Characters: Jack/Odysseus (manofexploits) & Kate/Penelope (unravler) Date/Time: Monday, February 20, evening Location: Jack's dorm room Rating: PG-13 Warnings: Jack and Kate can't get near each other without rubbing their bodies together right now. Summary: Kate is mad at Jack because he screwed things up, again. Kate stomps upstairs to punch him to make herself feel better. Somehow, punching turns into loving. They don't know how that happened, either.
Kate’s heels were like a mood ring; you could always tell the sort of mood she was in by the sound they made as they clicked across the floor. When Kate was in a good mood, they clicked quietly, but purposefully, as she walked. When Kate was distracted, the click became less purposeful and less consecutive. When Kate was angry, the click disappeared all together. The sound they made became a sort of booming stomp instead of a decided click. It was very hard to miss Kate when she was in a bad mood, so unless Jack had his TV on full volume, he could hear her a mile away.
She boomed her way up the stairs, a determined scowl on her face. Ever since Saturday, things were all messed up. Her odd relationship with Jack was messed up, her head was messed up, her relationship with her parents was messed up, and she had no idea how to fix it. With everything scattered the way it was, Kate was feeling very irritable. The irritability settled under her skin and made her itch, desperate to be rid of it. Her original intent had been to focus on something else, pour all of her anxious energy into something productive.
Then Jack interrupted her good intentions with his stupid comments and his stupid metaphors. She hated his metaphors almost as much as she hated his stupid face, and his stupid voice, and his stupid everything. He just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could he? He’d jump in with hints of having advice she needed, then yank it away from her, taunting her with his unwillingness to ever explain himself and his stupid emoticons.
Jack really shouldn’t bother her as much as he did. He was just a nobody, right? That’s what he always told her. Nobodies didn’t have the power to be an annoyance, they didn’t have the power to be much of anything.They were nobodies. Jack was clearly a broken nobody, because he had annoyed her tonight. All of her irritation was now focused on Jack. She had to see Jack to fight with him in person. It just wasn’t as satisfying over the forums.
She thundered down the hall and stopped directly in front of Jack’s room. With loud, rapid knocks she demanded his attention.
“Open the door, please.”
Her tone was anything but polite, despite the please.
They had parted on uncomfortable terms late Saturday morning. Jack hadn’t seen Kate until Monday afternoon in class, and she’d refused to acknowledge him before and after it started. He was, under the surface, more than a little frustrated with how this was playing out--and that was what really got to him, for he wasn’t sure what next step to take.
True, last week had moved with all the speed of a freight train, but it’d been a freight train that was bound to leap off the tracks and crash in a horrible mess of smoke and thunder; thunder that was rather like the sound of heels angrily hitting against the hallway floor tiles, a sound he somehow heard over the thoughts churning in his mind. Great, she was here already. Certainly Kate wasn’t one for wasting time, at least that much he’d give her credit for, though she was being ridiculous yet again. He frowned deeply, a severe line cutting across the lower portion of his face, and closed his book with a muttered explicative. It wasn’t like he’d been able to pay a great amount of attention to it, anyway, not with his email constantly being updated with Kate’s ludicrous forum comments, one after another. Jack dropped the neglected book onto his bed and proceeded to make his way to the door, deciding it was for the best if he got this over with as fast as humanely possible.
He didn’t want this to drag out, the way their other interactions seemed to happen, because that always led to a peculiar tugging feeling in his gut, the one that made him want to say things the exact opposite of what came out of his mouth, the idea that instead of criticizing Kate and purposefully tricking her with his method of speech, he should instead drop his shields and better appreciate her.
And maybe he’d wanted to do that, sure, he’d slowly been working up to being more honest with Kate, but last week had changed everything. Last week made him throw caution to the wind and every one of his impulses and private needs became completely public to Kate and anyone who’d happened to see them out together, enjoying one another’s company as if they’d never fought a mere few days beforehand--or most of their lives.
