Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sapphire closed the door to Rob's room and went quietly back to the kitchen. "They're both asleep," she reported to her partner. "I think Helen will recover well, now that the initial shock has passed."

"And the boy?"

"For the moment, he's consumed by disbelief and exhaustion. He won't wake before morning. " She sat down at the table, opposite Steel, and watched him eat the meal she had prepared for him. The fork moved steadily from the plate to his mouth and back, but it was clear that Steel's mind was not on his food. "It won't be the ship all over again," she assured him quietly. "Well. Not as long as you keep your mind on the job."

He paused to glare at her. "I beg your pardon?"

Sapphire smiled a tiny, knowing smile at him. "So long as you don't start to enjoy yourself too much."

{I take great pride in what we do—}

{Pride's one thing, but when you start enjoying your work, I get nervous.}

{Why?}

{Because when you begin having fun, people die.}

Steel laid down his knife and fork and let out a low, wordless groan of acquiescence. "I've got no qualms about risking my own life. It's when other lives get in the way that things get complicated. The boy, the child..."

"The parents? That was your own decision."

"I know, I know." He glared keenly at her. "I didn't hear you objecting." Steel pushed his chair back and bolted to his feet, pacing the kitchen, his hands balled into fists to keep his fingers from toying nervously with clocks or the spice jars. "Sometimes," he confessed, his voice rumbling through the quiet air, "I wish I still operated alone."

"I can always leave," Sapphire replied, her smile withdrawing slightly.

He looked over his shoulder at her, gray eyes touched with fond disdain. "You wouldn't last ten minutes without me."

"Without you breathing down my neck?" she shot back. "It would be a nice change." Steel snorted, a sound that was equal parts annoyance, pride and love; her eyes danced with laughter. "Besides," she continued, collecting his abandoned plate and bringing it to the sink, "what would you do without me around to help you?"

He leaned a shoulder against the back door and watched her. "It's best not to think about it." She heard the smile in his throat, where it always sounded most sincere.

Sapphire dried the dish and put it in its proper cupboard. "What are you going to do about Rob?"

"What do you mean?"

"We're going to need his help, Steel, and you seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot with him."

"What have I done?"

"You were rather brusque with him."

Steel raised an eyebrow. "I've acted no better and no worse to him than I do with any other human who's getting in the way of me doing what I've been sent to do, as you well know."

"Yes," she smiled. Steel waited. {There are better ways of dealing with angry adolescent boys lacking in parental attention.}

{Lacking? He seems awfully worried about them if he's so 'lacking.'}

{They're his parents. And they aren't cruel to him. But since Helen was born, they've put all their time and energy into her. Rob feels neglected, particularly by his father.}

Steel took the cup she held out to him, more to have something to do with him hands than from any true desire for tea. {What's wrong with you playing Mum for a few days? You're good at it—you like kids—and Helen's latched on to you already.}

{That won't work with Rob.}

{Oh?}

{There are two ways to gain a teenage boy's trust. One is to play the mother role. The other—}

"The other is to dress up in pretty clothes and distract him from the matter at hand," Steel finished dryly. "I'm not a complete innocent, Sapphire, no matter what Silver says about me behind my back."

Sapphire glanced over her shoulder at him. "Silver's working from an outdated model. I've had far more first-hand experience with you than he's had."

Steel cleared his throat and took a large mouthful of tea. "I'll... consider... being a bit more personable to the boy. But you know I'm not good at coddling. You've had plenty of first-hand experience with that as well."

"More than enough, I should think. He’s not looking for a babysitter, Steel. He wants an authority figure, someone he can impress and look up to."

He set the cup down and rubbed his forehead irritably. "I'll do what I can. Are you sleeping tonight?"

"Yes, there's a guest bedroom on the first landing. Just a few hours." She had to walk behind him to get to the kitchen door, and brushed her hands over his shoulder blades as she did so. {You'll be here?}

{I'll be here.}

Chapter Text

He could barely feel the heat of the fire, or the blanket that was draped over his shoulders, and he might have been born blind, for all that he could see. He wanted to scream, to break something, if only to hear, for that was the worst, not being able to hear the hiss of the fire—there was a fire, he could just feel the heat, as though from a great distance—or the people that he knew surrounded him, and in the iron cold aftermath that he had brought upon himself, he panicked, needing to hear something, anything, if only one voice... {Sapphire?!}

{I'm here, Steel.}

Though he never moved—he could not—Steel seemed to sigh in relief, and relaxed into sleep.

Chapter Text

Sitting down in a battered armchair, Steel laced his fingers together and waited for the placidly bathing cat to notice him. Tully's apartment was dusty and cluttered but beneath it all, tidy, and packed with religious and supernatural paraphernalia. A large cross occupied one wall, and below it was a desk littered with books and papers. Steel had perused them absently before taking his seat, but the only one he recognized was a Bible. The other books—The Search for Bridie Murphy, All Quiet on the Western Front, Confessions of a Ghost Hunter—meant nothing to him.

Nelson, Tully had said the cat was called. "He only has one eye, you see." What connection there was between the two facts, Steel had no idea. Sapphire would be able to tell him, later.

The cat completed his ablutions and sauntered closer to the strange man sitting in his master's chair. He was a handsome gray and black tabby, slightly hefty from too much good living and too little exercise, but he made the leap into Steel's lap without effort. He pawed at the front of the long coat and Steel obliged, running his hand down Nelson's back and along the length of his tail.

"Your master is dead," he said to the cat. "But your neighbor's looking after you, so you'll be all right." An unfamiliar calmness oozed through his body as he stroked the cat, who appeared utterly unconcerned by his cold hand. "Your master is dead and it was my doing... and now here I am, talking to a cat."

Steel had always liked cats, neat trim little Lotharios who told you to go to Hell and then claimed your leg for a scratching post, and he felt that they regarded humans in the same way that he did, simply as part of the job. Steel's job was Time, Nelson's job was being a cat, and so very often, humans mucked up those simple tasks for them. "I'd've preferred to get Tully out of that railway station alive, but it wasn't possible." Deep in his bones where he kept his secrets, Steel suspected that Tully had not gone to his death in ignorance, and he was glad of it. Had it been necessary, he would have bodily thrown the old man into the Darkness himself, but he was just as relieved that things hadn't come to that. "I take no pleasure in the death of living beings," he said to Nelson, as calmly and as rationally as he might speak to any of his colleagues.

