Wicked Games Chapter 6 - Sweet Like Sugar Venom
Chapter 6 - Sweet like Sugar Venom
A/N: See chapter one for disclaimers and warnings. Sex later, cursing and such now. For this chapter in particular: TRIGGER warning for self-harm.
I knew this was a fucking bad idea. I knew, dammit, and I’m still here, because of fucking Maura. I’m starting to feel like she’s the one doing a mind-fuck on me instead of the other way around, because instead of a session of weightlifting-for-weaklings or running or even fucking yoga we’re here, on the basketball court in the JEH gym, doing zumba.
Fucking zumba.
As bad as I thought it would be, it’s fucking worse. Jazzercise shit I could grit my teeth and get through, but this is fucking ridiculous. A bunch of dumpy middle-aged women, Ian fucking Faulkner and Maura are copying a crazy perky woman in a vaguely obscene dance routine. I swear, if they slowed it the fuck down a bit and added poles we’d be in a fucking strip club.
Maura saw the poster for it in the locker room and wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it until I promised to go. I backed down way too fucking easily, maybe Dean’s right about me going soft. I’m finding it way too fucking hard to say no to that puppy-dog face she makes when she’s sad.
“You in the back! Come on, drop it low!”
If Maura wasn’t dancing her fucking ass off right beside me I’d give Ms. Perky the finger. I settle for glaring and make another half-assed attempt to follow along.
I glance over at Maura and she gives me an encouraging smile while she does some sort of pelvic thrust thing that is really fucking distracting. And then she turns and bends, shoving her ass in my face. How the fuck did everyone know they were supposed to turn? Whatever, Maura is shaking her ass at me like a maraca. Maybe zumba isn’t so awful after all.
Except then everyone turns again and Maura, along with her ass, is facing the opposite side of the gym than I am. “This way Jane!” Maura yells over the thumping music. The loose hairs at the sides of her ponytail are bouncing along with her as she does this shoulder scooping thing, bent halfway over and wriggling her body around so smoothly it’s as if she’s boneless.
My body, meanwhile, is moving about as easily as my old Honda handled on snowy Boston streets. Fucking jerking back and forth and sliding around like an idiot. Me, not the car. It wasn’t the car’s fault it was old and crappy.
By the time I yank myself around everyone’s turned again and Maura nearly slams into me. Fucking hell.
“It’s a pattern, Jane,” she yells as she moves back away from me, her hips leading the motion with a deep, undulating twist. “Observe the four-count and repeat it. See?”
All I see is her thighs, her ass, her tits - oh my fucking god, her tits. She’s doing this chest-pumping thing that is fucking ridiculous but it makes her boobs jiggle even under what looks like a seriously fucking binding sports bra.
It shouldn’t surprise me that Maura is good at this. She’s always graceful, her movements permanently easy and polished, whether its ducking around tourists on the sidewalks or clicking down the labyrinth JEH corridors on five inch heels. Maura doesn’t walk, she fucking floats.
So no, it’s not fucking surprising that she can dance. I could picture her pirouetting or fucking waltzing, no problem. But this, this I would never have guessed. She’s completely going for it, throwing her whole body into the motions, hips whirling, ass pumping, arms thrown to the sky. Or to the ceiling lights of the gym. Whatever. It looks like she’s been doing this her whole fucking life, but she told me she’d never tried it before and I don’t think Maura has it in her to lie.
The song has changed to something even fucking faster, and now everyone is doing some bizarre ass footwork that makes them look like rejects from A Chorus Line. On meth. I grapevine back and forth in more or less the same direction as everyone else, which seems to appease Maura and the cheer-Nazi instructor. She smiles at me and continues swinging her arms around like her life depends on it.
I got all the details on her little play date with Dean this morning. I didn’t even have to ask; she couldn’t wait to give me the blow by blow. Apparently Dean was a real fucking gentleman. Held the doors open, brought her flowers, bought her dinner, the works. At least from Maura’s retelling he kept his hands to himself. With the exception of the goodnight kiss, which Maura described as “giving her the shivers.” Fucking gag me.
She’s going out with him again this weekend. She hasn’t asked for my opinion on anything to do with him, which was sort of my whole fucking strategy. I have got to come up with something to fucking distract her.
We’re doing some sort of run and jump thing now that is fucking retarded, but a jumping Maura is a boob-bouncing Maura, so I’m pretty okay with it.
