bakerstreet | Things We Lost in the Fire

Things We Lost in the Fire

Mutual Healing Shipping Meme

Healing doesn't come quickly, whether the need comes from physical or mental wounds. But you're trying regain your strength - and yourself.

People, as a general rule, are kind, or at least not outright inflammatory to you, it seems. Still, you just can't connect with them. No matter how nice, how caring, they don't understand. They've never experienced anything like what you've gone through, or they're not like you in a way that lets them see what you still go through; they have no frame of reference. Sure, they have sympathy, but it's not the same. So there's no real connection, despite any friendliness. It's so easy, then, to feel detached...

...until you meet them, in this place of both death and healing.

They may not have been through the exact same struggles, they may not be exactly the same as you, but they know what darkness is light. How they handle this fact may be better or worse than how you do, yet you can see yourself in their actions. And for once? There's connection; more than that, too. Slowly, you can feel yourself opening up towards them, and then, falling for them.

Is this something your used to? Will you fight your feelings, or will you jump at the opportunity to be with someone who can begin to get you? You may have little choice in the matter, as your instincts may just reach out to be with whatever compatible contact you can get. That's better, in the long run, though. Who else could have wounds like yours?

Essentially, it's what it says: a "romance," in the loose definition, or "shipping" meme for characters who have been through the wringer or have hangups.
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She smiles a little, those very eyes brightening as he finally picks up the hook and flows into the story.

"I was too flustered by the coffee to notice anything else at all," she says, gently teasing this husband of hers. "I tried to be indignant -- I said it was a book for school just so I'd have something to be mad about -- but you caught me out easily. So when you came back with another cup and sat down across from me, how could I say no? I was embarrassed, and you were very, very charming."

"You made it easy," he teases right back, covering how hard he has to work to come up with something else in the context, some other embellishment. "It was a history of some kind or another about St. Petersburg. I told you it was much easier to just go and see the city instead of reading about it. Much more to learn that way. When you insisted on being indignant, I offered to show you. To prove it to you."

She shakes her head and chuckles. "I have a secret I never told you," she says, sounding for all the world like she really is confessing something. "It wasn't really a history book. I switched the covers so nobody would know I was reading a romance novel -- this is why I was so embarrassed."

She hesitates, her smile turning a little shy. "But... I let you go on thinking it was, so I had an excuse to take you up on your offer. And I'm glad I did." She squeezes his hand, brightening. "You were a very good tour guide."

It's easy, then, to feign expectant confusion when she admits to having a secret, a bit harder to execute fond disbelief when she says what it is; he manages both, anyway, even though he only understands what a romance novel is based on the assumption that it is exactly what both words state.

He laughs when she squeezes his hand though, smiles in easy forgiveness. After all. They are here together in the end, are they not?

"I have always told others that you are the brains of the relationship. I didn't know how far back that went, this entire time," he offers, less certainly than his previous contributions, and what he continues with: "I am glad as well. I was showing off, but I wanted to convince you to take a second tour. I wanted to know more about you, and to know if you wanted more to do with me."

She can see the way he's starting to waver just as he could see her lapses earlier. Part of her feels vindicated -- he's not so perfect, either! -- but part of her just feels frustrated. They both need to be on their best game. He knows that as well as she does.

She'll just have to step it up and hope he can follow accordingly. She's been kneeling next to him this whole time, but now she rises and moves into his lap instead, her smile widening. "Of course I did," she murmurs with faultless affection, leaning in close so that her lips very nearly brush his temple. "I'm here now, my darling. Aren't I?"

He knows how to follow a lead, knows when he's not holding up his end; he was doing it just fine before, filling in seamlessly opposite her when they both had superiors they were reporting their progress to only a few days ago. It's both easier and harder now that they're lying for their lives: on the one hand, his life is the only and most important thing he's ever had to work to keep. On the other, the part of him that was successfully conditioned to be only a soldier doesn't see how this will help that.

But he knows the same thing that she knows: flawless, or give up now. She stands and moves into his lap and he feels an echo of frustration, too, that he knows she's likely to feel through the core of him even though he straightens up and moves his arms to make room for her. If only he had one other X5, Rhys or Shila, he thinks. But he doesn't.

