A/N: Here we go, finale part. Just so you know, even though I'm quite pleased with this, I'm also breathing in a paper bag, because the second half of this was written two days ago, and since I've been busy editing the previous chapters, it didn't go through the 29493 drafts process I usually tend to inflict on my stories before I post them.
But I promised myself I would have this story posted and completed before I went back to work tomorrow, so be it. You get fresh and raw instead of ultra polished. If anything else, forgive my typos.
Oh, and yes, this is smutty.
Thank you all, for your support and love this week. It means so much to me to know some of you still enjoy my stories. This is for you (and a little for me).
NORTHWEST PASSAGE
IV. TO THE UNTOLD
Peter's palms are clammy when he knocks softly on her door, swallowing past the lump in his throat so he doesn't have to do it in front of her.
All of his efforts become futile once Olivia opens the door, and their eyes meet for the first time in weeks.
Time stretches as they stare at each other. For a moment, any resentment he's felt since the bridge is kept at bay, almost sighing in relief, because he has missed her, and she's in front of him again, within his reach, with these eyes of hers holding his.
She's moving, then, stepping aside to let him in, averting her eyes as he comes inside. He keeps his gaze on her as she closes the door. She takes a few steps away from him, putting distance between them, maybe in the hope that it will help settle the heavy tension already crackling in the room.
Before long, her eyes are back on him, and the next few seconds are spent taking each other in, the way only two people used to being around one another every day can, quietly trying to gauge what effects their time apart had on the other.
His mind didn't trick him; she's almost exactly the way he pictured her, still wearing her work trousers and blouse, minus her jacket and her shoes. The main difference with his mental image is her hair, which isn't down but held together in one of her loose braids. She also seems...smaller, somehow. Maybe because she's not wearing any shoes, or he's simply reminded of their height difference.
His focus soon goes back to her face, taking in her tensed traits, the circles under her eyes, her pale skin. She's too pale. A few other images drift in his mind, memories of times when she'd looked too ragged, one of them being the few days that had followed her killing of 'Charlie Francis'.
She's more than a welcome sight, though, always most beautiful to him when she's at her most human.
Already, his body is reacting to her proximity, his breathing shallower than it was minutes ago, his heartbeat managing to gain more speed, fighting the urge to move closer to her just to be closer.
These moments of quiet observation don't last, their gazes soon meeting again, easily starting one of their wordless conversations.
Guilt is already taking over her every trait, and that's all it takes for his hurt to become front runner in the mess of emotions fighting inside of him. He's missed her, and seeing her again is painfully comforting, but he cannot just pretend nothing's happened.
She's done enough pretending for the two of them.
The thought is bitter, and it burns at the back of his throat. Her face somehow manages to lose what little colors had risen in her cheeks upon his arrival; she's sensing the return of his resentment, seeing it as well. He's not covering it up, tonight.
They still haven't spoken, and at this point, it's getting ridiculous.
Peter comes to the rescue, reaching inside his jacket. He pulls out what he'd wisely decided to bring along, holding out the flask for her to see. He'd procured the alcohol around the same time he'd procured his weapons – one of which is tucked in the back of his pants.
At the sight of the bottle, he thinks he sees the corner of her mouth quiver, but she doesn't smile. With her arms tightly crossed in front of her chest, she's in full Defensive Dunham mode.
"You wouldn't happen to have a couple of glasses lying around, would you?" His tone is falsely congenial, and it does nothing to ease the tension, somehow making her stiffen a bit more as she shakes her head.
He knew there wouldn't be any. He'd stayed in this very room the previous night; this motel is as cheap as it gets.
"Oh well," he shrugs, still in that same chipper voice. "We'll make do." He opens the flask, before holding it out to her again, as if to toast, almost an inside joke between them by now. "To the untold," he says with his fakest grin, before taking a swig of the liquid.
He watches her as he drinks, notes the way she seems to physically recoil at first, his low blow hitting home. One of her hands briefly goes up to wipe the corner of her eye with a knuckle. Her demeanor begins to change, though, her guilt turning into something else.
When she brings her gaze back to his, her eyes are blazing, and the way she glares at him burns more than the liquor tracing its path down his throat.
