reasonability | (no subject)

(no subject)

Why is it always the Southwest? Is there something about Arizona and New Mexico that just attracts the bizarre? If it's not the Southwest, it's New York, and if it's not New York, it's not in America. Ridiculous.

Coulson makes a note to set someone on studying that, if they ever have time.

The three black SUVs turn off the road where the desert stretches flat. They're getting closer to the coordinates given to them by the Martian (Martian) scientist. And that's the reason Coulson won't complain too hard about the location: having the coordinates, knowing where the alien is going to appear, is a lot better than the alternative.

Reinforced tires bounce over scrub, swerving to avoid the worst of the cacti. The heat is blasting, though it's not even into the worst of summer. Heat shimmers along the road they've left. The air conditioning is on full blast.

May starts braking the car. She insisted on being the one to drive Coulson, and he didn't fight that hard. The other two, he sees, swerve out to either direction and stop, pointed inward to, theoretically, the coordinate point.

"It's about twenty meters ahead," she tells Coulson, glancing back. He sees it; scramble up the slope, and there's the entrance to a box canyon. Presumably the cave is further back.

Coulson nods. "Time?"

"Half an hour."

There's not really any traffic along the long, empty highway out here, but Coulson didn't want to take any chances.

He pulls himself out of the seat.

The heat hits him like a sledgehammer, but he doesn't flinch. Doesn't even take off the suit jacket. He takes a drink of water, and then leaves the SUV, May and a handful of others nearby. He didn't take most of his team this time. He's got to spread out his most precious resources.

A short, winding walk leads them in to where he can see the cave. He holds up a hand, stopping the operatives there. A couple of them scatter to cover, nearby. May moves a little ahead of him. He lets her; he's come to the point in his life where his life is more important than the lives of those around him. Which, honestly, is a situation he kind of loathes.

He checks his watch again.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Closest most of us mere mortals get." Phil, on the other hand, has a flying car. He totally knows what flying is like. There's still something dreamlike about water, about being suspended - not defying gravity, but immune to it.

Now his hand is just touching her. There's almost no support.

"You're doing great," he says, and his fingers brush against the smooth skin on her spine.

The touch sends a shimmer through her entire body, and she shivers, a quiet gasp escaping her lips. A moment later, the tenuous balance she'd established is disrupted and there's splashing. She twists in the water, and reaches for him, ending up with her arms around his neck, an indelicate squawk turning into a bright peal of laughter.

He grabs onto her by reflex, hands onto her bare waist, slippery and wet and warm. It draws a chuckle out of him, too - a little more restrained, because it's hard to break the mood he's been in, these days, but his smile relaxes, grows natural as they grow still.

He should certainly return the professional boundaries between them. He should let her go.

He doesn't.

It's good that he doesn't let go. Neither is she, despite the quiet giggle and the way her cheeks are darkening in what must be a blush. She does try to relax her grip a little, so she's not strangling him, but it's clear by the way she's holding on, she's still not at all comfortable with being in the open water.

That is, until her feet hit the bottom and she discovers the water is only waist deep. A little of the terror bleeds away, but none of the embarassment. She drops her head to his shoulder and laughs again, this time at her own expense.

Goddess, he smells good. Even in the water, this close it's impossible to ignore. He smells -- male. And certain instincts wake up instantly, instincts she'd tried to keep suppressed for a very long time. She found herself in the arms of a very masculine man, and while virtually (deliciously) naked.

She didn't move, just held very still, breathing him in, waiting for him to -- do something.

Edited 2014-10-29 01:45 (UTC)

And, unfortunately, something is exactly what he does not do.

Not because he doesn't want to.

He really, really wants to.

But he remembers SHIELD and he remembers responsibilities, and he thinks, wow, if relationship drama in the workplace is a problem, interplanetary relationship drama might be even worse is he actually thinking about this in terms of relationships.

Oh, no.

Oh, no, he's managed to articulate to himself exactly what he was really trying to avoid thinking about.

He's screwed.

He's also smiling.

"I get the feeling exporting water to Mars could be a big industry for us."

