Fanfic: The Impulse of Fear
Feb. 5th, 2010 08:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
assassinTitle: The Impulse of Fear
Fandom: Fringe
Character/Pairing: Bolivia
Rating: Teen
Genre: Romance and angst, as always
Summary: Olivia wonders which fear makes her see the glimmer: the fear of failure, or the fear of getting close to another human being.
Spoilers: Up to and including "Jacksonville."
Notes: Unedited. I'm lazy.
The look on his face belongs to a man giving into an impulse he might later regret.
Hers is the look of a momentarily vulnerable woman giving into the impulse of fear.
It likely does not bode well for Peter that the only time he feels he can finally give into those flighty, dangerous thoughts of touching Olivia is when she is acting entirely unlike herself. He desires a woman he can take care of, and that is not Olivia, so when he sees a rare crack in her armor he leaps in to fill it with himself. Peter hopes it will turn out well. He knows, at the same time, that it cannot.
Olivia runs to save hundreds of strangers. She’s the one who takes care of people. Nobody takes care of her.
Peter watches the moment of opportunity slip past.
---
Olivia wonders which fear makes her see the glimmer: the fear of failure, or the fear of getting close to another human being.
Surely she isn’t that broken.
Colored police lights flash in front of the place a building used to stand, and there are reports to be filed and government cover-ups to conduct. She is still running off adrenaline when she calls Peter back at Massive Dynamic and asks him if he wants to get drinks after work. She actually smiles when he says yes.
Olivia dresses aggressively, leather and dark colors. It helps hide her giddiness. She feels guilty for being excited; it’s not a date, really, because she hasn’t trusted herself enough to make room for a man since John Scott died wrapped up in their business, and it seems like Olivia should still be grieving for him a year later instead of feeling little thrilling butterflies of excitement in her stomach.
Peter dresses conservatively: a sweater over a button-up shirt. He likes to think of himself as a bad boy, but deep down, he’s still a scientist and kind of a dork. If he had a pocket, there might be a protector in it. Peter thinks maturity and stability, qualities he wants within Olivia’s life, since he sees her as the kind of woman who wants a dangerous guy when what she really needs is safety. There is little safer than a sweater over a button-up shirt.
Walter is thrilled, of course. He makes ridiculous dating suggestions to Peter. Not things like, open the doors for her or get the red wine, but things like garlic will help your libido but don’t eat too much or she won’t kiss you.
Peter goes through the motions of being an asshole and tells him that he wishes Walter weren’t there. He’s really too excited for there to be any malice in it.
---
A moment approaches where Olivia is about to enter Peter and Walter’s house, and she feels fear mingling with her excitement.
She has a choice: suppress the fear and be the cool, calm Olivia who doesn’t fear Peter will end up as dead as John Scott.
Or she can indulge in the impulse of fear and let herself be a little weaker. It doesn’t sound like such a bad thing now. After all, she wouldn’t have asked him for drinks without the fear in the first place.
---
Olivia indulges.
“I’ll get my coat,” Peter says, giving her a private smile that makes her feel like she’s the only one in the world.
Her smile in return fades.
Olivia’s fear has allowed her to awaken, briefly, the ability that let her saw the building glimmer. She feels more fear to see that Peter glimmers too.
“Olivia, please don’t tell him,” Walter murmurs.
---
Olivia suppresses her fear.
“I’ll get my coat,” Peter says, giving her a private smile that makes her feel like she’s the only one in the world. Olivia is cool. She smiles back and doesn’t notice the thought Peter put into his appearance, because Olivia isn’t the kind of woman who notices sweaters.
When it’s just Olivia and Walter in the entryway, she says, “I’m sorry for getting angry at you in Jacksonville. You didn’t deserve that.”
He replies, “Order the garlic bread.”
---
The ride to the restaurant is uncomfortable.
Peter’s talking. He’s all smiles and charm, and Olivia replies with a thin-lipped expression that might be a smile. She keeps looking at him and then looking away. That unhappy line between her eyebrows makes an appearance.
He’s not sure what he can say to make her stop looking like that and start talking back to him. It’s not first date jitters (it’s not even a date, really). There’s something else.
