#I love the attention to how short maggie is andbsnnss

[yourdeepestfathoms]

Texting & Tamarins

Cries of pain, the smell of a sickroom, the blank faces of the attendants, Jane’s cries of frantic agony, the helplessness, the fear-

  Joan’s eyes snapped open.

  No sickroom, no dying woman. Just her own cabin.

  She curled up into a ball and lay there, shivering.

  Instinctively, she reached for her phone.

  ‘R U awake?’

  Maggie teased her about using text speak but it was so much simpler when she was in a hurry. Such as now.

  The answer pinged back almost immediately: no.

  The response made her whole body sink with relief- Maggie was awake, it was all ok- and she was already starting to key in her response when she stopped herself. Maggie had said no, after all. And she HAD- very nicely- asked Joan to try to keep from texting her after midnight, in the interest of good sleep hygiene (or as she had phrased it- ‘I love you but it better be an emergency or I’m not going to have gotten enough sleep to not kill someone’.)

  Did this count as an emergency?

  True they hadn’t hashed out the finer details….but still, probably not.

  She pushed her phone back under her pillow and curled up again.

  It was fine. She’d just go to sleep and tell Maggie about the dream in the morning.

  Except.

  She just couldn’t switch off.

  The cabin felt….extra dark, somehow. More sinister. Usually, it was her bolthole from the sometimes chaotic and often crowded rest of the ship. Now though, it felt unfamiliar. Try as she might, she couldn’t shake the absolutely ridiculous feeling that there was someone there with her- there, or just outside the door…

  She rolled herself into her blankets, which helped for about thirty seconds...but then she felt just as vulnerable as before. Vulnerable- and alone. The fear that there was someone creeping up on her was mixed somehow with the feeling that she was the only one awake on the entire ship, and even though logically she knew that wasn't true, the thought made her feel oddly lonely. She thought of the sleeping ship- and of the bleak empty ocean surrounding them- and her eyes stung with tears.

  Rolling onto her stomach, she started to cry very quietly into her pillow, hating herself at the same time for being so pathetic. Even the knowledge that she’d feel like an idiot in the morning didn’t help dissipate the horrible feeling of desolation building in the pit of her stomach.

  Alone….all alone….

  The quiet knock on the door made her freeze, heart suddenly pounding. Someone was outside, She lay there, too afraid to even breathe, straining her ears- would they try the next door, or would they stick to hers? She was suddenly seized with a terrible fear that she’d forgotten to lock her door behind her- they locked automatically, of course, but what if something had malfunctioned, what if it hadn’t closed properly, what if-

  ‘Joan?’

  It was Maggie.

  Relief flooded her at the familiar voice and she scrambled out of bed, stubbing her toe in her hurry to open the door.

  As she did, her previous fears felt especially foolish- the corridor was lit as it always was, she could even faintly hear the sounds of other people still moving around. 

She surreptitiously brushed her damp face with the sleeve of her pajama top, hoping Maggie wouldn’t notice anything amiss and she’d be able to escape with her dignity (such as it was) intact.

  ‘Why were you crying?’

  No such luck.

  ‘Um...I wasn’t?’

  Maggie raised an eyebrow and Joan felt her resolve crumbling- it was hard to obfuscate with someone as frustratingly blunt and straightforward as Maggie.

  ‘It’s stupid really, I just had a bit of a bad dream and when I woke up, I kept thinking that there was someone….there with me-’ It was ridiculous that even though she knew herself to be perfectly safe, actually verbalising it all made her throat ache and her eyes sting. ‘-like in the cabin or right outside, and I kept seeing, I kept seeing Jane, I kept seeing her screaming and I could smell the blood….and I was watching her die again….and it-’ A sob tore itself, unbidden, from her throat. ‘It was just really lonely and scary-’

  She was pathetic, she knew it- to be whining like a child, after nothing worse than a dream, bothering Maggie no less. She’d been speaking to her bare feet and she was reluctant to even look up and face the guitarist- she didn’t want to see Maggie’s blank inscrutable look, her distinctly-underwhelmed face, the one she showed to audience members who complained, to passers by who passed remarks on her height, to anyone who was dismissive of the importance of the band to the success of the whole show. 

  She didn’t want to see the unimpressed stare Maggie was surely greeting her teary rambling explanation with- so it was a surprise when instead of being questioned or scolded as she expected, she felt herself being pulled into Maggie’s warm arms.

  ‘Hey, it’s ok-’ Despite being several inches shorter, Maggie still managed to exude a surprisingly protective feel. Like she would tear the throat out of anyone who tried to get too close. ‘It’s all ok-’

  ‘I’m sorry-’

  ‘Don’t apologise, you’re fine-’

  She sniffled into the shoulder of Maggie’s hoody, feeling humiliated but also comforted. 

