Title: Art Appreciation
Author: rijane
Rating: M
Spoiler: After Sonata. In the middle of the second frickin' season, okay?
Author's Note: Like pretty much every fic author out there, my muse has been eaten alive by the Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad News. "See Me" will conclude if I have to lock myself in a room without an Internet connection for a week. But this was mostly written and I assume that since I'm desperate for some fic to distract me, other people are too. So here goes...
Beth hated the freezer. The stainless steel, the glass lid. The obscene weight of it behind the gray door.
She didn't used to hate it. She would wander in while the sun was high in the sky and lean against its cold metal to watch him. Unmoving and perfect, the slightest hint of frost on his long lashes. Lips parted. The weight of the years gone. It took everything in her not to crawl in with him and make a popcicle of herself.
She began to hate the freezer the first time she saw Mick on a bed, stretched out the length of it. Shirt open, bare feet, crossed at the ankles. Hands crossed behind his wet curls. Jeans barely holding onto his hips.
"What do you think?" eyes fixed upward, he'd asked before she'd said a word.
"What?"
"This," he moved one hand to wave at the ceiling. Beth slipped her heels off and closed the distance to the bed. She crawled up, disturbing the perfection that was Mick St. John in repose. He readjusted as she stretched out beside him. A cool arm slid behind her. She shifted to look at him, the smooth plane of skin begging for her hand, his ear for her tongue, him.
"Well?"
Beth dragged her eyes from Mick's profile to object of his fascination. The once white ceiling was a chaos of color above the bed. Ochre, indigo, fuschia, in swirls, in circles, in mad streaks and hash marks. An endless folding of color, fading, wrapping the impressions of bodies.
Her nose, always slower than his and much distracted by her other senses, picked up the distinct potency of fresh paint, the sharp scent of turpentine.
"Did you do this?"
"I was bored and you were busy."
"You paint?" Beth rolled on her side, her cheek against his bicep.
"I imitate. Kandinsky. Composition V11." He had freckles of paint visible in the edges of dawn's light pouring in the bedroom windows.
"Why did you do it when I couldn't watch?" Beth rubbed her thumb across his cheekbone, hoping to take paint back with it, but it had dried.
"I have more paint." A blur of speed and the stronger smell of paint from his side of the bed. He knelt over her, one arm locking her in, the other raised with fingers dipped in blue.
"Mick..." Beth warned, pinned behind him and squirming.
His hand moved to her cheek. Two fingers traced a blue path across her jawline. A bindi between her eyes, lingering on her forehead.
"Beth," he whispered reverently.
His hands moved further down, a trail of languorous of prints, pushing at skin. Her neck, pulse point, the valley between her breasts.
A rip of fabric and his hand were painting their path around her curves. Tracing scars of unknown origin, goosepimpled flesh, beauty marks of indigo fingerprints.
Beth reached to his precarious pants and gave the denim a pull, sliding them unceremoniously to his knees. His legs kicked in a fluid motion and they were gone. Fangs pushed against lips. Lips on hers, the scratch of him on her tongue. Her hands tightened against his back. The pierce of him drew blood from her mouth, into her mouth, into his mouth. A drop, a taste as she moaned into him.
Beth's breath stopped -- he was over her and then he was in her. His face below a shock of color, whirling. The tremble of his muscles, paused, waiting. She tightened against him and arched her back, a sharp gathering. The push, the pull, falling in on herself and then into him.
At the edge of the wave, a crack broke through. She thought he'd broken her at long last and went searching for the pain.
Then the dust of drywall drifted over her and she sneezed, another flush of heat over her, through her.
And, silver eyes on her, he laughed, the sound of forever. He moved his hand away from the cracked wall.
She grabbed his blue hand healing red, a shower of broken plaster dulling the colors, and darted a tongue across the blood, rolling him in her mouth. A kiss to the knitting cut.
She pulled him down, burying his face in her breasts, his tongue sweet against her. His deep breaths, soaking in the smell of her, rubbing a cheek across her bare skin. A pause at the thunder of her heart, his ear against her. His lips chased up to her neck. Then the pain. Her nails in his back, fingers curled. His spasmed within her, below and above.
She flowed into him. The faint hum of satisfaction built from within the vampire's chest, suckling softly. The world came back into vivid focus as Mick's tongue traced his earlier ministrations, sealing the wound and relighting the sparks of pleasure.
He collapsed against her, covering himself in blue, the sheets stained. Mick buried his face in the crook of her neck, scenting himself on her. He was still within her, so much heat and power for a man who spent so many hours in a freezer.
After a minute, he lifted himself up, began to roll aside and withdraw. Beth wrapped her arms tight, trying to pull him into her for one last second. He paused, brushing a paint-stained hand across her forehead.
And then the welcome pressure and presence was gone. Beth turned to her side, facing him, her bare chest grazing his. She twisted her legs over and under his.
His arm wound behind her head and pulled her close. It was her turn to bury herself in the curve of his neck, breathing in his skin, letting the langor overtake her. The blur of color hung over them and Beth let her mind roll.
Every part of her felt heavy. Her eyes struggled to keep Mick's paint-splattered profile against the fervor of the ceiling in sight, but darkness fell.
She awoke to a caress, running down her cheek, her lips. His arm sliding carefully away. The bright sun stabbed at her and Mick was standing, not next to her. Too far away.
"Mmmph," Beth grasped at him. He caught her hand and squeezed, her nerve endings carrying him from hand to heart to every part of her.
"I love you," her sleep-heavy voice murmured, not letting go.
He ran his thumb across her palm.
"I love you, too," he gently disentangled her fingers. "But beds are for Beth. Freezer for me."
He moved to the door, not bothering to grab clothes he would just shed in a few short steps. Beth rolled into the spot where he had been, no warmth, but the impression and smell of him there all the same.
She stared up at the colors, loving Mick, feeling the ache of him away from her, the bed without him in it and hating that damned freezer.