I Want to Forget

Writers: Bree, Eimi
Date Posted: 19th January 2006

Characters: U'kaiah, Abrei
Description: U'kaiah and Abrei swap scar stories and comfort
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 9, day 13 of Turn 3

Abrei

U'kaiah paused outside the Weyrhealer's door. She had sent him a note a sevenday ago. He just wasn't ready to come see her. Now he wished he had gotten it over with before. Abrei was probably angry at him now. She was not the type of woman to be ignored. With a long sigh followed by a deep breath he finally knocked on the door.

Her voice came through the door too muffled to be understood, and after a few minutes the door opened on a rumpled and tired looking Abrei with a robe clutched around her. She blinked at him for a moment and then sighed in relief. "I am so glad you're not a journeyman with another emergency that I _have_ to deal with... I've had three in the past two days and I'm not sure I can take a fourth." "Well, I'm a journeyman, but not an emergency..." U'kaiah tried to give her one of his flirtatious smiles, but it failed miserably. "You sent me a note."

"I sent you a... oh." Abrei pulled the door the rest of the way open, gesturing him inside. "I'm so sorry, U'kaiah... I completely forgot. Things were so hectic here... shards, that was nearly a sevenday ago." It was a sign of just how overworked she was that Abrei had forgotten about the death of a Weyrwoman--it was the sort of thing that shook all of Pern. But while she could easily view Jaela's death as a political abstraction, Abrei knew it was _far_ more personal for U'kaiah. "Yes, well... I couldn't get away," he lied as he fingered the door stop absently.

She reached out a hand to catch his wrist, pulling him inside and closing the door behind him. "I don't need excuses, U'kaiah. I was just worried about you." She wrapped an arm around his waist, giving him a somewhat awkward hug. Hugging was not something she had much practice doing. U'kaiah responded to the feeling behind the embrace more than her technique and he wrapped his arms around the Weyrhealer instinctively, pulling her close and taking comfort in the feeling. His heart still ached so, and though he could cry no more tears for Jaela, there was an emptiness that cried out for something to fill it.

Abrei pulled back enough to look up at him, catching his face between her hands and studying him silently. "You look worn down, U'kaiah. Have you been eating and sleeping at all?"

He looked down into her eyes, a thousand possible covering responses filtered through his mind. Finally he just shook his head. "Not so much."

"Here, I haven't finished my dinner yet..." It was obvious she'd been in the middle of eating it when he'd arrived, and she led him over to her small table and pushed him down into the chair. "They gave me too much, again. Try to eat some of it." He sat down at the table, too tired physically and emotionally to argue.
Absently he picked up a meatroll and took a bit out of it. His lips curved into a slight smile as he remembered the day months before, after his first Threadfall as Cyan Wingleader, when he and Jaela had shared a cup of klah and a plate of meatrolls. The smile was fleeting, and the meatroll tasted like chalk in his mouth. But he chewed and he swallowed, and reached for a second.

Abrei retied the belt on her robe a little more firmly before settling into the chair next to him, watching him with a worried expression on her face.
When it became clear that he was going to eat, she poured a glass of wine and pushed it across the table at him before pouring a second for herself.
"Do you have to go back to Dragonsfall tonight?"

"No, I don't think so," he sad as he starred down into his glass of wine.
**Just half a mug. That's what she said that day on the beach. Just half a mug or the healers would get angry...** U'kaiah stood up and grabbed the bottle off the table and walked to the couch. "Shard it, Abrei! I just want to sleep for the next few turns! I just want to sleep so I don't have to _think_ any more!"

"I know," she replied softly. As a healer, she wanted to take the bottle away and spare him a hangover and the other ill affects of trying to drink one's grief away. Instead, she pulled out a second bottle from her ample stash and followed him to the couch, curling up next to him with her feet tucked under her. "Stay here tonight, U'kaiah. I won't be able to live with myself if I don't see you get some sleep with my own eyes. Especially considering how short a time it's been since your illness."

"I don't know, Abrei..." U'kaiah didn't want to impose on his friend, or make her feel uncomfortable by having him in her rooms. But at the same time he didn't want to sleep on that bed again. He shook his head to clear it of thoughts he knew were coming. He took a long drag from the bottle.
"We'll see. Let's just see what happens."

Abrei gave him a stern look. "Mmmhmmm. If you keep drinking my wine that fast, what will happen will be you passing out in my lap and me being stuck trying to drag your heavy arse to bed--which, by the way, I will not be able to do."

He looked at her, very confussed. "You mean you don't expect me to sleep _here_? On the couch?"

"What, are we fifteen?" Abrei replied tartly. "You're two steps over the line into exhausted and I'm a healer and your friend, U'kaiah. You are _not_
sleeping on a couch that _I'm_ too tall to sleep on comfortably." U'kaiah took another long drink from the bottle. "All right then. We're adults, we can handle this." He stood up. "Let's go now so you don't have to worry about carrying me later."

Abrei gave the bottle in his hand a wary look, but she stood and prodded him in the direction of her sleeping area. "Just don't spill wine on my sheets.
I don't have a clean set." He headed in the direction she had indicated. "Don't worry, it will probably be empty before I fall asleep."

