Pathetique

written by request for K.

by ShinySherlock

Nov. 7,1997

Okay guys, absolutely no homicidal content. Just one lonely detective who finds solace for one night... and NO, it's NOT Bayliss! (I know, you're all shocked!) Title is from a Beethoven sonata I was listening to.

Somewhere between season five and six. Rated R for sex. Anyway, consider yourselves warned.

It was 10 o'clock. He hadn't intended to go out, but sitting there, flipping through magazines, nursing a beer, and basically feeling sorry for himself wasn't what he had intended either. So he grabbed his black leather coat, pulling it on smoothly over a black wool sweater and faded blue jeans, and bolted out into the

cold night air.

It was starting to really be winter now, the crisp air cutting through his clothes, and he pulled the jacket tighter around his body.

He had no direction, just... away. Away from the boat that suddenly didn't feel like home, away from the station house, and definitely away from the Waterfront. No bars; not tonight. The last thing he wanted was to relieve his misery by steeping himself in alcohol until he couldn't see straight, then stumble home, alone, in the freezing midnight air.

No. Anywhere but a bar.

He wandered down the street, avoiding eye contact with whatever brainless people were outside on a night like this instead of home in bed, curled up with a book, a woman.

For a brief moment, he let himself think of Julianna. Just the best part: sitting in the box and making out like teenagers. Not the sex, the hurried, desperate, drunken sex. Just those sweet little kisses, and the way she let him hold her face, the kisses that made him feel like maybe. Maybe.

But it was not to be. One of the best decisions he ever made was to leave her before things went completely downhill.

Shivering, and finally realizing that he should probably get out of the cold, he found himself outside a greasy diner off of Thames Street.

Zimmerman's. Good enough, and probably warm inside.

He pushed through the door, a little bell clinging at his entrance, and took a look around.

Deserted. Brightly lit, with fading red vinyl padded booths, the place seemed old but steady. The cook, an older Cuban man with a pencil thin mustache, played Latin music in the kitchen, dancing the samba with his broom as he quasi-swept the floor. He glanced over the counter between the kitchen and the front area.

"Sandra!" he hollered.

"What?" answered a distant female voice.

He rattled off something in Spanish. In a moment, a woman popped through the swinging doors, hastily tying an apron over her cream sweater and brown velvet skirt.

"Hi," she said with a tired but friendly smile.

Mike Kellerman just nodded uncomfortably. "Hi," he said.

She was pretty and friendly, already pouring him a cup of coffee, so he settled into one of the stools at the counter and took the steaming cup from her.

"Cream?" she asked.

"No thanks."

She leaned against the back counter, watching him as he perused the menu, and after a moment he felt her looking him over, assessing him in that nearly subconscious way that women do, but when he lifted his eyes to meet hers, she didn't turn away.

So he returned the favor.

She was about his age, he figured, with honey brown hair and blue eyes. She was petite, little feet tucked into brown suede shoes that were probably uncomfortable but accented her figure nicely, her curves delineated against her clothes. His gaze roamed back to her eyes, tired, but hopeful eyes that met his unwaveringly.

Thought bloomed in his mind, and after a moment of staring at her full, red painted lips, he shook his head.

"Um... just... French toast," he said wearily, folding the menu and placing it on the counter.

She nodded, and for a moment he thought maybe she looked . . . disappointed.

"Okay," she said, and disappeared back into the kitchen.

She left him alone to eat, but he could see her peeking at him from the kitchen with a longing that nearly matched his own.

This is stupid, he told himself. Insane.

But she keeps looking at me that way. And he could feel in his bones that it would work out. That this might be exactly the right thing to do for once.

He paid the bill, tipped her way too much. She gave him his change, deliberately letting her fingers touch his as the coins transferred, and that was enough.

Her eyes met his quickly, excited, embarrassed - then turned away.

"Hey," he said softly.

She looked up.

"Wanna get outta here?" he offered.

She nodded. "Yes."

They walked to his boat with arms linked, huddling together against the cold. She tugged back on his arm for a moment and he looked down at her wonderingly, then realized what she wanted. He dipped his head toward hers, their cold, cold lips meeting in an unbalanced, sweet kiss, and she started walking crookedly again as he deepened the kiss, warming their lips as he kissed her again and again on their zig zag path down the deserted street.

Idiotic, his brain chastised. But the sense of connection he felt with this sad, smiling woman, though absurd, felt so right that he ignored the voice in his head. They reached the boat and he helped her aboard, his hands sliding around her waist once she was on deck. The sweet, crooked kisses began again and they moved inside.

