Mer sighs. It's not a gusty sigh, or a particularly manipulative one (which she is, she so is, and lies about; it's one of the few truly female traits of hers that John's found, as opposed to the multitude of Meredith-specific traits that defy gender expectations as well as, often, the expectations of plain old reality). There's just this long exhale of air, lungs deflating and taking her shoulders along with them into a slump that makes her head hang, just a bit, and her hair curl loosely around her neck.
Anyone else and John would be sighing too, matching the not-question with a plaintive little request of his own. It's a damn effective shaming technique. And John never claimed that he isn't manipulative.
Except it's Meredith, so chances are high that she doesn't even know what she's asking, let alone that her entire body is one curvy line of yearning.
She sighs again, and slumps, and starts listing to the left the way she does only when she's really exhausted and refused to admit it.
"Is there something fascinating about my back?" she snaps, voice dulled down to a curve instead of her usual sharp edges.
"I love your hair." The words come out unbidden, but he doesn't regret them. He does love her hair: a sweep of tumbling waves that tremble on the edges of being actual curls, each strand unsure if it's red or blond or maybe even pale golden brown. She's growing it out just for him and he's not at all ashamed to admit how much he loves to bury his hands in its mass, cupping the back of her head, rubbing his nails lightly along her scalp while silk drags against his skin, soft and sleek, and Mer just purrs when he does it...
John comes back to himself to see red-shot blue eyes staring at him. "You loving my hair is enough for you to go catatonic on me?"
"I was not catatonic, I was thinking."
"You mean there's a difference? Whatever. Is there a reason you're staring at me like something out of those terrible novels Simpson thinks I don't know about?"
"She leaves them out for you," John replies, lazily, "because it makes you turn funny colors." That, and he happens to know that Simpson doesn't like traditional Harlequins.
She's a Mills and Boone kind of girl.
"Oh she does - " Mer puts up a hand. It means stop, except how it mostly means I can't deal with this, I'm too tired, my eyes are aching and I don't know how to ask for things I don't understand how much I want. "Look, I need to finish this."
One day, Meredith is going to realize there's a whole category of things she can demand from John, quasi-humiliating things that he'll do without a even a flush of protest because it's Meredith, and he's John, and that's what they do.
Rising, he pushes until she squawks and slides forwards in the extra-deep executive chair she bullied out of requisitions. She thinks she bullied it, anyway; John has no intention of saying he put in a quiet word, and for exactly this reason. He doesn't think about that now, though, or that he's glad that he's so skinny from the hips down.
He just slides in behind her, legs straddling her ass until her warmth burns into him from knee to shoulder, drawing her back with arms wrapped tightly around her waist, her shoulder, tucking her head against the hollow of his own neck.
Time goes hazy for a while.
Her heartbeat is always erratic, less the arrhythmia the doctors confirm and far more a function of Meredith's crazy drive. It slows, though, gradually reducing from something that's better suited to a tiny bird and more an adult woman who is too exhausted to push herself as much as she does. Her breathing slows too, damp and humid against his throat, then replaced by the cool, heavy glide of hair as she nestles in more deeply and, incidentally, eases the strain on her neck.
"I'm not tired," she whispers, sulky as a child up past her bedtime.
"I didn't say you were, did I?"
"Not with words," she accusses. "I could still hear you, though. You were thinking it."
"Yeah," John says, clasping his hands tightly around his wife, listening to both of them breath. "You got me. New telepathy machine?"
She makes an outraged noise that no one else understands is mostly laughter, sighing again.
John thinks of it as thank you and I love you all tangled together like yarn, not one color or another but somehow still both.
It makes his chest feel tight and sometimes his eyes go blurry with something he doesn't dare name. So he holds her tighter and maybe they rock together a little bit, swaying to a sound only the two of them can hear.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 06:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 06:53 pm (UTC)I swear, you have the best pairingtaste ever. There's just something about Peter and Torquil, dammit.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 06:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 06:53 pm (UTC)*sympathetic hugs!*
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 06:53 pm (UTC)GOD I LOVE WELSH
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 06:54 pm (UTC)Someday we should have coffee. Lemme know if you're ever in Gloucester... ;)
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 06:46 pm (UTC)(and cops a feel while I'm at it)
no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 06:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 06:58 pm (UTC)Mer sighs. It's not a gusty sigh, or a particularly manipulative one (which she is, she so is, and lies about; it's one of the few truly female traits of hers that John's found, as opposed to the multitude of Meredith-specific traits that defy gender expectations as well as, often, the expectations of plain old reality). There's just this long exhale of air, lungs deflating and taking her shoulders along with them into a slump that makes her head hang, just a bit, and her hair curl loosely around her neck.
