It's a Graves thing (soundofwings) wrote in rooms, @ 2015-03-20 15:38:00 |
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Entry tags: | !dirty dancing, *log, death, eddie nigma |
Upstate NY: Muerte and Eddie
Who: Muerte and Eddie
What: Walking, talking, smooching
Where: Dirty Dancing door - Kellerman's Resort in upstate NY (Pt 3 of 3)
When: After Eddie and Steph go for coffee and this discussion.
Warnings/Rating: Some angst tossed in, but mostly the walking, talking, and smooching.
She saw the tilt of his head, knew the curiosity that was there, and she just shook her head in response. It wasn't anything she needed to talk about. Especially not then. If she'd known what he was thinking, she likely would have agreed with there being a lot more heavy talk than she'd anticipated. She hadn't thought that a sun-soaked resort in upstate mid-century New York would be the place for secrets and feelings to be spilled. It made it easy to follow the tug of his hand and sit next to him on the end of the dock. Sandals rescued from falling into the water, she set them behind herself and dipped her toes into the lake.
The water itself was warm, so close to the surface, but cooler than the surrounding air, and it made her smile. A few seconds of kicking slowly back and forth, and she eased herself back, laying down on the dock even though some of the wood was just a little rough. Eyes closed against the still-strong sun, she sighed and smiled. "Nature's a good thing. Cities are good too, but I like the contrast." Said as if she didn't usually have the option to be anywhere and everywhere she wanted to. After another moment, she lifted an arm to shield her eyes with one hand, squinting one eye open just enough to peer over at him. "So you're not absolutely hating it here?"
He smiled down at her and then tilted his chin up to the warm sky. “Contrast is a good thing.” His tension was slowly unraveling and when he put his feet in the cool water, he gave a happy little noise. This was what he expected from the door. This, some comfortable company and maybe some dancing later on that night. It was the right kind of normal for him. No pressure, no aching pain. Muerte made things feel better, she always did when he let her in.
“Hmm?” Eddie glanced at her, registering the question seconds later. His expression brightened earnestly and he poked her side. “Oh, I think the company makes it bearable at the very least.” He drolled out his italics as per usual and waggled his eyebrows at her like he was being oh-so-charming. “Is my presence interrupting your communal with nature?” He laid the charm on a little thicker and leaned back on the palms of his hands.
"Contrast is good. It can help you appreciate what you have." She smiled as she listened to the soft splish of his feet in the water, and laughed softly at the noise he made. It was happy, from what she could tell, and she liked hearing that from him.
The poke to her side drew out a surprised little sound (that she would deny was an actual squeak), and she opened both eyes again as she curved her torso away from him, one foot splashing in the water as she moved. "Stop that!" She was grinning though, and shaking her head. "Oh, just bearable?" She did her best to match his tone. "I can commune any time I want, but if it's too much for you, I'm not going to force you to stay here." Her lips curved into a smirk. "If it's only just bearable." She turned her head toward him as he leaned back, still using her hand to shade her eyes.
He grinned and gave a noncommittal shrug. “You’re right, there haven’t been a lot of doors I could go running towards to escape.” Eddie teased, blinking innocently and then he dropped the act all at once as if someone let go of a curtain. The smile was still there, just not as wide, not as John Dillinger as it was before. “I like the quiet. I like seeing new things like water and maybe a salamander. And, I really like you.” He reached to run a couple fingers across her arm. The sun made him squint, so he moved into her shade and a little closer to her in general.
“Are you tired of me yet? Should I take a cement shoes swim in the lake?” Still teasing, even if his voice was soft and affectionate. “You better tell me to bug off now. If we go dancing later, I’m not going to want you to dance with anyone else.” A familiar warning he gave her on their first date and now a kind of inside joke. Eddie shook his head as if it were some terrible secret of his. “I’ll get absolutely steamed at the sight of it. I might even huff and storm out because I very much doubt I could fight another man for your affections.” Another shrug like there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
She smiled back at him and wondered if she'd been smiling too much. He made her want to, though, and she wasn't quite sure how to fight that. Or if she even should. And then, on top of that, she laughed again, low and fond, and shook her head. "You and salamanders. I'm not quite sure what your fascination is and if I should be worried about a shift if your overall focus." It was a tease, her tone light. "Or if I should just be worried about you dressing salamanders in little green suitcoats and bowlers." She didn't say anything about his last comment, but her cheeks went pinker than just the sun could cause in the moment, and she reached out her own hand to try to snag his fingers, fighting back a shiver at the drag of them across her arm.
