[Fic] A Question Of Trust
Aug. 16th, 2010 10:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittydesadeTitle: A Question Of Trust
Fandom: Eureka
Characters: Dr. Trevor/Charles Grant, OFC
Word Count: 2,200
Rating: PG
Summary: Dr. Grant's assigned psychiatrist takes him through a most unusual trust exercise, with more severe consequences than either of them expected.
A/N: Written for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
kink_bingo "Locks and Chains".
"They're silk ropes. Bamboo silk."
Dr. Grant looked up at her, at the ropes sliding through his fingers, and back up at her again. "You use these in your profession?"
"I use them in my recreation," she smiled. "You did ask to see my home."
"So I did."
His smile was almost wide, and certainly genuine. His eyes still had that sad downward turn to them, but behind that was the shape of inquiry and curiosity.
It was a trust exercise. She'd been tasked with evaluating him, and she could do that, but he was a creature of layers and she needed to gain his trust. Letting him into her home would do that, after a manner of speaking. Letting him into her bedroom, too. He was pushing her boundaries with smiles and old-timey charm, using the instincts with which he had been raised (or which she thought he had been raised and now she wasn't so sure about that) to make her feel that he would be harmless, even when going through her underwear drawer.
Not that he went through her underwear drawer. Apparently her closet was much more interesting.
"And these?" he held up her leather cuffs with eyebrows profoundly arched and lips bowed as though trying not to smile. Or laugh nervously.
She turned his own smile back at him. "What do you think they're for?"
Laugh nervously seemed to be winning. He put them back with all the careful precision she had seen him use with his instruments, staring at them a moment before, "Ah."
"Does it offend you?" she asked. Out of real curiosity but also trying to gauge his reaction, determine its nature.
"Ah, no. No, it doesn't offend me." As though offend was the wrong choice of words, or even an odd choice that he wondered about. He stepped away from her closet, though, looking it up and down. And then back at the cuffs. And then back at her. "I was just wondering why..."
It was an open invitation to explain either clinically, and cement herself as a scientist in his mind, albeit one who couldn’t keep up with him in passion, or make it a seduction of the explanation. She picked the middle ground. "What a nice girl like me would be doing in a pair of cuffs like that?" she teased. Letting Grant take a step away from her closet and then stepping in close to him to reach a hand past his shoulder and close the door. "Or why anyone would want to do that in the first place?"
"Ah, that, that second one." Finger pointing. Her smile twisted a little, but she said nothing for a moment and moved to sit on the edge of the bed.
"Some people enjoy the surrendering of control. Particularly people who tightly control their lives to begin with. Some people enjoy the sensation of helplessness, even if there's no real danger. Some people enjoy the thrill of trust..."
"Trust." Again the skeptical look, although a moment of thought turned it contemplative. He folded his arms over his chest and stared at her. "Yes, I suppose there would have to be..."
"Trust. To put yourself in a position where you are under another person's control, even partial. It's a heady thing. Very... stimulating to one's emotions."
He looked more intrigued now than alarmed, dark eyes cast around the bedroom again then back at her and in this mood she noticed again that his eyes were strangely cold. For such an ostensibly warm person, for someone who had warm colors of hair and eyes and who favored clothing that brought that out, smoky rooms and smoky drinks and the heat of a well-trained crooner he had cold eyes. Polished brass-brown, or deep bronze. Not the welcoming brown that smiled and made one think of soft chocolates or the first hot cup of coffee on a cold morning. His eyes encompassed the cold morning, and more.
And that was when she realized he was almost right in front of her, and she hadn't noticed him move. Dammit. She needed to be more careful than that.
"I can't imagine ever putting myself under another person's control," he murmured. And the smile he wore when he said it suggested that she might try. Or maybe it went so far as, she might think of herself as that one.
Which she wasn't. If anyone in this town was coming close to being able to control the man, it was Allison Blake, but she didn't want control of him. She wanted to spend more time with her family. No one could fault her for that.
