The consolation of Esthrielle was as it always was, when one of the three women's hearts hurt at those long-lived fracture lines. Esper James scooped Esthrielle up beneath both arms, exerting ghoulish strength without so much as a thought - her relief that things had gone over well was at the foremost of her mind, and so there was none of the usual hesitation to put forth as much power as was required.
Est's body, heavy from metal but compact by natural design, was hoisted. Her legs trailed limply down from her waist, pooling (in so much a capacity as a leg can pool) upon the carpeted floor below; the rest of her was nearly as limp, though she had the good sense to at least hold her spine with enough rigidity that she wasn't falling all over Esper James. She was closer to a medical training dummy than a sack of potatoes, EJ figured - and therefore, less of a hassle to scoop.
Scooped girlfriend in her arms, EJ toddled awkwardly towards where Purity lay, watching the proceedings with a tender, lovelorn expression. An expression that, echoing the sensations in Esper James's own heart, was laced with a great wave of exhaustion. Purity went to help gather Esthrielle's torso up into her arms, saying nothing but cooing and shushing as gingerly as a nurse might. Nurse seemed appropriate; Est certainly needed treatment.
Est just fucking bawled. It was cause for wonder how the tears kept coming unabated, though in retrospect, our lovely ghoulette figured that perhaps these tears were synthetic, too. Very likely they were simply saline, formed of sodium and water filtered from nutritional intake to concoct a chemical cocktail resembling real human sadness. The material aspect of emotion may well be synthesized through artificial means, but it wouldn't take an empath to know that what Esthrielle was feeling was oh so very real.
For how long had she and Luca known one another? For how long had they shared the same space, very much the same life - a mentor and his pupil, a ward and her guardian, a tender lily and its careful gardener? From what EJ knew of Est's past, there had been a great deal of pain and strife... A great, great deal of agony, and waiting, and loss. Loss of years, loss of dignity, loss of opportunities... and yet, Luca had arrived and taken her from all of that. What had that been like for her?
To suddenly know freedom, but not quite familiarity... not initially, and not for years. The next few years were spent in the doge's palazzo, never leaving without accompaniment, never allowed to wander without watchful eyes from the shade; she had been a bird in a gilt cage, but it was the type of aviary where the bird preferred to stay behind the bars.
And yet, in that time, had they ever spoken about what they were to one another? What each one meant to the other one? Or had it simply been a business affair, one wherein emotions were given in transaction, not unconditionally; had the doge wanted her to remain little more than an adoptee, and not truly a member of the family? Not a true daughter, or sister?
Esper James was an only child, but... it made her a bit nauseous to even think of. To never know a family, existing only in a prison... and then as soon as you are given one, they restrict the love they can show you. It would have been grievous, EJ figured... assuming that love was simply the absence of abuse. Assuming that care was naught more than a refrain from mistreatment, and not the bestowal of concern and attention. It made EJ think of her own family, though not in the sense that they had ever treated her that way.
Nova Scotia, so far to the north from Vitus... and yet, even now, it felt like home. Esper James had been lucky, her father and mother ever so loving and kind and supportive of her endeavors. When she had told them she was dead, they had cried... of course they had cried. Esper James would have felt cold grow in her heart if they had been so callous as to not cry. But they had, and it had been hard for a moment - not as hard as telling them she wanted to start on estradiol, all those years ago, but it had been close.
Just as then, however, they had accepted her. They had loved her despite what she was, despite societal views - or their own accepted beliefs - about what she was. She was her own woman, and while it's fairly traumatic to hear that one's child is dead, hearing that they died in Vitus is the biggest relief a UNAC citizen can receive. At least they're not dead dead, most people figure.
Those people have never entered the smog-laden city where the sun never truly rises; they've never seen what it's like to live surrounded by concrete and dark, what it's like to guzzle those little black pills, what it's like to eat little more than meat and booze. They've never seen the true face of Tsang. But... Eugh. EJ pressed those thoughts from her brain; she had been thinking about Est, not waxing poetic about the horrors of the modern world. She needed to get back to focusing on the New Way's most in-need-of-a-hug soldier.
A hug was what the slender stalwart was receiving, it seemed. Purity had swaddled the sobbing Esthrielle up in arms and flesh and love, cushioning a white-haired head in a supple bosom, a gentle reminder of touch given through stroking of that same pale-coated crown. Purity seemed a bit more lucid, further from the earlier near-faint she had been enthralled in, but the return of her focus and her brain was relegated now to giving attention to the little Easterner in her arms.
She looked down at Esthrielle, eyes narrowed in the loving way of one who is caring for and consoling their beloved - her expression a half-smile which she whispered through, saying such sweet, subtle words of adoration and support. And yet, when Est seemed fit to continue crying for a bit longer, Purity's gaze raised to EJ. Their eyes locked, and EJ could tell right away: Purity was concerned. Not just for Est, either.
