[ She's so good at taking it, she's worthy of a reward, if you think about it. Every thrust slow, decadently slow, makes her lose her godsdamned mind.
She finds one last bastion of coherent thought inside her, and uses it to do this: her tail hooks into her leggings, tugging them down to one side, and the mage hand she can summon sometimes joins until one leg of the pair of pants is off and she's free.
She lets out a triumphant laugh, then pounces on Nico at the first available opportunity. It's as he sets her down that this all happens, and she throws herself up into his arms, anchored on his cock as she is, her legs wrapped around his waist.
Oh - bliss. He is so deep she can taste it. She crushes her mouth to his.
This world would be so lonely without you pierces her like a lance. The sort of longing and devotion that calls for a kiss, and another.
Murmured against his lips, ] I've got you. Go hard, love, I can take it. I'll always take it, I promise, I'm yours.
[ Oh－ well. A soft sound of surprise, when she jumps up, but he catches Ea effortlessly. Pulls her closer to his chest instead of pushing her back against the wall, gasping when her weight sinks deliciously around his too-hard cock.
He blinks, then smiles. Not quite his usual lopsided grin, but adjacent. Affectionate. ]
Since you made your promise to me so sweetly, [ he murmurs back, between kisses. ] I think hard is what you deserve.
[ A light nip against her lower lip in mock-warning, and he starts to fuck her in earnest. Picking her up, pushing her back down, stretching her to his shape with each gliding thrust. Nico keeps his mouth over Ea's, savoring with small growled exhales how he seems to pound the breath out of her, trying to taste the sounds coming out of her kiss-bruised lips. She's so wet, clinging to him, sending diamond-sharp jolts of pleasure through his spine and in his skull; if they connect tadpoles now, they might just fry each other's brains.
He wants to fill her. Make her feel full, satisfied. He seats himself inside Ea fully again, relinquishing one hand from Ea's hip to stroke over her stomach. ]
I want to carry you back with my come still in you.
[ It's just as well that he's got her and holds her like he also doesn't plan on ever letting her go, because she loses every grace thereafter on the first hard thrust.
Her breath hitches, her eyes flutter closed. He rocks up inside her all the way - or is it pushes her down on his cock? - and the drag of him everywhere is so dizzyingly good that she might cry. Again. He keeps going, even though she expects him to keep edging her; clearly he means it, she deserves hard.
For a few blissful seconds, her mind feels empty. She's stretched and filled, her muscles clenching around him in wild little flutters. And the sounds - oh, the sounds are fucking filthy. She's so wet that it feels like when his thighs slap against her ass with every thrust, she drips - on the floor, on his boots, wherever. And then he tells her that, and her heart stutters.
She opens her eyes and meets his, breath in her throat. The nod comes first. The voice, raspy, pleading, ] Please - yes. Fill me up. [ She won't even magically clean it away, she'll just to what she's told and pull her pants up and leave this godsforsaken place full of his come. (Well, she might ask him to clean her up later. She doubts this ends here.) ]
[ They pick up pace, faster and harder. Nico can feel his hot breath misting on Ea's lips, leaving her mouth looking even prettier, wetter, more inviting. He kisses her like it's mutual destruction, or symbiosis－ does it matter which, at this point?
Good girl, he whispers again. Low and hoarse, voice skimming low, telltale signs that Nico wants to come. Here, in this concrete prison full of the corpses of Ea's past, with his celestial blood singing take her in his head. An aasimar only truly belongs anywhere with their devotion channeled somewhere, after all.
She's perfect. Infernal and brilliant. Her loneliness fits against his like pieces of a fucked-up puzzle; his grip bruises the delicate skin of her thighs as he pulls her down on top of his cock, and he traps her there while his hips stutter, making her feel every inch of him with her fluttering cunt－
－and he comes, harsh and heavy. Lets her milk him for what he's worth, until his cock finally goes soft in her, spent. He makes jagged sounds against Ea's red-tipped ear, hoarse moans interspersed with broken bits of half-formed words. Yes, and love you. ]
[ At some point, she thinks she screams. Tension snaps as Nico kisses her and takes her in a way that she could only truly describe as pounding, and she comes with a scream, wild and raw and needy. Like she's never felt need before.
Her nails dig into his shoulders, she surges up against him to kiss him hard enough to knock their teeth together, her incisors pulling open the wound on her lower lip again, and then - ] Oh gods, yes - yes, come in me, come in, come -
[ Highly intelligent, inquisitive, sneaky motherfucker loses her absolute mind over aasimar dick: mixed medium, portrait.
The world gets fuzzy around the edges, blurry but in a comforting way. Her blood thrums in her veins, the pulse in her throat feeling almost thunderous. She's sweaty, a mess. And also, so grateful, so happy, so fucking loved.
