While they waited for the elevators, he had a thought. "Oh," he said, "oh, damn. Madison, I don't have any, uh." He fumbled, clumsily landing in the slang of his adolescence. "Rubbers."
"I do," she said proudly, patting at her purse.
"Boy, someone was on the prowl."
"Prowl, hell, I was in the Girl Scouts. 'Be prepared.'"
"Do you . . . still have the uniform?"
She shook her head in mock regret. "Didn't bring it. You'll just have to use your imagination."
He wriggled his eyebrows. "Imagination is my forte."
She leaned comfortably against him as the elevator doors closed, and stuck one hand into his back pocket; he squirmed away.
"What?" she said.
"You're making me be the sleazy guy with the boner on the elevator," he hissed back, and she put her hand over her face to hide her smile as someone got on at the third floor. She choked silently until the elevator stopped again and Norman yanked her off after him, then she began cackling as she tripped down the hallway in his wake. He swore as he fumbled with the door's electronic lock.
Madison kicked off her shoes on her way to the bed, tossing her purse on the nightstand, and yanked down the covers. Norman stumbled after her, having trouble coordinating both walking and struggling his way out of his tie and jacket, though both made it to the floor eventually. She crawled on to the bed and regarded him challengingly.
He realized halfway through taking off his pants that he still had his shoes on. "Oh, fuck," he said, and lost his balance entirely. He scrabbled for the foot of the bed, glanced off of it, and landed instead on the floor, hard enough for the pain from the bruises Shelby had given him to filter through the alcohol. "Ow."
Madison peered down at him over the edge of the bed. "Smooth," she grinned.
"No," he grunted, pressing his hand to a particularly sore spot on his side and rolling onto his back, "I think I really hurt myself." She rolled her eyes, swung herself down on her knees next to him, still almost fully dressed, and began tugging at the knots in his shoes.
"Big baby," she said. He grumbled for another minute, then began fumbling with the buttons down his front. Straining, he pushed himself into a sitting position; by the time she'd managed his second shoe, he'd worked off both shirt and undershirt. She stopped, staring at him, no longer smiling.
"What?" he said, leaning back on both arms, feeling foolish. "I know, Arnold Schwarzenegger, I ain't."
"No, it's just . . . boy, you have been in the wars." She trickled her fingers over the wide contusions and scrapes on his torso.
"Yeah," he said, "Handle with care."
"Want to see mine?"
He raised his eyebrows. "Well, it is always so much hotter when the chick has bruises."
She looked shyly away, then shrugged her way out of her top. He could see immediately why she'd picked one with a high neck – between the straps of her bra, her collarbone sported a wide necklace of yellowing marks. Surprised, he put his hand up and ran a finger along them. She shivered.
"There's more," she said, and reached around to unzip her skirt. "I can only see the ones in back in the mirror, but I think they're pretty gruesome." He watched her struggle her way out of the skirt and kick it off; she pulled her knees up and sat facing him in bra and panties. There were dark purple gouges along her thighs.
"Ow," he said, lightly touching one he could just see that disappeared into her underwear.
"Doctor Death, mostly," she said. "Sorry, I know it's pretty gross."
"Madison Paige," he said with gravity, "Your nearly-naked body is one of the most fantastic things I have ever seen, and I know fantastic. It is so fantastic that we should probably start screwing before I just cream my pants."
"Get your pants off and get your ass into bed," she smiled at him. "And take your socks off. Guys always look so dumb in just their socks."
He hauled himself onto the edge of the bed as she dove into her purse, and managed to strip himself down with at least some degree of competence. The wrapped condom hit him in the face as he looked up towards her. "Yes, ma'am," he said, while she worked at the back of her bra.
They were all hands as she pressed him backwards, each negotiating the other's strange, damaged terrain. He found that she flinched if the backs of her thighs were pressed; she learned to avoid the jigsaw puzzle of bruises that littered his right side. His stubble burned her face, so she kissed him elsewhere; she looked uneasy when he grasped at her, so he made his fingers gentle. Finally speechless, their bodies too busy for their brains to keep up, they tacitly maneuvered themselves until she was astride him, he inside her.