"I'm not tired of you yet. Not at all." It was soft, and she shook her head. "Even if I'm not quite sure how to handle this jealousy thing you've got going on right now." And she did sound a little confused by it.
“A man is entitled to the sweat on his brow and his love for salamanders.” Eddie said with a faux Mid Atlantic accent that fit the times a little too perfectly. “And, frankly? I don’t see the point in having a salamander if I’m not going to dress it up in funny little outfits for the internet.” He let her take his hand and pressed a thumb to hers before letting their fingers intertwine messily. Eddie used the hold to tug her closer. His eyebrows lifted as she responded to his little teases of jealousy, but it wasn’t until he saw the look of confusion in her eyes that he realized she wasn’t quite teasing him back.
“I can turn it off.” He offered automatically. If someone didn’t like something about him, he simply turned it off. “You’re a beautiful, human woman in these doors. How could I not get jealous? Plus, the mysterious thing you have going is really difficult to find. Men go crazy for it. If I’m not careful, you’ll meet a real swell guy out here somewhere that doesn’t have a few sets of neon green body suits in his closet.”
She laughed low at the accent. And even though she knew he was at least somewhat joking: "Dressing them up would hurt them. They're delicate." She let herself be tugged closer with no struggle or resistance, shifting over, scooting until her leg was pressed against his.
"Don't." The single word was quiet, almost too much so, and she shook her head. Even in the bright sunlight, she looked over at him. She couldn't quite hold the same stare as she could in their own door, but it was close. His offer had come too quick, too sudden of a reaction. "You don't need to do that." She didn't want him offering things like that. She didn't want anything turned off. About to say more, she was derailed by his next words, starting to shake her head before he was even part-way through. "I'm pretty sure I haven't done anything to make you think I'm going to just turn on a dime like that." She tried not to bring it up much, because sometimes she thought his ego was big enough, but… "I know a lot of people, Eddie. I've met just about all of them." The end of that thought, of course, was that she was only sitting on a dock next to one person.
“I confess, I don’t know anything about salamanders except that I want to be friends with one. If you could find me some literature on them, it would be most appreciated.” Eddie couldn’t help slipping into full on geek mode. He was serious, too, that’s what made it so funny. If she got him a few library books on the topic, he’d happily read them (probably to Daisy when she was at the hat shop with her mother) and write a few harmless riddles about them. She could practically see the green question mark pop up over his head thinking about salamanders.
Usually Eddie could look right back at those long stares, but sometimes they made him feel a little too aware of himself. Maybe that wasn’t always a problem for the riddled man, maybe he used to be so assured of who he was and what he was doing. Now, it made him realize he did a lot of tricks to make people look elsewhere. Look at my hat, look at my smile, don’t look at the lines on my face, the scars on my neck. So his gaze flickered away like a schoolboy who was caught looking at a pretty girl across the room and he offered an awkward smile.
There used to be a time where Eddie couldn’t imagine a woman falling for anyone else besides him. After all, he had spent so much time becoming the smartest and most charming rogue Gotham had ever seen. He had two hench ladies and generally got on with anyone he wanted to manipulate. That Eddie faded with time and age. Now? He didn’t know what to do with her picking him over anyone else in the entire universe ever. A small laugh because it would have so fed his ego once upon a time. Now it just made him feel special, like a strangely colored star in an already glittering sky. His hand slipped from hers and he reached to touch her jaw. “It’s the green hat, isn’t? Ladies love the green hat.” Voice only half teasing, mostly affectionate and grateful in a way that didn’t come naturally to him.
