A Love Struck Romeo

Notes: Takes place a few months after You Can Fall For and Chains of Silver, Chains of Gold

And I dreamed your dream for you and now your dream is real.
How can you look at me as if I was just another one of your deals?

When you can fall for chains of silver you can fall for chains of gold

"I'll be leaving with Glory in about an hour to scout a location for a new safehouse."

Carrington is no fool; he knows what Desdemona is up to. "Scouting a safehouse" is obvious code for "spending time alone with Glory away from the Switchboard." It's code for "I want to be with my girlfriend without showing everyone that I'm breaking my own rule about fraternization."

It's her way of saying that she wants to be a hypocrite and expect him to let her.

Well, forget that. He slams closed the file he was reviewing and stands. At his sudden movement, Desdemona gives him a surprised look, one brow raised. She must see something in his face then, because before he can cross the office, she closes the door and walks back over to him.

With a sigh, she leans against the filing cabinet and pulls a battered pack of cigarettes from her breast pocket, lighting one with a lighter that gleams dully in the dark clinic. He's about to say something about that – smoking, in the clinic? – but she waves him off with a plume of smoke billowing behind her hand.

"I know, I know – just tell me what it is that's bugging you."

He doesn't want to talk about it, not really; he's been nursing this little grudge for weeks and keeps going back and forth about whether he should actually say anything. He keeps thinking that they're not hurting anyone, and Glory is still going out for missions – but then Desdemona will announce another trip like this and put him in charge without even asking. She'll disappear into the Commonwealth for weeks at a time, with no warning and no consideration.

It's driving him up the wall.

There was a time, before he was part of the Railroad, before he went by Carrington, when he would have been happy for her. Once he'd been a regular man, a doctor in a small settlement in the Capital Wasteland; he'd been a husband and father. That was before –

Well, suffice to say some of the other man remains. There is some vestige of him inside Carrington still, an echo and a winking impulse to let some things slide.

But now Carrington knows this is wrong. Desdemona forbade fraternization years ago and the other agents have followed that rule, or at least have been so subtle in their dalliances that the upper brass have remained unaware.

He looks up to meet the eyes of their fearless leader, and something in the set of her jaw tells him she knows where this is going. Best to get on with it, then.

"This business with you and Glory. It must end."

When Desdemona is angry, she blows smoke out of her nose. It reminds him of an old drawing he saw once of a dragon, a mythical beast with wings that could blot out the sun who blew fire to roast brave knights who dared to cross him. He remembers reading stories about them to Hiran and Pari at night when they were tucked into their beds. The resemblance is especially strong right now, with her brow furrowed and the cigarette smoke rising around her.

To give her credit, Desdemona doesn't lie or try to distract him from what he knows. She asks only: "How long have you known?"

"How long has it been going on?"

She looks away, suddenly coy, or perhaps embarrassed. "It started in February."

This has the ring of truth. Carrington calculates and comes up with five months.

"How did you –"

"Oh, come on, you brought me on because I'm not stupid," he says, impatient. There's a flare of anger in his voice but he doesn't care. She's been lying to him, to all of them, and just so she could screw a synth and get her rocks off. He takes a deep breath, then another. "It was your rule," he finally says.

Fleetingly, the memory of Ophelia flicks through his brain. Ophelia, who was so different from his late wife, with her coppery hair and pale skin. The freckles on her arms, the way – he sighs. As noble as he pretends to be, this isn't about the rule but rather the exception.

"Why do you get to break the rules?" She brings her head up and meets his eyes again, cowed somewhat by the reality that she is no better than the rest of them and yet holds herself above.

"Why me? Not…why not you?"

Not sugar-coating his question was perhaps the wrong thing to do, at least if his goal was to call her out without having to tell her why he was really upset. Secrecy has never been Carrington's greatest skill.

Maybe sugar-coating was the right thing. Maybe he does finally want to have a conversation about the real problem here.

He picks up the file from his desk – he'll never be able to focus on it now – and carries it to the cabinet across the room. When he slides it into place and slams the door shut, the sound of the metal clanking together is intensely satisfying. He turns and they're so close now they could kiss.

"You know how I feel –"

"And you know how I feel. That hasn't changed."

Of course it hasn't, he thinks sourly. You can change your name – especially in the Railroad – but you can't change your basic nature, and she's always preferred women, as he has. It was the one real roadblock to what he's always hoped for from her.

"Why her?"

Desdemona breaks eye contact again, looking down at the pale, freckled hand that holds her cigarette. She takes an abnormally long time to speak again, staring at her hands as she crushes out the cigarette in an ashtray on Carrington's desk, twisting her hands, aimlessly walking in circles. Finally she leans back against the file cabinets again, defeated.

"I love her."

He can feel his eyes bulging out of their sockets.

"I love you. How is this different? How is it not worse? She's new, she's just learning about our world –"

"She loves me back, Doc."

