Pizza Quest (M)
Mac was on a mission. It wasn't a particularly exciting mission, she wasn't dressed in all black scaling a wall with her PI bestie, it wasn't dubiously amoral, or bad or even very interesting.
It had just become her obsession. He thought it might have been something to focus on rather than the fact that as much as he wanted to, he still hadn't returned her pledge of devotion.
They were searching for the perfect vegan pizza. Which lead them to the patio of a small artisanal pizza parlor in some tiny, adorable, little oceanside village.
She squirmed in her seat, folding the napkin again and again as they talked about what colleges she was applying to as safeties, and if they thought Dick was going to bother with college or fuck around until he could go to college with Cassidy and about Cambridge.
"It's really far away..." She pointed out like he hadn't already figured out it was like 5500 miles away from her school of choice.
"It's not for a whole year, you're the one that'll be leaving in the fall."
There's a weird silence between them and it's filled with words that won't come out.
I love you
He wants to fucking scream it, carve it in a god damn tree, but all it does is get caught in his throat.
He can remember, with a horrifying clarity, the last time he had said those words and meant it.
But I love you
Spoken to his mother, firmly, in the front hall of their house as she struggled with a piece of Louie Vuitton luggage.
She had just looked at him, startled that she had been caught and nothing more. She hadn't hugged him, or stayed, or taken him with her like he had begged.
Honest to god actually begged.
He had cried but all that had accomplished was to turn the rest of the memory, his mother saying she would send for her things and leaving, closing the door quietly, into some strange blurred memory he had for years tried to convince himself hadn't actually happened.
"You should apply to Cambridge."
She opens her mouth to respond, but is stopped by the waitress setting their pizza between them. She waits until the waitress has retreated back inside before she tries again.
"It's not the best school for me." She said plainly. He had done research on her computer science junk. Cambridge was in the top five schools in the world for it. Hearst was in the low teens.
"But?"
She looks up at him quickly, "I love you, but I don't want to pull a Felicity. Even if I go there first it'll still be like I'm following you." She takes a bite of the pizza, grimaces but soldiers on anyway.
He takes his own bite, cardboard.
He sets it down on the table, sliding it back between the slices, making some strange almost whole thing.
"Alright, fine." He swallows hard, looking at her collar bone, "I'll follow you then."
"Cassidy..."
"No, I have no problem following you to college; I'd follow you into hell, Cindy." He tells her quietly, "I...I..."
The words get caught again and images of luggage, black heels, and hard unconcerned eyes slam into him.
She shakes her head softly and stands; she drops a couple of bills onto the table, and reaches out her hand for him.
He takes it without hesitation and let's her lead him back to the car.
About halfway back to Neptune, Mac finally speaks again. Everything up till then had been soft, sweet touches, unspoken, "What about your mother?"
He doesn't even turn away from the road, "Fuck her." Why follow someone, who had probably never loved him, over Mac; who had not only said the words but actually showed it.
"Pull over." She tells him firmly and he does so.
He turns the car off and turns to look at her.
"Are you okay?" She asks softly, her fingers soft across his cheek and into his hair.
"Only when I'm with you."
It's probably the most honest thing he's said out loud for years.
He leans forward and kisses her, softly, without any urgency. She returns the kiss slowly and it feels like a burn, like she's reaching into him, as if all the good parts and most of the bad didn't already belong to her anyway. He hears the click of the seatbelt like it's far away, it doesn't make any sense and frankly he doesn't care as long as this slow soft thing goes on forever.
They hadn't been in any state of intimacy since Valentine's weekend, since he had failed so miserably at feelings. He didn't feel like he had any right to try and move things forward, and she hadn't done anything either.
Maybe she was afraid, he knew he was.
She slides into his lap before her mouth leaves his, heaving for breath, she undoes his seatbelt.
"What are you doing?"
"This." She says simply, unzipping his sweater slowly and, with a nervous bite of her lip, she leans down and presses her mouth against his neck, pulling the air out of his lungs.
She was nervous, the grip she had on the front of his sweater was steel trap tight and when he slid his hand up under her shirt she shivered like it was the first time.
She was methodical in the way she touched him, like she was trying to prove something to herself, like she was trying to remind him of all the little noises she could make leave his mouth.
