New Story! Moderation In All Things Save Love (Cupid, het, R)
Title: Moderation In All Things Save Love
Author: Pouncer
Fandom: Cupid
Rating: R
Genre: het, romance, stealth crossover
Pairing: Claire Allen/Alex DeMouy
Summary: Everybody dreams of winning the lottery. Claire said, "I always thought I'd travel." Alex reached out for Claire's hand, and her breath caught at the touch. "Me too. Want to go together?"
Almost 6000 words.
My much delayed story for the episode1x10 challenge.
Moderation In All Things Save Love
by Pouncer
"Give me a dollar."
"Trevor!" He would interrupt Claire just as she was taking the first sip of her morning coffee, steaming into the cold air. "What are you --"
"Dollar!" His tone demanded.
Claire sighed and pulled out her wallet while resting her cardboard cup atop a Chicago Tribune dispenser. Her scarf twisted around her wrist.
Trevor grinned, sprightly, and snatched the bill from her hand. Then he passed over a slip of paper.
"The lottery? Trevor, this cup of coffee would be a better investment."
But he was leaving, waving, calling, "Be sure to check the numbers tonight," as he disappeared down the street.
Claire sighed and tucked his gift into her wallet.
He'd been insufferable ever since he successfully paired a hundred couples together.
* * *
A shadow tumbled along the ground, skipping, turning, flirting with the feet of passers-by. It could have been a leaf, remnant of a slow-fading winter, or a fast food wrapper, but as it took advantage of a particularly hardy gust of wind, one pedestrian realized it was something else:
A lottery ticket.
One that seemed determined to land in his hands, avoiding all the other people in Central Park.
Alex DeMouy looked bemusedly at the small square of paper twirling in front of his hands and gave into fate.
He stuffed it into his pocket, and only later wondered how an Illinois lottery ticket sold that morning had found its way to New York.
On the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tyche toasted her gratitude to Zephyr with a goblet of nectar.
"Well, brother," she muttered. "I hope this works like you planned."
* * *
The radio in the sandwich shop blared: "The multi-million dollar jackpot - the largest in American history - had only two winning tickets. One was sold in Chicago, another in Champaign. Authorities are still waiting for the lucky winners to come forward and claim their fortune."
Claire collected her chicken salad on wheat bread and left the shop. She was late for a client, and she hated to be late.
"Did you check your lottery ticket?" Trevor came out of nowhere as Claire approached her office.
"No time," she called, rushing past and darting into the elevator just as the doors closed.
She didn't look at the winning numbers until that night, and she almost fell over when they matched.
* * *
"Look, I'm just in town to visit friends." Claire heard the muffled voice as she approached the lottery office later that week. "I feel kind of bad, to tell you the truth. This just blew into my hands - I didn't even buy it."
Claire turned into the doorway and found herself unable to move any further.
"Regardless of how you came to hold it, the winning ticket is in your possession. That's all that counts for lottery purposes," the young lady standing behind the desk said. She wore an unadorned navy suit; plain but perfectly tailored. Her dark hair was cut into a ruthless bob, and her grey eyes were serious. The one touch of whimsy on her person was the brooch perched on her lapel, an owl made of mother of pearl that somehow managed to look fluffy.
Claire knew she was taking pains to catalogue the stranger because she'd recognized in a split-second glance the man who was even now saying, "Yeah, but -"
"May I help you?" The young woman had noticed Claire.
Then Alex's head swiveled around, and damn it. Her stomach shouldn't do that.
Claire held up her ticket.
* * *
Later, they strolled along the sidewalk together, silent.
"Quite a coincidence, huh?" Alex's hands were stuffed into the pockets of his leather jacket because if they weren't, he'd be touching Claire in ways that were not appropriate for exes.
The breakup had made perfect sense. They'd both agreed to it. Distance, time, individual lives to lead.
None of it made sense now.
"Trevor gave me the ticket," Claire said.
"Trevor? Still seeing him?"
"Well." Claire hesitated. "Not professionally, but he shows up, like a gnat."
"You won't need to work," Alex said, because he'd been thinking about what all this money meant ever since he realized he had a winning ticket.
"Not need, but -"
"Hey, come on. Everybody has dreams of what they'd do if they won the lottery. What're yours?" Alex was surprised at the desperation he felt.
This was a chance, and he wasn’t giving it up.
Claire glanced over at him, shrugged, and said, "I always thought I'd travel."
It was like the sun rose at night. "Me too." Alex reached out for Claire's hand, and her breath caught at the touch. "Want to go together?"
* * *
Claire thought long and hard about Alex's offer. She longed to be together with him again, but for all the logic when they decided to stop seeing each other -- and wasn't that a joke, seeing each other, given the scant days they'd spent in each others' presence after Alex moved to New York -- Claire had still nursed wounds. Losing Alex had hurt, and it had taken her time to recover, to build a fulfilling life for herself, one based on her career and her friends and the occasional tepid attempt at dating.
But then there were the memories of glee whenever they were together: the laughter, the passion, the sheer joy she found in him and he found in her.
Trevor popped up like a psychedelic mushroom just when Claire was about to tear her hair out from frustration. Make a decision, she told herself, yet still found herself spilling her dilemma to Trevor. Claire knew what he would say, some pie-in-the-sky nonsense about gambling on love, and she wasn't wrong.
"Oh, come on! You moped for weeks after he moved, and I've never seen you as happy as when he was around." Trevor bopped Claire on the nose with a finger.
"Hey!" she protested.
"Nah-uh," Trevor said. "Doesn’t everybody have a dream about winning the lottery?"
Claire scrunched up her nose. "Well, yes." To halt Trevor's attempt to pounce on her admission, she held up a hand. "But. But. But they were just dreams, Trevor."
"Dreams can come true sometimes, Claire." He was oddly sincere. "They really can."
She let herself hear his words, and swayed toward his position even as some hesitations lingered. She could throw the dice and travel with Alex. She could make sure they still worked as a couple, that he wouldn't abandon her again, that they were both equally invested in any relationship they might want to rekindle. They might not fit together now. They might end up hating each other. Take it slow, Claire. But that didn't mean not taking any risks at all.
Before she could stop herself, Claire called Alex and told him, "Yes, I'll go with you."
* * *
It wasn't that simple, of course. There were legal and financial details to attend to - Tina, the young lady from the lottery office, was very helpful with recommendations. They had to avoid zealous reporters if they wanted to maintain a vestige of privacy. There was the detritus of modern travel -- booking flights, hotels, itineraries, visas, inoculations -- but soon enough Alex found himself sitting on a bench next to the Seine, under the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
Claire was in the Musée d'Orsay, drinking in the Impressionists. Alex had begged off after a morning of French art. He preferred to observe life on today's street, not images of yesteryear. And he was scheming, as much as he could, how to get Claire back. She was still wary of him.
He understood why, but spending time with her reminded him of all the ways they fit, and divergent career paths didn't seem like an obstacle anymore. At least not to Alex, but he had to get Claire, logical, deliberate Claire, to agree.
"You look like a man in the throes of love."
Alex glanced up, startled, and found he'd been joined by another man, dressed with the casual elegance of the French and smoking a cigarette.
"That bad?" Alex asked, wondering vaguely how the man had known to speak English.
"Eh," a shrug, "it is common along these shores. Does your lady deny you her heart?"
Alex sighed. "She gave it to me once, but I didn't know enough then to keep her safe. I moved, we broke up, and now -"
"Now she does not know if you are to be trusted! I understand." He sat down. "Je m'appelle Laurent. Et vous?" Laurent held out a hand.
"Alex," quick clasp of palm to palm, and Alex coughed a little from the tobacco smoke.
They sat and discussed Alex's love life for some time as the Seine flowed past. He wondered, a little crazily, when he'd entered the role of lead in a romantic comedy.