Jack had done what he could to alleviate the restless aching in his bones, to forget all about what had happened between them. It was no use, as he was forever learning when it came to Kate. He could not forget about her, he could not help but feel this had been preordained, and it was perhaps useless to fight Fate; instead, he should simply go where it led him, deal accordingly with whatever was handed to him, be it good or bad. It wasn’t the greatest plan, but it’d do for now. Besides, it’d only been three nights since they’d been together.
Surely after a week he’d be better adjusted.
But then he opened the door (Kate’s knock annoying him with its demanding volume, as well as the irritation in her voice) and knew that should a week go by, a month, half a year, he’d never be better adjusted. Something had ultimately changed between them, and the ground they’d previously stood upon, rocky and hard to navigate, had for a brief amount of time been littered with gentle slopes devoid of emotional pit stops and pent up frustration. It was enough to make him foolishly hopeful, and that was indeed a dangerous thing to be.
No, he had to be careful.
“What do you want, Kate?” He fixed her with an equally irritable expression upon opening the door, wishing he’d been strong enough to completely ignore her knocking. He could have pretended to not have been in his room, that he’d simply been fibbing to her on the forum. None of this would then be happening.
Kate wasted no time. The moment the door opened, she pulled back her arm and launched her balled up fist directly at his bicep. She repeated this action over and over, her face scrunched up in undisguised frustration and confusion. This was all his fault, it had to be. Kate was a rational human being, one that knew better than to jump into bed with someone after a week.
After about five weak, but satisfying punches, Kate stomped two steps back and glared up at him. She did her best to avoid his eyes, it was still to hard for her to meet his gaze. She resisted the urge to the soreness from her knuckles. While they hurt, the ache was sort of satisfying. She exhaled with a huff, straightening her shoulders and posture to hold herself tall and proud. This was the first time she had really looked at him since he had left her dorm room on Saturday. Things had changed between them, but Jack had not. Jack remained the same, tall, broad, well built with eyes that normally held a mischievous gleam. That gleam was absent tonight, replaced by subtle caution, assessment, and annoyance.
Good, she was glad he felt annoyance. If she had to suffer, so did he. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him since he left her, and it unnerved her. She did not like how much of her time had become devoted to thinking about Jack. She had far more important things to think about, things that did not involve her becoming wrapped up in another person. She was an individual, and she wanted to remain an individual. The previous week had shown her how easy it would be for her to become completely and utterly absorbed in another person. At the time, it had seemed so natural and so right, but now, in hindsight, the idea was worrisome.
She clutched the oversize sleeves of her cardigan in curled fingers before finally fixing her eyes on his, hoping to look calm and collected, despite the fact she had just repeatedly punched him in a fit of frustration.
“Now I have to go buy some crack.”
She turned on her heel and stalked off, away from Jack and away from the desire to grab his arms and wrap them around her. There would be none of that, thank you.
The blows came fast and hard--though the power behind them wasn’t anything to write home about, for they weren’t backed by actual, full-out rage. Jack was bewildered at first, letting go of the door after Kate had finished her meltdown, his arm lightly smarting where she’d hit him. Tremors of emotion flicked across her face, even if it was obvious she was doing her best to appear a stone wall, quietly defiant and justified in her actions. There was something dwelling beneath her firm expression that she barely kept in check.
“Are you finished with your little temper tantrum?” Jack asked quietly, though his tone had nothing to do with the hallway being public domain. Rather, he wasn’t certain what, exactly, his emotions were doing, or what Kate had meant to accomplish tonight.
Kate’s resolve must have been about to crumble, for she declared a ridiculous mission was calling for her and quickly turned to leave. In fact, she did leave; or more accurately, she attempted to leave.
“No, you don’t,” he said, his response as immediate as the sound of his door closing behind him. He didn’t have far to go in order to catch up to Kate. His legs were longer than hers, his strides easily bringing him to her. He was just as determined as she was in his steps, albeit he didn’t have the clicking of heels to announce his presence, just a pair of scuffed tennis shoes.
