AN: So this happened. It wasn't planned. It's... different.

ADRIFT

You're drifting.

You know you are. You just... stopped caring.

The whiskey is burning its way down, harsh in your throat until the familiar heat blossoms in your stomach, spreads to your limbs.

You don't even like whiskey.

Nor should you be here, in this dingy bar with its beer stains and ripped vinyl stools where the stuffing oozes out like a disease, with the insults and propositions scrawled all over the bathroom stalls.

But they don't look too closely and they let you be, and it's what you sought; it's all you can handle today.

It's so different from how you'd always envisioned this day to be. So different from one year ago when you were goofing around while you blew out the candles and you almost set your hair on fire.

There weren't twenty candles flickering for you today. No home-made cake that looked a little lopsided because your mom almost never baked but she did for you. No off-key singing that flushed your cheeks with embarrassment before you took off with a few of your high school friends you hadn't seen since you'd left for Stanford in the summer.

You're not sure you have friends now. Death, grief has this way of slicing a gash between you and everybody else, you've had to find out; an ever-widening chasm. First it bleeds awkward support, then scabs with growing incomprehension for why you aren't over it yet, aren't grieving and moving on in the way everybody seems to expect. A corrugated, malignant trench, insurmountable to cross.

Not that you can blame them. You're not much fun these days. You're either angry or numb; there's no in-between. You prefer the anger; at least you're feeling something.

It had always appealed to you, this clear gateway that delineated your teens from your twenties. You had lofty ambitions, high-flying visions of what you wanted your life to be like, of who you wanted to be, a naive expectation of how everything would start once you finally turned twenty.

And then your dreams died right along with your mother in that alley three hundred and thirteen days ago.

You take another mouthful, swallow it down quickly, a meager attempt to drown the sorrow before the sorrow drowns you all over again. The ice rattles against the sides of the glass as you slam it down on the counter.

Your dad called, of course. His speech slightly slurred even though it was barely noon, but at least he remembered. He didn't ask to see you and you didn't bring it up; seeing each other would've meant acknowledging the gaping hole in your lives and you just can't do it.

If you still cared, you'd feel lonely sometimes. But you don't.

It suits you just fine.

From the corner of your eye you notice the guy sitting one stool over gesturing at the bartender, then at you, before another shot is pushed across the sticky counter in front of you. You ignore him but you reach for the glass just the same, a gift horse and all that, and you take a swig.

It's, oh. Better. Less burn in your esophagus, more sharp flavor on your tongue, a bit woodsy, dark and complicated. Not the cheap stuff then.

"Rough day?" He asks, and at first you want to ignore it; you didn't come here for company, you don't want to talk. But there's something in his voice, sadness or defeat - you can't tell but it speaks to you, mirrors the ravaging ache in your heart.

"Rough year," you murmur, staring down the liquor while you swirl it around in the tumbler, over and over and over. It's hypnotic, the way the smooth liquid coats the inside of the glass, then slowly recedes, like the ocean pulled in by the tide.

He scoots closer, settles onto the bar stool next to yours. "Yeah," he nods, lifting the glass to his lips. His fingers look thick wrapped around the tumbler; strong. "Wanna talk about it?"

You turn, look at him for the first time. He's older than you expected; older than you in any case but the good kind of older- the sophisticated, not the creepy middle-aged stalker kind. Rugged features, his nose distinctive the way it tilts down; sharp cheekbones, scruff blooming along the wide jawline. The bluest eyes you think you've ever seen.

Heat flares in your midsection, curls through your limbs. You dismiss it; it's just the whiskey talking.

You shake your head, hold his stare. "I just want to not think."

He nods, lifts his glass in acknowledgment, lets the silence settle.

It's almost companionable, the quiet that drifts between this stranger and you. Strangers in the Night pops into your head and it makes you chuckle in that dark, forlorn way. Your mom loved Sinatra.

You start feeling a slight buzz humming in your brain so you make yourself sip slower; you don't want to get drunk. You hate losing control. Too much has been out of your control and it's all you have left.

Besides, your father is doing enough of that for the both of you.

You adjust on the seat and your knee accidentally brushes his; that familiar heat flares again, brighter. Intense. It's been a long time since you've felt anything but the churning, devastating anger that swallows your blood, eats away at your flesh, abrades your bones. Since you've allowed yourself to feel anything else.

You leave your knee against his, with his warmth seeping through the denim of your jeans and the tingles that climb your spine. "You come here often?" You murmur, glance at him from the side.

He shifts, surprise on his face that you spoke at all, yet careful not to reveal much else. "No."

"Me neither."

Condensation pearls down the sides of the glass; you catch a drop with your thumb, ice-cold against the whorls of your skin and you suck your finger into your mouth, savor the contrast of hot against cold.

You can feel his eyes on your lips, a devastating midnight blue that pierces deep where your body has been numb for so long, jarring you awake. Your heart slams against your ribs, taking your breath.

There's something there, something that draws you in, makes you feel brave and stupid both. You don't do this, you remind yourself, but the idea is luring you in, the temptation strong. Heat flashes inside of you, teasing, tempting, and you feel anchored for the first time since that fateful, icy January day.

So you do it.

"Wanna get out of here?"

He gets a nice hotel room, upscale and discreet, and you fuck against the bathroom door, hard and fast. Wedged between the unyielding wood and his broad chest, your nails clawed into his neck and the thick of his shoulder. He thrusts inside and you savor the twinge that isn't quite pain when he enters you, the thickness that fills you deep, so deep, the heat that spreads concentrically, consumes you from the inside out. He grips beneath your knee, lifts your leg high and you wrap it around his waist, practically climb his body as he opens you wider, your body surging for more, more, everything.

