Fic: Do I Dare Disturb the Universe: Chapter 16: Do I Dare to Eat a Peach?
“But when a woman decides to sleep with a man, there is no wall she will not scale, no fortress she will not destroy, no moral consideration she will not ignore at its very root: there is no God worth worrying about.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
Chapter 16
Do I Dare to Eat a Peach?
Four nights after Operation BoomsDay - and no, Hope, six year olds shouldn’t get to name airstrikes on terrorist bases, thank you very much! - Lightning sits alone in her quarters. The past several days are a blur in her mind, a mishmash of conversations and activities that have left her feeling both strung out and wrung out.
She spent the first thirty-six hours sleeping in the infirmary, and the subsequent six hours in a chair beside Snow’s bed, waiting for him to open his eyes again. In that time, Sazh had been hard at work procuring living quarters in New Eden for Lightning, Snow, Fang & Vanille, plus several of the survivors they’d rescued. Sazh and Fang have also retrieved the Snow Kat from where Lightning had stashed it north of the ash pile that had been the terrorist camp.
In the two days since they left the infirmary, Lightning hasn’t seen or spoken with Snow at all. She barely noticed the first day, but today, she realized that he has been actively avoiding her. She knows that she shouldn’t be bothered; after all, what else could she expect? Things said and done under the looming specter of imminent death are often impulsive and foolish. Now that they have returned to their lives, it’s no surprise to her that Snow would long to return home and resume his life with Serah.
That’s what Lightning wanted him to do, after all. So why does she feel like she’s going to throw up her own heart any second?
Tonight, she just wasn’t up for pretending that everything’s fine. She turned in right after dinner, begging off drinks with Sazh and Fang in favor of a painkiller and cup of tea. The niggling pain that had spent days flirting with the real estate behind Lightning’s right eye, finally committed, moved in, and set up shop as a blinding migraine.
Lightning isn’t prone to headaches, so she can only assume that the nearly two weeks of stress, injury, exhaustion, trauma, and - oh yeah - a rifle butt to the head, are the cause of her misery. She just wanted a nice, peaceful evening where she could take a hot shower, nurse her headache, and try to get a decent night’s sleep.
By 10:30 pm, the shower, painkiller and tea had managed to file the edges off the hot spike jammed through her brain into her eye, leaving only a ghost of a migraine haunting Lightning’s sore head. She’d figured that a good night’s sleep would exorcise the headache for good, so she’s just killing the lights in her kitchenette when she hears a soft knock at the door.
Lightning glances at the clock - 10:38 pm - and feels dread pool in her stomach. What could possibly have gone wrong that someone showed up so late--?
She’s not sure why she’s surprised that it’s Snow at her door, when he’s the only person who has ever turned up inappropriately late on her doorstep, yet somehow, she still stands in stunned silence.
“Hey,” he says, and she replies with an equally unhelpful, “Hey.”
Oh, this is going to be a real treat, she can tell already. If she had any sense at all, she’d slam the door and yell, ‘no one’s home,’ through it.
“Can I come in?”
She glances behind her, as if the empty apartment might have objections. The living room, of course, has nothing useful to contribute whatsoever. Its emptiness stares back at her as if to say: why are you looking at me?
When she finishes her desperate search for meaning from the empty space behind her, she looks back at Snow to find him rubbing the back of his neck.
“Uh, if this isn’t a good time-“
“No, it’s fine. Come on in,” she says, and immediately wonders what the fuck is up with her. Why does everything feel so awkward?
Snow steps over the threshold, but chooses not to divest himself of his coat as he had done that night. So, not staying then. Just a quick drop in to ruin her night.
Wonderful.
“Do you want a drink?” She has a sneaking suspicion that she, at least, is going to need one. Or five.
“No, I’m-“, he begins, and just never finishes the thought.
Not staying, confirmed.
“Oh-kay?” She drags out the first syllable in an attempt to convey her confusion. He remains silent for a long, uncomfortable moment.
This is stupid; they’re stupid. They’re acting like awkward idiots, and she has no idea how to make it stop. She decides to go get herself a glass of water, just to have something to do other than stand here, staring over Snow’s shoulder into the middle distance. Snow trails after her as she walks into the kitchen.
“What’s on your mind?” Snow heaves a huge sigh behind her, and Lightning turns around to find him pinching the bridge of his nose. “Are you okay?”
“Are we really going to do this?”
Huh?
“Do what?” He huffs again, and okay, what? “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you don’t,” Snow mutters. It’s like they’re having two different conversations with people who aren’t one another, and aren’t even in the room. Possibly while speaking different languages. She’s not sure about that yet.
Lightning’s speeding past confused and hurtling towards pissed off. “Well, maybe just spit it out, then.”
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” he snaps, and it’s like being gut-punched. Did he seriously come here to tell her that he didn’t want to deal with her anymore?
“Well, there’s the door.” She points at the door to emphasize how very much she would like him to leave. “Have a good night,” she declares with finality, proud that she managed to keep her tone even and devoid of any trace of hurt. She strolls past him to head to her bedroom, deliberately snapping the kitchen light off to leave him in the dark.
“No, that’s-“, he throws both hands up as she walks past, “Unbelievable!” She hears him following after her before he says, “That’s not what I meant!”
She whips around and demands, “Well, what did you mean, then?”
“I meant,” he exhales, and gropes around for the right words: “I’m tired of this! Why do you make everything so difficult? I’m tired of fighting all the time!”
She recoils with a small gasp, mouth opening in a shocked ‘O’. He couldn’t have stunned her more if he’d slapped her across the face. That’s supposed to be better? Something of her hurt must show on her face, because he puts his hands up in front of him in the universal gesture for I surrender, please don’t kill me, shakes his head and says: “No-no-no,” like it’s one word. Then: “No, wait. Wait. No! That’s…that’s not…damn it!” He rubs his hand over his face, forehead, then rakes it back through his hair in obvious frustration.
She can feel her unhappiness tugging at the corners of her mouth and she looks down at her feet instead of at him.
“Oh, no. That’s not-“, he closes the distance between them, puts his hand on her shoulder. “Light,” he says, and he sounds as wounded as she feels. She keeps her eyes fixed on the floor, trying to pull herself together. She can feel the telltale burn in her eyes, and she sniffs, and clenches her fists to try and head that bullshit off at the pass. “No, come on,” he mumbles and folds her into his arms. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. I didn’t mean it like it sounded.”
She listens to his heartbeat for a long moment. It’s strong and steady, no trace of the arrhythmia that terrified her four days prior. His breathing is calm, and slow; there’s no sign of any of the catastrophic damage she’d heard. It’s such a relief, and Lightning feels the remnants of horror and despair unknot from inside her.
She sniffles and then sobs, mortified by her loss of control. Snow tightens his arms around her, apologizing and desperate to fix the hurt that he thinks he caused. “Please, Light. Don’t cry. I didn’t-“
She pulls away from him, shakes her head, saying, “No, it’s not you,” puts her face in her hands and wipes the mess away. “It’s just a stress reaction.” He looks skeptical, but says nothing. “So, you’re tired of me being difficult, and you’re sick of fighting with me all the time. And you don’t want to do ‘this’” -complete with air quotes - “anymore?”
Snow nods, before saying, “Yeah. This whole nightmare made me realize that we have no guarantees for the future at all. That all we have is right now, and I want to make the most of every minute; I don’t want to spend it fighting.”
