(no subject)
Title: The Last Inch, The Minute’s Latest Point
Character/Pairing: 10/Rose
Rating: NC-17, MA, or strong R.
Summary: “Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today.”
Disclaimer: Not for profit, but for fun, these are not mine.
Author's Notes: Written for
threerings as a gift on the OSK Summer Lovin’ Ficathon. I abused her prompts and good will terribly.
~~
The Last Inch, The Minute’s Latest Point
~~
“Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today.”
‘Phil’, Groundhog Day, Bill Murray, dir. Harold Ramis (Colombia Pictures Corporation, 1993)
~~
He wants this moment again.
~~
The first time, he says yes.
Against her lips, exhale so close against her skin it becomes an inhale. She’s warm, her lips a little scratch against his chapped ones, and when her tongue flicks out it licks him too.
In his room. Body heat pushing against his chest an instant before her flesh. His hands skim up, across the warm bones of her spine, each individual vertebrae a little extra pressure against his fingertips; her sharp scapula, where she could force out feathers to fly away (he hopes perversely, like Daedalus, she’d never go far without him). Her hair is soft, tickling his throat and her mouth burns against his skin as she places a wet open-mouthed kiss into his clavicle. He holds her tight against him and groans.
On the bed. Clothes on the floor, and his fingers are wet, the scent of sex rising like heat through the room. She is hot and tight, so very tight, but if he pushes in and twists, she opens, slick and clinging. Her hips are jerking, and her spine is arching off the covers as she presses her face into the covers, shallow breaths, ohpleaseohplease.
Wet, drizzling out of her, he laps it up. She’s mewling, little cries into the twisted bed sheets, her fingernails scraping for purchase as she ejaculates, vanilla-scented and bitter-tasting against his lips, her thighs slippery with sweat against his temples, muscles quivering, even as her whole body goes limp and she breathes a groan that is more like a sigh. He gathers her up, her skin so hot against his, hotter still inside as he pushes in, each inch a declaration, I love-
-this.
Oh, thisthisthis. Each thrust, the butterfly shudders of her walls around him and her breath, hot and sweet and groaned against his neck.
He wants this again and again.
~~
The second first time he says no.
It’s in the in-between time, the breathing space where her little heart slowed in sleep, the little creeping darkness of his room, the little hitch between her lungs filling, he’s got time to consider it, this. The feel of her body pressed against his, post-coital, sweat cooling, drying into salty residue. He wants to taste, but he lies, holding her to him and listens.
There’s a selfishness scratching across his skin, a desire to be free of this responsibility. There’s a next moment, he listens to it, the next breath in the passage of time that complicates and (could) lead to words, sentences, explanations, vocal declarations.
He’s never been good at those.
The why is a problem, not the what, that was very good, veryvery good. But he still doesn’t know if he wants her and all the breath she entails, or just this uncomplicated little body, her flesh and her heat and nothing more. No mess apart from organs. He wonders if it’s possible to separate the two, the what and the why, humans attach so much emotional importance to sex, and maybe, just this once, he added too much too. The what always, eternally, leading onto the why, cause and effect in a narrow linear progression that becomes complex because of a cat and a box.
He can see a future with her, without her, within her, the little possibilities stretching in branches that flex, move, grow, surge, retract, die, like bronchi, bronchioles, alveoli more and more over and over. Each within her breath. Their breath.
He doesn’tdoes want this? Too much, always.
He wants to be simple, just once, just dealing in simplicity, just the now rather than the willmightbealmost. Closing his eyes, impulsive with no time to think, pushing that big red button. He becomes a doctor.
A little ripple in the air, a little shift in the molecules.
Cut through the trachea, ending the breath just right so that nothing branches off from it and they’re in the console room. Taking (stealing) a moment to see whether the patient will bleed out from the surgery.
Her eyes, from across the console, looking at him full of heat and desire and a love (never sure which kind), and at least he knows the feel of her skin against his he thinks as she walks around, step light, fingers brushing against the ship.
He’s had that to keep, a moment she’ll never have.
She’s light, so happy, rippling with adrenaline and leaning in, warm against him, with the confidence that comes from feeling alive.
