Apocalypse - Redemption

[Light Ice]

When she looked up at him, into his face, he fought the urge to be a man. It seemed insensitive gestures were written into the male code. Even the best of men, he assumed, had to fight the primal things that coursed through them. Here, in the dark, his body reacted to the closeness she invited. A subtle spark of warmth between them that woke, stirred, the more potent aspects of his masculinity. It broiled beneath the surface as they stood amidst the rifles and shotguns, loomed over the pistols in their case.

In the end, though, Calvin knew what she was really offering and took it. A subtle bob of his head came as he turned from her, reluctantly slipping his strong fingers from the lean line of her spine. She'd felt so soft beneath the shirt, smooth and warm. A woman that lean, that athletic, shouldn't have felt so absolutely delicate against his hand. The way it'd affected him was sudden and powerful, seemingly more tangible with its absence.

But regardless, Calvin began pulling things from their homes and taking them in a bag. Shells, a rifle. A pair of pistols. Another shotgun. There was a practicality here. A certain degree of mistrust that things would be peaceful now that the world had ended.

Besides.

He'd had the dreams.

Dreams of the Dark Man, mostly. The Man in the Jacket and Jeans, leering. In the latest Calvin saw Los Vegas, a sinner's paradise. The lights of the casino's were lit and the water in the fountain flowed. A crowd of angry shifting bodies came to witness a beheading at the Dark Man's request. A strong, sharply-dressed man lead the condemned to the block and forced their heads into place. It was a disturbing dream. It felt real. It was like a vision of the future. An offer.

But it was even worse in that the man holding people down had been him. And that he'd felt as though that was where he should go. To be there. To claim his place.

"I hope so." He answered. Elusive now. Not purposefully, but simply unable to explain the feeling that drove him to believe otherwise. Unwilling to speak about his dream. "Listen, Gina."

He said, finishing. Calvin drew his big hands over the zipper, closing it with the rasp of teeth and rustle of the duffle bag in the dark. Turning, he reached then, once more offering the consoling affection that a man might offer a woman. His hand reached for her hair, attempting to push a stray strand back behind her ear. His smile didn't come but the sincerity in his words was clear.

"You and I could be doing a lot worse. Let's keep our heads down, focus on taking care of each other, and find a safe place that hopefully has good people in it like us. That's what we work for right now. The rest? We take each day as it comes."

 

[laceandcogs]

Though Gina was sharp enough to realize that there was something beyond Cal's words, something dark and unhappy, she was willing to let it wait. If he didn't have any suggestions about where they might find a nice place full of good people, she did.

After all, she'd had dreams too- dreams of a place that, for a city girl like herself, may as well have been Paradise.

There were mountains in the distance that turned a rich purple-grey at dusk, and grass, real grass, and so much space... the air smelled clean, whole, and Gina had begun to wonder if it was madness to be able to -smell- in your dreams, but if madness felt so good, so welcoming, so wholly -right-, then Gina would be happy to go completely insane. She saw a small house, the sort a family might have bought in the early fifties, with a brick barbeque out back and a red tile roof, a house that she called hers, and she dreamt often of turning burgers on that brick barbeque... too many burgers for just her, burgers for her family...

Of course, there were the other dreams as well. She was in that house, and she could feel a storm gather- thunderstorms being Gina's biggest fear, the crack and boom of thunder and lightning enough to send her crying under the covers. She raced around the house, shutting windows, locking them, as her dream-pulse hammered and that clenching nausea of fear claimed her stomach. Finally, in the bedroom, Gina slammed the door and went to dive into her bed, only to see a man- a man in jeans and a denim jacket. A man with very cold eyes and a smile that offered no comfort, and held the kind of joy you -caused- rather than shared in. He stretched out on her bed, fully dressed, like he owned the place (maybe, Gina worried, maybe he did, maybe it's his world, and we just live in it) and purred, like a sated lover, "It never rains in Las Vegas, Gina."

Of course, where it never rained, nothing ever grew. This was the thought that allowed Gina to resist the lure of Vegas, though her resolve was not quite as strong as she would like it to be. Still, she wouldn't speak of Denver yet, not until she could trust that Cal wouldn't think her silly, or weak, or...even worse... try to convince her that, after all, it never -did- rain in Vegas.

"I think that's a fine idea, Cal." Unable to resist the impulse, Gina tilted her cheek ever so slightly into his hand, a vulnerable exposure of the delicate stem of her throat, a gesture replete with comfort and tinged with desire for his touch. It was a quick moment, and she straightened, picking up the bag at her side. "Ready to hit the road and find something to eat?"

 

[Light Ice]

"One track mind." A subtle hint of humor and a smile that went with it, provoked by their moment.

Trust was a funny thing. It wasn't built over time, exactly, but across moments. Instances, here and there, where a line was cast out and hopefully caught. So far as he could tell they were doing well, damned well. There was a certain easiness in the way they came by each other, even now. It was hard to imagine it'd been only a couple hours since they'd met. A couple hours since she'd asked to check his back seat and kept her pistol nestled securely on her lap while they drove further into the mess that was Boston.

She turned from him, but only after she'd leaned into his hand. Her cheek didn't brush, it glided, silken soft under his fingers. A small thrill ripped through him, coursing along and arcing through his body until it nestled deep in his stomach. Arousal surged, sudden and sharp, hardening the length of his prick. She made him hot, flush suddenly, with the easy and sudden tenderness. The vulnerability. That hint of femininity that was offered to him, or taken from him, so sharply and suddenly that it'd nearly startled him.

But Calvin took control of it, gathered up his bags, and walked after her. He was hungry. Damned hungry. The day had been a long and tiring one already and they still had a bit of it left. Their gear was put into the Suburban, and he managed one apologetic smile to Gina as he stowed it. He was meticulous, finding a particular place for everything. The firearms were stored in the locker, each having their own drawer, shells in neighboring ones. He'd a nature for being meticulous before the disaster, before this mess had descended on him and swept him up in it. Now, though, it seemed even more important. Critical, even. It helped him feel better about everything and practical.