Esper James quickly joined them on the bed, body to body, flesh to flesh, working to sandwich Est's organic torso betwixt the pair of them. It was an interesting transhumanist conglomerate, in a sense: a normal, unaltered woman, and then one whose body was as much synthetic as it was organic, and then finally a woman every bit as dead as she was alive. If emotions hadn't been so very tumultuous at the moment, Esper James may have given a laugh at the thought of them. What a trio, eh? Three different worlds coming together in a religious extremist safehouse, in the middle of the city of the dead. EJ would need to write that down for a movie pitch, perhaps if things returned to normal.
That was an enormous, unfathomable if.
The tears continued to flow, though their deluge became a drizzle, and then little more than a somber atmosphere which Esper James and Purity did all in their power to squeeze out of existence. Purity spoke up now, saying something of more import than mere consolations and appeasements whispered to a distraught lover.
"Est... Hey, hey... He'll be okay. He'll send you letters, or emails, or... or whatever you two send one another, you know? He'll keep in touch. Your big brother would never abandon you; he's been here for you ever since you've known each other. He's got no reason to stop!" Purity capped the thought off with the press of soft, pink lips - they came together to grace Esthrielle's forehead with their amorous touch, a kiss planted with the soft 'pop' that came from a pucker which was released. The sound of it alone seemed to help Est calm herself, if only somewhat.
She struggled to find a response, and as she did, Esper James nuzzled into the crook of Est's neck from behind. She, too, delivered kisses to the Italian; soft little pecks and smacks, smooches and pops, each one finding a new inch of warm brown flesh to land upon. Esper James figured that, maybe if she could blanket her entire lover in these gentle expressions of affection, then perhaps all the cracks in her heart might heal. Unrealistic, perhaps, but it was worth a try.
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And try she did. As she kissed, Esthrielle finally managed to form syllables into words, chaining them all into a rough response - one that shook like a wooden shack in a tempest, but which held through all the way till the end, even though it seemed fit to collapse at any given moment. As she started to speak, a tentative smile painted itself from corner to corner of her mouth, but her lips trembled even as it was pulled taut.
"He... He'll send me s-stuff. You're right. He... He's always, only ever, been th-the one to send me anything... To... t-to care about me, haha. I never really had many friends back in Venice, hehe, a-a-and... And here? Psh. It took me a while of being here to find you two, aha..." There was mirth in her laughter, but only in the way that mirth found itself blossoming in those deepest trenches of deep emotional turmoil. Sometimes the body laughs only because it doesn't really know what else to do in the moment. Est's body had no idea what to do.
Purity pulled Est in closer, not that there was much distance to even be covered by the smaller woman. They were already veritably pressed to one another, and now? Now they were really squeezed, body to body, with only the bed covers and their clothing to separate them. The servos on Esthrielle's arms whirred and worked softly as she squeezed Purity with one and EJ with the other, the motions so slow and deliberate. EJ never really noticed the sounds Est's body made before, not usually.
The longer they sat there, drowning pleasantly in one another, the more of Est's sounds Esper James began to pick out. The servos were one thing, sure, but then... Then there was the gentle rush of nutrifluid through her veins, the medicated slurry of it all flowing through thin, branching pathways no longer organic in nature. Further still, there was the subtle wetness of her muscles filling with the nutrifluid, swelling and expelling the old fluid as they flexed and strained to hug Esthrielle's lovers.
EJ sighed, closing her eyes, focusing on the sounds. She could feel, ever so distantly, her lover's heartbeat - not so directly, but through the blood which rushed through Esthrielle's veins. Every beat pumped the vital essence through her body... and alongside the drumbeat march of her heart, muffled breaths were made by yet-natural lungs. Or, presumably natural. They didn't sound too different from organic lungs, at least.
Esthrielle began to truly simmer down, then, her pulse diminishing and her blood no longer pumping so hot and heavy. It was good, to know she was getting a grip - to know that she was able to find solace in Esper James and Purity, and use that solace to stabilize herself. Now, let's only hope that she could hold to that for the rest of the evening... all the way up until the trio laid down for bed, and they could once again gather Est up in their arms and squeeze that sadness free like a juiced fruit.
Silence, and the sound of breathing and bodies, reigned. It reigned for an indefinite amount of time, because none of them felt the need to keep track - keeping track of such things was useless, and vain. It would have degraded what would otherwise be a beautiful moment of silent love and solidarity between the three ladies. Esper James was not about to go and fuck up a good thing like this, not on purpose at the very least.
It often felt like their love for one another was all they truly had - or so EJ found herself considering, time and time again. From the moment they had decided to walk this path as one, they had come back to one another's embrace and words of consolation like a second home, ever so familiar and ever so comforting. It was a thought and feeling that Esper James returned to time and time again, always allowing herself to linger on the way she felt around the other two women. It never felt like it got old... never felt anything other than new, and fresh, and revitalizing. She never wanted that feeling to wear away into the dull warmth of normalcy.