"It sounds as if your lady is besotted with reason, but even the most logical can find themselves overcome by emotion. You merely have to evoke that feeling, so that any qualms are subsumed under love. You do love her, n'est-ce pas?"
"Desperately," Alex confessed.
"Well. This is what you do."
* * *
A sublime five-course dinner, accompanied by fine wines, seated in a fantasyland of drapery and near-invisible service. Conversation on life, news, history, the arts, hopes, dreams.
A music club where sultry jazz filled the air, and Alex quashed his innate discomfort long enough to ask Claire to dance.
Holding her close, breathing in her perfume, reveling in her warmth.
Deciding to walk back to their hotel, along routes almost unchanged since they were documented by Brassaï when he palled around with Henry Miller and Salvador Dali during the 1930s.
Riding the elevator up to their suite, air shimmering with the tension between them.
Alex unlocked the door, ushered Claire inside, and caught hold of her hands. Her face, her beautiful face, tilted up to look at him, and he had to caress the line of her chin.
"Claire," he said, but words deserted him.
She must have understood anyway, because her mouth rose to join with his, and her arms twined round his back, and then she led him into her bedroom.
* * *
Exhausted by a cruise down the Loire River, tours through Provence and Aquitaine, a cycling journey through Basque country, stays in Barcelona (Gaudi's Sagrada Família and many, many tapas), Madrid (Prado museum and bullfights), and Granada (the Alhambra and other Moorish palaces), Alex and Claire washed up on the shores of Malaga desperate to do nothing at all.
"Beach," Claire whined, and Alex nodded.
"Sleep first," he said, because it was late in the afternoon and the sun slanted through the blinds of their hotel room.
"'Kay," Claire nodded, and yawned.
They napped entwined together, Claire's head on Alex's shoulder. She awoke after dark, still drowsy, and marveled that she'd ever been able to sleep without him.
The next morning they set out for the beach equipped with sunscreen and books, and claimed two lounge chairs far from the water. An umbrella protected them from too much heat, and Claire tipped her straw hat forward for even more shade.
She intended to bask to day away, but when the sun reached its apex hunger pangs roused them both. Claire had been trying to quiet her mind anyway. She shouldn't doubt this contentment. She shouldn't.
They found a nearby bar off a shadowed alley, its interior tiled in terra-cotta clay. The proprietor, Geraldo, grilled prawns redolent with garlic and poured wine with a liberal hand.
He had a beard, flowing and white, and some of the largest shoulders Claire had ever seen.
Alex noticed her admiration and sat up a little straighter. "Hey," he objected, without much force behind it.
Claire batted her eyelashes at Geraldo over her wineglass when he brought them flan for dessert. She did it just to see Alex sputter, but Geraldo laughed and told Alex to have her swim in the sea to tire her out.
They splashed the afternoon away amid the waves.
* * *
The next day, Alex rented a sailboat, small enough for a two-person crew, and they let the winds take them out into the Mediterranean. Dolphins leapt ahead of the ship's prow, and Claire's laughter tumbled like bells down Alex's spine.
He couldn't stop smiling at her, and wondered that he'd ever left her behind.
They spent another week in Malaga before journeying to Italy, home of empire.
* * *
On a tiny island in the middle of the Aegean Sea, they breakfasted in a courtyard overflowing with blossoming orange trees and myrtle. Claire gazed over the turquoise sea and drank in its beauty.
Alex leaned back in his chair and took a sip of coffee sweetened with honey.
They wandered into the hills later that morning, clambering over ancient ruins that made Claire imagine the gods would walk upon the land next to them. Her sandals were sturdy leather and her skirt was long and cool linen.
Alex fucked Claire in a grove of olive trees, their clothes loosened just enough to touch skin to skin. She gasped and twined a leg around his hips to pull him closer, reveling in the blueness of the sky above her, the feel of his weight pressing her into the earth.
He made her scream before he finished, and she collapsed into languor only broken by awareness that the sun was traveling higher in the heavens and they needed to get indoors or risk a burn.
Claire couldn't stop touching Alex on the trip back down to the sea - a hand on his shoulder, a glancing brush to his hip. His eyes were covered by dark glasses now, but she remembered them locked with hers, intense and possessive and everything she'd ever wanted.
She looked down, ostensibly to check that her skirt wasn't tangled with the underbrush, but really to breathe and lock the moment in memory.
Before the gate to the guest house, they encountered a woman snipping anemones from the garden.
"Hello," she sang gaily. "Are you having a good time?"
Alex stared, dumbstruck. The stranger's hair curled down her shapely back like a pour of honey, and her eyes mirrored the blue of the sea.
"It's wonderful," Claire said, smiling at a shared understanding of the power of feminine wiles.
"Good, good," the woman said. "You must be sure to eat at Taverna Xynos tonight - the fish is as fresh as you can get."
Alex's tongue untangled enough to reply, "We'd heard it was the place to go."
"Yes, yes - the only option, really," she said seriously.
She tied a ribbon around the bundle of flowers in her arms, then presented them to Claire, a perfect bouquet.
"My thanks for aiding my son."
"Your son?" Claire asked, puzzled. "I don't know -"
"I will not forget your help while he was lost. Ya sas."
And with those words of farewell the stranger was gone, stepping down the path with a joy that might as well have been a dance.
The flowers didn't fade for their entire three-week stay.
And the fish at the Taverna made Claire moan almost as much as Alex did, later that night.
* * *
After marveling at Petra, the city carved out of a rosy cliff face, Alex and Claire drove their battered rental car north, toward Jordan's uplands.
Alex wanted to see the ruins of the Greek city at Umm Qais, and Claire was content to gaze out the car window at the dusty roads. Her thoughts lingered at Petra, hidden among rocks like a secret treasure. It had been so beautiful that Claire hadn't wanted to leave, had wanted to stay and explore all its riches.
She fell asleep and her daydreams of ancient life bled into fantasies of togas and sandals and meals of olive oil-soaked bread.
Alex's cursing woke her with the sun lowering on the horizon behind her.
"What?" she asked, still snared in muzzy-headedness.
"I think I took a wrong turn. Or read a sign wrong. Something." His voice was tight with frustration but he peered ahead alertly. The road curved in and out of hills, stone formations blocking their line of sight.
They came upon the house abruptly. It was close to the road, with a field spread into a shallow bowl behind it.
"Stop here," Claire ordered.
Alex's mouth quirked, but he swung the car over.
"Now we have to hope they speak English. Or that our Berlitz guide is useful," Alex said.
Claire opened the car door and stretched out stiff limbs. As she brought her hands down, the wooden door to the house opened and a woman stepped out. She had dark hair, sleek and gorgeous, peeking out from beneath the gauzy scarf that draped her head.
"Al salaam a'alaykum," Claire ventured, and smiled in the hopes that it would make up for her doubtless terrible pronunciation.
"Hello," the woman said, "welcome to my home." The stress was on the wrong syllables but she was still understandable.
"Hi," Alex said, removing his sunglasses. "We're lost, trying to get to Umm Qais."
The woman's eyebrows rose. "You are lost. And shouldn't travel at night." She turned back toward the house. Alex and Claire blinked at each other. "Well?" the woman said. "Are you coming or not?"
They followed her, compelled.
* * *
Inside, the house was cool, its stucco face absorbing the heat. Bare wooden beams supported the ceiling, and drying herbs hung in the corners.
"I am Chloe," their host said, and Claire introduced herself and Alex as they were led into the kitchen.
"You must be hungry, after your journey. Sit."
The bench seats weren't all that comfortable, but Claire was more than a little intimidated and did her best to settle. Chloe bustled around, gathering plates and cups and food. Alex yawned, and Claire wished she could wake up fully. Her thoughts were still slow, and the strangeness of the encounter wasn't letting her feel clear.
The food smelled wonderful - grilled chicken and chickpeas, flatbread and some milk-based drink.
Before they ate, a door into the back yard opened and a young woman, barely more than a girl, slipped inside.
