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eretriaTitle: Today's special: New York City Hot Ice Cream Soup
Author:eretria
Fandom: Fringe
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Olivia/Lincoln
Spoilers: season 4, especially 4.07 "Wallflower"
Size: ~ 7260 words
Summary: A black out and heat wave combine to melt some of Olivia's defenses.
Disclaimer: No profit gained or wanted.
Notes:Set sometime after "Wallflower" but before "Welcome to Westfield". Let's also assume that, sometime in between those episodes, it's summer.
My deepest gratitude, as always, goes out to my beta-readers,auburnnothenna and murron.
AO3 link: Here.
Even with the window wide open, the hotel room was stifling hot. The evening hadn’t cooled down much, so at eight p.m. it was still around ninety degrees outside. Which wouldn't be so bad if it was a) a dry heat and b) the air condition were working. But no luck on both ends. Of course it would have to be on a humid one hundred degree day that New York would experience another full black out that couldn't be resolved in an hour. Of course, this would have to happen during the week that Broyles, Lincoln and Olivia were staying in New York instead of going back to Boston. She envied Peter, Walter and Astrid for the coolness of the lab.
Thanks to the blackout, their day had been cut shorter than they all expected, leaving them to their own devices at four in the afternoon. She'd bid her goodbye to Broyles and Lincoln, walked out of the office building – and into a solid wall of sticky, oppressive, exhaust-laced heat.
She'd only stopped for a sandwich on her way to the hotel and even that had been too much already. By the time she reached the hotel, she was drenched in sweat and felt more disgusting than she had since doing a ten mile run in basic training.
Olivia had seen the footage of what happened during the last major blackout in 2003 and didn't even attempt to go to Central Park or Coney Island to cool off. The water would be off limits anyway if the Coney Island Wastewater Treatment Plant was forced to pump untreated sewage into Jamaica Bay again. And, pipe dream or not – she grinned and imagined that Lincoln would have acknowledged the pun with a sardonic lift of his eyebrow at least – she still hoped that this time around, the black out wouldn't last an entire day.
She had shed her suit and blouse as soon as she'd come into her room, happy to just lie on the more or less cool cotton sheets in bra and underpants after a quick wash up, arms and legs stretched out so no skin was touching and sticking. Usually, she’d have hit the hotel’s gym as soon as they were done for the day. Today, she'd taken one step into the no longer air conditioned hotel and decided that she would not move another muscle if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. It was bearable this way. Barely, but bearable. As long as she wasn't moving, there was no fresh sweat breaking out along her skin and she could imagine that there were other reasons for her to be lying on her bed in this position.
The first place her mind went to were lips touching right next to her belly button, dry, feather-light and gentle, and, whoa, bad idea, instant fresh sweat. She shook her head against the image, ignored the distant echo of Astrid's voice cheerfully insisting, "but he's cute," and the way her mind had even provided a familiar scent to the mental picture. She was wearing mis-matched underwear, for god's sake; her panties were blue cotton boy shorts that were faded with many washings and her black sports bra was no one's idea of sexy. Let alone that it was much too hot to be thinking anything along those lines. She'd told Astrid she wasn't going there. And she wasn't. No matter what had happened at the diner and how easy it had been to talk him.
So, ocean. Distraction. Ocean. A little game of anywhere but here brought her to the Atlantic, to a beach where she'd be alone, in the shade, in a hammock with the balmy breeze cooling her skin and only the occasional ray of direct sunshine tickling her nose when it filtered through the palm tree. She breathed deep, expecting to smell the iodine sharpness of the ocean and hear the lapping of the waves against the beach --
There was a knock on her door.
Desperately clinging to the image, she tried to ignore the first knock, hoping against hope that if something serious had happened, she'd have received a call until she remembered that the cell network was affected by the black out, too.
The second knock was a little duller, but more insistent.
Olivia climbed off the bed with a muted groan and the simple movement had her chest and back covered in fresh sweat in the blink of an eye. She pulled on the discarded tank top and suit pants she'd worn earlier, wincing at the dampness of the shirt and went to the door to check the peep hole.
Checked. Saw. Swallowed. Resisted the urge to rest her head against the door and groan Of course fate would just have to place the person she'd just been fantasizing about in front of her door. . The heat of embarrassment climbing up her cheeks made her even more uncomfortable. This just wasn't her day.
Straightening her shoulders, wiping at the layer of sweat on her upper lip, she pulled herself together, plastered a smile on her face and opened the door. "Lincoln."
Lincoln stood in front of her door with a smile that was half bravado and half shared misery, beads of sweat on his forehead and upper lip, suit still on but his tie crooked. He was flushed from the heat, and looked exhausted and miserable. He was also holding two cartons in his hand, making her wonder if he knocked with his elbow.
"Care for some ice cream?" He held the cartons up. The condensation from the waxed paper was trickling down his wrists and soaking his grey jacket into a charcoal shade. "I can’t guarantee there’s still ice in the cream, but it might still be cool. Ish."
Olivia broke into a smile when she heard him amend his words with a frown. "You’re a life saver," she said and meant it. "Come on in."
***
"So, where did you -- ?"
"The grocery owner down the street was giving it out. He said that with the freezers no longer working, he’d rather make a couple of people happy than mop it all up later. At least I think that's what he meant. He practically forced it on me in an interesting mix English and Chinese I couldn't even decipher," Lincoln shook his head, as though still dazed from his encounter. "I didn’t have the heart to tell him I couldn’t possibly eat two pints of ice cream on my own."
Olivia smiled again. "Sometimes I think you’re just too nice for this world, Lincoln Lee."
An embarrassed, half wistful smile flitted over Lincoln's face. "Robert used to say that, when …" he trailed off, voice c on the last syllable. He looked out the window, away from her, but she saw him blinking fast.
Olivia angled her body away from his to give him some privacy and kept quiet. This wasn’t the time for platitudes or gestures, no matter how much she wanted to squeeze his shoulder in a show of comfort. It hurt to see his face crumple and his shoulders hunch under the weight of the knowledge that the loss of his partner and the accompanying pain was going to stay with him forever.
To distract herself from remembering John and to give Lincoln the chance to save his face, she busied herself with opening one of the cartons. Chocolate peppermint crunch. That one was definitely going to be hers. "Did you bring a spoon?" she asked when she noticed Lincoln shaking himself out of the memories.
He cleared his throat and turned back to her. "Ah, yeah," he said, reaching into his jacket pocket and presenting two plastic spoons with a small flourish.
"Then how about you shed that jacket and the tie at least before we eat?" Olivia could have just thanked him for the ice cream and she knew he would have got the hint and left. She just didn't want him to be alone after her blunder. It was strange how protective she felt of him in moments when his vulnerable side became visible. She knew that she couldn't shelter him, and he would object to it just as much as she would, but it didn't stop her from hoping she could make adjusting to this life a little easier for him. Especially when adjusting meant dealing with his grief.
The way his look turned from baffled to grateful to quietly pleased told her that she'd said exactly the right thing. And maybe, just maybe she'd been waiting for that tentative smile and for her to be the reason for it appearing.
Maybe.
***
Lincoln went into the bathroom to strip and Olivia probably shouldn't find that as endearing as she did. It was what she would have done had their roles been reversed, though.
The door wasn't fully closed so she could hear the soft sounds of his jacket being placed on the lip of the bathtub and the buttons kissing the ceramic as well as the swishing sound when he loosened his tie. She had to admit to herself that a small part of her regretted not being able to at least watch him take off the tie. She'd had a fascination with them since she'd been a teenager and had never lost the thrill of watching a man hook his finger under the silk of the tie and pull the tight knot loose. She'd never been able to pinpoint exactly what it was that fascinated her so much. Maybe it was the neck muscles, stretched taut. She had noticed before that a long vein ran along Lincoln's neck muscles that was only fully visible when he was angry or stressed.
The water in the bathroom came on, followed by a trickling sound and a resigned sigh. The door was pulled open and Lincoln stepped out of the bathroom, barefoot now, his face even more despondent than before. He looked oddly naked in just the sleeveless undershirt and his dress pants and she couldn't help but wonder if she looked the same to him. "I should have seen this coming," he said, sounding as unhappy as he possibly could.
"The water pressure?" she guessed.
"Yeah." As miserable as he looked, he must not have been to his room before he came to hers, otherwise he would have already known that the water pressure was almost nonexistent thanks to the blackout.
"You came straight here?" she asked. She had already deduced it, but she wanted to hear him say it.