Well, Grant could. And did, perhaps, the things he'd said in session were becoming increasingly resentful. She was a little worried for Allison's safety, though not in the short term, exactly. Not in any way she could explain to the woman. And in the line of trust, Allison had trusted her with their secret, and with the task of making sure that the time-lost doctor was secure and stable and finding his way.
Somehow she didn't think handcuffs were on Allison's list of ways that would happen.
She didn't intend to try putting him under her control. She could invite his trust in another way, though, a way that came to her with blinding and giddy ferocity. Blinking him and the realization into focus made the room seem a couple clicks lighter and everything a degree or two sharper, and Allison's expectations be damned, she could do this. "I can," she told him, in answer to his much earlier statement. It would be dangerous, but she could do this. And then he would know how much she ostensibly trusted him and he would feel that he could trust her in return. It was the quid pro quo of how such things went, always, and especially with him.
She pushed off from the bed and drew herself up, smiling as she circled around him and back to the closet. The only thing she took out were the handcuffs, metal rings and locks and wide leather cuffs, and then she closed the closet door again. His eyebrows shot up; he couldn't believe she would do this. But she held them out to him, holding the cuffs by the center links, inviting him to restrain her.
"I couldn't, I couldn't possibly..."
There were two ways he could have said it. More than two, but primarily there were only two responses he could have felt. The first, to be genuinely embarrassed and a little shocked by what she was offering to let him do, a man to whom she was not married and whom she knew very little of, and something so untoward and lewd. The second, to be a little shocked and very intrigued, but to pretend to be embarrassed so as not to ruin both his demure appeal and the image of the early 20th century man he pretended to be.
"Call it a trust exercise," she invited. And with their clothes still on, with nothing else brought out of the closet, he could pretend it wasn't sexual at all.
But it was. His lips were half-parted with anticipation, his eyes were fixed on her face. His fingers reached towards her even if he was trying to keep his hands by his side. His posture leaned towards her like an eager child leaning towards a display of sweets in a shop window. She put the cuffs in his hands and his fingers closed tight around them without hesitation. And then she gave her hands to him and he fingered the lock on the cuffs, staring into her palms.
"I don't know how to do this..." he murmured. Not a protest.
She smiled. "Let me show you."
His cold hands felt smooth under her fingers, strong hands, dexterous and quick to learn the operation of the locks and straps. In a moment he had them closed around her wrists and his hands over the cuffs, and only then did he bring up his gaze to look her in the eyes. Against her expectations of hunger and predation, what she saw there was vulnerability. Wariness.
"What do you want to do now?"
The corner of his mouth twitched up. "Aren't I supposed to throw you on the bed and ravish you in some lewd and exotic manner?"
"You could." She matched him half-smile for half-smile. "That's the point of cuffs and things like that. You can do anything you want with me."
Those were the key words that brought up a spark of the desire she'd been expecting. Eagerness and desire. Anticipation, the gift of someone who was entirely pliable in his hands even if she wasn't the one he wanted, and they both knew that. It was still a very great gift, and his nod acknowledged that. "Anything?" he asked anyway, partly to be sure, partly to tease her with the anticipation, which told her that yes, it was also a sexual or at least sensual play for him. Something that made him want to touch her.
"Anything you want. Those are the rules." She waited until he was almost up against her to bring him up short with. "Until the submissive person says the safe word, anything goes."
Grant made an audibly disappointed, frustrated sigh. He opened his eyes and lifted his head. "Safe word." Not a question but a statement. He was a scientist, he was familiar with the safety procedures that required everything to have a panic button, and he was surely able to extrapolate the usefulness of that to what they were doing. What they could be doing, if he wanted. And she wouldn't be able to tell Allison. Doctor-patient confidentiality.
(She would, of course, counsel Allison against taking up with him. Hell, she intended to do that now, seeing how dangerous Grant could be and if nothing else, how fickle. Not fickle, whimsical. Impulsive. Given to vice and addiction.)
"Everyone has a safe word. When the safe word is spoken, all play stops until ..."
"Until safe conditions are ... re-established." He groped for the words but understood the concept. She nodded.
"Exactly."