Against her lips, exhale so close against her skin it becomes an inhale. She’s warm, her lips a little scratch against his chapped ones, and when her tongue flicks out it licks him too.
And he moves away.
Maybe the sudden, unexpected weight, the sadness is breathing through his skin, a sudden change from the happy moments before as they tumbled through the doors, an adventure behind them and another ahead, because she looks confused.
And he wants to replace the breath with babble and joy and anything but what had (should?) happened. The moment he wants to keep, but never have a future in, never that endlessness that (of course) will one day come to and end, but always with an after.
So he says ‘No, Rose.’
And he pretends that he doesn’t understand the hurt on her face.
~~
It’s a syllable that comes back to haunt him.
A denial of an event.
Before, in the linear understanding, he held out his hand and pulled her close. But always let go before he made it complicated. It was a sweet future of a forever friendship. He never chose to look further; the forever was as it had been in the past. Rose a little blonde image of those who had gone before. Nothing would or had changed because it was as it had always been, when they were alive.
He thinks that was a little blinkered.
An impulsive moment, a second (or two) of regret, and this is what he has.
Just the denial.
‘No. Nononono-’
She was so upset, and bitter. That day. Was there a moment when she saw what could have been too? What had been, before he changed it? It was the moment that it should have changed.
She never confronted him. Not the designated driver. He tried so hard not to notice that she’d stopped. Pulled away. Blamed herself. That look at the back of her eyes, the one she always had when he’d made her laugh, or held her close, or made her come, breathless and smiling in his arms (that one-night-that-never-happened), the expression that didn’t need breath or words, had gone. She smiled, joked, and pushed him back when he nudged her away.
She stopped holding his hand so tightly. She ran away, ahead.
So? (her smile could be considered a little subdued.)
So. (gesturing towards the doors, all expectation and mystery, round and round she goes where she stops nobody knows)
(She’s opening the doors and ahead of him and he’s not holding her hand, hasn’t in a while, she doesn’t call for him.)
Just a moment, a second (or two), a step ahead. This time.
‘-don’t do this, Rose.’
She is very still, and a little pale around the edges. And her whole body is limp, but not sated. Empty.
She didn’t call for him.
She is very still.
And there is a hole where her lung should be.
He seems to have gathered her into his arms.
He is falling away inside. He’s not sure if this is a belated attempt to take her away from the danger. If he’d been able to hold her? He’d pushed her into this anyway.
And there is blood pooling in her clavicle. The edge of the wound are roasted, black and curling, flesh a little blistered and patchy red and there are ashes in his mouth.
She is still.
She is gone.
He holds her, trying to keep her, somehow.
Begging, not sure if he’s voicing it, a one word prayer that she’ll open her eyes; please. Please-
And he kisses her, the second first proper time, and her lips are cold and chapped, but her fingers don’t wrap around his when he holds her hand.
Again, finally, sososorry that he hadn’t held it before, and this time, this time is the only time he’ll have with her like this. Don’tleaveme. He wants this to stop, for time to go backwards, and he wants this moment again. Time’s repeating itself and he’s said no too many times now. The surgery left a wound too big and the patient bled out, and
Selfish impulse, he takes them,
He wants these moments again.
~~
‘No!’
And she stops.
Just before the door. Just before the-
She is upset. He can see it itching across her skin. But she’ll never say anything to the designated driver.
Another little breath, a cut, and here, again.
He feels a little sick.
A little overwhelmed by the possibilities and here, again, the desire for simplicity, but she is there.
Naked against him and fully-dressed as she turns and there is blood on her clean skin and, and…
Too much.
She is upset.
All he wants and doesn’t and she’s become the damn Schrödinger's cat, but he can’t help interfering, and he’s angry at her for that.
On a sigh: ‘Rose.’
He seems to have crossed to her and gathered her into his arms. She is taut against him, her muscles tense and heat shivering-off in bitter tremors. Her eyes are wide, perplexed, but with each blink he can see the half-closed dead stare of her body. And between them, the trachea tightens, the breath is made short, skin drawn tense. Very tense.