He couldn’t remember the last time a woman made him feel special. The last time anyone made him feel that way. Eddie inched closer to kiss her softly, thumb gently rubbing across her cheek. A noise rumbled from his throat, something that sounded an awful lot like the happy noise he made when he put his feet in the water.
Something in her brain poked at her own thoughts at the look in Eddie's eyes about the salamanders. It was something that said that she could indulge whatever fascination this was. She could get him something he didn't have yet, and that he likely wouldn't get for himself. It made her smile again, and she nodded. "I'll get you some books. And then I'll get you a tank. And then I'll get you a salamander that you'll have to take care of for the next decade." Her tone came out teasing, like she didn't actually mean it. Like she wouldn't do the things she listed off. But she did, and she likely would. "There's some that are green, you might like those." But then her eyes lit up, and she shook her head. "No…" She drew the word out with a smile. "I know which one you'd like." Her grin was all mischief and being pleased at herself for the thought.
She went a little gentler when he looked away, shyness written all over him. She blinked, almost surprised at it, and she shifted just enough to press a bit more against his side, his hand still in hers. "Hey…" It was a whisper, more air than sound, and not meant to be followed up by anything else. Just to draw him back. Her thumb stroked along his hand, a beacon to guide him.
When he pulled his hand away from hers, she frowned, thinking that he was moving back, but then he was touching her jaw, and she was smiling, turning toward it. She was all soft tease with her next words. "Oh, it's all the hat. I'm sticking around until I can steal it for myself. I think it'll look good with my hair." She was still smiling when he leaned in to kiss her, and she pressed forward just a bit as her eyes slipped closed. The noise he made drew another smile from her, pressed into the kiss as she sighed softly. After a moment, she angled toward him more, her knees bending to rest angled on top of his thigh. "Mmhm," she murmured without pulling away or opening her eyes, smile still in her voice, "Just about the hat."
Eddie liked the idea of having a salamander, even if it was a tease. He’d give it a big tank, one big enough that it didn’t miss the great outdoors. Lucha would sit in front of it and the two would try to figure each other out for days and days. Having pets was such a simple pleasure, yet it gave him something to care for that wasn’t nearly as complex or dark as Gotham. It was one of the little things that made it easier to be more than just a green suit and question marks. More than that, he liked that Muerte didn’t brush off things he said as an over abundance of words or think he was just talking for the sake of talking. She listened to him and that meant a lot. That was all the green man really needed.
Well, that and her kissing him like that. The sensation of her pressing close to him and returning his affection was all brand new and yet it felt comfortable. They had known each other for a long time, sometimes it felt like he had known her for much longer than a few years and so this- this made sense. Even if Eddie really liked his question marks, he was glad one didn’t hang over this.
He wrapped his free arm around her waist and he smiled when she spoke, her breath tickling his lips. “There’s no way I’d let you have it, not when you’d look better in it than I do.” Eddie whispered back, kissing her again; wanting, pushing the line between them a little further than it had before. His hand ran across the curve of her waist, first like he was touching a painting while a museum guard was distracted. Then, after a moment to build confidence, his palm moved slowly like he was memorizing her shape. “Maybe borrow it?” Another heated kiss, nothing like the soft one he had opened with. “Under my supervision, of course.”
Eddie's love of pets was something that proved to her that he was more than just the green he worried about slipping into sometimes. Pets were something that needed care from a person, and even through other things she had seen happen to him, he'd kept that care of his animals. So she'd start with the books, and if he was still interested, she'd give him another thing for him to care for.
Between the two of them, their timelines were so skewed and twisted that it was hard to say just how long they'd actually known each other. If they just counted the time they were both in the same place at the same time, then it wasn't nearly as long as it could be. But there was a knowing there that made it feel longer - knowing and the age and experiences of that time they'd spent in different places. It was the strange dichotomy that made this straddle the line between comfortable and strange.