"My daughter," Chloe said. "She must return to her husband soon, but I savor our time together."
The girl kept her eyes mostly lowered, but one shy glance made Claire catch her breath. Steel grey irises set in a beautiful face that never turned fully toward Alex. Chloe and her daughter conversed in musical Arabic, interspersed with gruff exhortations from Chloe to eat more.
After dinner, Claire was directed to share a pallet with the girl in a back room, and Alex was banished to the front with a blanket.
She woke to a rooster's crow just after dawn, and wandered outside, past the daughter's industry in the kitchen, past the chicken coop, to the field.
Chloe was outlined against the wheat by the rising sun, almost glowing. "Harvest soon," she said, her fingertips brushing the heads of the wheat stalks. "Farming started not far away from here."
Claire reached out to touch, enchanted with the tickle of the seed pods.
Alex stumbled into the kitchen later, roused by the scent of coffee. They took their leave soon after with directions to Umm Qais and stern advice about the wisdom of better planning.
When they arrived at the city, Claire felt as if she was still waking from a dream.
* * *
In a Cairo bazaar, Alex's wallet was rescued from a young pickpocket by a teenager with curly brown hair and laughing eyes.
"Be more careful," he scolded them while acting as escort to their hotel.
They drank sweet tea together as musicians strummed stringed instruments and created an eerie wail on pipes. He told them of the customs of the bazaar, the best merchants to visit and the ones to avoid.
Alex leaned into Claire, sleepy-eyed, and they said farewell before going to nap.
* * *
Elephants rumbled toward the horizon, their trunks held low to the ground.
Cynthia, the guide who had picked Alex and Claire up at the airport and chauffeured them around thus far, regaled them with facts of elephant life: vegetation, herd society, predators.
After a while, Claire couldn't contain her smile. "I always loved Babar," she told Alex.
He grinned back at her, wicked and sweet at the same time. "I was partial to Curious George myself."
"Oh, you." She batted at his encroaching hand, doubtless aiming for the ticklish spot just below her ribs.
That night, they ate under stars more brilliant than any Claire had ever seen. The moon was a thin sliver just above the treetops.
Cynthia roasted some haunch of meat, "From the Munanka farm," she reassured them.
"How did you come to live here," Claire asked, fascinated with Cynthia's ease on the savannah and her mysterious accent.
"I've always loved the wilderness," Cynthia said. "And there aren't many left. I do what I can to protect them from those who would despoil their purity." Her voice went fierce, and she prodded at the fire with extra vehemence.
Claire and Alex exchanged wide-eyed looks and slipped away to their tent soon after. Alex sprawled down on his sleeping bag, too tempting to resist, all splayed limbs and unconscious invitation.
Claire straddled his hips and bent down to lick the side of his neck, the spot that always made him buck and moan.
He was warm beneath her, maybe from the fire, maybe just because. She opened the buttons on his shirt, ran her hands over his chest, scratched her nails over his nipples to hear Alex gasp.
His head was tilted back, his eyes heavy, his mouth parted, and Claire took possession with a kiss that left him looking as debauched as she felt.
A coughing roar sounded outside, and they both froze into stillness, one second, two, and then Alex's palms slid up Claire's back and brought her down to where he could nip at the corner of her jaw.
"Rowr," he said, and she collapsed into giggles.
"Oh, you mock the king of the plains now, but you'll see soon enough," he said, and he was joking but she still opened her arms and welcomed him.
* * *
Tokyo was all flashing lights and noise, like the inside of an arcade on fast-forward. The contrast with Kyoto, with history and tradition preserved, was startling.
"Oh, there's still gobs of tradition here," Festus said. "You just have to know where to look."
He toasted Alex and Claire with his sake cup lifted, then drank. The white porcelain gleamed against his ruddy beard.
"How long have you lived here?" Alex asked. He was leaning forward, intent.
"I came in the Eighties, when Japan was cutting edge. Left a bit in the middle for Silicon Valley, but I missed the place. They're doing things with electronics and robotics that will blow your mind."
"I'm feeling kind of nostalgic for my computer back home," Alex admitted.
Claire ate a piece of sushi dipped in soy sauce and thought that she could keep traveling, outside of time, for a long time yet.
* * *
Bogotá, and Claire half-expected to witness Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner traipsing out of the jungle. She could see Alex's journalistic curiosity sharpening; the drug trade had left indelible scars on the land and the people of Columbia, but they still laughed and welcomed Alex and Claire when they wandered the streets.
The altitude left her short of breath, and they headed toward Amacayacu National Park soon enough. The American embassy warned about the risk to travelers, drug lords having decided that kidnapping rich tourists and businesspeople to extort ransom was a marvelous way to supplement their incomes. Claire and Alex had discussed flying to Leticia, but they'd found that they preferred to drive and experience the countryside for themselves. And Cali and Medillin and Cartegena of drug cartel fame were to the north, not south.
The vegetation reminded Claire of their journey through Thailand, but Colombia was devoid of Buddha statues. The park they were aiming for straddled the Rio Negra, an Amazon tributary, and was advertised to be home to howler monkeys and tree frogs, butterflies and bromeliads. After seeing the vast spread of the Amazon emptying into the Atlantic Ocean, Claire and Alex both wanted to witness the mighty river closer to its source.
If only they could get there. It wasn't that they were lost - the map was very clear, and they were on the route recommended by their guide in Bogotá. But the trees seemed to grow closer and closer to the road, which hadn't been paved for hours and was getting more and more rutted.
Claire gripped the wheel tighter and really began to wonder if flying wouldn't have been the better option.
When the SUV rounded a corner and nearly crashed into a bus, she became certain.
Then the gunmen appeared.
* * *
"I'm sorry," Alex muttered as he was led away from Claire. His hands were bound with rope, but hers were free. He hoped she didn't try anything. He wished he'd never thought about driving in Colombia. He wished they'd stayed in Rio forever.
He thought about pleading with their captors to let her go, keep him. Don't hurt her.
The clearing in the jungle was dotted with crudely constructed shacks and nearly broken-down jeeps. Men carrying rifles lounged around, teeth gleaming as they talked. Alex couldn't see any women, and his stomach twisted.
He had never been more scared.
They shoved him into one of the shacks, and closed the door. Wan light filtered through gaps in the tin roof, and it smelled of mold.
Not a week ago, Claire and Alex had danced in the streets of Rio on the last night of Carnival, glasses of caipirinha clutched in their hands. Samba dancers whirled past them, costumed in garish colors and an excess of glitter, waving fans and feathers enough to cool the world. A curly-haired man led the next bloco, leopard-print tunic flung over one shoulder, carrying a long staff wound with ivy leaves and crowned with a pine cone. He waved it in time to the music, but the dancers following him were wild, women gyrating arms and legs to the samba beat, faces slack with ecstasy, breasts exposed.
Alex downed the last of his drink, and felt the thrum of delight run through his veins. He leaned close to Claire and asked if she was ready to go.
They had swayed into their hotel room, and Alex had held Claire still to kiss her. His fingers cradled her chin, and he savored the flavor of sugar and lime on her lips. She surged against him, and their clothes disappeared in a flurry of movement. He pushed her onto the bed, used his palms to spread her thighs, and leaned down to lick her open.
Her fingernails scratched his scalp, and he had to hold her hips still. She shuddered and gasped above him, until her cries broke off with a sharp moan.
Maybe they'd both been intoxicated still, when they decided to see Columbia for themselves. Now, Alex listened for another type of cry entirely, one of pain and terror.
* * *
He didn't know how long he sat on the dirt floor, sweat dripping down his back, humid air choking his lungs, before the door opened.
The man who entered carried an AK-47, the distinctive curve of its bullet cartridge nearly lost in the shadows surrounding his dirty khaki fatigues. He was flanked by two dogs, crouched low to the ground. Their fur was matted, and they snarled at Alex before called to heel.
