ER Oneshot: Lovers' Lips
Title: Lovers' Lips
Pairing: Luka/Abby, and some others that are less important.
Warnings: None
Summary: Luka, and the women he's kissed.
Disclaimer: Disclaimers are pretentious, as this is all perfectly legal and no one is dumb enough to think I'm John Wells or David Zabel. Although, people appare don't grasp what a oneshot means (no, I will not update, thank you), so let me clarify that I'm not Hollywood elite.
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"Soul meets soul on lovers' lips."
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound
Unlike Julia Roberts in "Pretty Women," he never had a problem kissing those with whom he'd traded money for sex. A couple of them did - they'd turn away and he'd end up with his mouth on their necks or in their hair or once, on the wall, although he didn't call her again after that - but for his part, he liked the kissing. It was all part of the illusion of companionship, of still having something he didn't know if he'd find again. It allowed him to suspend reality for a few peaceful moments, close his eyes, and pretend.
Kissing Sam was nice enough - he enjoyed it, liked the girlish fervor with which she kissed him back. She'd giggle sometimes, mid-makeout, and sometimes he laughed with her and sometimes it just made him feel old. But it was nice, it was sweet, sometimes even passionate, and it was better than the prostitutes or married women or patient's mothers, by far.
With Gillian, it had been something else, something heady and almost dangerous, partly because of where it had begun and partly because there had always been something wild and unpredictable about her. She wasn't like other women he'd been with - she was uninhibited and untraditional and everything else contradictory to what he'd experienced in a relationship before her. Even that word - relationship - hadn't really described what they'd been, and so kissing her had always felt a little thrilling, an adrenaline rush, because he'd never known what would come next.
Danijela's kisses had made his heart race, even after they'd been married for years. She had been his first kiss and for some time, even after her death, he had thought she'd be his last. He had kissed her that day she died, on his way out the door, chaste but sweet, and he remembered long after that her lips had been chapped and tasted faintly of that morning's coffee. She'd liked it with milk and sugar.
The first time he had kissed Abby - or, okay, so she had kissed him and he had been too stupefied to kiss back, although later when he'd gotten his wits about him he realized he wanted to - it had been like an electrical charge, straight on his lips, and it burned and buzzed after, and so did his brain. The next time, when he had kissed her, himself, the static was still there, laced with something tangy and mysterious, and he had to walk away for fear he wouldn't be able to stop so long as he was staring at her, that stunned little smile on her face. After that, every time he kissed her he felt like he was searching for something, trying to decipher what it was he had tasted, and it would be years before he figured out that it had been the flavor of fear.
If their first kiss had been a charge, their second first kiss was a bolt. He was half surprised, in the morning, when his lips weren't singed and bloody, because each time he had kissed her that night - and it had been quite a few times - it had felt like he was kissing lighting. Everything about it had been electrifying, ever nerve and cell ablaze and receptive, and the fear was still there, but this time, with it came the tang of lust and tart intensity of need and faint, sweet traces of something solely her, singularly Abby.
And later, the rich, smoky flavor of love.
As sure as he had been that Danijela would be his last kiss, he knows now with far more certainty that Abby will be. Not simply because he knows he could never get past another loss so monumental, or bring himself to love another woman after her, but because he knows that any other kiss after hers would be, at best, bland, and at worst, heartbreak.
Three decades after his first kiss, delivered by a shy, raven-haired girl to whom he'd given a daffodil for her twelfth birthday, and two decades after that girl had died, nearly breaking him, he has found salvation on Abby's lips, and he will never stop kissing her.
Pairing: Luka/Abby, and some others that are less important.
Warnings: None
Summary: Luka, and the women he's kissed.
Disclaimer: Disclaimers are pretentious, as this is all perfectly legal and no one is dumb enough to think I'm John Wells or David Zabel. Although, people appare don't grasp what a oneshot means (no, I will not update, thank you), so let me clarify that I'm not Hollywood elite.
--------------------
"Soul meets soul on lovers' lips."
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound
Unlike Julia Roberts in "Pretty Women," he never had a problem kissing those with whom he'd traded money for sex. A couple of them did - they'd turn away and he'd end up with his mouth on their necks or in their hair or once, on the wall, although he didn't call her again after that - but for his part, he liked the kissing. It was all part of the illusion of companionship, of still having something he didn't know if he'd find again. It allowed him to suspend reality for a few peaceful moments, close his eyes, and pretend.
Kissing Sam was nice enough - he enjoyed it, liked the girlish fervor with which she kissed him back. She'd giggle sometimes, mid-makeout, and sometimes he laughed with her and sometimes it just made him feel old. But it was nice, it was sweet, sometimes even passionate, and it was better than the prostitutes or married women or patient's mothers, by far.
With Gillian, it had been something else, something heady and almost dangerous, partly because of where it had begun and partly because there had always been something wild and unpredictable about her. She wasn't like other women he'd been with - she was uninhibited and untraditional and everything else contradictory to what he'd experienced in a relationship before her. Even that word - relationship - hadn't really described what they'd been, and so kissing her had always felt a little thrilling, an adrenaline rush, because he'd never known what would come next.
Danijela's kisses had made his heart race, even after they'd been married for years. She had been his first kiss and for some time, even after her death, he had thought she'd be his last. He had kissed her that day she died, on his way out the door, chaste but sweet, and he remembered long after that her lips had been chapped and tasted faintly of that morning's coffee. She'd liked it with milk and sugar.
The first time he had kissed Abby - or, okay, so she had kissed him and he had been too stupefied to kiss back, although later when he'd gotten his wits about him he realized he wanted to - it had been like an electrical charge, straight on his lips, and it burned and buzzed after, and so did his brain. The next time, when he had kissed her, himself, the static was still there, laced with something tangy and mysterious, and he had to walk away for fear he wouldn't be able to stop so long as he was staring at her, that stunned little smile on her face. After that, every time he kissed her he felt like he was searching for something, trying to decipher what it was he had tasted, and it would be years before he figured out that it had been the flavor of fear.
If their first kiss had been a charge, their second first kiss was a bolt. He was half surprised, in the morning, when his lips weren't singed and bloody, because each time he had kissed her that night - and it had been quite a few times - it had felt like he was kissing lighting. Everything about it had been electrifying, ever nerve and cell ablaze and receptive, and the fear was still there, but this time, with it came the tang of lust and tart intensity of need and faint, sweet traces of something solely her, singularly Abby.
And later, the rich, smoky flavor of love.
As sure as he had been that Danijela would be his last kiss, he knows now with far more certainty that Abby will be. Not simply because he knows he could never get past another loss so monumental, or bring himself to love another woman after her, but because he knows that any other kiss after hers would be, at best, bland, and at worst, heartbreak.
Three decades after his first kiss, delivered by a shy, raven-haired girl to whom he'd given a daffodil for her twelfth birthday, and two decades after that girl had died, nearly breaking him, he has found salvation on Abby's lips, and he will never stop kissing her.