// never seen //

She murmurs to him, soft sounds late at night, fading in and out like breathing. She’s not jealous or demanding, she’s just there, and even if he could find the words to tell Heightmeyer, he knows she wouldn’t understand. He knows because he hears that too, not in the carefully neutral tone of her voice but from somewhere in the darkest corner of her mind where she’s not even aware she’s passing judgement.

It’s okay, he thinks, hands carefully spread across his knees, slowly-fading blue on black, I’d be judging me, too.

He smiles, no blood in the slow stretch of lips anymore, but looks away before he can see the flicker of relief in her eyes. He’ll allow her that much, if only because he’s seen enough of that particular emotion to last him several lifetimes.

“If there’s nothing else”, she says, gathering the folders on her desk into a neat stack, “then you can—“

“Sure”, he says, knowing he’s being dismissed as bluntly as she’ll allow herself. The shadowed outline of the marines at the door only makes her so bold, and the hands that rest on his medical file betray her with a tiny tremor. “I’m done.”

“You’re doing fine”, Heightmeyer tells him; the words aimed at some point just past his shoulder, a faraway spot on the wall, smooth and inoffensive. Nothing strange and unfamiliar to see there, and even when John’s skin crawls wild and hot at the slight, he still understands. Nothing could have prepared her for this, and if her words are meant to soothe, to reassure, then he can pretend.

“I’m doing fine.” The words still feel thick and strange on his tongue. Alien. And isn’t that the point? he thinks, as he closes her office door quietly behind him, the men with guns instantly snapping to attention, ready to follow at a safe distance. The corridor stretches ahead, brilliantly colored glass he’s seen from dizzy heights barely two weeks ago, a whole new perspective on the city that whispers in his blood. His fingers itch with the sense-memory but he’s earthbound once more, and as he makes his way back to his quarters, she casts pale gold at his feet as he passes, bathing him in the gentle glow of an apology.

I’m doing fine.

She opens the door for him and dims the lights, because she knows how it has to be. She understands what Heightmeyer doesn’t: some things are best left well alone.

There are two armed men on the other side of the wall, countless others moving through the city. Men of war, men of science, and just one man who sits by himself, pale blue on his skin and endless noise in his head. A man of faith, John thinks, and that sounds right, because maybe he’s finally found something to believe in.

All the words, all the talking, and none of it can change what races through his veins and sings under his skin-- this brand-new awareness, base and primal. It’s a low and constant buzz that mixes with her soft sighs, gently shaking his bones and making his blood hum.

He moves around the dimly lit room to the bed, lets her drift in and out at will, an ebb and flow he can lose himself in. She shows him what he wants to see, what she knows he needs. He lets her in, lets the pictures fill his head, his skin, the face he knows as well as his own.

John feels the shimmer start at the base of his spine, a kind of otherness that shifts and pulses softly as he lets his thighs fall open, digs his heels into the bed and arches up and up and up, wet heat spilling into his fist, a name on his lips and blue of another kind behind his closed eyes.

//

[ feedback ] [ main fic index ] [ livejournal  ] [ randomness ]