In her self-examination, Tanith can still perceive enough to sense that Rachel doesn't exactly want to talk about how she's wearing a body glove that goes above and beyond flightsuits' typical snugness. So she lets the topic drift, and keeps herself smiling, which is extraordinarily easy despite the way she's giving herself a mental audit. "Like, I dunno, I thought I might bum around here on the islands for a little bit. Then we could, um, maybe go back to the Argama together. If -- If you wanted, I mean."

The emotions that Rachel Miu Athha experiences bounces one way and another like a rubber ball thrown at a wall in a concrete hallway, zipping around from her embarassment to a mellow and warm calm, to the flushed face and stammering all over again. The dynamic of emotions that she's managed to feel especially recently-- including a passionate speech at Arthur Goodman of all people-- has grown, and it's become a little easier for her to get the feel of others when she stands close to them.

When they try to hide it, it's a little more difficult.

Still, the white-haired girl in the black flight suit tilts her head forward and nods. "That sounds really good." She means it, too-- what with her ability to hold in emotions being nothing short of a rare event.

"Sure. I mean-- I'm free right now, even, and if I've got some time off until we launch," the younger Athha says, holding the headgear with both hands in front of herself, "I might be able to meet up with you pretty soon. I've got some work to do, but..." Her smile is somewhat lopsided now, eyebrows lifted. "I feel like I need a break, badly."

It's not that Tanith really thought she was taking a gamble -- she'd have been shocked if Rachel had rebuffed her completely. All the same, the older girl's agreement to the proposed plan is enough to arouse a happy surprise in Tanith. This comes out of her as a brightening of her smile, the expression accorded even more emphasis by the way her haircut refuses access to any other point of observation. "Awesome!" she blurts, with a little too much enthusiasm.

Tanith isn't exactly trying to suppress herself too much -- not at this particular moment, anyway. Still, it doesn't take a psychic to read her: her smile and her voice risk overspilling with a genuine joy that seems to stem entirely from the simple notions of friendship and companionship. Of course, a sensitive psychic might be able to pry deeper -- if they thought to look, that is.

"Well, I mean, if you want, when you're done with that, I mean, I don't... I don't really have anything to do right now, so I could, I dunno, try to get some food together..." Tanith feels her tongue swelling inside her mouth -- not really, but it certainly feels that way, like it's growing and becoming too trapped in its confines to move properly. She trails off, then tries to pick it back up. "I dunno, just, you know, something quiet, since... I mean, if you could use a break, I... y'know. I was just... thinking..."

Tanith seems uneasy, now. She can't really hide it. She's sort of trying, but not really, and even so, she's biting her lip and her weight won't stay comfortable as she tries to shift it from foot to foot, her stomach turning itself upward and threatening to reverse its usual flow of motion...

"You found a really good place last time," Rachel says, nodding with a smile. "I'll let you pick again! There's a lot more to choose from around here, since the Union tends to draw in people from all over, and maybe you'll find something you really like." Her hands come up, holding her headgear by the chinstrap as they clap together in front of her chest. Even with how tired and weary she looks and feels, the touch of someone run rugged, there's an undeniable light in her eyes.

Letting one arm fall to her side, she plants her hand on her hip, right over that screened-on emblem of the Orb Union. "I don't know how many restaurants are going to be open right after a battle like this, but... even then, if worse comes to worse and everything's closed right now, maybe we can eat on the Argama. A-Anyway, I should probably go get changed now, daylight's wasting, and..."

She leans in a little, close as she is anyway, to speak to Tanith in hushtones. There's a little bit of embarassment in her face as her eyes roll to the side and she tries to speak out the side of her mouth. "This outfit is a little tight around my chest," she says with an absolutely unbelievable amount of innocence.

A beat.

"And there's this one guy from Mithril that keeps making comments about it when I'm wearing it, so getting into something a little more comfortable would be a lifesaver..." she says while straightening up. "I won't take too long, okay?"

There's a moment -- a brief one, but one easily defined nonetheless -- where the entire world seems to freeze and all of the color drains out, like an old photograph, like the ones that they put in museums to show that there was indeed some arcane process used before digital photography. This moment is known only to Tanith O'Gasmeter, and it affects her as profoundly as a hallucinogenic experience or an alien abduction. The former is probably the best comparison; her Newtype mind refuses to behave like a normal person's, and when pushed by such strong emotion, it tends to vent outward, an imperceptible rainbow flame rising from her skull, its heat only apparent to those like her.