Alex looked up, trying to read his captor's face, but he was impassive, if stern. Alex wanted to beg for Claire's safety, wanted to marshal all his powers of persuasion to get them released, except no words would come. Not in English, and definitely not in Spanish. Helpless. Hopeless.
Then the man smiled, broad, and Claire's head appeared around the side of the door.
"Come, come," the man said, gesturing for Alex to rise.
"Alex, this is Marco," Claire said. She looked tense, but not terrified out of her wits, and Alex got his legs under him while the dogs sniffed at his feet. One of Marco's henchman sliced the rope from Alex's wrists and he rotated them, wincing.
"Sorry for that," Marco said, "but we had to be sure you were who you said you were, eh?"
Alex nodded, careful and wary.
"How about some coffee?"
They sat around a campfire, Claire pressed close against Alex's side, while Marco regaled them with tales of raids and feuds that Alex would bet were far bloodier in life his boasts before a lady allowed. Alex sipped his coffee, hot and strong, and wondered why Marco had decided they were his new best friends. And when they'd get out of this place.
* * *
Marco had his men drive Alex and Claire to Leticia, where they were deposited in front of the gates to the park, slightly stunned.
Once they checked into their cabin, Alex pulled Claire close and held her tight. They both shook with delayed nerves, and Claire's mouth sought Alex's with an urgency he was glad to return.
"After this," she said, "because I'm not going to let that stop me from seeing the monkeys," and Alex nodded agreement, "I want to go back to the States."
"Yes," he said, and breathed in the scent of her hair.
* * *
They didn't return to Chicago right away, or New York, a city Alex couldn't quite think of as home anymore.
Los Angeles welcomed them with indifference, and not wanting to worship at the altar of Hollywood, Alex and Claire drove north along the coast. They took the trip slowly, stopping off at Solvang to walk amid houses that looked like they belonged in Northern Europe instead of California, then continued to San Luis Obispo.
Claire blinked when they finally reached the Madonna Inn; she'd not seen a more unique hostelry in their long journey. They stayed in the "Barrel of Fun" room, and giggled over the faux-rock fireplace before setting out the next morning. They wandered through Hearst Castle holding hands, agog at its clashing architectural styles.
Cliffs plunged down to the Pacific Ocean on their left, while boulders were poised above them on the right, seemingly waiting to crush their rental car. Lunch in Carmel, dinner in Santa Cruz: Claire demanded a trip to the boardwalk, where Alex bought her cotton candy and tried to win a giant stuffed bear by shooting at balloons.
"It was obviously rigged," he groused, and Claire pulled him toward the wooden roller coaster dominating the eastern end of the boardwalk. They indulged in a funnel cake afterward, licking confectioner's sugar from their fingers, and rode the carousel. Claire chose a fiery palomino steed, and Alex picked one next to her, black as pitch with wild eyes.
Tinkly music started to play, lights gleamed, and Claire timed the approach to the brass ring dispenser. Up and down her horse galloped, and she reached out and grabbed the ring.
"Victory!" she crowed, clutching it tight through almost a full revolution of the carousel. As they came back around, she tossed the ring into the clown's mouth and didn't see the breath of wind that guided its flight.
Tyche watched two dark heads stroll away from the boardwalk, arms entwined behind each other's backs, and sighed that Eros had been right again.
* * *
Redwoods towered overhead, more impressive than any cathedral, the next day, then onward to San Francisco, where Alex and Claire lingered for several days, comparing the tea garden in Golden Gate Park to the ones they'd seen in Japan and huffing their way up and down hills.
Alex slipped out early one morning and returned in time for lunch, refusing to tell Claire where he'd gone no matter how much she pouted.
She didn't think any more about it until they were in Napa, still giddy from the wine they'd tasted the night before. A vast swath of fabric, brilliant scarlet, was slowly filling with heated air. Claire scrawled her signature on the release form, then looked up into the dawn sky, which might as well have been arranged for her delight, all blue dotted with fluffy white clouds. The pilot, a gruff older man with silver hair and a long beard, gestured at Alex and Claire to enter the gondola. His hands were gloved, and his gaze was more than a little bit lecherous.
Claire sidled closer to Alex and gasped as the lines tethering the balloon to the ground were released. They rose up, up, up into the sky, hills festooned with grape vines spread out below them, and Claire felt astonished at their beauty.
Alex's arms wrapped around her waist, and his chin nestled into her shoulder. "Thank you for coming on this trip with me," he said.
She smiled, because she couldn't imagine having made a different choice.
"I was thinking," Alex continued, "on the floor of that squalid little hut in Columbia-" Claire's stomach jumped at the memory - "about what I'd do if I lost you, and I couldn't bear it. I never want to be without you, Claire-" she almost interrupted to agree - "and I know we haven't talked about what we'll do after we get home, but the only home I could ever have is with you."
Claire turned her face to meet Alex's eyes, and the love she saw there made tears well up in her eyes.
"I got this for you," Alex said, and a turquoise box decorated with a white ribbon appeared on his palm.
She untied the ribbon and opened the box to find a diamond winking up at her in the reflected light of the still-rising sun. "If you like it?" he asked, his voice going uncertain.
"I love it," Claire said. "I love you."
The pilot beamed at them, and did something to make the balloon soar higher.
"So, Dr. Allen," Alex said, laughter tinting his words, "will you marry me?"
"Absolutely, Mr. DeMouy. Absolutely."
* * *
"One hundred and one," Trevor crowed as Claire and Alex stepped out onto the dance floor to the mellow strains of Etta James singing At Last.
"Don't be smug, child. It's not an attractive quality," the woman beside him sniffed. She was statuesque, gowned in the red of pomegranates, and her golden hair was piled atop her head in a strictly-governed crown.
"Oh, come on. You don't know what I went through -"
"By the standards of my day, you had a walk in the park."
Bride and groom spun in each other's arms, entranced, eyes locked together.
Trevor knew that was true, so he took another sip of his champagne and tried to hide his grin. The other wedding guests were cooing about how gorgeous Claire and Alex looked, how they were "made for each other."
Hera touched his shoulder. "I've spread blessings upon them, as you asked. Now don't you think it's time to come home, child?"
As they walked through the door and Trevor let himself cast mortal cares away, the dance ended in a kiss.
Passion banked into a warm glow, ever able to flare bright and hot, but sustained through all their days.
* * *
Ever after, the muses sang of the days when Eros was exiled from Olympus, stripped of his powers and set a seemingly insurmountable task. They sang of the bright lady, disciple of Athena, who aided the confused god, and of her true love, sundered by his own quest. They sang of their reunion under Eros' guidance, their voyages under the beneficence of the gods, and their love everlasting. Hestia herself tended their hearthfire, and never did their devotion wane.
- end -
Notes: mswalter provided a speedy and excellent beta. With thanks to google and wikipedia for location details. Any errors in their depiction are my own. All lottery claim procedures described herein are imaginary. *handwave*.
Tyche is goddess of fortune
Owls are sacred to Athena
Laurent from laurel, which is sacred to Apollo
Geraldo from Poseidon's trident
Anemones are sacred to Aphrodite, goddess of love
Chloe ("the green shoot") from Demeter's powers of ever-returning fertility
Hermes is god of thieves
Cynthia from Artemis' birthplace on Delos
Festus --> Hephaestus, god of blacksmiths, the forge, and fire
Dionysus, god of wine and intoxication, carried a thyrsus and led the Maenads in dancing with wild abandon
Marco from Mars, as Ares was known in Rome
Zeus is god of the sky
Je m'appelle Laurent. Et vous = My name is Laurent. And yours? (French)
Al salaam a'alaykum = hello (Arabic)
Prompt: Claire is an independent woman who wouldn't necessarily drop her life to follow a man around, but Alex isn't just any man. When Alex leaves NY and shows up on her doorstep, she finds herself totally open to going and doing something else with him. Where could they go and what would they do together, in all their fabulous hotness?
Disclaimer: Transformative work. Written for love, not profit.
