pairing: roomboom
summary: little quarantine fic. fluff, angst... unabashed smut-writing practice. posted in two parts on tumblr, bundled together here.
words: 2800
notes: i initially wrote this as some catharsis. i wrote it from a place of optimism. i thought things would get better - it really seemed like they would, at one point. but the world is entering another wave, and i feel weird posting something that implies this is "over", or "it will be easy to return to normal". that is absolutely not the case. keep wearing your masks. save your friends, family, the elderly, everyone with an underlying condition (like me!)
i. the sun will come up tomorrow
His hands are shaking a little as he opens the door. His twelve-hour shift ended a little after midnight, and up until then, he's fine. He's always fine – he has to be, he's knee-deep in his residency program and he's seen it all before (but not like this, comes a voice in the back of his mind, not like this) – until he gets back home, pulling keys and wallet out of his pockets, taking off his jacket.
There's very little clutter around; she had nipped that problem in the bud with an entire collection of cleaning wipes. Science projects packed up, the menagerie of microscopes and beakers in the closet. Easier to clean this way. He's always fine until he opens the apartment door and sees how quiet and tidy and still everything is, and the light from beneath the closed bedroom door.
He takes another step inside, and his phone rings with a video call.
It's hard to quarantine when you're living in a two-bedroom apartment, but they've tried. Separate baskets for laundry. One person uses the living area/kitchen while the other waits. Showering at different times (this is manageable, contrary to Sophie's thoughts). Sleeping in different areas (this is less manageable). Absolute minimal contact. The room that was once their joint study is now the place that he crashes on a spare futon.
"Hi," she says, her face lighting up his screen. His hand automatically drifts closer, as if bringing the phone towards him will bring her nearer too. "You look tired. How was your day?"
He settles back on the futon, then rolls on his side so it's almost like they're facing each other, with the way she's curled up. His shoulders are still tense, have been the whole day. On the mattress, his hand is a fist. "I've been better."
It hits him now, after a long day of tense professionalism, of assuring his patients they'll be fine as he – no, they aren't always fine. It hits him now. He is so fucking tired. The best solution to this problem is typically curling into her neck, feeling the warmth of her arms around him, the weary springs creaking in their mattress, even the teasing lilt in her voice when she says does someone have a crush on me? He'd pinch her sides for that, and she'd laugh at his grumpy frown, and with a deep, heavy sigh he'd be utterly forced to kiss the spot below her ear.
Bad idea. He's been in contact with so many patients. His love isn't selfish.
"I miss you," she says from the other room. He can hear her actual voice through the wall, the weak crack of it.
The reply gets caught in his throat. He thinks back to before this whole thing started, to the long afternoons together on their apartment balcony, strolling through the city parks and remarking on the portliness of well-fed squirrels, late nights on their bed debating what sci-fi movie to watch and poke plot holes in as they go to sleep. He should've treasured those moments more. He shouldn't have taken them for granted, so sure that they'd last forever. Finally, Law manages, "I miss you, too."
A tiny smile flits across her mouth. "You really should've taken the bedroom. I should've made you take it."
He's too tired to shake his head. "I'm fine here."
It had been a point of contention between them. The neighbors must've thought they were breaking up, when it was actually about a mattress and her screaming statistics about sciatica at him. He wouldn't hear of it. She gets the bedroom. She's the one staying home all day, anyway. He was going to sleep elsewhere. End of story.
Of course, he hadn't known what it would feel like, looking at her through a small metal box as they both sleep alone for yet another night.
Sometimes (most times) it feels terrible. Knowing that she's just beyond a door and a wall and a couple of nimble steps and a stifled conscience. If he was just a little more selfish, he'd lift up the blanket, crawl in beside her, and relax his bones against hers. His fist grips tighter (away from the screen, wouldn't want her to see) at the thought of it.
He's never been a man who required company to survive. He attempts to remember what it felt like to be happily single, without anyone to bother him or badger him into pointless conversation, without all these worries constantly occupying his mind. Then he looks at her again, at her sleepy eyes, the hand tucked beneath her chin, and he wants to reach through his phone and fold his arms around her and exhale. God, he wants to breathe.
He can get through this. He's a professional. This is what he does.
"Hey," she says softly. "Law. It's okay. It'll be okay."
He doesn't know what sort of expression he's making. He's sure he doesn't want to know. He's so fucking tired. He's made his peace as a medical professional; if he gets, he gets it. But if he comes back and passes it to her, if she gets sick, if she crumples in the middle of their kitchen, if she gets hooked up to machines on a hospital bed, her breaths shaky and struggling–
Stop. Don't think about that. Can't think about that.