"Ah, yeah. Didn't want the ice-cream to melt and I didn't really feel like sharing with Broyles, so …" he trailed off and lifted an eyebrow which got him precisely the wide grin from her she knew he'd been angling for. He was good at that, she thought, grateful. She hadn't smiled as much before he'd become a part of her team.
"I really could do with a shower, though," he said and ran a hand along his bare arm with a grimace. "I'd rather not subject you to possible deodorant failure."
"I doubt your room has any more water pressure than mine."
"I hate to agree with you, though I'm tempted to try just out of courtesy."
"We can always stink at each other," she volleyed back, unthinking.
He blinked for a second, almost like he couldn't believe she just said something so crude, then gave a startled laugh that brightened his entire face and accentuated the dimples in his cheeks.
He shifted from one foot to the other after the laughter faded, clearly unsure of what to do and where to step next.
"Well, if you don't mind, I'm going to go to the bathroom myself and use what little water pressure there is to," she gestured toward her arms, "be less, uhm, sticky." Why the hell that mattered right now was beyond her. It wasn't as if she was touching anyone. "Why don't you go ahead and see if you can find a maintenance closet somewhere."
His eyebrows shot up at that. "Feel like hiding any bodies?"
Thank God for small mercies that he hadn't asked the question that had sprung to her mind just now. She gave her inner voice a time out, arched a brow at him in return, speculative, and said, "Maybe?"
"And when you're not pulling my leg?"
"When I'm not pulling your leg, I'd like you to find us a bucket and see if the ice machine down the hall still has ice."
"Okay." He stretched the second syllable, not sounding quite convinced. Since they worked on electricity as well, she understood where his skepticism was coming from.
"Just bring the bucket if there's no ice," she said and disappeared into the bathroom.
***
Olivia emerged from the bathroom, towel-drying her hair just as Lincoln stepped back into her hotel room with a bright yellow bucket in hand.
"Nice," she commented.
"I feel like a dozen of rubber ducks have been slain for this."
"Let's put their death to good use then. There seems to be at least a steady trickle coming from the faucet, so we can try to fill it."
"And then?"
"Up to your creativity, Agent Lee." Olivia gave him a wink. "But how about we eat the ice cream before it has completely turned into soup?"
"You go ahead and open the other carton and I'll take care of the bucket. Be right there."
When Olivia lifted both cartons from the desk she'd set them on, they already had large rings of condensation around them and were suspiciously soft to the touch, gone slurpy and liquid on the outside. She was glad to hear that the sound of water running wasn't any more faint than it had been when she'd wet her hair just now, otherwise they'd really be drinking their ice-cream before the bucket was even halfway filled.
Sticking spoons into both pints, she carried them over to the bed and sat them on the nightstand before she pulled the towel from her shoulder and placed it on the floor in front of the bed. Her hair slid against her bare shoulders, creating a blissful half second of relief against the sweltering heat. She'd rinsed off her arms when she'd been in the bathroom, but it hadn't helped, she already felt sweaty and sticky again. The only relief was that Lincoln looked the same, so it wasn't as awkward as it could have been. Also, in a way, she was almost grateful for the circumstances because they gave her the chance to look at him a little more than she usually allowed herself.
Lincoln emerged from the bathroom with the yellow bucket in hand. He'd managed to fill it pretty well, judging from the way the muscles in his arms flexed. Olivia found herself fascinated by the slope of his collarbone and the way drops of undried water glistened on his upper arms in the late evening light. His skin appeared golden in this light. Touchable.
Lincoln stopped when he caught her look. "What?" he checked the front of his shirt. "Do I have something – "
Olivia fought against the blush that was creeping up and said, "No, nothing. It's fine. Want to bring the bucket over here?" She gestured toward the towel on the floor.
"Right there?" he asked and nodded toward the center of the towel.
"Yeah."
He looked intrigued at the bucket as he sat down on the bed – she'd given him no invitation to do so, but was glad that he hadn't been awkward about just assuming. She reached for the ice cream cartons which were now both distinctly soft.
"I already called dibs on the chocolate peppermint. That leaves you the cinnamon bun." She handed him the carton.
"What if I hated cinnamon?"
"Do you?"
He flashed her a smile. "No. Actually I was hoping you wouldn't want it."
"And all is right in the world," she commented. "Apart from the black-out and the heat, of course. And the freaky monsters hiding in – "
"This is really good ice-cream," he interrupted her around a spoonful of ice-cream and lifted the carton in her direction. "You should try this really good ice-cream."
She blinked at him for a couple of seconds, trying to parse his intense approval of the ice cream, before wanting to face palm. "No talk of monsters tonight?" she guessed.
His eyes crinkled at the sides as he smiled. "Not if we can help it."
She pursed her lips, pretending to consider this. "I think we can," she agreed eventually and stuck her feet into the bucket with a sigh. They were going to take a time-out from monsters and Fringe events tonight. They damn well deserved it. Both of them. She slid her spoon into the ice-cream and filled it so full it threatened to spill on the way to her mouth. She bent forward a little to catch it and then closed her eyes in bliss as the cool flavor of the peppermint burst in her mouth and then slid down her throat, a cool, if only momentary, relief.
"Good?" he asked and she opened her eyes again to find him looking at her, his pupils a little wider than before but that amused, fond smile still lurking in his eyes.
She licked her lips and nodded and if she tried very hard, she could even ignore the way his smile faded a little and his gaze zeroed in on her mouth. "You?" she asked and gestured with her spoon to distract both herself and him.
"Mm-hm," he mumbled around another spoonful. "I should thank our good Samaritan again tomorrow."
Olivia watched his throat work as he swallowed, forced her gaze away only to end up watching him lick the spoon. Warmth pooled in her stomach. Warmth that came with an extra layer of sweat, of course, damn it. She curled her toes in the bucket. For god's sake, she needed to get a grip. "Yeah, you should," she said only to say something.
A couple of long, awkward seconds passed. This awkwardness seemed to accelerate the longer they spent time together outside of work. Olivia wasn't sure if it frustrated her or if she liked the anticipation. Lincoln saved the moment eventually by asking, "Want to try?" He held his carton toward her and gave an encouraging nod.
"Sure," she said. "You, too?"
"Sure," he answered and oh, weren't they just the people to write a new self-help book on how to make scintillating conversation?
They swapped tastes of their respective ice-creams and though she liked cinnamon just fine, she was glad she'd chosen the peppermint chocolate because, all in her mind or not, it felt even cooler.
"We're quite the conversationalists, aren't we?" he echoed what she'd just thought when she handed his carton back.
"Blame it on the heat. And the 'really good ice-cream'," she said, mimicking his earlier tone with a smirk.
They continued to eat in silence, looking out to see the setting sun reflect in the windows of the building across the street. She had cranked the window of her room open as wide as she could and so had the people across the street. Through one of them, the tinkling of piano filtered out.
Olivia let the carton sink, closed her eyes and inclined her head in the direction of the music. A slow smile spread over her face when she recognized the song. It grew deeper when she heard Lincoln start to hum next to her. His voice was a gentle tenor, warm and a little unsure on the higher notes but meeting all of them perfectly. Like him in a way, she thought and listened for a while. Upon opening her eyes again, she saw that he was mirroring her posture; head inclined toward the music, eyes closed. It was her one chance to look at him unabashed, without him noticing. She'd never noticed how long his lashes were until the sun was gilding them. Now that his glasses had slipped down his nose a little one more, she could see that his eyebrows were surprisingly thick. It was good to see the lack of the almost constant frown between them. His face had relaxed, though his nostrils flared just a bit when he inhaled for the next verse of the song. She'd wanted to smooth away some of the lines that were etching themselves into his face many times before and was glad she didn't have to do it this evening.
She really should stop, Olivia knew. He'd feel even more awkward if he knew that she was watching him. But feeling guilty about studying him too closely didn't stop her from continuing. Even if she painstakingly avoided looking at his mouth for too long. She'd noticed his lips before, back on that night in the diner, and she'd gone home to some rather interesting dreams. She wasn't going to make that mistake again, so she forced her gaze – which had of course turned to his mouth after all, damn it – away and to the side of his face.
His sideburns were dark with sweat. The vein along his neck that she had noticed before stood out in the way he was holding his head and she could track it down all the way from his ear to where it disappeared under his shirt. A bead of sweat trailed alongside it, slow, enticing and she wanted to trace it, feel it slide --
"Stars fell on Alabama," she said, deliberately forceful so she wouldn't squeak. A sheen of sweat broke out over her chest and back. God damn it, woman, what are you doing?