She shakes her head sight from eye to eye, and ‘What?’ she asks, her voice a little choked.
‘Don’t leave me’, he states, and the words are out there. Skin dry and hearts a little fast, they left his mouth without permission.
And this time, the ‘What?!’ is an exclamation. Her hands, a little coarse, big-knuckled, push against him. A scent of distress sheds from her skin. ‘You have the nerve to ask me-’ she starts, and her voice, a little shrill, is cut off against the involuntary tightening of his arms.
She pushes away, stronger, and from a distance now, he watches her rub at the red marks his hold has left on her skin.
Her body is taut. And she is holding herself tightly, as if to prevent all her parts from flying away. For a moment, just one, he sees nothing but her in this state, in this moment. Very controlled, but burning underneath. ‘What has made you think that I would leave you?’ she asks, and her voice is a little too clipped and hot against the air.
And he has said no too many times.
‘I feel-’ he begins, and the words become breathless, without lungs behind them. He is full of shivers but not enough air to get the words out; they catch in his throat.
‘-I made you do or, I did, something’, he mangles, and gasps and forces out the question: ‘Rose, what have I done?’
Her eyes widen, and her whole body shakes. A violent shudder, like she is coming (apart?), that time, in his arms. ‘You-’ she begins. And she shakes her head. Is she trying to clear these possibilities from her head too? He wonders. ‘You stopped!’ she gasps, ‘What did I do? I bloody expected too much again, didn’t I?’ And she is angry, a bitter scent in the air, rising off her skin. ‘Did you ever, once, stop and think how much of a fucking mug will Rose feel? Ever?’ And he feels like she’s eating at his insides.
Her face is made sharper in anger, her cheekbones hollowed. She is hissing as she leans forward. ‘You don’t get to keep me - I am not going to come when you call! It doesn’t work like that, you can’t just-’
His mouth is moving again, without permission. ‘Just what, Rose?’ He feels like he might be feigning ignorance. Of course, he does know what this whole conversation is dancing around. He’s going to deny it isn’t he? Again, it’s an involuntary reflex, a meddling in the natural progression between the two of them. ‘What are you assuming about me?’ he provokes, ‘What is in the little human head of yours?’
He’s pushing her again. She’s going to walk out there and-
No.
She is straightening up, stiff, like her joints have tightened, and her skin is very, very white.
Turning to go. So pale. All the blood is on her clothes and pooling in her clavicle and across his arms.
All he sees is red.
She looks terrified when he steps in front of her. He moved too fast, didn’t he? Inhuman speed against her human expectations. But he’s between her and the door and that’s all that counts.
It won’t happen again, not that future. But she’s backing away, a little frantic, with jerking movements and she doesn’t stop moving until he stops advancing and tries to relax the muscles in his face.
A little pause. Just a small one. And then she makes a run for it.
He seems to have gathered her into his arms.
And she fights, clawing at him, kicking, but no sound, no words: he’s kissing her.
Teeth scraping against each other, and it’s hard and fast and then, then…
Oh.
~~
‘Well-That was…’
Pause. A little sigh, a little gasp.
‘Yeah,’
‘It was.’
And they’re laughing, after the third first time. This is the first after. This is the moment.
She is curled into him, her glorious hair against his throat, and her skin warm against his. There is a pulse beating in her, he felt it against his tongue, in her throat, wrists, her clit. Her mouth is pressed against his chest.
And oh. It was. But this is too. A little future.
She rests on her elbow, above him, eyes creased. ‘So,’ she drawls, ‘what brought this on?’
She’s tense, still, under that relaxed façade.
He tenses too.
‘Am I going to regret this?’ she asks, hand over his other heart.
He takes a deep breath. ‘Why would you?’
Snappy, fast return: ‘Because you will.’
‘I won’t.’
She looks startled.
‘What did you think this was?’ he asks, sudden. There’s something burning in his throat, in his gut. ‘Did you think that I didn’t-that I don’t mean this?’
She won’t make eye contact.
‘Please, Rose,’ he can’t breathe. ‘Don’t-there’s no manipulation-’
And he’s on top of her. Holding her down. She’s not going anywhere.