Dean’s being cagey about his game plan, and it’s really fucking annoying that I don’t know when he’s going in for the kill. I’m guessing he’s going to go for straight up boring sex first, get her believing he’s in love with her and all the mushy fucking hearts and flowers shit, and then work his way around to her ass. That’s how I’d do it.
I’m going in the wrong direction again or something because Ian crashes right into me - or did I crash into him? What the fuck ever, we bounce off each other like bumper cars and he and Maura share a fucking laugh at my expense. What is Ian doing at a fucking zumba class anyway? Friggin hippy do-gooders.
Even though this is a shitty excuse for a workout all of the fucking jumping is making me sweat, and it’s rolling off me like I’m a pro-baller. The floor is getting slick beneath me, gym shoes skidding and squeaking like an elementary school dodge ball game and I really don’t want to fall and make a huge fucking ass out of myself.
“Alright everybody!” The fucking perky chick is still smiling her pasted on smile. “Take five, get some water, and let’s keep moving moving moving!” I’d like to move her crazy ass into next week.
“Whew!” Maura is grinning hugely, a delicate sheen of sweat making her bright skin glow even brighter. “This is quite a rush. Are you having fun Jane?”
Oh yeah, I’m having the fucking time of my life. “Yep, it sure is something. I don’t think I’ve gotten the hang of it yet.” In case she hadn’t noticed. Right. “Are you sure you’ve never done this before? Where did you learn to move like that?”
“I agree,” Ian says, barging into the conversation. Jerk. “Very impressive for a first-timer, I would never have guessed.”
Maura looks a little embarrassed, but pleased. “Thank you. I trained in classical ballet and I’m passable at most forms of ballroom dance-“ I fucking knew it. “-But I’ve never tried something like this before. There are elements I recognize from salsa and meringue, but the speed and sheer athleticism, it was so invigorating!”
Ian is smiling at her like she’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen. Can’t really blame him, she is fucking adorable. “Jane, would you do me the pleasure of introducing me to your lovely friend?”
Who fucking talks like that? “Ian, meet Maura,” I say. “Maura, meet Ian.” I resist adding “ta da” at the end.
They shake hands and grin at each other. Ugh. Maura’s halfway through explaining what she’s doing at the Bureau when the shrieking harpy calls us back to Stripper 101. Maura stripping, now that would make this class interesting.
Ian’s maneuvered himself so he’s standing next to Maura, and they’re passing glances at each other as they writhe and hop. It occurs to me that Maura and Ian make a natural pairing - they’re both overeducated, fucking annoying idealists.
Maura’s smiling widely at him while he twirls his arms around like a fucking lunatic, and it also occurs to me that she might find Ian distracting. The fucking hippy might be useful after all.
*********************************************
It’s yet another fucking movie night at Maura’s. The hours I’m logging on this bet, I could have taken a second job and bought my own damn motorcycle. I can’t think of another job that would come with so much free food, though.
“Jane, can I ask you something?” she says, all big eyes and pursed lips.
This doesn’t seem to be a rhetorical question, so I answer her. “Sure, ask whatever you want. I’m an open book.”
She twists to look at me head on, frowning slightly. “That’s just it. I’ve been thinking about it and I realized how much you know about me - my past, my work, even my recent dates. It’s clear to me now that I know almost nothing about you.”
Well, fuck. I’m pretty good at bullshitting, but the more details I give the harder it’ll be to keep the lies straight. Hopefully we can keep this light.
“Okay, what do you want to know?” I say, leaning over to give her knee a comforting pat. It’s a move I’ve learned will always get her to relax and smile that soft little smile she has. The smile that says, Jane’s here so everything will be okay. I am really fucking good at bullshitting. “I haven’t been on any dates recently, in case you were curious.”
She laughs a little. “Well, now I feel silly. I don’t have any particular questions, I just...” she pauses and looks me in the eye, her gaze piercing in its rawness. “Tell me about yourself. Where are you from? How did you end up becoming an FBI agent?”
Fuck. I guess this had to come out eventually. “Boston,” I say, trying to pass it off as casual. I see her mouth open in surprise and rush to continue before she can say anything. “I know. I should have told you, but it’s not something I like to talk about. I live here now, this is my home.”
I don’t have a fucking home. I’m not sure I have a fucking life, either, at least not one that matters a whole hell of a lot.
Maura looks stuck somewhere between upset and confused. “How long have you lived here?”
