Punk to Your Steam (Warehouse 13, Artie/Claudia)

[jjtaylor]

Title: Punk to Your Steam
Fandom: Warehouse 13, set before the end of the first season
Pairing: Artie/Claudia
Rating: Adult
Warnings: The Warehouse Made Them Do It
Author's Note: Thanks to ataratah for beta

Summary: "Hey," Claudia says, "Some people don't need an artifact to be kinky."



"Knock, knock," Claudia says, coming up behind Artie in aisle 47B in the Warehouse, and to her delight, Artie jumps.

"I thought I told you to cut that out," he says, hand to his chest. "Isn't it ever going to get old?"

"Not as old as you," Claudia says. Artie has had her on random chore duty all morning, and she is bored, and there was no better way to relieve her boredom than teasing Artie. Well, except other things, things that she can't do with Artie and therefore they are things that do not actually enter her mind, ever. Artie doesn't take the bait, just turns back down the aisle and keeps walking to where he was headed before. Claudia follows him.

"I thought you were going to feed the fish," Artie says, though not looking back over his shoulder.

"Speaking of bait," she says. "And, no, you told me to feed the fish and I told you I wasn't going out there alone. That thing thinks I'm food."

"It's a vegetarian," Artie says.

"Well then it thinks I'm a vegetable," Claudia says. "Anyway, I wanted to see how my dampener worked." There's a Mexican jumping bean artifact that keeps jumping on the shelf, and she isn't going to let Artie have all of the fun of testing out the new case when she's the one who did all the work building it.

"Fine," Artie says, "And then we'll go feed the fish together."

Artie grabs the bean from the shelf and is about to put in its new case when it jumps out of his hands. Claudia runs to catch it, but it changes direction mid-jump and hits a few artifacts of the shelf before jumping straight into her hands, and before she can hang on to it, into Artie's, who jams it into the case.

"What got hit, what did it hit?" Artie says, nervously looking around. Claudia doesn't see anything and she can tell Artie's looking. "I saw something fall."

"Me too," she says.

The look up at each other, and Claudia feels something change, like a shimmer in the air just between them, sees Artie's eyes darken and recognizes that he's thinking the same thing. The thing she's not supposed to be thinking, but there it is, right there on his face, too. She's stepping into Artie's arms as he's reaching for her, backing her up against one of the metal columns so slowly, so gently its like the danced there.

Artie's lips on her throat, so light they're barely there, but his breath is there, hot against her skin, and the next moment, his tongue, just for a second. Claudia can't stop the sound she makes. Artie's moving so slowly, so deliberately, and she's caught, his thigh between her legs, rocking so, so slowly.

"Artie?" she says, and it's small, a quiet sound. They shouldn't be doing this, she knows that, but in a very distant way, and all she can really think of is how much she wants to arch up into Artie's touch, how much she wants to follow his mouth as it travels up over her jaw, to her ear.

"Yes, Claudia?" he says, and the promise, the tease in his voice makes her shiver.

His hand is on the small of her back, his fingers pushing up under her shirt, softly, softly against her skin, slowly over the ridges of her spine. He hits the spot just below her bra and she arches into him, pressing them close, and then Artie's mouth is on her throat again and he laughs, warm and intimate, and she can feel it in her own chest.

The hand on her back splays wide, fingers moving up and down, slowly stroking the expanse of skin on her back. He kisses her throat, the tiniest scrape of teeth and Claudia groans. Artie laughs again. He kisses her jaw, her cheek, kisses the very corner of her mouth, and she thinks he's going to not kiss her at all, to tease her all the way down the other side of her neck, but then his lips are over hers, just waiting for her, and whether she's supposed to or not, she kisses him, fast, deep and he lets her for a moment, until he makes it slow, so slow, and Claudia is whining, begging against his mouth for more.

She can't hear anything but the two of them breathing, not the usual creaks of the Warehouse, the mysterious thuds, all of it fades into a the beat of her heart and the rise and fall of Artie's chest.

Her hands are in Artie's ridiculous hair and she's finally found the slow, sweet way his mouth catches her bottom lip and lets it go over and over, when she hears the click of the shower head distantly, like it's coming from far away, and suddenly she and Artie are in a shower of purple slime. It's worse than a bucket of cold water, makes her head clearer, and she and Artie jump apart, looking at each other with matching expressions of shock.

Pete's voice comes over the intercom, hesitant and awkward. "Hey, uh, hey Claudie and Artie. So we saw some, um, unusual action in the - " he stops, and there's an awkward pause, and Claudia can hear Myka take over.

"We saw the Warehouse freaking out, and there was a field around you, a - "

"An event field," Artie says quietly.

"So we didn't know what else to do. Are you guys ok?" There's an unspoken question there, Claudia can tell Myka's asking if she was wrong, and if they've just had the most awkward interruptus ever.

"Are you ok?" Artie asks Claudia, and it's so tender, so genuine, that it hurts.

She nods. "I'm fine, I'm totally fine. This purple stuff had better come out, though, I loved this shirt." She has a sudden flash of Artie's hand up under it, and when she looks at him, its almost as though he was thinking the same thing.

'We're fine," Artie says. 'We got caught in an artifact cross-interaction with another out of place artifact and the percussive effect triggered another artifact which wrapped us in an event field, what you saw, which altered our - "

Even Claudia has tuned him out by now, and she wonders, for the first time, whether or not he does this on purpose, Artie's way of changing the subject. "Well done."

Claudia can hear Pete's hesitation over the intercom. "Uh, so...." and Myka shushing him with some indistinct words that Claudia is almost sure is, "Drop it."

"We're totally cool," Claudia says, sensing its her turn for reassurance.

"Ok," Pete says, though he doesn't sound convinced. Claudia knows how much she could have seen with the Warehouse video system and she's not sure Pete and Myka knew how to configure it in a close-up, but she can tell they saw enough to be concerned. She's thankful, at least, that they doused with slime first and asked questions later. Artie fingers had just been on the button of her pants.

She looks up at Artie, who immediately looks away. "Let's go get cleaned up?" he says, wiping some of the slime that's dripping down his chin.

