later...
after this
His sleep is thick and heavy, but he isn't that surprised to feel himself struggling up toward wakefullness before he's really ready.
He's used to that feeling by now, and it had probably been a pipe dream to think it would be any different in the fading haze of sex, even still cocooned in the warmth of Keira's arms and legs.
His mind feels crowded with things he should be thinking about, should be considering, all of them swaddled in a distracting haze of Keira's scent and the feel of her skin pressed to his in intimate places, places where he's decidedly unused to the press of another persons skin. The feel of her breathing against his chest is both maddening and relaxing. He can't reconcile the two.
It takes him a little while to convince himself to slide out from beneath her, unwinding her fingers from the short hair at the nape of his neck (he smiles at that, and at the petulant murmur that breezes from her lips when he slides the pillow that had been beneath his head into her arms instead), watching her curl around his pillow in his place.
The light outside says full morning, probably at least eight o'clock, and he feels the day getting away from him already. Even so, he spends long moments watching Keira sleep, her face smooth and youthful, innocent of worry. Her lips are slightly curled, smiling a little, even while she sleeps, and the warmth that generates in his chest and belly is almost uncomfortable.
It's just new. Not dangerous. Just new.
But he isn't sure he believes that.
He showers quickly (he's pretty sure she won't mind), and doesn't think about washing the smell of her off of his skin.
Her kitchen is tiny, a jumble of mismatched appliances to go with her mismatched dishes (he can't help opening cupboards, just looking), but her coffee maker is a pretty good one, and the coffee he finds wrapped in oilcloth is very good. He smiles a little, and thinks: I know where her paycheck goes. He wonders if the grinder will wake her (he doesn't hope so, not really), but by the time the coffee maker trills at him to signal a complete cycle, she still hasn't appeared, so he supposes not. He doesn't bother with sugar or cream. He needs the jolt, anyhow.
His laptop is far quieter than both coffee maker and bean grinder, but he feels a lot more anxious about her waking to the sounds of it's soft beeps and the whirr of its fan than he had been about either of those. He isn't sure what he would say to her, if she asked what he was doing with it at this time of the morning. He can't even think of a good lie, although he spends several minutes considering it, trying to come up with something. He gives up, finally, because he's just sitting there with his coffee getting cold and his computer idling, and the longer he fucking nances about (pondering whether or not he's even capable of blatantly lying to her), the more likely it becomes that he'll have to.
He always feels a little bitter about how easy it is to get into the PD's mainframe. He isn't even a hacker, for fuck's sake. Not a real one, anyhow. His talents are strictly mediocre. Fucking terrifying, when you think about it, really. He's actually a little reassured when he has to spend some actual time and energy working on Brandon's files. He's got them not only partitioned off, but encrypted. Man clearly takes the confidentiality of his patients seriously. It'd likely be easier to hack Susan's files instead, but he avoids doing that when he can manage it. He doesn't like the idea of invading Susan's privacy.
He's fully aware that it makes no sense whatsoever.
He isn't surprised by anything he finds in Brandon's evaluation.
He is surprised by the fact that he feels a little guilty at his own duplicitous behavior.
Bugger this fucking job and these fucking people. He hardly fucking knows himself anymore.
He sighs and scrubs at his face with both hands, forcing his mind away from Keira and Nic and Johnny, and the rest of them.
He has a lot to do today, not the least of which is to stop by the station and get verbally skewered by the brass. Susan won't be able to help him, when it comes to that, either. He doesn't work for Susan anymore. He's unlikely even to see her, except maybe to turn over the keys to the 'stang. And while it's slightly reassuring, the fact that one of the calls he'd got last night had come from Redden, so at least Redden has some idea of what's going on, it doesn't really say anything about the man. Bill almost wishes he were the sort of bloke that could just trust him, trust him because Susan clearly does. But he's just not. He can't depend on there being anyone in his corner, and so he's going to leave the trip to the station until later. Around four o'clock, maybe, when a lot of the brass would have already ducked out for the day, looking to get an early start on their weekend. Maybe Tyndall, if Bill is supremely lucky.