“I understand,” she says. Snow looks like he’s waiting for the punchline. Or the punch. After almost a full minute, he relaxes a bit.
“That was - easier? - than I was expecting,” he says, but his tone suggests that he’s still waiting for things to go south.
She has no intention of making this hard on him. Snow is right: life is too short to waste time fighting about stupid bullshit. He deserves to be happy. He shouldn’t have to spend his time arguing with her.
“You have every right to want to be happy, Snow.”
“Wait, what?”
“When are you heading home?”
“Wait. What? No!”
“I mean, it’s still -“
“Wait-“
“-pretty cold out.”
“No, just -“
“Sazh will probably be able to fly you home in a couple of days,” Lightning says, hoping that she’s telling the truth.
‘-just hold on -“
“I’m pretty tired, actually.”
“-for one damn minute!”
She blows out a frustrated breath. This whole thing is ridiculous. “I get it, Snow. Okay? I get it.”
“No,” he declares, shaking his head for emphasis. “You really don’t. I’m positive that you don’t.”
What’s not to get? Snow spent days avoiding her, and now has just come to her room at night to tell her that he’s sick of her bullshit, and that he’s tired of wasting the time he has fighting with her, and he doesn’t want to do it anymore. What could be clearer?
“Just go home to Serah, Snow. I know that she makes you happy, and I promise I won’t fight with you anymore. I won’t make things difficult for you.” She turns to her bedroom, desperate for sleep. The ghost of headaches past seems to have discovered the art of necromancy, and has resurrected itself as a zombie migraine. She really needs to take a pill and get some sleep.
“I must be having a nightmare,” Snow tells the empty living room. “There’s no way this is happening right now.”
The living room remains silent as if to say, don’t look at me, buddy. You’re on your own.
Snow seems determined to piss her off despite her best efforts. She already feels raw from…everything. The past thirteen days have sucked out loud. Snow upended Lightning’s entire life one night, and she’s spent the subsequent weeks trying to outrun the damage. Her body still aches from numerous near death experiences; her heart is still sore from cutting Snow out of her life, then finding him dead, resuscitating him, only to cling to him as his body shut down.
Now, here he is, trying to give her the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech, while also saying ‘but really, it’s totally you; you’re the absolute worst,’ and she just can’t listen.
“It’s fine, Snow.” It’s not, but whatever. It’s not a surprise, is the point. “I don’t need you to draw me a diagram, and you don’t need to make up excuses. I understand, all right?”
“Nope, you definitely don’t,” he declares. He sounds frustrated and angry, which is just pissing her off.
Instead of indulging her own anger she says: “It’s not unusual for a near death experience to make someone re-evaluate their choices in life.” Snow is just shaking his head in the negative. “Look, I’m not angry-“
“Well, that makes one of us,” he fires back. He rolls his head from shoulder to shoulder, cracking several vertebrae. He’s gearing up for a fight, when that’s exactly what he just said he didn’t want. He huffs out a huge breath. “All right. Let’s do this.”
“Do what? That’s it!” If Snow wants an argument, he can have it with himself. She’s not interested in fighting with him anymore. “There’s the door. Have a good night!”
"You’re unbelievable! Don’t I get to say anything?”
“What is there to say? You came here and told me life is too short to deal with me making things difficult, and that you don’t want to do this anymore, and you’re tired of fighting all the time, and you just want to be happy. And I said, I understand.”
Snow’s mouth is hanging open and he’s staring at her like she just turned into an Amphisbaena, and is about to bite his head off.
“You don’t need to say anything else. I agree. You should go back to Serah.”
That snaps him out of his boggle. “Are you really not going to listen to me right now?"
“Snow-“
He throws his hands up in the air and says, “Fine. Whatever!” He shakes his head and turns to leave, grumbling the whole way. She clenches her fists, feeling vaguely sick. Her bottom lip quivers, and she sinks her teeth into it in an effort to keep her emotions off her face.
Snow pauses at the door and looks at her over his shoulder. He eyes her up and down and she shivers. A slow smirk spreads across his face. There's something predatory in his eyes that has her hackles up.
"Is this really what you want, Light?" He turns around, tilts his head, narrows his eyes and stalks over to her. She steps back and he crowds her in. Sometime between the night that he showed up on her doorstep and upended their lives, and this moment, Snow figured out that he drives Lightning crazy; he demonstrates his newfound knowledge by turning all the sex appeal up to eleven, getting all up in her grill, and leaning in close enough that his every word is a hot gust of breath across her skin. "You want me,” he murmurs, voice rumbling like a distant thunderclap, “to go home to your sister?"
She wants him out of her personal space, and she’s prepared to remove him by force if necessary. She can’t think straight when all she can feel is the heat rolling off all six and half feet of his perfect body, and all she can smell is his aftershave, shampoo, the tang of salt on warm skin, and hint of something unique to Snow that speaks directly to Lightning’s lizard brain and engulfs her in a fog of lust. She licks her lips, and can taste his scent on the air.
Snow smolders as he tilts his head down and looks up through his lashes at her. Something about the challenge in his voice, and the insistence of his presence in her space, kicks her right in the fight or flight. For Lightning, ninety-nine out of one hundred times, that translates to fight.
She puts her hands on his chest, prepared to back him the fuck out of her space, but as soon as she touches him, she’s back in that pit, with him gasping for air as his lungs flooded with blood; as his damaged heart struggled and staggered. The thought of putting her hands on him in aggression or violence sickens her. She stares at her hands where they rest on his chest, and trembles.
Snow’s smirk widens and he capitalizes on her hesitance; he steps closer still.
"You want me to go back to your sister, and pretend the last year never happened?" With hooded eyes he leans forward, hums an exhalation, humid breath caressing her cheek. She tingles everywhere he doesn’t touch, burns everywhere he does.
She leans away - a clear retreat - and he presses his advantage. "Pretend that it's a year ago, and that I didn't spend months with you?” His lips brush the shell of her ear as he whispers into it. His voice is all breath and vibration, sparking an answering tingle to shiver up her back from the base of her spine, and down her back from the base of her skull. Her lips part on a gasp.
“That we never spent quiet evenings on watch together, under the stars? That I’ve never comforted you? Or made you laugh? That I never dreamt of you, or longed for you?” He moves even closer, until the backs of her hands press against her breasts with his every inhalation.
“That I never quivered under your hands when you were healing me?"
"Stop," she demands. He ignores her.
Shocking.
He shifts forward again, body brushing against hers with every breath. She swallows, holds her breath, presses against his chest while leaning away in an attempt to reclaim breathing room. Her back is flush with the wall, muscles burning under the strain of reining herself in. Every instinct screams at her to shove him away, put some distance between them.
Snow just leans into her hands, dragging his closed mouth down the line of her jaw, nose brushing under her chin, breath tracing her clavicle. His stubble tickles her face as he nuzzles and purrs, "You want me to pretend I never wanted you?" into her ear.
His voice is all vibration, punctuated by suggestive caresses of lips and tongue. The rumble of his chest beneath her hands, coupled with the bass of his voice in her ear, triggers a flood of sinful heat to spread through her. She licks her lips, exhales a low, groaning “mmm,” as he lowers his mouth and opens it against her neck.
She gasps as he traces patterns on her throat with his lips and tongue, then moving down to her clavicle, where he adds teeth and suction into the mix. His stubble rasps against her soft skin as he sucks and nibbles, before using his tongue and lips to soothe away the small hurts. Her fingers curl into his coat, and she just clings to him, shuddering under the onslaught of sensation.
