- thawing -
Title: Thawing
Author: Brix
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Weiss/Vaughn
Disclaimer: I don’t own them. Imitation is the highest form of compliment.
Spoilers: Through season three
Feedback: Flowers need water and writers need feedback. Be kind, water a writer today. shadesofbrixton@yahoomail.com
Archive: Cover Me, Alias Slash Archive. Anyone else, please ask – I always say yes, but I like to know where it goes.
Note: Hugest thanks to for the beta. For you crazies who rec me, please use ||this link||
For: Meadowlion
Requirements: Vaughn/Weiss, with a mission and water-sex (shower, pool, bath, etc).
Restrictions: There can be references to Sydney, but only indirectly.
THAWING
There were, as always, things that they had forgotten to take into account during the planning stages of the mission. Vaughn didn’t think it was possible to ever have a clean run – to ever have anything go perfectly, without any flaws. It simply wasn’t in him to anticipate every possible move, every possible defense, beforehand. Because of that – or perhaps despite it – Vaughn had grown used to thinking on his feet.
There wasn’t a lot of thinking that could be done, however, when he was treading underwater, steadily running out of oxygen and dodging bullets that were threading through the water like fruit through a J-ELLO mold. There was a lot of panicking, and swimming like an idiot, and abandoning oxygen tanks. Not a smart move, perhaps, but neither he nor Weiss was willing to risk a bullet grazing one and completely removing their chances at survival.
Taking one last deep suck on the mouth piece, Vaughn wasted a moment watching the oxygen tank sink into the dark curves of the Adriatic. Then Weiss was pulling frantically on his flippered foot and they were off – sluicing neatly through the water with more grace than Vaughn had ever felt on land.
By the time they ran out of air, they were far enough away to rise. Vaughn sent a brief thanks skyward for the temporary luck as he cut the surface, the water sluicing down his wetsuit like oil and vinegar. Weiss bobbed up next to him, and for a moment the only sounds were two sets of lungs working raggedly, delirious on the high of real air, and the improbable crackle of flame on water. They turned back to look at their escape route, and saw the fire licking the sky from the wreckage of the cruise ship. The gunmen still paced the decks, a little more anxiously now that the flames had grown higher. A dingy was on its way from shore. Vaughn was sure it would get there before the main fuselage caught, but he wasn’t quite sure if he cared.
“Fuck,” Weiss said.
“Yeah,” Vaughn agreed, the word vehement in its breathlessness. He blinked moisture out of his eyes and then rotated in the water again. “Come on. We’ve got to keep moving before they realize we’ve surfaced.”
Weiss didn’t waste any more breath, and they both slipped back beneath the black, glossy surface, to head for distant docks.
* * *
Simple mission, my ass. Vaughn watched the smoke sift into the black sky, only identifiable by where it blocked out the stars with its thickness. Soon it would be dissolved into cloud and there would be nothing left but a carefully whitewashed headline in tomorrow’s newspaper.
It had been simple on paper, Vaughn had to admit. Intercept The Covenant’s liaison traveling aboard the ship, nab whatever it was he was supposed to deliver to his intermediaries in Bari, and destroy it if they couldn’t bring it home. Another thing Vaughn had failed to anticipate as he and Weiss boarded the cruise ship on the ruse of brothers enjoying a surprise lotto win was that the object the liaison was attempting to deliver was the ship itself, which was to carry a load of foreign dignitaries out to sea the next day.
“Good thing I’m so highly trained in high-tech explosives,” Weiss had said dryly as he had upturned a can of diesel and struck a match. Vaughn would have rolled his eyes, if he hadn’t already been hanging off the side of the boat, trying to gauge the distance and the quietest way to slip below the surface.
“Vaughn,” Weiss hissed, and the other man pulled his eyes reluctantly from the sky. Weiss was crouched and dripping on the docks, a halo of dark spatter surrounding him as he fiddled with a radio. “What’s our back-up plan? This thing is toasted.” The radio gave an indignant fizz. Weiss looked up at him expectantly.