"You betcha," she says, and then because she'd rather know than guess about it, "What artifact was - "

"Later," Artie says, and then abruptly walks off. Claudia doesn't have a choice but to follow.

She ends up going back to Leena's, because she needs more than the Warehouse emergency detox shower, she needs her own clothes and her own soap and some time to sit under a stream of hot water and figure out what the hell happened. An artifact was to blame, sure, that was an easy enough explanation. She had first hand knowledge about what artifacts could do if you weren't paying attention, lots of firsthand knowledge, but she'd figured she was safe down there with Artie. Artie, who had said her name in a way that sounded way more indecent than most internet porn she'd seen. Artie, though, this was - Artie. No matter how hot she ran the shower, how much she tried to talk herself out of it, the memory of the way Artie's body had felt against hers totally turned her on more than if she'd plugged herself straight into the Warehouse power grid.

She was just gonna have to sleep it off.

She felt better, so much better the next morning. Refreshed, rested, and it was a lot easier to not be weirded out by making out with her boss yesterday, totally ready to face the bizarro challenges of another day at the Warehouse.

Until she came downstairs and Artie looked up from his coffee and their eyes met and she blushed. Fuck. Artie looked away fast, but her blush took longer to fade..

"Hey, so what new wonders await us today, Artemis?" she says, sitting down at the table, trying to play it casual. "More cataloging? Building a new supercomputer?"

Artie looks at her cautiously as she took a seat next to him. "I thought maybe you wanted to - you know - talk about - "

"No!" Claudia says, abandoning any pretense at cool. "No, no, no talking necessary. We're good, we're excellent."

"Ok, ok," Artie says, sounding relieved. "Because I'd hate it if I'd made the Warehouse uncomfortable for you, and if you wanted to leave, or have some time off or - "

"Om em gee, no, Artie, you're not forcing me into early retirement, no way. It was an artifact. That's all. Hazard of the job." Claudia says with more ease than she actually feels.

"Because if you - "

"This is the best job ever," Claudia says, stopping whatever Artie was going to say about him helping her find someplace else to be, some other life. She was clinging onto this one tightly, tighter than she'd clung on to anything before Joshua. This was hers.

"Ok," Artie says, sounding more convinced, and he reaches out to pat her hand with his, but hesitates, and it ends up more like a caress than if he hadn't stopped to think about it, and they both look at each other and then look away, as though it hasn't happened at all.

At the Warehouse, Claudia can feel Pete's curiosity like a ball he's tossing from hand to hand, and Myka's tense attention directed at keeping Pete from causing trouble. It means they've talked this over together, talked about their approach, and Pete's close to deviating from the plan. Claudia can't really blame them; she doesn't know what she'd have done if she'd seen the same thing with Pete and Myka, except chalked it up to classic partner UST and maybe only half believed the Warehouse story.

Which is freaky, because maybe Myka and Pete think - maybe the reason Pete's so curious is he wants to know whether it really was an artifact or if there's something else. She doesn't really want to follow that train of thought, with or without Pete, and so she picks up a gadget that looks a little like a Christmas ornament and starts to take it apart with an eyeglass repair kit.

While Artie's searching through a stack of ancient-looking wallpaper samples looking for God knows what, Pete asks, "So what artifact was it?" They all go still and quiet. No one needs to ask what he's talking about. "Casanova?" Pete continues. Myka shushes him quite obviously. "Marquis de Sade?" Myka totally kicks him in the shins under the table.

"Hey," Claudia says, "Some people don't need an artifact to be kinky," and she winks at Pete.

Artie's mouth tightens for a second and Claudia thinks, oh, really, before she remembers she's not supposed to think anything at all.

"Rumi," Artie says, after a few moments. "It was an unfinished letter by Rumi," Artie says.

"Who's Rumi?" Pete asks. Myka shakes her head at him.

"13th century Persian poet. He wrote something called drop it," she says the last part in an undertone.

"Hey, Artie, when can we go explore South Dakota? How about a local case, can you drum something up?" Artie immediately goes into lecture mode about asking for trouble, and Myka looks pleased at Pete's redirect, and Claudia frees a crystal from inside the gadget and is distracted by the fractal composition, and when she next looks up, she is alone.

A week goes by, and Pete and Myka bring back a haunted feather boa and they finish the static re-stabalization of overflow crate storage and everything is good, she's got a good rhythm with Artie, low on the awkward scale, most days it was just another life or death situation in her wacky times workplace.

Except that every once and a while she can feel Pete looking between her and Artie, not in a concerned way, but in a Pete way, like there's still the unsolved puzzle in the back of his mind. Like Pete is having one of his sorta psychic feelings. And if Artie is a little less casual-touchy than he normally is, a little quicker both to praise her and get gruff and send her off on another impossible project, it's ok. Pete still jerked away from Myka for a few weeks after their time with the subconscious-desires chair where she'd punched him every five minutes. Making out in the Warehouse shelves probably had a longer adjustment period.

Two weeks later, Artie's running his fingers over the edge of a candy dish like he's reading some secret language in the glass with his fingers. Pete's being held hostage by a candy store owner who's not acting like himself and the only clue Myka has to go on is the fistful of butterscotch hard candies he'd chucked at her before holing up inside the candy store with Pete.

"He said he'd let Pete eat as many nonpareils as he wanted, but he's still holding him against his will," Myka says, sounding out of breath and a little like she's being rained on. Claudia peers over Artie's shoulder to look into the Farnsworth. "Right?"

"You said the all candies sparked when you put them in the bag?" Artie says, still running his fingers over the ridges in the candy dish.

"Yes," Myka says, and then a moment later, "No. There was a peppermint one which didn't do anything. Only the butterscotch ones."

"Look for a-a-a," Artie says, waving a hand around, "A candy thermometer. Or vinegar."

"Vinegar?" Myka says, but Artie's already disconnecting.

"Do we have any corn syrup around here?" Artie says, looking around as though he's just misplaced it under a pile of gadgets.

"Oh, sure, yeah, I keep baking ingredients around here all the time," Claudia says, as Artie spins around in a circle.

