RedxLiz on the run, because isn't that how we prefer them? This multi-chapter fic is meant to be a fluffy safe haven for shippers like myself who are finding it hard to keep the faith these days. Title borrowed from the inimitable Robert Frost, this is a slow-burn story that I hope to update at regular intervals. Disclaimed in the usual way, and any other characters are my own.
"Jesus..." she mumbled, stepping into the spray of the shower and letting it wash over her face. Elizabeth Keen hadn't been sleeping well of late. Something about being sought for the murder of the US Attorney General and having the her ex-partner heading up the FBI's chase made a good night's rest elusive. Frankly, the stress was terrible, and having been cooped up in everything from a shipping crate to an underground chamber to their current hideout in a tiny Maine B&B didn't leave much freedom to burn it off.
Liz lifted a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose, eyes closed against the water. You need to get out of here and go for a run or, hell, even get laid—
Her thoughts were abruptly cut off by the sound of a knock on the bathroom door.
"Lizzie?" The unmistakeable voice of one Raymond Reddington floated through the gapped wood. Liz jumped guiltily, caught off guard not only by the loud noise, but also the direction her inner monologue had taken. Almost like he knows what you were considering. Squelching the notion, Liz grabbed hastily for a the shampoo before answering him.
"Uh, yes?"
"My apologies for the intrusion, but would you mind if I use the vanity while you're in the shower?"
Liz let out a disbelieving snort. "You... want to use the mirror while I'm in here?" she called back, stalling, but suddenly a reassuring thought occurred to her. "Sorry, the door's locked!"
To her dismay, the answer to her assertion was the unmistakable sound of tumblers clicking open. His voice came again, this time clearer as the door swung open with a creak. "I wouldn't normally presume to do so, but the dingy, cracked excuse for a mirror in my bedroom simply won't do.
"Reddington!" She squeaked, instinctively covering herself with her hands, feeling exposed despite the curtain between them. "Did you just pick the lock on the bathroom door?!"
"Well, yes. Although I wouldn't give myself quite so much credit, these old skeleton key locks will open if you stick anything thinner than a cucumber into them." His voice trailed off into a pleased chuckle. "So how about it, do you mind awfully if I share the space? The shower curtain is quite opaque, I assure you."
"Well, since you've already broken in," Liz huffed, voice heavy with sarcasm. "Sure, be my guest."
"You're very kind, Lizzie. Thank you." The insincerity was either lost on him or ignored, and the next sounds were the door shutting again and the soft rummaging of what was likely Red opening his kit.
When he didn't say anything more, Liz rolled her eyes to herself and tentatively went back to showering. By rights she should have been more put off by the obvious invasion into her privacy, but things had been slowly changing between herself and the Concierge of Crime these past few months. Being in constant forced proximity to the man was one thing, but for another, she had to acknowledge that he was now the only person in the world she could fully trust. Besides... his company really isn't so bad.
Having rinsed the shampoo from her hair, she reached for the bar of soap. It was another few moments before her reverie was broken again by the sound of humming. It wasn't unpleasant, his smooth voice translated nicely into a tenor tone, but it did seem oddly intimate.
"Um, Red?" The humming paused.
"Yes?"
"What are you doing?"
"I'm shaving. What else did you imagine I would need a mirror for at this time in the morning?"
Yep, definitely intimate. He was standing at the sink shaving while she lathered her body three feet away. When exactly had they made the jump from reluctant associates, to comfortable companions, to, well, husband and wife?
"Knowing how vain you are? I can think of any number of things," she shot back, a snap in her voice.
Red only laughed shortly, almost amused at her defensiveness as if he knew what caused it. "Lizzie, if you'd prefer that I lower my standards of personal hygiene, just say so. But not to worry, I'm just finishing up."
By the time she recognized the metallic squeaking of faucet taps that indicated what was about to happen, it was too late. The hot water coming from the shower head suddenly ran ice cold. With a shriek and physical jolt she had no control over, Liz leapt out of the spray, lost her footing against the slippery ceramic tub, and was falling.
