This is a repost as it seems to have disappeared from this site by magic or something. Anyway this was my first Peter/Carla story and was written way back when Peter first started helping Carla and it was rumoured she had feelings for him. That is all ;)
We Hope That You Don't Remember Constructions of Heaven
She wriggled a little, tucking her slim legs underneath herself, bit into her bottom lip and looked up at him through her dark eyelashes. A bottle of scotch rose almost triumphant in one hand and somehow she seemed both coy and the most dangerously appealing creature he had ever laid eyes upon.
He had never known her but he had always seen the danger lurking there. Heard from his fiancé (he remembered her so well, remembered how he thought she used to love him) about every new trauma and secretly he understood how a heart could become so callous with such steady damage. He caught the haunted shadow in her eyes across the bar and knows that the loss has already been too great for her to survive whole. He remembers idly wondering if she had any physical scars to mar that perfect exterior after her world literally was burnt to the ground.
Sometimes he was a cruel man, his family, staying sober; it never took all of it away completely. Maybe Leanne got tired of waiting on him to finally be better.
Now he knows her better than most, saw her open and nothing more than a small heartbroken girl and perhaps she is not the temptress she seems to be. The exquisite package was filled with unbearable loneliness and she wanted someone to share the fall, the destruction.
But he had fallen first, fallen a long time ago and spent so long trying to crawl his way back up. He understood freewill, knew that he was so damn sick of trying and she was the easiest, quickest way of self-destructing.
They were going to try and take little Simon away from him. His own bastard of a father was trying to take away the only innocent thing he had left. Leanne had left and the drinking had started soon after. But he had it under control, just enough to take the edge off while things were raw and never (NEVER) around Simon. And still he is not worthy and his own fucking family want to snatch his precious son away.
He wonders if they understand that he has already given up. It was finally too much and he would never the good man who overcomes the odds. He kisses her closed lipped and cold as he stole the bottle from her grip, watched as she pouted in return.
A little spills as his hand shakes but he drinks like a pro, big gulps and never wincing. She claps her hands and laughs with a manic glee enjoying the show but he is not gone enough to ignore the hollowness to it.
She had been doing so well, staying sober, and working hard, maybe a little too hard. He should have been more insistent that she had some kind of therapy but that was just another thing he did not do properly. He knows enough, about the flashbacks to a burning building and a psycho, knows that her soul is buried underground with a rotting corpse.
And her fall, personal and just as self-inflicted, coincided with his. It was as if they were a trapeze act who judged the big finish wrong only to both be doomed as they fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs.
They should have used a damn safety net.
His own laugh is deep and bitter and he can feel it vibrating in his chest as he wonders when he became so self pitying (always had been, just hid it better, remember).
She whines at him and tells him to share and he is far gone enough to find it amusing as well as annoying. She raises herself up on her knees, hands skimming his thighs and hips to support herself so she can snatch the bottle back. He can feel the warmth in her touch through the starch of his jeans.
He had never fucked her. Not that he had not been tempted, a beautiful and normally untouchable woman vulnerable and looking for comfort. It had been a useful fantasy on a number of occasions. But he is smart enough to know that it would not happen like he imagined in his head as he jerked off (Leanne and Nick, he should have seen it; he did see it and it happened anyway but it all goes away when he imagines dark hair tickling his thighs and a warm mouth around his length). She would never be that passive, never accepting something like that as comfort. She was a burning sun going supernova and her fire and anger could use him up if he was not carful.
Maybe he was falling for her in a way, felt relief in their shared destruction and still admired her strength no matter how twisted and misguided it had become. So he watches as she somehow lies down and yet manages to drink from the bottle without spilling a drop from the odd angle. Her tights were laddered at the ankle and he likes how her outfit defies her unnatural elegance.
Self destructing with a similar minded friend really did have its benefits.
They wanted to take his son and he needed a fucking smoke.
The same thought came back to him when he least expected it. It tore into his heart and he found himself needing to try and learn to be indifferent to wide intelligent brown eyes and adorable dimples. He would lose the little man anyway. So he tries to be constantly on guard and tires not to look at the children he passes in the street.
His lighter had half fallen into the hole between his jackets pocket and the lining. He swears as he fishes it out. Her toes curl as she stretches out. The air is already stale.
She flinches at the metallic noise as he flips the lighter open, every muscle in her body constricting for a painful long moment, before she recovers enough to crawl into the furthest corner away from him.
And oh god he could never be that cruel, it's just for a moment he forgot. He wanted so much to forget. Understood that she shared his goal and with one silly action he brought the weight of it all back upon her.
In the light of the small flame he can't help but notice the way her nails dig into her palms or the sharp rise and fall of her chest.
They wanted to take away his son.
He shuts the lighter and tosses it away leaving them in the gloom.
She stands in her corner as he approaches always battling on no matter what the wound. He thinks she might have been a ninja in a past life, sleek and deadly and unwavering.
Instinctively he pulls her tight body to his. His arms wrap around her slender form as he peppers chaste kisses along her hair line. Sorry, he wants to say. Sorry we can't stop hurting each other just as we can't stop hurting ourselves.
She leans in to him but she does not soften against him. Her nose presses against the warm leather of his jacket as she inhales deeply and maybe he is forgiven. "I hate this. I fucking hate this so much." She growls with frustration into the fabric, her meaning both vague and clearer than either of them would ever be comfortable with.
And then, sudden as flicking a light switch something changes. Momentarily his numbed nerves were alive and dancing. He can feel the same change in her, feels it in the strong beating of her heart.
In the change the power is somehow hers and as she kisses him he lets it go willingly. She tastes so familiar and still exotically exciting and he can not help but press himself closer to her when her mouth opens under his.
Her finger tips dance over his chest and he does not want to be teased but she refuses to let him object, her hands travel to the waist band of his jeans and pulls the both of them to their knees.
When he gasps for air she takes the opportunity to bite painfully into his bottom lip. Sticky crimson blood staining her lips darker than any lipstick shade.
Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. It breaks through the alcohol induces haze and his desirer like the sharpest razor blade. He never wanted to fall this far and yet he can not bring himself to pull away entirely.
"Carla, this shouldn't happen." He speaks the words without thinking.
He had been scared for her but he had never been scared of her. But then something dark and harsh crosses her face. Her bloodshot eyes fill with a resolve strong enough to make him quiver.
She throws her head back and laughs lazily and she might be mocking him or herself. She pulls herself back upright with her grip on his belt loops and then she is so close they are forced to share the same air. Her hand grabs him through his trousers. He bucks in an attempt to get away but she holds him steady a cold clinical glint in her eyes as he hardens against her rough palm.
Her other hand forces his head closer so that she can whisper, her lips grazing his ear. "If I squeeze my eyes tight enough I can almost believe you are someone else."
The desolation in her tone would make him want to vomit but he is just as desperate and he tries to make his thoughts disappear by will alone. He pulls back just enough that he can kiss her again and grind himself against his hand. Her eyes remain tightly closed and he is willing to let her turn him into just a body, a tool. If he is only that then maybe the sum of his parts could be judged whole again.
He knows he is too drunk to last, probably would not even last long enough to satisfy her. But that was never the point. She only wanted to burn.