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Ratthi's Proposition

Summary:

This would be the evening before Mensah picks up SecUnit at the company dispatch center. Ratthi and Gurathin agree to share a room at the hotel. Ratthi decides this is a great time to ask if his new friend is interested in them getting to know each other better, to which Gurathin (a non-native speaker), is like, 'Oh yeah, sure.'

Notes:

This is a scene mentioned off-hand a few times in Gurathin's Side of the Story. But here it functions entirely as a stand-alone.

Work Text:

The hotel room was spacious, with plenty of floor space even with the two beds. I set my bag on the nearer bed while Ratthi looked out the window at the station mall. It was an expensive set of rooms. We were paying too much for it, but no one had asked me. Nor had I volunteered my opinion, as I didn't know these people well enough to do that. I unpacked my toiletries. We'd only be staying here a few nights before setting off on the survey. Maybe the price tag wouldn't be too high.

Ratthi turned from the window, slouching against the waist-high sill, his hands on either side of it. "So. Do you want to sleep together?"

I thought I was pretty good at Preservation's language. I'd downloaded the module, integrated it successfully, and been speaking it with increasing fluency for most of a year now. But I still occasionally didn't get the idioms. "Yes," I said hesitantly. "That's what I'm planning to do." I walked my stuff over to the room's water basin so it would be where I needed it in the morning.

Ratthi waited until I was returning to launch himself from the sill and saunter in my direction. He bypassed his bed for mine. I was moving my bag to the floor as he sidled up next to me a lot closer than was necessary. I froze in uncertainty. "The beds are a little small," he said, waggling his brows. "But we can make do."

I looked at him dumbly, no idea what he was talking about. The beds were fine. Normal-sized. One of the other bedrooms in our suite (the master bedroom) only had a single enormous bed in it. Overse and Arada had picked that, as no one else in the group was particularly keen on sleeping up against someone else. Or so I had thought.

Ratthi extended his hand close to me, further violating normal personal proximity standards but not quite touching me. "May I?"

"May you what?"

"Undress you?" His voice was sultry.

"Uh … No."

He tilted his head in curiosity. "We're going to sleep together? You and me?" He gestured between the two of us in the limited space that existed there.

I realized abruptly what he meant – sleeping together in the same bed and not just the same room. I looked over at his bed, not seeing anything wrong with it. "I'm a very light sleeper."

He smiled and relaxed, laughing a little. "Gurathin. Do you want to have sex with me?"

My brows furrowed as I realized that no, I had not known what he meant – not at any stage of this conversation. "What?"

"Sex? Together. Us. I'd love to. Would you?" I just blinked at him, even more dumbfounded. I was being propositioned. I couldn't think of a single thing I'd done to indicate interest. Had the simple fact of offering to share a room done it? Had I phrased something wrong when I'd answered him about wanting to get to know me better? He said, "Once we're on the survey, there won't be much privacy."

"N-no."

He tilted his head again, this time like he hadn't heard me right. "No you don't want to have sex or no there won't be much privacy so let's make the best of it while we can?"

I swallowed, trying to be dignified even though I was barely breathing. "The first."

"Okay." He backed off, going to his bed and flipping down the covers like it was no big deal. I stood there woodenly, staring after him. He was taking his shoes off. "If you change your mind, let me know."

"No." I didn't know what else to say. I had lived a horribly cloistered and limited life for the last near-thirty years of my adulthood, going from work assignment to work assignment. During that whole time, I'd had only one attempted liaison with a person, one of my coworkers who was more heavily augmented than I was. Despite the negotiation we'd had upfront, it still hadn't gone well. After that (and, well, before it, too), I stuck to ComfortUnits for my occasional needs. I barely knew Ratthi. Did he think that since I was from the Corporation Rim, I was basically a ComfortUnit to be available on demand?

Was that insulting or kind of hot? (I mean, there's a reason why 'I was used as a sexbot' and variations thereof were always at the top of porn scenario searches.) The reality was confusing. I was still standing there next to my bed, having not moved. "Do you think I'm a ComfortUnit?"

"What?"

I'd had to use the Corporation Rim term. There wasn't an analog in Preservation's language and he didn't have his interface on to access the translation. I said, "A machine. Do you think I'm a machine?"

"What? No!" He straightened where he sat on the bed, looking appalled at me.

I shrugged, trying to play it off. We were going to have to work together in close quarters for months. This was not a good start. "It wouldn't be the first time people have," I gestured at the data ports behind my ear, mostly covered by hair, "made assumptions."

"They think you're a machine?" I shrugged again. He asked, "Why would they even think that?"

"Because my augments meant my contract was comprehensive enough that I didn't get a choice in job duties. My superiors knew that." A note popped up from the translation module with options for 'superiors'. What I'd said was more like 'my better choices' or 'my preferred', neither of which applied to people in Preservation's language.

Ratthi gazed at me levelly for several seconds. "I don't know that means."

I waved it off and got to the point. "Fortunately for me, I look like this," I gestured at my not-attractive face, which had never been attractive, not even when I was young, "so the requirements were just scut work and not service."

Ratthi looked bemused. "I understand the words you're saying, but they don't make sense put together like that."

I sighed. I didn't know him well, but I had no reason to think he was predatory, abusive, or making the assumptions about me I was implying. This was just a miscommunication, probably cultural. "Just go to sleep in your bed and I'll go to sleep in mine. Okay?"

"Okay." He gave me a firm thumbs up and laid down.

I turned the lights off with my augment and climbed under my own covers. Just in case we'd misunderstood each other (and I was about to sleep in a room with a weirdo who thought it was a good idea to ask for sex with absolutely no lead-in), I reiterated, "I am a very light sleeper."

"I don't snore," Ratthi said. "That's Volescu's bag and he's on the opposite side of the suite. So we're good."

I could hear the cheerful smile in his voice as we continued to fail at communication, my threat and warning not even recognized. I sighed again. This was going to be a long and interesting survey.