"In the kitchen, the kitchen!" he shouts, "In the second cabinet on the left," but Claudia's already running off. She thinks she knows why he's asking, and the sooner she can find the corn syrup, the sooner they can watch the candy dish turn it into evil little candies.

Claudia and Artie pour brown sugar, butter, vinegar, vanilla extract and gobs of corn syrup into the candy dish, which starts to bubble like a cauldron. Artie sticks a spoon in and stirs and the spoon comes out wilted like a dead flower.

"Clearly the wrong tool for the job," Claudia says. Then they both look up at each other and Artie's fumbling for the Farnsworth.

"Myka, Myka," he says, and when Myka's face appears, he and Claudia shout together, "It's a spatula."

When Myka comes back on to say that they've got it, Artie and Claudia hug in celebration. Artie's arms are tight around her ribs, and she presses her face to his shoulder for just a minute and she feels him breathe in sharply, and step back. The Farnsworth rings again and Artie answers it, and Claudia hears Pete's voice saying he's a little sick to his stomach from too much candy, and while Artie's still talking about getting them home, Claudia sneaks away into the Warehouse. There's something soothing about the sound her heels on the concrete floor, and she can pace away whatever it is that's up between her and Artie, because she's been giving it time and time's only making it worse.

She should have seen it coming, because she ends up in the aisle with the spazzy jumping bean and the unfinished letter that's responsible for starting all this. She doesn't touch the letter, because she certainly doesn't need more reasons to get too close to Artie, but she does bring up the full description on the digital reader. Amplifies feelings of attachment between a mentor and a student. She's annoyed, that even the Warehouse views her relationship with Artie as something other than an equal partnership of brilliant minds, and then she realizes the word "amplifies" is a little vague. So she goes back to the office and pulls up the full description of all the Rumi artifacts in the Warehouse. There are, surprisingly, three, and she ends up spending a few hours reading the artifacts' histories. Each of them amplifies feelings: one of a religious leader and follower, another between the writer and a reader. This Rumi guy had a lot of amplification power.

She goes up the spiral staircase to Artie's room. "Artie, are you up here?" she says even though she already knows the answer because she can hear his hammock creaking as he gets up.

"Claudia, what's wrong? What are you doing here this late? Did Pete and Myka call?"

"Nah, they're still at the airport," she says, and then blurts out, "None of the Rumi artifacts can create feelings."

Artie looks at her for a long moment, then looks away. "No, none of them can."

"So, the unfinished letter, it - "

"It can draw on feelings, yes."

"What kind of feelings?" Claudia asks, but then Artie takes a step toward her he's not that close, but he could be, he could just lean in and kiss her, but he doesn't.

"These kind of feelings," he says, his eyes falling closed for a moment, his fingers briefly tangling with hers.

It takes her a moment to catch her breath. When she speaks, her voice isn't as steady as she wants it to be. "Rumi's writings to his teacher were about respect and adoration," she says.

Artie nods, and then presses a kiss to her cheek. She can feel the rough whiskers of his beard brushing over her face, just before he steps back. "You should go," he says, and picks up a book, his best defense.

Claudia's head is spinning, and so she turns to go, before she shakes it off and turns back around. "Wait, no," she says, and Artie looks startled. "Why should I go?"

Artie is flummoxed. "Because," he says, first quietly, and then more normal Artie volume. "Because it was just an artifact, and just because I have a slower recovery time than Pete and Myka and you - "

"Recovery time?" she says, going into this argument swinging. "You just told me the artifact amplifies feelings, not creates them, so - "

"Yes, so it's taking me longer to get them back under control, all right, I'm sorry!" Artie says. "It's fine, it'll be fine, you don't have to worry, I'm not going to risk - "

"What, telling the truth?" Claudia shouts. "Are we all going to get this good at lying when we've worked here as long as you?"

"I hope you're better," Artie says, and sits down and opens his book and does not look back up. This time, Claudia doesn't turn back around.

"Do you think Artie and I have, like, chemistry?" she asks Myka that night, right before Pete takes them out for ice cream and she and Myka are standing around in the entryway at Leena's.

"Oh yeah, totally, you two always have a rhythm, and that thing with the spatula, that was brilliant," she says, and then she does her Myka thing where she's thinking and re-thinking and thinking again all in one moment. "Oh you mean - do you mean chemistry?" Myka's eyes are a little wide.

"I don't know?" Claudia says, and her uncertainty seems to relax Myka. "Damn artifact."

"I can't tell you how many times a day I have that very thought," Myka says, and then Pete and Leena are there and it's time for frozen goodness.

Halfway through Myka eating half of Pete's hot fudge parfait, Myka leans over and Claudia holds out her vanilla with jimmies dish for Myka to take a bite. Before she does, her spoon poised over the dish, she leans in close, so no one but Claudia can hear her, and says, "Yeah, I think you and Artie have chemistry," she says, and then takes a bite and looks away, like she never said anything at all.

When Pete and Myka are following a lead in Toledo, and Artie's out getting milk, Claudia calls Joshua. The wireless at Leena's works pretty fast, the Warehouse's com-to-com is faster, and she doesn't feel embarrassed about calling her brother for advice when everyone else is out.

"Hey, Claudia, you look good, how's the mysterious work you're doing with Professor Nielsen?"

"I told you, Joshua, he's not a professor."

"You also told me the Jonas Brothers were twin senators from Ohio."

"I'm fine," she says. "And maybe they will be Senators someday."

"There are three of them," Joshua says, and then, "You're sure you don't want to consider going back to school?"

There isn't a way to say no with Joshua, who was stuck on the idea of what their parents had wanted for them, so Claudia just says, "Not right now. Couldn't sit still in a classroom for more than five minutes without going crazy." Joshua winces, and she knows he's thinking of the time she spent in the hospital. "Anyway," she says, covering, "I called for a specific reason to interrupt your very important research at CERN," she says.

"I'm measuring magnets now," he says, "Ample time for sister-talk."

She steels herself to ask what she's actually called about and not chicken out. "Did you ever feel like, there was something someone wasn't telling you, and you were just missing it, but if you tried hard enough, you could figure it out?"

Joshua considers it, like she's asked a real question and not a vague notion of a real sentence. "You should act as though they'd answered the question, even before you asked."

