Aftershave

<snip>
Jade was naturally walking a bit further away from him than she normally would, as Jamie looked on edge, ready to pounce at anything unexpected. Cass was in the medi-bay already, dealing with her nose-bleed when the door opened in front of Jamie.
He glanced at her, then a harder look as he walked in. A feral, predator like growl in the back of his throat, that sounded something mixed between a roar and a purr.
</snip>
Frowning, Cass scrunched up the bloodied tissue that she had been gingerly using to dab at her nose and nodded towards Jamie "What's with him?"
"Beats me" Jade shrugged as he prowled across the room towards where Cass was sitting on the end of one of the beds "He's been like this since he woke up"
"What the...?" Cass twisted to glare at Jamie as he circled around behind her, sniffing the air and making low growling noises at the back of his throat "Fuck off Rover"
Vaulting over the bed in a sudden rush of movement, Jamie landed in a crouch beside her dangling legs and sinuously uncoiled himself to rise upward, leaning intrusively into her personal space and making her start and recoil away from him.
"I said fuck off" she pushed him away with the fingertips of one hand, trying hard to ignore the sweaty stink of the man, still clad in his improvised loincloth, and the way his wildly staring eyes bored into hers.
"Jamie" Jade said firmly "Leave Cass alone and come over here so I can see to that arm of yours"
"Yeah" Cass interjected, still leaning away from him "What she said. Heel!"
Jamie threw back his head in response and unleashed a long yodelling howl while he beat his chest with his fists.
"Oh, for fuck's sake" Cass snarled, slipping from the bed to begin backing away from him as he finished his bizarre display.
Bounding up onto the bed she had just vacated, Jamie launched himself forward off the end of it into a mid-air somersault, from which he landed in a crouch before shooting off, out through the door into the corridor outside.
"Jamie!" Jade snapped, trying, but failing, to catch hold of the man as he darted past her.
"Oh let him go" Cass shook her head as her friend followed the bizarrely behaving man outside "If he wants to act like an arse, that's his choice"
Standing in the doorway, Jade turned to scowl at this "You'd make a terrible doctor - He might hurt himself"
Returning her attention back to Jamie, she folded her arms and leaned up against the doorframe to continue gazing out, down the corridor.
Cass shrugged - Jade was right on both points
"What's he doing?" she asked, moving across the room to join her.
"I dunno" Jade murmured "He seems to be trying to clear that vending machine out"
"The hell...?" Cass breathed, leaning in close to her to peer around the doorway at Jamie with his arms piled with a growing collection of snacks from the machine.
She sniffed and dabbed at her nose with the bloodied tissue, prompting Jade to glance back at her.
"You here about that?" the doctor enquired
Shaking her head, Cass retreated to the other side of the doorway
"No; it keeps stopping and starting, but it's mostly done. I'm good" she shrugged and made a helpless gesture with her hands "I just wondered how you were"
Grimacing, Jade quickly looked away, back towards Jamie, who was still preoccupied with amassing an armload of junk from the vending machine "It's so awful" she whispered, briefly closing her eyes against the prickle of tears.
Cass reached out towards her friend to clasp one of her hands in hers and give it a sympathetic squeeze but relented as Jade moved towards her and instead drew her into a comforting embrace.
"I just can't believe they killed her" she said in a low voice
"Oh, Cass" Jade pulled away to look up into her green eyes "I saw her" her breath hitched in her throat and it was a moment before she was able to continue, her voice high and tight "It was... so, so awful"
Cass shook her head "I know" she murmured "I saw it too. That could have been any one of us" she paused to take a deep shaky breath which she slowly sighed out "I'm really going to miss her. Do you want help getting Jamie seen to and then we'll go tip a glass or two to Phi?"
Pursing her lips, Jade nodded mutely and glanced back out down the corridor, her eyes widening in surprise as she did so "Oh, here we go" she muttered as Jamie bounded back towards them his arms laden with all manner of rubbish from the vending machine.
