![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficTitle: Before You Let It Go...
Fandom: DC comics
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,685
Acknowledgments: Thanks to Tracy and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lurkslikefox for betaing this.
Characters/Pairings: Scott/Barda, Auralie
Previous Part: 3/6
Next Part: 5/6
Summary: The last temptation of Scott Free.
Barda listened to Scott’s breathing return to normal, felt his sweat cooling. He rolled off Barda and she gathered her wild hair behind her head again. She had fought for months straight at times, but she was utterly exhausted now. Not in her muscles, but in her head. She needed to sleep, to dream, to put some distance between them and what had just happened. Already she could feel the slight irritation of rug burn returning, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
Scooping up Scott, she carried him to her bedroom. The cot was still set up at the foot of her bed. She looked at it for a moment before kicking it over and throwing Scott onto her mattress. Thankfully, he said nothing as he pulled the sheets over his body. She climbed in next to him and fell asleep facing away from him, hoping the urge to say “I love you too” would go away if she ignored it long enough.
***
She woke up wanting to shake him and scream in his ear that she loved him, loud enough to make up for the unforgivable delay in being a human being. She rolled over to find he was already awake, staring up at the ceiling. She pursed her lips.
“What are you thinking?”
“About the things I said,” Scott breathed. “Before…” he spun his fingers around in an all-encompassing manner. “I’m sorry for saying those things about you, I didn’t mean them. I was just angry at this place… myself… do you really hate the war?”
“Yeah.”
Scott turned over onto his side. Without armor to constrain them, Barda’s breasts rose and fell hypnotically. Her nipples were pink and still slightly erect. He could smell the scent of her, not metallic but more powerful and sweet. And there was a hint of a smile on her face. That was the best part of seeing her naked.
“You want a glass of water?” Scott asked.
“I’m a little thirsty,” Barda admitted. “But you don’t have to…”
“No.” Scott got out of bed. “I want to.”
He returned a moment later, wearing his buttoned scavenger coat if nothing else. She, in turn, pulled the sheets up over her breasts. Thus dressed, he gave the water to her. She took a perfunctory drink and set it aside.
“That was something,” Scott understated.
“Uh-huh.”
“We don’t have to talk about it now.”
“Of course we don’t,” Barda said. Like it was even up to him.
Of course, it was. Somewhat.
“I do care for you,” she said quickly, like the words might bite her if she didn’t get them out fast.
“I know.”
“But anything else could be confusing. For Auralie.”
“Yeah, she… she would not know what to make of this.” Scott offered an unready smile. “So, what’s on the agenda today? Need your clothes washed? Boots shined?”
“We’re between wars at the moment. I should show up to whip the Furies into shape, before they get sloppy.”
“Good thinking.”
Barda took another drink. “I’m comfortable here, for now. I don’t want to get out of bed.”
Scott sat down on the mattress beside her. “Me either.”
In Barda’s arms, Scott didn’t want to run.
***
One week later, Barda burst through the front door, angrily pulling at her armor. Scott swooped in to help detach it.
“Scott! Take a memo!”
“Is this a real memo or an excuse to rant?”
“I haven’t decided yet!”
Scott worked her helmet off. “Oh, one of the little wings came off…”
“Dear Virman Vundabar, if you want to send your Parademons against Khunds, that’s fine. I might prefer to save time by killing them myself, but that is just me. But my Furies won’t play your war games, no matter how ‘tactically fabulous’ they are!”
“Is ‘tactically fabulous’ his words or yours?”
Barda stopped to glare at him.
“Let me get your cape.” His arms snaked around her thick neck and undid the clasp, brushing her cheek as he withdrew. When Barda turned around, Scott hung her cape over his arm.
She started pacing again. “Dear Desaad, if you receive a POW, it’s to retrieve information, not to see how painful you can make his death!”
Scott unstrapped her breastplate. There was a grotesque scorch mark across the abdomen. “I bet this’ll buff right out…”
“Dear… what’s the name of that assassin?”
“Kanto. Could you hold still a second?”
Barda stopped pacing to stand insolent with her hands on her hips. Scott began undoing her chainmail bodysuit.
“Did you call me dear?”
“Dear Kanto!” Barda said archly. “If I tell you to kill an enemy commander, I don’t care about the thrill of the hunt, I care about him getting dead!”
“Arms up.” Barda complied and Scott pulled the top of the chainmail over her head. He went to work on the belt holding up her leggings.
“You take liberties,” Barda commented.
“Better way to work off aggression than writing memos you’ll never send.”
The only sound was Barda’s belt rasping out of its loops.