One of the first things Vaughn’s training officer had taught him during preparation for field duty was to never seem indecisive in front of his fellow agents. It would be less than inspirational, and it was never good to spark any dissention in the ranks, given the opportunity. Nothing less than a strong, firm answer should ever pass his lips, the officer had warned.
“Um,” Vaughn said.
Weiss snorted as he pushed himself to his knees. “Mike, come on. I feel like a kielbasa and we’re bound to be as conspicuous as a three-ring-circus wearing these wetsuits come morning. We need a place to hide, and a change of clothes.”
“Right,” Vaughn said. “Okay. Safe house. SD-7 had one…” he consulted the map that Weiss had pulled out, and poked at it sharply. “There.”
Weiss glanced at him sharply. “You think it’s safe?”
“No,” Vaughn said. “But it’s our only choice.”
Weiss made a noise of assent and folded the map back up, the waxy waterproofing making a hollow crinkling sound in the night. The flippers and outer gear were abandoned as reluctantly as the oxygen tanks, but this time there was no hesitation as they ran.
* * *
“It’s a church?” Weiss stated the obvious, both of them staring up at the boarded door. “Tell me you see the irony in that.”
“There’s a back entrance.” Vaughn wanted to get off the street as quickly as possible. He felt exposed despite the darkness, and less than pleased with the newest development – rain. The water slicked down his face and into the lined collar of the wetsuit as he went around the side of the church searching for the storm cellar doors. Weiss trailed after him, still staring upward, and nearly stumbled over a clod of dirt in the choppy ground.
Vaughn heaved the door in when he found it, and peered up the narrow stairs that led up instead of down, as most cellar stairs would. Cautiously, they closed the heavy door behind them and moved up the stair together in near-darkness. At the top, they found another door. Vaughn tried the knob very, very carefully. “It was supposed to have been abandoned after the dissolution, but I don’t know if anyone might have…” He frowned. “The door is unlocked.”
“That’s bad?” Weiss joked nervously. Very carefully, they moved to opposite sides of the threshold, and Vaughn pushed the door ajar.
It didn’t budge.
“Do you think anyone’s in there?” Weiss whispered.
“A blockade, maybe,” Vaughn whispered back. “If they wanted us dead, they could’ve killed us on the stairs. There are drop-points.”
“Thanks so much for the advance notice.” Weiss pressed his shoulder to the door. It groaned.
It took Vaughn’s added weight and a soft count to three to get the door to open far enough for Vaughn to slip inside. He made a mangled sound as his shoulder hit the door and then he was gone, a shaft of disrupted dust filtered by moonlight in the space he had occupied.
“There’s a furniture barricade,” Vaughn said, and the sound of shifting followed his voice. The door opened a few more inches and Weiss slipped through. He closed the door behind them and spared a glance for the pile of wood and upholstery that blocked the way.
“It’s freezing in here,” Vaughn said, his breath puffing out.
“It was freezing outside,” Weiss reminded him. “At least we’re dry.” He gave his hair a shake to prove the point. Together, they crept toward a broken window at the opposite side of the room. Dusty glass coated the floor and bloody footprints led to the vacated window, dry and old and brown.
“Whoever was here is long gone,” Vaughn decided and turned to spot the pried up floor boards that meant the food supplies had been ravaged.
Weiss turned and followed his gaze. “Maybe there’s duct tape? We can put up a tarp, block out the rain at least.”
“Someone might be watching that window. It stays as is. Let’s check the other rooms.”
But as they looked around, there was only one other door, closed and foreboding.
“There could be someone in there,” Weiss whispered.
“There could be,” Vaughn agreed. They stared at the door for another few moments before Vaughn went over to the furniture pile, picked up two chairs, and handed one to Weiss.
“What are we going to do, lion-tame them?” Weiss hefted his chair, testing its weight. “What if they have a gun?”
