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This is Alex, leave a message.
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This is Alex, leave a message.
[ text ● voice ● pic ● vid ● action ]
This is Alex, leave a message.
[ text ● voice ● pic ● vid ● action ]
This is Alex, leave a message.
[ text ● voice ● pic ● vid ● action ]
no subject
So even though it was perhaps some sort of violation of the friends with benefits and no strings attached code, Alex reached up and hugged him. It was just a hug; there was nothing flirting or sexual in it. It was something that she just did for comfort because he seemed like he needed it just as much as he'd needed a night of mindless sex to get her mind off of what was going on.
Not that Alex would ever judge him for the whole mindless sex thing. She got it, and was a very eager participant in it after all.
Her voice was soft, and there was no judgment in it, only concern for him, and it was slightly muffled by his shoulder. "Do you want to talk about it? I'm actually a pretty good listener and I'm not going to judge." She probably wouldn't have wanted to talk about it either, but she wanted to give him the offer. Sometimes you just needed to rant at someone about things like this, and after all, she was right here.
no subject
It's the casual intimacy that gets to him. Hugs. Holding hands. Lying together, like this, instead of bolting for the door as soon as they're finished. Sometimes, he just doesn't know what to make of it. Whether he likes the feeling of being held close, or if it's painful. Because he knows it won't last, and that he shouldn't get used to it. Then he doesn't have to go without, or feel the lack of it, when he's alone again. Which he always is.
Right now he feels raw, so raw that her question, however gentle, makes him flinch. John prefers to lick his wounds in private. So no one can rub salt in them. He made the mistake of opening himself up to Poe, and now he's regretting it.
"Not really." He shifts uncomfortable, suddenly feeling stiff, like a stranger in his own bed.
He wants to forget. Wants to stop thinking about him. Wants to stop aching Liquor and sex are a decent band-aid, but beneath the skin, he's still badly bruised.
"I don't doubt you're a good listener, it's just that I'm a bad talker." He gives her a half-smile. It's a bad joke, only kind of funny because it's mostly true.
But Alex is so soft, soft enough that she doesn't hurt leaning into him, soft enough he doesn't want her to go, because without her he's left to his own abrasive thoughts. It's selfish, he knows it is, she deserves better than to be his comforter.
"I didn't go looking for anything. It just sort of... happened. I don't know what I was thinking, starting anything in a place like this, with what I've got going on back home. He had his own stuff going on, too. Guess I got too attached, was asking for too much, when I shouldn't have been. He never wanted it. I just ignored the signs, because it felt good."
He sighs, scrubs at his face. Closes his eyes, and turns his face into her hair. Forces his heart down out of his throat and back into his chest.
"But this feels good too."
no subject
The quietness stretches for a moment, because Alex is thinking about what he said, and she can also tell how torn he is just to be talking about all of this. Alex's empathy is one of the things that makes her a good reporter, but sometimes it's also one of the things that can get her into a lot of trouble. Right now, it's straddling the line between both of them.
"I'm so sorry, John." Alex means it, and they're not just soothing words. She's sorry for what he has to go through with this because she knows just how much it can gnaw on your heart, and how the ache doesn't really go away just because you know it should. Brains really should have more power over that, but they don't. "Do you think there's any chance that things might straighten out between you two?" And then because she's Alex, and Alex defuses tension with bad jokes she gives him a ghost of a smile and adds, "I mean, not straightening out but yeah." Pansexual Alex Reagan to the terrible joke rescue?
no subject
“I don’t know.” A pause, concentrating on the sensation of Alex’s touch to keep himself grounded. He soaks up the proximity of her. It’s the first comfort he’s allowed himself since his downward spiral became a free-fall. The random bar hook ups aren’t the same as this. He doesn’t want to know their names, doesn’t want them to knows his. He isn’t looking to strangers to give him pleasure. He’s looking for them to turn him numb.
“No. He had his reasons, and they were valid.” John’s thought about it. Going to Poe and begging on his knees. Offering up whatever he wants, even if it’s just sex with no strings attached. Something’s better than nothing. John wants to tell himself it’s a matter of pride, but pride isn’t the half of it. Truth is, he just can’t handle being rejected a second time.
He’ll wait for the storm to pass. He knows it will, eventually, and Poe will be just one more scar amongst many. Except deeper than most, because he’d let him in farther than anyone. Like a goddamn fool. No wonder Poe had run in the opposite direction. No one sees that much of John Sheppard and stays. Hell, he’d leave himself if he could.
Never again.
He starts kissing Alex’s jaw, rough hand sliding up and down her side.
“I don’t wanna talk anymore. Sex, shower, or breakfast. Lady’s choice.”
Oh man, I'm so sorry. I swear I did this thing like forever ago!
He didn't want to talk anymore, and Alex didn't want to make him. It wasn't fair to do so, and the last thing she'd wanted to do was to cause him harm or to shove him away when he needed a friend. Things like this, losing someone could break a person, and it seemed like John was trying to put himself back together with masking tape and bubble gum. Alex couldn't imagine going through and breaking what was still barely holding together.
"Well, if this was a porno," Alex said, going for the joke again, "I'd say shower sex, but that never works out as much as you think it's going to and I'd rather not have a funny story that I need to explain why I look like a grandma moving." And then she just kissed him softly. "So I guess we're going to need to go with sex."
NP! Let's call it fin with this happy ending
John wraps an arm around her, pulling her back down onto the bed with him. Kissing her back. Needy, and more than a little desperate. Everything he can't say with words, the loneliness, and the hurt, communicated with his lips.
He doesn't know if he'll get over Poe. He doesn't know if he'll ever want to try for something close to a relationship again. All he knows right now is that Alex is here, and she's kind, and she's warm, and he needs her. He's grateful she's here.
John can't say it, but he can show his appreciation in other ways.
"Sex it is."