A/N: because "there's only one bed" is one of my favourite tropes and 'of children and travelers' practically hands us the scenario gift-wrapped. of course, it took me six months to be able to finish writing this but who's counting?
AO3 tags: Angst, Adultery, Sharing a Bed, Episode: s03e02 Of Children and Travelers, WHY CAN'T I JUST WRITE A BIT OF SMUT WHY IS IT ALWAYS ABOUT FEELINGS?, a certain suspension of disbelief is required, work with me here, walt is such an honourable man and i love him, but also i want to corrupt him, just a teensy bit, on vic's behalf, i want her to be happy is that so wrong, if it's wrong i don't want to be right, MY INTENTIONS ARE GOOD AND PURE, don't look at me like that
There's only one bed.
He's rooted to the spot just inside the door while Vic shrugs off her jacket and hangs it over the back of a chair.
"You take it," he says. "I'll sleep on the floor."
Something flashes over her face too quickly for him to read before she rolls her eyes. "It's a queen size, Walt. I think we'll both fit."
Which is precisely the problem for him.
It was bad enough when he thought they were sharing a room with two beds. This is... He shifts on his feet, feeling gawky and tongue-tied, adolescent. "It's not, um..."
"Seriously?" There's a definite smirk to her lips and something wicked in the arch of her eyebrows. "Stick a pillow in the middle of the bed if you're worried about your virtue."
Heat crawls up his neck — part embarrassment, part arousal.
There are times like this when their conversations seem to forget they're playing a game. When what they're saying leaps right past flirting and becomes edgier, more intimate. To Walt it feels dangerously like foreplay. But Vic's sense of humor has always been ribald and filled with innuendo. Sometimes it's hard to tell where this kind of pretense ends and truth begins. Sometimes he's almost sure she wants him, too.
(Her mouth on the rim of his bottle. The way she glowed under the lights of the bar.)
"You want to sleep now and get an early start tomorrow?" she asks, taking his lack of response in stride.
"Sure."
She gestures at the bed. "Which side?"
"Doesn't matter."
Vic shrugs and sits down to take off her boots. "Okay if I use the bathroom first?"
"Yep."
Once she's safely behind the door, Walt's able to move. Neither of them came prepared for an overnight stay but it won't be the first time he's slept in his clothes. He begins shedding his outer layer with methodical movements. He takes off his coat and hangs it over the back of the other chair; sets his hat down on the table; slides his belt from his jeans and winds it neatly inside his hat; sits in the chair and pulls off his boots.
The bed looms.
Maybe he's acting like a frightened Victorian maiden, but he and Vic are already too tangled up in each other for their own good. There are a lot of long hours of darkness ahead with nothing to distract them from one another. Riotous, conflicting emotions churn in his stomach at the possibilities.
If it was just about his dick this wouldn't be a problem. Self-control has never been an issue and he's well acquainted with his right hand. But there are other, more terrifying feelings amassed in his chest like storm clouds, forcing the air from his lungs when he least expects it. They flicker in and out of his awareness, as sudden and unpredictable as lightning.
What he wants from Vic is so much more than just her body.
To occupy himself, Walt examines the rest of the room in detail. It holds the usual furnishings: the bed with a nightstand on each side, the table with its two chairs, a TV, a cupboard, and a mini-fridge. He switches on the TV and finds the reception is mostly fuzz and static; apparently this place is too low-budget for even basic cable.
The walls are painted a standard industrial beige and adorned with a single insipid landscape print. The carpet is low pile and the perfect shade to camouflage all manner of spilled sins. There's an extra blanket and two extra pillows in the cupboard. Two glasses on top of the fridge. The bedspread is made from the slick, unnatural fabric that seems to be specific to these types of establishments. Likewise the curtains.
While far from squalid, it's not the sort of place in which he'd choose to spend the night. It's certainly not anywhere he'd want to take Vic, given the opportunity.
He squashes that thought ruthlessly.
As if summoned by it, she emerges from the bathroom and waves him in. "All yours."
When she walks past, Walt catches the faint, clean scent of soap from her skin. It's different from what he's used to. She never wears perfume to work but something she uses on her hair has a sharp note he can't quite identify. Grapefruit or lemongrass. Maybe bergamot. It envelops him now and then on long drives, or when she turns quickly to speak to him at the office. There are times when all he wants is to bury his face in the crown of her head and breathe her in. He feels pathetic and ashamed.
Inside, the bathroom is no more appealing than the main room. He picks up the tiny bar of soap Vic left on the sink and sniffs it, decides it smells better on her. The only amenities are another equally tiny bar of soap wrapped in paper and some thin, rough towels. Overhead the fluorescent light flickers and hums, emitting a bright but faintly green hue. Water seeps slowly from underneath the faucet and the sealant around the sink is split. Three cracked tiles in the shower have been inexpertly repaired; their grout is already crumbling. The whole place is succumbing to neglect and decay.
