Fascination

by Megan Reilly

April 17, 2000 - April 18, 2000

Disclaimer: Still not mine...I would never cancel a show after 3 episodes.

Thanks: HRfic folks who had suggestions...this didn't quite end up where I expected it to, but hopefully you'll enjoy it anyway.

Archive: Thanks for archiving! :) If I'm ever able to access my webpage again I'll send links to the stories.

Fascination

by Megan Reilly

Was this what it felt like?

She didn't know; could only guess. It felt foolish. She couldn't remember when it started, this inability to take her eyes off him. The contrast between the gentle restraint in the movement of his long fingers and his harsh, sarcastic words had the power to make her stare...wondering...until he turned.

If it had been anyone else, he would have issued a challenge: "What're you looking at?" But to her, he merely raised an eyebrow, almost a pointed salute. Not even curious enough to ask.

Of course she didn't smile. Just looked back, until it seemed their eyes had met for too long and his gaze slid away. She took a shallow breath. Did she even cross his mind?

When she happened to glance his way again, his eyes were on her. A hard stare. She felt hot and shivered at the same time. This time she was the one who looked away.

It was her turn to cook dinner. It didn't matter who fixed it, really. Stale canned food over a surreptitious fire never tasted any different and was impossible to ruin. "Dinner," Hobbes said to Pinocchio, who sat some distance away on a log, his back to them, almost indistinguishable from the forest in the darkness.

Dexter's white form dashed over to him, and Pinocchio shoved him away with such force the dog yelped in surprise. Hobbes was on his feet in a second. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he yelled, picking up the dog protectively. "Your dinner's ready."

Pinocchio still refused to respond. Hobbes turned away from him, disgusted, and helped himself to the makeshift stew. "Thanks," he said to Florence, and she nodded. She put some of the stew into a bowl for herself and sat back, eating quickly. But she couldn't keep her eyes from wandering over to the outline of Pinocchio's broad back in the darkness.

"I don't know what gets into him," Hobbes said to her. She glanced over and saw he was letting Dexter lick the spoon he was using. She frowned, but he didn't seem to understand her concern.

"You think I can't hear you, asshole?" Pinocchio's voice was gruffer than usual. She looked up and he startled her. She hadn't heard him approach. He scowled at her and grabbed the soup pot and moved off quickly.

"Where I come from, we thank a lady for cooking our evening meal," Hobbes said.

Florence rolled her eyes. He wasn't *that* much of a hick. He was goading Pinocchio. Maybe there was something strange in the air or the moonlight, making them all crazy, she thought. She watched Pinocchio eat his soup. He shook his head slightly, like he would if a mosquito brushed his cheek, like he could feel her watching him. Then he threw the soup pot aside and stalked off.

She looked at Hobbes as they heard the car cough to life.

"Time away might do him good," Hobbes suggested, spreading out his bedroll on the soft ground. "Dinner was great. Thanks." He lay down, watching the thin curl of smoke from the low-burning fire rise up into the trees. Deciding if it was safe to let it burn out of existence, or if he should help it along before they were discovered.

She started cleaning the dishes, thinking about how where *she* came from, when the women cooked, the men washed up. But her mind was on Pinocchio and where he could go in that car. How much trouble he could get into. She packed their few things back into her bag and leaned against it, watching the woods. She wasn't going to be able to sleep. Not until he got back.

Hobbes half-woke when she got to her feet. "Where're you going?" he mumbled, sounding boyish in his sleep. Dexter circled her feet. She made a gesture at the woods and he said, "Oh." Then he called Dexter back, to keep the dog out of her way.

Except she wasn't going into the woods to take a leak in private. She couldn't sit still, her mind full of how long he'd been gone and what he must be doing. No matter how many times she told herself the thoughts were ridiculous, she couldn't make them go away.

She didn't used to care. Before Hobbes turned up, Pinocchio was just another guy. He went his way; she went hers. He had common sense and survival instincts and she respected that. She wasn't even sure how she'd ended up on this journey with them. It just was.

Sometimes that had to be enough. Why was Santiago a dictator? He just was. Why were they on the wrong side of the fence? It just happened.

