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tampered2007-09-10 02:00 pm
red-dragon-666.livejournal.com) wrote in tampered2007-09-10 02:00 pm
Log; Complete
When; September 7th [Afternoon].
Rating; PG-13 [Language].
Characters; Elena [![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lady_turk] & Jr./Rubedo [red_dragon_666].
Summary; Elena offered to help Light out with the new City Guide, and Jr. helps her out. Cuepassing notes in class deity theories and snogging intelligent discussion.
Log;
It wasn’t often that Elena hung out on the bridge. It was an unspoken statement that the bridge was generally Jr.’s personal area to study or do whatever he wanted to do alone. Shelley was often there as well, but she had other things to attend to as well, so it was still his own little sanctuary. But just because she didn’t often go and spend time on the bridge didn’t mean that she wasn’t allowed there or comfortable with being there. Granted, she had to resist the urge to try and mess with the controls, but that wasn’t so hard when she had another project to work on. The current one being when she had offered her aide in helping Light to write up a new information list for the City’s residents. This time, with more assistance then during any of her other previous attempts.
Which was why she was currently on the bridge along with Jr. Elena was perched near-by at one of the other consoles, looking over the various buttons and keys, all the while thinking of what would be best for the two of them to contribute to the project.
“Aside from me wondering what all the buttons do, what do you think we should do for Light’s project,” Elena said, perching herself comfortably in the seat and looking up at where Jr. had situated himself.
The mention of the all the 'buttons' made Rubedo crack a grin, choosing to ignore that hint. Maybe he could have Shelley give her a small lesson sometime. For now, he'd just have to handle the controls.
Seated in the navigator's seat, he had his ankles crossed and feet propped up on the edge of the console, chair turned just so that he could handle the controls with one hand. "I prefer pen and paper over optical data, but it'll be quicker to type everything out."
Once the terminal was turned on, Rubedo quickly filed through the ship's data before opening up a program and networking it to Elena's terminal so that popped up on two large screens that really did seem like they were simply floating in midair. Normal people here still seemed thrown by it, which was fun, but he was glad she was used to the technology by now.
"I don't know what your friend's going to be doing, but you and I have been here way longer than him. We should probably handle things like history and factions. Thing is, this is gonna be for new people, so we don't want to overload them. We'll have to make it compact, know what I mean?"
It was always those little things that Jr. said that never failed to amuse Elena about how backwards they tended to regard things. Elena, used to dealing with pen and massive amounts of paperwork, preferred to use computers for the speed that the provided and for the less papers she had to shuffle around, while Jr. was just the opposite.
Elena had been very much surprised at seeing the terminals for the first time, and there was that small part that started feeling all giddy at getting the chance to play with such things, but she was used enough to it all to take it in stride and treat it as she would anything else.
“Sounds good. But what would qualify as ‘overwhelm’? ” Elena agreed, typing out a random sentence with one-hand, not looking at the screen but knowing that Jr. would see it as well. “Listing out all the curses would probably fit in that bill, but what else would or would not? The deities? The stuff that’s happened? The various fights?”
Rubedo glanced up when he saw something blip onto his screen, and an eyebrow perked at the little message waiting there. You still have the best toys, you know.
Shooting an amused glanced to where she was at her terminal, he spoke while he carefully typed back. My toys are your toys. Just no breaking them.
"We need to prioritize. We could include all the information we know, but I bet you half of it is stuff they don't need to know. I think that they need to really know past curses, though it might be fun to make a separate record of that in case someone else wants that information. Prior deities might be useful, though, since I know they come up in conversation now and then."
Thoughtfully tipping his head back to look up at the ceiling, he drummed his fingers against the edge of the console. "Past deities... Maybe any major events that have happened that would actually be included as major turning points in the City's history. Also, it'd be nice to include what people to avoid, but even you and I don't know every villain that runs around here..."
