AN: Stole a bit of dialogue from Skins UK series 3. Had to do it, fit to beautifully not to. Bonus points to the person who finds it though... And, surprise, this is the last chapter of "Dance Through the Pain". Ask me real nice though, and I'll continue the series...

Warnings: Language

Disclaimer: I don't own "Skins" or this would all be canon.

Chapter Ten
I Hope You Need this Now, Cause I Still Do

His steps fall silent on the soft grass, but she doesn't seem surprised when he takes a seat beside her. She just sighs a little and closes her eyes, a pained expression crossing over her face before her practiced mask of neutrality overcomes it. But he sees through it. He always has. He told her she could never hide from him, and he damn well meant it.

"Go away, Tony." She says. She sounds so tired. So broken. "I don't want to fight right now."

"Great." He shrugs. Determined to be at least slightly more manly than their previous encounter. "I don't want to fight either."

Tea just sighs again. She's tired of fighting this. Of fighting him. She doesn't have the strength anymore.

"The way I see it is, we have this thing. Whatever you want to call it. It's more than lust, on both sides, even if you don't love me. And I think you do, even if it scares you. But the thing is, Tay, it scares me too."

"Then why keep on, Tone?" Tea sighs, she said she didn't want to fight and she meant it. "Why not just let it go? Be my friend again, and nothing else."

"Because, Tea," He smiles so sadly that it breaks her damn heart, and she hates him for it. For making her want to comfort him at the same time she just wants to run away from him and everything he's trying to give her. "You're worth fighting for. Because it only scares me when you leave."

"I always leave, Tony." Tea rest her head on his shoulder, even though she knows she should be putting as much distance between them as possible. "Haven't you figured that out yet?"

"Yeah. But you always come back." Tony laughs a litle, but it sounds off, strangled almost. "Only this time you didn't."

"I didn't know how." She whispers so softly she's sure he can't hear her.

"I didn't know how to make you stay..." He trails off, his head coming down on hers as his arm circles her shoulders. "I wanted you to, though."

"I-I wanted to too." Tea struggles to make the words come. The truth never comes as easy as one of their silver lies; it's rough and brittle, and it'll break them if they're not careful.

"Then why didn't you, Tay?" She can hear the agony in his voice, can see it on his face in her mind even if she can't see him now.

"Because I'll break your heart, Tony. And we're already so broken."

He pulls away to look at her, eyes full of all the things she can't name and the one thing she doesn't want to. "Maybe I'll break yours."

"Nobody breaks my heart." And it's true. No one has ever been close enough to even touch it. But she knows without a shadow of a doubt that this boy could shatter it.

"You've never let anyone close enough to find out." Tony smiles a little, a fragmented smirk for the fragmented man. "But I can match you. You've met your match, and I can reach it, Tay. And I can hold it so close to my own that it'll be safe forever."

"You don't know that." Tea looks away from him, and his promises she wants to believe.

His hand comes up, gently pulls her gaze back to his own. "Yes. I can. Because I would never do anything to hurt you."

And he's kissing her. Soft and tender and everything they're not and everything they sometimes wish to be. And she can't fight him anymore. She doesn't want to.

The kiss changes quickly from slow and gentle to hard and fast. Hands start a flurry of motion, pulling at clothes, trying to get skin on skin. To reach out and touch what they had thought lost. Teeth nips at lips, at the soft flesh of their lover's necks. Tongues lap out to soothe the burn of the bites, to taste what might have been forbidden once.

Tony pulls Tea closer, or maybe she pushes forward. Neither can tell and neither cares because they're not close enough. But they're falling back and she's on top of him, and they're still not close enough. The buttons of his button-up pop, they're in the way, and then her hands are on him. Roaming over him in ways familiar and new. She knows him, knows every inch of his skin, but she wants more of him. Nails digging in just a little, faint red lines rising ever so slightly over his chest as his own hands undo her jeans.

He pushes them off, hands moving slowly over her ass and thighs, savoring the feel of her again. He'd been so scared that he'd lost her forever. Then he brings raises his hands again, to her back, fingers memorizing the space between her vertebrea, the feel of her shuddering breaths against her ribs as she works to free him from his own jeans.

He rolls them, not that he doesn't love her on top, but the angle is better with all the bits of clothing that are still clinging to them.

"I love you." He says again, unwilling to start this again if she won't hear the words. Won't accept that these feeling between them.

"I know." And it almost sounds like I love you too.

He slides into her, hot and tight and familiar. And her body melds with his, two people becoming one in the heat of the moment. Lost in each other the way they were always supposed to be.

Her nails dig ito his skin, draw rivulets of blood from him back and shoulders and arms, but he loves it. Loves it because it's her trying to get as close to him as he's trying to get to her. Because he's buried deep inside her familiar warmth, and he's still not fucking close enough...

He's moving faster and harder in her than he thought he could, half afriad he's hurting her but far more afraid that he'll lose her again if he stops. Her head falls back, lolls to the side as she arches into him, the tiniest moans slipping from her lips as she tries to keep quiet. Tony takes advantage of this to latch his lips to her delicatble neck. Branding her flesh with his touch so everyone will know that Tea is his.

Her moans get progessively louder, his own joining them, mingling together. And she's tightening around him. Coming harder than she can remember coming before. And he's coming too, sounding half-strangled. But he doesn't pull out, just hovers above her. Barely holding himself up on his elbows, he brushes a lock of damp hair out of her face with a smile.

"You're beautiful, you know." He whispers, leaning down for an almost chaste kiss. "And I love you."

Tea is mortified as she feels the blush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks. No one has ever made her blush before. And she kind of wants to slap him for making her do it now, but the moment is too soft, too tender. She doesn't want to break it.

"So," Tony continues. "go out with me, Tea Marvelli. The right way this time."

"Okay." And this time it's Tea who kisses Tony softly, trying to tell him all the things she can't seem to make herself say.

Tony grins the biggest damn grin she's ever seen on his face, before slowly moving out of her. He refastens his pants with trembling fingers, shaking with emotion he can't even begin to name, before quietly helping Tea with her own.

"We just had sex on a merry-go-round. In a public park. Where children play." Tony smirks a little. "We're terrible people."

"Yeah." Tea smirks back, hands moving of their own violation to help him buttons still on his shirt. "But that's okay. Keeps things from getting...boring."

Tony laughs, a full out laugh like he almost never does. "Good thing too. Not a fan of boring things."

"Good." A kiss, fast and hard before she's backing away from him, his smirk firmly in place on her face. "Cause I'm always interesting."

Tea turns and runs, and, laughing, Tony chases after her. Because that's the way it's always been. And if he has anything to say about it, and he will if he has to kill every other fucker on the planet, that's the way it will always be.

Because Tea is his. And he's hers. And, damn it all, he likes it that way.