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Rope stings her hands and the damp wood slides under her feet as she hauls herself up and over. The obstacle course always waits for her, promising the test her until sweat runs down her back and her breath runs its own course ragged in her chest. She glides down, hitting the mud hard. Small footprints in the mud mirror her own and she follows them into the gold and green trees. Wind cuts through her sweatshirt, but her skin's warm enough that it doesn't matter. Her feet pound against the earth, but it's soft from the rain and pushes back.
Her legs don't ache when she reaches the gym and the showers and her skin tingles while she strips off her sweaty, muddy clothes.
One of the showers already pounds water onto naked flesh when she walks in and the slim back that faces her is elegant and ends in a nice ass.
Clarice doesn't let her eyes linger, because she has three chapters to read. Facing into the hot water, she lets it caress her body like fingers. When she turns to wet her hair, the other woman faces her now. Hot water's turned her hair dark and flattened it to her head, but Clarice knows her. She's Scully, former doctor, or doctor still, because joining the FBI doesn't mean giving that up.
Scully opens her eyes and they share a glance that could be simply admiration: a nod across a room that acknowledges that they've made it, that they're here together. It could be something else, but Scully too must have that assignment.
The work comes first, before simple pleasures like Scully's slim hands replacing the water as it runs hot down her belly.
Scully lingers only a moment, then she's gone. Clarice stands alone in the water, trying to return to the familiar litany of federal laws and procedures. Her thoughts cling to Scully's skin, like stray droplets of water.
They pass again at a party, because the last year before them has graduated. Scully's in a dress with flowers, tiny blue ones, and the sun's warm through the windows even though it's winter. Inside the building, the heat's comfortable, even hot, and somehow it's hotter still when Scully touches her arm on the way to the cake table.
The party afterwards is less chaste, because the class ahead has survived all the horrors that Quantico has thrown at them, and unlike Clarice, few of those horrors were actually in the field. She doesn't drink to forget Hannibal, because he is a face that needs to be remembered, and not the same as the bodies of the girls who were cut up like so much fabric.
She lets Buffalo Bill's face fade from her thoughts, because he is nothing but his crimes. His lasting mark on society is that he took five women from it, almost a sixth. She will not remember him, but the women, and the check her blind spot. On instinct, she looks to her left, and she's there, glass in hand. Scully's not watching her, not really watching anyone, but there's plenty left in her drink.
Clarice's own cup is empty, and Scully pours part of her beer into Clarice's.
"I don't need the whole thing," Scully says. Her lips curl over the plastic rim of the cup, red against red, but Scully's lips are far more interesting.
"Thank you for sharing your cheap beer, Scully."
"Call me Dana, and if you want something better, you get up." Scully indicates the crowded room and the milling bodies.
Their classmates flit like Death's Head moths: moving, eating, looking for someone to fuck. She can't look at them the same way, because she knows what they haven't seen. They haven't felt death reaching for their hair. They'll graduate and go off to soft, office jobs where they'll fill out paperwork and perform forensic examinations of white collar crime.
It'll be quick work to pass through them and she knows there's whiskey, somewhere. She might lose her spot on the sofa and it just became interesting now that Scully's here.
She starts to move and Scully- Dana- smirks at her.
"What makes you think I'll save your place?"
Clarice downs her beer in two gulps. "Because this is terrible."
Smirking as she shifts to take over more of the sofa, Dana nods. "It is."
Without the whiskey, she never would have let Dana walk her home. Their breath wreaths their mouths, like smoke. Dana's apartment is in the better part of town, and she insists that she's fine walking home alone after they leave Clarice's. They're both armed, and they hardly need the company, but yet their hands tingle and Clarice's skin is far too warm for just whiskey.
She fumbles with her keys and Dana's hands catch hers. The keys fall anyway and they don't reach for them. Neither of them moves because their eyes meet. Dana's have a rare depth to them, where the blue is more than a reflection of ice, or some comparison to water. She's never found blue eyes particularly interesting. She sees her own as icy, too pale, even washed out. They betray too much, and she's never wanted any of her weaknesses to be visible.
The moment breaks because they need the keys. They sit in a heap on the wood of the porch, beside Dana's leather shoes. They're elegant pumps, and the leather's smooths and well conditioned.
"Nice shoes."
Dana's puzzled smile has more light then the cheap bulb over the porch. "Thank you."
Did she work as a doctor long enough to pay for those shoes or did she make the choice that they were important? She doesn't come from money. Her apartment wasn't in that nice of an area, and if her parents had money, she wouldn't be walking Clarice home to her own small space.
She looks at shoes now, studying them, wondering if they are a sacrifice or an indulgence.
Dana's are neither and they cross the threshold into Clarice's one bedroom apartment. There's barely room to turn around in the entryway, and they touch, once innocently, then again as they strip off their coats. Clarice drops her keys with intention on the table, and they speak no more of Dana continuing home.
There's a sofa, and it's not that bad, but they make little use of it, because, like Dana's own, it's covered in papers and books. Clarice's notes spill onto the floor, scattered like leaves. Dana's shirt joins them soon after they open the good bottle of whiskey: real bourbon. Her white bra strap stands in contrast against her skin. Clarice's fingers ache to run across it, to lift it from her shoulder.
She hesitates, her hand floating like mist.
Dana removes the first strap, then leans in. Kissing brings a warmth to her richer than whiskey. Her lips give against Clarice's own, providing enough pressure to be real and rich in a way so little of the world is. It's an ongoing struggle to even find color, or warmth, because she sees lambs everywhere she looks. Their white fleece only remains white until someone comes along to stain it- ruin it- soak it rust brown.
The taste of lipstick fades as it wears off. Dana guides her back to the bed, trading her bra for admittance into Clarice's bedroom. Her little gasp when Clarice's thumb runs across her breast makes her ache and she surrenders to that. Letting herself want to be fucked is a choice, a surrender, a guttural sort of wanting.
Dana straddles her, laying her back to kiss her stomach, then her breasts and there's a fumbling joy in the softness of her mouth. Her fingers stroke strong and sure. The calluses must come from the hours they've spent on the gun range and that soothes her enough that she lowers her guard.
Sweat rises like their heartbeats. Words die in Clarice's throat. Dana lies beside her, panting and spent and the light's still on above them.
Dana kisses her cheek and sits up. "I'll get it."
Clarice studies the curve of her back. The little red marks from her own fingers have started to fade. She throws her arm across the bed, covering the place where Dana was. "What makes you think that I'll save your place?"
Dana's gentle laughter fills the room. "Because that was the opposite of cheap beer."
"Tasteful?" Clarice jokes. Her head's still foggy, and it'll ache in the morning, but Dana's here, and warm.
"Worth having again."