Wandering Worlds
Chapter Four – I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
It's even more eerie to find him there, wearing what looks like to be Bruce Wayne's clothes, sitting at the bar. He notices instantly when Kory walks in, and glances over his shoulder taking her in. His clean up included a shave and seeing Dick's face stare at her from a stranger's body feels deeply wrong, but it doesn't make Kory doesn't stop, or turn on her heels. As if something invisible was pulling her, she walks towards him. It feels as if her body is being moved by a master puppeteer, and for once, she enjoys the lack of control. She sits by his side and if he's surprised or bothered, the stranger doesn't comment on it.
Kory starts reaching for the closest bottle, but he's faster, and pulls a glass pouring her a dose of the weird purple liqueur he was having.
"Donna let you out, I see," she says, and her words don't break the oneiric atmosphere created there, it's like the rest of the house isn't just covered the night's darkness, but disappeared forever and all that remained was her, a being from a another world; and him.
"I told her I'd have to shit my pants if she didn't let me go to the bathroom."
That was not the answer she was expecting and Kory actually chuckles at that.
"What are we drinking?"
He hums twirling the bottle and squinting to read the label under the poor light of the amber lamp.
"The bitter truth," and the way he raises his eyebrows in wonder is so Dick, that Kory has to bite her own tongue so she won't cry out in agony.
She takes a couple of slow shaking breaths, he seems to notice her discomfort, becoming very still. Kory finishes her drink and pushes her cup to be refilled.
"So, Dick Grayson, right?" She raises her gaze at him, trying to anchor herself by the differences. The beauty mark under his left eye is a little lower and to the side, the pattern of the freckles is also not quite the same. He has a thin scar that begins on his temple going all the way to his right ear. His hair is so long it was pulled away from his face by a half bun. And the black eye she gave him earlier looks nasty. Maybe she should feel bad. But she finds out she doesn't.
"Parallel universe, Dick Grayson it seems," their hands brush as he pushes the glass towards her, but it doesn't linger, he then grabs his cup with both hands quite tightly.
"Excuse me?"
"That's what Donna thinks," he murmurs, lowering his eyes, "at least."
Kory frowns, still very perturbed by this new information, she chugs her drink in one go, and studies him. He looks so nervous, and avoidant, she decides she doesn't like it.
"What?" she asks when he avoids her gaze as she handles him the cup for a third shot.
He blushes and that makes her even more annoyed.
"Sorry… It's just difficult to look at you," that takes her for surprise more than the claims of parallel universes. "No offense."
She just raises one eyebrow, wordlessly urging him to explain.
"It just has been a long while since-" he breaks his sentence there and takes his sweet time pushing down his drink while she watches expectant, and the annoyance became a bulging bubble of hysteria suffocating her.
"Since what?"
"I…" he breathes through his teeth, "had a Koriand'r back home too."
That somehow disarms her, Kory chews on her bottom lip before asking in a softer voice.
"Really? What she was like?"
It was weird beyond comprehension to be talking about parallel universes with Dick while she had just been in his room crying over his death, while his body lies cold and inert under stairs, so she didn't want to comprehend anything anymore. Just keep drinking and listening to his voice. In that moment that is all she has, and, for that moment, it is enough.
"She was… My best friend," Kory hears the rattling of glass against wood and lowers her gaze to his shaking hand.
"Oh…" realisation hits her and Kory holds her breath, covering his hand with hers, their eyes meet again, and she sees so much pain reflected back that overwhelm her. "You were…"
"We were together," he spills finally.
Carefully, Kory slides her hand off his, and grab the bottle of "the bitter truth", pouring him a drink, and he takes it all in one go without even wincing.
If what he's saying is truth, if his claims of being rom another universe are legitimate then… X'hal… Things were already so ridiculously complicated before, what is she supposed to do now? Kory waits, not quite processing the new information, but letting him relax a little before pressing for more.
"Your Koriand'r," and saying her own name regarding someone else is weird beyond comprehension, but she continues, "what happened to her?"
"Bruce killed her."
He answers so quickly that her neck snaps towards him.
"Bruce?! Fuck."
