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coweye · 14 hours ago

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almost.

synopsis: three times you almost kiss river cartwright... and one time you do. author’s note: giggled and kicked my feet the whole entire way through writing this — you'll understand once you've read it! do i have four other river fics currently in my drafts? yeah, maybe! i had so much fun writing this. wordcount: 3,402

River Cartwright x Reader

The lock on the door you’re currently trying to pick is old enough to be stubborn, but not old enough to be easy. The only light you have to work from is the dim yellow street lamp above you, casting long shadows on the ground, and your knees are beginning to scream from where the rough concrete of the narrow alley digs into them through your jeans.

River crowds over you, shielding you from the busy street beyond as he watches you work. It’s beginning to get on your fucking nerves, to be honest, his sharp blue eyes honed in on the movement of your fingers as you work at the lock.

“Why don’t you try–”

“For fuck’s sake.” You sigh heavily, not even sparing him a look as he starts to backseat lockpick.

“I’m just suggesting–”

“Did I ask for suggestions?”

“No, but this doesn’t seem to be your strong suit–”

You scoff. “Oh, like it’s yours? You could barely–”

“At least I was getting somewhere, you’re taking ages–”

“You rushed into it and nearly snapped the pick in the fucking lock!”

“Big talk for someone losing a fight with a door.” He mutters under his breath.

You fix him with your coldest, darkest scowl, opening your mouth to retort when the pick slips and embeds itself into one of your fingers, a hiss escaping your lips before you can stop it.

“What did you do?” His tone flips, immediately alert and concerned.

“Nothing.” You mutter, tucking your hand behind your back like a scolded child when he crouches beside you, too close for you to ignore.

“Which means something.”

“I’m fine–”

“Show me.” River’s voice is firm, inarguable, and you roll your eyes but hold out your hand anyways, muttering something about his dramatics.

Blood beads against your skin, and his jaw ticks. “Think I’ll live?” You snark, but he’s too busy digging around in his pocket to reply, and when his hand emerges, he’s producing a crumpled takeaway napkin.

“That’s disgusting.” Your nose wrinkles and you instinctively pull your hand away, even as he takes your wrist, firm and careful, wrapping the napkin tight around your finger.

“Yeah, well, it’s better than dripping DNA all over the door, isn’t it?” He mutters, fingers brushing yours as he knots the makeshift bandage, his head dipping close enough that his breath ghosts your hand. “There. That’ll do for now. But clean it off and change it as soon as you can.”

You shove down the warmth that floods you at the care, unable to think of a proper retort to throw at him as you go back to working at the lock, and finally, finally, there’s a dull clicking sound– and the door eases open.

You let out the breath you didn’t realize you were holding, looking up to smirk at River, who just rolls his eyes and ushers you into the building. Once inside, you both click on your torches, scanning the darkened security office before you in sync.

“Shit.” River hisses beside you, and you can’t help but agree with him – the office is deserted. Not just empty, but emptied – drawers hanging open, desks cleared, pieces of torn paper littering the ground. Your heart sinks at the realization that the two of you are too late.

“Fuck’s sake.” You groan, fully aware that Lamb is going to flay you alive for fucking this up. Before you can delve too far into your pity party, though, there’s the distant sound of a door closing, and you and River lock eyes.

Footsteps echo in the hall, and you look around the room frantically. The desks and cabinets are too thin to hide behind, the door to the exterior leads to a dead-end alleyway–

River grabs you by the hand, tugging you towards the wall to the left, and before you know it, he’s tugged the two of you into a supply closet, easing the door closed behind him and boxing you in.

Your back hits a metal shelf and you jerk forwards to avoid knocking anything over, instead stepping directly into River’s space, and his hand darts forward and settles on your waist to steady you. Your breath hitches in your throat from panic (among other things), your eyes adjusting ever-so-slowly to the darkness of the closet as the footsteps get closer and closer.

“I heard something, I’m telling you.” Someone barks, their voice gruff, and you glance over at River. His head is turned towards the door, angling his ear to hear better, and you really really need to keep your mind on the danger at present instead of how good his side profile looks.

