You Break
A/N: It's the weekend! That means more fics. I know I started this story forever ago but recent OLTL has actually been inspiring instead of the muse killing mess it normally is. Please, please, please leave feedback. It is my crack of choice.
You can find previous chapters here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2385538/1/You_Break
Chapter Twelve
Natalie stood silently as John fumbled around the pitch black apartment before a lighter and four candles had been located bathing the dingy walls with warm light. She didn't trust herself to speak, her head a muddled mess and her body exhausted and John so near.
"There," John spoke as he lit the last of the candles. "That's better." Natalie nodded dumbly, struggling to control the shivers that made her fight to keep her teeth from chattering. "Hey, you're cold." It was a statement, not a question as he ran his strong arms up and down her goose bumped flesh. She shivered again, a bolt of electricity shooting down her spine and she knew it had nothing to do with the cold.
"A little." She admitted, backing away from him slightly. She couldn't do this, not again. She would not throw herself at him or read too much into the way his fingers seemed to linger on her arms.
John stood, a twinge of pain marring his features before the impassive mask was back in place, and he silently berated himself for not being able to stay away from her, a moth to her flame. "Umm. Let's get you some dry clothes." He went to his dresser, grateful for the space that seemed to bring reality crashing back as he searched through his drawers finally pulling out a long button top and a pair of sweat pants. "Here." He returned, holding out the clothes for Natalie to take. "I can put a candle in the bathroom. You can change in there."
Natalie stared at the outstretched clothes, her mind remembering with painful details how long it had taken her to get dressed that afternoon. She was simply too exhausted, too sore to even begin to try to wage that war again, especially in a tiny bathroom. "No, I'm okay." She lied, trying to ignore the chill that was setting into her bones.
"Natalie." John spoke her name slowly, it rolling off his tongue in a measured way, slightly scolding yet not harsh. "You are freezing. Take the clothes."
When she didn't move he took a step forward, meaning to press the dry clothes in her hands and make her stop being so damn stubborn. Natalie seemed to catch his intention a split second early as if she could read him and withdrew her arm sharply, bringing her wounded hands deep at her sides, nearly behind her back, protecting herself. John's silk shirt that had been wrapped around them fluttered to the ground, a flag of black silk, separating the two of them, him in his place and her in hers. John suddenly felt foolish. "Christ, Natalie," he spoke in a rushed apologetic way, hating the way she had withdrawn so suddenly, hating himself for not knowing, or for knowing but for forgetting, forgetting all the pain she had to still endure. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay." Natalie insisted, still keeping her hands tucked safely away. They ached, throbbing with pain where the rain and hail had pounded against the bandages and she hated how John was looking at her, with pity in his eyes. She turned slightly unable to face him. "Maybe a blanket…" Her words drifted off into silence and she stood there losing the battle to look at him when the quiet sat too heavy on her ears. "What?"
John had waited, through the silence, waited until she would look at him and hopefully see that it was just him, not someone judging, just him. Didn't she know by now that he couldn't help but love her? "I'll help you." He said simply.
"No." She shook her head in protest.
"Yes." It was a quiet word but there was force beneath it, there would be no argument. He moved in front of her and her head fell, her eyes glued to the four inch of wood floor between the tips of her shoes and his. "Natalie." He called, forcing her to look at him. "It's just me."
That was what she was afraid of, him. The way her pulse quickened whenever they were within a breath of each other, or the way she could feel her legs become wobbly whenever he looked at her, really looked at her, devouring her with his eyes. She nodded wordlessly, her mind unable to focus on anything but how close he was to her.
"Okay. Shirt." He fumbled with the edge of her blue tank top, pulling the wet cotton slowly up over her head as she lifted her arms obligingly. He tried not to notice how soft her skin felt as the tips of his fingers grazed over it lightly as he disrobed her, or the black lace bra that she wore underneath, her breasts straining against the sheer fabric. Tenderly he pulled the shirt on one arm, then the other, the back of his hand brushing against the wet strands of her ponytail as he helped her easy her shoulders into the fabric. He swallowed hard, as he began to button the tiny white buttons, his fingers trembling with longing to play over her silky skin. He did five working his way up for her navel, fumbling at the sixth before Natalie halted him.
"That's good enough." She spoke in a hushed voice, slightly breathless, the air having been trapped in her lungs at the feel of his fingers splayed across her goose-bumped flesh.
