[for helen] for gedda

[alaspoorwarrick]

dated February 6, 2009:After we close down the club, Helen doesn't come home with me and it kinda surprises me, y'know? I guess I thought since it was our thing, we'd celebrate together. I won't lie, it ticked me off a little, 'cos I know if I'd have gone home with someone else, I'd have been hearing about it tomorrow

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[poison_lipstick]

After so long, nearly three years, on the island, Saffron had gradually - and reluctantly - come to accept the fact that there were people there she cared about, people she loved. Hell, she'd even been in love, despite her better judgment, and maybe she still was, even if she'd die before admitting it. So she already knew that she cared very much for Warrick. They'd even said those three little words to each other.

Then she had to stand there and watch Warrick get shot in the neck, a shot that surely would kill him. She had to watch McKeen shoot him, twice, and wipe off his gun as calm as you please as Warrick slumped forward against the steering wheel. And faced with that cold horror, it hit Saffron that she didn't just love Warrick, she needed him. She relied on him. She wanted him with her. The revelation hit her square in the chest.

She wanted to look away, anywhere but at the screen, but it was like her feet were stuck to the floor. She heard Warrick say something, the Warrick that was there with her, but the words didn't register. Her eyes fell shut, just a heartbeat or two, and when she opened them again the tears were flowing freely.

Saffron took a deep breath, trying to get ahold of herself. Warrick wasn't shot, he was real and alive and just feet from her. It was just an image in a vid, it wasn't coming true. But even so, she was suddenly terrified, needing desperately in that moment to touch him, to be in his very solid and real arms, and yet irrationally afraid that if she went to him he would disappear before her eyes.

[alaspoorwarrick]

I hear Helen's breathing catch, but it's distant, y'know, like a siren at the other end of the Strip. Distinct, but there's so much other noise, I'm not really hearing it.

'Cos I can't stop hearing that tune, the one that was in my head the day I got here. The one I'd been thinking about writing. How they got it on the reel, I don't know, but it won't stop and I can't stop thinking I'm dead.

Shit, I'm dead. And Cath and Nick and Griss and Greg are blaming themselves when they ought to be blaming Whitey White and Helen's crying and my kid's got no dad and...

No more probably dead. Just dead.

I know I oughtta reach for Helen but I can't make my hand move past my forehead. "C'mere, girl," I manage, kinda hoarse and rough. "C'mere."

[poison_lipstick]

People had died on the island before; it was nothing new. Disappearances were sure as hell nothing new. Neither of those meant having to watch someone you loved die - or at least get well on his way to dying - right before your eyes.

It was Warrick speaking again, voice raw, that snapped her out of her shock. She turned her head sharply to look at him on an indrawn breath, and seeing him sitting there, hit with the reality of what would have happened to him if he'd stayed, pulled a strangled sob from her.

She closed the gap between them in an instant, not hesitating to climb right into his lap and curl herself around him, one hand curled around the back of his neck and her forehead pressed to his temple.

[alaspoorwarrick]

As soon as I say it, she's there, in my lap, curled tight around me like she's gonna protect me from McKeen, from all of it with her gorgeous curves and clever hands, and me, all I got is, "Hey, hey now, girl," to stop her crying. But I wrap my arms around her and hold on, hand rubbing between her shoulder blades.

I'm trying not to think, y'know, trying to let go of it all. Focus on her here in my arms. I'm not dead here. I've got a life here. With Helen. Maybe it's not the one I imagined, a'ight, but it's good.

Over and over and over, I keep telling myself this, and it helps. But it's not... I can't... I'm shaking inside, but having her here, that helps even more. Something real to hold onto to prove I'm really here.

"Guess I know now," I say finally, and my voice sounds wrecked, like I've been crying, but I can't even do that.

[poison_lipstick]

Saffron clung tightly to Warrick, nosing along his neck and jaw like a cat looking to either give or receive affection. She didn't want to think about him being anywhere but there with her, very much alive, and quiet sobs shook her body as she stayed as close to him as possible.