Feedback, positive or negative, is tastier than ambrosia and nectar.
Author: Pouncer
Fandom: Cupid
Rating: R
Genre: het, romance, stealth crossover
Pairing: Claire Allen/Alex DeMouy
Summary: Everybody dreams of winning the lottery. Claire said, "I always thought I'd travel." Alex reached out for Claire's hand, and her breath caught at the touch. "Me too. Want to go together?"
Almost 6000 words.
My much delayed story for the episode1x10 challenge.
Moderation In All Things Save Love
by Pouncer
"Give me a dollar."
"Trevor!" He would interrupt Claire just as she was taking the first sip of her morning coffee, steaming into the cold air. "What are you --"
"Dollar!" His tone demanded.
Claire sighed and pulled out her wallet while resting her cardboard cup atop a Chicago Tribune dispenser. Her scarf twisted around her wrist.
Trevor grinned, sprightly, and snatched the bill from her hand. Then he passed over a slip of paper.
"The lottery? Trevor, this cup of coffee would be a better investment."
But he was leaving, waving, calling, "Be sure to check the numbers tonight," as he disappeared down the street.
Claire sighed and tucked his gift into her wallet.
He'd been insufferable ever since he successfully paired a hundred couples together.
* * *
A shadow tumbled along the ground, skipping, turning, flirting with the feet of passers-by. It could have been a leaf, remnant of a slow-fading winter, or a fast food wrapper, but as it took advantage of a particularly hardy gust of wind, one pedestrian realized it was something else:
A lottery ticket.
One that seemed determined to land in his hands, avoiding all the other people in Central Park.
Alex DeMouy looked bemusedly at the small square of paper twirling in front of his hands and gave into fate.
He stuffed it into his pocket, and only later wondered how an Illinois lottery ticket sold that morning had found its way to New York.
On the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tyche toasted her gratitude to Zephyr with a goblet of nectar.
"Well, brother," she muttered. "I hope this works like you planned."
* * *
The radio in the sandwich shop blared: "The multi-million dollar jackpot - the largest in American history - had only two winning tickets. One was sold in Chicago, another in Champaign. Authorities are still waiting for the lucky winners to come forward and claim their fortune."
Claire collected her chicken salad on wheat bread and left the shop. She was late for a client, and she hated to be late.
"Did you check your lottery ticket?" Trevor came out of nowhere as Claire approached her office.
"No time," she called, rushing past and darting into the elevator just as the doors closed.
She didn't look at the winning numbers until that night, and she almost fell over when they matched.
* * *
"Look, I'm just in town to visit friends." Claire heard the muffled voice as she approached the lottery office later that week. "I feel kind of bad, to tell you the truth. This just blew into my hands - I didn't even buy it."
Claire turned into the doorway and found herself unable to move any further.
"Regardless of how you came to hold it, the winning ticket is in your possession. That's all that counts for lottery purposes," the young lady standing behind the desk said. She wore an unadorned navy suit; plain but perfectly tailored. Her dark hair was cut into a ruthless bob, and her grey eyes were serious. The one touch of whimsy on her person was the brooch perched on her lapel, an owl made of mother of pearl that somehow managed to look fluffy.
Claire knew she was taking pains to catalogue the stranger because she'd recognized in a split-second glance the man who was even now saying, "Yeah, but -"
"May I help you?" The young woman had noticed Claire.
Then Alex's head swiveled around, and damn it. Her stomach shouldn't do that.
Claire held up her ticket.
* * *
Later, they strolled along the sidewalk together, silent.
"Quite a coincidence, huh?" Alex's hands were stuffed into the pockets of his leather jacket because if they weren't, he'd be touching Claire in ways that were not appropriate for exes.
The breakup had made perfect sense. They'd both agreed to it. Distance, time, individual lives to lead.
None of it made sense now.
"Trevor gave me the ticket," Claire said.
"Trevor? Still seeing him?"
"Well." Claire hesitated. "Not professionally, but he shows up, like a gnat."
"You won't need to work," Alex said, because he'd been thinking about what all this money meant ever since he realized he had a winning ticket.
"Not need, but -"
"Hey, come on. Everybody has dreams of what they'd do if they won the lottery. What're yours?" Alex was surprised at the desperation he felt.
This was a chance, and he wasn’t giving it up.
Claire glanced over at him, shrugged, and said, "I always thought I'd travel."
It was like the sun rose at night. "Me too." Alex reached out for Claire's hand, and her breath caught at the touch. "Want to go together?"
* * *
Claire thought long and hard about Alex's offer. She longed to be together with him again, but for all the logic when they decided to stop seeing each other -- and wasn't that a joke, seeing each other, given the scant days they'd spent in each others' presence after Alex moved to New York -- Claire had still nursed wounds. Losing Alex had hurt, and it had taken her time to recover, to build a fulfilling life for herself, one based on her career and her friends and the occasional tepid attempt at dating.
But then there were the memories of glee whenever they were together: the laughter, the passion, the sheer joy she found in him and he found in her.
Trevor popped up like a psychedelic mushroom just when Claire was about to tear her hair out from frustration. Make a decision, she told herself, yet still found herself spilling her dilemma to Trevor. Claire knew what he would say, some pie-in-the-sky nonsense about gambling on love, and she wasn't wrong.
"Oh, come on! You moped for weeks after he moved, and I've never seen you as happy as when he was around." Trevor bopped Claire on the nose with a finger.
"Hey!" she protested.
"Nah-uh," Trevor said. "Doesn’t everybody have a dream about winning the lottery?"
Claire scrunched up her nose. "Well, yes." To halt Trevor's attempt to pounce on her admission, she held up a hand. "But. But. But they were just dreams, Trevor."
"Dreams can come true sometimes, Claire." He was oddly sincere. "They really can."
She let herself hear his words, and swayed toward his position even as some hesitations lingered. She could throw the dice and travel with Alex. She could make sure they still worked as a couple, that he wouldn't abandon her again, that they were both equally invested in any relationship they might want to rekindle. They might not fit together now. They might end up hating each other. Take it slow, Claire. But that didn't mean not taking any risks at all.
Before she could stop herself, Claire called Alex and told him, "Yes, I'll go with you."
* * *
It wasn't that simple, of course. There were legal and financial details to attend to - Tina, the young lady from the lottery office, was very helpful with recommendations. They had to avoid zealous reporters if they wanted to maintain a vestige of privacy. There was the detritus of modern travel -- booking flights, hotels, itineraries, visas, inoculations -- but soon enough Alex found himself sitting on a bench next to the Seine, under the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
Claire was in the Musée d'Orsay, drinking in the Impressionists. Alex had begged off after a morning of French art. He preferred to observe life on today's street, not images of yesteryear. And he was scheming, as much as he could, how to get Claire back. She was still wary of him.
He understood why, but spending time with her reminded him of all the ways they fit, and divergent career paths didn't seem like an obstacle anymore. At least not to Alex, but he had to get Claire, logical, deliberate Claire, to agree.
"You look like a man in the throes of love."
Alex glanced up, startled, and found he'd been joined by another man, dressed with the casual elegance of the French and smoking a cigarette.
"That bad?" Alex asked, wondering vaguely how the man had known to speak English.
"Eh," a shrug, "it is common along these shores. Does your lady deny you her heart?"
Alex sighed. "She gave it to me once, but I didn't know enough then to keep her safe. I moved, we broke up, and now -"
"Now she does not know if you are to be trusted! I understand." He sat down. "Je m'appelle Laurent. Et vous?" Laurent held out a hand.
"Alex," quick clasp of palm to palm, and Alex coughed a little from the tobacco smoke.
They sat and discussed Alex's love life for some time as the Seine flowed past. He wondered, a little crazily, when he'd entered the role of lead in a romantic comedy.
"It sounds as if your lady is besotted with reason, but even the most logical can find themselves overcome by emotion. You merely have to evoke that feeling, so that any qualms are subsumed under love. You do love her, n'est-ce pas?"