The kiss shifted, pushing deeper as his hand settled on her side. She entertained (just for a passing second) the thought that they were still in public, still in the open in a time displays like this were meant to be at least a bit more private. But the lake was beginning to quiet as people returned to their rooms before preparing for dinner, and the nearest person was a good distance away and packing up their afternoon things, not paying attention at all to the two people on the dock. With his hand moving along her side, she tried to ignore the fizz of sensation along her skin and hooked her fingers in the unbuttoned opening of his shirt at his throat, the backs of them pressing to the revealed skin there.
"Supervision?" Her voice came soft and almost a little breathless after that second, more heated, kiss. But it was laced through with the warmth of amusement and tease. "You make it sound so…" She trailed off as she kissed him again for a long moment before pulling away just enough to turn and whisper against the corner of his mouth. "Supervision." The word came warm, as breath against his cheek.
Eddie smiled against her lips in an automatic response to the fingers pressed to the base of his throat. He tugged at her shirt tucked into her pants, only enough to get an inch of fabric loose. Another kiss and he brushed his thumb against her bare hip. Touching her there, even if it was innocent by nearly every measurement beyond this country club, felt good. It warmed the roguish man. After all, Gotham was a city of fishnets and low necklines. It taught a very young Eddie that it wasn’t about how much skin he could see and touch, it was beyond that. It was the distant memory of a tattooed girl on his lap who ran her fingers down his scars. It was this woman’s hand pressed against his chest until his heart could start to work right again. The warmth, the burst of color from the dying sunlight, it snapped electricity through his nerves. It made him bite down on her lip without thinking, only apologizing after with a soft, laughed and hurried, “Sorry, oh sorry.”
Another kiss and another in a sweet apology, then he smiled when she spoke. “That’s the best response you got for me? Repeating the word?” Eddie whispered back and then laid down on the dock, tugging her down with him. “If you’re going to wear the hat, I think I have the right to see you in it.” He lowered his chin, walking his fingers up her buttoned shirt and then back down again. “Supervision isn’t right.” He nodded in agreement and then looked up at her. “Playing dress up sounds too silly, too. Doesn’t?” Eddie smirked, mind clearly out of sorts from her. “I can go goth for you. I’ve done it before.” He teased with a waggle of his eyebrow. “I even painted my nails dark, dark green. It was a strange phase for everyone involved.”
She somehow hadn't expected the press of his thumb to her skin to be so different than the feel of his hand over fabric. But it somehow was, enough to startle her to break the kiss, turning her head to look down at his hand there on her hip for a long moment before turning back. There was no move to stop him, to pull away - she just had to see it. And then she was kissing him again, gladly, those fingers at his throat moving to instead press her palm to the side of his neck. The bite to her lip was unexpected too, enough that she didn't have the time (or awareness) to stop the needy little sound that it created in the back of her throat. She couldn't remember ever making a sound like that before, and she laughed with him, embarrassed and pink and shaking her head and whispering. "No, it's okay. Don't apologize…"
The sweetness in the next kiss didn't chase away her smile or her laughter as she eased herself down next to him. She angled just enough that she could cross one leg over her body and rest her far knee against his thigh again. And then her eyebrows inched up. "I thought it might be a little too forward to say how it really sounded. ...Suggestive. Inappropriate. Vaguely salacious." Her smile quirked into a smirk. "Naughty. Like you were thinking about Mary Poppins again."
Her gaze angled down to watch the march of his fingers along the buttons of her shirt, curving her stomach in as he got to it. Not quite ticklish, but… unaccustomed to the pressure. "Playing dress up makes me think of fluffy princess gowns and little kid costumes." And then she did laugh softly, catching his hand to stop the progress of his fingers, pressing it down instead of pulling it away. And her laugh went soft, a warm chuckle that matched the light. "Was this when you had the neck tattoo? The old one?"
