A SIREN WAILS IN THE NIGHT

P/O fic, post What Lies Below.

No inFRINGEment intended.

Spoilers: What Lies Below.

The bottom of the glass is a rich, golden brown colour, and has been for a considerably amount of time. She swills it absent-mindedly, wondering when whiskey became an answer to a difficult day at work, when she'd started drinking the really hard stuff.

She could answer that, but she won't, for fear of the revelations it might bring her.

It burns the back of her throat, slipping down over the lump that had formed the moment she'd seen him on the other side of the glass, his eyes crying out to her… and she could hardly hear what he was actually saying, for what was in those eyes.

She downs the glass, and pours herself another. It's going to be a long night.

She hasn't bolted the door, that's the first sign of trouble. He's still feeling slightly heady and unsteady on his feet, but Walter and the CDC doctors have told him that the recovery should be relatively quick, so he's working on that principle.

He knocks five times, and when there's no response but he can see the light on, he tries the door. He can get through, and that's concerning, because she carries a badge and a standard issue FBI firearm, and she never leaves her door open.

He bolts it behind him.

He walks through the house, calling her name, and he finds her sat at her kitchen table, nursing an oversized measure of whiskey, and from the bloodshot colour of the whites of her eyes, it's not her first.

"Livia…" is all he manages to breathe as all the air is knocked out of his lungs.

He's slightly blurred, but what matters is he's there. Crouching in front of her, slowly easing the glass from her hand, holding her eyes with his, and all the while not saying a word.

Without the usual inhibitions, she reaches out a hand and brushes the backs of her fingers over his cheek, chafing over the 48-hour stubble lingering there. He seems to stiffen at the contact, and grabs her hand, his fingers resting just between hers, not enough to be holding her hand, exactly, but enough for her breathing to race, her heart to stutter.

She's glad she's sitting down, because otherwise she's pretty sure the combination of the whiskey and Peter would have had her on the floor by now, for one reason or another.

She can't seem to draw her hand away, pull her eyes away, tell him to leave…

"I thought…" she chokes out, but he shakes his head.

"I'm so sorry…" his voice is dry and hoarse, like he hasn't had anything to drink in weeks, and for a moment the half-empty glass of whiskey he'd confiscated from her looks tempting, but he knows it could cost him too dearly to interfere with the medication.

It's the way she's looking at him that fills him with self-loathing. Some mixture of grief, pity and fear, and it's only the effect of the alcohol that's stopping her mask from falling over her features – that's how he knows this is how she sees him now, maybe for always.

There are bluish-black bruises blossoming on her neck, in the shape of four fingerprints and a thumb. He wants to cry, there's nothing else to it. He wants to be a child again, so he can curl up and cry and slowly, everything he's done will leech away.

"I'm so sorry…" he hisses again, leaning towards her, she's his centre of gravity, and he's falling forwards.

He matches his fingers tenderly to the bruises on her neck.

When his fingers close, however gently, around her throat, her heart skips a beat. She remembers the look in his eyes, and remembers the emotions that closed over her in that moment, however muted through the whiskey-induced haze.

He'd wanted to kill her, she'd been able to see that, and for a moment it had darted through her mind that she was almost glad he was touching her, because she wasn't sure she could live without ever feeling him again.

"I'm so sorry…" falls from his lips for the third time, and she can feel the tears welling up in her eyes, and the alcohol means she has no control over them, as they flow down her cheeks.

Peter looks away pointedly, like he can't bring himself to watch her cry. And she's really crying now, great, wracking sobs that leave her shoulders shaking and a feeling of nausea rising in her throat.

His hands creep up from her neck, one cupping her cheek, wiping each tear from her left eye as it falls, and the other pulling the back of her head roughly towards him, tangling in her hair, pressing his face into the top of her head.

"If I could take it back…" he whispers into her ear, and he can feel her nails digging into his arms through his shirt, and her tears, hot and salty, soaking through the thin cotton.

He smells like hospital disinfectant, the cologne she's become so familiar with, and coffee. She can hardly hear over her crying, but she feels his words like rumbling in his chest, and feels his mouth moving over her hair.

"I could leave…" he's saying, "I can't hurt you again…"

It takes a while for that to sink in… she's beginning to regret the McCarthys she's been drinking since she got home.

She uses all her strength to pull away from him, and almost over-balances it, his hands on her back holding her upright. He's still saying something about leaving, and her sobs seem to have dried out by now, so she does the only thing she can think of to shut him out… she leans forwards and crushes her mouth against his.

It's hot, wet, violent, and the part of her brain that would have slowed her down is sleeping off the alcohol already. His hands are at the small of her back and at the base of her skull, gripping her hair so tightly it almost hurts, even in her state.

She's thrown herself forward so far that she's leaning on him nearly completely, her hands twining round his neck, every inch of her suddenly pressing against every available inch of him, like it's the only way she'll survive.

He tastes almost like he smells, but she's pretty sure she can taste blood in his mouth, biting his lip with abandon, knowing that whatever she does she'll never be close enough to reassure her he's still the person he was this morning, before everything.

Despite the fact that she tastes of whiskey, so strong it overrides the coffee and strawberries lingering underneath, and that she's swaying, unsteady on her feet, he can't think of a good enough reason to pull away from her.

She feels smaller in his arms, reaching around her it almost feels like there's nothing of her there, she's simply an illusion.

He remembers how small she looked, laying on the hard concrete.

Stay down.