Jack reached for her upper arm, urging her to stop with a firm grip, though he was careful not to be rough about it.
“What do you think you’re doing, Kate? Was this really necessary?” If this was how she wanted to settle things, he didn’t want any part of it. He hadn’t spent years dreaming about her--dreaming about Penelope--and finally held her in his arms last weekend to receive nothing for his troubles but pathetic punches that held no hope of leaving a bruise. If she didn’t want to see him anymore, fine. But he drew the line at putting up with this childish display of emotion from her. They were adults, and they were going to act like adults.
She ignored him until he grabbed her. The she couldn't ignore him any longer. He was impossible to ignore when he was touching her. She let herself be stopped only because she knew that if she didn’t it would make things worse.
She turned fully to face him, hoping a defiant tilt of the chin would hide the quiver that was threatening to lead in a flood of frustrated tears. She sorted through his questions, one by one, to decide whether or not they were worth answering.
Was she done with her tantrum? Probably not. She didn’t have the answers she needed in order to ease her frustration, thereby making it almost certain that she was not done with her temper yet. When she didn’t know what to do, she defaulted to upset and outbursts. That answered his other question. She didn’t know what she was doing aside from releasing some of her frustration. His final question she could answer out loud.
“It was necessary, or I wouldn’t have done it. I never do things needlessly.”
She shook her arms free of his grip and dug her fingers into her hair, tugging at the neatly contained locks in an effort to calm herself.
“It was necessary because you’re just so frustrating sometimes Jack that I can’t see straight.”
Her fingers came loose from her hair, her tidy bun now in shambles, with thick strands falling randomly around her face. She gestured helplessly, so agitated she couldn’t decide what sort of gesture would come close to being appropriate aside from throwing her hands out to the side, curling and uncurling her fingers repeatedly. “You’re so frustrating, and irritating, and I can’t get away from you! You’re everywhere! I don’t know what to do with you anymore.”
It was the closest she would ever come to admitting that all of this, whatever it was, left her clueless. Kate never, ever admitted to not having the answers. She always had the answers and she was proud of that fact. She studied and questioned tirelessly so that she would be able to face whatever situation came her way. This situation stumped her, and Kate hated being stumped. The fact that Jack was a key figure in the stumping only further irritated her. Take her irritation and combine it with desires, both past thanks to Penelope, and present, and she found herself in an emotional turmoil that would require her to give in some aspect.
Kate did not like to give when that giving involved letting down her defenses and allowing herself to be vulnerable to anyone. How could she willingly let herself become vulnerable to the one person who tormented her most of her life? What scared her the most of all was that part of her thought it was something she needed to do, that she needed to give in and stop trying to fight with Penelope and with Jack. Part of her told her she needed to learn how to give a little, but the rest of her wasn’t sure she was ready to completely let go of the control she had held onto so tightly for so long.
Nothing ever went as planned when Kate was involved. Nothing. It never had, and it never would. Jack had accepted this early on in his life, though he’d tried to tip the scales here and there. This situation was no different from any other, save her unpredictability when it came to her emotions and the changes between them. Kate acted, and Jack reacted; or perhaps it was the other way around, and they both remained the constant catalyst in each other’s lives.
Her explanation for her actions was as inexcusable as the punches had been. Jack’s nose crinkled slightly in disgust, disbelief clear upon his face. It wasn’t as if he’d expected an actual, rational explanation to begin with, truth be told, though he could always hope. It was impulsive to run after Kate like he had, but there was no way he was going to let her walk away after doing such a thing.
Jack stared at her, mouth agape, as she vehemently spit accusations at him, bitter pills that only half made sense. They’d been over this before, hadn’t they? Time and time again. This was an endless circle, a hamster wheel of conflict, but within it, he knew, they both found security. It was an odd idea, and yet there it was staring him full on in the face, hair askew and eyes threatening to fill with angry tears. Always they could count on the other to be there, frustrating or not, and there was stability to be found in the battles, a sparring partner who refused to cut corners or soften any of their blows.