Claudia smiled hugely at her brother. "I knew you'd give good advice. Ok, gotta go, hear someone coming."

"Are you using equipment you're not supposed to - "

"Ok, bye, Joshua!" she said, disconnecting, and when Artie comes in, Claudia makes it seem like she'd just been checking the Warehouse power usage levels, and that she was totally bored with it, too.

She decides to take Joshua's advice and run with it the next time she and Artie are in the office alone, when he's waiting for the hourly search results for potential artifact incidents and before he could get out the Victorian wallpaper sampler he keeps flipping through and refuses to explain why.

Claudia bends over his chair and presses her mouth to his, too fast, and too rushed to really be a kiss. She pulls back and he's staring at her, expressionless. Before he can say anything, because she can feel the scold sitting right there behind his teeth, she kisses him again, a real kiss this time, her mouth soft and open, lingering. He doesn't kiss back, but she can feel him holding back, can feel his mouth twitch. So she shifts a little, so her hand is resting just on his shoulder where she can stretch her thumb out to pull back his collar, lets her hair fall forward so its brushing against his face, and she hears his sharp intake of breath, and he kisses back, hesitantly, like it's a trick, like they're going to get doused with slime any moment now. And then Artie's doing the thing he was doing before, with her bottom lip, pulling on it, letting it go, pulling on it, letting it go. Once his teeth scrape across it, so gently, and Claudia makes a noise that feels like it's coming from somewhere deep behind her ribs and then Artie's hands are on her back, pulling her close, sharply, fast, his mouth so hot, kissing her jaw, down her throat, and the memory of it, how it feels familiar, makes Claudia gasp. She lets her head fall forward, and Artie's hands settle on her hips as he presses his mouth to the hollow of her throat, to her collarbone, and then he's gone, not pushing her away, but pushing his chair back, the wheels clacking loudly as they scrape over the floor, his mouth in a tight frown.

"Claudia, I'm sorry," he says, not looking at her.

"Dude, what?" Claudia says, "What are you sorry for? I was right there with you, and there's no artifact to blame this time."

"I know," he says, "Just me."

"Not just you," Claudia says, and she takes a step toward him, and then Pete bursts into the office with a giggling Myka behind him and Artie has to shout about professional behavior and Claudia winces, because, yeah, she and Artie were being super professional a moment ago, and she didn't even know Pete and Myka were there.

"I'm gonna bike back to Leena's," Claudia says, "Catch you crazy kids later." She manages to sound more convincingly cheery than she feels, because Pete and Myka laugh at their shared secret silliness and wave that they'll catch her up later, and when she looks over her shoulder at Artie, he looks like he doesn't even remember that she's there.

She takes dinner - or what she calls dinner, and Leena calls ridiculously undernourishing junk - back up to her room. A few minutes later, Leena shows up with a tray with spinach quiche, strong coffee, and caramel blondies, and Claudia has no idea how Leena manages not only to know all of her favorite comfort foods, but to make them in less than five minutes.

"What's wrong?" Leena says while Claudia's expressing her astonishment over Leena's magical food abilities.

Claudia has a bit of blondie and stirs at least half a cup of sugar into her coffee first before answering.

"Is it about Artie?" Leena asks. Claudia gives her a withering look and Leena gives it right back. "I heard what happened."

"What did Pete and Myka tell you?" Claudia says, trying not to look mortified.

"Artie told me," she says, and Claudia gapes, trying to cover it by shoving more blondie into her mouth. " He told me something happened between the two of you because of an artifact."

"You could say that," Claudia says, and Leena makes that face that means she's not going to let that go by unremarked upon. "We kissed," Claudia says, when Leena's stare becomes too much. "A lot," she adds, because, its true.

"And how was that?" To Leena's credit, she doesn't act scandalized, just surprised.

"Really good," Claudia says, before she realizes that Leena was asking if it was uncomfortable and not for a review of Artie's skill. "I mean, it was the artifact. It made it feel really - " Claudia stops.

"Really," Leena echoes. Claudia lobs off half the slice of quiche with her fork and concentrates on making it bite-sized pieces. "So I was going to ask if what happened in the Warehouse was making things tense between you and Artie." Claudia doesn't respond. "Since I know Artie sometimes isn't the most sensitive to other people's feelings."

"This quiche is really good," Claudia says. Leena just waits for her to stop chewing.

"But that's not what's bothering you, is it?"

"If I say I don't like you," Claudia says, "will you still bring me delicious food?" Leena stares at her. "If you tell me I should talk to him, I swear, I won't share my blondie."

"There are plenty downstairs," Leena says.

"This is pretty fucked up, isn't it?" Claudia says, "That an artifact made me kiss my boss and now I can't stop thinking about doing it again?"

"No, not really," Leena says.

"That's just the job, right?" Claudia says, hating even the sarcastic tone in her voice.

"It's just you and Artie," Leena says, and then she's getting up. "Come down when you want another blondie," she says. "You only get one delivery." And with that, she's gone, and Claudia is left to ponder the uncomfortable subject of what exactly she and Artie are all about, and how Leena knows more about it than she does.

There's a knock on her door, and though she knows its not Leena, she's still surprised its Artie. When she tells him to come in, he hesitates at the doorway for a moment, and then closes the door behind him and sits down on the edge of her bed, still a few feet from where her legs are crossed with the computer balanced on her knees. She stares blankly at the screen for a moment, then sets it down on her bedside table, and stretches out her legs. Artie doesn't say anything, but for once she doesn't feel compelled to fill the silence. He sits up for a moment and she thinks he's going to leave, but then he sits down, closer, so his back is against her legs, and then he reaches a hand to rest on her cheek, pulls her toward him and kisses her, like its the most natural thing, like he knows her mouth already. They kiss like that, not fast, but not as slow as before, and his hand stays on her face, his thumb on her chin, his other hand holding his balance on the bed, just next to but not quite touching her leg. Claudia's hands are clenched tight on her thighs, waiting. Artie pulls back, lets his hand drop, and looks at her, much in the way he looked at her when she was all strung out, nose-bleeding, half caught in Joshua's experiment.

