ikissdhimbck | OOM: Room #100 -- for Tommy Gavin

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OOM: Room #100 -- for Tommy Gavin

[following this:]

The room is dim.

Clothes are scattered here and there; on chairs, tabletops, hooked on books and baubles, scrunched under the bed. A pair of candles burn on the table in the corner.

The cats have had their fill of cream, and are curled quite happily in Dug's basket in the corner of the room.

The room's other occupants, sweat-slicked and tangled in sheets, are sprawled across the bed in wild positions, limbs dangling where they may, hands sneaking under damp cotton to touch each other. Pleasantly exhausted, they sip lazy kisses from each other's mouths.

And they've only just begun.

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"Oh."

He blinks rapidly, a line forming between his brows. After a short pause, he nods.

"Yeah. Yeah, you should get away. Do something different. Take your mind off things."

Resting his palm on the side of her neck, he sweeps his thumb back and forth over her cheek.

"You wanna go to the party, too?"

She smiles reassuringly.

She doesn't want to bring the mood back down.

"I know I jus' got back from bein' gone, I jus' try t'be someplace else this time of year. However, Bar's timin' bein' what it is... It's — it's nothin' t'worry 'bout. I gotta be 'round here anyway; I promised a few folk I'd help 'em out with things 'round their worlds. Maybe jus' a day next week sometime? Y'can take me out, an' humiliate me on a pair of ice skates?"

She plays with the sharp line of his collarbone, drawing her finger back and forth.

His follow-up question makes her pause.

"When is it?"

The mention of her visiting other people's worlds brings his thoughts back to John Marston. And how he's not supposed to worry about what she does or who she's with wherever she goes off to.

Still. It's not something he can drop so easily.

"Sure, yeah, sounds good to me. I just gotta make some arrangements, make sure I can put in some time off at work. I'll let you know when we can go."

He smiles, excited at the prospect, although other questions are at the tip of his tongue.

"And the party is about a week or so before Christmas. Are you-- okay with that?"

"Okay. Whenever y'say so."

She nods — it looks a touch awkward as she's lying down, hair moving like sidewinders through the dunes of her sheets.

Her finger keeps sliding across his flesh.

"I think so. I should be. There – there ain't reason t'hide away when there's folk here lookin' for me. S'jus' — hard. Spendin' the holidays alone since he died, an' thinkin' 'bout what he said."

She purses her lips, going distant for a second. When she returns, it's with a forced, crooked smirk.

"I'm a sourpuss this time'a year."

"Well, hell, I'm a sourpuss all year 'round, you don't see me hiding away."

He offers her a smirk in return, but it disappears as he moves in to press his lips to her forehead, and then to her mouth. Meeting her eyes, he's completely sincere. He understands.

"Seriously, though. If you don't feel up to it when it comes around, we don't hafta go. Alright? We can do something else if you want. Or nothing at all. We can just be sourpusses together for all I care. Don't worry 'bout it now."

Giving her another warm peck on the lips, he continues to stroke her cheek with his thumb.

"Although, the party would be a good reason for you to wear that purple dress again."

Edited 2012-12-28 03:20 (UTC)

She chuckles.

"I think it's amusin' how much y'want t'get me in that dress, when all y'can talk 'bout once I'm in it is gettin' me outta it again."

She kisses the tip of his nose.

She's grateful for his understanding.

"Thank you. Maybe it'll be fun."

"But you look so good in it and you look so good out of it, what else am I supposed to do?"

His smile might be crooked but it's warm and genuine; something only she can elicit from him these days.

"And sure. Could be fun. As much fun as going to someone else's world could be, in any case. And speaking of going to other people's worlds..." He pauses, shifting his position to fold his arm under the side of his head. "I, uh-- I met someone else who was waitin' on you. A guy named Marston?"

She pauses.

"Mr. Marston? Yes, I'm helpin' him find somebody."

She chooses her words carefully, wondering why he's asking. Maybe John gave him some news he didn't express to her when she saw him earlier.

"Yeah. Yeah, he told me about that. Some other guy was gonna help out, too, right? Waco Jim, or something?"

He keeps his expression neutral, his tone as level as possible without implying that he's in any way disapproving or suspicious or jealous or--

No, really, he's not.

"Jim, yes. The Waco Kid is what they call him back home. I'm actually gonna help him with a job, too."

She slips an elbow underneath her body, looking down at him under beetled brow.

"What'd John say?"

"Ah."

Him, too? Seriously, all the outlaws in this place.

"Hm? Oh. Uh. Not much, he just-- explained the whole situation he's in. His kidnapped family, what he needed to do to try to get 'em back. And that you were gonna help him."

He's biting his tongue.

"So why're y'makin' that face?"

Blink.

"What face? I ain't makin' a face. What face am I makin'?"

(He stops making whatever face he's making anyway.)

Rolling over onto his back, he looks up at her. Completely innocent.

She doesn't know him well enough to read his expressions, but she's catching on quick.

She's got sharp eyes, after all.

"Y'looked like you we're tryin' t'breathe water through your pecker."

He chokes on a laugh.

"I looked like what?"

Still innocent.

A beat.

