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thee-morrigan · 2 years

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too far to go back now

fhr // Julia Ortega/Wren Adler (f!sidestep) // rating: M (18+) // wc: 1.9k

[read on AO3]

It’s not the first time, but it is: with everything that no longer crowded the space between them (and everything that is ), each touch (of hands, of mouths) felt new. Despite the lowlight — one lamp, she’d said, one, and had gestured to a squat table lamp across the room, the frosted glass enclosing it making the light more of a diffuse glow than anything by which to see — she’d never felt so visible. So seen.

Ortega’s eyes dragged along her body in a lazy caress, more tactile than anything she’d ever done with her hands, her gaze a brand far more permanent than the tattoos that snaked along too much of Wren’s own body, their orange coloring gone fire-gold in the dim wash of the lamp light. The gravity with which Julia looked at her, dark brown eyes growing darker still with desire and with an uncharacteristically solemn tenderness, felt new too, shooting straight to the core of her each time those eyes found hers. Asking, sometimes silently and sometimes not, if this was okay. If she was still okay.

She was grateful that it was mostly a silent question, and that it was enough to respond with more gestures than words. If she’d had words, she might have teased her for looking so serious, make it a joke: the latest HR seminar on active consent-seeking was super impactful, huh? Made her laugh, throaty and rich against her lips, as much feeling as sound.

Even if she would have called her an ass in the same breath of amusement, emphasizing by way of a warm hand thereupon, a gentle and proprietary squeeze.

Even if she’d had more words — beyond the “yes” mumbled into Julia’s skin, beyond the seeking, needy hands — she was pretty sure okay wasn’t the word for how she was. Honestly, she was pretty sure there was not actually a word for the writhing tangle of emotions that seemed intent on lacing her ribcage together.

“Wait.”

As Wren’s words ghosted over her skin, Julia froze. Her hands on Wren’s shoulders loosened, though she didn’t let go completely as she pulled back to meet the other woman’s eyes. “Sure, of course. Is this too much? We can stop.”

She froze again when Wren’s hands slid to her wrists, holding them in place where Julia had gone to pull back further, to release her, brown eyes meeting green in wordless question.

“I don’t want to stop,” Wren began. “But…”

“We can, though. You don’t have to explain if you—” Julia’s flow of words was cut off by Wren’s lips on hers. In contrast to how abruptly it began, the kiss was gentle, a lingering caress slow and sweet as honey.

Wren kissed Julia until she softened again, the tension knotting her muscles thawing, then pulled back just enough to breathe, smiling against her mouth as she murmured, “Will you please shut up for a minute and let me talk?”

She felt Julia’s mouth stretch into a grin as well and tasted the accompanying laugh as much as she heard it.

“I didn’t know you even knew the word please,” Julia teased, leaning in to kiss her again and then jerking back in surprise (though not without another laugh) as Wren retaliated by nipping at her bottom lip.

Julia arched one dark brow as if to say, Well, start talking then, and Wren’s grin, wicked and teasing when she’d bitten Julia’s lip, softened into something nervous.

“I was thinking…”

Wren swallowed against the rasp in her voice, and the flesh of her throat felt thick and gummy with drought, her tongue sticking to the roof of her parched mouth. Perhaps the smoldering embers in her belly — the swelling thrill of heat between her thighs — had sucked all the moisture out of her throat, just as Ortega seemed to always suck all the oxygen out of the room anytime they were alone together.

Wren opened her mouth to start again, tongue running instinctively along her too-dry lips as she did, and those embers sparked from a gentle glow to the full lick of flames as she noticed Julia’s eyes catch the movement and grow, impossibly, darker. A flicker of a smirk tugged at her own mouth, just for a moment, as if she knew exactly the effect her gaze had.

Oh, she already looked entirely too pleased with herself. That flash of patented smugness was enough to bolster Wren’s confidence — or at least to spur her need to retort.

“I was thinking ,” she began again, mouth still dry, dry, dry. At least her voice was steady. “That maybe…I could return the favor? From last time, I mean? That maybe, this time, you could watch.”

All traces of teasing were smoothed away from Julia’s face as she regarded Wren, dark eyes soft and serious as she said, “Only if you want to. You don’t ever owe me anything you don’t want to give.”

“I know,” Wren said, meeting her gaze head-on for once instead of deflecting. “I want to, though.” She did: it was strange and a little uncomfortable in its unfamiliarity, to want her eyes on her, on the flesh she has loathed and kept hidden so fiercely all these years. Wren was glad Julia didn’t ask because she wasn’t sure she could explain why if pressed. Maybe it was because part of her knew that — even if she thought she finally, finally, knew all Wren’s secrets now — the window of time where she would see her, see all of her, and still look at her like this, with this gentle reverence, was so terribly small.

That it couldn’t last.

That, eventually, she really would learn the last of the secrets Wren harbored, and the last one would ruin anything she might think they could have together.