Why was she suddenly, inexplicably in love with Mike Pinocchio?

She just was.

She'd walked in a circle, almost all the way back to camp. A sound brought her out of her reverie and she looked around, expecting attack from all sides. What she found was Pinocchio, sitting on the ground with his head against the door of his car, dead drunk. She'd gotten pretty close before she realized he wasn't injured and when he opened his eyes she held her breath.

"Too drunk to drive," he said, a wry smile twisting his mouth. She didn't move, frozen there, half-leaning over him, so close she could smell him: sweat and dirt and something more. He glanced up and met her eyes. Scalding with intensity.

He took her hand and she lost her balance. For a second, he tried to steady her, then he changed his mind and pulled her into the fall against him. "Maybe I'm not the only one," he mused. He wasn't talking about being drunk.

She knew she should get out of there.

"Oh Florence," he sighed, as though accepting the inevitable. His fingers moved through her hair, skimming against her scalp, his eyes slightly unfocused and completely uncynical. His lips parted and touched hers.

She yielded to the kiss. Needing it. She could taste the whiskey he'd drunk. Her eyes closed and her hands grasped tentative fistfuls of his shirt, uncertain whether she was protesting or clinging.

He shoved her away. Hard. She opened her eyes to see him lurching to his feet. Irrational panic threaded through her when she really should have felt anger at being discarded. She sat there in the soft dirt for a moment, looking at his unsteady gait. Her lips ached tenderly when she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She went after him.

He whirled on her, rage replacing the dullness in his eyes. He grabbed her arm, twisting it almost to the point of pain. "Stay away from me, do you hear me?" he demanded in a low, ugly voice. "I don't want this. I don't want you."

He glared at her and she glared back. He let her arm go. Before he had time to take another step, she socked him, her fist connecting with his cheek and satisfying her fury and pent-up feelings. She stalked back to camp. He didn't come back before she fell asleep at first light.

"Pinocchio, where's your car?" Hobbes' voice broke through her sleep and she roused herself, frowning. The sun was high in the sky and for a second she couldn't remember where she was or why she was sleeping on the cold ground in the woods. Or why her knuckles stung. It came back quickly enough.

"Look at you," Hobbes chuckled at Pinocchio.

"Shut up," Pinocchio snapped, and when he turned she saw the dark ring blackening his eye.

"Was it a bar fight, Pinocchio?" Hobbes asked. "Or were the whores in town not interested?'

He'd pushed Pinocchio too far. Pinocchio grabbed Hobbes, and Florence scrambled to her feet, honestly afraid he would kill the younger man. "You shut the hell up, Hobbes. You don't know what you're talking about." He shoved him and let him go.

Hobbes didn't go after him. He looked sufficiently shaken, and shot Florence a look that said "What's up with that?"

She just looked away and started breaking down the camp. Still feeling his mouth against hers. And shame.

She'd have to work harder, she told herself. Not to convince him to fall in love with her. She already knew that couldn't be done. But to drive him out of her head and her heart. None of them had time for this. She had the bitter wire of a fuse clamped between her teeth, a mound of plastic explosive between her hands. The Republican Guard were due any second. She didn't have time for stray thoughts.

The rumble of their trucks coming around the bend coincided with Pinocchio's soft "Hey," as he tossed the modified travel alarm clock at her. She caught it with one hand. Explosives weren't hard to come by, but finding a functional timer had been nothing short of a miracle. She put the fuse between its connectors. It was already set, numbers ticking down. She looked up at Pinocchio to see if he was ready. Without looking away from his face, she shoved the other end of the fuse into the explosive.

They ran, diving for cover just as the enormous jeep rolled over the land where they'd been crouched seconds earlier. Hobbes...where was Hobbes? She looked around frantically, feeling the seconds tick past inside her chest.

"It's okay," Pinocchio said. She had no choice but to believe him. "Get down." She didn't move fast enough to satisfy him and he pushed her down, half underneath him as they hid behind what was once a farmer's stone fence. The blast seared her skin a moment later, the concussion ringing in her ears.

He raised his head to peek over their shelter. "Got them," he said with cold hatred in his voice.

