Kevin & Laura - Somebody to Love

[x-twenty-three.livejournal.com]

Kevin and Laura share a moment of truth and pain. It gets better.

She was not going to break down. She was not. She was only going to find Kevin and sleep on top of him; the cat could take her back if it was necessary. Finding Kevin wasn't an issue; Laura had the boy's smell already identified to such extent she could track him down in the most stalkerish ways if she ever turned into a creep. He usually was in his room, too, so that narrowed things down a good deal. Stopping right in front of Kevin's door, Laura took a deep breath; she had looked at herself in the mirror a lot of times since she returned to the mansion, and still, she felt like something on her face was different now. Shaking her head, she knocked the door softly. "Kevin?"

Kevin answered with Leah in hand. The kitten had decided attacking his shirt was a great idea whenever the cloth moved when he shifted. In fact, despite being cradled in his hand she was still batting at his shirt when the door opened. The fact that he hadn't expected Laura was clear from the surprise on his face but it quickly turned into a grin. "Hey! The amazin', disappearin' girl exists again!" He stepped back and gestured her inside with the hand holding Leah. "One of these days Ah'm gonna go find that slave drivin' boss of yours and tell 'er she can't go stealin' you for so long or Ah'll....Ah dunno. Do somethin'. And it'll be really inconvenient. Like decaying away all her paperwork or...um...okay, Ah'm no good with retribution am Ah?"

Seeing Kevin was like a ray of sunshine right on her face. Seeing Kevin holding Leah was...it made her feel a little warmer. Walking in, she felt like she could smile like before, and so she did. And it felt good. "I think it was in the small print though, not to complain about being pulled out of existence on demand. 'Nessa knows her way around contracts, apparently. And having you two trying to be mean to each other would go beyond weird. I mean, my boss and my-" She stopped talking, and only then realized she was already quite away from the door. Turning around, she moved a hand to her chin as she slowly walked towards him. "She's likely to laugh at your threats, too. But, if you want to give me reasons for me to reconsider my current working arrangements..."

The door was swung shut after Laura was clear of it and despite his efforts to put down the kitten the little white ball of fuzz clung to his glove so she wound up staying right in that hand. "Ah could think of a ton of reasons. They're totally all selfish, though." He strolled over to her and met Laura halfway, free arm sliding around her waist. "'Sides, if Ah didn't complain 'bout not seein' you then you'd be all mad at me for it," he joked. A light kiss was pressed to the corner of Laura's mouth, a playful smile on his face when he pulled back. Leah was already rubbing up against Laura's arm and trying to figure out if she wanted to stay with Kevin or relocate to the girl.

A bit more seriously and quietly, Kevin told her, "It's possible Ah start to miss you when you're gone for a while."

And then Kevin was close. Real close. Laura's body reacted as usual...but perhaps she felt a little...stiff. The quick kiss left her blinking a little, and Kevin's hand on her waist was oddly heavy. It took her a second to realize she was overly conscious of her body, not because she could accidentally cause trouble for Kevin, but because he was touching her and they were close and-

Blinking a bit harder, Laura tried to focus on his words. "I'm not going anywhere." It came a little weak, so she slowly leaned a bit towards him, a hand resting on his chest, quickly ruffling Leah's head for a moment. "I'm here now," she added as she inclined even more to kiss him, eyes closed. She needed him, she needed it, to remind herself of who she was before. The fact his hand still weighted on her waist bothered her, but she couldn't ignore it. Her kiss slowly gained deepness; she was placing more sensuality into it than ever before.

Kevin was getting very conflicting signals from Laura. Normally he would put that down to her being a girl but it wasn't that sort of mixed signal. She felt...tense. She didn't feel like Laura. Normally Laura was a force of nature, even when she was calm. She was flexible and pliant and would practically plaster herself to him wherever their bodies connected. But she wasn't doing that. She was...awkward. And the kiss was different somehow. Kevin could have listed a number of reasons why he didn't break the kiss to ask what was up. It was rude. He was a guy. He was giving her what she seemed to want. The truth of the matter was he just missed the hell out of her and wanted to kiss her.

Eventually, though, the kiss came to a natural conclusion and they were both left gasping for air. Leah was trying to claw her way up Laura's sleeve to get onto her shoulder even as Kevin gave the brunette a fairly serious look. "Don't take this the wrong way...but is something up?"

She took it the wrong way alright. Frowning, first in confusion, Laura swept the kitten from Kevin and towards her, pressing the little fur ball in her chest as she turned around, an anger that wasn't there a moment ago heating up to a boiling point. "Is something up?" she asked as she walked away, head shaking as she tried to get some air. Laura turned on her heels, her gaze still somewhat confused, but now obviously irked to some degree. "What do you mean, is something up? I thought you wanted to see me; I wanted to see you, so I came here. Is that wrong?"