He rubbed the knuckle of his forefinger under the tabby's chin, feeling rattling of the animal's adenoids reverberate in pleasure through its body. "Do you ever sit on that window ledge, over there, and look down onto the street to watch the people walking their dogs, to see the cars and the pigeons? Have you ever noticed that from this high up, they all look to be the same size? Or you fly in an airplane, and as you take off you see people, and dogs and sheep and cattle, elephants and whales and dinosaurs, all getting smaller and smaller, dwindling down, like stones getting pummeled into sand. Then the clouds roll in and obscure your vision, and finally everything looks the same, with no differentiation between size or color or species."

Nelson stretched luxuriously and rubbed his head under Steel's chin, and the soft short fur felt good against his throat. "It's hard to see any quantitative difference between animals and humans when you're so far above them both." The cat looked up at Steel with a great green eye, and blinked once, before settling down upon his thighs for a nap. "I'll take that to mean that I won't have a demonic cat haunting me for the rest of time." He rubbed Nelson's shoulders with the thoughtful fingers of one hand.

The apartment smelled of claustrophobia, of ammonia, of faith, and Steel filled Nelson's food bowl before he left.

Chapter Text

They called it their 'Base,' when they had cause to give it a name. It was headquarters—an interstitial dimension inextricably linked to the little blue planet where most of their assignments took place, as though Time was intelligent enough to take advantage of the many connected strengths and weaknesses common to Homo sapiens and their ilk. It was where the Operators, Investigators and Specialists were created, where they were trained, where they received their assignments, and where they returned to be debriefed, to be healed if necessary, to rest if needed.

It was a point of origin—but strictly speaking, it was not home. From Steel's perspective, home, like hell, was other people.

Humans could have never entered the Base. Even if it had been necessary, there was no feasible means of supporting them—their physicality existed on an utterly different plane. Steel sometimes thought that his life, his job, would be far simpler if his kind possessed less of a physical nature. The protection and maintenance of Time would be expedited so greatly if one did not have to be concerned with emotions, with feelings, with the handling of the humans that were so often entangled themselves in affairs that were none of their business.

But his kind did have a physicality, of a sort; they thought and felt and believed and loved just as fervently as any human. That was why Tully had died, and why Sapphire was grieving. It was why Steel was standing just inside the entrance to her private sanctuary within the Base, waiting for her to acknowledge him.

Something told him it was going to take a long time.

Sapphire's retreat was fashioned to resemble a long seashore, miles and miles of sand fringing a seemingly endless sea. It was a summer evening within the confines, and Sapphire was seated on the stone wall that ran parallel to the shore. Her hair was ruffled by the breeze, her bare feet were crossed at the ankles, and when he finally abandoned all pretense at civility and approached, Steel could see the small purple bud of the pasque flower between her loosely clasped hands, as she gazed out over the expanse of the sea.

He climbed up to sit beside her, kicking his heels against the stones of the wall. "It's a... restful sort of place," he commented after a while.

"It's calming." Sapphire took in a deep breath of the sea air, salt and sand. "It ebbs and crashes and gets angry, but otherwise, it doesn't change. Its patterns are steady and reliable, its strengths plain."

"Only on shore." Steel loosened the tie of his tuxedo. The warm air played havoc with his silky hair, but for once he let it go. "Once you get away from land, there are no predictions left to be relied on. The patterns make no sense."

"But the strength is still there."

"Oh, yes. Ready and waiting to strike down anyone who..." He smiled wryly. "Dares to disrespect its power." It was a rare moment of self-deprecation, but the irony was lost on Sapphire.

"If there had been any other way—"

"There wasn't."

"But if there had been another way, a way to save Tully," Sapphire continued, ignoring him, "would you have taken it?"

He met her eyes, blue dueling with gray. "No," said Steel evenly.

"Why not? Because it wasn't the most 'expedient'?"

If Steel was insulted, he hid it well. "Time is the imperative in our job; it always will be. But what is often overlooked  is that the swiftest solution to an assignment is not always the right one. I'm not interested in speed. All that I am concerned with is getting the job done." He waited for her reply and when it didn't come, he became worried. "... Sapphire?"

When she at last spoke, it didn't seem to be to the point. "I've... begun trying to lie about your actions on certain assignments."

"To our superiors? But... why?"

"To protect you." Sapphire tried to smile. "You should be flattered."

'Flattery' was not the word for the feeling that exploded in Steel's chest and spread rapidly to the farthest reaches of his nervous system. Despite being angry with him and frightened by his actions, her loyalty to him was apparently tremendous. And he'd had no idea... no idea at all. "Lying how?" he asked hoarsely, genuinely afraid of what she might confess.

"I never mentioned arguing with you about trying to negotiate with the Darkness, or the disagreement at the Jardine house."

Steel breathed a little easier. "That wasn't strictly a disagreement..."

"No, because you must have your own way and damn the opinions of others. I've been lying for you for far longer than just since the house."

"Your opinions about our assignments are of value to me!" Steel snapped. "And I never asked—"

"No," Sapphire interrupted softly, with a wry smile. "You would never ask me to do such a thing. Other things, yes. But not this."

Steel's eyes, when he chose, could be more compelling than the most impassioned speech, and when he permitted her to read them, she could see just how eloquent he could be. He looked on her now with such eyes. "But they've begun to notice it."

"Yes. I did my best. They just know you too well."

He leaned in closer, eyes so fixed on hers that neither of them noticed when his hand covered hers. "Not nearly so well as some," he corrected quietly.

With a great effort, Sapphire shook her head. "I... thought I knew you," she began.

His lips curved minutely. "Oh, but you do..." His voice was the most intimate of caresses, and Sapphire shivered, resenting the control this man had over her. "Better than anyone."

"No." Her denial was forceful, and she pulled away, slipping down from the wall to land softly in the sand. "All the times I've tried to protect you, it was because you had endangered Time for the sake of a life. That at least I could understand. Now you've damaged Time and ended a life—and I don't know why, Steel. I don't know why."

He reached down and gently claimed the flower from her, cradling it in the well of one large palm. "Do you want to know why?" he asked simply.

Sapphire's head was level with his black-clad knee. "When the Darkness brought us forward twelve days, I wanted to leave."

"Yes."

"Just like at the Jardine house, I wanted to finish the job and leave."

"We couldn't leave the station until the Darkness brought us back."

"Twelve days isn't a large anachronism, in the grand scheme of things. We could have fixed it. But instead, you chose to take a human life." For a moment, worry flickered across Sapphire's face. "That's not like you at all. You owe me an explanation, Steel."