Besides, he needs to talk to Orlando, needs to fill him in, at least a little bit. And Orlando might be worried. Bill suspects Orlando's opinion on Bill's skills and talents might be somewhat overblown, however, so it's possible that he isn't worried at all. Inexplicably, that thought amuses him greatly. Still. Orlando will be glad to hear that Bill thinks he's safe enough at DBY, at least for the time being.
He dresses in the rumpled jeans and t-shirt from the duffle bag. They smell of gun oil, unsurprisingly. He's going to have to stop somewhere and pick up some clothes before he shows up at the studio.
He considers not waking Keira. Considers it so seriously that he merely stands in the doorway of her bedroom for long minutes, until he realizes that as long as he's standing there looking at her, he isn't really thinking at all. Really, he's just looking, and this isn't the bloody time to get lost in the play of the sunlight on her skin and in her hair like a lovesick teenaged wanker.
Still, he can't quite bring himself to walk out of her apartment without telling her he's leaving, and he's no sooner decided that than he finds himself down on one knee beside her bed, brushing her hair back from her face with the side of his hand.
Wait, he thinks. Just who the fuck am I? On the heels of that: She's not the only one this isn't good for.
But maybe that isn't true. Maybe that's just him being fucked up, him trying to protect his own personal status fucking quo, and why the bloody crap should he be doing that, anyhow? What's so fucking good about the status quo?
He shakes his head, pushes it out of his mind. He doesn't have time for it right now, he can bloody well soul search another time.
"Keira, love," he murmurs, and watches her shift slightly, her brows drawing together into a tiny frown. She doesn't quite wake though. He's amused, but not really surprised. Once upon a time, when he had been in University and working full time besides, he had slept like the dead, too. Especially after party nights. "Quaen, I've got to go," he murmurs, and runs his thumb along the line of her jaw.
She opens her eyes slowly, blinking at him like he's left over from her dreams, and then her lips curl and curve and slide into one of her smiles, bright and beautiful even when she's half asleep and there's a line on her cheek from where she'd had the pillow bunched oddly under her skin. "Come back to bed," she invites, and blinks sleepily at him, and damn it all if he isn't fucking tempted.
"Not today, quaen," he says, and she curls her long fingers around his wrist and draws his hand to her lips, plants a kiss on his palm. Her lips are very soft and very warm. He's fairly sure that it had been a gesture of innocent affection, and it's his own fault entirely that it makes him want to do disturbingly non-innocent things to her. "I've got to go to work," he manages to say, and feels her smiling against his palm.
"No one will be there for hours," she notes, but she doesn't sound like she's really trying to talk him out of it, for which he is awkwardly grateful. He feels like he'd probably be fairly easy to talk into nearly anything that involved her and the bed and another few hours of nakedness.
"I need fresh clothes," he says (lamely), and she just smiles, accepting that.
"Okay. I'll be in later," she says, and turns over onto her belly, stretching full length and wallowing around in the bedclothes for a few seconds. He grins -- he can't help it -- at how that is somehow both cat-like and puppy-like at the same time.
He bends to brush his lips against the corner of hers, but she ducks away so that is lands on the arch of her cheek. "Bill! I have skanky morning breath!"
He snorts and chokes a little on the unexpected burst of laughter that escapes him, which only gets worse as she peeks one eye out from under the pillow she's buried her head under and stares reproachfully at him. "Skanky morning breath," he repeats, unable to help himself, and he's pretty sure he hears her growl from underneath the pillow. "Right then. I'll just be going."
She mutters something that's muffled by the pillow on her head, but might have been "twat."
He grins. "Lock the door behind me, Keira," he tells her, and she flaps one hand at him -- get out stupid man-person -- but doesn't actually get up. "I'm serious, Keira." Although he'd probably sound more like it if he could quit snickering.
"I will!" she finally agrees, still muffled under her pillow.
He stands outside her door, though, with the strap of the laptop's case digging uncomfortably into his shoulder and the duffle sitting between his feet, until he actually hears the locks turn on the other side.
