AN: It's AU. It's canon. I'm not sure how to classify it, okay? I will write something with plot. Eventually. You can treat each drabble/section separately or connected. Really, be warned. There's lots of sex. Plot only if you squint.

"The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too."

― Vincent van Gogh

"John—" His fingers drift to the corner of her mouth, thumb tracing the soft curves of her lips. Unwittingly Joss falls silent, eyebrows drawn in. John brushes a strand of damp hair from her forehead (and it is only then she remembers what it feels like to breath). His blue eyes dart around, softening as they land on her face.

"Carter." The sounds of the city still roar in Joss' ears. She leans in to hear him properly, lips twitching in a reluctant half smile as she closes the distance between them. There's something about that voice, something about the firm hand on her hip. She flips on the hall light, so the shadows don't seen to deepen the lines in his face.

He's in his suit, immaculately clean, shirt so stiff she can still smell the starch. Her fingers itch to strip him down to the bare bone, to trace her fingertips over the hard core of his muscles.

He doesn't miss how her lips twitch with expectant desire. Or how her tongue runs agonizingly over her lower lip, leaving it moist and full. Her fingers pull at his tie (she doesn't think about the high price of the soft silk sliding through her fingers) resolving to have it strewn in a corner of her room. Instantly, John relents the stiff army posture, adopting something more languid, hands sliding under her shirt to press rub cool fingers against the sliver of skin exposed to him.

…

She likes how the heat in his eyes is at odds with his cool demeanor. When he leans in and kisses her, she lets him. The door slams shut behind him.

(Later, Joss will think of how he kisses her like he means it, with single minded determination. Kisses like every kiss is the first kiss. He kisses like he is drowning and she is the one inextricably drawn to him to catch him before he falls, even though he'd prefer to be the one to protect her from the storm.

Not surprisingly, she finds she doesn't mind this.)

…

(When he shows up to her house the next time, she's expecting him. She straddles him, and sets a bruising, battering pace, hands tangled in his greying hair, his fingers gripping the insides of her thighs.

Right before he comes, hard and fast, with complete and utter abandon, his cock twitches inside her, Joss gasps out a low keening wail that sends him over the edge. John presses his hand against the small of her back and groans out a name—

Her first name.)

…

He isn't there when she wakes up.

…

Sleeping with him turns out to be easy.

(But, when she wakes up at three to her microwave on fire and a sullen John curled on her couch, she shakes her head and perishes the thought).

…

John considers her a woman of integrity. A woman of honor, moral standing, unflinching honesty. A vulnerable, venerable woman.

(She is, without a shadow of a doubt, a good person. She makes him want to pretend to be a better man.

He knows better.)

…

It's easy when they work together. Carter is, if anything, professional. Nothing gets in the way of this girl and her Glock. (John likes how good she is at rolling up her sleeves, squaring her shoulders, and getting on with the job.)

She doesn't let the heat in his eyes trip her over.

So he is slightly off guard when she pushes him against the wall in the cool darkness of the prescient, hands spreading over his chest as her tongue slides into his mouth. (He doesn't think how it belongs there). It is a promise, for later, no time to think or react, (then it's too late to do either) and her presence is gone nearly as soon as it had arrived.

She doesn't look back.

(She knows he'll be gone.)

…

"Detective." John murmurs, merely a breath away from her beating pulse that thrums deliciously warm under her skin.

When he clamps his lips on the side of her neck, Joss lets out a deep, breathy laugh she didn't know she was holding, her warm flushed body pressed under his, hands tied above her with red satin sheets torn more carelessly than he'd like to admit. (He'll have Harold replace them).

"Reese." She responds, not at all composed, chest heaving, legs shaking as his fingers tease the length of her thighs.

He (almost) smiles. Palms his hand down to where she wants him, and presses his tongue delicately there instead. Joss thinks she's either dying or have a religious moment.

It is blinding, exquisite, his nose pressed against her clit, tongue driving further inside. She is heady and heavy on his tongue, a steady aphrodisiac and he is hard, one hand gripping his length.

…

"I've got to work the night shift." She picks up her tangled trousers from the floor, collecting her shirt.

"Aren't you missing something, Detective?" It's strange how it's the subtle nuances that give him away. Now, she picks up on the slow drawl of his speech, the near grin in his voice. If she turns, she knows she will see him relaxed (not completely, but just enough for it to be jarring), the sheets tangled around his ankles.

"Nah. I'm good." She slips her pants over her legs, locates her bra hanging loosely from the chair. He surprises her, ghosting behind to hook the clasps.