She bucks against him, and he nips her shoulder in admonishment, teeth a little sharp
He turns his head into the crook of her neck. ‘I want you to stay,’ he whispers in her ear, so close his breath re-caresses his lips. Licking her, sweat, salty, a little bitter leftover perfume.
He’s hard, and he pushes into her hipbone, the friction, just right, just there. And.
Oh, yes. She grinds against him, enough to…
He can smell her, vanilla and oregano and cinnamon. Salty, a little tide of desire pooling between her thighs and her heat is scalding.
He turns her over, quickly, and the little grunt of surprise she gives, oh, heat crawling down through his arteries, his skin shivers with desire.
Her face is pressed into the floor, and she moans as his fingertips scratch down her spine. An impulse, her trails his fingers further, down between her cheeks, across her clit, a slow circle, flittering across, and then back up, and presses three fingers inside, fast.
She screams into the floor.
He bends over, lunges, almost, so that he can grind against her wetness and hiss into her ear: ‘I want you.’
‘Oh, God…’ she moans. The shift in position. His hand, wet with her liquid, pushing against her lips, her tongue curling around his flesh, hot against the bones; he forces her to suck the fingers even as he presses his hardness against her clit, and she is so warm inside her mouth. So very warm.
‘I want you to stay here, with me.’ He whispers, and his voice is so quiet in the rippling air, so low with desire. She bucks backwards against him and moans around his fingers. And Oh, Oh, almost enough that-
He bites her scapula in admonishment. And, ‘No,’ he whispers, into her skin, pulling away and kneeling behind her. His voice is so strong and the desire, the need burning behind it, it’s driven out of him in desperation. ‘Turn over.’ He demands.
She does, skin flushed, breasts loose and heavy, her lips are flushed and wet.
He snatches at the console, and grabs his tie. And back down, on the floor, he slides up, grill cold against his knees, as he presses every inch of skin against her and binds her hands above her head and to the floor.
Kisses her, biting her lips, and pulls back. He mouth open and pliant, her body pushing against his. And he tells her.
‘You are not to leave.’ He kisses her breastbone. ‘You are not to leave me.’ He kisses her stomach, mouth open and wet, and drags his tongue down, around, across, biting at her hipbone, even as she strains against the tie and groans above him. She tastes or sunshine, and iron, dry, with the salt of sweat pushing up, shivering just underneath.
‘I am keeping you.’ He tells her. His nose rubbing against her folds. The scent of sex rising like heat. ‘I am keeping you here, with me, because I need you safe.’ Her thighs clench. He whispers, moving his lips against her clit, heat rippling so the she groans, arches up and against him. ‘I need you, Rose.’ He murmurs.
Cherish, adore, desire. She’s at his mercy as he swirls his tongue around and around, the taste only interrupted for these words. I’m keeping you here, safe. And she groans above him, his name, curses and pleas, her thighs tensing and clenching, taut and shivering under the skin, her nails clawing at her bonds, she gives herself over to him.
Wet, drizzling out of her, he laps it up. She’s mewling, little cries, as she ejaculates, vanilla-scented and bitter-tasting against his lips, her thighs slippery with sweat against his temples, muscles quivering, even as her whole body goes limp and she breathes a groan that is more like a sigh. He gathers her up, her skin so hot against his, hotter still inside as he pushes in, each inch a declaration, I love-
-you.
Oh, IloveyouIloveyou. Her body arching beneath his, her eyes and her smile, each time he says it, her smile. And their flesh pressing together a friction so hot and it all becomes tighter and tighter, and she’s pulling now, had thrown back and ohohplease,ohgodohdoctorple-ease…. angling down against him and she clenches pulling at him, so tight and ripples against him, his cock, enough that it’s so tight the sound has gone and the light is bright and and ohohoh
There.
His skin shifting back onto his bones and he’s holding her so close, so tightly, even as she smiles against his temple. Her hands bound above them, kept here, and oh, she’s here, and they’re here together.
And she whispers it to him.
And oh.
He wants this moment again.
~~
Fin.