"It doesn't matter, honey, you're here now, and nothing's going to happen to you," she managed finally, her voice quiet and unsteady, lips brushing against his jawline. "I won't let it. Chufei wo si le, gorramit."

[over my dead body]

[alaspoorwarrick]

Eyes shut tight, I turn my head into hers and rest my cheek against her. I know she means it, she's got my back. Hoping it'll never come to that, 'cos I don't want her killing for me. I oughtta say something, but I don't know what.

For a long time, I just sit quiet, not thinking about much of anything. Hard to think with the image of my head jerk, blood splattering, is burned into my retinas. Hard not to think, too. About McKeen and what he's doing that he needed shoot me, the team processing the scene, how they took it, my boy who'll never meet me, Tina and whether she'll miss anything but the alimony, whether my soul's trapped 'cos I'm not dead here, even whether there's such thing as a soul.

It all seems kind of dry, kind of distracted, inside my head, like the thoughts are coming from someone else and I'm just listening to 'em.

Little while later, I shudder and hold her tighter. But then I can't sit there anymore, staring at the screen where I saw it all happen. I've got to be somewhere else, y'know? So I stand, bringing her with me. "Can't sit here anymore. Keep seeing it. Keep seeing my blood splattering."

My eyes finally focus on her, curled in my arms against my chest and me standing here holding her like that. "You gotta be anywhere?"

[poison_lipstick]

She sat there with Warrick, not paying attention to how much time had passed, just sat and let him be quiet for as long as he needed to, her arms wrapped tightly around him. Even with her talent for compartmentalizing, for distracting herself from unpleasantness, it took a hell of a lot of effort to keep from replaying that scene over and over in her mind.

When he scooped her up, she simply settled against him, no desire whatsoever to let him out of her sight or out of her reach. "No," she answered quietly, shaking her head. Even if she'd had somewhere to go just then, she would have blown it off. "Nowhere else to be but with you." And suddenly, she needed him so badly it was like a physical ache, a knot tightening in her belly.

[alaspoorwarrick]

Soon as she says no, I'm covering her mouth with mine and kissing her so hard my jaw cracks. Need her, like I've never needed a woman before. I need something, y'know, something real and solid to get that sound out of my head. Feels like listening to an out of tune piano or guitar, like you can recognize it, but it's just wrong.

"My place, a'ight?"

Can't really carry her all the way there like this. Don't want to put her down yet, though. So I just start walking, stiff-arming the door to the outside - gotta get out of there, gotta get out right the fuck now - and keep going.

[poison_lipstick]

Saffron returned Warrick's kiss in kind, feeding off his intensity so that her own was ramped up even more. To her thinking, he couldn't get them back to his place fast enough, and she nodded, knowing he'd probably have to put her down in the walk there but not wanting to leave his arms just yet. "Please," she practically whimpered, her arms tightening around his neck.

[alaspoorwarrick]

I don't even know how we get back to my hut, whether I carried her the whole way or she walked part of it. Got past the sound of gunshots, but then I got onto the case and what's going to put that asshole behind bars.

Next thing I know, I've got Helen slammed up against the inside of the door and my mouth crushed down over hers and I'm shaking with need. Can't get my damned clothes off fast enough.

[poison_lipstick]

It was a little more difficult, what with how she was crushed back against the door in a bruise-inducing sort of way that absolutely set her on fire, but Saffron managed to finesse her way out of her clothes before setting to work helping Warrick with his. Articles flew every which way between kisses that were verging on desperate and touches that seemed to sizzle.

"Warrick..." Saffron gasped, her voice still far closer to a plaintive whimper than anything else. "Bǎobèi, oh god...need you so much..." She couldn't kiss him enough, couldn't get him close enough, and all she wanted was more, more, more. All she wanted was to feel him against her, inside her, a reminder that he was there and wasn't leaving her.

[alaspoorwarrick]

Somehow Helen gets her clothes off. All I know is there's arms and legs moving, tongues tangling, grunts and curses and her sliding hot and slick against my hip while I balance her to get my damned pants off. I want to, god I want to, tilt my hips, lift hers, and slide right in to that heat, bury myself in it and her and forget all that ever happened with what's real, right here and now, y'know?

