JANUARY
It's been a while.
Well. Longer than a while.
The situation is much more on account of her own reluctance than Teddy's, though, so it's not like she has a whole lot of room to complain.
Plus, she's busy. She's keen to ensure that, when she decides to come back full-force, there is something to come back to, and so some effort is required to keep things even reasonably afloat on the career front. Then, of course, there are the girls, and the constant organizational and emotional preoccupations that motherhood seems to supply. Suffice to say that Rayna rarely finds herself with little else to do but sit around and wonder if she'll ever get laid again.
Rarely, though, is not quite never.
—
FEBRUARY
She doesn't see Deacon every day, or even every week.
But, she sees him often enough.
Often enough to remember.
—
MARCH
She goes to a benefit for some charity that she can't recall the name of, but she's sure represents a worthy cause, and Deacon takes the stage. He's armed with nothing but his guitar, and in the quiet semi-darkness, she can't look away from him, not for a second. The space is small enough that surely he can feel her eyes on him, but she doesn't even have the good sense to be embarrassed. When the song ends, he disappears, she lets out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding, and scrambles to perform some sort of post-hoc rationalization.
Of course, he is an attractive man.
Ring on her finger or none, Rayna doesn't see any disloyalty in acknowledging that, objectively speaking, plenty of men are attractive, and Deacon sure always has been.
But, that's not quite precisely the thing is it?
The thing, precisely, is that she is attracted. Still.
(Honestly?
With his eyes clear now, with everything about his mind and body healthy and strong again...
More so.)
—
APRIL
Rayna has never kissed anyone with a beard, and obviously it's pretty unlikely that Deacon has grown one purely for the purpose of piquing her curiosity in that regard.
His intentions don't much matter one way or another one way or another, though, because her fingers itch to touch just the same. Lying beside him in their old bed, she lets her nails graze across his chin gently.
"I like it," she tells him shyly. "You're all grown up."
She rubs her cheek against his experimentally, and - happily - it's less prickly than she'd thought it might be. A little ticklish. She giggles into his kiss, until the feel of the scruff against her neck, her chest, makes her gasp instead.
When she's asleep, she does all of this.
When she's awake, she just tries not to think about it.
—
MAY
They have innocuous conversations.
Heard you were working with Merle again, that's awesome.
Been a while since we had a winter this mild.
That type of thing.
Each of them make an effort, and so the pleasantries for the most part are pulled off with aplomb. There's still the issue of the other dialogue, though, the one that seems to runs like ticker tape under all the small talk.
I have seen you naked.
You have seen me naked.
You you have been in me, and I around you, and we have licked and sucked and kissed and scratched, and we loved every single second of it.
Rayna just does not know what to do with all of that that, has no idea where to put it. Other people in the world, she reasons, have exes with whom they continue to speak, so surely there must be some sort of protocol. Were you supposed to acknowledge it? Just keep ignoring it?
Perhaps the idea was that, in the new post-split landscape, you just…stopped remembering. Certain facts simply faded away over time.
But, then, that doesn't seem right. In her particular scenario, it has, after all, already been quite some time.
At this point, Rayna isn't holding out a whole lot of hope.
—
JUNE
For his part, it's apparent that Deacon hasn't exactly committed himself to a life of celibacy.
And nor should he, Rayna tells herself staunchly, repeatedly.
Jesus, though, she'd rather not have to lay eyes on Carrie or Shauna or Denise.
Because even when she likes them she doesn't like them. And the inevitable, R-rated visual? Well. Who knows how close her imagination is to reality on that score - she can only hope not very. Regardless, there's just no faster way to ruin her day.
—
JULY
She still has the dreams. All the time, they won't stop.
And they are delicious, but dangerous.
She attempts - in a casual, roundabout sort of fashion - to bring up the general subject of sleep talking with Teddy and, in particular, to enquire whether perhaps she might sometimes talk in her sleep.
The whole interaction feels totally transparent to her but, as with many things, doesn't seem to be so for her husband. He says he's out like a light once his head hits the pillow, she could be having a full scale conversation with him and he wouldn't notice.
So, there's that, at least.
—
AUGUST
Things that are true:
1. Rayna Jaymes respects the sanctity of marriage. Fine institution, all that.
2. She dreams - literally dreams - of fucking Deacon Claybourne.
3. Rayna Jaymes takes some little bit of comfort, or pride, or something, in the fact that she is never tempted by other men. Her mind just doesn't even go there.