Not that she never wanted her love to be 'normal'; no, rather, she never wanted it to be something she could take for granted, even on accident. It always seemed so normal, she thought, as an outsider looking in... seeing relationships wherein the partners involved seemed to grow too accustomed to what they had, and no longer be able to revel in what should have been thrilling and euphoric.
Men who didn't swoon when their partner kissed them goodbye in the morning... Women who saw it was expected for their hands to be held so that they might be safe when crossing the street... Lovers buying things for one another and only being properly delighted as a performative measure, not as a genuine reaction made from love or enthusiasm. It blended into plenty of television and other media, as well - the idea that love should be deserved and written off as a fact of life, rather than a privilege; rather than as an ecstasy.
It was true - Esper James wasn't exactly ecstatic in this exact moment; her chest was pressed to Esthrielle's back, her arms were about the other woman, and her face was nestled into Est's neck. It was phenomenal, to be able to touch someone in those affectionate, amorous ways both openly and without worry or trepidation. It was lovely to love. It wasn't thrilling, though, but that was okay, thought the gay ghoul girlthing. Even if love could yet be thrilling, it needn't always be thrilling. It remained ever so much more special in those moments when it was allowed to be thrilling, in those cases.
Finally, Esper James broke that silence that hung over them like a thick, woolen blanket. She pulled her head back naught but a few inches, now whispering directly into Est's collarbone - it was so silent in the room that she need not fight to be heard, and being able to whisper her feelings made them feel that much more impactful. At least, it did in her mind. Whatever. She was a dramatic bitch sometimes. Shut up.
"Mmmnh... Well, Est... We love you. It may have been so many years without us, so very many... but now that we're together, we'll fight hard to ensure we never find ourselves apart ever again. It's like they say, you know? About, 'where've you been all my life'? We were in the UNAC, haha! And now..."
Her arms slithered that much further around Esthrielle's warm, biological midsection, soft ghoulish arms wrapping even more tightly about the other woman's toned midriff. EJ buried her face back into Est's body, reveling softly and sweetly in the warmth that the Wayward provided; she drank it in for a few moments before continuing her thought, the silence thankfully lingering in the interim. Purity and Est had waited patiently.
"...now, we're right here..." The tone of her voice did its best to imply there was no extension of the thought, despite the way EJ trailed off even as the 'here' drifted from her lips. She gave Est another squeeze, trying by all accounts to press her entire body into Est's with enough vigor as to join them on a molecular level. Sometimes EJ figured that was exactly what would have fixed her - to be able to reach singularity with one of the women who had done oh so very much for her.
It would have made the sex a little weird, but honestly? A reasonable sacrifice.
Esper James was less entranced by the sex than by the way it made her feel, anyways: the acceptance, the validation, the closeness with those who she entrusted her own body with (and who entrusted her with theirs, in turn). Like, sure, it was fun, but it was better for being fun; the fun wasn't the entire, and only, appeal. But, enough about that! She wasn't even having sex right now!
Well, Est's butt was pressed up to EJ's loins... And they were on the bed already... but, no! Bad EJ! Down, girl! She wished briefly that there was a spritz bottle nearby, if only so that she could spritz herself in the face as some sort of punitive action. She wasn't sure Purity or Est would have understood it, but it would've been for EJ's own benefit! Sometimes it was ok to recreate a niche internet joke for one's personal joy, even if the joke was particularly specific or perhaps a little humiliating!
Est drew in a long, rattling breath as she allowed Esper James's words to truly sink in. The sinking in only made them even more meaningful, it seemed; they marinated in their own emotion, and soon, Est found herself trembling as the weight of what Esper James had said was fully realized. They would try their damnedest to never be apart - regardless of what came of it. Esthrielle, a woman who had never really had anyone or anything to lean on other than oft-absent Luca, had people who cared for her.
People who wanted her to succeed... to live life to its fullest, and find joy in that same living. What a magical concept. No more tears, though there was a notable whimper and shake that came from the Wayward; Purity responded too, then, though nonverbally. She simply adjusted her arms to gather Esper James up, too, and pulled the two smaller women into her loving embrace with a tender expression.
Est and EJ allowed themselves to be drawn in without a struggle or fuss; this was exactly what they wanted, anyways, and so they were only receiving more of what they felt blessed to attain anyhow. EJ sucked in a long gulp of air through wide jaws, yawning then... and shutting her eyes. They had been taking so many naps recently, hadn't they? But, in a way, a nap was yet an entire sort of activity when it was taken with a lover. It was simply another way to spend time together, and with the added benefit of being relaxing.
Fuck it. Nap time. Hopefully tomorrow would be as sweet and tranquil.