When she comes back to her senses, it's quiet. Nico is panting against her ear, she's got her forehead on his shoulder, and has retracted her nails to just wrap her arms around his neck for a clinging hug. ] I'm sorry - I love you.
[ His heart is in his throat; he can feel the roar of his pulse, can taste the blood in his own veins, or maybe that's just the iron on Ea's lips that he's trying to clean off of her. Everything melds together in a congealed mess of sensation and texture, Nico with his arms around Ea and Ea with her arms around Nico, and all he can think is that he never, ever, wants to lose this.
He's not sure when he's learned how to be so afraid. The breadth of the human experience is terrifying― he's so grateful to Ea that she lets him experience it.
With his face buried in her hair, his hips pulling away to unsheathe himself from the welcome heat of her body, he murmurs back: ]
I was just afraid.
[ "It's fine". She doesn't have to apologize; she's the one that hurt most, today.
Gripping her tight, trying not to make the embrace painful, he tries to see if she's amenable to being set back down to earth again, or if her legs are too shaky to support her weight. The latter is fine, since he promised to carry her, after all. ]
I love you. I want to take you back to our room. Want to keep you safe.
[ She's not sure how well she takes the admission that he was afraid, given that it twists something inside her and makes her tighten her grip on his shoulders. Don't be afraid, she wants to uselessly say, but can't. She was terrified. She woke up to see him on the floor, and it was the first time the possibility of losing him felt real.
Real, and unacceptable.
She only flinches a little when he pulls out, but makes up for it by pressing feverish kisses where she can reach. His shoulder, his jaw, the corner of his lips, his cheek. Nowhere is safe, and she's not letting him go. Her heartbeat hasn't calmed down yet. ]
If you'll let me do the same. I need you safe, too. [ She bites her lower lip, drawing back to look up at him. For a beat, the words are at the back of her throat and she doesn't dare say them. They might still die, fighting the Absolute. They might still die, and it won't be because they don't love each other hard enough.
But he wants her to not hide, right? Here it is, the rawest and simplest of needs: ] Safe and alive and growing old with me.
[ Nico was born knowing that there are no guarantees in life, not even the certainty of blood. How does anyone expect permanence after being abandoned by a good-aligned celestial being? He's been a creature of purely the present for so long, afraid of his past, even more anxious of his future.
So it floors him. Growing old with me. His reactions degenerate into wide eyes and a tight grip, a moment of near-incomprehension, a flutter of his lashes.
And then, finally: ] ‐I want that, too. [ Genuinely, as if he'd never thought of it before, not because he never wanted it, but because wanting it terrified him too. ] I want you to let me, and I want to let you.
[ Says the feral aasimar, in a room full of corpses. His fingers glow when they touch Ea's jaw, steady to the beat of his pulse. ]
[ It's so melodramatic, and it's so uncharacteristically needy of someone who's moved through life evading any sorts of needs. In the end, she leans her forehead against his and takes a breath. ]
Good - sounds like we've got a plan beyond ridding ourselves of the unwanted brain visitors, hm?
[ And hells if that doesn't remind her where they are, what they've done. Poor whatshisface, the final insult to him was that his death counted so little they ended up doing this right after the bloodshed. She can't even muster a fraction of guilt - they tied Nico up and kicked him, this is a very measured response.
But she is all of a sudden weary, to the bones. ]
Let's find our stuff - they're not creative enough to have fenced it already, so it'll be somewhere in here. Then let's go. [ She kisses his forehead, then catches his hand on her cheek and kisses his glowing fingertips. ] Take me home, duckling. It's wherever you are.
[ No sympathy for these dead; they tried to end Nico's world, so he ended theirs. It was monstrous of them to think that anything could've been improved by hurting Ea, and some monsters simply require culling.
Nico smiles at being kissed, and dutifully tries to right her rumpled clothes as best as he can manage. Strong hands that'd been busy brandishing a sword and gripping bruises into her thighs are soft and careful now, reverent, smoothing hair away from Ea's pretty face, making sure that her leggings are snug over her long legs. (He tries not to think about his come in her, lest he find himself kneeling right then and there.) With that done, he finally steps away and goes to look for his own things, which have been unceremoniously thrown into a crate for future perusal.
Putting all of his armor back on is too cumbersome to contemplate; he just winds up holding everything by their straps and calling it a day, and sticking close by Ea after she finishes collecting her things.
Their walk back to Elfsong is subdued, and the few passers-by who still occupy the streets look at them with the wariness that they'd show criminals. Nico doesn't care. Framed by moonlight, he still thinks Ea is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, and he's glad when they return to their inn, back to the privacy of a more familiar space, even though they only manage to get a separate two-person room instead of the suite this time around.