"Grocery store or restaurant? Up to you? Dinner's on me?" A slow rumble of questions, each following the other, humor gathering as he closed the rear gate of the truck and got in, turning the key. "And don't hold back. Anything on the menu is yours."

 

[laceandcogs]

"Milk. I want the biggest, coldest glass of milk, and a steak rare enough to moo, and a pint of Dublin Mudslide, and oranges." Gina blushed, jumping into the car and tucking the bag of shoeboxes under her seat. She didn't want them in Cal's way, didn't want to test his indulgence. "It's beautiful, Cal, to not have to follow the Company diet anymore. Do you have any idea how tired boneless skinless lemon pepper chicken gets? I -dream- in lemon pepper. I probably -taste- like lemon pepper."

Buckling her seatbelt, Gina waited for Cal, determined to watch how he drove. She was going to learn as much as she could by observation, so as to pose as little trouble as possible when he had to teach her. "What do you want to eat?"

If the answer had been "you", Gina would have been resolutely pleased. Cal was truly breathtaking now that he'd shed the jumpsuit, the sort of lean, wiry body she'd always found so attractive in the male dancers she'd worked with. Of course, Gina's attraction was only rarely returned, and worked out well with even greater infrequency. She was not good at dramatics, at pique and pathos, and downright -awful- at coddling egos. Physical sparks turned into emotional forest fires, and when Gina became tired of putting them out, she became single. It had been a peaceful if somewhat... frustrating lifestyle, and left her just a little too horny to be completely sensible.

 

[Light Ice]

"Steak sounds good."

It sounded real fucking good. The kind of mind-numbing good that crept up on you when you spent a day hungry and found a meal in-front of yourself. The Suburban was weighed down, suffering from a few hundred pounds of gear that it hadn't had before. They'd piled a generator, tools, camping goods into the back. It'd been arranged and laid out, stocked until it had all the many things they needed to help them hit the road and travel with some small degree of comfort and practicality. Still, Cal was glad to feel that the truck didn't wear its new weight with any difficulty. There was no difference in the wheel as he turned it, weaving through the abandoned streets and emptied cars.

"Your job made you diet?" He asked.

It'd taken him a moment to catch that bit and as they turned onto Bolyston he let his eyes cut onto her face. The lazy smile that touched her lips here and there, caught in glimpses when he wasn't watching the road, stirred hunger of a different sort. It was a rare, primal heat that spread through him. He was suddenly aware of just how frequently the desire for her came and how intensely it rumbled through him, arcing across every synapse in little electric charges that grew rapidly when he didn't check them.

They didn't know anything about one another. Not in the old sense. They didn't know each other's family or what values they'd had instilled in them. They didn't know what they did or how much they made. Cal realized she would never meet his friends or spend a normal day with him.

And yet, despite that, he felt free in the way he wanted her. All those things that seemed to matter before were dead, left behind them with each turn they made and block they traversed. There was something beautifully pure in finding her beautiful and appreciating her gentle humor, easy smile, and sharp-wit in the face of all this. She'd been cautious, but willing, in giving him a shot.

She told him that she was a dancer. Ballet. Cal nodded, cutting her off, reaching out for the first time in an effort to test the world's new rules.

"You're a beautiful woman, Gina. Girls like you either model or dance and you look a little too healthy to walk a catwalk."

 

[laceandcogs]

"Catwalks are boring, Cal. Walk-scowl-turn-glower-walk, lather rinse repeat. Besides, I might look fragile, but I could bench-press most models." Gina stretched out, propping her feet up on the dashboard.

"But thank you for thinking I'm beautiful." Her gratitude was genuine, touching in its freshness. It wasn't that she'd never been told she was gorgeous, it was that Cal said it in such a blunt, factual way- it wasn't a come-on, though she could certainly choose to interpret it that way, and likely neither of them would feel badly if she did. It was also that he didn't seem... impressed? No, that wasn't the right word. She knew Cal was impressed, that he was interested, that he would almost certainly take her to bed right now, if she offered. Well, maybe they'd eat steak first...but just for energy's sake.

Cal wasn't rendered stupid. It was a clumsy phrase, but more accurate than "not impressed". He noticed her looks, her body, he wanted to claim it, but he handled that lust like a man, not a teenager. Control was always attractive, perhaps just a little more so to Gina than to other women...

 

[Light Ice]

The Cheesecake Factory. Sadly, Cal was no gourmet. He was a bit uncertain what constituted gourmet. He hoped, however, that the Cheesecake Factory was enough of a restaurant that it's choice of food was impressive and satisfying and the stock preserved enough to have lasted. He'd considered something more high-class, more elite. There were no bills to worry about, no needs that couldn't have been taken. But the practical side of him warned that most of those places probably didn't believe in frozen meat and he'd doubted anyone had come back to properly freeze anything left in the fridges.

The moment her feet touched the dashboard his eyes roamed her legs, suddenly sharp and wanton in their appraisal. That cat, he realized, was long out of the bag. The lazy confidence she exuded screamed of it. In the end, though, it didn't matter. She would have found him out sooner or later. There was only so long a man could keep his interest in a woman secret if it was honest.

And so he let her see his eyes track over her before pulling the truck to a halt infront of the empty restaurant.

"Here's the deal." He said, laying his forearm across the Suburban's big wheel. She had gorgeous eyes and he found them almost too-eagerly with his own. "Find us a good bottle of wine and a table, I'll do the cooking."

He was no expert but a steak was something his father had not gone to great lengths teaching him how to cook. It'd been left to him to learn in college. Steak and potatoes were one of those meals that every man learned and he had decided that tonight he'd go the distance, attempting to give her some semblance of chivalry. There was no doubt she'd pull her weight. But a part of him, that primal thing that stood protective, wanted to give her a mental break from the grim reality of their empty world.

