ph_logs | [OPEN & CLOSED] May Catch-All

There's an affectionate joke she could make about comparative weight and Ripley's resemblance to a beanpole, but it doesn't survive past the touch of skin to skin. CT exhales in place of words and her eyes fall shut, head rested heavy on the pillow between it and her arms.

Only the light from the desk lamp casts its rays over the room, illuminating it and casting shadows in equal measure.

The weight over her, the pressure that dips the bed either side, it oddly comforting in and of itself. A presence beyond the darkness behind her eyelids. How long, really, since she shared space with someone? More than a fleeting moment or three. The house is always empty except for passing moments of company and even that's not the same, not really. Somehow this feels... closer. Closer than she remembers feeling in a long time.

Her back is an unexplored territory of smooth skin interrupted only in two places by knots of scar tissue—the pock of an old bullet-hole on the lower left, a neatly healed slash low between her shoulder blades. Old, unimportant. Injuries from the line of duty.

And beneath them, muscles finally remembering how to release the tension tying them together.

She can't be certain if the breathing coming from the room is from her own two lungs, the person's beneath her or from the room itself. It's the least important thing to her now, with such a large swath of skin at her fingertips. Land-area to explore. Mysteries to survey. Scars like ancient alien words etched in stone, and she, tasked to decipher them.

Like a true explorer, Ripley grieves the fact she has no little black book to take notes in. She'll have to memorize. She's good at that, too.

Her palms press flat against CT's back, ghosting up and down the entirety as if to get a feel for the area first. The scar tissue is rough and raised against her thumbs and she stops at them, interested in the mundane. One has to be, living in such a bleached society. She has so few scars herself, making them of particular interest.

She considers talking. About what, she hasn't decided. But the quiet feels right for this hour, and so she refrains. She lifts CT's shirt out of the way, bunched at her shoulders, and gets to work.

Mostly there is quiet, the easy breathing of someone finally, finally letting go of some of that pressure-cooker determination to focus, to work work work. But, here in the privacy of this one space she almost calls her own, CT is less shy about the quiet moans that sometimes slip past relaxed lips as Ripley's hands do their work. It feels good.

(When was the last time she trusted someone to have her so vulnerable and not do any harm? Even with friends, it's hard to leave your back unguarded. It doesn't even feel like a consideration, now.)

She could say something. Tease, or compliment, or thank her. She doesn't. There's just their breathing, and the pleased little sounds as her nerves light up with long-forgotten sensations.

Ripley makes a mental addendum. When she thought she'd never make it 'this' far, she realizes this is what she'd meant; the person beneath her not simply yielding, but coming undone under her hands. To find it actually working is a surprise. CT's arm-muffled moans, like a pleasant reward. Ripley chews her lip to keep away a grin she wouldn't be able to see anyway. Feels her palms burn where nerves turn to pride or something else entirely.

Every so often she'll ask (quietly so as not to disturb the inferred rules of night-time) 'too hard?' or 'there?'. She catches knots at CT's neck. Ones that run between her shoulder blades and down the length of her spine, the entirety of her overworked either by war or paperwork. She kneads them between her fingers. Presses hard with the heel of her palm, responding to noise with action.

In her mind she catalogs each of them. Scars, too, and moles. Evidence of happenings or had from birth. All of them apart of a person she's becoming quite fond of, although she may not yet recognize its scope.

For now, satisfaction and focus ricochet one off the other.

Most of the time she doesn't even answer the questions with words, just a nod or shake of her head or vague, affirmative sound. Ripley follows every cue, listening to CT's voice and body alike, and CT unwinds like a spool against the sheets.

She didn't expect to be here, either. Doesn't quite know when this became possible, when she softened enough that this could work. That she could be lured away from her stubborn, lonely desk-side vigil like this, away from the rigidity and routine to lie here and let it go. At least for a little while.

More soft noises of quiet pleasure escape as she focuses on the feel of Ripley's hands, of long, work-worn fingers and firm palms as they roam. So much skin to explore (and so much still uncharted).

Ripley shifts her weight down to meet untouched skin. So much of it, she realizes, that she could spend the entirety of that morning committing softness to memory. Driven beyond the precipice of sleep in her mad determination to feel and see all that she's entrusted with. (For when will an opportunity like this arise again?)