Some days I think I’ve lived here forever. My life before DC is hazy, a badly dubbed VHS movie with the screen covered in vaseline. The only images that pop are ones that I would do anything to erase. “Three years,” I say.
“Oh,” she says, considering. “That’s not very long. Which part of Boston are you from?”
“I told you I don’t want to talk about it,” I snap. Too harsh, she looks as wounded as if I’d slapped her in the face. “I’m sorry,” I say, taking a few calming breaths and doing the knee pat move again. “I know you’ve shared a lot with me. Boston is just...it’s not that I don’t want to talk about it with you, it’s that I can’t talk about it at all. Do you understand?”
My last night in Boston, sitting on the floor in the middle of my apartment. Alone. A locked door to keep Ma and my partner and everyone else the fuck out. My hands still bandaged, not the fucking gauze mittens they sent me home from the hospital in but still enough cotton and tape that it’s hard to hold the blade in my hands. The tiny, sharp blade from an X-acto knife I had on my desk for years. A blade forgotten about until clasped clumsily in taped hands, on the floor, on the last day of my life. Held against an upturned wrist, tracing the blue veins that pop slightly from the skin there, a topographical map of blood and death. Pressing the tip against a small mountain of sea blue. Just to see what would happen.
Maura nods. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I’ve never been good at recognizing boundaries in social interactions. I won’t ask you about it again.”
The press of the blade and the blue mountain buckles but holds, the pressure bringing only the slightest of stings. Press harder.
“If you ever decide to talk about it, Jane, I could listen. Isn’t that what friends do?”
Press harder, sting sharper, such a fucking delicate veil of skin but it won’t fucking give. The knife clattering as it bounces across the floor, a dull, fucking useless blade.
“Yeah, that’s right,” I say, willing myself to breath fucking normally. “I guess I’m not so much of an open book after all. But I promise, you know all that’s worth knowing about me.”
She looks unconvinced, because she’s not a complete fucking moron. “I understand having secrets,” she says. “I haven’t known anyone I trusted to share mine with.” Don’t say it Maura, don’t fucking say it. “Before you. I feel safe with you. I hope you’ll feel safe with me, one day.”
Why why why would she fucking trust me like that? What have I possibly done to earn it? She doesn’t even know who the fuck I am.
“It is not like me to get this emotionally involved with other people,” she says, anxiously twisting the blanket in her lap. “I know it’s a bit silly, considering I’ll only be here for a few months. But Washington and Bo-“ she pauses, eyes snapping to mine. “Washington and where I normally live aren’t very far apart. We could stay in touch very easily.”
She looks so hopeful it fucking hurts. “Of course, yeah.”
Maura smiles. “The question of Gabriel is another matter entirely. It doesn’t make good sense to conduct a romantic relationship in two different cities.”
“Nope. Can’t say that it does.” Minus ten points, Dean. Suck on that.
“Still,” she says, her gaze resting in some distant corner of the room. “He is very sweet. I’m not sure I’ve ever been on a date before where a man listened to everything I had to say as though it wasn’t a bother, and then didn’t act as though it were his right to have sex with me.”
Aaaaand you still haven’t. Oops. “Uh huh. But like you said, you won’t be here very long. You could just enjoy the summer instead, with me.” She grins at this and ducks her head, letting a curly golden lock of hair hang over her face like a sheath. “We can have a great time, just us.”
It’s just us down here, Janie. Just you and me, and soon all you’ll be is blood and bone.
Thunder cracks, a loud grumble rolling in waves and Maura jumps in surprise. “Oh, my. I wasn’t expecting a storm tonight. That sounded close.” She gets up and moves to the window, and I see a long jagged streak of white snake through the sky over her head.
The thunder growls again and yes the storm is fucking close, almost on top of us. Rain is pelting Maura’s historic clapboard house now, pinging off the wood with accusatory slaps. “Let’s go outside,” she says.
She’s still at the window with her back to me, but I’m pretty fucking sure I heard her right. “Maura, it’s raining out there. I’m not a weather expert or anything, but I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to go outside in a thunderstorm.”
But she’s already halfway out the door, not even looking back to see if I’m following her. Jesus fucking Christ.
I chase after her, jamming my fucking shoes back on and half-hopping out the door. Where it is, as I so accurately predicted, raining. Raining fucking hard. It’s like someone’s standing off to the side throwing buckets of fucking water onto me.