She looked up at him, and saw his gray eyes soften. "You're right, of course," he murmured, running a slow hand through her hair. "I'm going to have nightmares about that assignment."

She rested her chin in his knee. "Then you and I had best be on speaking terms."

"Do you remember what Tully said about the séance? That he invited the ghosts there? He told me that there had been no activity of any kind until he arrived at the station, until he called to the ghosts of Sam Pierce and the others—the pilot, the laborers. He called to Pierce, Pierce's resentment and anger called to the Darkness, and the Darkness brought the others. Everything that happened at the railway station was because of Tully's actions."

"And so Tully's death was... what? Fitting? Appropriate?"

"Necessary," Steel corrected. "Damages to Time have to be corrected, Sapphire. When Tully dragged those afterimages forward, he broke the barrier between the living and the dead—he caused all of it. And he had to pay for it."

"But at what cost? The damage to Time—"

"Is minimal, at best."

Sapphire stared at him, amazed at his arrogance. "I knew it. I knew you were lying to the Darkness."

He made a sound somewhere between a derisive snort and a wry chuckle. "I wasn't. The resentment of Time is no doubt immense, but the actual damage will barely be noticed."

"So the only havoc you will have wrought—"

"Will very probably be laid at my, or rather our doorstep."

She was silent a moment. "Silver would never do something so reckless."

Steel chuckled for real this time, a short, husking sound. "No, he probably wouldn't. And why is that, Sapphire? Is it because he's smarter than me?"

"No, that's—"

"Because he's more cautious?"

"I didn't—"

"Or is it because Silver is a Specialist, someone with a nice safe job who has no idea how much a human life is really worth?"

"I..." She gritted her teeth, forcing back her anger and her outrage and the sour realization that in that respect, Steel was probably correct. "I still don't agree with what you did."

"I never expected you to agree with me, only to obey me." Her blue eyes flashed dangerously; it was only rarely that Steel chose to flaunt his greater age and experience, but it still rankled Sapphire when he did it.

Steel appreciated his younger partner's skills and abilities to such an extent that he often completely forgot that she had been assigned to him as a trainee in his field. He never forgot that he was responsible for her. He threaded the flower into her hair, by way of apology. "So long as you do what I tell you," he reminded her quietly, "they can't touch you. Only me."

"I don't need protecting, Steel."

"No, no more than I do. And yet you've been lying to our superiors about me, trying to watch my back."

"I'm only doing what I was trained to do," said Sapphire stiffly. Her partner just smiled, rather tiredly, she thought. "Don't you ever get tired of this? Of doing what we do?"

"What we do is what we are. There'd be very little point in existing if we got tired of it." It had been a long time since Sapphire had felt the need to give in to such bleakness. It had been much more common in the early days of their partnership, when Sapphire had encountered consequences for the first time, something that had not been prevalent in her previous job. Investigators didn't normally bother themselves with consequences. Steel had learned that calm, resolute nonchalance and matter-of-factness were the best way to snap her out of her morose state. His responses would either bring her to her senses or irritate her enough to distract her. "Besides, it's not as if our jobs are all we do. You do have hobbies, after all."

"And just what would you know of my hobbies?" Sapphire's voice was peevish. "A century of partnership and you never bothered to ask."

"Fair enough." Steel's voice smiled warmly, though the curve of his lips mocked them both. "But then, you've never asked me, either."

He was right. It was strange for Sapphire to think that she knew her partner so intimately and yet had no clue as to how he spent his free time, and stranger still to realize that it had never occurred to her before. "I suppose I just assumed that you used all your off hours studying reports." Steel's expression never changed, but a hint of embarrassment flickered through his mind. She reconsidered her appraisal. The railway station was not the first time he had appeared at an assignment in formal dress, but he had never offered any explanation, beyond a rolling of the eyes when she chose to comment of his choice of attire. "Why are you wearing evening dress?" she asked at last. "Where were you going before you were called to the station?"

"To the symphony. The New York Philharmonic was putting on a performance of The Planets. I'm partial to Holst."

"Really?" Sapphire laughed aloud to cover her surprise. "Not to the opera, then?"

"No, not last night." He raised an eyebrow. "Do you care for it?"

"Opera?" She considered. "Yes, I suppose. Although I prefer the ballet. And shooting ranges." Steel raised both eyebrows. "Just to let off steam. I'm quite a capable shot with a pistol."

"I'll be sure to remember that," said Steel dryly. "Do you... have a favorite opera?"

"Tosca is rather good. You?"

"Gonoud's Faust." He looked out over the sea, and then, as though taken by a sudden notion, shed his velvet jacket.

"What are you doing?"

Steel handed her the garment. "Swimming."

The tide had long since come in, and he left a line of clothing down the beach before casting himself into the now moon-mottled surf. Sapphire hung his jacket on the stone wall, and then sat down in its shelter and just watched him. On another night she might have joined him, glad for a chance to simply be in his company without having to worry about work. There had been many such nights together, here in her sanctuary, swimming until dawn, heedless as children about the nakedness of their bodies in the water, and there had been many other nights in Steel's own retreat, a place of endless desert sands and exotic fragrances, and as they lay in one another's arms beneath a sky so shot through with stars, she wondered how it stayed intact.

This was not such a night. Her heart was too heavy, her mind too active.

She knew that Steel had not forgotten Tully's death, or merely cataloged it as a necessary casualty. It was done and that was an end to it, but only outwardly. Steel would never forget George Tully. Steel never forgot anything. He only pretended to.

The massive gaps in his knowledge of human history and affairs was another front, one that allowed his highly-compartmentalized brain to concentrate on matters pertaining to Time during their assignments. On very rare occasions, always when they were not on duty, he had astonished his partner with long, drawn-out tales of events in human history that he had taken part in: the Crusades, the Wars of the Roses, the American Civil War, the Blitz, the fighting in Vietnam. He seemed to be as drawn to a soldier's life as he was repelled by the very idea of war. He had even once claimed to have been a prisoner of war in a Nazi camp. But the moments always passed as quickly as they had come; Steel was very easily distracted when he was not on assignment, and when she next asked him about the prison camp, he had looked at Sapphire as though she had sprouted wings.