 

[laceandcogs]

Gina was very excited by the promise of a good bottle of wine. Climbing out of the car, she let Cal lead the way into the restaurant, and couldn't help but feel a little bit of cheerful anxiety- like this was a first date. In a way, she supposed it was, though the pretense and dance of polite chitter-chat was somewhat discarded. It was a deliciously level playing field, really- Cal may have devoured her legs with his eyes, but Gina had done her share of admiring this afternoon, and was quite pleased with what she'd observed. Still, sex in a sleeping bag had never quite appealed to her, and even in this wild new world, she didn't want to seem easy.

Behind the bar of the Cheesecake Factory, Gina observed the wine rack with deep attention. Though there were probably a dozen other bottles that would have gone better with wine, she chose a bottle of champagne... after all, they could afford decadence now.

As Cal worked in the kitchen, Gina set their table, snapping the fresh white tablecloth out, lining the silverware up neatly. Only then did she dare peek into the kitchen door, raising a brow and inhaling deeply of the scent of searing meat. "May I come in, Chef Cal?"

 

[Light Ice]

In the kitchen his mind slipped, thoughts faded. Instead, like an old movie, his memory reel took hold. Sparks and images, a cascade of what was familiar, surged through him as his rough hands found pans, pots, and ingredients. His mother had attempted to teach him how to cook once. That was what she had called it. A lesson in cooking. He had known, even then, that it was an exercise of guilt and obligation. Cooking was not something you were instructed on. It was something you absorbed at that age. It was a series of methods and a process of thoughts that was conveyed to you through osmosis, through being invited into the process and being appreciated and encouraged for taking part. His mother had already given up any pretense of involving him in much of anything. And so, instead, she gave him consolation moments in which he was allowed enough of her to convince himself that they saw in him all the wonderful things they saw their daughter.

Cal did not hear her setting the table. Selecting wine. Instead, consumed, he became labored in the intensity of his awareness of the steaks and the potatoes. Corn.

And so he hadn't heard her come in when he was nearly finished, inquiring with a hint of the humor that had belied her nature from the very start. His invitation came with an almost self-conscious smile, extended as he looked over a rugged shoulder before turning to transfer their food onto the plates that waited for them.

"I don't know about Chef, kiddo. I don't have the hat. Come on in and grab your plate. If it's not that great lie to me and tell me it was amazing."

 

[laceandcogs]

"I'm sure it will be delicious. If it isn't, I'll lie like a rug." With a wink, Gina scooped her plate off the counter and led Cal to their table. "I hope you got a reservation, Mister- this place is jammed to the rafters..."

Black comedy was the only sort Gina had at her disposal, and she hoped Cal didn't mind awfully if her natural lightheartedness was forced to take a turn for the morbid. It was just that Gina wasn't really sure how to make it through life without teasing, joking, pulling faces, or kindly imitating voices. It seemed, even before the plague, that life was a pinball machine of terror and violence that one could only careen through, hoping to hit the paddles and bumpers. In this brave new world of necessary savagery, Gina could choose to become grave and drawn, to treat each day with the gravity born of knowing keenly that it could be her last... or she could agree to compromise, keeping her eyes more open, her hackles slightly raised, and her smile still fully, stubbornly intact.

Of course, that guard did seem to come down rather quickly around Cal. It wasn't necessarily that she trusted him- to do so at this early stage would be the sort of stupidity that would land her on the nine o'clock news (though, she reflected, it would be a very long time until the nine o'clock news returned to the airwaves). It was more that, in the steadily lengthening list of red flags and flashing "caution" signs that Gina had come to develop, Cal could only claim a single check-box. Granted, the "actively wearing a prison jumpsuit" square did earn him double points, but still...

 

[Light Ice]

How many more steak dinners would there be? How many moments like this one? Few, he imagined. Precious few. It would not be long before the power failed completely and shorter still before the food that could be pillaged from restaurants and grocery stores went entirely bad. They would be left sooner, not later, with canned meals and what they could stumble across along the road. It was a grim prospect, truly, but why didn't he feel that way? The thought should elicit a response far more potent then the one he was feeling now and it didn't.

He knew he was distracted. She was across from him, smiling, a glint of something in her eyes. Worry, maybe. It was hard to tell. The steak was good and her company was better, attractive and easy. She'd carried most of their conversations and asked the majority of the questions. If he was able he would extend himself now, open the door, but he couldn't. The words wouldn't come. So, instead, he watched the way her lashes fluttered when she blinked and answered her quip with a fainter smile of his own.

"Steak good?"

It was. Not the best he'd managed, mind you, but better than he'd feared. It didn't matter, of course. The meal was cursory to what lay ahead and the rest of their night. He imagined some of it would be spent driving. The rest finding quarter. He expected the tent would be their stop, especially while they were still in Boston's shadow. The hotels near the metro area had been converted into shelters or filled with families attempting to flee the infection; not the kind of company they'd want.

She was beautiful and she, like him, was trying hard not to drown in the loss. The physical act of survival was natural and easy in comparison to these moments, fighting memories and instinct. Aware, powerfully aware, that the crowd she'd joked about would never exist. It would not return. He would never be able to make them a reservation for a date.

But her brighter side sparked his own to surface, smoldering dimly, smothered as he drank from his glass.

"The wine is definitely good. We might have to borrow a case."

 

[laceandcogs]

Gina definitely felt the same dark nag of memory. It felt like a thick, pressing fog, the emptiness of the streets somehow more oppressive than the worst Christmas Eve shopping crowd. The steak was good, and she wanted to show her appreciation, but appetite was hard to come by right now.

"Yes, it's great. I don't even have to lie." The smile that came with these words was obviously forced, neither her heart nor her eyes in it. Smiling had become almost automatic to Gina, originally a side effect of her cheerful nature, but eventually as a way to disarm those who probed too deeply into her life. Usually, the effervescent smile was genuine, as were the reassurances and the brush-offs and the but-let's-talk-about-you's. However, even when patently false, there were very few who wouldn't be deterred by one of those thousand-watt cheeky grins.

Gina hoped, in all but a very small part of her soul, that Cal would not turn out to be one of those steadfast few.

