AN: ANGST IS RESOLVED by this chapter's end, FYI.
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Disclaimer: Nothing owned, and no profits.
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Expecting to find Liz pinned beneath the beast's feet, on trembling legs, Red approached the water's edge. It quickly became evident that the elephant wasn't merely splashing around. He was trying to help, scrambling for purchase of her limp form. He wrapped his trunk around Liz's waist and hoisted her up, only to have her soaking wet body slip from his grasp. Red dropped to his knees and caught her just before her head submerged again.
"God, Lizzie." Prior to this harrowing moment, she hadn't known that the scent of fear in his voice could be influenced by her own physiological variables. A banged-up head and lungs half-full of water did the trick. Her eyes watered as she sputtered and choked on both the water and the scent.
With a loud grunt, he threw her over his shoulder and trudged back to shore, powered purely by adrenaline. The elephant turned and followed, digging into his back pockets.
He lowered Liz to the ground and rolled her onto her side, kneeling in front of her. A nonsensical stream of reassurances that neither would later recall rolled from his breathless mouth. His voice strained, sounding as if he could smell the fear stench as well. Her eyes popped open and then widened horror at the elephant looming over them. "Shhhh... it's okay. It's okay. He's not going to hurt you." He reached into his pocket for his phone, to let Hastings know that he'd found her.
She winced and reached up to feel the back of her head.
"What happened, Lizzie?"
Her bleary eyes slowly met his. "I - I fell."
He gently followed the path that her fingers were tracing across her scalp. "That's a pretty big bump." Cradling the back of her head, he used the other hand to hold up one finger. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
"One."
He slowly moved it back and forth. "Can you follow it with just your eyes?" She could. For a moment, they just stared at each other, both still reeling from a mixture of anger, panic, and relief.
"Can we just sit here for a minute?" She asked, hesitantly. There was a second meaning in her words - that she wasn't ready to talk about what had happened. Not yet.
He swallowed thickly and sat down beside her, drawing his knees up and clasping his hands over them. Trouble took a step forward and groped the back of his neck with his trunk, causing Red to shriek and vainly try to swat him away, giggling uncontrollably in spite of his mood. "Come on. St-stop it, you!"
"Oh my god, you're ticklish..." If not for her anger, she would have teased him, saying that she'd remember that for later. Instead, she kept the thought to herself, along with the realization that his little tickled shriek tasted like salt water taffy - an appropriately sweet and rare treat that's only encountered on special occasions. She would have liked to put the thought out of her mind, but it quickly spiraled into a fear that she'd never get to hear it again.
God damn him.
Tentatively, she lifted a hand to pet Trouble's trunk. She knew that elephants had hair, as mammals do, but it surprised her just the same. It was wiry and sparse, and had he gone for her neck, it definitely would have tickled her too. Thank goodness he didn't, because laughter would only bring more pain to her tender head. She wondered if he could sense that, somehow.
Trouble turned and went back to his original destination, the lagoon. Both watched as he waded out until he was chest-deep, drinking and merrily splashing about. For long minutes, they sat in pensive silence until Liz suddenly stood up. Without a single word, she made her way back to the house with Red close on her heels, keeping a watchful eye on her every move.
Feeling sticky and gross from her misadventure, she went straight to her room for a much-needed shower while Red headed towards the kitchen. Moments later, without so much as knocking, he let himself into her room and caught her half-dressed.
She slowly turned towards him and tried to hide her dismay at the intrusion. "Yes?"
"Water and asprin," he offered softly, leaning against the doorframe. He felt caught between his choices of action. Should he hold up the items and hope that she'd willingly take them from his hands, or should he approach and place them on the nightstand instead? The former may set him up for the indignity of being ignored, while the latter could come across as flip indifference. Decision made, he sighed and slowly entered her personal space, holding up the items, stubbornly keeping his gaze above her shoulders.
Just as he began to worry that she'd walk around him without taking the asprin, a faint flicker of gratitude graced her features. She complied without a 'thank you', but nodded her assent.
It was good enough, for now, because it had to be.
Red held his tongue and turned on his heel to exit. On the other side of the closed door, he held his breath in anticipation of her locking it behind him, but she didn't.
From the outside, his actions may have appeared like supplicating mea culpas, but it wasn't like that - no, not at all. He was frustrated, pissed off, and above all, exhausted. That granted him neither the license nor the ability to stop caring for her.
