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The night is cold. Faust feels her muscles contracting quickly—an autonomic response, signaling quite clearly that her jacket doesn't suffice as a blanket. She pushes herself off of her seat, standing up. She's gotten enough sleep as it is, but now she must wait the remaining five hours for the others to wake up. Only some of the sinners have company blankets draped over them. They did prepare enough originally in the case that the Mephistopheles was under maintenance, but a mishap earlier in the day involving a stray fire and some trash crab refuse caused half of them to be destroyed. Faust volunteered to go without, which was a calculated risk based on her natural susceptibility to cold. She wouldn't call it a weakness per se, but it is something that causes her more discomfort than others. Just in the same way that she can sleep three hours and finish her meals in a minute, Faust's body and habits can be a bit different. Much of it can be attributed to her omniscient brain's increased consumption of blood flow and energy, of course.
Perhaps she can generate some warmth through movement.
She pulls up the top of her turtleneck a bit and wraps her coat around herself. She walks out of the makeshift tent. (At least that much had survived the accident.) It's not enough. Her body shivers pitifully as she paces around quietly on the sandy boardwalk, trying to warm up, if only slowly. How difficult it is to think like this. If she had something warm, perhaps, then she could muse in peace. The difficulty carries a slight novelty to it, but otherwise she would prefer to be comfortable.
"Faust?" It's Outis's voice, quiet and gravelly.
She looks over at her, emerging from her tent. Outis looks tired, as she'd clearly been awakened by the sound of Faust's footsteps, even light as they had been. She too had decided not to accept a blanket, saying that it was a luxury she didn't have in the past regardless, and of course the Executive Manager absolutely must accept one, she simply insists . Well, it's true the fire atop Dante's head doesn't emit any heat.
"Are you all right? It's not even light out yet."
"Faust is cold," she says.
"Well, then you should've taken one of the blankets. How silly of you." Her voice has a light derision, though not malicious.
"It was a calculated risk. This was predicted well within parameters."
Outis shakes her head. "Well, regardless of your parameters... If you keep walking around like a headless chicken I'm not getting any sleep, so come over here, will you?"
"Okay." Faust walks over to her, as asked.
"You can be obedient when you want to be, huh? I never thought my standards would be so low," Outis mutters to herself, then continues: "Come on."
As suggested, Faust enters Outis's tent.
As would befit such a temporary lodging, there are no personal effects stored inside. Her kopis rests within arm's reach directly next to the thin, glorified towel used to keep about 85% of the sand off of their clothes while they sleep. Outis herself is dressed in a simple, utilitarian shirt and pants. Her dog tags glint in the thin moonlight. Given her background, Faust is not surprised that even the sound of her footsteps was enough to wake her. Such dangers in a military camp must have been severe.
Outis lies down on the sheet, then gestures to a spot near her. Faust lies down with her, again as suggested.
"There. More comfortable, isn't it?" Outis says, voice now a whisper, close to Faust's ear. She takes her jacket and lays it over the both of them. "Wow, you are cold. You've hardly any body heat."
She doesn't comment.
Faust doesn't bother to mention that she is done sleeping. Sitting like this, wrapped up in Outis's warm arms, Faust is reminded of that time in the mirror dungeon where her mind had lost its edge and she'd fallen prey to the influence of her EGO. Her memory of it is a blur, but she remembers faintly how a rush of foreign desperation and loneliness had slipped through a crack in her mental defenses. She looked at her paws and the thread and the nails jutting out of her torso and felt a terrible, powerful need to be loved. Here, she feels that there was a basis for that kind of emotion. Humanity's inherent desire to hold and be held by another. She feels a little animalistic attraction to the soft yet firm muscles she's pressed against and her lightly rugged, fox-like features.
Unlike her mild cold susceptibility, these kinds of animal desires have been a true weakness at times for Faust. No matter how much rationale and intelligence she could attempt to muster against it, she will still feel the pangs of hunger. To say she desired Outis would not be incorrect as a surface-level judgment. More precisely it was her body that desired her; It tormented her, tempted her to press her lips against her and hug her a little closer for just a bit more warmth. This struggle was in itself intellectually fascinating. Her deeper, more complex feelings have not caught up quite yet, leaving her with an interesting contrast of a strong physical attraction with slowly growing emotional attraction.
She ruminates on it, soaks in it. She does so for approximately ten minutes, before she pulls herself closer. Statistically Outis must have fallen asleep again given how sleepy she appeared, and so won't take notice of her. It's no disaster if she does, but it would be bothersome if she decided to poke fun at Faust's snuggling. She doesn't mind indulging her physical form at times. Much knowledge is best obtained and understood through action.
Once it's closer to working hours, the two of them are to oversee some maintenance on the Mephistopheles. Molar Boatworks should have the skill to modify the bus to the company's specifications, but to believe that it is infallible to all environmental factors is foolish and too arrogant even for Faust. For this purpose, they are always the earliest to wake. She knows that if someone like Rodion awoke in time to see the two of them bundled together like nested foxes in a den, there would be no end to inane teasing.
She runs a mental simulation of her comments.
Like two peas in a pod, huh, Faustie? I'm jealous~ How cute~ Oh, Faustie, you like older women? Haha, I'm kidding~
She throws the simulation away.
In any case most sinners loathe waking up early. Yi Sang would possibly rather remain unconscious for twenty or more hours a day, if given the choice. After Faust and Outis, the next earliest to rise is Ishmael, who spends her early hours on her own fastidious maintenance—double, triple, quadruple-checking her gear. She also spends quite a bit of time brushing her hair... for obvious reasons. That much she now skips with her worries over the next Bough, instead quintuple-checking and sextuple-checking… She wakes up on a very consistent schedule, so Faust can very safely stay where she is for another four hours if she so desires.
It's quite warm now, the ambient heat settling into her bones. Faust is comfortable. It would have been nicer to sleep here than on the cold sand on her lonesome. Looking at Outis's peaceful expression, perhaps she would be willing to allow Faust to stay here tomorrow night. It will take until the day after for the bus to be finished, after all.
Faust rests her head on Outis's chest. It's firm from her pectoral muscles, but that carries an appeal. No complaints.
Outis's face looks different while relaxed. Unmistakably she is an older woman with age lines, but her face is soft and jawline is a handsome slope. She smells faintly of soap: wood and honey. It was stronger yesterday after she left the boatworks' shower. She had slipped on her fatigues over her scars and laid down without tossing or turning. Faust prefers clean, crisp scents for herself, but the way Outis's sinks into her nose and throat like a whiskey is appealing, too.
What does Outis think of her? In the event Faust asked more of her, would she accept?
Well, based on Outis's prior records on her dossier she certainly would. Her susceptibility to beautiful women precedes her, and Faust is not only unmatched in genius but also unmatched in beauty. Yes, of course. In fact, she's sure that she ought to be dying to ask her first.
Faust would enjoy seeing Outis flustered and embarrassed, asking if she would mind spending the night.
Hmm. She already is spending the night, more or less. And Outis was entirely unaffected.
Well, perhaps she was just hiding it, or she was simply too tired. Perhaps when Outis wakes up, she'll panic, and exclaim how was it that Faust got here.
That would be amusing, although admittedly quite unlikely.
After several more hours of such thinking, Faust (reluctantly) crawls out and begins her day's responsibilities with an inexplicable warmth in her chest.
"How curious. Last night I had a dream about a fluffy white cat rubbing and nuzzling all over me."
"Hmm. Is that so?"
"Actually, I'm more of a dog person."
"Apologize to the cat."