She just looked at him.

"But not Santiago." He didn't sound disappointed.

She could feel him breathing. She knew before he turned back to look at her that it was going to happen again. A delicious curl of anticipation flooded through her body. But he didn't look at her. Just shifted his weight slightly. Acknowledging their position. Not moving away. His chest heaved as he took a deep breath. His fingers brushed her chest, a fleeting touch, just enough to make her jump.

She would have thought he was teasing her if he hadn't seemed so tormented. She almost wished he was teasing her. Anything would be better than the waves of anger that radiated from him whenever she got too close. But she wasn't going to wait, wasn't going to leave this up to him. She touched his face, tracing the cheekbone that had still been swollen only a couple of days ago, where she'd punched him. He pulled in another strained breath and captured her mouth. His hands dug up underneath her worn shirt and she moved against him. Wanting more.

They didn't hear the footsteps, but they heard the silence. "I figured you two got yourselves blown up." It was Hobbes, his voice strange. The look on his face was utterly confused. Pinocchio didn't pull his hands away from her skin, but everything that had been driving them dissolved as Hobbes turned and walked away, his shoulders hunched.

Florence could just imagine Hobbes' thoughts at that moment. "Dearest Sophie, my companions are making like rabbits while I remain pure and chaste, filled with my love for you..."

Pinocchio sighed heavily and moved off of her. Her back was caked with mud. He sat a couple of feet away from her, his knees slightly bent, looking like he didn't know what to do. The Republican Guard vehicle was still crackling and smoldering on the other side of the low fence. Come to think of it, she didn't know what to do either.

Especially when he caught her hand as she passed by him, his touch so light it tickled. "Florence," he said, then seemed to run out of things to say.

She nodded, pretending to understand.

"It's not going to happen again," he promised, even as his eyes lingered on her mouth.

At least he wasn't drunk. And she hadn't punched him. Maybe this was progress, she thought. But progress toward what?

*************

They could have been in separate cells that night, each eating their cold dinners in different corners of the camp, trying to ignore each other. Florence was as guilty as the men. She could feel their eyes on her, but when she raised her head to look, she invariably found each of them staring into his plate.

"I feel like I've been dropped into Melrose Place," Hobbes said angrily as he scraped his plate clean. Dexter whined because he wasn't going to get any scraps.

Florence glanced at Pinocchio. She didn't know what Hobbes was talking about. From the look on his face, neither did Pinocchio.

"What the hell was going on out there?" Hobbes demanded.

"What the hell did it look like?" Pinocchio chided him, not without a trace of humor in his tone.

"Why?" Hobbes demanded. "We have a mission to accomplish."

"You're the one married to your mission, Hobbes. Not me."

Florence started to feel angry they were talking as though she wasn't even there.

"I just don't get it," Hobbes said. She looked at him sharply, taking that remark personally. "We're soldiers in a war that has to be won."

"All work and no play..." Pinocchio muttered.

She wasn't going to listen to this. She smashed her plate against the metal pan and it made a wonderfully loud clatter that interrupted the boys' bickering. She glared at them both, especially Pinocchio, then threw the entire mess on the ground and stomped over to the car. The door was unlocked and she climbed into the back seat, curling up in the dry heat of the enclosed car. Even though she couldn't hear them with the door sealed soundly behind her, she put her hands over her ears anyway and closed her eyes, too angry to sleep.

*****************

She dreamed about him. But it wasn't a good dream. He was cruel, purposely cruel, and no humanity survived in his eyes. Even the curve of his smile had changed, twisted into an ugly smirk that made her think of Major Waters. It made her feel unclean. And then there was fire all around them, and she was falling...

"Florence." She thought his strident tone was in her dream, at first, until she opened her eyes and the fire was gone, replaced by dry heat forced through ancient Chevy vents. "You were having a bad dream."

She shook her head, not wanting to admit it. Awake, the dream didn't seem like it should have been scary, but fear still hung like a film over her skin.

"You're okay now," he told her, surprisingly comforting.

She looked at him. What was he doing there?

