Damn Good Times

[Tess Abrahams]

A stilted beat passed.

"Let me see," Tess said lowly. Her hands dropped from AIdan`s face to the zipper of his coveralls. The teeth snicked as the cloth unfurled to reveal the undershirt beneath, white cotton marred with sweat and oil and now, blossoming deep and dark, blood. Aidan`s fist was pulled away and Tess caught a glimpse of an ugly, ragged-edged gaping hole before he sucked in a breath and blood bubbled forth in a sick well.

"This is what happens when you`re not a team player." Tess said. She pressed her hand against the slippery flow and applied pressure, heart racing now for a new reason entirely. "It`s... it`s not so bad. You`re going to be okay, we`re gonna call an ambulance and... and you`re going to be just fine."

[Aidan Fox]

"I think there are a lot of emergency calls coming out of this neighborhood right now."

With a gritting effort, he managed to get on his feet in spite of Tess's protests, swaying only just a little. "It's not that deep. As long as I keep it under pressure, it'll be fine. We need to get out of here before--"

A revving engine a few streets over grabbed his attention, and he shot a haunted glance down the alleyway, but whoever it was wasn't coming for them. Yet.

[Tess Abrahams]

"How far do you think you`re going to get like this?" Tess countered fiercely. Aidan was far too pale to pull off the amount of stoicism he was going for. "Damn it Aidan, you need to go to the hospital, soon."

[Aidan Fox]

"I'm not too crazy about getting myself registered, okay?" Aidan gritted back. "Look, there's... there's an emergency clinic on Pierce Street, that's only a few blocks away. I can get there."

The rate of gunfire had abated, but there was a reason for that - sirens howled in the distance, and they were converging on West Adams, but they weren't ambulances. All things being equal, Aidan preferred to avoid their attention, too.

"Come on, let's get moving. All we have to do is--"

He heard the engine again - this one wasn't accompanied by a siren, and it was echoing all the way down the cul-de-sac. He heard it skip out of the big pothole he'd swerved around on the way in.

"Back into the factory! Come on!"

[Tess Abrahams]

The mean growl bounced behind them as they ducked through the rear doors. Aidan`s earlier precautions ensured that there was only one entrance point which offered an advantage - but unfortunately, with the Harley outside and the wreckage of the surrounding lot adding to the welded advertisement, it wasn`t hard to discern where they`d gone.

Tess had an arm around Aidan`s back, providing leverage so she could maintain pressure on his stabwound as they skittered across the factory floor. Her hands were covered in his blood and it dripped with every new movement, leaving a dusty trail of marks behind them. He was right - the hospital wasn`t an option, not for them, not when it came with a slew of caveats.

"You won`t make it to Pierce," she ground out as she tugged him toward a looming mechanical skeleton, a shield from which they would still be able to keep a line of sight on the exit. "Not now."

Beneath the wail of sirens and drawing closer was the sound of gravel crunching underfoot.

Tess pulled Aidan down until he was sitting with his back against rusted metal and lifted his shirt, mouth suddenly dry. "Do you trust me?"

[Aidan Fox]

Now that the adrenalin high was fading, Aidan felt muzzy and light-headed, which he recognized as the first tremors of shock. Funny what a few inches of sharp steel under your ribs could do.

"What, you packed some pressure bandages? Needle and thread?"

[Tess Abrahams]

"Something like that. Hold still, okay? You're gonna be fine."

As she said it Tess realized it was true. It was true because it needed to be true, because this wasn't how it was going to end. Not in some shitty, abandoned steel mill that reeked of dead hope and broken surrender. Not with Aidan making half-aware cracks that weren't really funny at all given the context.

With the saturated cotton out of the way, Tess could see now the spluttering mouth of the wound and she lay both her palms over it and closed her eyes, notrils flaring as she took a deep breath. It was there, a rushing symphony of thrumming life right beneath her fingertips and this time she didn't try and hold it back. The sensation rushed over Tess as a tidepool and a coastline, a swirling eddy of awareness that frothed and foamed higher with each passing second. Aidan's heart beat over hers, a heavy bassline, and his lungs were her lungs and she could taste the iron-sharp tang in his mouth and feel the chill whispering across his skin as intimately as though they were one and the same.