“I’m irritating,” he intoned, eyebrows drawn together in annoyance, “and you’re not? You’re not everywhere I go? That’s why you came upstairs to hit me?” Jack was incredulous, as well as visibly confused by Kate’s outburst. Nonetheless, his mind was racing for the explanation behind her reasoning, simple though it was. Everything between them, all of their problems big and small, seemed very obvious and simple on the surface, but there were depths yet uncovered; Jack was uncertain as to whether either of them could fully live with what cards Fate had dealt, but that didn’t mean he was willing to give up so easily without at least trying.
“Guess what, Kate, I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to get any less frustrating, and I highly doubt you will, either. But you can’t expect hitting me will solve any of this!” Last week suddenly seemed very, very far away. It’d been a simple time, devoid of any bickering and estranged feelings. They’d fit together perfectly, their personalities had, for once, complimented the other’s, and time spent in each other’s company was far from aggravating. This was the exact opposite.
Isn’t that how they always handled these situations? Jack irritated her, Kate got mad, Kate hit Jack, Jack tackled Kate, Kate cried. The only difference here was that Kate had chosen to use her fists instead of her shoes. She could correct that if that’s what he wanted.
Lifting her foot up, she pulled off one heel, then the other, standing flat footed before him for the second time in three days. She held her shoes up for him to see, taking a step towards him. Taking her shoes off was a sign of just how out of sorts she was at the moment. Kate wore heels because they gave her height, which, in her mind, made her more prominent. The added height made her someone that people would take seriously. Heels were power, and that was why she was rarely seen without them.
“Would this make it better for you? Just like we use to, right? I’m sorry I’m not wearing a nice dress for you to stain or a pair of tights for you to rip but we’ll have to make do with what we’ve got. This is more impromptu than our fights use to be, but I think we’re doing pretty good, don’t you? We’re at each others throats and near tears. All in all, it’s going pretty well for one of our fights!”
She had no plans to actually hit him with her heels. It was one thing to hit with a pair of child sized Mary Jane’s, it was another to hit with a pair of tall heels. She didn’t want to really hurt Jack, she just needed to do something that took care of three days of frustration. She could always count on Jack for a good fight, and a fight with Jack always tapped into her pent up energy, allowing her to get back to normal.
So why wasn’t this working? This wasn’t as satisfying, if you could call them that, as their fights use to be. This felt like it was missing something. Kate didn’t want to take the time to contemplate what that something might be. She had a feeling that would lead her into a territory she had no interest in exploring. Things were too raw and fragile for her to consider what else she could possibly want or need from Jack.
“Hitting you always resolved our issues before, why won’t that work now?”
Jack fixed Kate with a quizzical look as she took her shoes off, though a small part of him--the part that was still a nose-picking, pea-flicking five year old boy (with incredible aim, no less)--wondered if she was intending on hitting him with those deadly heels. No, Kate couldn’t possibly assume she could do something like that and get away with it. Besides, it wasn’t her style. Her style was crying into the grass or into her balled up fists, one hand pointing tremulously at him as she screeched to their mothers how mean he was being to her.
Or, as it seemed to be now in the present, going on an absolute tirade at him in the middle of the hallway. Jack was struck a little speechless, which wasn’t normally his style. He stared down at Kate, her height now diminished to what it normally was sans her dress heels, petite but sturdy; and damn if the sharp look in her eyes didn’t dare him to make his next move.
If Kate thought he was going to be intimidated by a five foot three tall woman brandishing heels like nunchucks, she could think again. Jack did not back down from challenges. Brute force wasn’t in his usual repertoire, though certainly if he wanted to go in that direction he wouldn’t fail entirely. Jack, however, preferred to attack with cleverly constructed verbal replies and the sort, quickly composed riddles meant to trip Kate up as they no doubt always did.