It was like during a briefing and passing notes between the other Turks while discussing something else. Carrying on two conversations was quite easy and there was just something fun about it, regardless of the situation it was done in.
I wouldn’t break them. Broken toys means you can’t play with them a second time.
“I doubt anyone new to the City would need to know even a quarter of the things we know. But I agree with idea of making a separate list of the previous curses. Or at least the ones we can remember.” Thinking over the curses, Elena couldn’t help but snicker over some fond memories of a few nicer curses. “Like any time we get our ages changed.”
Making a little humming noise, Elena propped up her chin in the palm of her hand and thought over the rest of what he said. “Past deities for certain, though if we include key points, we should leave out the names of any victims that might still be around. As for villains, who can tell? Some people from my own world would consider me a villain, though the general consensus seems to be that I’m a good person.” That brought a small smirk to her face even mentioning the fact.
With a snort, Rubedo shook his head in response to what she had typed, quickly responding with Yeah, uh huh. Tell that to the dents in my hangar.
He made a note not to comment on how often they had been hit by that age reversal curse. It was quirky. And yet...that last bout of jumbled curses hadn't affected him with that specific curse. It made him curious.
"...What? You're not a villain," he retorted, almost glaring at her at the very suggestion. "Maybe your job was a little questionable, but that was your job...not who you were."
Dropping his feet from the console, he turned the chair and erased their little note exchange before she could have a chance to respond, immediately replacing them with a list of all the deity names he could remember. After listing the first four, he slumped a bit and stared hard at the screen. "...Wasn't there a fifth one at the time that was like...temporary? They came down for a day just to answer questions or something? It was right after I arrived."
Well there went that bit of fun. It was with a grin that Elena stuck out her tongue and blew a childish raspberry. And the hanger was not her fault. Well… Not all of it was her fault. But Jr. really did have such nice toys.
Rolling her eyes slightly at the ‘not a villain’ comment, Elena simply shrugged. A villain was hardly the worse she’d ever been called and there were certainly questionable things she’d done in the line of her job, but as to say if the job was who she was or wasn’t… She might have regarded it as such, but now wasn’t the time to bring up that kind of debate with Jr. over who she was or wasn’t.
“You mean Lanika?” Elena stated, instead choosing to skip over the villain comment and move on to their other conversation. “I think the whole City asked non-stop questions when they came down. Course, the stuff that happened afterwards I could have lived without.”
Now that brought back some memories. It was why, even now, Elena was fairly cautious with her dealings with the crazy angel. Regardless that he seemed to fairly tame with his sister and whatnot now, there was always the past to remember of just what Rosiel could do.
Lanika. That name was added, though he put it at the top. In terms of hierarchy, that one had seemed to be above the others. Then she had to go and mention the events afterward, and he winced. The blood ritual... He knew that a lot of people had died from that event. He was just glad that he and Ziggy had been able to save MOMO and Sakura in time.
"Mm, yeah... We should make a note of that in the history." Already he was adding another section. For now he was just making small notes and summaries. Details could come later.
"After that, those four left... And then four more came. Three have left since then, and all been replaced... I thought four was their magic number, but there are...five now, right?"
“The original four left and then the barrier going down were connected, weren’t they?” Elena mused. It seemed that Jr. was going to be the one to take care of most of the typing right now, though Elena did note that she had her own details she probably be adding later. For now, simply trying to remember and list out everything they thought that might be important would be best to do for the time being.
“I had thought it had to be four all the time too, but I suppose that the current batch gives lie to that train of thought. So that means we’ve dealt with… What? 12 different deities in all so far?”
Sounded about right for bureaucracy to Elena.
"Yeah, that's right," he responded on both accounts. He had wanted to go home when the barrier fell, but to risk leaving Sakura... He just hadn't had the will to do it then. With a sigh, the redhead folded his arms across his chest and sat back.
"Makes me wonder why some leave, and where it is they go. Some other dimension where they control the City from a distance? Maybe the ones here don't actually do anything...though I noticed they seem pretty territorial."
