[ussbansheec] "What's in a Name?"
- From: "Moria McEntire" <bansheec@xxxxxxx>
- To: <ussbansheec@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 18:46:06 -0400
"What's in a Name?"
Beatrice Braddock and Jamul Moorning
He'd been awake for nearly an hour yet he hadn't moved. Jamul couldn't bring
himself to move away from the sleeping form beside him. She was beautiful
and the way she made him feel was like nothing he'd ever felt before. As the
clock ticked closer to nine o'clock he sighed. He had to get her home before
her aunts sent in a swat team. "Time to wake up, t'hy'la."
"I'm sleeping," she huffed sleepily and snuggled tight against him. "You
wore me out. Let me sleep. No fair wearing me out then making me get up
early."
Jamul chucked as he began to tickled her. "We've got to get up, t'hy'la."
"Eek! Stop that!" she giggled. Shifting out of his reach, Beatrice gave
Jamul a haughty look. "I could have your fingers chopped off for that, you
know." Then she grinned and pounced on him, straddling his waist and
pinning him to the bed. "I'd rather not be forced to. They're so very
lovely and useful."
"Yes it would be rather hard to continue my career missing fingers." Jamul
laughed as he wrapped his hands around her waist. "Hard to hold a paint
brush and all." When his laughter subsided he reached up and caressed her
face. "You've been here all night, Beatrice. We've got to get you home,
other wise your aunts might take more then just my fingers."
It was really hard to stop her face totally crumpling in disappointment.
Somehow she thought she'd be staying, that that's what he wanted. Forcing
her face to be as still as she could, she nodded and climbed off of him.
"May I have a shower before I go?"
Jamul propped himself up on his elbow. "Want some company?"
"Sure," she said, a smile tugging at her lips. This was good, she could
pretend. "Come and soap my back for me."
He climbed out of bed smiling and followed her into the bathroom. He turned
on the shower and then took her in his arms while the water heated. "Your
beautiful with bed head hair and eye crispies."
"And you're not even close to being a gentleman for pointing them out." She
cuddled close to him, holding him as tightly as she could. "I'm going to
miss you."
Jamul frowned. "Do you expect them to be that angry with you? Or will they
forbid you to be with a criminal?"
She let out a soft snort as she shook her head. "You clearly don't know
anything about the people I call family. No, they probably won't mind that
so much. It's just..." Shaking her head, Beatrice sighed. "I thought I
was staying, that was all. Silly really."
"No it's not silly." He titled her head up to look at him. "You snuck out of
the house without a word to the two women who raised you, don't you think
you owe it to them to at least come home and talk to them? I'm not sending
you away, t'hy'la. I simply don't want to cause a rift between you and your
aunts."
Beatrice knew he was right but she still felt like he was taking back a
naughty and disobedient child to her mothers. Instead of responding, she
asked, "What is it that you call me?"
"t'hy'la? It is a Vulcan word that means friend and lover." He caressed her
face once again and blushed a little. "One day, I hope, I will be able to
call you k'diwa, beloved."
"Friend and lover..." Well it was better than nothing, she supposed. "It's
pretty." To hide her slight disappointment, she turned to the shower. "Is
the water warm enough yet?"
"Yes," He answered but turned her once more to face him. "but tell me what's
wrong?"
"Nothing," she fibbed cheerfully, her head tilting to the side. "What d'you
think is wrong?"
His dark eyes looked her over for a few long seconds before he sighed. "You
expected more from me."
"What I expect and what I deserve are two very different things," she said
softly in the words of her Aunt Betsy. Though Betsy normally teased,
Beatrice was serious. "Let me take a shower and pretend a while then you
can take me home so my Aunts can tell off the naughty teenager."
"Your no teenager to me, Beatrice." Jamul told her. "And what you deserve is
the best and you've a right to expect that. You should be loved and cared
for by princes and lords, and yet you love me, an ex-con artist who wonders
from month to month if he will sell a painting in time to pay the rent."
"But you're who I want and love." She kept eye-contact with him as she
added, "But that isn't what you want. You might call me Beloved one day.
For now I'm your friend and lover. Your new pretty redhead."
There was hurt in Jamul's eyes as he looked down at her. "k'diwa is a term
used between bondmates, Beatrice. You are what I want."
