No Applicable Experience

Writers: Bree, Eimi
Date Posted: 28th May 2006

Characters: U'kaiah, Abrei
Description: U'kaiah wheedles information about her troubles out of a reluctant Abrei
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 11, day 25 of Turn 3
Notes: Whoops! This was supposed to go out before "Rights and
Responsibilities" ... Bree's fault! :D

Abrei

"Excuse me Master Abrei, but I believe you missed my physical?" U'kaiah said as he peeked his head into the door with a naughty grin. "I was wondering if we could reschedule..."

Abrei gave U'kaiah a tired smile. "I'm sorry, U'kaiah... I completely forgot." Which was a lie... she'd considered meeting the bronzerider for the evening they'd planned, but she hadn't had much desire for sex after the evening with M'galec. As usual, she'd chosen to avoid the problem and hope it went away.

"That's all right," the bronzerider shrugged. "I'm here now. No harm done." "I've got a few moments." Abrei waved to the seat across from her desk, a nice new one she'd gotten from the stores. The remains of her old chair was stacked neatly in the corner, though she'd promised herself she'd get rid of it and the reminder it represented soon enough. "I've just been so busy today."

"Oh? And when will you finish?" he asked slipping into the seat across from her.

"Oh, it could be a while. I let myself get behind." Abrei waved a hand at the stack of files she'd decided to spend the evening updating. There were always plenty of records that needed to be organized, especially after Threadfall when people didn't have time to update charts as they went. Abrei knew that some of the other healers thought her obsession with maintaining files bordered on neurotic, but no one could deny that it was useful to never have them more than a day or two behind. "Surely you don't have to be at it _all_ night. Why not take a break in a candlemark or two and we can have a little dinner. And if you feel up for it a little bit of your favorite desert," he suggested with a saucy smile. "Maybe some other time," Abrei replied with an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, U'kaiah... I just really am behind. I have to get everything caught up in the next few days. I'm having my last knee surgery on the day after Threadfall, and I'll be out of the infirmary for a sevenday at least. I can't afford to be behind when that happens."

"You still need to _eat_, Abrei," the bronzerider said sternly as he crossed his arms across his chest. "You have other healers who can give you a hand with these."

Abrei glared at him for a moment, but her anger lacked its usual bite. Her shoulders slumped and she slouched back in her chair. "Fine. I'll have some dinner, but then I _have_ to come back here. To work. I haven't been being as professional as I should be, U'kaiah. And I need to fix it before it gets out of hand." "What?" the bronzerider laughed. "Abrei, except for the few moments you have been stealing with me, you have been nothing _but_ professional. You _exude_ professionalism from every orifice, I swear. How could _you_ not be professional?"

"It's happened," Abrei replied dryly, rubbing at the side of her face tiredly. "I just need a few days to think about things. Please?" "All right, now I am _not_ waiting a few days until dinner..." U'kaiah looked at her carefully. "What's going on, Abrei?"

"I'm just worried about my surgery and getting behind." Which was true enough, but wouldn't begin to explain the fading marks left over from her indiscretion with M'galec. Explaining those to U'kaiah was not something she was willing to do. "But we can have dinner." "Come on, Abrei. I know you well enough," the bronzerider said with a roll of his eyes. "_Something_ is bothering you."

Abrei didn't bother trying to deny it. "Are we eating or not? Because if we aren't, I'm going to go back to doing my work."

"You know, you came to my weyr angry at me for not opening up to you and treating you like a friend. Now you're gonna try and hide from _me_? Come on Abrei. Tell me. You haven't been like this..." Since before we started sleeping together... "For quite some time. It worries me."

"Trust me, U'kaiah. I am _more_ than over that." Abrei groaned and lifted her head up enough to peek at U'kaiah over her arms. "Can we _please_ just go to dinner?"

"Oh, so _now_ you want to go to dinner, huh?" He looked at her suspiciously. "I still say there is something else wrong. But since you don't trust me, even though I am your _friend_, I guess we can go." "Fine!" Abrei exclaimed, pushing herself to her feet. "Fine! I had unprofessional furniture-destroying borderline violent sex with M'galec on my sharding _office floor_, which was perhaps the stupidest and most ill-advised thing I have done in ten turns. I look like someone kicked me into a wall and I'm no longer on speaking terms with one of my best surgeons. And I don't want to think about any of it because there is _nothing_ I can do." "Wait. How is having sex with M'galec on your office floor a _bad_ thing?"
the bronzerider asked, rather confused at how this could be the source of her _problems_.

