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The first time she calls him Christopher, it's completely accidental. She doesn't use it as leverage, doesn't use it to intensify intimacy; it just slips out in a hushed groan while Samuels' fingers dig into the meat of her back.
It's been a compounding problem over this whole ordeal- alongside the strength she's been gaining from dragging herself around, everything is starting to seize. The left side of her neck has been knotted for days, twinging painfully every time she turns her head too far. The center of her shoulders feel like a brick is rammed there, and she's pulled something down her inner thigh, layering under the wicked bruise that had shown up overnight.
When she starts limping, she knows she can't hide it from him anymore. He'd been constantly low key worrying about her - 'Amanda are you cold, Amanda are you hungry. Amanda. Amanda. ' Eventually she'd snapped at him, letting him know that trust me I'll let you know when I need something. She'd regretted the tone instantly, but refused to back down. This time, when he lays his palm over her shoulder and stays there until she turns to acknowledge his concerned stare, she knows she can't just shrug him off.
Busted.
She barely opens her mouth to work out the quickest "I'm fine, really." In the world. She gets half way through inhaling before Samuels digs the first bits of his fingers in, barely below her skin. She lets the breath out in a low groan.
It's euphoric.
"Oohh, fuck." She breathes, shoulders slumping instantly at the promise of release. She can almost hear his smile behind her, and she wants to simultaneously laugh and elbow him in the stomach.
"Is this all right..?" He mumbles by way of reply, shifting to sit behind her, his left hand finding it's way to her other shoulder and resting there questioningly.
"Yes-- yeah, God yeah just-- be nice, I'm really sore." Her head slumps down to her chest in defeat, her head twisting gently in a vain attempt to crack her neck.
A hairs-breath from being pressed against her back, Samuels hums pleasantly.
It was good to finally show her something he was good at.
Admittedly, he had been useful almost constantly since being brought back online; hacking terminals and generally muscling his way through things. Nothing out of the ordinary for him; he was used to being another tool on the team, someone to handle the boring or unethical jobs no one else wants to do. Things people assume he's good at. Built for.
But this? This was finesse. This was gentle calculation, dexterous pressure. Smashing his way through doors was one thing, calculating muscle tension and appropriate pressure levels to a T was a completely different playing field.
Samuels struggles to keep the wide smile that creeps across his features under control, ducking his head shyly.
He moves his hands across her shoulders again, asserting very delicate pressure along the surface of his palms and mentally charting where the resistance of tension is, where her body fights back against him. He files it away and makes a map of it to draw from, the numbers crunching at lightning speeds as he preemptively plans out his movements, the pressures exerted, the touches that will be soft and soothing, the touches that will knead away the knots in her tissue.
She shudders under his touch and it is intoxicating.
Ripley's done so much for them, he muses. After he'd sought her out, offered her a seat on the Torrens... She's been the one stitching Sevastopol back together in vain, busting them out of situation after situation. He owes her more than just his life, whatever that might be worth.
"Uh-- hey, should I..?" She perks up slightly, tugging at the collar of her coveralls, "That's cool?"
"Yes please." He keeps his tone measured and moves away from her to give her room to shrug out of the top of her mechanics' coveralls. Twist right leg, lift, twist counter-clockwise, set. Relax. She keeps going after her coveralls, peeling off the denim shirt as well, leaving only her spaghetti-strap black tank top and bra. Her body is steaming gently when he leans into her again, and she sighs almost aggressively when he resumes light pressure.
He finds himself thoroughly enjoying the feedback, and refuses to dampen his elation.
With smooth, fluid strokes he brings his palms sweeping in from the edges of her shoulders and up, cupping his fingers around the cords of her neck muscles and kneading them tenderly. He begins with working the endorphins out of the muscles with ginger, broad pressure before focusing in on the tighter knots, grinding his thumb into the one on her neck until he can feel the muscle shivering beneath him.
