NSFW Warning: This has henceforth been a fairly clean story. This could change that. (Spoiler?) Please use your best judgment if that bothers you (i.e., it will not get better as it goes on). This is essentially the radio edit version, an unedited version is on AO3: same story title, fandom, username, chapter.

DIVERTISSEMENT

"It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know that it has begun."
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A New Stage For Life

They had been here before, shoes kicked off just inside the door of Gavin's flat and jackets slung on the back of a chair, side by side on the settee—close, but not too close. The easiness that had swept over Cully the moment she finally found him outside the Causton train station was long gone, a new uneasiness growing in her chest the moment she stepped inside. It was the weight of the memories from that last time she was here, those few stolen moments vanishing as he was pulled back to the outside world.

The drive from the station had rapidly lost that brief entrancement; her hand wrapped within his was now just a memory she grasped at, trying to hold it as it threatened to slip away between her fingers. And now it was little different, apart from the lack of jerky braking on Gavin's part when he half missed a red light. Between the rising tension in such a small space and being tossed to and fro, Cully was rather glad to emerge from the car.

At first, they didn't talk of very much, more like distant acquaintances trying to remember the last time they had met rather than troubled lovers struggling to understand what had all gone wrong. His questions about Cambridge could have been about the weather or the traffic: meaningless and empty. Once or twice, he seemed about to ask something else, only to stop and look away all while she wondered if he was a little bit closer than before.

"Gavin?"

"What?"

He was closer to her, she saw, it wasn't her imagination. "I—I just..." What was she meant to say, that she had been a wretched fool? That she had needed to peer ahead into the darkness and the uncertain to finally know and maybe even understand what he struggled to say. (Or was that her imagination, and too much to want?)

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said. As he leaned back and away from her, Gavin didn't believe her, that much was clear. "Nothing's wrong—at least now."

His eyes narrowed as though he was parsing her words, turning them over like he was listening to a witness. "Now?" he asked softly.

Cully nodded. "Yes."

For the next few minutes, Gavin simply sat and watched as she tried not to fall over her words as she expected him to do. She went on about how little Cambridge had changed since she attended university, following those comments with the memories of a visit she made to Oxford a couple years earlier: the calm instead of the newer bustle of an ancient university town. In turn, he muttered something about finally bringing the suspect in their burglary manhunt to court sometime in the coming week, nearly laughing when she said without thinking that he might have some free time on his hands and he pushed himself still a little nearer to her. "Maybe," he said after a moment.

"Don't sound so upset by the prospect."

"I'm not, Cully, believe me." He lifted his hand—but dropped it back down just as fast. "But, can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

Now Gavin scratched at the back of his neck, glancing down. Fidgeting, she supposed. "Why—didn't you?" he finally said.

"What?" It was a fair question, Cully knew, and one he had every right to want answered. Simultaneously, it was the one she dreaded the most: to truly answer meant everything. So long as she held her words close and quiet, what lay next—tomorrow, the day after that, winding away into the clouded future—could still be anything, but even a few words would begin to chart the course to some end still unknown.

"Why didn't you audition? After all you talked about not wanting to just skive off?"

"Just..." What are you so afraid of? "I'm sorry, Gavin."

"I remember what you said, about not wanting to have a black mark next to your name."

"And—it's true," Cully said as she slid closer to Gavin, the space between them almost gone. She wasn't cold, but she needed to be nearer to him for a little while. If she thought about all that distance and all that time that could have been...

"But what really made you change your mind?" he asked quietly, finally reaching for her hand like she hoped he had meant to just a minute ago.

It was suddenly hot twisted into her own palm. What are you, a little girl? she thought even as she tightened her hand on his. "When I got there, just standing about and waiting, and thinking about all that distance..."

"Cully?"

"And the time—"

"What?"

"I finally knew—" She had to start again, swallowing as she pulled one her feet onto the cushion between Gavin and herself and tried not to press her leg into the back cushion, unwilling to let go of his hand as she shoved her knee behind her arm. The knot in her stomach was stronger than ever as she sought the words she really wanted, even as she heard his breath hitch when her foot knocked against his thigh. "I realized what mattered. And what didn't."

He pushed himself even closer, his grip on her hand stronger. "And what was it?"

"You're more important than...anything I'd find in Cambridge."

"Cully—"

"And if I did stay in Cambridge," she went on, everything tumbling from her mouth, "what would that mean—"

All of her words stopped when he kissed her, her own hunger rising precipitously as his free hand wound around her shoulders and pulled her still closer. The knot in her stomach was suddenly transformed. No longer anxious, it was tauter and stronger: basal, nearly primal. Feeling his breath coursing between her lips and that arm around her shoulder...Cully shivered when she caught her own breath, the heat from his face fading even while his hand lingered against the curve of her neck. "I...sorry," Gavin started, beginning to look away.

