Dawn Breaks (Nel + Murdoch)

[Murdoch]

"A tiny noise," he conceded, and continued pressing occasional kisses to her flesh until he'd worked his way back up to her mouth. And then, of course, he spent a good long time kissing that.

"Mmmph. I suppose breakfast wouldn't go awry," he finally chuckled, since his stomach started rumbling as well. He couldn't really remember the last meal he'd had. At the Golden Dragon, maybe? That was days ago, now. "Okay, I'll go down and get us tea, and maybe some bread or something. You cut up the apples. We'll reconvene here in ten minutes." He could almost be misconstrued for a military man, problem identified, solution determined, plan executed. Except for the truly lascivious grin that speared across his lips as he ran his hand back up the pale length of her body and tangled it in her hair. "As difficult as it is to leave you here looking all sultry and adorable," he snickered.

[Nel Sayo]

She melted into that kiss, warmth threading keenly through her limbs, enlivening the cool pallor of her skin with a dusky blush. When it broke, and his stomach rumbled, she let out just the breath of a sigh and close her eyes for a second. Listened to him marshal up his strategy for breakfast, but found that the monster in her belly had gone suddenly quiet. How remarkable.

She opened her eyes again as his fingers curled into her hair, tipping her face to peer up at him. It may have flickered through her eyes: how she wondered when all this would stop, when this Murdoch would disappear and the real one would return. He couldn't be very far away, she knew.

"Don't go," she murmured, though whether she was asking him not to go get them tea, or asking the nice Murdoch to stay, well, it was hard to say. Probably both. But more of the latter. "I mean. There's still tea from last night, we could reheat it. And you can just eat the apple, without cutting it, if you're hungry. If you're that hungry."

Her fingertips went gliding up his arm, over the multitude of scars embedded in his skin, across the long, angry one that twisted over his collarbone.

[Murdoch]

His smile remained, teasing and light, as she asked him to stay, and as her hand drifted up his arm.

But the smile vanished and a shudder stole over his body as cool fingertips brushed against the scar his brother'd left him, hard enough to shake the both of them. Muddy eyes slammed shut as soft memories tip-toed across the backs of his eyelids, horror and tenderness now intertwined, bridged with flashes of opalescence like candlelight glinting across scales. A dozen women had smoothed a hand over that scar before, but not one had known where it came from, what it'd cost him.

His breath hissed between his teeth, and when the shudder finally passed it left him tense and hunched over, bent at the waist as if someone had punched him. The hand that had been looped in her hair before this began was now twisted viciously - likely painfully - into the pale curls. But it wasn't to hurt her, or to drag her away and down the stairs as she'd feared the night before; it was as if he'd clung to her, held on to her to weather the storm.

Dark eyes slid open, then widened in surprise, as if he'd expected himself to have done something much worse in those moments when his body reacted without thought.

His flexed his fingers, forcing them to let her go, and the joints creaked a little so near to her ear. "Always pushing," he murmured, something grouchy and chastising in his rumbling words, though for himself or her was unclear. "You warm the tea then," he sighed, falling back against the bed and forcing his hands down to his sides, pressed flat against the mattress, unsure himself whether it was to keep from hitting her or reaching out and pulling her closer.

His thoughts chased each other in little circles, She has to go now, I can handle this, She's dangerous, She can help you, until he felt dizzy and sick with it. Cracks in his armor did not agree with him, weren't meant for the light of day.

[Nel Sayo]

She slammed her eyes shut when he hissed, certain he was going to hit her again; and when his fingers wrenched into her hair she swallowed a whimper, kept it locked in her throat and even held her breath so that it wouldn't get out. Her hands caught his shoulders as he hunched, as though she might hold him back, but her elbows never locked. She just rode through it with him, and didn't struggle, didn't try to fight him, because she knew instinctively that it would only make it all worse.

Slowly, as those long few seconds ticked by, her fingers flatted over his shoulders in something that was more supportive than it was defensive. Even though his hand had tightened into her hair so hard that it brought tears to her eyes, she didn't push him or try to twist free; she simply endured it.

When it began to ease, she finally released the breath she was holding, in the same moment he flexed his fingers loose from the curls of her hair. Her eyes opened, and she stared roundly up at him. She didn't move for a moment, after he'd collapsed beside her, just remained curled up and a little nauseated by that sudden pulse of emotions. He may have been confused, but that great darkness he carried around with him made her head swim.

Eventually she sat up, catching up the sheet to wrap about herself like a gown, and got to her feet, knuckling a tear out from beneath one eye. Likely the closest thing to a dress he'd ever seen her wear, would ever see. Without a word, she went to the hearth and stirred the coals, settling the teapot in its place to warm. As it did so, she paced back over to the bed and sat down on its edge, by his hip. Tucking a silvery curl behind her ear, she twisted a little to peer down at him. Not touching him at all, but her eyes likely touched places of him he'd long forgotten were still alive.

"If you tell me what I do that makes you react like that," she murmured. "I won't do it anymore."

[Murdoch]

He didn't stir until she spoke again, when he opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling. He didn't know what was going on with him, hadn't ever dealt with anything like this. Doc was a man who cruised through life on instinct, let himself be tossed by whatever wind happened to blow, clawed what he could out of what opportunities were thrown his way. He wasn't used to self-evaluation, didn't think there was anything to evaluate. He didn't know what to do when this sylphine woman showed up and blew the doors off of everything he thought he knew about himself.

A lurch of stiff limbs had him sitting up, an arm nestled against the length of her spine. A sigh brushed warm against her shoulders before he finally pressed a kiss to the side of her neck.

"I don't know," he said softly.

He'd meant to say something else, something trivial and joking, something to lighten the mood, but there was some deep part of him that was too tired for that right now.

