The Walls are Thin Here

"Sure." She sits down, neatly snagging his glass on her way. "So," she says, keeping the tumbler near her lips and out of his reach. "Still counting?"

He glares. "I was," he says. "But not that one now."

"Bad luck." She drains it, ice cubes clinking together when she sets the glass on the bar top. "What number were you up to?"

"None of your fucking business." He looks away to flag down the bartender, freezing as her fingers touch his arm.

"Joe," she says.

He closes his eyes. He has no idea what she wants to say but he does know that he doesn't want to hear it. "Don't," he says. "Just -- don't." He opens his eyes again; the bartender is looking over. Reluctantly, he looks away, looks to Torri. "Please."

She nods. "Okay." Her fingers pull away from his skin. "Home?"

He laughs, just for a moment, just enough for it to hurt. "Don't have one." The words cut as they pass his lips; he savours the sting.

She doesn't even blink. "I'll take you to mine then."

"That," he says, "sounds like a bad idea."

She shrugs. "Good ones usually are." She slides off the stool and holds out her hand. "C'mon."

He takes it.

The air outside is cold, biting, and completely inappropriate for Los Angeles. He's reminded instantly of too many nights spent alone in Vancouver.

Torri tugs lightly on his hand. "This way," she says, and he follows her across the parking lot.

Three steps from her car, he stops and pulls free. "I don't want your pity," he says.

"You don't have it." She unlocks the car, and opens her door but then simply stands there, meeting his stare evenly until he starts to wonder if he can make her hate him too.

He's good at that, apparently.

She drums her fingers on the side of the door, nails clicking on the metal, onetwothree. "So," she says eventually.

He looks away and gets into the car.

They don't talk during the drive to her place and for that he's glad. With the way he's feeling right now there's no chance of any conversation ending pleasantly, and he doesn't really want her to hate him.

He stares out the window and watches the scenery glide past. House, house, park, house, strip mall, apartment block, house, house, house.

Torri turns on the radio.

For all their mutual hiatuses in California, Joe's only ever been to Torri's twice. Once for a barbeque just after they found out they were getting a second season, and once to drop off a box full of things she'd left at the studio after her last episode. This, however, doesn't feel like either of those times.

"So what now?" he asks, following her inside. "You gonna tuck me in and read me a bedtime story?"

She rolls her eyes. "Who do I look like, Flanigan, your mother?" Toeing off her shoes, she pads down the hallway towards her kitchen in socked feet. "Coffee, TV, or whatever," she says, gesturing expansively. "Pick whichever comfort you like."

In the end, he picks none of the above. He sits on her sofa, away from the splash of light that's coming from the kitchen down the hall, and thinks about calling a taxi and going to his rental, or to a hotel, or maybe even just to the airport. Jason wouldn't be that surprised if he showed up on his doorstep three days early and wearing only the clothes on his back.

He thinks about the fight he had earlier with Kath.

He thinks about looking for Torri's alcohol stash.

Mostly, though, he thinks about how the kids were too busy squabbling to notice when he first walked through the door this afternoon, and then too busy still playing, later, to do anything more than wave and call out, "bye Dad!" when it was time for him to leave.

Six months.

He can hear Torri moving around her kitchen and he's still trying to make up his mind as to what he's going to do when she appears back in the doorway, leaning against the frame in a pose he remembers way too clearly from some of their scenes together.

"Spare room's out of commission," she says without preface, "-- wasn't expecting company, sorry -- so you can either stay in here or share with me." She shrugs. "Either way, I'm going to bed."

He stares at her, surprise clearing away a little of his misery, because while he and Torri used to be close friends -- certainly more than just co-stars -- they've never been bed sharing close before.

(Of course, he remembers then, he also had never been single at the same time as her before.)

"Okay then," she says, when he still doesn't say anything, pushing away from the door, "'night Joe."

He watches her walk away.

He can't see her and his decision to follow her is about a split-second from being his second worst one ever when the door to her ensuite opens and she steps into her bedroom.