I squint through it and there she is, in the middle of the fucking street, head thrown back to the sky. “Maura!” She doesn’t move. “Come on, Maura, this is nuts! Come back inside!”
She’s laughing now, shaking her wet hair side to side and running her hands through it. Lightening splits the sky again and she’s lit up, wet and loose and smiling.
“Let’s run, Jane,” she yells.
“Yes, let’s run back inside.” I’m soaked through to my underwear, rain rolling down my back like a cold river.
“No,” she says, and she’s as happy as I’ve ever seen her. “Let’s run.” She takes off, in her pajama pants and slip-on shoes, running down the middle of the street like a fucking lunatic.
Again I’m chasing after her, my feet splashing in what’s become one giant fucking puddle and my eyes blurred with with fucking wet hair and rain. She lets me catch up to her before speeding up, kicking into a full out sprint. I’ve never seen her go this fucking fast before.
The sensation of flying is heightened from the rush of water in my face, my feet scraping and barely holding onto the pavement, a system just on the verge of collapse. It feels fucking amazing.
After a few blocks she stops, sinking to her knees, and I pull up beside her. “You’re a little crazy, you know that Dr. Isles?”
I’m panting and I swear any other time she’d miss the sarcasm and think I was fucking teasing her or something but tonight she either gets it or doesn’t care. “I love this,” she says, rising back up. “I always have.”
“So you won’t eat raw eggs or unpasteurized cheese, but hanging out under trees in a thunderstorm is okay?” Thunder booms again, backing up my point.
She starts walking back towards the house. “I know it’s dangerous. Maybe that’s why I like it. Storms are powerful, and fundamentally out of my control. I spend so much of my life trying to keep order. It wears me out.” She turns to look at me, and even through the curtain of rain I can see the seriousness on her face, how much she needs to me understand this. “I can’t control the storm. No one can. So I give myself over to it.”
I don’t remember the last time I felt in control of fucking anything. Except maybe Maura’s emotions, which I fucking manipulate as easily as a puppeteer.
“Let’s go one more time,” she says, and takes off running full out into the purple-black night.
A/N: Eeep. Sorry for the delay, real life has been a bitch. Thanks for the comments and reviews, they’ve seriously kept me going. And as always, thanks to Conoro28 for being such a badass beta.
A/N: See chapter one for disclaimers and warnings. Sex later, cursing and such now. For this chapter in particular: TRIGGER warning for self-harm.
I knew this was a fucking bad idea. I knew, dammit, and I’m still here, because of fucking Maura. I’m starting to feel like she’s the one doing a mind-fuck on me instead of the other way around, because instead of a session of weightlifting-for-weaklings or running or even fucking yoga we’re here, on the basketball court in the JEH gym, doing zumba.
Fucking zumba.
As bad as I thought it would be, it’s fucking worse. Jazzercise shit I could grit my teeth and get through, but this is fucking ridiculous. A bunch of dumpy middle-aged women, Ian fucking Faulkner and Maura are copying a crazy perky woman in a vaguely obscene dance routine. I swear, if they slowed it the fuck down a bit and added poles we’d be in a fucking strip club.
Maura saw the poster for it in the locker room and wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it until I promised to go. I backed down way too fucking easily, maybe Dean’s right about me going soft. I’m finding it way too fucking hard to say no to that puppy-dog face she makes when she’s sad.
“You in the back! Come on, drop it low!”
If Maura wasn’t dancing her fucking ass off right beside me I’d give Ms. Perky the finger. I settle for glaring and make another half-assed attempt to follow along.
I glance over at Maura and she gives me an encouraging smile while she does some sort of pelvic thrust thing that is really fucking distracting. And then she turns and bends, shoving her ass in my face. How the fuck did everyone know they were supposed to turn? Whatever, Maura is shaking her ass at me like a maraca. Maybe zumba isn’t so awful after all.
Except then everyone turns again and Maura, along with her ass, is facing the opposite side of the gym than I am. “This way Jane!” Maura yells over the thumping music. The loose hairs at the sides of her ponytail are bouncing along with her as she does this shoulder scooping thing, bent halfway over and wriggling her body around so smoothly it’s as if she’s boneless.
My body, meanwhile, is moving about as easily as my old Honda handled on snowy Boston streets. Fucking jerking back and forth and sliding around like an idiot. Me, not the car. It wasn’t the car’s fault it was old and crappy.
