Title: Sexual Tension
Author: Phaedra's Love
Fandom: Six Feet Under
Pairing: Claire/Gary
Disclaimer: I do not own Six Feet Under. Please do not sue me.
"Claire? Claire Fisher?" The familiar voice jolts the redhead out of her drunken stupor and she turns her chin up, large unfocused eyes on the man standing next to her at the bar.
"Holy shit! Gary?" Her words come out in slow motion, a fumbled cigarette in her hand as she turns back to the bar, willing away another hallucination that's come back to haunt her. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I just came in for a drink with a few co-workers." As he sits down, her eyes slowly work their way over his familiar frame. How long had it been since she's seen him last? He seems so familiar to her. Same washed up khakis like he just jumped out of a Gap commercial for high school guidance counselors, same alarmingly calm and charming smile. "It looks like you're having a rough night, Claire..." He says it in that way that's so familiar to her that she just wants to break her glass over the bar top. She wants to cut his skin just to make sure that there's real human parts in there, and not just some bubble green jello world.
"My brother died." Claire says unapologetically before turning back to her drink. Nothing but a blanket of silence following a sharp intake of breath from Gary and she wants to smile. She wants it to hurt, she wants everyone to hurt as much as she does.
"I'm sorry to hear that." He says after a minute, his voice slow and sure like he has been practicing this line for the last ten years. She can almost feel his eyes drifting from her face to the drink in her hand. It's not the first drink of the night and Claire has the feeling it won't be the last either.
"You know, it's natural during periods of grieving for..."
"Shut up, Gary. Save your high school guidance counselor bullshit for someone who needs it. I'm not seventeen anymore." Claire cuts him off quickly with a wave of her hand before draining the glass in her hand.
"I had noticed that. Well, the part about you not being seventeen anymore." He says slyly, and she marvels at the fact that his voice hardly changes at all. It's like he's permanantly bestowing his cracktop Sears ordered teaching certificate philosophy on everyone, Claire can't help but think.
When his eyes move across her again she's suddenly reminded of a thousand things. Parker McKenna comes to mind and she suddenly wants him to stand up just so she can inspect the supposed cute butt. It's now been acknowledged and will never be acted upon. She wants to snort at that. Seventeen years old with no clue of who she was or what she wanted to do and she had no idea what he was talking about when it came to sexual tension. He was never damaged enough for her, the only thing she ever found appealing was the innate wrongness of screwing your guidance counselor. Suddenly it seems like four years of sexual tension spring to the surface and she can't even think about tearing her eyes away from his.
"So, no guidance counselor bullshit then. What do you need, Claire?" He asks her like he means it and that's the part that suddenly gets to her.
"I just need..." Her voice falters as her fingertips stray to his hand on the bar, brushing against the warm skin there. "I just need to feel like everything isn't so fucking pointless. I just need to feel something. Jesus, Gary. Anything." She's suddenly so mad she wants to pull her hand away from his but she doesn't.
Her fingers close around his hand and she gets to her feet a little too quickly.
"Come home with me." She says impulsively.
And impulsively, he follows.