Exhaustion did little to improve her mood. Sleeping had been hard for Gina in the last few weeks, mostly because of the dreams. Many had been pleasant, warm dreams of high mountains and well-tended split levels, cool thin air and an old woman's voice, soft but strong, honeyed with an accent Gina could not place. People, steady hardworking people, the kind who always had a smile or a cup of sugar to lend or an ear you could bend when you needed listening to. Children, some very young, racing and spinning and falling in giggling piles in the grass, begging Gina to come and play.

But these split the airtime of Gina's subconscious almost fifty-fifty with the nightmares of impending storms and that horrible smiling man. "His" dreams were cast in the dim glow of distant neon, the reek of millions of long-extinguished cigarettes still marking the decadent rooms he showed her. There were giant tiled showers, plush beds, carpet as deep and green as the cash dropped at the roulette tables downstairs. He whispered of clean slates, of forgetting everything and everyone that ever made her sad, of a life free of thunderheads and stormclouds. He asked Gina to dance, spread his arms in invitation, the tilt of his head welcoming but also expectant, impatient.

Quickly, Gina lifted her glass and drained it, the bubbles popping merrily on her tongue, the heat of alcohol racing down her throat. With a renewed and much more genuine smile, she nodded. "Once again, Cal, your plan is well-reasoned and brilliant."

 

[Light Ice]

Brilliant. Well-thought out.

He had managed many escapades in his short life but none had ever been able to wear those adjectives with any degree of honesty. It was a consequence of his nature. Quiet but impulsive. His actions had been dictated far too often by the inclinations of a moment. They bent, swayed, and moved on the breeze as it touched him. Somewhere, deep down, he knew that the essence of it all lay in good intentions. He meant well. There were few, if any, people he had ever really wished ill on. Enemies, when they cropped up, had too often been forgiven in his heart out of the necessity of its nature.

But that had never been a choice, really. He couldn't remember it being one, anyway.

"Two cases, then."

He managed a smile. It was small and didn't reach his eyes.

"But where are we going?" He asked, watching her now.

Cal looked up and found her eyes, held them briefly with his own. Her face was a soft, feminine marvel and he lost himself looking at it. The potent awareness of his want ripped through him, weighed on him more heavily than he could have imagined. It was like he was being smothered under it. Cal drank his wine, tried to tear his eyes from her and slip it back to his meal. But it was hard, damned hard.

Those impulses would not release him.

 

[laceandcogs]

Gina set down her empty glass and knotted her hands in her lap. This was a moment of truth, she felt, even if she could not yet understand why. She knew that there were many people who would want to go to the desert, at least as many as would want to go to the mountains... well, "many" had suddenly become a relative term, but that was a dismal sidetrack of thought best left alone. She also knew that the promises of the smiling man would appeal to a dark, grainy core of every person's soul, and that where you went would largely depend on how fully you allowed that core to control you. Thus, this conversation would possess many more levels than your typical where-to-vacation argument.

"I'd really like to go to the mountains, Cal. I don't know where they are, precisely, but... I dream about them. I know it sounds crazy, Cal, I know it sounds absolutely -insane-, but I dream about this mountain town, a really nice place, it looks like it was ripped out of a Sears catalogue from 1958, and I dream that there are more people there. We'll find more people, Cal. There's this voice in the dreams, a nice woman's voice, she's old but she's smart, Cal, and she says I should come to join them. -Them-, Cal."

She knew her sentence had run on. She knew she'd spoken quickly, urgently, though her voice remained soft. She knew that her hands had come loose from her lap and gestured, gently but fluidly. She knew that there was an uncertainty, a need to her gaze, a question there that she did not know how to put into words. Though she knew all these things, she was powerless to control them, unable to understand their import and thus unwilling to mute them entirely.

Slowly, Gina reached across the table and laid her hand over Cal's. A gentle gesture, not a grip, not quite holding his hand. Raising those wide, doe-brown eyes to his, she quirked a brow in a gesture of invitation that she could only hope seemed more sane than her previous words. "I'd really like it if you'd come to the mountains with me, Cal. I promise, next year we'll vacation in Disneyland if you want."

In classic form, Gina tried to end with a joke, though her stomach clenched and her blood ran cold as she waited for Cal's answer. Please, she thought, don't say you want to go to Vegas...

 

[Light Ice]

The contact was what kept him from arguing, from voicing his intent for Vegas. Her small fingers covered the back of his hand, lean and long and soft. She was looking at him, he realized, but he could not lift his eyes to her own. It was strange to be captured like this, in such simple means. He was unable to voice what he wanted, even as it rose up in his gut and knotted there, aching. Her fingers laid across his own, graceful antithesis to the battered stretch of his own hand. She was beautiful and soft and he, in so many ways, was hard and dark.

It surprised him that he got angry.

"Colorado sounds good." He said, smothering that anger as best as he could manage.

Visions came and for a moment they seemed foreign, as if pushed onto him from somewhere. They stirred in his head and rushed to the forefront, presenting him with images of her slender body bent under his amidst the high-rise suites of Vegas' hotels. The potent and visceral impact of each fantasy was startling, so much so that he could almost hear the fleshy smack of their bodies colliding while he took what he wanted.

Cal looked up, intent on finding her eyes and managing something witty. But he saw her looking back at him, sweet and sharp all at once, and the intention died. Instead, slowly, Cal drew his hand back. Aware, and suddenly ashamed, of just how dangerous this was becoming. Would he hurt her? No. Never. But would he want her? Always.

Badly.

And that made this dangerous because a man locked in infatuation wasn't an observant man. He wasn't a man aware of his surroundings and those subtle changes in mood and dialogue that a man should be aware of. Cal wrestled with the awareness of this and his awareness of her, how soft she looked and how sleek and slender. He fought with the graceful curve of her throat and the desire to bury his face there with nips, kisses, touches that made her whimper soft sounds and press against him.

And for the moment he won.

"But, if you expect me to follow you into the Rockies and -not- think you are crazy? Well, you better pour us a couple glasses of wine, Gina. I'm sure the idea will sound better after I get drunk."

 

[laceandcogs]

Gina nodded, and pulled her own hand back as well. Though she could have begun with a list of arguments, she decided instead to take Cal seriously and pour them both another glass.

