Disclaimer: Don't own Goren and Eames, never will, just playing. Same deal with Titania from A Midsummer Night's Dream, whose speech/poem I use here as a framing device. We were just reading it in class one day and it really made me think of Eames for some reason. (I could probably be more specific than that, but I'm gonna guess y'all would rather move on to the story than be treated to an amateur literary analysis of the maternal and sexual attributes of the Mother Earth Supernatural Being archetype in medieval literature and how I tie that into the way Eames is sort of Bobby's caretaker figure and—no, no, stopping now.)

Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.

Alex feels…light.

Floating. Soaring. Riding a slow steady wave of warm and orange-yellow molten glow.

Their arms brush against each other as they walk to the elevator, close and warm and right, and finally she just takes his hand, and their fingers fit together, and he doesn't pull away.

And while they're waiting for the elevator she leans against him a little, and he leans against her a little, and nothing can hurt them now.

And the smell of him (he smells a little like her) and the smell of her (she smells a little like him) are all wrapped up together with the sounds of their breaths and their heartbeats and the heat of their skin, right there in their palms and their fingers and (just barely) their wrists, where they're touching, and it's a reminder and a reassurance and it's a cocoon spun around them and their light.

And they keep holding hands when they get to the eleventh floor and when they step out and when they walk past everyone into the captain's office, and it's amazing how much it doesn't matter to her, to him, that they're holding hands in front of everyone. In front of Ross.

"We're taking a couple of weeks," she tells the captain. Half-daring him with her eyes to comment on the handholding, the use of 'we,' the fact that she and Bobby have both been missing for several hours. Half-oblivious to the idea that it could even be an issue.

Because they're Eames and Goren. Goren and Eames. And—and they just are. Always. And it's all so fucking complicated, but really, actually, it's simple.

They're waiting for the elevator again when Bobby swoops down, a little awkwardly, and kisses her cheek.

The moon methinks looks with a watery eye

Alex has to let go of his hand to drive the car.

Fuck.

It's ridiculous how alive the city is today. It feels like it should be in ruins. Like there's been a nuclear war and she and Bobby should be stumbling out of their bunker into the smoking ashes of civilization, New York City laid to waste and crumbling into nothingness. The last two humans in the universe, depressed and terrified and exhilarated, clinging to each other as they stare into the empty, lifeless, infinite void.

But…they're not. The pale fingers of morning light are growing stronger and more glaring, the city is alive and awakening and swelling in raucous volume and she thought she'd feel hopeful but suddenly she is fucking furious.

Give us a little more time, she thinks. Just a little more time for this to be just good and simple and right before you wake us up and we remember how goddamn complicated it all is, before yesterday and the day before and the day before and all the other days before slam down on us and tear this thing we had to nothing.

She's gripping the steering wheel like she wants to burn the shape of her hands deep into it, and she knows her foot's pressing too hard on the gas pedal (and harder and harder and) but she can't stop it.

Before he withdraws and I lash out and he pulls into himself and I pull away and—

There's a movement in the corner of her eye, like Bobby wanted to reach out and touch her elbow but pulled back, and she glances over at him. His fingers are flicking frenetically against his binder. Finally he says, "Did we do something stupid?"

"No."

"But we—"

"No."

A long silence.

"Okay."

And when she weeps, weeps every little flower

Alex parks. She drove to her house. Huh.

The lilac's blooming early this year.

She knows she should say something, or open the door, or possibly both, but she's boxed in by all the things they haven't really talked about yet, Declan and Frank and Nicole and Donny and Ross and Mark Ford Brady and Bobby's mother and the man he thought was his father—and Copa and Quinn and Joe (and oh God how long's it been since she thought of Joe, and sometimes she can't stop thinking of Joe and how things were and how things should've ended up) and Jo and Testarossa and Stoat and Milago and Holiday—and duct tape and pulleys and guns and holding cells and cigarettes and bad sex and and and and and

And she feels a little tug, and Bobby's rolling a strand of her hair between his thumb and index finger and when she looks over at him with her eyebrows raised he shrugs and ducks his head a fraction but he keeps his eyes on her. And her eyes are starting to water, a little, but she's not going to cry. And he smiles like he's scared he's not allowed to, and it's ridiculous how much just that, right there, makes her love him.

And just like that, it's simple again.

Lamenting some enforcéd chastity

She rubs at her eyes impatiently and gives his jacket a little tug of her own, and suddenly the light's back, golden and glowing and warming her, head to toes. She gets out and pulls him after her, wanting to laugh, to explain, to say nothing but just exist here, in this moment, this mood, this impossibility, forever. She feels his eyes following her, studying her, and as they draw near the house he reaches out and catches her by the hip.