He studied her solemnly, abstractly, as she began to slowly ride him, letting his hands idly cup her knees. Eyes closed, she had a look of fierce determination on her face that made her look both earnest and lovely. The wide brown eyes opened towards him with irritation.
"Norman," she said, sounding strained, "Are you even here?"
He smiled at that. "Sorry."
"Come on," she said through her teeth, "you've been human all night. Don't stop now."
He slowly shifted his pelvis under the warm pleasure of her weight. Running his tongue thoughtfully over his lips, he reached upwards and slowly, gently, carefully, tweaked one of her nipples.
"Better," she said, and laid her palms flat on his chest as he ran both of his hands up and down the birdcage of her ribs, pausing carefully to enjoy the weight of her breasts in his soft grasp. She ground against him, and they both began the race to the high, sacred places that connected their bodies to their brains. Their universe shrank to a space containing only their excellent, mutual rhythm, and even Norman stopped thinking for a little while.
When it came, though, he remembered to warn her. He locked on to her hips, hard, with both hands. "Gonna, I'm gonna," he gasped.
"Oh, not yet, dammit!" she growled back, and pulled him with her into a high, intense cadence.
"Nope, gonna – " and then he did. He pushed his hands up hard around her waist like a girdle of bone and flesh, letting the pulses flow through his back through his shoulders through his arms through his fingertips as he bucked against her, lost in the shooting pleasure between his groin and his head.
She was still twisting against him as he began to go limp. "You," she said, "Are such an asshole."
He gripped his right hand up around her armpit and, twisting his body, managed to use his mass to thrust her onto her back with himself on top, immobilizing her with his own weight. She made startled, annoyed sounds while he resettled. Off balance, his bruises protesting at the acrobatics, he began fumbling loosely at her crotch with his right hand.
"No!" she said, "We're going to have to – oh! Yeah, okay, go, go, go – "
He found it, hit home. His tired cock was beginning to sleep against their thighs, but the middle and third fingers on his right hand had found their way to where they needed to be, curling up towards his palm, and he had begun to lightly grind the heel of his hand against her, feeling the ghost of her pelvic bone through her warm body. She wrapped one foot clumsily around his back.
He felt removed again, almost clinical, as he maneuvered his hand. She was again doing most of the work for him, revolving her hips through a remarkable dance that told him where he needed to be. He wasn't sure if he was simply having to focus hard through his drunkenness, or if it was true, as he'd sometimes wondered uneasily, that most of his human interactions became a series of carefully calculated responses. With her pelvic supervision of his hand taking place, he leant down to let his tongue carefully flick at a nipple, and she made a wordless noise in her throat that told him it was appreciated. He could feel a slow reassurance settle over him – after their awkward fumble, they were beginning to lock together again in a compatible rhythm.
She grasped for him, jerked him towards her to kiss his mouth and then bit softly at his right collarbone; he turned his face away from her urgency, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully into his own left shoulder, centered, at peace. Feeling her come was like an extension of his own pleasure. She clamped her thighs shut around his wrist.
"Done," she said. "Stop. Ow." She was wriggling free of his grasp. He let himself collapse away from her, onto his back, and whipped the slick condom in the vague direction of the trash can, mentally apologizing to Future Norman, who'd have to throw it away properly. After a pause, he turned away from her entirely, onto his side, to switch off the lamp, and their breath whistled together in the sudden darkness. Madison tugged the sheets up and curled herself up around his damp back, her face against the top knob of his spine, her hands sliding around his waist. He was built like a greyhound, she thought - warm, and thin, and eager.
"Again?" she asked, after a while.
Already half-asleep, he started at the sound of her voice. "No. Mission accomplished. Sleep now."
