DISCLAIMER: Law & Order: Trial By Jury & Law & Order and all their characters are property of NBC and Dick Wolf.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: First and last lines of all the ficlets written by the ever brilliant flying_peanuts. My eternal thanks. These are all of the vignettes of Serena Southerlyn and Tracey Kibre that I wrote for even_angels_. They are little glimpses of an ongoing life, set in between, or after, or at the same time as my Between Bombay series featuring the same two. Take your pick. Except Breathe Me, which really should be part of the series, say as part number six, but gets ahead of itself. Oh, well. Enjoy. I don't know that anyone will even care to read these, but I was encouraged by racethewind10 and since I have nagged and threatened her all week, it seemed only fair.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.

Flight
By Fewthistle

 

In a tormented delight of whispered touches, the tremble of your hips draws the confines of my freedom. I wish that this weren't all, that I existed somewhere beyond this place, beyond this moment. Somewhere beyond the smooth cotton of the sheets beneath my knees. Beyond the scent of you, the subtle citrus of your perfume, and the richer, darker scent left behind on my hands and my face. But I don't. Not really.

The sun is a pale golden memory of light behind the shades. Through the slats, I can see the iridescent blue of twilight. The room is in shadow now, with only a thin streak of yellow light that cuts across the framed print on the far wall, giving to Icarus' fall the brilliance of color that no doubt Breughel intended. I can sympathize with the poor boy; seeking after heaven with only faith, hubris, and wings of feather and wax.

Your face is shadowed now as well. You look somehow older, your skin darkened to honey, the freckles faded and indistinct. I idly trace the whitish, uneven line of scar tissue along your ankle, half way up your calf; feel the indentations and ridges where slender bones are, and where bones used to be. Feel the slight stubble where the razor missed along the Achilles tendon.

You lie back on the pillows, hair tangled, a few stray strands clinging to your damp forehead and cheek. Your eyes are hooded, dark, their color indistinct. There is no modesty in your pose, no sense of impropriety in being sprawled here in this bed with your lover at this time of day. Indeed, perhaps there is something fitting, being here with you now; between day and night, between light and shadow. Murky, hazy. As imprecise as the two of us.

You reach a languid hand for me, but I ignore it, bending my head to brush my lips along the tender skin on the inside of your knee, smiling slightly to myself as I hear the small intake of breath that I knew was coming. I can taste the salt on your skin, the slightly chemical flavor of body lotion.

As you watch me, I make the familiar, yet exotic journey northward, my lips and tongue tracing a map only I can see along the smooth skin of your thighs. We both know my destination; there is no hurry, no urgency, only a slow-burning need. A need to feel; to feel my mouth on you and your hands in my hair, urging me closer. To feel the heat of the sun and the air rushing around us both as we plummet, wings melted, toward the deep, blue oblivion of the sea.

Looking along the fragile length of your body, our eyes meet, and for just an instant, I see the words that you will never say. Their unnatural absence occupies a space in this bed, in this room, that neither of us can deny. A space that holds me here, within the confines of your bed, your body. Foolishly, like a needy child, I believed that only when I heard you say them, would I be able to admit to what my heart has known all along.

Today, I'm not afraid to love you.

The End

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