“Then we’re going to hurt a lot,” Vaughn said through clenched teeth. Weiss kept quiet as they exchanged a glance, and they both took a quiet breath before slamming the door in.
The door ricocheted off the wall and bonked Weiss in the shoulder. They both skidded to a messy, wet halt on old tile, and Vaughn lowered his chair.
“Bathroom.”
“Bathroom,” Weiss confirmed. “We’re safe.”
It was only when he said it that it sunk in. Weiss lowered his makeshift weapon almost reluctantly, surveying the dark corners over and over again, searching for movement.
“Safe is a relative term,” Vaughn said bitterly, and turned away.
The chair clacked noisily on the tile as Weiss set it down, and sighed. “Mike,” he said, going after his partner. “Hey. Come on.” He followed Vaughn as he stooped over the supply cubby that had been torn open, staring desolately into the cavity. “We’re going to be fine. We’ll change, we’ll sleep, we’ll feel like a million bucks and find a way to make the call in the morning, when we know where we are. Don’t bail on me now.”
Vaughn gave him a spare look, but nodded his agreement. Lying low for the night made sense. The sheeting rain drove the damp inside the room, and a shiver ripped up both their spines as they turned their attention back to the supplies.
“Not much left,” Vaughn admitted, pulling out two pillar candles that had probably been pilfered from the rectory below. Matches came next, followed by a few musty blankets that had a first aid kit and flashlights wrapped inside. “Looks like they mostly took the food.”
“Lucky for us,” Weiss said. “Have you ever tried those rations? Spam.”
“Surely there is no greater crime against humanity.” Vaughn said wryly.
Weiss made a noise of agreement. “That’s the real reason they’re international terrorists, you know. Food espionage.”
“Well, thank God we ended their reign of terror,” Vaughn said. “Can you check those plastic bags?” Weiss followed the direction of his pointed finger to a shallow closet across the room, and he unbent himself to investigate.
“Severed heads,” Weiss reported, and Vaughn’s own snapped up. Weiss pulled an oversized flannel shirt out, followed by a sundress. “Dibs on the dress.”
Vaughn’s smile cracked at last, and Weiss turned for the other bags, equally lumpy with clothing. In a few minutes, they had all the supplies laid out. There were enough clothes to go around, in varying sizes, though Weiss would have been in trouble if he hadn’t been gone through the disgustingly rigorous task of slimming down in the past few months. There were enough candles to last them until daylight, a flare gun, and enough bits and pieces for Weiss to do some barebones surgery on their broken transistor.
And one tin of peaches.
Over the hearty meal, Weiss and Vaughn managed to patch together a signal long enough to relay their coordinates back to the CIA, confirm the completion of the mission, and receive the predictable command to wait for a dawn extraction. Vaughn was in the middle of broadcasting mission details when the radio gave a violent pop and began to smoke. Vaughn looked at Weiss eagerly.
Weiss shook his head. “Sorry,” he said, pulling apart one piece of the radio and then drawing back quickly, his finger burnt. “This thing is toast. We’ll just have to sit tight until the morning. You can remember everything until then, can’t you?”
Vaughn’s answer was preempted by a chest-shattering cough which seemed to surprise them both. When the coughing subsided, Vaughn felt vaguely offended, as if his body had betrayed him in some way.
“You need to get that damn wetsuit off,” Weiss insisted, ignoring the fact that he still wore his own. He stood and headed for the bathtub. “I’ll see if there’s any water.”
“I’m wet enough,” Vaughn complained, but the flood of water into the porcelain bathtub drowned his voice.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Weiss said after a moment, his voice distorted by the tile. “But there’s hot water.”
Vaughn perked up noticeably. “Real hot water? Really?”
“Really real,” Weiss quipped, shaking his hands of excess moisture as he came out. “Now get in the tub. Scoot.”
Vaughn practically scampered in his haste, pulling his arms with a rubber snap out of the offending suit, his skin clammy and cold where it came away from the material. His chest was tight but seemed to rejoice at the steam rising from the bathtub. He had barely sunk below the surface before Weiss returned, bearing a lit candle, musty washcloth and a wrapped bar of soap from the first aid kit.
