The grin that causes makes it hard to believe that an hour ago she was in tears, that they've just offered bare details on some of the worst parts of their lives.
"I think it's midnight now," she says. It's not. She knows there's at least another hour. But he is, indeed, sitting right there, close enough that she hardly has to move at all to bring a hesitant hand up to his jaw.
The last time he kissed her-- well, okay, the last time he kissed her, or she kissed him, was under the mistletoe in the elevator. But the last time he really kissed her, he had no idea who he was or she was, had no idea why it could be anything like a big deal. It had been a fun night with a hot chick. Easy.
This time, it's a very big deal and anything from easy, and all it takes is the brush of her hand to set his heart hammering in his chest. He hesitates for a few beats, too, but then he doesn't hesitate at all: he turns in towards her and clasps her face in his hands, pulling her into the kiss he'd wanted to give her in the elevator and every moment since.
She had expected their first kiss (first real kiss, after all this time) to be tentative, hesitant. Brief.
It's not.
It had taken every ounce of willpower to kiss his cheek and be done in the elevator. She had wanted this, though; a kiss with the freedom for her to savor it.
She's not alone in that, and now that he finally has the real opportunity he doesn't waste it. It's none of what she was expecting: it's deep and steady, searching, longing. Anything but brief.
When they finally come up for air, he finds himself at a loss, struck momentarily speechless. He rubs his thumbs over her cheeks, staring down into her eyes.
It simply isn't possible, even for her, to keep a mask up with the way he's watching her. She has never looked back so steadily at another person, not this close, not without knowing what was going to happen next.
When she had brought up midnight she had planned the next step: a quick joke about oh, no, it's not midnight after all, have to do it again. But humor is often a shield for her, and she finds that she's without it right now. The smile tentatively pulling at the corner of her mouth has nothing to do with that.
She's so elated her voice ought to be strong, loud, but she can only manage something like a whisper. "Can we do that more often now?"
"Yeah," he whispers back, not yet smiling, not wanting it to seem like a tease. He moves a hand up to comb it through her hair, looking at the silky strands falling over his fingers. Then her eyes, then her mouth with its smudged berry-sexy-red lipstick.
"Definitely," he adds, and now the corner of his mouth does tick up slightly in turn. "Yes."
It isn't a smile now, it's a grin, a laugh that she is holding back because she wants to be suave, but it comes as an almost squeak and she kisses him again.
He's going to have a fair amount of red on his lips at this rate.
If she can live with the beard, he can live with the lipstick. In the moment, he's all too happy to live with the lipstick; and he really is, he realizes to his own surprise as his mouth finds hers again. He's happy. Not for forever, not even in a way that's really going to stick just yet... but the last time he felt this way, this strongly, was so long ago that he almost doesn't even remember it now.
He's smiling when they break again -- like, actually, really smiling. It might look a little strange, the way it creases and warps his scars, but he also looks younger than he has since the flood took all the weight of memory off him. "Annie," he murmurs, pressing his lips to her cheek, her ear, her temple.
Her fingers stroke through the hair at the nape of his neck, down his back a little ways to the tattoo there, and back up. Her grin is going to be all but permanent the rest of the week, dimming only when her friends need her to be serious.
"I really like you," she says like it's somehow a secret, and tops it off with that grin. "Happy new year, Jesse."
I love you, he thinks, wildly, giddily, but there are certain kinds of crazy he still knows to hold back on. "You, too," he tells her instead, resting his forehead against hers. In theory, they have time. He's here because he's tried to make himself believe they have time.
He traces his fingers over her cheek, her jaw, re-learning the feel of her now that he knows her. "To, um, both of those," he adds as an afterthought.
She closes her eyes, holding still (apart from her fingers still trailing along his back) and just enjoying the sense of someone wanting to study her so closely.
"You could stay the night." She has a roommate. Maybe that's awkward. Is this what college would have felt like? "We don't gotta do anything, but you could stay."
Is that moving too fast? Is it possible to move too fast if your relationship began with sex, sped into panicky fighting, and landed here?
He hesitates, not because she's approaching his boundaries, but because he's similarly trying to figure out where the boundaries are. As far as he's concerned, if he's succumbed, he's succumbed; sex won't make that much more true, especially when it's technically already happened. Besides, he's used to moving quickly, at least physically and in every other sense.
But if she has a concern... He draws back enough to look at her, trying to gauge where the mixed messages he thinks he's hearing are coming from. "If you're worried about Elizabeth coming back, you could take some things and we could go to my place..." he offers carefully. Is that subtle enough? Too subtle?