"Okay, listen. I know, I know I told you that I don't care what you do on the other side of your door, or where you go, or who you're with. I don't. I really don't. Except-- I kinda do. I mean, c'mon, I can't help it. You were gone for over a month and I was sorta okay with that until I met Marston and he mentioned stuff like having to kill a guy and then you showed up having just robbed a bank and-- I dunno, it all just sounds really dangerous."

Says the guy who runs into burning buildings for a living.

The line between her brows softens almost imperceptibly.

She looks into his eyes.

"It is dangerous. Everythin' I do is dangerous, Tommy. It don't matter where I am. These?"

She touches the gnarled scar on her right bicep, and the silky pink hole in her left thigh (there's another almost perfect match on the back, where the bullet passed straight through her meat).

"I got here. An' another in my back, where I was wearin' somethin' that protected me."

He flashes back to the first time she told him about getting shot. They'd just met, and he'd asked a stupid question, and he'd regretted it afterward.

Her guns and her scars are part of her, and he understands this better these days. He's gotten used to the guns; he's never minded the scars when his fingers brush over them. It's just that sometimes he forgets why they're there, how they got there.

"I know, I remember," he sighs, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "I ain't sayin' that you can't go and do whatever you do out there. I ain't gonna tell you what to do. I promised you that, and I think so far I've done a pretty good job. So. Yeah. I'm still gonna-- y'know-- worry about you and whatever."

Reaching out an arm, his hand lands on her hip.

"Those guys, though. You trust 'em?"

A smirk tempts the corner of her mouth, but it doesn't quite make it through. He thinks he's done a pretty good job in the short time since they had that talk. It may have been a few months for Tommy, but it's been much less for Kate. Still —

I'm still gonna-- y'know-- worry about you and whatever

— he's trying, and that's sweet.

"I don't trust anybody."

She closes her eyes ever so briefly when he touches her hip. Were she on her other side, he'd only be touching another scar. She's a patchwork quilt of stories that tell why she doesn't trust, and what the punishment is when she forgets. She rests her hand over his heart.

"But if I did, I guess they'd be somewhere near the top of the list."

He nods.

Almost pensively, he glances down and strokes her skin with the pad of his thumb. Her hand on his heart is like a reverse I swear.

"And-- they're just-- y'know-- friends, right?"

He flicks his eyes up to hers again.

Her eyes widen slightly.

"Tommy."

His eyes widen, too.

"What? I'm just askin'!"

Innocent! Completely innocent!

She makes a face.

And then she laughs.

(Curse him.)

"You are the only man I've had in my bed in a long, long time, an' I ain't in any hurry t'change that. Besides, John's married."

It'd probably be a good idea not to mention how she and Jim spent the night dancing and teasing each other.

She kisses him lightly.

"What're y'so worried about, Fireman?"

He's not sure how reassuring her laugh should be, or the kiss, but he's doing his damnedest to suppress his inclination to beat the crap out of every guy who says hello to his woman. It's genetic.

"Nothing! Nothing. Really."

He reaches up to toy with the long blonde locks framing her face, the backs of his fingers brushing against her cheek.

"It's just that you are such a gorgeous, gorgeous girl, and you're smart, and you're hot, and you've got beautiful eyes, and you can kick ass, and did I mention that you're gorgeous?"

She smirks.

She lets him play with her hair while she thinks things over, carefully sweeping her eyes over his face. With a soft sigh, she pushes herself up into a sitting position.

"C'mere."

She wants him upright and looking at her, where she can put her arm around him, or slip her hand to the back of his neck.

"I know I've been gone a long time, an' I know the things I do — well, they're disconcertin'. You've been actin' like I'm jus' gonna magic away all night, but you don't hafta look for reasons for us t'be together. I've had men callin' me beautiful my whole life; I've had marriage proposals, Tommy. It don't mean I'm gonna run off an' get hitched with the first pair of admirin' eyes that come along."

She brushes his bangs from his eyes, and cups his cheek, thumb rubbing the soft patch of skin under his eye.

"I'm scared, too. I'm scared of what I'm gonna do t'you. But you want t'be here. So long as y'want t'be here, you're the only man I want t'be with."

She lowers her eyes, and reaches for his hand.

"D'you trust me?"

He does as she bids him, sitting up and propping himself up on one hand. Not expecting her to tell him these things, he's rendered silent (just how many men before him had been unsuccessful?). These reassurances are different.

She grasps his free hand, and he squeezes her fingers lightly.

"Of course I trust you, honey."

A beat.

"It's just that I don't trust guys with you. Listen, I come from a long line of overprotective husbands, boyfriends, and brothers, okay, so y'know, sometimes I just can't help feeling the way I do, 'cause guys can be real jerks. And I know you don't need protecting or whatever and I know you can handle yourself just fine, I know all this, which is why I'm tryin' not to make a big deal out of it, which is another thing I tend to do, make big deals out of things, but basically what I'm sayin' is that, yeah, I trust you, but if some other guy comes onto you or thinks he can treat you like crap, you can't expect me to just sit back. I know you ain't 'mine' to defend, but I like you, and I don't wanna see you hurt."

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