Walt looks in the mirror and can't help thinking it's a not inaccurate description of himself.
He spends as long as he can on his minimal activities to give Vic enough privacy to... do whatever she needs to. When he opens the door, she's already shifting under the covers.
"I hate the way they tuck the sheets in all the way around," she says after a flurry of movement at the end of the bed. "It's like trying to sleep in a fucking straitjacket." Her hair is fluffed up from static and her cheeks are pink.
She looks astonishingly pretty. Something squeezes hard inside his chest.
"What?" she asks, a little crinkle between her eyebrows.
Heat prickles the back of his neck at being caught staring. "Nothing. You want me to get the, uh..." He points upward.
"Oh. Yeah."
Walt flips the switch for the overhead light and the room dims. The softer light from Vic's side lamp is more forgiving of their surroundings. Everything appears a little less worn and ugly in the glow it casts.
With no other reason to avoid it, Walt makes his way to the empty side of the bed. He pulls the covers back and sits down. His pulse is beating unnaturally fast.
The mattress dips as Vic moves behind him.
He carefully and deliberately removes his watch and sets it on the nightstand, then unbuttons his cuffs and rolls them up a few times.
Finally, he lies down on his back, as close to the edge as he can.
"I set the alarm on my phone for six," Vic says.
The ceiling is stuccoed to look like sand. He stares at it as though it's art.
"Thanks."
"Are you okay if I turn out the light now?"
"Yep."
The room darkens.
"Night, Walt."
"Night."
The mattress rises and falls with her movements for another few seconds before she stills. Light from the parking lot filters in around the edges of the curtains, giving the room an unearthly orange tint. As his eyes adjust, Walt finds he can see surprisingly well.
He holds himself motionless and takes measured breaths. The sheets on the bed are uncomfortably stiff and chilled. As long as he doesn't turn his head to the right, it's possible to pretend that he's alone. In his periphery, he can make out the faintly sinister red glow of the alarm clock to his left. With a slight shift of his head on the pillow he's able to read the display. It's just after ten. Morning is an eternity away.
He feels acutely awake, almost crackling with tension. The bedding scratches where it comes into contact with his skin. The swish of his pulse in his ears seems to fill the cavern of his skull. Nothing is enough to crowd out his awareness of Vic lying right there beside him.
For fifteen minutes Walt watches the clock's digital numbers form and recede like waves. He listens to the gradual change in Vic's breathing as it evens and slows; he feels her single hypnogogic twitch as she falls asleep.
It's the kind of intimate knowledge he's wished for and has no right to have of another man's wife.
Five more minutes flow past on the clock. The sheets are finally warming from his body heat. In the world outside, doors open and close, engines rumble, voices sound or cut off abruptly. None of it seems real.
At last, moving as carefully as he can, Walt rolls on his side to face Vic. She's curled up with her back to him and all he can see is the gentle slope where her neck meets her shoulder. In this context it seems both innocent and illicit. He wants to kiss her there.
Her hair is swept away from her face to spill across the pillow and partway down her back. It's longer than when she first came to Wyoming, almost always in a ponytail now. Back then she used to wear little braids on each side sometimes, or even curl the ends. He wonders why she doesn't anymore.
It would be wrong to touch her, even a little. Walt knows that. But, oh, he wants to. Even a tiny measure of connection would be enough to calm this craving. Slowly, achingly slowly, he stretches his arm across the bed until his fingers rest just close enough to feel the warmth given off by her body.
He closes his eyes and wills himself to go to sleep.
. . .
It's still dark when he wakes sometime later. Vic has shifted while he slept and now lies on her back with her face turned towards him. For a few moments Walt allows himself to take her in. Her pale hair winds in rivers across the pillow. One hand rests by her cheek, its fingers curling over the open palm. Her lips are slightly parted.
She's pushed the bedding down until it's bunched and twisted at her waist, revealing the rise and fall of her breasts as she breathes. Against the white cotton of her undershirt he can see the stiffened peaks of her nipples.
His body's response is sharply, urgently sexual.
The potent blend of lust and shame sends Walt stumbling out of the bed and away from her. He shuts himself in the bathroom without turning on the light. The darkness is thick and suffocating but it can't hide him from himself.
What is wrong with him? So she took off her bra to sleep. He spent almost three decades living with a woman; it's not as if this is anything new.
But now he's shaken. The low-grade electric hum he feels when he's with Vic is something he's become accustomed to. It's usually background noise in his body, like his heartbeat or the sound of his throat when he swallows. Tonight it's risen to a roar and he can't drown it out. Another beer or three might help him, but he runs the risk of waking her if he goes back to the bar. And if he wakes her, he'll have to lie about why he's going. There's no way he can tell her the truth.
