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Olivia feels wrong.
She’s not sure that’s the right word for it, but there’s no perfect way to describe something so inexplicable. Her body feels just slightly off, like someone else had driven her car and now she has to put the seat back and readjust the mirrors.
It’s not just her body; her mind is off too. While she doesn’t remember the things Peter tells her occurred in her recesses of her psyche, she is acutely aware that someone else has been rooting around in her mind, knocking things loose. That’s the only explanation for that baffling answer she had given him about a man who would kill her, or the way she had been unable to explain what she had meant by it. She’s still not sure what she meant, and she does her best to ignore the greasy rolling in her stomach every time she thinks about it.
After agreeing to write off her unsettling assertion for the time being, they had talked through the afternoon and into the evening, Peter filling her in on the days she’d lost. She’s immensely grateful for his detailed account of the events that transpired in her absence, but every word is a reminder that for over forty-eight hours her body had not been her own.
Now it’s late, and she’s curled into Peter’s side on the couch. She’s trying to focus on the movie they’re watching, Creature from the Black Lagoon, but she can’t sit still. When she untucks her legs out from under her for what must be the tenth time, Peter looks over at her.
“Talk to me,” he says.
“I’m fine,” she replies automatically.
“You don’t have to do that, Olivia.” His gaze is so soft and knowing it makes her squirm. “Not with me.”
She fights the instinctual urge to pull away from him, because he’s right. Hiding has been her defense mechanism for as long as she can remember, but she doesn’t have to protect herself from him.
“I just feel…uncomfortable. Like there’s a rock in my shoe, but —” She gestures vaguely to her entire body. “And even after a shower I don’t feel clean and all I want is to watch this movie with you but I can’t relax and it’s really starting to piss me off.”
When she stops speaking she expects Peter’s face to be contorted with pity, but instead he only looks thoughtful. She registers his hand on the back of her head, thumb stroking.
“I could use another shower,” he says.
Her mind flashes to the last time they showered together, her back pressed against the cool tile and his hands hot where they gripped the underside of her thighs. As much as she would love to relive the experience, she doesn’t think she’s capable of that tonight.
“Peter, I don’t…”
He shakes his head, smiling warmly. “Just a shower.”
She’s not sure a shower will solve anything; in fact, she fears she will only feel worse if it doesn’t. But Peter looks at her with such gentle assuredness that she figures it has to be worth a shot.
In the bathroom, Peter sticks a hand into the shower and turns the tap to let the water warm up. He turns back to her, reaching for the hem of her t-shirt. Well, really, it’s his t-shirt, but she has no intention of returning it to him. Olivia gets the hint, lifting her arms above her head to help him get the shirt off her. It gets caught in her hair for just a moment and they both laugh, her body already feeling looser as he tugs it over her head. She’d foregone a bra, so next he crouches to help her step out of her sweatpants and underwear, his touch chaste. It should be more vulnerable than it is, standing naked before him while he remains fully clothed, but his gaze is so warm she only feels a prickle of discomfort beneath her skin.
Peter guides her to step under the spray of the shower while he discards his own clothes. It only takes a moment before he’s standing in front of her. She tips her head back, letting the water soak her hair, but when she reaches for the shampoo bottle Peter bats her hand away, picking it up himself. He smiles reassuringly, and so she lets him take her by the shoulders and turn her until her back is to him. She hears the squelch of the shampoo and then his hands are in her hair.
He takes his time massaging the shampoo into her scalp, fingers gentle and thorough. The intimacy of it is almost jarring; no one has washed her hair since she was a child. Olivia makes a conscious effort to let her shoulders relax, a contented little noise slipping out as his fingers find the dull ache at the base of her skull.
“That feel good?” he asks, but it’s not smug the way he can sometimes be when they’re in bed together; no, he genuinely wants to know. She nods, not fully trusting herself to speak.
Peter works the shampoo through the length of her hair before guiding her to rinse it out. Olivia does, eyes closed, and when she opens them again he already has the conditioner bottle in hand. She lets him apply it to the ends of her hair, and when he doesn’t immediately direct her to wash it out she realizes he had been paying attention the last time they showered together, had committed her routine to memory.