The subsequent few moments were a dizzy flurry of shower curtain, water, limbs and pained expletives. Liz suddenly found herself looking dazedly up at the ceiling of the bathroom, vaguely aware that she had landed on something more forgiving than the tile floor she had expected. The next next thing she was aware of was a pair of large hands clasped around her ribcage under her bare breasts. She screamed again, twisting her neck around to look into the pain-squinched features of Raymond Reddington.
"Mmph, Lizzie— ouch— you know, when I pictured a scenario involving you, naked, wet and screaming in my arms, this wasn't precisely what I had in mind."
She was laying on top of him, half-tangled in the curtain that had been jerked from the rod, both of them arranged haphazardly on the wet floor of the bathroom. Apparently Red had managed to catch her and break her fall with his own body.
"Oh, FUCK—!" Mortified, Liz scrambled to move off of him, reaching frantically for the curtain and wrapping it around herself, noticing abruptly that the edge of it was splashed red with something that looked horribly like...
"Am I... Am I bleeding?" She touched the back of her head, confused.
"No, sweetheart, that would be my blood," he mumbled, grunting as she levered herself off of his chest and spun to look at him. He was looking at her through a grimace, half propped against the wall, dressed in a pair of navy slacks and a white undershirt, the latter of which was torn and marred between the neck and shoulder with a growing scarlet stain. "In my ah, surprise and haste to catch you I lost track of my straight razor. It seems to have found me, though."
"Jesus, Red..." biting her lip at the sight, Liz quickly reached behind her to shut off the still-running shower. Shoving the fact that she was still drenched and, more to the point, naked, to the back of her consciousness, she clamped the curtain under her arms and moved back towards him. "I... what should I do. We should put pressure—"
The sound of running feet and the second loud knock in 10 minutes interrupted the scene.
"Hello? Is everything alright in there?"
Oh, Christ, it's the land lady. Damn this old New England house without bathrooms en suite. Liz shut her eyes disbelievingly, shaking her head before sliding her gaze to meet Red's. He was managing a pained grin at her, the humor of the situation clearly not lost on him despite everything.
"Answer her!" she hissed insistently, wanting to slug him even as he sat there bleeding from a razor wound, of all things.
"Everything's fine, Gladys!" He called, his voice incredibly calm and cheerful. Of course he remembers her name.
"Are you sure, Mr. Norton? I heard screaming and a loud crash!"
"Perfectly sure! The screaming was my fiancée, she ah, saw a spider—ow!" This time she really had hit him. In the opposite arm, but still as he flinched away from her a fresh wave of blood pulsed from his shoulder.
"Oh, your... your fiancée is in there with you?" The attempt was valiant, but frankly Gladys failed miserably at not sounding scandalized. Liz was not surprised, the poor old widow.
Meanwhile, Reddington plowed on. "She is, but we're both quite alright although I can't say the same for the spider, hence the crashing noise you heard," he winked outrageously at her. "So don't you worry, and also please don't hold breakfast on account of us! I would not say no to one of your absolutely delicious scones though, Gladys, if you would be so lovely as to hold a few back," he finished, voice slipping smoothly into the compliment.
"Oh, well of course, Mr. Norton. I'll make you up a plate and start a fresh pot of coffee," Gladys called back, mollified at least slightly by his flattery. The footsteps finally receded and Liz covered her face in her hands, a miserable blush heating her cheeks.
"It seems I have secured us breakfast, at the very least," Red ventured cheerily, which Liz patently ignored.
"You! Why would you say I was in here?"
"She said she heard a scream. Multiple screams, in fact. I didn't think she would believe me capable of making such a noise."
"But then why not explain further that you were just using the mirror while I was washing my hair?!" She spluttered indignantly. "Now she thinks that we were... we were..."