"Desperately," Alex confessed.
"Well. This is what you do."
* * *
A sublime five-course dinner, accompanied by fine wines, seated in a fantasyland of drapery and near-invisible service. Conversation on life, news, history, the arts, hopes, dreams.
A music club where sultry jazz filled the air, and Alex quashed his innate discomfort long enough to ask Claire to dance.
Holding her close, breathing in her perfume, reveling in her warmth.
Deciding to walk back to their hotel, along routes almost unchanged since they were documented by Brassaï when he palled around with Henry Miller and Salvador Dali during the 1930s.
Riding the elevator up to their suite, air shimmering with the tension between them.
Alex unlocked the door, ushered Claire inside, and caught hold of her hands. Her face, her beautiful face, tilted up to look at him, and he had to caress the line of her chin.
"Claire," he said, but words deserted him.
She must have understood anyway, because her mouth rose to join with his, and her arms twined round his back, and then she led him into her bedroom.
* * *
Exhausted by a cruise down the Loire River, tours through Provence and Aquitaine, a cycling journey through Basque country, stays in Barcelona (Gaudi's Sagrada Família and many, many tapas), Madrid (Prado museum and bullfights), and Granada (the Alhambra and other Moorish palaces), Alex and Claire washed up on the shores of Malaga desperate to do nothing at all.
"Beach," Claire whined, and Alex nodded.
"Sleep first," he said, because it was late in the afternoon and the sun slanted through the blinds of their hotel room.
"'Kay," Claire nodded, and yawned.
They napped entwined together, Claire's head on Alex's shoulder. She awoke after dark, still drowsy, and marveled that she'd ever been able to sleep without him.
The next morning they set out for the beach equipped with sunscreen and books, and claimed two lounge chairs far from the water. An umbrella protected them from too much heat, and Claire tipped her straw hat forward for even more shade.
She intended to bask to day away, but when the sun reached its apex hunger pangs roused them both. Claire had been trying to quiet her mind anyway. She shouldn't doubt this contentment. She shouldn't.
They found a nearby bar off a shadowed alley, its interior tiled in terra-cotta clay. The proprietor, Geraldo, grilled prawns redolent with garlic and poured wine with a liberal hand.
He had a beard, flowing and white, and some of the largest shoulders Claire had ever seen.
Alex noticed her admiration and sat up a little straighter. "Hey," he objected, without much force behind it.
Claire batted her eyelashes at Geraldo over her wineglass when he brought them flan for dessert. She did it just to see Alex sputter, but Geraldo laughed and told Alex to have her swim in the sea to tire her out.
They splashed the afternoon away amid the waves.
* * *
The next day, Alex rented a sailboat, small enough for a two-person crew, and they let the winds take them out into the Mediterranean. Dolphins leapt ahead of the ship's prow, and Claire's laughter tumbled like bells down Alex's spine.
He couldn't stop smiling at her, and wondered that he'd ever left her behind.
They spent another week in Malaga before journeying to Italy, home of empire.
* * *
On a tiny island in the middle of the Aegean Sea, they breakfasted in a courtyard overflowing with blossoming orange trees and myrtle. Claire gazed over the turquoise sea and drank in its beauty.
Alex leaned back in his chair and took a sip of coffee sweetened with honey.
They wandered into the hills later that morning, clambering over ancient ruins that made Claire imagine the gods would walk upon the land next to them. Her sandals were sturdy leather and her skirt was long and cool linen.
Alex fucked Claire in a grove of olive trees, their clothes loosened just enough to touch skin to skin. She gasped and twined a leg around his hips to pull him closer, reveling in the blueness of the sky above her, the feel of his weight pressing her into the earth.
He made her scream before he finished, and she collapsed into languor only broken by awareness that the sun was traveling higher in the heavens and they needed to get indoors or risk a burn.
Claire couldn't stop touching Alex on the trip back down to the sea - a hand on his shoulder, a glancing brush to his hip. His eyes were covered by dark glasses now, but she remembered them locked with hers, intense and possessive and everything she'd ever wanted.
She looked down, ostensibly to check that her skirt wasn't tangled with the underbrush, but really to breathe and lock the moment in memory.
Before the gate to the guest house, they encountered a woman snipping anemones from the garden.
"Hello," she sang gaily. "Are you having a good time?"
Alex stared, dumbstruck. The stranger's hair curled down her shapely back like a pour of honey, and her eyes mirrored the blue of the sea.
"It's wonderful," Claire said, smiling at a shared understanding of the power of feminine wiles.
"Good, good," the woman said. "You must be sure to eat at Taverna Xynos tonight - the fish is as fresh as you can get."
Alex's tongue untangled enough to reply, "We'd heard it was the place to go."
"Yes, yes - the only option, really," she said seriously.
She tied a ribbon around the bundle of flowers in her arms, then presented them to Claire, a perfect bouquet.
"My thanks for aiding my son."
"Your son?" Claire asked, puzzled. "I don't know -"
"I will not forget your help while he was lost. Ya sas."
And with those words of farewell the stranger was gone, stepping down the path with a joy that might as well have been a dance.
The flowers didn't fade for their entire three-week stay.
And the fish at the Taverna made Claire moan almost as much as Alex did, later that night.
* * *
After marveling at Petra, the city carved out of a rosy cliff face, Alex and Claire drove their battered rental car north, toward Jordan's uplands.
Alex wanted to see the ruins of the Greek city at Umm Qais, and Claire was content to gaze out the car window at the dusty roads. Her thoughts lingered at Petra, hidden among rocks like a secret treasure. It had been so beautiful that Claire hadn't wanted to leave, had wanted to stay and explore all its riches.
She fell asleep and her daydreams of ancient life bled into fantasies of togas and sandals and meals of olive oil-soaked bread.
Alex's cursing woke her with the sun lowering on the horizon behind her.
"What?" she asked, still snared in muzzy-headedness.
"I think I took a wrong turn. Or read a sign wrong. Something." His voice was tight with frustration but he peered ahead alertly. The road curved in and out of hills, stone formations blocking their line of sight.
They came upon the house abruptly. It was close to the road, with a field spread into a shallow bowl behind it.
"Stop here," Claire ordered.
Alex's mouth quirked, but he swung the car over.
"Now we have to hope they speak English. Or that our Berlitz guide is useful," Alex said.
Claire opened the car door and stretched out stiff limbs. As she brought her hands down, the wooden door to the house opened and a woman stepped out. She had dark hair, sleek and gorgeous, peeking out from beneath the gauzy scarf that draped her head.
"Al salaam a'alaykum," Claire ventured, and smiled in the hopes that it would make up for her doubtless terrible pronunciation.
"Hello," the woman said, "welcome to my home." The stress was on the wrong syllables but she was still understandable.
"Hi," Alex said, removing his sunglasses. "We're lost, trying to get to Umm Qais."
The woman's eyebrows rose. "You are lost. And shouldn't travel at night." She turned back toward the house. Alex and Claire blinked at each other. "Well?" the woman said. "Are you coming or not?"
They followed her, compelled.
* * *
Inside, the house was cool, its stucco face absorbing the heat. Bare wooden beams supported the ceiling, and drying herbs hung in the corners.
"I am Chloe," their host said, and Claire introduced herself and Alex as they were led into the kitchen.
"You must be hungry, after your journey. Sit."
The bench seats weren't all that comfortable, but Claire was more than a little intimidated and did her best to settle. Chloe bustled around, gathering plates and cups and food. Alex yawned, and Claire wished she could wake up fully. Her thoughts were still slow, and the strangeness of the encounter wasn't letting her feel clear.
The food smelled wonderful - grilled chicken and chickpeas, flatbread and some milk-based drink.
Before they ate, a door into the back yard opened and a young woman, barely more than a girl, slipped inside.
"My daughter," Chloe said. "She must return to her husband soon, but I savor our time together."
