#garcy

At least they’re past the separate interrogation stage. She didn’t see her partner for almost a month, and she’s surprised it was that short, she’d worried-

He’s here now, she reminds herself. He’s here now, next to her, awkward in a suit that doesn't fit, a shell of the man she's seriously considered binding the rest of her life to. There are questions she hasn’t asked, won't ask until this is all over, until they’re in some tiny fixer-upper of a house in some flyover state, until well after they’ve started to begin again and-

Her fingers thread with his. She can do that and not destroy them.

“Hope our stories matched,” she whispers. There are three lower-level suits staring at them, in this waiting area they may be in for hours. Supposedly, this is the end of it, but she’s had enough experiences with bureaucracy to have serious doubts there, and-

“I don't think that’s what this is. More… now we have to justify how expensive we were.”

“We weren’t. Were we?”

Fine, so there’s paperwork she never saw. Curse of being the most civilian member of the team – even Jiya had a security clearance before, or at least had considered she might need one at some point in her career. Lucy is not of that world; Lucy is happy to be out of that world, or almost out, and-

“Not the point. We aren’t an easy trophy for them."

“So what happens if this goes wrong?"

“Nothing that ruins us. This is just… closure. Might ruin someone else’s career, but-”

“Not anyone we know," Lucy finishes.

“Not anyone we know.”

They stay there in silence for what feels like forever, fingers threaded, one last calm before a storm. They get through this, she tries to convince herself, and then it’s over. Whatever’s next…

"Don't fight anyone.”

“No promises."

She gets tactile when she drinks, and it takes a little time to find him – the contours of this house are still unfamiliar to her, and the world has a certain blur – but he’s conveniently in their bedroom and it is very, very fun to yank him down for a decent kiss.

It’s not amazing. Nothing they could do right now would be. She’s just buzzing inside, like she needs skin on skin, like she needs-

“That kind of night,” he murmurs when they break for air, not the question it should be. His voice is heavy, and she knows he copes differently than she does but maybe he needs to get out f his head too, maybe-

Lucy nods. Words aren’t happening right now, not until this is over, not until morning. She just… needs, right now, and there’s something primal about it, something she’s accepted, this is the worst of her and it hasn’t gone away and maybe it never does and-

It would be easier to be what she is under other circumstances. She’s making the best of these. She’s lucky, she thinks, she has a partner who isn't questioning her behavior too much, who knows-

They are one and the same, she thinks as hands start wandering. Both determined to burn whenever they get the chance. She’s worse, right now, but she can feel the tension in the way he touches her, the way he’s always on the knife’s edge of disaster. Too much, too much-

She makes a desperate sound as she ends up on her back on the bed. They won't talk about this. They don't need to talk about it. She’ll wake up in the morning with the vaguest idea what happened, and that vague idea will be enough. The details can blur for all she cares.

He straddles her, murmuring something probably but not definitely in a language she doesn't speak. At this point, she isn’t sure she can tell the difference. He’s sober, she’s pretty sure, and going with this the same way he goes with the rest of her bullshit, because this is who they are to each other and there’s no point pretending otherwise and they won't talk about this, she keeps thinking, they won't talk about this, they won't-

She can barely feel their collision. She knows it’s happening, and this isn’t what dissociation feels like – her brain and her body are perfectly tethered, she’s pretty sure, but the volume of the universe has been turned down a few notches. This is something happening to her, not something she is a particularly active participant in. Different from what she’s usually like, but not wrong. She wants, let that be enough, she wants-

She’s had weirder orgasms. She’s surprised when it hits, but she’s had weirder. This wasn’t even the goal, more of a nice surprise, and she lets herself be vocal because what does she even have to lose, and-

That’s the last bit she remembers.

{She can piece together what happens, later. Nothing she didn’t want. Nothing new. Nothing that mattered.}