He did not budge an inch as she approached, looking from her shoes to her face, refusing to give in to her tantrum. What did she expect him to do? Turn with his metaphorical tail between his legs and run back to his dorm? Let her walk out of his life for the second time, after she’d uselessly hit him? Pretend that everything was okay between them, that they didn’t still have the weight of last week--particularly the weekend--hanging over their heads, invading their thoughts?
Jack exhaled quietly, closed his eyes for a few moments to try and keep calm. He wouldn’t explode the way Kate was doing, he was a thinking man, and that is what he was going to do--he would think until he’d come to a possible solution to get them through this mess. Maybe last week he hadn’t given much thought to what he’d done, but that was last week. They had to move forward and try as they might to either accept what lines they’d crossed or cut off contact from one another completely. There were no doubt shades of grey mixed with the black and white, but Kate wasn’t exactly offering him a lot of choices, not with how she was acting.
He wasn’t acting much better.
In a brief amount of steps he’d closed the distance between them, disregarding Kate’s personal space and doing what had calmed her down the last time she’d come upstairs to rage at him: gently trying to fix her hair, to smooth it back down against her head, the way she’d had it before she’d buried her fingers in it and pulled the thick locks in her frustration. He ignored the shoes she held in her hands. Let her hold them for as long as she wanted, if that helped her.
“Stop it, Kate. You can’t hit me and think that’s going to make everything better. We’re not children anymore,” he said, still irritated and fighting against his own natural instinct to snap back at her, instead trying a different tactic. There were many strategies, he was discovering, that aided him in dealing with Kate’s different moods, and this one might work a hell of a lot better than giving in to her anger, feeding it with his own. He leaned down and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
He remembered her weakness. Stupid Jack and his stupid memory. She tensed at the initial contact, like a cornered animal ready to spring. The tension slowly melted from her muscles as he smoothed her hair back, almost as if his gentle touch was slowly soothing the fight from her frame. Stupid Jack. Stupid, stupid Jack.
Kate slowly found herself leaning into him as she hesitantly warmed to his touch. She was reminded of Saturday, of the wee hours of the morning where she lay pressed to his side while his fingers combed gently through her hair and he whispered ridiculous nonsense in her ear. Everything in that moment had made sense. There she felt safe and secure. She knew who she was and she knew what she needed to do. She missed that feeling and longed to be that girl that was confident and secure in her knowledge of herself and of her situation.
His lips touched her forehead, and she closed her eyes. With her eyes closed and his lips against her skin, she could pretend that they were back in her bed, in a different reality where this was okay. In that reality, their history did not matter. Nothing mattered but the moment they were in. Logic and reason had no place in that moment, and because of that they had been able to find so much beauty and comfort.
A hushed sigh whispered past her lips and she slowly leaned forward to rest her body against his. Her shoes were quickly tossed to the side as they occupied her hands and she wanted to use them. With nothing impeding her now, she curled her fingers in his shirt, fingering one of the buttons and nuzzling her cheek against his chest.
“I hate you, Jack. I hate you so much.”
There was no passion behind her words, they were soft and definitely sounded forced. The fight was not completely out of her, not yet, and she could not surrender to him so easily, despite current appearances.
When Kate didn’t continue her ranting and instead moved closer to him, Jack internally sighed with relief. Good, it had worked. And it’d almost gotten her into his arms again, in a fashion, which he hadn’t planned on but would not turn down, as anything was better than her furious and banging on his door in the evening hours, complaining at him loud enough for practically the entire floor to hear. He liked Kate like this, though that didn’t mean he didn’t admire her stubborn spirit.
The sound of her shoes hitting the floor caused him to shift his gaze to where they’d fallen, noting the new resting position of each one. It wasn’t as if they’d spring up from the floor to attack him, but there was nothing wrong with being extra careful. Besides, Kate dropping her shoes was a very poignant action for her to take, and it resonated in the reasonable part of his mind as yet another thing he needed to take note of, to be careful about when handling this woman she’d become. Though Kate’s personality was firm and unrelenting, a display like this certainly meant she’d lowered a wall or two, and he’d be a fool to use it against her, to exploit her vulnerability or throw it to the side as if it meant absolutely nothing. And Jack Davenport was no fool, despite acting foolish now and then.
