The Universe's Mixer

Exhaustion was threatening James in a way that made him fearful for the red-headed little slip of a woman sleeping in the bed across the room. He had promised her to stay, to keep her nightmares at bay, and (oddly) to comfort her when she needed it. James would never have considered himself capable of comforting anyone, but she... She still clung to him as if he could make everything all right again. And he wanted to. He wanted to do that for her very much.

But he'd been pacing the bedroom they shared for the last three hours in the attempt to stay awake, and he felt more like a danger to her than a protector. The edges of his world were fading red-gray around the edges. He had started to think in Russian again.

James stood in front of the window overlooking the City. In the midnight hour, the City had been yet moving. But now, in the navy deeps of the evening, he detected very little movement at all. Across the rooftops, a great white steeple rose. Something deeply buried inside him told him that there was peace under that marker. That promise pulled strongly at him, over and over.

And when he found himself half-dreaming on his feet at the window, he finally gave in. He opened the window, closed it gently behind him, and walked the ledge until he could lead to the next roof. The church called him forward.

Warning: NC-17 for adult situations, what can I say

Those were the rare ones - the nights that sang in memory long after the night itself ended. Rose knew that she was living one of them tonight. It hadn't mattered where they ended the night - only that they ended it together. Her last conscious thoughts before dropping into a euphoric sleep was that they two must have looked like living cliches to an outside observer, all tangled up in each other.

She wasn't sure what woke her. Rose had left the window in her bedroom wide open - one of the benefits of living on a high floor. The night air had already chilled her bare shoulders and back, but not unpleasantly. It helped to have the warmth of the man lying beside her, too. It was too early yet for her to know how shallowly Matt slept. Had she known, maybe she wouldn't have...

...propped herself up on her elbow and watched his scarred back rise and fall with his breathing. She'd done plenty of exploring his body, but never like this, never just with her eyes. The scars were varied and gleamed silver in the moonlight from the window. She knew the one on his arm - raptor - but the rest... Frowning, she touched a fingertip softly against one with jagged edges that crossed over his shoulder blade, then covered it completely with her hand. It hurt to look at. All of it hurt to look at.

"You could never have deserved this," she whispered to his sleeping form, before lifting her hand and touching another scar. This one puckered his skin. This one looked like a puncture wound. This one resembled a burn. This one... Well, that was a knife, wasn't it?

"God, Matt," she murmured. So much of her heart fit into those two words, and so much of it she gifted over his skin. She didn't think she'd ever get enough of her heart back again to make a gift of it to anyone else. It was his kindness. It ran through him like life, and when she was around him, it made her.... Better. And so many people had hurt this man, this one that was putting her back together again. She dropped her lips against his shoulder and kissed as gently as she could.