We Never Change

Hard Rock Hotel – 5:55 pm


"Pizza man, order a shitload of it. Charge it to the bill."

"Anything?"

"Jesus Fruit Loop, yes. Anything…" Carter rolled his eyes as he kicked his boots across the room, tossed his jacket to the bed, and fell onto it, exhausted. Shane crossed the room as well, heading straight for where the guys' had their 'spy camp' hooked up to the big screen TV. Crunches of chips under her boots made her growl with disgust, but she situated herself with a headset, and began recording everything she heard, no matter its value.

"Uhh…three pizzas please."

"Cheese!" Shane yelled from the couch.

"Pepperoni!" Carter shouted from the bed next to Andy.

"Yes, okay. Cheese, pepperoni, and sausage. Also, we'll need three cases of…" he stopped, turning to Carter with a wiry grin, "what kind of beer, man?" he whispered with his hand over the receiver.

"Bud."

"Three cases of Bud."

"Get ice cream…" Shane induced with a smile, "Every flavor they have."

"Uhh alright, we'll need a pint of every ice cream flavor you have." He stopped to listen to the woman in guest services and with a chuckle, replied so that Shane could hear him, "Yes ma'am…all…12…flavors." He went on with the order, getting just about everything they had to offer in either a can, a pint, or a bag and simply stated that it would be billed to their tab. The agency's tab. The one that would eventually slide across Jack's desk. Not that they really cared anyway, risking their lives was completely deserving of excess nutrition.

Still a good five minutes from the room, just getting off of the elevator at the long end of the hallway's stretch, Lily kept Jeff balanced with her arm, walking slowly, steadying his tired weight step by gentle step. He hadn't spoken very much, except to comment on the noise in the Lobby, the crappy 70's disco music in the elevator, and now the carpeting.

"Why's it so damn puffy?"

She laughed at his randomness in sleep deprivation, holding his arm higher. "I don't know. Maybe their trying to get your attention."

"Well shit…it worked." He grinned past the wincing pain growing in his leg, the pain that didn't ever start to bother him until about midway through each day. Especially when he forgot his pills. Lily noticed him limping on the leg opposite her, and looked at him with concern before speaking.

"Is your leg hurting you?"

"No." He groaned as he applied further pressure to it, leaning against her more and more as they came nearer to the rooms. "Its fine, just need to lie down."

"You sure, I could get you a--"

"Lily." He stopped her abruptly, pulling back from her walking. Just two doors away from the guys' room. She moved her gaze up to his face, stricken with pain, but more dissatisfied by her persistence than anything else.

"Jeff, I'm sorry I just think--"

"Stop." It wasn't mean sounding like he had been with her the day before over the subject. This time it was just passive, as if he had no choice but to be in pain and she had no choice but to accept it. "I've been in way more pain than this stupid leg is capable of. I swear it."

"Alright." She replied simply, holding his hand as she walked him to the next doorway, and placed it upon the doorknob. He thought it an odd motion, and turned his face back towards where he felt her stare, a concerned brow, and tight lips.

"Aren't you coming in?"

"I don't think so. I'm going to take a nap next door."

Taking the opportunity as it came to him; he grinned tiredly but with sinful pretense, and leaned down to where he had already determined her lips would be, kissing her lightly at the corner of her mouth as she smiled. "Care for company?"

Her heart said "Yes, please come back to my room. Make love to me without anyone around and hold me until we wake up a century from now." But her head, the side that generally won when she was tired, said simply, "No. I need my space. I need to think."

Rather than coming onto him this harshly though, she simply leaned up to his cheek, kept her lips fixed there warmly for moments, a handful of them in fact, breathing him in, and kissed the spot. When she pulled away, she smiled at his ease of depression, the saddened mode he had so quickly fallen into. "See you later?"

"Sure." He stated flatly, pushing open the door to his room as he heard her scamper off to the next doorway, sliding the key with a beep, and then softly whispering back to him, "Get some rest, Shel." And then she was gone, and the door clicked against the wall of the suite, leaving him to the entertainment of his drunken co-workers. People only half as interesting as she was in sleep.


Jeff's apartment – Boston

January 1st, 1995


"Read it to me again."

"Again…why?"

She leaned into his back, sitting with her own to the warm fireplace. "I like when you read that one. Please…just one more time."

"God you're trying to turn me into such a sap…"

Stretching his legs out further across the rug of the living room, he relaxed comfortably in her arms, the fire on his bare shoulders warming all of him as he watched the snow beat down on the windows. "One more time." He smiled, more than glad to have left the party early and spent the night at home. Pulling the small book back into his hands from the coffee table, he rustled with pages, and eventually began reading as her hands gripped more to his stomach from behind.

"I speak of love that comes to mind: The moon is faithful, although blind… She moves in thought, she cannot speak. Perfect care has made her bleak…." He paused for a careful moment, to cover her hands with his own as he held the book high with the other and continued. "I never dreamed the sea so deep…The earth so dark; so long my sleep. I have become another child…I wake to see the world go wild."