The bubbles slipped in sleek lines up the sides of the crystalware, and Gina let her eyes trace them for a silent moment. "If I'm crazy, it's only very slightly, and only with the best of intentions. Colorado isn't the only place I've dreamt of, just the... most inviting." Her smile was picture-perfect, as always, but this time Cal could detect the effort it took to produce. Her fingers began to toy with the stem of the glass, spinning it gently, slowly, a distracted motion.

"Do you have another suggestion, Cal? Somewhere you'd rather go?" It was a dangerous question, and Gina knew it. However, there was a small but steady wellspring of faith in Cal forming in Gina's psyche, and she knew that, even if he did want to argue for Vegas (and, for reasons she could not trace, Gina knew that he did) he would be reasonable, able to be persuaded. If it took a few nights in a shared sleeping bag to do the persuading, it would not be the worst thing in the world...

Gina forced herself away from that train of thought, and instead looked right up into Cal's eyes. She already knew she wanted him, wanted to feel his heat against hers, wanted to feel the way those roughened, capable hands gripped and stroked and claimed. For all the lust that snaked under the surface of her skin, Gina would have cheerfully offered herself to Cal to change his choice in ice-cream flavors, nevermind Vegas.

 

[Light Ice]

"There are a lot of places I want to go, Gina. Colorado will be a good place to start. We can always sight see the United States after if we feel like it."

We. The implications with that single word did more to illuminate the processes of his mind than the sudden lack of confidence his words betrayed. It had been his intention to lie outright, despite how foreign and unnatural a lie felt. There was no reason to argue with her. He couldn't rationally understand why he felt so drawn to Vegas and why the image of him amidst the Fountains outside the major hotels kept entering his mind.

But she had looked at him. She'd searched his face with her eyes and forced him to acknowledge the beautiful severity of her features just now. It was as though every soft and feminine angle had taken a sudden, sharp look. In his mind Cal could imagine gears turning at a few million repetitions a minute, spinning with controlled recklessness at a pace few others could imagine. She was sharp. She was capable. And if he'd lied to her outright she'd have known it in a minute and all his good intentions would have fallen apart.

So he lied by omission and lived within the gray area she'd created with her question.

Somehow, Cal knew she wanted to know specifically about Vegas. The unspoken difference between them had suddenly become an elephant in the room. It should have been foolish. It should have been some small detail they could laugh to one another about but it wasn't. Here, in the restaurant, they'd somehow stumbled across a potent divide between them and Cal could not understand why it was there.

Or how to get rid of it.

Stranger, still, was the overwhelming desire to kiss her that took hold of him. Cal had felt a want for her several times since they had met. She was beautiful. A slender, trim vision of a woman that went against all the big-busted images that had previously dominated the forefront of his desires had found a way inside his head until the thought of her modest breasts in his hands was potent enough to inspire him to ferocious hardness in an instant.

But this wasn't so much that, really, as a need to bridge that sudden divide between them. It was an acknowledgment, unlikely as it was, of the chord that was holding them together. The bond was fragile and new. They had only just agreed to set out together and already they'd found something great between them. Cal did not want this to break before it began. He wanted to hold them together.

Why a kiss would do that? The answer was not as clear as he would have liked. He knew it would like he knew he should go to Vegas. It was a voice, inside of him, that was currently furious that he'd not made his intention more clear or attempted to convince her otherwise. It was angry now, too, because instead of kissing her and soothing that gap between them he rose from the table and gave a smile, a faint thing that didn't manage to reach his eyes.

"I'm going to grab the sleeping bags. I don't think we should tip. The service wasn't that great."

Standing, Cal knew he was hard. He could feel the thickness of his cock fighting with the denim that confined it. Every pulse made him feel the ache of want and standing there made him feel exposed, vulnerable, and suddenly naked under the keen measure of her eyes. She was beautiful. It was disarming just how beautiful she was. There was a potency in a woman that striking that some men failed to truly respect.

But what got him now was how certain she seemed. And how, even in the midst of casting a line into his brain, she'd been sincere and earnest. He'd picked up on enough of the hope in her voice, in the way she looked at him, to know that she believed Colorado was a better place for him.

And it was enough to get him to doubt himself. It was enough to raise a few voices of discord in his gut and to fight down the one demanding he go right to Caeser's Palace.

Just why did it matter so much? The question nagged at him even as he turned his back on Gina and began to pick his way through the tables towards the door. He'd never been much of a gambler or a party animal. Vegas had never appealed to him. It was troubling enough that he felt such a foreign pull for the place but in addition he couldn't understand why he was at all unable to make the choice to just go there.

Cal had never been the uncertain type. He'd never really been easily influenced by the people close to him. He was thinking of that when he stepped out of the restaurant and went into the back of the truck. In his mind he kept asking himself what it was about being with Gina that made him doubt his desire to head out for Vegas. There were no answers.

Only the quiet.

It enveloped him as he felt the down-filled bag that she would lay in and dragged it out of the truck's back. In his head he could imagine her, clad in cotton panties with her lean legs curled up. A tank on her body, tight around her modest breasts and accenting the lean line of her shoulders. Cal didn't understand what was going on inside his mind right now but his dick he understood perfectly. Desire had a way of pushing everything else a side and he gladly let it. The image of her twining those legs around his hips was a suitable escape for the questions that nagged at him. He didn't let it bother him that it felt just fine to indulge in the fantasy, to retreat into a place where he took his confidence and comfort from a woman he otherwise didn't know.

He didn't need to know why it felt right to be glad that it did.

 

[laceandcogs]

Strictly in order to have something to do, Gina began to clear up after their dinner. Stacking the plates and carrying them into the kitchen, she began the completely unnecessary, if thoughtful, task of hand-washing them. The massive restaurant sink looked quite underused as she scrubbed and rinsed two plates, two forks, two knives- she'd left the champagne flutes for now, thinking, after all, that a little more wine might help them sleep.