It's not that he doesn't want the rest of the group to have their turn being worried about Ea (he does, he thinks it's sweet that everyone loves her too, and would never deprive her of that), but he thinks that she just might be too tired to field these things tonight. She needs to rest. ]
[ Perhaps unsurprisingly, she manages to pull herself together all the way up until they're inside that tiny two-bed room in Baldur's Gate's classiest inn this side of Wyrm's Rock.
She's found all their belongings again, and didn't even bother with raffling through the others' pockets because - what would've been the point? Unlike most of her life, Ea has more gold in her coinpurse nowadays than she's ever had, in about thirty years put together.
The gear, that's sentimental at this point. It has value. This ring she picked up under the bridge after being whisked away by Raphael the first time. The boots from Nere, the armor from Minthara, that necklace Kagha wore. A lot of her gear came from fallen enemies, come to think about it, and when it all comes down to it - she barely respects Elgar enough to bother.
The journey back goes...foggily. She is not sure how fast they walk, or if he carries her in the end or she moves on autopilot, but thankfully it lasts. And then - then, they're alone. And as the door closes, she takes off her boots, and drops her armor on the floor, and walks up to Nico to wrap her arms around his waist. She hides her face against his chest, nose against his shirt, and clings to the back of his shirt with both hands.
And now, the crash. The first exhale is shuddery, and by the third she is sobbing quietly in his arms. ]
[ Soft breathing, and the dappling of moisture onto his chest. For a brief breath of a moment, Nico doesn't pick up on the cues－ he's never had anyone cry in front of him before, not like this－ but his knowledge coalesces into the shape of the small, shuddering body tucked against him, and he hears something that sounds, vaguely, like the shattering of his heart.
Or is it Ea's heart? Worse. She has so much heart to break; she's given it to so many people, trusted them to hold it, and kept standing despite all those careless hands. They were rough with her, but they were important to her, too. Once upon a time.
Nico can't mend this, he realizes. He also realizes that this isn't his to mend. So he holds her, arms around her middle and his chin to the crown of her head, nestled in her hair, mindful of her horns. He draws small circles against the small of her back, breathes in a steady rhythm, and waits for her to do whatever she wants: cry, scream, claw. This is for her, and her entirely. ]
[ The quiet sobs subside, eventually, when she realises that he's not going anywhere. That makes her love him even more. She presses a kiss to his chest, to his throat, and leans back to look up at him, but only once she's settled.
Usually he'd comb her hair and hold her to sleep after tormenting her with all those orgasms, and being in control; not going for a walk back to the inn. So she knows that the crying was emotional whiplash, but he's still helping. ]
Thank you. [ Let it be noted that she has to bite her tongue to not say sorry for having needs. ]
[ She can take all the time she needs; he isn't going anywhere. When her sobs finally quiet down, her breaths less labored around her grief, Nico dips his head down to kiss salt from her cheeks, to catch residual tears and thumb them off of her flushed skin.
The mask'd been magic-ed back onto his face for their journey back; he lets it dissipate again, white eyes focused on Ea, attentive. ]
Yes. I want that.
[ To not let go, and to stay. He eases her towards the bed that they'll share without releasing her from the loop of his arms, and coaxes her to sit down with him, on his thighs. ]
[ She does without even a hint of protest, more than willing; if Nico doesn't want to let her go tonight, Ea's not inclined to either. Anytime she closes her eyes, there's a chance that she'll see Elgar, or she'll remember the fight in the illithid colony, Nico so close to that avatar of Myrkul that the scythe had almost cleaved him in half. Unacceptable losses, heightened dangers, things that make her dizzy.
She sinks into his lap, shifting so she's close enough that they're chest to chest again. Her arms loop around his shoulder, and she kisses a scar on his jaw, and nuzzles her cheek against his like a cat seeking out affection.
Then, the question of a distraction. Her breath hitches, and she leans back to look at him, her eyes widening - lavenders and greens against black sclera - ] Yes - yeah. Please?
[ A soft breath, the slants and planes of his uneven face made softer by lamplight. Their small room is bathed in low oranges and yellows, dip-dyeing his unnatural eyes, making them look like twin setting suns.
He smiles, combing his fingers through her hair. Petting her, his reciprocation for her feline nuzzling. ]
I could read you something, [ is the benign option. The less benign one: ] Or I could tire you out for the night.
[ Another valid option. He's fine with either, obviously; physical or non-physical, he's here with her for as long as she needs, in whatever way she requires. ]
[ She's not that sure about it being the benign option - she does have that thing about his voice - but it's what she would've picked before tonight, thinking it the safer option, the way to not get her feelings more entrenched with him. Foolish things, which she won't be doing anymore - won't lie to him, won't hide.