This moment is when Rachel Miu Athha leans in close. What she says is barely important, and will probably register only a few minutes later. In the moment, that one moment where everything is suddenly different, Tanith can't focus on things like talking. She might as well have suddenly divorced herself from the conversation, period. All she can feel is the tremble of her own lips as Rachel's come so close, the thought occurring to her that maybe this is the only chance she'll ever get. Her mind races through apocalyptic possibilities, all sorts of what-ifs and maybe-coulds, giving her the psychic flavor of a paranoid schizophrenic.

And by the time her thoughts organize themselves into something resembling a plan, Rachel is straightening back up, and the moment is lost. Tanith's lips still tremble, but now in recognition of that chance being wasted, hindsight already painting the inside of her skull blue. What she does next happens independent of conscious thought. Her body and her mouth don't listen to her mind; her brain is probably too busy to check up on them, anyway. Her thoughts are stuck in the past. Her body exists in the present. The effect is a loud one, mentally speaking.

Tanith's arm comes up again, fingers grazing Rachel's bicep, not quite able to form a grip. "R-Rachel," Tanith squeaks out, voice obviously labored in the way of someone trying to keep their dinner on the inside. Suddenly, Tanith is aware of every single itch or minor discomfort on her body. She feels like her bones are the wrong size inside of her. "Be, uh, before you... go... I just... I wanted to... I mean, just now, I... Listen, this is gonna sound... I mean, I don't... know how... how to..."

With the ocean breeze rolling across the docks and the sun shining overhead, Rachel and Tanith stand among the masses as the only two with color and life; the focus of a portrait painted in the newtype navigator's mind. Rachel leans in and whispers something that is both embarassing and of dire importance, at least to her, with the most serious voice she can possibly muster. Tanith can't focus long enough to do what she wants to.

"I'll be back in a bit," Rachel says, beaming for a moment's time. It may well feel like minutes.

Fingers tracing along the sleeve of the form-fitted suit, the contact releases a muted hiss before the hand leaves the arm of the elder girl. Those golden eyes roll down to the motion, then to the girl with the veiled eyes. She's giving off nothing but innocent confusion, like someone that barely understands what's going on-- like she's half her age.

"It's okay, Tanith! You can say whatever you need to say whenever you feel comfortable. If you let it off your chest, you'll feel better, right?"

The wave of discomfort that washes over Tanith's soul takes a moment to process, but when she understands it, it makes her feel worse. She has never quite so much felt as guilty as she feels right now, and she can't explain why. She can, though -- just not to her own satisfaction. She feels like a predator. Like a maniac from some movie. Like a criminal. It's like boiling hot water thrown in her face, but the effect is the opposite -- Tanith freezes up.

Tanith's mouth is open, just a bit -- just enough to see the white of her teeth between the pink shapes of her lips. She moves them like she's murmuring, but no sound comes out. Perhaps she's rehearsing, trying to work out the words before she says them. In truth, though, no such preparation is happening. Tanith feels like she has abandoned her brain, left it on the Argama or something. She can sense Rachel's confusion and it hurts like a cigarette being put out on her knuckles -- searing and sharp where skin is dangerously thin.

"Rachel, when I was... at the briefings for these things the past few weeks..." Tanith's hand seems to get more used to its placement on Rachel's arm, slipping forward, palm making contact with molded flightsuit. "I just... I thought about how dangerous it was. For you. I thought about how you could... could... And it was terrible. It was the most terrible feeling I've ever had. But it's like... It's like, this is gonna make me sound awful, but... I don't... the idea of people dying... doesn't really scare me anymore. I know so many... So... But this was different. It was different because it was you. I couldn't stop crying. I felt like I was going to suffocate. I couldn't... I couldn't stop."

Tanith moves her other arm. The hoverboard clutched under it drops -- its antigravs automatically kick in, and it gently comes to a stop an inch above the ground, waiting for its owner. But Tanith isn't paying attention to it. She's holding Rachel by the arms. She's moving closer, standing on her tip-toes because she's still not Rachel's height.

"Because it was /you/."

Tanith O'Gasmeter then does what is probably the bravest and stupidest thing she's yet attempted in her life -- or, at least, by her own measurement. She didn't feel as scared when she left home. But when her lips move to press against Rachel's -- quickly and without theatrics, a firm press and that's it, enough to make the point -- she at once feels like she's freed herself of chains... only to realize that they were the only thing keeping her from free-falling.

What Cagalli and Tessa have taught her is that listening, being receptive to the needs of others, is what you need to do in order to help make a better connection with people. 'It's the key to understanding them,' they would say. She's spent hours sitting or laying on a couch or bed with Cagalli, sitting on a bunk or in the lounge of the Danaan with Tessa, just /talking/ about the things that she's felt. It felt like therapy, but not in the bad way.