The look on his face tried really hard for placid but crept more toward oh shit. "Ah do wanna see you. Ah always wanna see you. You just seem...tense. And you don't usually have that sorta temper. Ah know you well enough to know how you react a lotta times and you're just not reactin' like you usually do." Except for stealing the kitten. That was pretty on par. "Look, Ah don't want you to think Ah don't want you here 'cause Ah do. Ah don't ask about what you do on cases for work and you don't really tell me and that's cool. Ah don't really mind that. But you sorta disappeared for like a week and somethin' seems off. Ah can pretend to not notice and not care but that's not really who Ah am. Ah'm in so Ah'm all in. If you don't want me all in then..." he shrugged. "Then Ah guess you don't want me."

As Kevin talked, Laura was getting redder and redder, irrational anger building up with every word. By the time he ended, she was about to yell a lot of stupid things at him when Leah apparently read the weather better than both of them and bit the girl's hand. "Ow! Ow ow ow, you little..." Laura pulled Leah away from her hand, but she did so quietly, allowing the cat to jump away and head to Kevin's bed. Her anger had dissipated now, and Kevin's words resonated in her head. What was she doing? She was destroying everything she knew. She was destroying what she had with Kevin. What. She. Had. With. Kevin. Looking up at him, Laura saw for the first time what she felt for him, crystal clear.

"Ah, shit," she mumbled as she rubbed a hand over her eyes, feeling the tears to come. She was a going to be a teary mess moments later, apparently. Not finding anywhere to support herself, Laura just slid down a wall slowly, hands covering her face, unable to look at Kevin out of shame.

Collapsing to the floor wasn't really what Kevin had been expecting here. He couldn't see any tears but he assumed they were there from the way Laura was covering her face. Now he felt bad. He wasn't great with crying girls but Kevin felt sort of crappy that he'd made her cry. As he made his way over to Laura he glanced through his bedroom door. Leah was sitting on the edge of his bed primly watching everything she could. Apparently the cat was fine.

Kevin crouched down next to Laura, wanting to reach out to her but not really sure if she would want him to. She was reacting so uncharacteristically to him that he wasn't sure what was a good idea and what wasn't. Instead he let his hands dangle from where they hung, elbows propped on his thighs. Gloved fingertips came close enough to nearly touch Laura's arm, though contact never actually came before they fell away again. "Ah'm sorry. Ah didn't mean to...do whatever Ah just did," he said very quietly and with utter sincerity. "Tell me what to do to fix it and Ah'll do it."

Laura looked up, and yes, there were tears. A lot of tears. Wiping most with her forearm, she took a couple of long breaths. "It's not you," she said in a whisper. "And I don't mean it in a lousy way. I have...gone through things...I feel like a completely different person. I feel dirty, I feel less." She looked away, red in shame. "You asked me to tell you what to do. You only have to do two things." Wiping her tears again, she gave him some space next to her. "First, come here and hug me, please?"

"Okay." He nodded and sat down where she had made room for him. An arm wrapped around her shoulders and he pulled her into his body. His other arm moved across her stomach to complete the embrace. Jesus. What the hell happened? Kevin wondered for a moment if Jean-Paul would tell him, but even before the thought was finished Kevin knew he wouldn't ask. Unless Laura told him herself then he had no right to know. Still, it was hard to see her like this. His strong, vibrant, vivacious, crazy girl was crying in a heap on his floor. That all too familiar possessiveness rose up inside him and Kevin immediately wanted to find whoever was responsible and tear their hearts out. Literally. He wasn't normally one to get possessive where Laura was concerned, but it was sure as hell asserting itself right now. Apparently Jean-Paul wasn't the only one who, when it came right down to it, Kevin classified as his. His hood was keeping a safe barrier between them when he leaned his cheek against the top of her head and asked, "What's two?"

Laura let him move her as much as he wanted, patiently waiting until she was in place and safe. Closing her eyes, she focused on Kevin's smell, his body next to hers, and had a small moment of bliss when she realized she could stand it. It was improvement, right? "Not yet," she said. "First I want you to know, more or less, what happened all over the past week. But you have to understand, it was all my choice; I don't want you harvesting negative feelings towards others that had to stand my decisions as well." Opening her eyes to see if he was taking her seriously, Laura sighed, and started to tell him of the case, the brothel, and what it implied. She skimmed over details, but still, her voice got high pitched at parts, and she whispered at others, either speaking too loud, too fast, or stopping on things far too long. More than once she shivered when she recalled her days in there, but she managed to explain things to Kevin in more or less one go. Opening her eyes again, she looked at Kevin in silence. "And that's it," she said after a moment, feeling strangely calm about everything.