"I know it doesn't seem that way," she continues. "Nothing about this feels like it'll ever be alright again. Things will be different after. But different can still be okay. Maybe this world is doomed in the near-to-distant future," she says this because they've been talking about it in their nightly videochats, the constant struggle of feeling hopeless, "but up until then, we can still be happy. You can still save people. We can help others. Isn't that kind of the whole point of existing?"
The turbulent, never-ending anxiety within him calms. Just a bit. But it's still a relief. The reminder is good. Even he needs to be reminded of this every once in a while.
"It's so hard knowing what you're going through and not being able to help you," she says in a quiet rush, and then blinks quickly. "Sorry." She brushes her face against the pillow, wiping away stray tears. (The way she's curling up faces his normal side of the bed. It is despairing to think about.) "I don't want to make this about me when you're doing your best."
His heart lurches. Well, first of all. he cuts her off, saying that that's absolutely not what she's doing. Second of all, don't apologize. And third… "I don't particularly enjoy the situation the world's found itself in," he murmurs, and it's hardly an emotional admission, but it still feels pathetically painful even after all these years, "but at least… you're here with me. And I'm here with you."
She sniffs, and doesn't say anything for a long moment. Then, "Hey, you wanna do something fun before we sleep?"
"Need I remind you of the last time you tried a striptease through videochat," he says with clinical stoicism. "You broke a lamp and almost set your panties on fire."
"We agreed that was a trial run," she hisses in mortification, and huffs as he chuckles for the first time that day. A smile works its way across her face. "And that's not what I meant."
She snuggles deeper into the pillow, eyes bright as she begins a rambling one-sided conversation that she knows he likes, because it's the only thing that's been helping him sleep every day for the past week. She begins it with, "We're going to go to so many places when this is over," and then proceeds to paint a picture of where, and how, and with who as his eyes drift shut. It's long past midnight, but he falls asleep to the sun.
…and when it's over, they do.
ii. i want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees
Her shirt is lying in a rumpled mess on the floor. Any other day, it would've been a scandal.
—she made a schedule, for the record. She's good at making schedules. Planning. Lists. It's about the anticipation, after all. It's about the suspense of waiting, and being disciplined, being heroically freakin' selfless. Despite their previous forays into the world of unethical science (they were younger back then, that's the excuse), they know to keep their physical distance while he's still neck-deep in hospital shifts. So when the day comes where things start looking a little better, a little safer, she allows herself to imagine it: the careful flick-flick-flick of his fingers on her shirt buttons, being close enough to drag him over by his belt and unbuckle it while watching his expression turn lazy. She's fine with waiting longer. It's about torturous restraint, the building thrill—
His belt doesn't make it off his hips. They don't make it to the bed, either.
—after one last, grueling shift, Law is assigned a week-long break. She plans out the activities of their first day back together: get up, pack up futon, brush teeth, have sleepy breakfast. Waking up on their bed somewhat refreshed, they clean up the study, adjusting to being physically close again, and it's strange. She's delighted, but feels shy, uncomfortably aware of her morning breath and how tired he must be still. But that's okay. She's penciled in 'lechery ' for next week, which gives them plenty of time to settle into their old routine before anything… strenuous happens. But in the middle of brushing her teeth, her organized schedule goes off the rails. He comes up behind her as she scrutinizes the hygiene of one molar, toothpaste dripping down her chin, and then he starts kissing the back of her neck, tracing along the skin of her stomach—
Law's always been the one good at self-control. always been the one to say Let's sleep, you'll be tired tomorrow, or Remember the last time you said 'fuck me until I can't walk'? You pulled a muscle and couldn't even stand. No. Do some stretches.
(That is not a verbatim quote. What she actually said was obliterate me like a vaccine to polio, which is so much more self-respecting.)
Well. Right now, that self-control is nowhere to be seen.
It's feverish. Clothes barely half-pulled off. Against the sink, hot and flushed. Pressed to the bathroom door, sweating and gasping and stunned at the sheer amount of physical contact after so long. She's still clenching her electric toothbrush in her hand. She snaps at him through minty-fresh kisses, badgers him about her spoiled agenda, biting his mouth, pulling him closer with her legs wrapped around his waist.
"Too much?" he rasps against her ear, ragged and wet, a shred of willpower returning through the heavy-lidded haze. This is just about the worst thing he can say while sinking her down onto every arduous inch of him. "I can stop."