"You want this?" he says. "You're not doing it because you feel like you have to to make things right, or because I'm your boss, or because you think this will make me happy and keep - "

"Shhh -" she says, and he stops. "I hacked into your Warehouse, Artie. I made you help me get my brother brother back. Do you think I ever do anything other than what I want?"

"Yes, actually," he says. "You're much more selfless than you give yourself credit for."

"Listen, are we going to have Leena come in and coach us through this?" Claudia says, and Artie makes a sour face, and then smiles.

"No, I don't think we need that," he says, quietly, and then his mouth is right there, over hers.

The position he's in is kind of awkward, and she can't put her hands where she wants them to really hold on to him and then he shifts and she's sliding onto her back and he's on top of her, and yes, oh, that's - that's -

"Artie," she says, when his arms are on either side of her head, and he's looking down at her, eyes wide, mouth red, his thigh not quite between her leg, but close, "This is kind of hot."

"Just kind of?" he says, deliberately misunderstanding, and when he kisses her neck, it's so good, she arches up, and then his thigh really is perfectly between her legs and she's rocking up against him and he's looking down at her in wonder, shifting his weight so he has a hand free to settle, tentatively, just under her right breast.

"Oh," she says, like the idea's just occurred to her everywhere he can touch her, and then she's dragging him down to kiss her as his fingers brush over her breast and then his whole hand is cupping her and even through the material she thinks she might die if he doesn't do more, now. She shifts so her arms are free and starts to unbutton Artie's collar. She thinks he doesn't notice at first, he's too busy with his thumb rubbing over her nipple and rocking his thigh with perfect pressure between her legs, and when she has three buttons undone, right to the middle of his chest, she slides her fingers over the bare skin and Artie tenses.

"You don't have to," he says.

"Don't have to what, take off your clothes? I think that's an important step in what we're doing here."

"I mean, you don't have to," Artie says, "I could - " and suddenly she understands what he's trying to say, what he's trying to offer her.

"Oh, no, no, is that the way you old guys think this works?" she says. "If I'm getting naked, you're getting naked."

Artie looks confused, and then like she can't have possibly understood him. "Claudia, I'm just saying that there are - "

"Don't say it," she says. "Whatever you're just saying, don't say it. I'm not a charity case. I didn't go through all this to just so you could get me off and be on your way."

"All....this..." Artie says, as Claudia rolls out from under him, sits up.

"Weeks of you looking at me like you should know better, and not knowing why you'd shut down sometimes when I said something or smiled at you, and having to call Joshua for advice - "

"You called Joshua?" Artie interjects, looking alarmed, but Claudia just ignores him to continue.

"And having to think about my feelings, and having to talk about my feelings and having my feelings kick me in the fucking gut and all those endlessly long days in the Warehouse where we were both pretending that nothing happened and nothing mattered and nothing had changed."

"All those....long..." Artie says, and stops, sitting up, his shirt hanging weirdly open. He looks at her for a moment like she's an artifact and he's just missing the key.

"What, you think I just decided this today?"

"No, of course not," Artie says.

"But what?" she says, because she's getting angry, in the way Artie always pushes her like this with his stupid limited ideas. "You thought this was just about sex?" She's about to get off the bed when he reaches out a hand on her shoulder, gently, tugging her to turn and face him.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I just thought maybe you wouldn't want - I mean, I'm not exactly young, or your type - "

"Like you have any idea what my type is," she says, and for some reason that makes him laugh, really laugh, slumped against the bed laughing, and then Claudia's laughing too, and when he reaches for her, she tucks herself against his side and they both laugh, their chests heaving unevenly together. Claudia leans over and kisses him, and his laugh immediately goes to a sound more needy and he pulls her close, a hand in the middle of her back and another in her hair, as she rolls on top of him.

They're kissing so hard she's short of breath and Artie feels so good like this, she shouldn't be so surprised considering how much she's thought about it, but now that he's not hesitating, it's obvious how much he wants this, wants her. She goes back to unbuttoning his shirt and when she pulls it open, finds the worn white t-shirt beneath it, but there's a vee of skin and she presses her mouth to it and then Artie's hand is on her ass, and that's hard to misunderstand, so Claudia slides her hands up underneath the t-shirt, bare skin and the slight tickle of chest hair and Artie actually bucks up underneath her when her fingers slide over his stomach and up his chest, and she would think he was ticklish except for the way his eyes are closed and his mouth is tight, like he's afraid of saying the wrong thing.

"Relax, Artie, I know what I'm doing," she says, because she wants to break the tension a little, and he opens his eyes and laughs, shaking his head at her.

He reaches up and takes off his glasses, twists to set them down on her bedside table, right next to her laptop. It hits her how intimate this is, Artie's face bare without the glasses.

"Do you now?" he says, and then he's tugging her shirt up over her head, sitting himself up to remove his own. And for a moment they're paused there, Claudia's knees between Artie's legs, his hands sliding down over her shoulder blades, just under the straps of her bra and then unhooking it. Claudia watches his expression, the concentration, that spark of amazement, and then he's dropping her bra over the side of the bed, sliding both his hands up to cup her breasts. She has a feeling the noise she makes is too loud for the bed and breakfast but she can't help it, can't stop sighing, whining, as Artie's fingers circle around her nipples. When his hands settle on her back and he bends his face close to her chest, she feels him breathe out against her skin and she's making the loud moaned "Oh," before his mouth is even on her. He's holding her close, both hands on her back, his mouth teasing and licking, and Claudia's rocking against him, her head falling forward so her chin is practically touching the top of his head. And then he's lowering her down so their feet end up at the headboard, but she doesn't care, because Artie's unbuttoning her jeans and she's shrugging her way out of them and he strokes up her thigh, sighing against her ribs, and strokes his fingers so, so slowly over her underwear. Claudia tucks her knees up, spreads her legs wider, whimpers, and Artie sighs, that's the only word for it, he totally sighs before he slides his fingers under the elastic and looks up at her as his fingers rub slick and slow circles over her clit. She wants to look at him, but she can't keep her eyes open.

"Artie," she says.