His sleep is thick and heavy, but he isn't that surprised to feel himself struggling up toward wakefullness before he's really ready.
He's used to that feeling by now, and it had probably been a pipe dream to think it would be any different in the fading haze of sex, even still cocooned in the warmth of Keira's arms and legs.
His mind feels crowded with things he should be thinking about, should be considering, all of them swaddled in a distracting haze of Keira's scent and the feel of her skin pressed to his in intimate places, places where he's decidedly unused to the press of another persons skin. The feel of her breathing against his chest is both maddening and relaxing. He can't reconcile the two.
It takes him a little while to convince himself to slide out from beneath her, unwinding her fingers from the short hair at the nape of his neck (he smiles at that, and at the petulant murmur that breezes from her lips when he slides the pillow that had been beneath his head into her arms instead), watching her curl around his pillow in his place.
The light outside says full morning, probably at least eight o'clock, and he feels the day getting away from him already. Even so, he spends long moments watching Keira sleep, her face smooth and youthful, innocent of worry. Her lips are slightly curled, smiling a little, even while she sleeps, and the warmth that generates in his chest and belly is almost uncomfortable.
It's just new. Not dangerous. Just new.
But he isn't sure he believes that.
He showers quickly (he's pretty sure she won't mind), and doesn't think about washing the smell of her off of his skin.
Her kitchen is tiny, a jumble of mismatched appliances to go with her mismatched dishes (he can't help opening cupboards, just looking), but her coffee maker is a pretty good one, and the coffee he finds wrapped in oilcloth is very good. He smiles a little, and thinks: I know where her paycheck goes. He wonders if the grinder will wake her (he doesn't hope so, not really), but by the time the coffee maker trills at him to signal a complete cycle, she still hasn't appeared, so he supposes not. He doesn't bother with sugar or cream. He needs the jolt, anyhow.
His laptop is far quieter than both coffee maker and bean grinder, but he feels a lot more anxious about her waking to the sounds of it's soft beeps and the whirr of its fan than he had been about either of those. He isn't sure what he would say to her, if she asked what he was doing with it at this time of the morning. He can't even think of a good lie, although he spends several minutes considering it, trying to come up with something. He gives up, finally, because he's just sitting there with his coffee getting cold and his computer idling, and the longer he fucking nances about (pondering whether or not he's even capable of blatantly lying to her), the more likely it becomes that he'll have to.
He always feels a little bitter about how easy it is to get into the PD's mainframe. He isn't even a hacker, for fuck's sake. Not a real one, anyhow. His talents are strictly mediocre. Fucking terrifying, when you think about it, really. He's actually a little reassured when he has to spend some actual time and energy working on Brandon's files. He's got them not only partitioned off, but encrypted. Man clearly takes the confidentiality of his patients seriously. It'd likely be easier to hack Susan's files instead, but he avoids doing that when he can manage it. He doesn't like the idea of invading Susan's privacy.
He's fully aware that it makes no sense whatsoever.
He isn't surprised by anything he finds in Brandon's evaluation.
He is surprised by the fact that he feels a little guilty at his own duplicitous behavior.
Bugger this fucking job and these fucking people. He hardly fucking knows himself anymore.
He sighs and scrubs at his face with both hands, forcing his mind away from Keira and Nic and Johnny, and the rest of them.
He has a lot to do today, not the least of which is to stop by the station and get verbally skewered by the brass. Susan won't be able to help him, when it comes to that, either. He doesn't work for Susan anymore. He's unlikely even to see her, except maybe to turn over the keys to the 'stang. And while it's slightly reassuring, the fact that one of the calls he'd got last night had come from Redden, so at least Redden has some idea of what's going on, it doesn't really say anything about the man. Bill almost wishes he were the sort of bloke that could just trust him, trust him because Susan clearly does. But he's just not. He can't depend on there being anyone in his corner, and so he's going to leave the trip to the station until later. Around four o'clock, maybe, when a lot of the brass would have already ducked out for the day, looking to get an early start on their weekend. Maybe Tyndall, if Bill is supremely lucky.