Abrei threw up her hands. "How was it _not_? He's Lenala's weyrmate and one of my healers. And even if he weren't, we were barely on speaking term before, and now I'd be happier if I never had to see him again."

U'kaiah shrugged. "I've had sex with plenty of weyrmated women, on floors and less conventional places. Some weyrmated relationships are a bit more relaxed than others. Why should that bother you? Its no reason to stop _talking_ to him."

"Are you even listening to me?" Abrei demanded, her voice frustrated. "I wasn't talking to him _before_ it happened. Which just proves that the entire thing was irrational and foolish." "Yes, but was it _good_?" he asked, focusing on what in his mind should be the material point. "Did you enjoy it?"

"Shards, U'kaiah! How could that remotely be relevant? Is everything excused if it's _fun_ enough?" Abrei tried to lower her voice, but it was hard to control her temper. "Hey, now, you get mad at the man for taking a weyrmate, then when he finally has sex with you you're even _more_ mad? I'm just trying to figure out what the big deal is here Abrei. So far the only reason I can imagine for you to be so angry about this is either you're still upset that he has a weyrmate, or the sex wasn't as good as you had hoped. I just want to know why it is that this whole situation seems to upset you so much."

Abrei's temper couldn't compete with her frustration. "If you can't understand, I don't know how I'm supposed to explain it to you. You didn't sleep with your wingriders when you were wingleader, did you? It's the same thing for me and my healers! It causes problems in a place where you can't afford distractions."

U'kaiah snorted. "I sleep with my wingriders all the time. The female ones, at least. The male ones... only if they're greenriders and I won their flight..."

"Then I'm not surprised you don't understand," Abrei replied shortly, biting her tongue before she could say something far more damning... like that he might _still_ be wingleader if he hadn't spent so much time sleeping with the people he was supposed to lead. "I don't want to talk about it anymore.
I just want to get something to eat and finish my work." "Come on now, Abrei. You are both grown adults. If you are attracted to each other, you should both be old enough to maintain a professional relationship despite a little on the side," the bronzerider said in all seriousness. "Why do you let it bother you so much? You really shouldn't you know."

Abrei sighed and covered her face. "I'm thirty-four turns old. Most healers my age are still turns away from their Masters knots, and I'm the _Weyrhealer_. I gave up everything in my life to get to where I am--no friends, no hobbies, no romance. I might as well have skipped the past twenty turns of social development. Until a turn ago, I had _no_ applicable experience with romance. So stop telling me I should be mature and unbothered by this, because I feel fifteen and I am _very_ bothered."

"All right, all right," he said calmly, standing and moving around the desk to wrap an arm around her. "Why don't you tell me exactly what happened.
Why... Why aren't you and M'galec talking now?"

"Because I think he's an obnoxious arrogant arse," she retorted, doing her best not to wince as his arm pressed into the uncomfortable bruise left by part of her broken chair. "And because he called me an immature, childish, unprofessional spiteful woman who uses sex to solve all of her problems." "He said _what_?" U'kaiah asked, his eyes growing hard as ice. "He said that to you _after_?"

"Among other things," Abrei grouchily.

"Then he's a flaming fool, and I think you're right to never talk to the sharding bastard ever again," the bronzerider growled. "He obviously doesn't know you at all, and I have a mind to set him straight on a few things."

Abrei snorted and shook her head. "If I want someone to break his nose, I'll do it myself. Far more satisfying that way. But for now... I just want some time to think about things. He might be obnoxious, but it doesn't change the fact that I don't like having this sort of thing getting in the way of how my infirmary runs." U'kaiah was a bit disappointed. He would have liked to have told the man off. No one treated his friends that way! But then again, with his current situation, it was probably best not to stir up trouble at another Weyr.
"Well, you just remember that he was apparently more than willing to have sex with you, so if anyone was childish and unprofessional it was _him_."

"Well, I told you what was wrong," Abrei said, changing the subject with her usual awkward grace. "Can we have dinner now? I really do want to finish all of this work tonight." "Sure, we can go," the bronzerider nodded. He knew better than to push Abrei any further. But he just hoped he didn't see that M'galec fellow in the dinning hall...

Last updated on the May 28th 2006

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No Applicable Experience