"I don't understand," she sighed. "You say you love me and want me but I'm
not your love, I'm your friend. You say you want me to stay but you're
taking me back and you speak like I've done something wrong. Jamul, I'm
confused!"
Put that way, he was confused too. He scratched his head trying to work it
all out in his own head so he could explain it to her. "t'hy'la means lover
and friend, both are very close relationships to Vulcans, and that is a term
I have never used with another. I don't share my Vulcan heritage, Beatrice,
or I hadn't until you. I do love you, and I wouldn't have told you about the
bonding if I didn't. I'm taking you home, I'm coming with you, I'm not
sending you away. I'm not stupid, I know that you love your aunts dearly no
matter how much you act like you could care less about them. I don't think
you even realize how much they mean to you. I don't want you losing that."
"I love them but... I don't want to spend the rest of my life seeing how
happy they are and not having it myself," Beatrice said carefully. "But you
are sending me away. I'm going back, not staying where I want to."
"Have I once said you had to stay there? Or that you weren't welcome back
here?" Jamul demanded.
She shook her head mutely, her eyes lowering as she blushed deeply.
Suddenly she didn't want to stay, she wanted to go home where she understood
how things worked and where he couldn't look at him so hurt one minute and
so annoyed the next. "I'm sorry," she whispered as she ducked around him
and into the shower, closing the door behind her.
Jamul just sighed. He reached for the door but thought better of it. She
clearly didn't want him in there with her so he went to make them breakfast.
Her lips pressed together, Beatrice watch him walk out. He just walked out!
She'd wanted him to follow her, chase a little. It wasn't a game but she'd
still wanted him to prove his pretty words. "It's not fair," she whispered
as she started to cry softly. Wrapping her arms around herself, she sank
down to the floor of the shower and let the water just pound into her as she
cried harder. "I don't like this any more."
He didn't know what else to say. Everything he'd said so far had been wrong.
After pulling on his underwear and a pair of sweat pants he started towards
the living room but stopped. Maybe actions could express what his stupid
attempt at words had missed. Going over to his night stand he pulled out a
velvet pouch. He held it in his hand for some time before finally opening it
and allowing the silver beaded necklace that was in it to slither into his
hand. With his grandmother's necklace in hand he went back to the bathroom.
Finding Beatrice curled in the shower broke his heart. Without a word he
slipped into the show, crouched, and put the necklace around her neck.
Beatrice touched it lightly, her fingers running over the beads as she met
his eyes. "I'm sorry," she sniffled. "Send me home."
"I'm not sending you home." Jamul told her softly as the water beat down on
them both. "I'm taking you home and then bringing you home if that's what
you want. It's nothing fancy, but you're wanted here."
Coughing and sniffing a little, Beatrice held onto the necklace as if he was
about to take it back. "Will you stop speaking like I've done something
wrong?" she asked nervously even as she pushed herself deeper into the
corner away from him. "Will you come back to the shower and treat me like
you did before?"
"I'm sorry, my Beatrice." He reached out to caress her face. "I promise to
do better by you, k'diwa."
"I thought... I couldn't be that if we weren't bonded..." She held his hand
to her cheek but still frowned. "Jamul, please stop confusing me. Pick a
name and let it be. Please?"
He smiled warmly, brightly, at her. "I have always made my own way, my own
life, my own rules, and I say that you are my beloved, my k'diwa."
"Oh I love you," she sighed happily. "Come on, I want to show my aunts my
gorgeous fiance." That was about as subtle as she got and she hoped he
caught it. Early days, she knew, but she really liked him, loved him,
thought the sun shone out of his ears essentially. "I think we're both wet
enough to call ourselves showered. We can come home and have a bath later.
"Sounds good to me." He helped her to her feet and then laughed. "Though I
think I'll get undressed for the bath."
Glacing down at his sopping wet clothing, she smirked and tugged at them.
"And you'll need to change before we do out."
He let her peel away the sweats and underwear and then kissed her. "Your
beautiful all wet."
"Not bad yourself," she laughed. "Now, do you have large fluffy towels? If
not, I'm swiping some from home. No way can I live without large fluffy
towels."