With a slow breath she opened her eyes in the rushing mass and it was to a cellular storm, tiny glowing motes that clung in humming congregations and together formed a dim outline of a human male. This was Aidan, laid bare in a way that no hospital could ever replicate, the bone-deep all of him.

Concentrating, Tess sifted through the dusty particles, ignoring the way they sang against her skin. There... a gaping black hole vacuuming up the surrounding blueprint where there should have been a buzzing cloud. Shaking she grabbed hold of the edges. It was like grasping a stiff breeze and for a moment the tug threatened to carry her away but then Tess pulled back, felt her footing regain inch by desperate inch until she was upright again and then she began to knit together the chaotic whirlpool in earnest.

Years passed, or so it seemed, before she drew away from the pulsing incarnation with a roaring sound between her ears. As her hands dropped from Aidan's chest - the bleeding slowed to a slow trickle - Tess heaved once and then drew a sharp breath.

The woman swayed for a moment, panting, and then opened her eyes. "Oink... was eas-easier."

[Aidan Fox]

It was a difficult feeling to put into words. You had to describe the feelings around the feeling to make any sense of it. Shock. Fear. Nakedness.

And trust. There was trust. But that was a decision, not a feeling.

Aidan felt the factory recede, and all the distances beyond arm's reach faded away. He didn't know how much of that was Tess and how much was his own blood loss. But Tess was there, undoubtedly. He felt her all around him, in his skin and in his bones, and he felt the sympathetic vibrations between them, like a buzzing in his very cells, and he understood the fear, the reflex to reject the foreign entity, to break off the connection while the boundary between them was blurred.

He was open to her, more open than he'd ever been to another human being - after years of guarding every word and action, now he was completely disarmed. And in an odd sort of way, it was a relief.

Aidan didn't know how much time had passed when the humming faded and the factory walls slowly shifted back into focus. But he knew Tess had been there the whole time, and she was still there, shaking, her brown eyes unsteady with exhaustion, and just when it looked as though she might tip over, he reached up and braced her shoulder, and then he realized his strength had returned.

"Tess," he whispered. And then he found all other words deserting him.

[Tess Abrahams]

His absence was a sharp contrast, the leeching recession of a flash flood that left everything hobbled and undone in it`s wake. Tess shivered and rested her forehead against Aidan`s, feeling the fading echo of his heartbeat ripple in the scant space between them.

"Don`t ever do that again," Tess breathed. Her throat was aching, the nearness of his accident registering with a swift kick.

Aidan. You fool, you could have...

When she kissed him it was a frantic, hungry thing, a confirmation that he was here and alive. Tess pulled away, blinking back bright tears. "Never again, Aidan Fox, you got that?"

[Aidan Fox]

It came as an epiphany, the discovery of something so familiar you felt you should have recognized it all along, and yet here it was, new and fresh and fragile and triumphant. Then Aidan's hand was in her hair, and he was pulling her close to him again to see if he could discover it again.

When they parted, both were breathing deeply, and the air was full of each other. "I'll do my best," he said, earnestly.

A parade of sirens wailed in the cul-de-sac outside, and there was a scramble of frantic feet and a muffled shout of "Police! Freeze!"

Aidan combed his fingers lightly through Tess's hair as a cop went to work on the back door where they'd forced their way in. "I think," he said, "we'd better pick this up later."

[Tess Abrahams]

48 Hours Later

With a gentle touch, Tess replaced the gauze over the healing knife wound, careful not to press the tape too firmly against Aidan`s bruised chest. Her hands slid down his exposed stomach and his muscles twitched at the soft brush of fingertips over skin. Slipping beneath the waistline of his broken-in jeans, Tess coyly tugged Aidan closer.

"It doesn`t look like it`s getting infected at least," she said, pulling him along as she got off the couch. A mixture of fond exasperation and coy delight swept over her features. "But we should probably change the bandage and then..."

It felt so natural to embrace him now, an instinctive slotting together that wasn`t shy or afraid. Tess kissed a line along his jaw, whispering in his ear despite the quiet emptiness of the house, "As your attending physician, I have to insist you get off your feet for awhile."

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan looped an arm around the narrow part of her waist, drawing her close against him. "Well, who am I to argue with medical science?"

With an impudent grin she pulled away and tugged on his arm toward the stairs to make those new discoveries all over again.