1.3|LOVER’S LIMBER

1.3|Lover’s Limber

 

Raelyn sat back against the red velvet of the patient's couch. Crossing her legs, she leaned herself forward, back to back, side to side in a vertiginous passion of play. Her fiance sat in front of her, on the councilor's chair where she herself had faced countless times prior. Her hair was a black, smooth waterfall, falling around her face like a silk curtain, red dye adding vivid highlights to this curtain over her left eye, hiding many of her scars. Her eyes, dark brown with flecks of hazel, were so intensely and intently focused on her love that she began to laugh out loud.

"Sup the matter, my Pro-Po?" she asked, breathy and playful.

Protas put her chart aside and sighed. "Let's not make this awkward okay? This is what we discussed, what we wanted! Promise you'll take this seriously."

Raelyn slapped her ass. "Oof, that hurts, don't you think?! I'm on the Veterans recuperation council for a reason!" She swung her head around her neck frivolously, and then turned her head sideways, hands running through her crescendo of hair. "Same reason you are. I just want to help." She cracked her knuckles. "Don't think just because we'll be wives someday I won't take being your patient seriously, kay kay Po?"

Laughter and a soft kiss on the cheek accompanied her response.

Protas looked at her ring, then to the window. "You know, you could've waited until I was certified atleast before you proposed."

Raelyn rolled her eyes, but smiled, tapping her hips. "You know I've never been one to overthink things, a-right?" Her crossed legs switched position, the mechanical peg kicking up on the right and waving at Protas like a stick of judgement.

She was dressed in a suspenders over leather cargo shorts, a white vinyl croptop with elastic shimmering fabric. Her white fingerless gloves and red bow topped her black leather jacket, her boots a matching shade of black, yet darker than the sheer tights she wore. Raelyn put aside her military jacket on the couch revealing a black handgun and sheathed long-knife inside.

Protas felt her heart leap into her throat. Her own heart was racing. Stifling a grin, she stared down at Raelyn, and said her, the girl she'd loved since the day she'd met her. "You know I'm already your fiancé, just like I'm already your doctor."

The ex-combatant folded her arms and blew a raspberry. "Let's hope we don't have to make any housecalls.. that could be awkward." She wiggled her brow.

"You look.. nice." Protas said blushing.

Raelyn patted her hip as she grinned, eyes twinkling. "And you look.. sexy on the couch."

Clearing her throat and restraining herself, Protas stood up straight. "Now now, professional! Let's mind the gravity. Care you begin? Just treat me like any councilor, and that'll be more than enough for me."

Her girlfriend felt her throat lock up, and she swallowed. "Alright, serious Rae-rae time. Kay, when I was a kid , I saw this big dog that attacked me and my sister, it pinned us both down, I saw this thing's teeth about to rip my sister in half. I had no options; I had to defend her. I didn't even really want to, but she was too scared to move. So I held her down and I killed the dog. I grabbed a knife. It attacked me in defense and its jaws tore into my wrists and claws at my elbow."

Protas went deadly silent. It wasn't the first time she'd heard this story, but it'd be the first time she divulged into it in a clinical setting.

Raelyn folded her arms and looked straight into her eyes, her brown irises staring deeper than before. She nodded and looked down. "I used the long-knife to cut into its chest and throat. I stabbed and stabbed and stabbed until the beast couldn't stand, until it stopped struggling, and stopped struggling, until it was dead. And then I was just looking at it lying there, just on the floor.. and I took my time, and I kept going, and I kept going until I was bleeding from the arm, until.." she shook abit.

"Until?" Protas urged her to finish.

"I felt it." Raelyn started to rub her arms gently. "I felt the horrible pain I'd given the poor thing and screamed. Then I felt my sister trying to comfort me too. All their emotions, their thoughts in a blurry confusing haze.."

Protas wasn't confused, but resumed. "How..?"

 

"Possesses High Psychic aptitude, they said. I was transferred . My mother had just gotten through a tough divorce and thought I was special, extremely gifted. She wanted me to apply for the Society of the Mind someday, but I wasn't terribly adept for that. I went to a psychic vocational Jr. institute when I was 12 for a few years.. I hated it. But you've heard me ramble all about that before."

Her fiance nodded. "Yeah.. you told me about how the other psychics mocked and bullied you."

"Yeah Po.." Raelyn melted into the couch, throwing her arms back. "Plus my grades sucked and, I kinda found myself throwing fistcuffs a little too often. Loved hanging out with the other 'bad girls' and skipping class, sneaking a drink or two. Got this scar right here in the schoolyard." She chuckled, pointing at her cheek below her long sweeps of hair.

Protas ran her thumb over the red, pink, marbled line. "Thought you were a blackbelt by the way."

