Work Text:
~ Kahlil Gibran
They’ve been together under the same roof for the last two days, but they may as well still be in different states. Accompanied as they are by a seeming cast of thousands, there’s been no privacy or time for anything more than rushed conversations and reassurances. He’s kissed her three times since they found each other, twice during the jublilant haze of holding her in his arms for the first time in weeks and finally letting himself believe she wasn’t a figment of his imagination. The third time had been last night, a snatched moment alone in the small kitchen before he and Lincoln drove six hours to meet a contact who’d promised them names and dates and cold hard evidence.
It had been a wasted trip. Their contact was nowhere to be seen, and they’d gotten the hell out of there, all too aware of the dangers of being caught in the open. Now they’re back, twelve hours later, frustrated and exhausted, and all he wants is to do is to find Sara. The thought of her has his hand going to the wallet in his back pocket, a flush stealing across his skin at the thought of the two condoms he’d bought from the last gas station they’d visited.
Not an entirely wasted trip after all, he tells himself, if more than a little presumptuous. But presumption is just another form of hope, after all, and since learning Sara Tancredi was alive, he's come to believe that hope might actually be all it's made out to be.
“I’ll be in soon.” Lincoln waves him inside the house, popping the hood of their borrowed car and muttering something about a loose gasket. The house is strangely quiet, and he suspects the other occupants have seized the chance to catch up on some much needed sleep. He makes his way down the hallway to the small bedroom Sara claimed as her own last night, his pulse rate increasing with every step towards the half-closed door.
She isn’t there.
He leans against the door frame, overcoming his disappointment by giving into the temptation to step into the room and inhale the warm air that holds the scent of her. The narrow bed has been tidily made, and he smiles at the sight of it. Sara Tancredi is obviously the kind of woman who makes her bed while hiding out in a safe house in the middle of nowhere. He wonders if this is nervous displacement or if she’s a habitual bed-maker, and knowing he might actually have the chance to find out the answer to that question is something that still shakes him to his core.
As he walks to the small window beside the bed, he hears her voice. “You’re back early.”
Turning towards the door, his heart lurches at the sight of her. She looks tired, dark circles like bruises beneath her eyes, her skin pale against the dark red of her short-sleeved shirt. That said, she’s still the best thing he’s seen in a long, long time. “Hey. Did you sleep okay?”
She nods briskly, as though the answer is unimportant compared to her next question. “What happened with your contact?”
He trails his fingers along the windowsill, vaguely noting the peeling paint. “He didn’t show.” He watches her face fall, and wishes he didn’t always have to the one to break bad news to this woman. “I know it’s a setback, but we have other avenues,” he tells her, wishing he felt as convinced by his own words as he sounds.
“I know.” Stepping into the room, she shuts the door behind her. He hears the distinctive sound of the key turning in the lock, and his breath seems to leave his body in a silent rush of anticipation.
“Where’s Lincoln?”
“Still outside, working on the car.” He gives her a wry smile, determined to keep his mind on the conversation and not the fact she’s just locked them both into her bedroom. “Says there’s a rattle in the engine.”
“Is there a rattle?”
He grins. “No.”
Her eyebrows rise, her lips twisting in a quick smile. “He’s a smart man, your brother.”
“I know.”
Crossing her arms across her chest, she fixes him with a steady gaze. “I guess he realizes we haven’t had much of a chance to talk.”
Her words are without accusation, but he hears one nevertheless. “No, we haven’t, and I’m sorry about that. It’s just with everything else going on-”
She holds up her hand. “That wasn’t a criticism, Michael,” she says softly, and he wonders exactly when she’d come to know him so well. Before he can answer, she takes a deep breath. “How are you?”
Thinking of everything he knows about her time away from him, he looks at her, feeling the ridiculous urge to laugh. “How am I?”
Her gaze is direct and disconcertingly sharp. “I talked to Fernando this morning.”
He grows still, knowing this could either be a very good or a very bad thing. “Oh?”
“He told me about Sona.” Her eyes are glittering, whether with anger or tears, he can’t tell. “What it was like in there. What they did to you.”
A sour taste rises in the back of his throat. “None of that matters now.”
Her heart-shaped face turns stony with determination. “You were in that place because of me.”
“And you were taken by the Company because of me,” he shoots back, his blood suddenly spiked with something that feels like guilt and resentment and fury all rolled into one.
He sees her pale throat move as she swallows hard. “I guess that makes us even, then.”
He stares at her. They’ll never be anywhere close to being even, not as far as he’s concerned. If he’d never come into her life, she’d still be working at Fox River and her father would still be alive. She can do the math as much as she likes, but the equation is never going to come out even. “I don’t think so.”
Her eyes narrow. “How did you feel when Lincoln told you I was dead?”
He doesn’t want to talk about that day. He doesn’t even want to think about it, even though she’s here with him now, standing no more than a few feet away. “I don’t know if I have the words to tell you.”
