Doesn't like dice games with sharpies and frauds

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

((Occurs sometime the week after Bad Fanon Day and the subsequent fallout. Closed to Una and Starbuck.))

Despite occasional temptations to do so, Una had still not cracked open the bottle of moonshine that John Crichton had sent to her back when she'd first arrived.

Given events of the last several days, the temptation was now overwhelming.

She hated drinking alone, though, and being in one of those moods where she wanted to blame the entire male gender for everything that was wrong with the universe, she had absolutely no desire to drink with any of the men or male beings of her acquaintance.

She'd done a fairly crap job of making female friends in this place. She liked Psyche, but there was something eerily not quite right about boozing up with a goddess, especially one who could see through a person with alarming accuracy. Which—

Of course. Starbuck. They'd scarcely seen each other at all since Una had arrived, more was the pity, and that needed to be remedied. And this was as good an excuse as any.

Starbuck,

So I'm not at all sure why I haven't written or visited sooner, as I did enjoy talking to you when I arrived here. Can I make that up to you by offering a drink? I'm afraid it's only the local moonshine, but it's better than nothing. Your place or mine?

-Una Persson

((ETA: Rated PG-13 to R for not especially moderately explicit, but and pretty unmistakable femmeslashiness.))

Comments

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

Her eyes went wide. "You're kidding." She felt a flash of rage, something that used to be very common to her that she hadn't really felt in some time.

It occurred to her a second too late that maybe she had the wrong idea. "Is it from... I mean... frak, none of my business. Sorry."

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

"It's all right," Una said quietly. "I should have—well. It's not as if it's an easy thing to explain in the first place." She took a long drink of water and was quiet for a moment, organising her thoughts.

"It's not as if I trust him, exactly," she said. "Not the way I'd trust the other. But there are things about this arrangement that ... Lines that won't be crossed, you might say." She looked at Starbuck with some amount of worry in her expression, concern that perhaps she'd said too much, exposed just a little too much darkness.

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

Starbuck had had her fair share of destructive relationships in the past. She didn't think that was exactly what Una was referring to here. "So you let him do that, but it's like a deal between the two of you? You can only go so far with it, or something?"

Everyone had their kinks. It just seemed a little severe. Like punishing yourself. Not that Starbuck had never done that. Over and over.

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

"Yes. Something like that, yes." The corner of her mouth went up in a little smirk, again with the grim amusement. "And I should note that the arrangement goes both ways." She laughed quietly. "Quite the collection of broken dolls we are, wouldn't you say?"

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

"Makes you both sound like outlets or something," Starbuck said absently, scratching the back of her neck while she tried to think. "But I'd say that most people are broken in one way or another. It's how we find people that hold it together for us." Her mouth twitched after a moment, a thought surfacing. "Does the Doctor... I mean does he...."

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

"Frankly, I blame my need for crisis," Una said.

Oh, lord, the Doctor. "I don't know that there's any way I could explain it to him. Any of it." She sighed. "'Returning were as tedious as to go o'er', like I said earlier—that pretty much sums up my situation, I daresay. Sometimes I think he'd understand better than I credit him for ... but much of the time I think it would simply break him. And so I say nothing and keep walking the tightrope." She grimaced. And then it occurred to her to add, "In case you're wondering—and if you're not, you probably would eventually—we haven't. The Doctor and I. Nothing more than a kiss. Or a few."

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

"A few?" Starbuck raised her eyebrows. "Do you think he wants something to happen?" Because wouldn't that be one giant storm of trouble. Need for crisis or no.

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

"I don't think he knows what he wants. The man is exquisitely skilled in the art of denial and self-abnegation," Una said, and she found herself laughing at that, even though it wasn't really funny at all. And then she remembered his face, the look in his eyes when he'd asked her What do you want (sounding for all the world as if he'd never asked that question of anyone before, as if it had never occurred to him), and when he'd struggled to answer that question himself, and she sobered.

"I'm not being fair, really," she said bluntly. "To anyone, in any sense. Can't keep it up forever, even as I'm not sure I want it to end. Perhaps I'm simply waiting to get caught. Or looking for the point where I'll break." And then the urge for inappropriate humour, never far away, rose up again. "Or perhaps I should just drag them both into bed and get it overwith."

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

"Never know, maybe it would," Starbuck said, almost sarcastically. She had to wonder, really. "Just... you know, you can come here whenever it gets to be... I mean, not that I wouldn't want you to come over even if it doesn't, but you know. My punching bag is your punching bag." She could've run with that one, but she let it be for now, not sure what would come from both of them unleashing the wry, dark humor.

Frak. No wonder she had needed last night. Starbuck was amazed she'd gone that long with the two of them, not gone to anyone else in all that time.

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

That earned a real smile. "Thank you," Una said, and she coloured a little. "And thank you for listening to me whinge and—" Trying to understand. Not judging. Not running away. "Well. Just for being who you are, really." And because she couldn't not, she leaned over and kissed Starbuck, lightly.

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

Starbuck accepted it with a little more grace than she'd thought she would and kissed Una back. And though she would have normally pointed out that being who she was wasn't any great accomplishment, it seemed like such a mood kill that all she managed was, "Do you want to go get some breakfast?"

She was smiling, even though she didn't realize it.

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

Una would've argued the "accomplishment" point, frankly. Particularly if she'd known more about Starbuck's life.

"Breakfast. Yes." She sat up and stretched. "And perhaps we should find poor Sador, so that I can apologise to her."

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

"She's probably waiting outside for us to come out," Starbuck told her, sitting up with her hands behind her. "She knows that she always gets fed better after she's been yelled at a bit."

She got to her feet and offered Una a hand. "I'm not much of a cook, I should warn you. I can manage cutting up fruit and putting things in those microwaves."

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

"She's a very intelligent dog," Una said, taking the offered hand and getting to her feet. Another slow stretch, and she began gathering up her clothes and getting dressed. "Not to worry; I actually am a rather good cook, if I do say so myself. It tends to surprise people. There seems to be a general opinion in the twentieth century that leadership skills and marksmanship disqualify a woman for the kitchen, or something like that." She grinned.

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

Starbuck went for her own clothes. "Lords know where she got it from. Sometimes she looks at me and I get the frightening sense that I'm staring at a very old woman. I half expect her to talk."

At talk of Una being able to cook, Starbuck had to smirk. "It disqualified me. Then again, it usually seems to have more to do with who raised you than anything." Her mother was certainly no cook.

[una-harlequin.livejournal.com]

"Did she arrive with you?" Una inquired. From what she'd heard of Starbuck's normal circumstances, it didn't seem like she'd come from a place and time conducive to the keeping of pets.

Exactly when and how she'd learned to cook was, as with almost everything before the age of sixteen, lost in the haze of Una's memory. "Or sheer bloodymindedness," she said to Starbuck's comment. "Which I think was what happened with me."

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

"No, actually." Starbuck said, pulling her shirt over her head. "She just appeared here one day. But I have a funny feeling I know who put her there, though I don't think he wants to admit it."

She finished what was left in her water bottle. "I think I'd have blown up my kitchen if I'd tried at home. Which sadly wasn't an option."