Page 5 of Theta

"I thought—"

"Shut up!"

My teeth click together at the intensity of her snapped command.

And then I hear a couple of tick-tick-ticks as the first drops hit the bucket. Then a few more tick-tick-ticks, and Story lets out a tight breath. I find myself holding my own breath in commiseration.

And then she finally manages to relax enough to unleash, and the tick-tick-tick of individual droplets of pee becomes a tight hard stream that echoes in the plastic bucket, the noise rising in pitch by degrees as she pees for an eternity.

Literally, she must pee for at least a full minute.

"And nothing to wipe with," she grumbles. "Lovely. UTI, here I come."

"I, um…" I hesitate at the offer that pops up in my idiot head, but it's the only idea I have. "You want my shirt?"

She cackles. "Killy, no. I'm not wiping my vagina with your shirt."

"It's hot as fuck in here anyway," I say, trying desperately not to think about her vagina in any capacity whatsoever. "And I’d rather be shirtless than have you uncomfortable because you couldn't…um…wipe."

"Uncomfortable," she echoes, cackling. "You clearly have never had a UTI. Uncomfortable is not the word for it."

"No, I haven't. Bryn got one a couple years ago. She was impossible to live with until it cleared up."

"Bryn with a UTI?" she cackles again, spluttering. "I shudder to think. She's impossible on her best day."

"Thank you!” I shout. "Sorry, that was loud. But yes. I love my sister to pieces, I really do, but she's a lot."

"Killy, I'm not going to use your shirt. I'll just…make the best of it."

I whip my shirt off, find her hand with mine, and shove it into her grip. "Just use the shirt, Story."

"And then what? You put it back on?"

"Um, no." I consider. "Maybe cover the bucket with it to keep the smell in to some degree. They don't exactly empty the thing very frequently."

"Yeah," she intones, voice drier than bleached bones. "I can tell." A huff. "Fine. And…thank you."

Her hand vanishes with my shirt, and a few seconds later she works upright unsteadily, wobbling as she braces her hand on me and a shoulder against the wall as she bends to pull up her bottoms. I hear the soft thunk as she drapes the shirt over the top of the bucket, and mercifully, the stench of old piss fades a bit.

Of course, that's when the ship lurches, tips forward and topples me into Story and the both of us into the corner, pushing us into the metal as we carve down the face of what must be an absolutely colossal wave. Story's face smashes against mine and we're crushed against each other into the corner.

Her hands scrabble at my shoulders, trying to push me away so I can find my balance and not crush her. And then for a moment we're level again, and I stumble backward, arms windmilling…

And then I'm hurled backward as the ship's prow is hurled skyward by the next wave, and I feel Story slam into me, knocking me further off-balance and sending me to the floor hard enough to knock the air out of me. I slide backward along the floor as gravity pushes at me, and I hear Story gasp and grunt with the effort of keeping her feet…but we hit the crest, level off for the briefest of moments, and then surge and topple forward as we dive down the other side.

I hear Story shriek breathlessly as she's tossed forward, and the breath I just got back is slammed out of me as Story crashes down on top of me.

Another wave smacks the ship from our left, knocking it into a sideways pitch that sends us rolling. I instinctively wrap my arms around Story as we roll, trying to protect her skull from being crushed between the bulk of my body and the unforgiving bare metal floor beneath us. We roll and roll as we dip diagonally downward, rolling and sliding across the floor of the container—mercifully, the jackasses who took us at least had the decency to strap the piss bucket down because it's not sliding all over the place.

Story's body is soft and firm and warm in my arms, a tiny but powerful package. There's nothing I can do but hold her as we’re bucked and tossed across the floor as wave after wave hurls the giant ship this way and that like a toy in a tub.

My head cracks against the floor and white spots dance across the darkness, but I keep hold of Story, bracing my arms so they take the brunt of our rolling rather than her small form.

I don't know how long we're tossed like that, helpless to do anything but be rolled about like a pinball; the pitching, yawing, rolling, and bucking is so violent that at times we’re tossed clear off the floor and are airborne for a breath before crashing down again. Eventually, the storm abates and the tossing subsides to some degree. By this point, after what has to be an hour or two at minimum, if not longer, I'm a mass of aches and bruises like I went eight rounds full-contact with Uncle Duke.

We're up against a wall, and the rain is still falling in a deafening deluge, but the worst violence seems to have passed. I'm on my back and Story is fully on top of me. I wish I could enjoy this moment more, but it’s not voluntary on her part, so I shove those stupid squishy feelings aside.

“You okay?" I murmur. "You hurt?"