She shrugged, and tucked herself in more securely. At least he wasn't bitching about the snuggling.
The cramps woke him. They were hellish, tearing up from his bowels and all the way out to his toes and fingers. The combination of the hangover and the overdue triptocaine withdrawal that the alcohol had allowed him to postpone was ripping him up from the inside out. His brain hurt so badly that his hands were already shaking by the time he figured out where he was. He moaned.
"Norman?" He was in too much misery to be startled by the sleepy woman's voice behind him. "You all right?"
He didn't even try to remember who she was or why she was there. "My head," he said, and pulled himself to the edge of the bed, then off, tumbling naked to the floor. He snagged his suit coat off the carpet – there was usually some triptocaine in the pocket – and crawled into the bathroom on all fours, dragging it behind him from one fist. He didn't bother to reach up for the light, but shut the door behind him.
Madison was slowly coming awake herself, reluctantly, beginning to feel the headache gathering at the base of her own skull. She squinted at the clock – late morning. They'd slept in, but not outrageously so. She thought about trying to go back to sleep, knew she wouldn't be able to. From inside the bathroom, she could hear retching, and she grimaced in sympathy – he hadn't seemed that drunk the night before.
Eventually, the toilet flushed, and she waited for him to emerge. He didn't. She began to fidget, and then noticed there was no crack of light showing from under the door – was he sitting in there in the dark? Had he fallen asleep in there? Madison sat up, stretching, shivering a little in the dry, cool air of the room. Their clothes were twisted together around the bed, and she yanked on the end of a sleeve until Norman's dress shirt emerged. She slipped it on, buttoned it up, hugging herself while she decided how long her bladder could wait for him. It was the absence of noise from behind the closed door that finally prompted her to rise to her feet towards it.
She knocked softly on the door. "Norman? You okay?" There was no answer. "Norman?" She turned the knob, pushed cautiously at it, and let a growing wedge of light into the small bathroom.
"Don't – " she heard his voice say, as she flicked on the lights. "Oh, dammit. Ow." He was sitting, naked, in front of the toilet, with his back against the wall, and had now clapped one hand hastily over his eyes. His bruises were livid in the bathroom's harsh light.
She flinched herself at the brightness. "Sorry, but you're not the only one who needs in here." Hand still over his eyes, he blew her a raspberry, and she was startled into a smile. "How are you feeling this morning?"
He squinted up towards her, and she was surprised to see that he was grinning. "Better and better," he said. His pupils were the size of dinner plates.
"Are you . . ." Madison paused, uncertainly. "Are you on something?"
"Super-secret FBI hangover cure," he smiled back lazily.
"I kind of want to ask for some. My mouth feels like something died in it."
"Nah, it'd blow the top of your head off. But there's some aspirin on the sink."
Madison rummaged through the litter of his toiletries until she found the bottle, and gulped down a few with water from the hotel's plastic tumbler, then looked back down at him. He was still squinting contentedly up at her, with that shit-eating grin on his face.
"You gonna stay there all day?" she asked.
"I like the view."
She pursed her lips, settled next to him on the floor, and laid her head on his unresisting shoulder. He worked one arm loosely around the base of her spine.
"You look like someone dragged you through a rock tumbler," he said. "Are you wearing my shirt?"
"Yeah," she said, and wriggled against him more closely as he shivered.
"What's wrong with your shirt?"
"I want to take a shower before I put it back on for the walk of shame."
"Oh, so now you're ashamed?"
"You are way too chipper for a guy I just heard tossing his cookies. And at least I have the decency to pretend I have some shame, Mr. Natural. What the hell did you drag half your suit in here for?"
"Professionalism. Some of the other guys, they don't wear jackets, but I like to try to keep up appearances."
They sat in silence for a minute, comfortable, weary, each musing privately.
"Did we make a mistake?" Madison finally asked.
"I don't know, did we?"
"I think I sort of might have a . . . you know. With Ethan. I think. Maybe. I don't know."