By the time I yank myself around everyone’s turned again and Maura nearly slams into me. Fucking hell.
“It’s a pattern, Jane,” she yells as she moves back away from me, her hips leading the motion with a deep, undulating twist. “Observe the four-count and repeat it. See?”
All I see is her thighs, her ass, her tits - oh my fucking god, her tits. She’s doing this chest-pumping thing that is fucking ridiculous but it makes her boobs jiggle even under what looks like a seriously fucking binding sports bra.
It shouldn’t surprise me that Maura is good at this. She’s always graceful, her movements permanently easy and polished, whether its ducking around tourists on the sidewalks or clicking down the labyrinth JEH corridors on five inch heels. Maura doesn’t walk, she fucking floats.
So no, it’s not fucking surprising that she can dance. I could picture her pirouetting or fucking waltzing, no problem. But this, this I would never have guessed. She’s completely going for it, throwing her whole body into the motions, hips whirling, ass pumping, arms thrown to the sky. Or to the ceiling lights of the gym. Whatever. It looks like she’s been doing this her whole fucking life, but she told me she’d never tried it before and I don’t think Maura has it in her to lie.
The song has changed to something even fucking faster, and now everyone is doing some bizarre ass footwork that makes them look like rejects from A Chorus Line. On meth. I grapevine back and forth in more or less the same direction as everyone else, which seems to appease Maura and the cheer-Nazi instructor. She smiles at me and continues swinging her arms around like her life depends on it.
I got all the details on her little play date with Dean this morning. I didn’t even have to ask; she couldn’t wait to give me the blow by blow. Apparently Dean was a real fucking gentleman. Held the doors open, brought her flowers, bought her dinner, the works. At least from Maura’s retelling he kept his hands to himself. With the exception of the goodnight kiss, which Maura described as “giving her the shivers.” Fucking gag me.
She’s going out with him again this weekend. She hasn’t asked for my opinion on anything to do with him, which was sort of my whole fucking strategy. I have got to come up with something to fucking distract her.
We’re doing some sort of run and jump thing now that is fucking retarded, but a jumping Maura is a boob-bouncing Maura, so I’m pretty okay with it.
Dean’s being cagey about his game plan, and it’s really fucking annoying that I don’t know when he’s going in for the kill. I’m guessing he’s going to go for straight up boring sex first, get her believing he’s in love with her and all the mushy fucking hearts and flowers shit, and then work his way around to her ass. That’s how I’d do it.
I’m going in the wrong direction again or something because Ian crashes right into me - or did I crash into him? What the fuck ever, we bounce off each other like bumper cars and he and Maura share a fucking laugh at my expense. What is Ian doing at a fucking zumba class anyway? Friggin hippy do-gooders.
Even though this is a shitty excuse for a workout all of the fucking jumping is making me sweat, and it’s rolling off me like I’m a pro-baller. The floor is getting slick beneath me, gym shoes skidding and squeaking like an elementary school dodge ball game and I really don’t want to fall and make a huge fucking ass out of myself.
“Alright everybody!” The fucking perky chick is still smiling her pasted on smile. “Take five, get some water, and let’s keep moving moving moving!” I’d like to move her crazy ass into next week.
“Whew!” Maura is grinning hugely, a delicate sheen of sweat making her bright skin glow even brighter. “This is quite a rush. Are you having fun Jane?”
Oh yeah, I’m having the fucking time of my life. “Yep, it sure is something. I don’t think I’ve gotten the hang of it yet.” In case she hadn’t noticed. Right. “Are you sure you’ve never done this before? Where did you learn to move like that?”
“I agree,” Ian says, barging into the conversation. Jerk. “Very impressive for a first-timer, I would never have guessed.”
Maura looks a little embarrassed, but pleased. “Thank you. I trained in classical ballet and I’m passable at most forms of ballroom dance-“ I fucking knew it. “-But I’ve never tried something like this before. There are elements I recognize from salsa and meringue, but the speed and sheer athleticism, it was so invigorating!”
Ian is smiling at her like she’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen. Can’t really blame him, she is fucking adorable. “Jane, would you do me the pleasure of introducing me to your lovely friend?”
Who fucking talks like that? “Ian, meet Maura,” I say. “Maura, meet Ian.” I resist adding “ta da” at the end.
They shake hands and grin at each other. Ugh. Maura’s halfway through explaining what she’s doing at the Bureau when the shrieking harpy calls us back to Stripper 101. Maura stripping, now that would make this class interesting.
