This is for OneshotWonder429
Bad Habits
She's feeling the need to gasp for air. Her lungs are starting to burn. Her lips feel swollen from his kiss and she's pretty sure she's going to be sporting some serious stubble burn around her mouth. She wonders where else on her body he could leave that familiar burning trail. Her whole body shudders at the thought.
She's clinging to him. Her hands are clutching his back and her fingers are digging in to him with force. She feels out of control. Her scrubs top is bunched up under her ribs and he has one hand caressing her side, the other is in her hair holding the back of head, keeping her in place. He is kissing her hard and she's kissing him back with just as much fervour. She has to tear her mouth away to breathe. She can hear him panting in short quick breaths just like her which makes her realise he is just as out of control as she is. His mouth moves to her chin and she tilts her head back slightly to give him better access. He is trailing kisses from the underside of her jaw down on to her neck. The brief break has allowed her breathing to slow slightly and she wants his mouth back on hers. Her hand moves from his back to the side of his face and she drags him the short distance back up towards her and she's kissing him again. His hand finally moves from the back of her head. She assumes he must be feeling pretty confident by now that she isn't going to do a runner. It surprises her a bit though when his newly freed hand starts tugging loose the drawstrings on her waistband. The anticipation of what he is about to do only makes her kiss him harder. He has finally managed to undo the triple knot she'd tied to keep her scrubs firmly in place, and he is now tugging on the waistband so he can slip his hand inside.
A phone rings. She can hear it but it sounds far away.
He jerks away from her and she curses quietly, she had all but forgotten where they were.
The phone is still ringing and neither of them make any move to answer it. The only other sound filling the room is their laboured breathing. She chances a glance towards him finding his eyes, he looks about as shocked as she is feeling. The phone is still ringing. It's the emergency line for the theatre. There's a second phone which shares the same line in the scrub room where they are. It must be ringing because someone is looking for her.
She'd finished operating only a few minutes prior, the theatre had been deserted by all other staff when the patient was taken to recovery and she'd ended up alone in the scrub room with Fletch. Duty kicks in and she walks quickly towards the phone. Her top slipping back down to cover her as she moves, her bottoms which are far to loose now start to slip down to her hips and she has to grab hold of them with one hand to stop them falling down any further.
"What?" She asks grabbing the phone and putting it to her ear, she doesn't care who is on the other end of the line. Her voice sounds a bit rough to her own ears and she knows she better check her appearance prior to leaving the room. She feels disheveled so can only imagine what she looks like.
There's a nurse on the other end of the line asking her if another department can use the theatre for an emergency. She's only half listening as the nurse starts giving her the patients information, information which she doesn't need to know because it isn't her patient. She moves the phone to her shoulder and tilts her head to the side to hold it in place, freeing up her hand so she can re-tie the drawstrings to keep her trousers up. She can feel Fletch's eyes on her, knows he is watching her closely. She's half wishing he'd just leave the room but she knows better. He is going to want to talk to her now about what had just happened. She doesn't want to talk. She wants to get out of here and away from him as quickly as she can without leaving a trail of destruction behind her.
"Tell them they can have the theatre, but they need to be in and out as quickly as possible." She instructs into the phone.
She doesn't want the theatre out of commission long in case there is an emergency on Darwin. She knows from experience that there's bound to be one when all the theatres are in use at the same time, and she'll end up having to operate on an unsterile ward, and not for the first time. The other theatres are occupied with elective surgeries, so it would be just typical for that to happen.
When the nurse stops talking she hangs up the phone without offering any form of pleasantry and turns around. She unashamedly takes a good look at the man standing a few feet from her. His scrubs are crinkled almost beyond recognition, his hair is tousled, lips still slightly swollen and his features are graced with an expression that she doesn't recognise. She can't help but feel a little bit smug that she was the one to reduce him to a speechless mess.
He must have finally noticed she's off the phone and staring at him because he looks up suddenly and is searching her eyes for something. The silence is starting to feel a bit tense and a slight crackle is still filling the air around them. It's a bit overwhelming so she looks away into the empty theatre but catches a glimpse of herself in the glass instead. Her scrubs are even more crinkled than his and her hair is sticking up in places she didn't think was possible. She can even just about make out the slight red colouring forming almost like sunburn, around her mouth on her usually pale skin. She knows it'll disappear shortly but hopes some powder will cover it in the meantime.
"We can talk if you want too?" He eventually offers.
She shakes her head. "I've got things to be getting on with."
He simply gives her a small nod of understanding.
She runs her fingers through her hair to try and smooth out the rebellious stray hairs as she heads for the door. She hopes she can make it to the locker room without being seen.