The girl kept her eyes mostly lowered, but one shy glance made Claire catch her breath. Steel grey irises set in a beautiful face that never turned fully toward Alex. Chloe and her daughter conversed in musical Arabic, interspersed with gruff exhortations from Chloe to eat more.
After dinner, Claire was directed to share a pallet with the girl in a back room, and Alex was banished to the front with a blanket.
She woke to a rooster's crow just after dawn, and wandered outside, past the daughter's industry in the kitchen, past the chicken coop, to the field.
Chloe was outlined against the wheat by the rising sun, almost glowing. "Harvest soon," she said, her fingertips brushing the heads of the wheat stalks. "Farming started not far away from here."
Claire reached out to touch, enchanted with the tickle of the seed pods.
Alex stumbled into the kitchen later, roused by the scent of coffee. They took their leave soon after with directions to Umm Qais and stern advice about the wisdom of better planning.
When they arrived at the city, Claire felt as if she was still waking from a dream.
* * *
In a Cairo bazaar, Alex's wallet was rescued from a young pickpocket by a teenager with curly brown hair and laughing eyes.
"Be more careful," he scolded them while acting as escort to their hotel.
They drank sweet tea together as musicians strummed stringed instruments and created an eerie wail on pipes. He told them of the customs of the bazaar, the best merchants to visit and the ones to avoid.
Alex leaned into Claire, sleepy-eyed, and they said farewell before going to nap.
* * *
Elephants rumbled toward the horizon, their trunks held low to the ground.
Cynthia, the guide who had picked Alex and Claire up at the airport and chauffeured them around thus far, regaled them with facts of elephant life: vegetation, herd society, predators.
After a while, Claire couldn't contain her smile. "I always loved Babar," she told Alex.
He grinned back at her, wicked and sweet at the same time. "I was partial to Curious George myself."
"Oh, you." She batted at his encroaching hand, doubtless aiming for the ticklish spot just below her ribs.
That night, they ate under stars more brilliant than any Claire had ever seen. The moon was a thin sliver just above the treetops.
Cynthia roasted some haunch of meat, "From the Munanka farm," she reassured them.
"How did you come to live here," Claire asked, fascinated with Cynthia's ease on the savannah and her mysterious accent.
"I've always loved the wilderness," Cynthia said. "And there aren't many left. I do what I can to protect them from those who would despoil their purity." Her voice went fierce, and she prodded at the fire with extra vehemence.
Claire and Alex exchanged wide-eyed looks and slipped away to their tent soon after. Alex sprawled down on his sleeping bag, too tempting to resist, all splayed limbs and unconscious invitation.
Claire straddled his hips and bent down to lick the side of his neck, the spot that always made him buck and moan.
He was warm beneath her, maybe from the fire, maybe just because. She opened the buttons on his shirt, ran her hands over his chest, scratched her nails over his nipples to hear Alex gasp.
His head was tilted back, his eyes heavy, his mouth parted, and Claire took possession with a kiss that left him looking as debauched as she felt.
A coughing roar sounded outside, and they both froze into stillness, one second, two, and then Alex's palms slid up Claire's back and brought her down to where he could nip at the corner of her jaw.
"Rowr," he said, and she collapsed into giggles.
"Oh, you mock the king of the plains now, but you'll see soon enough," he said, and he was joking but she still opened her arms and welcomed him.
* * *
Tokyo was all flashing lights and noise, like the inside of an arcade on fast-forward. The contrast with Kyoto, with history and tradition preserved, was startling.
"Oh, there's still gobs of tradition here," Festus said. "You just have to know where to look."
He toasted Alex and Claire with his sake cup lifted, then drank. The white porcelain gleamed against his ruddy beard.
"How long have you lived here?" Alex asked. He was leaning forward, intent.
"I came in the Eighties, when Japan was cutting edge. Left a bit in the middle for Silicon Valley, but I missed the place. They're doing things with electronics and robotics that will blow your mind."
"I'm feeling kind of nostalgic for my computer back home," Alex admitted.
Claire ate a piece of sushi dipped in soy sauce and thought that she could keep traveling, outside of time, for a long time yet.
* * *
Bogotá, and Claire half-expected to witness Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner traipsing out of the jungle. She could see Alex's journalistic curiosity sharpening; the drug trade had left indelible scars on the land and the people of Columbia, but they still laughed and welcomed Alex and Claire when they wandered the streets.
The altitude left her short of breath, and they headed toward Amacayacu National Park soon enough. The American embassy warned about the risk to travelers, drug lords having decided that kidnapping rich tourists and businesspeople to extort ransom was a marvelous way to supplement their incomes. Claire and Alex had discussed flying to Leticia, but they'd found that they preferred to drive and experience the countryside for themselves. And Cali and Medillin and Cartegena of drug cartel fame were to the north, not south.
The vegetation reminded Claire of their journey through Thailand, but Colombia was devoid of Buddha statues. The park they were aiming for straddled the Rio Negra, an Amazon tributary, and was advertised to be home to howler monkeys and tree frogs, butterflies and bromeliads. After seeing the vast spread of the Amazon emptying into the Atlantic Ocean, Claire and Alex both wanted to witness the mighty river closer to its source.
If only they could get there. It wasn't that they were lost - the map was very clear, and they were on the route recommended by their guide in Bogotá. But the trees seemed to grow closer and closer to the road, which hadn't been paved for hours and was getting more and more rutted.
Claire gripped the wheel tighter and really began to wonder if flying wouldn't have been the better option.
When the SUV rounded a corner and nearly crashed into a bus, she became certain.
Then the gunmen appeared.
* * *
"I'm sorry," Alex muttered as he was led away from Claire. His hands were bound with rope, but hers were free. He hoped she didn't try anything. He wished he'd never thought about driving in Colombia. He wished they'd stayed in Rio forever.
He thought about pleading with their captors to let her go, keep him. Don't hurt her.
The clearing in the jungle was dotted with crudely constructed shacks and nearly broken-down jeeps. Men carrying rifles lounged around, teeth gleaming as they talked. Alex couldn't see any women, and his stomach twisted.
He had never been more scared.
They shoved him into one of the shacks, and closed the door. Wan light filtered through gaps in the tin roof, and it smelled of mold.
Not a week ago, Claire and Alex had danced in the streets of Rio on the last night of Carnival, glasses of caipirinha clutched in their hands. Samba dancers whirled past them, costumed in garish colors and an excess of glitter, waving fans and feathers enough to cool the world. A curly-haired man led the next bloco, leopard-print tunic flung over one shoulder, carrying a long staff wound with ivy leaves and crowned with a pine cone. He waved it in time to the music, but the dancers following him were wild, women gyrating arms and legs to the samba beat, faces slack with ecstasy, breasts exposed.
Alex downed the last of his drink, and felt the thrum of delight run through his veins. He leaned close to Claire and asked if she was ready to go.
They had swayed into their hotel room, and Alex had held Claire still to kiss her. His fingers cradled her chin, and he savored the flavor of sugar and lime on her lips. She surged against him, and their clothes disappeared in a flurry of movement. He pushed her onto the bed, used his palms to spread her thighs, and leaned down to lick her open.
Her fingernails scratched his scalp, and he had to hold her hips still. She shuddered and gasped above him, until her cries broke off with a sharp moan.
Maybe they'd both been intoxicated still, when they decided to see Columbia for themselves. Now, Alex listened for another type of cry entirely, one of pain and terror.
* * *
He didn't know how long he sat on the dirt floor, sweat dripping down his back, humid air choking his lungs, before the door opened.
The man who entered carried an AK-47, the distinctive curve of its bullet cartridge nearly lost in the shadows surrounding his dirty khaki fatigues. He was flanked by two dogs, crouched low to the ground. Their fur was matted, and they snarled at Alex before called to heel.