“No one here, idiot.” Another voice, and then–

“Wait, is that–?” A third person. You lock wide eyes with River, knowing that he’s thinking the same thing you are – you’re officially outnumbered should it come to a fight. He raises a finger to his lips, only barely visible from the sliver of light coming through the door, and you nod, holding your breath as footsteps get nearer.

You’re so close you can feel his breathing get heavier, the rise and fall of his chest grazing your own as you swallow your fear. If they open that door you’re both so fucked.

He leans closer to you, one hand moving to slip past you as the hand on your waist digs in slightly, and your brain all but short circuits. You give him a bewildered look as his face gets closer to you, both delighted and yet utterly baffled at his idea that now is a good time for a first kiss, when he pulls back suddenly and you catch a glimpse of the can of bug spray in his hand – that he just got off the shelf behind you.

He cocks his head, an apologetic expression on his face, and you push down the disappointment that swells in your chest. He holds the spray in front of him, obviously intent on blinding whoever opens the door, just in time to hear voice number two speak.

“Fucking hell, a chocolate bar?”

“It’s just sitting there, and I’m hungry.” The third voice retorts, and then the footsteps retreat down the hall, their bickering fading into silence. The two of you stay frozen for much longer than necessary, the warmth of his hand on your waist searing into your skin and spreading through you rapidly.

In the thin spill of light under the door, his eyes catch yours – bright, sharp, something dangerous simmering there. For a second, it feels inevitable. His eyes slide down your face in a way that makes your breath hitch in your throat, and–

“Bug spray? Really?” The quip leaves your lips before you can stop it, effectively shattering the tension in the closet as he rolls his eyes and steps away from you, opening the door and peeking out.

“What were you gonna use, your torch?” He bites back, holding the door open for you once he’s deemed it safe, and you stifle the grin that threatens to spread across your face.

That smile is wiped entirely off your face moments later when you call Lamb to let him know the office was cleared out when you got there. “MI-fucking-useless, the lot of you.” He says as he hangs up, before you can even describe the men that were in there, and you squeeze your eyes shut and fight the urge to smash your phone on the pavement.

“Told you he was proud of you, did he? Great work and all that?” River meets your gaze from across the alleyway, his voice dripping with sarcasm, and you nod, sucking in a deep breath.

“Come on, let’s see if Roddy can track their movements – maybe we can unfuck this by finding out where they went.” You jerk your head towards the main road where he’d parked the car.

“I’m not calling him.” River calls, and your jaw drops.

“I called Lamb!” You retort.

“Roddy doesn’t do favours for me.” He shrugs as he climbs into the driver’s seat.

“Yeah, he only does them for me ‘cause he wants to get in my pants.” You groan, sliding into the passenger seat, and River simply shrugs again, though you can see the corners of his mouth curling in the passing light from the streetlamps.

Roddy is, unfortunately, helpful – he follows the men on CCTV into a gray van, tracking the license plate of the van to a house not too far away. You give River the address and chew on your lip the whole drive there, worried you’ll be too late again, but when you ease the car into a quiet stop on the side of the road, the van is parked in the driveway.

By the time you’ve pulled in, the skies have opened and sheets of British rain lash down at the car, effectively striking out any notion you might’ve had about getting out of the car and trying to do surveillance on foot. You shoot Lamb a text to update him, rolling your eyes as the text registers as ‘seen’ without an actual reply.

River’s car is small enough that you keep bumping arms with him every time you shift in your seat, the suspense and tiredness of the night making you restless, and by the end of the first hour of the stakeout, you swear he’s starting to lean his elbow on your side of the center console deliberately.

“Keep to your side.” You grumble, knocking his arm back.

“Stop fucking wriggling.” Is his reply, not even looking at you as he scrubs a hand over his stubble and glares out of the window.

The house is quiet, the windows dark, and you’re beginning to wonder if you’ve been sent on a wild goose chase. By the second hour, your eyes are beginning to feel heavy, the rain battering the car only serving to add to your tiredness.

