Cross-posed on AO3. I do not own FDTD or any of its characters. This is something I spat out when I had writer's block while working on my AU. Set some time post-season 3 finale.
"You say you'll kiss my lips until they bleed - you might be right...
When I'm with you, I feel cool wild whatever,
It doesn't matter what as long as we're together"
The low hum of the air conditioner is the only sound that fills the room. Kate finds its monotony almost soothing and it isn't long until she starts to feel its effects on her body, her eyelids growing heavy and her breathing slow.
They've been on the road for about four or five months now, hitting different towns every couple of nights. Never in the same place for long. Not completely unlike the time she spent with Seth after the Titty Twister and… well, the start of everything else. But everything was different now; they had lost too much, nearly everything.
But they also had Richard now, who definitely came equipped with his own unique advantages and challenges, too.
Her descent into sleep doesn't last long. There's a shift on the mattress and she can feel Seth's body roll toward her. She instinctively moves away from him, still upset from earlier events from that evening.
"Kate," he whispers from behind her, his breath warm against the back of her head. "Are you awake?"
She doesn't say anything, but it's almost as if he can sense her consciousness, because he doesn't stop talking.
"I'm sorry, Kate."
Seth's finger presses gently against her skin, and it doesn't take her very long to figure out he's tracing out the word sorry . She wonders briefly if he's drunk, but she doesn't smell anything on him.
"Go to Richie's room tonight," she mumbles into her pillow, nudging his hand away from her shoulder. "Not done being annoyed with you."
"Richard's annoyed with me too."
Pause. "Surprising."
"Don't you want to know why?" he asks.
"Not really."
"He said he feels like I undermine you. And that I do it to him too. All the time."
No response.
"I'm sorry that you feel like I was undermining you."
A scoff.
He sighs. "Okay. I'm sorry that I was completely undermining you. You're both right, alright?"
She relaxes a bit at his apology, happy that for once it had come from him sober, and when her life wasn't in danger.
This is sort of a first for him. For all she knew, probably with anyone.
"I'm sorry that I do it. I'm sorry I'm such an asshole," he continues with a long sigh. "Just… keep calling me out on my shit, okay?"
"I guess I can," she responds, shrugging. "I'm pretty good at that."
"You kidding? You're the best at it. I'm gonna work on it."
She smiles in spite of herself and he presses his lips against the back of her neck, the stubble on his face lightly scratching her skin. She waits before she lets herself give in to him completely, deciding to milk this moment for all that it's worth.
Her plan works. He nuzzles his face deeper into the crane of her neck, planting warm, soft kisses wherever his lips land. His right hand finds its way into her hair, gently grazing her scalp in a way that by now, he knows completely undoes her. His other hand rests on top of her hip.
She buries herself into him then and lets out an audible sigh, which encourages him to bring up his free hand to tug down the collar of her shirt, letting his lips trail kisses down her shoulder. He bites her there, catching her completely off-guard.
"Seth!" she shouts, turning her head around to look at him.
He catches her lips instantly with his mouth before can she say anything else, and she forgets what it is she would have said anyway, resting her hand on the back of his neck as she turns the rest of her body to face him.
He deepens the kiss for a moment, and then pulls away, tugging at her bottom lip with his teeth. This elicits a low moan that Kate almost doesn't recognize as her own voice. He bites on her lip again, this time harder, and then sucking, like he's trying to draw blood without actually breaking skin.
She laughs. "First you undermine me and my ideas, and now you keep trying to eat me?"
He raises an eyebrow, visibly amused. "Oh. Not yet, Katie."
His mouth is on her neck again, this time trailing the skin of her collarbone. She closes her eyes and leans back, allowing her hands to scratch at the back of his neck.
"You know," she speaks between sharp breaths, "this won't always work."
"I know."
"Apologizing and then trying to seduce me. Or… whatever… it is that... you're doing."
"I know, Kate," he says, his voice sending a vibration through her skin.
"You're lucky I wasn't that mad at you."
He laughs at that, and lifts his head up to meet her eyes. "You almost walked out on a heist and 'you weren't that mad?'"
"No, I didn't! I nearly walked out on you two planning a heist because you constantly shoot down all of my ideas," she says in defense of herself. "Now shut up before I get mad at you again, Gecko."
He brings his focus back to kissing her neck, his warm, large hands slowly pushing the fabric of her t-shirt up.
"Best idea you've ever contributed," he says, bringing his mouth down to her stomach.
She picks up the below beside her head and swings it over his head, causing his hand to shoot up and grab at her wrist, pinning it down to the mattress, right beside her hip. Her other hand is still grasping at his neck, fingers slowing coming their way up through his short, dark hair. She is all but tugging at it once he starts raking his teeth across the soft skin of her stomach.
He slips one of his hands into the waistband of her bottoms, an old pair of green boxers that had actually belonged to Seth at one point. The hand he'd had pinned down to the mattress was free to join her other hand in his hair.
She is close to blissed out at this point, and he has hardly even done anything to her yet. Her head is spinning by the time he takes his hands and mouth off of her body, pulling himself up so that his face was just inches from hers. All she wants to do is drag his mouth down on top of her own and slip off his pants. But he's beating her to it, eyes watching her beneath him as he undoes the buckle on his belt.
She tugs down her own shorts while he works on himself, sliding them down her legs until she is able to kick them off beneath the sheets.
His hand is between her legs again, and she wants so badly for him to just get on with it, but is still intent on riding this out the whole way through. It isn't like this kind of thing specifically was rare with Seth. They had only been together in this way for two months now, and Kate didn't have any experience beforehand, but she's already gotten used to a certain standard, one she could tell Seth prided himself on.
But she'd been angry with him less than fifteen, maybe twenty minutes before all of this, and the last thing she's about to do is not let him make it up to her.
His lips are on hers once more as he guides himself inside of her, and she tosses her head back onto her pillow as she feels herself stretch around him.
"God, Kate," he says, followed by a series of swears that all blur into each other, before Kate bites down on his lip to keep him from talking. Just hard enough to tease him. Like trying to draw blood without breaking skin.
She begins to drift off beside him not long after, his head resting against her shoulder. His fingers trace another pattern on her skin, over and over again; Kate Kate Kate.
Instead of the air conditioner, the sound of his breathing lulls her to sleep.