She'd fallen asleep so easily, so trustingly, and so obviously unaffected by his presence. In the bar, he'd wondered if she was making a pass, and now he has his answer. She wasn't. She drank his beer because she was thirsty and absentminded. She talked about bad girls because she was empathizing with the victim. He's the one who spun it into something more. He's the one who's aroused and ashamed, with no idea how to handle his feelings.
He could bring himself off in this dingy motel bathroom, just let it be crude and sordid and done, but even considering it makes Walt feel obscene. How could he face her in the morning? How could he meet her eyes knowing the way he'd used her? Yes, sometimes when he's close to orgasm his mind will stray into dangerous places; sometimes he has dreams. But it's never deliberate. Vic deserves more from him than being reduced to a masturbatory fantasy.
She's married and she's his deputy and she's only five years older than his own daughter. Any one of those reasons should be enough to dissuade him, yet none of them seem to matter to his heart. Or to his dick.
Flipping the light switch on the wall summons an angry buzz and then the strobe-like flashes of ignition. The long, thin tube finally illuminates fully and Walt is confronted by the unpleasant reality of his surroundings.
Standing at the sink he contemplates his reflection: wrinkles carved into his face, skin sallow in the too-bright light, body pocked and scarred and sagging.
Why would she want you anyway, old man? he asks his mirror self.
Hands braced on the counter, he hangs his head and takes a few deep breaths. Then he splashes cold water on his face and scrubs it dry with a paper-thin towel. He tells himself that his resistance is so low tonight because he's tired and worn thin. He's worried about Henry, about Branch, and about finding the murderer of a young girl who everyone else seems to have given up on.
All of it's true.
It's still a lie.
He switches the light off and eases the door open, letting his eyes adjust as he walks cautiously back into the room.
"Walt?" comes Vic's sleep-blurred voice out of the darkness.
"Yeah."
"You okay?" she mumbles.
He stands next to the bed, pierced by her sweetness. She's lying on her side facing him now, so very beautiful even in the strange orange light.
"Yeah," he says. "Go back to sleep."
He hears a drowsy hum and then she's silent.
The heater in the corner is still wheezing out a lukewarm stream of air but the room is chilly. Walt sits down and pulls the covers up over her shoulders. Then he just looks at her for a while. She's soft and unguarded in a way he never gets to see her. Any lingering idea of thinking up an excuse to drink himself into oblivion evaporates.
A glance at the clock tells him it's just after midnight.
Six more hours to endure this tumult of desire. Six more hours wrapped in this delicate peace.
He lies down and listens to her breathing.
. . .
In the deepest part of the night, on the cusp of the hours that tip into morning, he wakes for the second time.
Something's changed.
He's too warm and his limbs feel heavy. His thoughts are moving sluggishly, smothered by the sticky residue of sleep, but the difference nudges at his mind until he opens his eyes.
And looks right into Vic's.
Their bodies are folded together like origami on the bed. His right arm is wedged under her pillow, his left is draped loosely across her hip. Her left hand curls against his cheek and her right lies warm on his stomach, beneath his shirt.
Panic billows up into Walt's throat. His thigh rests snugly between both of hers and he's already getting an erection. There's no way she's not going to know.
Neither one of them speaks.
Then slowly, so slowly, Vic moves her left hand toward his mouth until her knuckles brush against his lips. His heart slams once, hard, before subsiding. He holds his breath.
Spellbound, he watches her watch her own hand in motion. She turns her wrist and traces the outline of his mouth with her thumb. His skin tingles. Two fingertips gently stroke the surface of his lips, painting them over with a tender burn. She pulls down lightly on his bottom lip and dips shallowly inside. Walt opens his mouth wider in invitation. He can't stop himself, doesn't want to. She runs her finger along the sharp points of his lower teeth, her nail tapping gently against the upper row. The tip of his tongue tastes her skin and her mouth opens on a silent gasp.
She meets his eyes again.
Walt feels charged enough to spark, vibrating like a tuning fork and painfully hard. He raises his unsteady hand to touch her hair. It's as fine and soft as he remembers. He pushes through its mass, up and along her scalp, while the strands slip between his fingers like water. They ripple down the back of his hand, then over his wrist until he's cradling the warm curve of her skull. Vic sighs, arches, her eyelashes flutter, and he can't swallow; there's no saliva in his mouth.
Her hand on his stomach inches higher, sliding up the center of his chest. His hand roves over her back, caressed by her hair. She trails a path across to his ribs and the sensitive skin of his side. He sucks in a shaky breath, his nerve endings alight.