You relish the tidal wave of sensations that drags you with, pulls you under, almost drowns you before you come up for air and you breathe, breathe- you feel like you haven't been breathing for months.

You slump against him when it's over, your knees giving out. The silence seems to pulsate in rhythm with your heavy breathing and your brain resumes in fits and starts, realizations filtering through.

Fuck, what the hell are you doing? Most of your clothes are still on. And you don't even know his name.

You garner what courage you have left to lift your head but you're not at all prepared for the solace you find in his eyes, for the tenderness when he cradles your face between his palms, softly kisses your cheeks, sipping at the trail of tears you didn't know you had cried.

"What's your name?" He asks quietly, and you wonder if he read your thoughts.

Katie, is your first instinct but you shake it off. You're not that person anymore. "Kate."

He caresses your cheekbones, runs his fingers through your hair, his touch so tender that your eyelids flutter closed. "I'm Rick."

"Rick..." You try it out, find that you like the feel of it in your mouth, the vibration of the 'R' and the sharp, distinct 'K'.

He lifts you up and you let him, cling to him like a lifesaver thrown to you in the bobbing sea as he carries you toward the bed, gently lies you down. You sink into the downy softness of the comforter; it billows around you as he peels off your shirt, your bra. The air hits your skin, crests your nipples and he's watching you, just watching; taking you in with such absolute awe on his face, the intimacy wrapping like a cloak around you.

Too much, your brain rebels, too much; you fight it, rise to open his buttons, rip the shirt off his shoulders and arms; you can't handle intimate, you need hard again, fast and all-consuming, clamor for it, your nails scraping down his chest. Your fingers trail lower, seeking, but he captures your hand, stretches out above you. His weight settles on you, grounding you, your wrists held in his loose grip, stretched out above your head.

"Kate," he murmurs, his eyes boring into you. You swallow hard, past the lump in your throat at the depth of understanding in his eyes, the quiet care when he knows nothing, nothing of what happened, nothing of your life except that you need this, need him, and then his fingers trail down your abdomen, between your legs, slide through your slick heat, his eyes darkening with arousal. He slowly circles your clit, over and over and over and you give in, your eyes falling shut and your hips surging high as sensation spreads like a wildfire, roaring through your insides, consuming everything in its wake.

He kisses you, his tongue stroking deep, warm and intense before his mouth trails lower, his teeth nipping at the soft skin of your neck, his tongue following in soothing brushes. His lips close around your breast, sucking you inside his hot mouth, playing with his teeth and his tongue and pleasure arrows from your nipple straight between your legs.

He explores your skin, relishes every dip and plane and valley, his lips his teeth his tongue all over you, hot and soft and damp and you're alive, so alive, your skin vibrating, body humming, arching, seeking.

He bends your legs high when he sinks inside you once more, finally, finally, his fingers clenched tight behind your knees as he rocks into you, small sharp thrusts that fill you deep, take your breath, your heart racing with it, your muscles squeezing his length. You're writhing beneath him, your body undulating, weightless, floating on the cresting, crashing waves of sensation.

You've never been touched with such skill, with such attention to your reactions, to every hiss and moan and flex of your muscles; with such reverence in every caress.

It's almost too much, how it's all just for you but when you lift your eyes to his, stare into the deep blue that's almost black you notice how he's taking from you just as much as he's giving, see how he's drawing you in, soaking your every reaction inside himself as if you're a treasure he never wants to forget he found.

It's almost, almost like he's making love to you and it's nothing like you expected; it's everything.

You startle awake in the middle of the night, surprised that you fell asleep at all. He's sprawled out next to you, eyes clenched shut and lips slack, and you wake him with your mouth, savor his flavor as he rises beneath you, touch and explore to the jerky rhythm of his hips. He groans your name, wanton and lost in sensation, lost in you and you soak all of it into yourself, this feeling of being so wanted, the surge of power and the way he's giving himself to you so completely until his whole body tenses and he shatters for you, the powerful muscles quivering in syncopation with his lustful groans.

He guides you up, fingers gripped around your hipbones, up, up until you're hovering above his face. He slicks his tongue through your folds, moaning around your wetness and heat curls tightly through you. You settle down on his mouth, your hips dancing with the rhythm of his lips and tongue, the hot swirls of sensation that make your blood sing, your skin hum. He slides two fingers inside, sandwiches your nerves, giving you complete control of the pressure, the intensity, of everything and you don't know why he gets it, how it is he understands but you need it, you need it so much. You cling to it with your hips bucking, thighs like a vice around his head and your fingers gripped to the headboard, riding his face feverishly until your body tightens, muscles coiled like a spring, winding tighter and tighter, consuming you until it releases forcefully, shatters you from the inside out.

You sneak out at six thirteen in the morning, hail a cab just as the grey November dawn is consuming the night sky. Your body twinges, sore in all the good places and for the first time in three hundred and thirteen days, you feel like you've washed onto the shore; your legs still wobbly where you stand but there it is, solid ground.

You never forget. Every once in a while you still feel the ghost of his fingers on your skin, remember the devastating knowledge in his eyes, the understanding in his touch; you mourn that instant, overwhelming connection you've never felt again.

You figure out who he is, of course. Eventually. But you don't see him again.

Until one day, on a rooftop bathed in glitz and glamour - you do.

FIN