As he spoke, he added little notes beside each deities name. "Kaen and Yoshito didn't seem to have control over anything specific. They just had opposite personalities. I think the other two were just like...trainees. That was what Lanika said, anyway." He looked intent as he spoke and typed at the same time. "Then they left for some reason... Maybe the system changed then. Maybe the old system wasn't working. So if we were to go by that theory...the new system required them to make it more personal?"
A nervous glance was thrown out the view-port "Going off of the threads I saw and the trades that were hackable... Maemi seems to handle the beach and the ocean. Or maybe it's just water in general. And Mouse handles all of the technical stuff, right? Those are the only two still left over from the first time. That fluffy girl who came with them, Kyuu, she handled the forest and gardens. I guess Siran replaced her... So who replaced Siran? And who replaced King? Paul came before Siran left, so he must have replaced King. And King handled...what?"
“Maybe they’re moved onto a different project or a different sort of city situation to look over. It’s plausible given that this place pulls people from all kinds of worlds that there might be another one that they could watch over as well. Either as another ark situation or as a testing ground for other experiments maybe.”
Now that they were actually discussing things out and not just idly tossing out ideas, Elena was adding her own notes and facts to the list as well. “I remember that it was mostly Maemi and Siran who handled my dealings, though Mouse had a word or two to say. But if Siran has gone and we have a brand new one now, I would assume that the newest one, Sabine is taking Siran’s place. But maybe there isn’t a singular figure replacing King. Maybe its both Paul and Lenny that are taking over whatever it was that King did when he was here.”
Humming a little, Elena couldn’t help but voice her thoughts about a certain possibility. “Maybe it’s Maemi and, now, Sabine, who take the request, Mouse who makes them all work, and then it’ll be Paul and Lenny who take the payments? Making the system more personal as everyone knows who’ll they meet up with, rather than before when we didn’t know what they were doing or watching.”
“Course, then there’s still the random annoyance that the curses can sometimes bring, but who knows about that. Maybe they all take turns with doing that.”
Shaking her head, Elena cleared her mind from the path it had begun to follow and looked up at Jr. with a curious look. Aside from her tendency to ramble when her mind focused on a subject, there were points that made sense if a person thought about it. “What do you think? Any of that to put in or just keep it for ourselves?”
The concept of another place like the City hurt his brain, but it did make sense. For all he knew, maybe they were the test subjects, and this hypothetical duplicate was the final phase.
He had been listening so intently while watching the monitor that he almost didn't understand that she had asked him a question. Her comments had gotten the wheels in his head turning, and he had to backpedal to realize that she was asking his advice. "What do I think? I don't know... Right now this is all speculation. What the newcomers need are facts. We'll put our theories in a separate document to share with others in the future."
Already he was opening up a new document for her. Before she could type anything in it, though, he offered her a cheeky smile and tapped out, Kiss kiss.
“True enough,” Elena murmured. Bombarding a newcomer with all this would certainly make their head swim much more than simply saying that there were five deities who seemed to run the City.
The opening of a new document wasn’t unexpected, though the message that was quickly typed out before she even got the chance to made her smirk and look up, tossing a wink at Jr. as she did so. Is that a request or an offer?
After that little tease, Elena quickly typed out a summary and the basic points of the ideas that she had just recently tossed out, so as not to forget anything. It looked like this little project was having more results than they had expected going in.
He pouted when she turned away to go back to typing, and he watched her for a little while after that as she wrote down the subject matter they had just been discussing. From where he was sitting, he was a little higher up than her, which made it surprisingly easy to see the nape of her neck, since her collar wasn't in the damn way. She was leaning over just enough for her blonde her to fall to the side a bit, revealing a sliver of skin.
Not even paying attention to what she was writing, Rubedo zeroed in on her document and interrupted her sentence with a bold and underlined message: REPORT TO THE BRIDGE IMMEDIATELY. THE CAPTAIN WANTS TO KISS YOU.