But she knew better. She knew, after all this time, that Steel was as much of an Investigator as she had ever been, as much of a doctor as Jet was an Engineer, as much of a mechanic as Silver was a Technician. He had a brain like a sponge and loved reading books, particularly scientific books—and now, apparently, he was a music lover as well. And she had no doubt that, although he would probably never mention it again, someday he would trot out the knowledge that her own favorite opera was Tosca and find a way to use it to his advantage. Steel was like that. He forgot everything until he needed to.

Sapphire envied him that quality. It would be a long time before she was able to forget blundering, fervent little Tully, who made such gentlemanly eyes at her and yelled back at Steel and stood up for what he believed in. It was such a human failing, maintaining that vigilant belief even when all the evidence pointed to the contrary. It was not something that she or Steel would ever understand, only accept and deal with as best they could. But Tully had possessed other qualities that Sapphire recognized and knew very well: determined stubbornness and pride in the work he was doing. Misplaced, perhaps, but then, it could so easily have been otherwise.

Her partner was a far more empathic man than anyone ever gave him credit for. And Sapphire knew that Steel had seen that stubbornness and pride in Tully, had cursed it and fought against it and finally turned it against the old man, and had always respected it for a strength, one that he himself possessed.

No, Steel would never forget George Tully.

Sapphire was stubborn as well. She had to be, to work with a man like Steel. But her pride was a  far more fragile thing, linked to her finely balanced sense of self-worth. She did what she did because there was nothing else; she had been born to the life, built for it just as Steel had, and she knew no other way of living. She had pretended to be human once—Steel knew nothing of that period, it was against the regulations for Operators to talk about persona work amongst themselves—but as much as she had enjoyed the experience, it was not better than her true life.

Steel... was something else again. He felt, he believed in the work they did with such a fiery passion that it was almost frightening to hear him speak of it. He lived for their work.

Amazing that she could have lost her heart to such a man... but then, it was perhaps comforting to know that she was not always the center of Steel's universe, that he had a passion for something other than herself. His occasional indifference was surprisingly liberating.

Perhaps it was that outside passion that had drawn her to him in the first place, made her see him as something other than just another business associate. She wasn't sure that she could ever be like him, so focused and... burning. She wasn't even sure she knew how Steel had gotten that way in the first place—all the stories she had heard of him as a young Operator were haphazard and wild, and yet even then, he had obtained remarkable results.

Sapphire rose to her feet; the night breeze tugged at the hem of her dress. She followed the line of Steel's abandoned clothing down to the water and just stood there, with the waves lapping enticingly at her ankles. He was far out now, barely a wet blond body among the black-and-white water, but he was a strong swimmer, and when he saw her standing there, it was the work of a few minutes to bring him into better view.

{You've always loved the sea,} she smiled.

{Not love. The feeling of possession.}

{Of being possessed by the sea?}

{Of letting it take me. Of knowing that I can break free if I so choose, and choosing not to.} He was in a good mood tonight, garrulous and poetic. The gray eyes sparkled. Fine strands of hair stuck to his face and glinted. The beautiful watermarks that lingered just below his flesh almost seemed to meld with the ocean.

{It sounds terrifying.}

A smile, low and feral, spread across his face, desirous not only of her body, but of something more fundamental. {Oh, it is. But I like to live dangerously.} He held out a hand.

It was the taunting note in his mental voice, the tone that coiled its way into Sapphire's brain and refused to stop tugging her towards him, that told her more than words spoken or thought ever could. He would never take 'No' for an answer, not from her, not from the sea, not from Time itself. He would not be denied, he would just keep working and badgering and hunting until he had succeeded.

He was just plain stubborn. Just like Tully.

Just like Sapphire.

She slipped out of her dress and let the wind play over her skin, and then in the next instant, she was in the water.

Chapter Text

It was Sapphire's suggestion that they go to Brighton. When so much of their job required them to mingle with humans and occasionally to blend in for long periods, it was prudent to spend some time, now and again, practicing.

It was Steel who suggested that Silver not accompany them. "The next time you two want to make eyes at each other, could you possibly do it on your own time? And away from me?" he added under his breath.

Her eyes sparkled as brightly as her name, and the high collar of her coat hid the upturned corners of her lips that he knew were present. {Is that what you thought we were doing?}

A leashless dog made a friendly beeline towards them and bumped his head happily against Steel's leg. The man reached down absently and rubbed the Alsatian's ears. {I'm not a fool, Sapphire.}

"No, of course not," she humored him. "We were teasing you."

"Clearly."

"That's all."

Steel snorted.

"Silver and I are friends and I am very fond of him. But that's all."

"That's all now."

"The past is in the past, and it's our job to make sure it stays there." The Alsatian loped off in search of its owner. "Not all relationships end as badly as yours and Jet's."

He winced sharply. The wind from the sea ruffled his blond hair, and his inherent tidiness compelled him to put the mussed bangs to rights. Sapphire waited patiently for her partner to regain his composure. Instead, he turned and walked towards the beach. Without a word, Sapphire followed him.

It was January, and the beaches were all but deserted, but Steel never bothered much about the cold. He faced her. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why were you and Silver teasing me, making me think..."

She brushed her fingers comfortingly over his wool-clad bicep. "Because it was easy." She stepped closer to where the waves were coming up on the sand. "And because you were expecting it. You're far too sensitive."

"I don't like being laughed at," he said bluntly. "You don't like being patronized and I don't like being laughed at—"

"I laugh at you all the time. You don't seem to mind."

{That's different. That's you.}  Both looking out over the sea, Steel reached for her hand, and Sapphire gave it.

"I have a question," she said after a moment.

"Ask."

"We spoke briefly of origins today."

"Did we? Did we speak of them? I thought we mocked them."

"Impeccable, you called yours. Have you met them, then? Your antecedents?"

Steel nodded. "I was trained by them—one of them," he corrected.

Sapphire noted the change the memory worked upon him: his already-erect bearing straightened even further, his chin lifted slightly, and his blue eyes narrowed. "That's very unusual," she ventured neutrally.

He took a deep breath. "So I've noted. Many times. Have you met yours?"

"Just once or twice, briefly, in the course of business. We didn't introduce ourselves, but one always knows, of course."

"Yes..."

She did not offer their names and though she gave him ample opportunity, he did not ask. As close as they were and continued to become, there were always certain secrets that one did not approach, merely spoke around and through and when things became too close, one stepped to the side and let it pass. The difference being that for her, it was a matter of irrelevance, or at best, of clinical curiosity.

For Steel, she realized, it was a matter of pride.

