Whole Lotta Shaking Going On

[got_a_number]

Jordan paces around not-Lincoln's home. She browses through enough of his self-celebratory magazines to know his name is Thomas Lincoln and that he's some famous architect or artist or daredevil, or maybe all three. It doesn't matter. She doesn't like him or his house. He's lived all his life on the outside, but he keeps his home like the Center.

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[renevatio]

The car pulls away, and the queasy feeling Lincoln had been nursing through his whole performance hits him full strength. He wants to scrub his mouth of the Tom-like things he had to say -- but most of all he wants to find someplace to curl up and hide for a while. For the second time that day, he peers into the retinal scanner and the edgeless metallic door slides open. He walks inside with no guardedness at all.

The house feels empty. Lincoln stops in the middle of the living room. What was going on? Had Tom informed them of Jordan being here? Had she been collected while they were gone? Panic rises in the back of his throat. "Jordan?"

[got_a_number]

She gasps, hearing her name sound so normal. But it could be a trick. Lincoln sometimes slipped into another accent, and who's to say not-Lincoln couldn't do it right back. She doesn't answer, just presses tighter against the wall and bites the insides of her lips, holding her breath to keep from making a noise.

Whichever one it is is getting closer and she's tensing up. Any second now...

[renevatio]

Lincoln licks his lips, more anxious now than ever. A quick sweep of the downstairs doesn't reveal her. Knowing Jordan, there would have been a struggle -- unless whoever took her didn't fight fair.

He leaps up the stairs two at a time, trying to remain calm. "Jordan?" She's not in the spare bedroom, or the office, or the bathroom. He comes to Tom's bedroom and stops dead in his tracks. "Oh God..."

Glass everywhere, the lingering smell of gunpowder, clothes strewn over the floor and no Jordan. Knees weak, Lincoln stumbles into the middle of the room, unable to speak.

[got_a_number]

She sees him run up the stairs, but couldn't get a good enough look to assure herself one way or another. Silently, using all the stealth she possesses, Jordan eases her way up the staircase after him, keeping low as she passes the hole in the wall. She peers through it

[renevatio]

Having a gun pointed at you never gets any less shocking; Lincoln learns in that second that it gets infinitely more terrifying when it's being done by someone you know.

"Jordan! What are you doing? It's me!"

He looks at her eyes. Her eyes are ruthless. He swallows. "It's Lincoln." He opens his palms to her, hands in the air.

[got_a_number]

He sounds so natural about it, but not in the sly sure way not-Lincoln was before they left. Her arm shakes a bit, but she doesn't move the gun away immediately.

It's bad that she wants to believe him. not-Lincoln would do just about anything to make her believe. He'd need her to, just to trick her. Logically, letting her guard down was a stupid move to allow his appearance to sway her resolve.

But she wouldn't believe him if it weren't Lincoln. She searches his eyes and finds concern and relief. No way would not-Lincoln be relieved to have her pointing a gun to his head. Jordan's arm drops, her eyes still scanning him up and down, from the cuts and dirt and back to his blue eyes.

Barely whispering, "it's you," she collapses against him with a fierce hug, all her worries bubbling up and out of her as laughter and tears all at once. The hateful weapon falls with a dead thud and she's not sorry not to be holding it. Lincoln makes her feel a lot safer.

[renevatio]

This is the first real moment he's had in weeks. It all condenses into one singular sensation: the girl in his arms, the scent of her hair, the warmth of her body--

His fingers glide down the line of her shoulderblade, and he doesn't resist. The moment is right, the moment is real. A voice is insisting Go on! Do it! You know how, you want to, just go, and only lets it guide him when he perceives that it's his own and not Tom's.

He leans back a little and studies her. The distance between their faces is both too far and too close. He inclines his chin, and steadies himself with his other hand on her waist.

[got_a_number]

For a second, she thinks she's made the wrong decision, that he's fooled her after all. There's a squishing feeling moving up from her stomach to her throat and a throb in her chest. His eyes are half-closed, and she's not sure why, but she's closing her own.

There were pictures like this in not-Lincoln's magazines. Women and men looking ill and underfed pressing lips together as if to pass air between them. It looked...funny.

But she's always been curious, and she wants to try. Lincoln's breath is hot on her face, and she wrinkles her nose, licks her lips once and leans into him, steadying herself by gripping his shirt front. Jordan opens her lips and puts them dryly against Lincoln's own.

It feels funny, too.

