Heavy

9:39pm

The plane gets in late, and the wheels-down jolt makes her bones ache. Elle hates to fly, which is different from being afraid to fly, but only by degrees.

The case wasn't easy. None of them are, but this one was a solid week of filth and gore and sleeping in shifts, and she is running on coffee and fraying nerves. Welcome to my world, Reid says, characteristically wry. She barely has the energy to smile back. Barely.

She asks him to bring something good. He nods, looking her over and taking her all in in the space of three seconds. She trusts him; his taste is impeccable.


11:31pm

He shows up with a bottle of Old Raj, and she doesn't ask him where he found it this time of night. He wouldn't tell her anyway, just say something about being a magician then pour it over ice for her, so she may as well just skip to the good part.

Tonight, he digs through her cabinet and adds some vermouth, too. She stands in her bare feet on the tile floor, shower-wet hair pulled back, and drinks it down in three gulps. He pours her another, though he hasn't touched his own, and leans his head back against the cabinet, eyes closed.

"Are you tired?" she asks. "You didn't have to come."

"I'm always tired," he answers. "Tired or borderline manic. You know that."

Elle takes a deep sip and shakes her head. "No. Sometimes you're pensive."


12:02am

When he is pensive - which he is now, not tired; she can tell by the way he moves, deliberate but not lethargic - it goes slower.

Elle doesn't mind. She allows him to pace it, and she's pretty sure that's why he keeps coming back. He's good at what he does, and that's why she keeps letting him. His face belongs to a kid, but he has patience and he pays attention like a grown-up.

Not that she requires patience. Not in the way you might think, anyway. Her body's got a hair-trigger. An old boyfriend laughed at her once and said you're worse than a man, but Reid's adaptable. Sometimes he miscalculates, and she comes with his fingers inside of her and his pants still on, but he doesn't mind at all, just fucks her while she's still tight and shuddering and brings her off again that way.

But tonight he's perfect, pressing her against the arm of her couch and holding her under one knee, making her bend and twist and reach for it but not letting her have it. He watched her do herself the first time, saw how she needs to go right to the edge then stop cold, and that's what he does to her. He'll take her there four times, six, ten, then back off when she starts to tremble, and in the moment, she swears at him and bites him harder than she ought, but he does it right.

That's the sort of patience she's talking about. He doesn't make her come just because he can; he doesn't require that instant gratification. For a genius - for a kid - he's got his ego in check. She likes that.


12:31am

He's silent tonight, keeping his mouth busy so he doesn't have to mess around with words. He kisses her everywhere - her lips, her tits, her belly, her stupid knobby knees - and he buries the loud part of his orgasm, the part he can never seem to bite back, the three or so seconds on either side of that first shattering wave, in the sweaty crook of her neck. She feels the sound come through her skin and into her blood and her bones.

She feels the rest of it, too, slippery and warm. Sticky on her thighs. The mess doesn't bother her. She couldn't do her job if she minded the mess.

God, people make messes of each other all the time. At least this one serves a purpose, though sometimes she isn't quite sure what it is.


12:53am

Elle sits naked at the kitchen table with her third glass of gin, the cushion bunched up behind her so she doesn't ruin it. She watches Reid dress in the living room, meticulous with the buttons on his cuffs. He even reknots his tie. It isn't her favorite - she likes him in darker colors; they suit him better - but it's nice. She'd like to fix his knot, though. She's particular about them.

"Reid," she says, stubbing out the cigarette she always tells him she doesn't need, just likes. "Come sit down."

He looks at his watch, vacillates. "It's late, I..."

"Sit."

He sits. You would never guess just from looking at him what he'd been up to ten minutes before, but he smells like a whorehouse, salty and sharp. His eyes are well-fucked, too, if you look really close. Hooded and pretty. She's good to him, at least in some ways.

But Elle wonders what the hell she's done to him to make him draw this line so neatly. To make him pull on his clothes and head for the door. To make him wonder whether he's welcome.

1:00am

"Why don't you ever make me wear a condom?" He reaches for Elle's glass with his unwashed fingers and takes his third sip of liquor of the night.

She answers his question with the same one. Tactical maneuver. "Why don't you ever put one on?"

"I trust you," he says simply. Game over.

Elle shrugs and lights another cigarette, and he doesn't even try to hide his disapproval. "I trust you, too," she says.

Trust is heavy. Heavier than his bony weight on top of her, heavier than her daddy's death, heavier than the stone-cold corpse he helped her roll over in Alabama to check for a message carved along the spine. Trust is the anchor of gravity, or it's a wrecking ball.

Elle uncrosses her legs. They resist a little, tacky, and she thinks she probably should have waited on the shower.


1:13am

"I should go," he says again. By now he's had more to drink - a glass, not enough to make the idea a bad one - and a lollipop from the dish on her counter. She's not fond. She keeps it there for him.

There has been mostly silence between them, not uncomfortable, just exhausted.

"You should," she agrees. It's technically Wednesday morning now, and though they get to rest a little longer due to the pounding they all just took, there are no guarantees. Their phones are time-bombs. He moves to stand up, but Elle stops him cold. "But I don't want you to."

She holds him still with her gaze - it's a skill she picked up somewhere along the line, and it's one of her more useful ones, she thinks sometimes - and watches his face shift through a whole line of emotions that don't stay still long enough for her to read. He's better at that than she is, the quick-scan thing. She tends to want to pry everything apart and look way down deep.

"You don't?" His voice is just a quarter-note higher than usual. That much she can read. She's pressed down on a nerve.

"No. Will you stay?" It is suddenly imperative that he does, though she can't pinpoint precisely why. All she knows for sure is that as he moves closer to the door, a hole in her chest opens wider and wider and wider, and she is afraid she might be empty by dawn.

Maybe it's the case. Maybe it's the gin. It probably isn't either -- she's had worse in both. Maybe it's the sudden shyness in his face, strange when she's nude with his come on her skin.

She wants to brush the hesitancy away with her hands, tuck him against her and curl into his little-bird bones and just sleep with his breath on her neck. It's always hot, like he's got a furnace under his ribs. Like his heart is burning itself for fuel.

He doesn't answer. He's weighing it all - the softness of her body versus the the hard light of morning, the odd combatants of duty and desire, the twist and gnarl of the path that winds between them - in the vast and unfathomable place behind his eyes. Finally, he takes a breath that shakes audibly and says, "I'd better not."

1:19am

She's still naked, still at the table, the cigarette she lit when he shut the door burned almost to the filter. She's thinking about showering again, about washing the whole night off of her, about standing under the water until the sky goes purplish-gray through the window, when she hears the knock.

"Hi," he says. "Am I allowed to change my mind?"

"One time, and one time only," she answers, and she means it. "You look like shit. Let's go to bed."