The wheels turned behind his eyes. She knew, she just knew he was going to bring this up with Allison the next time they spoke. Maybe only in the context of things he had learned or things that shocked him about this world, although she doubted he was shocked. But he was going to bring it up. And if they did become lovers, he was going to suggest it in their relationship. And now she was glad she had told him about the safe word because he was looking at her in ways she did not want a man who was courting someone else to look at her.
"What's your safe word?" he smiled.
She hesitated for a split second before realizing that if she trusted him with this, she had to trust him with the other. "Tristan."
"Tristan."
He said it with his mouth hovering so close to hers she could taste the Scotch on his breath. The taste of red meat and spices. Pepper spices. And alcohol, and the lingering smell of cigarettes that still clung to him despite Allison's best efforts with the nano-patch. The air between their lips felt soft, and she wondered if his lips were as soft. If he was going to kiss her.
She wanted to back up and she, clearly stupidly, had let him cuff her. Which put him in control. She couldn't back up unless he let her.
And in another minute he had turned his head to the side, so that his breath puffed hot and moist on her neck but he was no longer almost kissing her. His fingers fumbled over the cuffs, cold and slender on her wrists where his fingertips brushed her skin. For now, he had wrestled back control. But the surrender was intoxicating and he wanted more. Had wanted to do more with it. This had been a bad idea.
"I should, um..." he murmured, tossing the cuffs onto the bed and shuddering away from looking at them. "Thank you. For an informative tour."
His footsteps tripped down the stairs in a nervous staccato, and then the front door closed and she sat down on the bed, trying to breathe. She should recommend to Allison that Dr. Grant be seen by someone else. Someone more suited to him and his ... quirks of behavior. But the frightening part was that she wasn't sure there was anyone else at all, and she'd already been read in on his history. Their security might not tolerate another person knowing. And, she admitted, with some grim humor, another person might not be able to handle him with the effects that such a change would have on him. She'd laid a lot of groundwork to get this far.
Then again, she was starting to doubt her own ability to handle him. Mercurial as he was, passionate, indulgent and impulsive. Inflammatory to her mind and her senses. She had to be careful with him, now. A lot more careful.
Fandom: Eureka
Characters: Dr. Trevor/Charles Grant, OFC
Word Count: 2,200
Rating: PG
Summary: Dr. Grant's assigned psychiatrist takes him through a most unusual trust exercise, with more severe consequences than either of them expected.
A/N: Written for
kink_bingo "Locks and Chains". "They're silk ropes. Bamboo silk."
Dr. Grant looked up at her, at the ropes sliding through his fingers, and back up at her again. "You use these in your profession?"
"I use them in my recreation," she smiled. "You did ask to see my home."
"So I did."
His smile was almost wide, and certainly genuine. His eyes still had that sad downward turn to them, but behind that was the shape of inquiry and curiosity.
It was a trust exercise. She'd been tasked with evaluating him, and she could do that, but he was a creature of layers and she needed to gain his trust. Letting him into her home would do that, after a manner of speaking. Letting him into her bedroom, too. He was pushing her boundaries with smiles and old-timey charm, using the instincts with which he had been raised (or which she thought he had been raised and now she wasn't so sure about that) to make her feel that he would be harmless, even when going through her underwear drawer.
Not that he went through her underwear drawer. Apparently her closet was much more interesting.
"And these?" he held up her leather cuffs with eyebrows profoundly arched and lips bowed as though trying not to smile. Or laugh nervously.
She turned his own smile back at him. "What do you think they're for?"
Laugh nervously seemed to be winning. He put them back with all the careful precision she had seen him use with his instruments, staring at them a moment before, "Ah."
"Does it offend you?" she asked. Out of real curiosity but also trying to gauge his reaction, determine its nature.
"Ah, no. No, it doesn't offend me." As though offend was the wrong choice of words, or even an odd choice that he wondered about. He stepped away from her closet, though, looking it up and down. And then back at the cuffs. And then back at her. "I was just wondering why..."