"Pretend that I never dreamed of touching you?" His fingers slip around her wrists, drawing them away from his chest and pressing them against the wall. Closing the remaining distance, Snow brings his body into full contact with hers. Lightning shivers when Snow laces his fingers through hers and pins her hands to the wall. "Or tasting you?" And he latches onto her jugular, pressing himself flush against her. She throws her head back and moans, squeezing the hands in hers, desperate for…something.
More. Everything.
And then it’s all gone: his mouth, his hands, his body and his words. Snow retreats, taking the heat and scent of his body from her personal space. He vanishes as though he’d never been there. Lightning’s hands close too late to hold onto his; they hang empty against the wall for a too long moment, before she lets them drop to her sides.
She shivers. The air in the room feels too cold now, and she longs for the heat of his body again.
"I don't know if I can do it, Light. But if it's what you want, then I'll try."
Bastard says it like he actually means it.
She knows she ought to let him go. After all, that’s literally what she’d told him to do before he decided to short circuit her brain, and kick start her motor. Hell, it’s the entire reason the two of them are in New Eden instead of at home in Oerba. But now that he’s resigned himself to leave her behind, she feels only helpless desperation; if she lets him walk away now, then he will keep walking away, forever.
She knows that would be the responsible decision; the only decision that makes any sense considering the impossibility of having and loving him without destroying all their lives. She should just let him go: it’s what she’s wanted all along. Except-
Lightning wants many things. She wants Serah to be happy: to build a life and family with a man she loves, who loves her in turn; she wants to rid this world of men and monsters who enjoy preying on the vulnerable, and Lightning still has at least one promise left to fulfill; at least one dance left on that dance card, and one date who is owed a very special Goodnight Kiss from the sharpest smile ever forged. And Lightning always keeps her promises.
Above all, she wants Snow. All of him. Every day; forever.
And she no longer has the will to give him up.
Something wrenches in her and she snaps. She grabs his lapels, drags him around and hooks her fingers into the fabric of his coat to keep him right there.
Decision made. Screw the consequences!
He looks down at her hands, holds his breath, but won't meet her eyes.
This is wrong; she knows it’s wrong. She also knows that she has precisely zero fucks left to give over how wrong her feelings for Snow are. When she closes her eyes, she can still feel his blood coating her hands and mouth as she desperately breathed and beat life back into him. She almost lost him for good, and that wound is still bleeding; will probably bleed for years to come. And if she hadn't found him exactly when she did, he would be lost to her forever and her last words to him would have been: 'Don't call me again or I'll dump the communicator.'
She's not sure what's right anymore when it comes to Snow, but she knows what she wants, and needs, and Lightning is tired of denial. She wants him, wants them; wants whatever he might be willing to give her. Wants every last bit of this disasterpiece of a relationship, and she’s going to grab it with both hands, wrap her legs around it - maybe dig her teeth in, too, for good measure - and hold the fuck onto it for as long as possible.
She’ll have enough regrets to chew over when she reaches the end of her life; Snow will not be one of them!
Pulling as hard as she can, Lightning lifts up on tip-toe and seals her mouth to Snow’s.
He tastes like mint and coffee. She feels his shock in the stiffening of his muscles, and for one moment, she wonders if he'll jerk away from her, call her a crazy bitch whose ass just isn’t worth all this friggin’ drama, and walk away without looking back. It wouldn’t be unreasonable. She literally just told him to go back to Serah, before grabbing him and latching onto his face like some sort of parasite. She feels her face start to burn with a strange mixture of humiliation and arousal. She wonders if she's blown this whole thing, frustrated him into finally cutting his losses.
Then all doubts disappear as Snow hums out a pleased sound, sinks his hands into her hair and opens his mouth to her. He grunts when she presses herself against him and he finally - finally - touches her.
His fingers slide across the soft skin of her throat as he cups her face in his large hands. One thumb settles beside her ear, rubs and pets at the bruise on her cheekbone. The other finds the small knot of cartilage over her larynx and strokes it. The slightest pressure of his thumb would cut off her air. It's a spot of vulnerability and she would never consider allowing anyone to lay hands on it.
Except him.
She trusts him blind, and has done from very early on. Long before she respected him, or even liked him, she trusted him. Within a few weeks of knowing him, she trusted him more than she trusted herself, and how screwed up is that?
Snow’s thumb traces small circles on her throat, mirroring the motion of his tongue in her mouth, transforming the vulnerable spot into a brand new erogenous zone.
The talented fucker.
He presses forward with both body and tongue, and she refuses to give any ground with either. She uncurls her fingers from their death grip on his lapels, slides her hands up over his coat, fingernails catching on the skin of his neck on their path into his hair. He groans, and the sound vibrates through her, forces her to answer it.
Breaking away, Snow pants against her lips. Lightning counts out two heartbeats before she decides that he's had enough time to regroup. She lunges forward, pulls his head down and crushes her lips to his. He grunts once, chuckles into her mouth, and his hands leave off their gentle petting of her face and throat. One slides around to grip the back of her head while the other disappears one moment and reappears at her hip. It squeezes, kneads, then meanders across her lower back until it settles over her tailbone and yanks her against him. It's her turn to groan as he rubs her with his hands, body and tongue.
He presses her against the wall again, plasters himself to her and wastes no time pressing his thigh between hers. The entire scenario gives her a whopping case of déjà vu for that inappropriate, long-ago dream.
She shifts her hips.
The reality is way better.
His mouth disappears from hers to travel over her jaw, down the line of her throat, before he latches onto her pulse point. It’s a moment of teeth and suction, love bite toeing the line between pleasure and pain, before he relents and soothes the bruise with his lips and tongue. He gives the spot where her neck meets her shoulder the same treatment.
She tilts her head back to grant better access. He rewards her by tensing the thigh between her legs, hips and mouth working in tandem.
Just. Holy hell.
Her head thunks against the wall behind her; she gasps for air in a desperate attempt to clear her head, and regain some small semblance of self-control. Snow shifts forward with a roll of his hips, nudging her just right, startling a moan from her. His answering groan vibrates against her left earlobe before he flicks it with his tongue. He slides his open mouth down the line of her neck, nibbling across her clavicle, then traces a path back up the other side of her neck with the tip of his tongue.
He pauses by her ear, exhales a slow, steadying breath that sends tingles through her whole body. She shivers as his lips brush the skin just behind her ear. He huffs a soft breath, stops fucking around, and grinds up into her. Hard.
“You feel so good, Light,” he breathes into her ear. His hips press forward again. And again. “…want you so fucking bad.”
She grunts something in agreement, clawing at his back, body clenching and arching against him. She feels the long, hot length of him press into her hip, and she gasps out his name. Her voice is no more than breath, and she doesn't recognize it for the all the desire.
He freezes, ceases all movements and she wonders what the hell went wrong. She opens her eyes and meets his glassy ones. She blinks at him, furrows her brow as his gaze flickers over her face. She watches him watch her for a moment that goes on just long enough to be uncomfortable. She loosens her grip on him, steeling herself for an ugly scene.
"Wha-?"
He closes his mouth over hers before she can finish formulating the question. He launches a full on assault this time: fingers, body, tongue all laying siege to every sensitive spot on her body. He slides his hands around her sides, fingertips skating the waist of her pants, gathering the hem of her tank top and sliding it up. Abandoning her mouth for more southern locales, Snow drags his mouth down Lightning’s neck as his thumbs slide up her tummy. Her abdominal muscles flutter at his touch, both hands gliding over her ribs as he pushes the bottom of her tank top up until it's bunched under her breasts. He bends lower, exploring every inch of newly discovered skin with lips, tongue, breath and fingers.
