open post was opened with thieves' tools

[infernaling]

tfln. text. action. ota

Comments

the baldurian au.

[elegiaque]

( lady gwenaëlle vauquelin is the least charming bard that any of them have met.

this is not to say that she isn't charismatic; she is certainly that, a creature with a magnetic pull, a woman as a whirlpool. it's just— not quite how bards typically operate. a blunt instrument. it sort of seems like she might actually bean someone with her violin, one of these days, and have only to say for herself, maybe they should reassess all of their life choices leading to that moment. the first impression is sort of that of a natural disaster, a thing that happens to people—

this impression lingers, along the road. she can't lie worth a damn but somehow, the particularly aggressive way she pursues her idea of the truth seems to compel and persuade. the way she sleight of hands her own history is a shell game more than deception: so blunt and so forthright in moments that other people might consider awkward or uncomfortable or just private, she's so easy to read, it's hard to imagine that there's anything written anywhere unseen. she is so sincerely, infuriatingly, baldly herself— what could she be hiding?

she's so small, easily six inches shy of ea's own height, and she occupies twice the space with her movement and the curls of her hair and the volume of her voice; it is hard, by design, to see her as vulnerable. she has so little time for vulnerability for anyone above the age of say, fifteen, halfway between impatient and just inarticulate, not unkind but not adept, either,

and she doesn't ask for what she hasn't offered. when the consequences of her fucking actions catch her up in the astral plane and she cannot, despite her best efforts, fend off the greater tadpole—

she doesn't ask for what she hasn't offered. every step had made sense. they needed every edge. she had been willing. it had been her decision. and it's so stupid, it's so stupid, she's the worst kind of fucking idiot, and the smallest, the pettiest, to be sitting as far from the rest of the camp as she can manage with a mirror and to touch where blackened veins raise up on her face and to—

her changed face crumples in her reflection and she is not, exactly, just weeping because the emperor has stolen her beauty.

but she's not not doing that, either—

the sound of footsteps makes her stiffen. she has not, in the interim, become better at lying. she sounds— wet. )

Is it my watch? I'm— I'll be right there.

[infernaling]

[ It's quite impressive, the amount of bullshit they can pack in one day. For example: finding out that that mysterious dream guardian that everyone's been seeing (in a different disguise, likely, for each of them - in hindsight) is actually illithid, finding out that Orpheus is real (Lae'Zel is still dealing with that one), getting to Rivington to come face to fake-face with a shapeshifter menace, and finally finding their way to Sharess' Caress to be told by a devil that the way to release Orpheus was in his grasp? One day! All in one day!

Come the evening, they've made their way back to camp and it is the same downtrodden and abandoned farm, companions scattered about, someone cooking dinner somewhere.

It's not yet watch time, and frankly speaking Ea isn't sure they're keeping watch this close to the city, but perhaps they should. you know, in hindsight. Still, she steps over a stone and crouches at Gwen's side, wrapping her arms around her knees.

Her strange eyes fixate on the woman, taking in the new features of her face (Astarion made a comment about those dark veins earlier and Ea nearly skewered him). Insight check, reliable talent. ]

You want me to kill him?

[ The Emperor might be listening to every conversation, but Ea has not made her aversion to him a mystery. She is not subtle. Her pettiness and spite have layers. That bitch is on a shitlist. He was there before, but he got moved to the top of it, after essentially forcing Gwen to consume an astral-touched tadpole. He'd tried his luck with Ea, too, but for some reason (luck?) she'd resisted the persuasion. (Turn persuasion against her? Bitch.)

She shuffles closer. ]

Because I really want to kill him.