"Ah," Norman said, softly. "Nah, I think it's all right. It's not like we picked out a china pattern or something."
"Do you?" she asked shyly. "Have, you know, anything? Back home?"
"Uncle Sam is a harsh and demanding mistress," he said solemnly. "What I think is, you and me just helped each other out a little."
"I'm glad, then. It was nice. God, you stink."
He shivered again. "I have just noticed," he said, "that this floor is cold, and I am freezing my nuts off."
"Dibs on first shower," Madison said. "Because I really, really have to pee."
"Can I stay and watch?"
"Get out of here. Pervert."
He made it slowly to his feet, unsteadily, as though he were still a little drunk, and stumbled out.
When she emerged from the bathroom, clean, towel-wrapped, he had made it back into a pair of underwear, and was holding sets of hangers full of their clothing. He looked proud of himself. "Old traveling trick," he said. "Steam the wrinkles out with the shower."
". . . yeah, or we could just use the iron over there." She pointed to the top shelf of the room's closet.
He scowled at her. "Shut up. This took a lot of concentration." He sulked his way back into the bathroom, clinging to both hangers. She relaxed at the feeling of her own headache fading, worked her way back into her underwear, and stretched back out on the bed to wait for him. He emerged, half-dressed, and paused in the doorway to shake his head at her.
"What?" she asked, still sleepy.
"You either have to put your clothes back on, or we're going to have to shower again in about twenty minutes. I'm not even sure the clothes will help."
She thought about it, smiling. "Better just give me the clothes," she finally said.
"Or we could shower again, together, right now. That would help."
She pulled the sheet up. "Give me my walk of shame outfit and let's go conquer breakfast."
They finished dressing in comfortable silence; Madison used his mouthwash, leant fondly against him again during the elevator ride down. The hotel's complimentary continental breakfast was an anticlimax.
"I want something hot and greasy," said Norman. "Cereal is a fucking terrible hangover food."
Madison nodded back at him. "I think I'm going to go eat something horrible on the way home."
"I'm glad you came last night," he admitted. "I certainly don't have any friends in this city, not even back at the station. Not even now. It was, it was good. To listen."
"To somebody who was there," Madison said.
"I'll be honest, I'm a little afraid about what I might have told you. I'm not sure I remember all of it."
"It's not like I do. I told you, it's off the record. I mean, I'm still going to write about you, I'm still writing about the murders, but last night is off limits." He nodded gratefully.
They walked together out to the curb, where Norman was properly impressed that Madison could, in fact, make it astride her motorcycle in her knee-length skirt without breaking any obscenity laws.
"Practice," she said. "Practice, practice, practice."
He jammed his hands into his pockets and began to rock slowly toe-to-heel. "Good luck," he said. "With the writing. And your . . . whatever, with Ethan Mars, I guess."
"Good luck yourself," she responded. "With your paperwork. And your harsh mistress." She hesitated. "And whatever else it is that's giving you problems. That you're afraid you might have told me."
He nodded, thoughtfully, staring at the toes of his shoes.
"Norman," she said, "You're a goddamned hero."
He scratched at his collar. "Takes one to know one. Ma'am."
They both became lost in their private smiles as they parted towards their own worlds of information.
I'm glad. It was nice.
A/N confession: I don't really like reading descriptions of sex. I don't. I find them really boring. I'm not sure why I thought it would be a good idea to try to write one; because it's unappealing to me, I have exactly zero sense of what writing hot sex looks like. So – and I confess nothing, here – I thought that, instead of trying to make it hot, I'd aim for semi-realistic. Most drunken one-night stands are, after all, not particularly mind-blowing. They're just unremarkable drunk sex with a stranger, and then in the morning you can't find your underwear.
Anyway, I cut out some of the smut, then got lazy. So now there's half-smut. Oh, and I should really give a nod to my roommate (who will never, ever know that this exists), for the inspirational words that got paraphrased into this: "It's always hotter when the stripper's crying."