"Please don't," she whispered, catching his face with her palm. "I'm not going anywhere, I promise. Unless..."

"What?"

"Unless you want me to," she finished. That would hurt more than anything else.

He peeled her hand from her cheek, clenching it as he shook his head. "Never."

Everything grew sharper and hotter: the new stiffness in her joints, his face suddenly pressed to the swell of her neck, each drag of air thick and slow. And once or twice, something low and rough from Gavin's throat, harsh with its depth even as she couldn't be sure if her own voice matched his. All the while, his fingers at last hesitantly traced the lines of her body: her shoulders, upper arms, the sides of her breasts through her cotton blouse. All that had been gentle and delicate before turned stronger, his nails scratching at her back to bring her closer.

Perhaps he had to come up for air or perhaps it suddenly wasn't enough; either way, he twisted around, bringing up one of his knees. "I couldn't stand the thought of you being in Cambridge," he said quietly, his fingers still wandering over her curves. More than once, she almost jumped beneath his touch.

"Then why didn't you tell me that in the first place, when..." Cully couldn't say more, still remembering and hating those phone calls a couple weeks ago.

His fingertips had danced around to her collarbone, the heel of his palm against her chest as she needed deeper and stronger breaths. "It seemed wrong, somehow, trying to talk you out of it—if it was what you really wanted. Even if—I still wanted you here."

"I didn't want it, Gavin."

"I know that now—"

"Would it have been different if you had known from the beginning?" she whispered. It was the other half of what she dreaded, starting to hear how much her words and choices had hurt him. In the deepest moment of her anger and frustration, she hadn't meant to do that, even when she tried to convince herself she did.

"Of what?"

He was right to want more of an answer. Even when this all began anew a few months ago, they had found themselves in this discussion: hiding conflicted feelings behind new roles, never quite saying what was going on for fear of...what, just like he asked. "When I first heard of the production."

Gavin shook his head. "I know you said a couple or three months, and a couple of hours on the train, but it felt so far."

"I wish I could change all of it, I really—"

"Cully—"

"—but I didn't know what to do." Don't hold everything so close, she reminded herself, her mother's words coming back to her. "And I had to do something—"

"But you're still here."

"Yes," Cully said softly. His hand hadn't moved from her chest, only pressed closer than before.

"And you're not going anywhere."

"No." She swallowed against a new lump at the back of her throat. It was the most terrifying thing, Cully knew as she pressed her leg harder to the back of the settee, fidgeting just as Gavin had a few minutes ago: everything was about to be to be laid out in the open, finally bared and exposed with nothing left hidden for the sake of fear. "But while I was waiting in the lobby..."

"What?"

She breathed deeply, ready to talk faster and faster. "Everything I wanted was here in Midsomer, with you. Being angry with you then didn't change that. And—I wouldn't find it anywhere else." Not even waiting for him to answer, she pulled him against her harder and tighter—she knew his answer now, in all the kisses he had pressed to her lips and all the the touches on her body he refused to stop—that she refused to ask him to stop, struggling to draw him even closer—

Cully fell back and dragged him down with her, first gasping as his body atop hers drove the last remnants of breath from her lungs in a yelp, his knee landing between her legs. And even as she worked to find another gulp of air, she heard Gavin laugh as he pushed himself up on his hands, his eyes racing over her. "God, I've missed you"—he dropped his mouth to her neck again and she felt him inhale against her skin—"so much."

Sitting up on his heels, she watched as he just examined her for a few seconds before his hand danced over her skin again, slipping up beneath her blouse again and along her side. Its bottom hem rose with his hand—Cully shivered at the cold air melding with his heat—until his fingers found the wire of her bra. And when he burrowed beneath that sharp barrier, kneading at her flesh, Cully lost even that faint breath. "Gavin—"

He kissed her again before he fell into the small space between the settee's back cushions and her, his hand not retreating but still clenched as a sharp jolt ran down to the tightening warmth in her abdomen just above where his knee dug into the settee. "I think we've been here before," Gavin murmured against her lips before his tongue swept in, tangled with hers. She pulled him onto to her, desperate for his heat against her—not caring that he tugged his hand back from beneath her shirt, twisting his fingers through her ever more tousled hair.

