Title: House of Cards
Rating/Warnings: G
Word count: 473
Summary: It's so easy to forget, sometimes, that there was ever anything else, and that the life they're living is so delicately constructed; that it could come tumbling down around them at any moment.
Notes: Written for isabelquinn for fandom_stocking 2013, and originally posted on AO3. Working from the idea that James and Juliet pretend to be married during their stint in Dharma-ville.
Set shortly before Jack shows up and crashes their adorable little fake marriage. ILU Jack, but boo. Booooo.
It's one of those rare cool days, with the temperature slipping below a comfortable warmth. The rain blows in, riding on the salt scent of the wind from the ocean; the humidity weakens and snaps until the air is clean and crisp.
Juliet rolls her sleeves down and turns her collar up. She's soaked by the time she gets home, and it's refreshing to feel cold, to have the rain and not the steamy heat breathing against her skin.
"Mrs LaFleur."
"Mr. LaFleur."
James has beaten her home, is barefoot and bare chested, a towel around his shoulders. Juliet closes the front door behind her, shutting out the sound of the rain hissing against itself.
She shivers and starts pulling at the snap-metal buttons on her Dharma coveralls, trying to toe her boots off without bending to pull the laces open. James loops the towel around her neck as she pulls her arms from her wet sleeves, and she laughs helplessly, stumbling out of her boots and lifting her hands to scrub at her wet hair.
She changes into something warm and dry, and her bathrobe isn't just a Dharma bathrobe anymore, it's her bathrobe, worn to pilling threads, beaten soft and faded in countless loads of laundry.
It's so easy to forget, sometimes, that there was ever anything else, and that the life they're living is so delicately constructed; that it could come tumbling down around them at any moment.
It's cold, but not cold enough to turn the heat on. Juliet can't remember a time they have ever needed to. They curl up on the couch and James reads and Juliet stares at the ceiling and reminds herself of the things she knows but doesn't need anymore.
She whispers science and knowledge to herself – things of flesh and blood, not of metal and grease – until it distracts James enough for him to poke her, and she rolls and tucks herself against his side, her head on his shoulder so she can read the same words he's reading.
She reads faster than he does, whispers for him to turn the page, and he turns his head and mutters against her temple that he will divorce her, and she will have to move "to the other side of Dharma-ville."
"We're not even married," she drawls at him, and she grins against his skin.
"Not yet," he says, and his mouth tilts up at the edges in a knowing little way. She pinches him and he laughs and drops his book, tells her, "Ain't even close, who'd marry you when you can't even let a man read, damn it," and then he's got her pinned into the couch cushions.
The rain spills over the spouting and the air is cold against the windows, but James' hands are warm when they slip inside her bathrobe.