It? That's it, like it was suddenly so simple. She'd signed up to be a prostitute. Kevin understood why on an intellectual level but his emotional response had little to do with intellectual understanding. People had used her. They'd hurt her. And Kevin very, very sincerely was back to wanting to decay their hearts out of their chest through nothing more than a pin prick barreling straight through their skin and bone and muscle. He wasn't sure what to say. She had helped people, he tried to focus on that. He hadn't realized that his arms had tightened around her or how his posture had gotten distinctly protective. God help any guy that so much as looked at Laura funny when Kevin was around now.

Without knowing what to say about the brothel experience, Kevin tried to focus on something else. "If that wasn't number two then what is?" His throat was dry and the question had some out in a scratchy voice. There were raging emotions going on but he was keeping a tight lid on them, even if it meant his throat seemed to clamp shut with the effort.

Laura twisted a little in his grasp, but otherwise didn't move. Now that it was out of her chest, she knew it would probably bother Kevin, too. But he had to know; now it was something they both shared. It wasn't the best link she could offer, but it was the one she could give him now. Maybe later on she would give him more. No, right now...I can. I can. She let him process it, and opened her eyes wide when he pointed the obvious to her.

A soft smile crossed her lips. "I love you, Kevin. I want you, only for me, and me alone. I'm well aware that is going to take me a while to actually be a woman to you, in all the senses, but I want to heal, and I want to heal with you. I love you."

Today was clearly the day for knocking Kevin off balance. First she was mad, then she was crying and then she was confessing. Now...now she was saying she loved him. Of all the things he could have possibly be expecting that one was somewhere near the bottom of the list, possibly in dead last. It wasn't a wholly unwelcome sentiment, but he hadn't been prepared for it. The silence alone said how blindsided he'd just been. This meant a lot of things. It meant things with Jean-Paul would change completely, something Kevin had not been willing to let happen for months now. It meant commitment and a relationship. It meant being very aware of the way he interacted with other people because he wasn't sure how Laura would react anymore to the playful way he flirted with people even though it very rarely meant anything. It meant being prepared for her to think it was all a mistake and bail once she coped more.

He couldn't help but think that it was the trauma of the past week that had her saying what she was saying now. He felt terrible for the thought, but he couldn't discount its truth. Kevin kissed her very lightly on the forehead, the gesture obviously affectionate. "Are you sure you're ready for that? Ah don't want you to end up feelin' trapped or suffocated, y'know? Ah don't want you to get...Ah dunno, overwhelmed?" To be honest, Kevin wasn't really that sure he was ready for a relationship. He wasn't sure he was really, honestly willing to give up Jean-Paul and relegate their relationship to being strictly platonic. But he also knew that her having just told him what she had that he would not deny her anything. Kevin had told her to tell him what she wanted him to do and this had been it. Beyond his own doubts about his readiness for a new relationship there was one other thing. One very loud concern he aired in little more than a whisper. "Ah don't want you to do this and then bail."

Aaaaaaaaaand it didn't go as planned. It wasn't all that surprising, actually, but it still felt like a little sting on her side for Laura. Still, this was the important part, where she actually managed to act like a more or less responsible person. "I've been a nervous train wreck as of late," she commented as she rested a cheek on his shoulder. "I mean, I came here with the purpose of confirming I was still the same, and then I got really angry when I realized that, guess what, I'm not that much the same person, and then I realized, also, that I was destroying this thing I have with you...and then it hit me." She stopped for a second to let him process it all. "This isn't the trauma speaking; you are going to need to wait a bit to see that part. This is just...me trying to come clear, alright? I didn't think I would actually ever say that I love you, mainly because I was scared -am scared- of not hearing it back, but I guess. So I'm being stupid and selfish. Stupid because I couldn't prepare this any worse, and selfish because I don't want to share you anymore, even if now I'm a little less whole than before."

Silence fell for a moment before she spoke again. "I kid you not, the idea of being on a serious relationship freaks me out a little already, but I won't bail. Ever. You are going to need to move out of the continent first. It's not just the attraction, you know?" She straightened a little, looking more like she used to, a hint of a smile on her lips. "You make me want to be better, and I already feel like a better person when I can feel your arms around me. I don't think we only meet one person we are fated to love, but right now? The rest of the world has nothing on you. So that's how I feel. Your move."