"Do I know what I'm doing?" He whispers, teasing, and she laughs and then gasps when he slides a finger inside. She digs her heels in, feels them slip against the blanket.

"Oh, yeah, yeah you do," is all she can manage to answer. He moves so he's laying down next to her, barely breaking contact, his mouth on her neck, his fingers still stroking her slowly, and when she finally gets ahold of herself enough to reach her hands in Artie's hair, pull his mouth to hers, his hands stutter when she kisses him deep and dirty. He grips her hip hard, moves so he's got a leg between her, and she can feel his hardness against her, and that's it, his pants need to come off right now. She squeezes her hands between their stomachs and starts unbuckling his belt. Her fingers brush his cock and he jumps, makes a strangled noise, and when she does it again, he bites down on her shoulder with just enough teeth and they both groan. She manages to open up the buckle of his pants, but he needs to pull away to get them off and he's started licking the crook of her elbow, the line of her ribs, all of these places she never knew were turn-ons before it was Artie's mouth turning her on. She finally digs her fingers into the material at the front of his pants and tugs and Artie gets the message, pressing a surprisingly tender kiss to the middle of her chest before he sits up enough to slide off his pants, and, with a careful look at her, his boxer shorts, too. Claudia grins and slides off her underwear and before she can reach for him, Artie's batting her hand away, pulling something out of his pockets.

"That's not some special Warehouse condom, is it?" Claudia says. Artie gives her a look. "Oh, man, you're gonna get all old fogey with me about proper protection and safe sex are you? Maybe you can save the lecture for tomorrow."

"Claudia," he says warningly, but then she snatches the condom from him and opens it, hands it back to him and winks, and he cracks a smile. He's nervous, that's why he's so cranky. He's nervous about this, which is - it's totally crazy. She sticks her tongue in his ear and his whole chest jerks forward. "Claudia," he says, but there's no lecture behind it, just a question.

"Yes," she says. "Show me what you've got."

"Oh, you did not just say that," he says, and he's kissing her, leaning her back down against the bed, half-tickling her sides, grabbing her hands and trying to hold them, and he manages to hold one, suck two of her fingers into his mouth and Claudia stills, watches, eyes wide, closes her eyes when his tongue sweeps over the tips of her fingers.

"Oh," she says, and he kisses her palm, licks the inside of her wrist, "God, Artie, seriously," and then his hand's back between her legs, touching her just right so that everything goes white around the edges, just the feel of Artie's fingers, his mouth pressing uneven kisses to her cheek, her shoulder. She doesn't know she's so close until she's so *close* and her rhythmic, easy rocking against Artie becomes from frantic, one hand in the comforter, the other on Artie's arm, fingers tight, lip between her teeth, one of her heels hooked around Artie's leg and pressing into the back of his thigh. And then he does the same perfect thing over and over and over and she's coming, she's loud, she's so loud, she can't help it, she's clenching around Artie's fingers, her hips canting up hard into Artie like she's trying to knock him off, her mouth wide open and when she's sort of half-back to earth, she realizes she's still arched, head back, neck exposed, hair everywhere, still making tiny little rocks of her hips against Artie's fingers which are ever so lightly brushing her clit.

She tries for words, makes a sound that's both an "oh" and a laugh, and then says, "holy shit, yes," and blindly reaches for Artie, because she's still feeling it everywhere, up her spine, in her scalp, in the crazy uneven beating of her pulse, and Artie, whose cheeks are red, says, before he kisses her, "You're beautiful," and she laughs against his mouth because he's completely ridiculous, who isn't beautiful when they've just come like that.

She hooks both her legs around his, her feet on his calves, pressing him close, and he knows what she's asking, and then he's pushing all the way in and god, that's enough to take her breath away, and looking up at Artie, who's gone perfectly still, his eyes squeezed shut, and she's waiting, waiting in that still moment that seems to go on forever and then he whispers her name and starts to move.

Artie wasn't kidding about the slow stuff, because this is slower than its ever been, and Claudia's not complaining, its like there are two breathes between every stroke and the anticipation is getting stronger between every one. Artie drags his mouth down along her throat, messy, a hand tangling in her hair, his fingers rubbing small circles against her scalp, his other hand stroking her hip, and she moves forward just a little bit, to get him deeper, and Artie makes a noise low in his throat and the hand on her hip is on her ass again, and he's going faster now, but still Claudia can tell how controlled he is.

"Jesus, Artie," she says, when between strokes he licks his way up her neck and she digs her heel in just under the curve of his ass and wriggles forward more and then he's moving so fast, so sharp, the bed's creaking, and he's making these noises that are driving Claudia crazy, these little oh's, and the side of his face is pressed against her cheek so she can feel how fast his breath is coming, and its like the noises are like touches and the way Artie's moving inside her is too much, it's too much, she's coming again, fast and sharp and focused and she knows Artie can feel it because he starts to shake, tightens his fingers in her hair, and his thrusts suddenly go erratic, and she can feel him, too, shaking apart and coming with a shout that's raw and broken off as be buries his face in the crook of her neck, still shuddering as he pulls away.

Claudia stays right where she is, stretching her arms over her shoulders as Artie gets up and throws the condom in the trash. Without even opening her eyes, she can feel him hesitate before sitting back down on the bed and so she reaches her arm out and flails around for a minute until she makes contact with his arm and she tugs him back down. He leans down and presses a kiss to her forehead, and then she kisses him softly, lingering, until she's smiling against his mouth.

"Not bad," she says, and he laughs, the little huff she loves so much.

"Claudia, we're going to have to talk about-"

"Shhh," she says, even though he's using his gentle voice instead of the lecture one. "No talking yet."

"If Mrs. Frederick -" he says trying again and she cuts him of.

"No, no, no. No talking about Mrs. Frederick, definitely not now."

"Fine," Artie says, all petulant child and scolding adult mixed up, and she tangles her fingers in his and pulls his arms around her, and she feels his deep exhale, and she closes her eyes.