So he gets to see it in her eyes, painfully obvious arousal, because maybe someone just remembered that she walked here still dripping with his come. She wants him to pull her pants down and discover it again, and lose his mind. ]
Tire me out. [ She brings both hands up to cup his face, a gods you're so beautiful on the tip of her tongue as she leans in and kisses him. ]
[ She picks the more dangerous option, and fuck, Nico loves her for it. No hiding, no second-guessing, no weighing her options. After all that heartbreak, Ea deserves to want and want and want.
He presses their foreheads together as they kiss, still smelling sex and sweat on her; it's intoxicating in a way that Nico knows he'll never get used to. She feels as novel and fascinating to him as she'd felt the first time he'd touched her, the thrilling feeling of a floor about to drop under his feet. His heart flips, and clenches, and hammers.
When their mouths part, teeth grazing along Ea's lower lip, Nico smiles. A little subdued, but mostly fond. He adores her. ]
Lie on your back. [ He whispers, and nips at her chin. ] Let me take care of everything, tonight.
[ There it is. No judgement, only love. It's going to feel strange and new until it doesn't, until she gets used to having his heart so wholly.
After the events at the end of the day, she could so easily crash. If she were on her own, for example, she'd find a tub full of hot water and rot in it, or she'd run, or she'd never make it out of the basement alive. Thank gods she's not on her own.
She kisses him with all those complicated I'm alive and I want to stay alive emotions, shifting in his lap to get closer to him, hips to hips and chest to chest. Two heartbeats pressed together.
When she opens her eyes next, it's with a somewhat sluggish blink. She cracks a little smile. ]
Okay - but fair warning, I might be a mess. [ She might learn to beg early on.
She leaves a parting kiss to the tip of his nose and gets out of his lap, lying on her back unceremoniously. Still dressed, still with her boots on, but Nico said he'll take care of everything tonight, and she recalls him saying he wanted to bring her here and keep her safe.
An impossible task in their livelihoods. She will let him take care of her, though, so he also feels more settled. ]
[ Is that sweet, or mean? Nico and his poor filter; he doesn't examine that statement further, since it says exactly what he means. Mess or no, he wants her (past, present and future), and he thinks he's hammered that annoyingly home－ her assessment about him not being settled until he's convinced that she's convinced is entirely correct.
So. He starts with her boots, and works his way up. Careful fingers unlace her footwear, warm hands ease her pants down her long legs, palms press against her stomach, rucking up her shirt. Everything is slow and deliberate, unhurried in a way that suggests that there's nothing else he'd rather be doing but hovering over Ea in this moment, tending to her with near-cloying care.
After he maneuvers her top off, leaving her in only her bra and panties, he cranes forward to kiss whatever part of her is closest. Her collarbone, her cleavage, her navel. He sees the forming of finger-shaped bruises at her waist where he'd gripped a little too hard before, and he soothes over those with his tongue and lips as well. Apologetic. ]
[ She would be taking off her shirt and bra on her own, while he peeled her out of her pants, but he wants to take care of her tonight. As much as it chafes for someone like Ea to lie still and let herself be pampered, she does it anyway.
He's gotten her very used to being pampered, in the time they've been together. It would not surprise her a single bit if he were this intense years down the line; she expects the intense devotion will only grow as time goes by, because Nico is both feral and loyal.
She lifts her head when he starts to kiss her hips, catching the sight of finger-shaped bruises too. ]
Don't. [ Very much not explanatory enough, Ea. She reaches down and tips his head up with her fingers under his chin, meeting feral gaze with feral gaze. ] Don't even think about apologising for them, love. I begged you for them.
[ The graph is not an inverse correlation: time will pass, and affection will also increase exponentially. He'll find more reasons to love her, not less.
Like what's happening now, with the chiding. Not being scolded for the marks, but for feeling badly about them, which should be absurd but isn't. It's flooring to think that his affection isn't a danger or a liability for her, that she wants him with teeth and claws and his muddled blood.
Nico smiles, even with his brows turned down; still contrite, but not excessively. Like a dog who jumped up on someone a little too enthusiastically, nosing at her bruises. ]
－They're a bit hard to show off.
[ Trying for levity, scraping his teeth gently along one of the incriminating marks. Maybe someone will see them if she stretches and her shirt pulls up above her waistline, but they'll remain hidden otherwise. ]
[ She lets out a huff of laughter, chased down by a hum - his teeth against her skin there serve less as a tender gesture than as away to stir up some feelings. The flutter in her stomach, the flick of her tail under her. Careful, Nico, or there might be more. ]
Mm - guess they are. [ It's not like she wears any clothes that would reveal them outside of the bedroom. In which case, there is a simple conclusion: ] So leave them somewhere more visible.
