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"Sir, are you classified as human?"
"Uh negative, I am a meat-popsicle."
The police exit the 5000 block, dragging his neighbour out in a sack, and Korben doesn't really have time to think about why suddenly three different groups of unrelated people were looking for him. He needs to attend to the orange-haired woman in his shower.
Probably not-unrelated, he muses.
Leeloo descends in the shower, dripping wet and shivering.
"Oh," he groans, "I'm so sorry, I forgot about the auto-wash." He helps her out of the space. "There's an auto-wash in that shower," he explains, leaning over and pulling a towel out of a cupboard, dropping the rest of its contents on the floor in his haste. Leeloo stands in the middle of the room, arms crossed across her front, still shocked from the sudden blast of cold water she had received.
Korben quickly wraps the towel around her frame. Pleasantly surprised when she doesn't pull away and lets him stay close.
"So sorry," he whispers under breath, as he starts rubbing her arms through the towel. Of course, this had happened. First the cab, then the entirely unappreciated kiss, now this. It's like he was determined to embarrass himself in front of this woman.
"Au-to-wa-sh," she repeats, still shivering through his efforts.
"Auto-wash, yes. Auto-wash in the shower," he confirms for her, smiling. He couldn't help it; he found her broken English charming. "You know what's funny? I've met you twice today, both times you've ended up in my arms." He's moving the towel around trying to distract himself from what he was saying, but Leeloo leans into him, into his warmth, and as he dries her face he holds his hand on the hinge of her jaw. "It's my lucky day," he finishes, lamely.
As if on cue, the cat shows herself from her hiding spot, wandering through their legs and rubbing around Leeloo's ankles. Leeloo leans forward onto her toes, pressing further into Korben while eyeing the small beast.
"She's alright, she's just curious." He reassures— well, he's not sure which one but does it anyway. Leeloo looks down, locking eyes with the cat and says something in her language, broken over her shuddering but nevertheless pleasant sounding. The cat purrs loudly before trotting off, disappearing again. "Ha yeah," Korben sighs. He doesn't know what he's agreeing with but it feels right.
Leeloo's teeth chatter, and Korben rubs a hand up her back redirecting her attention. This time she holds his eye contact. What was this feeling he felt towards her? More than just attraction— it was a physical pull. Somewhere around his spine. She must have felt it too.
Korben sighs. "Yeah," he says again.
Their noses are practically touching now. The movement of his hands is more like a caress. And would it be so bad if he tried to kiss her again? She's right there, doesn't even seem like she would object this time. But he's learned his lesson. Akta Gamat. Leeloo doesn't pull away, she stands right in his space, both of them frozen, breathing in the same air.
He smooths his hands down her arms, just loosely holding, trying to let the warmth of his palms seep through. Waiting for her to do something.
Leeloo tries to talk, opening her mouth and closing it.
"What was that?" He asks, trying not to sound too hopeful.
Before she can answer, there's a faint muffled sound, and a bang from somewhere in the distance.
"Did you hear something?" he whispers.
"Cor-ne-li-us," Leeloo pants softly.
Korben frowns. Not his name. "Oh shit!"
He reaches over and pulls the bed out from its storage.
The priest emerges from the small space, laid out on the bed, eyes closed, a red mark blooming on his forehead. Korben holds a hand in front of his nose— still alive but out cold. That was happening a lot around him these days.
"Auto-wash," Leeloo chirps from behind him.
"Nah, he's still breathing, just tried to move and knocked himself out. Again."
He waves his hand in front of the man's face. "Hey!" Snaps his fingers a few times. "Hello— nothing?"
Korben didn't feel like slapping him awake twice in one day and so stands, leaving him there. Priest or not, the man had pulled his own gun on him minutes earlier, he probably deserved it.
Leeloo, snapped out of the trance of their short embrace and now unconcerned about her companion, has begun to pull the orange, rubber harness of her outfit off her shoulders. Absent-mindedly pulling at the wet, clinging fabric of her t-shirt underneath. Which— yeah, now that she's dropped the towel, he can completely see through.
"Oh, um." Korben moves back over to her. "You're completely soaked-through."