He lifted his eyes to the seagulls wheeling overhead. "You frightened me today."

"I'm entitled to, on occasion. And you had just tried to throttle the life out of me."

He had felt Sapphire beneath his hands many times. But his fingers around her throat would haunt his waking dreams, if he let them. "It's rare to hear you quite so... vindictive towards humans. Or are you going to tell me that fifteen hundred years from now, they aren't 'humans' as we know them at all?"

The recollection sent shivers through her. "No, they were human. Humans are the only species on this planet capable of genocide."

Steel mulled over that statement. "Destroying every form of animal life on the planet because they were 'unclean'... there's really nothing else to describe it, except genocide." His fingertips ghosted over her shoulder briefly as he moved to one side, and despite the chill, her trembling stopped. "I'm not 'sensitive.'"

"What?"

"You diagnosed me as being overly sensitive. I'm not."

Sapphire smiled slightly. "Of course not. I was teasing." He came to stand behind her, and his hands slid over her shoulders.

{I'm possessive.}

Her smile deepened. {I know.}

All in an instant, the couple that had been standing on the Brighton beach were gone, leaving only their footprints behind in the sand.

Chapter Text

It was during the assignment in the capsule from the thirty-fifth century that Silver abruptly realized he was never going to get Sapphire back. He could even pinpoint the conclusion to the precise moment.

            "I'll need to do tests."

            "Then do tests."

            "Well, that rather depends upon whether Steel will—"

            "No, I'm sorry! It rather depends upon me—I need to know!"

She hadn't said anything, verbally or otherwise. All she needed to reply to his frustration was one slight, cool smile, but in that brief expression, Silver had read a thousand answers, and the most damning was that only one person was permitted to speak to her in such a fashion, and that person was no longer him.

He had been away too long, been too inattentive for too many decades. He had been too busy with casual dalliances to pay any mind to the woman who had left him, he believed, on a whim. He had known Steel for centuries and was perfectly content in the knowledge that Sapphire and Steel were far too different to make a decent working pair, let alone develop any meaningful feelings for one another.

A hundred years had gone by and Silver had paid them not the slightest bit of attention. Now Sapphire had just cut his legs out from beneath him. She would flirt with him if he liked, but that was all he was entitled to.

He unearthed all this while on assignment, when there was no time and no room for him to pursue Sapphire's decision; all he could do then and there was to glare at her and get on with the job. And really, upon reflection, what could he do? She had made up her mind long before that moment. If she had been compelled to wait until now to tell him, that was no one's fault but his own. He simply hadn't been around enough to notice anything amiss.

Silver was decidedly older than Sapphire or Steel. He had been in love many times and he had been hurt many times. He'd just... never cared this much before. It was a new sensation and not a pleasant one.

After they had all returned to Base Control, cleaned up and made their reports to the appropriate people, Silver found his footsteps trailing not after Sapphire, but after Steel, whose easily-incurred annoyance Silver had done nothing to mitigate during their assignment. "What do you want?"

"Oh, for pity's sake, you don't need to look at me like that!"

"Like what?"

"Standing far enough away that don't have to look up to meet my eyes."

Steel narrowed his grey eyes dangerously. "You're taller than me."

"Yes, and of course any kind of advantage makes you uneasy, be it age, height, knowledge or charm. Well, I do apologize for my additional two towering inches."

"Silver..."

"Would you mind terribly if I came with you, Steel? Wherever you're going. I'm... rather out of sorts at the moment."

Steel stared at him, trying to unearth the Technician's ulterior motives and apparently coming up empty-handed. "If you like," he said at last, shrugging and continuing on his way.

Silver had never been inside Steel's private retreat and expected little in the way of creature comforts, but in fact he was pleasantly surprised. "I vaguely remember this place," he exclaimed, immediately loosening his tie and shucking out of his suit jacket to let the cool dry air of the desert night caress the skin of his throat. Nothing could be seen for miles around them, save sand and outcroppings of rocks and the occasional scrubby tree. But the campfire was strong and bright, and the sky above them rioted with stars. "This was where your first assignment took place," Silver recalled.

"Hardly an assignment," the younger man snorted. "More like a school field trip."

"Nevertheless," said Silver, sitting down on a rug spread upon the sand and stretching his long legs out to the fire, "you certainly earned your spurs on that trip. I know; I was there, after all."

Steel shot him a glance that could have curdled milk. "Yes, I remember."

"Ah yes..." Silver's lips curled into a smirk. "Yet another advantage I have over you: I can remember when you were little more than a boy."

"And not only can you remind me of that time," Steel shot back, "and call up the memories of my most devastating failures, of times and places I would rather forget, you're cruel enough to actually do so."

"That's the rub, of course: you can't forget. Can't sleep and can't forget—what on earth were they thinking when they drew you up?"

"You tell me."

The smirk turned inward, becoming a self-deprecating half-smile. "Sorry, I wasn't on that committee. Any chance of a drink?" He laid back in the sand and indulged in some halfhearted stargazing while Steel set to making coffee with badly concealed impatience. Even if Silver claimed that all he wanted was a little company, Steel would not believe him—not only because it would be a blatant lie, but because their mutual antagonization was too well known. He saw ulterior motives behind every smile and half-lidded glance, and yet Silver couldn't seriously think him prone to mere suspicion. It was simply an insatiable desire for truth. Not necessarily knowledge... but always truth. And so Silver would have to work up to telling Steel the truth. "You were meant for a Specialist when you were a boy," he said suddenly, the recollection coming to him all in a rush.

Steel set a cup of thick black coffee next to Silver's recumbent head. "And you've never once missed an opportunity to remind me of it."

His most recent jibe came back into Silver's mind. "Steel, Steel, Steel," said his own—admittedly patronizing—voice, "I am the Technician." "And a fat lot of good it did me today," Silver winced, sitting upright. "I'm... well, I'm sorry about that. All these years later and I suppose I'm still a bit bitter about losing my best apprentice in favor of his becoming an Operator."

He looked up just in time to see Steel's left eyebrow climb into his hairline, clearly caught off-guard and not happy about it. Finally, he sat down next to Silver. "I would have made a terrible Technician. I don't have the patience." Silver snorted. "Not the kind you have. To simply... sit around and do nothing until I'm called for. I need work."

"You always were a regular teacher's pet." Silver sipped his coffee—strong enough to make his blood fly and flavoured with the same exotic spices he could scent on the air. "Don't you have any hobbies?"