Lincoln stopped humming, his eyes flying open. He looked caught, as if he'd done something inappropriate. "You have a nice voice," she added, partly to make him stop worrying, partly because it was true and partly because she needed to say something to cover her own embarrassment.
She saw a blush creep up his neck. "I’m no Ella."
For a split-second, she wondered how he knew her niece and what she had to do with this before she realised that he was talking about Ella Fitzgerald. Glad for the tangent to distract her, she straightened her back and wriggled her toes in the bucket. "Short of a sex change, I don’t see how you could be, either," she quipped and from the corner of her eyes, she saw him crack the smile she'd been hoping for.
"I guess not." He pushed his glasses up his nose where they had slipped once more. "Someone like her is a once in a lifetime talent. I’m sad I never had the chance to see her live."
"Me, too."
His gaze snapped to her eyes, a surprised frown line appearing between his eyes. "I didn't know you were into jazz."
"I didn't know you were, either," she deflected. She didn't feel like talking about herself just now, so she lifted the ice-cream carton. "This was a good idea, by the way. Thank you for thinking of me."
"No one else I would have wanted to share with," he said and she saw that as soon as the words had left his mouth he wanted to take them back. "Here, I mean. In this city. Tonight." He clamped his mouth shut and a complicated sequence of expressions flickered over his face, finally ending on embarrassment. He sat the ice-cream carton down, ran a hand through his hair and looked away from her.
As much as she didn't know how to handle the honesty of his first statement, before the amendments, she hated that he felt embarrassed about it. She reached out and rested her hand on his lower arm, squeezing once, ignoring the dampness. "Same here."
He bowed his head and looked at her hand on his arm. A small, delighted smile kicked up the corners of his mouth, shadows growing deeper where his cheeks dimpled. The light of the waning sun, tangerine bleeding into magenta, reflected off his hair that finally looked a little ruffled. She felt loathe to take her hand away.
Glancing up at her from under the top of his glasses with what she'd come to know as his look of subtle mischief, he asked, "The partners that sweat together, stay together?"
"Something like that." She laughed and lifted her hand when her palm began to sweat right on cue. "Speaking of which," she continued, "You should take the bucket before the water's warm." She lifted her feet from the water, dripping, and sat them down on the towel.
"I can always get fresh water."
"If it's still running then, yeah."
"Good point."
He scooted a little closer to her on the bed so he could reach the bucket better, then lowered his feet into it with a sigh of relief. This close, the scent of his aftershave – something that always reminded her of the sea and open night skies, something that she'd come to look forward to first thing in the morning when he showed up at the office – was muted but still there, mingling with the scent of warm, sweaty skin.
"So," she said to distract herself from the direction her thoughts were heading, "when did you know you wanted to join the FBI?"
"I really didn't," Lincoln answered. "I was approached in college. They were impressed with my science achievements, apparently."
"What were your degrees?" she asked.
An eyebrow went up. "You mean you didn't study my file before I joined Fringe division?"
Of course she had. "Humor me."
"Applied Physics and Law."
She wrinkled her brow, just like she'd done back when she first read it. "That's an odd mixture."
He shrugged as if he'd heard that one before. "I'm an odd guy."
He didn't seem inclined to elaborate, so she asked, "They approached you and then … what?"
"The usual. Tests, more tests."
"Didn't you just love the fitness test?"
"The one minute sit-up check especially, yeah."
"What was your score?"
He rubbed the back of his neck. "Forty. I went in a little overconfident."
"I hated mine, too. I was never bad at sports, but that one nearly killed me."
"So what was your score?"
"Fifty-five."
His eyebrows shot up. "Fifty-five, that's, what, eight points on the scoring scale?"
"Nine," she admitted.
"Nine. In the first out of four tests, where you only need twelve points altogether," he commented, dry as dust. "Why am I not surprised?"
"I trained." She knew she sounded defensive but couldn't help it.
"Again, I'm not surprised." Lincoln rubbed his right foot over his left shin, making the fine hair darken as it became wet. "You never wanted to be anything else, did you?"
Olivia looked out the window, ran the fingernail of her right index finger over a seam in the sheet and contemplated his question. "No," she said eventually.
"Lucky you." It didn't sound bitter. It sounded wistful.
She turned to him with an inquisitive gaze.
"I guess I'd have been happier if I'd known what I wanted earlier." He looked down at his feet and wriggled his toes so the water lapped against the side of the bucket. "Would have spared me a lot of drifting, many bad choices and many disappointments. Stopped me from being lonely a lot. Gained me more friendships."
She knew better than to interrupt, so she just splayed her left hand between them on the bed; not quite touching him, but close enough so he knew she was there, listening.
"Robert and Julie changed me. Rooted me. I guess that's why they asked me to be Amy's godfather." He laughed, self-deprecating. "Poor kid kind of got the boring uncle."
"She's got the best uncle she could wish for," Olivia said.
Lincoln gave her a doubtful look from the corner of his eyes. "Still boring."
"Nothing wrong with boring." She shrugged. "We can't all be social butterflies. God knows I'm not."
"Could have fooled me," Lincoln commented with a wink.
"Funny." She felt the urge to stick out her tongue at him, a childish urge she hadn't had in years. "Now give me that bucket back."
His smile grew wider as he watched her lift the towel with her toes and she smiled in return when she saw what had caused his amusement – her toenails were painted a bright purple.
Olivia gave a small, self-conscious shrug. "Girl's night with my niece a week ago." She's spend the weekend with Rachel and the kids while Rachel's husband was out of town, much to Olivia's relief. "She's only seven, so I wouldn't let her paint hers. Which meant that I had to agree to let her paint mine. And let her choose the colour."
"Can't wait for the day that Amy gets that idea in her head."
Olivia bit her lip. "I'm sure purple would look good on you."
"I think I'd go for pink," he deadpanned. "With sparkles."
She threw her head back and laughed, the kind of full belly laugh she so rarely allowed herself. It felt good. Comfortable, despite the fact that she was sweating again. "So much for the boring uncle," she said, breathless, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes.
"If I take off the glasses, I'm actually Superman," he said, pushing the glasses down to give her a short-sighted look over their rim.
Olivia collapsed into helpless laughter for the second time in minutes.
"Don't think that you can distract me, Agent," Olivia said when she could breathe again. She nudged the side of the bucket with her toe. "Bucket. Now."
He rolled his eyes with a put upon sigh. "Bossy."
With her feet at the side of the bucket already, his wet toes brushes hers as he lifted them out of the water and they both jumped as though jolted, then laughed, embarrassed. She really didn't need the extra heat climbing up her face just now. Inwardly, Olivia rolled her eyes at them. Teenagers couldn't have behaved any more awkwardly.
Trying hard not to look at him, her gaze fell on the ice-cream carton she's sat down on the bed beside her earlier. "Oh, damn."
"What?"
She lifted the carton, gave it a little shake and showed the swishing, liquid content to Lincoln. "Houston, we have soup."
This, in turn, sent Lincoln into a fit of laughter, which surprised her. Olivia watched him, watched his dimples deepen and his teeth flash white in the growing darkness and found herself more than pleased that she could return the favor. She didn't normally make people laugh. Not like this.
When his chuckles subsided, he reached for his carton and saluted her. "It's liquid at least, and we need to hydrate anyway, so …bottoms up?"
She didn't comment on how drinking molten ice-cream wasn't on any list of things to do in order to hydrate, but said, "Bottoms up."
She set the carton to her mouth and watched him do the same over the rim of it.
A pigeon flying past their window at breakneck speed made them both flinch and she felt some of the molten ice-cream spill over her upper lip and dribble down her chin. Cursing under her breath, she sat the carton down and wiped at her chin. When she looked up again, Lincoln was smirking at her.
"What?" she asked.
"Pigeon scare accident," he explained. His eyes were bright with mirth. "You have an ice-cream beard."
She snorted an inelegant laugh. "Well, join the club." She gestured toward where a dribble of ice-cream stained his chin. "You have an ice-cream goatee."
She poked out her tongue to lick her upper lip and saw him raise his hand to his chin, wiping part but not all of the ice cream smear away.
She batted his hand away. "Let me."
He rolled his eyes. "Yes, mom."
Olivia scrunched her nose at him. "Blame it on my niece." She raised an eyebrow. "May I?"
Lincoln dropped his shoulders and lifted his chin in her direction, still with that amused spark in his eyes. "Go ahead."
