AN: And I have finally managed to write a ficlet for the pairing I actually 'ship! Written for the prompt "once burned"
Spoilers: Um, right up to Haunted, I guess?
Disclaimer: In my dreams, perhaps. In reality, not so much.
Pairing/Characters: Helen Magnus/John Druitt
Rating: M
Summary: Helen remembers all too well the times before her life was ripped apart.
A Taste for the Flame
Helen remembers all too well the times before her life was ripped apart.
The first time, with no thought as to the scandal, in those heady days before John was able to extricate himself from any situation at will, she'd sat on his lap in her sitting room and he'd pressed kisses along the line of her bodice. She felt him harden beneath her, and could not help the gasp that escaped her, but when she met his gaze, she knew that her eyes held no fear.
Fear or not, they hadn't got much further that evening, but Helen spent the next few days fairly floating through the hallways at Oxford, all but strung out on the discovery of a power she hadn't realized she possessed.
The times after, as John learned his way around laces and ties, until he could undress her with practiced ease, and she learned about buttons that faced the other direction, and all the places in his clothes that were wide enough for her to fit her hands inside them, hot against his skin. She'd been old enough at the time to think of herself as well past marriage, and she'd never desired that sort of relationship anyway, given her chosen profession.
John, of course, didn't mind at all; if anything, he seemed to appreciate her all the more for her independence. She became quite proficient at taking advantage of that, and of him, not that he minded.
Summers in London were much hotter than at Oxford, as the press of people, not the mention the fire elemental that was currently concealed in the basement, drove the temperatures up. Helen took to forgoing her petticoat if she was not leaving the house, and barely strained her corset at all. For all John liked her in full skirts, he liked her like this even more.
For the month of July he took to surprising her at any and all moments when she might be alone, hands under her skirts and creeping up her bared thighs until she was powerless to do anything but rock against him and muffle her cries into his broad shoulder. Afterward, she always felt like she was on fire, her skin pink from exertion and sweat turning her pressed curls limp against her neck.
John always seemed strangely reluctant to let go during these hurried visits, but on the rare occasions he dared visit her at night, he was more willing to surrender. The night he proposed they had returned to her bedroom, separately of course, and he had even gone so far as to fall asleep with her afterwards. In the morning, he informed her that he would be absent on business for much of the fall, and she had assumed he was setting his affairs in order for when they wed.
He wasn't, of course, and by the time she figured it out she had already spent two months burning every one of his touches into her mind and on to her skin, and afterward she never could fully excise them. She rebuilt her life from smoking ruin, and to all appearances never looked back.
Helen never admits that she keeps those memories because she is still in love with the burn and the flame.
fin
Gravity_Not_Included, January 30, 2011