Title: Fairytale Kiss
Rating: G
Genre: FLUFF. Are you guys scared yet? Yes you heard correctly, there's no character death in this. Hey! DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT! You asked me for this stuff and so I wrote it!
Original Post Date: 28/03/2007
Spoilers: this is meant to be set the night after the events in 3x12 Par Avion but it doesn't have any spoilers for it. At all. So it's safe for all!
Summary: Charlie and Claire discover the sweetness of a perfect, fairytale kiss.
Disclaimer: Lost isn't mine. If it was, there would have been an overly sweet, tooth decaying C/C montage scene to some of that Giacchino score by now mutter mutter…
The day had been longer than most – filled as it was with half-finished ideas, arguments, and all manner of emotions mixed in together. But the fires had been lit now and two occupants of one such fire were busily keeping each other warm and cosy, all their daily squabbles forgotten in a moment of companionable warmth.
"This is kind of like having my own personal heater," Claire chuckled as she leant her head on Charlie's warm shoulder and tilted her head to look up at him out of the corner of her eye. "I'm thinking that I needn't have worried with the blanket after all."
"Mmmn. Maybe." Charlie grinned down at her as one of his hands crept onto her knee and then began to draw deliciously slow circles on her denim clad thigh. "But then I wouldn't be able to do this now would I?"
"Easy now," Claire scolded him mockingly, straightening up and placing a hand over his, stilling the motion. "If you start to get fresh I might just have to…"
"Give in to my irresistible charms?" Charlie interrupted her, smirking.
Claire swatted at him good naturedly. "You – big headed…" Charlie ducked and tried to protect himself from her flailing arms but Claire caught his wrists easily and held them still. Charlie stopped struggling immediately, looking somewhat resigned to his fate. Grinning smugly, Claire put her face up close to his, exultant at her victory. "I think I win."
"I never conceded defeat," Charlie retorted.
Claire snorted. "In case you hadn't noticed Charlie, I'm the one holding all the cards here."
"I don't see any cards here luv." Charlie's eyes sparkled suddenly. "But I do see a smug little mouth that's just begging to be kissed."
"Do you just?" Claire grinned at him. "Well I'm glad I'm not the only one."
Charlie pressed a hard but brief kiss to her lips and then pulled back to grin cheekily at her. "Is that better?"
"Somewhat," Claire bit her lip, trying not to smile and then let go of his wrists only to reach up to run her hands over his face. "I'm still trying to get used to this 'you with stubble' thing. Although I must say that it's a lot nicer than getting a mouthful of beard like before."
Charlie laughed at that. "Well I'll keep that in mind for future reference. Clean shaven face equals much more kissing opportunities for Charlie."
"Only if we don't get interrupted by something," Claire sighed and then glanced over at her son, completely wiped out from the day's activities, asleep in his cradle. "Or someone."
Charlie followed her gaze and when he looked back at her, his eyes were sparkling in that mischievous way that made Claire's pulse race. "Well by the looks of him, he's pretty well knackered so…maybe we should take advantage of that particular situation while we can?"
Claire tried not to smile, she really did, but when Charlie got that look in his eyes and he went all shy and sweet and silly on her…well she really couldn't help herself. It was impossible to resist such a tempting offer – after all, she was no prude. Aaron was more than proof of that.
She was still grinning – and so was he for that matter – when their lips met in a gentle, teasing kiss. Claire tested the water gently, nudging her nose against his as she angled her head to deepen the kiss. Charlie went one step further, adding just the smallest amount of tongue – enough to make Claire's pulse go galloping up another few notches.
They continued on in this manner for a fair while, moving gradually from the slow and sensual to something well beyond anything they'd ever dared to explore together before now. Claire was almost surprised at the heat between them – the blanket was definitely not needed now, except to hide the utterly wicked extravagance of having Charlie's hand moving further and further up her thigh…
Claire was the first to pull back, finishing with an apologetic peck on the end of Charlie's bemused nose.
