Title: A Whole New Kind of Wrong

Rating: M – you better believe it, baby.

Disclaimer: You honestly think that I have the ability to think up a show so brilliant, so deep, and so emotionally heart wrenching as Homeland? I'm flattered, but no. I don't own anything.

Summary: Every part of them screams that this is wrong. But they can't stop. They are planets on a crash course, bound to come together. Bound to destroy one another.

Author's Note: From the very minute I saw the pilot episode, I wanted something to happen between Carrie and Brody. They're both so messed up, but when they were at the cabin together, you couldn't help but hope! So this is my little tribute to them.

Smashed. Trapped. Between a wall and a hard place. Ha, ha. Hard… ha, ha.

So she's still a little manic. Sue her.

Or, better yet, fire her. Ha, ha.

She sounds like a fucking Batman villain.

His entire body is pressed against her, no room to wiggle in the slightest. She can hardly breathe, and it really doesn't help that her nipples are hard so when she moves, her breasts are utterly crushed against his broad chest; his battle-scarred chest.

And now she feels guilty.

Not guilty enough to stop, though.

Flexing her hands, straining, seeing just how tight his grip his on her. It's pretty tight. She never appreciated just how large his hands are, but now that he's able to use just one of them to trap both of hers above her head, she's definitely noticed.

Don't look into his eyes. That's the one thing she can't stand, the hurt and betrayal and the soft gentleness that lurks somewhere deep inside. Only flashes of that, of the man he once was, but it still exists, somehow. And she can see it when she looks in, peers through the little windows and gets a peep at his soul. When they're drunk, laughing, or when they're playing pool and she's totally fucked him up. That's when she sees the good ol' Captain America reemerging.

"Look at me."

She twists away, trying to avoid the inevitable, because that's what she does. She dodges and dances around whatever makes her uncomfortable, and emotion is the number one culprit.

He presses further into her, and she can feel him pressed against her thigh. She shudders a little at the pleasure, at the promise (how that woman ever cheated on him she doesn't know, because he is just so good…), but then his face comes into view. He's breathing hard, his eyes a little wild with that stark, dazed animal look and if he could see himself now, he'd recognize the face. It was the face that looked out at him in the bathroom in the bunker. The face that wavered at the brink.

"No, you don't." He breathes. His breath is hot on her face and the inch of air between their lips is rapidly disappearing. She'd whimper, but she's not the whimpering kind. She's the hard-assed CIA girl, okay? She can handle this. She's got her big-girl panties on. The skimpy black kind.

"I want answers, and you've got them." She insists. Yes, she is still interrogating him in the middle of this. You got a problem with that?

"I think we both have some questions." He says. He sounds a lot calmer than he is. He's good at the whole 'keeping calm', thing. It's why Jessica always had him deal with the kids, because he could be trusted not to just blow up at them. Jess was always a little volatile. And now he's with Carrie, who is way more than just a 'little' volatile. She's a motherfucking volcano that's erupting every half hour.

He really can pick them.

"What can you possibly want from me?"

That nearly makes him burst out laughing, and then she glances down and squeezes her lips together in an attempt to not smile because hey, they both know what his body wants.

They also know that he knows that she knows what he wants her to answer for him. It's the game they play, chasing each other around in circles, lying and covering up and bluffing their way down this twisted, twisted path they've created for each other.

"We both want the same thing, Carrie."

She makes a little desperate noise, arching to try and slip her wrists out of his grip because it's starting to hurt, but he won't let go. His other hand, the one not cutting off circulation to her hands, grabs her waist and squeezes. Her mouth drops open. It hurts, he's not bothering with gentleness, but it feel so good, so good to be claimed by him. It's wrong, terribly wrong, but she likes wrong. She thrives on it. Wallows in it, if she were to be honest with herself, which she hardly ever is.

"We both want the truth."

She opens her eyes, meeting his gaze. He's unflinching, drawing it out of her whether she wants him to or not. She's seen all kinds of horrendous torture methods but right now she'd much rather be water-boarded. Seriously, anybody want to lay her down and give it a whirl? She's volunteering!

"So what's the deal here?" She asks, gasping because ouch, he is kind of hurting her. Not just physically, either.

"You tell me everything; every question I ask, you give an honest answer to. I'll do the same for you."

"That's all we're doing?" She's not being seductive, honest to God. She really needs him. These panties are utterly ruined.

"We'll see." He's noncommittal, as always. He has to be. If he commits to something, he has to see it through. It's the kind of guy he is. So he avoids committing. He's seen what happens to you when you promise too much.

"Ladies first." She says quickly. She's no lady but she'll take what she can get, snatch what control she can. Control = good.

He says nothing, just waits for her to speak. He's a stone statue, hard and silent, staring at her. His eyes have gone glassy, that empty look he shows for the cameras; the one where his mouth smiles but the rest of him doesn't.