[elegiaque]

( gwenaëlle is rarely very difficult to read; she hadn't been, when astarion had made that crack, her mouth twisting and the worst part of it, surely the worst, having no clever thing to say back—

she had nearly said several very cruel things, and then pressed her mouth shut and turned away, and she doesn't know how the rest of that conversation had gone because she'd decided she wasn't part of it any more. here and now there's a moment she teeters on where maybe she's only going to do the same thing, shut down and shut out, setting the hand-mirror she's been holding down in the grass (face down in the grass). she doesn't do well with vulnerability, and for someone who is such a mess of raw nerves under the surface, that's not not a problem.

but it doesn't feel like exposure to say, )

I want to fucking tear that thing apart, ( very distinctly.

that they can't, yet, is just...

well, that's the situation right now. their situation has changed so many times, and there's so much more in play than they'd known. there's going to be a moment, maybe soon, when they won't need the squid any more. )

[infernaling]

Same. [ She's not even tossing a glance over her shoulder to check that the rest whether the group is within hearing range, because she knows they aren't. Gwenaëlle would have just sat here, sniffing miserably and choking on her bitter rage all on her own, she's set up her tent and belongings that far from the others.

But Ea's here. They can just have this conversation among themselves. ]

I am loathe to believe that anyone who forces that tadpole onto an ally truly is looking out for the ally. Explore all our options is all fine and dandy, but that was -

[ Wrong. Non-consensual. Horrible and invasive, and she's incandescent with her anger at the squid.

But she softens for a moment, glancing at the mirror and then at Gwenaëlle. She reaches out, her knuckles brushing under the woman's chin, tipping her face up. There is no flinching away from the sight of the veins, of the semi-transformation. Ea's gaze is serious and solemn and honest. ]

You remain beautiful, Gwen.

[elegiaque]

( more than anything,

more than the way she has to fight her own wet eyes and wobbling mouth not to crumple again, a mess of just too many feelings for so little a body as is expected to contain them,

it's that she doesn't instantly protest gwenaëlle over the short-form that underlines just how badly she might have needed to hear everything else ea has just said to her. that she doesn't withdraw from the mortifying ordeal of being seen. she doesn't feel beautiful — exquisite, it had said, and she hates the way it had mattered to her, that it had made her reflection feel that much worse. she doesn't feel powerful, or certain of her direction and choices.

they had relied so much on that thing in the artefact. they still rely on it. it feels like quicksand beneath them, and she wishes she cared less about this part of finding that out. that she were braver or better or could laugh it off, I don't care about that,

but for all of her life, she's always had her fucking face. every part of her that hasn't felt like enough, the way she wasn't enough for her mother or her sisters, not enough to hold her father up, not enough for anyone to fill the bottomless hole of her heart full of whimpering love,

at least she's been pretty. at least if she couldn't hold onto anyone she could make them want her, for a while. at least if she can't hold their attention then she can turn their heads. at least she could have a while. at least— )

It shouldn't matter, ( she wails, burying her (awful) face suddenly in ea's shoulder, and she means: I should be more than beautiful, and she's the only fucking person who thinks she isn't. )

[infernaling]

[ Maybe it shouldn't, what the fuck would Ea know about beauty? She's been chased out of towns for being a tiefling, been called anything from strange to befouled (thanks, Aradin, you fuck) -

(Some thirty-odd years ago, tiny Ea sitting in her tiefling father's lap, with her human dad counting her fingers and toes and making up rhymes. Being called lovely, being loved, being called precious and sweet.)

- it's not all there is to her life, but. She can understand the pain, and the conflict. And most importantly, when a beautiful woman wails and throws herself at her, to cry on her (kind of bony) shoulder, she understands that what might be needed is touch.

So she tuts softly, and brings one hand up to cup Gwenaëlle's shoulder, drawing her in for a hug. ]

Who says? If it matters to you, it matters. [ She turns her head slightly, enough to whisper in Gwenaëlle's ear, ] You can stay there and cry it out.

[unspooling]

( following on from here )


He finds her as promised after the rest of their companions have surrendered to either slumber or trance, purposeful to make noise enough to signal his approach. Imagining it fairly unlikely to out-stealth her, he hasn't intended to regardless of the interesting challenge it would have posed. In fact, the less this feels like stalking, the better it remains for both of them. And so he allows his feet to make just enough noise that she will hear him, his darkvision more than enough to see where he's treading even in low light like this.

Their conversation barely a handful of hours earlier had stirred up enough heat in his blood that he's felt on the cusp of arousal ever since. Every time his eyes had wandered to her, he recalls their plans, created out of a shared moment of want. Of desire. She knows what he is but has committed long enough to learn who he is alongside him. What kind of person he has the potential to flourish into now that he can see beyond the blinkers of his creation.