“We aren’t on the same page with this?” Scott asked.
“I was going to have a drink first.”
Scott pointed to a vodkatini waiting for her on the counter. Barda raised an eyebrow, chugged it down, and pulled Scott toward the bedroom.
***
The bedsheets clutched at Barda as she rolled over to let an arm drop over the side of the bed. Sweat laid on her skin like morning dew, except not toxic. Was it morning? She’d lost track of time. That only used to happen during duels. Afterward, her most common refrain was to ask how many days had passed. She considered anything less than a day and a night to be unsatisfactory. Last night… had been very satisfactory.
She brushed her fingers over the clothes lying at the side of the bed. One of Scott’s steel-toed boots stood upright; the rest of his clothing was in a pile. She worked a finger over Scott’s home-knit tunic. It was coarse, itchy. She’d have to take Scott to a tailor. He’d look better, his clothes would be more comfy, and it would reflect better on her. Couldn’t forget that.
She rolled back over, sweaty bedsheets further ensnaring her. Scott was dreaming beside her, limbs sprawled out in all directions. One hand was still tangled in her hair; at least it had been until she’d moved. She put a lock of her tresses in his fingers and wrapped it up. Scott rubbed it between his fingers and smiled in his sleep.
Barda watched him sleep, never noticing that she had started to smile. Her morning exercises could wait.
***
Barda watched the ball disappear into the sky, Scott and Auralie running after it. Her Mega-Rod still rung faintly with the impact. “What’s the name of this game again?”
“Auralieball!” Scott called over his shoulder. While he was distracted, Auralie caught the ball and popped out the dent Barda had put in it.
“Okay,” Scott said. “Auralie’s turn at bat.”
Barda tossed her the Mega-Rod as she went to take her base. Auralie caught it, and her arms shifted in their sockets.
“Maybe you should just use the pipe.”
Auralie got up. “Yeah, I think that’s a great idea! Sis, you’re lucky to have such a smart guy.”
“Oh, we’re not—“ Scott started to say.
“Yes, I am,” Barda said. Then scowled. Scott was starting to find that adorable.
“I’ll pitch,” he said.
“And how come you get to pitch?” Barda asked.
“Because we only have one ball.”
Barda tossed the ball to Scott. Underhanded.
***
Scott woke up to a bright flash of light piercing his eyelids, jolting instantly into an animal awareness. He shoved the bedsheets away, honing in on the possible threat—
“Sorry,” Barda said, flicking off the light. Before she did, he caught a quick glimpse of a white singlet that ended just below her breasts and some kind of skirt, both so scanty and made of such flimsy material he was inclined to dismiss it as a waking dream. The idea that she’d fully left off her armor and bathed before coming to bed made it a full-on fever dream.
Scott rubbed at his eyes. “I didn’t expect you home for another day.”
“I got away early.”
“Good,” Scott said, his voice not traveling much in either direction.
He slumped back down, pulling the covers a little over him but leaving them open for Barda. Her outline flowed through the dark room, finally coming into focus beside him. The bed groaned as she got in next to him and he felt a growingly welcome tingle of warmth in his center; a quick flash of how beautiful she was, how good she felt. She pulled the covers over herself and laid on her side, facing away from him.
Not that he’d ever claimed to understand Barda, but Scott knew she wasn’t in the mood for sex. He kissed her broad shoulder, rather surprised to feel the satin tickling his chin, and curled up onto his own pillow, ready to leave it till morning.
“I can’t sleep,” Barda said.
Scott rolled over. It’d only been a moment. “Have you tried?”
“I couldn’t sleep a minute while I was gone. I kept thinking about the people I’d killed. Enemies of Darkseid,” she muttered, dissatisfied. “You’re an enemy of Darkseid. What if they were like you? What if they had hopes and dreams and… they did, didn’t they? Before they met me.”
Scott looked at her for a moment, trying to decide how to comfort her, before simply doing what came naturally.
He slipped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair, and said “You were lied to. Indoctrinated. You couldn’t have said no.”
“You did.”
“I’m a mistake—“
“You’re not a mistake!” She turned over to face him. “You’re the only thing on this goddamn world that’s right. You and Auralie.”
“And you.”
She stroked his chin. “You’re sweet. But who ever heard of a stopped clock being right three times a day?”
Scott sagged against the mattress, feeling a chill despite the fur covers required both by Barda’s station and the night air. The lust stiffening him had been replaced by something deeper, a simple reaction to seeing her pain: Wanting to end it.
He wondered if he should fight it. He didn’t want to. And even if she wouldn’t make the same decision in his place… he didn’t care.