Olivia raised her hand and crooked her index finger slightly and touched the sticky spot of caramel colored ice-cream just in the dip between his chin and his lower lip. She'd seen the first hint of stubble glinting in the evening sun earlier, now she felt it, too. Over the rasp of the stubble, she moved the smear up toward his lip and stopped there, unsure how to continue without this becoming wildly inappropriate. Olivia swallowed, felt as though time trickled to a stop. She was ensnared by his lips, soft and full, gently curved, and she couldn't look up into his eyes because she didn't want to see what she'd see and she wasn't sure if she'd have the strength to ignore the pull in her stomach, the way her upper body already angled toward his.
He saved her the trouble of making a decision and opened his mouth slightly so his upper lip touched her finger, closed over the pad of her index finger and took the sweetness with it; gentle, with just a hint of dampness from the inside of his upper lip. As gestures went, it was over quickly and innocently enough that she could pretend it was all just playful behavior between colleagues, if only her heart would stop hammering against her chest. If she wouldn't feel a flush that had nothing to do with the heat outside creep up her cheeks. If her mouth didn't go dry as the damn Sahara.
Just colleagues. Yeah, Dunham. It seemed that she had rented an entire fleet of ships on that river in Egypt and was happily sailing on it.
"My turn?" he asked and she was surprised to find his voice soft but steady.
She couldn't look at him, so Olivia closed her eyes and nodded. Sweat broke out over her back and her upper lip.
The bit of ice cream she had missed was at the corner of her mouth, apparently, because he wiped it away swiftly and without fanfare in one efficient move.
As soon as his fingers left her face, she felt like an idiot, wondering if she'd presumed, done something unwanted. Her answer came when his fingertips returned to her mouth, this time following the shape of her lips.
The feather light touched sent a spike of heat through her and she clamped down on the physical reaction hard but embraced the way her skin sang with his touch. She smiled and felt him tracing her smile all the way up to the corners of her eyes and despite her reasonable brain trying to cite all the reasons why this was a spectacularly bad idea, it felt … right. Good. Good in a way she hadn't felt in far too long. A low grade fever under her skin that didn't need to be acknowledged just yet.
So she inclined her head again, leaning her face into his hand. She heard his breath hitch when she covered his hand with hers. And she smiled. Smiled and felt her smile soak into his skin and be answered in kind even if she didn't see it.
She didn't kiss him. He didn't try. He just stroked her cheek with his thumb and she stroked his long fingered hand with her fingertips and she felt content. Happy. She could kiss him some other time, save up for that experience and imagine it a while longer and yet have the certainty at her back that he'd be there when she was ready.
Eventually, her back protested the awkward position and she raised her head again, opening her eyes. His hand glided to the side of her neck with the movement.
It was dark in the room. The true darkness that came with the lack of light pollution. She realised how tired she was.
"We should probably catch some sleep," she said.
She felt his exhalation against her skin, a promise, a tease. His hand began to slide away from her skin, reluctant.
"I'd better – "
"Stay," she said and was surprised to realize she meant it. She held on to his hand, found his palm and pressed her lips to the center. "Stay." She didn’t want to be alone tonight.
So after a bit of shuffling, they laid down, side by side, just their fingers touching. It was too warm even for that, but Olivia didn't want to let go.
"Good night, Lincoln."
"Good night, Olivia." His voice made her name sound like a caress, a promise.
Olivia curled her fingertips around his and listened to his breathing, knowing that he did the same.
She fell asleep with a smile.
***
The power came back on in the middle of the night, waking her up from the sudden cool blast from the A/C. She hadn't flipped any lightswitches when she'd come into her room in the evening so the only light to navigate by was the streetlight filtering in. She turned to her side and looked at the man next to her, sleeping deep and sound enough even the goosebumps on his arms didn't wake him.
Like a baby. Blissful. But no longer ignorant. Olivia remembered what Lincoln had told her about his difficulties sleeping and her heart grew wide when she realised what his sleeping next to her indicated.
She leaned on her elbow, took off his glasses and set them in the nightstand. When she rolled back, she leaned up again to brush her mouth against his brow, then pulled the top sheet over them and curled close to him.
His steady breathing and the scent of open night skies pulled her under again.
***
She woke in the morning to lips against her temple and sat up with a start, groggy and bleary-eyed.
"I'm heading to my room for a shower," Lincoln said to her and smoothed his hand over the bird's nest of her hair, trying in vain to tame some of the strands.
"That's hopeless," Olivia commented.
"I like the process of trying, though," he said, smiling at her, warm and fond.
"What time is it?"
"Just after six. I got a text from Astrid asking us to come back to Boston. Apparently Walter made some kind of a break-through in the shapeshifter tech."
She groaned and fell back against the pillow. "Much as I love the prospect of a long shower, sleeping in would have been better."
"I agree," he said, but without any of the innuendo she had expected. He trailed his fingertip over her knuckles. "You're up, so I'm going to head over to my room."
"You could have just gone."
"I wanted to see you wake up," Lincoln said and something in her melted at the earnest look on his face. "See you at breakfast?"
Olivia smiled at him and nodded. "Yeah."
***
They had breakfast while most of the other guests were still asleep which gave them the chance to enjoy the first pancakes fresh and warm the moment the kitchen staff placed them on the buffet.
They didn't talk much over the food, but she noticed him watching her dab her mouth with the napkin and caught herself watching him lick maple syrup off his lips. She watched him drink coffee and he watched her drink cranberry juice. His pupils dilated behind his frames when she ate a slice of orange and a bit of juice dribbled down her chin. He caught it with his fingertip and licked it off as if they'd never done anything else and they weren't in a hotel dining room where any time now, other guests could come filtering in.
It was only on their way out of the breakfast room and into the elevator, shivering a little in the full blast of the A/C and at the fleeting touch of his hand against hers that her mind decided it'd had enough of waiting and launched into the fantasy she'd had since she'd watched him lick his finger. She leaned against the elevator's wall, closed her eyes and didn't fight it.
"Let's try this again without the sweatiness and the heat," she would say, curl her hand against the side of his neck, stroking for the blink of an eye before pressing her lips against his with a smile she that would flicker on and off.
For a shocked second, Lincoln wouldn't react at all and she would wonder if she'd made a mistake. Then suddenly, he would breathe in, sharp, bury his hands in her hair and kiss back, with no pretense and no holds barred, as if a dam had burst. Olivia would rise up to meet him, feel her toes curl and her hands clutch at his sides when he would deepen the kiss, tasting of coffee and maple syrup. There would be no finesse to the kiss, just raw need and she would move closer to him to feel the hammering of his heart and the press of his chest against her breasts. He would groan and his hands would curl against her scalp, ten points of heat and pressure and she would back him up against the elevator's mirror, needing to keep him still and hear the low sound again he'd just made, the sound that would go straight to her belly, like a punch to the gut and she'd want, she'd want --.
Olivia's eyes flew open when the elevator pinged its arrival at their floor and door started to open. She only just had time to take a deep breath and swallow hard before the door opened fully and revealed Broyles.
"Good morning, Agents," he greeted and if he noticed the flush to her cheeks, he didn't let on. "You're up early."
"Astrid's text," Lincoln explained, his voice rough, and Olivia just couldn't look at him. "I received it at five this morning."
"Looks like it was another sleepless night in the lab, then," Broyles said. "Well, I hope you got some sleep at least."
"Yes, sir," Olivia and Lincoln answered at the same time.
An amused smile flickered over Broyles's face. "I'm going down to breakfast now. You still have the car keys, right, Agent Dunham?"
"Yes, Sir." They had left the car in the hotel's underground parking lot when they'd arrived and had used either the subway or taxis to get around New York.
"Then I'll meet you two down in the lobby in half an hour."
"Yes, Sir," she said.
They stepped aside to let Broyles enter the elevator and she watched the door close, still unable to look at Lincoln.
"Hey, are you all right?" he asked when the lift announced its arrival on the ground level and she still hadn't moved. "You look a little flushed."
She did turn to face him then and met the raised eyebrow and his amused look. He knew. The little bastard. "What an astute observation, Agent Lee." She schooled her features into a calm and professional mask. "Got any more where that one came from?"
He smirked at her but didn't answer. Wise move. Startled, she realized that she liked the playful smugness.
"Well, maybe you should tell me more about those exceptional observation skills of yours over an ice-cream tonight. I know a place that's open late."
"Are you asking me out on a date, Agent Dunham?"
"Are you going to refuse?"
Lincoln's smile was bright enough to light the hallway. "Wouldn't dream of it."