"You're mad," he points out, when he's done swallowing. While his voice has lost its ridiculous, friendly edge, now lower, it reflects his slight surprise. Very slight surprise.
Given the chance, Olivia will turn any of her emotions into anger.
True to herself, she's not overly obvious about it either. And, true to herself, when he daringly holds out the flask again, she does not back down.
She takes a couple of steps closer, her face set, her cheeks pinker, offering him her best glare. "Am I supposed to be pleased?" She finally replies, grabbing the alcohol from his hand. She does not step back. "You left, Peter," she says, as if she was scolding a misbehaving child. "I've spent the last three weeks running after you, when for all we know, the Other Side could be about to open fire on us. Not exactly the best use of my time or resources."
His irritation sparks up at once, clenching his jaw as his entire body tenses. "Spare me the lies," he says, his voice low. "You and I both know I was never crucial to the Fringe Division. The fact that I turned out to be at the center of this damn war can't even be that important either, considering you've all decided to keep me in the dark so, don't lie," he repeats. "You owe me that much."
She can't hold on to her anger for long, after that. It's gone as quickly as it flared up. She averts her eyes, looking at a point past his shoulder, her breathing too shallow as silence stretches once more.
And then: "You left," she says again. Her tone couldn't have been more different, though, her words quiet, and hurt. Accusatory.
But at last, she's being honest.
When she brings her eyes back to his, his own irritation has faltered. "You lied," he replies, as honestly, the pain her betrayal caused him clear in both his tone and demeanor.
She pinches her lips together, her cheeks flushed, although the rest of her face remains too pale. Unable to hold his gaze, she looks down at her hands, as if just now remembering the flask he'd given her. She brings it up, taking a swift mouthful he knows won't feel good going down – just like his choice of motels, the alcohol is cheap.
Sure enough, she grimaces as she swallows, shuddering almost violently.
"How long did you know?"
She licks her lips, something he tries not to focus on. "A few weeks," she answers, eventually, her voice lowered by the alcohol.
A few weeks.
Considering how much time he's had to think it all over since he left, he'd figured out she must have learned about his origins around the same time she became awkward around him. Around the same time his 'father' became depressed. Hearing her confirm it does not make him feel any better.
He can tell she's hurting from her own deception, from the pain it caused him, still too attuned to her emotions, to all the little ways it affects her. This is what happens when you spend months learning to read someone as withdrawn as she is.
And that knowledge of her hurts him, too.
It hurts him and angers him, because he feels like an idiot, like a fucking fool, having been so afraid to do anything that might push her away, always careful and patient; she'd meant too much to him to risk jeopardizing their friendship. And for what?
"You saw the glimmer, didn't you." He's not even asking, his voice thick with anger and hurt. "That night, in New York, with the building. That's why you started avoiding me all the time, isn't it? I've been shining like a Christmas tree ever since?"
Olivia tenses even more, not copping well with his anger. She'd seen him pissed off before, his trademark mood in the early weeks of their partnership, but it'd been a long time since he last talked to her that way.
Hell, he'd become as threatening as a fucking puppy around her.
She holds her ground, though, shaking her head. "It's not always there," she admits, quietly. "Only when I'm scared."
He didn't expect her to be honest. The fact that she is does nothing to soothe him, aware of the way her eyes dart around him, then, seeing something invisible to him. His heart sinks, feeling more disturbed at the thought of the glimmer than she probably is at the sight of it.
This is her gift, her curse. She sees things that do not belong to this world, things that should not be here.
"Am I glowing now?" He asks, already knowing the answer.
"Peter," she tries with a shake of her head. Not in denial, though.
"Am I?" He demands, his voice booming in the small room.
She visibly flinches, instinctively taking a step back from him, her eyes to the ground.
"Yes," she breathes out.
He really didn't need her to confirm it. Her body language nothing short of screams 'fear', in all these little ways he wishes he could hate. What he feels couldn't be farther from hate, though, his anger draining out of him, realizing what he sounded like.
He's sickened by the fact that he can instill that kind of dread in her.
"You don't have to be scared," he says, his voice hoarse. "You know I would never hurt you."
She brings her eyes back to his, shaking her head again, barely, lips pinched. "It's not that kind of fear," she says, quietly.
He holds her gaze, swallowing hard. "What kind is it, then?"