Blinking at the sudden interruption, reading the message made Elena laugh and look up to where Jr. was practically pouting. It was so cute; she couldn’t help but smile and decided to comply with the demand.
Getting up out of the seat, Elena quickly made her way up to where Jr. was sitting, not exactly rushing, but not dragging her steps either. However, rather than simply walking up and giving Jr. a kiss, Elena perched herself on the arm of the seat, making a small show of crossing her legs, and smirked playfully.
“Reporting for that kiss you requested, Captain.”
Folding his arms across his chest, Rubedo watched as she walked up the path to perch on his armrest. Then her reply made him crack an overly amused grin. Wordlessly, he drew his legs up and under him so that he could push up onto his knees, sadly needing the leverage in order to reach her.
With one hand placed on her thigh for balance, he leaned in, only to pause just inches away and gaze. His free hand lifted, eyes following each movement as he brushed aside her bangs, letting his fingertips trace the curve of her jaw. There, he cradled her cheek in the palm of his hand, blue gaze glittering with devoted concentration while he let his thumb caress her lips in a touch so light that it could have simply felt like a breeze.
Then, when he was finally content with touching her face, Rubedo's hand slid back to rest against the nape of her neck that he'd been eyeing earlier, fingertips grazing her hairline as he finally leaned up to kiss her with gentle care.
If there was one thing that could be said about Jr., it was that he certainly knew how to build up to a kiss as well as how to deliver on that build up. Elena wouldn’t admit it out-loud, but she felt a surge of relief at the feel of the kiss. What with all that had happened recently and the troubles they had, it was good to know that Jr. still had the desire to show his care for her with gentle actions.
Using an arm to help hold up her weight, Elena leaned into the kiss while using her other hand to trace a light path on Jr.’s neck to the back, playing with the ends of his hair at the base of his neck.
This was a complete distraction from what they had been trying to do, but it wasn’t like there was a set time things had to be done by. And well… They were alone.
The light touch was surprisingly ticklish, and it brought out a light chuckle as he drew his mouth away from hers, only to return with slightly more fervor. Rubedo didn't allow it to accelerate too much, keeping the pace easy and slow while he slid his fingers into her hair so that his thumb could brush the rim of her ear.
Kissing like this was something of a comfort, and he was proud for keeping himself in check. It was easy to let his desires run rampant far too much... And they still had too many things to work out for him to toss caution to the winds.
It was with a bit of reluctance that he eased out of the kiss, murmuring her name breathlessly before tipping his head to the side and delivering a light peck to her cheek. There, his breath tickled at her ear as he murmured, "Time to report back to your station."
Though Jr. had a great amount of self-control himself, if he hadn’t been the one to pull apart first, Elena would have had to be the one to regrettably do so. While kissing was a comfort, it didn’t necessary mean that they were ready to do much more besides that again. Course, that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t enjoy the kisses they shared in the meantime.
Leaning back with a smile as well, Elena tucked a random lock of hair back behind her ear as she mock sighed. “Fine. Fine. We’ll get back to work then.” Moving in for a quick kiss to Jr.’s cheek as well, Elena was in a bit of a playful mood, so she decided to take the quick way back down to the seat she’d been occupying.
One little hop, a handstand flip, and a perfect landing later, Elena was smirking back up at Jr. from the terminal she’d claimed for the time being.
“So! What were we talking about last?”
His hand fell to the armrest as she pulled away, and he watched in amusement as she headed back to her seat in a rather...unique manner. Where had she picked up such flare? His influence? No way, he wasn't a show off!
Sighing, he sunk back down to sit properly...if sitting properly meant resting the heels of his boots back on the edge of the console. "Theories on the deities. But let's rewind and just include their personalities, then from there we can go into some of the crap they've pulled in the past to fuck with us... What they'll most likely request if some poor soul wants to carry out a trade.”