"Trying to get warm," he said. He held up his hands, interrupting the noisy flow of air from the heater. His hair was wet and she realized she could hear rain beating on the windows. His clothes were drenched. "Hobbes has the waterproof sleeping bag."

She nodded, and lay her head back down on the cloth seat.

"I didn't mean to disturb you," he said. She knew that he knew he was disturbing her by saying it. He could have just as easily let her close her eyes and drift back to sleep.

She picked up her head. It wasn't very often Pinocchio wanted to talk. And she was a good listener.

"I don't know what he's so upset about," Pinocchio said, looking out through the windshield into the night where Hobbes slept under waterproof fabric.

Florence put her head down. She didn't want to think about it, and Pinocchio was lying. He knew. So did she. It was wrong. Not for any good reason, but it was still wrong. They had a mission. There was no time for this. It was already messing with their minds and the way they worked together. The team was too good to break up.

She relaxed when she heard the heater go off some time later. The door opened and she felt Pinocchio get out. She didn't open her eyes, not sure whether she was awake or asleep. She just knew she was tired, and she wanted to have a nice dream this time. She could do anything she wanted in her dreams and not have to deal with consequences when she woke up.

The door opened and a cold, wet gust of wind blew across her legs. She sat up, instantly alert. "I just want to get some sleep," Pinocchio said. And how could she tell him to go back out in the storm when she could feel how cold his skin was? The Chevy was an enormous boat of a car, but it shrank to the size of a Bug when he pulled the door closed. He bumped her knee with his accidentally. "There's room."

She didn't move. He could find room on the floor after the things he'd said to Hobbes, implying she was a willing, warm body and nothing more. The thought that it was probably the truth turned her muscles rigid as he slid against her, mimicking her position. He put his arm against her stomach like they were longtime bedmates and she was tempted to tear it off and throw it back at him. "You're so warm," he breathed, pushing his nose against her shoulder. His lips followed, sending shudders through her body.

His arm tightened, holding her tightly against him. She felt strange...and safe. She could feel his soft breath against her neck and knew the moment he fell asleep not much later. And she didn't mind. She almost felt better, knowing it was true, that he'd just wanted to get out of the rain.

They'd shifted position during the night, somehow, their limbs tangling. He was aroused and she had to pee, but neither of them moved. "Sunshine," he said, and she wasn't sure if he was referring to her so strangely or merely making a comment on the weather.

She brushed his hair back from his forehead, enjoying the limited opportunity to touch him. To feel close to someone who wasn't in terrible pain, torn and bleeding and dying, in desperate need for her to close their wounds and restore life as it slipped away. Except...wasn't that really what they were doing?

"We shouldn't do this," he said.

She agreed, but she'd moved on to touch his face. His skin was as soft as it looked.

"God, Florence," he said, but she didn't notice him moving away.

He groaned as she rubbed her thumb across his lips.

His eyes locked on hers and suddenly she felt scared again. He was right; they were doing the wrong thing. It wasn't too late to stop, to run away and never think back on this.

"I don't love you," he promised, barely louder than a thought against her ear.

I don't love you either, she thought. The Chevy's frame creaked mildly in protest as they pulled off the clothes that mattered and found a way to make everything fit. Minutes, hours...she couldn't tell. Didn't care. It wasn't wrong. It was exactly right. But as they lay together in the back seat afterward, quick breath slowing to normal, she didn't know what was going to happen next.

Hobbes was right. This was no time and no place for an affair.

But how could they stay away from each other?

She pulled her clothes back on and got out of the car. Dexter was sitting there, like he'd been waiting for her. She looked around, but the good sleeping bag was still zipped tight around a Hobbes-shaped lump. She headed into the woods, to be alone with her thoughts as much as anything. Except she didn't know what to think.

When she got back, he was scrambling eggs with one hand and gulping thick black coffee from a cup in his other. She moved silently and he didn't look up. She looked at the sun glinting off his hair.

It wasn't imagined and it wasn't proximity, she realized. She actually did love him.

"Florence -" he started to say, suddenly looking at her, but he was interrupted by the loud unzipping of Hobbes' sleeping bag. They both looked at the other man, watching him focus himself for the day ahead.

She never did find out what he'd meant to say.