The one-sided conversation makes Peter feels stupid before they’ve even reached the restaurant, and that makes him start to get angry.
After a few minutes, he stops talking altogether.
---
She does order the garlic bread.
They laugh and talk about things unrelated to work and Fringe science. Peter quizzes her on numbers -- her memory for numbers is impeccable -- and the amount of things she can remember is impressive even to him, and he’s a genius.
Olivia does tease him for the sweater. He looks bashful. Mostly he’s thinking about how they’ve just started the second bottle of wine and how hot Olivia must be in all that black, and he thinks she would probably like to get out of it.
She reaches over to give him a meatball, and a little bit of sauce drips on her wrist. He impulsively sucks it off the smooth skin of her underarm and it’s the first time that night that they’re both speechless.
---
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the matter?”
Olivia looks up from pushing her meatball around her plate. “What?” she asks, trying not to see the glimmer of gold making a halo over Peter’s head. She tries not to wonder who he is and what he is and if he’s even safe to be around.
“You’ve barely eaten, but you’re drinking like the world is about to end,” Peter said. He manages one more smile-- one more attempt at connecting with her.
She swallows hard. Now that she’s let the fear in, it’s festering in her stomach, and she can see things Olivia wishes she couldn’t. It’s all Walter’s fault. Or maybe it’s her fault. She’s almost afraid of Peter in some weird way, which doesn’t make sense, because she was so comfortable with him earlier.
When the world is falling down, Peter is there. It was comforting.
Now she’s afraid the falling world is Peter.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she lies.
---
Peter and Olivia don’t bother getting dessert.
They don’t have to agree to go back to Olivia’s place.
The wine is making Olivia’s blood hot and Peter tastes like garlic bread in the best possible way. She pushes him against the wall and kisses him, for real this time, and there’s no fear to get between them. Before long, there aren’t any clothes, either.
---
Peter has a limit on how much iciness he can tolerate.
He stands and drops money on the table. “Thanks for the drinks,” he says in a way that makes it clear he isn’t thankful at all.
Olivia wants to call him back when he walks out, but he’s glimmering and gold and she can’t make herself do it.
She hates Walter in a very special way.
Unsurprisingly, Peter is thinking the same thing.
“How was your date?” Walter asks when Peter walks through the door. He quivers a little with excitement and changes it to, “How were your drinks?” He winks exaggeratedly at Astrid, who just gives him her most tolerant smile and continues mortgaging properties to pay Walter for rent on Park Place.
Peter doesn’t reply. He slams doors and stomps his feet, and he wonders what he did wrong to make Olivia shut down.
Olivia moves from a restaurant to a bar and keeps drinking.
---
Clothing traces a path from Olivia’s front door to her bed.
It’s been a few hours, and Peter’s feeding her strawberries propped up on his elbow while she unselfconsciously lays naked on top of the covers. They’ve drunk every drop of alcohol they can find in Olivia’s house. He’s never seen anything quite so fascinating as the drip of red juice down her lip.
What they have won’t be as good when they’re sober. Olivia still doesn’t need to be taken care of and Peter still wishes she was. For one night, however, she can forget that her passion died with John Scott, and they can indulge in things much better than fear.
Olivia thinks Peter is glowing with all the sex and booze, and it doesn’t occur to her that might not be the case.
It’s a dark, lonely night outside, but neither of them knows it.
---
Olivia gets home an hour before dawn.
There’s a message from Ella on her answering machine. The sound of her voice -- excitedly relating how well she did on her spelling test -- is shrill and feels like drilling into Olivia’s skull. Ella’s not too old for Walter to do experiments on her yet. She thinks she might kill the old man if he tries.
Irrational thoughts. Drunken thoughts.
She vomits in the sink. Olivia throws her clothing in the washer and has the presence of mind to rinse her hair out in the sink before getting in bed, her head swimming, and hugging a cold pillow.
It is a dark, lonely night outside. Olivia is afraid.
---
Olivia and Peter both lay awake that night and wonder what went wrong and what could have been.
They will go back to work. Olivia will find out why Peter glimmers. There is a job to do and a world to save. They will not go out for drinks again, and Peter won’t make the mistake of almost kissing her again. They are colleagues, nothing more and nothing less.
