Disclaimer: Most definitely not mine.
A/N: I don't name any names so if it isn't obvious the man in this story is Sayid; the woman is of my own creation. I've taken liberties with post island life here and a few with his character, so pardon that. Also I have done very little "sexually charged" writing in the past so keep that in mind. And... enjoy!
The room is cold. It's the first thing she notices. The icy chill cutting through the thin fabric of her sundress, the one she bought especially for him and this trip because he loves to see her in blue. She pauses in the doorway, unwilling to go further, unable to retreat, to go back into the hall, back down the stairs, back home, back in time. She's bringing about her own destruction by staying, but there's nothing to be done. Some things run deeper than self-preservation.
"What are you doing in the doorway?" He's heard her, the sound of the door clicking shut and came to investigate. It's infuriating. There's no sneaking when he's around. She just wanted one minute. A single minute to pretend to be strong before he melted her with those eyes.
She doesn't answer; she can't answer. She can't look at him. Immediately he is on the alert. He says her name softly, "Is something the matter?"
"No," she answers, finding her voice. "Nothing."
But he can spot the lie in her voice before the word is out of her mouth. "Something is wrong," he says astutely. "Won't you tell me?"
Shutting her eyes, she prays for strength then pushes past him deeper into the room. She isn't thinking as she moves. Each action is automatic, down to the pause before the table and reaching for a glass. The manager of the hotel sent up complimentary wine, something hotel managers never did. When she commented on how odd it was, he had awkwardly explained that it was probably because he had been such a good customer for the hotel in the past.
Pulling at the cork, she spilled a few drops of red wine down the front of her dress. Without wiping it away, she pours herself a tall glass, far taller than is appropriate and turns back to him. He is looking at her curiously, pretending not to be as confused as he is. It isn't that he thinks she's never had alcohol, but he's never seen her with a drink in her hand before.
She did it for him, of course. He never touched a drop and she hated to indulge alone. But now, all she wants is anything that will make this easier. "I need a drink," she says, meeting his eyes for the first time, daring him to make a comment.
To her surprise, he doesn't answer. He's never been particularly loquacious, but he has always been able to communicate his meaning. The silence tells her he doesn't know what to think and it fills her with doubt. What if she's wrong? The word of an old man in a corner café means nothing. If it was true, he would guess immediately what provoked her change in attitude, it should always be on his mind, the fear that she will someday find out. He's assuming nothing.
The taste of the wine startles her tongue, the fresh tartness of it beginning to intoxicate her even before she's had her first swallow. Then it's gone, too fast, at any moment it's going to go to her head. She'll never be able to maintain this composure.
"Don't," he pleads as she reaches for the bottle again. "Please. Tell me. Did something happen while you were out?"
"Nothing," she replies curtly, reaching for the wine anyway. "Did something happen while you were in?"
He makes a frustrated growl low in his throat that curls her toes in spite of herself. She's helpless against him. Absolutely at his mercy. And it's his own damn fault that she knows what she knows now.
'You don't have to stay here and wait for me,' he'd said as he was leaving to meet with his business associates. 'Why don't you go have lunch in the town and I'll meet you back here?'
So she'd gone. She'd given him a kiss that promised more upon their reunion and floated out the door. It was beautiful outside that morning. She'd walked along the beach, carrying her sandals to feel the warm sand between her toes. The salesmen at the beachside shops had called her pretty and tried to sell her things at twice their value; and she'd taken the bait, purchasing a necklace of white and ice blue to match her dress.
When she'd gotten hungry she'd stopped at a tiny café, the kind that served tourists and residents alike and opened a book over her sandwich and iced tea. She was still barefoot because it didn't matter on the patio under red striped umbrellas that wavered in the warm breeze. She thought she would bring him back here later in the week. He loved tea of all kinds, and it was exceptional here.
The bill had just been delivered to her table when a wrinkled, grey-haired man had sat across from her. He startled her with his presence; even more when he used her name. She was getting to her feet and making nervous excuses when the old man had mentioned his name and a simple, three-word phrase.
"Don't trust him."
"Too late," she'd answered, now scanning for the waiter and desperate to get away.
"He's not who he says he is."
It was a constant detriment to her conversational skills that she had never learned to keep a lid on her emotions. She couldn't help but respond when someone said such things. "What would you know about him?" she snapped.
He told her what he knew. His blue eyes reflected his own pain at the things he told her, willing her to believe the unbelievable. Her love's life was unraveled before her with a dark twist she'd never heard before. Murderer, he told her. An assassin of the highest caliber. Death for hire. He's using you. He doesn't care for you. He cares for no one.
The tale left her reeling; her hands shook so she couldn't grasp her bag. She was torn between falling faint and introducing her fist to this man's jaw. But he had told the story with such conviction, with such genuine pain that she found it hard to ignore. She couldn't respond.
The man had looked at her with a knowing expression. "It's the truth," he said, placing a cold hand over hers. "Remember that."
It had been a half hour before she could move again; a half hour more before she could decide whether or not she would return to the hotel. Now that she had, she wondered why.
"It's so cold in here," she says. "I'm going out on the balcony." Brushing past him again, she keeps her eyes on the carpet, her fingers tight around the bowl of her glass.
This time, however, he isn't going to let her walk away. He reaches out with a sudden, well-aimed movement to grab her wrist. Gasping as he pulls her to face him, she drops the glass, spilling the red liquid over the carpet and over their toes.
The look in her eyes startles him as much as if she'd slapped him. He drops her arm instantly as he processes the fear he's horrified to discover, three steps from outright terror. "What happened?" he demands. "Tell me what happened!" Even now he doesn't allow himself to think of the possibility that she knows. He lets himself imagine fears he can comfort, crimes committed by others that he can avenge, misunderstandings that can be cleared with a few simple words.