The reluctance to allow such proximity with any carnal desire coursing through him has overridden everything else up until this moment. A leap of faith, somewhat, perhaps for the both of them. Not in any god, but in him.

"Do you still wish to slip away with me?" he's whispering and, though more than one of their companions would be able to hear his question to her, there's no part of him that will continue without agreement or consent.

[infernaling]

That this is how it's come to happen, born out of some random conversation (if someone pressed her for who opened the subject, who asked so what about you, do you take control or submit, she would find it difficult to remember now) and ending in the actual acknowledgement that she's interested in him - it doesn't surprise her, honestly.

Ea has always been rather direct and practical when it came to sex. Did she like having it? Yes. Did she enjoy the chase and seduction? Fuck no, she's terrible at it. Her idea of romancing someone is keeping all those desires to herself until they figure their shit out, and then maybe take her top off and ask if they're interested.

Failing that, before the whole Nautiloid and consequences experience, she used to find casual hook-ups the easiest. No demands, no emotional attachments - no bed partners who wanted them, exactly. Some could've easily called her a slut, but those people were usually too busy pointing at the horns and calling her a demon, so.

She is used to the wait. She is used to the wanting, too. The part where she gets what she wants is...new. Truth be told, she doesn't expect him to come to her tend after dark - and it would be fine, totally fine to brush off the funny teasing and cheeky banter as unserious, move on, forget all about it, if that's what he needs.

So when she hears his heavy footsteps (and of course she knows they're his, she knows the walking pattern of every one of her companions), her breath catches in her throat, something like hope (stupid, stupid hope) blooming in her chest. She gets up to her feet from where she was, sprawled on top of her bedroll reading to pass the time, and waits for the moment that the flap of her tent opens.

Come on, come on, come on -

"Yes," is the quick, honest, whispered answer, her eyes meeting his. There's no candles lit in her tent, because she doesn't want to keep track of them as they travel as well, but she has cast Light on the book itself. Open as it is in her hand, it casts a blueish and ethereal sort of glow on her and - when he pokes his head inside - on him. She flashes him a quick smile, and closes the book, tossing it onto her bedroll and stepping closer to him. "Very gladly."

[unspooling]

Her keenness is rewarded with the unfurling of a smile, tugging at his lips in a way that doesn't aim to conceal the feeling it provokes. With a metaphorical fist of control clenched tightly around what he must to make this work, he opens another, hand held out palm up in offer. He towers over her, not just in height but the broadness of his shoulders. It makes it necessary for him to duck to keep his head from striking the top of the tent she's pitched.

It leaves him stooping almost comically, even as he tries to maintain some level of secrecy from the rest of their campmates. No doubt at least a few of them are entertained at this very moment by it all.

As he catches her gaze, he can't help but contemplate how beautiful she is, a worthy detail to note and that he allows himself to fully revel in now they have uncovered his longing. From the colour of her skin to the tip of her tail, his desire to acquaint himself with the most minute of details cascades over into his headspace like an avalanche. That she puts her trust in him to know where the line is, he will long attempt to sabotage himself before he lets a lick of his other desires touch her.

"Then follow me."

[infernaling]

She's assuming he knows a place, since she's going to follow. It makes her slightly regret not having splurged to book those rooms atop Elfsong, where the scene of the murder of Stelmane occurred.

Then again, she thinks, maybe they can find a nice place here. There are nice places in Baldur's Gate.

"Kinda miss that farm," she murmurs, referring to the one sprawling ruin on the hilltop before arriving to even Rivington. They'd only rested there for one night, and the aftermath of it had been gruesome - that fight against the githyanki in the astral prism, the bitter taste of allying with the Emperor despite realising every single interaction up until that point truly had been a lie... The farm had been nice.

She'll follow him anyway, not a stranger to the way his gaze wandered, raked over her like heated claws. She likes the way he looks at her. Wants to see how that will change, when there's fewer clothes in the way.