“Hey!” Vaughn protested indignantly, covering himself as Weiss came closer.
“Please,” Weiss said, sounding weary. “You think you can wash those out yourself?” He pointed to Vaughn’s back, and Vaughn craned his neck. To his surprise, he could see the tail end of three livid marks that stretched across the center of his back. “You must’ve been hit on the retreat,” Weiss said, and sounded worried. “I thought your suit had just torn. We’re lucky we didn’t have to dive – you would’ve exploded.”
“To put it tactfully,” Vaughn muttered, and relaxed slightly. He hunched forward, letting Weiss have a look at the wounds with the candle he’d brought in, and carefully removed his hands to someplace less conspicuous.
“Besides,” Weiss went on cheerfully, “not like you’ve got anything I haven’t seen before. And certainly nothing special.” He paused to mock-consider. “Would’ve been in your file.”
Vaughn ignored him except to look archly over one shoulder, his forehead creasing. “How deep are they?”
“Shallow. You’ll be fine – but you must’ve been colder than I thought, if you couldn’t even feel these. How do you feel?”
“Fine.”
Weiss looked up at him. “Really.”
“Better,” Vaughn hedged.
Weiss gave a snort and began clearing the wounds of salt water. Vaughn gave the occasional surprised hiss as Weiss worked with the washcloth, but eventually the scrapes were clean and Vaughn found himself lulled, a combination of sheer exhaustion, the rhythmic circles the washcloth on his back were running, and Weiss’ never-ending prattle pulling him closer to the black edges of sleep. At some point, the taps went back on and the plug in the drain was pulled, replacing cooling water with a fresh, hot supply. He felt himself tipped carefully, his tender back meeting the cool wall of the bath gratefully.
He didn’t realize Weiss had moved the washcloth around to the front until the taps had been turned off again.
“What’re you doing?” He tried to make himself sound harsh, or at least inquisitory, but it came out slurred and sleepy.
“Getting the salt off of you,” Weiss said in a quiet tone. The heat of the bath and the infrequent dripping of the faucet was enough to keep Vaughn just on the living side of wakefulness, and Weiss’ thorough washing job was slowly making him more alert.
The washcloth lathered up quickly, as if afraid breaking for soap would shatter this vulnerability, and returned, warm, to Vaughn’s shoulder. He could feel another fraction of pale cold slip away as the rough cloth left shining skin in its wake. Weiss had a steady rhythm of lathering and rinsing that eased Vaughn’s muscles, the soap spreading smoothly over his shoulders and chest before being just as gently washed away. The circles swept wider and narrower over and over again, a sure weight against his chest.
“How do you feel?” Weiss asked again, in that same almost-invisible tone.
“Salty,” Vaughn mumbled dreamily as the circle lowered a bit, dipping to his belly button and back up again; lather, rinse, dip.
“Still?” Weiss asked, the voice very near to his head now.
Vaughn made a noise of confirmation that turned into something else as the washcloth went lower, lower.
“Filthy,” Vaughn said. And then, “Oh.” And his eyes flickered open and he tried not to move because moving hurt with his back pressed up against the surface of the tub. His gaze met Weiss’, who was trying his best to look both stern and inquiring as his hand moved in smaller circles this time, the roughness of the washcloth not going entirely unappreciated. There was a question there that Vaughn could see, and he knew the answer, but the hot and the rough and the salt was making it too hard to say anything.
The soap was left for dead as it slipped below the surface, drifting to the bottom with a soft clank like the oxygen tanks they had stripped away earlier that night. Vaughn slipped a little, too, lower under the water, his eyes trying simultaneously to squeeze shut and straining to stay open. Weiss got closer, the questioning look disappearing, all steel now. That flare of determination did nothing to help Vaughn’s mild attempts at dignity and then Vaughn wanted to take the washcloth home and marry it, the amazing things it was doing.