Alex looked up, trying to read his captor's face, but he was impassive, if stern. Alex wanted to beg for Claire's safety, wanted to marshal all his powers of persuasion to get them released, except no words would come. Not in English, and definitely not in Spanish. Helpless. Hopeless.
Then the man smiled, broad, and Claire's head appeared around the side of the door.
"Come, come," the man said, gesturing for Alex to rise.
"Alex, this is Marco," Claire said. She looked tense, but not terrified out of her wits, and Alex got his legs under him while the dogs sniffed at his feet. One of Marco's henchman sliced the rope from Alex's wrists and he rotated them, wincing.
"Sorry for that," Marco said, "but we had to be sure you were who you said you were, eh?"
Alex nodded, careful and wary.
"How about some coffee?"
They sat around a campfire, Claire pressed close against Alex's side, while Marco regaled them with tales of raids and feuds that Alex would bet were far bloodier in life his boasts before a lady allowed. Alex sipped his coffee, hot and strong, and wondered why Marco had decided they were his new best friends. And when they'd get out of this place.
* * *
Marco had his men drive Alex and Claire to Leticia, where they were deposited in front of the gates to the park, slightly stunned.
Once they checked into their cabin, Alex pulled Claire close and held her tight. They both shook with delayed nerves, and Claire's mouth sought Alex's with an urgency he was glad to return.
"After this," she said, "because I'm not going to let that stop me from seeing the monkeys," and Alex nodded agreement, "I want to go back to the States."
"Yes," he said, and breathed in the scent of her hair.
* * *
They didn't return to Chicago right away, or New York, a city Alex couldn't quite think of as home anymore.
Los Angeles welcomed them with indifference, and not wanting to worship at the altar of Hollywood, Alex and Claire drove north along the coast. They took the trip slowly, stopping off at Solvang to walk amid houses that looked like they belonged in Northern Europe instead of California, then continued to San Luis Obispo.
Claire blinked when they finally reached the Madonna Inn; she'd not seen a more unique hostelry in their long journey. They stayed in the "Barrel of Fun" room, and giggled over the faux-rock fireplace before setting out the next morning. They wandered through Hearst Castle holding hands, agog at its clashing architectural styles.
Cliffs plunged down to the Pacific Ocean on their left, while boulders were poised above them on the right, seemingly waiting to crush their rental car. Lunch in Carmel, dinner in Santa Cruz: Claire demanded a trip to the boardwalk, where Alex bought her cotton candy and tried to win a giant stuffed bear by shooting at balloons.
"It was obviously rigged," he groused, and Claire pulled him toward the wooden roller coaster dominating the eastern end of the boardwalk. They indulged in a funnel cake afterward, licking confectioner's sugar from their fingers, and rode the carousel. Claire chose a fiery palomino steed, and Alex picked one next to her, black as pitch with wild eyes.
Tinkly music started to play, lights gleamed, and Claire timed the approach to the brass ring dispenser. Up and down her horse galloped, and she reached out and grabbed the ring.
"Victory!" she crowed, clutching it tight through almost a full revolution of the carousel. As they came back around, she tossed the ring into the clown's mouth and didn't see the breath of wind that guided its flight.
Tyche watched two dark heads stroll away from the boardwalk, arms entwined behind each other's backs, and sighed that Eros had been right again.
* * *
Redwoods towered overhead, more impressive than any cathedral, the next day, then onward to San Francisco, where Alex and Claire lingered for several days, comparing the tea garden in Golden Gate Park to the ones they'd seen in Japan and huffing their way up and down hills.
Alex slipped out early one morning and returned in time for lunch, refusing to tell Claire where he'd gone no matter how much she pouted.
She didn't think any more about it until they were in Napa, still giddy from the wine they'd tasted the night before. A vast swath of fabric, brilliant scarlet, was slowly filling with heated air. Claire scrawled her signature on the release form, then looked up into the dawn sky, which might as well have been arranged for her delight, all blue dotted with fluffy white clouds. The pilot, a gruff older man with silver hair and a long beard, gestured at Alex and Claire to enter the gondola. His hands were gloved, and his gaze was more than a little bit lecherous.
Claire sidled closer to Alex and gasped as the lines tethering the balloon to the ground were released. They rose up, up, up into the sky, hills festooned with grape vines spread out below them, and Claire felt astonished at their beauty.
Alex's arms wrapped around her waist, and his chin nestled into her shoulder. "Thank you for coming on this trip with me," he said.
She smiled, because she couldn't imagine having made a different choice.
"I was thinking," Alex continued, "on the floor of that squalid little hut in Columbia-" Claire's stomach jumped at the memory - "about what I'd do if I lost you, and I couldn't bear it. I never want to be without you, Claire-" she almost interrupted to agree - "and I know we haven't talked about what we'll do after we get home, but the only home I could ever have is with you."
Claire turned her face to meet Alex's eyes, and the love she saw there made tears well up in her eyes.
"I got this for you," Alex said, and a turquoise box decorated with a white ribbon appeared on his palm.
She untied the ribbon and opened the box to find a diamond winking up at her in the reflected light of the still-rising sun. "If you like it?" he asked, his voice going uncertain.
"I love it," Claire said. "I love you."
The pilot beamed at them, and did something to make the balloon soar higher.
"So, Dr. Allen," Alex said, laughter tinting his words, "will you marry me?"
"Absolutely, Mr. DeMouy. Absolutely."
* * *
"One hundred and one," Trevor crowed as Claire and Alex stepped out onto the dance floor to the mellow strains of Etta James singing At Last.
"Don't be smug, child. It's not an attractive quality," the woman beside him sniffed. She was statuesque, gowned in the red of pomegranates, and her golden hair was piled atop her head in a strictly-governed crown.
"Oh, come on. You don't know what I went through -"
"By the standards of my day, you had a walk in the park."
Bride and groom spun in each other's arms, entranced, eyes locked together.
Trevor knew that was true, so he took another sip of his champagne and tried to hide his grin. The other wedding guests were cooing about how gorgeous Claire and Alex looked, how they were "made for each other."
Hera touched his shoulder. "I've spread blessings upon them, as you asked. Now don't you think it's time to come home, child?"
As they walked through the door and Trevor let himself cast mortal cares away, the dance ended in a kiss.
Passion banked into a warm glow, ever able to flare bright and hot, but sustained through all their days.
* * *
Ever after, the muses sang of the days when Eros was exiled from Olympus, stripped of his powers and set a seemingly insurmountable task. They sang of the bright lady, disciple of Athena, who aided the confused god, and of her true love, sundered by his own quest. They sang of their reunion under Eros' guidance, their voyages under the beneficence of the gods, and their love everlasting. Hestia herself tended their hearthfire, and never did their devotion wane.
- end -
Notes: mswalter provided a speedy and excellent beta. With thanks to google and wikipedia for location details. Any errors in their depiction are my own. All lottery claim procedures described herein are imaginary. *handwave*.
Tyche is goddess of fortune
Owls are sacred to Athena
Laurent from laurel, which is sacred to Apollo
Geraldo from Poseidon's trident
Anemones are sacred to Aphrodite, goddess of love
Chloe ("the green shoot") from Demeter's powers of ever-returning fertility
Hermes is god of thieves
Cynthia from Artemis' birthplace on Delos
Festus --> Hephaestus, god of blacksmiths, the forge, and fire
Dionysus, god of wine and intoxication, carried a thyrsus and led the Maenads in dancing with wild abandon
Marco from Mars, as Ares was known in Rome
Zeus is god of the sky
Je m'appelle Laurent. Et vous = My name is Laurent. And yours? (French)
Al salaam a'alaykum = hello (Arabic)
Prompt: Claire is an independent woman who wouldn't necessarily drop her life to follow a man around, but Alex isn't just any man. When Alex leaves NY and shows up on her doorstep, she finds herself totally open to going and doing something else with him. Where could they go and what would they do together, in all their fabulous hotness?
Disclaimer: Transformative work. Written for love, not profit.
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