"Bathroom's yours if you need it," she says, as she heads over to the bed and starts pulling back the sheets. Or, at least, that's what he thinks she says, but he's having a little trouble concentrating now that she's changed out of the long sleeved top and jeans she was wearing earlier and into a tank top and pair of boxers. All he can see is her legs.

"Right," he forces himself to say, distantly, dragging his gaze away with difficulty, "sure, thanks."

He heads to the bathroom and cleans up on autopilot, trying to remember if he's ever seen that much of her skin before. He doesn't think he has. He thinks maybe she wore a dress or skirt to the wrap party at Brad's after they wrapped filming their first year but that was a long time ago now and even if she did, he obviously didn't pay enough attention at the time.

When he finishes in the bathroom a few minutes later the lights are off in her bedroom but the blinds are open, and there's just enough illumination from the streetlights outside for him to pick out the furniture in the room. Torri is already in bed, curled up on the far side, and he tells himself he still has the half a dozen steps it'll take for him to cross the room to change his mind, to pull his jeans and shoes back on, to leave this room and her house and her and.

He gets into the bed.

He's pretty sure he's just going to lie there, all night long, just thinking about everything and nothing, about how he hates having to plan when he's going to see his kids and how despite all that planning he and Kath still can't agree on all their settlement details even after six months of arguing; about how hyper-aware he is right now of the woman lying five inches to his right and a lifetime of choices away; and most definitely about not sleeping because how could he possibly sleep when everything is the way it is, when --

Two hours later, he wakes, cold and uncomfortable. Torri has dragged all the bedding onto her side of the bed, and the room has cooled to the point where if this was his house, he'd be worried about his thermostat.

Tugging a share of the comforter back, he ignores the way she shifts behind him, her feet pushing against his, and drifts off again.

He dreams of familiar things; soft cotton sheets and a warm body tucked in against his; smooth flesh beneath his fingertips, and strands of hair tickling his nose and chin.

He's not dreaming.

Torri lies with her back to him, body curled just enough to fit neatly against his. His left hand is splayed against her stomach, keeping her close.

She starts to stretch, her body arching into and then away from his, and he lets her go and rolls onto his back. Five more minutes, he thinks, yawning. Five more, and then he'll get up and leave and --

Torri turns over, following him. Her cheek finds his shoulder, an arm slinging low over his hips.

He sighs. Pulling his arm free from where she's trapped it between their bodies, he drops it down behind her. His fingers brush over her shoulder as she hums something indistinct.

Five more minutes.

It feels late when he stirs again, diffused sunlight spreading across the walls of her bedroom. Torri is still pressed up against him, her breasts against his side and her arm a warm weight where it crosses his body, fingers twisted in the hem of his t-shirt. When he starts to stretch, she shifts with him, maintaining contact.

"Mmm," she says, "morning."

"Morning." He wonders how long she's been awake. "What time is it?"

She shrugs and he feels it, the muscles in her back shifting beneath his palm. "Don't care." Her fingers untangle from his shirt so that she can push her hair away from her eyes, and then return to the same spot. "Sunday."

"Hmm." Without any effort at all, his head turns in her direction, his mouth brushing the top of her head.

She rubs her cheek against his shoulder. "Hangover?"

"Nope." He had three drinks -- four if he counts the one she stole -- so he's okay. Maybe even better than okay. He's not sure how much sleep he's had but he's warm and comfortable and in a much better headspace than he was last night. His hand begins to move on her back, fingertips absently tracing curve of her spine.

"That's good." She sounds drowsy, like she could fall back to sleep at any moment, but her fingers are moving on his hip now, her nails lightly scratching the skin near the band of his boxers. It's a pleasant sensation.

Very pleasant.

And he wants to kiss her.

It's not a new feeling, wanting to kiss her -- hell, wanting her full stop -- and it's certainly not unwelcome now that he's allowed to feel that way, but he's pretty sure she didn't bring him here last night just so he could take advantage of her the first chance he --

She kisses him.

A quick stretch, her body shifting up without warning until her lips are brushing his, once softly, then again with pressure, her hand on his chest for balance. He's surprised for about a second because while he may have just been thinking about doing exactly this, he's pretty sure his feelings for her aren't that transparent -- despite what Kath accused him of that one time -- but he kisses her back without any hesitation.