Her fingers scratch against his scalp as she drags his head back, clenching black hair between her knuckles. "Don't even think about it," she snarls in frustration, their rough breathing tangling together like legs under a bedsheet. His eyes go hooded, and she's forgotten how much she liked that. It's been too long. Torturous restraint can exit, stage left.
She apologizes to her schedule in the most urgent, frantic way possible: fumbling, elbows banging, greedy, desperate touches, his scruffy beard tickling her chin, saying hello without words over and over and over.
—to be fair, they planned that schedule together. The day was supposed to be relaxed and quiet. Sex isn't on the list; Law knows he should be taking it easy, getting extra hours of sleep in, catching up with everything he's missed. But then he finds himself staring at the angles of her face that he's gotten used to seeing on his phone screen. And after they've packed up his futon, she leans against him in a small hug and says, "It's nice sleeping together again," and he a) agrees, and b) imagines a different kind of sleeping together. Last night, he was so tired from his shift he could only trace the curve of her bare shoulder with his eyes. Today, leaning against the bathroom door, watching her brush her teeth, he means to just lightly brush her hair away from her face. But then his hand wants to remember what it's like to touch her neck, and then his mouth wants to remember, too—
They take a brief pause to shower because they're filthy and gross. Well, she goes in, kicking off her panties, and he follows. he can't stop running his hands all over her—feels like he's never been so starved for anything in his life. She leaves angry, childish love bites on his neck, and informs him that after careful consideration (consideration, he thinks, involving his fingers between her legs), she is slightly annoyed at how long he's made her wait.
"The decision to wait was unanimous," he reminds.
"Still." She scrapes her nails down his back, hard enough for it to ache tomorrow. He closes his eyes as he shudders.
Once they're clean, they stumble out of the shower, get distracted with throwing their clothes into the laundry basket, and then proceed to ruin their newfound cleanliness on the hallway floor. She straddles him, the towel bunched up behind his head ("Don't want to hurt that p-pretty skull of yours," she whispers), her hands around his wrists, pinning them to the ground. They're both going to be so bruised tomorrow. it's not even ten in the morning.
"Rice, carrots, dumplings, fish," she recalls, coming down and catching her breath on top of him. Sweaty and sticky, they list what they need to buy at the supermarket later, settling back into comfortable routine, normalcy. The lascivious romp around the apartment is presumably over. In the kitchen, they discuss the notion of waffles. She starts getting out the ingredients, naked golden curves leaning against the counter, with the intention of setting out things before getting dressed. It'll be their first proper meal together after so long, and she's excited, and Law's little grin means so is he.
And then her fingers are tracing his tattoos again, which is perfectly innocent, and he's thumbing her nipple, which is decidedly less so. Waffles with whipped cream, while important, are adjusted to priority number two. They're still drenched in each other, but that doesn't matter, he's ready for it again and she's already pushing him onto the sofa—or maybe he steps back first—and sitting on him—or maybe he pulls her on top—
Either way, his hands are traveling up and down her spine and her arms are folded around his shoulders as she buries her face into the hollow of his neck. Their motions are no longer messy, frenzied with want. It all ceases into a slow rhythm. They take their time touching, holding each other. Tracing shapes onto skin. sighing. He holds her face, brushing her hair aside, watching her eyes squeeze shut, a high gasp as her fingers dig into his shoulders.
It's been a while.
Finally, finally, finally they make it on the bed, showered again and clothed, after a satisfying breakfast-for-dinner/breakfast as dinner (because they'd been a little too caught up in each other to remember food, until she kicks his shoulder lightly while his head's between her legs and whines that she's hungry). It's late afternoon. every productive activity in her schedule has been shot, and every muscle in her body will be sore tomorrow. But that's tomorrow Sophie's problem.
"I missed you," she blurts out in the middle of working on her PhD thesis, and supposes that's an unnecessary addendum to a day spent manhandling each other all over the apartment. Her cheeks turn pink. She focuses back on her online research. There's tea and an ashtray on her nightstand and a mess of books and pens on his. It's like they'd never been apart.
Law sets down his book down and leans on his side, propping himself up on his elbow, his other hand smoothing over her thigh. "I missed you."
"I missed you more," she returns coyly, because she wants to hear him say—
He leans in. "That's embarrassing."
She smacks her pillow over his head. He accepts this fate. Then he maneuvers close again, giving her a shifty smirk, and she traces the side of his scruffy jaw. They slowly, gently kiss each other hello one more time.