He trudged up to his own room on leaden feet and ruefully peeled off his clothes. Close examination of his pebble-grained leather, expensive Italian shoes revealed them to be in a sorry state, but he just shook his head. Shoes, no matter the cost, are easily replaced. Lizzie is not.
After a quick shower, he meandered back to the kitchen to wait for her. The water in her shower was still running, so it could take awhile, he knew. In fact, he wouldn't be surprised if she stayed in her room all night. Liz wasn't above going hungry to prove a point. He glanced at his watch. 3:06. If, by 8:00, she still hadn't emerged, then he'd bring up her dinner. With a hand gripping the back of his neck, squeezing the tension, he poured himself a scotch and sat down at the table.
He was five shots in - more than he usually drank in a single sitting - when she finally padded in on bare feet, wearing pajamas. His tongue was well-lubricated for battle, but not dangerously so. "Elizabeth, we need to talk."
Ah, anger. The burnt popcorn taste made her thirsty in the worst possible way. She eyed the bottle of scotch, and without acknowledging what he'd said, picked it up and turned back towards her room.
He leaned forward in his chair, fingers laced with his elbows on the table. "If you don't want to talk to me now, then fine, but it would be stupid to drink that."
She whipped around and scoffed, "But you can?"
"I didn't sustain a concussion and nearly drown." His head canted with a mirthless laugh before adding, "Well, not today, at least, and you also just took a blood-thinner."
Her fingers tensed around the bottle, and her eyes hardened with indignant rage as she unscrewed the cap.
"Lizzie..."
In reply, she put the bottle to her lips and started to chug. Childish as hell, yes. Maybe she could later blame the fall for this stupid decision.
He expected her to stop after a single swallow or two, but after the third, he leaped out of his chair and rushed over to forcibly pry the bottle from her hands. "You've made your point. You're a grown woman and I have no right to tell you what to do. Fine. I get it, but right now, I'm doing it anyway. If you're so desperate to be angry, then go ahead, but I'm not going to sit back and watch you nearly kill yourself twice because you'd rather do that than tell me what's wrong."
She cringed at both the burning in her throat as well as his tone. Pathetic, yes, but driving him to such a state gave her a small degree of satisfaction. She sloppily wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her pajamas and defiantly met his eyes.
"Tell me what you're thinking." It came out as a request, not a demand. As usual, he wasn't sure how to handle her.
"If you must know, I'm berating myself for getting so emotionally involved with you."
Red couldn't even recall how it felt to not be emotionally involved with her. She was inextricably woven into him in every imaginable way. His jaw tensed and lowered, exposing his bottom teeth. "I told you that I would be anything for you, except a regret."
"You also told me that your relationship with Agent Navabi was strictly professional."
"And it is."
"Then why was she so surprised that you were calling about business after midnight? If it's all business, then why was she expecting something else?"
He twitched against the impulse to roll his eyes. "I couldn't say for sure. You'd have to ask her that."
"And then, her immediate assumption that 'you must be getting laid'. You know how that sounds? Like she was expecting phone sex, and like she was theorizing why you had suddenly gone off-script."
"Seriously?"
If she didn't know better, she'd think he was offended.
"Maybe you're so promiscuous that phone sex doesn't mean anything to you. There's no touching involved. I wouldn't like it, but I can see why you might feel that w-"
He interjected, "So first I'm not getting laid, and now I'm promiscuous? I believe the two are mutually exclusive."
As if he hadn't interrupted, she continued, "But unless she's a prostitute and you're her pimp, that isn't 'strictly professional' now, is it?" She began to feel a little dizzy, as if she'd been subconsciously holding her breath.
"Lizzie, just as I said, no sex of any kind. Not ever. I'd confess to my propensity for lascivious remarks in conversation, but you already know about that. Did you not hear that she was surprised that I didn't make one?"
"You're suggesting that she made some grand leap of logic from 'you're not being a creep' to 'you must be getting laid'."
"'A creep'? Is that what you think of me?"
"As of today."
"Maybe I am, but I've never lied to you."
"Oh, poor Raymond, always stuck in the impossible position of having to prove a negative." Suddenly, her dizziness doubled. Her eyelashes fluttered as her peripheral vision faded to black.
"Oh please. That's a cheap sh-" Red began, but cut himself off when he saw her sway. He reached out to catch her just before she fell. "Lizzie!" He hoisted her up and carried her over to the living room to gently lay her down on the sofa. "Lizzie, can you hear me? Say something!" His fingers ghosted over her cheeks, brushing aside the strands of hair that had fallen across her face.