It was an open invitation to explain either clinically, and cement herself as a scientist in his mind, albeit one who couldn’t keep up with him in passion, or make it a seduction of the explanation. She picked the middle ground. "What a nice girl like me would be doing in a pair of cuffs like that?" she teased. Letting Grant take a step away from her closet and then stepping in close to him to reach a hand past his shoulder and close the door. "Or why anyone would want to do that in the first place?"
"Ah, that, that second one." Finger pointing. Her smile twisted a little, but she said nothing for a moment and moved to sit on the edge of the bed.
"Some people enjoy the surrendering of control. Particularly people who tightly control their lives to begin with. Some people enjoy the sensation of helplessness, even if there's no real danger. Some people enjoy the thrill of trust..."
"Trust." Again the skeptical look, although a moment of thought turned it contemplative. He folded his arms over his chest and stared at her. "Yes, I suppose there would have to be..."
"Trust. To put yourself in a position where you are under another person's control, even partial. It's a heady thing. Very... stimulating to one's emotions."
He looked more intrigued now than alarmed, dark eyes cast around the bedroom again then back at her and in this mood she noticed again that his eyes were strangely cold. For such an ostensibly warm person, for someone who had warm colors of hair and eyes and who favored clothing that brought that out, smoky rooms and smoky drinks and the heat of a well-trained crooner he had cold eyes. Polished brass-brown, or deep bronze. Not the welcoming brown that smiled and made one think of soft chocolates or the first hot cup of coffee on a cold morning. His eyes encompassed the cold morning, and more.
And that was when she realized he was almost right in front of her, and she hadn't noticed him move. Dammit. She needed to be more careful than that.
"I can't imagine ever putting myself under another person's control," he murmured. And the smile he wore when he said it suggested that she might try. Or maybe it went so far as, she might think of herself as that one.
Which she wasn't. If anyone in this town was coming close to being able to control the man, it was Allison Blake, but she didn't want control of him. She wanted to spend more time with her family. No one could fault her for that.
Well, Grant could. And did, perhaps, the things he'd said in session were becoming increasingly resentful. She was a little worried for Allison's safety, though not in the short term, exactly. Not in any way she could explain to the woman. And in the line of trust, Allison had trusted her with their secret, and with the task of making sure that the time-lost doctor was secure and stable and finding his way.
Somehow she didn't think handcuffs were on Allison's list of ways that would happen.
She didn't intend to try putting him under her control. She could invite his trust in another way, though, a way that came to her with blinding and giddy ferocity. Blinking him and the realization into focus made the room seem a couple clicks lighter and everything a degree or two sharper, and Allison's expectations be damned, she could do this. "I can," she told him, in answer to his much earlier statement. It would be dangerous, but she could do this. And then he would know how much she ostensibly trusted him and he would feel that he could trust her in return. It was the quid pro quo of how such things went, always, and especially with him.
She pushed off from the bed and drew herself up, smiling as she circled around him and back to the closet. The only thing she took out were the handcuffs, metal rings and locks and wide leather cuffs, and then she closed the closet door again. His eyebrows shot up; he couldn't believe she would do this. But she held them out to him, holding the cuffs by the center links, inviting him to restrain her.
"I couldn't, I couldn't possibly..."
There were two ways he could have said it. More than two, but primarily there were only two responses he could have felt. The first, to be genuinely embarrassed and a little shocked by what she was offering to let him do, a man to whom she was not married and whom she knew very little of, and something so untoward and lewd. The second, to be a little shocked and very intrigued, but to pretend to be embarrassed so as not to ruin both his demure appeal and the image of the early 20th century man he pretended to be.
"Call it a trust exercise," she invited. And with their clothes still on, with nothing else brought out of the closet, he could pretend it wasn't sexual at all.
But it was. His lips were half-parted with anticipation, his eyes were fixed on her face. His fingers reached towards her even if he was trying to keep his hands by his side. His posture leaned towards her like an eager child leaning towards a display of sweets in a shop window. She put the cuffs in his hands and his fingers closed tight around them without hesitation. And then she gave her hands to him and he fingered the lock on the cuffs, staring into her palms.
"I don't know how to do this..." he murmured. Not a protest.