She snatched the bottle from his hand at the door, pushing him inside and finishing the bottle in one gulp. "I'm glad this is my cheap wine... you're certainly not giving it the respect it deserves. I'm going to get us another one while you sit your tired arse down." U'kaiah went one further by kicking off his boots and crawling across the large bed. Apparently, being a Weyrhealer had its perks too! He sighed as he stretched his legs out and propped himself against the headboard.

Abrei returned with a freshly opened bottle, handing it to him silently before she scooted up to sit next to him, mirroring his position. Her robe fell just short of her knees, leaving the ugly scars from her surgery visible. She traced her finger over it idly, wondering if M'galec would be able to help relieve the stiffness in the badly healed mess of scars. She'd managed to put off the surgery so far, but she wasn't sure if she was just worried that M'galec _wouldn't_ be able to help.

The bronzerider handed her the bottle after taking a drink. "Whoa, where did you get that? From when you hurt your knee?" He reached over to light run his fingers along the scar. "Impressive."

"Mmmm..." She took another sip from the bottle. "They had to go in three times... I've been told I'm lucky that I can walk at all. We've got a new brilliant surgeon at the weyr, though. Maybe he'll be able to help with some of the scar tissue. I can bend my knee, but it's still stiff, even after all this time." "Hey, did I ever show you my Threadscar?"

Abrei shook her head, cradling the bottle against her chest. "You have a scar? When did you get it?" "The fourth Fall of the pass." He pulled his tunic over his head and turned so she could admire the patched of scared flesh on his shoulder blade and upper arm.

She passed the bottle back and rose to her knees, tracing the outline of the scar and frowning at the rough work that spoke of frantic healers. Of course, if he'd received it at the beginning of the pass, he'd been treated by healers whose only knowledge of Threadscore was theoretical. She could remember the first days all too well herself, even close to four turns later. "Very manly, and far more worthy of bragging rights than falling on some rocks." "Manly, huh?" he laughed as he took a sip of wine. "I never thought _you_
would think of me as manly. Of course, you probably just remember me as that tall scawny boy."

"Tall _annoying_, scrawny boy," Abrei corrected in an amused voice, her fingers still tracing the outline of his scar absently. She couldn't count the number of times she'd been alone with U'kaiah in the past few months, but just a few sevendays without spending nights with R'han and she was already considering just how well he'd filled out. Obviously celibacy was harder once you really knew what you were missing. "And you were that bossy, abusive, self-absorbed healer girl," the bronzerider replied as his eyes closed, enjoying the feeling of her fingers on his skin. "But you were always so sharding beautiful. Perhaps knowing I would never have a chance made you even more so."

"No one had a chance with me then. I had a few issues." Her hand stilled on his shoulder as she wondered what to do next. She honestly couldn't remember how she'd ended up in bed with R'han the first time, seeing as she'd been almost too intoxicated to walk in a straight line. It had always been easy to give control over to R'han and let him be the one with the experience...
she wasn't so sure that she wanted the intimacy badly enough to be vulnerable in front of U'kaiah. "Abrei," U'kaiah asked as he turned towards her slightly. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather I slept on the sofa tonight? I think... I think you'd be more comfortable."

She caught her lower lip between her teeth, but she could see the same need in U'kaiah's eyes that she felt so strongly--the need to simply not be alone. And while he might be able to go back to Dragonsfall and find any number of willing partners, he was probably the only person she felt comfortable with now that the man she truly wanted wasn't speaking to her.
"I'm tired of sleeping alone, U'kaiah. I hate sleeping alone." The bronzerider nodded. "I don't think I could _only_ sleep next to you, Abrei." His fingers gently traced the outside of the scar on her knee. He didn't meet her eye as he asked, "Are you sure you don't want me to sleep on the couch?" Abrei slid one her hand to his face and forced him to look at her. "You're supposed to be the one with all the experience, U'kaiah. Don't make me do all the seducing. I'm not so good at it, and I give up without encouragement." Had Abrei still been with R'han, had Jaela still been alive, U'kaiah would have been too surprised to move. But having lived in a constant state of shock for days now, nothing seemed to surprise him. As they looked into each other's eyes he allowed his hand to travel from her knee, to her thigh and from her thigh to under the cloth that covered her.

Her breathing hitched sharply, but her only response was to reach down and untie the belt on her robe. She couldn't quite bring herself to slip out of it, any more than she could tear her eyes away from U'kaiah's. "Tell me what you want." He leaned closer, never taking his eyes off hers as his hand moved to gently move her robe aside. Their lips were almost brushing as he whispered, "I want to forget."

"So do I." And she kissed him, hard and fast and desperate with the need to prove to herself that another men could make her feel something. It was awkward at first--different because there was only one man she'd spent time kissing and she'd learned everything she knew to fit with him. She spent one terrified moment wondering if R'han had ruined her for any other man. Then she felt her lips part against his and the familiar warm ache in her chest and could have cried in relief if she hadn't had something better to do.

Last updated on the January 19th 2006

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I Want to Forget