“Oh, it was. I can’t think of anything except Mary Poppins right now.” Eddie snagged his fingers between buttons and smiled as she pressed his hand closer to her. He tilted his chin up to look at her and then kiss her jaw, her neck. A chuckle and a nod at her description of what images dress up conjured and then he leaned his head back against the wood of the dock. “No, I can’t think of the right word.” A frown that wasn’t really one at all. He liked when his brain didn’t work just right because of her. He didn’t have to constantly be on, she told him so plenty of times, so how couldn’t he see that as a comfort? “I have this vision of you in green though and it’s very fetching.” He said off hand and so casually, playing with the edges of her buttons before pressing his palm against the middle of her chest.
Eddie looked back up at her. “It was. During my more desperate attempts to impress Batman and the ladies. Spoiler alert, I didn’t really manage to do either.” He smiled and reached his other hand up to touch her face, the backs of his fingers pressing against her cheek. “I’m very lucky I developed such a winning personality to make up for my past fashion disasters. Even more lucky that the hotel took away all my tattoos. Ask anyone who got released from Arkham on good behavior, there’s nothing like getting a fresh start.” He pressed his thumb to her lips experimentally and then pulled it away as if it’d catch fire otherwise.
Her grin spread wider, and she did her best to keep her laugh in for a change. "I think Mary Poppins might be a little scandalized at what you're doing right now, as you're supposedly thinking about her." The burrow of his fingers between her buttons made her wrinkle her nose at him and squirm just a little. And whisper: "What did I tell you about the horrible disfigurement, hm?" Her hand wrapped around his wrist, but her own fingers only pressed in gently, still not pulling him away, and only tilting her chin up for those kisses to her neck. Eyes closed, she grinned. "Fetching? What shade of green? How neon am I?"
She only laughed softly at his 'spoiler alert', and shook her head. "I blame the artists." It was one of the only things she'd said about their greater presence in the world. "You had someone that liked The Cure." As if she was one to talk. She was glad to drop the subject and turn to look at him, blinking slow at the press to her cheek. "You're glad they're gone?" Her eyebrows inched up at that. "Would you get them again?" Her lips pursed in an approximation of a kiss when his thumb pressed against them, her eyes warm even as he pulled away.
“Mary likes the dirty boys, I’ve seen who she hangs out with.” Eddie said with a tiny shrug that barely registered between her and the dock below him. “I always wanted to be Dick Van Dyke. I think we have the same sort of charm. His accent was awful and likely a little racist, but I didn’t care.” Eddie gave her a very sly, very Van Dyke sort of look when she warned him of the horrors she hid under that shirt and he politely left her buttons alone, even if that wouldn’t keep him from touching her all together. “I never saw Phantom of the Opera, though maybe I should? Did she ever figure out how to get him to take the mask off?” He tugged at her shirt to get her to kiss him, something light and lovely. “And, I’ll have you know I was very good friends with Harvey Dent. We spooned once. It was very romantic. Scars never bothered me.” He grinned as if that was some kind of achievement.
“Fetching.” He repeated, the Mid Atlantic accent coming back in full force for only a few more sentences. “I’d say, my dear. When I close my eyes and imagine your shade of green, I see..” Eddie actually closed his eyes and paused as he waited for a green to come to mind. “Fern. You’re a lovely fern.”
He gave her a look at the Cure comment because yes her and her brother were like walking love letters to the whole damned movement. “I’m glad they’re gone. Too many memories I don’t need to see every day. I had a tattoo for all the people I loved. People I lost. Mostly on Earth-3. And, I think, with the exception of Lucha, they all need to be put to rest. They’d want me to move on.” He nodded and it was clear he had given all of this a lot of thought. But, the question of if he’d get another tattoo made him look down at his arms. “Do you remember Machina? She left these funny circuit marks on my arms when I let her use too much of my- life force or whatever you want to call it. I wouldn’t mind getting a few of those. They suited me.”
She couldn't stop the snort at Mary's love of dirty boys, the smile wide across her face. "So rude, Eddie. Mary's the prim and proper sort." Her eyes were bright though. "Though I suppose she might be the type that hides what she's really like under a clean exterior." Her expression went sly for just a moment, and then she was smiling openly again until she frowned, trying to remember what she knew about Phantom of the Opera. "I'm… not sure? I think it gets ripped off? In the musical?" The tug to her shirt wasn't hard, but it guided her forward without hesitation from her. And she laughed afterwards. "Now I'm beginning to think you'll be disappointed if there aren't scars."