The absence of light does strange things to her senses. Each is heightened to make up for lost sight, touch chief among them. Obliging tactility, she slots her thumbs against dimples above CT's hips and skates aside to her waist, where she finds soft curves and folds.

She works gently at knots and kneads away tension until her hands ache and the moon begins to sink from its peak in the blue-black sky.

Ripley leans down, her cheek pressed lightly to CT's shoulder blade. "How'd I do?"

CT cracks open an eye to glance back at Ripley in her periphery, still half-lidded but enough to see the shape of her there. "Mm. You did good. Amazing, actually."

The last two words come out on a sigh, breathy and at ease. There's a pleasant warmth beneath her skin and a dull, comfortable tingle where the tension has melted away. She's not sure she remembers the last time she felt like this. Has to have been years, at least.

Carefully, not wanting to prompt Ripley to slide away, she moves to roll over so she's looking up at her instead. The pushed-up shirt bunches under her chest, exposing the long horizontal scar across her abdomen and the scattered others, like the entrance wound to match the gunshot at her back.

"...thank you, Ellen. I probably did need this."

It feels good, a job well done. Always has. The mundanity commercial space pilots subject themselves to never dulled the satisfaction of finally docking. Knowing she'd put her skills to good use and feeling warmth bloom in her chest as a result.

That warmth pales in comparison to what she feels now; incandescent pride at having made another person feel good.

(How could she have been so stupid? Convinced herself that perfunctory joy was all she'd ever experience? All she'd be worth? Eons of time spent asleep in her cryo-pod dreaming of people and voices and memories of touch, from individuals she knew and didn't know and would never meet, and never did she dream of work. Never. It was always people.)

Lifting her own weight, Ripley gives CT the space to turn onto her back. To stare up at her through half-lidded eyes, still drunk on whatever endorphins still fizzle in her brain and through her muscles.

"Sure." She grins. "You keep at that paperwork and I'll have no choice but to do my due diligence here. You can pay me back by letting me borrow some of your books."

Ripley settles onto CT's hips, legs folded on either side of her. Looking eager to oblige the new hills and valleys at her fingertips, and not at all ignorant to her half-exposed chest.

Of all these things, she studies the scar first. Remembers the scent of iron and hiss of pressurized air and foam; red and white smeared on uniforms; Connecticut's agonized war-cry and Connie's tears after all was said and done. The scar is rough and raised under her fingers.

She feels so far away, sitting up like this.

(The solution is easy— only she hopes it isn't too presumptuous.)

Ripley lays her weight on top of her, chin resting at the base of CT's sternum to have a closer look.

Edited 2025-05-18 05:12 (UTC)

Goosebumps raise around the touch, breathing fluttering underneath. Few have seen that second wound, hidden so much more easily than the long edge of the scar that stretches up across her sternum. Only those from the nightmares may realise she was struck twice at all, watching her clutch desperately at the one injury she could reach. And only Ripley got hands-on.

Such a contrast, between burning foam and brushing fingertips.

Ripley shifts, and settles, a comforting weight that she never once considers extracting herself from beneath. A smile spreads across her lips and she murmurs a simple, yet full, "Hi," as she looks down at her, resting where she is.

It only feels natural for her hand to come up to rest at the back of Ripley's head, rather than stay laying loose at her side. Voluminous curls erupt between her fingers, unwilling to be contained but soft against her skin.

A moment's peace, stretching on, belonging to no one else but them. No leadership hanging over their heads, casting long shadows and monopolising even the quiet moments in-between with the knowledge that there are other things to be done, that your time always, always belongs to them in the end. Minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years bought out for promises that would never be fulfilled.

Her office feels a thousand miles away. For once, Connie isn't in a rush to drag it closer.

Shifting comes with immediate reward; the steady heartbeat emanating from inside Connie's chest, able to be enjoyed properly now. Ba-dum, ba-dum; evidence of life.

There are days— some spent in the mines, others sipping coffee or obliging the affectionate whims of her pet— where Efrain's words barb Ellen unexpectedly.

We give you a reprieve, allow you to think life here is worth living, only to crush you again. And again. And again. And again.

Everything that happens here is an illusion designed to give you something worth losing, so that we can take it from you.

She's a sensible woman, she knows it. Logical, quick-thinking, with an eye for the untrustworthy. But if presented with reality and fabrication, she has to wonder if, at all, she could tell the difference. Has been punished once already for believing the guise of a goddamned robot, and now finds her confidence in these things shattered.