"What do you want from me, Silver?" Steel asked. The Technician frowned; Steel's voice was patient and calm, almost eerily so given his previous irritability, but beneath it was an apprehension that—

"Ah," chuckled Silver, cottoning on. "No, nothing like that. I'll admit, you are the most seduction-prone man I have ever met, but I'm not in a sporting mood tonight. Besides, the game's not very satisfying when someone gives in as easily as you."

Steel drained his coffee in one gulp and fitfully rolled the cup between his palms. "You make me sound like I'll go to bed with anyone."

"You will—or at least, you used to. You'd capitulate to almost anyone who asked. Oh, not because you were loose. Because you were lonely."

There was something about blunt truths that took away Steel's knee-jerk reactions. "You're saying I was easy prey."

Silver ran his hands absently through the sand at his side; the grains beneath his fingers reshaped themselves without much direction from his otherwise-occupied brain. "Honestly, Steel, it makes me feel... almost guilty, to think about our sparse history together, a sensation which is as equally unpleasant as still caring for Sapphire after she left me without a single regret." Steel was very still beside him. "Amazing, isn't it?" Silver marveled. "That a man like you could have taught me scruples?"

Earlier in the day, the very mention of Sapphire's name between the two men had nearly been enough to set them at each other's throats. But now it seemed to defuse them both. "So you're not here for a good time." Steel's relief was evident, if he was able to crack jokes. "Why, then? Or is it just for the coffee?"

"Heavens, no," Silver coughed. "Your coffee could wake the dead." He hesitated, wondering how to broach the subject. He couldn't just say, 'So, how are you and Sapphire getting along together?' And Steel was probably itching to throw him out... then again... he'd had plenty of time to do so already. Instead, he had tolerated the assault on his private domain and given Silver coffee. Coming from Steel, the man who was never polite or hospitable unless he wanted something, it was almost a benediction.

"She talks about you," said Steel, out of the blue. "Mostly to bait me, but you're constantly in her thoughts."

"We were together a long time."

"I know."

"It's strange... I thought I'd been nursing my wounded pride all these years. But it was her absence that I was feeling, and I was too stubborn to admit it."

"She has that effect on people."

"Yes!" Silver laughed. "She knows instinctively, how to get under your skin, how to make you angry or happy or inflamed—all part of her talents, I know, but..."

"But no one does it quite the way she does." Silver wasn't telling Steel anything he hadn't already discovered on his own, but the Technician seemed to need to talk and Steel was glad, not for the first time, that he possessed no skills on par with Sapphire's—he had enough pain to deal with, his own and hers, without adding Silver's overdue anguish to that burden. "Even among us, Sapphire is... unique."

"Beautiful and intelligent," said Silver softly, more to himself than his companion, "so eager, and so very fragile." Steel raised an eyebrow. Sapphire, fragile? "When I knew her, I was always having to warn her against over-exerting herself. She was always trying too hard, but I didn't want her to hurt herself, trying to impress me. I confess," he continued, a certain lofty irony entering his voice, "I was worried when she was first partnered with you. I thought you'd run her into the ground within a week."

"You weren't at all happy with me on the Mary Celeste."

"I didn't care for the way you were—the way I thought you were treating her. But she wouldn't hear a word against you." Silver leaned forward to toss a stick onto the fire. "She's very faithful to you. Like a novice to his fast, I've heard some say."

Steel's lips quirked imperceptibly. "What do you say?"

"She clearly found something in you which she needed, and that I lacked. And you, as much as you try to hide it, are a vastly different person to the one I used to know."

"Better? Or worse?"

"You're not lonely anymore." It was a rare thing to see Steel let his guard down this much, the proof of which lay in the Operator's total lack of reaction to that very personal statement. Instead of becoming flustered or insulted or curt, Steel pushed another cup of coffee into Silver's hands, and waited with the patience of a champion chess player—not that of a man longing for something to happen, but of a man who know that something is close within his reach. "You're a cruel, possessive bastard, Steel, and I don't know what Sapphire sees in you." The words were formulaic, without malice. "But it's not for me to judge. She was the best chance of happiness I ever had, and somehow she just... slipped away."

Steel's hand was on his wrist, and without knowing why, Silver had to blink back tears.

Chapter Text

The moon was high over the River Vltava, and from the window of the long gallery, Sapphire stared out at the city, watching the moonlight move on the water. The moon always reminded her of Silver, light and clean and mysterious. She missed him greatly on nights like this. For all their difficulties, Silver had always kept his mysteries to himself, and never bothered her with them.

A voice crept out of the shadows and touched her thoughts. {Can't sleep?} It was a rhetorical question.

Sapphire hugged her arms to her chest. {No.}

His hands slid over her shoulders in his proprietary way. {Come back to bed, Sapphire. Come back to where it's safe.}

{With you?} She turned to face him, a hint of a sneer on her lips. "But I'm not safe with you, Steel. Not from this. It's your doing."

To an onlooker, he appeared unmoved. As Steel did not sleep, he saw no need for nightclothes, but he would at least consent to remove his shoes and suit jacket and tie and lie beside Sapphire while she slept. "I'm not forcing you to do this for me—"

"You did the first time."

"Right now, here and now, I am not forcing you. I don't need your resentment, Sapphire." His hands were immense, and seemed even more so when they were casually hovering around her throat, his thumbs stroking the pulse beneath the warm skin.

She closed her eyes briefly, then broke away. She resumed her gazing, outward over the city. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"

Steel stood beside her and looked. "What is?"

"The city."

"Prague."

"It's considered one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. 'City of a hundred spires,' it's been called. And there's quite a renowned opera house, that should please you, when we've done with our assignment at the Astronomical Clock."

"I understand what you're doing, Sapphire, I know you're trying to hold on to anything in the waking world that you can, but we haven't finished yet. There's more in my head, pressing against my eyes, straining to get out. You must come back." Steel's voice was husky and flecked with concern. "Come back to bed."

"You go."

"Not without you."

"Finish it yourself."

"I can't!"

"Why not?"

"You know why not."

"No." Sapphire turned sharply, catching his hand and holding it, daring him to break away. "You've given me a lot of reasons over the years but never a complete explanation."

"There's nothing to explain."

"You don't sleep, Steel. I know because our minds are linked—I dream your dreams for you. I suffer your nightmares so that you won't have to."

"I wasn't made to sleep," he said tightly.

Sapphire's eyes narrowed. "Weren't made..."

"The need was removed." Steel jerked his hand away. She stared up at him, at last understanding.

