We all fall down

[neverwrongagent]

Carrie would remember the next few days as some of the best of her life. She was living with a man she was more comfortable with than she could have imagined, working together for a common goal. Even the visit with his kids went well. She gave him most of Saturday with just them, showing up at dinner time with pizza and cookies. They played board games and chased around her little house until it was time for him to take them back. Then it all went to hell.

They finally found evidence that Walker had met someone on one of his random seeming runs around the District. Before they could act on it, a series of small bombs took out three Metro buses as they approached the city center. A half dozen people were killed, twice that were injured. Had it been one bomb, it would have been bad enough, but three in a concert was particularly frightening for the city. It also put CIA on high alert. The work they'd been doing before was nothing compared to the sudden anger and frustration everyone showed. Plenty of people looked at Brody, and Carrie, as though they'd done something wrong. Brody should have come forward sooner. Carrie shouldn't have trusted him so much. Maybe if they'd come up for air this wouldn't have happened.

Carrie though all that and more, although she never really blamed Brody. At least, not any more than she blamed any of them for missing it. They'd messed up, not gotten to the answer fast enough. For her, everything else fell away. The work was everything and she spent as many hours as she was allowed at work. She had to be shoehorned out of the building to go home and rest, but when she was there she didn't sleep. She only ate when someone put food in front of her. This was the Carrie Brody had never seen, that her family worried about, that Carrie held on a tight leash.

She paced her dining platform, looking at the notes and schedules she had posted to her wall, sure she was still missing something crucial. She had music playing, the kind of jazz that normally settled her, but it wasn't doing shit and she could feel her skin start to crawl, but she had to work, had to figure out where they'd gone wrong.

Comments

[neverwrongagent]

She gave him a look. At this point they were getting close to even. His nightmares versus her mania. She hugged him tightly, putting her cheek against his soapy cheat. "I haven't complained." And she didn't plan on it.

[posterboymarine]

He lifted her slightly. "No, you haven't. Thank you." After sitting her back down, he whispered into her hair. "You're short. Turning me to mush works better when I'm laying down."

[neverwrongagent]

"Is that a hint?" She pulled away slowly, reaching for the shampoo so he could finish washing up while she cleaned herself off quickly. While they finished, she kept touching him lightly. "You don't have to thank me."

[posterboymarine]

He shrugged a little as he rinsed himself off and washed his hair. He took less time to do that then she took to get her hair lathered, the benefit of his regulation haircut.

When they were both clean, he helped her out and handed her a towel. He gathered up their dirty clothes and tossed them into the laundry pile, then threw himself into the bed, taking up most of it and giving her little choice but to basically sit on him.

[neverwrongagent]

The domesticity of it all made her grin. Seeing him sprawled over her bed, ass right in the middle, made her smile out right. She had no problem at all sitting on him, in fact she'd enjoyed it a number of times under other circumstances. Once she was settled, she went to work on his back, pressing much harder then she had when he was standing.

[posterboymarine]

He groaned loudly when she started to work. He was putty in her hands like this. Since he was hesitant to take his shirt off for the massage therapist his PT wanted him to see, this was the first real work he'd had done in a while. And he knew that Carrie knew the places she had to be gentle, she'd been there from the beginning.

[neverwrongagent]

She couldn't do as good a job as a trained therapist, but she cared a lot more. Periodically she stopped just to plant light kisses along his shoulder, knowing that helped relax him, too. She shifted down his body, working over his ass and hips on her way to his thighs. He was bigger, stronger than he'd been, but still not quite as big as when they met. It made her smile to see how much better he was doing.

She leaned over and kissed his ass.

[posterboymarine]

He yelped at the kiss but didn't move otherwise. He wasn't going to undo her work. "Interesting technique, babe."

[neverwrongagent]

She rubbed his lower back, then softly kissed the other cheek. "Want to make sure to give you something you won't get at PT." Besides the completely naked part, of course. She climbed off, patting his hip to indicate he should roll over. Rather than climbing back up, and tempting herself too much, she knelt beside him so she could reach his chest and shoulders.

