Title: Come Away With Me
Rating: PG-13 for language
Pairing: Mel/Lindz
Spoilers: Nothing, but set back in their college years.
"I'm not getting on that thing with you."
The words sound harsh, but there's no bite behind them. No belittling emphasis on the word thing that would have caused me to snap at her stubbornstance just days before.
"It's unsafe," she tries to explain, her fingers tracing up and down the helmet's strap, fingering the three-prong buckle, looking anywhere but at me. "I'd fall off."
These aren't new excuses. I've heard them before, every time I've tried to get her to take a ride with me on the bike. Lindsay is a wuss when it comes to my motorcycle, but just this once I'm pushing. I'm making this ride mandatory. It would be different for her, and different is good right now. Quite frankly anything is good in comparison to sitting in her Carnegie Mellon dorm room with the blinds pulled down. Her bitch of a roommate wandering in-and-out, making shameful noises every time she opens the door and sees the two of us haven't vacated the small space. I can't take another hour of hanging onto Lindz, wishing she could have waited to cry until the sun went down because, in my mind, crying in the dark hurts less than crying in the daytime. There are fewer people to judge and gossip about the tears.
I take the helmet from her hands, and slid it onto her head. Her hair is longer than mine, and I take a minute to push it behind her ears. I want to show her that I can take her some place safe. Show her that she doesn't have to sit in a room, throwing her pain against the walls. That won't make it go away; all it will do is bounce back and hit her again.
She looks at me. Brown eyes bruised and blood shot. "We could get hurt, Mel."
I fasten the buckle under her chin, lean in to kiss her nose, and then move lower to brush her lips. It's no secret that I have a shit list a mile long, but right now there's no one I'd rather run down with my bike than Ma and Pa Peterson, and the rest of their waspy little clan.
"Just try it. If I go too fast, if you really don't like it, you tell me and I'll stop."
There's a twist to her lips right now that I hate, a shaking in her hands, but she kisses me back and nods.
Victory.
It's late afternoon, and the streets are packed with rush hour traffic. We avoid most of it by way of side streets. Twisting, turning through streets I once followed Leda down. A whirlwind tour of our grand city by way of back alleys. Lindsey clings to me, and I can smell the leather from the coat I made her wear despite the hot Pittsburgh weather. At the first stoplight we hit, I have to make a little adjustment to our seating arrangement.
"Lindsey," I laugh taking her hands and mine. "Hold onto my waist, not my tits. You can grab those later, I promise."
There's no return laugh, like I'd hoped for, but her hands shift lower, and hold on just as tight.
A left turn would take us to the guts and glitter of Liberty Ave, but that's not where we're going. Instead, I flip the turn signal, prepared to turn right. We're heading out of the city, where I can show her what it's like to fly.
Before the light changes, I feel her shift behind me.
"You alright?" I shout over the engine, the cars and the traffic.
She nuzzles the back of my neck, resting her head on my shoulder.
"I like this, the two of us, riding together." The tremor isn't completely out of her voice. There are bruises covering every word that falls past her lips, but it's a start, and I smile.
"Honey, I love it when we ride together."