He does the first thing he thinks of, reaches back and pulls his own tank-top over his head. "Here."
Leeloo's eyes light up in what can only be described as excitement, before she grabs the hem of her own shirt and lifts it up.
"Oh no, no— no, I— " And honestly, he doesn't know what he expected.
Leeloo completely removes her, quite frankly, tiny cropped shirt and hands it off to him, taking his in turn. Korben tries to avert his eyes, she obviously didn't care about being half naked in front of him, but it still felt like the polite thing to do.
Leeloo has other ideas, she doesn't immediately pull his shirt on, but tucks it under one arm and lets her hands fall to his bare chest instead.
She's pushing, rubbing, and poking across his skin and muscles.
"What're you— "
She mumbles something in her own language. Her focus intent on him, she seems to be inspecting. Korben breathes deep and tries to keep still.
She was not that much shorter than him, slender but strong. He could feel it in the press of her fingers, could see it in the movement of her shoulder muscles as she tilted her head this way and that.
He's still trying not to look at her breasts which are— yeah, out. Korben keeps his eyes on her face. Her eyes, now smokey with smudged makeup, are actually a bright contrasting light green, not the blue he had thought earlier. Korben's not sure if he's breathing.
Her left hand falters around his right shoulder, pausing there and becoming lighter in touch. Korben chances a glance further down and realises she's over the scar tissue of his injured shoulder. "Oh," he starts, but stops suddenly. Unsure as to how to explain the horror of his arm nearly being ripped out of its socket, and then hastily sewn back together in the field, no modern medical interventions, when they can barely communicate as is.
Fortunately, Leeloo seems to understand. She says a word in her language with a confidence that feels sort-of like a confirmation to herself. She glances up at, what Korben's sure is, his pained expression and says it again, smiling at him. He stares at her mouth.
Happy with her discovery, Leeloo resumes her probing of his torso. Her hands are around his abdomen now. Learning him is the term that comes to mind.
There's something primal and intense about it— her carelessness. It wasn't that she didn't know she shouldn't be topless in the presence of a stranger but that she didn't care. And that was doing interesting things to him. Her nails scratch through the hair trailing down the middle of his chest.
Water drips out of her shirt as Korben unconsciously wrings it in his hands, so close it lands on both their shoes. He wanted to press them together, feel her on his chest, let her feel the warmth of his bare skin with more than her hands.
There was that pull again.
One of her hands holds his hip as the other slips around the waistband of his pants.
Okay, enough inspecting.
He drops her shirt, grabs both her hands with his, causing Leeloo to let out a small gasp.
"Leeloo," he groans out between clenched teeth, and holds her tight. "Help me out here, huh?" He brings one fist up to his mouth, and kisses the knuckles. "Please put the shirt on," he pleads into her skin.
Or so help him, God.
Her eyes widen at his use of her name. Then after a beat she seems to understand and smiles broadly again, lifting her arms and throwing the tank over her head. And he looks this time, he was actually only human after all.
And, shit maybe it had been too long since he had seen a woman topless, but the image was going to stay with him for a while.
Korben is going to say something, doesn't know what but opens his mouth and all that comes out is a choked noise.
Leeloo adjusts his orange tank over herself, nice and warm in a dry top now, and looks up to check his reaction. She's halfway to another smile when her eyes catch something over his shoulder and widen.
Before he can ask, Korben is struck in the back of the head with something— hard.
And he hadn't been lying to his mother earlier on the phone, had actually been trying to decompress after a rather stressful morning of being chased by the police, crashing his cab, and being fired. Had been trying to decide why he didn't feel more stressed by it. Why he felt more alive than he had in months, and then her. And now this. He really didn't need it.
He checks the back of his head for blood. Finds the offending object in his hand. Hit him with his own medal of honour and bolted.
Some fucking priest, huh. This is why he stopped going to services.
Korben picks himself up off the floor, opens the fridge door, and with a crack removes the mission slip from the hidden General's frozen hand.
"I'll take the mission," he says, sighing.
They were going to save the world, and he— was also going to be there.
Alright, not so much of a plan yet, but he'll get to it. He just had to figure out what to do with his cat while he went on vacation.
