Notes: At some point while I was writing this I complained to my girlfriend that I was writing almost porn of people I don't even ship. She was like, "um, probably because you ship them." She's probably right. Which probably means there will be more, eventually.

Pas de Deux

rosabelle

She laughs, after, and lays her head on his chest.

"You should know," she says into the warm darkness, "that I do not casually engage in sexual intercourse—"

"Do we have to call it that?"

"Would you care to suggest an alternative?"

"I just thought you would've picked something a little more, I dunno, romantic." His arm curves around her shoulders, fingers trailing up and down her arms.

It makes her shiver and that makes her giddy, because no one has made her shiver in a long, long time. "You'll have to earn romantic, Lieutenant."

"What, you want me to take you to dinner?"

She nuzzles his chest. "Mmm."

"Should I bring you flowers too?"

"I like lilies," she murmurs, and smiles into his skin.

Years ago, her ballet school had done Swan Lake, and she had danced the role of Odette. It was her senior year of high school, and the last year she'd ever danced.

She still has the shoes, somewhere.

She cannot remember the name of the boy with whom she danced the pas de deux, nor even his face—but she remembers the touch of his hands, and she remembers the dance.

On restless nights, she soothes herself to sleep by humming the tune and running through the steps in her mind. She thinks that she could perform the entire thing from memory, every last plié and pirouette, if she had the strength to do it safely.

There are other dances that her body remembers.

Dances that leave her breathless and aching and smelling of him, her lips swollen and his arms scored with her fingernails. She presses her lips to one of the marks, and feels him stir.

She reaches up to touch his face, feeling out every wrinkle and line, everything that she'd noticed but hadn't taken the time to fully appreciate earlier. His eyelids flutter against her fingertips and she grows warm with delight.

She's been lonely, and she thinks this is what she's missed the most, this drowsy, languid after where she is sore and satisfied and content.

It's something she has not allowed herself in twenty years, and she means to indulge herself now.

Her skin glides against his when she stretches.

There will be a next time, one where she allows him to be tender with her the way that he wanted to be, and another time where they do all the intimate things that make her breath hitch to remember them. There may be many more times after that. But tonight, his kisses have left bruises on her breasts and he held her hips so tightly that she can still feel the pressure of his fingers.

Tonight has been everything that she needed, and more.

He speaks her name, voice so different now than before, when he whispered it against her neck just to feel her tremble.

She closes her eyes and hums in response, and she falls into a sleep where her heart beats in rhythm with another's.