Author's Note:
Written for sweetjamielee's "Everything Changes" 2014 TGW Ficathon. Prompt: Alicia/Kalinda - Kalinda has always found it easier to fuck strangers, so in a way it's better now that Alicia has become one.
The fic may have mutated a little.
The headlights of a passing car slice the room with brief illumination - just long enough to throw the figure before Kalinda into sharp relief - before plunging it back into darkness.
And as her fingers ungently enter Alicia, she can't help wondering what exactly she's doing here. What either of them are doing here. The way that Alicia tenses around her speaks little of pleasure. Another car, another slice, and the shadowed face she briefly sees in front of her brings to mind penance more than anything else.
Whose penance, and to whom, is a question she prefers not to think about, and she drives faster, harder in effort to dispel thought.
The smell of sex, sharp and pungent, fills the air, and if she concentrates on that, this could be a random assignation like any other.
Maybe she'd prefer it if it was. Maybe that's why she can never quite convince herself it's not.
There's a noise, midway between a groan and a whimper in a voice she once knew, but it's been so long since she's heard it, really heard it, unfiltered by the electronic distortion of a cellphone it almost seems foreign.
Alicia's legs twitch, flail with a distinct lack of coordination that Kalinda would never have expected, before, half pushing her away, half pulling her close, always making her life more complicated, never quite letting her go. There's a sharp inhalation of breath, followed by a muffled name Kalinda can't quite make out, as Alicia comes around her, and Kalinda only just misses out on a knee to the face.
For a moment, it's quiet, the only sound that of Alicia's slowing breath, then, as always, the bed shifts as Alicia rises, dresses herself in the darkness then pads over to the basin. There's a click, and Alicia is illuminated in a pool of light as she fixes her hair, her makeup in the mirror.
For long minutes, Kalinda says nothing, does nothing, just watches her as something bubbles up inside. Finally, she can't help but open her mouth, speak, break the unspoken rule they've both adhered to since this began.
"What exactly are we doing here/"
Alicia freezes, her reflection casts Kalinda a sharp look. "Isn't it obvious?" she asks in that not-quite-right voice.
No, Kalinda wants to say, but doesn't, falling back into silence instead.
A minute later Alicia finishes off by touching up her lipstick. A click into brief darkness before the opening door casts almost painful light into the room. Alicia's silhouette pauses briefly n the doorway. "Next time, your choice?" her voice asks but it's not really a question and Kalinda doesn't bother to answer.
Then the door closes, leaving Kalinda alone in the night, illuminated only briefly by another slice as Alicia's car leaves her behind.