Ripley cries out and bites the sound off immediately with gritted teeth, her left arm momentarily going limp.
Samuels lets up the instant the knot shudders and releases under his thumb, smoothing out the surrounding muscles to prevent them from tightening back up. She groans and twists her neck under his hands, her spine giving up a loud, satisfyingly painful pop.
She huffs and cracks the joints the other way, leaning back into his hands.
He meets her with thumbs along her spine, pressing alternating points down her back, eyes flickering over the stretch of skin and fabric and muscle as she leaned forward with his pressure to expose farther down. He hovers for a moment at the connection of her lowest ribs, pushing up into the pocket of muscles gathered there that he knows carries much of the female upper body weight. She shudders aggressively, inhaling sharply to staunch it.
"Fffuck, holy shit, _Christopher_." She all but moans, leaning forward until her forehead presses against her knees.
He can't keep his hands from freezing around her lower back, fingertips pressed into rib creases, palms raised.
Was he processing extremely loudly, or was that just him?
She lifts her head up after his stutter spans more than a breath. "That is your name, in your file. On the charts.... -- I can not, if you'd prefer. You're the only one that calls me Amanda. Like, ever."
"No. It is fine, I just--" he laughs and licks his lips, though it's not much more than a shake and a break in speech. "I'm not accustomed to it, I suppose. It sounds nice when you-- say it."
He punctuates how fine he is by jolting his hands back into motion, dragging up along her spine and branching into a tree shape with splayed fingers across her shoulder blades.
"Mmm." She replies intelligently, melting back into his touch. Her breathing is starting to come easier, now, and he hopes it's due to some of the muscle elasticity returning to her core.
He begins dragging his nails along the skin of her shoulders, calculating perfectly calibrated pressure to inflict just below the threshold of pain. When she flexes in response he sweeps down again, scratches of leaves and branches melding into the pressure of the trunk, spreading into the thick pressure of roots along the pant line of her lower back.
"Stretch around, see if anything hurts more than before I started." He grinds his palms into the center of her shoulders with finality, returning to gently rest his palms across her shoulder blades. He moves out of her way when she twists her arms up and stretches them over her head, flexing her rotator cuff and humming with satisfaction.
"I feel amazing. Really-- I haven't felt this good since I woke up on the Torrens."
This gets a smile out of him. "I've brought you back to hyper sleep jet-lag, then?" He quips, and she laughs; actually laughs, bright and loud.
Samuels beams.
Ripley moves to stand and sucks in a sharp breath, twisting against the dirty laminate of the bunker to compensate. Samuels puts out a hand to steady her, brows knitting with concern.
"Amanda."
"Sorry. I'm fine, I'm just."
He cocks his head gently, eyebrows raised. "Would you like me to attempt to fix it?"
She looks him up and down, raising her eyebrows to match his. His face does something she can't quite interpret.
"Purely professional, Ripley."
"I'm worried you had to clarify that, Samuels."
"You seemed distressed by the offer. I can assure you it will be a routine medical procedure. Logically speaking, having your mobility compromised is not in the best interest for either of us."
"I am so far from being concerned you're trying to feel me up, holy shit. I'm just not sure my dignity can handle me shouting and squirming while getting my thigh rubbed."
The edges of his mouth quiver, but remain placid.
"The likeliness of anyone having the opportunity to review my memories is very slim."
"Review-- ok now that could have remain unsaid, a lot."
This pulls an actual frown out of him, though it's still soft. His hand hasn't moved from her thigh.
"You don't think maybe I'm embarrassed of losing my shit in front of you?" She turns to face him fully, grunting in pain as she settles down to sit on her ankles.
"It would not be... My first assumption, no. My opinions of people do not tend to matter to them as much in comparison to... Others'."
"You're not a fucking appliance, Chris, my god. What do they teach you at the labs before they ship you out? You're the only decent living thing I've had contact with in what feels like ages, your opinions matter. I have to look you in the eye afterwards, at any rate."