[ Correction: it's not that she wants him with teeth and claws and his muddled blood, it's that she loves him most in these moments, when there's no barrier between them and the deep-rooted need.
She has made no efforts to hide that she's been attracted to him from the very start, but the love? The love slammed into her, by surprise, all at once. Somewhere between the Underdark and Moonrise Towers, she looked at Nico across the camp fire, knowing that she knew what he looked like under the feathery mask, and felt a hook sink into her heart - the chain at the end attaching itself to him. It's a violent way to think of love, and yet... at least she could recognise it, finally. ]
[ Attraction begets affection begets attachment－ now, Nico is sure that part of his soul is in the shape of an Infernal, a different him with horns and a tail that lives right under Ea's skin. He can pretend that he isn't part celestial in favor of this fantasy; it's nice to think that he's always belonged with her.
(She looked at him back then, in all that fire and blood, and for all that everyone has ever told him that they acknowledge him as a part of the world they inhabit, he'd never felt more seen than when she called him "duckling" for the first time.)
He sits up, straddling her hips with his thighs. Looking down at her with pale eyes, the kind of eyes that people who don't know him very well sometimes call hollow; they're suffused with warmth and heat, knifepoint focus tracing the outline of Ea's body. ]
You're fine with that?
[ It's not like the others don't know (they probably know too much, at this point), but it's one thing to scandalize Gale and another thing for Ea to show up looking like Nico mauled her with his mouth. ]
[ Love very clearly has a way of making her stupid, because with the way Nico is looking at her - heat blooming under her skin anywhere his gaze touches - she could swear that he wants to leave more than a few hickeys. That's not the part of what makes her stupid. It's the quickened heartbeat, and the burning desire to let him. To wear his fingerprints and his teeth marks and his love bites everywhere.
To show up to breakfast tomorrow marked and claimed and very clearly his.
It makes her hold her breath as she holds his eyes, her ears ringing for a moment. She finally nods, exhales. ] I'm sure. I'm very sure.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2024-07-29 06:37 am (UTC)She finds one last bastion of coherent thought inside her, and uses it to do this: her tail hooks into her leggings, tugging them down to one side, and the mage hand she can summon sometimes joins until one leg of the pair of pants is off and she's free.
She lets out a triumphant laugh, then pounces on Nico at the first available opportunity. It's as he sets her down that this all happens, and she throws herself up into his arms, anchored on his cock as she is, her legs wrapped around his waist.
Oh - bliss. He is so deep she can taste it. She crushes her mouth to his.
This world would be so lonely without you pierces her like a lance. The sort of longing and devotion that calls for a kiss, and another.
Murmured against his lips, ] I've got you. Go hard, love, I can take it. I'll always take it, I promise, I'm yours.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-29 07:13 am (UTC)He blinks, then smiles. Not quite his usual lopsided grin, but adjacent. Affectionate. ]
Since you made your promise to me so sweetly, [ he murmurs back, between kisses. ] I think hard is what you deserve.
[ A light nip against her lower lip in mock-warning, and he starts to fuck her in earnest. Picking her up, pushing her back down, stretching her to his shape with each gliding thrust. Nico keeps his mouth over Ea's, savoring with small growled exhales how he seems to pound the breath out of her, trying to taste the sounds coming out of her kiss-bruised lips. She's so wet, clinging to him, sending diamond-sharp jolts of pleasure through his spine and in his skull; if they connect tadpoles now, they might just fry each other's brains.
He wants to fill her. Make her feel full, satisfied. He seats himself inside Ea fully again, relinquishing one hand from Ea's hip to stroke over her stomach. ]
I want to carry you back with my come still in you.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-29 07:28 am (UTC)Her breath hitches, her eyes flutter closed. He rocks up inside her all the way - or is it pushes her down on his cock? - and the drag of him everywhere is so dizzyingly good that she might cry. Again. He keeps going, even though she expects him to keep edging her; clearly he means it, she deserves hard.
For a few blissful seconds, her mind feels empty. She's stretched and filled, her muscles clenching around him in wild little flutters. And the sounds - oh, the sounds are fucking filthy. She's so wet that it feels like when his thighs slap against her ass with every thrust, she drips - on the floor, on his boots, wherever. And then he tells her that, and her heart stutters.
She opens her eyes and meets his, breath in her throat. The nod comes first. The voice, raspy, pleading, ] Please - yes. Fill me up. [ She won't even magically clean it away, she'll just to what she's told and pull her pants up and leave this godsforsaken place full of his come. (Well, she might ask him to clean her up later. She doubts this ends here.) ]
no subject
Date: 2024-07-29 08:44 am (UTC)Good girl, he whispers again. Low and hoarse, voice skimming low, telltale signs that Nico wants to come. Here, in this concrete prison full of the corpses of Ea's past, with his celestial blood singing take her in his head. An aasimar only truly belongs anywhere with their devotion channeled somewhere, after all.