Ian’s maneuvered himself so he’s standing next to Maura, and they’re passing glances at each other as they writhe and hop. It occurs to me that Maura and Ian make a natural pairing - they’re both overeducated, fucking annoying idealists.
Maura’s smiling widely at him while he twirls his arms around like a fucking lunatic, and it also occurs to me that she might find Ian distracting. The fucking hippy might be useful after all.
*********************************************
It’s yet another fucking movie night at Maura’s. The hours I’m logging on this bet, I could have taken a second job and bought my own damn motorcycle. I can’t think of another job that would come with so much free food, though.
“Jane, can I ask you something?” she says, all big eyes and pursed lips.
This doesn’t seem to be a rhetorical question, so I answer her. “Sure, ask whatever you want. I’m an open book.”
She twists to look at me head on, frowning slightly. “That’s just it. I’ve been thinking about it and I realized how much you know about me - my past, my work, even my recent dates. It’s clear to me now that I know almost nothing about you.”
Well, fuck. I’m pretty good at bullshitting, but the more details I give the harder it’ll be to keep the lies straight. Hopefully we can keep this light.
“Okay, what do you want to know?” I say, leaning over to give her knee a comforting pat. It’s a move I’ve learned will always get her to relax and smile that soft little smile she has. The smile that says, Jane’s here so everything will be okay. I am really fucking good at bullshitting. “I haven’t been on any dates recently, in case you were curious.”
She laughs a little. “Well, now I feel silly. I don’t have any particular questions, I just...” she pauses and looks me in the eye, her gaze piercing in its rawness. “Tell me about yourself. Where are you from? How did you end up becoming an FBI agent?”
Fuck. I guess this had to come out eventually. “Boston,” I say, trying to pass it off as casual. I see her mouth open in surprise and rush to continue before she can say anything. “I know. I should have told you, but it’s not something I like to talk about. I live here now, this is my home.”
I don’t have a fucking home. I’m not sure I have a fucking life, either, at least not one that matters a whole hell of a lot.
Maura looks stuck somewhere between upset and confused. “How long have you lived here?”
Some days I think I’ve lived here forever. My life before DC is hazy, a badly dubbed VHS movie with the screen covered in vaseline. The only images that pop are ones that I would do anything to erase. “Three years,” I say.
“Oh,” she says, considering. “That’s not very long. Which part of Boston are you from?”
“I told you I don’t want to talk about it,” I snap. Too harsh, she looks as wounded as if I’d slapped her in the face. “I’m sorry,” I say, taking a few calming breaths and doing the knee pat move again. “I know you’ve shared a lot with me. Boston is just...it’s not that I don’t want to talk about it with you, it’s that I can’t talk about it at all. Do you understand?”
My last night in Boston, sitting on the floor in the middle of my apartment. Alone. A locked door to keep Ma and my partner and everyone else the fuck out. My hands still bandaged, not the fucking gauze mittens they sent me home from the hospital in but still enough cotton and tape that it’s hard to hold the blade in my hands. The tiny, sharp blade from an X-acto knife I had on my desk for years. A blade forgotten about until clasped clumsily in taped hands, on the floor, on the last day of my life. Held against an upturned wrist, tracing the blue veins that pop slightly from the skin there, a topographical map of blood and death. Pressing the tip against a small mountain of sea blue. Just to see what would happen.
Maura nods. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I’ve never been good at recognizing boundaries in social interactions. I won’t ask you about it again.”
The press of the blade and the blue mountain buckles but holds, the pressure bringing only the slightest of stings. Press harder.
“If you ever decide to talk about it, Jane, I could listen. Isn’t that what friends do?”
Press harder, sting sharper, such a fucking delicate veil of skin but it won’t fucking give. The knife clattering as it bounces across the floor, a dull, fucking useless blade.
“Yeah, that’s right,” I say, willing myself to breath fucking normally. “I guess I’m not so much of an open book after all. But I promise, you know all that’s worth knowing about me.”
She looks unconvinced, because she’s not a complete fucking moron. “I understand having secrets,” she says. “I haven’t known anyone I trusted to share mine with.” Don’t say it Maura, don’t fucking say it. “Before you. I feel safe with you. I hope you’ll feel safe with me, one day.”
Why why why would she fucking trust me like that? What have I possibly done to earn it? She doesn’t even know who the fuck I am.
