Her hands fascinated Alexandra the most.
To a practitioner of criminal law, knowledge of the body's language was an invaluable asset. Alex had studied it, embraced it. It became her science. Slight twitches in the brows and lips. The minute glances. And of course, the fidgeting of fingers, the way hands clasped together on laps, traced random patterns over tables and armrests. It was all ingrained into her very being. She was used to deception and calculation. To pulling apart the layers built by people – people who either tried to hide the entire truth, or performed to sway an audience.
Then, she found Piper.
The woman laid her feelings out for the world to see. She proclaimed her disdain for the mayor and his guards into the cool night sky, hands flailing in her deep-seated frustration. She waved away snide and aggressive remarks, as one would a common housefly back in the pre-war days. She moved protectively around her sister, acting as a human shield against unsavoury elements. At times she would lightly tousle the girl's hair and pinch her cheek playfully. She patted Alex on the shoulder, when told of her circumstance. A careful act of comfort for a stranger, an unknown quantity.
Alex could read her through and through. She was a simple case, a profile easy to grasp. Company that was safe to keep in these hostile lands. It was only later on, that she realised she had stood on the edge of a precipice.
When Piper shoved her roughly into a nearby building, jabbing an index finger up at the sky, where a Gunner vertibird hummed by. The grip on her bicep nearly hurt. But relief soon loosened it, sliding down to her wrist to pull her back up from the ground. When Piper held her hand, which worried about the cut across her temple, and did not let go. When their hands brushed past each other, and her hand jerked upward in surprise. Then she reached back again, experimentally slipping her fingers through Alex's. A blush colouring her cheeks when Alex pulled her closer, so they walked shoulder-to-shoulder, fingers tightly entwined.
Her hands told all. "A weakness", Alex would have thought, 200 years before. To put your heart on display, to show others how to pluck at your feelings. But she found herself falling, heart and soul, for this open page. Her love played by those hands like an instrument by a maestro. The conductor to her orchestra.
An arm circled around her waist as they sat by the campfire. Grip slowly growing limp as the head on Alex's shoulder started to nod. A soft tap under her chin when her gaze fell, shoulders burdened by the mystery surrounding her son's fate. A calming clasp on her elbow when her wrath threatened to overflow, to engulf her son's kidnapper. Gentle ministrations when she was in pain, bleeding and hurting all over her body, soothed only by the rhythm of her lover's touch. The tug on her hips as they shared their first kiss, a soft press on her lower back, followed by an annoyed swat at Dogmeat as he tried to join the fun. Insistent pulls on the back of her neck when she played coy, then a sudden push, pinning her to the mattress in overwhelming need. Contradictory patience in mapping out her body, seeking sweet spots, marking them with lips and tongue. Each caress, tease, stroke to build her up, to tear a name, that impassioned cry, from deep within.
It was a weakness, yes. To lay yourself bare, expose all your vulnerabilities to another. Open to love and hurt in equal measure. But it was a weakness she gladly accepted, and made her own.
A/N: This is my experiment in writing in a different style. Do tell me what you think!