for @undirected.

[artificial]

[ it was a risk. they all knew that going in. there was a reason time travelers weren't supposed to cross over with events they were already a part of. but there was no other choice. not really. it was lucky that they all survived the time storm, never mind what came after. it was a little suspicious that nothing other than that seemed to have happened because of the legends' action. the phrase 'waiting for the other shoe to drop' came to mind as gideon monitored the return of leonard snart and damien darhk to their original time periods.

the background process she had categorizing the damage to the waverider from the proximity to the time storm and the use of the spear of destiny completed with a ping as the ship returned to the temporal zone. the results were--incomprehensible. which shouldn't be possible. the lights on the ship flickered. ]

Captain. [ the screens on the bridge turned to static for a moment. ] I seem to be encountering a problem in my core processors.

[ a sensation that fit all the descriptors of vertigo crashed over her. and wasn't that odd? actually feeling things instead of the facsimile of perception that gideon had while in her captain's mind. darkness--something she had always understood but never experienced before--enveloped her. she inhaled. exhaled. felt cool, and hard, and metallic, and skin, and air against her. she inhaled again, shorter and faster this time. part of her that was still embedded in the medbay of the ship and not in the hold told her that she was on the verge of hyperventilation. ]

Captain-- [ her voice wavered and broke for the first time, and gideon heard it echo throughout the speakers on the waverider. ] Rip. [ she was overwhelmed. over-sensitized. stunned. confused. bewildered. scared. she understood now why novelists wrote of feeling a tightening in the throat, a rushing sensation in the veins.

gideon curled up into herself a little more, cupping her hands--she had hands now!--over her ears. ] Cargo bay. [ she bit out, squeezing her eyes shut a little tighter as she focused on nothing but the sensation of breathing. air entering her lungs, her rib cage expanding, two, three, four. the slight whistle of sound as she exhaled, two, three, four, five, six. ]

Comments

[artificial]

[ that is indeed the memory she's mulling on. the one that's inspiring this turn in conversation. it makes her heart beat just that little bit harder in her chest as she looks at rip and says, just as quietly, ] I'd like to know what it's like to kiss you in reality.

[ she wants to know what it really feels like to have his mouth against hers. would his facial hair tickle? would it make her heart race like these quiet moments, or give her that quiet feeling of peace and safety like his embrace earlier had? what would he taste like? gideon has so many questions, none of which are answered by the memory of their first kiss in rip's mind.

and more than that, she wants to do this. to touch him and hold him however she may while she's capable. it's a desire she never had before. not really. how could it have been when she didn't have a body, and any android chassis she may be uploaded into wouldn't have quite the same experiences? but now that she has the opportunity, the desire to do something that wasn't even an impossible dream before sings inside of her. ]

That is, of course, [ she continues, a slight smirk on her face, ] if you're amenable.

[ oh, she's fairly certain he's attracted to her. he's got all the hallmarks of it--rapid pulse, a slight dilation in his pupils, the quiet raspiness of his voice--but gideon would also quite like to hear him say it. ]

[directed]

[In the end she asks exactly what he expects she will, and yet Rip cannot help but feel caught off guard by it regardless. Some mix, perhaps, of that confirmation that Gideon does indeed desire this, or how glad he is to know that she does.

Because he also does, truly. She's read his hallmarks correctly, from the look in his eyes to the pulse she can feel thrumming away in his wrist. There's no part of Rip's heart that does not want to feel her lips against his, to know what it might be like to be truly kissed by her, rather than have some aspect of his own fantasy at play.

But it's a dangerous road, his mind thinks. Perhaps too much too soon; after all, their first kiss had been spawned by Rip giving in to wild abandon, thinking that there would be no opportunity for such an embrace again, and that in the end, only he would carry the burden of such a memory as his secret. He cannot say that if he had known Gideon herself resided in that construct, not just his vision of her but her actual thoughts, her mind, that he would have allowed himself the same indulgence.

So what does it mean if he grants them both it now?

It's a dangerous slope, he thinks. Gideon had barely been able to find her feet to walk a handful of hours ago. While she has long been real and alive in Rip's perception, she has not been human in the sense she is now. There is still so much they don't know about her condition at present, and he suspects, so much she cannot know about what she is now. This eagerness to discover, to experience, to feel can be a beautiful thing--

Or it could cause her agony, should she push too far and too quickly.

He hesitates for these reasons, his eyes lowered to their hands all the while. He watches and feels the path of her fingers. Before he looks up again, he hears the smirk in her words--just as Rip has so often.

Whatever she is, she remains Gideon.]

One kiss. [He meets her gaze again, the barest hint of a smile playing on his lips. God, he already knows it won't be enough--but it has to be. Rip must draw the line somewhere, at least until he is sure that she won't be harmed by pressing it further--that he won't harm her somehow. He's already failed his wife, his son, and not because he didn't love them enough but rather too much. So much, that the Time Masters were able to use his devotion as their tool. He won't see it happen again.

So. One kiss, and only one. For now, it must be enough.]

[artificial]

[ while gideon would agree that overwhelming her would be a bad idea--best to let her get as accustomed to sensations as she can get--she objects to limiting themselves to just one kiss. and if she knew what rip was thinking about failing her, about possibly harming her, she would scowl at him and tell him off. because that is no way to be thinking.

but, since she doesn't know, she just smiles at him and stands. slowly, she walks around the table until she's leaning against it, just to rip's side. she lifts a hand to rest against his cheek and leans in until there's a scant bit of space between them. the last move is rip's to make. both because he's the one with more experience with this whole kissing thing between the two of them, and because gideon is a bit of a tease. ]

[directed]

[Well then. Good thing for him that she can't tell what he's thinking, isn't it?

Because she won't be able to change her mind. Scowl or scold, Rip has already lost too much in his life. Gideon is the one person he has left, not only from the past few months but from years gone by, from the days when Rip had been so happy to be a Time Master flying through the temporal zone from one era to the next, to go home after to his loving with and brilliantly happy son.

To return each time to this same ship, to the AI who had been so much more almost from the start. She's been there through nearly all of it: his first missions as a captain, his nervous pacing as he thought of asking Miranda to marry him. His utter joy when he learned he would be a father.

The grief that nearly broke him when his family had been slaughtered.

And countless other times, in countless other ways. She has always been there; she's promised always to be. Rip will not endanger that for a bit of foolishness, no matter how tempting the allure.

She stands and walks around the table; likewise, Rip also moves to his feet. His eyes remain on Gideon the entire time, seconds stretched out impossibly long, and all the while it feels like he can't breathe. When she touches his cheek he presses his face against her palm, covers her hand with his own. And when she leans in, his smile broadens a touch. For all his necessary caution and worry, there is something undeniably wonderful about this chance.

He thought he'd never have it twice—and now here they are.

Here they are.

She doesn't quite close the distance completely, and with a huffed out breath Rip understands what she means for him to do. A tease indeed, but it's a game they can both play at. Rip doesn't pull her close with all the desperation of a man who has too little time to express far too many things. Instead he takes his time, careful when he presses his lips against hers. If they are only going to have the one, this time Rip means to make it last; to etch in his memory every sensation from the heat of her mouth to the way she lets him coax the kiss into something deeper, to how she feels pressed against him when his hands drop to her waist to tug her near.

Gideon isn't the only one who wants to examine each new sensation when it comes to this. Far, far from it.]