It made her feel good, to talk about her feelings.

So when Tanith decides to let all the weight off her shoulders, Rachel listens. Yeah, she's tired. Yeah, she's worn out. But by God, she's going to listen to one of the people she out-and-out would jump up and declare her friend. Tanith O'Gasmeter is one of those people that she proudly declared she would protect just yesterday to the Brigadier-General of the A-LAWS.

A hand comes up to her sleeve while she speaks. Her emotions are almost impossible to read; a conflux of warmth and happiness peppered with confusion and the garnish of anticipation. Where was this leading?

'Because it was /you/.'

Then, lips press against her own, and Rachel Miu Athha has had the first kiss of her entire life.

The headgear drops out of her hand, hitting the ground with a 'top-toktakkata' as it settles upside-down on the asphalt. There's a few passerby that turn heads to follow the moment between the apparent Mithril pilot and the casually-dressed girl.

When it's over, Rachel still has that jumbled mix of emotions all over herself, but now amplified to a much greater and easier-to-read level. Her eyes are a little confused and lost, but then her arms-- stronger than Tanith's, no doubt-- lift up to pull the navigator in closer, to hold her.

"I don't know how much Cagalli told you about me, a... and all the things that happened to me." Rachel says, her voice hushed. Her face is red, but her tone is still unshaken and holding just a slight amount of confidence. "I ... I think I know what you're saying. A lot of my... I mean, I've told you, my life is pretty screwed up, but..."

"I think I know what you mean. I don't really... I don't know how to express it that well, so, I'm... I don't know how to describe it..."

Tanith's own emotions are writ large -- neon signs sprouting, fully-formed, from her skull like the birth of Athena. They swerve wildly from one feeling to the next, but what stands out the most is, in the second after her lips leave Rachel's, fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of being pushed away. Fear of having made a mistake. Fear of looking stupid. Fear of...

Fear of everything.

But just as quickly as anything else, it's washed away. Rachel pulls Tanith in close, and the open flame that is the blonde's mental output takes on a brighter, warmer glow. She feels safe. She feels accepted. She doesn't know to what extent, but she'll take it. It's a new feeling and it's one that's instantly addictive.

Through this, Tanith still manages to listen. Every word lasts a lifetime, but she's in no hurry -- she's determined to savor every sound, every sight, everything that might preserve this moment. She stays in Rachel's arms, her own feeling weak, slowly and tentatively moving around the other girl's waist like she's scared of being bitten. But once they're there, they feel like they belong. Hell, Tanith feels like she belongs, full stop. Body and soul. Again: it's a new feeling.

"I don't care," Tanith blurts, and immediately qualifies that statement. "So your life is screwed up. Mine is, too. But... but that's... I don't care. I don't care about what's happened before. I care about right now. I care that this is happening right now. Whatever happened to you... you're here now." Tanith tilts her chin up slightly. At such close proximity, she has to arch her back a bit to look Rachel in the eyes, as it were. Tears are visible as wet lines down her freckled cheeks.

"You don't have to describe anything... or... or explain anything, or... no. You don't have to." Tanith feels like she's able to speak freely. She does so slowly, and her thoughts still shift mid-sentence, but she's not stumbling and stammering like a fool anymore. She sounds resolute and confident. "You just have to be you, and I'm happy."

Her mouth opens to speak, perhaps to add a cliched quip about how one person has no idea what another's pain and life is like, but she doesn't. Her mouth closes, those feelings of confusion and doubt blasted away. Like all the times she's held and hugged others, she's content to stay there in arm's reach. Whether or not she completely comprehends Tanith's words is also in the air, but she thinks that maybe-- just maybe-- she does understand. She says as much.

And Tanith speaks freely to her, perhaps more than anyone she's met in her life. She doesn't pull away from the arms wrapping around her waist, she doesn't twitch or flinch, and those strong arms of Rachel's just don't let go. Yet, they're yielding as Tanith looks up into her eyes, and even still the white-haired teenager can't pierce that veil with her own gaze.

Rachel's smile is slow and subtle, but the emotions conveyed are fairly whole. Cooking lessons, eating out, and just sitting around chatting about things-- she is, without a doubt, one of the pilot's best friends. So, a bit of mist in her own eyes, she just says one thing:

"Thank you, Tanith."

One day, she hopes, she can tell the navigator about herself. For real. And hopefully, her feelings won't change.