"Okay." He knew he was repeating himself but his brain was too clouded with images of her writhing beneath him to think of anything more eloquent. He kneeled in front of her reaching for on foot, settling it on his bended knee. "Boots." He commented to himself, wondering if he knew the effect she was having on him, the pure torture she was inflicting on him, she was like a fantasy come to life yet just out of reach. He unzipped one boot, then the other, his hand cupping her strong calves as he took off the black leather shoes.
"They belong to Jessica, I sort of borrowed them without asking." He didn't need that information but she needed to say something to drown out the thundering of her own heart booming in her ears. Her pink tongue darted out to lick her lips, no real thought on her mind but the feel of his strong calloused hands on her legs.
"Nothing like a little larceny between family?" John smiled up at Natalie, and she suddenly felt much warmer, the tips of her ears growing a faint pink as the fingers of a blush crawled up the back of her neck.
"Something like that…" The words seem to die on her lips as she felt a hand on her hip and another one undoing the clasp on her pants under his long shirt, the fabric bunching slightly. She didn't dare to look at him, he was still on his knees in front of her and there way laid too many thoughts that would have her throwing herself into his bed. So instead she held her breath and closed her eyes, relishing every touch while mentally berating herself for doing so.
John felt his restraint wavering. He had tried to act nonchalant about the whole thing but how could a mere mortal compete with a goddess like Natalie? She was like perfection in his hands, his thumb popping the top clasp on her black pants, before lowering the zipper, the teeth pulling apart slowly. He tried not to notice the pair of black silk panties she wore as he moved his hands to her hips, pealing away the black fabric, the pants pooling at her knees before he lifted one leg and then another from the wetness and pushed them aside. Her legs seemed to stretch on for miles and for a long lingering moment he wanted to do nothing but to feel them wrap around him as he throbbed inside of her.
"John?" Natalie spoke tentatively when the movement stopped. The air was cool and she could tell he was looking at her, his eyes seeming to burn her flesh with each sweeping gaze.
Her voice snapped his out of his reverie and John quickly grabbed at the sweat pants. "Sorry." He apologized as he hastily and somewhat clumsily helped her pull them on. They were too big and gathered in large folds over her feet, enveloping them in the soft gray cotton. Natalie instinctively went to pull at the drawstring but stopped, a wince of pain crossing her face. "Here, let me." John pulled at the white cord, pulling it tightly around Natalie's tiny waist and securing it with a knot.
"Thanks." Natalie shuffled to the sofa, her feet hidden from view, her body eased into the cushions and she let out a soft sigh, and to John's eyes she looked like a tired orange kitten curling into a ball to sleep. "You can sit, you know." Natalie commented as John stood watching her.
John sat, taking refugee at the other end of the small couch, trying his best to keep his distance. "It sounds bad out there." The sounds of thunder and hail on the window pane traveled through the small apartment, the only noise puncturing the silence.
"I hate storms." Natalie admitted, brining her knees up to her chest.
"I know what you mean. As a kid they really used to scare me."
"John McBain scared of a storm?" There was a warm teasing quality to her voice that seemed to brighten the whole apartment.
"Hey don't laugh. One time Mikey though it would be funny to lock me out of the house during one. Mom was at work and Dad had just…" His voice trialed off, not daring to touch that subject, not then. "Anyway I nearly got killed by some falling branches. I haven't exactly been a fan ever since."
"Make sense." Natalie admitted and she wondered how it was so easy to fall into being them, talking, sharing, just being. She tried to stifle a yawn that rose, fatigue settling in.
"Tired?"
"A little." John smiled to himself at her admission, wondering if that was all she would ever admit to. "Why don't you take the bed?" He gestured with the nod of his head to the small adjacent bedroom. "Get some rest."
She shook her head. "No, I should really just wait for the storm to pass and go home."
John saw how edgy his suggestion had made her and speculated it had to do with what had happened on the roof, and guilt surged in his veins. He had had no right to have treated her like that, she wasn't his and as much as the thought pained him if she wanted to be with Michael who was he to stop her? He, who let her dead husband sit in Statesville prison and didn't tell her? He had no rights where she was concerned, none at all. "Natalie…" He started slow, sifting for the words. "About on the roof- I'm sorry."
Natalie turned to look at him, weighing the extent of him in a long piercing gaze so honest and unabashed that John did not even dare to turn away. "We are just friends." The words ground out like a discarded cigarette under her heel, it was amazing how one word could hurt so much.
"I know." John couldn't stand to look at her, not to have her repeat the lie that he had told to her countless times.
