Disclaimer: Not mine.
AN: intothemultivers asked: How about a drabble about a lip kiss with Andy & Quynh please?
Me practicing writing kissing, take two.
*o0O0o*
*Between Heartbeats*
*o0O0o*
After, Andy measures it in heartbeats.
One, two.
She unlocks the doors to their safehouse, while Nile, Joe and Nicky are still by the car, laughing and teasing each other, high with post-job adrenaline. She smiles. Seeing the light that, with the introduction of Nile, has so recently returned to their family, makes something almost like peace settle into her old, old bones.
One, two.
Her eyes catch on a shadow on the floor in front of her. It's long and out of place, there is nothing in the room that should cast it. Which means there is someone waiting for them. Out of sight, hiding behind the corner of the hallway leading into the living room.
One, two.
Her hands move for the semiautomatic firearm slung across her shoulder and within a moment Andy has it up, pointed toward the body that's casting the shadow, finger on the trigger and ready to squeeze. The shadow moves.
One, t...
Andy sees her face and feels the air leave her lungs in one sharp, painful breath as she jerks her finger away from the trigger.
"Quynh," she gasps without sound, she doesn't have enough breath left for sound.
...two. One, two. One, two.
Andy stands frozen as Quynh narrows the space between them, her face without expression and eyes hard. But Andromache wouldn't move even if she'd been able to, not in the face of this miracle.
One, two.
Quynh's hands slide around her neck, clenching at the base of Andy's skull and pulling her sharply forward to clash against Quynh's mouth. Their lips meeting is the sun burning the desert, the volcano roaring through an earthquake. It's a six thousand year old warrior finding her heart and feeling it hating her. Quynh kisses Andy like she's trying to hurt her, her nails biting into the skin of her neck, even as her teeth catch Andy's bottom lip and she identifies the coppery taste of blood mixing with the salt of her tears.
One, two.
She doesn't even know when she'd started to cry. But she is crying, can feel the sobs escape her whenever their mouths part for breath. Her heart is shredding itself to pieces inside Andy's chest even as it continues beating. Quynh has escaped the horror of her iron prison, is back in her arms for the first time in five centuries, a happiness she'd thought she'd never be able to experience again.
"You're free," Andy gasps against Quynh's lips, laughing with a relief she knows she doesn't deserve.
One, two. One, two.
"And you left me to the arms of the ocean, my Andromache," Quynh says, voice lacking all the recrimination Andy can see in her rigid shoulders, feel through the trembling hands still laying against the back of Andy's neck.
And yet still the sight of Quynh is a gift to her. Gift enough that she finds herself thanking the gods she stopped believing in many millennia ago. She can survive Quynh's hatred. Knowing that her first and oldest partner, - her dearest friend and the other half of her ancient soul, - is free of her torture, makes all pain just grains of sand on the other weight on the scale.
One, two.
*o0O0o*
AN2: So? How did I do?