Raelyn laughed, her voice deep and husky, and she leaned forward to take Protas' hand, holding it gently. "I wish I had been. I would've come to this sooner. I started getting some nightmares, you see." Her finger touched the scar lightly. "I'd have nightmares where I was in those awful fights. I had to hide my eyes because my psychics weren't looked too nicely upon in our lily white neighborhood. If anyone saw my face they'd think I was crazy, my sister, my stepfather.. but they'd have to deal with me."

Protas pulled away and took her phone from her pocket, "Can I show you

something?"

Raelyn shrugged, crossing her arms again. "If you want. Just, don't get to

carried away."

"Don't worry." Protas said a little too quickly, trying to make it sound like she

was worried. She pulled her phone from her pocket and opened up her photo

app.

"You're the only family I've got." Raelyn's eyes misted over, and she looked

away. "You, and my sister."

Protas felt her heart ache, but she continued to stare at her fiance. Raelyn was the most amazing thing she'd ever seen, and she had every intention of taking care of her.

"This is you and your unit on Mars. You served in the Llavalite Counter Raids. Earned an Honorable Commissionary of Valor, the youngest to ever do so." She smiled at her fiancé. "You did that! So I suppose you came out on top didn't you?"

With a fold of her arms, Raelyn played with her hair. "I guess it's pretty coo'" She continued her story. "I tried an application exam for the Society of the Exam. Two week trial.. didn't quite make the cut? They said I was, difficult. Rowdy, the head honcho told me I'm not exactly Society material." She laughed. "But whodda guessed. I'm not really the meditating type, y'know? Maybe if I could.. control myself or something.." There was a look of lament in her gaze, turning away from Protas. "So I joined the military at 17. Also applied for the Psychic Armament Division, but couldn't pass P.A.D. either. They said my psychic aptitude was high but, not very consistent or controlled. So not only am I one of the 'specials', an outcast of society... I'm one of the lousiest outcasts, the bottom rung of abnormals. Y'know in the Jr. institute they called me Crae Rae?"

She gave a sheepish grin. "I don't know why they said that. I suppose I can't

control myself sometimes. You know all about that right?"

"Right."

Protas looked down at the image of her in uniform on her phone, ripped tanktop and latex leggings. She'd felt a little guilty for lying to her the previous day when she said these sessions could be formal and objective. She felt a swirl of emotions for her partner, her sympathy and assessments, her love and her job. It swirled in a haze of acknowledgement that she was jeopardizing her career by being too endearing.

But the reason she kept her job was because she loved Raelyn. "Try to forget about that. We're not here to help me, we're here for you! You've heard me ramble about my issues long enough by now. Treat me like I'm, I don't know some unknown therapist."

Still, she felt something in her gut at the image on her phone, something akin to insecurity and fear, a deep dark void that never left her. An emotion that felt like it was a part of her. She was still a long ways away from accepting the fact that Raelyn was a different person from the person she was before the incident, but she was making progress and Protas was sure that once she came to grips with the fact, she'd be ok. Counseling her fiance was just another job, nothing more or less.

Raelyn nodded. "I'll try harder. You can hold my hand to make sure I get up for my meditations and keep my hand sanitizing. I'll do my best. I'll eat my vegetables and pray to Novus."

Protas grinned. "You just be you."

Raelyn's eyes lit up and she laughed, "That'll be more than you can handle!

Pfwhahaha.." She snuck out a cantina of lacquer brew and snuck a sip.

"Rae.. what was it you just.."

Her fiancé sipped then hid back the cantina. "Sorry, bad habit. I just need a heavy drink now and then. My sarge used to get on my case about alcohol, aha god you should've seen-"

"Nono not that. Pray to, Novus?"

"Oh. Oooh that. It was, some weird vision I had as a kid, and from time to

time. Novus is like, a god or something? Maybe, I don't know. Maybe I'm

crazy."

"No.. not at all!" Protas ribbed her with her elbows. "You're definitely crazy." She joked, trying to lighten the mood and ease up on the seriousness. "Now, pray to Novus and drink your, ahem 'water' please."

"I'll try!" Raelyn saluted sarcastically.

Protas chuckled and looked over at Raelyn. "You have to drink it. I'm not

kidding."

"Fine! Gotta take my pain meds anyway." She slapped her peg.

"And after that, tell me about the incident that got you suspended."

Raelyn took her cantina, throwing down her pills with a few more sips. The shadows of the room held heavy over her face, she rubbed her scars gently and brushed her fingers gently over her cascading hair. Her eyes shut for a moment, they held a deep and abiding loneliness that she hid behind her personal mask.

She looked away at the ceiling light, letting its rays from above sink in.

