Chapter Text
“Lieutenant…”
Persistent. That was Crane to a T. If he didn’t comprehend something, he kept plugging away until he understood.
It was one of the things that made him excellent at researching all the demons, horned devils and various undead creatures that routinely unearthed themselves and came after them on a regular basis.
Away from research, however, it was also one of the things that drove. her. up. a. wall.
Abbie sighed as she folded a pair of jeans into her suitcase. “What, Crane?”
Crane was leaning against the door frame to her bedroom, a frown on his too-handsome-for-his-own-damned-good face. “I don’t understand the purpose of this…this party. A party that celebrates murder? It seems rather…morbid.”
“This from the man who went digging through his own crypt in England for fun…”
“Scotland,” he corrected her with a sniff. “And that wasn’t for fun.”
“It’s just a party, Crane. A weekend away at a gorgeous old house upstate. No one’s really going to be murdered. It’s like Agatha Christie. They make up a little mystery and you go there and try to be the first team to solve it.”
The frown wasn’t going away. Abbie sighed again as she folded a long-sleeved t-shirt to put in on top of the jeans. “It will be fun, Crane. Puzzles to solve. New people to meet. It’s a you kind of thing. Trust me.”
Abbie knew that what Crane really wanted was to have a weekend alone with her, watching movies and eating all kinds of bad food.
But it had been so long since she’d gone anywhere on a weekend that wasn’t tramping through the woods or getting bathed in slime as she and Crane fought off another supernatural attack. And it had taken them both weeks to heal physically and emotionally after Crane and she had finished off the second tribulation. She deserved a weekend away. He deserved a weekend away. And she didn’t care if she had to drag him by those gorgeous locks of his. He was going.
“They will explain everything when we get there, Crane.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Tonight is formal. I told you that, right? Bring out the finery.”
Jenny had been trying to talk Crane into a tux for months now with no luck. Jenny, who could talk anyone into just about anything, could not convince Crane to fully adapt to the 21st century. His clothes were his security blanket–really truly one of the only links to his past life. Abbie had tried getting him into modern clothes early on in their partnership, but Crane had hated everything she’d made him try on and refused to wear any of it.
And now? Abbie smiled a little wryly to herself. Now she couldn’t imagine him in anything else. The thought of him giving up all his 18th centuryness made her upset in a way she didn’t want to think about.
And that wasn’t the only way he’d changed her.
Abbie let out a breath. They needed to talk about that other change. The change where he stole the very air from her lungs when he smiled at her. The change where she resented every minute apart from him and every second he spent with anyone other than her. The change where she wanted him deep inside her–hard, fast and often.
Her heart thudded against her chest, and her hands shook a little as she folded her pajamas to tuck into the bag.
She realized then that he hadn’t replied. She looked up at him, then, just in time to see that look on his face. The one that haunted her dreams at night. His gaze would be soft, and his mouth would be open–but just a little–as if he’d just gasped in delight at what he was seeing. His eyes would be focused on her, his impossibly blue gaze telegraphing all sorts of emotions she’d worked hard for so very long to ignore.
Not much longer, she silently promised him. You won’t have to wait much longer, Crane.
His gaze refocused, then, and once again, Crane averted his gaze, a tinge of red on his cheeks. She knew he had suffered a lot, waiting on her. There never had been a good time to deal with the tangled web that bound them together. It wasn’t the Witness thing, not the partner and friend thing. Something more elemental, deep and a bit scary. Ichabod and Abbie–the man and the woman. The love that was the bedrock under it all. A love that was pulsing, hot, strong, maddening, and, she suspected, eternal.
He’d made up his mind long ago. She knew that. He’d never had to speak a word. She knew him.
She knew she was the stubborn hold out.
She hadn’t been ready. It had been easier to sacrifice herself for the world than deal with what she had with Crane. She was convinced that the second tribulation hadn’t truly been about Pandora and her god boyfriend at all, but a tribulation of pulling the witnesses apart from each other. His nine-month walkabout and his floundering attempts with Zoe, her pulling toward Danny and the FBI and trying to leave witnessing behind–both in the I-want-a-normal-life way and in the let-me-sacrifice-myself-for-the-world way…
The two of them emotionally destroying each other.
Moloch would have been delighted.
But they’d survived that tribulation. At the end, Crane had brought her home.
And she’d known from that moment on that the remaining five tribulations would have them united. In every damned way possible.
She just had to get her stubborn ass man to their weekend so she could get the ball rolling.
“Finery? Crane?” Abbie finally said, gesturing at him.
Crane scowled at her but finally gave a sigh of defeat. “All right. Fine.” He shook one of his long fingers in her direction. “But if you expect me to keep quiet with no commentary about all the ridiculousness of this party all weekend long…”
“Comment to your heart’s content, Crane,” she said as she calmly continued packing her suitcase. “You in all your you-ness is exactly what I want this weekend.”
Crane’s mouth dropped open a little at her words, and she could tell his mind was furiously churning, trying to figure out exactly what she meant by what she’d said.
And just because she loved to see him flustered, Abbie pulled open another drawer of her dresser and pulled out one of her sexiest bra and panties pairs–red with a black lace overlay and little black bows in the center of the bra and on the sides of the panties.
She held them up and then ever so slowly folded them to put in her suitcase. Her eyebrow slid up as she gave him another look.
Crane swallowed. Hard.
And without another word, he turned on his heel and she could hear him hurrying down the hallway toward his room.
Abbie smiled.