Now, listening to a beat that sounds real and touching skin with all the physiological sensibilities skin should have— scars which present every bit of evidence that this is a person who has lived, and continues to live here— she wants so desperately to believe it. Does believe it, and can only hope it won't come crashing round her.

Ba-dum, ba-dum. "Hi," she says, grin lilting her voice. Head rolling against the hand which rests there. She wouldn't typically allow herself to be touched in such a way, her hair acting as the anchor Synthetic hands used to grab and throw. Connie's couldn't be less objectionable.

Ripley's palm splays flat against the space just under her breast. Her opposite continues tracing idle lines against scar tissue.

"This is nice," pitched quieter than her hello, as if saying the words out loud will make her vanish. "Thank you for letting me stay."

Ripley is warm and real, all limbs and hair, steady hands and warm voice. Safe. Familiar, by now, and only getting more so by the day. Connie thinks she'd like to find out just how much more of Ellen Ripley she can become familiar with, over time—a thought that rises only to be pushed down just as quickly with CT's heart beating a little faster in her chest.

She twirls a curl around her fingertip.

"Mm. Thank you for taking me home."

It's not about the place, really. Most days this room feels no more her own than the compact living pods on the Charon, or any of the dozen bases they stopped at. Some days, good days, it feels closer to the Invention, back in the time when the team was a team and the ship was alive with more than lies. Tonight it feels like home, like the tight little room that was her life until the barracks and like the maze of streets and platforms outside with all the little places you could squirrel away to be alone together.

Just tonight.

...it is nice. It really is. Yet an attempt to echo the words stalls on her tongue—just a sound at the back of her throat—feeling somehow lacking. Her teeth pull at her lower lip, worrying at it like that will somehow make the words form in the space between.

You are not doing this right now, she tells herself before the thought has time to fully form. All it takes to keep it splitting are the fingers at her scalp and the soft weight beneath her and soon her mind is full of paperwork with no place to call home.

"It's not a long walk. I don't mind."

The words come somewhat automatically, giving her the in to fuss with her thoughts. Jam them into spaces they don't belong.

You don't want to ruin things, right? Right. That's right. And making moves without thinking about them first— without fully realizing their consequences— is a perfect way to do just that. She'll be up out of bed, wrestling her coveralls back on with no one else to blame but herself as she plunges into the early morning to go home.

You're not doing this.

But she wants to.

You're not.

Ripley's hand passes between her breasts, up the wide scar to burrow into her hair. There's a reason she's here, right? That she's allowed to be in the space her friend covets so closely? She hasn't said anything, though. Does she need to?

Fuck it.

Scooting up, Ripley props herself on either elbow, close enough now to see her own lashes flutter in the reflection of Connie's. This could be a giant mistake, but she doesn't care. Not right now, at least. If need be she'll pick up the pieces later.

The space between them is insignificant.

She bridges it, catching Connie's lips between her own.

Connie's eyes follow Ellen's every motion, big and small. The slide of her hand, how she pushes herself up on her arms, microexpressions flickering across her face as she resolves to do... something. Connie studies it all. With her head pressed into the hand in her hair and her pupils blown wide only in part because of the dim light, she studies it all, right down to the final, subtle parting of her lips before—

Oh.

The contact draws a gasp out of her, a flash of surprise that perhaps shouldn't be surprise at all but it is, in the moment that's exactly what it is. Surprise and uncertainty and oh, wow, I want this all in one complicated bundle of emotion that a gasp can hardly hope to convey. Fingers curl amongst curls before she even remembers how to think, how to react.

And then she does, react.

She surges up as she urges Ripley down, that hand in her hair joined by the other tugging at the front of her tank. Kisses back with all the fervour of something being released, erupting from the crack in its prison, triumphant and free. CT be damned—Connie grasps at Ellen and doesn't seem in a rush to let go.

Edited 2025-05-18 20:32 (UTC)

In the short duration it takes for Connie's mind to kick into gear, Ellen is convinced she's doomed herself. Switched every wrong dial on the control panel in her mind, rearing off course to collide with the nearest celestial body. A cacophony of pressurized gas fills the space between panic. 'Prepare for impact. Prepare for impact'; MUTHUR's unhelpful warning—

Then, a jerk at her tank, pulling her in. Opposite momentum matched force-for-force.

Thank fucking God.