He pressed against her, not caring that she could wipe him out with a twitch or banish him with a word. He couldn’t afford to be the prisoner when she was the guard or the enemy while she was the Fury or anything but another person, someone who listened and cared. Like an archaeologist excavating an artifact of incalculable worth, he brushed the hair from her ear and whispered into it.
“When I was young… must’ve been my fifth or sixth escape attempt… I stole an inspecting corporal’s Motherbox and I ran. I just ran so fast. It was a mess. I was trying to work it, bumping into things, knocking people over… I finally got it working just as they caught up to me. Pure luck I didn’t open a Boomtube into a star or a vacuum. As they pulled me away, I got a look through the portal. I saw the ocean.” Her jaw clenched in muted irritation over the attempt to cheer her up. He petted her cheek with the backs of his knuckles. “It’s supposed to be blue.” Scott moved his hand lower, to brush over her stomach. The singlet was luxurious to touch, but not half as much as her skin. “There were waves. Big ones, big enough to strike you! The wind, you know, out at sea.” He swished his fingertips over her belly to demonstrate. “It stirred up the water and those waves traveled for miles to get to shore…”
“Wind isn’t strong enough to do that.”
He let his fingers move higher and lower, below her bellybutton and up between her breasts. It left the singlet pushed up her cleavage, in danger of being shrugged off entirely, and he had to force himself to keep soothing her instead of arousing her. There was something about her unarmored dishabille that struck a fierce chord in him. “It’s persistent. Sometimes that’s better than brute force.”
She said nothing, which was a kind of agreement.
He stopped brushing and started caressing, the pads of his fingers stroking her skin like he was finger-painting, trailing rhythmically up and down. “And the waves hit the shore and sometimes they crashed and sometimes they just… slid across the beach until they couldn’t go any further and fell right back home.” Finally, he rubbed with his whole palm, pressing lightly with the heel of his hand, hoping the motion would lull her to sleep. “Close your eyes. We’ll talk more in the morning. I’ll make pancakes.” He grimaced a little. “Saw ‘em in a cookbook once. Never made them before, but they look delicious.”
Barda grabbed his hand, interlaced their fingers to give it a squeeze, “I don’t want to sleep. I want to forget,” then brought their conjoined fingers down between her legs. Scott could feel silken fabric brushing the back of his hand; a perk of her station that Barda hadn’t exercised up til now. “Make me forget.” He felt out the length of the loincloth… down to her knee… and then slipped his hand under it and worked his way back up.
As soon as his hand was on her flesh, she rolled over on top of him. Her fingers worked hurriedly at the buttons of his union suit, managing to undo three before she growled “Get this thing off before I rip it off.”
He had just worked out a serviceable alternation between massaging her and undoing his own buttons… not easy when her hands kept squeezing his ass… when he heard a knock at the door. Not the booming knock of a Pacifier squad, but something much lighter.
“Barda, I had a nightmare. Can I sleep with you?”
“Auralie! Darkseid’s balls!” Barda pushed him back, quickly straightened her loincloth and singlet. Scott scooted over to his side of the bed and quickly did up his buttons. “Come in.”
Auralie zombied in, still half-asleep, and Scott pressed himself as far to the side as he could without going over as Auralie inlaid herself with Barda like a pillow in a case. He was about to slip out to the furnace room for the night when Auralie grabbed his hand and pulled him over so she was bracketed by him and Barda.
From behind, Auralie was wrapped up in Barda’s arms and from the front, she held Scott’s hand in her arms like a teddy bear. Thus secured, she went to sleep as soon as her head touched pillow.
Scott sighed and rubbed her chin with the thumb of his captive hand before trying to follow suit.
“Are you happy?” Barda asked. Her eyes were on the faded scars lining the underside of his arm. She'd seen that sometimes, in Furies who couldn't take the pressure. They cut and cut and cut like they could carve the anxiety out of their bodies.
Scott sat up a little, so surprised he almost jerked his hand away from Auralie. In the darkness, the white underclothes and dark hair combined to make Barda look strangely forlorn, like a bride who’d never made it to her wedding day.
“This has been the happiest month of my life,” Scott answered, setting his head back down on his pillow.
He was surprised by Barda taking hold of his arm, moving her thumb over his pulse. “But are you happy?”
“No.”
Barda swallowed and quickly moved on. “How can I make you happy?”
Scott looked down briefly as Auralie held tighter to his arm. “You can’t. You see that horizon. I want to go there. But at a hundred and fifty feet, I go up like a Roman Candle. I want to keep going. “
“What if you find an ocean?”