Besides, he needs to talk to Orlando, needs to fill him in, at least a little bit. And Orlando might be worried. Bill suspects Orlando's opinion on Bill's skills and talents might be somewhat overblown, however, so it's possible that he isn't worried at all. Inexplicably, that thought amuses him greatly. Still. Orlando will be glad to hear that Bill thinks he's safe enough at DBY, at least for the time being.
He dresses in the rumpled jeans and t-shirt from the duffle bag. They smell of gun oil, unsurprisingly. He's going to have to stop somewhere and pick up some clothes before he shows up at the studio.
He considers not waking Keira. Considers it so seriously that he merely stands in the doorway of her bedroom for long minutes, until he realizes that as long as he's standing there looking at her, he isn't really thinking at all. Really, he's just looking, and this isn't the bloody time to get lost in the play of the sunlight on her skin and in her hair like a lovesick teenaged wanker.
Still, he can't quite bring himself to walk out of her apartment without telling her he's leaving, and he's no sooner decided that than he finds himself down on one knee beside her bed, brushing her hair back from her face with the side of his hand.
Wait, he thinks. Just who the fuck am I? On the heels of that: She's not the only one this isn't good for.
But maybe that isn't true. Maybe that's just him being fucked up, him trying to protect his own personal status fucking quo, and why the bloody crap should he be doing that, anyhow? What's so fucking good about the status quo?
He shakes his head, pushes it out of his mind. He doesn't have time for it right now, he can bloody well soul search another time.
"Keira, love," he murmurs, and watches her shift slightly, her brows drawing together into a tiny frown. She doesn't quite wake though. He's amused, but not really surprised. Once upon a time, when he had been in University and working full time besides, he had slept like the dead, too. Especially after party nights. "Quaen, I've got to go," he murmurs, and runs his thumb along the line of her jaw.
She opens her eyes slowly, blinking at him like he's left over from her dreams, and then her lips curl and curve and slide into one of her smiles, bright and beautiful even when she's half asleep and there's a line on her cheek from where she'd had the pillow bunched oddly under her skin. "Come back to bed," she invites, and blinks sleepily at him, and damn it all if he isn't fucking tempted.
"Not today, quaen," he says, and she curls her long fingers around his wrist and draws his hand to her lips, plants a kiss on his palm. Her lips are very soft and very warm. He's fairly sure that it had been a gesture of innocent affection, and it's his own fault entirely that it makes him want to do disturbingly non-innocent things to her. "I've got to go to work," he manages to say, and feels her smiling against his palm.
"No one will be there for hours," she notes, but she doesn't sound like she's really trying to talk him out of it, for which he is awkwardly grateful. He feels like he'd probably be fairly easy to talk into nearly anything that involved her and the bed and another few hours of nakedness.
"I need fresh clothes," he says (lamely), and she just smiles, accepting that.
"Okay. I'll be in later," she says, and turns over onto her belly, stretching full length and wallowing around in the bedclothes for a few seconds. He grins -- he can't help it -- at how that is somehow both cat-like and puppy-like at the same time.
He bends to brush his lips against the corner of hers, but she ducks away so that is lands on the arch of her cheek. "Bill! I have skanky morning breath!"
He snorts and chokes a little on the unexpected burst of laughter that escapes him, which only gets worse as she peeks one eye out from under the pillow she's buried her head under and stares reproachfully at him. "Skanky morning breath," he repeats, unable to help himself, and he's pretty sure he hears her growl from underneath the pillow. "Right then. I'll just be going."
She mutters something that's muffled by the pillow on her head, but might have been "twat."
He grins. "Lock the door behind me, Keira," he tells her, and she flaps one hand at him -- get out stupid man-person -- but doesn't actually get up. "I'm serious, Keira." Although he'd probably sound more like it if he could quit snickering.
"I will!" she finally agrees, still muffled under her pillow.
He stands outside her door, though, with the strap of the laptop's case digging uncomfortably into his shoulder and the duffle sitting between his feet, until he actually hears the locks turn on the other side.