Already, his attention was back on the screen as he added a separate section. At least he was doing something useful for once to make lives easier for people. His previous research had gone nowhere, and this was a welcome break.
Rating; PG-13 [Language].
Characters; Elena [
lady_turk] & Jr./Rubedo [red_dragon_666].Summary; Elena offered to help Light out with the new City Guide, and Jr. helps her out. Cue
Log;
It wasn’t often that Elena hung out on the bridge. It was an unspoken statement that the bridge was generally Jr.’s personal area to study or do whatever he wanted to do alone. Shelley was often there as well, but she had other things to attend to as well, so it was still his own little sanctuary. But just because she didn’t often go and spend time on the bridge didn’t mean that she wasn’t allowed there or comfortable with being there. Granted, she had to resist the urge to try and mess with the controls, but that wasn’t so hard when she had another project to work on. The current one being when she had offered her aide in helping Light to write up a new information list for the City’s residents. This time, with more assistance then during any of her other previous attempts.
Which was why she was currently on the bridge along with Jr. Elena was perched near-by at one of the other consoles, looking over the various buttons and keys, all the while thinking of what would be best for the two of them to contribute to the project.
“Aside from me wondering what all the buttons do, what do you think we should do for Light’s project,” Elena said, perching herself comfortably in the seat and looking up at where Jr. had situated himself.
The mention of the all the 'buttons' made Rubedo crack a grin, choosing to ignore that hint. Maybe he could have Shelley give her a small lesson sometime. For now, he'd just have to handle the controls.
Seated in the navigator's seat, he had his ankles crossed and feet propped up on the edge of the console, chair turned just so that he could handle the controls with one hand. "I prefer pen and paper over optical data, but it'll be quicker to type everything out."
Once the terminal was turned on, Rubedo quickly filed through the ship's data before opening up a program and networking it to Elena's terminal so that popped up on two large screens that really did seem like they were simply floating in midair. Normal people here still seemed thrown by it, which was fun, but he was glad she was used to the technology by now.
"I don't know what your friend's going to be doing, but you and I have been here way longer than him. We should probably handle things like history and factions. Thing is, this is gonna be for new people, so we don't want to overload them. We'll have to make it compact, know what I mean?"
It was always those little things that Jr. said that never failed to amuse Elena about how backwards they tended to regard things. Elena, used to dealing with pen and massive amounts of paperwork, preferred to use computers for the speed that the provided and for the less papers she had to shuffle around, while Jr. was just the opposite.
Elena had been very much surprised at seeing the terminals for the first time, and there was that small part that started feeling all giddy at getting the chance to play with such things, but she was used enough to it all to take it in stride and treat it as she would anything else.
“Sounds good. But what would qualify as ‘overwhelm’? ” Elena agreed, typing out a random sentence with one-hand, not looking at the screen but knowing that Jr. would see it as well. “Listing out all the curses would probably fit in that bill, but what else would or would not? The deities? The stuff that’s happened? The various fights?”
Rubedo glanced up when he saw something blip onto his screen, and an eyebrow perked at the little message waiting there. You still have the best toys, you know.
Shooting an amused glanced to where she was at her terminal, he spoke while he carefully typed back. My toys are your toys. Just no breaking them.
"We need to prioritize. We could include all the information we know, but I bet you half of it is stuff they don't need to know. I think that they need to really know past curses, though it might be fun to make a separate record of that in case someone else wants that information. Prior deities might be useful, though, since I know they come up in conversation now and then."
Thoughtfully tipping his head back to look up at the ceiling, he drummed his fingers against the edge of the console. "Past deities... Maybe any major events that have happened that would actually be included as major turning points in the City's history. Also, it'd be nice to include what people to avoid, but even you and I don't know every villain that runs around here..."
It was like during a briefing and passing notes between the other Turks while discussing something else. Carrying on two conversations was quite easy and there was just something fun about it, regardless of the situation it was done in.
