After He Walked Away
The Farmer - episode tag, or perhaps scene tag might be a better description. Just as obsessed with that great scene with Duke and Audrey in the Gull afterwards as everyone else. Only, I'm not interested in fixing it or binding their wounds. Maybe just poking them a little, just to see where it's actually broken.
"I would do it again."
He stopped, but didn't turn around.
"You saved those people, Duke. Don't ask me to feel sorry for you."
This time he did, this time he swung around and faced her, planted his hands on the bar on either side of her, forced her to bend backwards away from him as he leaned deliberately in on her. "Don't push me right now, Audrey. Because I swear – this time I will push back."
She didn't answer right away. Turned her head away from the alcohol on his breath. He could see her pulse speed up, see the sweat break out on her skin. Fear? Or something else…?
He moved just that much closer, his leg in between hers, full contact, and oh yeah… this was a much better feeling than what he had been feeling moments ago. His own heart rate was nowhere near steady either.
"I never asked you for anything," Duke said. "Never. It was always you, coming to me, asking me, begging me." Mocking, imitating the essence if not something she had actually ever said. "Help me, Duke. Do me this favor, Duke. I need you, Duke," he sneered. He was hard now, and he made sure she knew about it too, not letting her go, or letting her move. Not that she had made any attempt to escape from him.
"What exactly do you think I am, Audrey?" He leaned in, at first to intimidate, and then as she closed her eyes against him, because her scent coiled and flowed over him like incense. Intoxicating and sensual, rising into his nose with her heat, the heat of the two of them together.
She made no answer, and Duke couldn't help himself. Didn't stop himself, when every other time he had, held himself back. Been polite, Christ. This time he let his lips run up the cord of her neck, warm velvet, to the soft silk at the corner of her jaw, to the salt at the fall of her lids. "Do you think I'm some sort of weapon you can just point and shoot? Turn on and off?"
Maybe it was the blood on his hands, the stain seeping into his soul. Because as much as he wanted her, he wanted her to know what it felt like, what she'd done to him. Wanted to make her watch as his blood turned black and oily, the corruption visible.
Only, that wasn't going to happen. No one could see. No one was looking.
"Audrey, I got news for you. You turned me on." He leaned in, rested his forehead against hers. "I don't think there's an off."
A goddamn dangerous game now, because every movement, every forbidden thought only made it worse for him. She was not his, she had turned him down over and over again, from the very beginning – including not twelve hours ago with his proposal to run away from it all, catch the first flight and keep on going. Seriously meant, if lightly stated.
What the fuck was his problem with just taking no for an answer? Who was she that she could do this to him? And what the fuck was he going to do when she said no this time, like he knew she would, when he had no off switch?
"I need you, Duke," she said. Admitted.
He slammed the bar with his hands, making her jump with its violence. "You need my Trouble, you mean. You need me to kill for you."
He nearly leapt away as her hands roamed up from his waist, up his chest, to cradle his jaw, to stroke his hair behind his ears. To kiss his cheek. All pretense of defending himself, of his anger, of his resentment melted away as his blood pressure skyrocketed, until he could no longer see. A dangerous game he had just lost, because she never ever played by the rules. Now, when she had rejected the charming rogue, when she had rejected the reliable friend, when she had rejected the sympathetic ear – now she responded to his loathing and the threat of violence with the softness of her lips against his, and the softness of her body against his.
"Audrey, stop." He couldn't believe he'd just said that. But he had. Because there was nothing left. There were no rules left, no boundaries, no right or wrong, and he was utterly lost.
"You asked for this," she whispered. Not vindictively, but reminding him. "Ask me again."
Get a different answer? "Say you're sorry." Said into her ear, intimately, a demand.
"I'm not sorry," she said.
He stepped away from her.
"I would do it again."
Duke shook himself, stepped back, let her loose. That was his off switch, apparently, faster than a cold shower. He jerked away from her hand as she reached out to him. Oh, god. He felt sick.
"Duke," she reached out, and he avoided her. "Duke, you did nothing wrong. It's all on me. That's why I didn't tell you. But you saved those kids. That's what counts. The rest - it was my decision, my responsibility and if I could take it away from you, I would."
Take away his Trouble? He stared at her – once again running into that wall that reminded him that he really didn't understand her at all. Take away his curse, his power, and use it herself? Like when she had killed the Rev. Like when she had talked that poor teenage kid into a suicidal rage?
He was reminded again that Audrey Parker was not just the cute ex-FBI agent with a snarky wit, a fondness for martinis, and terrible taste in boyfriends. She was her own brand of supernatural trouble, a force and a mystery for generations past, and a ruthless streak that Duke had always underestimated.
Until now.
And now he realized something else. Why he had waited for her, in the dark, at the Gull, when there was plenty to drink on his boat and he would never have run into her. He had waited for her to come home. Because she was Audrey Parker and he was waiting for her to make it all better again. To fix what she had broken. To wash away his sin.
And that wasn't going to happen either.
"If there was any other way… I would never want to hurt you, Duke." Her hand, resting lightly on his chest, had suddenly lost any sort of power over him.
"Isn't that funny," Duke said. "Because that is just what I used to say about you."
This time he did walk away.