He has Nina, turned Lena. He breathes out and forces himself yet again in his life to let go of useless wishes, and hooks his arms loosely around her waist, then a little tighter, confident, more entitled. She's his wife. He's her husband. My darling.

"You are, Lenotchka," he replies, warm, and tucks his face in close to hers, breathing out along the side of her neck. "As am I."

"You are, Mitya," she says softly, but with a hint of something else in it. Not warning, not exactly, because she won't be the one to hurt him if this all goes wrong. Not herself, at least, not directly. She knows what she's suddenly not so sure he does, though: that this part is just as important if they want to really get anywhere, if they want to have a chance at doing absolutely anything other than fleeing like scared animals and hiding in a corner. Their story is also their only ticket to any kind of life beyond tomorrow. They have to sell it.

With that in mind, she stays close, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, closing her eyes as she breathes in the scent of him. It's not unpleasant. Nothing about him is unpleasant. Easier to sell herself on him than on Vasili, who had been an old man; than on Stan, who had killed her friend for nothing.

"And do you love me?" she asks quietly, pulling back enough to look at his face. Convince me, her eyes say.

Logically, in that emotionless part of his brain that can observe, deduce, and learn at astonishing rates, he knows how important the cover story is. It's harder to put into practice when he has to fabricate basically everything about his persona, including experiences that others will naturally assume everyone has had - such as being able to answer such a simple question as do you love me to a pretty woman who is meant to be his wife. Such as the assumption that he grew up knowing what marriage meant at all.

But he's quick, and he's flexible; it was why he was here to begin with, and so she asks him that and even though it sets him scrambling for something that at least appears honest to offer her - she is not like anyone he would say he loves, in the way that lets some people prefer dogs and some people prefer cats - his smile is steady to cover it.

And then he realizes with a start that that isn't true at all: she is like someone he loved. It hits like a wide open gut punch, soundly and deeply enough that he falters briefly, but he is nothing if not capable of using all the ways in which he's failed to help him succeed now. He grabs onto it, onto the memory of a different pretty girl, faint and half-formed but honest, and he paints Nina's face over hers - whoever she was.

"Of course," he says, and when it sounds hoarse even to him, he kisses her instead. He can convince her. He can push everything else away and learn this, too.

The kiss doesn't surprise her at all. She rolls with it, kisses him back easily, and with something that could even be mistaken for feeling. It is feeling, she tells herself: Yelena Aleksandrovna loves her husband very, very much. She loves him very, very much.

That said... if they need to keep seeing this through, she will without a second thought, but she breaks the kiss after a moment and looks down at his face, clasping it between her hands, searching his eyes. Do they need to? Do they need to commit their bodies to this -- to take advantage of all those pheromones and chemicals that can create an artificial bond where no real one exists?

He isn't quite ready for the kiss to end when she cuts it short, and his eyes flick up to hers with the concern that he overstepped, that his instincts were wrong. They weren't, he sees immediately, but that's about all he can read with any kind of certainty.

He wasn't done with the kiss, wasn't done learning how the silent conversation on her end is so much more varied than on his.

"Lena -" he starts, the muscles of his neck tensing to lift his face out of her hands, but he stops himself while still searching her face. He's seen soldiers that aren't aggressive learn how to fight anyway; he's seen soldiers that aren't careful learn how to strategize.

He's a soldier that isn't loving, but he understands the process. "Show me."

It's strategic as much as it is anything else, not only for them, but for her. They need to be a convincing couple to survive whatever scrutiny is about to fall on them; they need to be as real as the Illegals, the deepest of deep-cover KGB spies, in the KGB's own homeland. But there, too, is the thought that convincing him, having him convince her, is another layer of protection. The more he actually cares about her, the more likely he is to look out for her.

And if that's only because she's his ticket to getting laid as much as she is his ticket out of Moscow, she can live with that. At least, at first. For now.

So he says show me and she doesn't hesitate. She leans back in to kiss him again, sweetly, deeply, her arms wrapping tight around his shoulders.