She pants, realizing that he is not only determined to discover every hot spot on her body, but plans to create new ones as well. She's torn between the need to act and the desire to wait and see. His mouth works at her clavicle as his hands skim under her shirt to tickle at her ribs and the undersides of her breasts. Her breath catches as he presses the tank top up - over her breasts and then higher - until it is a noose around her throat. He lets his fingers skate the swells of her breasts on the sides, touch light and teasing. He cradles them in his palms, gives a gentle squeeze before letting his thumbs circle and rub her nipples through the fabric.
She gropes for any part of him that she can reach as his mouth continues its exploration. He drags his tongue across and scrapes his teeth over her ribs, mouths a scar from the Purge - a puckered dimple of flesh rendered numb by the combination of the bullet, and Sazh’s panicked attempts to remove it with a dull knife and clumsy fingers - and the picture Snow makes as he worships her body with his mouth almost resurrects those long dead nerves, stoking the heat of her arousal even higher.
Sliding her hands around his neck, Lightning traces her fingernails over the line of Snow’s jugular, running her thumbs over the stubble along his jaw line. Her anticipation ticks up, up, with every roll of Snow’s jaw and swipe of his tongue against her body.
Gods. How much hotter can she get?
His fingers trace patterns on the soft skin just above the cup of her bra, tickle in her cleavage and then slide outward, beneath her arms around her back, tracing the line of her bra to the clasp. She pants, waiting for him to unhook it and end the teasing, and just get on with it already.
He doesn't, much to her growing frustration.
That’s it! She’s never wearing bras again!
Instead, he slips his fingers beneath the catch and lays his open mouth on her breast over her bra. The sensation of heat and wetness seeping through fabric makes her breath hitch. She moans out a sound she's positive she's never made before as he sucks and nibbles, uses his tongue to rub the wet fabric against her.
Her hands slip from his face, slide down his sides to worm their way under his shirt. His skin is hot and smooth, muscles quivering beneath her petting hands. His sinful mouth tortures her, and she works her hands under his clothes around to the small of his back and pushes the tips of her fingers under the waist his jeans. He grunts when she tries to draw him against her, but he resists her efforts. He nibbles his way up her neck to her mouth. One hand disappears from her back, only to reappear behind her knee.
He hikes her leg up, until she presses the sole of her foot against the wall behind her. He groans into her mouth, fingertips tracing a path along her inner thigh, knee to groin, then down again. Each sweep upwards brings him closer to where she wants - needs - his touch, has her tensing in anticipation. Each retreat causes disappointment to mix into the anticipation, creating an intoxicating cocktail. The last brush upwards whispers against her. Her foot slips off the wall, and she widens her stance as she claws at his back.
"Please," she gasps against his smirking lips. Did she really just beg him to touch her?
If she did, it works. Snow groans and cups her, sucks on her neck, rubbing the heel of a hand against her, over her clothes. His big hand is perfect and torturous. Lightning clutches at his forearm, feels the muscles bunch and flex with each movement. He rubs again and her eyes roll back in her head. She decides it was worth the begging if just a simple touch can turn her whole body into a lightning rod for pleasure. It's too much and not enough as he moves his hand in slow, tight circles. Her whole body is flushed and hot and she needs so much more. This teasing is sweet agony, but she can't bring herself to stop any of it. Most of her wants to move on, get on with it, move past this appetizer and onto the main course already, but there's something so right in taking this slow, playing it out...
...Letting him lead for once, where she's only ever let him follow.
"So beautiful," he whispers against her breast and the vibrations on her sensitive flesh make her throw her head back and gasp out his name. Draw it out into three ragged syllables: “Sn-oh-oh...” She thumps her head on the wall in time with the small movements of his hand between her legs. Each pulse makes her blood run hotter, closer to the surface, until she feels like she's on fire. His mouth abandons one breast for the other and he bends to work again.
Lightning claws at his back, his hair, gripping and tugging to get her mouth on his again. He protests for a moment, until her tongue slides into his mouth, slipping along the inside of his bottom lip, seeking, finding and twisting under and around his tongue. Working her hands under his shirt, Lightning scrapes her nails down his flanks before tracing the lines of his abs into the hollows of his hipbones. She tugs at the downy hairs below his navel, tracing the trail of hair downward with her thumb to where it disappears just below the top button of his jeans.
Snow sighs out a happy noise as Lightning’s deft fingers unbuckle his belt and unbutton his pants. Her knuckles brush against smooth, wet skin. Snow’s hips buck, his breathing stutters, and he loses enough focus to disrupt the rhythm of his hands and lips on her body. Disappointment, frustration and relief pour through her in equal measure.
Lightning slides her hand down and cups him through his jeans, feels him hard and hot against her palm; Snow groans and shifts as she rubs him through the denim. He mumbles soft curses against her lips and his hands stop roving and roaming her body for a shocked moment. He exhales a breath that she swallows down, and Lightning takes the opportunity to twist and shove him against the wall.
He grunts, but it's not a pleased or aroused sound. It's pained.
Reality floods in. Snow is injured. He almost died from the beating he took. If it hadn’t been for Odin answering her desperate plea for help, he would be dead. They’re both likely dealing with some form of traumatic shock after the things they saw and did; after the horrors they’d each endured. They shouldn't do this now. You shouldn't do this at all, her conscience whispers. She ignores that voice, because fuck that bitch. It’s not about her conscience. It’s about them.
This is a bad idea.
Nothing is resolved between them. Sex will only complicate an already messy situation. It will only cause more pain.
She's tired of hurting him.
She stops rubbing him, stops kissing him. He lets out another pained groan - this one from the abandonment - and his hands clutch and clamor at her. His lips press harder to hers, trying to draw her back into the kiss.
She leans away from him and pulls up his shirt, sees the bruises that still mar him. She ghosts her fingers over the deep black bruising and wishes that she could do something to help ease the swelling, bleeding and pain; grant him a measure of relief from the pervasive soreness.
He whispers, "Light," as her fingers trace the clear outline of a boot print where one of those monsters stomped him. "It's okay. I'm all right." His hands grope at her bottom, squeeze and massage and work to seduce again.
He's injured and they shouldn't do this…
"Wait," she whispers against his desperate lips. "We shouldn’t-“
“No! We should." He slouches, spreads his legs and bends his knees. He uses the wall to brace himself up and he pulls her forward until she's straddling one thigh again. Gods, but he is good at this, she thinks, as she straddles his leg, muscles tightening in anticipation. He leans his forehead against hers. "We definitely should. We've waited long enough," he whispers. She closes her eyes as he tenses his thigh between her legs, grinding her body into his with the hands on her ass. She gasps, rocks down onto him in wanton desperation. "Too long," he breathes. Bracing her hands on his pecs, she lets him draw her back into the teasing rhythm. "Feels like forever, Light."
She can't help but agree as he traces her open, panting mouth with the tip of his tongue. He kneads and rocks, licks and strokes; diving forward, Lightning wraps her lips around his tongue and sucks in time with this rhythm that he's set. Snow shudders when she presses and rubs against him. She breaks away, bites at his jaw then sucks a bruise into his neck as he stokes her ever hotter with his lips, hands and body. Snow’s groan is a broken, wanton thing, and Lightning needs more: more of that sound, more of this feeling.
