Title/Prompt: Seduce
Rating/Warnings: G
Word count: 1682
Summary: Seduction comes a little easier when nuclear fusion is brought into the game.
Notes: Written for luxken27 for the BSC Fandom Fest on DW.
"Janine?"
"Hm?" She's halfway through an article on supernovae — she's not found anything she didn't already know, but it's well-written and it contains a list of further reading which looks promising. She looks up at the sound of a voice in the doorway.
Charlie has let himself into her living room, and he smiles at her. "Hi."
"Hello." She blinks at him, wondering if he'd knocked and she hadn't heard it. She looks at her watch, and is horrified to realize the time. She leaps to her feet immediately, her book thumping heavily to the floor, her desk rattling against the wall. "I'm not ready!"
"That's okay," he says, gesturing for her to slow down. "We're not in any —"
"I'm sorry," she blurts, mortified. "I'll — it won't take long, I just need —"
"It's okay," he insists again.
She grabs her book from the floor and stacks it on top of the others piled beside her computer. Her desk is crammed into the corner of her tiny living room, beside the window, and she's been sitting there for hours. "I lost track of time."
He gives her a fond sort of smile. "I figured."
She waves at him to sit and wait. "I won't be long," she says.
She shuts herself in the bathroom and hastily brushes her teeth and combs her hair, wincing at her reflection in the mirror. She opens the cabinet and looks at the makeup neatly lined on the middle shelf, but she doesn't think it will help in the short amount of time she has. She thinks of Claudia for a moment — five minutes and she can get a base, eyes and lips done. Janine might manage to blend her foundation if she's lucky…
She shuts the cabinet again and wrinkles her nose, trying to at least rub away the red marks under the bridge of her glasses. She looks down at herself. She's wearing a sleeveless blouse and black slacks — nothing particularly striking, but she doesn't want to keep Charlie any longer.
He's waiting patiently for her, looking slightly out of place on her two-seater couch, all long limbs and easy-going smile. "Ready?" he asks.
"I really am sorry," she says, still feeling flustered. "Punctuality is so important to me; I abhor lateness and being disrespectful with one's time."
He gets to his feet and kisses the top of her head, and she feels some of the tension in her neck and her shoulders just melt away. She gives him a smile, and he kisses her again, on the mouth this time, one shy grin against another.
"Don't worry about it," he whispers.
As they make their way downstairs, he asks what she was reading, and takes her hand, and she finds herself rambling about gravitational waves and nuclear fusion.
"What is nuclear fusion?" Charlie asks, tugging her hand a little so they can catch a light and cross the street.
She jogs a little to keep up with him, bumping up against him as he draws her closer again, fingers twined with hers. "It's a reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei come close enough to form one or more different atomic nuclei and subatomic particles," she explains breathlessly.
Charlie looks at her out of the corner of his eye. Her heart sinks a little.
"It's — you're not interested," she says.
"No, I am!" He sounds earnest. "I just have no idea what it means." He grins at her, and leads her into an Italian restaurant they like to eat at on Fridays.
It's small and quiet, and there are white and red checkered tablecloths, and strings of cheap green plastic ivy strung along the walls. It looks like the kind of place that could spring up in Stoneybrook, and Janine suspects that's a big part of the reason Charlie likes it so much. (It's a big part of the reason she likes it. That and the bruschetta.)
As soon as they're seated, he asks again. "So, explain it to me."
"Nuclear fusion?"
"Yeah."
She gives a nervous little laugh and straightens her fork with her fingers. "It's hardly light dinner conversation, Charlie."
"You'll have to dumb it down a bit," he says with a grin.
She folds her hands on her lap. Her heart is pounding fiercely. This is something she can talk about for hours, but she's already imagining Charlie's eyes glazing over and his interest waning.
She straightens her fork again, trying to line it up with the checkered pattern on the tablecloth. "Well," she says, still feeling a little reluctant, but failing to come up with anything else. "Well…"
"It's got something to do with nuclear bombs, right?" Charlie asks.