Warmth surrounded them, cutting quickly through the cold that still clung to them and soon she was pulling at his jacket, small female hands slipping under lapels and sliding the leather down his arms as he kissed her.

He did the same to her wool overcoat, the fabric crumpling to the floor near her feet. Her mouth opened to him and he pushed his tongue in experimentally until he felt her respond in kind. His hands roamed restlessly against her back, slipping up beneath her sweater, rubbing hesitantly against the strap of her bra. She pressed into his embrace encouragingly, and moved her own hands against him, one tangling in his hair, the other slipping under his own sweater to wander over the smooth skin of his torso.

And always the kisses.

He unsnapped the bra in a practiced movement, then felt her fingers fumbling with his belt, buttons, zippers, and the moment he found her warm, ready breast with his eager palm, her hand gently cupped his erection in her hand.

He growled into her mouth as she fingered him softly through his underwear, and her own groan escaped her as his fingers found her hardened nipples and squeezed.

The clothes rained to the floor as they stumbled towards the bed, never pausing in their touches, kisses, sighs...

They lay facing each other on the little bed, and for an instant, he felt a need to slow down. He pulled from her kiss, and answered her questioning look by holding her face in his hands, framing her lips, her eyes with his fingers. He felt it impossible to convey the mess of emotions swirling around him at that moment as he looked at her: gratitude, yes, lust, yes, but more - a soulful understanding of their mutual need that he thought could never really be expressed in words, but as he watched her face open to him, he knew she understood. She accepted. And she wanted it, needed it as much as he did.

He pulled her face to him, gentle kisses marching into strong ones as their hands began their explorations again. He turned her onto her back, reveling in the feel of skin against skin as he settled himself against her. Her hands gripped his shoulders, holding him tightly, then worked the muscles in his back, sliding

down until she reached the round of his ass, kneading him there, and pressing him down to her. He smiled against her mouth.

"Easy," he said. "Not yet."

She whimpered a little, but he moved away from her despite her protests, then surprised her as he took one erect, straining nipple in between his lips. She moaned beneath his attentions, nibbling at her lip as he suckled her, each breast in turn. His tongue lapped at her reddening skin, then his lips pulled her

into his mouth until she squirmed from the tension.

He lifted himself to her lips again, kissing her quickly, then slipped his kisses slowly down her neck to the V of her throat, trailing a line from between her breasts to her belly, where he felt the muscles flutter beneath his lips, and continuing down to the curls that hid her sex. He felt the breath she was holding

from the tension of her hips beneath his hands, and his fingers came forward to part her delicately. His breath teased her softly, then he buried himself in her, holding her against him when she jumped as he let his tongue roam around her clitoris in a teasing spiral.

She let him continue for a moment, but it was too much. She pulled at his shoulders, his hair until he relented, suckling her a final time before he climbed up to her again, where his kiss gave her the juice of her own sex. She gasped beneath him, then opened herself to him, accommodating her legs around him and pushing herself against him.

He held her face still again, pulling his lips away, and waited until she opened her eyes in question. Then, holding her gaze, he slowly, slowly, found her entrance and pushed himself inside her.

He watched her eyes widen as he filled her, pushing as far into her as he could. He retreated at the same agonizingly slow place, and watched her pout. She pushed the heels of her feet against the back of his thighs, and this time he pushed in faster, smiling at the way her eyelids fluttered and her back arched as

he established the rhythm he could maintain.

He felt the tension building in himself as she squeezed her muscled sheath around him. Each aching movement brought him closer to release, but the tension, the precursor to the actual climax was the sweetest for him, and he struggled to slow himself, to savor the feeling of the soft, warm and wet clench

of her surrounding him as he entered, pushed and filled.

To be surrounded. To be filled.

And then it came, that moment where he knew it was about to happen, because he felt her start to buck beneath him, and she could hardly keep her eyes open as her body heaved against him. And seeing her face as she came, knowing that he was the cause of the exquisite ecstasy churning before him, urged him over the final hurdle, and his own release resonated with hers, amplifying them both as they shuddered together in a bright, incredible wave of connection.

They collapsed, boneless, together in the bed, him sliding off her as they recovered in raspy breaths.

Just sex, his jaded, cynical brain reasoned somewhere far off. But for a moment, that sense of wholeness, of foundation and completeness had been undeniable.

He twisted to face her, his eyes sliding open drunkenly to meet her own cloudy gaze. One more sweet, cold banishing kiss. They fell asleep together, intertwined.

THE END.

Geez, I'm blushing. Hope that did the trick, K!