Her answering smile stayed with her all day.
Fin
Author:
eretriaFandom: Fringe
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Olivia/Lincoln
Spoilers: season 4, especially 4.07 "Wallflower"
Size: ~ 7260 words
Summary: A black out and heat wave combine to melt some of Olivia's defenses.
Disclaimer: No profit gained or wanted.
Notes:Set sometime after "Wallflower" but before "Welcome to Westfield". Let's also assume that, sometime in between those episodes, it's summer.
My deepest gratitude, as always, goes out to my beta-readers,
auburnnothenna and murron.AO3 link: Here.
Even with the window wide open, the hotel room was stifling hot. The evening hadn’t cooled down much, so at eight p.m. it was still around ninety degrees outside. Which wouldn't be so bad if it was a) a dry heat and b) the air condition were working. But no luck on both ends. Of course it would have to be on a humid one hundred degree day that New York would experience another full black out that couldn't be resolved in an hour. Of course, this would have to happen during the week that Broyles, Lincoln and Olivia were staying in New York instead of going back to Boston. She envied Peter, Walter and Astrid for the coolness of the lab.
Thanks to the blackout, their day had been cut shorter than they all expected, leaving them to their own devices at four in the afternoon. She'd bid her goodbye to Broyles and Lincoln, walked out of the office building – and into a solid wall of sticky, oppressive, exhaust-laced heat.
She'd only stopped for a sandwich on her way to the hotel and even that had been too much already. By the time she reached the hotel, she was drenched in sweat and felt more disgusting than she had since doing a ten mile run in basic training.
Olivia had seen the footage of what happened during the last major blackout in 2003 and didn't even attempt to go to Central Park or Coney Island to cool off. The water would be off limits anyway if the Coney Island Wastewater Treatment Plant was forced to pump untreated sewage into Jamaica Bay again. And, pipe dream or not – she grinned and imagined that Lincoln would have acknowledged the pun with a sardonic lift of his eyebrow at least – she still hoped that this time around, the black out wouldn't last an entire day.
She had shed her suit and blouse as soon as she'd come into her room, happy to just lie on the more or less cool cotton sheets in bra and underpants after a quick wash up, arms and legs stretched out so no skin was touching and sticking. Usually, she’d have hit the hotel’s gym as soon as they were done for the day. Today, she'd taken one step into the no longer air conditioned hotel and decided that she would not move another muscle if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. It was bearable this way. Barely, but bearable. As long as she wasn't moving, there was no fresh sweat breaking out along her skin and she could imagine that there were other reasons for her to be lying on her bed in this position.
The first place her mind went to were lips touching right next to her belly button, dry, feather-light and gentle, and, whoa, bad idea, instant fresh sweat. She shook her head against the image, ignored the distant echo of Astrid's voice cheerfully insisting, "but he's cute," and the way her mind had even provided a familiar scent to the mental picture. She was wearing mis-matched underwear, for god's sake; her panties were blue cotton boy shorts that were faded with many washings and her black sports bra was no one's idea of sexy. Let alone that it was much too hot to be thinking anything along those lines. She'd told Astrid she wasn't going there. And she wasn't. No matter what had happened at the diner and how easy it had been to talk him.
So, ocean. Distraction. Ocean. A little game of anywhere but here brought her to the Atlantic, to a beach where she'd be alone, in the shade, in a hammock with the balmy breeze cooling her skin and only the occasional ray of direct sunshine tickling her nose when it filtered through the palm tree. She breathed deep, expecting to smell the iodine sharpness of the ocean and hear the lapping of the waves against the beach --
There was a knock on her door.
Desperately clinging to the image, she tried to ignore the first knock, hoping against hope that if something serious had happened, she'd have received a call until she remembered that the cell network was affected by the black out, too.
The second knock was a little duller, but more insistent.
Olivia climbed off the bed with a muted groan and the simple movement had her chest and back covered in fresh sweat in the blink of an eye. She pulled on the discarded tank top and suit pants she'd worn earlier, wincing at the dampness of the shirt and went to the door to check the peep hole.
Checked. Saw. Swallowed. Resisted the urge to rest her head against the door and groan Of course fate would just have to place the person she'd just been fantasizing about in front of her door. . The heat of embarrassment climbing up her cheeks made her even more uncomfortable. This just wasn't her day.
Straightening her shoulders, wiping at the layer of sweat on her upper lip, she pulled herself together, plastered a smile on her face and opened the door. "Lincoln."
Lincoln stood in front of her door with a smile that was half bravado and half shared misery, beads of sweat on his forehead and upper lip, suit still on but his tie crooked. He was flushed from the heat, and looked exhausted and miserable. He was also holding two cartons in his hand, making her wonder if he knocked with his elbow.
"Care for some ice cream?" He held the cartons up. The condensation from the waxed paper was trickling down his wrists and soaking his grey jacket into a charcoal shade. "I can’t guarantee there’s still ice in the cream, but it might still be cool. Ish."
Olivia broke into a smile when she heard him amend his words with a frown. "You’re a life saver," she said and meant it. "Come on in."
"So, where did you -- ?"
"The grocery owner down the street was giving it out. He said that with the freezers no longer working, he’d rather make a couple of people happy than mop it all up later. At least I think that's what he meant. He practically forced it on me in an interesting mix English and Chinese I couldn't even decipher," Lincoln shook his head, as though still dazed from his encounter. "I didn’t have the heart to tell him I couldn’t possibly eat two pints of ice cream on my own."
Olivia smiled again. "Sometimes I think you’re just too nice for this world, Lincoln Lee."
An embarrassed, half wistful smile flitted over Lincoln's face. "Robert used to say that, when …" he trailed off, voice c on the last syllable. He looked out the window, away from her, but she saw him blinking fast.
Olivia angled her body away from his to give him some privacy and kept quiet. This wasn’t the time for platitudes or gestures, no matter how much she wanted to squeeze his shoulder in a show of comfort. It hurt to see his face crumple and his shoulders hunch under the weight of the knowledge that the loss of his partner and the accompanying pain was going to stay with him forever.
To distract herself from remembering John and to give Lincoln the chance to save his face, she busied herself with opening one of the cartons. Chocolate peppermint crunch. That one was definitely going to be hers. "Did you bring a spoon?" she asked when she noticed Lincoln shaking himself out of the memories.
He cleared his throat and turned back to her. "Ah, yeah," he said, reaching into his jacket pocket and presenting two plastic spoons with a small flourish.
"Then how about you shed that jacket and the tie at least before we eat?" Olivia could have just thanked him for the ice cream and she knew he would have got the hint and left. She just didn't want him to be alone after her blunder. It was strange how protective she felt of him in moments when his vulnerable side became visible. She knew that she couldn't shelter him, and he would object to it just as much as she would, but it didn't stop her from hoping she could make adjusting to this life a little easier for him. Especially when adjusting meant dealing with his grief.
The way his look turned from baffled to grateful to quietly pleased told her that she'd said exactly the right thing. And maybe, just maybe she'd been waiting for that tentative smile and for her to be the reason for it appearing.
Maybe.
Lincoln went into the bathroom to strip and Olivia probably shouldn't find that as endearing as she did. It was what she would have done had their roles been reversed, though.
The door wasn't fully closed so she could hear the soft sounds of his jacket being placed on the lip of the bathtub and the buttons kissing the ceramic as well as the swishing sound when he loosened his tie. She had to admit to herself that a small part of her regretted not being able to at least watch him take off the tie. She'd had a fascination with them since she'd been a teenager and had never lost the thrill of watching a man hook his finger under the silk of the tie and pull the tight knot loose. She'd never been able to pinpoint exactly what it was that fascinated her so much. Maybe it was the neck muscles, stretched taut. She had noticed before that a long vein ran along Lincoln's neck muscles that was only fully visible when he was angry or stressed.
The water in the bathroom came on, followed by a trickling sound and a resigned sigh. The door was pulled open and Lincoln stepped out of the bathroom, barefoot now, his face even more despondent than before. He looked oddly naked in just the sleeveless undershirt and his dress pants and she couldn't help but wonder if she looked the same to him. "I should have seen this coming," he said, sounding as unhappy as he possibly could.
"The water pressure?" she guessed.
"Yeah." As miserable as he looked, he must not have been to his room before he came to hers, otherwise he would have already known that the water pressure was almost nonexistent thanks to the blackout.
"You came straight here?" she asked. She had already deduced it, but she wanted to hear him say it.