She nods slowly, her gaze dropping to her hands. “I thought, after finding my dad hanging from a rope, that nothing could ever make me feel like that again." Her voice is even, almost calm, but he knows how much it costs her to speak of her father's death. “But when they told me you’d been killed inside Sona -” She looks up at him, leaving the sentence unfinished, her eyes wet with tears.
There’s a lump the size of a fist in his throat. “I’m so sorry, Sara.”
Again she nods, and he has the odd sense of her simply marking time with his answers, waiting for her turn to speak. “Do you remember the time we talked in the bathroom. On the train?”
He smiles. “Every day.”
A faint hint of colour stains her face at his answer. “Everything I told you. It’s still true. All of it.”
He moves across the room, walking slowly around the foot of the narrow bed. “Me, too.”
She smiles, the shared memory gleaming in her eyes, then her expression becomes still, almost grave. “I’m tired of you taking the blame for everything, Michael. I’m tired of you trying to absolve everyone else’s guilt but your own.” She steps backwards until she’s leaning against the wall behind the closed door. “Most of all, I’m tired of wasting time arguing over who’s to blame for what when you and I are finally alone behind a locked door.”
There was once a time when he may have been a little slow to pick up these kinds of signals from her. Not any more.
His legs propel him forward without any conscious effort on his part, his eyes never leaving hers as the space between them dwindles down to scant inches. He exhales as she inhales, the air between them seeming to hum with anticipation and an energy that never fails to take him by surprise. He cups her face in his hands, feeling the warmth of her breath puffing against his lips, watching her eyes darken to a deep, rich brown. When they flutter shut, he covers her mouth with his, sinking into a slow, deep kiss that he never, ever wants to end.
Her lips part beneath his, and there’s a split second of delicious anticipation before he feels the warm brush of her tongue against his. Jesus. He’s instantly hard, raw lust coiling in his cock and his gut like a living, breathing thing. He doesn’t want to hurt her, he thinks hazily, then her hands are grabbing fistfuls of his t-shirt, her body arching against his in silent invitation, and he knows hurting her is not going to be an issue any time soon.
His fingers are clumsy, fumbling with the tiny buttons on her shirt. Her hands, God, her hands, are on his belt, her fingers hooking into the waistband of his jeans, pulling him closer. Her lace bra is the colour of wine, dark against the translucent swell of her breasts, and he wants to put his mouth on her and drink her in, swallowing the warmth and taste of her. He sucks in a long breath, trying desperately to cool his overheated blood, his senses overwhelmed by the heady reality of being this close to her. It suddenly seems ludicrous to him he could have wanted her for so long and still not know how it feels to touch her or lie with her in his arms. “I love you.”
She tilts back her head to look at him, and he’s glad he had the chance to say it first. Her face is aglow, as though someone has light a candle within her. “I love you, too,” she whispers, smiling through the beginning of tears, and he is undone. Unraveled to the point of throwing charm and grace out the window, he simply pulls his t-shirt over his head and tosses it to the floor.
Somehow they find the bed, losing her shirt and his shoes along the way, the heavy boots thudding to the floor. He drops down to sit on the end of the bed, his arms wrapped around her, his face buried against her belly, lost in the scent and the feel of her. She puts her hands on his shoulders, pushing him back onto the bed, urging him upwards until he’s stretched out full length. Her movements slow and deliberate, she settles herself on top of him, one thigh between his, her hands splayed flat on his chest. When she bows her head to kiss him, he wonders if she can feel his heart flutter wildly, as though it’s trying to leap into her hands.
Her hair falls around their faces in a silky curtain, and he threads his fingers through the softness of it, feeling it tumble over the back of his hands. Their kiss, something that had once been so hesitant and gentle, is a feeding, ravenous thing, fueled by desire and need and the primitive urge to reclaim what was thought lost.
Giving into an urge stronger than his will, he rolls her carefully onto her back, mindful of the narrow bed. Her thighs falling open to cradle his hips, perfectly aligning the heat of their bodies, and he thinks he might die from the sheer pleasure of it before they’ve even begun. He feels the press of her fingertips on his shoulders, as if trying to pull him closer, and he slides his mouth along the delicate curve of her jaw, then the pale, tender skin of her throat, tasting salt and soap and the frantic thrumming of her pulse.
Her long legs wind around his as she arches beneath him, the shift of her hips against his making him suck in his breath. Pressing kiss after kiss to her throat, her face, her mouth, he curves his hand around her waist, then slowly slides it upwards, over the rise and bump of her ribs until it’s almost cupping her breast. Rubbing his thumb against the underwire of her bra, he watches in avid fascination as her nipple draws up taut beneath the silky material.
“Tell me what you want.” His voice sounds like that of a stranger, which doesn’t make sense, because he’s never felt more like himself in his life.
“I want you.” She smiles up at him, her eyes glittering. “We can work out the details as we go.”
He wants to tell her again that he loves her, but swallows the words. There will be enough time afterwards. “There is no polite way to say this,” he murmurs, feeling an idiotic wave of shyness wash over him, “but I have a condom in my wallet.”