[renevatio]

Funny, but nice. They hover together, lips pressed against each others', until Lincoln can't stand the stillness and slips his mouth shut. Jordan's lower lip falls between his own, and to his surprise, he finds himself holding her there.

Definitely nice.

[got_a_number]

Jordan jerks backward in surprise. She blinks at Lincoln, clearing a dark fog that has covered her eyes. Dumbly, she touches her lip, pinches it even, and finds that it doesn't shock her the way what Lincoln did does.

He opens his mouth, and she knows he's going to apologize and she almost laughs in his face. Apologize? She steps back into his embrace, licking her lips excitedly.

"Do that again. Whatever that was, do it again." She offers her face to him again, a smile making it hard to keep her lips puckered for him.

[renevatio]

He nods, confidence rising. "Okay." This time he brings her closer, and presses his mouth to hers less tentatively.

It's great, but there was something about the way Mercutio did it that made it... something else.

Oh. Right.

He catches her lower lip in his teeth for a moment, then swipes his tongue across it, hoping she'll lower her jaw.

[got_a_number]

Jordan gasps, and her tongue rises in her mouth, accidentally catching Lincoln's own. She hears him breathe quickly, and she intuits that it's as good a thing to him as to her.

Bold as ever, Jordan extends her tongue past her upper teeth and sticks it in Lincoln's open mouth. She feels his tongue, warm and wet against hers and she pushes harder, sucking in a deep breath and sealing her lips, slanted, against his as she continues to lick at his mouth from within it.

It's the most bizarre feeling, even a little gross, but she keeps at it, pressing her whole body to his as if to get that much more leverage.

[renevatio]

Keeping his eyes open would be sensory overload: Lincoln is experiencing enough just with his hands alone. He runs one up and down her back, drinking in the sensation of her silky blouse layered over the smooth curve of her spine. The other is spread palm down over her hip, thumb kneading just above the bone.

He keeps bumping his nose into hers, but he doesn't care, the taste of her is better than anything he's ever come across. The feeling of something inside his mouth that he has no control over is less worrisome than he'd imagined. He leans back slightly, and Jordan leans with him, and he's fully aware of the softness pressing on his chest. Her shirt shifts; without warning, Lincoln's fingers are on bare skin at her waist.

It's shocking: he's never even seen that part of her, much less touched it. His breath hitches, and he draws back. He smiles at Jordan, surprised. "That tongue thing is amazing," he says, dumbly. Strangely, he doesn't care.

[got_a_number]

Jordan nods, smiling lazily and then frantically. Her body seems to be flowing on two different speeds: languid and taut. She wants to just to let him do to her what his hands are doing, and, at the same time, wants to rip hard at his shirt and send buttons flying across the room.

"Yes," she says, not sure what she's saying or agreeing to.

Tension won out. Biting hard on her lower lip, she coiled up the pressure in her arms and shoved him hard. Lincoln staggered back a few steps, and she watched, almost shrieking with delight, as he stumbled against the bed. She didn't give him time to think or worry about what she intended.

Jordan climbed on top, legs astride his hips, not so much collapsing ontop as squishing him into the mattress. The contact was electric, and she had her mouth on his again without a word. It was so right.

[renevatio]

Oh. Hey. That's different.

Lincoln grins. Jordan sitting just so right there is delicious. He rises halfway, to get some use of his arms, and untucks her shirt all way. Still locked together at the mouth, he slides his hands under the silk and runs his hands over her body unimpeded. His own skin feels hot and flush. Every point of contact with Jordan -- even the awkward clash of limbs -- loosens a knot somewhere in him that keeps moving, sometimes at the back of his neck, sometimes in his belly, sometimes in his throat, sometimes right where she's perched...

[got_a_number]

It's not quite like itching, not quite, though every inch of skin tingles and clamors for attention, the kind Lincoln's fingers are more than capable of providing.

But her own fingers aren't satisfied with just letting it happen to her. Taking a cue from Lincoln, Jordan tries to work her fingers under his shirt, but there's a short circuit between her brain and her appendages. She goes for brute force, something she's good at.

And she gets her wish: buttons go everywhere.

Then Jordan pauses. She leans up and away from Lincoln's body, blinking, confused at his exposed skin.

"It's...different." She giggles girlishly, puts a hand to her warm lips, smothering the giddy feeling only partially. "Look," she says, seeing that he doesn't comprehend what she means. With him watching, stunned, she wiggles out of not-Lincoln's spare shirt, leaving her only in her bra. With intent, she points at her chest and then his. "See?" A little less certainly, she asks, "Different?"