Shower Scene by elfin

 Smug as fuck she stepped out of the hot shower, grabbed the towel from the rail and threw it carelessly over her head, rubbing her wet hair vigorously while she enjoyed the teasing, tickling sensation of water drops running over the rest of her body.

She'd survived eight years without an electric shower, she didn't need one. Truth was she loved tormenting Stephen, loved to flaunt what he'd once had, what he could have again if only he'd grow balls big enough to take it.

She doubted he ever would. Too much his master's slave, too under Nick's influence, too in awe of the man like some boyhood adolescent crush. Easy to fuck her on a couple of lazy summer afternoons when she was just his tutors, one of his lecturers, otherwise a stranger. Not so easy when she was, up until a year ago, the missing-presumed-dead wife of a man he now considered his best friend, someone he was maybe a little bit in love with in some sad way.

Some day soon, she was sure, the love she'd once had for Nick Cutter was going to turn sour, bitter, and was going to turn to hatred.

Wrapping the damp towel loosely around her, she padded over to the mirror above the sink and swiped her hand through the condensation, smearing the glass. Her eyes dropped momentarily and she was caught by the odd sight of two toothbrushes lying across the top of the white porcelain alongside a half-flat tube of toothpaste. One brush she recognised - white with blue bristles - it was Stephen's; he always had been conscientious about his teeth. The other looked new - blue with white bristles. She stared at them, one the mirror of the other, as if a part of her mind had worked out some huge significance while the rest of it was still trying to catch on.

There could have been other explanations aside from the one that was crawling around in her imagination. Maybe he'd brought a new bloody toothbrush and hadn't bothered to throw the old one away yet. Maybe a friend had stayed over and had left it behind. It just looked to deliberate, too much like it was rightfully in its place, to be accidental.

Walking through into the bedroom, leaving wet footprints in the carpet, she took in the messy bed covers - duvet piled at the foot, two pillows mashed together at the head, the sheet in disarray. She took a deep breath, smelling the air. No perfume lingered in it - just deodorant; that one that reminded her of Stephen.

She was reading too much into the presence of a second toothbrush. There was no sign that another woman had been here. Aside from the crumpled sheets there was no other evidence that anyone but Stephen had….

Except that there was. It was lying under the window; a grey T-shirt, sweat stained, torn slightly at the neck. Nick's t-shirt. She'd seen him wearing it plenty of times - he had a limited wardrobe so most of it was instantly recognisable. There were more explanations, of course, for what it was doing on the floor of Stephen's bedroom, than there were for the appearance of a second toothbrush in the bathroom. Nick could have been injured and they'd come back here to regroup. They might have been in a hurry and he'd borrowed a change of clothes - with the weight he'd lost he'd easily fit into Stephen's tops now. They were more likely explanations than the one she'd first thought of, surely. Weren't they? So why was she starting to imagine them rutting like animals up here?

Grabbing one of the pillows off the bed she pushed her face into it and smelt it. Unmistakably Stephen. She dropped it back and picked up the other one, taking a deep sniff of that one too. Inconclusive. There was no hint of Nick's aftershave, not a whiff of his shampoo. Just the sweat of a man - could have easily been Stephen again, moving around in the big bed at night.

Pissed that Stephen would even consider entertaining anyone else - not that she had any right or reason to imagine he would be saving himself for her - she wanted to know who the toothbrush belonged to, what Nick's shirt was doing up here, why the bed was such a mess.

For a moment she thought she sounded a little like Stephen's mother might and she cursed herself for it. But it didn't change the fact that she wanted - needed - to know.


She waited downstairs in the lounge, poured herself a large whisky and settled on Stephen's brown leather suite with her mind running in ever-decreasing, increasingly maddening circles.

She waited for hours. It got dark outside. The anomaly she'd come through would probably have closed by now and she didn't care. She was quickly driving herself crazy. As she'd travelled for years back and forth through history she'd held the idea in her own mind that although Nick loved her, the power she had over young Stephen Hart would go on long after her own husband's grief had faded. When Nick had turned her down, pushed her away, rejected her in favour of the government's poster girl, she'd been utterly certain that Stephen wouldn't, that he'd accept her offer, give up everything, walk out on Nick just as easily as he'd refused to walk out on them. She'd been mistaken.