She's perfect. Infernal and brilliant. Her loneliness fits against his like pieces of a fucked-up puzzle; his grip bruises the delicate skin of her thighs as he pulls her down on top of his cock, and he traps her there while his hips stutter, making her feel every inch of him with her fluttering cunt－
－and he comes, harsh and heavy. Lets her milk him for what he's worth, until his cock finally goes soft in her, spent. He makes jagged sounds against Ea's red-tipped ear, hoarse moans interspersed with broken bits of half-formed words. Yes, and love you. ]
no subject
Date: 2024-07-29 08:58 am (UTC)Her nails dig into his shoulders, she surges up against him to kiss him hard enough to knock their teeth together, her incisors pulling open the wound on her lower lip again, and then - ] Oh gods, yes - yes, come in me, come in, come -
[ Highly intelligent, inquisitive, sneaky motherfucker loses her absolute mind over aasimar dick: mixed medium, portrait.
The world gets fuzzy around the edges, blurry but in a comforting way. Her blood thrums in her veins, the pulse in her throat feeling almost thunderous. She's sweaty, a mess. And also, so grateful, so happy, so fucking loved.
When she comes back to her senses, it's quiet. Nico is panting against her ear, she's got her forehead on his shoulder, and has retracted her nails to just wrap her arms around his neck for a clinging hug. ] I'm sorry - I love you.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-29 11:12 am (UTC)He's not sure when he's learned how to be so afraid. The breadth of the human experience is terrifying― he's so grateful to Ea that she lets him experience it.
With his face buried in her hair, his hips pulling away to unsheathe himself from the welcome heat of her body, he murmurs back: ]
I was just afraid.
[ "It's fine". She doesn't have to apologize; she's the one that hurt most, today.
Gripping her tight, trying not to make the embrace painful, he tries to see if she's amenable to being set back down to earth again, or if her legs are too shaky to support her weight. The latter is fine, since he promised to carry her, after all. ]
I love you. I want to take you back to our room. Want to keep you safe.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-29 11:30 am (UTC)Real, and unacceptable.
She only flinches a little when he pulls out, but makes up for it by pressing feverish kisses where she can reach. His shoulder, his jaw, the corner of his lips, his cheek. Nowhere is safe, and she's not letting him go. Her heartbeat hasn't calmed down yet. ]
If you'll let me do the same. I need you safe, too. [ She bites her lower lip, drawing back to look up at him. For a beat, the words are at the back of her throat and she doesn't dare say them. They might still die, fighting the Absolute. They might still die, and it won't be because they don't love each other hard enough.
But he wants her to not hide, right? Here it is, the rawest and simplest of needs: ] Safe and alive and growing old with me.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-31 12:54 am (UTC)So it floors him. Growing old with me. His reactions degenerate into wide eyes and a tight grip, a moment of near-incomprehension, a flutter of his lashes.
And then, finally: ] ‐I want that, too. [ Genuinely, as if he'd never thought of it before, not because he never wanted it, but because wanting it terrified him too. ] I want you to let me, and I want to let you.
[ Says the feral aasimar, in a room full of corpses. His fingers glow when they touch Ea's jaw, steady to the beat of his pulse. ]
I want to be "us", until we die.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-31 06:39 am (UTC)Good - sounds like we've got a plan beyond ridding ourselves of the unwanted brain visitors, hm?
[ And hells if that doesn't remind her where they are, what they've done. Poor whatshisface, the final insult to him was that his death counted so little they ended up doing this right after the bloodshed. She can't even muster a fraction of guilt - they tied Nico up and kicked him, this is a very measured response.
But she is all of a sudden weary, to the bones. ]
Let's find our stuff - they're not creative enough to have fenced it already, so it'll be somewhere in here. Then let's go. [ She kisses his forehead, then catches his hand on her cheek and kisses his glowing fingertips. ] Take me home, duckling. It's wherever you are.
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Date: 2024-08-03 11:01 pm (UTC)Nico smiles at being kissed, and dutifully tries to right her rumpled clothes as best as he can manage. Strong hands that'd been busy brandishing a sword and gripping bruises into her thighs are soft and careful now, reverent, smoothing hair away from Ea's pretty face, making sure that her leggings are snug over her long legs. (He tries not to think about his come in her, lest he find himself kneeling right then and there.) With that done, he finally steps away and goes to look for his own things, which have been unceremoniously thrown into a crate for future perusal.
Putting all of his armor back on is too cumbersome to contemplate; he just winds up holding everything by their straps and calling it a day, and sticking close by Ea after she finishes collecting her things.