4. She finds herself disinclined to categorize Deacon Claybourne as an Other Man. How could he be, when he was the one who got there first? When anything in her life that was after him, beyond him, not him, felt, almost by definition, like "other"?
5. Rayna Jaymes knows this kind of mental gymnastics is basically all bullshit.
6. She can't help it.
7. Rayna Jaymes said her wedding vows voluntarily, and she really meant them. Till death us do part, etc.
8. She has probably never really made the mental leap that she knows would be required in order to absolutely rule out the possibility, however amorphous, that at some point, under some circumstances, she and Deacon Claybourne might kiss again, might make love again. It's not like she plans on it. Not today and not tomorrow, but at some point, before she dies? Yeah, maybe. Sure. Possibly. Possibly probably.
—
SEPTEMBER
There are occasions on which she's convinced that Deacon knows; that, actually, he deliberately makes things worse.
He's not an idiot in general, and he's sure not an idiot when it comes to her in particular, and so there can be no other explanation for the expression on his face sometimes, for the things he says. Just that couple of extra seconds when he looks at her, those sly little references to things only the two of them really understand.
He skates perilously close to the edge, and the truth, Rayna knows, is that she lets him.
—
OCTOBER
There is no straw that breaks the camel's back, there is in fact no logical explanation whatsoever as to why, on this particular day, she decides fuck it.
Only that it's been so long, and she feels like she's crawling out of her skin with the want for him, and the whole thing has started to seem so inevitable.
The phrase getting it out of her system may have crossed Rayna's mind (while everything else was crossing it).
She goes to Tootsies at 4pm, finds a quiet corner and has two shots of whiskey that really feel more symbolic than anything else, because by the time she walks the thirty five minutes to Deacon's front door, their effect has well and truly worn off anyhow.
The wind on the bridge put color in her cheeks and wreaked havoc with her hair, and she's sure she looks like a scarecrow by the time he sees her, but she's past caring. She launches herself at him like a grenade, right there in his doorway, without permission or explanation.
She kisses him desperately, frantically, her hands running wild, like a woman possessed, when suddenly he stumbles backwards.
"What are you doin'?" he manages, backing into his living room, looking and sounding a little punch drunk.
"I don't know," she says heatedly, following him into the house and pulling him back to her, pressing her mouth against his once more.
But he takes her upper arms in his hands, putting some distance between them again. "Well, I need to know, Ray," he replies firmly. "I kinda need you to know."
"I.." she's breathless, somehow, and she doesn't know how to explain it. "…I just need this, okay?"
"You need what?" he asks, a little roughly. "Sex?"
Rayna feels her face flush, and she can't look at him when she answers.
"Yes."
If he's surprised by her honesty, he doesn't let it show.
"How 'bout your husband, Ray? Seems like maybe he oughta be your go-to guy in this sort of situation, you know what I mean?"
She just looks at him, then gives a little shrug.
"What?" he asks, and there's something of a snigger, a sneer, about it. "Old Teddy can't get it up?"
Rayna isn't sure if it's what he says or the way he says it, but her eyes flash, her expression defiant suddenly, even though of course - in this particular situation - she has no reason to be anywhere close to a high horse.
"That's not a problem," she says cooly.
"So, what, then?" Deacon continues, undeterred. "You just feel like a change, Ray? Maybe you wanna hit up some bars, you know? Flip your hair around a little bit or whatever. I can't imagine you'd be short of offers."
And she doesn't even go into the ridiculousness of the suggestion - as if an anonymous hook up would ever be possible in her position - because she knows what he's trying to make her to say. And honestly, she doesn't really blame him one bit.
"I want you," she admits, quietly, simply. "Only you."
"...Why?" he asks, and just like that, all the harshness is gone from his voice. Now, he just sounds broken. Broken open.
Rayna pauses, tries to sort through the dozen answers to that question that would all be true. She gives another little shrug.
"I guess I can't figure out how not to," she says plainly.
A beat.
"…Y'know what I mean?"
And it sounds like it might be reflective, rhetorical, but instinctively they both know that it's not. She's actually asking him.
Deacon doesn't say anything, and Rayna studies his face for a long, vulnerable moment during which she can only imagine he is weighing the moral and practical implications of his answer.
His lips part, she holds her breath.