Her revelation of Stephen's betrayal had done damage, yes, but not as much as she'd hoped, and all he'd done was call her a bitch and turn his back on her. Of course, he hadn't meant it. He'd done it for Nick's benefit and so she'd started to work on him away from the others, regretting being so public with her humiliation of her husband. She'd underestimated his sway, his popularity with his team. Particularly with Stephen. It wasn't a mistake she would make again.

Her eyes had drifted closed and her mind was starting to wonder when, finally, in the early hours of the morning, the front door key slipped into the lock and it opened. She couldn't see it from her seat on the sofa but she heard Stephen's voice,

"…not like it had teeth or anything but it was still fucking big you've got to admit."

Nick's laughter followed him in.

"Stephen… it was an overgrown elephant! And you screamed like a girl."

"A girl? Are you accusing me -" there was a metallic clutter as Stephen's keys hit the laminated wooden floor, "- of being a girl?"

A harsh bang as the door was slammed shut, by the sound of it, by a heavy body landing against it. It went quiet, with the exception of a couple of muted groans, and it didn't take a genius to work out what was happening. Silently she rose to her feet, took three steps around and stared at the sight that met her through the archway into the lounge. Stephen had Nick pushed up into the corner between the front door and the wall, hands grasping her husband's wrists at his side, effectively stopping Nick's weak struggle to push him away and as she watched, that fight stopped altogether and Nick's hands were released to settle at Stephen's hips.

They were kissing. And not in any way that she could remember Nick ever kissing her. This was almost harsh, dirty, rough. And deep when it settled into hardly any movement of their heads, just their mouths restless, sounds from their throats, and Stephen shifting his feet so that he could grind their crotches together.

Stephen eventually pulled away and Nick cracked his head back against the doorframe with a harsh, "God, Stephen," that seemed to have nothing to do with the headache he must have given himself and everything to do with the kiss they'd broken out of.

"Bedroom. Now."

Her heart started to pound so heavily she was almost surprised they couldn't hear it - they definitely weren't aware of her, so caught up in one another. Stephen stepped back to allow Nick to follow his order and Nick complied, heading straight up the stairs to the bedroom at the top. Stephen flung his jacket up on one of the hooks next to the door and followed, taking them two at a time.

Helen stepped quietly to the base of the stairs, heard it when they both hit the bed. And slowly, so slowly, she started to climb.

They were half-naked, trousers unfastened, t-shirts lifted over heads, hands and mouths all over each other, and she leaned against the wall and watched them for a minute.

"So, you're sleeping with my husband now?"

She'd spent hours that evening playing this scenario out in her head, smiling at their imagined expressions - deer caught in headlights. To her disappointment, reality didn't pan out quite that way. They stopped mauling each other at least, both turning their heads to look at her. But Nick's cheery, "Hello, Helen," and Stephen's frankly fucking cheeky, "Yes, and I'm a bit busy right now," really, really pissed her off.

"How long has this been going on?" God, she sounded like her sixth form high school teacher.

"I really don't think that's any of your business." Nick's hand started to slide down Stephen's side as she watched, thumb dipping into the loosened waistband of his jeans.

"You are still my husband." It was weak she knew and his comeback was obvious.

He barked a laugh. "Right. But you were legally declared dead four years ago."

"I'm not dead."

His smile faded just slightly, but it didn't stop his other hand from skimming Stephen's chest, fingers teasing one hard nipple. "You are. And you don't care that I'm your husband, Helen. You're just jealous."

"Nick, I haven't wanted you for a long, long time."

"Not of Stephen, you dumb bitch. Of me. I've got what you want and it's going to drive you absolutely crazy."

Stephen's grin was smugness and ego rolled into one. "I think you should leave." He was deadly serious, despite his expression. Nick lifted his head, lightly bit Stephen's throat without his blue eyes leaving hers, and Stephen in turn stretched his neck to give his lover better access. "Goodbye, Helen."

What was the point of staying? They were hot together, but never, not even if the world was ending, would she admit that. She turned and trotted back down the stairs, hearing them resuming their fight out of their clothes before she was even halfway down. The message was clear and she took the final steps two at a time, slamming the front door behind her; she'd been stuck in the past too long. In the present, they'd found each other.