“I’ll build a boat and keep going. And if it sinks, I’ll swim. And wherever I hit land, I want to put on a show. Sing a song, do a dance, tell a story. Show people there’s always wonder in the universe. There’s always a way out of being unhappy, cynical, apathetic.”
“And if you tire while you swim?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
With practiced ease, Barda disengaged Scott’s arm from Auralie and pulled him closer, until the only thing between them was Auralie. They laid on the same pillow, Auralie’s tiny head under their chins, and looked into each others’ eyes. Scott buried himself in the pillow. This was the closest he’d ever slept to her. Not the boneless afterglow of the love-making or the awkward embracing for warmth… this, her so close he could almost feel the thoughts coming off her.
“I’ll carry you,” she promised.
***
Scott woke up with Auralie still curled up against him. With one brief glance to the rising sun and the horizon it lit up, he pulled on his threadbare clothes and, yawning, went into the kitchen. Barda was already there, surrounded by what could charitably be described as a mess.
“I’d hate to see the other guy,” Scott commented.
“It. Will taste. Delicious,” Barda gritted out, trying to intimidate the charred mess on her skillet into being part of a balanced breakfast.
Scott’s amusement died quickly when she flung the skillet into the wall, taking a chunk out of it. “I’m your woman!” she virtually roared. “Why would you want to run away from that?”
“I don’t want to… the longer I stay, the more I’ll want to stay. Would you keep me here, knowing I’d never be truly happy?”
“I don’t make you happy?” Barda asked, putting a hand to her chest and the silk underwear she’d requisitioned just for him.
“You make me… I don’t know what you make me. It’s this damned place. It muddies things.”
“Then clear them up.” She put her hands on his shoulders and slowly relaxed them into a loving caress. She was so good at that now, at being able to touch without hurting, at conveying love with just a look, a hand, her lips. “Stay. Stay with me.”
“I’m not happy.”
“But you make me happy!” She closed her eyes like a prisoner stepping onto the gallows. “You do that. Nothing else.”
“Why’d you have to go and say that?” He rubbed the back of his neck, slowly rotating it like he was trying to work a kink out. “Maybe… I should leave now, while there’s still more good memories than bad.”
“We haven’t begun to make good memories!” Barda protested.
“I’ve been… I kept that anesthesia you ordered. And I’ve been practicing.” He undid the button on his cuff. Rolled up his sleeve.
Scars, fading from white to the most recent and vivid red, ran up his arm like the chalk marks a prisoner makes on the wall of his cell.
“I can feel this bomb inside me, all the time. It matches the splinter in my mind’s eye. You’ve heard of that? It’s something you know is wrong with the world. Something that slowly drives you mad.”
She took his arm and rolled his sleeve back down. “I’ll help you get it out.”
***
It was darkly hilarious, the kind of thing Barda would’ve laughed at if it had been anyone else. All her life she’d been trained to cut and carve and hurt. You’d think… she’d thought… that making a simple incision would be easy. But she couldn’t look at that skin without thinking of how it felt, under her hands and under her lips, and he had to take her knife and put it at the stenciled top of the incision line. The area was already slathered with deaden-cream, all she had to do was cut. Cut the man she loved.
“It’s okay.” Scott smiled at her, trying to be strong for both of them in the face of them parting forever. And Barda couldn’t remember when he’d started being the strong one, because it felt like he’d been supporting her forever. “You don’t have to—“
“I want to.” It was insane, how much she wanted to hold him. “I want to be the one that sets you free.”
He braced himself and she brought the blade in, down. He grimaced and it didn’t look right, that frown on a face built for smiling. He didn’t bleed much, not with the deaden-cream constricting his arteries, but it was too much, far too much. His breath was steeped little sounds of pain, filtered into carbon dioxide. Slowly, she exposed the black device. Lurking just under the skin, making everything go bad, keeping him with her and keeping them apart. Like evil, like bones in a shallow grave, just waiting to come to the surface.
Barda had one and only one reason to hate being whoever she was with Scott: All the goddamned irony.
It was easier if she thought of it as a bomb, just a bomb, and not the very symbol of what kept her beloved in pain. She cut the right wires, disconnected the right connections, and as soon as it was out she threw it away with all her might. The rest was just closing Scott up, and she barely got the final stitch done before he collapsed against her. It was worth it. If he left, if she never saw him again, it was worth it just for that moment when they could hold each other and have nothing in-between.
Tears were rolling down his cheeks and she hated herself for putting this on him now, but she couldn’t wait a moment longer. “Stay with me, Scott. I love you.”
He kissed her. He kissed her like she had never been anything but good and pure. “Okay. You talked me into it.”
Next part.
