shiegra (shiegra) wrote in kinkfest, @ 2008-07-08 22:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | a: shiegra, f: baccano!, july 05, p: ennis/firo |
the dreams we share, Baccano! (Ennis/Firo)
Title: the dreams we share
Author/Artist:
Rating: PG13/R
Pairing: Firo/Ennis
Word count: 1045
A/N: Ghastly late, I know! No excuses.
Prompt: Baccano! - Firo/anyone - acting on instinct - two hundred years' worth of other people's memories
Ennis woke up because she thought she heard Szilard’s voice, close enough to touch, vibrating in her ear. You’ll die slow, he promised in gravelly displeasure. They all thought better of it in the end, you will be no different and you will earn no more mercy—
And then she looked up and saw Firo sitting by the edge of the bed, eyes gleaming oddly in the dark.
She wasn’t afraid because—all better instincts protesting against her insane trust—it simply didn’t occur to her to be. Instead she sat up and reached for his hands, careful at the feel of warm contact against her skin.
“Firo?” She asked after a moment, voice hushed velvet in the night.
“I was dreaming.” He said softly, the night cloying and dark around them. “About you.” The darkness of his face and voice said they were not pleasant dreams, but Szilard, she thought, would give no pleasant memories.
“I see.” She said, confused, and at his silence added, “I do not dream often, but when I do—when I do, it is—” The words stuttered off. For too long her nights had in brief patches been filled with either other people’s nightmares or the torment of Szilard’s presence, throbbing in her skull. I dream of you, she thought about saying, and the words stuck in her throat.
He turned his hand over to accept hers, thumb stroking across her palm. Sensual, someone’s stolen memories told her from a hazy corner o f her mind, it’s sensual. “What do you dream of?”
“I’m learning to dream of good things.” She admitted finally, and felt her stomach clench. Szilard’s death and her freedom had only passed her nightmares on. “I’m sorry.”
Some of the strangeness slipped away as his eyes widened into something almost like indignance. “Don’t be! I mean, Ennis—”
He was still touching her, but his fingers had stilled, thumb pressing against her palm and he was smiling suddenly, that crooked smile that lit up his face. It was familiar by now, warm and real, but more familiar still was the way his eyes stayed dark mirrors above his mouth, watchful and cold.
“Firo.” She said quietly, and watched awareness surface under the darkness, as though in the split second between the smile and her voice he’d gone somewhere else. “Are you well?”
“Yes.” He said slowly. “He isn’t inside me like a voice. But there are so many memories...” His eyes trailed down her like a touch, proprietary in a way that was always icily scientific and ruthless on Szilard’s face and had a hotter, stranger look on his. Then he blinked and shook himself like a dog shedding water, hair falling into his eyes.
She reached to brush it away, an oddly automatic gesture.
Instinct took over before the thought that this is Firo, not an enemy could hit and as her back slammed into the sheets she twisted and kicked, a sharp high flash—it would have broken his jaw but he twisted aside in a move that was all Firo, all liquid fighter’s coordination, and she gasped in air sharply and kept herself from continuing the fight. His hands weren’t bruising around her wrists, but they were definitely there, and he braced himself above her on his knees.
“Firo.” Ennis whispered, keeping her voice perfectly steady. His hair had fallen over his forehead even more, not quite obscuring the mirror-dark glimmer that had returned to his eyes.
He blinked and then released her, planting his hands in the sheets instead. “Ennis I’m—I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.” She thought that it was a little strange, how comfortable they both were talking while he leaned over her. Hadn’t they played this out before? Even before she knew he was an immortal, when he was just a boy flushed with warmth and life, with the lamplight glittering in his eyes.
His eyes were different now—but not very different. He was still the same person, and about as far from Szilard as you could be.
He looked down at her, a considering look that dropped his eyelids to hood his expression, Firo’s sly delight mingled with something a little darker. “I suddenly knew, remember?” He asked, and she nodded wordlessly, her throat tightening at the thought of her impromptu resurrection.
He cupped her cheek and reaction leapt in her nerves, racing through her body like wildfire, like a sudden plunge into summer, muscles tightening and pulling her back off of the mattress in a startled jerk. “I remember you.” He murmured, and traced the touch down her throat, settling on her collarbone.
Ennis thought of the scientific explanation he hadn’t understood, his impatience to cleave to the basic meaning. A creature of instinct, her own memory of Szilard’s clinical voice told her knowingly.
A fool.
“You did not learn that from Szilard.” She managed to keep her voice perfectly blank and even with an effort.
“No.” He agreed. His eyes were brighter now, focused on her. His smile deepened faintly. “I don’t like Szilard.” He said with the same direct energy that was so characteristic. “Why should I keep anything he’s so kindly gifted me to its hallowed original use?”
Then his hand lifted to cup her jaw and he leaned in and kissed her.
Ennis sucked in a sharp breath, lips parting beneath his, and his mouth opened—a briefly awkward fit, but he tipped his head and deepened the kiss.
Her hands were on his neck without her being quite aware of how they’d gotten there, tangled in the hair at the nape, and his hand slid down her skin and pulled ripples of golden warmth through her, tightening her body against him.
“Ennis.” He said softly against her skin as she sucked in air in deep breaths, trying to calm her racing heart. “The things I remember...”
She drew him in again, opened her mouth against his, touched the pulse in his neck with gentle fingers. “It’s all right,” she whispered, the words meaningless, the contact everything.
He was ever the change, the catalyst; she could not trace the same freedom into him that he had gifted her, but she could trust him to find it.
It was good enough.