[posterboymarine]

He rolled over with a smirk, then closed his eyes and let himself relax even more. "Yeah, no one is kissing my ass there, that's for sure. Mostly it's a lot of vocal persuasion. 'Let's go, Marine' might be all the words Freddie actually knows."

[neverwrongagent]

She laughed. "He also knows 'Don't let him slack', ma'am." She lifted his arm into her lap so she could work on it. After the first couple sessions, the staff included her in his treatment, making sure she knew what he was supposed to be doing on his own. He'd only introduced her by first name, so maybe they assumed she was the wife. Of course, Jess had never gone.

[posterboymarine]

"I do remember hearing him say that once." With his increased shooting since getting his weapons back, his hands ended up being more sore than the rest of him some days. He knew he was due for a lecture and a change in therapy regiment in the next week. Which would include even more work on his grip.

"You know, you ever decide you don't want to work for the CIA anymore, you've got a career in rubbing broken soldiers."

[neverwrongagent]

She left his first hand on her lap and reached across him for the other. His comment made her laugh softly. "I don't go around rubbing them randomly." That brought her up a little short. She did, normally, pick up random men, but the thought of that hadn't occurred to her since she'd gotten him back. She licked her lips. "Anymore."

They had met as a random pick up, after all.

[posterboymarine]

He opened his eyes and looked at her, giving her a soft smile. "I can't hold that against you. I know I was a random rubbing." He winked at her, then closed his eyes again. "You are a good woman, Carrie."

[neverwrongagent]

She finished his second hand, then slid down beside him, putting her hand on the middle of his chest. "That's not an opinion held by many." She kissed his chest. "Not that I care much about most people's opinions." She curled a little close and closed her eyes. She didn't necessarily agree, either, but it felt good to know he felt that way.

[posterboymarine]

He wrapped his arm around her and smiled, then pressed his lips to her hair. "You wouldn't, would you?" He turned on his side and pulled her close. "It all starts all over again tomorrow, doesn't it. But we made progress, right?"

[neverwrongagent]

She couldn't afford to care about most people's opinions. They got in the way of her work. And her life. She nodded slightly, thinking about just what they'd accomplished--the work and his giving her stability. "We did. Real progress."

[posterboymarine]

"Good. Then we sleep a little bit." Which was to say that he snuggled in real close and started touching her. Not with any real goal, per se, but still with the intent of enjoying her.

[neverwrongagent]

She let him touch for a long time without responding beyond soft sighs of pleasure. Since the bombings, they hadn't taken the time for quiet touch. Before that they would occasionally find themselves just standing together, checking in. Finally she drew him into a deep kiss.

[posterboymarine]

When she finally kissed him, he whimpered softly. It wasn't that he was worried about being rebuffed. It was that he still needed that last little bit of contact to feel reassured. Just because she was the one obviously having the issues didn't mean he wasn't also not processing terribly well.

[neverwrongagent]

She'd had more than one mental health professional tell her that using sex to medicate was a poor idea, that it didn't do any good and only complicated her life. Mostly she thought they were right, at least until she met Brody. It wasn't about sex, entirely, it was about contact and connection. She kissed him again, this time more tenderly and then with a delicate tease.

[posterboymarine]

He whimpered again, then pulled her on top of him. He still wasn't rushing sex. He just wanted to feel more of her. He also managed to pull the covers over then, to keep the exposed half of her warm.

[neverwrongagent]

They'd fuck, eventually, but that wasn't the important part. This was the part that mattered, the way they answered each other's needs be it tenderness or sudden passion. She kissed his lips, his face, his neck. Her hands moved over his torso, hands flat, pressure light. "Sometimes don't think you're real."

[posterboymarine]

He had to laugh at that. "Sometimes I don't feel real, babe. Sometimes, everything feel like a dream. Like it's all beyond my control." His hands rested low on her back, taking in her heat.

[neverwrongagent]

She nipped at his jaw, smiling. "You are though." She pulled back and watched him for a long moment before going back to kissing him. "That's the scariest part, you're the most real thing." As real as her work, which was the only thing.