—
He finds them checking in at the airport. Throws the kid who's trying to take his place out of the way and reclaims his spot next to Leeloo.
"I'm Korben Dallas."
"And, uh this is?" The attendant asks.
"Leeloo Dallas, multipass," she replies.
"Yeah, she knows it's a Multipass— Leeloo Dallas, my wife," he introduces her.
Wife. His wife, yeah, fuck.
—
Then there was Ruby, and they haven't even left the planet yet but it's like the universe really was laughing at Korben. He takes care of it but there is something about this whole mission that is lingering in the back of his mind, something gnawing away there.
One of the flight attendants shows him to the pod. "Your wife is already here, Mr Dallas."
His wife.
He slides into the sleep pod next to Leeloo. He's still annoyed at Ruby, at what he's semi-sure was the priest he saw scurrying down a corridor— at everyone. Apparently the world was about to end, was he the only one who was trying to take this seriously?
"Hi," she says.
"Oh, you speak English now?" He asks, abrupt.
"Yes, I learn," she replies in her beautiful, lightly-accented voice, nodding towards the small device in front of her.
"Good." His voice is suddenly a croak.
He tries to impart on her the seriousness of what they were here to do. The mission, the world, etcetera.
"Do you understand?" He asks, soft in the confines of their pod.
"Yes," she replies, all aloof confidence.
He pulls himself a little closer to her. "Are you sure?" He needs to be sure she is at least on the same page as him.
Leeloo draws herself up a little taller on her elbows. She tells him something about her being a supreme being, and that she will protect him. The priest had said something similar.
He sighs, she was trouble, but maybe it came with the territory, supreme being and all. He scans her face for a tell, any hint of farce. And for the first time he clocks something behind her eyes— something otherworldly and ancient, that scares him and intrigues him in equal measure.
She leans over him, and her face seems so certain, so— supreme. Korben wanted to smile suddenly, there was definitely something about her that could turn his whole mood around. Her quiet assurance, he was enthralled.
He couldn't look away, but the intimacy was making him nervous in a way he wasn't used to. "Supreme, huh," he observes, only a little facetious. He rolls on his side and rests his head in one hand, watching her now through half-lidded eyes.
"Yes." She rolls her shoulders and stretches a little as if to say: obviously.
"That's a pretty, uh high rank." Her green eyes are so close, their whole bodies are so close. "Y'know, I'm only a Major."
"I know." Her gaze flashes down along the front of him, now that he was more exposed to her. Korben resists the urge to flex. Just barely.
She shifts and moves her leg so it is pressed against the front of his.
His heart thumps in his chest, and his blood redirects. He was trying to be serious— how had this happened? He takes a deep, steadying breath and settles down even lower against the pod.
Leeloo obviously feeling comfortable, scoots ever so slightly closer.
Korben lets his smile show this time, wide and soft around the eyes.
She looks down on him, dismissive. "Sleep," she says, and he can feel her breath against his skin. A dare slanted in her eyes to do more, do something else, now that he knows what she is.
"No sleep," he replies quietly, giving his head a little shake. And he's right up against her now, so he lifts one of his hands. Just to touch her back, hold her there, feel how close they were.
He knows it's not the right time, but they're right on the verge of something here and he can't let it go. His palm grazes the back of her shirt.
The flight attendant appears at the door to the pod, and Korben jumps. "Sweet dreams, Mr Dallas." She moves to push a button.
"No, wait, wait—"
They switch on the sleep regulator, his head hits the padding, and he is out.
—
Korben usually dreamt. Nightmares every single time, the constant war, the pain and shock when he had fucked up his shoulder, his whole unit gone, his home gone when he came back.
Not this time.
He wakes feeling peaceful and well-rested. There's a faint memory he's not sure is real of someone holding his hand, running their fingers over his knuckles. The warmth of someone having slept beside him. Only he looks around and Leeloo is gone. She must have crawled over him to get out. And he missed it, damn.
They've landed. He rushes through the disembarking crowd to catch up with her, and she should be pretty easy to spot with the bright orange hair, but she's gone. Definitely trouble.
