Kristin: WARNING! This chapter contains romance of a 'physical nature'. Pretty mild, nothing graphic, but it is sexual, so if that bothers you then you should probably skip this one.

35. Hold My Hand

I've always felt that hand holding is a surprisingly complex thing. There are so many reasons to do it, so many people to do it with. You can draw a lot of conclusions about two people by the way they hold hands. A mother's holding her child's hand as they cross the street. It's protective, concerned, loving. Two girls walk down the street, their hands loosely clasped and swinging freely between them. There's friendship there, affectionate and close. That pair there, the ones who keep rearranging their hands and fidgeting? Probably a new relationship. Neither one's completely comfortable yet, but it would take an act of God to get either of them to let go.

I've held a lot of hands in my life. Big, small, rough, soft, hot, cold, clammy, dry. I could write a Dr. Seuss book with all the different hands I've held. All that's missing is the red hand, blue hand.

Now Lassie...Lassie has nice hands. He has nice hands like whoa. Big with long fingers. They're strong, but don't fumble when it comes to delicate work. He has pianist hands. Can you just imagine? Lassie in some smoky jazz club, tie and collar loose and hair messy, bent over a piano, eyes half closed in concentration, hands dancing, fingers coaxing smooth riffs from the keys with each deliberate caress?

The first times our hands touched, it was always a warning. He'd grab and pull and force and push, and while that was hot-clearly a scowly Lassie is a sexy Lassie-it made me wonder if maybe he didn't like me that much. Always 'don't touch that, Spencer', 'get off my desk, Spencer', 'what the fuck are you doing in my kitchen at two in the morning, Spencer!' Pssh. I brought him a pineapple. He should have been falling at my feet in gratitude, not crushing the bones of my hand as he yanked me out of the kitchen and almost literally kicked me out his front door.

Even with my memory, I'm not really sure when things started to change. Somewhere along the line, his hands stopped being quite as harsh. The pad of his thumb would maybe graze across my knuckles. The tips of his fingers would linger a little longer than necessary on the back of mine. Or curl into my palm for a split second, barely long enough to register the slight graze of fingernails.

I do remember the first time I didn't let him pull away. His finger lightly traced an invisible pattern on the fleshy bit under my thumb for an impossibly long moment and my throat went dry and my brain went 'more' and my body went 'nowfuckplease'. As he started to let go, I grabbed his hand in both of mine and took his teasing finger in my mouth, sucked on it hard, and if I'd had any psychic powers I'd have used them to make certain he knew exactly what his taunting was going to lead to if he didn't stop soon. Since I'm not actually psychic, I made do with a not so subtle moan and my best Fuck Me look.

Which, you know, seemed like a good idea at the time. Of course, that whole location, location, location thing is pretty true, because no matter how much unresolved sexual tension two people have, it turns out it's not a good idea to start making sex noises and sucking on an anal retentive man's body parts when you're in the middle of his office. In fact, it can make things kind of awkward. Seems like one of those things Gus should have warned me about.

The second time was back in his kitchen in the middle of the night. At least I knocked that time, even if I didn't technically wait for an answer before letting myself in. And Lassie stopped yelling somewhere between the first scrape of my teeth against his earlobe and him bodily pressing me against the counter so hard it left bruises on my lower back. Not that I'm complaining.

Then, in a blur of hands and mouths and ohsweetfuckingpineappleyes, we somehow ended up in Lassie's bedroom, where he finally put those amazing hands to work. The world narrowed to heat and gasps and pleasure and the feel of his sweat slicked chest against my back. His breath shuddered wet and warm along my spine right before his hot, open mouth sucked at the base of my neck, while his hands slid up my sides and down my arms to tangle our fingers together. And somehow the feel of our clasped hands-tense, sweaty, and desperate-seemed more intimate than anything else that we were doing.

It's been years and our hands are still together. Comfortable. Possessive. Affectionate. Protective.

Loving.

You can draw a lot of conclusions about two people by the way they hold hands.

Kristin: Funny story. True story. When I originally jotted down a note on what I wanted this theme to be, it was going to be a fluffy Shules piece. No, seriously. I wrote an outline and everything. (shawn = zomg!relationship freakout, looks at hands, fluffy bullshit, everything fine[These are my actual notes. For reals. Feel special that I love you enough to show them to you.]) It was going to be cavity enducing. But that clearly didn't pan out. So, instead you guys get Shassie and my first ever attempt at almost-but-not-really-sex and a look at my odd hand fixation. Um...I'm gonna go somewhere else and be embarrassed now.

Also, without wangsting too much, just had an absolute shit day that's showing great promise of spreading through the entire week, so it might be a little bit before the next update.

UPDATE:So, reread this again-because I'm obsessive and anal retentive and read everything I write about ten thousand times and usually still don't feel satisfied with the end result-and it's just...really not that good. Rushed, awkward, flat. I'm debating whether I want to scrap it and start from scratch or just do a partial rewrite at a later date when looking at it doesn't make me want to claw my eyes out. Anyone have an opinion? I'll give you a cookie. Or at least a fic that doesn't suck. As much.

16/100