Fandom: DC comics
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,685
Acknowledgments: Thanks to Tracy and
lurkslikefox for betaing this.Characters/Pairings: Scott/Barda, Auralie
Previous Part: 3/6
Next Part: 5/6
Summary: The last temptation of Scott Free.
Barda listened to Scott’s breathing return to normal, felt his sweat cooling. He rolled off Barda and she gathered her wild hair behind her head again. She had fought for months straight at times, but she was utterly exhausted now. Not in her muscles, but in her head. She needed to sleep, to dream, to put some distance between them and what had just happened. Already she could feel the slight irritation of rug burn returning, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
Scooping up Scott, she carried him to her bedroom. The cot was still set up at the foot of her bed. She looked at it for a moment before kicking it over and throwing Scott onto her mattress. Thankfully, he said nothing as he pulled the sheets over his body. She climbed in next to him and fell asleep facing away from him, hoping the urge to say “I love you too” would go away if she ignored it long enough.
***
She woke up wanting to shake him and scream in his ear that she loved him, loud enough to make up for the unforgivable delay in being a human being. She rolled over to find he was already awake, staring up at the ceiling. She pursed her lips.
“What are you thinking?”
“About the things I said,” Scott breathed. “Before…” he spun his fingers around in an all-encompassing manner. “I’m sorry for saying those things about you, I didn’t mean them. I was just angry at this place… myself… do you really hate the war?”
“Yeah.”
Scott turned over onto his side. Without armor to constrain them, Barda’s breasts rose and fell hypnotically. Her nipples were pink and still slightly erect. He could smell the scent of her, not metallic but more powerful and sweet. And there was a hint of a smile on her face. That was the best part of seeing her naked.
“You want a glass of water?” Scott asked.
“I’m a little thirsty,” Barda admitted. “But you don’t have to…”
“No.” Scott got out of bed. “I want to.”
He returned a moment later, wearing his buttoned scavenger coat if nothing else. She, in turn, pulled the sheets up over her breasts. Thus dressed, he gave the water to her. She took a perfunctory drink and set it aside.
“That was something,” Scott understated.
“Uh-huh.”
“We don’t have to talk about it now.”
“Of course we don’t,” Barda said. Like it was even up to him.
Of course, it was. Somewhat.
“I do care for you,” she said quickly, like the words might bite her if she didn’t get them out fast.
“I know.”
“But anything else could be confusing. For Auralie.”
“Yeah, she… she would not know what to make of this.” Scott offered an unready smile. “So, what’s on the agenda today? Need your clothes washed? Boots shined?”
“We’re between wars at the moment. I should show up to whip the Furies into shape, before they get sloppy.”
“Good thinking.”
Barda took another drink. “I’m comfortable here, for now. I don’t want to get out of bed.”
Scott sat down on the mattress beside her. “Me either.”
In Barda’s arms, Scott didn’t want to run.
***
One week later, Barda burst through the front door, angrily pulling at her armor. Scott swooped in to help detach it.
“Scott! Take a memo!”
“Is this a real memo or an excuse to rant?”
“I haven’t decided yet!”
Scott worked her helmet off. “Oh, one of the little wings came off…”
“Dear Virman Vundabar, if you want to send your Parademons against Khunds, that’s fine. I might prefer to save time by killing them myself, but that is just me. But my Furies won’t play your war games, no matter how ‘tactically fabulous’ they are!”
“Is ‘tactically fabulous’ his words or yours?”
Barda stopped to glare at him.
“Let me get your cape.” His arms snaked around her thick neck and undid the clasp, brushing her cheek as he withdrew. When Barda turned around, Scott hung her cape over his arm.
She started pacing again. “Dear Desaad, if you receive a POW, it’s to retrieve information, not to see how painful you can make his death!”
Scott unstrapped her breastplate. There was a grotesque scorch mark across the abdomen. “I bet this’ll buff right out…”
“Dear… what’s the name of that assassin?”
“Kanto. Could you hold still a second?”
Barda stopped pacing to stand insolent with her hands on her hips. Scott began undoing her chainmail bodysuit.
“Did you call me dear?”
“Dear Kanto!” Barda said archly. “If I tell you to kill an enemy commander, I don’t care about the thrill of the hunt, I care about him getting dead!”
“Arms up.” Barda complied and Scott pulled the top of the chainmail over her head. He went to work on the belt holding up her leggings.
“You take liberties,” Barda commented.
“Better way to work off aggression than writing memos you’ll never send.”
The only sound was Barda’s belt rasping out of its loops.
“We aren’t on the same page with this?” Scott asked.
“I was going to have a drink first.”