Lily tightened her grasp, kissed his bare shoulder twice at each blade, and then carefully moved in to settle in his lap, a sheet holding her warm still. Her arms around his neck, his hands tucked around her legs, they were some pair indeed. A couple of renegades, wandering through the short world around them, in search of anything beautiful, anything fun to live upon. They were above all else young, which left their hearts open and potentially wounded to life. But they knew they could fight it, at least for a little while longer.

"What do you want for your birthday?" he whispered gently against her ear as he rocked her body in his lap, moving at the snow falls' pace.

"I don't know." She sighed, falling off into sleep.

He said nothing more on the subject; he didn't need to push the answer. He already had it.

Kissing the top of her head, he counted the final snowflakes as they fell to the windowsill, whispering to her dreams only, "Happy New Year, baby…"


8:25 PM


Lily's eyes were being pried by both frigid alertness, and the ring of a phone. Neither of which were immediately welcomed, but eventually, sliding through the cold cotton sheets, still wearing her jeans and heels from earlier, she grabbed hold of the phone and whispered into it.

"Hello?" Nothing was given as response, so she coughed back her sleep and rubbed her eyes. "Hello…?"

"Lily."

"Jeff?"

"Yeah, hey did I wake you up?"

"Oh…" she tried, squinting across to see the alarm clock from the table, and then coughing again. "…no, it's fine. What's up, do you guys need me next door?"

"No, the fucktards have it well under control."

She laughed, hearing the formation of renewed innocence in his voice, of humor.

"Ok, well did you need something?"

"Yeah. I did…"


Hotel Lobby Bar – 9:15


"Can I get you folks some drinks?"

Jeff sat with a crooked grin on his face, slumped into the lounge chair opposite from where he heard Lily's heel tapping on the tiled floor. He waited for her to proceed.

"Just a bay breeze, please." She smiled at the waitress, and then turned over to look at Jeff, sitting with a satisfied expression, one she could hardly control herself under. "Jeff?"

"Uh, tequila."

"Tequila and…" she tried.

"Lime." The girl nodded to both of them, never having realized the impairment of the one, and turned away to fill the order at the bar. Lily sat still, tapping the heel of her blue shoe as Sands waited in silence, simply capturing the moment for himself. Her drink order, her damned perfume, her voice. Until finally, he forced himself to speak up.

"How was your nap?"

The question was blatant sounding, but with a short hint of sincerity, of care.

"Good."

"Just good?"

"Yeah…" she tested him for more, and watched as he leaned forward in the cushioned seat coming at her. He was quiet, but when their knees came to eventually graze each other's in the open space, she noticed his hands reaching out gently, his long fingers, grown longer since the last time she remembered, begging for her legs as he brought them to rest on her knees.

"I wonder why it wasn't….a great nap." His hands slid further, beneath the light cotton of her sundress, tickling her skin, warming her skin with every inch his fingertips gained on her thighs. Catching her breath in a deep trap within her lungs, Lily sat waiting for some sort of embarrassment, and at the same time praying he wouldn't stop. They were cornered off into a private section of the lobby, just beyond where the bar was, and few people could see or notice them. Not that Jeff would care anyway, she knew him too well to think he would.

"Maybe if I had been there…" he grinned, bringing his lips down to her jaw as his hands curled around her inner thighs more beneath the fabric, kissing lightly at her chin, her neck, "I could have made it a great nap." Shivering at his words, she bit her lip and tried to think of something else, or search for any sign of the waitress with their drinks. Jeff was making her nervous, something he did so well and always had, but he was also scaring her, because only that same morning, he had been giving her the silent treatment. Things had been so back and forth, up and down since they'd met again, that now, in the most fantastical of ways, the way she dreamed he would touch her again, she had to put a temporary halt on it. Her hands went down to cover his over the skirt, and pull away just as the waitress arrived with two glasses.

Sands frowned slightly as he pulled away and back into his seat, taking with him the shot of tequila he had heard hit the table to his side. He downed it quickly, not caring about the immediate response it showed to her rejection, and then lifted it up over his head to where he knew the waitress was still standing, and asked for another. He never touched the lime.

As soon as the girl ran off with his shot glass again, he perked up to kick his boots further out in front of him, trying to keep a rhythmic center on Lily's silence. Eventually finding himself out of entertainment, he knew he only wanted to touch her; he couldn't not touch her now. Her skin had somehow burned a whole in his wall, the one he had built for her slowly over eight years. She had come and kicked it down with her heels, her legs, her breasts and breath.

"Tell me about this fiancé of yours."

She looked up from the straw in her glass, eyes wide with the memory of what she had admitted to him in the car earlier, and her heart pounding out of sync.

"Why?"

"Can't a guy just be curious?"

"Not you." She retorted, knowing the kind of argument that was arising. It was one of theirs, a quick one, a painful, jabbing one.

"I think I deserve to know as much as the next one."

"Well I don't. In fact…" she began, sliding out further to come near to his chair with a hushed defiance, "I think it's about time you start answering some stuff for me. I'm still your doctor remember?"

"I already told you I don't need a goddamn doctor." His voice was heightened, near to being crude with her now.

