Week 89: Fight or Flight response

It was a few minutes since they'd taken off, bound for the good ol' Western Fed, land of patriotism, good ol' wholesome family values and crazy police state spying, and Karishma and Silvia had ended up seated next to each other.  As she was browsing on her internal GUI for a decent audio book to listen to, a certain very recent purchase caught the Moon-isolated agent's eye, causing her to turn towards Silvia and, in infinite innocence, ask, "So, how's Hugo?"

Silvia almost flinched at the question, her body turning away from Karishma and one hand beginning to come up automatically. After a second, she realised just how stupid that was and lowered it.

"Um...he's fine. As far as I know," she mumbled.

"Oh, good..."  There was a pause as Karishma slightly confusedly processed the "as far as I know" comment.  Suddenly, comprehension dawned on her face, and she smacked her forehead apologetically.  "Gah, I'm a fool!  Of course, you haven't seen him for two weeks since you've been out in the middle of nowhere, helping me out."  Karishma smiled sheepishly.  "Sorry about that, I know how close you two are.  I really hope I didn't upset any plans you had."  Convinced she had addressed the root of the discomfort of her fellow agent, she patted Silvia on the shoulder in what she obviously thought was a comforting, friendly gesture.  "By the way," Karishma continued conversationally, "have you read Hugo's book yet?  I got it in audio to listen to on the flight.  I expect you feature quite heavily in it?"

Silvia appeared to be trying to disappear into the seat, completely unable to make any kind of eye contact with Karishma. "No, no, it was no trouble..." she muttered at about half her usual volume.

At Karishma's comment about the book, she closed her eyes for a moment, somehow managing to shrink further back into the seat. "I...I've read it yes. He...I didn't want him to put me in. So he didn't." With that, she lapsed back into silence and avoiding eye contact.

Karishma brilliantly and skillfully completely failed to notice either her friend's utter discomfort or her attempts to vanish from sight through the upholstery.

"Really?" she exclaimed, a look of mild shock on her face, "You didn't want to be in it?  But I thought he'd changed all our names, added in a load of fiction so we wouldn't be recognised?"  A cheeky grin spread across Karishma's face as she leaned in conspiratorialy and jokingly added "It was probably difficult to cut out everything about his adored girlfriend; bet there were a couple of steamy sex scenes they had to drop!"  She then laughed, nudging Silvia with her elbow and winking, before leaning back into her own seat.

Amets quietly handed Karishma a datapad with a private smeaker channel's details written on it. Once Karishma had connected, she said simply "I believe Agent Tsukuda and former Agent Zumisimo are no longer romantically involved."

Initially, Dani had chuckled at this conversation, Silvia's reaction was pretty funny. But then it just kept going and Silvia wouldn't speak up for herself because of course she wouldn't, she was Silvia, and Karishma dug the hole deeper and deeper. It was hilarious, and this was why at this point Dani was laughing uproariously, presumably to Karishma's confusion.

The happy, cheerful, carefree expression on Karishma's face slowly and gracefully imploded upon itself in a complicated mixture of confusion, embarrassment and sheer horror at what she had just done.

All Amets heard was an almost imperceptibly quiet "Oh."

Slowly, infinitely cautiously, Karishma turned towards her oh-so-obviously embarrassed and discomforted friend.  Very quietly, she mumbled, with averted eyes, "Silvia, I'm so sorry, I didn't know you'd broken up.  I really didn't mean to be so insensitive."  As she waited for Silvia's response, Karishma began to nervously wring her hands in her lap.

By now, Silvia's cheeks were flushed and she was pressed into the corner of the seat furthest away from Karishma. At Karishma's reaction, she went, if possible, slightly redder.

"Uh...no, no it's fine. Really. I mean...there wasn't any way for you to know..." she replied, almost as quietly. "It's really...it's not...no reason for you to...to know..."

"Right.  Yes.  Ok.  Sorry."  At this point Karishma was once again able to look at Silvia, but the hand wringing continued as strongly as ever.  Her cheeks thouroughly flushed, she cast around desperately for a change of subject, settling on another subject she was sure would be quite safe.  "So, erm, how's Coraline doing?  I haven't seen her in a while.  You two are pretty good friends, right?"  The slight quiver in Karishma's voice and smile gave away that this was a plea to forget the previous awkwardness.