It's only when Dimitri welcomes her back in to the kiss that he realizes something he'd overlooked before; he'd thought he'd committed as soon as he walked back in the door, as soon as she took his hand and invited him into a past that never existed for either of them, but he was wrong. Now he has accepted that this - that they - are the right move for the moment, because it's much easier to kiss her back this time. This time, he isn't so conscious of her arms around him, of his that slide around her and pull her in close.

And the fact of the matter is that he is new to much of this, but not to this kind of physical affection; this is not his first - second - kiss, although it is different. He pays attention to that, to the fragile balance that he doesn't know is labelled sweet, though he parts his lips to match her, though he kisses her back without shying away. He is matter of fact about it at first, textbook, but in only a few moments he's much better. Much sweeter.

He lets her guide them still, but he is confident enough that his hands do move over her back, mapping the pleasant, soft planes of her body even with her clothes still between them, attentive to how she reacts, to where, to how.

And she is very attentive in turn. It feels good, especially once that lingering stiffness in him starts to fade into something more natural, but she's not doing this to feel good. It's a bonus if it does, but that's not what brought this on.

She's doing this to make him feel good, and that means she stays conscious even when she lets her body melt against his. She takes note of what he seems to like from the way he reacts, tries to figure out if she should keep the lead or let him take over. Before long, she realizes that he's paying attention to her reactions, too, and so she lets him have them freely: she sighs against his lips, arching into him, moans softly when his hands graze her sides. "That's nice," she murmurs between kisses, letting her own hands fall from his shoulders to trace along his chest.

Transgenics didn't really have time to take their time when they were learning what it means to be social creatures with a sex drive; by the time 494 was cleared for deep cover ops where he had a bit more freedom to interact with the population unsupervised, he'd already learned the habit, but was also perceptive enough to know that it always surprised his partners a bit, that he had to consciously slow down.

So he doesn't try to take the lead from her now, although he knows for a fact he could make her feel good. He doesn't try to find the edge of her shirt and get his hands on bare skin, doesn't try to turn her so she's properly straddling his lap, either facing or away. He leans back in the chair instead, gives her the room she needs to explore the front of his body, and his lips twitch into a smile at the encouragement, and so he does it again: gently, his fingertips ghosting along the shape of her ribs, his thumbs closer to her stomach, her front, before settling at the peak of her hips for now.

He's focused very intently, but mostly silent in return, the exception being: "I want to be nice."

"You are," Lena purrs, a shiver going down her spine as he slides his hands down her sides, a smile curling at the corner of her mouth. "You're a very..." she kisses the corner of his mouth, "...nice..." his jaw, "...man." She kisses his neck softly, moving in a slow but steady line down.

Pressed against him like this, welcoming him with all of her senses, she's pleased to find that she likes the scent of him, likes the taste of his skin. She certainly likes the way the hard, strong planes of his body feel under her hands. She can sense that he's giving her the lead, and so she takes it readily, finding the edge of his shirt, getting her hands on bare skin. She traces her fingers over his abdomen, feeling along the ridges of muscle there.

He isn't, he knows, a nice man; but he can be. He can pretend to be, and he can do nice things, and they won't save him by themselves in the end but if she is concerned about binding him to her, he is not oblivious to the advantages of her genuinely liking him. He doesn't imagine it would stop her - or anyone - from turning on him, but it might stop her from actively looking for ways to rid herself of him.

So she kiss his way down from his smiling lips, and he tips his head to a side to give her more room, and a shiver runs out from where her fingers press against his bare stomach, his breath catching pleasurably with the attention. He chuckles, low in his throat, as pleasant a sound as the purr of her voice and then he's leaning forward a little, taking his cue; exacting, one hand reaching first down to find the end of her clothing, then back up to settle again where it was before but this time his palm is warm - very warm - directly against her skin. It feels more secure to him, and his eyes are open fully again from the half closing he'd allowed; his other hand is exploring again, brushing his thumb along the gentle curve of her collarbone, smoothing just an inch or so down the line of her breastbone, nothing like low enough to even touch the collar of her top.

"You smell good," he murmurs, and it isn't actually as absent as he lets it fall from his lips, but it does allow him the pretext to kiss her temple, to breathe in deep, to tuck his face in close.

