Perhaps it is because he can't remember the last time someone touched him like this, but the sheer newness of it all never quite leaves.
Jamison opens his eyes, his face half buried in the hollow of Satya's throat. The soft scent of her jasmine soap threads through every inhale as her nails scritch polygraph lines across the back of his scalp. His good arm hooks around her waist to keep her flush, unabashed in his rapaciousness for more, his leg wedged between hers. The warmth of her body soaks him through like the soothing waters of a hot spring, and he basks in it as if it were liquid sunshine.
Although this particular arrangement has become a commonplace affair (him curled in her bed, snaked around her with what limbs he has, bathing in her presence), a faint twinge at the back of his brain still raises cautions about personal space. Two months ago, he never would have dared something so intimate. No amount of awkward flirting would make him transcend her boundaries, and it took a good while for him to realize he'd picked up a few boundaries of his own. He prides himself in his primary explosive expertise, and yet it had taken the better part of a fortnight for the rubble to settle.
At the start, Satya had eased him into it. With that precise sort of gentleness that is uniquely hers, she'd tangled fingers through his hair, slid heartlines down his back, clasped soft pressures at his hip, framed the length of his jaw. His brow had become a target for idle kisses, as did his shoulders, neck, and the occasional space beneath his ear. Her leg hooked around the back of his, just behind the bend of his knee, and she'd kept one hand flat upon his shoulder while her prosthesis entertained something else—adjusting his trousers, outlining the contour of his mouth, skimming the faint stubble on his chin. She had sketched lines between his freckles and birthmarks and moles; she'd mapped him in his entirety, edge by edge, lineament by lineament.
To say it feels good would be an understatement. A gross understatement, in fact. An understatement to understate all understatements. It doesn't feel good at all. No, it feels—
God, it feels fantastic. Glorious. Magnificent. Sublime. Criminal.
And a bit bewildering, actually, now that he gives it some thought, because he doesn't know how he's managed without simple tactile contact for this long.
Well, no. Not simple. It isn't simple. It isn't the same as someone touching his shoulder or tapping his forearm for attention. It also isn't like grappling onto his wrist to yank him back from danger or pressing a palm into his side to staunch the bleeding. It is something else altogether, a wholly different beast: it's compulsion, it's need; it's urgency and starvation and selfishness welling down beneath, a consuming drive for pressure and softness and intimacy, things he's tasted before but far too briefly because bounding into bed with someone meant the only important thing was release and nothing else, and all of that had suited him just fine—up until the moment she'd kissed him.
And she had kissed him. Tenderly. And then not so tenderly. A strange form of permission, perhaps, but it chucked all hesitancy out the bloody window.
Now, he needs no further encouragement. The warmth of her hands, the heat of her body, the sheer presence of her sharing the same physical space is almost enough to make him feel inebriated. She holds a hand to his skin and he practically buckles beneath its weight. She snags her polished nails through blond snarls and he is a lanky mass of putty she could shape into anything she wished. (She could rebuild him from the ground up with those hands and he would not protest.)
Jamison devolves into a malleable, moonstruck mess under her palms, and he loves every second of it.
And it is a nightly thing. A daily thing. A thing he would very much prefer to be an all-the-time thing, but with the gradual shedding of his Junker mantle comes a whole host of new obligations and other things—so many things, countless things, heaps of things he could never hope to remember; ah, but things he can still lob a grenade at—and so he must remain content that it is still a thing, regardless of said thing's woefully inadequate frequency.
And… it is a thing, albeit a thing he does not know how to name.
What exactly is he supposed to call it? This strange sort of I've got to be near you all the bloody time thing that simmers underneath his skin, this I'd much rather have a lie down with you than eat thing that makes time leap inexplicably forward, this c'mon, I know it's midnight but do I really have to leave thing that renders him miraculously refreshed despite sleep deprivation—because something so all-encompassing surely needs a name and not just some nebulous conglomerate of imagery (her splayed upon her bed in the long, translucent folds of her nightgown) or a telltale placid mental sluice that has become the emotional equivalent of a tranquilizer.
Comfort is a good start, he supposes. But that isn't quite it.