—
The attendant shows him to his suite, and Leeloo's not there either. "And my wife?" He asks, nearly choking on the word. He'd had a wife before, it shouldn't hit him this differently.
"She's already been and left to explore the ship."
Oh. Fine, he thinks. Not bitter.
Like everything else on the ship, the hotel room is too nice. He was special forces and had been undercover before, but even so his covers were usually more mud and blood. This whole thing with the opera and the entire rack of suits was just begging for something to go wrong.
The phone in his hotel room rings, and stupidly he answers.
"Hello?"
"You miserable bastard." His mother.
This feels accurate.
—
He puts on his suit, the Diva sings, and the air crackles with electricity like he had never heard before. Had never heard anything so beautiful in his life, except maybe…
Then everything kicks off. Finally, he thinks.
The blood, the gunfire, feels like an old friend. Old tricks are the best tricks, the General had said. And he was right. Some of the blood was much more blue than he was anticipating but, oh well.
Her blue blood pools out around his jacket as he's putting pressure on the Diva's gunshot wound.
"She needs your help, and your love, or she will die." She's talking about Leeloo. He hadn't totally believed but—
A shot flies past their heads. Korben turns and puts three bullets in the closest Mangalore.
"You're a good man," the Diva breathes, "She was right to have chosen you."
And despite the current situation, this statement floors him more than anything else that has happened today.
—
Korben negotiates with some terrorists, and it feels good. He doesn't take a second to evaluate why— why it feels more natural than anything he's done in years, but it doesn't trouble him either and that feels like progress.
Then, they've retrieved the stones, and it's technically mission accomplished for him. Only it's been hours since he laid eyes on Leeloo.
Sure, he acted like a complete buffoon every time they interacted. But he was growing more and more concerned by her conspicuous absence.
Where the hell was she? Hopefully somewhere safe, he thinks, then nearly laughs out loud. Of course, she wasn't.
Cornelius sidles up to him afterwards, as he's checking the ship's monitors.
"Korben, I realise you must be pretty mad at me," the priest stumbles over his words.
Korben wasn't the least surprised to see the little schemer there. And even after everything else, realises he still felt the twinge in the back of the head from the statue that he had brained him with. So what if he was a little mad still?
"— but I want you to know, I am fighting for a noble cause."
Uh huh, he thinks.
"Yes, you're trying to save the world," he replies. "I remember." He appreciates the slight look of shock on the other man's face, but goes back to his search. "Except, I was in the special forces for a while, Father, and every time they told us we were on a mission to save the world the only thing that changed was I lost a lot of friends." And he's made the priest go pale now.
"So, right now I'm trying to save Leeloo, Father."
"Leeloo's in trouble?"
"When is she not?" Korben squints at the surveillance screens.
They find her, bloodied and shaking. Korben pulls her from the ceiling duct carefully, and lays her out on the flat top of a grand piano, gently holding her head. His arms, again. "Leeloo, c'mon sweetie.You're okay, Leeloo."
She stirs and looks even worse than before, distracted and in pain. She reaches out for him blindly. "I'm here, it's alright," he tries to reassure her.
Leeloo opens her mouth a few times, but nothing comes out.
"Everything's okay now, we've got the stones," he says quietly, holding her hands, grounding her.
"You found me," she finally croaks out.
His heart pulls, had she been calling for him? Calling for help and he wasn't there.
"Ah, you weren't that hard to find. I just followed the chaos," he jokes.
Leeloo smiles broadly through the pain, as if complimented. And, honestly looking at the room around her, if she had caused all this destruction and only had a few superficial cuts, she deserved the compliment.
Then she's out again, and Ruby is calling him over to look at something urgently. What could be more important than her ridiculously serene, sleeping face?
The glowing, red digits of the bomb timer Ruby shows him are ticking down fast, too fast. And it's a shame, Korben thinks, he was starting to like this ship.
—
They appropriate a ship from the hangar and make it out with actually a lot more time to spare than everyone else thinks. There's really no need for all the screaming. They're not even on fire.
Korben plugs in a course for home, and moves to the back to check on Leeloo, where he had only kind-of thrown her down in his haste.