  ‘I’m sorry I woke you up, I know it’s late-’

  ‘That’s ok, it’s ok.’ Maggie pulled back enough to look her in the eye. ‘I did say you could call me in emergencies.’

  ‘I don’t think this counts as an emergency…’

  Maggie shrugged. ‘Hey, anything that makes you cry on me in a corridor is an emergency in my book, right? I’m glad you texted.’

  ‘I stopped texting because I felt bad about disturbing you-’

  ‘Well, I mean you’d already woken me up by that point-’

  Fresh tears welled in Joan’s eyes and Maggie squeezed her hand.

  ‘Joke. Honestly, you could have carried on texting, I wouldn't have minded.’

  ‘Sorry for getting you out of bed though-’

  ‘It’s really, really ok-’ Maggie pulled Joan back into her, gently rubbing circles up and down her back. ‘Anyway, you didn’t get me out of bed, I just got….concerned when you didn’t text back so I thought I’d check on you and…..well, I was right!’

  Joan gave a watery chuckle at Maggie’s (for her) exaggeratedly self-congratulatory tone and burrowed in closer.

  ‘Now-’ There was a (small) smile in Maggie’s voice too- it vibrated in her throat where Joan’s face was buried. ‘Let’s get you back to bed and warmed up a bit- you’re shivering-’

  Joan wasn’t entirely sure if the tremors were entirely due to the night chill of the corridor or not but she didn’t feel like arguing. The adrenalin of everything was starting to wear off; she stifled a yawn.

  Maggie nudged her back towards the half open cabin door. ‘Get your pillow first- I’m done with you stealing mine in the middle of the night like you usually do…. if I go to medical with a stiff neck again, they’re going to think I’ve got an actual problem-’

  Pillow in hand, Joan joined Maggie in the corridor again.

   Maggie looked at her without speaking.

  ‘What?’

  She kept staring.

  ‘What?’

  Maggie sighed. ‘God, you’re actually going to make me say it, aren’t you? Go get your monkey thing or whatever it is. And there I was trying to be all tactful and shit-’

  ‘......she’s a tamarin.’

  There was no point trying to deny anything, after all; face burning slightly, Joan reentered the cabin with as much poise as she could muster and scooped up the slightly worn creature from where it had fallen to the floor, hiding it behind the pillow in her arms so it wouldn’t be seen in the corridor.

  ‘You don’t need to be all weird about it-’ Maggie went on as they started down the hall to her cabin. ‘As if I care that you have a stuffed marmoset or whatever- it’s not like you’re the only one-’

  Hope flared in her chest. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, Bessie sleeps with a flick knife under her pillow-’

  ‘That’s….not really the same thing….Also she’s a tamarin….’

  ‘Meh, flick knife, marmoset. Marmoset, tamarin, Potato, potahto-’

  Maggie swiped open the door of her cabin- the faint smell of (strictly forbidden) incense and (even more strictly forbidden) cigarettes enveloped them.

  Other cast members had complained about the permanence of the aroma of both contraband items but to Joan, the cabin smelled of safety.

  ‘Get comfy. And hands off my pillow, remember.’

  Maggie pulled back at the covers and motioned for Joan to get in first before climbing in after her. It was a tight squeeze but, with the wall on one side and the warm shape of Maggie next to her, Joan felt safer than she had all night. There was just no way anyone- even the most determined intruder- would be able to get past Maggie.

  Maggie’s thoughts were obviously running in the same direction. Clicking off the light, she wrapped an arm around Joan’s stomach and pulled her in close. Her breath tickled the back of her neck.

  ‘You’re ok now. I’ve got you.’

  ‘I know.’ She yawned again. Somehow in Maggie’s cabin, the dark and quiet felt soothing rather than threatening. ‘Thanks, Maggie.’

  ‘You don’t have to say thank you, you know.’

  ‘I know but-’ She struggled to find the words. ‘You came and you didn’t have to, I woke you and disturbed you, and it wasn’t even for a good reason and-’ She could feel herself getting worked up again.

  ‘Shhh.’ Maggie pressed closer to her; her hand found Joan’s in the dark and squeezed it gently. ‘It’s ok. Go to sleep. Dream some nice dreams. Dream about tamarins or some shit.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘Shhh.’ A kiss was pressed between her shoulder blades. ‘It’s all ok. I love you. Just rest.’ There was a pause. ‘Slight addendum to that- it’s all still ok and I still love you but if you don’t move your monkey thing to your side of the bed, it’s going on the floor-’

  ‘....it’s a tamarin.’

  Joan drifted to sleep to the sound of Maggie’s quiet laughter.