"What is your involvement with Abu Nazir?" She asks.

It's the question he's expecting, more or less. So he's prepared, or thinks he is. But when he starts telling her everything, from Issa all the way to Walker, he's blinking back tears by the third sentence.

Her entire body softens. She doesn't know how or when he became her blind spot, but he is, no matter how hard she tries to keep him in her sights. When she relaxes, he does as well, and then somehow they're kneeling on the floor, and he's choking on his words or his tears or both and she's holding him.

This is wrong, this is all wrong. It should be Jessica, the wife who held onto his memory until it became too much, it should be she who holds him. They both know it. Carrie has no right to him. But he has no right to her, either. If anything, he's made her worse, made her downright crazy. They certainly don't compliment each other. They drag each other down.

But oh God, Allah, whatever the fuck it is must have a drop of pity for him somewhere because feeling her soft, lithe arms around him, her cool cheek against his forehead, her thin, angular curves pressed against his trembling body, are like a little piece of heaven. A stolen, dearly-paid-for piece, but it's still heaven. And he'll take it.

An eternity passes by in the space of a minute. When he finally raises his head, he wishes that she could see herself. She's a fallen angel, her eyes brimming over, soft, glowing candles of love. Maybe then she could be convinced that she can be saved.

Honestly, though, what shot do either of them have at redemption? About one in… a really big number, that's the kind of shot they have. And the truth of the matter is if one of them rises, the other one falls. That's how their lives are entangled; that's how it has to end.

She waits until he has collected himself, and then she asks him the next question. "What is the plan, and what is your role in it?"

He doesn't break down this time – in fact, he's almost robotic in describing it. She still has her arms looped around his neck (she's almost draped on him), but it doesn't matter. She doesn't need to take notes. Later on, she will remember every single detail of this meeting in painfully crystal clear Technicolor.

It's the most surreal interrogation that either of them has participated in. It's almost like a Bizarroworld version of things. But by the time she's had all her answers, he's laid her down on the bed, propped on top of her, eclipsing all else. He has eclipsed her world. He is her world. And he's destroying it.

Then again, he supposes that he's kind of destroying himself, and maybe she's just collateral damage. Or maybe she's destroying herself and just accelerating his. It doesn't matter. They're both tearing at the seams.

"Your turn." He says quietly. It could be a threat, but it's not. It's almost a caress.

She nods, rolling her bottom lip up and biting down on it, her wide mouth barely a thin line in her pale face.

"Did you spy on me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I had information that indicated you were a terrorist." She offers no apologies, partly because he won't accept them and partly because she won't mean them.

"What about that weekend together?" He's rushing things, pushing past the smaller issues, but they are nothing. They are pieces on the cutting room floor. What he really wants is this.

"It was real, all of it." She gasps it out, pushes it out, forces her throat to move and her lips to form the words that she really, honest-to-God doesn't want to say. "Brody, I swear, it was all real."

Brody – not Nick, not Nicholas. For some reason, she always uses his last name, and for some reason it fits. It fits what they have; so cracked and warped and strangely casual and professional despite the fact that they've fornicated like rabbits on multiple occasions.

He's not sure if he believes her. She has to make him believe.

"My closest friend nearly abandoned me because of it!" Her voice cracks. Why does it have to fucking crack now? "He was horrified because I am hopelessly, stupidly in love with you!"

It doesn't sound anything like in the movies. There's no James Newton Howard soundtrack, for one thing. For another, it's not a huge confession. It's desperate, and it's wrong, and she feels more like she's talking to a priest in a Catholic Church than the object of her affection – or obsession – she's not sure which.

He presses his lips to hers, forces them apart; uses his tongue to draw out her moans. He explores her mouth, and her body melts against his. If she had any secrets left to give, she'd give them up now. She can't hide anything from him. She's never been able to. Even in their first interrogation, she could feel the electricity, the compression and tension in the air between them. And it threw her. It throws her now, too. She never knows how to react.

"Please…" She can't remember the last time she said that word. "Believe me, Brody, I… I can't do this. I can't…"

We shouldn't. It's the next thing to say, the next thing that one of them should say, but they don't. They don't want to. They're on a collision course, and they're going to go up in flames but they really don't care when it comes down to it. The magnetic pull, as powerful and inevitable as gravity, will pull them to together whether they like it or not. So they choose to like it.

Clothes vanish. Maybe they end up on the floor, maybe a shirt gets tossed up onto the nightstand, but it doesn't matter. The feel of skin on skin, the slick, smooth, electric touches, the dirty and naughty and oh so good feeling fills them, completely overwhelms their senses.