"They made a mistake somewhere," Sapphire realized. "Your body's need for sleep was removed but not your mind's need for dreams. Your conscious and your subconscious lack the correct triggers to switch dominance." She reached for his hand again; limply, he let her take it. {Your subconscious dreams, and your conscious mind perceives those dreams as real.}

The moonlight streamed freely into the long marble gallery, but Steel was untouched. Only his eyes seemed to luminesce, as though from within. {When you dream, you wake up. I don't. Not without help. That's why I don't sleep. Even when I'm recovering from a freeze—}

{You keep your eyes open. You prefer to stay awake, or at least somewhat aware.}

{I keep my eyes open because I don't know what lies behind them, waiting for me... I don't like not being responsible for my own actions. People are vulnerable when they're asleep.}  

"Yes, I know." She laid her hand against his cheek. "You've proven that to me before."

"Many times. I need you."

"A girl could get used to that kind of admission," she teased.

A grin flickered through the multi-layered patterns of his face. He turned his head and brushed a brief kiss against her palm. {Come back to bed, Sapphire.}

{Yes, Steel.}

The room they had appropriated for themselves in the grand hotel were far too opulent for Steel's tastes: too much gilt, too many pieces of pointless furniture, and far too many pillows on the bed, but it suited Sapphire, and since she was the one who needed the room in the first place, he capitulated to her wishes.

Most nights when they were on assignment, nothing happened. Most nights, she had no dreams at all, or she had her own dreams and nightmares, or she experienced those dreams of Steel's that were not terrifying—she had learned many interesting things about her partner from his dreams.

But the nightmares came regardless, no matter how hard Sapphire worked with Steel to abate them. They came to her when they were on assignment or not, whether they were in each other's physical presence or not. And now that she knew some of the truth, Sapphire doubted if he could be helped.

Her only consolation was that no matter how she went to sleep, if she suffered a nightmare in Steel's place, she would not wake up alone.

She lay on her back, staring at the ornate ceiling, her hands clasped loosely on top of her ribs. Steel lay beside her, propped up on his elbow, watching her. "I hate this part," she murmured.

"What?"

"Trying to fall asleep again."

"After my nightmares?"

"After any nightmares, but yours in particular, yes."

Steel nodded. His hand picked absently at the satin weave of the bedspread, feeling the warp and weft under the ridges of his fingertips. "What can I do?"

How easy it would be, Sapphire reflected, to simply say 'No,' to get up and leave the room and abandon him to deal with his demons on their terms instead of his own. She didn't know how he'd coped before they had been partnered; he didn't talk about himself. She sat up. {Let me show them to you.}

Steel almost flinched. "No."

"You'll be perfectly safe—"

"Sapphire, no!"

"You'll be conscious," she assured him. "All the irrational fear, all the terror will be absent. You won't be asleep. You'll simply be witnessing the things I experienced. And when it's all over, you'll be here, and awake."

His eyes shifted, becoming molten and thoughtful, swirling around a tiny petrified shadow before solidifying once more into the pride and stubbornness that Sapphire knew so well. And yet the longer she knew him, the more she could see eternity in his look. "I'm not lying down," he said at last.

"No, I think it would be better if you sat upright." Sapphire twisted her legs beneath her. Steel crossed his legs, Indian-fashion, and cleared his throat deliberately. "What?"

He managed to convey, with a delicate arch of his maddeningly expressive eyebrows, that her nightdress had ridden up to a distracting level. {Can I dream of that?}

{Not tonight. And that won't work, you know.}

{What won't?}

{Your attempts at flirting always conceal some ulterior motive, so you're not changing my mind. Now, relax,} she instructed, laying her palms against his temples, {and close your eyes.}

{Do I have to?}

{You have to trust me, Steel.}

He closed his eyes.

His mind was dark. His eyes were open but his mind's eye was completely dark, and he could not move. His body was frozen, absolutely frozen.

"Sapphire!"

The voice came from his mouth, his throat—but his muscles were locked, his lips could barely move at all. He was so cold... wasn't there a fire burning somewhere? "Has the fire gone out?"

His voice bounced and echoed and crashed against the darkness: "Out?... Out?... Out?..."

There were sounds in the darkness, just out of his grasp... the flitting of a bird, the noise of traffic, whispers... a soft ripping tug like a cat kneading cloth, a whistled tune, all garbled... a crying baby...

The North Wind doth blow, and we shall have snow, and what will poor robin do then, poor thing?

Steel's head snapped around with a sound of ice cracking. He could see now, even though his eyes were impaled on the spikes in the barbed wire. Ring a ring o' rosies... rosies... rosies... Cold, so cold, and blood dripping down his cheeks, and someone was walking, up and down before him, up and down, he could just see them and hear them, whistling, whistling It's a long way to Tipperary, to the sweetest girl I know... "Your war's just beginnin'..."

Silver held the barbed wire like gossamer between his hands. "She's very attractive, you know."

And then he was falling, he knew he was falling, though he could feel hands clutching at his, hands under his clothes feeling his heart, feeling his heat.

One foot up and the other foot down, this is the way to London Town...

It was hot, hot like summer, and the smell of flowers filled his nostrils, but he was standing in the dim cellar of a house built centuries ago. A gray one-eyed cat sat on a barrel, singing Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile smile in George Tully's voice. "Can you ever forgive me?" said the cat. Then a strong wind and the smell of dust—

"You can't do anything without her."

He was standing in darkness, in The Darkness, and there was Sapphire standing before him, smiling, and holding flowers. Steel stepped towards her carefully, holding out his hands, his voice echoing around him, coming not from his own mind or lips but from elsewhere beyond him.

"Are you the Sapphire that I've grown to know, and to love?"

She smiled brightly, and threw the flowers at him. The bouquet transformed into an angry swan in mid-flight and attacked him, and Steel tumbled back. The floor gave way beneath his feet and he fell again, and this time there was no one to catch him. He looked up as he fell to see Sapphire smiling down at him over the ledge, and Silver standing with his arm around her shoulders. "You've worked with her a lot, haven't you..."

When Steel was able to open his eyes, he was shivering so badly that he couldn't speak.

{Steel?}

He pushed her hands violently away from his head, lost his balance, and fell backwards off the bed. {You... lied... me...} he stuttered, unable to form even a coherent thought-projection.