Not that her current campsite ensemble leaves much to the imagination. The top part of it especially, dipped low enough that it leaves her cleavage bare from the middle of her chest is barely disguising the ridges that mark her chest, her arms and her back. She hasn't felt itchy under constraints of scratchy cotton in a while though, and so she's not going to ever give this one up.

[unspooling]

Loathe to lead her on too much of hike - they get plenty of walking in during daylight hours - their eventual destination isn't the most luxurious he could have found, but it is a step up from hay bales. As much as, between them, they could likely make it further if they don't dawdle, he doesn't want to drift too far from aid should they need it. Not for any other reason than if Ea needs backup, she has it close at hand. Forward planning seems to be the only way he can possibly allow himself this much.

"It was surprisingly dramatic," he eventually offers as their careful steps take them out of earshot of their companions, his icy eyes flicking to her, his grin one of humour. It had been more than any of them had anticipated, and so the idea of missing the place tickles something, darkly amused.

"I don't think we would make it there and back in time. Though at least there would have been more doors and walls providing privacy." His eyes sweep their surroundings - mostly the tall buildings and cobbled streets - out of habit before he returns to the conversation. The only option immediately available at camp is some kind of chapel, and even that has two points of entry. Hardly easy to find space enough to explore each other without the threat of an audience.

"Assuming you are able to remain quiet in certain circumstances?"

the sex chapel makes a comeback, nice

[infernaling]

What sort of place of worship was this, she'd ask out loud if she had the headspace left to wonder about such trivial things.

But she doesn't. She's quick to exhale, letting out a soft laugh.

And here she thought he'd aim to make her scream his name in pleasure.

She does a full turn about the empty chapel, and comes to stand in front of him.

He does tower over her. Without the horns taken into account, she barely reaches his shoulder, so when she looks up at him, she really looks up.

That, and him asking if she's capable of remaining quiet (when she's sneaking around? You bet. During sex?) -

"That's a very hot question," she finally answers, grazing her teeth over her lower lip. "I can certainly try."

A beat, and Ea's hands come into play at last. She's touched him before - offered aid in battle, patted his shoulder or back in reassurance - but the way she delicately sets her hands over his chest right now different. Charged. "You have my permission to cover my mouth with something if it should become necessary."

Hands. Fingers. Hell, he could silence her with his cock, she would not protest to that at all.

"Are you going to kiss me now, or do I have to earn it?"

lmfao I have not heard that before but it's spot on

[unspooling]

With the doors pulled shut behind them, he could likely stand to check whether there's a way to bolt them closed. And yet it would require stepping away from his tiefling companion, and in the moment she's deciding whether or not she can keep her mouth shut, he drinks in the sight of her and decides he won't take a single step away until they are through.

"With something," he repeats and it isn't a question. The only question he'd had for her to start with had been the word she wished to use if she wanted him to stop. Any following queries he puts in won't need words to give him an idea of the answer.

He barely contains a wholly different kind of urge to tilt his head at her question, as though he's reminded that kissing is something that people enjoy but doesn't yet fully understand it. The blurred memories of his own experience - what he can remember now of what sex was like at the temple - never included kissing. Not as something pleasant. But any shame or embarrassment he may feel at not being accustomed to that kind of shared intimacy, it simply doesn't seem to exist within him.

Large hands attach themselves to her hips, fingers framing her slender waist as her hands settle at his chest. He dips down, though holds off at the last second sealing their lips together, just far enough away that he can still focus on her.

"I will kiss every inch of you until you are begging for more," he promises, his voice a low murmur, those fingers slipping beneath the bottom of her top to search for skin.

[infernaling]

It's surely too soon in the night to have her toes curled in her boots, right? Or for the interested flick of her tail, or for the visible way her throat moves around a sudden knot in the hollow of it.

Clearly the charismatic one between the two of them. Because it all works. The hold, the approach - she holds her breath, lips parted in anticipation, and - he stalls again, and all she can think of is how much she'd like to trace that scar bisecting his lips with her tongue.

"More," she breathes out, and leans in to kiss him on the scar. Quick and easy and deceptively gentle. It's a second, not longer, and definitely not enough, so here she is. Begging for more. "Please."