Scott pointed to a vodkatini waiting for her on the counter. Barda raised an eyebrow, chugged it down, and pulled Scott toward the bedroom.
***
The bedsheets clutched at Barda as she rolled over to let an arm drop over the side of the bed. Sweat laid on her skin like morning dew, except not toxic. Was it morning? She’d lost track of time. That only used to happen during duels. Afterward, her most common refrain was to ask how many days had passed. She considered anything less than a day and a night to be unsatisfactory. Last night… had been very satisfactory.
She brushed her fingers over the clothes lying at the side of the bed. One of Scott’s steel-toed boots stood upright; the rest of his clothing was in a pile. She worked a finger over Scott’s home-knit tunic. It was coarse, itchy. She’d have to take Scott to a tailor. He’d look better, his clothes would be more comfy, and it would reflect better on her. Couldn’t forget that.
She rolled back over, sweaty bedsheets further ensnaring her. Scott was dreaming beside her, limbs sprawled out in all directions. One hand was still tangled in her hair; at least it had been until she’d moved. She put a lock of her tresses in his fingers and wrapped it up. Scott rubbed it between his fingers and smiled in his sleep.
Barda watched him sleep, never noticing that she had started to smile. Her morning exercises could wait.
***
Barda watched the ball disappear into the sky, Scott and Auralie running after it. Her Mega-Rod still rung faintly with the impact. “What’s the name of this game again?”
“Auralieball!” Scott called over his shoulder. While he was distracted, Auralie caught the ball and popped out the dent Barda had put in it.
“Okay,” Scott said. “Auralie’s turn at bat.”
Barda tossed her the Mega-Rod as she went to take her base. Auralie caught it, and her arms shifted in their sockets.
“Maybe you should just use the pipe.”
Auralie got up. “Yeah, I think that’s a great idea! Sis, you’re lucky to have such a smart guy.”
“Oh, we’re not—“ Scott started to say.
“Yes, I am,” Barda said. Then scowled. Scott was starting to find that adorable.
“I’ll pitch,” he said.
“And how come you get to pitch?” Barda asked.
“Because we only have one ball.”
Barda tossed the ball to Scott. Underhanded.
***
Scott woke up to a bright flash of light piercing his eyelids, jolting instantly into an animal awareness. He shoved the bedsheets away, honing in on the possible threat—
“Sorry,” Barda said, flicking off the light. Before she did, he caught a quick glimpse of a white singlet that ended just below her breasts and some kind of skirt, both so scanty and made of such flimsy material he was inclined to dismiss it as a waking dream. The idea that she’d fully left off her armor and bathed before coming to bed made it a full-on fever dream.
Scott rubbed at his eyes. “I didn’t expect you home for another day.”
“I got away early.”
“Good,” Scott said, his voice not traveling much in either direction.
He slumped back down, pulling the covers a little over him but leaving them open for Barda. Her outline flowed through the dark room, finally coming into focus beside him. The bed groaned as she got in next to him and he felt a growingly welcome tingle of warmth in his center; a quick flash of how beautiful she was, how good she felt. She pulled the covers over herself and laid on her side, facing away from him.
Not that he’d ever claimed to understand Barda, but Scott knew she wasn’t in the mood for sex. He kissed her broad shoulder, rather surprised to feel the satin tickling his chin, and curled up onto his own pillow, ready to leave it till morning.
“I can’t sleep,” Barda said.
Scott rolled over. It’d only been a moment. “Have you tried?”
“I couldn’t sleep a minute while I was gone. I kept thinking about the people I’d killed. Enemies of Darkseid,” she muttered, dissatisfied. “You’re an enemy of Darkseid. What if they were like you? What if they had hopes and dreams and… they did, didn’t they? Before they met me.”
Scott looked at her for a moment, trying to decide how to comfort her, before simply doing what came naturally.
He slipped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair, and said “You were lied to. Indoctrinated. You couldn’t have said no.”
“You did.”
“I’m a mistake—“
“You’re not a mistake!” She turned over to face him. “You’re the only thing on this goddamn world that’s right. You and Auralie.”
“And you.”
She stroked his chin. “You’re sweet. But who ever heard of a stopped clock being right three times a day?”
Scott sagged against the mattress, feeling a chill despite the fur covers required both by Barda’s station and the night air. The lust stiffening him had been replaced by something deeper, a simple reaction to seeing her pain: Wanting to end it.
He wondered if he should fight it. He didn’t want to. And even if she wouldn’t make the same decision in his place… he didn’t care.
