38 to 40, Laura/Bill, cabin, the river, one last story, together
TITLE: 38 to 40
AUTHOR: icedteainthebag
SUMMARY: She wants to feel him for the last time.
PAIRING: Laura/Bill
RATING: R
SPOILERS: Daybreak
WORD COUNT: 1,814
DISCLAIMER: These characters aren't mine. I wouldn't have done this to them!
NOTE: Originally posted to bsg_pornbattle. Thanks to my friends at rememberlaura for their support and friendship and to dashakay for encouraging me to write some Laura/Bill. This is me trying to deal with the loss I'm still feeling.
x x x x
It's into the thirty-eighth hour.
The wise doctor's prophecy is coming true. She feels her energy slipping away like sand through the hourglass. The melee has subsided and the ship has filled with an eerie quiet, a quiet on the edge of peace, as it drifts toward the sphere they've found, swirled with blue and white.
She pulls Bill aside, whispers in his ear. He glances at Saul, who gives him a nod. She takes his arm and he leads her out of the CIC. She tries not to stumble, so they walk slowly. She eyes the arches of the hallway, her heels clicking against the cold steel at their feet.
He closes the door behind them and she smiles--his quarters have always felt like home, a warm ambiance that invitingly settles her into its comfort. She stands still and he walks up behind her. He slips his arms around her waist, his lips on the top of her head. She breathes in, her eyes closed, feeling his embrace tighten, warm breath tingling her scalp.
"I have a childhood memory of the feeling of grass between my toes," she says, folding her arms over his. "The morning dew was cold, but I didn't care. The ground was soft. I could smell the rain. And I started running."
"Where did you run?" he murmurs against her hair.
"Across the field behind our house. There was a stream there that wound under a line of trees." She takes a breath and her chest shakes, only a slight quaking. It's the first time she's felt that in days. She swallows the lump in her throat and concentrates on the firmness of his chest against her back.
"And there were hundreds of rocks on the banks of that stream, rocks that had been polished from rough to smooth over so many years. I loved feeling them in the palm of my hand. I loved feeling the stream tickle my toes."
She feels his fingers against her neck. They brush her hair away to press his lips against the soft skin he finds there. She breathes him in, and Bill has always been a complex mix of wool and polish, and a familiar cologne she remembers from sometime before the fall. "We're going to land on that planet," he says, his nose nudging her ear, "And I'll find you a stream."
"You will?" She smiles at the thought of Bill Adama scouting the land for a stream with polished pebbles. This is a river. These rocks are too rough. Not enough shade trees. She leans her head against his shoulder. He doesn't answer. He doesn't need to.
"Bill, I need to feel you," she says after lingering in a long moment, wrapped up in each other. She feels herself leaning against his strength more with each passing minute.
He shifts his weight on his feet, the slightest of movements. "Laura--"
"Mmmm, no," she says, cutting him off with a squeeze of his hand. "No arguments. No excuses. This is what I need. I know what I can handle."
He takes his time responding. She knows he's thinking it over, and that all his reasoning will eventually cave in to the realization that this is what she wants.
"All right," he says, his voice low. She smiles.
x x x x
He undresses her slowly. She's unsteady on her feet so she kicks off her shoes. She watches his eyes--he's a man intent on his mission. He gently removes her coat, her blouse, and she's cold almost instantly. She's thin now, too thin, and if she were in a different place, a different state of mind, she might have cared that he could count her ribs and see the jut of her hipbones under her skin. None of it mattered now.
He notices her shivering as he removes her skirt and he pulls her close. "Put your arms around my neck," he says. She does, and he picks her up with incredible ease. She pulls herself snugly against him, closing her eyes. She feels weightless.
He lays her down on the bed and pulls the blanket over her body. She tucks her chin over the edge of it and watches him as he undresses. "Do you remember the first time?" she asks.
He laughs softly as he shakes off a boot. "It wasn't so long ago," he says, looking up at her with a grin. It makes her flutter inside. He shakes the other one off, then removes his pants. "You were playful, like a kitten in the spring, legs everywhere."
"Everywhere," she repeats with a soft smile. "They certainly were."
She watches him walk over to the bed. She feels sleepy already, the warmth of his blanket and his gentle voice lulling her. He draws back the blanket and slips into bed, pressing his body against her side. His fingers trace her cheek, her jawline, her neck, her collarbone.