She grins, then begins to laugh, her body trembling beneath his. “I always suspected you were the Boy Scout type.”
He chuckles, the sound seizing in his throat as she reaches around behind him, drawing his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and handing it to him with a subtle flourish. Their eyes lock, and her smile of nervous anticipation has the words he’d swallowed earlier returning in a rush. “God, I love you.”
Her eyes widen, then she takes his face in her hands and kisses him with a hunger that turns his insides to liquid heat and leaves him fighting the urge to tear off the rest of their clothes and sink into the tender warmth of her body. He tosses his wallet onto the rough handmade table beside the bed, his hands sliding beneath her to unhook the clasp of her bra. A few seconds later, the bare warmth of her breasts are in his cupped hands and he thinks she might actually be the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. Bending his head, he presses a gentle kiss to the hollow between her breasts, watching her face soften. When he takes one tightly beaded nipple into his mouth, her gasp washes over him like warm water, making him feel weightless.
Whispering his name, she slips her hand between them, presses her palm over the button fly of his jeans, and what scant amount of blood is left in his head seems to immediately rush south. Lifting his head from her breast - he's already committed the taste of her to memory – he rolls off her and gets to his feet, his hands trembling as he strips off his jeans and underwear in one clumsy motion, distracted by the sight of Sara arching her hips as she slides her own jeans down long, pale thighs. He sees a small triangle of red cotton, then he sees her, and he feels his knees start to buckle beneath him.
“Come here.” She’s holding out a hand to him, the invitation in her eyes as much an enticement as the creamy curves and secret hollows of her body. Returning to the bed, he pulls her into his arms, running his hands up and down her back, the swell of her hips and thighs, watching her face as she explores his chest and stomach, fingertips brushing over ink and skin as though there’s no difference between the two.
His hand-eye coordination apparently shot to pieces, it takes two attempts before he manages to tear open the condom packet, and he feels her lips curve in a smile against his shoulder. When she delicately slides her cool fingers down his belly to wrap her hand around his straining erection, a choked sound of pleasure rattles in his throat. When he gently strokes the downy heat between her legs, she presses her mouth harder against his shoulder, swallowing a shuddering breath. When he finally slides into the sleek heat of her body, he thinks he knows how it feels to be absolutely in love with another person.
It takes them a moment to find the right rhythm, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is her face glowing with pleasure, her body arching beneath his, her hands gripping his hips tighter every time they move together. The air in the room is hot and still, and their skin is soon slick with sweat, her breasts slippery against his chest, her mouth both salty and sweet as he kisses her. The world around him narrows down to her, the slightest details slamming into his brain; the hitch in her breath every time he presses himself deeper inside her, the heat-flushed tinge to her breasts, warm beneath his hands and his mouth, the rub of the wash-roughened sheets beneath his knees and his elbows, the scent of her body mingling with his, perfume and soap and desire and sweat.
Time speeds up and slows down in turn, propelling them forward then dragging them backwards. He wants to make her cry out as she shakes in his arms, he wants this embrace to never end. Too fast, too slow, too much, not enough, never enough. When he puts his mouth to her ear and tells her he loves her, that he would have never stopped looking for her, he hears a sob catch in the back of her throat, but he doesn’t know if the warm tears on his cheek are his or hers.
She kisses him fiercely when she comes, her body once again shaking beneath his as if with laughter. He swallows her gasp of pleasure as heat burns through him, from the soles of his feet to the base of his spine, dissolving the last remnants of his control. He feels it start, everything drawing up tight and hard and fuck, so good and then he’s coming, blindly clutching at her hips as he arches against her, her name falling from his mouth again and again as the world blurs around them.
When he can operate his limbs once more, he lifts his weight off her, propping himself up on one elbow to kiss her. He wants very much to say something profound, but decides there's no need. If she doesn't believe the truth of what he feels for her by now, any pretty words he could say in this bed won't make the slightest bit of difference. "I guess this means I can't ever be your patient again," he drawls softly, and her grin is all the answer he needs.
"Tell me something, Scofield," she murmurs as she wraps her arms around him, her fingernails lightly exploring his back. "In all your grand schemes and plans, did you ever figure on this?"
He looks at her, trying to remember a time when he wasn't in love with her. "I think I'd like to take the Fifth on that one, your Honour." She's still laughing when he kisses her, a languid caress that ends only when his brain signals another intake of oxygen might be a good idea. "We should get dressed."
She buries her nose against his chest, her tousled hair tickling his skin. "Definitely."
Neither of them make any attempt to move. They both know Lincoln will be knocking on the door any moment, but it may be days before they have this kind of time alone again. Finding her hand in the tangled bedclothes, he lays his head on the soft curve of her breast. He hears the muted beat of her heart, the rise and fall of her breath, and the soothing rhythm feels like a promise, the possibility of the happy ending he thought they’d never have. Lying in her arms on a narrow bed in an anonymous house they will soon leave and never see again, he finally feels free.