He pressed against her, not caring that she could wipe him out with a twitch or banish him with a word. He couldn’t afford to be the prisoner when she was the guard or the enemy while she was the Fury or anything but another person, someone who listened and cared. Like an archaeologist excavating an artifact of incalculable worth, he brushed the hair from her ear and whispered into it.
“When I was young… must’ve been my fifth or sixth escape attempt… I stole an inspecting corporal’s Motherbox and I ran. I just ran so fast. It was a mess. I was trying to work it, bumping into things, knocking people over… I finally got it working just as they caught up to me. Pure luck I didn’t open a Boomtube into a star or a vacuum. As they pulled me away, I got a look through the portal. I saw the ocean.” Her jaw clenched in muted irritation over the attempt to cheer her up. He petted her cheek with the backs of his knuckles. “It’s supposed to be blue.” Scott moved his hand lower, to brush over her stomach. The singlet was luxurious to touch, but not half as much as her skin. “There were waves. Big ones, big enough to strike you! The wind, you know, out at sea.” He swished his fingertips over her belly to demonstrate. “It stirred up the water and those waves traveled for miles to get to shore…”
“Wind isn’t strong enough to do that.”
He let his fingers move higher and lower, below her bellybutton and up between her breasts. It left the singlet pushed up her cleavage, in danger of being shrugged off entirely, and he had to force himself to keep soothing her instead of arousing her. There was something about her unarmored dishabille that struck a fierce chord in him. “It’s persistent. Sometimes that’s better than brute force.”
She said nothing, which was a kind of agreement.
He stopped brushing and started caressing, the pads of his fingers stroking her skin like he was finger-painting, trailing rhythmically up and down. “And the waves hit the shore and sometimes they crashed and sometimes they just… slid across the beach until they couldn’t go any further and fell right back home.” Finally, he rubbed with his whole palm, pressing lightly with the heel of his hand, hoping the motion would lull her to sleep. “Close your eyes. We’ll talk more in the morning. I’ll make pancakes.” He grimaced a little. “Saw ‘em in a cookbook once. Never made them before, but they look delicious.”
Barda grabbed his hand, interlaced their fingers to give it a squeeze, “I don’t want to sleep. I want to forget,” then brought their conjoined fingers down between her legs. Scott could feel silken fabric brushing the back of his hand; a perk of her station that Barda hadn’t exercised up til now. “Make me forget.” He felt out the length of the loincloth… down to her knee… and then slipped his hand under it and worked his way back up.
As soon as his hand was on her flesh, she rolled over on top of him. Her fingers worked hurriedly at the buttons of his union suit, managing to undo three before she growled “Get this thing off before I rip it off.”
He had just worked out a serviceable alternation between massaging her and undoing his own buttons… not easy when her hands kept squeezing his ass… when he heard a knock at the door. Not the booming knock of a Pacifier squad, but something much lighter.
“Barda, I had a nightmare. Can I sleep with you?”
“Auralie! Darkseid’s balls!” Barda pushed him back, quickly straightened her loincloth and singlet. Scott scooted over to his side of the bed and quickly did up his buttons. “Come in.”
Auralie zombied in, still half-asleep, and Scott pressed himself as far to the side as he could without going over as Auralie inlaid herself with Barda like a pillow in a case. He was about to slip out to the furnace room for the night when Auralie grabbed his hand and pulled him over so she was bracketed by him and Barda.
From behind, Auralie was wrapped up in Barda’s arms and from the front, she held Scott’s hand in her arms like a teddy bear. Thus secured, she went to sleep as soon as her head touched pillow.
Scott sighed and rubbed her chin with the thumb of his captive hand before trying to follow suit.
“Are you happy?” Barda asked. Her eyes were on the faded scars lining the underside of his arm. She'd seen that sometimes, in Furies who couldn't take the pressure. They cut and cut and cut like they could carve the anxiety out of their bodies.
Scott sat up a little, so surprised he almost jerked his hand away from Auralie. In the darkness, the white underclothes and dark hair combined to make Barda look strangely forlorn, like a bride who’d never made it to her wedding day.
“This has been the happiest month of my life,” Scott answered, setting his head back down on his pillow.
He was surprised by Barda taking hold of his arm, moving her thumb over his pulse. “But are you happy?”
“No.”
Barda swallowed and quickly moved on. “How can I make you happy?”
Scott looked down briefly as Auralie held tighter to his arm. “You can’t. You see that horizon. I want to go there. But at a hundred and fifty feet, I go up like a Roman Candle. I want to keep going. “
“What if you find an ocean?”
“I’ll build a boat and keep going. And if it sinks, I’ll swim. And wherever I hit land, I want to put on a show. Sing a song, do a dance, tell a story. Show people there’s always wonder in the universe. There’s always a way out of being unhappy, cynical, apathetic.”