Olivia stares back, her eyes welling up. She doesn't answer, of course, managing another small shake of the head, her lips stretching in a pained smile.
Truth is, she doesn't need to say it; he knows what she meant. He's known it for a while, or at least suspected it, that what he feels for her, she feels it, too.
But this guttural certainty did not match her recent actions. And he learned early on that Olivia's actions often speak louder than her words.
She had kept Walter's secret. She had lied to him.
"You should have told me."
He says the words quietly, his voice thick. He doesn't even sound reproachful, and somehow, it's worse. There is nothing left of his anger; only pain.
I trusted you, is what he's telling her.
She hears his silent accusation, her face constricting, causing a couple of tears to roll down her cheeks. She wipes these traitorous trails off with a swift hand, before going back to holding on to her elbows.
"I know," she whispers to the ground, soon bringing her eyes back to his. "I'm sorry."
His insides ache at the sight of her tears; such a rare occurrence. It does not feel good, knowing he's responsible for them.
Yet again, her actions often speak louder than her words.
"Why didn't you?" He asks, because if he doesn't, she won't say anything at all.
Small shrug, not in indifference, more in apology. "I wanted to," she admits, ashamed. "But I thought..." She shakes her head. "I guess I knew you'd leave if you learned the truth, and I just... wasn't ready to deal with that outcome."
He stares at her, perplexed. She's blushing again, unable to hold his gaze.
"You decided not to tell me I was stolen from another universe because...you were not ready to deal with that outcome," he repeats. Her blush darkens. When he scoffs, she looks back up at him. "This has to be the most selfish thing I've ever heard you say."
She becomes defensive again. "I never claimed to be selfless."
She certainly had not. "No," he concedes. "You just act like it."
She takes the blow, looking away, biting down on her lip. When she meets his eyes again, she seems worn out. "Fine. I was selfish. I acted...irrationally. I broke most of my own rules on integrity and trust. I agreed to keep your father's secret, because it benefited me."
"That man is not my father," he replies at once, his anger quick to resurface at the thought of Walter.
Olivia tilts her head, as if to say 'Come on.'
"You should have let him explain why he did it," she says. "If you knew the whole story–"
"I don't need the whole story," he cuts her off. "I figured it all out, remember? His son died. He crossed over to the other universe, stole me from my family, from my world and my life, because he couldn't cope with his grief. How am I doing so far?"
Judging by her expression, pretty well.
'And all of this for what?' he wants to ask. The trauma of being kidnapped was intense enough for him to forget everything from his childhood before the age of eight, but he remembers the subsequent years all too well.
Walter, consumed with his work, descending into madness. His 'mother', consumed with what he now knows to be a poisonous mix of guilt and grief for her dead child, having to raise this stolen version of him who only got angrier as he got older.
"You would have died, Peter," Olivia says, her voice thick.
But he doesn't want to hear it.
"Did it ever occur to you that maybe I was supposed to die?" he replies, not doing any better. "That if the Peter from your world died, it was meant to be my fate, too? He shouldn't have intervened, crossed the lines he crossed, just to save me. I wasn't his to save. This world would be better off if he hadn't, there wouldn't be–"
Peter has to stop, the lump in his throat making it impossible for him to continue. He closes his eyes, fighting against the sudden burn of tears, shivering with pain.
In two and a half weeks, this is the first time he talks about it, about all these things he realized were his fault, a direct consequence from him being here. All these deaths they investigated this year alone. Charlie's.
His mom's.
"Peter."
He reopens his eyes, startled by her proximity. She's moved, now standing very close to him, close enough for him to touch.
He doesn't.
"What Walter did...it's unacceptable," she says, her voice low. Her eyes are reddened and bright, but like her tone, they are fervent as well. "I'm not going to tell you you have to forgive him. Believe me, I get it. But you're not responsible for what happened because of it. You were just a boy. And even if you're not anymore, it doesn't make it any more your fault."
If he hadn't felt so miserable, he would have called her out on her hypocrisy.
Olivia Dunham, telling him he's not responsible for what Walter did to him as a child. She, who's always so quick to carry the whole damn world on her shoulders, believing herself to be accountable for everyone's safety except her own, because that's the burden that was forced upon her at age three.
But he's unwilling to listen to what she's saying, to think about the similarities between his situation and hers.