Her lean over him falters too quickly and she starts to pull back, but he's not ready for the kiss to end. Following her, he rolls them to the side until she's the one lying flat on the mattress and he's the one leaning over her, his mouth slanting across hers. The bedding has tangled around them and she wriggles obscenely against him for a moment before pulling her arms free just enough to wrap them around him, holding him close. He groans.

Their kiss may have started gentle enough but it soon turns into something much more desperate. He rapidly loses track of anything and everything that is not the feel of her body beneath his, the taste of her in his mouth, the glide of her tongue against his. He's got one forearm on the mattress beside her for balance, and his other hand is dragging up and down her side, fingers skimming over her breast with every pass.

Her hands smooth relentlessly over his curve of his shoulders, the lines of his neck; when her fingernails scrape across his back of his head, carding through his hair, he feels the sensation dart down his spine like an electric shock. He breaks their kiss and drops his head into the crook of her neck, baring his teeth against her skin for a moment before sucking hard enough to probably leave a mark.

She gasps and arches beneath him, her right leg hooking up and over his hip.

He bucks against her uncontrollably. "Fuck."

She chuckles breathlessly. "That," she pants, fingers pulling at the collar of his t-shirt, "is the plan."

And it's not that he thinks he's misreading this situation but, "... really?"

With a flurry of movements, she pushes and pulls and rolls them to the side until it's her body once again pressing his down into the mattress. His hands find the curve of her waist and help her shift until she's straddling him proper, his dick hard against the damp heat he can feel between her legs.

She grinds down against him with a slow, deliberate roll of her hips that temporarily whites out his vision. "Really," she says.

He doesn't even try to banter back. Dragging a hand up off her hip, he pulls her down until she's splayed across his chest, until he can kiss her again, hard and insistent. Until the only thing that matters more than this moment is the next one when she's stripping off her tank top, and he's pushing down his boxers, her boxers, his t-shirt already gone and forgotten.

She's wet against him, her sex slicking across the length of his dick as she rocks back and forth. She breaks their kiss, sitting up and leaning back, her eyes closing, one hand on his chest for balance and the other palming her own breast, and he knows -- knows -- suddenly that she's going to come like this, no penetration, just his dick slipping between her legs and bumping against her clit, again and again, as she chases her own pleasure and --

"Joe," she says, moans, her body shuddering on top of his, and fuck.

Digging his fingers into her hips, he shifts her up and then down, his dick sliding into her heat in two slow pushes. He can feel her muscles twitching around him, pulling him in deeper, and he concentrates on trying to make this last, on not losing it, on not coming just from the sight of her above him, sweat damp and fucking beautiful, and on his last faltering thrust up she curls herself forward, her forehead dropping to press against the side of his neck, her breaths harsh on his collarbone, and murmurs, "come, Joe, please," against his skin.

He can't not.

Hunger and thirst eventually get them out of her bedroom, but aren't quite enough to stop them from touching. Now that he can touch her it's all he wants to do, and when she crowds him against the side of her kitchen bench and kisses him back, he thinks maybe he's not alone in that want either.

Over toast and coffee he apologises for drunk dialling her the night before.

She looks amused. "You were hardly wasted," she says, dismissing his apology.

"Maybe not." But he called her at one am, after what has felt like months of radio silence following her departure from their show, to ask her to come pick up his sorry ass from a bar. And then gave her a front row seat to his crap when she actually did it. "But I was a jerk. So I'm sorry."

Sitting at her kitchen table, her hand finds his, their fingers threading together. "Well," she clears her throat. "In the interests of full disclosure, I'm sorry too."

His thumb strokes the side of her palm. "For?"

She shrugs a little. "Lying. Last night." Her eyebrow quirks. "There's nothing wrong with my spare room."

It takes him a second. Slowly he starts to smile.

She rolls her eyes. "Shut up." A faint blush steals across her cheeks but she keeps his gaze steadily enough. "Besides. One of us had to finally make a move."

Well. He's definitely not going to disagree with that. Leaning across the table, he kisses her. "Good move."

She grins.

The End