But I've been there, been down that road with Tina, and god knows I don't want to put Helen in that situation. 'Cos the island's makes us all cops wives, sitting at home and waiting for the knock on the door that says he or she's gone, and here without even the comfort of knowing they died serving the people and getting a hero's send-off, y'know? Here we're just gone. Not even dead for Grissom's beetles and maggots snf blowflies. Just gone.

It's a hell of a thing to be thinking with Helen crushed up against me, and maybe it's a measure of my mental state that it blends in seamlessly with the thought that she's here now and I'm gonna make sure she knows I am too. "I'm here, girl," I tell her, mouth sliding down her neck to her chest while I'm rooting around in my jeans pocket for a condom before they hit the floor. I find one and press it into her fingers. "You get that?"

I don't trust myself to tear the package with my teeth right now. She's steady against the door, but I'm pretty sure outside the wild need for skin, I'm shaking.

[poison_lipstick]

There was a fair number of things Saffron was really good at, and sex topped the list. She never had trouble maintaining control of the situation, and of herself, and she was amazingly good at never letting anything slip she didn't want to be shown. And yet, right then, her surface was cracking, a slim glimpse of the vulnerability she tried so hard to hide shining through. She needed Warrick so badly she could hardly think, could barely breathe past it, and it created an urgency in her that was surprising in its power.

She murmured a confirmation as her hand curled around the condom, and quick as a flash the wrapper was off and she was rolling it onto him with nimble fingers, the fleeting thought going through her mind that at least her near frantic level of desire wasn't hindering her skill. Once it was on, she wasted no time in wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his shoulders so that she was in position, hot and wet and way beyond ready. She kissed him, leaving the next move to him, and hoping he didn't dare hold anything back.

[alaspoorwarrick]

Jaw clenched, forehead resting against hers, I keep still while she gets the condom open and on. She's going to have bruises on her hips tomorrow, I know, 'cos my hands ache from holding on so hard.

As soon as she's done, lifted up around me, I stop holding on and start letting go. It's a process, letting go, when you're hanging on by a thread. Tilt my hips down, then thrust them up again, taking her first and fast before my hands relax. I groan, deep, the sound ripped out of me like someone reached in and snagged it with a hook, then one hand loosens enough to slide up to tangle in her hair, then the other, enough to steady us both.

"Goddamn," I growl, not even sure what I'm cursing, and my hips follow with quick, pummeling thrusts. That hold I had is breaking now, and I'm taking her along for the ride.

[poison_lipstick]

Warrick didn't disappoint, he never did, and Saffron let loose with a string of gasped Chinese as he thrust into her, her thighs tightening around him. The combination of everything she was feeling - the sweet ache of his hands at her hips, the insistent press of the door against her back, the fullness of him inside her and the sharp spike of pleasure that happened with every thrust - served to magnify what she was already feeling for him. There was an almost desperate need, yes, a need to be close, to know that what she'd seen wasn't going to be realized and that he would be there when she woke up in the morning. But there was love also, strong enough that she didn't want to feel it but couldn't do a thing to prevent it.

"Warrick, oh god..." This time it was little more than a whisper, soft and helpless in stark contrast with the urgency of their actions. She wasn't going to last long, not at all, and her arms tightened around him as she rained kisses over his face and what parts of him she could reach.

[alaspoorwarrick]

My fist in her hair tightens, holding on again, but this time I'm just stopping the kisses, the softness, so I can take her mouth. "Love you," I rasp against her lips, half in apology for the way I slam down over her, forcing her mouth wide against mine.

Thoughts buzz outside my head like Grissom's flies, and I swat them down with a series of sharp, short thrusts. Already I can feel it coming on, fucking freight train of an orgasm slamming through my brain, but I don't want to stop, a'ight? Slick pussy around my dick beats out thinking about what we saw, and sure as hell has aces high hands down over talking 'bout it. Can't hold off, though, can't hold onto it, not like we're going...

"Goddamn," I say again, this time borrowing her Chinese, hoping I can hang on long enough to get her there with me.