When she wakes up, shes covered with a blanket but she's not under the sheets, and it takes her a moment to remember she's still naked, so she sits up and squints in the dark, looking for Artie, thinking about how pissed of she's going to be if he's back at the Warehouse. She flicks on the light, checks the clock. 3 AM. Nice. She pulls on her jeans and grabs a t-shirt from her drawer and goes downstairs, the night light in the stairwell casting long shadows. There's someone sitting in the chair in the sitting room. Claudia swears if its Mrs. Frederick, she's turning around and going back to bed.

"You'll ruin your eyes," Claudia says. Artie startles and shuts the book, and then does his little nod thing that Claudia knows so well from the Warehouse. It means sit down, because otherwise it'll be too easy for you to get up and walk off when you inevitably don't like what I'm going to say.

"Did something wake you?" Artie says. He's looking at her but in a way that feels a lot like he's checking on her because she was brained by a warehouse artifact and not like they were just naked together a few hours before.

"Artie. Don't do this," she says, and he looks offended.

"Don't do what?"

"It's 3 in the morning, whatever you're doing, it's not right," she says. He looks at his hands. "Don't be all distant. Don't act like this didn't mean anything."

"It did, of course it did, which is exactly why - " he stops, but at least he's riled now and with Artie, shouting is always better than quiet. They stare at each other.

Claudia gets up and shakes her head. "You're being weird, I'm going back to sleep." She gets up, and then before she walks all the way past his chair she sets her hand on his shoulder. "You could come join me."

Artie doesn't respond. Hey, she tried. If she's going to have monumentally screwed things up with her boss, she might as well at least invite him back for the night.

"Claudia, really," Artie says, 'What are you doing up?"

"I wanted to see where you'd gone," she says, trying to make it sound light.

"You - you didn't think I'd gone, did you?" Artie asks. Claudia just shrugs, and when he doesn't say anything, she pad quietly up the stairs. In her room, she takes off her jeans but leaves the t-shirt and crawls under the sheets.

She's just drifting off again, trying not to think about the way the room still smells like Artie, when her door opens, letting in a crack of light. "Claudia, are you - " Artie says, and sleepy-voiced, she says, "You left your glasses."

"Yeah," he says.

"You came for them?" She's not sitting up, but propped on her elbows, and she can see Artie's eyes all over her, her legs outlined in the blanket.

"I came to get some sleep," he says, lightly, and she smiles and closes her eyes and then Artie's sitting down next to her, kicking off his shoes. She turns and he's pulling back the covers, slipping in next to her, and then holding her in his arms. "Oh, Claudia," he says as she falls asleep.

In the morning, she wakes up and he's gone again, but she's not worried, because she can hear the team talking downstairs, can hear them bantering with Leena, talking about a case. Claudia doesn't hear the details, just "igneous" and "geospatial time" before she goes into the shower, and when she comes down, Myka and Pete are doing their "who gets the Farnsworth, who gets the Tesla" over their plates and Artie is trying to hand them an updated list of questions which they both balk at. Claudia takes a seat next to Artie and Leena appears with a plate of french toast, and a pot of tea for Artie. Claudia reaches for the syrup at the same time Artie reaches for the milk and their fingers collide and they both look at each other, and then look away and Claudia wonders how obvious they are. She can feel the flush on her cheeks, can see Artie fumbling with the milk and spilling it all over his saucer, but Pete and Myka seem consumed arguing about the ridiculousness of question 27 and relative cloud cover, and it's only after they get up to leave and are out the door that Artie says, in a low voice, "Good morning," and Claudia shivers and reaches over the table to kiss him, stopping only because Pete runs back in, having forgotten the Farnsworth under his napkin.

Claudia's worried she's going to get scolded, but Artie just smiles fondly at her and asks if she wants a ride to the Warehouse. They spend ten minutes making out in his car before they leave, another fifteen before they go into the Warehouse. Claudia suggests that they go back to Leena's, but Artie insists they have work to do, and that surely they can focus. Claudia isn't so sure, but she goes along with him anyway.

Mrs. Frederick appears in the Warehouse aisle where Claudia's fixing a faulty digital access recorder, and she just barely manages not to toss the recorder up in the air with surprise when Mrs. Frederick says her name.

"Uh, hi, Mrs. F," she says. Her expression barely changes, and so Claudia leans her elbows back against the shelves, ready. "Ok, you're here to reprimand me, right? About Artie? I mean, I'm assuming you know, because, you know everything that happens around here. And listen, here's the thing - "

"Claudia," Mrs. Frederick says, and she stops. She's not really sure what she was going to say, but it can't hold up to that scary tone. "I'm not here to reprimand you about what's going on between you and Artie."

"You're - not?" she says.

Mrs. Frederick shakes her head. "There are rules against relationships between agents, and those rules are there for a reason," she says, and Claudia had to know this was coming, she had to. She's surprised how much the idea of just letting it go makes her chest hurt.

"Yeah," Claudia says.

"But as you're technically not an agent," Mrs. Frederick says, and Claudia looks up in shock. "I am counting on you to use your discretion," she says.

"Oh, discretion, yeah, I'm all about discretion," Claudia says. Mrs. Frederick gives her a skeptical look. And before Claudia can stop herself, she's asking "Why - why are you being so nice about this? You're not worried that we're doing something totally stupid? Because, I mean, even I'm worried about that, and - I don't even know if there is a thing or if Artie wants a thing or what a thing even means, and - " she stops, squeezing her lips together as though physically stopping the words coming out.

"I remember being your age," Mrs. Frederick says.

"You do?"

"No," she says. Claudia thinks that's it, and then Mrs. Frederick says, "I care about Artie."

"Me too," Claudia says. She fidgets with the digital recorder, setting it back down.

"I know," Mrs. Frederick says, but when Claudia looks up, Mrs. Frederick is gone.

That afternoon, Claudia's out with Pete, Myka, and Artie on a recon for Macpherson, and Claudia's actually kind of bored, because she's in Artie's car, her feet up, watching the action on a computer that's folded out of the dashboard while Pete and Myka are breaking into an apartment and Artie's heading up the distraction with the nosy neighbor. And then Claudia's being hauled out of the car by someone with a black ski mask, and oh, that's not good.