{Yes.}  

Steel curled his body into a ball. His blond hair fell over his face and made him look something like the boy he might have been, long ago, a boy Sapphire had never known. {You said... there wouldn't... be any f-fear...}

"Nightmares are always terrifying, Steel. That's why they're nightmares." She sat quietly on the edge of the bed, waiting patiently for him to struggle back.

His gray eyes, hard and bitter, locked onto her. "I trusted you," he spat. "You took advantage of me—"

"I've had a good teacher."

The calm statement seemed to ground Steel, and he sat up slowly, pushing the hair from his eyes. "Did you... see all that?"

"Not when I dreamed it, no. Terror is a very personal experience. Sometimes when I suffer a nightmare in your place, my subconscious substitutes my own fears for yours."

"And that happened tonight?"

"When I dreamed it."

Steel understood. "But not just now, when I did." His throat felt like sandpaper. With an effort, he got to his feet and went into the adjoining bathroom, gulping down water from the faucet, cupped in his hands. There was a drinks cabinet in the bedroom somewhere, he had no doubt—humans were so fixated on their liquors and their little mixed drinks—but he disliked the stuff.

He came and sat down on the bed beside Sapphire, and scrubbed a weary hand over his face. She leaned her head on his shoulders. Neither of them looked at the other; there was no need. {Did I hurt you?}

{No.}

{I can't do it without help. Except maybe like this—}

"No. Your body reacted dangerously to the mental images. In a human, the experience would have triggered a fatal heart attack." {What did you do before me? Who helped you?}

{Someone else. Someone I trust.}

{Jet?}

{I trusted her with my life on occasion, but never with my sanity.} His arm slipped about Sapphire's waist while he was thinking of other things, and his cheek nestled itself against the crown of her head. "No, someone who's known me for... quite a long time. A very long time. But it became impractical. My life is dictated by the rising and setting of the suns and the rotations of the planets that I'm assigned to. And it's always changing, and the dreams come whether I'm at rest or not, whether you're asleep or not."

"Yes, I know. You dreamed of Silver. Are you afraid of Silver?"

"I'm... frightened of what he represents," Steel admitted.

"A rival?"

He chuckled softly. "No. I don't think anyone could take you away. No, not a rival. A threat. He simply represents a threat."

"What kind of threat, Steel?"

"Loss." Then... {They're gone.}

Sapphire sat up. "Gone? The nightmares?"

"Yes. I can feel them, behind my eyes... the pressure's gone. That's never happened before," he frowned.

"Fears and nightmares thrive on isolation, on silence."

"You mean... because we shared that one nightmare—"

"Conscious and subconscious met for the first time. You've never remembered a dream like this before, have you."

He shook his head. "No... before, it was always just the fear... the terror of not knowing if it was real or imaginary—if I was real or imaginary."

"Oh, you're quite real. And so am I, and so is this room." She watched him closely, and because she knew him, she knew when he smiled, though not a muscle in his face changed when he turned his head to look at her, and all that was in his voice was a hint of the knowing mockery that he conveyed so well.

"I never doubted your reality." He flopped back onto the mattress. "Shall we go to the symphony when we've done with the Clock?"

Sapphire stretched out beside him. "No, I think the opera. I believe Lohengrin is being performed."

It took Steel a moment to place the reference. {The Swan Knight,} he groaned.

{Or no?}

{Go to sleep, Sapphire.} He turned off the light.

Chapter Text

He prickled under her fingers, ridged, and the light through the slated blinds fell across his bare chest and shoulders in dusky stripes that she could almost feel. Hard and rough, sharp but malleable, to someone who knew how. Steel had long ago put himself into her power and she into his, the difference being that Sapphire had given Steel that mastery knowing he would use it, and while he continued to hope that she would never be as cruel to him as he often had to be to her.

They had been summoned to Whitby, on the North Yorkshire coast. Safely away from the manor and the time break and all the noxious party games, Steel breathed a deep sigh of relief. Sapphire looked sideways at him. "You can tell me now."

"Tell you what?"

"About the mustache."

Steel fiddled with the knot of his necktie. "I thought you liked it."

"Oh, I did. Not as a permanence, mind you, but it was a change. It was perfectly period. And you did look quite appealing," she added, running her hand purposefully up his sleeve. "But it was obvious you hated the thing. So why?"

"Silver," he admitted reluctantly.

"You did that for Silver?"

"I lost a bet," Steel snapped. Sapphire quickly hid her smile. "So the next time you see him, just tell him I wore the damn mustache."

"What was the bet?"

Steel seethed quietly. {Never ask that again.}

Sapphire was forced to turn away and contemplate some local architectural wonders in Whitby before she could look at her partner again. {We never did decide who would get which side of the bed...}  

{Bed... you mean in that house? You know perfectly well I don't sleep.}  

She laced her arm through his. {I never said sleep.}

{Oh.} A pair of suitcases appeared at Steel's feet. {We have luggage. We must be meant to be on holiday.}

{We should go hire a room then. Until they tell us why we're here.}

There were plenty of tiny inns in Whitby, and being tourist season, it took a little while to find one with an unbooked room, but they managed. "It's got a lovely view of the town," Sapphire commented, peering out the window.

"You didn't come here for the view," Steel reminded her.

The patterns swirled upon his skin, just beyond the surface, against her body, pressing into her, leaving marks of their own. He was brittle one moment and flexible the next, bright and shadow, dark and bright, ridged lines and whorls and curlicues biting into her flesh and rippling beneath a dull tarnished sheen.

Sapphire drew the curtains and turned. "No." She went to him. It was always in the instant between the request and the acceptance that Steel seemed at his most vulnerable. It never lasted for long, only for that one moment between his request, always implied but never declared, and her acquiescence. {You never ask outright,} she said, carefully removing his tie.

He just held her, watched her. Though real enough, the clothes could easily be gone with a thought, but Sapphire insisted that this way—teasing, drawn-out—was better. {You know why.}

{Yes.} She dropped the tie, and pushed the jacket from his shoulders. {Are you afraid of me?}

Steel smiled slightly with his eyes, barely with his lips. {Sometimes.} He rested his fingertips against her cheek. "Just as you're afraid of me."

"Sometimes."

He was hard and textured, his eyes and hair and lips, rough and honest because he had nothing to hide. Not from her. He wavered between bright and shadow, all that's best of dark and bright, not smooth and shining and reflective. She did not see herself in Steel, images of herself turned towards herself to deflect her attention. All she saw was him, and he bent beneath her touch, but he always bounced back, unable to shatter as she could.