Safely back in her office, changed and powder applied to her face, she feels a little bit more relaxed. There's a pile of paperwork waiting for her, no doubt left on her desk by Petrenko while she was in surgery and she needs to review the forms Fletch had left her to sign. She quickly logs into her terminal to ensure there is nothing urgent waiting for her, and a few minutes later and she's making steady progress through the mundane pile of admin.
Just a few hours later she's managed to get through most of it. Petrenko had been in to drop off more paperwork and collect the ones that had already been completed. She knows Fletch is going to have no choice but to come into her office to collect his forms soon. She knows the deadline is today by 5pm and it's already 4.30pm. She starts to tingle slightly at the thought of him. This is new she thinks, but figures she hadn't known what it was like to kiss him before today and now she'd had a taste of it her body had turned traitor. It wanted more.
At 4.45pm he strolls into her office and stops in the middle of the room. She gets up, walks towards him and hands him the already signed forms before he has a chance to ask for them.
"Deadline is 5pm remember, don't miss it." She tells him.
They are in close proximity again and she feels the air once again start to crackle around them. Her eyes are on his and without conscious thought they drop to his mouth. She gives herself an internal slap and drags her eyes back up to his. She knows he saw it.
He is looking at her, wearing the same expression he had on earlier right before he'd kissed her in the scrub room. She knows what he is thinking. He takes a small step towards her and she panics. Does the only thing she knows that will stop him from going any further, she takes a step backwards. He freezes instantly, exactly as she expected. His mouth opens and closes but eventually he manages to speak.
"Look, I'm not expecting for us to have some big conversation about what this is or where it's going. I just want…" he falters. Takes a breath and tries again. "I'm just sick of pretending I don't have feelings for you." He looks away from her and she's floored by his honesty. He turns and walks out of the room before she's even had a chance to figuratively pick her jaw up off the floor.
She hasn't missed the effort he is making to play this game by her rules. He doesn't seem to be wanting to force her into making some grand admission about her feelings for him. He had clearly been trying to show her how he felt, not just earlier, but for some time now and she's always responded better to actions, rather than words. He'd offered her the chance to talk but only if she had wanted too. Eventually he had settled on just being outright honest with her, a quality she has always appreciated and something she likes most about him.
She knows she is trying to push him away consciously or unconsciously it didn't really matter which. She doesn't want to but can't seem to stop it from happening. She knows the definition of insanity is repeating the same actions over and over but each time expecting a different outcome. She'd done the same thing in all of her previous relationships. It was certainly the habit of a lifetime.
She spends the rest of the day in her office.
At 6:45pm she decides she's had enough and it's time to go home. She grabs her things and heads out of her office. She sees Fletch and Petrenko talking in the corridor near the locker room. She offers them both a small smile before turning away and pressing the button to call the lift.
She heads out of the building and into the car park. She thinks hard to remember which spot she'd left her car in this morning. Walks up an aisle aimlessly looking for it. She spots Fletch's car and suddenly she knows she doesn't want to go home alone. Maybe, just maybe it was time to break her habit of a lifetime.
Her mind made up she finds herself standing next to his car. Glances at her watch and knows she won't have to wait long. He should be able to get changed and out of there in less than 10 minutes. His shift is over and he was obviously at the locker room to get changed. It's cold out though and she pulls her coat further around her trying to keep warm. She leans against the passenger side door and taps her fingers against it almost impatiently.
"Thought you'd gone home." He states almost nonchalant as he notices her and starts to walk towards her.
She doesn't reply just makes eye contact.
"What are you doing here?" He asks her a few moments later when the silence had stretched for a moment to long.
"Don't play dumb, we both know why I'm here." She chastises him. She knows he is waiting for her to make a move or offer up some sort of further explanation but she doesn't want to give him the satisfaction. She'd already been standing in the cold waiting for him for the last 10 minutes. What more can he possibly want from her she wonders. She stays firmly rooted to her spot by his car door.
He seems to get it, because he moves into her space. She's expecting him to kiss her but instead he moves to hug her.
"What are you doing?" She asks, surprised.
"Shut up." He tells her softly.
She relaxes into him, wraps her arms up around him and lets out a long breath she didn't know she'd been holding. She feels him turn his face into her neck and place a gentle kiss there. It feels good. She really likes the way he is pressing so fully against her. It feels ridiculously intimate for a hug.
He opens the passenger door behind her without warning and she automatically moves away from him to get inside. Before she knows it they are driving off in the direction of her house. She's not sure how he always seems to know exactly what she wants before she's even asked for it, hell, sometimes he seems to know what she wants before she does. She's glad for it though. It seems to work for them.