More of him.
All of him.
Click for Second Half - Explicit Content Ahead
― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
Chapter 16
Do I Dare to Eat a Peach?
Four nights after Operation BoomsDay - and no, Hope, six year olds shouldn’t get to name airstrikes on terrorist bases, thank you very much! - Lightning sits alone in her quarters. The past several days are a blur in her mind, a mishmash of conversations and activities that have left her feeling both strung out and wrung out.
She spent the first thirty-six hours sleeping in the infirmary, and the subsequent six hours in a chair beside Snow’s bed, waiting for him to open his eyes again. In that time, Sazh had been hard at work procuring living quarters in New Eden for Lightning, Snow, Fang & Vanille, plus several of the survivors they’d rescued. Sazh and Fang have also retrieved the Snow Kat from where Lightning had stashed it north of the ash pile that had been the terrorist camp.
In the two days since they left the infirmary, Lightning hasn’t seen or spoken with Snow at all. She barely noticed the first day, but today, she realized that he has been actively avoiding her. She knows that she shouldn’t be bothered; after all, what else could she expect? Things said and done under the looming specter of imminent death are often impulsive and foolish. Now that they have returned to their lives, it’s no surprise to her that Snow would long to return home and resume his life with Serah.
That’s what Lightning wanted him to do, after all. So why does she feel like she’s going to throw up her own heart any second?
Tonight, she just wasn’t up for pretending that everything’s fine. She turned in right after dinner, begging off drinks with Sazh and Fang in favor of a painkiller and cup of tea. The niggling pain that had spent days flirting with the real estate behind Lightning’s right eye, finally committed, moved in, and set up shop as a blinding migraine.
Lightning isn’t prone to headaches, so she can only assume that the nearly two weeks of stress, injury, exhaustion, trauma, and - oh yeah - a rifle butt to the head, are the cause of her misery. She just wanted a nice, peaceful evening where she could take a hot shower, nurse her headache, and try to get a decent night’s sleep.
By 10:30 pm, the shower, painkiller and tea had managed to file the edges off the hot spike jammed through her brain into her eye, leaving only a ghost of a migraine haunting Lightning’s sore head. She’d figured that a good night’s sleep would exorcise the headache for good, so she’s just killing the lights in her kitchenette when she hears a soft knock at the door.
Lightning glances at the clock - 10:38 pm - and feels dread pool in her stomach. What could possibly have gone wrong that someone showed up so late--?
She’s not sure why she’s surprised that it’s Snow at her door, when he’s the only person who has ever turned up inappropriately late on her doorstep, yet somehow, she still stands in stunned silence.
“Hey,” he says, and she replies with an equally unhelpful, “Hey.”
Oh, this is going to be a real treat, she can tell already. If she had any sense at all, she’d slam the door and yell, ‘no one’s home,’ through it.
“Can I come in?”
She glances behind her, as if the empty apartment might have objections. The living room, of course, has nothing useful to contribute whatsoever. Its emptiness stares back at her as if to say: why are you looking at me?
When she finishes her desperate search for meaning from the empty space behind her, she looks back at Snow to find him rubbing the back of his neck.
“Uh, if this isn’t a good time-“
“No, it’s fine. Come on in,” she says, and immediately wonders what the fuck is up with her. Why does everything feel so awkward?
Snow steps over the threshold, but chooses not to divest himself of his coat as he had done that night. So, not staying then. Just a quick drop in to ruin her night.
Wonderful.
“Do you want a drink?” She has a sneaking suspicion that she, at least, is going to need one. Or five.
“No, I’m-“, he begins, and just never finishes the thought.
Not staying, confirmed.
“Oh-kay?” She drags out the first syllable in an attempt to convey her confusion. He remains silent for a long, uncomfortable moment.
This is stupid; they’re stupid. They’re acting like awkward idiots, and she has no idea how to make it stop. She decides to go get herself a glass of water, just to have something to do other than stand here, staring over Snow’s shoulder into the middle distance. Snow trails after her as she walks into the kitchen.
“What’s on your mind?” Snow heaves a huge sigh behind her, and Lightning turns around to find him pinching the bridge of his nose. “Are you okay?”
“Are we really going to do this?”
Huh?
“Do what?” He huffs again, and okay, what? “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you don’t,” Snow mutters. It’s like they’re having two different conversations with people who aren’t one another, and aren’t even in the room. Possibly while speaking different languages. She’s not sure about that yet.
Lightning’s speeding past confused and hurtling towards pissed off. “Well, maybe just spit it out, then.”
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” he snaps, and it’s like being gut-punched. Did he seriously come here to tell her that he didn’t want to deal with her anymore?
“Well, there’s the door.” She points at the door to emphasize how very much she would like him to leave. “Have a good night,” she declares with finality, proud that she managed to keep her tone even and devoid of any trace of hurt. She strolls past him to head to her bedroom, deliberately snapping the kitchen light off to leave him in the dark.
“No, that’s-“, he throws both hands up as she walks past, “Unbelievable!” She hears him following after her before he says, “That’s not what I meant!”
She whips around and demands, “Well, what did you mean, then?”
“I meant,” he exhales, and gropes around for the right words: “I’m tired of this! Why do you make everything so difficult? I’m tired of fighting all the time!”
She recoils with a small gasp, mouth opening in a shocked ‘O’. He couldn’t have stunned her more if he’d slapped her across the face. That’s supposed to be better? Something of her hurt must show on her face, because he puts his hands up in front of him in the universal gesture for I surrender, please don’t kill me, shakes his head and says: “No-no-no,” like it’s one word. Then: “No, wait. Wait. No! That’s…that’s not…damn it!” He rubs his hand over his face, forehead, then rakes it back through his hair in obvious frustration.
She can feel her unhappiness tugging at the corners of her mouth and she looks down at her feet instead of at him.
“Oh, no. That’s not-“, he closes the distance between them, puts his hand on her shoulder. “Light,” he says, and he sounds as wounded as she feels. She keeps her eyes fixed on the floor, trying to pull herself together. She can feel the telltale burn in her eyes, and she sniffs, and clenches her fists to try and head that bullshit off at the pass. “No, come on,” he mumbles and folds her into his arms. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. I didn’t mean it like it sounded.”
She listens to his heartbeat for a long moment. It’s strong and steady, no trace of the arrhythmia that terrified her four days prior. His breathing is calm, and slow; there’s no sign of any of the catastrophic damage she’d heard. It’s such a relief, and Lightning feels the remnants of horror and despair unknot from inside her.
She sniffles and then sobs, mortified by her loss of control. Snow tightens his arms around her, apologizing and desperate to fix the hurt that he thinks he caused. “Please, Light. Don’t cry. I didn’t-“
She pulls away from him, shakes her head, saying, “No, it’s not you,” puts her face in her hands and wipes the mess away. “It’s just a stress reaction.” He looks skeptical, but says nothing. “So, you’re tired of me being difficult, and you’re sick of fighting with me all the time. And you don’t want to do ‘this’” -complete with air quotes - “anymore?”
Snow nods, before saying, “Yeah. This whole nightmare made me realize that we have no guarantees for the future at all. That all we have is right now, and I want to make the most of every minute; I don’t want to spend it fighting.”
“I understand,” she says. Snow looks like he’s waiting for the punchline. Or the punch. After almost a full minute, he relaxes a bit.
“That was - easier? - than I was expecting,” he says, but his tone suggests that he’s still waiting for things to go south.