It doesn't change anything.
"Olivia," he says, his voice constricted in dejection, wishing he could explain the extent of his homesickness, convey the depth of his sorrow, feeling like he not only was betrayed by his family, the entire universe abandoned him. "I don't belong here."
I don't belong in your world.
He doesn't know how to deal with this truth. With the knowledge that beyond the fact that he's been traumatized and lied to his whole life, he comes from the enemy side, from a place they all abhorred and distrusted for months.
He comes from the world that sent these shapeshifters over, these soldiers who among other things tried hard to kill her, who murdered her partner and forced her to shoot a monster in his skin.
He was born in the very world she was made to hate, by the cortexiphan in her brain, and in retaliation for what it took from her.
Olivia is hurt by his words, the ones he spoke, and the ones he didn't need to, her brow furrowed, her eyes brimming with tears. She shakes her head, imperceptibly, with another pained smile.
"Yes, you do," she says, very quietly, and he closes his eyes, shaking his head. "You do, Peter," she insists. "You've helped save so many lives, these past two years, people we probably wouldn't have been able to help without you. Look at what you did here, this week. You saved another man's life, because you were in the right place, at the right time."
Look at what you did here, this week.
Looking for a way out, his brain latches on that statement and discards the rest. For the first time since he talked to Mathis, he thinks about what Olivia's presence in Noyo County means, professionally speaking.
His eyes roam the room, soon stopping on what he knew he would find.
"You've read Mathis' report," he says, bringing his gaze back to hers, successfully changing the subject.
A blush is creeping back as she averts her eyes. "I wanted to know how you got involved in this case," she says, her voice quiet and low.
He remembers giving that statement, a couple of days ago, explaining to Mathis how he'd come to be one of the last persons to see Krista alive. That report must also state that his alibi had been confirmed, that he'd indeed spent the night in the lobby, waiting for Krista to join him.
The untold hang in the air, the tension somehow thickening. They can't even discuss it.
Olivia will never ask him if he's spent the past couple of weeks fooling around, and he's not about to tell her that no, he did not sleep with the girl who was murdered that night.
What Peter feels then is the strangest kind of irritation and frustration. He should not have to justify himself.
She might think she knows enough about what kind of guy he was before they met to imagine he would get back at her by fucking his way to Washington State, but more importantly, she knows what kind of person he is now. She must be aware that he dated about as many people as she did in the past eighteen months – meaning no one.
They'd never committed to one another, but the commitment had been there anyway. Unspoken, yet binding.
He feels it, under his skin, in his bones, feels her.
Here she stands, close enough for that scent of hers to have invaded his lungs, looking almost small under the weight of her guilt and insecurities, yet too proud to ask, and it hurts.
It hurts to breathe, it hurts to be, because he loves her. He's loved her for so long he feels like he's loved her his whole damn life, which makes no sense at all, yet here he is.
In the wrong world, in love with a girl he was never meant to meet.
She'd been his closest friend, yet she'd betrayed his trust out of fear, convinced he would leave her if he learned the truth. Because that's what her experiences conditioned her to believe, the way his experiences conditioned him to run.
What she'd failed to realize was that his hasty departure and seemingly indifference to her calls were a direct result from hers and Walter's deception.
"I would have stayed."
He speaks the words quietly, but the silence in the room is so thick, he could as well have shouted them.
Her breathing hitches, as she raises her eyes to meet his, almost cautiously.
"If you'd told me," he continues, in that same voice. "I would have stayed for you."
Her eyes are filling with tears again. She's so close. Her gaze drops to his lips, darkens, comes back up.
"Will you come back?" She murmurs, as if afraid to speak the words.
Slowly, he brings a hand to her face, unable not to, swallowing hard when he feels her lean into his touch.
But he cannot go back. He cannot face Walter, face all these evidence of a life he'd built upon nothing but lies.
When he shakes his head, barely, Olivia's face constricts, a few more tears escaping.
"I'm sorry..." She says again, breathing out the words, averting her eyes as tears begin to come more furiously, burning the skin of his palm, and he hears the words she doesn't say.
I'm sorry I failed you.
This, her standing shaky, scared, and defeated in front of him with his hand on her face, this is New York all over again.
