Summary: Ozone is air charged with electricity. Some additional scenes for 'Blinded', 1.12.
A/N: I posted this some time ago but then lost confidence and deleted it, so I made some changes.
Rating: T
The hollow rattle of the pill bottle that's lodged deep in her handbag brings her out of the numbness for a fleeting moment. Her world currently consists of the tiny white tablets and the blue-black-violet pinpricks that are rising up in repair on her body.
He's still there hovering beside her; she realises he's been both saviour and instigator today. That thought feels as mixed as the colours that are dotted about her like a Rorschach blot. When she concedes that he's just as much under her skin as any bruise could ever be – an uncomfortable amalgam of pain and healing – she breathes a lungful of stale air and pins him under the uncompromising and steely weight of her serious gaze.
"Take me home."
There, in the sterile, angular concrete and strip lighting of the underground car park, he hears the three words hidden under layers and enrobed in a loneliness that she couldn't quite bear to articulate: "He's not there."
As his thumb presses into the key fob to open the car, the tiniest, darkest part of him lights up in the thought that it could be an invitation to the darkest part of her.
Needles of lightning pulse true blue across the starless black in the wake of the low growl of thunder. The busy work of the windscreen wipers as they push aside the rain almost becomes hypnotic as she sits in the front passenger seat and stares straight ahead, the shimmer of the gleaming lights on the tarmac soon bringing the night's terror back again.
She makes it to the door under the makeshift shelter of his jacket, inhaling clean cotton and sharp citrus. This time, the memory of the safety of his embrace floods forth in a twisting emotional torrent. Struggling with her keys in her left hand, it crosses her mind that little of the hurt she experiences is ever meant. Yet it stings all the same and she can seemingly never end the cycle. Her earlier fortitude and certainty have been slightly worn and torn by the abrasive knowledge that she's been stung by someone else who wasn't meant to hurt her.
The welcoming softness of her sofa does little to dissipate the ache in her bones or the arcing strobes of pain that lash through her shoulder. In between the crumpled heap that she's made from their possessions and an unusually chaotic stack of magazines, she feels utterly lost. She finally lets out one choking sob – it's just enough to purge the merest sliver of agony.
When she attempts to cast away the tears with the back of her good hand, knuckles randomly collecting the droplets like dew clinging to grass, instinct finally overtakes him as he slips beside her without a word. Only the roll and crackle of the weather outside and the scratch of the static from their clothes perforates the air as he frames her left elbow with his fingers and squeezes lightly, giving an unconventional comfort. Unsure as to whether he should wipe away the small beads of water – sensing that her crying is just as much out of anger as despair – he bundles upstairs in search of some essentials.
The bathroom offers him a narrative about the impending end of her marriage: the only trace of a man that lingers there is a battered styptic pencil that is tucked away in a corner. It occurs to him that the anti-coagulant stick is not the only wound-healing balm that Alec has left behind. After gathering a fistful of tissues and a warm towel from the heated rail, he goes back to being beside her.
Once he has rucked the towel behind her aching body in an unceremonious fashion, he offers up the crumpled tissues and then watches her dab away the faint mist of tears.
A thin veneer of control seems to come back once she has done so, and coupled with it is a newfound clarity.
"I need help." Her voice is a low plea before she adds the next three words for immediate clarity. "With my clothes."
Pleasure-pain shackles his blood as he considers the many implications that drift from her tongue and fuse in her eyes. Ever the jigsaw that he can't fit together, he just lets the pieces of her settle where they fall – somewhere between temptress and warrior.
"Nelson won a war with one arm, y'know." It's a light jab of a joke, an attempt to break the tension and to stop his mind from visualising all the things it probably shouldn't and yet definitely already has.
"You weren't part of the Royal Navy, though," she shoots back quickly, marking him as the mutineer that caused her downfall. Admiration and anger surge together in an utterly visceral reaction; they twist and turn in her gut. She wants his eyes and hands on her to feel the triumph of being wanted, to see unfiltered desire and feel the caution of care. To be seen in a way that she had not been for so very long. He concedes in mere seconds, jaw set tight and teeth trying to grit away the raw edge of feeling.
The sling unravels with a surprising ease before he undoes the tiny buttons on her shirt with unexplainably steady fingers. He pulls in a sharp breath as each unfastening reveals more dark blue silk and smooth skin. He's oddly thankful that a camisole rests between her shirt and the lacy black strap of her bra, less so for the sight of the ink-blot bruises that pepper her shoulder. Somehow he's reminded of when she would mark up proofs or write reports and accidentally end up with pen on her sleeves. It's no self-inflicted mark this time.
He feels as if the continuing storm is humming in his veins as he rolls his fingertips across the wounded skin, trying to mend the mess that he'd inadvertently made; attempting to cast away the colour and soothe the pain. In contrast, he revels in his own desirous ache, thriving on wanting her and fighting it at the same time. Everything within is armed for a battle and yet ready to surrender to a legion of warring emotions.
With the quick dart of her left thumb, the button on her trousers pops open and she even manages to slide out of them with some kind of impossible grace; her lower body lean and lace-covered before him. Steady pulses of adrenaline and need fire through her in waves as his gaze burns over her, branding her skin with heat.
All that seemingly surrounds them now is ozone – oxygen-rich air charged with electricity and tinged with the dangerous sharpness of chlorine. A warning that they should be able to smell and taste, even if the blue-black atmosphere sizzles with unspoken words and unsatiated hunger. He swallows hard and settles his hands at her sides, barely brushing against the smooth warmth of the silk. What follows is the solid press of his fingertips; a tension-breaking touch that seems to calm the storm of temptation. Neither of them really knows how the moment shatters in such an instant, how it swirls from something laden with more weight than either can carry to a steady peace.
The blanket on the side of the sofa that he pulls around her waist becomes a soft anchor that holds her in place.
"You comfy like this?" Somehow it seems fitting that she should stay downstairs, avoiding both the journey on the stairs and the strange loneliness of a newly empty bed.
A scant nod is all the confirmation he gets before disappearing and bringing her back another array of items that will be of help: hot tea, her bottle of painkillers with the cap unscrewed and an oddly amusing hot-water bottle that has a cartoon penguin as a cover.
"He's a bit cuddlier than me," he says gently while handing her the warm, plush object.
"Are you going to let me test that theory?" The water sloshing around in the bottle almost obscures the lightness in her tone; for the slightest second, he wonders if the pendulum will swing back towards that sharp red area loaded with uncertainty.
"I'm just asking you to sit with me for a bit," she clarifies in a whisper, huddling into the sources of warmth and comfort that he's provided. The cards in their game fall back into familiar suits - a king, a queen and a hand of friendship.
As he joins her again there's just the steady rhythm of the rain outside that gives way to the motion of memories for both of them. Being bruised, battered and beside each other is nothing old and nothing new. Even in the quiet, they are aware this will happen again at some point. There will still be pain, silence and mind games. There will still be storms, lightning and ozone – that electric and dangerous entity.
There will be a day when everything between them will be dangerous, electric, and so very, very right.