"Hydrogen bombs," she corrects him. "But let's not restrict nuclear fusion to what we can recreate ourselves." She feels the swell of infinite wonder rise within her, admiration for the universe and all its complexities and mysteries. "It's fascinating, honestly, what occurs when you really look closely, I mean — not only is nuclear fusion what causes hydrogen bombs to explode, but it is literally the explanation behind why stars shine and the power of the sun."
Charlie's smile is soft and lovely around the edges. "See?" he says. "You make it sound so romantic."
She feels her face going red. "No," she says, not exactly sure what she's denying.
"Go on," he prompts, squeezing her hand a little.
And so she does. She tries her best to keep it as simple as possible — but one little breakaway explanation suddenly needs another, and then that explanation requires further explanation, and suddenly she's wound herself in various threads all splintered away from her attempted subject and she's not sure how to get back again.
"You can't possibly be interested in all of this," she says, now desperate to save herself from further social floundering.
"I'm interested in you," he says. "And I like you being so interested in things. I like seeing you passionate." His thumb caresses the hollow cup of her palm, and he smiles at her again.
Her heart thuds and flips stupidly in her chest, and he squeezes her hand, and gracefully steers the conversation back to more everyday subjects.
Their food arrives, and they talk about family back in Stoneybrook, and family here in New York, and Charlie thinks Sam will ask Stacey to marry him soon, and Janine tells him Claudia thinks the same thing, and then she finds herself wondering if maybe Charlie will one day ask her to marry him.
She's not in a hurry. They've only been dating a couple of months, after all, and Janine has never been one to pine about dating and love and marriage.
And yet.
Charlie makes her heart ache in a way nothing else ever has. Charlie steals into the corners of her mind, taking focus from things she has always been able to pinpoint her attention to. Charlie raises the heat beneath her skin and accelerates the blood in her veins.
"What?" he asks suddenly, a grin on his face. He has noticed her watching him.
"Nothing." She shakes her head.
"What are you thinking about?"
"Nothing!" she insists, though she knows her face is bright red.
He gives a wicked laugh, which does nothing to cool her blood, and he asks for the check.
They walk back to Janine's apartment in the cool twilight, hand in hand. Janine's heart races with anticipation as they climb the stairs.
They stop outside her door, and this is the part she always hates — this is the part she's never any good at, the teasing back-and-forth; the game of flirtation, the tease of seduction which closes out the evening.
Charlie kisses her, his palm gently cupping her cheek. She kisses him back enthusiastically, hoping he'll take the lead and come inside without waiting for her flustered invitation. She doesn't like to play coy with these things, but it's difficult to maintain the magic of romantic butterflies when you're too straightforward. Finding the balance is always difficult.
"You said we can recreate nuclear fusion ourselves," Charlie says, planting warm kisses along the length of her neck.
"You were listening," she says with a smile, feeling surprised and pleased.
He laughs and leans against her, pinning her against her apartment door. "Well, I remember that bit." He grins at her and kisses her gently on the mouth. "It's very sexy listening to you talk about energy and fusion and combustion."
She tuts and leans back. "You're simply picking key words from my explanation."
"No I'm not!" he says, laughing. "I was listening, I promise. I can't help it if I get little distracted by you." He kisses her again. "Particles," he says.
She laughs and pushes her hands against his chest so she can look up into his eyes. "Is this how you intend to seduce me?" she asks.
"Do you need seducing?" he asks. He leans in and kisses her again. "Is it working?"
She hums, pretending to be undecided. She closes her eyes when he kisses her again, his hands against her hips, his body pressing against hers, trapping her against her apartment door.
"Why the stars shine," he murmurs.
"Yes," she whispers.
"What I'm trying to get at, Janine — "
She laughs breathlessly. "I know what you're trying to get at, Charlie."
"Thank god."
She laughs and kisses him again. "I don't think we'll power any stars," she says.
"You never know," he says. He brushes his lips over her smile. "It can't hurt to try."
"Will you please just come inside?" she asks, reaching behind her to turn her key in the lock. "I can't bear this joking around, I keep wanting to respond to you seriously and it's going to ruin everything."
He laughs and kisses the back of her neck as she turns to open her door. "I'm taking this very seriously, believe me," he says. He follows her inside and pushes the door shut gently behind him. "Ask me in an hour if I wasn't trying my hardest to get the stars to shine brighter for you."