And something breaks inside of him when he realizes that she thinks he's rejecting her.
When she tries to move away, her breathing loud and distressed, he refuses to let her go. His other arm comes around her instead, pressing his hand into the small of her back as he tightens his hold on her face, pulling her closer, until they're forehead to forehead, nose to nose, feeling her wet skin against his own.
He breathes in her next wobbly exhales, before breathing out her name against her parted lips with the slightest hint of reproach, because how could he be rejecting her?
They remain almost completely still, one of his thumbs caressing her cheek, while the other one caresses her lower back through her shirt, breathing the same air; he feels her progressively relaxing against him, her tears stopping, as she lets herself accept the fact that he's not letting her go.
More than that, he's pretty sure his need for her is seeping out of his pores, now, and he senses her responding to him, their body language changing, their dialogue wordless yet unambiguous.
They don't move, at first. And then, they do.
She's pushing as much as he's pulling, feeling her fingers reaching for his nape as his lips find hers. And again, they stop, simply returning the pressure for a moment, more a seal than a kiss, bodies shuddering.
He hears a low thump when the flask she was still holding hits the ground, her free hand slipping inside his jacket to come rest on his side, soon clutching the fabric of his shirt.
Even when they lessen the pressure, creating a space between their lips to breathe, she doesn't release her hold on him. She tightens it instead, her hand leaving his nape to better wrap her arm around his neck, fingers curling in his hair. And he feels that same upward push again, as he imitates her, wrapping his arm around her waist to press her to him and reclaim her lips, his own fingers sinking into her hair.
This kiss is slow, and deep; inevitable. She tastes of the ocean, first, salty, and fathomless. He tastes the remains of his liquor, then, bittersweet, and smoky.
Soon, it's only Olivia he's tasting, and he drowns into her more than ever would in any sea.
She feels too good to be real; not just the press of her against him, but the way she holds on to him, moves into him. Slow down, and go...slow down, and go...slow down, and go...
When her hand pulls at his shirt to gain access to his skin, slowing down becomes speeding up, the feel of her nails raking his back doing more to him than her tongue against his own. Before long, he feels her grab at the gun tucked at the back of his pants. She punctuates her discovery with a bite, nipping at his bottom lip just hard enough, and he lets out a low groan into her mouth.
She pulls the weapon out of his waistband, pulling away from him as well, enough for their eyes to meet. She looks down briefly to inspect the gun, checking if it's loaded – it is. She's flushed, her gaze dark and hazy; even with her cheeks glistening with vestigial tears, there's a definitive hint of Agent Dunham in the way she soon stares at him, half-questioningly, half-disapprovingly.
"Do we need to talk about this?" She asks, her voice husky, with an edge of concern.
Peter hasn't changed his mind and still believes he did see Newton all over the county, but he doesn't think he can manage intelligible sentences at the moment, their bodies joined at the hip, his heart busy pumping most of his blood away from his brain – something she's well aware of, considering the way she was swaying against the evidence of it a minute ago.
He shakes his head, swallowing hard. "Not now," is all he says, leaning down to recapture her lips, because he's waited too damn long for him to let this turn into another Fringe conversation.
But Olivia evades his attempt, pulling away a bit more by using the hand that had been in his hair to push against his shoulder, looking more agent–like by the second. "Peter," she protests. "I've read that report. If Newton is after you, then I need to call Broyles. This might be our only chance to –"
She never finishes her sentence.
He pushes her quite roughly toward the bed, until she's falling upon the mattress with him on top of her, swiftly using her surprise to his advantage, slipping a thigh between her legs to apply a deliberate pressure against her. With his forehead upon hers again, she gasps inches away from his mouth, her fingers back in his hair, nails digging into his scalp.
"Later, 'Livia," he almost growls, slowly but decidedly rolling the entirety of his body into hers, feeling her shudder almost violently, a similar tremor spreading through him. "Just drop it."
He meant the gun, but she gets his point.
Always the trained agent, she does not simply 'drop' the loaded weapon on the floor, wriggling and stretching in his arms so she can put it on the nightstand instead, next to her own gun. He uses her outstretched position to redirect most of his focus on her neck, diving, breathing in that intoxicating scent of hers, before nibbling at the tense skin.