The corners of his mouth turned slowly upwards in good humor at Kate’s remark; he didn’t need the flat tone she’d said the deprecatory comment in to know she didn’t mean it. Her body language would’ve said the exact opposite regardless. Jack rested his hands upon her shoulders, gently moving her back so she’d have to face him instead of burying her face in his shirt. Her hands could stay where they were, that was fine. But he needed to look at her, needed her to look at him--there needed to be peace acknowledged between them, even if it only ended up being temporary.
“What do you want, Kate?” His words were soft like hers had been, but unlike hers, they were not without feeling, not without meaning behind them. He was pulling no wool over her eyes, not this time. The only way to solve this, he felt, would be to get directly to the heart of the matter.
Kate made a face at him, focusing on his buttons. What she wanted was to go back to his chest and to continue spewing false hatred for him. Things were nice there, all warm and snug. She was still fighting him but getting what she wanted. That had been a good system for her, but Jack obviously wasn’t happy with it. He wanted words from her. She didn’t want to give him words. Verbalizing this would make her surrender a real thing. Once they were out there, she couldn’t take them back. She was going to have to think about this.
While thinking, Kate liked to keep her hands busy. Surely Jack didn’t mind that she was undoing the buttons on his shirt. She remembered how warm he was when they were skin to skin, and this shirt really got in the way of that. She still wouldn’t meet his gaze, but she would happily unbutton his shirt. That should have seemed odd to her, but she wasn’t going to think about it.
She slipped her hands inside of his shirt, wrapping her arms around him once more and resting her cheek against his now bare chest.
“Let’s not talk.”
Maybe she could get out of answering him that way. Ending the conversation had worked out for her on Saturday. She had gotten out of saying anything about how she felt or discussing the situation they found themselves in. He hadn’t directly questioned her then, but the same tactic should work, right?
“Let me just hate you for a little bit. Quietly.”
He arched a brow in curiosity as Kate did not stop at undoing one button, nor at two or three. They were in the hallway, of all places, and while Jack should have expected something of this caliber after last Saturday night, he’d thought maybe since they’d both been out of their right minds the entire week, it wasn’t likely to be repeated any time soon--no matter the level. Kate was surprising him, and not for the first time. And while Jack wouldn’t deny he enjoyed this single-minded attitude of hers, the feel of her arms holding him securely, he’d asked her a question and she was purposely not answering him.
Kate constantly was on his case about not speaking straight, for his tendency to dodge giving blunt answers, instead favoring nonsensical lines and supposedly witty quips, pretending he either knew more than he let on or rather nothing at all. He’d thought he’d been extremely to the point with her Friday night, and here he was again trying to give her the bottom line, except she was disregarding him.
“No, Kate. Look at me,” he said, hating that he was having to repeat himself but if Kate needed to be walked through this then so be it. Jack moved back half a step, forcing her to either move with him, or let go and look at him. “I’m not going to ‘quietly let you hate me.’ Tell me what you want.” Because he wasn’t going to play along with her little charade. She wasn’t undressing him in the middle of a public place because she hated him. While he knew instinctively what she was doing, the more rational part of his mind demanded answers, demanded reasoning--deeper reasoning than wayward hormones, though he was doing his best not to give in to them. Kate never did anything without a reason. Ever. She was a logical, methodical person. She always had been, and always would be.
Her avoidance of his question was upsetting him, and Jack wished he knew for the life of him why it unsettled him so much. The step back he’d taken had distanced them slightly from one another, and Jack used the opportunity to tilt her chin upwards with one hand. He waited, bracing himself for whatever would happen.
Why was he so insistent? Weren’t her actions answer enough? He pulled away from her, shattering the illusion she was working so hard to create. Jack always had to be difficult, didn’t he? Why did he need the one thing she was not ready or able to give to him? She honestly didn’t know what she wanted. Her mind and her emotions were entirely too conflicted to be able to settle on exactly what she wanted.