His move, right. Damn. Kevin didn't even know what to say. "Ah'm gonna need a second to process over here," he told her after a short stretch of silence. "You've released a lot of stuff sorta all at once and Ah wasn't prepared for any of it so...Ah'm just gonna need a minute. Or ten." His arms tightened the smallest bit around her, clear indication that he didn't need or want to be alone while he processed. More than anything he didn't want her to be alone.

Did he love her? No. Could he? Probably. If he let himself fall Kevin would likely fall in love with her, but he hadn't really let himself fall so far. Things were too uncertain between them in his mind to have allowed that, but here she was saying she wanted him and didn't want to share. But then, the girl he'd known wasn't exactly the girl curled up with him who wanted a relationship, was she? Laura had said it herself, she wasn't whole and she wasn't the same. He didn't think he could deny her the chance. What was the worst that could happen? The relationship didn't work out, they broke up and maybe lost their friendship in the process. It couldn't possibly be worse than how things had gone down with Jay, more than once.

He needed to tell Jean-Paul. He had to end everything that went beyond friendship. They had to figure out and agree where their boundaries were, boundaries Kevin didn't like the idea of even now. He wanted Laura but he wanted Jean-Paul as well. Jean-Paul was his. This was so complicated in his head. Kevin knew that a relationship with Jean-Paul wasn't what either of them really needed right now. He wasn't sure it was even what they really wanted. The Quebecois had that guy Will so he wouldn't be alone. He wouldn't feel like he had lost while Kevin had gained. That was something of a comfort.

Kevin wasn't sure how long he had sat there in silence thinking and holding Laura. It felt like a long time before he spoke, though. "Ah need a few days. Ah can't commit to a relationship with you until things are worked out with Jean-Paul. Ah'm not sayin' 'no' here, okay? Ah just need to talk to him first. Ah owe him that. And he and Ah, we gotta figure out our boundaries 'cause we've never had any. We started out just friends but that was just a couple months so it's hard to remember how to be that with him again. So...just gimme a few days to figure out how to talk to him. Let me talk to him first. And then, when things between him and me are put to rest so to speak, when we are both on the same, platonic page...then Ah'm yours. Just yours. Can you give me that?"

Laura was silent for a whole minute, until she sighed, loudly, and looked at Kevin again. "I totally freaked you out, eh? I shouldn't assume you would just throw everything through the window and jump at me." She felt oddly calm as she spoke, though. "I think...you should do this at your own rhythm. I know I said I want this to be serious, but I don't want you to change because I'm pushing you. I can wait, Kevin." She felt a pang of doubt as she spoke, but ignored it nevertheless. "If it's you, then I can wait. I'm not going anywhere." She pulled herself away from him, only a little, and placed a hand softly at the side of his face, his hoodie in the middle. "Besides, the man is supposed to confess to the girl," she added with a hint of her usual devilish smile.

"Ah can be the girl if you really want but Ah'm gonna need to get in some practice first." Kevin smiled, though he was a little too filled with confusion, concern and other conflicting emotions to really feel it. It took only a moment for his face to grow more serious. "You just sorta came at me outta left field a little? Honestly? Ah dunno that Ah'm ready for a relationship yet. And Ah sorta figured Ah had more time before we got there. Ah swear, when Ah am Ah'm yours." They both knew, he was sure, that he would have easily given it to her right now. If she really wanted to push it then he would've done it. Kevin was terrible about saying no to people he cared about. "Maybe there's an in between? Closer to exclusive and serious but not all the way there? Like...no more casual whatever on my end? Bring down the flirtin' and no nothin' with anyone ain't you or Jean-Paul? Even if Laurie's pheromones are involved?"

"You as my pretty girl? Tempting, but I guess I'm old school when it comes to relationships." Laura actually couldn't imagine Kevin as a girl, so the mere attempt would probably make her laugh, which wasn't precisely the best course of action at the moment. "I don't want to push you," she repeated, more to herself this time. "Let's do it your way then." It was the best she could manage out of it, she thought, and she just couldn't force Kevin and Jean-Paul to end their whatever-it-was because she suddenly got crazy confident. It was also going to give her time to think more seriously about it. "Specially if Laurie's pheromones are involved."

"Then I will totally booty call text you?" His eyebrows were raised, expression hopeful that he'd picked the right answer. Kevin extricated himself from Laura carefully so he could stand, then held his hand out to help her up. Relocating to somewhere that wasn't the floor seemed like a good idea. "Alright, so you be the pretty girl and let me be old school with my pace and Ah'll be the guy and make really elaborate declarations when the time's right. We got a deal?"

Laura didn't answer, she just laughed at the booty call suggestion. "Yes, you have to call me. Glad we are on the same page on that." She followed him up, eyes shining a little. Somehow, things were going to be okay, she could feel it. Just...not yet, but some day they would. "We have a deal, mister."