Their walk back to Elfsong is subdued, and the few passers-by who still occupy the streets look at them with the wariness that they'd show criminals. Nico doesn't care. Framed by moonlight, he still thinks Ea is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, and he's glad when they return to their inn, back to the privacy of a more familiar space, even though they only manage to get a separate two-person room instead of the suite this time around.
It's not that he doesn't want the rest of the group to have their turn being worried about Ea (he does, he thinks it's sweet that everyone loves her too, and would never deprive her of that), but he thinks that she just might be too tired to field these things tonight. She needs to rest. ]
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Date: 2024-08-03 11:14 pm (UTC)She's found all their belongings again, and didn't even bother with raffling through the others' pockets because - what would've been the point? Unlike most of her life, Ea has more gold in her coinpurse nowadays than she's ever had, in about thirty years put together.
The gear, that's sentimental at this point. It has value. This ring she picked up under the bridge after being whisked away by Raphael the first time. The boots from Nere, the armor from Minthara, that necklace Kagha wore. A lot of her gear came from fallen enemies, come to think about it, and when it all comes down to it - she barely respects Elgar enough to bother.
The journey back goes...foggily. She is not sure how fast they walk, or if he carries her in the end or she moves on autopilot, but thankfully it lasts. And then - then, they're alone. And as the door closes, she takes off her boots, and drops her armor on the floor, and walks up to Nico to wrap her arms around his waist. She hides her face against his chest, nose against his shirt, and clings to the back of his shirt with both hands.
And now, the crash. The first exhale is shuddery, and by the third she is sobbing quietly in his arms. ]
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Date: 2024-08-05 12:59 am (UTC)Or is it Ea's heart? Worse. She has so much heart to break; she's given it to so many people, trusted them to hold it, and kept standing despite all those careless hands. They were rough with her, but they were important to her, too. Once upon a time.
Nico can't mend this, he realizes. He also realizes that this isn't his to mend. So he holds her, arms around her middle and his chin to the crown of her head, nestled in her hair, mindful of her horns. He draws small circles against the small of her back, breathes in a steady rhythm, and waits for her to do whatever she wants: cry, scream, claw. This is for her, and her entirely. ]
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Date: 2024-08-05 06:37 am (UTC)Usually he'd comb her hair and hold her to sleep after tormenting her with all those orgasms, and being in control; not going for a walk back to the inn. So she knows that the crying was emotional whiplash, but he's still helping. ]
Thank you. [ Let it be noted that she has to bite her tongue to not say sorry for having needs. ]
Do you want to just...not let me go tonight?
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Date: 2024-08-05 07:46 am (UTC)The mask'd been magic-ed back onto his face for their journey back; he lets it dissipate again, white eyes focused on Ea, attentive. ]
Yes. I want that.
[ To not let go, and to stay. He eases her towards the bed that they'll share without releasing her from the loop of his arms, and coaxes her to sit down with him, on his thighs. ]
Do you want a distraction?
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Date: 2024-08-05 08:08 am (UTC)She sinks into his lap, shifting so she's close enough that they're chest to chest again. Her arms loop around his shoulder, and she kisses a scar on his jaw, and nuzzles her cheek against his like a cat seeking out affection.
Then, the question of a distraction. Her breath hitches, and she leans back to look at him, her eyes widening - lavenders and greens against black sclera - ] Yes - yeah. Please?
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Date: 2024-08-06 01:51 am (UTC)He smiles, combing his fingers through her hair. Petting her, his reciprocation for her feline nuzzling. ]
I could read you something, [ is the benign option. The less benign one: ] Or I could tire you out for the night.
[ Another valid option. He's fine with either, obviously; physical or non-physical, he's here with her for as long as she needs, in whatever way she requires. ]
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Date: 2024-08-06 06:43 am (UTC)So he gets to see it in her eyes, painfully obvious arousal, because maybe someone just remembered that she walked here still dripping with his come. She wants him to pull her pants down and discover it again, and lose his mind. ]
Tire me out. [ She brings both hands up to cup his face, a gods you're so beautiful on the tip of her tongue as she leans in and kisses him. ]
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Date: 2024-08-06 07:04 am (UTC)He presses their foreheads together as they kiss, still smelling sex and sweat on her; it's intoxicating in a way that Nico knows he'll never get used to. She feels as novel and fascinating to him as she'd felt the first time he'd touched her, the thrilling feeling of a floor about to drop under his feet. His heart flips, and clenches, and hammers.
When their mouths part, teeth grazing along Ea's lower lip, Nico smiles. A little subdued, but mostly fond. He adores her. ]
Lie on your back. [ He whispers, and nips at her chin. ] Let me take care of everything, tonight.
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Date: 2024-08-06 07:14 am (UTC)After the events at the end of the day, she could so easily crash. If she were on her own, for example, she'd find a tub full of hot water and rot in it, or she'd run, or she'd never make it out of the basement alive. Thank gods she's not on her own.
