The Damocles Solution 28

She sighed. 2PM. She looked up from her work at two out of the three guys sitting on the couch. They were absorbed in a game of Monopoly, complaining every minute or so about the new and improved ways Peter discovered how to cheat.

She sighed again, and got up from the desk to get some milk from the kitchen.

Reminding herself that he already got his dressing-down from Peter and the guys, so this really isn't the bad idea she thought it was, she intrepidly headed up the stairs toward the lab. If felt like the longest few feet she'd ever walked.

She rounded the turn, and peeked in the lab. There was Egon, in a pristinely white dress shirt that hung open, and crisp khakis. He was leaning over the desk, deeply involved in designing some new wild aspect of their equipment, since he could not actively solder for at least another month and some additional weeks. He pored over his work, seemingly lost in it, using the fingers on his right arm as delicately as he could, only to hold a pencil once in a while. His crutch leaned against the table, awaiting his bidding.

Lesson learned previously, and not wanting to break his concentration so suddenly as to startle him, Janine purposely tapped with her heels and toes heavily on the wooden floor. Every step of the way to the table aside his desk, she started shaking more and more uncontrollably.

Placing the milk on the table next to him, she was ready to cry when he didn't turn around to acknowledge her. Instead, he sat stock still, turning and spinning the pencil in his left hand. It was the only thing that moved in the room. She could tell his eyes were riveted on the glass of milk next to him.

He apologized over and over to everyone else for his mood when he was brought back… but hasn't said a single word to me all day…why? Why?

She withdrew her hand from the glass, and brought up her hands together, nervously twining her fingers together.

Snap!

…went the pencil. The sound of Egon effortlessly breaking it in half resonated in the thick, tense air.

She started from the sound, and a choked, tiny, timid cry escaped her throat.

She turned on a dime, in an effort to hurry and get downstairs so she could bawl her eyes out.

There was a sound of the stool at his desk getting moved.

She turned around, to see him walking toward her with a look she had never seen on him, and couldn't decode. She raised an eyebrow. She wondered if he could even decode that look in his now-greenish eyes were she able to hold a mirror up to him.

Silently he approached her, without the use of his crutch, she noticed. The only thing she could call the intense expression on his face was burning, calculated fury. It rather frightened her.

Slowly he walked toward her, intense and silent. His height only added to the imposing, searing look in his eyes. Thinking fast, she swiped up a PKE meter, and switched it on, pointing it right at him. No unusual signal…the Jormungar poison that still ran through him registered a notedly unique signal that they were all familiar with by now, and it was still there, unchanged. She hurriedly placed it back down, and held her hands up.

"…Egon?" she said softly. "E—Egon?"

There was no answer. He was now a step away, and she was wide-eyed, terrified that she couldn't get him to speak.

"Egon? Are—you-?"

He lunged at her, and took her in both arms, squeezing for all that he could muster, seemingly ignoring his previous injuries. He picked her up slightly, and bowed way down.

And gave her the longest, most intense, passionate kiss she ever had from anyone in her life.

Wooooow, she thought, as she almost was lifted clear off her feet.

It went on and on..he backed her up againt the wall by the doorjamb, and continued to press. Her head spun in sheer delight, as the rest of her was gloriously wedged between the wall and his slender, yet muscular body.

Winston poked his head out of the doorway to the kitchen. "Hey, don't you guys think that's a pretty long time to drop off a glass a' milk?"

Ray blushed looking at the dark man out of the corner of his eyes, and Peter just sat there, shifting his eyes between the two men, grinning stupidly.

There was nothing else in the room at that moment except his beautifully full lips, and whatever she felt pressing into her. She raised her hands, and started stroking whatever she could reach of his sides underneath his shirt with her fingertips. They welcomed him to press in even more.

Ssoon enough, her eyes shot far open. She realized—he was grasping her so tightly and for so long…she couldn't breathe! She couldn't pound his back, either, as he had her arms tighly held, too. The more she tried to talk and get him to let her breathe, the further in he took it. Even heavily clawing his back underneath his shirt with her fingernails didn't stop him.

He sunk to the floor, her helplessly taken along.

Soon enough, the room spun, this time from lack of oxygen, and she fell limp.

Blinded to her plight by his passion, he released her finally, and held her close, whispering soft words into her ear she couldn't hear…for obvious reasons.

…and when he noticed she wasn't talking, realized his mistake and apologized profusely.

She roused finally, and said out loud in her stupor, more to herself than anyone else. "Woooooooow! What a great way to die, Melnitz!" She looked at him heavy-liddedly, each one of them panting heavily…for very different reasons.

Coming to her senses, she flashed in anger, and helding her spinning head. "A girl's gotta BREATHE whan ya do that, Egon! Yanno, carbon dioxide out, oxygen in? THAT kinda thing?"

He was truly mortified. "I—I'm sorry. I—"

She caressed his lips and smiled.. "Don't worry, Egon," she whispered. "It was wonderful anyway."

A terrified, pained look washed over him. He threw his left hand up against the wall in back of her to brace himself, and leaned heavily, shaking his head. "I..don't understand it. It's not logical. It's…nonsensical. It's—," he said quickly, grinding his teeth.

She put a finger up under his chin, the other hand now free to caress his chest, and leaned back against the wall, pulling his chin along as easily as if he were leashed. "Then, just let it be illogical and nonsensensical," she whispered, drawing her fingertips feather-lightly down his dampened torso. She looked in his greenish eyes, and thought for a moment that he looked a bit sick again. He was, in fact, perspiring heavily. "Just let it be," she breathed into his mouth. "Please."

His face shifted slowly from fear, to fierce intensity. Soon enough, he was gazing at her again with that same look he gave her when walking across the room.

He bent down low, shifted her hair with his nose a bit…

…and growled in her ear.

The deep sound shot heat all the way though her from head to toe. "Wow," she breathed. "Do that every time and I really might not be able to help myself." She brought her lips to his ear. "I love you, Egon Spengler. I always did."

He released a long, broken exhalation into her ear, and, pressing into her, bent down to touch his lips to hers again.

"Oh…Egon…"