The offer erases all her uncertainty about what he wants, and leaves her free to indulge in what she wants. Her expression stops being tentative, and turns simply, intensely hungry.
She kisses him once more and grabs a bag, some clothes--not anything to sleep in--a comb. She steals a glance at him. "Do you have neighbors?" Who might complain.
...okay, that pretty much clears that up. Suddenly, she's moving faster than he is. He blinks, pushing himself to his feet.
"No. I mean-- yeah, but I think she's at the party. And she doesn't seem to give a shit when I've got music on, anyways." And fuck her if she does this time, really, because he hasn't gotten laid as himself in well over a year, and that's practically a functional lifetime to him.
With her bag packed and over her shoulder, it's hard not to tug him out the door and rush them along to his cabin.
"Good." It also helps to know how secretive she needs to be.
"I don't know how things works here, with you being a warden, and me not being, and I don't want to get you in trouble. If people even care about that stuff? So just- however you want to do this." A pause. "But if it's up to me I don't want to pretend, I don't want to not be able to dance with you at parties."
He hadn't actually thought about that at all, maybe because he just barely thinks of her as an inmate, and he does have to pause for a second. His first instinct is to say fuck anyone who cares, too, but being an asshole to everyone else on the ship hadn't worked out well for him when he'd first gotten here, and it probably won't now. His brow furrows. Would they really have a problem with it? Jesus.
"I don't want to pretend, either," he decides -- or makes plain, really, because he already knew that much. "But maybe, um... lemme talk to some people, see what we'd be, like, in for and all. Okay? Is that cool?"
"I can live with that," she agrees. Right now she'd be content to live with a lot of things as long as she gets all of this, too. "I might tell my friend, but not your name or anything. Just...you know. That I'm happy."
"Yeah." He brings the back of her hand up to press his lips to it with fierce affection. He doesn't want to put her through too many compromises, but he already knows -- he's sure she already knows -- that between his demons and her demons, there will be some big ones somewhere. He's grateful that she's taking the initial hurdles well. He's relieved, if still sort of shocked in the depths of his soul, that he's still making her happy.
"Maybe say it's a warden -- see what she says," he suggests. "Test things out."
He lets go of her hand as they walk out the door, but it doesn't take him long to realize that the halls are basically deserted with everyone still upstairs. By the time they get to the elevator, his fingers are twined with hers, and he leans in for a kiss once the doors are shut. "No mistletoe," he mutters against her lips.
Annie realizes now that she has never had anyone kiss her hand, that with all the soft affection her packmates had given her they weren't like this. And to be fair, she was never this clear-eyed about how much she wants it with anyone before this. Her love has always been deep, but it was always hazy.
"I'll tell you what she says," she murmurs, pink in the ears, delighted.
The elevator, though, she knows the elevator. She wonders what he'd think if he knew how often she'd let her mind drift between these doors, back to a Herculean effort on her part to maintain boundaries. "D'you know what I wanted to do with you in here? Had nothing to do with mistletoe," she croons, and kisses him deeper.
"I think I've got some idea," he murmurs when they part again, his hands falling to her hips. He knows what he'd wanted, and he remembers the look in her eye well enough. She'd looked like she was barely restraining herself from begging to be pinned against the wall; the memory of it sends a shiver down his spine.
If this was any other time but their first, his hand would already be on the STOP button. Instead, he kisses her again, then ducks his head to kiss along her neck, a hint of a smirk on his lips that can just be felt. "But do you wanna show me now, or later...?"
She tips her head back and moans in a quiet, breathless way to let him know that the question is in no way fair.
"The only reason I'm saying later is 'cause I'm not going to rush this and people pounding on the elevator would kill my mood." She has a scar on her throat, and when he gets close to it her grip on him tightens. She's anticipating it panicking her, but it doesn't. Not as badly as she'd feared, anyway, not with how gentle his lips are on her skin.
"Do you think we'll make it all the way to your bed?"
"I'll do my best..." he rumbles against her skin, but he's genuinely not promising anything. His place is much bigger than Elizabeth's, and the bed is allll the way at the end.
He does at least reluctantly break away when the elevator doors open so they can make it as far as his cabin. His door probably isn't what most people would pick out for him: highly polished and fitted with brass and iron trim, it looks like it belongs to an upper-middle-class suburbanite more than a former drug kingpin. The cabin inside is much the same: a huge, high-ceilinged front room with a fireplace, a staircase branching off to lead to what looks like at least part of an entire house.
"Bedroom's upstairs," Jesse confirms as he closes the door behind them and turns to reach for her once more. There's almost no furniture in this foyer room, but what is there -- a weirdly shabby futon and some chairs for the massive entertainment center at the end -- at least looks comfortable.