"Yes you do. You need to talk about what happened down there."

"Fuck that." He growled, slumping back into the chair. She knew he was mad at the suggestion of any sort of medical care, she knew he didn't think he had an issue, but Lily saw directly through every crevice of his being, she saw into him. There was a blackness deep in there she knew she had to get out.

"It's just going to keep haunting you, until you give someone a chance to listen." Sliding back with her drink, she eyed him as the girl came with his second shot, and placed it down on the table. He didn't reach for it, only bit his lower lip and pulled out a cigarette to place between them. Licking its tapered edge a few times, he eventually lit it and drew back a starch drag of kohl smoke. He was thinking about it, seriously, about letting her into his world, into his head. It would be a first for anyone since her, and maybe it would be Lily who could finally clean out the mess up there. Maybe.

Yet in a flash, he had a better idea. He was ready to play her game as always.

"You think so huh?" He finally questioned under his breath, exhausting more cigarette smoke as she looked back toward him. Only half understanding him, she licked the tart wetness from her lips and sat her glass down.

"Yeah. I think you're too afraid to talk. I think you wouldn't do it if your life depended upon it. Which according to your sister…it usually does Jeff."

He was scowling, but with a heartened smile at her offer, at her strike against him, because he had one for her too.

"Great observations, Doctor Hanson."

"All in a day's work." Sarcastically she took to her drink again, confident she had challenged him well. But he finished off his cigarette, and with a final blow of smoke to her face, he reached across the small table, feeling for the ashtray he eventually found.

"Well, I might not have some fancy fucking Harvard degree, or a healing couch or whatever the hell you use…" he poked fun while sitting up and facing her again. "But, would you like to know what I think?"

Hesitant, but unable to stand against the sound of his voice, she said yes and watched as he came close for a second try. This time though, she didn't move her hands in haste of him, or push back, she only sat with her drink settled on her lap, as he drew his hands in, blindly caressing her shins, her knees, and bringing her body between both of his thighs. Lily felt her knees graze the hardened center of his jeans, pressing in as he brought his entire chair closer to her, his mouth towards her, his breath hot on her neck. Quietly he whispered to, "Close your eyes."

Here she hesitated, but he shook her head and implied once more, waiting for her eyes to close. Once they were, he lifted the condensing glass from her hands and sat it on the floor, unable to find the table this time. He brought his hands down to settle at her hips, holding her close to him, his scent intoxicating, his breath drenched in his every sin, his fingers against the thin material of her dress, drove her crazy from the inside out. And it was a moment later, as she drew her last full breath, that he came to settle his mouth just at her ear, past the messy curls that had formed in her nap, her eyes still sewn shut.

"You're scared, Lily Hanson. You're scared shitless of me." As he began to speak, everything was lost, there was no hotel lobby, there was no bar, no world. Just Jeff's voice at her ear, and her knees shaking against his thighs. "You've been trying so hard to look past my missing eyes…that it's finally caught up with you. You can see I never really changed. I might be more of bastard now, or more pissed on a regular basis but…I think I've earned that much."

She sighed with tears curling up under her eyelashes as she settled her chin down on his shoulder, his voice continuing thickly.

"You wanted me to be different, because you didn't want to go back…I'm not stupid. Blind yes, but not a dumbass." Grabbing her thighs tighter into him, he groaned into her ear, "I remember that morning that you begged me, you swore you'd kick my ass if I changed at all on you. You remember that?"

She nodded against his shoulder, hands shaking on his lap.

"Well I didn't, and you know it. You're just too afraid to get close to me, knowing that. You know how I know that?" He appeared to be talking in circles, and yet she understood every word, and when she didn't respond to him, he only went on. "I know that…because believe it or not, even though I don't talk about it every fucking minute of the day…I'm just as scared of you." At this, she cried, Lily fell into him further, her eyes wetting the sleeve of his shirt as he held her whispering gently.

"Shit happened to me down there, Lily. Things that broke me a little bit more than before. Ignoring them was my pill. And then…you came out of nowhere, like a slap in the face." He heard her slightly laugh between sobs at this, and lightly kissed her ear before finishing his claim. "I think you want this, you want me bad…so bad. And I think if I don't have you now, again tonight…that'll I'll probably never trust myself with anyone else again. I want to tell you things Lily…things that no one else can know. You showed me you wanted me already today…but I need you to need me, as badly…as badly as you want me."

He held his lips to her warm neck, breathing her in as he heard the lobby crowd deepen, heighten again as they both floated back to reality and filled another empty space in time. Another kiss at her neck and he pulled away from her, still holding her thighs, and wishing only to have been able to see her face, the tears he heard but couldn't watch. Taking both of her hands from his lap, he twisted his own fingers into them, squeezing tightly out of historic practice. Still the right fit.

Lily looked up at him, seeing nothing but blank sincerity, grief in admittance, and something that looked rather familiar to her. He never said love. He never said that word, but with a final sigh, a brush of her teary cheeks on the sleeve of her sweater, she gave in warmly, and spoke just the thing that was on his mind already.

"Can we get a room?"