"Ah, yeah. Didn't want the ice-cream to melt and I didn't really feel like sharing with Broyles, so …" he trailed off and lifted an eyebrow which got him precisely the wide grin from her she knew he'd been angling for. He was good at that, she thought, grateful. She hadn't smiled as much before he'd become a part of her team.
"I really could do with a shower, though," he said and ran a hand along his bare arm with a grimace. "I'd rather not subject you to possible deodorant failure."
"I doubt your room has any more water pressure than mine."
"I hate to agree with you, though I'm tempted to try just out of courtesy."
"We can always stink at each other," she volleyed back, unthinking.
He blinked for a second, almost like he couldn't believe she just said something so crude, then gave a startled laugh that brightened his entire face and accentuated the dimples in his cheeks.
He shifted from one foot to the other after the laughter faded, clearly unsure of what to do and where to step next.
"Well, if you don't mind, I'm going to go to the bathroom myself and use what little water pressure there is to," she gestured toward her arms, "be less, uhm, sticky." Why the hell that mattered right now was beyond her. It wasn't as if she was touching anyone. "Why don't you go ahead and see if you can find a maintenance closet somewhere."
His eyebrows shot up at that. "Feel like hiding any bodies?"
Thank God for small mercies that he hadn't asked the question that had sprung to her mind just now. She gave her inner voice a time out, arched a brow at him in return, speculative, and said, "Maybe?"
"And when you're not pulling my leg?"
"When I'm not pulling your leg, I'd like you to find us a bucket and see if the ice machine down the hall still has ice."
"Okay." He stretched the second syllable, not sounding quite convinced. Since they worked on electricity as well, she understood where his skepticism was coming from.
"Just bring the bucket if there's no ice," she said and disappeared into the bathroom.
Olivia emerged from the bathroom, towel-drying her hair just as Lincoln stepped back into her hotel room with a bright yellow bucket in hand.
"Nice," she commented.
"I feel like a dozen of rubber ducks have been slain for this."
"Let's put their death to good use then. There seems to be at least a steady trickle coming from the faucet, so we can try to fill it."
"And then?"
"Up to your creativity, Agent Lee." Olivia gave him a wink. "But how about we eat the ice cream before it has completely turned into soup?"
"You go ahead and open the other carton and I'll take care of the bucket. Be right there."
When Olivia lifted both cartons from the desk she'd set them on, they already had large rings of condensation around them and were suspiciously soft to the touch, gone slurpy and liquid on the outside. She was glad to hear that the sound of water running wasn't any more faint than it had been when she'd wet her hair just now, otherwise they'd really be drinking their ice-cream before the bucket was even halfway filled.
Sticking spoons into both pints, she carried them over to the bed and sat them on the nightstand before she pulled the towel from her shoulder and placed it on the floor in front of the bed. Her hair slid against her bare shoulders, creating a blissful half second of relief against the sweltering heat. She'd rinsed off her arms when she'd been in the bathroom, but it hadn't helped, she already felt sweaty and sticky again. The only relief was that Lincoln looked the same, so it wasn't as awkward as it could have been. Also, in a way, she was almost grateful for the circumstances because they gave her the chance to look at him a little more than she usually allowed herself.
Lincoln emerged from the bathroom with the yellow bucket in hand. He'd managed to fill it pretty well, judging from the way the muscles in his arms flexed. Olivia found herself fascinated by the slope of his collarbone and the way drops of undried water glistened on his upper arms in the late evening light. His skin appeared golden in this light. Touchable.
Lincoln stopped when he caught her look. "What?" he checked the front of his shirt. "Do I have something – "
Olivia fought against the blush that was creeping up and said, "No, nothing. It's fine. Want to bring the bucket over here?" She gestured toward the towel on the floor.
"Right there?" he asked and nodded toward the center of the towel.
"Yeah."
He looked intrigued at the bucket as he sat down on the bed – she'd given him no invitation to do so, but was glad that he hadn't been awkward about just assuming. She reached for the ice cream cartons which were now both distinctly soft.
"I already called dibs on the chocolate peppermint. That leaves you the cinnamon bun." She handed him the carton.
"What if I hated cinnamon?"
"Do you?"
He flashed her a smile. "No. Actually I was hoping you wouldn't want it."
"And all is right in the world," she commented. "Apart from the black-out and the heat, of course. And the freaky monsters hiding in – "
"This is really good ice-cream," he interrupted her around a spoonful of ice-cream and lifted the carton in her direction. "You should try this really good ice-cream."
She blinked at him for a couple of seconds, trying to parse his intense approval of the ice cream, before wanting to face palm. "No talk of monsters tonight?" she guessed.
His eyes crinkled at the sides as he smiled. "Not if we can help it."
She pursed her lips, pretending to consider this. "I think we can," she agreed eventually and stuck her feet into the bucket with a sigh. They were going to take a time-out from monsters and Fringe events tonight. They damn well deserved it. Both of them. She slid her spoon into the ice-cream and filled it so full it threatened to spill on the way to her mouth. She bent forward a little to catch it and then closed her eyes in bliss as the cool flavor of the peppermint burst in her mouth and then slid down her throat, a cool, if only momentary, relief.
"Good?" he asked and she opened her eyes again to find him looking at her, his pupils a little wider than before but that amused, fond smile still lurking in his eyes.
She licked her lips and nodded and if she tried very hard, she could even ignore the way his smile faded a little and his gaze zeroed in on her mouth. "You?" she asked and gestured with her spoon to distract both herself and him.
"Mm-hm," he mumbled around another spoonful. "I should thank our good Samaritan again tomorrow."
Olivia watched his throat work as he swallowed, forced her gaze away only to end up watching him lick the spoon. Warmth pooled in her stomach. Warmth that came with an extra layer of sweat, of course, damn it. She curled her toes in the bucket. For god's sake, she needed to get a grip. "Yeah, you should," she said only to say something.
A couple of long, awkward seconds passed. This awkwardness seemed to accelerate the longer they spent time together outside of work. Olivia wasn't sure if it frustrated her or if she liked the anticipation. Lincoln saved the moment eventually by asking, "Want to try?" He held his carton toward her and gave an encouraging nod.
"Sure," she said. "You, too?"
"Sure," he answered and oh, weren't they just the people to write a new self-help book on how to make scintillating conversation?
They swapped tastes of their respective ice-creams and though she liked cinnamon just fine, she was glad she'd chosen the peppermint chocolate because, all in her mind or not, it felt even cooler.
"We're quite the conversationalists, aren't we?" he echoed what she'd just thought when she handed his carton back.
"Blame it on the heat. And the 'really good ice-cream'," she said, mimicking his earlier tone with a smirk.
They continued to eat in silence, looking out to see the setting sun reflect in the windows of the building across the street. She had cranked the window of her room open as wide as she could and so had the people across the street. Through one of them, the tinkling of piano filtered out.
Olivia let the carton sink, closed her eyes and inclined her head in the direction of the music. A slow smile spread over her face when she recognized the song. It grew deeper when she heard Lincoln start to hum next to her. His voice was a gentle tenor, warm and a little unsure on the higher notes but meeting all of them perfectly. Like him in a way, she thought and listened for a while. Upon opening her eyes again, she saw that he was mirroring her posture; head inclined toward the music, eyes closed. It was her one chance to look at him unabashed, without him noticing. She'd never noticed how long his lashes were until the sun was gilding them. Now that his glasses had slipped down his nose a little one more, she could see that his eyebrows were surprisingly thick. It was good to see the lack of the almost constant frown between them. His face had relaxed, though his nostrils flared just a bit when he inhaled for the next verse of the song. She'd wanted to smooth away some of the lines that were etching themselves into his face many times before and was glad she didn't have to do it this evening.
She really should stop, Olivia knew. He'd feel even more awkward if he knew that she was watching him. But feeling guilty about studying him too closely didn't stop her from continuing. Even if she painstakingly avoided looking at his mouth for too long. She'd noticed his lips before, back on that night in the diner, and she'd gone home to some rather interesting dreams. She wasn't going to make that mistake again, so she forced her gaze – which had of course turned to his mouth after all, damn it – away and to the side of his face.
His sideburns were dark with sweat. The vein along his neck that she had noticed before stood out in the way he was holding his head and she could track it down all the way from his ear to where it disappeared under his shirt. A bead of sweat trailed alongside it, slow, enticing and she wanted to trace it, feel it slide --
"Stars fell on Alabama," she said, deliberately forceful so she wouldn't squeak. A sheen of sweat broke out over her chest and back. God damn it, woman, what are you doing?