He could feel his eyes bulge again, his hips going wild against the request of his aching back. The cuts burned starry cold into his wing bones, but the demand of the muscles in his thighs was louder and hot won over cold.
“Okay?” Weiss hazarded, closing in further, their faces almost pressing cheek to cheek.
“Okay,” Vaughn repeated, and almost laughed at the inadequacy of the word. “Fine. Great. Brilliant.” And suddenly the washcloth was gone and the bath got warmer, and Vaughn could feel his skin boiling lobster red from invisible steam because now there was hand.
Vaughn spent a few more moments going certifiably insane; hips jerking and thighs straining to get just a little bit farther apart, knees cresting out of the water and hands gripping the side of the tub and Weiss’ forearm – fingernail marks bound to be there soon in dull white crescents. But the water was to no avail, because Vaughn went up in flame, arching until his feet were flat on the porcelain and the tile was damp with misplaced water.
He didn’t realize his eyes had closed until he was prying them open again, three lines of icy-white pain on his back like claw marks.
Weiss was draining the tub.
Vaughn felt the water level drop a little as his heart and stomach and intestines settled back into their proper places, though perhaps the first was working a bit overtime, trying to push enough blood into his brain to figure out what to do next. It wasn’t entirely cohesive, but what he said was: “You must be freezing.”
Weiss looked up from the drain, his face a careful mask, and nodded after a moment’s hesitation.
Vaughn swallowed, and forced himself not to curl up into a tiny ball or break eye contact. “Would you…” Weiss’ eyes flickered a bit, or it may have been a trick of the candle. “You should probably…” He scowled at himself, the lines in his face standing out in sharp relief against his mouth and forehead. “I…”
Weiss saved him from twisting in his sentence again. “Are you asking me to take a bath with you?”
“Yes,” Vaughn said immediately, and any other time one of them would have laughed about the surety. Instead, Weiss simply plugged the tub back up, let lose with another torrent of scalding hot water into the basin, and began the same awkward struggle with the wetsuit Vaughn had encountered. He was halfway through when he noticed a wince that Vaughn hadn’t even realized he’d given.
“Your back hurting?” Weiss asked.
Vaughn gave a distracted nod. “Are you getting in? The water’s not getting any hotter.” Weiss took a deep breath, and Vaughn caught the indecision. “It’s not like you’ve got anything I haven’t seen before,” Vaughn said, his voice kind.
“I knew you peeked in the locker room,” Weiss muttered to himself as he gave a final yank, and watched Vaughn’s eyes go a little bigger.
“That’s…” He swallowed.
“That’s because of you,” Weiss said roughly, and cast his eyes aside. “Now move, I’m freezing.”
Vaughn slid forward to close the tap and turned just in time to come face-to-face with just how small the tub really was. Trapped between the pointy end of the bath and heat itself. Weiss gave him a sheepish grin that made something break, and more water sloshed over the side in Vaughn’s urgency to pull himself up the sides of the tub and over that body to taste – everything. His back pressed against the cool air as their mouths met in a fiery embrace and everything else melted into lava and rock. It was harsh and biting – nothing like the gentle hands from before, though they were still careful of his injury.
“You feel fantastic,” Weiss confessed near Vaughn’s ear after a moment of separation. Vaughn wasn’t quite sure how to reply to that so he bore down his weight a little more, savoring the hiss his efforts were rewarded with.
“You’re still freezing,” Vaughn said, his fingers pushing into searing skin. It was a lie, and Weiss knew it too, if the look of amusement on his face was anything to gauge by.
Weiss took a deep breath and tilted his face up, and whispered, “Warm me up, then?”
He slipped a little lower, shifting Vaughn to new planetary orbits over his hips and Vaughn dropped low, their chins almost meeting. The light guttered; the candle was nearly surrendering to its wax, and nothing but the rain against the floor in the next room and the drip of the faucet cut the air for the moment.