He discards the tatters of his dress shirt, leaving him in an undershirt as he pulls a bandage from the first-aid kit on the wall. Korben wraps his own wounds first haphazardly, a sheath of bandage around each arm, before tending to her.
Leeloo has a few cuts that need the blood flow stanched, a large bruise blooming on her shoulder, and her skin was still a little hot to the touch. He wasn't a field medic, but had seen it done enough times, had seen it done to him enough times to know how to help.
He wets a cloth from the closet full of garments, with some bottled water from the fully-stocked fridge. And if they were alive, someone was really going to miss this ship.
He kneels down next to her sleeping form. Gently wiping her face, and cooling her forehead with the cloth. Leeloo opens her eyes a fraction.
"Apipoulai," he says in a murmur, trying to remember her pronunciation from his apartment.
She breathes out a laugh. A soft, genuine thing. "Hi," she replies, but the smile drops just as quickly as it had appeared.
He lifts her side, and moves to wrap her shoulder in the same net bandage he had used. She shifts under his touch, does not pull away, trusts him and just lets herself be manoeuvred. But her expression is troubled, none of the happy, confident Leeloo from earlier. He's reminded of their first interaction, in the cab, a haunted look in her eyes. Except they're safe now, there's no need.
"We did pretty well, wouldn't you say?" Korben asks. Mangalores, and bombs, and all things considered.
She doesn't reply, just watches him, shaking lightly from shock.
"The Diva said that I should take care of you," he murmurs. He's talking mostly to distract her, and a little bit himself. Korben presses down on her shoulder joint, and feels the muscle twitch in pain, "Sorry." He readjusts and keeps his hand there applying slight pressure, even though the bandage was fully attached now. It feels like Leeloo needs it, Korben thinks, ignoring the warm, steadying effect their physical touch was having on his own psyche.
"Humans are so strange," Leeloo replies, and her voice sounds like she's been crying for hours.
Korben takes a deep breath. "Why do you say that?"
"Everything you create, is used to destroy."
He's struck by the directness of her observation, and takes a moment to appreciate how much he might like to hear more of her thoughts. Might like to hear her strange, beautiful voice discuss many things.
"Hm, yeah," he sighs, dragging out the word. "We call it human nature." Korben leans forward, moving closer to her again. "You learn that from your screen?" It was unfortunate, the less she knew about all of humanity's horrors, the better off she was. Ignorance was bliss. But she was already so sharp— she was destined for the hurt of finding out.
She nods. "I'm not finished yet, 'm up to 'V'."
He looks down at her, and can't help but think maybe it wasn't all bad. "'V' is good, there's some very good words in 'V'."
"Like what?"
"Valiant, vulnerable." And he didn't have to think hard about who he was describing. "Very beautiful…" He almost stammers over the last word.
You're an idiot, he thinks.
But she smiles anyway.
And Korben doesn't deserve her, the Diva was wrong. Doesn't deserve to even be in her presence.
"Why did you come back for me?" She asks, her small smile still playing around her lips.
And he doesn't know if she means at the airport, or on the ship, or where, but he had been wondering something similar himself. Only, how could he not have?
He had been trying to keep his head clear for so long, since before her, since before he retired, and the nightmares were there anyway. The fighting, the explosions were here anyway. And suddenly there she was, a beacon, pointing true north.
"It's been so long since I've done a good thing— the right thing," he tries to explain.
Her smile drops, and there's a lilt of sudden confusion in her brow. It isn't the answer she wants. Or maybe it wasn't what she had meant.
For me. She had asked. And it was for her, but he doesn't know how to say it. Korben suddenly can't meet her eyes, he stares down at her arm, rubs it under his own hand a little.
There's a shuffle on the other side of the room and Cornelius enters. Now what?
"There's a General on the, uh phone."
Oh good.
—
"Ball of fire, 12 hundred miles in diameter, headed straight for the earth," says the President on the phone.
Korben barely fights the urge to tell the President he wasn't even supposed to be here today, he was fired, he was retired. He was on vacation.
"How long do we have?" He asks instead.
1.5 hrs.
Alright, mission, parameters, this he could handle.
"We'll call you back in 2 hours."
—
They land in the desert, and it's hotter, and dryer than anything Korben's ever felt before. And it's all going to be gone in about ten minutes.