"Yes," Cully whispered as he broke from her for a quick draw of air. Exactly like before, her own hands wanted anything from him: the heat from her hands on him, just the heat of his body under her hands, even through his shirt. She remembered the feel of his bare skin. He was all warmth and soft against her touch even as her own desire rose against him. Nothing stopped, neither Gavin's hands over her body nor his mouth against hers, still hot and somehow reeking of a thickening smell she couldn't quite get enough of, inhaling it as deeply—

It came again, the same irritating noise of his phone sounding off, howling over and over from well across the room, probably still in his jacket pocket. Not again, Cully thought as part of the tension relaxed in the lower half of her body. It figures, she thought, Gavin not even looking toward the ringing. He was so close, his pale eyes shining a few centimeters from hers, still clear and pale in the clash of shadows in his own front room. "Shouldn't you look in on that?" she asked.

He didn't say anything, at least for a second. It seemed forever for Cully.

"I should do," Gavin finally said, still unable to keep his hands away from her. He didn't stop touching her.

"You're not."

"I know."

"Good," she managed after another second before he stifled her words again.

The ringing burned itself out then began anew—and they both ignored it until it at last fell silent. Gavin laced his fingers through hers, breathing hoarsely as his forehead dropped down against hers. But one of his hands soon drifted back, again finding the bulge of her collarbone, following it to the neck of her blouse, down along the seam to the very top of her décolletage. And when his fingers landed on the first button she had struggled to fasten half-awake earlier in the day, he slipped it open, the heat of his palm spreading over her skin as he found the top curve of her breast. The groan escaped her throat before she finally pulled him back to her, kissing him again—desperate for his taste even while she missed the sting of his grasp as his torso slammed into hers and her own hips jerked up against his. That sound again, though whether from her or…

"Gavin, please," she moaned, her arms clutched around his shoulders like hardly an hour before. It was all crashing over Cully: the deepening smell of him, his weight burying her, the rising ache in her belly, and the growing damp between her legs. It all demanded relief—him—and as it smoldered, her patience dwindled even further. "Please, Gavin, I—"

"Stay with me?" he whispered.

She felt his words against her mouth more than she heard them, hot and hungry as his eyes were glassy, pupils dilated. Questioning and asking...not for permission, but relief of his own. Still holding him tight to her, she tried to find his ear, breathing a single word along his cheek: "Yes." And between his hands and his kisses, finally feeling him within her again, she let herself be washed away and threw everything to the wind.

Which was how a short while later, Cully found herself curled by his side beneath the sheets and blankets of his bed, still close enough to feel the heat of his body radiating into hers. She just listened to him breathe, a sound she hadn't realized she missed. It was calming, really, watching him struggle to stay awake in the aftermath of the last hour or so, even as her early day tried to force her own eyes closed. He drifted off first, and it was those initial faint snores that Cully last heard before she fell asleep as well.

When she finally woke—time had become a mystery since she set foot into Gavin's flat again—every limb and every muscle ached just a bit, a gentle reminder of everything that had gone on before. Cully stretched one arm into the air to loosen her joints—and immediately yanked it back and twisted it into the blankets as an unexpected wash of goosebumps rose on her skin. What time is it? The last hours had slipped away unnoticed between sleep and him, most importantly him. She still took a deep breath, remembering him, her own sudden needs, their own new silly decisions…

Left hand thrown up over his head beside her, Gavin still snored quietly. His thick breaths came slowly as she pushed herself onto one elbow, just watching as he slept. Across the crown of his head, his hair lay in gentle tangles, threatening to return to the small curls that twisted around his forehead and temples whenever it grew a bit too long, like he had been twisting a finger around the ends. His bare shoulders peeked over the top hem of the quilt he had pulled up from the foot of the bed after the heat between their bodies dissipated. Rounded and sloped, his muscles were always a little soft, willing to yield to her hand rather than remaining rigid and taut. Like it should be, Cully thought, another wave of cool air rushing over her breasts as the blanket fell farther down her side.

Something about him was nearly delicate: his boyish face, his habit of tripping over his own words, the slight flushes he fancied he hid...It was all just right, all of Gavin. (Well, mostly, she allowed.) Erase the smallest look or garbled sentence away—he wouldn't be quite right, and her chest tightened. Reaching toward him, Cully pushed a few strands of tousled hair back from his forehead. What is he dreaming about? she wondered, her fingers following the edge of his face down past his ear and along his jaw. His warm skin wrinkled beneath her touch as his snoring slowed.

A few hours make all the difference, I suppose, she thought. In the sleepy minutes of the early morning, Cully's hands had been clumsy while she dressed and dreaded the dawning day. Now well into the early evening, still naked as she fell back, she still remembered Gavin's surer hands as they undid everything. Sometimes, it was still so strange to be wanted so deeply and viscerally—and know that same desire in response. As much as she had hated what she thought awaited her in Cambridge, the uncertainty of the future was exciting and bright.