I wouldn’t break them. Broken toys means you can’t play with them a second time.
“I doubt anyone new to the City would need to know even a quarter of the things we know. But I agree with idea of making a separate list of the previous curses. Or at least the ones we can remember.” Thinking over the curses, Elena couldn’t help but snicker over some fond memories of a few nicer curses. “Like any time we get our ages changed.”
Making a little humming noise, Elena propped up her chin in the palm of her hand and thought over the rest of what he said. “Past deities for certain, though if we include key points, we should leave out the names of any victims that might still be around. As for villains, who can tell? Some people from my own world would consider me a villain, though the general consensus seems to be that I’m a good person.” That brought a small smirk to her face even mentioning the fact.
With a snort, Rubedo shook his head in response to what she had typed, quickly responding with Yeah, uh huh. Tell that to the dents in my hangar.
He made a note not to comment on how often they had been hit by that age reversal curse. It was quirky. And yet...that last bout of jumbled curses hadn't affected him with that specific curse. It made him curious.
"...What? You're not a villain," he retorted, almost glaring at her at the very suggestion. "Maybe your job was a little questionable, but that was your job...not who you were."
Dropping his feet from the console, he turned the chair and erased their little note exchange before she could have a chance to respond, immediately replacing them with a list of all the deity names he could remember. After listing the first four, he slumped a bit and stared hard at the screen. "...Wasn't there a fifth one at the time that was like...temporary? They came down for a day just to answer questions or something? It was right after I arrived."
Well there went that bit of fun. It was with a grin that Elena stuck out her tongue and blew a childish raspberry. And the hanger was not her fault. Well… Not all of it was her fault. But Jr. really did have such nice toys.
Rolling her eyes slightly at the ‘not a villain’ comment, Elena simply shrugged. A villain was hardly the worse she’d ever been called and there were certainly questionable things she’d done in the line of her job, but as to say if the job was who she was or wasn’t… She might have regarded it as such, but now wasn’t the time to bring up that kind of debate with Jr. over who she was or wasn’t.
“You mean Lanika?” Elena stated, instead choosing to skip over the villain comment and move on to their other conversation. “I think the whole City asked non-stop questions when they came down. Course, the stuff that happened afterwards I could have lived without.”
Now that brought back some memories. It was why, even now, Elena was fairly cautious with her dealings with the crazy angel. Regardless that he seemed to fairly tame with his sister and whatnot now, there was always the past to remember of just what Rosiel could do.
Lanika. That name was added, though he put it at the top. In terms of hierarchy, that one had seemed to be above the others. Then she had to go and mention the events afterward, and he winced. The blood ritual... He knew that a lot of people had died from that event. He was just glad that he and Ziggy had been able to save MOMO and Sakura in time.
"Mm, yeah... We should make a note of that in the history." Already he was adding another section. For now he was just making small notes and summaries. Details could come later.
"After that, those four left... And then four more came. Three have left since then, and all been replaced... I thought four was their magic number, but there are...five now, right?"
“The original four left and then the barrier going down were connected, weren’t they?” Elena mused. It seemed that Jr. was going to be the one to take care of most of the typing right now, though Elena did note that she had her own details she probably be adding later. For now, simply trying to remember and list out everything they thought that might be important would be best to do for the time being.
“I had thought it had to be four all the time too, but I suppose that the current batch gives lie to that train of thought. So that means we’ve dealt with… What? 12 different deities in all so far?”
Sounded about right for bureaucracy to Elena.
"Yeah, that's right," he responded on both accounts. He had wanted to go home when the barrier fell, but to risk leaving Sakura... He just hadn't had the will to do it then. With a sigh, the redhead folded his arms across his chest and sat back.
"Makes me wonder why some leave, and where it is they go. Some other dimension where they control the City from a distance? Maybe the ones here don't actually do anything...though I noticed they seem pretty territorial."