She has no intention of making this hard on him. Snow is right: life is too short to waste time fighting about stupid bullshit. He deserves to be happy. He shouldn’t have to spend his time arguing with her.
“You have every right to want to be happy, Snow.”
“Wait, what?”
“When are you heading home?”
“Wait. What? No!”
“I mean, it’s still -“
“Wait-“
“-pretty cold out.”
“No, just -“
“Sazh will probably be able to fly you home in a couple of days,” Lightning says, hoping that she’s telling the truth.
‘-just hold on -“
“I’m pretty tired, actually.”
“-for one damn minute!”
She blows out a frustrated breath. This whole thing is ridiculous. “I get it, Snow. Okay? I get it.”
“No,” he declares, shaking his head for emphasis. “You really don’t. I’m positive that you don’t.”
What’s not to get? Snow spent days avoiding her, and now has just come to her room at night to tell her that he’s sick of her bullshit, and that he’s tired of wasting the time he has fighting with her, and he doesn’t want to do it anymore. What could be clearer?
“Just go home to Serah, Snow. I know that she makes you happy, and I promise I won’t fight with you anymore. I won’t make things difficult for you.” She turns to her bedroom, desperate for sleep. The ghost of headaches past seems to have discovered the art of necromancy, and has resurrected itself as a zombie migraine. She really needs to take a pill and get some sleep.
“I must be having a nightmare,” Snow tells the empty living room. “There’s no way this is happening right now.”
The living room remains silent as if to say, don’t look at me, buddy. You’re on your own.
Snow seems determined to piss her off despite her best efforts. She already feels raw from…everything. The past thirteen days have sucked out loud. Snow upended Lightning’s entire life one night, and she’s spent the subsequent weeks trying to outrun the damage. Her body still aches from numerous near death experiences; her heart is still sore from cutting Snow out of her life, then finding him dead, resuscitating him, only to cling to him as his body shut down.
Now, here he is, trying to give her the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech, while also saying ‘but really, it’s totally you; you’re the absolute worst,’ and she just can’t listen.
“It’s fine, Snow.” It’s not, but whatever. It’s not a surprise, is the point. “I don’t need you to draw me a diagram, and you don’t need to make up excuses. I understand, all right?”
“Nope, you definitely don’t,” he declares. He sounds frustrated and angry, which is just pissing her off.
Instead of indulging her own anger she says: “It’s not unusual for a near death experience to make someone re-evaluate their choices in life.” Snow is just shaking his head in the negative. “Look, I’m not angry-“
“Well, that makes one of us,” he fires back. He rolls his head from shoulder to shoulder, cracking several vertebrae. He’s gearing up for a fight, when that’s exactly what he just said he didn’t want. He huffs out a huge breath. “All right. Let’s do this.”
“Do what? That’s it!” If Snow wants an argument, he can have it with himself. She’s not interested in fighting with him anymore. “There’s the door. Have a good night!”
"You’re unbelievable! Don’t I get to say anything?”
“What is there to say? You came here and told me life is too short to deal with me making things difficult, and that you don’t want to do this anymore, and you’re tired of fighting all the time, and you just want to be happy. And I said, I understand.”
Snow’s mouth is hanging open and he’s staring at her like she just turned into an Amphisbaena, and is about to bite his head off.
“You don’t need to say anything else. I agree. You should go back to Serah.”
That snaps him out of his boggle. “Are you really not going to listen to me right now?"
“Snow-“
He throws his hands up in the air and says, “Fine. Whatever!” He shakes his head and turns to leave, grumbling the whole way. She clenches her fists, feeling vaguely sick. Her bottom lip quivers, and she sinks her teeth into it in an effort to keep her emotions off her face.
Snow pauses at the door and looks at her over his shoulder. He eyes her up and down and she shivers. A slow smirk spreads across his face. There's something predatory in his eyes that has her hackles up.
"Is this really what you want, Light?" He turns around, tilts his head, narrows his eyes and stalks over to her. She steps back and he crowds her in. Sometime between the night that he showed up on her doorstep and upended their lives, and this moment, Snow figured out that he drives Lightning crazy; he demonstrates his newfound knowledge by turning all the sex appeal up to eleven, getting all up in her grill, and leaning in close enough that his every word is a hot gust of breath across her skin. "You want me,” he murmurs, voice rumbling like a distant thunderclap, “to go home to your sister?"
She wants him out of her personal space, and she’s prepared to remove him by force if necessary. She can’t think straight when all she can feel is the heat rolling off all six and half feet of his perfect body, and all she can smell is his aftershave, shampoo, the tang of salt on warm skin, and hint of something unique to Snow that speaks directly to Lightning’s lizard brain and engulfs her in a fog of lust. She licks her lips, and can taste his scent on the air.
Snow smolders as he tilts his head down and looks up through his lashes at her. Something about the challenge in his voice, and the insistence of his presence in her space, kicks her right in the fight or flight. For Lightning, ninety-nine out of one hundred times, that translates to fight.
She puts her hands on his chest, prepared to back him the fuck out of her space, but as soon as she touches him, she’s back in that pit, with him gasping for air as his lungs flooded with blood; as his damaged heart struggled and staggered. The thought of putting her hands on him in aggression or violence sickens her. She stares at her hands where they rest on his chest, and trembles.
Snow’s smirk widens and he capitalizes on her hesitance; he steps closer still.
"You want me to go back to your sister, and pretend the last year never happened?" With hooded eyes he leans forward, hums an exhalation, humid breath caressing her cheek. She tingles everywhere he doesn’t touch, burns everywhere he does.
She leans away - a clear retreat - and he presses his advantage. "Pretend that it's a year ago, and that I didn't spend months with you?” His lips brush the shell of her ear as he whispers into it. His voice is all breath and vibration, sparking an answering tingle to shiver up her back from the base of her spine, and down her back from the base of her skull. Her lips part on a gasp.
“That we never spent quiet evenings on watch together, under the stars? That I’ve never comforted you? Or made you laugh? That I never dreamt of you, or longed for you?” He moves even closer, until the backs of her hands press against her breasts with his every inhalation.
“That I never quivered under your hands when you were healing me?"
"Stop," she demands. He ignores her.
Shocking.
He shifts forward again, body brushing against hers with every breath. She swallows, holds her breath, presses against his chest while leaning away in an attempt to reclaim breathing room. Her back is flush with the wall, muscles burning under the strain of reining herself in. Every instinct screams at her to shove him away, put some distance between them.
Snow just leans into her hands, dragging his closed mouth down the line of her jaw, nose brushing under her chin, breath tracing her clavicle. His stubble tickles her face as he nuzzles and purrs, "You want me to pretend I never wanted you?" into her ear.
His voice is all vibration, punctuated by suggestive caresses of lips and tongue. The rumble of his chest beneath her hands, coupled with the bass of his voice in her ear, triggers a flood of sinful heat to spread through her. She licks her lips, exhales a low, groaning “mmm,” as he lowers his mouth and opens it against her neck.
She gasps as he traces patterns on her throat with his lips and tongue, then moving down to her clavicle, where he adds teeth and suction into the mix. His stubble rasps against her soft skin as he sucks and nibbles, before using his tongue and lips to soothe away the small hurts. Her fingers curl into his coat, and she just clings to him, shuddering under the onslaught of sensation.
