Nothing good happens after 2am, by chibiness87
Rating T
Spoilers: Hints at everything up to and including Season 24, but especially Ep 5 pt 2.
Disclaimer: SO not mine.
A/N: Why yes, I am writing SW fic again. Why? Well. This season annoyed me. On so many levels. I have had many a rant about many a scene, and working for the NHS over the past two years don't even get me started on the ridiculousness of that whole hospital set up. So I wrote this. Because my mind demanded it.
Title from How I Met Your Mother. Which I also do not own.
He's restless.
Tossing and turning on the narrow seats, sleep eluding him still. He wants to put it down to the harshness of his sofa, because how anyone could find it comfortable is beyond him. (He doesn't think about how she looked a few hours ago, all curled and nestled against the worn leather. Doesn't think about the look in her eye when he offered her his bed. Doesn't think about how her eyes lowered slightly when he hastily added sans him. Doesn't think about any of it.)
He hasn't felt this restless in months. Years, even. Days, at the very least. But that was about Ryan and Cara and not about…
He's not thinking about that.
He's not.
Not about her smile or her hair or her clothes or her… any of it. He's not thinking about any of it.
Turning over, back to the room, he gives the cushion acting as a pillow another thump. Pulls the blanket higher over his shoulder. Squeezes his eyes closed. Sleep. He just needs to sleep. In the morning they can… forget anything ever happened. They're good at that. Experts, even. After all, it's not the first time they've kissed.
Except.
Except this time it's different.
Isn't it?
God, he hopes it's different this time. He's not sure how much longer he can go on, pretending he doesn't dream about her, about them. Not like that (well, sometimes like that, he is, after all, only a man desperately in love with his best friend and oh, now he's thinking about it again).
Bloody hell.
Flopping to his back, his hand swipes the screen of his phone. 02:03. Exactly two minutes since he last checked.
This is ridiculous.
He's a fucking grown man with his own bloody house (and in London, that's not exactly something to sniff at) and he has the (recently single!) woman of his dreams currently sleeping the full and restful sleep of the not pining away like a lovesick teenager in his bed, and he needs to grow a set right fucking now and deal with this.
So, okay, maybe it's bothering him a little that she didn't tell him about Matt. And then fell into bed with the first hyped up wannabe with eyes in his head that noticed, yeah, she's the most beautiful woman on the planet that came her way. And sure, part of him hates that she didn't come to him. But he gets it. A little. Maybe.
After all, for all she knew he wasn't available.
Actually, if you look at this logically, it's all Simone's fault.
She set him up on the blind date, (with Nikki's approval, and was she single then? Did she do that to him knowing he wouldn't even look twice at another woman if he knew she was free?) And yeah, he didn't have to take her home, but he was lonely, and the woman he really wanted wasn't available (right?) and it was a disastrous idea to think he could replace someone like Nikki with… anyone, it's ludicrous to think he could replace Nikki with anyone in the first place.
So, maybe not all Simone's fault.
She did, after all, think he might be a murderer because he helped put a suffering dog down, so really, how much does she really know him if she can think him capable of that?
02:07.
Christ on a bike, he's being pathetic.
He rolls over, forgetting for a moment he's on his impossibly small sofa and not in his bed, and is promptly reminded of this fact when he lands on the floor with a thump.
Shit.
Right. Sleep apparently not in the cards for tonight, he gives up. Gets to his feet, runs a hand over his face. Tries shaking away the ever-present thoughts of Dr Nikki Alexander in his bed, only to give that up as a lost cause too and stumble his way through to the kitchen. He eyes the kettle for a long moment, internally debating if he can settle with just tea (which tastes just fine, thank you very much!) before giving it a miss in favour of something stronger.
The whiskey burns as it slips down his throat, warming him in a way nothing else does.
Not even the feel of her lips under his again after so long.
He remembers the look in her eye, the sudden shock, the memory.
How long has it been, away? Six years? Seven? And that was just the first. Never mind the ones that came after. And yeah, they had their excuses. A New Year's Eve party where no one else they knew were in attendance and it was either a kiss from her or from the waiter. Relief when she hadn't died after a psycho went after her. Relief when she hadn't died after a psycho went after her. Relief he didn't die after being purposely run down.
Actually, they really need to start looking into hazard pay.
And now he has a reel of previous kisses running on a loop through his head. He's done well over the years to push the memories back, the feel of her mouth, the taste of her skin. The gasp she let out once, when he had kept the contact a little longer than strictly necessary. (How long was a thank god you didn't die after being buried alive kiss supposed to last, anyway?)
He groans. Placing the now empty tumbler on the counter with a hollow clink, he doesn't hear the creak on the stair. Hands in his hair, gripping and tugging slightly, lost in his own torment of memory and feeling and hope and anger and despair and above all an aching, howling love for someone who doesn't see what everyone else sees the moment they are in the same room together (Christ, this year alone he's had three, three strangers demand him what their history is because he's obviously in love with her, and it doesn't quite feel like a lie when he says nothing, but it doesn't feel like the truth either, and how is he supposed to act around her in the morning when they pretend again that nothing happened?)
And then he feels more hands, other hands, her hands on his, pulling his fingers free.
He can't turn around, can't face her like this. Can't pretend there is nothing between them, not now, not now when all his defences are down and it's just past two in the morning and he has to be at work in less than 6 hours with a mask firmly in place.
"Jack."
He doesn't have a chance to turn, because she's ducking down between him and the counter, under his arm and her hand is still in his and his eyes open in shock because she's here, she's still here and this feels like a dream and if he wasn't so sure he was awake still he'd think it was definitely a dream, especially when he looks down and notices, oh, she's wearing his shirt. He doesn't know what he expected her to be wearing, but it wasn't that. She's drowning in it, truth be told, the sleeves too long despite their rolled back appearance, and the hem falling to her knees, and he can see her clavicle where the collar doesn't quite close the same way it does on him. For the first time he feels like he dwarfs her, makes her smaller than she is. He knows he's taller than her, of course, broader too, but he's never felt like he could smother her like that.
"Oh," he manages.
She looks down, sees what he must notice, but when her eyes flash back to his they are clear. No guilt to be seen. She shrugs, almost displacing the precariously placed collar, and he can see where she's biting back… something. "It smells like you."
He can't help the small, pained sound that escapes him at that. Longing and wanting. Desperate. Her hand reaches up to trace his jaw, his stubble, and he's suddenly embarrassed she should know what that feels like. She's patched him up, time and again, more times than he can count after more fights than he's prepared to admit to, and yet this is the time he feels most ashamed.
"Shhh."
And then she presses up, high on her toes, and her mouth finds his and his hands are in her hair and he's stealing her breath, arms holding her to him and he can't let her go.
Won't let her go.
This is a bad idea. Such a bad idea. They need to sit down and discuss this like the adults they are supposed to be, about wanting and needing and how if she takes this back she might as well fire his arse because he cannot spend every working minute with her and not have this too.
But then her teeth nip at his lip, and his blood rushes south, and yeah, okay, he's not thinking about that right now.
He's not thinking about a damned thing.
Thoughts?
A/N 2: Actually, my mind demanded a more 3+1 type scenario where this "small scene" was one of the three, but then this came out instead when I came to type up the handwritten copy, and this is better, so this is what is getting posted. I might re-work the rest of the rubbish I wrote into something less… crap, but we'll see.