Another rasp escapes her, her whole arm slipping inside his shirt to grab at his shoulder-blade as he continues his rocking motions, soon replacing his teeth with his lips and tongue.
And again, he's consumed with the feel, smell, and taste of her, aching to be inside of her, his body so deprived on a sheer carnal level that it doesn't seem to register the fact that they're both fully dressed, imitating the act despite their many layers, acutely aware that she's moving along with him.
In between the rolls of his hips, he finds the helms of her blouse near her waist, his impatience making him pull at the clothe with no restraint, until the buttons pop, one by one. He moves his head from the crook of her neck to look at her.
Olivia is already heaving under him, her pupils wide, her cheeks a dark pink, messy hair having escaped her braid, a vision that makes him throb painfully inside his jeans. She doesn't let him stare long, both her hands reaching for his face and pulling him down into a hot, scorching kiss.
He's spent months fantasizing about this, about her. About touching her to insure she was real and alive, kissing her to erase any worry line from her skin, pleasing her to relax her very soul.
Loving her because he could.
And these weeks of longing are what guide his hands and dictate his every move, roaming the newly exposed skin of her chest; goose-bump erupts under his fingertips, feeling her muscles twitch, her breathing hitch, until he's unceremoniously pushing the fabric of her bra up to access the soft flesh of her breast. Her nipple hardens against his palm as he massages her, soon putting his thumb to work.
She lets go of his lips with a gasp, and somewhat freed from her hold, he uses this opportunity to descend on her again, entrapping the sensitive knob in his mouth. He sucks and twists, before flattening his tongue and pressing down, running over it, fast, then slow...fast, then slow...fast, then slow...until her back is leaving the bed, arching into him with a loud moan, and he slips both his arms around her to keep her pressed against him as he focuses on her other breast, as deserving of his devotion.
Both her hands are on his jacket, grabbing at it unsuccessfully, trying hard to pull on the rough fabric. "Peter," she pants. "Your clothes."
He knows what she wants, what she needs. She craves for that skin–to–skin contact as much as he does. Yet again, it's been months, and the most arrogant part of him, that part that is very good at holding on to a grudge, isn't about to just give her what she wants.
What he wants is to watch her squirm, to feel her break against him.
He's drawn quite a few more throaty moans from her before his tactic changes, lulling her into a false sense of security, always the con artist. He relaxes his muscles and relinquishes his holds on her, feeling her do the same. He pushes himself up, kneeling between her legs, before grabbing her arms to help her sit up. She follows, getting rid of her ruined shirt as his fingers lose no time and find the clasp of her bra. He unbuttons her pants just as quickly while she throws her bra aside.
She's quite a rousing sight, her hair almost completely out of her braid now, long strands draping her skin, a skin that is flushed deep, deeper across her heaving chest, courtesy of his truly. Nothing quite surpasses the pull of her gaze, though, capturing his eyes as soon as they travel back to her face.
And Peter lets himself be pulled, cupping her cheeks again and doing some of the pulling himself, being intentionally slow when he sucks her lower lip between his own. She opens up to him, feeling her sink into his kiss, sink into him, and he offers no resistance when she ends up almost straddling his lap, holding on to both his forearms.
When she begins to move more decidedly against him, though, showing every sign of wanting to take the lead, having let go of his arms to grab at his clothes, it's his cue to refocus. While he helps her discard of his jacket, positively boiling under all these layers, that's as far as he lets her get, stopping her when she makes to pull at his shirt.
He grabs both her wrists instead, swiftly pushing her back down until she's pressed upon the mattress again, hands pinned on each side of her head. With him fully between her legs, he resumes his rolling motions at once, grinding; she instinctively clasps her legs around him, responding to his thrusts, and he swallows her next moan, kissing her deep, and slow, but mostly kissing her breathless.
When he lets go of one of her hands to put his to better use, shifting upon her, her fingers sink into his hair. At first, she's merely trying to twist it in her grip, and he almost wishes he hadn't had it cut the previous week. When his hand has traveled all the way down between them and his fingers pass the threshold, slipping through wet warmth, her grip becomes so tight that the short length of his hair doesn't matter much, the twist now a delicious, painful pull.