Olivia thinks it’s probably better that way, but she’s wrong.
Fandom: Fringe
Character/Pairing: Bolivia
Rating: Teen
Genre: Romance and angst, as always
Summary: Olivia wonders which fear makes her see the glimmer: the fear of failure, or the fear of getting close to another human being.
Spoilers: Up to and including "Jacksonville."
Notes: Unedited. I'm lazy.
The look on his face belongs to a man giving into an impulse he might later regret.
Hers is the look of a momentarily vulnerable woman giving into the impulse of fear.
It likely does not bode well for Peter that the only time he feels he can finally give into those flighty, dangerous thoughts of touching Olivia is when she is acting entirely unlike herself. He desires a woman he can take care of, and that is not Olivia, so when he sees a rare crack in her armor he leaps in to fill it with himself. Peter hopes it will turn out well. He knows, at the same time, that it cannot.
Olivia runs to save hundreds of strangers. She’s the one who takes care of people. Nobody takes care of her.
Peter watches the moment of opportunity slip past.
---
Olivia wonders which fear makes her see the glimmer: the fear of failure, or the fear of getting close to another human being.
Surely she isn’t that broken.
Colored police lights flash in front of the place a building used to stand, and there are reports to be filed and government cover-ups to conduct. She is still running off adrenaline when she calls Peter back at Massive Dynamic and asks him if he wants to get drinks after work. She actually smiles when he says yes.
Olivia dresses aggressively, leather and dark colors. It helps hide her giddiness. She feels guilty for being excited; it’s not a date, really, because she hasn’t trusted herself enough to make room for a man since John Scott died wrapped up in their business, and it seems like Olivia should still be grieving for him a year later instead of feeling little thrilling butterflies of excitement in her stomach.
Peter dresses conservatively: a sweater over a button-up shirt. He likes to think of himself as a bad boy, but deep down, he’s still a scientist and kind of a dork. If he had a pocket, there might be a protector in it. Peter thinks maturity and stability, qualities he wants within Olivia’s life, since he sees her as the kind of woman who wants a dangerous guy when what she really needs is safety. There is little safer than a sweater over a button-up shirt.
Walter is thrilled, of course. He makes ridiculous dating suggestions to Peter. Not things like, open the doors for her or get the red wine, but things like garlic will help your libido but don’t eat too much or she won’t kiss you.
Peter goes through the motions of being an asshole and tells him that he wishes Walter weren’t there. He’s really too excited for there to be any malice in it.
---
A moment approaches where Olivia is about to enter Peter and Walter’s house, and she feels fear mingling with her excitement.
She has a choice: suppress the fear and be the cool, calm Olivia who doesn’t fear Peter will end up as dead as John Scott.
Or she can indulge in the impulse of fear and let herself be a little weaker. It doesn’t sound like such a bad thing now. After all, she wouldn’t have asked him for drinks without the fear in the first place.
---
Olivia indulges.
“I’ll get my coat,” Peter says, giving her a private smile that makes her feel like she’s the only one in the world.
Her smile in return fades.
Olivia’s fear has allowed her to awaken, briefly, the ability that let her saw the building glimmer. She feels more fear to see that Peter glimmers too.
“Olivia, please don’t tell him,” Walter murmurs.
---
Olivia suppresses her fear.
“I’ll get my coat,” Peter says, giving her a private smile that makes her feel like she’s the only one in the world. Olivia is cool. She smiles back and doesn’t notice the thought Peter put into his appearance, because Olivia isn’t the kind of woman who notices sweaters.
When it’s just Olivia and Walter in the entryway, she says, “I’m sorry for getting angry at you in Jacksonville. You didn’t deserve that.”
He replies, “Order the garlic bread.”
---
The ride to the restaurant is uncomfortable.
Peter’s talking. He’s all smiles and charm, and Olivia replies with a thin-lipped expression that might be a smile. She keeps looking at him and then looking away. That unhappy line between her eyebrows makes an appearance.
He’s not sure what he can say to make her stop looking like that and start talking back to him. It’s not first date jitters (it’s not even a date, really). There’s something else.
The one-sided conversation makes Peter feels stupid before they’ve even reached the restaurant, and that makes him start to get angry.