Long seconds later, the scent of his fear made her come to, not the volume of his voice. It burned as if he'd broken an aromatic ammonia capsule under her nose. When her eyes popped open, they'd already begun to water. Recalcitrantly turning her face towards the back of the sofa, she muttered, "Why do you always have to rescue me?"
"A very stubborn and beautiful young woman once told me that when someone does something nice for you, you're supposed to say 'thank you.'"
Well played.
In her mind's eye, she could see perfectly the smug little grin on his face. He had folded when she spoke the words to him, and now she'd have to do the same. She brushed the tears from her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and turned to look at him. If he had been smiling, there was no trace of it now. He gazed at her openly, expectantly.
Honestly.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." He paused and looked down at his hands. When he looked up again, his eyes had hardened. "But never again."
"'Never again' what?"
"We both anticipated your becoming angry with me for one reason or another. I gave you a safe place to go, and you intentionally disregarded it in favor of taking off into the forest - of which, I might add, you were very much afraid, only days ago. And why? To spite me. To prove that you don't need me. Lizzie, I'm not intentionally forcing you to rely on me, but after you shot Tom Connolly, you called me for help. I immediately dropped everything to do exactly that, for you. Do you think I'm enjoying this?"
"I think - I think that there are certain things you've enjoyed..." She trailed off, her meaning crystal clear.
"Yes, immeasurably, but that isn't what I meant. If you want to hurt me, I'd much rather you scream at me and berate me than pull a stupid stunt that could get you killed. I'll give you a free pass on this one, because I know that in both direct and indirect ways, the turmoil in your life is my fault, but as I said, never again... never, ever again."
She glumly nodded her assent.
"And if you want to get drunk, then you can get drunk, but not tonight."
"So, you and Samar, you really never..." She couldn't even bring herself to say it again. While it's true that proving a negative is hard, she could no more easily prove the opposite. Sure, she could ask Samar, but to what end? Liz trusted her no more than Red.
"Never."
She reached up for the back of his head and pulled him in to nuzzle his cheek, deeply inhaling the delectable scent of his aftershave. "I'm sorry," she whispered into his ear.
"I'm just glad that you're safe."
She closed her eyes, sighing in relief, and Red placed a soft kiss on each eyelid before pressing his lips to hers, harder than he intended. In doing so, he finally managed to convey just how hurt he had felt.
"I don't know why I lose control like that. My imagination just takes off at a dead run."
"Well, at times, your volatility is one of the things I love about you. We suffer few banalities. Good or bad, from my perspective, there's never a dull moment between us."
At his choice of words, her heart began to soar. One of the things that he loves. Not likes. Not appreciates. Not enjoys, but LOVES. And only one thing, among others, but is it many others, or just a few? She bit back the urge to ask for another example, instead refocusing her efforts on pulling him in for another kiss.
And then another still. A longer, deeper, harder kiss.
Within seconds, she'd managed to draw a needy little whimper from his lips. It was a brand-new sound with its own new taste and texture - a light and fluffy vanilla cream cheese frosting. She immediately felt woefully deprived of it, half-starved and desperate for more.
Without breaking the kiss, she gripped his shoulders and used them to pull herself up, first to a seated position and then standing. He wrapped his arms around her and held on tightly, still reassuring himself that she was really there. Her own arms frantically moved around and grabbed every piece of him that she could hold.
Both found themselves too swiftly carried away, desperate to be closer and closer than humanly possible. They moaned in tandem when she felt his arousal pressing torturously close to her core, hips jerking forward.
But as quickly as they had started, Red stomped on the brakes. He pulled back, panting, while his heart ticked like a bomb in a birdcage. "I want this more desperately than you know, but it's too risky to get your blood pumping too hard right now."
She grabbed his ass and pulled him in to grind against her briefly, "I think I know exactly how much you want this."
"That isn't what I meant, and you know it."
Yes, but she wished that he had.
"Yes, I suppose I do. You're right." She pressed her lips together, pouting.
"How about dinner instead?"
"Sure... since we can't have sex, and I can't get drunk, dinner sounds like the only thing you'll let me swallow."
His tone was smooth white chocolate when he replied, "So you'd like to swallow? I'm definitely filing that one away for later."
That happy little dancing arch of his eyebrows would surely kill her one day.
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AN: The 'heart ticking like a bomb in a birdcage' line is from a song called 'If I had You', by A Fine Frenzy.