She kisses him with all those complicated I'm alive and I want to stay alive emotions, shifting in his lap to get closer to him, hips to hips and chest to chest. Two heartbeats pressed together.
When she opens her eyes next, it's with a somewhat sluggish blink. She cracks a little smile. ]
Okay - but fair warning, I might be a mess. [ She might learn to beg early on.
She leaves a parting kiss to the tip of his nose and gets out of his lap, lying on her back unceremoniously. Still dressed, still with her boots on, but Nico said he'll take care of everything tonight, and she recalls him saying he wanted to bring her here and keep her safe.
An impossible task in their livelihoods. She will let him take care of her, though, so he also feels more settled. ]
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Date: 2024-08-07 12:46 am (UTC)You're the kind of mess that I want.
[ Is that sweet, or mean? Nico and his poor filter; he doesn't examine that statement further, since it says exactly what he means. Mess or no, he wants her (past, present and future), and he thinks he's hammered that annoyingly home－ her assessment about him not being settled until he's convinced that she's convinced is entirely correct.
So. He starts with her boots, and works his way up. Careful fingers unlace her footwear, warm hands ease her pants down her long legs, palms press against her stomach, rucking up her shirt. Everything is slow and deliberate, unhurried in a way that suggests that there's nothing else he'd rather be doing but hovering over Ea in this moment, tending to her with near-cloying care.
After he maneuvers her top off, leaving her in only her bra and panties, he cranes forward to kiss whatever part of her is closest. Her collarbone, her cleavage, her navel. He sees the forming of finger-shaped bruises at her waist where he'd gripped a little too hard before, and he soothes over those with his tongue and lips as well. Apologetic. ]
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Date: 2024-08-07 06:12 am (UTC)He's gotten her very used to being pampered, in the time they've been together. It would not surprise her a single bit if he were this intense years down the line; she expects the intense devotion will only grow as time goes by, because Nico is both feral and loyal.
She lifts her head when he starts to kiss her hips, catching the sight of finger-shaped bruises too. ]
Don't. [ Very much not explanatory enough, Ea. She reaches down and tips his head up with her fingers under his chin, meeting feral gaze with feral gaze. ] Don't even think about apologising for them, love. I begged you for them.
I'm going to wear them as a badge of honour.
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Date: 2024-08-07 08:23 am (UTC)Like what's happening now, with the chiding. Not being scolded for the marks, but for feeling badly about them, which should be absurd but isn't. It's flooring to think that his affection isn't a danger or a liability for her, that she wants him with teeth and claws and his muddled blood.
Nico smiles, even with his brows turned down; still contrite, but not excessively. Like a dog who jumped up on someone a little too enthusiastically, nosing at her bruises. ]
－They're a bit hard to show off.
[ Trying for levity, scraping his teeth gently along one of the incriminating marks. Maybe someone will see them if she stretches and her shirt pulls up above her waistline, but they'll remain hidden otherwise. ]
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Date: 2024-08-07 08:54 am (UTC)Mm - guess they are. [ It's not like she wears any clothes that would reveal them outside of the bedroom. In which case, there is a simple conclusion: ] So leave them somewhere more visible.
[ Correction: it's not that she wants him with teeth and claws and his muddled blood, it's that she loves him most in these moments, when there's no barrier between them and the deep-rooted need.
She has made no efforts to hide that she's been attracted to him from the very start, but the love? The love slammed into her, by surprise, all at once. Somewhere between the Underdark and Moonrise Towers, she looked at Nico across the camp fire, knowing that she knew what he looked like under the feathery mask, and felt a hook sink into her heart - the chain at the end attaching itself to him. It's a violent way to think of love, and yet... at least she could recognise it, finally. ]
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Date: 2024-08-08 07:56 am (UTC)(She looked at him back then, in all that fire and blood, and for all that everyone has ever told him that they acknowledge him as a part of the world they inhabit, he'd never felt more seen than when she called him "duckling" for the first time.)
He sits up, straddling her hips with his thighs. Looking down at her with pale eyes, the kind of eyes that people who don't know him very well sometimes call hollow; they're suffused with warmth and heat, knifepoint focus tracing the outline of Ea's body. ]
You're fine with that?
[ It's not like the others don't know (they probably know too much, at this point), but it's one thing to scandalize Gale and another thing for Ea to show up looking like Nico mauled her with his mouth. ]
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Date: 2024-08-08 08:05 am (UTC)To show up to breakfast tomorrow marked and claimed and very clearly his.
It makes her hold her breath as she holds his eyes, her ears ringing for a moment. She finally nods, exhales. ] I'm sure. I'm very sure.
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