“First to fall asleep has to write the report.” River comments from beside you, and when you groan and look over at him he’s already watching you out of the corner of his eye.

“This is a dead fucking end.” You complain, readjusting in your seat, and he shrugs.

“Maybe. But if we ditch now Lamb’ll never let us hear the end of it.”

You heave out a sigh, knowing he’s right, folding your arms over your chest and squinting out into the darkness beyond. The silence after hums heavier than it should, his arm brushing yours when he shifts, pressing firmer into yours and staying there. You don’t shove it away this time.

“You still have that napkin on?” His voice breaks the comfortable silence, and you frown, glancing down at where your hand rests next to the gear stick, the napkin spotted with dried blood still firmly wrapped around your finger.

“It’s fine.” You tuck it into your fist, hiding it from his gaze, ignoring the fact that he’s looking at you.

“Just– Don’t let it get infected.” His voice is lower now, softer. Almost like he cares.

You don’t answer, and neither does he – not for a while. It feels like the two of you are holding your breath without even knowing why, the only sound in the car the dull patter of rain on the roof.

“Wait, what’s– Look, there.” River’s voice is barely above a whisper as he points towards the second floor window, and you have to squint and lean forward to make out the window through the rain.

“I don’t see–” You frown, scanning the house.

“No, look, that one.” He gestures again, and you narrow your eyes, having to lean into his side of the car to try and get a better look. There is, in fact, a light on in one of the windows now.

“Okay, so someone’s in there, it doesn’t mean–” You turn to tell him off but freeze when you realize you’ve placed your face inches from his own, too focused on the outside of the car to notice.

River seems to do the same, blue eyes darkened in the dim light from the streetlamp, and neither of you move. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, and you watch his eyes dart down to your lips and then back up again, as if debating himself internally.

Fuck it, you think, heart pounding in your chest as months of these moments together build up in your mind, and you lean in, his breath ghosting over your face, mere centimetres from–

Your phone rings, lighting up the darkness inside the car and shattering the silence, and you swear to god your eye twitches at the interruption.

You and River jolt backwards from each other, as if caught in the act, and you scramble for your phone with shaky fingers and answer the call. You can just make out the pink flush on his cheeks as you hold the phone up to your ear, but are immediately distracted as the voice of Lamb on the other end begins to speak.

You miss the way River bites back his smile at your annoyance, watching your face scrunch with increasing irritation the longer the phone call goes on, barely managing to get in any responses besides ‘yes’, ‘wait’, and ‘no sir’, eventually hanging up and dropping the phone into your lap with a huff.

“Lamb’s calling off the surveillance,” You meet River’s eyes, your previous shared moment disintegrated entirely by the irritation you both feel. “Apparently he sent Louisa to gather other intel, and they found enough that they don’t need us to watch them anymore.”

River tugs his bottom lip in between his teeth, obviously frustrated. “Right, so we just–”

“Return to Slough House and make a report, yeah. Three hours of surveillance for fuck all.” You dig the heels of your palms into your eye sockets, shoving back the fury and waking yourself up.

“Fucking dickhead.” River curses as he puts the car into drive, and you’d have to agree with him.

Slough House in the wee hours of the morning is deadly silent and starkly lit by fluorescents, and you really don’t think you want to find yourself here at four in the fucking morning ever again. You’re never usually the first one in, that’s always Catherine and Lamb (mostly because you’re fairly certain he sleeps here) but you and River had wanted to get the report filed so you could actually go home and rest.

The two of you collapse into your desks in your shared office, River bagsying the report on the surveillance (i.e. a couple sentences that summarize all the nothing you saw), and you’re left to type up the office break-in; detailing the interior, descriptions of the men, and your intel from Roddy.

You make a cup of tea and then get to work, fingers pounding the keys like they’ve personally offended you, but you’re tired and more than a little distracted from certain situations you’d found yourself in earlier, so you end up writing a few sentences over and over before they actually make any sense.

Across the office, River pretends to focus on his work and fails spectacularly.