She wanted the nice Murdoch to stay, feared the real Murdoch that lurked beneath it, but there was no way to tell which facet of him was truest. Maybe they were all true: frightened child and charming lover and raging sociopath, the lines blurred between them and all of them indelibly stamped on his soul. Maybe there was something left in him to be fixed, or maybe the fixing of one would destroy the whole of him. Maybe there really was nothing left alive in him but self-preservation and greed.

"I guess I'm just not used to having anyone around," he finally breathed, looping an arm around her waist and pulling her back into his lap. Yes, that was it. Had never had a woman in his apartment, had certainly not had an actual lover in over a decade. His mind shied away from that, too, and he swallowed harshly and forced a grin to his lips. "I'll get better. Getting better already," he comforted her, and the confidence returned to his voice, easy and self-assured. Good ol' Doc.

[Nel Sayo]

She turned her face, chin tilted along the line of her shoulder, when he sat up. Pale eyes watched him, achingly open and beautifully accepting. Perhaps she'd known even before she asked the question that he had no ready answer for her, and that was fine. Just that he hadn't hidden beneath a joke; she was stunned by his honesty. A blush spiked into her cheeks when he bent his head to brush the kiss to her throat. As though, of all the things they'd done the night before, that gesture embarrassed her.

But she curled up willingly in his lap, settling against him as though she'd simply been made to fit there, trailing sheet and all. Her temple brushed he slope of his jaw, and she shrugged a little. It wasn't that she wanted one version of him over the other, or that one was real and one wasn't, it was that she wanted them all to solidify into him, just Murdoch, but she knew what she was asking for, so she didn't actually ask for it. No doubt, there were myriad versions of Nel as well, he just hadn't stumbled quite so perfectly upon the parts of her that she refused to share.

"You're fine," she said, answering his grin with the flicker of a smile. Nel took everything in stride. "I just...if you think of anything, let me know. It's not...I just don't like upsetting you."

She truly didn't. Whether or not he hurt her in the process. Bruises and scrapes she could deal with, had always dealt with.

[Murdoch]

He hated her, a little, whenever she looked at him like that - so trusting, as if he'd hung the moon, was worth trusting. It was foolish of her, and she knew it too, and so he hated her for being able to look at him like that even when she knew it'd hurt her in the end. It was stupid, he thought, and he told himself he put up with it because there was something he could gain from it, not because it fascinated him or astonished him, made him wonder how in the world she managed it. Easier to just hate her a little, and bury everything else beneath that.

"Well I don't particularly like being upset, little swan," he laughed, his grin unfaltering. "So if anything occurs to me, you'll be the first to know."

After all, who else would he tell? It's not like he had any other friends.

So he just kissed her again, and kept kissing her until the teapot started bubbling and he let up with another laugh. "All right, you make the tea, I'll get the apples," he chuckled, boosting her easily up to her feet before climbing to his own. He was heedless of his own lack of clothing, simply padded over to the water basin and dunked his head, scattering droplets of water everywhere as he shook his head out. And then blinked at her through wet, spiky black lashes and did his best to look completely lost without his tea. Even made grabby-hands at her for it.

[Nel Sayo]

Nel was so used to hiding her skin, at all costs, that even with him she felt a little exposed suddenly. Daylight struck her shimmering, lent the outline of her figure entire an almost ethereal glow, like she might float away on a glance of sunlight, like some life-sized mote of dust. She actually shed the sheet in favor of her nightshirt, which covered her to the knees and bore long sleeves, into the cuffs of which she tangled her fingers so that she could lift the pot from the hearth and fill two mugs.

She might have supposed he hated her a little. Syon had hated her a little. He'd done his best to hide it, to keep it tucked deep down somewhere, but she'd sensed it -- acutely, in fact, in those few moments they ever found themselves alone together. She'd never told him, because it wasn't in her nature to force an issue like that. But she'd known it was there, that resentment, that confusion, like he wanted to shake her so hard that her whole self rattled and fell to pieces, so he could put her back together again the way he wanted her. Thick-skinned and fearful. Unable to laugh through kisses meant to steer her off-topic.

But she could laugh, and did.

She nodded to one of the mugs, indicating which he could take. The one that was no doubt spiked with enough sugar to kill a herd of cattle.

"Here, here," she laughed at him. "Take that one. Apples, though! I'm starving."

[Murdoch]

He curled his fingers around the mug with a satisfied smile, then snatched up the two apples and crawled back into bed, dragging the blankets over him to ward off the still-chill air of an early Spring morning. He did, of course, leave room for her to snuggle in next to him.

He shoved one of the apples into his mouth and held it with his teeth and held the other up in offering to her. And if it was the bigger of the two, well, he probably just didn't realize it.

He caught the mug of tea between his knees and chomped down on the apple, catching it in his free hand as he chewed his way through the first bite. "Oh," he muttered around bits of apple as he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, "I suppose we should probably go bring that purse to your friend and have me apologize for it. Won't do to have the Knights knocking down my door. Or you still pissed at me," he said with a wink.

[Nel Sayo]

She left her mug of tea on the table to cool off and clamored onto the bed, snatching the apple out of his hand as she collapsed beside him and drew up her knees, her shoulder comfortably set against his arm.

No answer came to him for a few minutes, as she bit into the apple and then thoroughly chewed it, staring down at it while she thought. Her expression wasn't dark or concerned, just thoughtful, and eventually her eyes lifted and sped over to his in a glance, and she shrugged.

"I'll bring him his money myself, maybe you should just stay out of it. You don't have to apologize."

Which could not have been a more complicated sentence, really. She didn't want him with her when she went to talk to Sam; she wasn't angry at him for stealing because that's just what he did. Things twisted beneath those words that she tried to flatten out and glisten, but in the end it was impossible. So she took another bite of her apple, and shrugged again.