"Yeah I do," he says decisively, at last, his mouth on hers the very next instant, and after that everything seems to happen in a blur.
They're in the hallway, and her shoes and coat are discarded somewhere; they're in his bedroom, and their tongues are moving perfectly against one other's; they're sitting on his bed, and his hand is sliding under her dress.
She can't seem to help the sharp intake of breath as his fingers creep along the inside of her thigh, and it must be more of a reaction than he'd bargained for, because he halts for a second, then leans in to kiss her temple, whispering the words against her ear.
"How long's it been, Ray?"
"Long enough that you won't have to try very hard, let's put it that way," she says, with a little laugh.
It's not an answer, and now he's not joking. "How long?" he repeats seriously, leaning back to look at her.
She hesitates. A part of her is embarrassed to say it out loud, but then, embarrassment, historically speaking, just hasn't featured highly in things between her and Deacon. Honesty - like, less-than-pretty, all-the-way honesty…that's featured pretty highly.
"Almost a year," she admits slowly, carefully, and she watches his eyes widen almost imperceptibly.
There's some comment about Teddy on the tip of his tongue, she can just tell, but he seems to think better of it, and she's glad. This whole equation really has remarkably little to do with Teddy, in her opinion at least. That's kind of been the problem.
Anyway, clothes are discarded after that, somehow or another, and it's hard to put into words the pure thrill Rayna feels in getting to peel his t-shirt from him, getting to run her fingers along the velvet steel of his stomach, feeling the muscles jump under her touch.
"You're staring," she murmurs, when he's pulled her underwear down her legs, leaving her lying naked before him.
"Sorry," he says, shaking his head a little, as if to snap himself out of it.
But she just smiles, sort of shyly, secretively. "'S'okay," she says gently.
On the walk over here, she'd kind of thought (to the the extent that, in a half-crazed, theoretical sort of way, she'd thought the whole thing through at all) that it might be rougher than this; faster, dirtier, a little more impersonal. It's not, though, and actually, she finds that that's more than okay.
Deacon kisses her bare breasts unhurriedly, and down her stomach, and lower, lower, until she can't take it any more.
"Please," she whimpers, tugging on his biceps a little, and he looks up at her quizzically.
"I…..later" she manages. "I want… everything, but right now I…I just need you inside of me."
Deacon's eyes cloud over with something she can't name but has seen before, some combination of love and lust, and he doesn't have to be told twice. In one fluid movement, he has aligned their hips and is right where she wanted him, drawing a tiny, strangled sort of sound from the back of her throat.
He looks up at her sharply, immediately, concern evident in his expression. "You okay? Did I hurt you?"
She shakes her head. "I'm alright. Just give me a second."
Deacon nods, smoothing her hair away from her face, keeping his eyes fixed on her with an expression so tender that, if she isn't careful, Rayna knows could have her saying all sorts of silly things.
"Alright," she whispers then. "You can move."
"Yeah?" he asks quietly, not wanting to rush her.
She clenches around him, one eyebrow arching the slightest bit. "Yeah."
He smiles. Game on. "You sure? I mean we could just call it a day right here," he teases.
"Fuck you," she fires back, quick as a flash, but there's a laugh in her voice, and then suddenly he's moving against her, steady and insistent, and her eyes roll back in her head she can't speak or think or do anything except for feel.
It feels good. So good so good so good - so completely right, that it is impossible, in this moment, to imagine how it could ever be wrong.
At some point, he slips his hand in between their bodies, his fingers ghosting against her center, and she moans. It's a real, loud, porn-film moan, and Rayna's surprised to hear herself make noises like that. Deacon doesn't seem to be, though, just drives up the pace, dips his head to lick at the pulse point in her neck, and Rayna recollects hazily that this is how it used to be, how she used to be.
"That's it, baby," he murmurs against her skin. "You feel... God you feel amazing."
And maybe the endearment should be another surprise, after all this time, but it isn't. It's familiar and delicious, and for a pretty generic term, it just sounds so sexy coming out of his mouth. She doesn't know how he does that.
She sort of feels like she doesn't know anything anymore.
—
NOVEMBER
She'd told herself that it would be a one-time thing, told him that too as a matter of fact, but it has not turned out to be.
—
DECEMBER
It really very much has not.
Well, it's been the best of times, it's been the worst of times for the Deyna fan of late. Thought I'd emerge from fanfic hibernation, hope you enjoyed :)