And he's stalling. He's stalling on doing something or not doing something because as long as this moment lasts, there's nothing ruined. There's nothing dead or broken.

She stays close, still grinning broadly, laughter running under her skin or is that heat lightning? It's hard to say. The water amplifies everything, his scent, the sound of his voice, the feel of his hands at her waist.

"What, am I to bring it back with me in my pockets?" Her tone is playful, light, but there's a certain breathlessness quality to her voice.

In a heartbeat, it becomes imperative that this moment, this feeling not be allowed to fade, to dissipate like so much smoke. The urgency takes her by surprise and she pulls back to look into his face, her cheek brushing his. She needs to see his face.

"You make it look so easy. Can you show me how? Please?"

"Transport system doesn't work on inanimate objects?" Because that would be interesting, if it was the case. Though Coulson couldn't imagine why. If anything, he would think that it would be harder to transfer living material. No one knows what causes that spark of life - what's the difference between a perfect corpse and a breathing human.

Sometimes he wonders if he could even tell the difference. What if his soul is somewhere else?

"Demonstration?" he offers, drawing back a little bit. Opening up the space between them. He's not so sure he wants to go through with this yet.

He pulls away and she leans after him, the movement entirely unconscious. But she catches herself, comes up short. She closes her eyes for a brief moment, breathing deep and forcing her hands to let him go. They slide down his arms to his hands. When she opens them to look at him again, she gives him a warm smile.

"How about this? You demonstrate your -- instinctual understanding of water. And afterwards, I will tell you about how I travel from Barsoom to here and back again. Over coffee?"

Are you asking me on a date? is what he almost says. Catches himself in time. Though, honestly, maybe it's worse to try to keep it ambiguous. He'll play it cool. Nick Fury would probably play it cool.

He dips backwards and breathes in, floating on his back.

"Ever been in weightlessness?" he asks. "Because I haven't, but we use this to train people in it, so it might have some similarity. The thing that really helps is that you can push against the water to move." He takes in a breath and turns over, going underwater. Sort of a breaststroke movement, going to the far end of the pool and then back before breaking the surface again. He's a little out of breath.

He didn't say yes. But he didn't say no, either. And he is -- demonstrating. She chooses to take that as a good sign.

She watches, wide-eyed as he submerges and begins to traverse the length of the pool. He really does make it look like he was born to the stuff. She experiments, waving her hands in the water, trying to stabilize herself against the waves of water that precede his return. It works better with her fingers cupped together.

He emerges from the water, and she's grinning like a fool. Like he's juggled fire or disappeared a rabbit into thin air. "Amazing. All right. Let me try."

She struggles, holding his gaze as she forces herself to sink down into the water. The water covers her shoulders, and she lifts her chin. A moment later, she sinks beneath the water.

She emerges less than five seconds later, coughing and sputtering, her hands reaching out for something to hold onto.

Steps in - he's stepping in a lot, lately, isn't he? - and pulls her out of the water and back against him.

"Easy," he says. "I got you." Pat on the back, in case she needs a little help coughing it up.

After a moment or two, when she's a little more recovered (and he is not thinking about supporting her body, about his hands where they had rested on her waist, now on her arms), he says,"Sorry, I should've thought of that. You might want to hold your nose at first, and keep your mouth closed." A little rueful.

She's still wiping her eyes and shoving her hair back out of her face, chuckling at her own ineptitude. "Yes, I only wish I had thought of it sooner!" She rests her hands on his chest this time and steps back, smiling at him with bright blue eyes. It is simple to respect his need for a little distance, especially with the water all around them. What a wonderful playground, she thinks.

"Do you open your eyes under water?"

When someone is warm, it takes a moment to bleed through the water, even when they're touching - and there's only enough time for that to happen, for him to start to feel the warmth of her hand before she pulls away.

He grins. "Give it a try," he suggests. The world looks amazing underwater. "You ready?"

Because this time he'll go under at the same time as her.

Her eyes went wide and she nodded, this time pinching her nose shut with one hand. She had to bob a little in the water, to counteract the forces of buoyancy, but she managed.