“It is not like me to get this emotionally involved with other people,” she says, anxiously twisting the blanket in her lap. “I know it’s a bit silly, considering I’ll only be here for a few months. But Washington and Bo-“ she pauses, eyes snapping to mine. “Washington and where I normally live aren’t very far apart. We could stay in touch very easily.”
She looks so hopeful it fucking hurts. “Of course, yeah.”
Maura smiles. “The question of Gabriel is another matter entirely. It doesn’t make good sense to conduct a romantic relationship in two different cities.”
“Nope. Can’t say that it does.” Minus ten points, Dean. Suck on that.
“Still,” she says, her gaze resting in some distant corner of the room. “He is very sweet. I’m not sure I’ve ever been on a date before where a man listened to everything I had to say as though it wasn’t a bother, and then didn’t act as though it were his right to have sex with me.”
Aaaaand you still haven’t. Oops. “Uh huh. But like you said, you won’t be here very long. You could just enjoy the summer instead, with me.” She grins at this and ducks her head, letting a curly golden lock of hair hang over her face like a sheath. “We can have a great time, just us.”
It’s just us down here, Janie. Just you and me, and soon all you’ll be is blood and bone.
Thunder cracks, a loud grumble rolling in waves and Maura jumps in surprise. “Oh, my. I wasn’t expecting a storm tonight. That sounded close.” She gets up and moves to the window, and I see a long jagged streak of white snake through the sky over her head.
The thunder growls again and yes the storm is fucking close, almost on top of us. Rain is pelting Maura’s historic clapboard house now, pinging off the wood with accusatory slaps. “Let’s go outside,” she says.
She’s still at the window with her back to me, but I’m pretty fucking sure I heard her right. “Maura, it’s raining out there. I’m not a weather expert or anything, but I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to go outside in a thunderstorm.”
But she’s already halfway out the door, not even looking back to see if I’m following her. Jesus fucking Christ.
I chase after her, jamming my fucking shoes back on and half-hopping out the door. Where it is, as I so accurately predicted, raining. Raining fucking hard. It’s like someone’s standing off to the side throwing buckets of fucking water onto me.
I squint through it and there she is, in the middle of the fucking street, head thrown back to the sky. “Maura!” She doesn’t move. “Come on, Maura, this is nuts! Come back inside!”
She’s laughing now, shaking her wet hair side to side and running her hands through it. Lightening splits the sky again and she’s lit up, wet and loose and smiling.
“Let’s run, Jane,” she yells.
“Yes, let’s run back inside.” I’m soaked through to my underwear, rain rolling down my back like a cold river.
“No,” she says, and she’s as happy as I’ve ever seen her. “Let’s run.” She takes off, in her pajama pants and slip-on shoes, running down the middle of the street like a fucking lunatic.
Again I’m chasing after her, my feet splashing in what’s become one giant fucking puddle and my eyes blurred with with fucking wet hair and rain. She lets me catch up to her before speeding up, kicking into a full out sprint. I’ve never seen her go this fucking fast before.
The sensation of flying is heightened from the rush of water in my face, my feet scraping and barely holding onto the pavement, a system just on the verge of collapse. It feels fucking amazing.
After a few blocks she stops, sinking to her knees, and I pull up beside her. “You’re a little crazy, you know that Dr. Isles?”
I’m panting and I swear any other time she’d miss the sarcasm and think I was fucking teasing her or something but tonight she either gets it or doesn’t care. “I love this,” she says, rising back up. “I always have.”
“So you won’t eat raw eggs or unpasteurized cheese, but hanging out under trees in a thunderstorm is okay?” Thunder booms again, backing up my point.
She starts walking back towards the house. “I know it’s dangerous. Maybe that’s why I like it. Storms are powerful, and fundamentally out of my control. I spend so much of my life trying to keep order. It wears me out.” She turns to look at me, and even through the curtain of rain I can see the seriousness on her face, how much she needs to me understand this. “I can’t control the storm. No one can. So I give myself over to it.”
I don’t remember the last time I felt in control of fucking anything. Except maybe Maura’s emotions, which I fucking manipulate as easily as a puppeteer.
“Let’s go one more time,” she says, and takes off running full out into the purple-black night.
A/N: Eeep. Sorry for the delay, real life has been a bitch. Thanks for the comments and reviews, they’ve seriously kept me going. And as always, thanks to Conoro28 for being such a badass beta.