Fic: Dreaming
Title: Dreaming
Fandom: The Dresden Files
Spoilers: Very, very vague one for Proven Guilty.
Rating: R
Summary: He is dreaming, but everyone has to wake up.
Notes: This got...really... um. It did something funny on me at the end. Whatever. Enjoy. Written for Harry/Murphy, 100moods, prompt 79, rejected.
He’s dreaming.
Smooth white skin and tiny rough hands, her mouth, her eyes, her waist and hips and smile... he’s dreaming. Her body beneath him, above him, beside him, his arms around her and his legs tangling with hers... he’s dreaming, and he never wants to wake up.
--
She was so angry; that’s all he can really remember. Someone had said something to her, or about her, something horribly disrespectful. Something like... “ice queen,” maybe? “Tomboy,” "frigid bitch?” He doesn’t remember. Something like that. He was distracted, watching her. He’d been distracted a lot lately.
He started paying attention when he’d noticed her eyes were glistening, though. He knew Karrin Murphy, and he knew she never cried, not his Murphy, and certainly not because some asshole had implied she wasn’t enough of a woman to keep a man. So he touched her chin, and asked her what he could do.
She kissed him.
He’d been too stunned to do anything about it at first, then she pulled away, her eyes glistening more, and mumbled, “Sorry. I didn’t mean... I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
Did he think about it? He will never be sure. Probably not; at this point he’s known her long enough and well enough that reaching out for her is a reflex. So he took her hand and tugged her back to him, and kissed her.
It was soft at first, calm and relaxing, the kind of kiss you give a lover on the edge of sleep. And that was all he meant it to be, really. A relaxing kiss, a reassurance that she’s more than enough of a woman for him, even if she’d never wanted to take advantage of that.
She didn’t relax, though. She grabbed his head, and wound her hands into his hair, and hung on for dear life, and all he could do was love her back.
--
So now they’re here; he was dreaming and now he is half-awake. She is breathing softly, curled against him, her breasts rising and falling against his chest; he is disbelieving, incredulous, can’t help but savor the feeling of her, all softness against his lean and wiry body. He never wants to let her go, but in the morning he will have to, because now they have to talk about it.
He doesn’t think anything will come of it. It was an act of friendship, really; reassuring her that she is still beautiful and desirable, the more so for all her choices and her strength. Even if it will be harder than ever to keep his hands off her, knowing what he’s missing. At least he gets to hold her tonight.
He closes his eyes, and kisses her hair, a tangle of bright gold in the candlelight.
He opens his eyes, watches her, tries to memorize every curving line of her; the rosepetal feeling of the skin at the inside of her elbows and thighs, the sudden rough callouses on her hands, the dusky half-circles of shadows her eyelashes cast on her cheeks, the way her chin lifts stubborn and proud even in sleep.
She murmurs something, her breath warm on his chest, and turns inward, wrapping herself even closer to him. He slides an arm along her back to help her closer still. The small of her back is slick with sweat, and he knows he will never touch her there again without getting chills down his back.
She murmurs again, and a small troubled line forms between her brows.
--
When he wakes, she will be gone.
He will not remember falling asleep. He will remember only being so close to her, so tied to her that he felt he would never be whole again without her, and then suddenly alone, his side chilly, his arms empty. He will be awake, and a little cold, and sad.
They will never speak of it again.