"You know how all this works, right?" He asks the priest when they're in the tomb.
"Theoretically, yes," he stammers out.
"Theoretically?!" Korben very barely keeps his voice under control.
And of course they can't work out how to open the stones. Korben sets everyone on a path and tries to think clearly. The mission-to deadline-to dead stuff is familiar to him but Leeloo had fallen into a stupor sometime after their conversation and it was knocking his confidence. She is supine in the centre of the room and looks worse than ever but he has to ask. He drops to his knees by her and lifts her up, waking her with gentle hands and a voice he hoped was a little less frantic than he felt.
"Leeloo wake up, honey, wake up. You have to help us."
Her expression was nothing less than absolute despair.
"Leeloo, how do you open these stones?"
"Wind blows, fire burns, rain falls…" She trails off. Something had happened with her since they had last talked. A darkness had settled over her, over her spirit and Korben can't concentrate and so doesn't listen.
Then the darkness falls over all of them, over the whole earth in a bleak shadow. And Korben takes a moment to wonder why it didn't occur to him that on the ship they were already off-planet, they could have flown off, could have lived. Fuck the human race, what had they ever done for him? Except he hadn't thought like that— didn't. It was the priest who was fated to protect earth from evil, not him. He just chose to.
He wishes for half a second that he were a bit more selfish. Could have stolen a few more moments with Leeloo. But what was obvious now was that the fate of Leeloo was tied to their outcome here. She would never survive anywhere else and maybe that's what pulled him here.
And like these things usually happen, it's a complete fluke that they figure it out. He thanks whatever heavens will listen that he hadn't bothered to quit smoking.
And now the fifth element does her part.
He holds her in his embrace again, actually standing this time, propping them both up. "Leeloo, it's time for you to work now."
"Protect life until death?" Is all she can stammer out.
"No, no, no." Doesn't quite know what he's disagreeing with but she won't even remain upright so maybe her general disposition.
"I know you're very tired, I'll take you on a vacation when we're done, a real vacation, I swear, just you and me." That idea comes to him fully formed, and okay maybe he had been thinking about it. Didn't see a life without her in it now. "But listen to me if you don't do something right now we're all going to die. You understand?"
He repeats half the things he says but he needs her to know.
"What's the use in saving life when you see what you do with it?" She chokes out. And it's not really a question, and damn it if he hadn't just thought the same thing about running and leaving the planet to its destruction.
"You're right, you're right," he was repeating again. "But there are some things, very nice things worth saving, some beautiful things," he replies, because his cheek was pressed against hers and there was.
"Like love?" She's crying now. She was heartbroken, by society, by human nature as he had called it.
Love is worth saving. What was more human than love?
"I don't know love," she continues, "I was built to protect not to love."
But how could that be? The warmth of her, the muscle and flesh under his fingers, she wasn't a robot, she was everything.
"You're wrong, you're wrong. I need you, I need you very much."
Her green eyes pierce straight into his soul. "Why?"
How could she not know? In a moment of weakness, he looks away, hears himself mumble, "Because… because…"
"Tell her, Korben," Cornelius says, and he sounds so far away.
Korben leans into her breath on his face, the weight of her in his arms. The weight of what she was trying to do weighing in them both. The truth he had been trying to ignore for the past few days.
The world was actually ending, what's the worst that could happen?
"Because, I love you." He says it. Then whispers it again, because it feels right.
Leeloo sobs, but nods, giving him permission. And Korben kisses her as a white beam of light, brighter than anything he's seen before, encapsulates them both. He holds her up, clutching her to his chest, and it kind of feels like they do it together.
—
When the blinding white light subsides, they are still together, but Korben has dropped to his knees leaving them in a heap on the dais.
He looks around the room just to make sure it's still there. The others are still there too, expressions ranging from dazed to nearly horrified.
Korben feels a hand on his jaw, turning him. Leeloo beams up at him, almost as bright as the light that had just engulfed them. And he should be the one making sure she's still breathing after that but her eyes are clear and she's still smiling as she pulls him in for another kiss. She was strong and not just because she actually was an elemental being from the beginning of time. Korben's the one who feels faint now.