"Food!" he announced as the two women moved aside to let him back into the medi-bay, where he proceeded to array his 'food' out on one of the beds.
Darting back towards the door, he grabbed Cass by the wrist and pulled her across towards the bed "Food for my woman!"
"Ha!" her laugh was more than a little panicky as she twisted her hand out from his grasp "You'll be fucking lucky, sunshine!"
"No" Jamie said stridently "You come here!" he retreated to rifle through the assortment of rubbish on the bed, before finally selecting a couple of Ginsters pasties which he proudly held aloft for her inspection "Food!"
"I didn't even eat that shit when I was living rough!" Cass retorted indignantly before turning to mouth "Help me" at Jade, who just held up a hand and shook her head as she hurried across the room towards the dispensary.
It was the pitter-patter of droplets of liquid hitting the floor that made her turn back in dread to regard Jamie with a mixture of revulsion and horror as she realised that he had his hands down the front of his now sopping wet loincloth.
"Did you just piss yourself!?" she demanded incredulously as he rubbed his dripping hands over his torso, teasing his nipples as he smeared stale sweat and urine into a heady perfume
"The scent of a man!" he boomed thumping his chest with one fist "Come here woman!"
"No fucking chance!" Cass recoiled away from him as Jamie advanced towards her - He was powerfully built, but she thought she could probably outrun him if it came to it.
"Keep him talking" Jade called from the other side of the room.
"Yeah right; what are the other fucking options?" Cass snapped as she warily backed away, trying to keep some distance between her and Jamie as he prowled around her, the odour of his new organic aftershave proving eye-wateringly potent at this close range.
They circled each other for a few moments longer before Jamie threw back his head and let loose another of his long yodelling howls and suddenly darted forward to make a grab for Cass.
Having more or less announced his intentions, the object of his affections was ready for him; but his speed, born of more than a decade of savage jungle survival, took Cass completely by surprise and although she almost succeeded in evading him, Jamie managed to catch hold of the outsized overalls she was still wearing and haul her towards him; the rough treatment tearing the overalls press-stud fastenings open to reveal a tantalizingly distracting flash of breast and pale, smooth flesh which Cass instinctively clamped a forearm over as she pirouetted and hammered a foot upward into Jamie's balls.
The punishing effect of the strike was instant and he collapsed to the floor with an agonised howl, his hands cupping his battered 'nads inside his clammy and rapidly cooling loincloth.
"Bastard" Cass spat above the mans anguished moans as Jade hurried across to crouch down beside him and administer a large dose of sedatives that rendered him unconscious in seconds "Bastard" she repeated, rather unnecessarily, before turning self-consciously away from Jade while she fumbled with buttoning the press-studs back up again.
"Are you okay?" Jade asked after a moment
Blinking rapidly, Cass turned back to face her "Yeah, fine" she shook her head angrily "He's not the first dickhead to try that sort of shit on me. What the fuck was all that about!?"
"I've no idea" Jade shrugged "Like I said: He's been acting weird since he woke up; so maybe it was something those aliens did to him?"
At the mention of the aliens, Cass seemed to sag "That had better be it" she grumbled unhappily "Otherwise I'm going to castrate him for what he's just done"
Jade gave her something of a lopsided smile in response "C'mon" said gently "Give me a hand with the old horn dog here, and we'll go get that drink"
Cass glared down at Jamie sprawled out on the floor "I'm not touching that fucking loincloth"


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Amy: time for that drink that Jade and Cass have been threatening for ages - anyone else fancy joining the girls?
James – please don't hate me - inspiration came from the Capuchin monkeys and it honestly seemed funny at the time :)
Everyone else - We're back on the Dwarf, there'll be a few days in-game downtime and then we're onto the next thing, so let’s have a post from you. There are plenty of loose ends and interpersonal bits for you to explore and any number of other things to get up to on the Dwarf, so there really is no excuse
If you’re stuck for ideas or need any suggestions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with either me or any of the other mods and we’ll do our best to help out
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