Peter lets go of her mouth, raising his head in time to see her bite down on her lip, hard, brow furrowed, eyes tightly closed, swallowing back her own moan, a sight that sends searing prickles of pleasure down his spine, concentrating low within.
He could die a happy man, with his hand pressed against her warmth, lost in the act of pleasing her. But even now, he feels his meager control slipping from him, steered in equal parts by his need to please her and his need for her, all too aware of how close he is.
Unable to think, only to feel, he gives in to his own urges, this time, pulling his hand out to grab hers from his hair, pinning it back against the bed near her head, fingers intertwined, mirroring the other side.
Already, he's shifted again, back to grinding their hips, pressing his hard arousal against her swollen core, slow...fast. Faster. And he almost feels that escalating pressure inside of her, in the squeeze of her fingers between his, of her legs around his back, sees it in her gaze, trapped in his, hot breaths and groans melding, his own pleasure mounting in steps with hers.
Olivia comes, hard, and her orgasm hits him like a bolt of lightning, sizzling and blinding, a blast of energy that spreads throughout his nervous system and splits his atoms apart, fusing them back together with hers.
As their breathings slow down and they lie there entangled, sweaty and sticky, still fully dressed for the most part, the situation has the potential to become awkward. It doesn't.
If anything else, their next moves are on the clumsy side as they begin to disentangled themselves from one another, inconvenienced by trembling limbs. They don't share a word, though, solely directed by a mutual yearning, needing to do this properly, and to do it now. The almost sloppy removal of clothes only becomes secondary to the meeting of their lips, halting the process quite regularly to sink into kisses that are famished and languid, the kinds that belong to lovers.
It takes a while, but one by one, every item is removed, and more skin is exposed, increasing that contact they're both craving for. The more of him Olivia gets to touch, the less idle her fingers become, decidedly bolder and typically her, too; by the time they're bared of all clothes, they're entangled in such a way that he's once again fully hard, throbbing into her hand and moaning against her skin as she keeps on nibbling his earlobe.
With her help, Peter finds his way into her as easily as if they'd done this a hundred times before.
The feel of her is the most excruciating kind of ecstasy, forcing him to stay still, at first. He's never known this to be this intense and annihilating, her thighs squeezing his waist, her legs locked upon his lower back; one of his arms is wrapped around her, pressed between skin and mattress to keep her close to him, as close as they can possibly get.
All ten pads of her fingers are digging into his face, lips millimetres apart, yet not kissing anymore, too focused on sensations to do anything but feel, the air humming all around them, since there isn't an inch of space left between them.
Like their two universes, they're vibrating at different frequencies, identical yet slightly different.
And when stillness makes place to that dance that is as old as time, they're like these metronomes, too, their tempos quite similar, yet slightly out of sync, as he moves into and against her and she meets his every thrust, only occasionally finding that shared synchronicity.
In a fleeting moment of despair that mingles with aching pleasure, Peter wonders if they're breaking the very laws of Nature by this act, and if they are, what the consequences might be to the fabric of their worlds joining the way they are, hipbones meeting, sweat melding, her breasts pressing into his chest with his every sway.
And deep inside of her, lost in the hot, burning feel of her, in the depth of her eyes, it dawns on him that he doesn't care.
He doesn't care.
Because their frequencies are harmonizing, their tempos adjusting as they fall into step, so that the amount of shared synchronicity soon overtakes their lapses, encouraged and driven by the sound of her voice and the clasp of her everything. And it doesn't matter if their eye contact breaks as Olivia throws her head back and moans his name, because she sees him anyway.
He's a boy from the other side, after all, and this is her gift; her curse.
He comes with his face buried against her neck, his entire fucking soul entrapped beneath her skin; he might have found the irony of it amusing, hadn't it been so damn devastating.
His breathing is harsh and ragged against her skin, odd, rasping sounds coming out of his throat, now, and the tremors that shake his body are caused by much more than aftershocks. Olivia understands what is happening long before he does, and she tries to soothe him, gentle fingers in his hair, soft hand moving across his back.
Every part of them is still entangled, yet she holds him to her tight, as he attempts to rid himself of a sorrow that is etched in his very DNA.
This is where you belong, she tells him without a single word.
With me.
And when she murmurs the words into his ear, Peter might just believe her.
FIN
A/N: Until next time, my lovelies *smooches*