Pensive and wondering, Jamison lets his fingers meander up the small of her back in lazy circles. Her skin is satin soft under the calluses marking his prints, and he revels in every precious centimeter beneath the azure silk of her negligee. Nestling his nose into her neck, he draws a jasmine-laced inhale and lets himself relax against her body. His right shoulder is starting to complain from being buried beneath the pillow at an odd angle for so long, but he ignores it and instead focuses on drumming music notes down the delightful dip of her spine.
If he's being honest, touching her is almost better than being touched. It implies things like trust and confidence, and because certain sensory pressures feel different to her, it also implies she is willing to risk him doing the wrong thing on accident. (He makes doubly sure not to touch her neck with his hands, and the top of her head is entirely off-limits.) There is just something about having her close, an arm slung around her waist and his leg nudged between the both of hers that puts him at ease. And it isn't simply because she's a warm body—there is something more to it. He's certain.
"It is getting late, you know. We should start to think about turning in. It will be an early morning." Satya's right hand skims an affectionate line up his cheekbone. "We have our meeting tomorrow at nine o'clock with the others, remember?"
"No?" He cranes backward upon the pillow to look her in the eye. "When did that happen?"
She regards him with an amused smile. His attention catches at the birthmark by her mouth. "It was announced two days ago."
"Two days ago? You sure?"
"You don't read any of Morrison's post-mission briefings, do you?"
"Hey, I tried once or twice. Not that I ever finished 'em. Too boring." He offers a shrug. "Much rather be doing other things."
"Things like sleep, I hope."
"Nah. Sleep's boring, too. There's heaps of other things I'd rather do than sleep."
Gently, he slopes his hand up the curve of her side, gliding over the silken fabric draped across her ribs. He begins to kiss her neck with traces of teeth and tongue; he can feel subtle shivers clambering through her beneath every touch, and it only serves to stoke the coals in his belly. Her legs squeeze around his thigh as he attempts a testing grind between them, and he is rewarded with a faint murmur of praise when he tries it again.
"Bit more fun than lying on me own in a cold cot 'cross the rooms, innit?" He levels with her face, pleased, one eyebrow arched in mischief. "I think so, anyway."
Desire contours her countenance (half-open eyes, parted lips, tension in her jaw; composure coming apart at the seams and so fucking gorgeous), and yet she seems somehow immune. "It is, yes. Knowing you, I'm certain you could find all sorts of creative ways to make it interesting. However, that still that does not negate the fact that we have obligations to fulfill in the morning."
"Pff. Obligations." He gives a derisive sniff. "Only obligation I'm interested in filling's right here."
"While this obligation is very flattered," and she says it with such a dry, deadpan note, "it would be in our best interest to be well rested."
A part of him wants to boast oh, I'll make sure you're well rested, but he bites his tongue and masks the thought with a dramatic sigh. "All right, all right, fine. I'll hoof it back, but I won't be happy 'bout it. Just gimme a minute longer, yeah?"
"Very well. You have one minute, starting now."
"Just one? Really? Uh, don't suppose you could make it two? No? Five?"
"Fifty-five seconds," she says, a gleam of mirth in the golden hazel of her eyes. "You said to give you a minute, did you not? So here I am, giving you a minute. I am very fond of you, Mister Fawkes, but I won't let you further interfere with my work performance. I will carry you back to your bed if I must."
While a part of him would very much like to see her try, Jamison knows better than to let her follow through on any threats.
Despite his muttered grumbles, the remaining forty of his fifty-five seconds is spent cradling her as close as he is able, laced in a half embrace. He breathes her in and kneads between her shoulder blades and rubs the back of her ankle with the side of his arch. He touches her cheek, her nose, her jaw, and casts aside a curtain of her midnight hair so he can see her eyes.
Jamison presses his forehead to hers, relishing the feeling of her nestled so close, and his mind turns back to its previous course: what is he supposed to call this peaceful, enveloping thing?
The clockwork in his brain churns as he mulls it over. It's comfort, it's pleasure, it's repose (that scraphead bot would call it something like harmony, he supposes), but it is something altogether more than those disjointed pieces alone. Roadhog is an anchor to keep him grounded on tentative tiptoes, but Satya cements him in the earth, heel to toe amongst grass and pebbles and stone. He is submersed in contentment when she's near, and when she's not, he is left with an aching corkscrew shape somewhere in his chest, a tender earmark of where she's been.