She smiled. "Let me show you."
His cold hands felt smooth under her fingers, strong hands, dexterous and quick to learn the operation of the locks and straps. In a moment he had them closed around her wrists and his hands over the cuffs, and only then did he bring up his gaze to look her in the eyes. Against her expectations of hunger and predation, what she saw there was vulnerability. Wariness.
"What do you want to do now?"
The corner of his mouth twitched up. "Aren't I supposed to throw you on the bed and ravish you in some lewd and exotic manner?"
"You could." She matched him half-smile for half-smile. "That's the point of cuffs and things like that. You can do anything you want with me."
Those were the key words that brought up a spark of the desire she'd been expecting. Eagerness and desire. Anticipation, the gift of someone who was entirely pliable in his hands even if she wasn't the one he wanted, and they both knew that. It was still a very great gift, and his nod acknowledged that. "Anything?" he asked anyway, partly to be sure, partly to tease her with the anticipation, which told her that yes, it was also a sexual or at least sensual play for him. Something that made him want to touch her.
"Anything you want. Those are the rules." She waited until he was almost up against her to bring him up short with. "Until the submissive person says the safe word, anything goes."
Grant made an audibly disappointed, frustrated sigh. He opened his eyes and lifted his head. "Safe word." Not a question but a statement. He was a scientist, he was familiar with the safety procedures that required everything to have a panic button, and he was surely able to extrapolate the usefulness of that to what they were doing. What they could be doing, if he wanted. And she wouldn't be able to tell Allison. Doctor-patient confidentiality.
(She would, of course, counsel Allison against taking up with him. Hell, she intended to do that now, seeing how dangerous Grant could be and if nothing else, how fickle. Not fickle, whimsical. Impulsive. Given to vice and addiction.)
"Everyone has a safe word. When the safe word is spoken, all play stops until ..."
"Until safe conditions are ... re-established." He groped for the words but understood the concept. She nodded.
"Exactly."
The wheels turned behind his eyes. She knew, she just knew he was going to bring this up with Allison the next time they spoke. Maybe only in the context of things he had learned or things that shocked him about this world, although she doubted he was shocked. But he was going to bring it up. And if they did become lovers, he was going to suggest it in their relationship. And now she was glad she had told him about the safe word because he was looking at her in ways she did not want a man who was courting someone else to look at her.
"What's your safe word?" he smiled.
She hesitated for a split second before realizing that if she trusted him with this, she had to trust him with the other. "Tristan."
"Tristan."
He said it with his mouth hovering so close to hers she could taste the Scotch on his breath. The taste of red meat and spices. Pepper spices. And alcohol, and the lingering smell of cigarettes that still clung to him despite Allison's best efforts with the nano-patch. The air between their lips felt soft, and she wondered if his lips were as soft. If he was going to kiss her.
She wanted to back up and she, clearly stupidly, had let him cuff her. Which put him in control. She couldn't back up unless he let her.
And in another minute he had turned his head to the side, so that his breath puffed hot and moist on her neck but he was no longer almost kissing her. His fingers fumbled over the cuffs, cold and slender on her wrists where his fingertips brushed her skin. For now, he had wrestled back control. But the surrender was intoxicating and he wanted more. Had wanted to do more with it. This had been a bad idea.
"I should, um..." he murmured, tossing the cuffs onto the bed and shuddering away from looking at them. "Thank you. For an informative tour."
His footsteps tripped down the stairs in a nervous staccato, and then the front door closed and she sat down on the bed, trying to breathe. She should recommend to Allison that Dr. Grant be seen by someone else. Someone more suited to him and his ... quirks of behavior. But the frightening part was that she wasn't sure there was anyone else at all, and she'd already been read in on his history. Their security might not tolerate another person knowing. And, she admitted, with some grim humor, another person might not be able to handle him with the effects that such a change would have on him. She'd laid a lot of groundwork to get this far.
Then again, she was starting to doubt her own ability to handle him. Mercurial as he was, passionate, indulgent and impulsive. Inflammatory to her mind and her senses. She had to be careful with him, now. A lot more careful.