"I know eleven different ways to unhook a bra."

"Yeah? I've only ever needed one." He laughs at this. No, that's wrong. It's not a laugh, but an unconscious guffaw that she smiles a secret smile at, but makes no further comment about. Neither does he, as he tucks her panties into the waistband of her jeans.

"You might find yourself needing these, Detective." She rolls her eyes, huffs her mock-annoyance, and heads to the precinct.

…

It's the first time he pulls away, leaning back to trace the outline of her lips, eyes, cheeks, thumbs rubbing slow circles. He jerks his fingers back (she bites the inside of her lips, but he can tell she wants to smile). His eyes never leave hers. They are blue, and hard, but not unkind. They are translucent, and Joss can clearly see her refection in their depths.

(the look in his eyes defies meaning. For once, she's not sure if she's ready and willingly to chase him for the definition).

Joss swallows, though how she manages that feat through the lump in her throat she'll never know, leaning up to press her lips tenderly to the hollow of his throat. He sighs, arms tight around her.

It is enough.

…

She wears her gun and badge proudly, in plain sight (in the precinct at least), like she is proud of it.

She likes how he pulls it from her holster and holds it in his broad palms with something akin to reverence. She likes how he sets in on the counter, alongside her badge, a millisecond before his lips are hot (needy) against hers, her back pressed against the wall, one of his thighs pressed hard between her legs.

…

There is coffee on her desk, cream and just enough sugar to take off the edge of the bitterness. Fusco gives her a knowing look. She smiles.

…

John's breath runs over the knitted scar that runs from below her firm breast to the curve of her hip. A deep ache erupts in her side, and she closes her eyes, willing that familiar phantom pain to haunt her another day.

"Iraq," John says. Then shakes his head. "Afghanistan."

Carter's fingers pause in their tactile exploration of his stomach. Her fingertips are cool, and he leans into them. "Yes. Afghan." She responses.

Two words. Two hearts beat faster.

…

He touches the bruise on her cheek. Joss doesn't flinch away. There is something raw and hot and angry churning in his stomach, and it must reflect in his eyes (she leans up and kisses him softly until he is pliant and soft under her, until the angry is replaced with something deeper than lust and darker than affection).

….

"Joss —" She finds herself getting used to the nuances in his voice when he groans out her name like that (he wants her to fuck, here ad now on he sofa, but she's not giving it up quite yet).

Joss bites down on her lips, feels his clammy pale hands gripping her waists. So, he does like that. His cock is half hard and twitching against her thigh, his breaths coming in short panting gasps as Joss runs her tongue at the base, cheek smudged with his salty-sweet pre-cum. It is still a fight for dominance (he wouldn't be her John if he wasn't so god damn determined), his clever fingers running lightly over the dip in her back, rubbing slow circles down and around the soft pane of her shoulders —

And he is thoroughly unprepared when she removes her warm tongue and thrusts her sex onto his; riding him thoroughly, with sweet, stick passion that explodes out, down her thighs. He comes, once, twice, (he's spluttering unintelligibly — she leans down and swallows her name from his mouth as she rides out his orgasms until the words run dry and the only sound is the obscene slick of her wetness against his hardness.

John pushes her on her back, pinches her nipples with that smug smile plastered on his lips. Perspiration clings to her skin, he kisses it with his lips, pressing into her again and again and again, oh God, until bright white starts flash under her eyelids, and he crushes her under his warm weight, never letting go.

…

This is were they learn of desperation, words mouthed against her collarbone, tongue retracing every inch, teeth scraping skin, his nose pressing the hollow of her cheek. There is a hot mouth ghosting warm breaths parted lips, (he kisses her again and again — there is no need for breath when she looks at him like that, like there is nothing else in her world, all John needs is the steady softness of her lips pushing his apart and damn it he needs it now, now—) the soft grunt and thud of papers hitting the floor as he lifts her with wiry arms.

It's been weeks since they've come together, and this is as close as it gets, this is as close as he comes to saying 'I miss you'. She can read it from the minute fumble and shake of his fingers, the butterfly kisses pressed too roughly along the jutting bones of his hips where she kisses away the shadows and wills them to let them be, his hands curling in her wild, loose hair —

…

The storm passes, as it must. Their limbs are tangling together, his hands tracing easy circles on her skin. Joss tucks her nose against the hollow of his neck, breathes in the musk and male and gunpowder smell of the storm, and sleeps easy.

…

(sleeping together is easy.)