swan_bite

There are so many minutes but this is the one. (They’re all the one lately.) Jensen leans forward and breathes in and out carefully. The ice is everywhere. Blackly dangerous.

This is the exact minute I decided I’m in love with you. I’ll never love anybody else but you.

Jensen checks his wrists for a watch, but there isn’t one, not one that works. Only the accessories he needs to make him show up as believable onscreen.

He has been a dozen, more, other people without ever having been himself except now, this minute, this exact freezing day.

And he thinks, I’m useful, if you keep me. I fix your socks and find your left shoe when you lose it. Kissing you is never exactly perfect, which is why I love you the most.

Harvey had missed the beginning, the first time he heard this. This time, Mike says, “And I told you that I work with Harvey. And he didn’t… you’re not going to find anything. Even if you do convince Jessica to fire me. You won’t get anything on him.” He still looks scared but he holds his ground on this. Like here, finally, is where he’s taking a stand. On whether or not Louis can get Harvey fired.

On the plus point, Harvey now knows who he needs to kill. Clarity of purpose is important. He makes his entrance. “Louis. I believe we’ve spoken about this before.” He puts his arm around Mike’s shoulders, wondering at the sudden shiver.

Eventually, the meditation will not be enough. Going in and coming out is getting harder by the second, and the practice has long since ceased to be soothing or restful. His quarters are hot, heavy with incense smoke, but he shivers anyway, his body mocking him. Strength, discipline, his very being, all betrayed by the roiling burn building in the base of his spine, the pit of his belly. His mind is stretching, reaching out for a mind that isn't there, destroyed along with so many others.

He will lie here, barely breathing, as the blood fever soaks into his brain, robbing him of what little control he has left. He will cease to see, cease to understand, and will crave flesh...to tear, to possess, to claim. As every cell of his body screams at him, his mind will stretch until it snaps, seeking safe harbor in a bond that will never come.

“You can’t stop me,” Erik tells him. His lips tasted like the sunset his face was bathed in, his hands were cold. Another hour in another ugly hotel room, and no one talks about the fact home is a state of mind neither of them ever achieved.

“I can’t let you win, either,” Charles responds. The sheets are worn, his head is a pounding mess. There’s a neon light opposite making a handful of lying promises, a letter fizzing and sputtering.

Erik’s lips twitch. It’s not a smile but it feels like a crack in armour, a bead of light. He’s a lot more than he can ever let himself be, an eternal argument and perhaps it’s for the best.

“We’re at an impasse, then,” he says. He sounds almost relieved.

Nyota looks up from her datapad with a frown; two chairs to her left, Dr. McCoy straightens with an alarmed look that Spock interprets as belated dread. Setting down the requisition logs, Spock folds his hands and waits for the Captain to continue; there is nothing, he thinks, illogical about curiosity in how Captain Kirk will approach the problem Spock had recognized within two weeks of their departure from Earth.

"Captain?" Lieutenant Sulu says warily.

"Just--" Captain Kirk puts his datapad down and stands up. "I'm going back to bed. If the Romulans attack, call me to kill them. You know, when there's something to do."

C R E D I T S