She wrinkled her nose at the accent, and again at the shade of green he chose. "Fern?" Her eyebrow inched up. "You know, there are ferns that shrivel and curl up when someone touches them." And then the smile was back, smaller but still true. "They're nice colors though."
She nodded at the mention of Machina. "Of course I remember." And that was softer, a little more somber. She remembered how hard it was for him when she was gone, the guilt he'd felt. It made her reach out to drag careful fingers along the back of his wrist, even before he started talking about the circuitry tattoos. "I remember those too." She only nodded, not giving an opinion either way. If he was going to get new ink at all, it would be his decision alone, and she didn't want to influence that.
“That’s why she likes rough and tumble men.” Eddie’s eyes lit up because oh he knew a thing or two about that sort of thing. It was blueprinted out in a Billy Joel song, after all. “Hmm, another thing we should go see for ourselves. I know you’ll know once we’re back in our door, but pretend for my sake.” He liked the idea of going out and doing things with her, but then again he simply liked the idea of being with her. So the doing things was sort of secondary to her. “I think the last thing you need to worry about is my reaction to what this plaid shirt might be hiding.” Eddie said and there was a hint of something in his voice that seemed like he was trying to take the pressure off of that next step. He knew it was a big one and he wanted her to take her time. To feel comfortable around him. Eddie leaned in to kiss the little bit of skin exposed at her collar to prove he was sticking to her boundaries.
“Ferns are lovely. The colors are magnificent.” And then his accent dropped and there was a glimmer of something wonderfully intelligent in his eyes, like he was recounting an old story. “Riddle me this: What sort of fern could you bring to a concert? Well a fiddlehead of course.” He grinned, so pleased with himself.
He watched her touch his wrist, the delicate drag of her pale fingers. His heart beat a little harder, warm against his ribcage. Eddie closed his eyes and let himself live in the moment. The sun was nearly gone, the sky dark and Muerte was pressed against him. It felt good and oh god that feeling wasn’t something he could let go of easily. “Maybe, if I ever need a reminder.” He murmured out and then turned his head to open his eyes and look up at her. “Let’s head back before it’s too dark to see. You don’t want to know what happens to a city boy who’s lost in the wilderness.”
"I never knew you knew so much about Mary Poppins' preferences in men. It makes me wonder how you know." She nudged him with her knee as she smiled. She wasn't sure if 'we should go see' meant research, or if it meant actually going somewhere to see the show. Either way, she nodded, an unspoken promise to keep the knowledge to herself. But then her eyebrows were going up again, and her smile got caught somewhere between serious and a smirk. "Who else's reaction should I be worrying about?" She smiled at the kiss, a slow, pleased blink, and she tried to tease (even though it came out sincere). "Because I still don't see the line forming for the next interested party."
His riddle earned a flat stare from her at first, as if she couldn't believe what she'd just heard, and then an upward roll of her eyes. "You are so ridiculous." But by that point, she was smiling, shaking her head and holding back a laugh that wanted to escape.
When he closed his eyes, she took the opportunity to look at him. Really look. As if she was trying to find the explanation of why him. Why, after so long, it took a strange rogue from Gotham to get her to venture into places where she was human, just to spend time with him. And she couldn't find the explanation. She wasn't sure she ever would. And then he was looking at her again, so she was smiling. Nodding. "Don't want you to turn into a pumpkin." But before she pushed back to her feet, she shifted her weight, leaning toward him, against him, and kissed him one more time. Deep rather than light, lingering until she pulled back to rest her forehead against his, drawing a breath for a moment. Smiling again. "Come on, pumpkin boy. Let's go." And then she moved more, rolling back over and pushing up to her feet, snagging her sandals in one hand and both of their hats in the other, not bothering to tuck that one corner of her shirt back in.