Translation: I don't love you back.

Something inside Carrington breaks. He can feel it, like the crunch of a bone or the snap of a tendon. There's a rip like an overextended muscle.

This policy, the whole rule: it was always about him. Forbidding agents from getting romantically entangled was about sparing his feelings instead of safety and unity.

It was all about him.

He's not the type of man to cry, he's not the type to rage. Usually he makes his point – passionately, if necessary – and then moves on. But this – knowing that she applied this to all agents just to get him to cool off – this is just too much.

There's an intense feeling of betrayal building inside his chest, coiling its way between organs and bones, hot and pulsing like a snake digesting its prey. It feeds on itself; each second that passes with the uncovered duplicity hanging between them, it grows stronger. Soon it will consume him.

So he leans forward and presses his lips against hers.

For a moment, Desdemona is too shocked to move; he knows this because her body goes stock-still, penned against the filing cabinet. He keeps his lips there, hot and dry against hers, and tries to memorize the cool touch of her skin, the tobacco scent of her lips.

There's a moment where he wonders when she'll shove him off, when she'll pull away or yell at him, but then something miraculous happens – she leans into him, one hand grabbing his arm and pulling him closer. The lapels of his doctor's coat brush against her vest but he only has a moment to goggle at what's happening before he'll pulled even closer, and he can feel her body against his, her breasts flattening against his chest.

Her mouth opens wider to admit his tongue, and he's there, he's there in a moment, lapping the inside of her mouth, lingering to suck at her bottom lip. He catches it between his teeth and nips at it, relishing the moan she gives him. Her head tilts back and he releases her; her throat is a white column that begs for kissing, so he does. He lowers his lips to the soft skin at the junction of neck and ear, and when he realizes she's panting, he swirls his tongue there before biting down softly.

This time it's not a moan; this time she keens, one hand gripping his jacket to pull him closer while the other grips the filing cabinet behind her head. Her body is hot against his. His shirt has untucked in the excitement, and hers has ridden up as well; in the gaps between their pants and shirts there are two naked strips of skin that burn when they touch.

He can feel desire – a very long-lost sensation for him – welling up inside him, hot and anxious and greedy. It wants her, it wants all this, it wants it all now, now, now.

Desdemona's hand on his chest stops him from sliding one of his hands up her shirt to explore further. Her hand is small, but firm, insistent even.

"We shouldn't," she gasps, backing away from him. This close, even in the dim light of the clinic, he can see her flushed cheeks, her damp mouth, the way her eyes are heavily-lidded. She looks at him the way she's been looking at Glory all morning.

The way she looks before the two of them leave on their scouting trips.

"Why not? If you –"

A thousand phrases want to fall from his lips: if you want me the way you clearly do. If you know how I want you. If you ache for my body against yours.

But he doesn't say any of these things because she cuts him off.

"Because I don't love you. Not like I love her. And Glory –"

The way she says the synth's name shatters him. It's clear from the way she says it how she feels. The love she has for Glory is real, as real as the love he holds for Ophelia, now called Desdemona.

Each of them, shedding identities like snakeskins when they've been outgrown. Each of them hiding who they are when they get compromised.

Have they compromised themselves now?

Desdemona's still close enough to kiss, so he has to try, just one more time. He has to go for it, because if he doesn't he feels like he might fall apart. So he leans into her again, his lips on hers and her hot, wet mouth kissing him back, and he runs a tender hand across her waist, up her sternum, seeking one full breast.

When she stops him this time, she's panting. Yes, she wants him. She wants him but she won't take him and it's killing him. She pulls away, tugging her shirt to rights, obviously unaware of the way her hair is rucked up in the back, the unsteady way her eyes move about the room. She seems to have no idea how she looks, how clearly the lust in her shines out through her eyes, and he has no interest in filling her in. Let her go back to the common room marked by him.

"Maybe some day…if things don't work out. Maybe then we can try it again," she tells him, lighting a cigarette and looking anywhere to avoid meeting his eyes. Carrington frowns. This is not what he wants, and she knows it, but perhaps it's all she can give.

"Maybe some day," he agrees, simultaneously telling himself not to hold out hope and yearning for that moment.

She crosses the room, keeping as much space from him as possible. He knows why – that fire between them, the one she'd always refused to give so much as a spark to. It's been lit now, the coal burning darkly between them.

That's well enough, he thinks. He can give her time. Glory is just now learning about the world and her place in it. This…dalliance shall never last.

"Please, don't tell anyone." The tone of her voice is not like one he's ever heard before, and the helplessness of it breaks him again.

"About what?"

"Me and Glory. What happened in here. Any of it."

He can't help the small, sad smirk that works its way onto his face. As if he would ever do anything to hurt her.

The very thought that she thinks he would is possibly the saddest thing in the world.

"Don't worry," he says softly, though she nods, so she must have heard him. "I will keep your secrets."