Author: Kat
Title: At the Bone
Story: Shine Like It Does
Colors: Faded blue 6 (But don’t you change one hair for me), liver 20 (bones).
Supplies and Materials: Miniature collection, brush (placate), frame, feathers (I stood very still, and looked up,/and tried to be empty of words. - Mary Oliver), modeling clay (shield), glitter ("Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage." – Lao Tzu).
Word Count: 625
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Peter and Miranda, at the bone.
Warnings: none.
So's You Know: Blink-and-miss-it bondage, accompanying sexytiems.
Notes: There's a line, in Bones, that goes something like, "He knows the truth of you and he is dazzled by it." That line inspired this story. Also for Cotton Candy Bingo, prompt "shouldn't work but does." Look, Ma, no villains!


On the surface, nothing about them makes sense.

On the surface, she is arrogant and rude, ruthless, born to privilege, entitled and utterly indifferent to the lives and feelings of others. He is gentle, compassionate, a helping hand and a light in the darkness, a man who'd give the shirt off his back to clothe a needy child.

She is sharp edges, a broken bottle, he is beach glass, rounded and smooth. They are opposites in every way.

On the surface, they shouldn't even speak.



He can't not touch her when she is like this, when her hair sticks to her neck and her shoulders are sharp with tension. So much on those shoulders, people and expectations, and who she is half the time isn't real, so he leans down and sweeps the hair from the back of her neck, kisses her there, winds his arms around her.

Relax now, he says, and she hums, settles closer. I have you, he says, and she leans back, the line of her throat open and vulnerable.



One layer deeper and it crystallizes, she fierce and loyal, he sneakier than he looks. She always takes calls from her siblings and parents; he never lets anyone get past him. She's kinder than she acts, he more implacable.

He's seen her run a careless hand over the hair of a sleeping child. She's seen him smile with no humor at a man he's about to denounce. There's tenderness there, and coldness in them both.



There are dents in the heels of her palms where her nails dig in-- he kisses each, one by one, soothes the hurt away with his tongue. She moves to touch him and he catches her hand, sets it back in her lap, meets her eyes when she looks at him, wide and dark.

Yes, she says, and he bends her back, strokes her hair away from her face. Yes, he answers, and feels her letting go.



He reaches the sweetness that lies along her bones, the girl who played with her sister and held her baby brother so gently. He reaches the uncertainty in the pit of her stomach, the silent, creeping fear that she will never be good enough. He knows what she is, under her skin; knows her fierce and loyal and brave, knows her scared and trembling.



She lies loose-limbed and longing beneath him, her body one long plea to be touched. Her wrists are bound above her head but she is not afraid, not with him, not under his hands. She has never been afraid with him.

He runs a finger down her neck and she shudders, relaxes, opens her hands deliberately, spread fingers and open palms. He laces one hand with hers and leans down to kiss her-- she arches up to meet him and he slides his free hand between them, supporting her back.



She knows what he is too. She knows the compassion, the genuinely good heart, the hand he'll always reach to someone in need. She knows the anger that he hides, the helplessness, the need to take control. An idealist's heart and a cynic's brain and the breath and blood and bone of a man who will not stand by, will not observe. He must be doing something. He must be trying. He must reach for the better, or he cannot be.



He spreads his hand out on her hip afterwards, the palm fitting neatly over the bone. She reaches across him and rests a hand over his shoulder, as if they were dancing, curled in together, step for step and breath for breath, entwined.



On the surface, nothing makes sense. At the bone, everything does.

They shouldn't even speak.

There is nowhere else they could be.