Jamul laughed as he helped her out of the shower. "I'm a guy, Beatrice, I
have towels and lucky for you they're clean." He grabbed two and handed them
to her before grabbing one for himself.
It was very threadbare and a little stained even if it was clean. She
sniffed it then sighed and started to tentatively rub herself clean. "I am
so going to have to get this place up to scratch. How do you live like
this?"
"Like a guy who's covered in paint most of the time?" He asked with a laugh
as he rubbed dry. He'd have to go to the Laundromat now but it was worth it.
"You don't have to be here," she said primly as she scrubbed her hair as
dry as she could. "Here is for being clean unless we're in bed."
He kissed her, loving the feel of her skin against his own. "I don't?" He
asked between kisses. "Hmmm, bed, I like the bed."
"Bed is definitely good," she murmured before kissing him hard and pulling
him against her. "Warm and comfortable..."
"And the sooner we go to see your aunts the sooner we can come back so I can
make love to my woman." He kissed her deeply, wrapping his arms around her
tightly.
"Mmm or we could just put it off..." She smiled innocently as she added,
"Just so we can get more of that practice in."
He smiled against her lips. "Your shirt's ripped, you can wear one of mine."
"It was a gucci blouse," she corrected as she kissed him again. "But I'd
prefer your shirt any day."
Taking her by the hand Jamul led her out to the bedroom again. He looked
through his things for a shirt that would fit her and came up with an old
replicated Sex Pistols t-shirt, which he tossed over to her. "Smallest I
have." He smirked at her.
"You have got to be pulling my leg," she sighed as she turned it round and
round. "You have bad taste in clothes and music, my love. I so have to
educate you."
Jamul laughed. "I was a thirty-seven year old bachelor, what can I say." He
shrugged.
"You need desperate educating," she grinned as she slipped into it and the
rest of her clothes even if they were mud splattered. "Are we going before
or after breakfast? Do you have anything in here other than Cherios?"
"Cherios? That's health and baby food." Jamul laughed that rumbling laugh of
his. "I have Cap'n Crunch and Spam."
"EEEEEEEEEEEEW! Nononono." She shuddered as she tugged on his hand. "If
we get going and my parents..." she blinked then changed it to, "aunts don't
kill me or you or both of us, I'll get our cook to make us breakfast."
Jamul threw on a pair of painless pants and shirt before slipping his feet
into a pair of paint covered converse tennis shoes. "I can't remember the
last time I had a cooked meal." He chuckled. "I think it was before I left
New York."
"Are you serious? How do you live?" Concern suddenly filled her eyes as
she wrapped her arms around his neck.
"I manage." Jamul replied before kissing her. "It's either live on my or run
to my Grandmother and I can't do that. She's the only person who didn't turn
on me when I was sent away."
Beatrice frowned at him. "What do you mean 'sent away'?"
"That's what my parents tell people." He explained. "I was sent away, rather
then I went to a penal colony."
"They turned away from you?" Now that was a totally alien concept to her.
"How could they abandon their son?"
Jamul shrugged. "I was an embarrassment I guess." He gave her a weak smile
and then kissed her softly. "Ready?"
She nodded, her eyes still frowned but she knew now Betsy would accept him.
No one was an embarrassment to them, not even her nutty father. Grabbing
his hand, she pulled him out of the door then stopped on the top step to
kiss him deeply. "They don't bite," she told him. As she took a step
backwards, she realized where she was too late. Her foot slipped and she
let out a yelp as she tumbled backwards. "Jamul!"
He watched frozen in fear as his love tumbled down the stairs. When she
finally stopped he ran down the steps three at a time until he was beside
her, reaching out to touch her. He looked her over carefully, a thousand
things running through his mind. "Beatrice! Beatrice!"
"Ow," she croaked. The crack halfway down had come from her arm, which she
moved now and hissed with pain. "Told you I'm dumb."
"Try not to move, k'diwa." He told her as he looked her over carefully. He
wished now more then ever that he'd listened when his Grandmother spoke of
medicine. Once he was sure her neck wasn't broken or anything he careful
picked her up in his arms. "We'd got to get you a doctor, and your not dumb,
just a little clumsy."
"Take me home," she murmured as she rested her head on his shoulder. "Our
doctor can take care of me."
He kissed her cheek gently and then headed for the nearest transporter
station.
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