Now he reaches for the bottle of body wash before spinning her around to face him again. She watches as he squirts it directly into his hands, the corner of her mouth twitching. He starts with her shoulders, hands squeezing lightly as he rubs the soap into her skin. His hands slide back up her arms and under her armpits. She huffs a laugh through her nose at the way it tickles.
She grows serious again as he washes her breasts one at a time, massaging them carefully. Aside from a gentle thumb circled around her nipple, his touch is completely innocent. Olivia watches him as his hands trails along her ribs and down her belly. He’s focused on his task, only pausing occasionally to pour more soap into his hand. There’s a wrinkle between his brows she wants to smooth her thumb over and the fondness in his eyes borders on reverence. It’s so intense she has to look away for a moment, shifting her attention to the feeling of his thumbs stroking along the jut of her hipbones.
His hand on the back of her thigh guides her to lift her foot onto the edge of the tub. She puts a palm on his back to steady herself as he bends at the waist to massage his way up her leg. This feels more intimate than anything they’ve done before, in some ways even more intimate than his trip into her mind. He pats her shin so that she’ll switch legs and then begins the process again, just as diligent. She thinks maybe she should balk at the way she’s grown pliant under his touch, letting him maneuver her body how he wants it, but she doesn’t.
Peter straightens up and turns her again, draping the weight of her wet hair over her shoulder. Now his hands are on her back, massaging in earnest. He digs his thumbs into the knots in her shoulders and she moans, letting her chin fall to her chest. Despite the shit she’d given him in the car before all of this happened,, he really is good at this. His fingers seem to know exactly where she aches, exactly how to soothe her. Once her back has loosened he rubs it with flat palms, long strokes along her spine.
She feels him move closer, then feels his lips at the base of her neck. Something tightens in her chest as he presses kisses along the line of her shoulder, soft and unhurried, and that’s when Olivia begins to cry. She doesn’t make any noise, tears streaming down her face mixing with the spray of the shower, but something in her body language must shift because after a moment he’s pulling her to face him.
He looks concerned but not surprised. “Liv,” he murmurs.
“I’m okay,” she says, and she is. This is more of a release of emotion than anything else. “I’m okay, this is just…it’s good.”
Peter studies her for a long moment, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He takes her face in both hands and kisses her forehead before pressing his own forehead against it. She wraps her hands around his wrists as the hot water pounds against her back.
She feels it then, that this body is hers, that all of its sensations belong to her and that the person she chooses to share it with regards it with a kind of sacred adoration. The tears continue to flow but she feels a sense of peace for the first time since waking up in the lab.
They only untangle themselves from one another when the water begins to cool. Olivia makes quick work of rinsing the conditioner from her hair and when she finishes, Peter reaches around her to turn the tap off.
She frowns. “What about you?”
“This is my second shower too,” he says with a shrug, and of course this was all for her. Though, when she considers what it must have been like for him while she was gone, maybe it was for him too.
He carefully dries her off before wrapping her up in the towel, handing her another for her dripping hair. Only then does he drape a towel around his own hips. She gives him an appreciative once over despite the way he’d been completely unsalacious with her, smirking at the way his neck flushes under her attention.
Back in her bedroom, she dresses in a clean pair of sweats and another of Peter’s shirts.
“Where do you keep getting those?” he asks in fond exasperation.
She shrugs, grinning, and he laughs. The sound of it spreads through her chest. He motions for her to get into bed, which she does while he goes out to turn off the lights and double check the lock. When he returns, he has a glass of water for each of them.
He hands one of them to her. “You need anything else?”
“Just you,” she says.
Peter’s smile is so affectionate she feels the pull of it in her belly. He turns out the light and crawls under the duvet with her. She’s on him in an instant, her head on his chest. His arm curls around her and pulls her even closer. If he minds her damp hair against his cheek, he doesn’t say so.
“Tired?” he murmurs. She can tell that he is by the way his fingers trail absently along the notches of her spine.
“Mhmm. Not sure I’ll sleep, though.”
He shifts to kiss the tip of her nose. “Just close your eyes.”
Olivia does as he says, sliding her hand across his chest as she wiggles into a more comfortable position. An easy quiet settles over them and she’s content just to lie here with him, listening to the reassuring rhythm of his breath until the steady thump of his heart beneath her palm soothes her to sleep.