She returned to the dining room in a slightly dampened teeshirt, gently tugging the material from her stomach, where it badly wanted to cling. Gina knew she'd gotten thinner, perceptibly so, from lack of eating. In the World Before Now, this would have been immensely cheering- what ballerina wouldn't want to be just a few pounds lighter? Yet the sharpened angle of her hips was suddenly upsetting to Gina, and an expression half-caught between grief and irritation seized her lips.

So, when Cal returned with the sleeping bags, he found Gina perched on a barstool, mile-long legs twined around the rungs. Her eyes were closed in an expression of entirely wicked pleasure, her pink tongue stroking an errant drop of caramel sauce from her lower lip. She had two spoons and a slab of dulce cheesecake before her, and she held up the second spoon without opening her eyes. "I thought, Cal, that we would share dessert, but I am beginning to wonder if it would be better to get you your own slice."

Her voice had gone soft, husky and honeyed with the joy of cheesecake, and the slowness with which she opened those heavily-lashed doe eyes was exquisite. If Gina had calculated her facial expression, her pose, her tone, she could not have better countermanded Cal's attempt to master his lust- though, had she known that that was the task before her, she may well have shied from it anyway.

After all, Gina was a girl well-used to enjoying life. She had discipline in her work, but only because it was work she enjoyed. She took lovers when it suited her, though her taste was so discerning, and her selections so few, that she had earned the nickname "Harvard"- the joke being, among those brave enough to make it, that the school was easier to get into. She ate little, but drank more frequently, and more copiously, than was wise- it hadn't taken her long at all to decide that swapping out her breakfast fruit and lunch salad for three martinis after dinner was a perfectly acceptable trade. Gina had, for as long as she could remember, believed strongly that life was a series of joys to be discovered, a series of sins to be indulged in.

This was only half of the reason she always smiled, however. Gina had discovered in herself a well of empathy so deep that it frightened her- the fear or pain of others infected her as surely as any illness, and so she was careful to always please, always flatter, always cheer. It wasn't necessarily insincere, though Gina had never had a problem with white lies for good causes. It was simply that she felt a gnawing, aching terror of disappointing those who loved her, of becoming unfavored, unpopular.

And so, her current social circle consisting entirely of one dangerously attractive ex-prisoner, Gina felt it would be easy to keep Cal happy. Far easier now that he'd agreed to go to Colorado with her.

 

[Light Ice]

He was not prepared. Infact, he doubted very seriously that any man could be. For all his numerous faults of character and the many errors he had made, Cal was always confident in how supremely headstrong he could be. Stubborn, a word to which negative connotations had long been stapled, was an adjective to which he aspired to wear constantly and with tremendous pride. It suited him. He was very certain that the decision to leave well enough alone, once made, would be fulfilled by the sheer force of his indomitable will. Teachers, his parents, and lovers of the past had suffered greatly in attempts to goad him from the course he'd decided. It was simply fact.

Cal would not, could not, change his mind.

Except, he did. Just like that. It took the cut of his eyes along her softly-featured face and the vision of her sleek legs twisted up, long and strong, against the rails of the stool and he was finished. He did not allow his eyes to linger long enough to catch the sinful end of that stray caramel. There simply was no necessity. In his mind he could very well imagine that fortunate sweet being gathered around her tiny muscle and then swallowed down. Everything about her shattered his restraint, broke down all the preparations he had attempted to make, and manifested in a very subtle but very potent gesture.

The sleeping bags were shaken out beside one another. Close to one another. The kind of close that revealed the hopes and intentions of an otherwise very quiet man. He had intended, infact he had convinced himself that it was best if their bags were miles apart. In the moments leading up to his return he had envisioned a table separating them. He had rehearsed asking her if she would prefer sleeping in the truck's backseat.

She'd laid waste to that and he was hard, frightfully hard, there at the head of the bag that would be his. For all his insensitivity, his utter lack of perception, Cal was not dense. He could feel her eyes now as he had before, raking over him as he crouched with bent knees, haunches tightening through the denim to reveal the stout cords of muscle winding their way along his thighs and legs. The air seemed to have grown thick and sweet, heavy in his chest, and the hammering of his heart was nearly as potent as the rhythmic ache of his cock in the confining denim of his jeans.

"I haven't had a woman in a long time." He said, suddenly.

Sincerity did not equate sweetness, sometime, and Cal did not look to her. There seemed no need to make a plea or request of this. He was not built for forced seductions or clever turns of wit. She made him acutely aware of this now, under her gaze, as the light outside died and the candles of their dinner took over the lighting of the room. A gentle, dancing golden glow. He was certain she was beautiful in it, that it would suit the line of her body and the tremendous elegance veiled in her athletic and easy manner.

The words that left him were honest. Brutally so.

"And I want you."

He looked to her then, knowing that when she saw his face she would understand just how absolutely that was true.

 

[laceandcogs]

Gina had not expected this. She'd -expected- something a little... slicker, a little more flattery-laden, a little more like the innuendo-coated wheedling of the lovestruck boys she'd had before. Or maybe no words at all, just a reach across the short distance between their sleeping bags after the silence of the restaurant had become too heavy for him to bear.

She was not, however, disappointed. She was enthralled. Gina felt her heart rise into her throat, her stomach acquire a strange buoyant hybrid of hunger and seasickness. She became keenly aware of the flush racing from her cheeks, down her throat, and across her chest, the prickling heat making her nipples harden under her teeshirt. She felt the first electric throb of lust in her pussy, and knew that the game was lost.

Then, Cal looked at her. There was an urgency to his expression, a sincere and naked lust. Gina had thought that a man, senselessly aroused, looked silly- moon eyed, slack-jawed, grinning with an idiocy and hope that, frequently, made her giggle. There was nothing silly about the arresting, perfectly male beauty of Cal's face. Nothing silly at all. He looked dangerous, primal, powerful...and a little bit lost.

Gina found her feet, very slowly disentangling herself from the stool. Hips switching with a subtle, feline grace, she took two steps toward Cal. Her eyes, wide and starry with a muddle of want and wine, watched him closely but not warily- the spider had told the fly, after all, not to worry.