And the she spoke again and his world seemed to shift slightly, unhinging itself. "Michael is just helping me. I wouldn't do that to you." Her voice was soft but his ears captured every syllable. It was something, an affirmation that she knew, at least in part, how dear she was to him.
"Natalie…" There was a battle raging within him, words that seem to hang at the tip of his tongue searching for escape in the darkness.
She sighed, a cross of exhaustion and frustration coming out in one huffy breath. She didn't want to do this now. She didn't want to get into the hows and whys they couldn't be them. "Can we- can we just not? Not now. I can't."
John nodded and didn't press. He owed her at least that much. "Are you in pain?" Her blue eyes told him too much, more than he wanted to know so he cleared his throat while clarifying his words. "Your hands? Are they- Do they hurt?"
Natalie swallowed hard, glaring at the bandages, in the end it would always come back to that, she was broken. "They hurt a little. I really need to get home and change the bandages."
"Hold on." John stood, caring a candle into the bathroom. Natalie listened over the sounds of the storm to hear him rummaging through cabinets before coming back with a white first aid kit under his arm. "Here." He sat next to her, very close. He was acutely aware of everywhere they touched, even the places where his pant leg pressed against the soft fold of the gray sweats she was wearing, a hypersensitivity that was both wonderful and horrible, causing an unease knot in his stomach that was like pain only not. "Let me do it."
She opened her mouth to speak but there seemed to be no words left in her at all. Didn't he know she couldn't do this? She couldn't keep letting herself be fragile and needy before him? Because no matter how her heart raced, whenever they were near in the end there was no them, just him, just her. She pulled her hands back towards her chest, away from him and there was no mistaking the pain in his cerulean eyes. "John…"
He could hear the tears in her voice, a prayer, a plead, to let her apologize for some imagined sin, for being saved only to slip into the darkness anyway. He couldn't take the sound of so much sadness, and the way her eyes fill with tears- it had to stop. He had learned long ago that being in Natalie's world meant having to sit by and watch her struggle with more burdens than anyone should have to, it meant hurting for her every time she stumbled and fought bravely to once again find her footing. He knew that but it didn't stop it from breaking his soul, from making him doubt in light and goodness and God. It hurt; it hurt so much to watch her hurt, killing him from the inside out. All he wanted to do was to save her, keep her safe, keep all of her light and happiness intact. "Natalie," His voice grew soft, some of his helplessness seeping into a single plea. "Please."
She didn't want to let him, to be stretched naked and bare before him but gathering up what inner strength she had she moved her hands, settling them feather light in his lap. With fingers that slightly trembled, John carefully undid the bandages in a way that felt more intimate then when he had been undressing her. Natalie swallowed hard, her head down, not willing to see the repulsion she knew would be reflected in his eyes at the sight of her damaged hands. She instead listened intently to the thunder, trying to ignore the sound of his breath catching in his chest as he pulled the last of the bandage from her corroded flesh.
John swallowed hard at the sight of her unveiled injuries, forcing down the bile that rose into his mouth. Her once beautiful slender hands were nothing more than a red mess with charred flesh, sores with yellowish centers that oozed, her fingertips were broken off, fingers warped flesh that seem to fold in on itself. "My God."
He felt Natalie stiffen under the words that slipped from his lips. "It's okay." She spoke to her knees fighting the conflicting urges to both run away and to launch herself into his arms. "It looks worse than it is." She raised her head at that, as if daring him to contradict her.
It was not okay, not really, but he understood. Sometimes you pretend the wound wasn't so bad, the cut so deep, so that you can make it though one moment to the next and sometimes in the imaginary it becomes almost true, things dulling under the lie. So he just nodded. He pulled out clean bandages, and with more tenderness than he knew he possessed wrapped her hands. Natalie sat stock still, tears pooling in her eyes at each soft and touch, his fingers never flinching at the misshapen skin, caressing it like she was some sort of beautiful doll, not a broken toy. And once her hands were safely cocooned in white linen he raised one hand to his lips, kissing her one palm and then the other in a move that tugged at her heart and she wondered how she could possibly love him anymore. "All better." He announced, it was a lie but at the moment it seemed like truth.
"John…" There were tears in her voice and not able to take one more drop of her sadness John pulled her forward, moving her tired body onto his lap.
"Shh." His breath was warm against her ear, sending a tingle down her spine. "It's okay. I've got you." And he bent down placing a kiss on the top of her head as soft tears fell on his chest. "I won't let anything happen to you. Never again." He vowed and with her in his arms the storm didn't seem so scary nor the night as dark.
TBC