As he spoke, he added little notes beside each deities name. "Kaen and Yoshito didn't seem to have control over anything specific. They just had opposite personalities. I think the other two were just like...trainees. That was what Lanika said, anyway." He looked intent as he spoke and typed at the same time. "Then they left for some reason... Maybe the system changed then. Maybe the old system wasn't working. So if we were to go by that theory...the new system required them to make it more personal?"
A nervous glance was thrown out the view-port "Going off of the threads I saw and the trades that were hackable... Maemi seems to handle the beach and the ocean. Or maybe it's just water in general. And Mouse handles all of the technical stuff, right? Those are the only two still left over from the first time. That fluffy girl who came with them, Kyuu, she handled the forest and gardens. I guess Siran replaced her... So who replaced Siran? And who replaced King? Paul came before Siran left, so he must have replaced King. And King handled...what?"
“Maybe they’re moved onto a different project or a different sort of city situation to look over. It’s plausible given that this place pulls people from all kinds of worlds that there might be another one that they could watch over as well. Either as another ark situation or as a testing ground for other experiments maybe.”
Now that they were actually discussing things out and not just idly tossing out ideas, Elena was adding her own notes and facts to the list as well. “I remember that it was mostly Maemi and Siran who handled my dealings, though Mouse had a word or two to say. But if Siran has gone and we have a brand new one now, I would assume that the newest one, Sabine is taking Siran’s place. But maybe there isn’t a singular figure replacing King. Maybe its both Paul and Lenny that are taking over whatever it was that King did when he was here.”
Humming a little, Elena couldn’t help but voice her thoughts about a certain possibility. “Maybe it’s Maemi and, now, Sabine, who take the request, Mouse who makes them all work, and then it’ll be Paul and Lenny who take the payments? Making the system more personal as everyone knows who’ll they meet up with, rather than before when we didn’t know what they were doing or watching.”
“Course, then there’s still the random annoyance that the curses can sometimes bring, but who knows about that. Maybe they all take turns with doing that.”
Shaking her head, Elena cleared her mind from the path it had begun to follow and looked up at Jr. with a curious look. Aside from her tendency to ramble when her mind focused on a subject, there were points that made sense if a person thought about it. “What do you think? Any of that to put in or just keep it for ourselves?”
The concept of another place like the City hurt his brain, but it did make sense. For all he knew, maybe they were the test subjects, and this hypothetical duplicate was the final phase.
He had been listening so intently while watching the monitor that he almost didn't understand that she had asked him a question. Her comments had gotten the wheels in his head turning, and he had to backpedal to realize that she was asking his advice. "What do I think? I don't know... Right now this is all speculation. What the newcomers need are facts. We'll put our theories in a separate document to share with others in the future."
Already he was opening up a new document for her. Before she could type anything in it, though, he offered her a cheeky smile and tapped out, Kiss kiss.
“True enough,” Elena murmured. Bombarding a newcomer with all this would certainly make their head swim much more than simply saying that there were five deities who seemed to run the City.
The opening of a new document wasn’t unexpected, though the message that was quickly typed out before she even got the chance to made her smirk and look up, tossing a wink at Jr. as she did so. Is that a request or an offer?
After that little tease, Elena quickly typed out a summary and the basic points of the ideas that she had just recently tossed out, so as not to forget anything. It looked like this little project was having more results than they had expected going in.
He pouted when she turned away to go back to typing, and he watched her for a little while after that as she wrote down the subject matter they had just been discussing. From where he was sitting, he was a little higher up than her, which made it surprisingly easy to see the nape of her neck, since her collar wasn't in the damn way. She was leaning over just enough for her blonde her to fall to the side a bit, revealing a sliver of skin.
Not even paying attention to what she was writing, Rubedo zeroed in on her document and interrupted her sentence with a bold and underlined message: REPORT TO THE BRIDGE IMMEDIATELY. THE CAPTAIN WANTS TO KISS YOU.