"It was like a dream. One night, we had to raid a Llavalite hive compound. They were manufacturing weapons and vehicles for their usage and I was to protect my unit and sweep the security forces, and proceed to signal the strike force to sweep in, then we'd guard and stand watch outside." Raelyn hugged her legs and rocked like a child while she recounted. "Well it kinda went bad. I got hurt pretty badly, some Llavalites escaped the raid and we had to keep them contained. They had High Density nitrogen charges rigged to blow and that took out most of my troupe. In the flames of the night, I came face-to-face with a Llavalite with only a knife, they had a plasma pistol. I ran, rumbled onto the ground and stabbed their leg, started going berserk. All I could think of was how every stab hurt horribly. I could feel their pain, their fear, I was in their head while they were dying. It was so foreign, an alien experience. Another nitrogen charge went off and.. it was all a.. the whole time I.."

She shook in place, "I just, I felt this deep void, a void of.. fear, a great fear. I was like a.. no. Like.. I was, I was, I was nothing. Like a spirit but.. I wasn't even feeling that. I was only conscious of their fear, I thought their thoughts, and I was just afraid.." She held her hand over her eyes, trying to focus in a place that her emotions could not reach.

Protas walked forward, took their cantina and held it to their mouth. "Drink up. I wasn't kidding! I'm here for you dear.." She said, more as a future wife than a salary woman on the clock.

"...I remember, the first time I was conscious I was lying in the infirmary, trying to get up from my bed. I felt my thigh, and it was.. burned. My leg was gone. It looked like I was burned in a lot of places.. I was in so much pain. All I could think about was if I had died, like the man I killed. I felt this intense fear, and my fear, I.. I.." Raelyn was shaking violently, tears rolled down her face, she bit down on her bottom lip to keep the tears from breaking. "I felt like I was dead, and the thought of dying was so great that I started losing my identity. I'm a psychic, why was I just dying? My own fear was my death. Whether physically or, losing myself mentally. I felt my fear and it was so intense, too intense." She buried her head in her arms, trying to keep the tears at bay. "I haven't been able to use any psychic abilities since. Not that I was GREAT at that even or want to, but it's, been kind of a mental block. They prescribed me Empathic Enhancers meant for Psychics to focus and restore those sorta but.. haven't worked. It's just been a lotta trauma."

Innocence was gone, and innocence was all she ever had. Protas threw her arms around her girlfriend and hugged her tightly.

She held on to her, trying to get Raelyn to be ok. "It's ok sweetie. You're going to be ok, all you have to do is trust and keep up with your meditation."

 

"Why, I, why did I have to kill him?" Raelyn was crying into her shoulder now, trying to hide the fact that she was sobbing.

"He would've hurt you, he probably already thought of hurting you, he only never got the chance to actually harm you because you retaliated. He could've killed you, no question."

Raelyn nodded.

"One more thing Rae.. why were you suspended for 8 months again?"

Raelyn sucked up the mucus and nasal drips, sniffling. She wiped her tears. "Oh, in the infirmary that night I had a psychotic breakdown and stabbed a medic in the chest. It was a good time."

Protas chortled. "Classic Rae."

She sighed. "Oh he's fine.. needed a few stitches, I bought him a drink a month later. I think it was more of a grace period really, if I had to take time for physical recovery in the trauma centers they'd dock my pay. But an honorable suspension keeps me fed, y'know?"

Her fiancé nodded. "We're out of time. This has been a pretty great establishing point for us.."

"You mean even though you already knew half those stories?" Raelyn stuck out her tongue.

"I like learning about you." Protas smiled. "Even relearning. Listen I'm here to help okay? I want to be the one to get you through this."

Raelyn looked over, making sure no one else was listening in. "I'm not gonna do some crazy thing just because of some.. horrible incident. I can only take so much. I've been through a lot and just.. I'm through.."

Protas clicked her clipboard off and put it aside, going over to perch herself against Raelyn's lips. Their fingers groped together and squeezed one another's hands, until they stood up completely in each other's embrace.

Protas' eyes were closed as she whispered into Raelyn's ear. "I've got you honey." Her body flared into a stream of pure light.

Raelyn opened her eyes.

Protas was gone.

"P-pro po?" She looked around, only the dripping of the watercooler responding back. "Proto? Babydoll?"

Silence.

 "Come on." She took her phone out, checking the Xi Military Tracking Unit. After a minute with the operator she entered Protas's Designation ID.

"We've no information on where that one is. Their biometric signals and comm aren't anywhere in our pulsar radar."

"What? That's absurd! How could she.." Raelyn didn't want to confront what the obvious conclusion might've been. She'd heard far too many stories to let it be happening now. "She.." The building started to rumble from the airwaves, she saw shadows out the window arriving in the distance.

"I'll call you back." The girl pushed out the door and started making her way towards the stairs, then the roof entrance. Her titanium pegleg dragged and clacked with every step, eventually pushing onto the top of the Veterans Affair Office. The building seemed to be on a state of high alert, sirens going out.

"That's.." She trembled. "A Llavalite Assault Carrier."