Despite the later development regarding Jason's killer – which, in Kory's opinion, was nothing to judge the man for, if someone touched Gar or Rachel they'd find themselves starbolted to the next galaxy – Bruce seemed so nice last night he had been in the tower. That whole parallel universe business being truth or not – and she was not convinced yet, but too tired and too wasted to argue against it – she'd be more careful around him from now on.
"Yeah…" he said after a while. "The other Dick Grayson, how…?"
You are the other, she wants to say, but she clenches her teeth.
"Jason," she spats the name.
He blinks confused, and once again she is taken by how familiar and all wrong he looks.
"Donna said he came back to life."
The mention of her friend's name takes the edge of her.
"Did she say he came back a crazy murderer?"
His lips twitch, as if he found the way she said it funny.
"No, she skipped that part."
"He murdered Hank, and a lot of innocent people too. Made this fucking huge mess…" Her body starts shaking with raw rage and instead of serving herself another dose, Kory pulls the bottle, drinking directly from it under the stranger's shocked stare. "He's locked up now," she finally says after wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, hot tears filling her eyes. X'hal she can't begin to cry again, she's so tired of this, "wasn't my choice of punishment."
"Hey," he says tentatively, Kory follows his hand hovering over her shoulder before giving up and falling beside his body "are you ok? Sorry stupid question. You and him…"
"No," she chokes, and the despair rises again. Why haven't they? Why, why, why, why… "Not really."
"Oh," that's all he says.
"Well, we were," Kory continues, afraid that if she stop talking she'll start crying copiously again, "for some time. When I got my memories I went on my own for a- what?"
He was smirking.
"My Kory pulled that one on me too. Gar and Rach created this crazy scheme to trick us into a date, made it look like it was a mission. Donna helped."
She actually gives a half-sob, half-laugh to that.
"Did it work?"
He smiles, and it looks so genuine and so sad, she wants to cup his face.
"Yeah."
Kory knows she's about to do something very stupid, so she tries to ground herself with more questions.
"Why did Bruce-"
He sighs, visibly irritated to be so violently pulled from what was clearly a good memory.
"Please, can we not? I'm so tired, and you look exhausted too. Can we just… be? If you want to be alone I can leave, but I don't want to talk about this right now."
Oh X'hal.
She reaches out, initially he flinches, but she doesn't pull her hand, letting it settles against his jaw.
"You sound just like him," she breathes, the tip of the thumb tracing the border of the wound she made.
The stranger's eyes fall shut.
"Sorry," he says, very low.
"Yeah," Kory says, her thumb caressing his cheekbone, "me too," and she closes the distance between them with a kiss.
He tastes like violets and sorrow, but when he stands up pulling her with him, and settling her body on the counter she can feel the heat of cheap tequila on her tongue.
Kory pulls him closer, her hands falling from his face to his neck, possessively adjusting the kiss for a deeper angle, and when her tongue slides through the roof of his mouth the magic is so strong that she can almost believe that she's kissing the right man. His hands make a tortuous path from her waist to her thighs, and the slits of her skirt deepens as she opens her legs to accommodate his hips, invitation that he accepts with a slow thrust. That makes Kory gasp, breaking the kiss. He leans his forehead against hers, his violets and booze scented breath fanning against her face, shoving reality in between them, reality that she rejects, when she crosses her legs around his waist and whispers against his ear.
"Find a room."
He pulls away for a moment, and Kory's confidence falters, his gaze is intense and dark, she bites her lower lip, fear brewing inside her belly. She's not sure if she'd prefer if he came to his senses and walked away from her or worse, if
"Tell me to stop," he says close to her lips.
"No."
He kisses her again, and this time is hard and needy, all her thoughts melt with the reasons why they shouldn't do that. That she's not the one whom he misses and he's not the one she lost. But they are close enough.
Kory has no recollection of how they get to the new place, only diaphanous disconnected memories of changing corridors and his impossible hot lips, the way his heart beats relentlessly against hers. When he finally settles her body on the ground, she takes enough time from his mouth to look around; she sees little tables covered with white lace.
"What is this place?" she asks, her voice hoarse.
He wrinkles his nose.
"The tea room, there are hum…" he cleans his throat, embarrassed, "no bedrooms on the ground floor."
That makes her squint, even though they are so close, she studies him, searching for something she's not sure of what it is. A confirmation. But a confirmation of what? If this whole parallel universe story is a fuckload of bullshit and he's some sort of shapeshifter, does it change anything? Because if he's telling the truth, either way, changes nothing.