"So do you," she whispers, still kissing along his neck, tracing down the graceful line of his jugular. She closes her own eyes as she feels his warm hand come to rest on her side, drawing in a slow breath. There's a certain point of no return on matters like this, and even though she has no intention of returning at all anyway, this moment -- the purposefulness of it, his hand under her blouse, lingering near the waistband of her skirt -- is the one that crosses it.

She lets it go past without dwelling on it, but it lets her feel like she can move forward without feeling like she's dragging him into anything, or like they're not on the same page. They are. He wants what she wants, possibly for different reasons, possibly for the same.

She pauses where she is, her lips hovering just above his skin, her breath hot against it. "You can--" She hesitates, biting her lip, and then sits back and starts slowly, deliberately undoing the buttons on her blouse.

The truth of it is, she could call it off at any time; he would stop if she said, if she was afraid, if she changed her mind. He is not a nice man, he is not kind, but neither is he the kind that would force anything on someone he wanted for an ally, not for anything short of life or death or worse. And maybe that's what this is, ultimately, but not immediately.

All the same she pauses and he pulls back enough to look at her face, searching for the cue, and then he watches what her fingers are doing. She makes it to the second button before he's nodding, understanding immediately.

"Okay," he lifts his hands to take over, assuring her that he understands. That he is on the same page, that he's not being dragged. The tradeoff isn't that simple, until it is, and now it is. And, once the last button is parted, once her blouse falls slightly open, he offers, "Here," and reaches for the hem of his t-shirt, starts to drag it up over his head.

She helps him out of his shirt, and then slips the rest of the way out of her own, letting it drop to the floor below. While her clothes tend to be modest, he'll start to realize soon enough, if he hasn't already, that she's really anything but underneath. Even though she wasn't expecting this, for example -- has, if she's being honest, thought about it, because he is supposed to be her husband and he is a very good-looking man, but not expecting it -- the lacy brassiere she's wearing stands in sharp contrast to the demure blouse that had been hiding it.

Similarly, there's nothing shy or retiring about the way she looks him over, or the interest in her eyes. She smiles a little and leans back in for another kiss, running her hands up his arms and down his chest, lingering teasingly at his waistband before coming to settle briefly at his sides.

It does surprise him, a little, in the pleasant way: the concept of marriage may not mean much to him, but he's familiar with sex, with enjoying another willing body, with pleasure for all that it wasn't what he was intended for. Instructed to do occasionally, ironically enough, but never officially sanctioned. He's glad of finding her not only willing, but interested.

For his own part, he has never had the luxury of privacy, and he is neither shy nor self conscious as a result: he makes no secret of looking her over in return, of letting himself be seen, and his lips quirk a little when the waist of his pants tug. It serves a dual purpose, the cool logic running always in the back of his mind informs him; it creates a connection, and it proves to them both that they are who they say they are, that they are in the predicament they say they are. No wires, no unexpected tattoos, no strange marks.

"I learn best by doing," he teases her, a little, almost mirroring her motions in reverse: up her sides, dusting across her shoulders, one hand coming to rest with his palm splayed warm across her chest, just the edge of his thumb brushing at the top of the curve of her breasts, more interested just now in the warmth of her skin, the rise and fall of her breathing. He kisses her, of course, and shifts enough to partially drop one of his legs out of the way so she can turn properly to face him, or pull closer to him, his face nuzzled in close to her hair when she doesn't actively have a use for his mouth.

She's not one to argue with that, even if she weren't out to make his every wish come true. They have some time, and she lets him learn all he likes. Eventually, they move over to the bed, and they continue to reassure each other that there are no wires, no marks, nothing but skin to map out with their hands and mouths. Nothing to separate them, husband and wife that they are, nothing to hinder the union they're taking from story to truth.

Enjoying herself isn't very high on Lena's list of priorities, but she's glad to find that she does anyway, enough that in the aftermath she has a brief respite from all the tension that's been wound up inside her. She stretches out under the covers, loose-limbed and pleasantly achy, letting out a long breath she might have been holding since they first got the bad news. She'll start holding it again soon, but for a moment, just a moment, she get to close her eyes and breathe.

"Quick study," she murmurs absently, approvingly, a smile hovering on her lips.

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Things We Lost in the Fire

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