After a few minutes, he stops talking altogether.
---
She does order the garlic bread.
They laugh and talk about things unrelated to work and Fringe science. Peter quizzes her on numbers -- her memory for numbers is impeccable -- and the amount of things she can remember is impressive even to him, and he’s a genius.
Olivia does tease him for the sweater. He looks bashful. Mostly he’s thinking about how they’ve just started the second bottle of wine and how hot Olivia must be in all that black, and he thinks she would probably like to get out of it.
She reaches over to give him a meatball, and a little bit of sauce drips on her wrist. He impulsively sucks it off the smooth skin of her underarm and it’s the first time that night that they’re both speechless.
---
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the matter?”
Olivia looks up from pushing her meatball around her plate. “What?” she asks, trying not to see the glimmer of gold making a halo over Peter’s head. She tries not to wonder who he is and what he is and if he’s even safe to be around.
“You’ve barely eaten, but you’re drinking like the world is about to end,” Peter said. He manages one more smile-- one more attempt at connecting with her.
She swallows hard. Now that she’s let the fear in, it’s festering in her stomach, and she can see things Olivia wishes she couldn’t. It’s all Walter’s fault. Or maybe it’s her fault. She’s almost afraid of Peter in some weird way, which doesn’t make sense, because she was so comfortable with him earlier.
When the world is falling down, Peter is there. It was comforting.
Now she’s afraid the falling world is Peter.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she lies.
---
Peter and Olivia don’t bother getting dessert.
They don’t have to agree to go back to Olivia’s place.
The wine is making Olivia’s blood hot and Peter tastes like garlic bread in the best possible way. She pushes him against the wall and kisses him, for real this time, and there’s no fear to get between them. Before long, there aren’t any clothes, either.
---
Peter has a limit on how much iciness he can tolerate.
He stands and drops money on the table. “Thanks for the drinks,” he says in a way that makes it clear he isn’t thankful at all.
Olivia wants to call him back when he walks out, but he’s glimmering and gold and she can’t make herself do it.
She hates Walter in a very special way.
Unsurprisingly, Peter is thinking the same thing.
“How was your date?” Walter asks when Peter walks through the door. He quivers a little with excitement and changes it to, “How were your drinks?” He winks exaggeratedly at Astrid, who just gives him her most tolerant smile and continues mortgaging properties to pay Walter for rent on Park Place.
Peter doesn’t reply. He slams doors and stomps his feet, and he wonders what he did wrong to make Olivia shut down.
Olivia moves from a restaurant to a bar and keeps drinking.
---
Clothing traces a path from Olivia’s front door to her bed.
It’s been a few hours, and Peter’s feeding her strawberries propped up on his elbow while she unselfconsciously lays naked on top of the covers. They’ve drunk every drop of alcohol they can find in Olivia’s house. He’s never seen anything quite so fascinating as the drip of red juice down her lip.
What they have won’t be as good when they’re sober. Olivia still doesn’t need to be taken care of and Peter still wishes she was. For one night, however, she can forget that her passion died with John Scott, and they can indulge in things much better than fear.
Olivia thinks Peter is glowing with all the sex and booze, and it doesn’t occur to her that might not be the case.
It’s a dark, lonely night outside, but neither of them knows it.
---
Olivia gets home an hour before dawn.
There’s a message from Ella on her answering machine. The sound of her voice -- excitedly relating how well she did on her spelling test -- is shrill and feels like drilling into Olivia’s skull. Ella’s not too old for Walter to do experiments on her yet. She thinks she might kill the old man if he tries.
Irrational thoughts. Drunken thoughts.
She vomits in the sink. Olivia throws her clothing in the washer and has the presence of mind to rinse her hair out in the sink before getting in bed, her head swimming, and hugging a cold pillow.
It is a dark, lonely night outside. Olivia is afraid.
---
Olivia and Peter both lay awake that night and wonder what went wrong and what could have been.
They will go back to work. Olivia will find out why Peter glimmers. There is a job to do and a world to save. They will not go out for drinks again, and Peter won’t make the mistake of almost kissing her again. They are colleagues, nothing more and nothing less.
Olivia thinks it’s probably better that way, but she’s wrong.