"You're…walking funny."

"Gee, I wonder why," she says dryly. Fishes for her keys in her purse. "Next time there's going to be foreplay and I'm going to be on top, okay?"

"I…I hurt you."

Alex sighs. "I'll live. Give me a little while to recover and next time we'll just go slower, okay?" She turns to him. "Look—"

But Bobby is already looking. Staring, to be precise, his gazing honing in on and focusing directly between her thighs, as though he's searching for a clue in the fabric and fit of her pants, as if trying to force a confession of what exactly that part of her is doing and feeling, and all of his attention is concentrated right there, the burning warm intense spotlight of his hot chocolate eyes (directed, centered, converged) is concentrated right there, and nothing else in the world exists but his smoking smoldering eyes that are starting a feverish flush inside her that spreads up her chest to her face, making her body seize up all nice and hot and cold and tingling up her spine and down her fingers.

His fingers slide around her hip to the front of her pants and he plays with the top button for a moment as if he is seriously contemplating unzipping her and examining her right there on her front doorstep to determine the veracity of her claims. He tilts his head, and that does it.

She laughs.

He looks up, startled.

"My vagina is not a crime scene, Bobby."

Tie up my love's tongue; bring him silently.

They're sitting on the couch, leaning forward slightly. Shoulders touching, and knees. Neither of them flipped the switch when they came in, and a hard slice of sun cuts through the gap in the curtains and divides them in two.

He places a kiss on the top of her head. "I…I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I know." She puts her hand on his knee.

His lips are warm and soft and are, right now, pressing against the hollow below her ear, and are warm and—her jaw, and his tongue flicks to taste her skin—her neck, and she dips her head back and swallows, feels her voicebox jerk slightly beneath his open mouth. "I'm sorry I did," he murmurs, stubble rubbing against her skin.

"Best apology ever," she whispers back.

She feels him smile against her throat, and it's sexy as hell. "Duly noted." His hand fiddles with her waistband. "I want to…make it up to you."

"Uh, Bobby?" Well, this is awkward. "I wasn't kidding about needing a little time to recover."

"I know." And now he's sinking to his knees in front of her. "I wasn't thinking of that, I was thinking of…um, this. Can I?"

"You want to go down on me?" She hates playing the Detective Exposition role, but unless Bobby's planning on learning to come right out and say something—

"Um, yeah. That wouldn't—I mean, would that…hurt? I mean, would that be okay? Do you, uh— want me to? Or is that too--"

She's almost tempted to let him stammer on. Almost. She ruffles his hair. "You ask the weirdest questions."

He remembers. Grins wickedly, quotes back at her, "You have no idea."

She scoots to the edge of the couch, and leans back, wincing at her spine's protest. He notices, of course, and slides a pillow behind her, and it's absurd how much that one little gesture of consideration makes her want to cry.

He kisses her left thigh through the fabric, and then the right, hungry nibbling wolf-teeth kisses that make her ache so good and then he presses an almost chaste kiss right there and just…inhales, through his nose, and she doesn't think she's ever been so simultaneously embarrassed and amused and aroused as she is this very second, and why the hell are her pants still on?

Bobby rectifies the situation, unbuttoning and unzipping and lifting her slightly to slide them off, along with her underwear. Then he takes hold of her knees and spreads her legs apart, leans over and for a second he just breathes, hot humid breath like fires and jungles and drumbeats and she can feel, can hear her heartbeat in her ears.

And then he's kissing her thighs again, and he's moving up up up and closer, and he's warm and he's gentle and he's Bobby, and his lips and his tongue—heat and liquid and fire and lava and—she can hear him breathing and she can hear herself breathing (and how is she still breathing) and there are no other sounds but the scratch of his stubble against her and her gasps and the scrape of her fingernails in the fabric of the couch and oh God, oh God—it's been so fucking long since she's had this oh God and his hands are big and warm and holding her open and his lips, his tongue, his teeth—there are no words, why aren't there any words for what this—scraping licking stroking soothing plundering hot and wet—

And oh my fucking God—

Alex floats for a while in the afterglow, feeling Bobby plant little clean-up licks and kisses. This isn't going to fix anything, she knows that. When she comes back down his brother and his mother and both his sorry excuses for fathers will still be dead, and Nicole will still be dead, and Donny will still be missing (and probably dead), and Declan will still have betrayed him. She will still have been kidnapped. They will still both have those awful seconds of staring down their guns at each other. Their problems aren't going to disappear.

But that doesn't matter.

Because…because they're Goren and Eames. Eames and Goren. They are. Always.

And it really, actually is that fucking simple.

A.N. "Tie up my love's tongue." Heh heh heh.