Butterfly Effect
The morning sun spills like honey across the bed through the half-open balcony curtains. A cool breeze is rising from the canal, worth putting up with the traffic noise and the shouting of boatmen. Ororo stretches into the sunlight, lovely skin bare where she's kicked free of the sheets. Giles reaches to stroke the back of her hand, idly. The sunlight is warm across his bare shoulders, and he's in no hurry to go anywhere.
It's a different mood than the night before, which he can see written in the thumbprint bruises on her collarbone and the insides of her thighs. (And on his wrists; she has surprisingly strong hands.) This is a change in the weather. He leans back and basks, expecting her to roll over and lean against his shoulder. Instead she stretches out in the cool linen sheets and wriggles her fingers delightedly.
"It's been a long time since I had a real vacation," she says.
They talked about that last night, in the small cafe on the Grand Canal (more expensive than Giles could easily afford, but an antidote to months of his own cooking, or Xander's, or, God help him, Buffy's). Talked about the importance of taking a few days to "recharge the batteries," as she put it. Talked about the strain of being responsible for the education of children. She was excellent company and frankly interested in him, and made it abundantly clear that there were no strings attached.
"Vacation?" he murmurs. "Is that what they call this? The word had slipped my mind from disuse."
He knows there are things they haven't talked about, and won't: where his scars came from, or hers. He tells himself that's all irrelevant. Of course he’s noticed that she’s not mundane, noticed her because she’s not mundane; he'd have to have been blind not to at least look up from his fettuccine at the power crackling off her skin. But he wants to believe that’s not the attraction.
"I know the feeling," she says, and puts her hands over her eyes. He rolls over and kisses her shoulder, resting his hand on the curve of her hip. Her skin feels warm and normal and smells slightly of sweat. And yet he knows. Remembers last night, pressing her knees open and sucking at her as she arched her back, feeling electricity raising his hair and crawling over his skin. Raising his head at the scent of ozone to see the lightning playing around her eyes. Being on her, then, in her, without caution or thought.
Her head thrown back, laughing and then biting it back, breathless words--I shouldn’t--I’m too--I should--and him pushing her down, thumbs pressed hard against her collarbone so it hurt, bearing her down with his weight, watching her give up on self-control. The electric shock of her climax like a punch to his whole body, one moment of genuine fear--my heart--and then catching his breath, chest hammering, and coming helplessly and seemingly endlessly in her arms, her hands suddenly soothing, wrapped around his shoulders.
She lifts her hands from her face, now, and plays with his hair. "Rupert," she says, testing the feel of the word in her mouth. There’s a question in the way she says it, the same question he can’t keep out of his voice when he murmurs "Ororo" in response. He has no intention of answering, of beginning any discussion of true purposes or true names.
She edges out from under him, restlessly, the way she slept, pushing away his attempts to curl around her in sleep. She sits up, the corner of her mouth twitching as she looks down at her state of undress, and his, and the wreck they’ve made of the bedclothes.
"We’re quite a sight," she says, and reaches for her shirt. He pulls on jeans and a shirt and fetches the room service tray from outside the door. For a moment when he steps back inside he thinks she’s gone, and then he sees the balcony doors open wide. He follows her out, already starting to distrust himself for enjoying this so much.
There are clouds gathering on the horizon, towering dark clouds with a haze of rain forming beneath them. The wind whips at her white hair.
"I thought we’d have good weather," he says. There’s a question in that, too.
She smiles like someone pleased with her secrets. "It’ll be cooler later if it rains."
He brings her a cup of coffee with the cream still swirling in random shapes he forces himself not to try to read. "Very unpredictable, the weather."
She takes it from his hands and nods. "You know, they say the beating of a butterfly’s wings can change the weather on the other side of the world. Chaos theory, or something."
"I wouldn’t know," Giles says, and sips his tea.
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