"I think we need to find another place for this hand of yours," she said sternly, taking it off her thigh and twining her fingers into his so that it couldn't resume its previous position.
Charlie however, was too busy looking smug to care too much about where his hand was it seemed. His gaze was still on her, his eyes dark and hungry and still sparkling with inane mischief.
Claire bit her lip and lowered her eyes, suddenly feeling very shy and exposed under his gaze but Charlie wasted no time in tilting her chin back up. Claire watched, fascinated, as his eyes began to soften into an expression so earnestly sweet that it made her blush.
Instead of teasing her or making a joke about the rising heat in her cheeks, Charlie was silent as he gazed at her and Claire was glad for this uncharacteristic quiet, content to just allow him to brush the pad of his thumb across her lips while his fingertips whispered over her jaw line…
This overt gentleness that Charlie displayed when he was with her always touched Claire more than she would care to admit. At times it was almost like he was afraid he was going to break her if he handled her too roughly. She personally didn't mind in the least – she wouldn't have been comfortable with much more than what they had done so far anyway. Even having his hand on her thigh tonight had seemed a little risqué comparatively to what he usually dared try – but she had been willing to let him try it tonight, at least for a moment, just to try.
It seemed that she was finally beginning to let him in, slowly but surely – and not against her own will. She remembered a time when even holding his hand would have been too much for her to risk and yet now, here she was, his face less than a foot away from hers and his fingertips gentle against her skin in a chaste imitation of what she knew they would eventually progress to.
Charlie's eyes dropped inexplicably to her lips and Claire leant forward readily, her own eyelids fluttering as Charlie mirrored her. As he guided his hand up the side of her face and pushed his fingers into her hair however, there was a sudden high pitched warble from Aaron's crib.
I'm awake mum! Pay attention to me!
Claire snapped into mother mode instantly and the two of them jerked away from each other. There was a moment of nervous silence and then Charlie laughed and shook his head.
Claire glanced over at her son and then let her chin fall onto her chest. "Ugh. And of course, there goes the moment."
"Well at least he had the decency to wait until we were finished with the first round eh?" Charlie grinned at her – not seeming at all fazed when she disentangled herself from him and went over to tend to Aaron. "You've taught him well."
"Not well enough apparently," Claire grumbled as she reached down to re-swaddle her wriggling son. "Wonder what it's like to not have to worry about your baby waking up and interrupting you and the boyfriend in a private moment?"
He didn't say anything, but Claire could tell that Charlie was chuffed at her choice of words as he stood and came to stand beside her while she tucked her son back in. Aaron's bright eyes peeped up at the two of them from out of his blankets as Claire stood and took Charlie's hand automatically.
He glanced down at their hands for a moment before returning his gaze to her son and squeezing her hand gently. It was almost funny, Claire smiled to herself, every time she'd held his hand, he'd seemed to feel the need to check that it was really her. Was it so surprising to him that she'd finally let her guard down enough to let him into her heart?
Claire turned to him and leant up on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his cheek. Charlie glanced at her, surprised but pleased. "What was that one for?"
Claire shrugged, smiling. "For the other one we missed out on. Think of it as an apology for Aaron wrecking the moment."
Charlie nodded thoughtfully for a moment, then leant in conspiratorially. "It's okay luv. You don't have to apologise for him. I could never hold a grudge against either of you."
And, planting a kiss on her temple, he excused himself for a late night trip to the bathroom before turning in.
While he was gone, Claire retrieved her blanket from beside the fire and crawled into bed. The day had been long and taxing, but when Charlie returned and curled up beside her, she didn't even cast a thought to the petty squabbling that they had subjected themselves to that day. In fact, as he curled an arm around her waist, she found herself thinking fondly on the memory of their brief, fireside kiss.
It was the moments like these, when Charlie felt so warm and alive beside her, his heart beating in tandem with hers that made her feel like she might have found a small moment of the kind of love found only in fairytales.