She could tell him what she wanted for the moment, but putting that into words could be dangerous. He didn’t explain what he meant when he asked her what she wanted. Did he mean what did she want this minute? For the long run? Without clear parameters, it was too risky to even consider answering him. Even if she could, she wasn’t ready for that sort of commitment to something that could seriously affect a good portion of her life. Things with Jack were semi fine right now, but what would happen when they weren’t fine? Would this ruin the relationship she had with him? She’d be the first to admit it wasn’t all together healthy, but it was a constant, and something that she had come to rely on. Would it ruin things between their families if the two of them could not bear to be around one another any longer? There were a lot of variables that had to be considered before she could make any sort of commitment to doing anything with Jack. Then Jack went and forced her to look at him. When their eyes met, her thought process froze. She needed to avert her gaze from his, but she couldn’t. Blue eyes held brown eyes and there was a long moment of silent communication. No matter what passed between the two of them verbally, their eyes always conveyed what they really wanted to say. They seemed to have their most real and honest conversations when they said absolutely nothing at all.
The blatant honesty and openness that she saw in his gaze was her undoing. She launched herself, full force, at him and pressed her lips against his, locking her arms tightly around his neck. Her knees dug into his hips for added support as her arms were unable to fully bear her weight and keep her where she wanted to be.
He wanted to know what she wanted? Well, now he knew. This want didn’t extend beyond the here and now, but that could be a consideration later. Right now, she wanted to focus on nothing but him.
Kate propelled herself into Jack’s arms--or to be more exact, threw herself at him, trusting him enough to not let her crash to the floor in a heap, which wasn’t something he would’ve done even if he’d been completely furious at her. Automatically, Jack sought to support her weight, hands going to her backside. Giving in to the instinctual urges he’d been denying himself from the moment Kate had began to undo button after button on his shirt, he kissed her back equally as hard, stepping back both from the momentum of her leap of faith and because he wanted better leverage.
She wasn’t the only one who wanted to keep her hands busy.
As he partially stumbled, partially directed himself in careful steps backwards towards his dorm, Jack let go with one hand, seeking the back of Kate’s head to tangle his fingers in that now messy hair-do of hers. He liked how soft it was, how all it took was a few strands of it to come loose to show glimmers of Kate’s softness. Jack knew what was hidden behind that severely pulled back bun, a heart as soft and feeling as the next person’s, and if others weren’t willing to find this out then he’d gladly step up to bat in their place.
It was a good thing Kate hadn’t gotten too far down the hallway, for it wasn’t long before they were outside of his dorm, even with Jack having to retrace his steps. He turned both of them, effectively pressing Kate up against the door, suddenly glad, in retrospect, that he’d pulled it securely shut behind him before taking off after her. That seemed like a lifetime ago, and now all that mattered was the feel of her legs and arms wrapped around him, and how willing she was to kiss him back. He’d removed his hand from her hair a mere second before her back was to the door, pressing his palm flat against the smooth wood, helping to support both of them though it was hardly necessary; the simple facts of physics were very clearly defined in this situation, and neither would have to worry about falling to the floor.
With her back against the door, Kate angled her hips to press them more fully against his, wrapping her legs around his waist and locking her ankles together. She stuck her hands beneath the collar of his shirt, wanting nothing but bare skin beneath her fingertips. Her mind sang its relief as she had finally recognized her anxious, restless energy for what it really was. All of her earlier attempts to relieve herself of her restlessness had failed because she had been trying to treat it as something it wasn’t.
What she had wanted was Jack. She had wanted to feel his hands on her, feel his lips against hers, to have the weight of his body pressed into hers. She hadn’t stopped thinking about it since Saturday because she hadn’t gotten enough, and the longer she held out, the more frantic the need had become. She hadn’t recognized it because it was something she had never truly experienced before. She had never needed someone as fully as she needed Jack.
