Title: Down In Flames
Rating: T
Timeframe: Season 4, after Marisol's death in Rampage
Summary: What if they gave in before either of them were ready? What if it was for all the wrong reasons, yet somehow it felt right? Sequel to Slow Dancing in a Burning Room.
Note: You don't have to have read Slow Dancing in a Burning Room to get this, but it does make a lot more sense with progression and back story, especially because there are some references to it in here. Either way, I hope you like it.
Note #2: I'm sorry I haven't been able to work on Truth Is A Whisper or anything else, but school is seriously overwhelming at this point. I only had time for this little fic because it's been nagging me ever since I wrote the other one. :) I promise I'll be writing more over the summer.

-:-

The funeral had been beautiful, with white flowers that had stood out against all the black amid a sympathetically rainy, dark day. Soft voices had mixed with the deafening white noise of rain, and while others had complained about it, Eric merely swallowed hard.

"Mari loved the rain," he'd whispered to her, a touch of irony coloring his words. She understood the bittersweet acknowledgement that Mari was getting what she wanted on her day, and Calleigh had slowly pulled her umbrella down to let the cool raindrops shock life into their skin again.

Eric's lips had tightened with emotion, and he'd watched her hair darken with dampness before reaching for her hand. She was cold like the rain, but with an undercurrent of warmth, of life, that promised something beyond grief. With a gentle tightening of her fingers, she squeezed his hand reassuringly. It was the most contact they'd had in months.

She'd parted with rivers of rain cascading down her skin and promises to be home if he needed her. After the last time they'd been alone and the subsequent distance he'd been keeping, she didn't expect him to come.

But it was a mere ten minutes after she'd closed her front door behind her that she was opening it again. She hadn't even had a chance to change yet, and her wet dress clung desperately to her damp body like a second skin. Loose waves of blonde traipsed down her shoulders, with a few soaked strands clinging to her neck and chest. And her eyes stood out against the dark atmosphere – a radiant green harbinger of new life.

"Hey." Brows furrowing, she pushed the door aside to let him in. They hadn't done this in a while, but protocol used to dictate a cup of coffee while seated at a table, or on different chairs in her living room – a safe, manageable distance apart. But today he was filled with grief, and she simply watched as he fought the vigor in his eyes while he brushed past her.

Then, turning back with a sudden, renewed sense of purpose and direction, he ambushed her. His hands found her waist, still clothed by a black dress, and his lips met hers with such desperation she was rendered motionless. Even filled with grief and anger, he was soft with her, careful with her. His hands gripped her waist as though she might break just as easily as him right now. And when he increased the pressure, lips parting from hers only to catch them again with more urgency, she realized this was wrong.

"Eric," she let out on a pained breath. He stopped immediately at the sound, letting her slip from his touch. It would take all her resolve to stay away, she knew. "We can't," she explained, surprised by just how much regret washed over her. "You know I said…"

But when her eyes met his and the intensity there resonated within her, she knew this was different.

This wasn't a fling. It wasn't some toothing game he would wish to take back in the morning. It was raw need, grief, a longing for someone who understood everything – someone who understood him. It was a longing for her, because she'd been in his life and in his dreams for the better part of six years, and he had no idea what to do with how he felt for her. It was beyond his capacity for understanding at this point in time, when random women brought him a thrill of excitement without all the dangerous, soul-bearing intimacy.

The fact that Calleigh was halfway there just as a friend terrified him, but he couldn't help himself sometimes – not after a few beers had crumbled his walls, and certainly not just after he'd put Mari six feet below today.

No, it wasn't a fling or a game. It was an admission – an acknowledgement of the depth and need between them. It was too much on an average day, but compared to the overwhelming grief consuming him today, it just seemed right.

"Just tonight," Eric assured, fingers toying with the little black drawstring dangling from her waist. "Nothing less, nothing more." Somehow it was assuring. No expectations, no misguided promises.

And then his hand skated over her abdomen until he was holding her waist again, his touch both searing and gentle. "So that I don't hurt you," he added, studying the way her eyes had changed to a deeper green in the dimming light. Softening, his brows knit together as he studied her, mumbled words tumbling from his lips. "I don't ever want to hurt you."

Holding his gaze, she pressed her palms to his chest, and he thought he'd met her iron defenses despite knowing how she felt. But then her hands cupped his cheeks, drawing his lips back down to hers, and she pushed up onto the bare tips of her toes to meet him. His hands reclaimed their spot on her waist, pulling her further against him. The delicate weight of her body kissing his was maddening in a wonderfully distracting way, and the heat in her touch as her fingers glided to the back of his neck had him feeling he'd been lifted from the surreal pain of the day.

Calleigh was here. She was alive, and the assurance of her lips against his was the one thing keeping him grounded. He parted his lips and the taste of her overwhelmed him. Invigorated and awakened, he raked his fingers through her long, damp hair, pushing it back behind one shoulder. His hand danced softly over her skin, along her cheek, and he pulled back just slightly to question her eyes.

The certainty there astounded him. As he swept his thumb over the delicate flesh of her bottom lip, she untied the drawstring at her hip, letting it fall loose.

His fingers slipped into her hair again as he captured her lips with his again, a sudden urgency taking over his motions. With her hands tugging his shirt loose to find bare skin and his hand contemplating the zipper of her dress, he knew they were dangerously close to stepping over a ledge they couldn't come back from. They'd danced around it before, had stepped far back with valid reasons, but those all ceased to matter now.

Lips melding together over and over again, he was overwhelmed by her. Something far more than attraction and desperation danced between them, yet he couldn't pinpoint it, couldn't acknowledge it anyway. Doing so would risk everything. So he kissed her and let his touch dance across her skin, slowly finding the zipper with hands that longed for more.

He was in love with the sight of the black material falling from her light, damp skin, like they were peeling away the remnants of darkness to come alive. The dress fell to her feet, and they made it upstairs in a confusing blur of grief and desire.

He and Calleigh. It was crazy, and yet it seemed inevitable.