He might look like, act like, know the same things, but he's still not the right man.
"I'm sorry, we should-" he starts, pulling away from her and Kory lets him.
"You are really not him," she states sadly. "Dick hardly say he's sorry," her voice wavers but she continues, "even though I can see he is most of the time…" Kory plays nervously with her fingers, but her eyes don't leave his face. "He thinks he doesn't deserve forgiveness, so he doesn't ask for it. Now he…"
They stand there for a moment, Kory chews her lip, if he's bothered by her unrelenting gaze he doesn't say.
"I thought I could do this on a lie," she says after what felt a decade of silence, "I just wanted to fuck you to delude myself that I didn't lose him forever. But I can't… I still want it, but let's be honest. You are not…" her voice breaks here, but Kory takes a ragged breath, clenching her teeth to get over the tidal wave of grief without breaking in tears. When she feels safe enough to talk again, she continues, "I don't think I'm the one you want either, I just look like her."
He crosses his arms, looking pensive.
"What you want to do, then?" his tone is soft.
Kory looks around again, it's such a creepy small room, cold too, but there's a fireplace.
"There is no bed… or couch."
"Sorry," he says awkwardly, still with her back turned to him, she smirks at his ways, and lights the fireplace.
"Apologising again. Does the door has a key, at least?"
"Should be in the keyhole."
She turns away from the fireplace, walking towards the door, and for a moment she thinks how the right thing would be to just leave, go back to Dick's bed, the real Dick. Hold her children close and just let grief does whatever it wants to her. But she locks the door.
Suddenly, she's touching him everywhere she can reach, her fingers enter his hair, pulling off the tie holding it up, marvelling of the softness of the threads against her skin. She bites his bottom lip, pulling it down as she urges him to lie on the carpet with her.
His face, Dick's face, hovers over hers, still looking for something. Confirmation? Another woman? Kory pulls him towards her, nails digging in his back, wanting him impossible close, alive, pulsing. The stranger's lips devour her neck as Kory works on his borrowed shirt, wandering how it must be for him to be wearing the clothes of the man that killed the woman he loved, maybe she's doing more than undressing him for a very questionable fuck, but also freeing him from a heavy shroud.
She turns around to help him with the zipper of her dress, and he's painfully gentle, pulling her thick hair aside, licking and pecking her shoulder blades, his fingers patiently peeling the shimmering fabric of her dress. But she doesn't want gentle, she doesn't want to feel loved, she needs to feel alive, and needs to feel him, and how very alive he is too, so without more ado, she pulls his from his trousers and he curses softly against her ear.
After that, it's frantic, he goes down on her from behind, his hands grabbing her hips in such a possessive way she knows the next day she'll have tender fingertips, for what she's grateful. Any reminder of life is welcome when everywhere she looks there is death. When he makes her finish, sobbing a name that is his and at the same time isn't, he rehearse a second time, but she'll not have it. Pushing her body up, they meet in the middle, and the feel of his breath on her neck, his hot hand on her belly, the throb of his heart against her back are almost better than the climax he just gave her.
Kory turns in their embrace, but when he's still not the man she wants to see, so she closes her eyes. She pushes him to the floor, riding his hips, taking his hands and putting them on her chest, desperate for more touch, like a drug addicted that grew too resistant and takes stronger and stronger doses chasing the memory of a high that will never come.
She comes again, all around him, the stranger sits up, adjusting their bodies, waiting for her. He kisses her temple, and is so sweet that she want to hurt him, so she does, biting his neck until it bleeds. He gets the message, and stats moving again, thrusting his hips up. Kory opens her eyes, finally, looking down at him though her lashes. The fire she created pulls the gold hues of his long hair, but his eyes never looked so dark. She caresses the bottom of his lip with her thumb, but as his rhythm intensifies, another wave of pleasure pulls her from reality and the orgasm makes Kory arch her back in a mute cry.
After, lying with him, still leaking, she feels dirty, a cheater, but her tears have dried. Beside her, spent, gloriously naked, undeservedly alive, in his slumber, he tries to cuddle her, but Kory peels his hand away. She picks her dress from the floor and leaves.