Red contemplated the young woman across from him in the small bathroom. Her wet hair clung to her temples in damp ringlets, and the shower curtain wasn't doing enough to obscure the fact that the blush coloring her cheeks was rising up from her chest. She is gorgeous. He dragged his eyes guiltily back up to hers and noted the dangerous gleam in them. Gorgeous and homicidal, apparently, he thought, acknowledging that the two were far from mutually exclusive as far as Elizabeth Keen was concerned.
"That we were what, Lizzie?" His velvet voice slid even further into a smug purr, unable to resist the tease. He tilted his head at her and quirked his mouth. The innuendo was inescapable.
"That we were fucking in the shower," She finished bluntly, sick at last of allowing him to tease her. At least the momentarily stunned look on his face was gratifying; he wasn't the easiest man to catch off guard. But then the raised eyebrows suddenly furrowed again, and Red tried to twist his neck to look down at the gash in his shoulder.
"Yes, well. That would have undoubtedly been vastly more enjoyable than the actual sequence of events," he allowed, attempting to sit up higher and letting out a hiss of pain.
Following his gaze, Liz felt a surge of guilt at the fact that she had been distracted from the fact that he was bleeding quite badly. By now the white undershirt was thoroughly saturated all down his left side. "We need to close that up," she murmured, biting her lip.
Red, however, shook his head shortly. "I'm fine. Nothing to worry about."
She looked at him incredulously. "Are you out of your mind? I'd have to think that someone who once did a field transfusion while locked in a glass box knows enough about wounds to know that we are not leaving that open,"
"In a perfect world, you're absolutely right. But given the location of the cut," He motioned vaguely with his good hand. "And the circumstances that negate the possibility of visiting an emergency room, I'll make do with some painkillers and a few bandaids."
At this assertion, Liz rolled her eyes so emphatically that Red couldn't help a dry, pained chuckle. "Oh, gee, it's really too bad you're on the run from the FBI all by yourself," she drawled sarcastically, and he lifted his chin in response.
"Make your point, Elizabeth."
"My point is, Raymond, that I am perfectly capable of helping you if you'd stop being so damn stubborn."
He realized what she was getting at, of course, and she wasn't wrong about his general reluctance to accept assistance. Getting by as the fourth entry on the FBI's Most Wanted list had largely been a solo affair, after all. Still, he raised an eyebrow at her. "You? You want to give me medical care?"
"Do I want to? Less and less," Liz shot back, hotly. "But, as you pointed out, given the current circumstances... yes."
"Forgive me, Lizzie," Red began, the amused tone belying an actual request for forgiveness. "But while your talents are inarguably varied and many, I had not thought to include doctoring among them."
"As you well know, I'm not a doctor. But I did receive at least basic field training, courtesy of the FBI."
"And here's where I remind you that 'courtesy of the FBI' isn't my favorite of qualifications."
"Christ, will you just shut up?" She snapped through gritted teeth. "If it were me you'd have pinned me down and finished stitching me up by now."
"Ah, you have also imagined me pinning you down?"He grinned, thinking that she was just so easy to wind up. "Let's talk more about—"
"RED. ENOUGH." Elizabeth Keen brought a hand down on the wet bathroom tile, the slapping noise and sharp rise in volume in her voice effectively silencing her companion. She took a deep breath, glaring at him and clutching the curtain tighter as she stretched to reach for a towel balanced on the back of the toilet. "I am going to go get dressed and you are going to meet me in your room in 5 minutes. Bring whatever medical supplies you have."
Reasonably chastened, Red sniffed. "No need to shout, you'll have Gladys back up here," he mumbled, averting his eyes as she wrapped herself in the towel and dropped the curtain. Stepping over him, Liz peeked out the door to check that the coast was clear before wrenching it open and striding down the hall towards her room.
AN: So there's chapter one. Off to a fluffy and indulgent start, no? I'm new to this game, so any thoughts are appreciated as motivation to continue!