beliefovermisery | In the engineering room...

In the engineering room...

[After this.]

There was tossing. There was turning. And there was a gasping, panting boy wrapped in canvas suddenly shooting up in a sitting position in the darkness, crying out softly, eyes painfully wide, trembling and gasping for breath.

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And you just hit your girlfriend (cause she is your girlfriend; you don't just make out with a girl and then cuddle and sniffle and let her pet your fears away in the middle of the engineering hall, wrapped in canvas if she's not) i the face with one hand.

"OW!"

...not the way she expceted to get woken after all that. She rolls to the side, sitting up, rubbing her cheek; a glancing blow, but it woke her already. "...sokka. Hey, darlin'-- shh, shh, was a bad dream."

She knows what that is. She spent enough time mothering her siblings.

Um, whoops?

He looks to her sharply, startled again, still breathing heavily. Part of him wants to comfort her-- the other part doesn't want to touch anything.

He raises a hand and rubs at his eyes instead, shaking his head. "...I'm sorry," he says quietly, using the wraps around his arms to wipe the sweat from his brow. "I didn't..."

He looks at her again, calmer, his worry for her overriding the dream. For now.

"Are you okay?"

She nods quietly, and reaches out, with her free hand, to catch his arm, to slow him down. "Hey. Why... why don't you relax. Lay down here with me. Was... just a bad dream. You wanna tell me about it?"

"No." It's said quietly but firmly and he shakes his head-- and flinches when she touches him.

He forces himself to move slowly, taking her hand from his arm and setting it down gently. Just-- don't touch him. Not now.

But he will lie down again, to stare at the ceiling and re-learn to breathe.

"...Sorry I woke you." He'd tell her to go back to sleep but-- he's stressed and worries, not stupid.

She sits there quietly, and then says, "When I really get stressed out," she says, "I shed my skin. One, two, three husks. Tuckers me right out if I keep going down... but then I crash right out."

But that's not going to help him, now is it?

"You wanna talk about it?"

"I can't husk, Paige," he reminds her, but when he glances at her, he's smiling - he knows she's trying to help. It's a tease.

It helps him stop trembling, too, even as he shakes his head to her next question.

"No, I... I don't think that's a good idea." How good could it be to tell your new girl you just dreamed about letting your sister drown when you were standing a foot away from her?

It'd be human.

Paige is okay with human.

"I know. But I figure maybe a hot bath or somethin' warm to drink my soothe you," she says.

"Nothing hot here," he reminds her, and isn't about to go waking Zuko up to explain his 'bad dream.'

But he will roll onto his side to face her, smile and-- tentatively reach hout to stroke his fingers down the side of her cheek. Careful.

"It's okay. I'm okay."

It-- makes him wonder, though. Are all women stupid, or just the ones he lets drown...?

Curling up with him, she looks at him, with her lips pursed and her large, blue eyes attentive. "Guilty conscience," she says, and then leans in and kisses him slightly.

"Smile more. You're handsome when you smile. You get dimples."

He flinches a little at the contact, but-- she initiated it. She wants him.

...Suki and Yue initiated. His mother wasn't shy about hugging him. Katara was more likely to throw her arms around him tthan anyone else.

But he takes her kiss-- even if he frowns at the compliment. A hand lifts, slides carefully around her waist, neutral.

"...You don't have to stay," he says suddenly, blue eyes on hers.

"I don't have to," she confirms. "But I'm going to."

And therein lies the difference between her and the others.

His face falls - a strange expression after being told that.

"You want to go home. And that's fine, but... we shouldn't kid ourselves, you're going to leave. I know what I said," whispered against her mouth, hot and passionate and he didn't know what he was saying, only knew he loved the taste of her, "but I'm not--

"I'll understand."

"No, you won't."

She can see there; there isn't a boy who DOES get when a girl leaves, whether it's because she doesn't want to, or whether because he's ordered her away and yelled at her and...

... sigh. SHE gets aggressive now, sliding her hands into his hair, and then kisses him firmly, and then says, "We'll work it out. In the end, we will. We'll compromise somehow. If it's what we want... we'll make it work."

She believes, the idealistic little girl, that all things are possible.

No, he won't.

But his eyes harden and his fingers curl at her waist. "I'll deal."

It doesn't mean he pulls away from her kiss, though. It means he returns it with equal aggression, his hand at her back and tugging her in close, making that kiss hard. And when they break, his brow rests against hers and he sighs.

Cynical boy, he knows for a fact that love doesn't conquer all.

But all he does is murmur, "It doesn't always work that way," and pet her back above her clothes.

"Just because it doesn't always doesn't mean that it can't sometimes," Paige notes, her eyes dark. It hurts her, to know he doesn't trust her to try her damndest.. to make this work.

But she's not leaving. She won't get up and stalk away... she'll stay.

She'll prove him wrong.

He trusts her to try. He doesn't trust circumstances to let her succeed.

He wants to apologize for it, this lack of faith, but-- what more is there to say? He'd already admitted to being a coward. It doesn't bear repeating.

He will, however, kiss her once before scooting in, his arm sliding around her.

"...I want to believe you," he admits quietly, trying to catch her gaze.

"So try," she says. "Have a little courage, Sokka. I know you can be brave, if you let yourself."

It's a risk.

But without risk, what's life, anyway?

People keep saying that. But if you risk so many times, and each time you lose...

He's silent for a few moments before he smiles a little at her. "...I think I can get back to sleep now."

He's at least ready for new nightmares.

She sighs, and tugs him down into her arms. No nightmares. Paige'll keep them at bay.

One of these days, they're going to realize that sleeping in the engineering room is a really bad idea.

Until then, Sokka's tugged down, wrapping his arms around her, laughing a little as they settle down.

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In the engineering room...

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