Author: SilentG
Title: A Winter's Tale
Fandom: LO:CI
Pairing: B/A
Rating: T for a bit of swearing & suggestive scenes
Spoilers: One tiny one
Archive: Anywhere – no need to ask – just attribute, and let me know if possible
Disclaimer: Not mine
Summary: Super!Alex shows off her mad driving skillz, then hyper-masculine!Bobby has his way with her up against the hood of the Explorer. B/A WAFF S10 compliant.
A/N 1: This was literally the 2nd B/A scenario I ever came up with, almost exactly 4 years ago. It's taken me this long to come up with the context!
~.~.~.~.~
CHAPTER ONE: THE KINDLY SHEPHERD
"Eames?"
The early-model compact car laden with luggage and furniture was drifting gently across several snow-covered lanes of the Palisades about 20 car lengths behind them, the driver slumped over.
"Oh shit!" Immediately spotting what he was looking at, Eames threw on her hazards, rolled down the driver's side window and began slowing down. She was doing just what he expected her to, risky though it was: trying to connect the front bumper of the errant vehicle with the rear end of the SUV. With her head and both shoulders leaning all the way out, her hair lifted and tossed and mingled with the snow, and she miraculously steered one-handed with her other hand on the emergency brake in case they started to spin out.
"Where are we?" Bobby was surprised to realise that he hadn't been paying attention to their progress through the monstrous weather. They'd spent the past two days in New Jersey pursuing a suspect in a complicated stalking case. After confronting their suspect at his mom's house this morning, the young man had quickly confessed, leaving them with the easy choice to surrender him to the custody of the locals.
It wasn't like him to throw up his hands and say sure, you take him, but as soon as the local law enforcement had flashed their arrest warrants, all he could think about was the long, cozy drive back with Alex. Frankly, it had been in the back of his mind since the moment they'd left New York.
"About six miles past the Permont Road Exit," he heard her say.
He'd only seen the little car because of hastily glancing at the driver's side mirror when his partner almost caught him staring at her boobs. Feeling like a skeevy teen for thinking about the effects of the cold on her anatomy had not stopped him from looking. And drooling a little, to be honest.
He grabbed the shortwave and his cell phone simultaneously, dialing 9-1-1 while he radioed. The car behind them continued to drift, and they continued to slow… though not by much… as Eames eased off the gas while she attempted to steer the SUV into the path of the errant car.
The radio produced nothing, but he quickly connected with an operator on the phone. He hit the button to put her on speaker. "This is Detective Goren, NYPD badge 4376, we have a ten-forty-six southbound six or seven miles south of the Permont Road Exit on the Palisades, out-of-control car and probable medical emergency."
"Where is the vehicle at this moment? How many occupants and what is their status?" Bobby tried not to roll his eyes at the pedantic delivery, and irrationally wished he could just broadcast to the operator a streaming visual of what they were experiencing. Don't you realise my partner is attempting a very risky manoeuvre right now? He wanted to ask.
"The vehicle is drifting between the two outermost southbound lanes. It's impossible to confirm who's inside. My partner is going to stop the vehicle using ours." His attention had been glued to Alex throughout the conversation, and he saw her smirk and toss her head at his confident statement about their plans. Of course it was what she was going to do. What else would she do?
"Proceed with caution, Detective," the voice said. "Highway emergency responders are stretched thin today, we don't need more casualties."
"We don't either," he heard his partner mutter.
He answered a couple more questions, and the operator said help was 18 minutes away. He was just agreeing to stay on the line to give updates when he felt the SUV swerve sharply. "Brace yourself Bobby," Alex called out, and he glanced down to reassure himself she had her seatbelt on.
The contact bump wasn't too bad, but the Explorer immediately began to skid as the weight of the extra vehicle overcame the tires' grip on the icy road.
Bobby could almost feel himself in Alex's body, tightening her thigh, bum and core muscles as she steered into the skid as best she could. Recovering control in poor weather was second nature to her, but managing the task while trying not to jackknife what was essentially an unsecured 5th wheel load was another story. She held her breath as she continued to adjust their trajectory, engaging the hand brake for a hard correction when they almost went into the ditch. She was an animal, working the three-tonne, eight-wheeled beast like it was no more than a misbehaving Pez dispenser. His lizard brain drifted, imagining grabbing her, pulling her into his lap and nuzzling all her clothes off. The notion of Alex naked, straddling his lap and cuddled in his Parka made him gasp quietly. "What?" The operator asked.
"No-nothing."
"Hold on," Alex said through gritted teeth. She'd lowered the power window in the back of the SUV and now it was Bobby's turn to watch the little car bearing down on them from behind.
"We're losing her," he muttered as he saw the angle of the car behind them change.
"I can see that," his partner snapped, and the operator tsked at her tone. Alex hit the gas for a quarter second and adjusted their angle, allowing the car behind them to straighten itself out before re-connecting.
"Nice," he murmured.
"Bobby I think I'm gonna be able to get us pulled over pretty quick," she said, "Christ we're lucky the road's so quiet."
Indeed, now that they were going straight again Alex had managed to slow them down to under 35, and the speedometer was steadily decreasing. Bobby took a few seconds to relay to the operator what he could see through the back window.
"Driver is female, mid-thirties, might be pregnant. Appears to be disoriented but not unconscious, no visible injuries. The car is packed with household goods, there's a bunch of stuff wrapped in garbage bags bungeed to the roof rack."
"Drunk, stroke or diabetic coma," Alex muttered.
"Are there any other occupants in the vehicle?" The operator asked.
"There's, uh, a cat carrier with a seatbelt around it in the front passenger seat." For some reason Bobby found the image both sweet and kind of sad.
Pulling over onto the berm wasn't the cakewalk it should have been after Alex's vehicular sleight-of-hand, and in the end they'd coasted to a stop precariously close to the ditch that ran along the highway. Because of that, Bobby couldn't get out of the SUV from his side, and by the time he'd shuffled over to Alex's open door she'd already thrown down flares and traffic cones from their standard emergency equipment, and once he was on his feet outside she handed him a reflective hazard vest with a smile. "Safety first! Put it on, Bobby," she said, "We haven't come all this way to get mowed down by the fire department."
He felt the goofy look on his face before he saw her smirk. Did she realise how amazing this was? How amazing she was? Did she know what went through his mind about her all the time?
Aah well, now was not the time for that conversation. The area secured (as best it could be in the driving snow) Bobby hastened to the driver's side door of the little car while nimble Alex climbed monkey-like over the hood to get to the passenger side.
As his partner put the car in park and turned on the hazards, he began relaying information. "Operator, you still there," he said into his bluetooth.
If you have read this far but can't review because you're juggling fire and scrolling only with the power of your mind, I understand. :D
~.~.~.~.~
A/N 2: The Matrix: Revolutions was on while I was writing this. Made it easier to write the exciting bits. And the hot bits. This fic is finished, and will be complete in 4 short chapters once I edit them.
WORDS: 1439 UPLOADED Sunday, January 6, 2013