The last one would break her heart. It might ruin more than just the hope of them that Julia still clearly held onto with both hands. It might ruin her.

Wren wasn’t sure she herself had a heart left to break; it didn’t matter, anyway. She knew she had been ruined long ago if, indeed, an abomination could be. She still didn’t know whether, in the darkest, truest parts of herself, she would feel anguish or triumph at the ruin of her erstwhile partner.

Her best and only friend.

Her nemesis.

The love of her manufactured life.

But Julia didn’t ask her to explain. She only gave her a soft, slow smile, so tender and gentle that Wren felt the flames snaking along her abdomen reach her husk of a heart and reduce it to ash in her chest.

She felt that wildfire burn all through her veins, too, as she stepped back and out of Julia’s arms, her own hands drifting down to the hem of her shirt. She was glad that she’d already let Ortega remove a couple of the many layers she always wore, if only because it would keep this from feeling any more prolonged and ridiculous than it already did. At least now she only had two layers to discard. Three, if you counted her bra.

She gave thanks to a god she’d never believed in that her hands didn’t shake as she peeled off the thin, long-sleeved t-shirt. As she let it drop to the floor behind her, she fought the rising fog of deja vu at the odd, mirror-memory of the last time she’d stripped down to her bra and tank top in front of Ortega, though she’d been nauseated with fear and anxiety that time. That time, she’d been revealing what she knew Julia believed was her deepest secret: that she was a ReGene, once again escaped and in hiding.

This time, at least, the anxiety felt less likely to consume her.

She made herself keep her eyes on Julia’s as she kept going, though she couldn’t have said whether it was a means of fortifying herself or just another memory she could use to hurt herself later on. Made herself focus on small sensations, each one another little step onward. She marveled a little at the absence of self-loathing in the touch of her hand to her body as she thumbed open the button of her jeans. In the quiet of Ortega’s apartment (the quiet of her bedroom), Wren found the sound of her zipper easing down positively deafening.

Her gaze still fixed on Julia’s face, she couldn’t help but notice the way her lips parted slightly as she shrugged her jeans down her hips, letting them crumple at her feet as she stepped out of them. Couldn’t miss the little intake of breath as she watched Ortega watch her undress. Couldn’t miss the way her eyes followed every movement of Wren’s hands as she curled her fingers around the hem of her tank top, the last remotely substantial swath of fabric left on her body, and tugged it up and over her head before letting it fall with the rest of her discarded clothes to the floor.

And then she was just her, standing there in her underwear and trying very hard to pretend she wasn’t. She had the fleeting thought to attempt to channel some of Julia’s swagger, to mimic the way she’d seemed to revel in Wren’s eyes on her body when their roles had been reversed, but decided to spare whatever remained of her dignity and went for blasé instead.

“Might not be quite the show you put on, but…” Wren shrugged, a corner of her mouth curling upward in what she hoped was a convincingly disaffected smirk. “We don’t all have as much worth looking at.”

She kept talking as she unhooked her bra, a distraction from thinking about what she was doing, from thinking about her body, small and bare and scarred, the years of haphazardly stitched wounds carving as much of a roadmap across her hated flesh as the thick lines of orange crisscrossing them. And a distraction from thinking about the effect Julia’s gaze was currently having on her body, her expression as palpable as a caress as it roamed across her chest. Wren tried not to think about the way her nipples pebbled under that gaze as her bra hit the floor, fought the urge to cross her arms across her small breasts. “And not everyone is as shameless as you are, of course.”

Julia laughed then and stepped into the small gap separating them, dark eyes warm and bright as she leaned down to kiss the smirk off Wren’s mouth, her hands covering Wren’s fingers, still hooked in the waistband of her panties, the last piece of clothing she’d been about to remove. “First of all,” she said into Wren’s mouth, pulling her hips forward and their bodies flush. “You’re not in any position to be calling me shameless, you ass.”

“And second,” her lips roamed along Wren’s jaw, and she nipped at her earlobe before pressing open-mouthed kisses on the side of her neck and the sensitive little hollow behind her ear. “There is nothing I would rather look at than you. You’re beautiful, Wren.”

Wren made a noise of protest that turned into a shivering sigh as Julia traced the tip of her tongue along the shell of her ear. She felt the reverberating purr of laughter in her bones at the reaction.

“Beautiful,” she repeated, stepping backwards, towards the bed, and pulling Wren with her. “But if you don’t believe me, I would be very happy to show you how worth loving your body is.”

And if Wren continued her intended string of protests, she certainly wouldn’t admit whether it was in an attempt to make Ortega that much more determined to prove her point.

#i am once again thinking about Them #and the special kind of pain that comes with a rival Step who is also in love with Ortega #fhr #chargestep #julia ortega #oc: wren adler #ship: you were my town #katie writes things #nsft #(ish?)

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