Annie has only been in a place this nice once in her life. It had been among the worst experiences of her life, and at first it reminds her that yeah. Jesse made his money the same way.
(Not the same way, though, she remembers, relieved all over again by his assurance that he would not have let her brothers die and he would not have traded her life around.)
She sees that futon and grins, presses against him again, kisses him like he's asked her to wait a year for what she wants.
"Silly," she purrs, "why would you put your bed so far away from me?"
She works her hands under his shirt. Wherever they end up, that shirt won't be coming with them.
He answers with something between a laugh and a moan, stealing a quick, hungry kiss before he actually replies: "Really bad planning?" He sheds his leather jacket and lets it fall with a heavy thump to the floor, hesitates -- but only briefly -- before he helps her get his shirt off.
He might hesitate longer if he didn't know she's already seen the rest of him. There are the tattoos, of course, front and back -- but there are also more scars, not as readily visible as the ones on his face, but easily found by touch. They seem to be mostly clustered around the base of his ribs and his kidneys, as if something had hit his stomach and back repeatedly.
Annie's fingers don't hitch when she touches his scars. She glides her hands as eagerly over them as she does the smooth muscles of his back, his chest. She has seen them before; it helps.
Besides, she has her own that she's hoping he remembers and won't linger on. Hers are ugly, badly keloided scars at her hip, the back of one thigh, her ribs right beside one breast, and of course the one on her neck. She doesn't know what gave Jesse his; except for the one on her leg, hers are very clearly from dogs.
She doesn't let go of him, even when she takes a step back into the room. "Pick a number, one two or three," she urges him breathlessly.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2017-01-05 04:08 am (UTC)"I think it's midnight now," she says. It's not. She knows there's at least another hour. But he is, indeed, sitting right there, close enough that she hardly has to move at all to bring a hesitant hand up to his jaw.
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Date: 2017-01-05 04:23 am (UTC)This time, it's a very big deal and anything from easy, and all it takes is the brush of her hand to set his heart hammering in his chest. He hesitates for a few beats, too, but then he doesn't hesitate at all: he turns in towards her and clasps her face in his hands, pulling her into the kiss he'd wanted to give her in the elevator and every moment since.
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Date: 2017-01-05 04:31 am (UTC)It's not.
It had taken every ounce of willpower to kiss his cheek and be done in the elevator. She had wanted this, though; a kiss with the freedom for her to savor it.
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Date: 2017-01-05 07:55 am (UTC)When they finally come up for air, he finds himself at a loss, struck momentarily speechless. He rubs his thumbs over her cheeks, staring down into her eyes.
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Date: 2017-01-05 08:01 pm (UTC)When she had brought up midnight she had planned the next step: a quick joke about oh, no, it's not midnight after all, have to do it again. But humor is often a shield for her, and she finds that she's without it right now. The smile tentatively pulling at the corner of her mouth has nothing to do with that.
She's so elated her voice ought to be strong, loud, but she can only manage something like a whisper. "Can we do that more often now?"
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Date: 2017-01-05 08:17 pm (UTC)"Definitely," he adds, and now the corner of his mouth does tick up slightly in turn. "Yes."
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Date: 2017-01-05 08:34 pm (UTC)He's going to have a fair amount of red on his lips at this rate.
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Date: 2017-01-05 09:02 pm (UTC)He's smiling when they break again -- like, actually, really smiling. It might look a little strange, the way it creases and warps his scars, but he also looks younger than he has since the flood took all the weight of memory off him. "Annie," he murmurs, pressing his lips to her cheek, her ear, her temple.
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Date: 2017-01-05 09:10 pm (UTC)"I really like you," she says like it's somehow a secret, and tops it off with that grin. "Happy new year, Jesse."
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Date: 2017-01-05 09:28 pm (UTC)He traces his fingers over her cheek, her jaw, re-learning the feel of her now that he knows her. "To, um, both of those," he adds as an afterthought.
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Date: 2017-01-05 09:35 pm (UTC)"You could stay the night." She has a roommate. Maybe that's awkward. Is this what college would have felt like? "We don't gotta do anything, but you could stay."
Is that moving too fast? Is it possible to move too fast if your relationship began with sex, sped into panicky fighting, and landed here?
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Date: 2017-01-05 09:44 pm (UTC)and in every other sense.But if she has a concern... He draws back enough to look at her, trying to gauge where the mixed messages he thinks he's hearing are coming from. "If you're worried about Elizabeth coming back, you could take some things and we could go to my place..." he offers carefully. Is that subtle enough? Too subtle?