Lincoln stopped humming, his eyes flying open. He looked caught, as if he'd done something inappropriate. "You have a nice voice," she added, partly to make him stop worrying, partly because it was true and partly because she needed to say something to cover her own embarrassment.
She saw a blush creep up his neck. "I’m no Ella."
For a split-second, she wondered how he knew her niece and what she had to do with this before she realised that he was talking about Ella Fitzgerald. Glad for the tangent to distract her, she straightened her back and wriggled her toes in the bucket. "Short of a sex change, I don’t see how you could be, either," she quipped and from the corner of her eyes, she saw him crack the smile she'd been hoping for.
"I guess not." He pushed his glasses up his nose where they had slipped once more. "Someone like her is a once in a lifetime talent. I’m sad I never had the chance to see her live."
"Me, too."
His gaze snapped to her eyes, a surprised frown line appearing between his eyes. "I didn't know you were into jazz."
"I didn't know you were, either," she deflected. She didn't feel like talking about herself just now, so she lifted the ice-cream carton. "This was a good idea, by the way. Thank you for thinking of me."
"No one else I would have wanted to share with," he said and she saw that as soon as the words had left his mouth he wanted to take them back. "Here, I mean. In this city. Tonight." He clamped his mouth shut and a complicated sequence of expressions flickered over his face, finally ending on embarrassment. He sat the ice-cream carton down, ran a hand through his hair and looked away from her.
As much as she didn't know how to handle the honesty of his first statement, before the amendments, she hated that he felt embarrassed about it. She reached out and rested her hand on his lower arm, squeezing once, ignoring the dampness. "Same here."
He bowed his head and looked at her hand on his arm. A small, delighted smile kicked up the corners of his mouth, shadows growing deeper where his cheeks dimpled. The light of the waning sun, tangerine bleeding into magenta, reflected off his hair that finally looked a little ruffled. She felt loathe to take her hand away.
Glancing up at her from under the top of his glasses with what she'd come to know as his look of subtle mischief, he asked, "The partners that sweat together, stay together?"
"Something like that." She laughed and lifted her hand when her palm began to sweat right on cue. "Speaking of which," she continued, "You should take the bucket before the water's warm." She lifted her feet from the water, dripping, and sat them down on the towel.
"I can always get fresh water."
"If it's still running then, yeah."
"Good point."
He scooted a little closer to her on the bed so he could reach the bucket better, then lowered his feet into it with a sigh of relief. This close, the scent of his aftershave – something that always reminded her of the sea and open night skies, something that she'd come to look forward to first thing in the morning when he showed up at the office – was muted but still there, mingling with the scent of warm, sweaty skin.
"So," she said to distract herself from the direction her thoughts were heading, "when did you know you wanted to join the FBI?"
"I really didn't," Lincoln answered. "I was approached in college. They were impressed with my science achievements, apparently."
"What were your degrees?" she asked.
An eyebrow went up. "You mean you didn't study my file before I joined Fringe division?"
Of course she had. "Humor me."
"Applied Physics and Law."
She wrinkled her brow, just like she'd done back when she first read it. "That's an odd mixture."
He shrugged as if he'd heard that one before. "I'm an odd guy."
He didn't seem inclined to elaborate, so she asked, "They approached you and then … what?"
"The usual. Tests, more tests."
"Didn't you just love the fitness test?"
"The one minute sit-up check especially, yeah."
"What was your score?"
He rubbed the back of his neck. "Forty. I went in a little overconfident."
"I hated mine, too. I was never bad at sports, but that one nearly killed me."
"So what was your score?"
"Fifty-five."
His eyebrows shot up. "Fifty-five, that's, what, eight points on the scoring scale?"
"Nine," she admitted.
"Nine. In the first out of four tests, where you only need twelve points altogether," he commented, dry as dust. "Why am I not surprised?"
"I trained." She knew she sounded defensive but couldn't help it.
"Again, I'm not surprised." Lincoln rubbed his right foot over his left shin, making the fine hair darken as it became wet. "You never wanted to be anything else, did you?"
Olivia looked out the window, ran the fingernail of her right index finger over a seam in the sheet and contemplated his question. "No," she said eventually.
"Lucky you." It didn't sound bitter. It sounded wistful.
She turned to him with an inquisitive gaze.
"I guess I'd have been happier if I'd known what I wanted earlier." He looked down at his feet and wriggled his toes so the water lapped against the side of the bucket. "Would have spared me a lot of drifting, many bad choices and many disappointments. Stopped me from being lonely a lot. Gained me more friendships."
She knew better than to interrupt, so she just splayed her left hand between them on the bed; not quite touching him, but close enough so he knew she was there, listening.
"Robert and Julie changed me. Rooted me. I guess that's why they asked me to be Amy's godfather." He laughed, self-deprecating. "Poor kid kind of got the boring uncle."
"She's got the best uncle she could wish for," Olivia said.
Lincoln gave her a doubtful look from the corner of his eyes. "Still boring."
"Nothing wrong with boring." She shrugged. "We can't all be social butterflies. God knows I'm not."
"Could have fooled me," Lincoln commented with a wink.
"Funny." She felt the urge to stick out her tongue at him, a childish urge she hadn't had in years. "Now give me that bucket back."
His smile grew wider as he watched her lift the towel with her toes and she smiled in return when she saw what had caused his amusement – her toenails were painted a bright purple.
Olivia gave a small, self-conscious shrug. "Girl's night with my niece a week ago." She's spend the weekend with Rachel and the kids while Rachel's husband was out of town, much to Olivia's relief. "She's only seven, so I wouldn't let her paint hers. Which meant that I had to agree to let her paint mine. And let her choose the colour."
"Can't wait for the day that Amy gets that idea in her head."
Olivia bit her lip. "I'm sure purple would look good on you."
"I think I'd go for pink," he deadpanned. "With sparkles."
She threw her head back and laughed, the kind of full belly laugh she so rarely allowed herself. It felt good. Comfortable, despite the fact that she was sweating again. "So much for the boring uncle," she said, breathless, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes.
"If I take off the glasses, I'm actually Superman," he said, pushing the glasses down to give her a short-sighted look over their rim.
Olivia collapsed into helpless laughter for the second time in minutes.
"Don't think that you can distract me, Agent," Olivia said when she could breathe again. She nudged the side of the bucket with her toe. "Bucket. Now."
He rolled his eyes with a put upon sigh. "Bossy."
With her feet at the side of the bucket already, his wet toes brushes hers as he lifted them out of the water and they both jumped as though jolted, then laughed, embarrassed. She really didn't need the extra heat climbing up her face just now. Inwardly, Olivia rolled her eyes at them. Teenagers couldn't have behaved any more awkwardly.
Trying hard not to look at him, her gaze fell on the ice-cream carton she's sat down on the bed beside her earlier. "Oh, damn."
"What?"
She lifted the carton, gave it a little shake and showed the swishing, liquid content to Lincoln. "Houston, we have soup."
This, in turn, sent Lincoln into a fit of laughter, which surprised her. Olivia watched him, watched his dimples deepen and his teeth flash white in the growing darkness and found herself more than pleased that she could return the favor. She didn't normally make people laugh. Not like this.
When his chuckles subsided, he reached for his carton and saluted her. "It's liquid at least, and we need to hydrate anyway, so …bottoms up?"
She didn't comment on how drinking molten ice-cream wasn't on any list of things to do in order to hydrate, but said, "Bottoms up."
She set the carton to her mouth and watched him do the same over the rim of it.
A pigeon flying past their window at breakneck speed made them both flinch and she felt some of the molten ice-cream spill over her upper lip and dribble down her chin. Cursing under her breath, she sat the carton down and wiped at her chin. When she looked up again, Lincoln was smirking at her.
"What?" she asked.
"Pigeon scare accident," he explained. His eyes were bright with mirth. "You have an ice-cream beard."
She snorted an inelegant laugh. "Well, join the club." She gestured toward where a dribble of ice-cream stained his chin. "You have an ice-cream goatee."
She poked out her tongue to lick her upper lip and saw him raise his hand to his chin, wiping part but not all of the ice cream smear away.
She batted his hand away. "Let me."
He rolled his eyes. "Yes, mom."
Olivia scrunched her nose at him. "Blame it on my niece." She raised an eyebrow. "May I?"
Lincoln dropped his shoulders and lifted his chin in her direction, still with that amused spark in his eyes. "Go ahead."