"I'm afraid I'm not such a playful kitten any more," she says, looking up into his eyes with raised eyebrows. "More of an old, stubborn cat whose ear got nicked in its last fight."
"Are you sure you're not talking about me?" He kisses her, soft and chaste. She feels that electric current starting, the one he always starts when he touches her. She parts her lips for more. She slips the tip of her tongue into his mouth. He pulls away an inch. "There's that playful kitten."
She runs her hand up his arm, tangling it in the back of his hair. They kiss again and she's more insistent this time, her lips moving against his, their breath quickening. He slides his hand down her hip and cups her between her legs. She starts to lose herself slowly to him, and she's reminded that he is the only man in whom she's ever truly lost herself.
He slips two fingers against her, slowly deepening, until she gasps and feels her body jump in reaction to the slow strokes over her most sensitive spot.
She holds his head close and looks into his eyes, pushing one leg over his thigh, desperate for him to continue. He does, his fingers slipping through her folds, dipping inside her, then back up, circling, pressing, sending sparks through her body. He keeps her gaze, and she keeps his, even as she loses her breath and moves her hips against his hand, even when she starts to moan softly. She doesn't want to stop looking at him.
She feels an aching pull deep inside, part of the sensations he's drawing out of her as his fingers lead her to the edge, then back away. Her hips beg for more, addicted to the rush she's feeling, giving in to her yearning. She's slick against his palm as it presses against her flesh, rubbing as he fingers her slowly. He kisses her and she wraps her arms around his neck, clinging to him as his fingers work faster.
"Oh Gods," she whispers against his mouth, feeling so close, so very close. She hasn't felt this way in weeks, they haven't allowed themselves this for so many reasons, and it's overcoming her more quickly than she expected. "Oh, Gods, Bill, yes, please, more, please."
His eyes are still locked with hers--there's something secret in them that she can't quite figure out, something she'll try to derive afterward, when she's tucked into his chest, when they're on the edge of dreams.
His fingers circle and flick and push her over the edge, and she finally shuts her eyes to feel it all, the warmth spreading from his fingers up her spine to her head, her body humming with it, rocking with it. She cries out and arches her back, taking breath, taking breath, taking breath. She feels her lungs burning and breathes it out, all of it.
Her body feels like it's coming alive. She lets herself believe it.
"Come here, please," she says. She doesn't want to rush, but can feel her energy slowly draining, and wants to be able to react to him, to make him feel the way she does. She turns on her back and he gingerly rises over her, settling between her legs. She can see the concern in his face and she presses her palm against his cheek.
"Easy," she breathes, giving him a smile. "Just easy."
And he is, so very gentle and easy as he slips inside her, never allowing his weight to press against her body, his chest barely grazing hers. He fills her, and this is what she's needed, this feeling of completion, in their shelter from the world, the only cabin they'll have. It's here, and she pulls him close and runs her fingers down his back, memorizing the feel of his skin under her fingertips.
"Is it all right?" he asks, in a whisper she can barely hear. She nudges her forehead against his and answers with her eyes. He slips out of her, then in again, and she pulls strength from within to meet him when she can, to kiss his lips as his eyelids flutter shut.
"Wait," she says, pressing her hand against the small of his back. She feels tears burning behind her eyes, but refuses to acknowledge them. She keeps her eyes closed.
He pulls away slightly. "Did I hurt you?"
"Mmm mmm." She slides one arm around his neck and pulls him close. "No. No. Just stay inside me for awhile. I want to feel the weight of your body, Bill. I want to feel it all. Stay...Stay here with me."
His face presses into her shoulder and soon she feels it wet with his tears. She lets him cry, her chin quivering. She doesn't want to let it go, not right now, not like this.
He takes a deep breath, still joined with her. He's caressing her side with languid strokes of his fingers.
"I'll never be free of her, nor do I wanna be, for she is what I am. All that is, should always be," he whispers.
She turns her head to kiss him, her tears finally falling. She doesn't stop them, doesn't wipe them away. She opens her eyes when she feels him kissing her damp face.
"I will always live in this moment," she says. "We will always live in this moment."
They share breath and she thinks of smooth pebbles under her feet. She wants to find her stream with him, down on their planet, their home. She wants to dig rocks out of the mud. She wants to feel the heavy weight of them in her hands. She wants to fill their pockets.
The water trickles past her toes, like the sand through the hourglass, like time passing by in fleeting moments. It won't stop.
It's into the fortieth hour.