Ellen's mouth falls open, groaning her relief. She cups Connie's face in either hand to tip her chin upward, angling her, working herself to half-sitting. Breaks for air, considers saying something, anything, then drags Connie's mouth to her's again. There are words in this, she thinks. Doesn't know what exactly the words are and maybe she doesn't need to.

She holds her like she's going to vanish. Indecisive with where she'd like to place her hands and so places them everywhere. Face, neck, shoulders. Connie's skin burns.

Laughter erupts in the moments between like a pressure valve releasing, as alive as it is breathless even when smothered by eager lips. Every touch is another fire lit beneath her skin and she feels incandescent, like she could cast the whole room in light.

She releases Ellen's shirt only to cup her head, fingers threaded through the crown of wild curls, tender and desperate at once where they hold her there. Where Ellen's hands roam, hers linger, like if she loses focus for even a moment this will be over and this whole blissful evening will turn out to be some cruel dream she has to wake up from. It feels like it, like she's floating on high and, surely, must have to come down, no matter how much she doesn't want to. Fuck, she doesn't want to.

Even parting again for air feels so fundamentally unfair and she retreats only so far as she has to, gasping for breath so close she can feel Ellen's own, warm against her already-hot face.

"Ellen—" she pants, chest heaving, but finds no other words that come freely.

Her own name drops like a weight from Connie's mouth. Heady, desperate. A sentence will full meaning despite only being one word. She's quick to answer in kind; "Connie—", a plea without knowing the reason. To stay close. Come closer. Don't stop. Don't stop.

She couldn't stray far even if she wanted to. Not with Connie holding her face firm between her hands, controlling their rhythm.

Take it, she wants to say. I don't need it. I'll give it to you.

I trust you.

What use does she have for control, when she could so easily pass it off to Connecticut?

A hand at the small of Connie's back brings her closer, frantic to close the wide gap which separates them. One that, in reality, doesn't exist at all. And she keeps on like this— fighting to gain minuscule ground— until she's crushed her breasts to Connie's and usurped her space completely.

Close as close can be and closer yet, every contour of their bodies pressed into the other, breast to breast and heart to heart. Connie shivers at the sound of her name—her name—on Ellen's lips, at the feeling in it, the want, the trust. She kisses her again and tastes it there, too, vibrant and real on her tongue.

A leg hooked around her partner's hip gives her all the leverage she needs to flip them, to roll their bodies together until Ellen's back is pressed into the mattress and Connie is atop her, still claiming the same space as her own, as if trying to prove that two people really can share the same atoms. Straddling her waist, knees flush against her sides and digging heavy divots into the bed, chest still heaving between and against them. Every point of contact a molten spark.

One hand finds the hem of her tank and slides beneath to feel the skin against her fingertips, over the planes of Ellen's waist and stomach and ribs.

The quickness that mattress turns to ceiling draws a laugh from Ellen's throat. She settles. Jolts against Connie's hands, iron brands where they palm her cold skin, and arches up to meet them, pressing insistently.

If she had the space to think— and she doesn't, at least not coherently— Ripley might have been embarrassed at how easily she unravels under her partner— like she's never been touched. Her legs fall open. Her hands scrabble at her shoulders. How long has it been? Have her nerves really gone stupid, or had she ejected the need for affection from her mind on purpose, only now remembering? It doesn't matter. Shut up.

Ellen draws herself back enough to sputter the word, "Off?", fingers threading in her own shirt.

"Off," Connie echoes, material already bunching against her forearm where it slides up beneath it. She only pushes it up, up, up until it catches on the inevitable barrier of Ellen's arms before impatience wins out and she leaves finishing or not finishing the job to her. Instead, her scarred palm and nimble fingers slide back down the exposed skin, between her breasts and down her stomach, before retreating entirely.

Not far, though. Only as far as her own blouse, deftly releasing another run of buttons until only the bottom few are left holding on—more than enough to free her own breasts from their struggling confinement. She doesn't bother with the rest, there's no point and she sees no use in wasting the time.

When she presses back down against Ellen and claims her lips again, it's skin-to-skin.

Ellen, every bit as impatient, wrenches her shirt free over her head and tosses it clear across the room. One less layer to worry about. One less hinderance to get in their way. Cool air comes as an unwanted shock— no, an affront to the warmth she'd basked in seconds before. She makes a frustrated sound.

Her agony is shortly lived— thank God— as Connie plucks her own buttons undone. Ellen works the blouse down her shoulders until it bunches at her waist, breasts freed and warm as she comes crashing down upon her again.