"Would you?"
She scrunches her face slightly, "Would I what?"
"Be able to look me in the eye. After intimacy." His expression has gone almost slack, tranquil; but there was a hungry brightness in his eyes, in his voice. She recognizes it and makes the logical jump startlingly fast. He's learning.
"Depends...? Uh. Wow, ok, if I just kind of turned into a puddle of moan while you weren't actually doing anything _intimate_, yeah. That's embarrassing as fuck. If we're actively like-- then no, I mean you've probably got enough inhibitors that I'd have to initiate everything anyways. At least, I'm assuming that's why you're just kind of--" She gestures loosely to the hand on her thigh, which still hasn't moved or responded at all.
The turn in conversation was unsettling if she took a step back, but the hunger for knowledge intrigued her, and she figured this was probably the only area she could actually _teach_ a synthetic something.
"I need explicit permission to lay hand on you, yes."
"Even for 'purely professional'?"
"You've shown enough discomfort to trigger my inhibitors, so yes."
Ripley is delighted to learn that he was rapt with attention when learning something, but shifted to an annoyed impatience when she turned the questions on him.
"Sorry."
"Don't be. It's.. Normal. For me."
She hums and examines the starkness of his skin against her boiler suit, eyes picking out the details in the cracks of the loose skin around his knuckles, the soft hairs on his fingers. The cracks in his fingernails, and the dirt under them.
"You have full permission, either way. With everything and anything-- I don't really want to get caught up on 'Can I's if I get messed up-- just you know. Use your intuition and stop if I ask you to." She punctuates it with a shrug, picking at her pant legs.
Samuels' hand moves almost immediately in response, fingertips and thumb digging in very gently just above her knee. She sucks in her breath between clenched teeth. When he moves along her thigh and digs his thumb in her leg spasms and she can't keep the shout behind her teeth.
"Shitfuck!" She hisses, gabbing his shoulder and slumping to press the top of her head into his chest. He shifts to compensate, rolling the palm of his hand in circles across her leg. It hurts so bad it makes her shudder, and she grips her nails into his jacket and lets out a low groan.
"I'm very sorry, Amanda. Should I stop?" His voice is much lower now that she's pressing into him.
"No." She breathes, awkwardly staring down at his crotch. She shifts her face slightly to press her eyes into the fabric of his jacket. The pressure has switched to a pulling motion towards her knee and while it hurts, it also feels amazing. She wordlessly voices her approval and he shakes gently in what she assumes is a silent laugh.
"Has anyone told you you're cruel?" She mumbles at him, rubbing her face childishly against the fabric.
"Never. Quite the opposite, really."
"They're all wrong. You're secretly evil."
She can't see his blinding smile, but she hears it. "I'm very sorry you feel that way." His voice is brimming with thinly veiled laughter.
"Mm. I'm going to have to take this to your superiors, unfortunately. Put in a formal complaint."
His fingers dig again and she sighs. Slowly, the pain was being washed out by the wave of endorphins.
"I'll be sure to pass that along. It'll make an interesting incident report, to say the least."
"More interesting than this whole ordeal? Doubtful. It'll take you a month to write the report. Or like half a second. 'Mysterious black nightmare creature and shit seegson bots tried to kill us a lot, also there were psychos, please someone let A.Ripley have a god damn bath.' Tada."
"Well, I'm not sure why I'm even here, with such comprehensive assessments and applied literature so readily available."
She's smiling like an idiot, and for a moment she wonders when the last time she so thoroughly enjoyed herself was.
"To provide witty commentary, obviously."
"Affirmative, Ma'am, command accepted. Initiating Witty Commentary Protocol X43-Q."
Ripley actually all out laughs at this, all teeth and shaking shoulders, trying in vain to cover her mouth with her arm. When she meets his eyes hers are moist and sparkling. His are brighter than she'd ever seen them, matching his perfect smile.