He doesn't want those words lingering in his mind, so he pulls her tighter to him, moving his lips from her mouth to trail down her neck, tracing lines over the bruises he gave her, the bruises he will still see for weeks after they've faded to near invisible. Her tongue slips over the shell of his ear, and he's surprised, momentarily, into biting down on her collarbone.

The moan she lets out nearly undoes him, and she loses her balance, sending them both falling back onto the cold kitchen floor, feeling positively icy against every inch of his burning skin. She lands on top of him, a smile showing through her tears, and her mouth finds his again.

He hasn't even begun to consider the fallout. He needs this.

He feels solid underneath her, so real, and for the first time since the events of that morning she feels reassured that he's going to last, he's going to live, and he'll be Peter again. He's rolling them slightly, and they're half sat up, and she's draped over him, needing that feeling of skin-on-skin more than anything she's ever needed in her life.

She can't breathe as she feels his fingers inching under her blouse, dancing patterns of pain and love and betrayal across her smouldering flesh, popping buttons, drawing her even closer.

She finds herself whispering his name as he kisses her jaw, her collarbone, the last available inch of skin before it descends into the neckline of her shirt. She has to prove it's him, it's really him, and as she slips the buttons out of his shirt, and pushes it back over his arms, he whispers her name, his version, his slurred 'Livia', and she knows, with sudden clarity, that she couldn't dream this.

Her brain won't seem to let her form the words she wants to say, but she manages to whisper in his ear, "Don't leave me" before finding his lips on her throat again, kissing each bruise individually, and she feels something wet glancing over her jaw. A single tear, spilling from his eyes, at the sight of what he'd done to her.

"It's ok…" she manages, and she can hardly hold herself up, he's her oxygen, and she needs every last inch of him to survive.

He can hardly understand what she's saying, but she's started her own repertoire of kisses over his throat and chest, and he's whispering his own story to her.

I would never mean to hurt you… I'm so sorry… I'll never leave you…

That scares him in itself, because he can't even put words to this feeling; he's never felt it before, in his whole, fucked-up life. Her tiny whimpers of ecstasy and emotion are breaking him in two, and he can't even begin to comprehend a world without her.

Her hands are trailing over his bare skin, and for the first time since she started this, she brings her eyes to his as her hands trace one final line over his abdomen, and find themselves fumbling with the zipper on his jeans.

There's so much in her eyes, he's terrified, but he suddenly sees the haze descending over her, the way she can't seem to focus on his eyes, the incoherent mumblings escaping her lips.

The old Peter wouldn't have noticed, but he isn't the old Peter, he's her Peter, and he gathers her hands and pulls away from her, keeping her fingers twined in his.

Her eyes show confusion, disappointment, resignation.

"Sorry…" she mumbles, and he can read in her eyes she thinks he's thought better of it all. He laughs lightly, shaking his head, and kisses her forehead lightly.

"You're drunk, Liv…" he whispers, tucking her hair behind her ears, "You're not thinking straight…"

Couldn't he understand that that was what she needed, though? To be drunk, to not be thinking straight, or her fears and her professionalism would always stand in her way? But she can't seem to construct the argument, so she leans into his arms as he starts to lift her off of the floor, to pull her open shirt back around her.

"Peter…" is the only word she can make her mouth form, and he has her on her feet for a second when she stumbles, he seems to think better of it and lifts her completely in his arms.

"Peter… don't you?" her eyes are filling with tears again, because he has no idea how much she needs this.

He stops short, laughter in his eyes again, and she's grateful for that at least. "More than anything…" he breathes across her skin, kissing her cheekbone lightly, "But I won't have you regretting this…"

She wants to argue with him, tell him she'll regret not taking her chance now, but part of her knows he's right… this wouldn't be real, not if her memories were hazy and whiskey-soaked. And she doesn't want not to remember him.

They're in her bedroom now, and he lays her on the bed gently, slipping her shirt off her shoulders, and her pants down her legs, and he's gritting his teeth and focusing on her face, and a more sober Olivia would have chuckled at that, but as it is, she can't seem to get enough of him, trying to tug him closer, not making his unfortunate task easy for him.

She's so goddamn beautiful, and he's not sure how long he can hold out – his whole body is screaming for her, and she keeps pulling his head down to kiss her, and she's drunk and distraught and wonderful and she's driving him insane.

He finds an old Midwestern T-shirt and slips it over her body, covering up the other bruises he refuses to let his brain linger on, on her back, her stomach, her shoulders.

Finally, he loses her hair from the ponytail, and it falls over the pillow as he lays her down.

She looks like a child, then, staring up at him through those huge, wide eyes. He wants her so much he thinks he might go mad, but he simply tucks the blankets up around her, and kisses her one last lingering time.

"Go to sleep." He breathes, "We'll talk about this in the morning."

It's so difficult to stand up, but he does, and he turns away, planning to use the couch as a bed tonight, but her voice catches through the half-light.

"You promised." She whispers, half asleep.

"What?"

"You wouldn't leave me…" she murmurs, turning on her side.

He doesn't need asking twice.

As she slips between waking and sleeping, she feels him climb onto the bed behind her, his arm wrap around her waist and she smiles slightly as she realises how well they fit together.

Then she slips away, knowing he's alive and safe and beautiful.

In the morning, despite feeling like her head has been run over by a monster-truck, she will wake up having rolled over in her sleep, with her face inches away from his, and it will take her only a few seconds to remember the events of the previous day and night, before she leans in and wakes him up with a kiss, sealing their deal finally in sobriety and clarity.

FINIS