A sigh.

"Connie—"

Can't help herself, not with the heat in her stomach blooming outwards.

Lips fall obediently open, tongue chasing— starved— against teeth. Lets the momentum collapse downward where she tracks kisses along Connie's neck. Long, slender legs are the tool to beckon her hip-to-hip.

Edited 2025-05-19 16:47 (UTC)

Her neck arcs to the side, exposes as much of the warm brown skin to Ellen as she can, each kiss another shot of delight. Low, pleased sounds slip past parted lips and she basks in the feeling for a moment, in the heat between them and the subtle friction of skin against skin. Where Connie is all compact curves, soft fat over soft muscle, Ellen is all long, lean limbs, tall and slender. Firm against soft, cushioned comfortably by the other, melting into one another, fitting together with ease.

It's all the things that Connie didn't realise she wanted so very badly. The world beyond the room feels far away, like they've sequestered themselves away in a whole other pocket universe just for this, just for them.

She settles readily between Ellen's legs, grasping at her hips over the material of her trousers, thumbs pressing where hip meets leg. A little repositioning and she gets her thigh between Ellen's own, pressing up just so.

"Fuck—"

The thigh puzzled between her legs slams the door in the face of any worry she might have had; what this will mean for them afterward, if it means anything at all, and if it doesn't, how things might change and what words should she use to brooch the topic if she ever does— doesn't matter. Worries evaporate into a space dust equivalent while she's left to her own devices, rolling her hips mindlessly. At the mercy of Connie's hands. Crescent moons mark her skin where nails press. She returns the favor, sucking a plum-colored mark into her neck. Oops.

Very few solid thoughts remain after the door's been shut. Obscenities make up most of them. You're good at this, and don't you dare stop fight tooth and nail for her attention.

Ellen's hands find her partner's face, bringing her close so that she might catch her lip between her teeth.

There's a twinkle in Connie's eye, brighter than ever, mischief and delight and satisfaction. The dull throb of the mark at her throat, the faint sting of nails digging into skin—Ellen's teeth tug her lip and a laugh out out of her at the same time, leaving a smile behind in their wake. Her tongue flicks out over the indents left behind.

"Yes, Ellen?"

Her thigh grinds a firm, steady rhythm of pressure, complementing the roll of Ellen's hips rather than try to dictate it. Even through the layers of fabric she can feel the heat of her. She has no intention of stopping.

"Did you want something?"

Her voice is low even behind her crooked little smirk, as if even in this space she has to make sure it's for Ellen's ears only. This moment is theirs, it's all theirs, and she'll be damned if she thinks outside of it until she has to. Even the consequences can wait.

One hand abandons her hip to instead palm at her breast.

She doesn't anticipate how rapidly pleasure can turn to torture until the moment Connie's expression changes. Promises escalation and situates it just beyond her reach. Ellen's pupils expand, lids pulled wide in response to the other's harmless audacity. And butting intermittently between shock, gasps at the steady pressure.

"You're cruel—" She groans, all smiles. Delighted and furious and hungry, so goddamn hungry she can't think of anything beyond Connie's fingers splitting her. Needs her now. (She always was rather impatient, wasn't she?)

A flash of heat in her face as a hand cups her and suddenly the world blurs. Ellen vaults into the touch. Red dusts from her cheeks to the very tips of her ears.

"Need me to say it?" That's fine, she has no qualms being honest. Candor has always gotten her far. "Fuck me."

Then, because Connie has a special way of making her feel sweet, "Please."

The twinkle brightens, a whole array of stars in the dark of her eyes. She hovers over Ellen's face, hair hanging like a curtain, and hums. Like she's thinking, as she idly rolls her thumb over a nipple. "Well, since you asked so nicely..."

Without so much as bothering to check for buttons to unfasten, fingers dip below her waistband and slip down, down, down beneath the material between them until she can feel Ellen's arousal against her skin. Feels— gratified, a little spark of pride that she's got her so worked up. She slides her fingerpads through the evidence, idle and almost teasing, before she finally presses inside her. Two deft digits, burying into Ellen and curling.

Just the feeling lights a fresh fire under the need burning low in her own stomach. Her own skin is flushed, scars standing starker where the colour can't reach.

She breathes, still twinkling: "Is this what you want?"

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nsfw from here on out

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