"Pretend that I never dreamed of touching you?" His fingers slip around her wrists, drawing them away from his chest and pressing them against the wall. Closing the remaining distance, Snow brings his body into full contact with hers. Lightning shivers when Snow laces his fingers through hers and pins her hands to the wall. "Or tasting you?" And he latches onto her jugular, pressing himself flush against her. She throws her head back and moans, squeezing the hands in hers, desperate for…something.
More. Everything.
And then it’s all gone: his mouth, his hands, his body and his words. Snow retreats, taking the heat and scent of his body from her personal space. He vanishes as though he’d never been there. Lightning’s hands close too late to hold onto his; they hang empty against the wall for a too long moment, before she lets them drop to her sides.
She shivers. The air in the room feels too cold now, and she longs for the heat of his body again.
"I don't know if I can do it, Light. But if it's what you want, then I'll try."
Bastard says it like he actually means it.
She knows she ought to let him go. After all, that’s literally what she’d told him to do before he decided to short circuit her brain, and kick start her motor. Hell, it’s the entire reason the two of them are in New Eden instead of at home in Oerba. But now that he’s resigned himself to leave her behind, she feels only helpless desperation; if she lets him walk away now, then he will keep walking away, forever.
She knows that would be the responsible decision; the only decision that makes any sense considering the impossibility of having and loving him without destroying all their lives. She should just let him go: it’s what she’s wanted all along. Except-
Lightning wants many things. She wants Serah to be happy: to build a life and family with a man she loves, who loves her in turn; she wants to rid this world of men and monsters who enjoy preying on the vulnerable, and Lightning still has at least one promise left to fulfill; at least one dance left on that dance card, and one date who is owed a very special Goodnight Kiss from the sharpest smile ever forged. And Lightning always keeps her promises.
Above all, she wants Snow. All of him. Every day; forever.
And she no longer has the will to give him up.
Something wrenches in her and she snaps. She grabs his lapels, drags him around and hooks her fingers into the fabric of his coat to keep him right there.
Decision made. Screw the consequences!
He looks down at her hands, holds his breath, but won't meet her eyes.
This is wrong; she knows it’s wrong. She also knows that she has precisely zero fucks left to give over how wrong her feelings for Snow are. When she closes her eyes, she can still feel his blood coating her hands and mouth as she desperately breathed and beat life back into him. She almost lost him for good, and that wound is still bleeding; will probably bleed for years to come. And if she hadn't found him exactly when she did, he would be lost to her forever and her last words to him would have been: 'Don't call me again or I'll dump the communicator.'
She's not sure what's right anymore when it comes to Snow, but she knows what she wants, and needs, and Lightning is tired of denial. She wants him, wants them; wants whatever he might be willing to give her. Wants every last bit of this disasterpiece of a relationship, and she’s going to grab it with both hands, wrap her legs around it - maybe dig her teeth in, too, for good measure - and hold the fuck onto it for as long as possible.
She’ll have enough regrets to chew over when she reaches the end of her life; Snow will not be one of them!
Pulling as hard as she can, Lightning lifts up on tip-toe and seals her mouth to Snow’s.
He tastes like mint and coffee. She feels his shock in the stiffening of his muscles, and for one moment, she wonders if he'll jerk away from her, call her a crazy bitch whose ass just isn’t worth all this friggin’ drama, and walk away without looking back. It wouldn’t be unreasonable. She literally just told him to go back to Serah, before grabbing him and latching onto his face like some sort of parasite. She feels her face start to burn with a strange mixture of humiliation and arousal. She wonders if she's blown this whole thing, frustrated him into finally cutting his losses.
Then all doubts disappear as Snow hums out a pleased sound, sinks his hands into her hair and opens his mouth to her. He grunts when she presses herself against him and he finally - finally - touches her.
His fingers slide across the soft skin of her throat as he cups her face in his large hands. One thumb settles beside her ear, rubs and pets at the bruise on her cheekbone. The other finds the small knot of cartilage over her larynx and strokes it. The slightest pressure of his thumb would cut off her air. It's a spot of vulnerability and she would never consider allowing anyone to lay hands on it.
Except him.
She trusts him blind, and has done from very early on. Long before she respected him, or even liked him, she trusted him. Within a few weeks of knowing him, she trusted him more than she trusted herself, and how screwed up is that?
Snow’s thumb traces small circles on her throat, mirroring the motion of his tongue in her mouth, transforming the vulnerable spot into a brand new erogenous zone.
The talented fucker.
He presses forward with both body and tongue, and she refuses to give any ground with either. She uncurls her fingers from their death grip on his lapels, slides her hands up over his coat, fingernails catching on the skin of his neck on their path into his hair. He groans, and the sound vibrates through her, forces her to answer it.
Breaking away, Snow pants against her lips. Lightning counts out two heartbeats before she decides that he's had enough time to regroup. She lunges forward, pulls his head down and crushes her lips to his. He grunts once, chuckles into her mouth, and his hands leave off their gentle petting of her face and throat. One slides around to grip the back of her head while the other disappears one moment and reappears at her hip. It squeezes, kneads, then meanders across her lower back until it settles over her tailbone and yanks her against him. It's her turn to groan as he rubs her with his hands, body and tongue.
He presses her against the wall again, plasters himself to her and wastes no time pressing his thigh between hers. The entire scenario gives her a whopping case of déjà vu for that inappropriate, long-ago dream.
She shifts her hips.
The reality is way better.
His mouth disappears from hers to travel over her jaw, down the line of her throat, before he latches onto her pulse point. It’s a moment of teeth and suction, love bite toeing the line between pleasure and pain, before he relents and soothes the bruise with his lips and tongue. He gives the spot where her neck meets her shoulder the same treatment.
She tilts her head back to grant better access. He rewards her by tensing the thigh between her legs, hips and mouth working in tandem.
Just. Holy hell.
Her head thunks against the wall behind her; she gasps for air in a desperate attempt to clear her head, and regain some small semblance of self-control. Snow shifts forward with a roll of his hips, nudging her just right, startling a moan from her. His answering groan vibrates against her left earlobe before he flicks it with his tongue. He slides his open mouth down the line of her neck, nibbling across her clavicle, then traces a path back up the other side of her neck with the tip of his tongue.
He pauses by her ear, exhales a slow, steadying breath that sends tingles through her whole body. She shivers as his lips brush the skin just behind her ear. He huffs a soft breath, stops fucking around, and grinds up into her. Hard.
“You feel so good, Light,” he breathes into her ear. His hips press forward again. And again. “…want you so fucking bad.”
She grunts something in agreement, clawing at his back, body clenching and arching against him. She feels the long, hot length of him press into her hip, and she gasps out his name. Her voice is no more than breath, and she doesn't recognize it for the all the desire.
He freezes, ceases all movements and she wonders what the hell went wrong. She opens her eyes and meets his glassy ones. She blinks at him, furrows her brow as his gaze flickers over her face. She watches him watch her for a moment that goes on just long enough to be uncomfortable. She loosens her grip on him, steeling herself for an ugly scene.
"Wha-?"
He closes his mouth over hers before she can finish formulating the question. He launches a full on assault this time: fingers, body, tongue all laying siege to every sensitive spot on her body. He slides his hands around her sides, fingertips skating the waist of her pants, gathering the hem of her tank top and sliding it up. Abandoning her mouth for more southern locales, Snow drags his mouth down Lightning’s neck as his thumbs slide up her tummy. Her abdominal muscles flutter at his touch, both hands gliding over her ribs as he pushes the bottom of her tank top up until it's bunched under her breasts. He bends lower, exploring every inch of newly discovered skin with lips, tongue, breath and fingers.