Within arm's reach, Gina stopped, and bent delicately at the waist, lowering her face to Cal's. For a moment, she let the anticipation build, but not to torture him- rather because she loved it, loved the sweet hot stretch of this moment, the decreasing space between heartbeats...

Her lips found his softly, her passion checked with a sudden, schoolgirl's hesitation. A gentle, breathless kiss, her half-parted lips tasting of caramel and champagne, her long-fingered hands sliding slowly along his jaw in a gesture of awed discovery. Gina stayed on her feet, bent to him in a position that she usually could have held with ease- it was lust, not strain, that made her knees tremble now.

 

[Light Ice]

For all the borrowed sweetness, amidst all the conflicting tastes, hers remained the very best. Cal felt his thoughts flee from him, slipping beyond reach as sensations rose up and overcame what lingering hint of his better judgment remained. The caramel and liquor were swept away in the potency of their kiss, shared only briefly before the pressure of her soft lips against the lean line of his mouth gave to a tangle of tongues and the sudden, potent urgency uncoiling itself inside him.

Had he ever had a woman this beautiful? Could he ever had found her when the world was full?

A better man would have felt guilt for harboring those lingering thoughts. The quiet of the world begged a severity to which Cal had not prescribed, to which Gina had herself defied in the wit-filled ease of her expressions. It should have seemed strange and wrong that here, amidst the shadow of civilization and home, his most purposeful of feelings came only in the form of unrestrained desire.

There was weight to this kiss. A kind of burden. It was as though, even through the slow and hot crush of lips and the sweet supping of tongues, the want that drove them was greater than these sweeter expressions. His cock strained with ferocious potency. The crouch that he had found himself in, back before she had crossed the chasm between them and invaded his world, served as a precarious place to hold his ground against the assault she unleashed on his senses.

It was her hand along his jaw that bid him to rise. All at once, Cal stood. The great strength in his form suddenly forged into play, driven as his hands reached to find the delicate arch of her hips and slip around her. Their heads turned, found angles to break apart amidst hotly drawn breath, and then find one another again. With each separation there were smaller kisses, placing unheralded emphasis and exclamation to which he became wholly fond.

"Fuck."

The word escaped his throat, a low growl. A rumble of pleasure and indulgence as he felt her lean body submit to the guidance of his arms and sink against his. The modest, youthful crush of her breasts against his broad chest as inspiring as the feeling of her soft belly against his denim-confined cock. Sensations bid the ungentle expression of desire, swallowed instantly in the otherwise patient way his hand ran up beneath the fabric of her shirt and traced the silken line of her spine.

Outside, the world continued to grow darker. The buildings whose lights had long ago died served as shadowed sentinels to abandoned streets. It was an unlikely place to stay. It was a more unlikely place to take a lover, but the restaurant suited them. Candle-light, sparsely so, the shadows of their bodies on the wall gave life and exaggeration to each of their movements. It marked a preface to what would surely be a melding of their bodies, an instant in which they laid the subtle, potent claims upon one another.

And there was no conflict in him now. There was no voice attempting to convince him that deception or departure was prudent. Cal had given himself wholly to this, submitted to the slow build and vicious patience of this moment. He was going to have this woman. She was to have him.

And suddenly he understood that this was a true conviction, one to which his resolve could never, and would never, be shaken.

 

[laceandcogs]

Cal had taken the words... well, word, really, out of Gina's mouth. The handful of lovers she'd known had never made her feel like this, had never produced a trembling, shimmering heat in her, a sensation that perched on a knife-edge between lust and fear. She could feel every ounce of power in his body now, as well as the tension of holding it back- Cal had struck her as a patient man, and it seemed that evaluation had been correct.

Gina wanted badly to test that patience. A giddy little devil perched on her shoulder, imploring her to arch her hips just so, to bare her throat like this... to tempt, to stoke, to push and prod Cal toward some precipice of control. It was a thought that might have appealled to Gina in the World That Was, a game she would have happily played with a schoolboy lover. Not Cal.

Her hands moved more slowly than his, with an exploratory delicacy. She stroked his shoulders, the edges of his waist, the plane of his stomach, her palms flattened against the material of his shirt. She watched him, now, her eyes impossibly wide, warmer than the caramel he'd tasted in her kiss. Her lips were drawn into a small, soft smile, a flush of desire painting her cheeks and throat. She was a picture of feminine sexuality, so exquisitely rendered as to seem almost unreal- it was easy to imagine this image claiming the Times Square billboards, the promise of that little smile selling cologne by the barrel.

Closing her eyes, Gina shifted just slightly against Cal, pressing her lips heatedly to his throat. A dozen slow kisses against the flesh there, brushing the edge of his jaw, the arch of his collarbone. He could feel every word as well as he could hear it, delivered on sweet, slightly fast breath.

"I think that sounds -smashing-, Cal. I'm beginning to think every plan you have is a good one..."

 

[Light Ice]

The quiet should have unnerved them both.

It should have reminded them of just how alone the pair had become. Outside, stacked in grim black bags and shrouded in tarps, the remnants of everything and everyone they had known lay abandoned in the streets. It was as though a switch had been flipped in the midst of the chaos, as if collectively the people of Boston had simply fallen away from their tasks and given up the fight to survive. What had troubled Cal, what would perhaps always trouble Cal, was the question of just when that moment had arrived. He wondered, always, just how the end of humanity had happened. He should have wondered it now.

But he did not.

Infact, dark and quiet, the restaurant seemed suddenly inviting. It was though the entire building had opened up for the pair and embraced them, turned itself to the catering of their needs. Their hungers.

She'd awoken much in him in a painfully short time. Gina had, with a girlish mix of intentions and innocence, turned the keys that unlocked the more primal parts of himself. It should have been difficult to want her. The dangers, the sorrow, that veiled everything of the world outside should have effected him far more than anything but that was not the case. The warm wet pass of her tongue against the shell of his ear provoked a hard shiver along his spine, turned him briefly rigid in her lean arms. Cal let his head fall away, indulged in the feel of her soft lips against the line of his pulse.

And he lifted her.