Wait, she needed Jack? What was she doing? She didn’t need Jack, she didn’t need anybody. They were in the middle of a very public hallway and she had her legs wrapped around his waist like some sort of horny, unrestrained teenager. What was happening to her, this was not at all like her, and she didn’t want it to become like her, either.
She turned her head, breaking the kiss as best she could in the confined space she had and shoved at his shoulders. This had to stop and it had to stop now. If it didn’t, she didn’t know if she would be able to stop herself at all.
While Jack wanted to know what it was that Kate truly wanted--his immediate desire being to hear her say it, whatever the answer might be--he wasn’t going to complain about this change in plans. As if anything they did together ever went according to plan. He leaned further into her when she pulled tighter to him, their bodies once more locked in an inseparable embrace, Kate’s fingers like fire on his skin.
It was hard to think with her this close to him, her lips never far from his, bodies aligned in a prelude to something neither of them had realized was a such a tangible, deeply needed thing. Who would have thought they’d be here like this, or that they’d been together last weekend? But it was becoming such a crucial, incessant need to have her touching him and to touch her in return. Jack let go of the door, hand finding the bottom of Kate’s lumpy cardigan and slipping underneath, feeling the hidden soft, warm flesh. He wanted her closer, that much was for certain, and he was doing his best to tell her so without having to actually use words. They trivialized acts of this nature, made them seem impartial and petty.
Right now, only their actions spoke sense.
When Kate turned her head, Jack used the opportunity to kiss her jawline, meaning to go lower before he felt her shove at him. He paused in his affections, breath hot on her neck. She was still holding fast to him with her legs, and surely that meant she didn’t want him to stop entirely, did it? His fingers trailed up her ribs, questioning Kate’s intent.
Kate buried her face in his neck and sighed heavily as a single, frustrated tear rolled down her cheek and landed on his shoulder. Why was this so hard for her? She wrapped her arms around him and held tight, keeping her face hidden as she silently cried out her frustration at herself and at their situation.
This was clearly what they both wanted, she knew that. It was hard to miss when every time they got together they ended up attached to each other like barnacles to a rock. All of this was happening at a dizzying pace, with the extra element of their past selves thrown in to make the mixture even more confusing and harder for her to come to terms with.
Relationships, from what she understood, were suppose to be happy things, where both partners could communicate openly and civilly. She and Jack could hardly be in the same room without sniping at one another about something insignificant. This was not healthy. They had to find a way to be able to get along before she could even consider thinking about a relationship with Jack. Getting along with him was hard when he made her feel the way he did, and part of that, she was sure, was thanks to Penelope and her overwhelming desire to be with her husband.
Kate wasn’t sure what to do or how she needed to proceed. Instead, she just stayed where she was, clinging to Jack and taking comfort from his presence, finding she enjoyed the sensation of being held and comforted.
“We have to do something about this,” she murmured, lips brushing over his skin as she spoke.
It was hard to miss anything that Kate did when she was this near to him, and her discomfort did not go unnoticed. He wasn’t sure what they were ‘supposed to do,’ considering he’d originally asked her a direct question and her answer had been to begin undressing him. What was he supposed to do but react to her physical desires accordingly with his own? Kate was sending very mixed signals, and frankly, Jack wasn’t particularly in the right mind at the moment to figure out what was the right path to take.
Instead of suggesting a proper way for them to solve their problems, to fix whatever they were doing wrong, Jack murmured a wordless, noncommittal response into the crook of Kate’s neck. He decided his time was better spent nuzzling the unprotected skin there, the light scent of whatever soap Kate used still clinging to her. Moving lower, he pressed a kiss to the juncture between collarbone and neck, biting lightly, teasing the skin. His other hand reached for the doorknob, fumbling until he found it, then turning it as discretely as possible, the door opening quietly. He’d only had a lamp on to read by, and Tim was asleep, wasn’t he?
Sharing a dorm was suddenly posing a slight problem, but Jack wasn’t going to let that stop them.