Like Fire - Kate/Ana - PG-13
Title: Like Fire
Pairing: Kate/Ana
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 594
Prompt: "Burn" for lost_femmeslash and #61- Feral for 50_darkfics
Spoilers: Up to The Long Con
Summary: There's a point where it stops being about jealousy.
*
Ana reminds her of a car wreck. It starts with a slow gas leak, giving the quick and perceptive ones time to flee, and then she explodes. Flames light up the street and her shouts make their smokey mark on the sky. Brave reinforcements are called in, young are sheltered and the smoldering embers are allowed their time to breathe.
*
Kate's eyes lock with her's from across camp and the world melts. Ana's gaze is like fire, feral and acidic, so Kate perceives it as malice, evil, hurtful intentions. She orders Sawyer to help her protect the camp, circling the wagons, and keeps a safe distance from the other woman as it plays out. While no one ever directly tells her Ana was innocent, she can read it on Jack's face, in Sawyer's voice, and she stops keeping tabs on where Ana comes and goes.
She misjudged the newest addition to camp and she won't make that mistake again.
*
She knows now that Ana doesn't slap; she punches. And hard too.
Kate's been on the other end of a cop's fist before, but she's never felt the recoil practically go through her.
She barely regains her balance, barely keeps her feet on the ground and she's glad she's wearing hiking boots and not flimsy flip-flops. Kate braces for a second attack, but it never comes. Kate glances over at her warily, eyes darting to her fist, dangling uselessly at her side, and then to Ana's expression.
The tender, red skin on Ana's face in the shape of Kate's hand stings, but she still smirks.
"Now we're even."
Jack and Sawyer never knew.
*
They aren't friends.
Ana makes that perfectly clear as she catches the fruit raining from the above tree, Kate perched in a comfortable position behind the foliage.
"Got it." Kate snorts, the leaves shielding and shading the expression, but not the cockiness in her voice.
*
She pins her to the floor, her arms held firm above her head.
Ana smirks down at her, one hand on Kate's hip and the other binding Kate's hands.
"Some fugitive."
The second time, Kate head butts her and Ana doesn't see it coming.
*
They don't point out to each other the way both of their eyes flicker. To the path or over the fire, their gaze is rarely focused on one another.
Ana calls it alert. Kate calls it curiosity. They're both lying through their teeth.
Kate catches sight of Jack walking through the beach camp, chatting up those with whom he's been too busy in the hatch to pay any mind in the past week. Ana leans closer, and Kate never wonders whether she's baiting the man across camp or the one sitting at a nearby fire. At that point, it's just semantics.
*
There's a point where it stops being about jealousy.
*
It goes unspoken.
Kate stretches her arms into the air, griping a branch just above her, her nails digging into the rough bark. Ana's belt drags along the skin of her stomach, pressing metallic patterns into her flesh.
Her hands are everywhere and this should be wrong. She should be saying no, stop, let me breathe. But the words don't come as her fingers loop into Ana's pants, edging her closer, or as she scratches her nails down her bare back, just trying to make Ana feel something.
Ana kisses her once, but she makes it count. It burns like someone touched hot coals to her lips and she'll never say why her mouth is red with heat.
It goes unspoken. They'll never tell.