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Date: 2017-01-05 09:49 pm (UTC)She kisses him once more and grabs a bag, some clothes--not anything to sleep in--a comb. She steals a glance at him. "Do you have neighbors?" Who might complain.
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Date: 2017-01-05 10:06 pm (UTC)"No. I mean-- yeah, but I think she's at the party. And she doesn't seem to give a shit when I've got music on, anyways." And fuck her if she does this time, really, because he hasn't gotten laid as himself in well over a year, and that's practically a functional lifetime to him.
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Date: 2017-01-05 10:22 pm (UTC)"Good." It also helps to know how secretive she needs to be.
"I don't know how things works here, with you being a warden, and me not being, and I don't want to get you in trouble. If people even care about that stuff? So just- however you want to do this." A pause. "But if it's up to me I don't want to pretend, I don't want to not be able to dance with you at parties."
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Date: 2017-01-05 10:44 pm (UTC)"I don't want to pretend, either," he decides -- or makes plain, really, because he already knew that much. "But maybe, um... lemme talk to some people, see what we'd be, like, in for and all. Okay? Is that cool?"
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Date: 2017-01-05 11:14 pm (UTC)She slips her hand in his. "Okay?"
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Date: 2017-01-05 11:24 pm (UTC)"Maybe say it's a warden -- see what she says," he suggests. "Test things out."
He lets go of her hand as they walk out the door, but it doesn't take him long to realize that the halls are basically deserted with everyone still upstairs. By the time they get to the elevator, his fingers are twined with hers, and he leans in for a kiss once the doors are shut. "No mistletoe," he mutters against her lips.
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Date: 2017-01-05 11:45 pm (UTC)"I'll tell you what she says," she murmurs, pink in the ears, delighted.
The elevator, though, she knows the elevator. She wonders what he'd think if he knew how often she'd let her mind drift between these doors, back to a Herculean effort on her part to maintain boundaries. "D'you know what I wanted to do with you in here? Had nothing to do with mistletoe," she croons, and kisses him deeper.
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Date: 2017-01-06 12:32 am (UTC)If this was any other time but their first, his hand would already be on the STOP button. Instead, he kisses her again, then ducks his head to kiss along her neck, a hint of a smirk on his lips that can just be felt. "But do you wanna show me now, or later...?"
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Date: 2017-01-06 06:29 am (UTC)"The only reason I'm saying later is 'cause I'm not going to rush this and people pounding on the elevator would kill my mood." She has a scar on her throat, and when he gets close to it her grip on him tightens. She's anticipating it panicking her, but it doesn't. Not as badly as she'd feared, anyway, not with how gentle his lips are on her skin.
"Do you think we'll make it all the way to your bed?"
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Date: 2017-01-06 08:19 pm (UTC)He does at least reluctantly break away when the elevator doors open so they can make it as far as his cabin. His door probably isn't what most people would pick out for him: highly polished and fitted with brass and iron trim, it looks like it belongs to an upper-middle-class suburbanite more than a former drug kingpin. The cabin inside is much the same: a huge, high-ceilinged front room with a fireplace, a staircase branching off to lead to what looks like at least part of an entire house.
"Bedroom's upstairs," Jesse confirms as he closes the door behind them and turns to reach for her once more. There's almost no furniture in this foyer room, but what is there -- a weirdly shabby futon and some chairs for the massive entertainment center at the end -- at least looks comfortable.
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Date: 2017-01-07 01:16 am (UTC)his money the same way.
(Not the same way, though, she remembers, relieved all over again by his assurance that he would not have let her brothers die and he would not have traded her life around.)
She sees that futon and grins, presses against him again, kisses him like he's asked her to wait a year for what she wants.
"Silly," she purrs, "why would you put your bed so far away from me?"
She works her hands under his shirt. Wherever they end up, that shirt won't be coming with them.
cw implication of torture
Date: 2017-01-07 01:53 am (UTC)He might hesitate longer if he didn't know she's already seen the rest of him. There are the tattoos, of course, front and back -- but there are also more scars, not as readily visible as the ones on his face, but easily found by touch. They seem to be mostly clustered around the base of his ribs and his kidneys, as if something had hit his stomach and back repeatedly.
cw implication of torture
Date: 2017-01-07 02:17 am (UTC)Besides, she has her own that she's hoping he remembers and won't linger on. Hers are ugly, badly keloided scars at her hip, the back of one thigh, her ribs right beside one breast, and of course the one on her neck. She doesn't know what gave Jesse his; except for the one on her leg, hers are very clearly from dogs.
She doesn't let go of him, even when she takes a step back into the room. "Pick a number, one two or three," she urges him breathlessly.
cw implication of torture
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