The world went silent and fluid. The chlorinated water stung her eyes a little, but not horribly. She blinked, focusing, looking across at him. A laugh caught her by surprise and the sound was muddled by the puff of bubbles that followed.

She reached out and caught his fingers in hers, beaming at him, looking ridiculous with her hand on her nose and her hair in a dark halo around her face.

He blows out bubbles from his nose: some impulse to look even more ridiculous than she does. To enjoy this. He feels weightless, here, and maybe that means he can let go of some responsibilities, too. SHIELD will be up there when he gets back.

(There's a low, tight throb of guilt for even thinking of SHIELD like that at all.)

He surfaces, finally.

He's grinning at her, the kind of smile that takes over his whole face, deepening the lines around his eyes, and for a moment, there's nothing in the world but the two of them. Just this amazing place where it's silent and light and he's being silly with her. Phil Coulson, being silly.

She feels that silent pull again, the desire to be close to him. Closer than this. Close enough to -- her lungs remind her she is not born to this environment and he's rising. She follows and draws in a huge lungful of air as she surfaces.

It meant letting go of his hand. She swiped her hands over her face, got the water away from her eyes, and then pushed her hair back again.

"All right, let me try this floating again. Spot me?"

Edited 2014-12-10 02:07 (UTC)

This is better. He should have started with being underwater instead of learning how to float. First, you learn that you don't have to be afraid of the water. Then, you learn to be on top of it.

He could layer a dozen metaphors on top of this, couldn't he?

"I have you."

"You do." She closed her eyes and melted backwards.

Her movements are far more confident this time. She stops struggling against the water, and gives herself to it. Her head tips back and she raises her chin high, arching her neck. She trusts him completely in this moment. The water stills around them and she's floating, weightless, his breath and his touch fixed points in space.

He feels himself breaking into a smile. His hand spreads out on her back, but his touch goes lighter. She's floating by herself. She doesn't need him.

He actually pulls his hand away for a second, to resettle the wet shirt that's clinging to his body. It's gone partially transparent. Makes him a little nervous, but not enough to override what it's like seeing her like this.

"How does it feel?" he asks.

She hums, a contented sound. The kind of sound a body made when experiencing relief from head to toe. "Amazing," she said. One hand drifted out, idly coming to rest along his bicep. "Thank you. This is a wondrous gift you have given me."

She let slip a quiet huff of a laugh. "So much water."

He feels a little embarrassed, oddly. Was this too extravagant?

"Well, the pool was close by," he says. "Seems a shame not to use it." His other hand covers hers, apparently without his conscious urging. "On Earth we do use pools for rehabilitation - people who are unable to exercise with too much stress on their body. It's healthy. And it looks like it's already helping you with the gravity problem."

"Immensely. A bit of this every other day will help tremendously."

She turned her head slightly, just enough to open one eye and look at him. Her fingers flexed gently under his.

"I'd still like to get coffee after. If you're not busy?"

He's always busy.

"I might be able to make the time." It's joking, not playing cold or hard to get.

"I'd like that," she answered simply. She knows. Of course she knows. She has no illusions about who he is, or who she is, or how unlikely it is that anything would happen between them. Doesn't mean she won't ask. She'd be doing them both a disservice if she walked away from this because it was awkward or inconvenient. She's lived more than four Earth centuries, and she's fairly confident she can recognize when she's made a connection with someone.

She drifted, relaxing, enjoying his proximity and the warmth of the water. After a half hour of quiet conversation, she shifted and let her feet drift to the bottom. She drew her hand back only to push her hair back from her face and regard him with wide blue eyes.

"Let me get dried off and changed, and maybe we could?"

It does end up that he has to make the time. After he emerges and takes a shower, he's pulled into a crisis, a mission gone wrong on the other side of the world. Or, theoretically gone wrong. Cessation of communication doesn't necessarily mean anything in particular. But it usually means something bad.

It's too long before communications are resumed, and then the team asks for immediate extraction. Good, because that's just what Phil had been doing in the last hour of silence.

Mission failure. What a surprise.

So when he comes down to get her, it's late. Too late, and now maybe too risky, because of the failed mission, to go into town.

He explains this to her.

"I'm sorry."