He dragged her from her feet and set her atop the nearest table, ignoring the rattle of abandoned china and the gentle rock of it beneath them. All at once his lean hips parted the slender stretch of her thighs, pushed them tight together, crushed the heat of their cores against one another with the delicious friction of denim on denim. Playing coy, she took advantage of the state she'd put him in. His breath came in hitched intakes, ragged and pointed with low, rumbling growls as his head fell and he buried his face into the lean column of her throat.

Kissing. Biting. The pluck of his teeth against her skin accenting the way his hands had suddenly taken to jerking at his shirt, pulling it free. It was as though his shirt had suddenly become to heavy to tolerate, too confining. His fingers hooked the bottom hem and tugged, struggling as it caught about his ribs, clinging stubbornly to the masculine angles of his muscled frame.

Cal found himself unwilling to tear his mouth from her skin in order to pull it free. The sensations, the feelings, arced through him with a power he'd never known. At first, it frightened him. He hesitated, caught there with his hands against his shirt, dragging it half-off his body and abandoning it there.

"More." He said. Unable to articulate more. Aware, somewhere in his mind, that he was glad to be giving over to this entirely. Aware, somehow, that it was right and that she wouldn't mind the way his fingers lifted into her dark hair and cinched it tight into his fist. She wouldn't fight when he gave it a solid tug, wrenching her pretty face skyward so his mouth could crush to her own and he could begin to sate the otherwise impossible hunger she'd inspired.

 

[laceandcogs]

Gina did not mind the tense grip of her hair, the half-violent tug as Cal redirected her. The pain was small, and more than salved by the naked want he showed. Though his strength was superior, his the position of control, Gina nearly thrilled with power- this man wanted her, needed her. It made her heart double-trip in her throat, and she surrendered to his kiss completely.

She pressed herself closely to the warmth of his bare chest, and in a moment of inspiration, laced her strong thighs around his waist. There had never been much distance between them, not since Cal deposited her on this table, and the cinch of her legs decreased it still. Gina shivered as she felt the line of his cock against her core, and she found herself arching in supplication- her head tilting back, her shoulders rolled to offer her throat, her breasts more fully.

Unwilling to break the kiss Cal had initiated, Gina gasped in frustration. She wanted to take off her shirt as well, hell, she wanted to take off every stitch she wore! Patience was not a particular strong suit, and it had been badly taxed by the day, by the week. Yet Gina too sensed that there was something more to this kiss, to this dance of offering and accepting. There was a new layer of vulnerability, of course, for both of them, and a depth of hunger she had not previously known...but, even beyond that, a promise she could not fully define.

I promise not to leave? I promise, even as I come to know the worst parts of you, which I will, and sooner than either of us would like, to remember the better? I promise to make you feel just a little less alone, to stay close to your side as we walk through places we should fear, and we do fear, but less so together? All of these, and more, but the power of rational thought was quickly leaving Gina.

Best, then, to leave it behind before it could desert her. Gina moaned into Cal's kiss, a soft, hot sound, her hands reaching for his free one and guiding it to the hem of her teeshirt. It was unusual of Gina to ask permission, to ask for anything in bed- she found her own pleasure with other men, even told them what to do, what not to do. Cal was steadily proving to be unlike other men, and so it seemed....natural. Correct. True.

 

[Light Ice]

Beneath her touch, Cal bristled. A shiver arching through his rugged frame, bracing corded muscles under slender fingers and against the soft, coltish spread of her thighs. It'd been the sound, the tremble of her breath against his lips and the sweet, sultry little sound of want that she'd keened into her kiss. It had carried a potency with it, a certain impact that resounded through his frame and left him disarmed and suddenly, abruptly, Cal felt naked against her. Want, pure and unbridled, surged through him again. A rawer form of the feelings she had stoked in him. It was the quiet push he needed to sink entirely into this moment, submerge himself in the tide-like awareness of her that had steadily been building. Now, instead of the room's clean air he breathed only her. The wet, sweet scent of her breath as she gave herself into the kiss. The taste of her tongue and lips against his as they clashed together in the dark.

Beneath his hands, the smooth and lean lines of her body stretched out and he selfishly explored them. Calloused and scarred, Cal's fingers glided smoothly over the satin of her skin. Her taut little belly gave to narrow ribs. Hips that narrowed to a trim waist. A back that held a distinct line and soft valleys leading upwards. He'd have ignored her entirely, left her shirt as it was, except the fabric hugged her tight and caught on his wrists while his hands roamed beneath it. It was forced up, catching for a moment beneath her modest breasts before finally popping free and sliding up to reveal the fabric of her bra and the fair skin of her middle.

The sensation of it's release was enough to drag his eyes down, to momentarily leave his head bowed and their lips parted. Cal's forehead rested against her own, his breath leaving him in hot little huffs, as his eyes tracked a dusky and masculine gaze over her.

She was beautiful. Not subtly so. There was no understatement in the body under his hands, no gentleness in her look. She was stunning. Striking. The quality extended beyond bared skin and bra-clad breasts, beyond slim hips and sharp eyes and full lips. It was a quality less aesthetic and more elusive, exuded in every element of the woman he'd run into. A raw, potent appeal. She was the kind of woman any man would want and want badly.

Or maybe he was just wired to want her.

Either way, he pulled her close. Aware that there was something drawing him to Vegas, as certain that something was drawing her to Colorado. Aware that something else entirely had found them here together, tangled up in this. It wasn't so strange then for him to feel that this was right, that this was necessary. It wasn't so strange for him to feel like she should be his when he looked up to her, when his mouth found her own and his arms tightened about her lean waist until their bare bellies crushed together.

His prick ached. Thick, rampant with want, trapped between their bodies and against the hot line of her jean-clad sex.

And that was enough. That, and blind hope, for his fingers to come 'round to graze her bare belly and find the clasp of her pants and free it. He was certain there was more than just satisfaction to be found in Gina's arms. Cal kissed her. Felt his teeth catch her lower lip and sink into its soft line when she threatened to pull away and realized that he believed that there was something far greater than satisfaction working here.

Salvation.