“If you stare any harder my desk might just burst into flames.” You speak without looking up, watching River duck his head back down in your peripheral.

“Just wondering why it’s taking you so long to write up the report.”

“Quality takes time, which is not something I’d expect you to understand.”

“Oh, so that’s how it is.” You can hear the smile in his voice, but there’s something else there, something you don’t dare read into while you’re trying to describe the unique vocal inflections of the men in the warehouse.

“That’s how it is.” You smirk.

The words settle into a strange silence between you, and you press the delete key a little harder than necessary just to shatter it.

“You’re still wearing that bloody napkin, aren’t you?”

You open your mouth to call him a mother hen and tell him to back off, but the words die on your tongue when he suddenly appears beside your desk.

“Let me see.” He crouches beside your chair, and your cheeks flush involuntarily.

“River–”

He rolls his eyes, holding his hand out expectantly, and you place your hand in his faster than you’d care to admit, watching him unwind the napkin gently. When it falls away and reveals the cut from earlier, red and slightly swollen, he fixes you with a pointed look.

“I told you to clean it hours ago.”

“I was kind of busy, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Do you always have to get the last word in?” He sighs, standing back up, and you scoff.

“What, did you have more medical knowledge to tell me off with?” You blink up at him, eyebrows raised, and he runs a hand through his hair, looking away from you as if searching for the strength to deal with you, and you turn back to your monitor.

“You’re insufferable.” He counters, finally, and you scoff, finishing up a sentence.

“Oh, I’m–”

Your breath hitches when you go to look at him and realize he’s bent at the waist, his face mere inches from your own. The world beyond fades away when he leans in slowly, his hand cupping the edge of your jaw, fingers warm against your skin as he meets your eyes, searching for your reaction, blue eyes fierce but soft, and you lean–

The door bangs open.

You jerk back so hard your chair makes a metal squealing noise. River straightens like a soldier caught, both your eyes snapping over to the doorway.

“Well, well, well,” Lamb’s voice drips like oil. “If it isn’t MI5’s answer to Romeo and bloody Juliet.”

This cannot be happening right now, you think, begging to any deity that will listen that this is some kind of twisted nightmare and not your living reality.

“Christ,” Lamb mutters, grin splitting his face open as he looks between the two of you. “What’s all this, then? Dry-humping over duty logs? Filing reports as foreplay?”

“Fuck off.” River snaps, ears pink.

Lamb’s wolfish grin grows wider. “Oh, don’t mind me, just pretend I’m not here! Same way I’m going to pretend you’re not turning this place into a knocking shop.”

He turns and disappears down the stairs, muttering about HR complaints and disinfectant until you hear the creaky metal front door swing shut behind him.

The silence after is a live wire. Your pulse hammers in your ears, but slowly, the blazing heat in your cheeks starts to dissipate, the mortification burning under your skin lessening ever so slightly as you look back up at River, who’s staring at the empty doorframe like he can set it on fire with his mind.

You can feel the moment you cast caution to the wind, the various almosts of the night driving any rational course of action out of your mind. Fuck it. You clear your throat, feeling fiendish.

“Where were we?”

His eyes cut to you, wide at first, then narrow and dark and full of things that do not belong in this room. His mouth curves, wicked and quiet, bending back down until he’s hovering right above your face, dimples forming on his cheeks that betray his attempt to hide a growing smile as he places a hand on the back of your chair, boxing you in.

“Nowhere good.” River says like it’s a promise, and finally (finally) seals his lips against yours. The kiss is sweet but full of fervour, both of you feeling the frustrations of the evening come to a head, his hand sliding up the back of your skull and tangling into your hair.

You wrap your fingers in the front of his coat, pulling him down to you, and he nearly stumbles at the action but at the last second rests his knee on your chair, between your thighs, to steady himself. The action makes goosebumps erupt across your skin, and you make up your mind then and there.

“My place is closer than yours.” You utter when you break away for air, not even waiting for him to ask the question, and he huffs out a laugh against your neck, the sound causing warmth to flood your body.

“Lead the way.” He mutters against your skin, and you beam.

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