She pants, realizing that he is not only determined to discover every hot spot on her body, but plans to create new ones as well. She's torn between the need to act and the desire to wait and see. His mouth works at her clavicle as his hands skim under her shirt to tickle at her ribs and the undersides of her breasts. Her breath catches as he presses the tank top up - over her breasts and then higher - until it is a noose around her throat. He lets his fingers skate the swells of her breasts on the sides, touch light and teasing. He cradles them in his palms, gives a gentle squeeze before letting his thumbs circle and rub her nipples through the fabric.
She gropes for any part of him that she can reach as his mouth continues its exploration. He drags his tongue across and scrapes his teeth over her ribs, mouths a scar from the Purge - a puckered dimple of flesh rendered numb by the combination of the bullet, and Sazh’s panicked attempts to remove it with a dull knife and clumsy fingers - and the picture Snow makes as he worships her body with his mouth almost resurrects those long dead nerves, stoking the heat of her arousal even higher.
Sliding her hands around his neck, Lightning traces her fingernails over the line of Snow’s jugular, running her thumbs over the stubble along his jaw line. Her anticipation ticks up, up, with every roll of Snow’s jaw and swipe of his tongue against her body.
Gods. How much hotter can she get?
His fingers trace patterns on the soft skin just above the cup of her bra, tickle in her cleavage and then slide outward, beneath her arms around her back, tracing the line of her bra to the clasp. She pants, waiting for him to unhook it and end the teasing, and just get on with it already.
He doesn't, much to her growing frustration.
That’s it! She’s never wearing bras again!
Instead, he slips his fingers beneath the catch and lays his open mouth on her breast over her bra. The sensation of heat and wetness seeping through fabric makes her breath hitch. She moans out a sound she's positive she's never made before as he sucks and nibbles, uses his tongue to rub the wet fabric against her.
Her hands slip from his face, slide down his sides to worm their way under his shirt. His skin is hot and smooth, muscles quivering beneath her petting hands. His sinful mouth tortures her, and she works her hands under his clothes around to the small of his back and pushes the tips of her fingers under the waist his jeans. He grunts when she tries to draw him against her, but he resists her efforts. He nibbles his way up her neck to her mouth. One hand disappears from her back, only to reappear behind her knee.
He hikes her leg up, until she presses the sole of her foot against the wall behind her. He groans into her mouth, fingertips tracing a path along her inner thigh, knee to groin, then down again. Each sweep upwards brings him closer to where she wants - needs - his touch, has her tensing in anticipation. Each retreat causes disappointment to mix into the anticipation, creating an intoxicating cocktail. The last brush upwards whispers against her. Her foot slips off the wall, and she widens her stance as she claws at his back.
"Please," she gasps against his smirking lips. Did she really just beg him to touch her?
If she did, it works. Snow groans and cups her, sucks on her neck, rubbing the heel of a hand against her, over her clothes. His big hand is perfect and torturous. Lightning clutches at his forearm, feels the muscles bunch and flex with each movement. He rubs again and her eyes roll back in her head. She decides it was worth the begging if just a simple touch can turn her whole body into a lightning rod for pleasure. It's too much and not enough as he moves his hand in slow, tight circles. Her whole body is flushed and hot and she needs so much more. This teasing is sweet agony, but she can't bring herself to stop any of it. Most of her wants to move on, get on with it, move past this appetizer and onto the main course already, but there's something so right in taking this slow, playing it out...
...Letting him lead for once, where she's only ever let him follow.
"So beautiful," he whispers against her breast and the vibrations on her sensitive flesh make her throw her head back and gasp out his name. Draw it out into three ragged syllables: “Sn-oh-oh...” She thumps her head on the wall in time with the small movements of his hand between her legs. Each pulse makes her blood run hotter, closer to the surface, until she feels like she's on fire. His mouth abandons one breast for the other and he bends to work again.
Lightning claws at his back, his hair, gripping and tugging to get her mouth on his again. He protests for a moment, until her tongue slides into his mouth, slipping along the inside of his bottom lip, seeking, finding and twisting under and around his tongue. Working her hands under his shirt, Lightning scrapes her nails down his flanks before tracing the lines of his abs into the hollows of his hipbones. She tugs at the downy hairs below his navel, tracing the trail of hair downward with her thumb to where it disappears just below the top button of his jeans.
Snow sighs out a happy noise as Lightning’s deft fingers unbuckle his belt and unbutton his pants. Her knuckles brush against smooth, wet skin. Snow’s hips buck, his breathing stutters, and he loses enough focus to disrupt the rhythm of his hands and lips on her body. Disappointment, frustration and relief pour through her in equal measure.
Lightning slides her hand down and cups him through his jeans, feels him hard and hot against her palm; Snow groans and shifts as she rubs him through the denim. He mumbles soft curses against her lips and his hands stop roving and roaming her body for a shocked moment. He exhales a breath that she swallows down, and Lightning takes the opportunity to twist and shove him against the wall.
He grunts, but it's not a pleased or aroused sound. It's pained.
Reality floods in. Snow is injured. He almost died from the beating he took. If it hadn’t been for Odin answering her desperate plea for help, he would be dead. They’re both likely dealing with some form of traumatic shock after the things they saw and did; after the horrors they’d each endured. They shouldn't do this now. You shouldn't do this at all, her conscience whispers. She ignores that voice, because fuck that bitch. It’s not about her conscience. It’s about them.
This is a bad idea.
Nothing is resolved between them. Sex will only complicate an already messy situation. It will only cause more pain.
She's tired of hurting him.
She stops rubbing him, stops kissing him. He lets out another pained groan - this one from the abandonment - and his hands clutch and clamor at her. His lips press harder to hers, trying to draw her back into the kiss.
She leans away from him and pulls up his shirt, sees the bruises that still mar him. She ghosts her fingers over the deep black bruising and wishes that she could do something to help ease the swelling, bleeding and pain; grant him a measure of relief from the pervasive soreness.
He whispers, "Light," as her fingers trace the clear outline of a boot print where one of those monsters stomped him. "It's okay. I'm all right." His hands grope at her bottom, squeeze and massage and work to seduce again.
He's injured and they shouldn't do this…
"Wait," she whispers against his desperate lips. "We shouldn’t-“
“No! We should." He slouches, spreads his legs and bends his knees. He uses the wall to brace himself up and he pulls her forward until she's straddling one thigh again. Gods, but he is good at this, she thinks, as she straddles his leg, muscles tightening in anticipation. He leans his forehead against hers. "We definitely should. We've waited long enough," he whispers. She closes her eyes as he tenses his thigh between her legs, grinding her body into his with the hands on her ass. She gasps, rocks down onto him in wanton desperation. "Too long," he breathes. Bracing her hands on his pecs, she lets him draw her back into the teasing rhythm. "Feels like forever, Light."
She can't help but agree as he traces her open, panting mouth with the tip of his tongue. He kneads and rocks, licks and strokes; diving forward, Lightning wraps her lips around his tongue and sucks in time with this rhythm that he's set. Snow shudders when she presses and rubs against him. She breaks away, bites at his jaw then sucks a bruise into his neck as he stokes her ever hotter with his lips, hands and body. Snow’s groan is a broken, wanton thing, and Lightning needs more: more of that sound, more of this feeling.
More of him.
All of him.
Click for Second Half - Explicit Content Ahead