Blinking at the sudden interruption, reading the message made Elena laugh and look up to where Jr. was practically pouting. It was so cute; she couldn’t help but smile and decided to comply with the demand.
Getting up out of the seat, Elena quickly made her way up to where Jr. was sitting, not exactly rushing, but not dragging her steps either. However, rather than simply walking up and giving Jr. a kiss, Elena perched herself on the arm of the seat, making a small show of crossing her legs, and smirked playfully.
“Reporting for that kiss you requested, Captain.”
Folding his arms across his chest, Rubedo watched as she walked up the path to perch on his armrest. Then her reply made him crack an overly amused grin. Wordlessly, he drew his legs up and under him so that he could push up onto his knees, sadly needing the leverage in order to reach her.
With one hand placed on her thigh for balance, he leaned in, only to pause just inches away and gaze. His free hand lifted, eyes following each movement as he brushed aside her bangs, letting his fingertips trace the curve of her jaw. There, he cradled her cheek in the palm of his hand, blue gaze glittering with devoted concentration while he let his thumb caress her lips in a touch so light that it could have simply felt like a breeze.
Then, when he was finally content with touching her face, Rubedo's hand slid back to rest against the nape of her neck that he'd been eyeing earlier, fingertips grazing her hairline as he finally leaned up to kiss her with gentle care.
If there was one thing that could be said about Jr., it was that he certainly knew how to build up to a kiss as well as how to deliver on that build up. Elena wouldn’t admit it out-loud, but she felt a surge of relief at the feel of the kiss. What with all that had happened recently and the troubles they had, it was good to know that Jr. still had the desire to show his care for her with gentle actions.
Using an arm to help hold up her weight, Elena leaned into the kiss while using her other hand to trace a light path on Jr.’s neck to the back, playing with the ends of his hair at the base of his neck.
This was a complete distraction from what they had been trying to do, but it wasn’t like there was a set time things had to be done by. And well… They were alone.
The light touch was surprisingly ticklish, and it brought out a light chuckle as he drew his mouth away from hers, only to return with slightly more fervor. Rubedo didn't allow it to accelerate too much, keeping the pace easy and slow while he slid his fingers into her hair so that his thumb could brush the rim of her ear.
Kissing like this was something of a comfort, and he was proud for keeping himself in check. It was easy to let his desires run rampant far too much... And they still had too many things to work out for him to toss caution to the winds.
It was with a bit of reluctance that he eased out of the kiss, murmuring her name breathlessly before tipping his head to the side and delivering a light peck to her cheek. There, his breath tickled at her ear as he murmured, "Time to report back to your station."
Though Jr. had a great amount of self-control himself, if he hadn’t been the one to pull apart first, Elena would have had to be the one to regrettably do so. While kissing was a comfort, it didn’t necessary mean that they were ready to do much more besides that again. Course, that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t enjoy the kisses they shared in the meantime.
Leaning back with a smile as well, Elena tucked a random lock of hair back behind her ear as she mock sighed. “Fine. Fine. We’ll get back to work then.” Moving in for a quick kiss to Jr.’s cheek as well, Elena was in a bit of a playful mood, so she decided to take the quick way back down to the seat she’d been occupying.
One little hop, a handstand flip, and a perfect landing later, Elena was smirking back up at Jr. from the terminal she’d claimed for the time being.
“So! What were we talking about last?”
His hand fell to the armrest as she pulled away, and he watched in amusement as she headed back to her seat in a rather...unique manner. Where had she picked up such flare? His influence? No way, he wasn't a show off!
Sighing, he sunk back down to sit properly...if sitting properly meant resting the heels of his boots back on the edge of the console. "Theories on the deities. But let's rewind and just include their personalities, then from there we can go into some of the crap they've pulled in the past to fuck with us... What they'll most likely request if some poor soul wants to carry out a trade.”
Already, his attention was back on the screen as he added a separate section. At least he was doing something useful for once to make lives easier for people. His previous research had gone nowhere, and this was a welcome break.