Olivia raised her hand and crooked her index finger slightly and touched the sticky spot of caramel colored ice-cream just in the dip between his chin and his lower lip. She'd seen the first hint of stubble glinting in the evening sun earlier, now she felt it, too. Over the rasp of the stubble, she moved the smear up toward his lip and stopped there, unsure how to continue without this becoming wildly inappropriate. Olivia swallowed, felt as though time trickled to a stop. She was ensnared by his lips, soft and full, gently curved, and she couldn't look up into his eyes because she didn't want to see what she'd see and she wasn't sure if she'd have the strength to ignore the pull in her stomach, the way her upper body already angled toward his.
He saved her the trouble of making a decision and opened his mouth slightly so his upper lip touched her finger, closed over the pad of her index finger and took the sweetness with it; gentle, with just a hint of dampness from the inside of his upper lip. As gestures went, it was over quickly and innocently enough that she could pretend it was all just playful behavior between colleagues, if only her heart would stop hammering against her chest. If she wouldn't feel a flush that had nothing to do with the heat outside creep up her cheeks. If her mouth didn't go dry as the damn Sahara.
Just colleagues. Yeah, Dunham. It seemed that she had rented an entire fleet of ships on that river in Egypt and was happily sailing on it.
"My turn?" he asked and she was surprised to find his voice soft but steady.
She couldn't look at him, so Olivia closed her eyes and nodded. Sweat broke out over her back and her upper lip.
The bit of ice cream she had missed was at the corner of her mouth, apparently, because he wiped it away swiftly and without fanfare in one efficient move.
As soon as his fingers left her face, she felt like an idiot, wondering if she'd presumed, done something unwanted. Her answer came when his fingertips returned to her mouth, this time following the shape of her lips.
The feather light touched sent a spike of heat through her and she clamped down on the physical reaction hard but embraced the way her skin sang with his touch. She smiled and felt him tracing her smile all the way up to the corners of her eyes and despite her reasonable brain trying to cite all the reasons why this was a spectacularly bad idea, it felt … right. Good. Good in a way she hadn't felt in far too long. A low grade fever under her skin that didn't need to be acknowledged just yet.
So she inclined her head again, leaning her face into his hand. She heard his breath hitch when she covered his hand with hers. And she smiled. Smiled and felt her smile soak into his skin and be answered in kind even if she didn't see it.
She didn't kiss him. He didn't try. He just stroked her cheek with his thumb and she stroked his long fingered hand with her fingertips and she felt content. Happy. She could kiss him some other time, save up for that experience and imagine it a while longer and yet have the certainty at her back that he'd be there when she was ready.
Eventually, her back protested the awkward position and she raised her head again, opening her eyes. His hand glided to the side of her neck with the movement.
It was dark in the room. The true darkness that came with the lack of light pollution. She realised how tired she was.
"We should probably catch some sleep," she said.
She felt his exhalation against her skin, a promise, a tease. His hand began to slide away from her skin, reluctant.
"I'd better – "
"Stay," she said and was surprised to realize she meant it. She held on to his hand, found his palm and pressed her lips to the center. "Stay." She didn’t want to be alone tonight.
So after a bit of shuffling, they laid down, side by side, just their fingers touching. It was too warm even for that, but Olivia didn't want to let go.
"Good night, Lincoln."
"Good night, Olivia." His voice made her name sound like a caress, a promise.
Olivia curled her fingertips around his and listened to his breathing, knowing that he did the same.
She fell asleep with a smile.
The power came back on in the middle of the night, waking her up from the sudden cool blast from the A/C. She hadn't flipped any lightswitches when she'd come into her room in the evening so the only light to navigate by was the streetlight filtering in. She turned to her side and looked at the man next to her, sleeping deep and sound enough even the goosebumps on his arms didn't wake him.
Like a baby. Blissful. But no longer ignorant. Olivia remembered what Lincoln had told her about his difficulties sleeping and her heart grew wide when she realised what his sleeping next to her indicated.
She leaned on her elbow, took off his glasses and set them in the nightstand. When she rolled back, she leaned up again to brush her mouth against his brow, then pulled the top sheet over them and curled close to him.
His steady breathing and the scent of open night skies pulled her under again.
She woke in the morning to lips against her temple and sat up with a start, groggy and bleary-eyed.
"I'm heading to my room for a shower," Lincoln said to her and smoothed his hand over the bird's nest of her hair, trying in vain to tame some of the strands.
"That's hopeless," Olivia commented.
"I like the process of trying, though," he said, smiling at her, warm and fond.
"What time is it?"
"Just after six. I got a text from Astrid asking us to come back to Boston. Apparently Walter made some kind of a break-through in the shapeshifter tech."
She groaned and fell back against the pillow. "Much as I love the prospect of a long shower, sleeping in would have been better."
"I agree," he said, but without any of the innuendo she had expected. He trailed his fingertip over her knuckles. "You're up, so I'm going to head over to my room."
"You could have just gone."
"I wanted to see you wake up," Lincoln said and something in her melted at the earnest look on his face. "See you at breakfast?"
Olivia smiled at him and nodded. "Yeah."
They had breakfast while most of the other guests were still asleep which gave them the chance to enjoy the first pancakes fresh and warm the moment the kitchen staff placed them on the buffet.
They didn't talk much over the food, but she noticed him watching her dab her mouth with the napkin and caught herself watching him lick maple syrup off his lips. She watched him drink coffee and he watched her drink cranberry juice. His pupils dilated behind his frames when she ate a slice of orange and a bit of juice dribbled down her chin. He caught it with his fingertip and licked it off as if they'd never done anything else and they weren't in a hotel dining room where any time now, other guests could come filtering in.
It was only on their way out of the breakfast room and into the elevator, shivering a little in the full blast of the A/C and at the fleeting touch of his hand against hers that her mind decided it'd had enough of waiting and launched into the fantasy she'd had since she'd watched him lick his finger. She leaned against the elevator's wall, closed her eyes and didn't fight it.
"Let's try this again without the sweatiness and the heat," she would say, curl her hand against the side of his neck, stroking for the blink of an eye before pressing her lips against his with a smile she that would flicker on and off.
For a shocked second, Lincoln wouldn't react at all and she would wonder if she'd made a mistake. Then suddenly, he would breathe in, sharp, bury his hands in her hair and kiss back, with no pretense and no holds barred, as if a dam had burst. Olivia would rise up to meet him, feel her toes curl and her hands clutch at his sides when he would deepen the kiss, tasting of coffee and maple syrup. There would be no finesse to the kiss, just raw need and she would move closer to him to feel the hammering of his heart and the press of his chest against her breasts. He would groan and his hands would curl against her scalp, ten points of heat and pressure and she would back him up against the elevator's mirror, needing to keep him still and hear the low sound again he'd just made, the sound that would go straight to her belly, like a punch to the gut and she'd want, she'd want --.
Olivia's eyes flew open when the elevator pinged its arrival at their floor and door started to open. She only just had time to take a deep breath and swallow hard before the door opened fully and revealed Broyles.
"Good morning, Agents," he greeted and if he noticed the flush to her cheeks, he didn't let on. "You're up early."
"Astrid's text," Lincoln explained, his voice rough, and Olivia just couldn't look at him. "I received it at five this morning."
"Looks like it was another sleepless night in the lab, then," Broyles said. "Well, I hope you got some sleep at least."
"Yes, sir," Olivia and Lincoln answered at the same time.
An amused smile flickered over Broyles's face. "I'm going down to breakfast now. You still have the car keys, right, Agent Dunham?"
"Yes, Sir." They had left the car in the hotel's underground parking lot when they'd arrived and had used either the subway or taxis to get around New York.
"Then I'll meet you two down in the lobby in half an hour."
"Yes, Sir," she said.
They stepped aside to let Broyles enter the elevator and she watched the door close, still unable to look at Lincoln.
"Hey, are you all right?" he asked when the lift announced its arrival on the ground level and she still hadn't moved. "You look a little flushed."
She did turn to face him then and met the raised eyebrow and his amused look. He knew. The little bastard. "What an astute observation, Agent Lee." She schooled her features into a calm and professional mask. "Got any more where that one came from?"
He smirked at her but didn't answer. Wise move. Startled, she realized that she liked the playful smugness.
"Well, maybe you should tell me more about those exceptional observation skills of yours over an ice-cream tonight. I know a place that's open late."
"Are you asking me out on a date, Agent Dunham?"
"Are you going to refuse?"
Lincoln's smile was bright enough to light the hallway. "Wouldn't dream of it."
Her answering smile stayed with her all day.