"Vic," he whispers, and her breath feathers across his lips.
"Shh."
She soothes him like he's a frightened child. Her hands stroke his face, his hair. Her smooth cheek rubs against his rougher skin. "It's all right," she tells his ear, his jaw, the corner of his eye.
He's hot everywhere, sweating in his clothes despite the temperature in the room. Vic presses her forehead to his for a moment before easing back. Her tongue darts out to lick her bottom lip and Walt makes a guttural, uncontrolled sound. She slides her bent knee up high over his hip. Her nose brushes his cheek.
"Just this once," she whispers against his mouth as she pushes him flat on the mattress.
Just this once, in the dark, in Arizona where it doesn't count. They'll get it out of their systems and in the morning it will be like it never happened. They'll drive back to Wyoming and leave it behind.
Right now he's weak enough to pretend he believes it.
He helps her pull the undershirt over her head and then her breasts are in his hands and his head is spinning. Vic makes a breathless sound when he licks at her nipple. Her pelvis grinds down hard against his and he nearly comes in his pants.
It's almost too much, too real.
The earthy fragrance of her skin is like a drug, the long day erasing any scent but her own. Walt buries his nose in the curve of her neck, the crook of her elbow, her armpit. She laughs breathlessly, trying to work his jeans off while he gets in the way.
He's seventeen again, clumsy and desperately eager. There's not an ounce of finesse in his entire body. And yet she arches into his hands wherever he touches; she kisses him with the same voracious need he feels.
This is nothing like his night with Lizzie Ambrose. He'd dived into sex the way he used to plunge into the snowmelt lakes in spring, the same full-body immersion to get it over with before he could change his mind. That night had been about proving something to himself and Walt isn't proud of it.
Now, in this liminal, half-asleep world, what he and Vic are doing is something else, something deeper and more reverent.
No matter how wrong it is, this is about love.
When he finally fumbles his shaking hand between her legs, he finds her not just slick but dripping, soaking his fingers. His heart is pounding so hard in his head and his throat and his dick he's afraid he might pass out. He glides his index finger through the slippery heat of her sex and she moans. It's the most glorious sound he's ever heard.
Astride him, on her knees, she places his hand—the one still wet from her, his right hand—on her breast and holds it there, covering it with her left. Her right hand reaches down and grasps him so tenderly, not stroking, just guiding him gently, with her eyes locked on his. Time feels as if it's slowed down and blown wide to prolong this perfection. He's gasping and quivering, useless.
And then he's inside her.
He can't move or breathe; all he can do is stare.
Vic's hair is a messy halo around her face. She bends in a graceful arch to kiss him, soft and lingering. When she lifts her head she offers him the sweetest smile. His hand is still held tight against her breast, over her heart, and he sees, finally, her bare ring finger. Her symbolic unbinding. There's only the two of them now.
Walt aches with the force of what he feels.
She begins to move and he's lost in a fever dream of exquisite, wracking pleasure. It's sharp-edged, scraping him raw, but the pain is no more than he deserves. It's the cruelest heaven, the most merciful hell. Vic is the crucible in which he's transformed.
Then it's over and they're breathing harshly together in the silence, flung far across the divide of right and wrong by this thing they've done.
He holds on to her here in the shadowland, and loves her, because there's nothing else for him to do.
. . .
This time he wakes to the sound of her voice. In the weak morning light he sees Vic by the window, on her phone. She's back in her duty shirt and jeans, with her boots on, making him acutely aware of his own nakedness.
It's not even 6 a.m.
She ends the call and turns, sees him watching. "That was Branch. Somebody using Norwood Young's credit card just paid for a tank of gas thirty miles north of here." With economical movements she shrugs into her jacket, grabs her gun and cuffs. "I'll go warm up the truck."
The door closes behind her with a dull thud of finality. She's over the threshold of their usual lives before Walt can summon a word.
A few hours later they cross the border into Utah. Arizona recedes in the rear-view mirror but there's no leaving it behind. What was it Faulkner had written? The past is never dead. It's not even past.
Walt drives north on Route 191 with Vic riding shotgun beside him. She's got her sunglasses on and her hair is streaming in the wind coming through the open window. He once told her he didn't know how people lived with themselves when they cheated. Right now, in the sunlight, he knows.
They just do.
[END]
notes: the faulkner quote is from 'requiem for a nun'. the title is a reference to the 9th commandment, thou shalt not covet, and also a bit of a hat tip to damien rice's song '9 Crimes'. i repurposed a line from the episode because i'm lazy.
i was determined to finish one last fic before the end of the year and i'm in with five hours and change to spare. kiss my ass, 2018. you were horrible but i wrote a lot and i guess that's better than nothing. happy new year, longmire fandom. see you in 2019. love, tree