Beside her, he pulled his arm back down, rolling towards her and blinking slowly in the dim light. "Cully?"

"I didn't mean to wake you," she said quietly.

"No—it's fine—I mean, more than fine." She almost counted the seconds she expected to pass before his face reddened, laughing when it did. "What?"

"I was just thinking..."

"About what?"

"You wouldn't be you if you didn't go red like that."

"It's almost gotten me in trouble a few times," Gavin murmured.

"Really?" She slid closer to him and already, she shivered under his palm rubbing against her waist.

"What else would it do?"

"What I just said"—Cully kissed him softly—"make you you."

His eyes danced over her, all while his hand followed the curves of her body, tracing her silhouette almost like he needed to remind himself yet again that she was still here. "Thank you for coming back to—"

"To what?"

"To—us."

"Of course," she whispered. Everything was tightening as she shook again: her belly, her joints, even her throat. "I guess that's why I wanted to see you on Thursday."

"Hmm?"

"I didn't really want everything I set myself in my future—and I didn't quite know how to stop it."

Gavin's ever-moving hand fell to the bottom of her back. "Why, exactly?"

"It's hard to stop when you're already halfway down the river."

"I suppose." He licked his lips. "But, since we—what if—"

"My period's due in a few days. It's fine."*

"And if it doesn't—"

"Then we'll decide it together, not like..." Cully kissed him rather than finishing her sentence.

"Not like the last few weeks?"

"No. I promise."

His hand tightened on her waist—suddenly matched on the other side—and he pulled her atop of him. Cully nearly yelped in surprise and pushed her body up, away from his. Her legs were rather stuck though, all the layers covering them tangled around their feet and calves. "Sorry," he whispered as he reached for one of her shoulders, kneading it beneath his palm.

"It's fine." She shook her head. "I just—" His hand now tracing her collarbone, she dropped her chin, nearly catching his fingers as they drifted lower along her cleavage, finally to her waist and hips.

"What?"

"Nothing," she murmured, leaning down to him and pressing her mouth to his. Everything was newly gentle and soft, the raging hunger sated for at least a short time as his fingers tangled in her hair a second before following her jawline, cupping her chin as she pulled her lips away. His fingers slid up her spine: from the small of her back to her shoulders, goosebumps rising as she shivered. "That's not fair," Cully whispered before she pressed her face into the curve of his neck. The sweat that had coated them both in the immediate aftermath of the last hours had dried and left his skin tacky against her cheek.

"Why not?" Gavin asked softly. His hand wandered back down along her spine, across her waist and around her hips another time.

"You could at least warn a girl."

"Where's the fun in that, Cully?"

She narrowed her eyes, lifting her face as she folded her hands together on his chest. Breathing deeply as she propped her chin atop her knuckles, Cully struggled to remember...something, like this had all happened before. Well, it has, don't be silly, she told herself. But as she dropped her forehead against his, his bare chest rising and falling against hers, it was something so familiar, almost a dream she couldn't quite recall.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"Nothing, just something I thought I remembered."

"Anything important?"

"Probably not." At least it wasn't as important as him, here and now. "But, make love with me again, Gavin?"

Over the next few minutes as he kissed her—his hands grazing her backside, one of them drifting between her legs as she jolted against his touch—she felt him growing against her until he scrambled messily for the bedside table, quickly finding the condom they should have used earlier. Just a few seconds later as she begged him on and fell back onto him, Cully moaned when he sank into her again, desperate to feel him like she just had as she was swept away anew. And after both too soon and too long, that taut cord within her finally snapped alongside Gavin's.

* Not an excuse for real life. Do not do this, do not expect it to be safe, this is a story. Bad idea that unfortunately works with the characters in this story, in this moment. Good sex is safe sex, unless you want to be pregnant or sick.

A/N: To everyone who made it through...you're welcome. The definitive song for this is "Near You Always" by Jewel. Yes it's 25 years old, yes it shows my age since it is from my childhood, but I think this is the perfect expression for these emotions.

Also, I think this is an appropriate moment to detail here like this. There's a phrase/concept in anthropology—betwixt and between—that I think this falls into. You aren't what you were, but you also aren't yet what you are becoming: you are in the middle, transforming from the old into the new, but you can't currently be either of those beings. (I was only in religious studies which I think is best described as a subset of anthropology. Don't come for me, anthropologists!) And writing is about challenging yourself; if I once described a chapter as so far out of my comfort zone it was orbiting another star, this exists in a parallel universe. And yes, I very thoroughly considered every incident included.