It's hard. It's fast. It's rather clumsy and uncoordinated at times, but at least they got fully undressed this time. They seem to have a problem with that. In all honesty, they kind of feel like two teenagers; groping, breathless, and praying that no one walks in on them. But there's youthfulness, vitality, a sense of freedom that comes as well, and it almost makes what they're doing worth it.

Fuck that – it's definitely worth it.

She's certain that she'd be going to Hell for this, but she's going to Hell already so this is all probably just another drop in the bucket.

He sees it differently. He's done some good things and bad things in his life, but he knows that out of all the things he has or will do, whether he ends up blowing his head off in another godforsaken bunker, that she is the one thing that raises him up. In loving her, he has a chance, however slim, at redemption, because when he's with her, everything either falls into place or falls away. With her, he can just be himself (whoever the fuck that is now), and he doesn't have to worry about a thing.

She's his bipolar, borderline deranged, obsessive, highly compulsive, whip-smart, beautiful, demonic little angel. And she's all his. God help anyone else who tries to put their filthy hands on her.

Rocking, thrusting, making the headboard of the bed bump rather loudly against the wall (the folks next door better not be asleep), groaning and moaning and whimpering and gasping out… they sound kind of like a porn film. The really good, well-made kind, though, not the cheap '70s style shit.

He's first, his entire body going rigid, his mouth falling open just a little, and pinpricks of light flash behind his eyes. But she's lucky because there's something about having a man empty inside of her, feeling that gush and last, fierce pump, that pushes her over like nothing else. He triggers her, and she shoots out like tendrils of electricity, gasping hoarsely and arching wildly.

Lying there afterwards, there's time for reflection. Time to think about what they've done. It's the reason why they always jump up, get moving, either start the next round or get a snack or go on a walk or something, anything, to avoid thinking about it. But this time they don't. This time, there will be no next time. Everything's crashing down around them, crumbling underneath them, and they are slipping, reeling, falling.

But they have this time. And they will take it. Hope for another time, maybe. Run themselves into the ground guilt-tripping over the last few times and all the things that went wrong, definitely. Staring at each other when the other one's not looking, realizing that they know each other better than anyone else in their lives? Yes, oh yes. He knows her better than her mentor, than her sister. She knows him better than his wife of so many years, than his son. His daughter might know him just as well, but that's Dana for you. Cutting through the crap with one hand while she creates more of it with the other.

"You were right, about me. About everything." He says. His voice is a little gravely, the way it gets when he's sleepy or trying to be quiet.

"Duh." She does the little snort-giggle thing that he adores. She's trying to joke about it, make light of it, but it's true. "You figured out I was a fucking mental case."

"Well, it did take me a few hours." He chuckles, and then they're laughing like they're drunk. They're not, just so you know. Not this time.

He rolls over, cups her chin just below her ear with one hand, stroking lightly. The thought hits her that he could kill her like this. He could kill her with any number of fancy Marine kung-fu shit, and she wouldn't stand a chance. It would exhilarate her, but she feels too safe for that. Odd, isn't it, how she feels safe with him. She's herself, just plain old Carrie, and that's all that's needed.

"I love you." The words give him pain and joy in equal measure, but he owes it to her. Absolute truth this time, and he's doing his part.

"You know we're both going to end up dead now." She says.

He raises himself up on his elbow and stares at her, that boyish, confused look on his face; you know, the one with the slight disbelief in his eyes? Yeah, that one; it still makes her weak at the knees, and she's not even standing up.

She rolls her eyes, smiles her 'I'm-drunk-woohoo' smile, and explains.

"In every play, book and film – hell, even in the television shows – right after the doomed couple you've been rooting for the whole time confess their love, something happens and they end up dying or something. Like Shakespeare or that stupid James Cameron film."

"Titanic?"

"Yeah, that one. God, I hate that one. You should take out Celine Dion. D'you think Nazir would let you bomb her island instead? You know she has a private island, right? Or Leonardo DiCaprio – he'd be even better. He starred in Titanic and that modern version of Romeo and Juliet."

He laughs, the sound rolling through his chest before bursting out of him, and she, of course, has her full-bodied breathless chuckles, and this time when he kisses her the level of wrong is so high that it almost feels right.

They are bound to come together. Bound to destroy one another. But maybe, just, just maybe in the process, they will create something new.

And there you have it, folks! My little tribute to the stark, dark, thoroughly odd, slightly twisted and definitely beautiful relationship between our two leads. I hope that you enjoyed it! I was a lot more… I don't know, rough, shall we say, with the characters than I usually am. I'm usually much more sympathetic and hopeful and rosy. I hope that you liked it anyway!

Quick note – "Romeo + Juliet", the Shakespeare adaptation that Carrie says Leonardo DiCaprio starred in, featured a certain actress as the female lead… a certain actress named Claire Danes. Dontcha just love Meta?