"Fuck..." The word left his mouth in a low hiss as her teeth sank into his skin the way he liked and his jeans came undone with the flick of her hand.
Her mouth came up from his skin, her breath cooling and heating his skin like only she could accomplish.
God, he just wanted to devour her, or be devoured, he didn't even care anymore. He grabs desperately at her pants, swearing slightly as he struggles with them. They don't want to open, pulled tight the way she's sitting on him, but he'd rather kill someone than have her move from being pressed close to him, the only thing between them a couple layers of denim and her hand working on his zipper.
Her fingers hit flesh and he couldn't stop the moan sliding out of his mouth, hips moving to press up against her hot, wonderful fingers.
He finally manages to slide his hand into her pants and revels in the soft sound she makes against his skin.
It feels like years since he's touched her like this. Scared that if he tried anything she would think something awful about how he felt about her, but that didn't seem to be the case, at least not now.
He slid his hand into her cotton, no doubt adorably boring, underwear and ran his fingers along her, trying to keep a sharp focus on her. It was difficult because she kept moving, her small hand wrapping slightly awkwardly around him, her mouth, teeth and tongue against him.
She was wet and it was almost painful how much he wanted to put something other than his fingers up into the tight wetness.
She pauses in her administrations, slumped forward across him, fingers of one hand digging for purchase against him. She's in such a way that her panting and soft moans are right in his ear as he pumps his fingers in as quickly and as hard as the fabric will allow.
Which, by the sounds of it, is enough. He can feel a fantastic rush of wet against his fingers as she claws at him, the hand wrapped around him gets tight and fuck.
Panting and sticky, they stay there for several wonderfully long moments, drained and content on the side of the highway.
She tries to pull away, but his arms go quickly around her middle, hugging her tight to his chest.
He holds her tight;, fingers digging into her and his vision is getting blurry. Face pushed into the crook of her neck, brown and blood red hair, and soft pale skin. His chest feels tight and he's certain he's about to cry. He's not entirely sure as to why until she speaks.
A hand softly in his hair, "I'm not leaving..." She whispers into the heavy, sex-scented air of the car.
"Ever?" He can't help but ask, his voice thick, and her arms wrap him up tight.
"Ever." She tells him and it's this plain simple word that means fucking everything.
"I want to say it, I do." He whispers into her skin, " Everyone I say it to leaves."
"Not this time." She assures him, her hands rubbing soft circles against him, he's sure she can feel the warm wet of his threatening tears against her skin.
Not this time.
She wasn't going to leave him.
She loved him, for real.
He opens his mouth, it moves softly against her skin causing a soft sigh to escape her.
His chest feels clamped and painful, not enough air in his lungs, "I love you." He says it slow and made thick from the near tears, like he's afraid of the words, which isn't far off.
"I love you, too." She tells him gently and he's not sure anything has ever sounded so fantastically true in his whole life, "but..."
He pulls back away to look at her properly, finally letting her out of his frightened vice grip.
"But?"
"My leg is starting to cramp up." She smiles shyly and points to the passenger seat.
He watches her slide into the passenger seat and shimmy a little in her jeans, doing them back up, and he does the same.
He thinks it should feel different, that there should be something different in the air ,or his heart, or something.
And there is, sort of, a little bit of a lighter feeling in his chest, but everything else is still pretty much the same as it had been before either of them had said anything about love at all. When it was just this unspoken truth; maybe they were on level playing ground again.
"You want to go back to my place?" He asks and she bites her lip to keep her smile at bay.
It sounds like the world's worst line and he can feel his skin get hot with the burn of embarrassment.
"And do what exactly?" She asks, she trying to make her voice smooth and seductive, but it hitches with contained laughter.
He shrugs, starting the car back up, "I figured we could watch a couple movies and order in pizza to find that ever elusive taste you're looking for."
She doesn't bother to contain her laughter or smile now, she points dramatically towards Neptune.
"Let us away, Pizza Quest 2006 waits for no man."
The atmosphere, in the car, on the way home feels shockingly similar to New Years, just falling asleep with her, not wanting anything other than that.
Something so amazingly simple and soft. It was too good and he knew that things like this don't last, but as her fingers slide through his over the console he's positive that for once that doesn't apply to him.
Not this time.