“And if you tire while you swim?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
With practiced ease, Barda disengaged Scott’s arm from Auralie and pulled him closer, until the only thing between them was Auralie. They laid on the same pillow, Auralie’s tiny head under their chins, and looked into each others’ eyes. Scott buried himself in the pillow. This was the closest he’d ever slept to her. Not the boneless afterglow of the love-making or the awkward embracing for warmth… this, her so close he could almost feel the thoughts coming off her.
“I’ll carry you,” she promised.
***
Scott woke up with Auralie still curled up against him. With one brief glance to the rising sun and the horizon it lit up, he pulled on his threadbare clothes and, yawning, went into the kitchen. Barda was already there, surrounded by what could charitably be described as a mess.
“I’d hate to see the other guy,” Scott commented.
“It. Will taste. Delicious,” Barda gritted out, trying to intimidate the charred mess on her skillet into being part of a balanced breakfast.
Scott’s amusement died quickly when she flung the skillet into the wall, taking a chunk out of it. “I’m your woman!” she virtually roared. “Why would you want to run away from that?”
“I don’t want to… the longer I stay, the more I’ll want to stay. Would you keep me here, knowing I’d never be truly happy?”
“I don’t make you happy?” Barda asked, putting a hand to her chest and the silk underwear she’d requisitioned just for him.
“You make me… I don’t know what you make me. It’s this damned place. It muddies things.”
“Then clear them up.” She put her hands on his shoulders and slowly relaxed them into a loving caress. She was so good at that now, at being able to touch without hurting, at conveying love with just a look, a hand, her lips. “Stay. Stay with me.”
“I’m not happy.”
“But you make me happy!” She closed her eyes like a prisoner stepping onto the gallows. “You do that. Nothing else.”
“Why’d you have to go and say that?” He rubbed the back of his neck, slowly rotating it like he was trying to work a kink out. “Maybe… I should leave now, while there’s still more good memories than bad.”
“We haven’t begun to make good memories!” Barda protested.
“I’ve been… I kept that anesthesia you ordered. And I’ve been practicing.” He undid the button on his cuff. Rolled up his sleeve.
Scars, fading from white to the most recent and vivid red, ran up his arm like the chalk marks a prisoner makes on the wall of his cell.
“I can feel this bomb inside me, all the time. It matches the splinter in my mind’s eye. You’ve heard of that? It’s something you know is wrong with the world. Something that slowly drives you mad.”
She took his arm and rolled his sleeve back down. “I’ll help you get it out.”
***
It was darkly hilarious, the kind of thing Barda would’ve laughed at if it had been anyone else. All her life she’d been trained to cut and carve and hurt. You’d think… she’d thought… that making a simple incision would be easy. But she couldn’t look at that skin without thinking of how it felt, under her hands and under her lips, and he had to take her knife and put it at the stenciled top of the incision line. The area was already slathered with deaden-cream, all she had to do was cut. Cut the man she loved.
“It’s okay.” Scott smiled at her, trying to be strong for both of them in the face of them parting forever. And Barda couldn’t remember when he’d started being the strong one, because it felt like he’d been supporting her forever. “You don’t have to—“
“I want to.” It was insane, how much she wanted to hold him. “I want to be the one that sets you free.”
He braced himself and she brought the blade in, down. He grimaced and it didn’t look right, that frown on a face built for smiling. He didn’t bleed much, not with the deaden-cream constricting his arteries, but it was too much, far too much. His breath was steeped little sounds of pain, filtered into carbon dioxide. Slowly, she exposed the black device. Lurking just under the skin, making everything go bad, keeping him with her and keeping them apart. Like evil, like bones in a shallow grave, just waiting to come to the surface.
Barda had one and only one reason to hate being whoever she was with Scott: All the goddamned irony.
It was easier if she thought of it as a bomb, just a bomb, and not the very symbol of what kept her beloved in pain. She cut the right wires, disconnected the right connections, and as soon as it was out she threw it away with all her might. The rest was just closing Scott up, and she barely got the final stitch done before he collapsed against her. It was worth it. If he left, if she never saw him again, it was worth it just for that moment when they could hold each other and have nothing in-between.
Tears were rolling down his cheeks and she hated herself for putting this on him now, but she couldn’t wait a moment longer. “Stay with me, Scott. I love you.”
He kissed her. He kissed her like she had never been anything but good and pure. “Okay. You talked me into it.”
Next part.
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Date: 2009-02-02 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-03 05:24 pm (UTC)