For a moment, Silvia froze in place and Karishma could see the skin on her shoulders and arms rippling. Then it stopped, and Silvia exhaled.

"She...she's fine. Or...she was the last time I saw her," she said, a little abruptly. By now, she was keeping very still, as if concentrating very hard on doing so.

Shit.  This word danced through Karishma's mind several times as she observed Silvia's reaction, even though she was absolutely sure that her friend would never actually use her spines on her.  After a moment, Karishma ventured, "I get the impression that's a bit of a sore subject too..."  Lapsing into silence, she began to wonder if it might have been best to just not talk at all.

"Amets," she tentatively and privately smeakered, "any chance we could switch seats?"

Carmen, who was sitting on the farther side of Dani and was playing with her phone was also laughing. Everyone who was anyone had already read the book to avoid spoilers, and in her own private way, Carmen was enjoying the fan-comic version that was coming out. The drawings of Silvia weren't particularly flattering... She tittered to herself, listening avidly, hiding behind Dani's bulk in case Silvia decided to.. get upset.

"If you would prefer that." Came the reply, neutral even by the standards of smeaker speak. Amets rose out of her seat, switching off her PDA and padded over to Karishma's chair, waiting for the other agent to rise. She started fiddling with her PDA again, a small version of the holographic map being projected in front of her.

Karishma looked up at Amets in relief, smeakering  "Thank you, Amets."  Heavily, she rose from her seat, then turned back to look at Silvia.  Still looking thoroughly remorseful, she said, "I'm sorry Silvia, but I'm going to swap with Amets for a while.  I've obviously really upset you; it seems a lot of things have happened that I don't know about yet, and I don't want to make it even worse, especially just before a mission."  She reached out and touched Silvia's shoulder gently in what she hoped would be received as a friendly, kindly gesture.  "If you want to have a chat when we get back, just let me know, alright?"  Karishma carefully made room for Amets while she waited for Silvia to respond.

Amets quietly slipped into the seat, the holographic map of Toronto being marked out in front of her. She continued to make notes, marking the location of their getaway vehicles. Ideally she wondered if Agents Potenza and Carmen would like to see the links to some of the more esoteric consprisacy theory sites' views on the book, but decided against it. Carmen likely already knew and Agent Potenza probably wouldn't shut up about it. Glancing to her side, she noticed Agent Tsukuda was still stiff, and moved slightly down the seat away from her to give her some space.

When Dani began to laugh out loud, Fenris glared at her. "Dani. Shut the fuck up." The was a significant hint of threat in her voice. Silvia had just broken up with Hugo, and run off to the wilderness, so she obviously didn't need this shit.

Silvia didn't really react to Karishma's gesture, merely nodding and glancing briefly towards the other woman. As Amets slid into the seat, she edged slightly from her, almost by reflex. And as for Dani's laughter...she tried as hard as she could to ignore it.

Although she hid it fairly well behind a blank poker face, inside Amets was getting more and more irritated. Keep your laughter in your head Potenza, Pillai, you should probably pay some vague attention to the relationships within the team, particularly if you count them as a friend, and Tsukuda was reacting far more like a dumped teen than any woman with more kills than Amets' entire old division combined had any right to be in Amets' humble opinion. But she kept calm, and turned towards Karishma with a neutral expression. "Agent Pillai, you mentioned you had brought some items from Eroz?" she asked. ((Lying and Acting pass by 5))

Dani did, in fact, shut the fuck up. She'd had her fun, no point pushing things further when there was a mission on.

Karishma was just turning away to walk to her new seat when Amets addressed her, and in her haste to respond managed to perform a slighly wobbly pirouette.  "Yes, indeed I did!  I'll just go get my bags, it's pretty much all the usual stuff."  She paused a second, brows furrowed.  "Wait, no, I don't think you've seen some of this stuff yet.  Ah well, I'm sure you'll like it.  Well then, bags... yes..."  With that, Karishma headed off to the luggage area to retrieve the goodies.