"What if I don't?" she asks, scrambling to reapply the nonchalance she'd been wearing a moment before, trying to stave off his inquiries with a toss of her head.
Before he can stop himself, he's reaching for her again, grasping at her shoulders and barely refraining from shaking her. It's this inability to control himself that arises when he's frustrated; he can't care that he's making the situation worse. He curses her in his native tongue, dammit, woman, for the love of God, "Tell me what happened to you!"
"Are you going to hurt me if I don't?" she asks in a small voice, the final shreds of her coolness stripped away under the scrutiny of his eyes.
She watches him watch the walls of his world come crashing down. His hands leave her body as though he's just been burned and he stumbles back, knowing and disbelieving all at once. She watches as his entire body slumps into defeat, all sparks extinguished by a single phrase that should never have meant so much. He keeps his gaze from her, clearly knowing that if he doesn't, he'll be laying the rest of his shattered soul bare before her.
"I would never hurt you," he answers, the words scarcely escaping from his choked throat, so gentle and so absolutely pure, as if it is the only thing he has ever known for certain. "I would never- I'd never-"
He turns from her, burying his face in his hands, unable to face her any longer. He had been a fool, he realizes now. To think that he could keep this from her when it is as much a part of him as the blood now running cold in his veins, was a fantasy of the highest stupidity. He knows he can't explain it, not when the answers refuse to even satisfy him. How can he explain the way he can swallow the guilt he feels for what he is doing and proceed anyway? How can he justify the work he does for a man he despises when he believes so strongly that he is selling his very soul to do it?
He's been a fool again. How could a man so helpless to the desires of his heart manage to live his life doing things which demanded the abandonment of that heart? He'd sworn- But it didn't matter what he'd sworn. She'd accosted him with those eyes and held him hostage with that smile and he was lost.
The absence of tears on his part breaks the dreamlike spell she's been under. How very like him. How so very like him to refuse to yield to that emotion in front of her even as his life is collapsing. This observation brings first a laugh to her lips that quickly changes into a sob as her own tears pour forth, ever uninhibited by anyone's presence.
In the same breath she hates him for the lies and aches for him with every nerve she can access. Why should this have to happen to her? Why not someone else, someone who could never be so blissfully happy as she was with him? Why did the universe conspire against love? Couldn't it see that he was as much a part of her now as her own skin and could never be let go? Couldn't it know that it would kill her to go and kill her to stay?
Suddenly he straightens. Going for the drawer on the other side of the bed, he removes his wallet. He tosses a few large bills on the bed and puts the rest in his pocket. "That should be sufficient to get you home," he says quietly, keeping his gaze averted. "I'll come to get my things after you've gone."
He picks up a jacket from the floor where she'd so carelessly thrown it last night and folds it over his arm. He doesn't say goodbye.
Of course, he also doesn't make it to the door.
She squashes down every hesitation, every well-founded fear, and every doubt and runs to him. She needs him, no matter what the cost. What are the words of a stupid old man worth anyway?
She spins him around and shoves his back to the door before he can react. She kisses him with the entirety of the emotion in her blood and delights to feel him react immediately. His jacket is on the ground and his arms are around her waist and he tries to pull her close enough the break the stubborn laws of physics that never let them as near as they'd like to be. Her fingers tug at his shirt, the grey tee she's sworn is glued to his skin. But now she's proving herself wrong once again, tearing at the cotton to get at the coffee and cream body below that she's desperate to taste and touch as though it might be the last time. It should be the last time.
As soon as his mind catches up to his body to realize that no, this is not a simple goodbye kiss, he seizes her wrists and reverses their positions. Her back is against the door and he's holding her arms tightly over her head as he devours her. He kisses away the tears that are still making tracks down her flushed cheeks and makes tracks of his own down her neck and down the low cut line of her dress. The wine he hasn't sipped in years dazzles his tongue as it meets with hers, leaving him breathless as he tries for more than he can handle.
She's pressed against him, the friction of their clothes driving him mad. Dropping her hands, he grabs at her dress, fumbling for a zipper on the flimsy fabric. Just as he's ready to tear it in two, she whispers, "It's a pullover," and tugs it over her head.
They're good at this, she remembers, throwing her head back as he descends on her now exposed breasts. She pulls at his belt, feeling very unequal now that she's standing before him in panties and heels while he's still mostly clothed. Responding quickly as he always does to her simple movements, he kicks off his shoes and helps her with the belt. Before she can work on his jeans, he's lifted her in his arms to bring them further back into the room.
Underneath the heady fog rising before her eyes, she doesn't know what happens to the rest of their clothes, can't fathom anything but the feel of his skin on hers, his artful hands touching her everywhere.
All he knows is her supple body under his fingers, her soft hands returning every favor he bestows on her. He teases her until it becomes his own torture, until she's trembling beneath him, pleading his name and opening herself to him and he can't not give in. They come together as a matter of urgency, a collision, a defiance of physics, an explosion of fireworks behind his eyes that he hasn't felt so powerfully since their first time together. And he tries to make it last, to slow the in and the out because he knows this might be the last time he'll ever feel her like this. It should be the last time.
And then she's crying and crying out his name while he responds in kind. She looks up, daring to really look at him for the first time since this all began, and sees a world of emotion behind his ever-expressive eyes. He's filled with every kind of brokenness a man can feel without dying, with every kind of regret, all the pain, she sees everything there. The most amazing sight of all being that none of it is enough to eclipse the exposed and ardent love. That, more than anything else, brings her to the edge and over again.
There is a simple request in the way he's holding her when the last of the fireworks fade and it's only them under a silent sky.
Don't make me leave you.
The answer whispers back in the way she can't let go and the soft feel of her skin as she curls against him.
I can't.