When he had asked for the perfect woman he hadn't meant for the circumstances to be so dire.
They don't have to call the president back in the end, someone picks them up anyway, quite a few someones.
There's a moment in the rush of it all, between being ushered from official to official, where Korben loses her. She's simply not by his side anymore and he can't tell how long it's been since she was, and a slight panic sets in as he looks around the sea of people outside the chamber. But before he can open his mouth to ask, he spots her just a few feet away, apparently doing the exact same action he is, except she's seen him first and is already halfway to a smile by the time he clocks her.
Korben sighs, and brushes past a few people, not politely. "Excuse me, yeah, thankyou— " As he makes a beeline towards her.
Leeloo holds his hand in two of hers, and he can't leave her side. Won't now, ever again.
They board another ship that takes them both back to New York. Back to the headquarters she had apparently first escaped from. Back where it had all begun for them. The president wanted to meet them.
They rest against each other the whole trip, her head on his shoulder, his hand in her lap. The fallout heavy on both their shoulders.
And despite their small rest, they were both still a little stumbling and dozy as they disembarked. The professor suggests they spend the day convalescing in the reactor.
Korben eyes the machine warily, but is tired enough by now to be more agreeable so climbs in anyway. And even with the cover shut and Leeloo next to him, he finds it much roomier than he had anticipated.
She had been in here before she tells him quietly, she could break them out if they needed to. Korben thinks he would like to see that.
There's a pleasant white-noise as the bright blue regenerative light of the machine surrounds them. They lie side by side, completely naked.
"The effects would be more pronounced with no external barriers to interfere," the professor had said. Korben was feeling very agreeable indeed.
There was an initial thrill of seeing Leeloo like this, and he catches her own furtive glances of him when they first enter, but as they rest their heartbeats settle. It begins to feel more casual, like this happens every day.
And it felt so natural to lie next to her. To bask in the love he felt, that he had named, that he knew she felt. It was a comfort so rare he knew he hadn't felt it before, was unsure if she could even say she had.
They do doze for a while, drifting in and out of sleep as the machine speeds up their recovery. Moving idly in the confined space, small touches, a graze, a brush of thighs.
But Leeloo had other ideas.
To experience the full range of human emotion, the full experience of love— or something like that.
His frontal lobe stops processing after she pulls him closer and opens herself up to him. And it all seems so natural, so effortless to her. She knew how to do this part, how to share herself with another. Whereas Korben feels a little rusty himself. More than a little rusty.
She pushes him down. And this he remembered how to do.
"Yeah, okay," he murmurs around a smirk, kissing her stomach. "What'd you see on that machine—"
"Please," she pants. As if there was ever any other option in his mind, as if there was still room for doubt inside of him.
She does the same to him, returning the favour.
"Pretty," she hums from somewhere around his abdomen.
"Ha," he laughs, "I don't know if that's the word I would, oh— "
He was smitten, smote, a burnt-out crater in the shape of a man.
She rises back up, leaving him hanging. Kissing her way over his chest, up his neck. And Korben might actually die, he was hanging on by such a loose thread. Little blue box, and survival of the end of the world be damned.
Leeloo is delighted, in the face of his anguish.
"You love me," she purrs through a grin, almost teasing but just a dash too pure.
"Yeah, I notice you haven't said it back," he murmurs, trying to keep his face from matching her grin. He wants to sound nonchalant about it.
She reaches down and lines them up, and as she settles completely over him, she sighs something short and sweet in her language. And Korben knows she means it.
She grinds down, he rocks up.
She was love, and she had chosen him.
He rolls them over, littering the soft skin of her face and neck with kisses, grinning the whole time.
And she would probably end up leaving, probably had to go back to doing whatever supreme beings do for the majority of the time. Maybe save the world again, maybe he would follow. Give Cornelius his cat to look after. Get back in the game so to speak. The next mission, alongside his love.
Or maybe Leeloo would want the quiet life. Maybe the priest could actually marry them, under the earth's two moons.
Maybe both those things, maybe neither.
But at least for a while, she could stay right here, she could be with him and he with her. And it might just be perfect.