Anyone else and John would be sighing too, matching the not-question with a plaintive little request of his own. It's a damn effective shaming technique. And John never claimed that he isn't manipulative.
Except it's Meredith, so chances are high that she doesn't even know what she's asking, let alone that her entire body is one curvy line of yearning.
She sighs again, and slumps, and starts listing to the left the way she does only when she's really exhausted and refused to admit it.
"Is there something fascinating about my back?" she snaps, voice dulled down to a curve instead of her usual sharp edges.
"I love your hair." The words come out unbidden, but he doesn't regret them. He does love her hair: a sweep of tumbling waves that tremble on the edges of being actual curls, each strand unsure if it's red or blond or maybe even pale golden brown. She's growing it out just for him and he's not at all ashamed to admit how much he loves to bury his hands in its mass, cupping the back of her head, rubbing his nails lightly along her scalp while silk drags against his skin, soft and sleek, and Mer just purrs when he does it...
John comes back to himself to see red-shot blue eyes staring at him. "You loving my hair is enough for you to go catatonic on me?"
"I was not catatonic, I was thinking."
"You mean there's a difference? Whatever. Is there a reason you're staring at me like something out of those terrible novels Simpson thinks I don't know about?"
"She leaves them out for you," John replies, lazily, "because it makes you turn funny colors." That, and he happens to know that Simpson doesn't like traditional Harlequins.
She's a Mills and Boone kind of girl.
"Oh she does - " Mer puts up a hand. It means stop, except how it mostly means I can't deal with this, I'm too tired, my eyes are aching and I don't know how to ask for things I don't understand how much I want. "Look, I need to finish this."
One day, Meredith is going to realize there's a whole category of things she can demand from John, quasi-humiliating things that he'll do without a even a flush of protest because it's Meredith, and he's John, and that's what they do.
Until then, she's got him to translate for her.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 06:59 pm (UTC)He just slides in behind her, legs straddling her ass until her warmth burns into him from knee to shoulder, drawing her back with arms wrapped tightly around her waist, her shoulder, tucking her head against the hollow of his own neck.
Time goes hazy for a while.
Her heartbeat is always erratic, less the arrhythmia the doctors confirm and far more a function of Meredith's crazy drive. It slows, though, gradually reducing from something that's better suited to a tiny bird and more an adult woman who is too exhausted to push herself as much as she does. Her breathing slows too, damp and humid against his throat, then replaced by the cool, heavy glide of hair as she nestles in more deeply and, incidentally, eases the strain on her neck.
"I'm not tired," she whispers, sulky as a child up past her bedtime.
"I didn't say you were, did I?"
"Not with words," she accusses. "I could still hear you, though. You were thinking it."
"Yeah," John says, clasping his hands tightly around his wife, listening to both of them breath. "You got me. New telepathy machine?"
She makes an outraged noise that no one else understands is mostly laughter, sighing again.
John thinks of it as thank you and I love you all tangled together like yarn, not one color or another but somehow still both.
It makes his chest feel tight and sometimes his eyes go blurry with something he doesn't dare name. So he holds her tighter and maybe they rock together a little bit, swaying to a sound only the two of them can hear.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 07:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 07:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 07:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 07:14 pm (UTC)*cuddles anyways*
no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 07:02 pm (UTC)<3333
no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 07:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 07:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 08:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 09:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 09:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 07:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 10:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 10:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-09 10:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 12:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 07:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 01:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 01:29 am (UTC)As you wish! :D Never deny the hormonal anything, that's my motto... at least if you don't want stuff thrown at your head! *grins*
no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 07:28 pm (UTC)I used to have less hormonal moodswings, but now I have vague normality for the rest of the month, so I can deal with CRAZY for a few days. XD
no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 01:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-10 07:28 pm (UTC)