He forces down a thick swallow, astounded.
"Time is almost up," she says. "Any last words before I carry you back?"
The nature of the jibe isn't lost, but the rapid realization has made him freeze. All of him seems so very heavy, her voice muffled and faint as if she were a continent away.
"Jamison?" A faint tap registers along his ribcage.
"You… said you're fond of me," he says.
"Well, yes. Of course." A brief pause. "That is because I am fond of you."
"You said you're fond," he says again. "Of me."
"Yes? I don't—forgive me, I don't understand what is happening here."
"So that's it, then. That's it. That's it!" He can't stop himself from laughing. "That's been it this whole time, hasn't it?"
"What? What on earth are you talking about?" Satya narrows her eyes in question and brings the back of her hand against his forehead. "Have you gone mad? Well, madder than usual. It? What is it? You haven't explained what it is."
"Fond," he says, snickering, and clasps hold of her hand. "I'm bloody fond of you."
Her mouth thins into a frown. "I still don't follow. Is this a particularly recent revelation of yours?"
"Oh, no, no, no. Well, the name is, though, so, I dunno, maybe it is? Felt it for a while, but just—didn't really know, I guess." He guides her palm against his cheek. "Fond. Fond. Ha, I really like the sound of that."
"You are acting like this is the first time you've ever heard that word." She thumbs a faint line along his cheekbone, the corner of her mouth turned in a subtle smile. "Are you quite positive you aren't ill?"
"Oi, you heard the doc, didn't you? Nothing to worry about. Fit as a fiddle, strong as an ox!"
"You really don't need to flex, you know," she says. "Your point has already been proven."
"Right, but you like it, yeah?"
Satya presses a finger to his lower lip. "Shh."
He lifts his chin. "But you like it," he says again.
"I said shh."
"Could say you're—"
"If you say fond, I am going to carry you back to your bed this very instant."
"—enamored," he finishes, grinning, a tight elation brimming within his chest.
She breathes a heavy sigh of resignation before tucking his head into the space below her chin. Her fingers thread through his blond mane as she brings a leg over his hip, effectively locking him in place.
Jamison does not resist. He won't snub the opportunity to spend another fifty-five seconds steeping in her presence, ephemeral as it is.
Another minute passes by. Then two. Her hand continues to comb gradual swaths across his scalp, the thrum of her heart warm in his ear, her heel a gentle pressure at the back of his knee. He cannot see her face, but he imagines her smiling—he imagines all of the tiny flecks upon her cheek and chin, imagines all of the perfect contours and her radiant skin, imagines her breathless and wonderfully serene.
Three minutes pass, and it is then that Satya moves.
Slowly, she starts to curl into him. With her leg hooked over his hip, the rest of her comes flush. Her palm slides down to the base of his skull and cradles him there, as if unsure of what should happen next.
Puzzled, he taps his fingers along her back. "Satya? You all right? I can leave now if you want. Just wanted a little longer, is all. Lemme go and I'll pop the leg on and start heading back."
"Enamored might be a possibility," she murmurs into his hair, and it's so very—hushed. Quiet. If it had been said anywhere else in the watchpoint, uttered in the clamor of the mess hall or amidst the machinery in the hangar or the mechanical hum lining in the chrome corridors, he never would have been able to hear it.
A euphoric little jolt kickstarts his pulse, and Jamison can't help but grin. "Enamored, eh? I think I like the sound of that."
Her fingertips skim the back of his neck, summoning ghosts of frisson down his shoulder in silent reply.
Without another thought, he withdraws from the hollow of her throat and meets her back on the pillow, face-to-face. The auric glimmer in her eyes is almost pale in the glow of the dim, hard-light constellations cast across her ceiling, but it ensnares his attention all the same. Hard-light, sunlight, moonlight, or no light, she is fantastic. Glorious. Magnificent. Sublime.
Jamison opens his mouth to say criminal, but she kisses him before the word takes shape.
As incredibly new as it is, if this is what fondness is like—
Well, a bloke could really get used to this.