"Artie, it's not Macpherson," she hears Pete say a second before someone shoves a pillowcase over her head and hauls her up off the ground. "Claudia!" Pete shouts, and she can hear the muffled sounds of Pete and Myka running and the buzz of the Tesla and then she's being shoved into the back of a car. She has time to think, at least its not the trunk, before there's a needle in her arm, and then she's dizzy and hot and then everything is black.

She's kind of glad that she's out for most of the action, though of course the first thing she does is complain about it. Actually, the first thing she does is say something that doesn't make any sense, which means she's still drugged and Pete's brushing her hair back and Myka's holding open her eyes to check her pupils. Artie is driving, and even from her limited consciousness, she can tell that he's going really, really fast.

"Claudia, are you ok?" Myka says. "Can you open your eyes."

"Are open," she says, but Pete's nervous cough tells her its not true. "Oh," she says, and so she tries to open them, and all she sees is blurry light. "Woah," she says, and closes them again.

"Ok, it's ok," Pete says. She hears the engine rev as Artie presses down on the accelerator.

The next thing she knows, Artie is pushing up her sleeve, feeling for a vein. "It's gonna pinch for just a second," he says, and she winces at the prick of a needle, and then almost instantly her eyes don't feel as heavy. "Better?" Artie says. "She's almost awake," Artie says into the Farnsworth and then Pete and Myka are flying into the room.

Claudia blinks and looks around, and she's in yet another room she had no idea existed, and it looks half like a hospital room, half like an Victorian apothecary. "Where -" she says.

"Back down," Artie says, pressing a hand to her chest when she tries to sit up. "Take it slow."

"What happened?" Claudia says and Pete and Myka start talking at the same time until Artie makes his staccato sound of protest.

"Short version," he says.

"Car thieves," Pete says.

"Car thieves," Myka says in agreement.

"I was kidnapped by car thieves?" Claudia says, wondering if there's any way for that to sound less lame.

"They thought we were car thieves," Myka says.

"Rival car thieves," Pete says, like the clarification matters.

"They thought you were the fence," Myka says.

Claudia shakes her head, bewildered.

"The long version makes so much more sense," Pete says, and he and Myka nod their heads in agreement.

"Later," Artie says, warningly.

"So we were wrong about this being a Warehouse thing?" she asks.

"No," Artie says, because he's still like that about someone saying he was wrong. "They were using a rapidly duplicating skeleton key for the thefts, and they injected you with an extract from the artifact- "

"Wait - " she says.

"Long version," Pete says, still trying to convince Artie.

"- that they were stupidly and thoughtlessly using as a sedative that ultimately killed two car collectors," Artie says and everyone goes still at the word "kill." "We made you an antidote," Artie says after too much silence. "You're not going to be able to eat anything with walnuts for six weeks. Or almonds. Nothing with walnuts or almonds. Ok, you understand?"

"Yeah," she says weakly. Artie seems to be satisfied with what's happening with her pulse and he turns back to cleaning up a mess of bottles on the counter.

"So, Artie, how fast did you drive to get back to the Warehouse before I was a goner?" she means it to be a joke, but Artie chokes and tries to cover it with something about South Dakota not having speed limits and then he's mumbling something about checking something in the office and he's out of the room.

Claudia sits up, watches his back disappearing down the hall. "Guess he's pretty sensitive about speeding, huh?" Claudia says.

Pete and Myka look at each other and then Myka says, "He was scared.'

"He was scary," Pete says, as though correcting her. "Like, Mrs. Frederick scary."

Pete and Myka don't say anything else, but Claudia can read between the lines.

"I should go - talk to him." Claudia says, swinging her legs over the table.

"You're sure you feel ok?" Myka says.
|
"Yeah, totally," she says, and before they can argue, she stumbles down the hall after Artie.

"Arthur?" she says, hoping his annoyance at her use of his full name will mean she's not going to have to chase him through the whole Warehouse, but he's not far, a few aisles in, looking at the digital display of a tarnished set of sugar spoons.

"You should be resting," he says, without looking back at her.

"I'm fine," she says, though she trips over her own feet and Artie drops the display, rushes for her, a hand under her elbow, steadying her. "Ok, maybe not quite fine yet," she says.

"Come on, back to the room," he says.

"Artie," she says, and then he's holding her to him, kissing her temple, his hands tight on her back. "Pete said you were Mrs. Frederick scary, while I was out."

"You almost died," he says, pressing their heads together. "Also, Pete hasn't seen Mrs. Frederick scary yet if he thinks that was anything to be worried about."

She laughs, and then coughs, and doesn't bother trying to move from Artie's arms. "So I guess this is where we're supposed to talk about our feelings?"

"No," he says, "I don't need to talk, do you need to talk?"

"God, no," she says, and then he kisses her, gently, but full on the mouth. Yeah, she doesn't need to talk.

Pete's voice comes over the intercom. "Just - just checking," he says, "But you guys aren't - this isn't artifact-influenced, right?"

Claudia breaks away, laughing, and she can hear Myka in the background, saying Pete's name over and over with increasing urgency.

"No, thank you, Pete, we're fine," Artie says, remarkably deadpan and grumpy.

"Okay," he says, and then, more to Myka than to them, "I just wanted to check, okay, is that so wrong? It was the artifact before, ok? I mean, what if we were wrong? Next thing you know you'd be kissing me again."

"Ok, that was Alice," Myka says, offended. "And you, you are such a voyeur."

"I am not a voyeur!" Pete protests. "I was genuinely concerned that they were out of their minds."

"You're out of your mind all the time," Myka says and the intercom fades as they leave the room, clearly still arguing.

"You need to rest," Artie says. "Come on, I'll take you back up to the room, unless you want to go back to Leena's."

"Are you gonna stay here and work?" Artie raises his eyebrows at her. Of course he is. "I'll stay here," she says. "Think you can beat me at chess yet?"

"Yet?" he asks. "I beat you last week."

"That was totally a draw."

Artie kisses her again, possibly to stop the argument, but she wants to think its because he just can't stop anymore. "So why can't I eat almonds?" she says when he kisses the corner of her mouth.

Artie shakes his head. "No almonds or walnuts," he says, and just before she's about to push, he says, finally, "Long version."