[unspooling]

Had he not possessed the level of control required to manage the yearning hunger gifted to him by a god, he likely wouldn't have been able to resist dipping in further. Barely contemplating it as a tease, of source of frustration, his lips quirk into a broader smile as she plants a quick kiss against his scar.

He can feel the difference in sensation, how it feels slightly more numb there but the neighbouring skin feels more sensitive as though compensating. If he thought about it for too long, maybe he'd find it odd that he doesn't remember where the scar came from. Not this one, anyway. The one on his head is a different story.

"Since you ask so politely," he all but whispers, for her ears only, and lifts both hands from her waist. Cupping her face surprisingly tenderly, he stoops down and coaxes her chin up so that he can slot his mouth against hers. Slow and languid at first, steadily building into something more heated as his body responds in kind.

By the time they break for air, his fingers have slipped down between them to tug at the cord holding her top against her frame. It's clear he wants the garments keeping her modest to melt off her until they're pooled at her feet.

[infernaling]

She can't help the little moan at the actual kiss, nor the way that her eyes flutter closes. Her hands on his chest become fists grabbing his shirt, as that kiss progresses and by the time they break for air she wants to rip it off.

She takes her hands off him instead to reach behind her and unfasten the complicated mess of straps of her top, and thus make it easy for him to take it off.

Then she gets distracted with pulling at his clothes, her lips finding his scar again, and then his chin, his jawline. "Take it off." She nips at his jaw. "Please?"

[unspooling]

Feeling the strength of her conviction line up toe-to-toe with his own, he doesn't wait for her to finish her second 'please'.

He doesn't particularly care if his shirt gets ripped, if her claws try to find purchase at the fabric, as he relies on his strength to rearrange their positions. Without much in the way of warning, he spins her around until she's facing away from him, his hands brushing the shoulders of her top free and not stopping until he's got her bare from the waist up.

His lips find the side of her neck, fingers grazing ribs and ridges until they slide over the swell of her breasts and he steps in closer to press the suggestion of his arousal against her small of her back, just above the base of her tail.

"You enjoy softening an order with a 'please'," he says against the shell of her ear, his fingers squeezing lightly before he turns the attention of his finger pads to drawing her nipples to hard points. What he says isn't a question, simply something he's noticed in their time together. It's fascinating, if not something he's curious enough about to explore. Though for now he's enjoying the feeling of her body framed by his from behind, the warmth of her skin beneath his usually dangerous hands turned adventurous.

[infernaling]

She sucks in a soft breath when he turns her around, pure strength pitted against her meagre one - she doesn't offer any resistance, and it doesn't occur to her that she should because by now she trusts him. She entrusts herself in his hand.

And, as a side bar, it's really hot. He's big enough to make her feel small by comparison and sex is the only environment where that sort of thing has appeal. Woe be whoever tries to make her feel small outside of these type of moments; she might clip them, possibly with something sharp.

Her eyes flutter closed, head tilted to allow him access to her neck, every inch of her body coming awake at once. The heat between her legs, the tightness of her nipples, the knot in her throat.

She lets out a tiny whimper of a sound, then bites her lip to silence it. He's affected, she can feel it against the small of her back. The temptation to reach behind her and touch him is there but she is locked in place for the moment by his keen observation.

"Hah - guilty," she admits with a soft laugh, arching to press her breasts towards his hands. The back of her head rests against his shoulder, the bare side of her throat offered to him for more of those teasing touches. "It pays to be polite."

She looks down the length of her body, where his hands are paying attention to her breasts, the view a delicious contrast of colours. He's a canvas of freckles, isn't he? Freckles and scars - is he going to let her map them out too?

Not content with idle hands, she reaches behind her with her right hand, palming him through his pants.

"I can be very polite."

[unspooling]

Low laugh rumbling around his chest, especially as a clever hand slips between them and finds the thick outline of his cock, he doesn't mention in this moment how many cues he takes from her. Not just here, but also when they're out in the big wide world together as merely travel companions. No, it has been a little while since he thought of any of their campmates as just people he's travelling with. He's been there with them through their struggles just as much as they've all been there with him through his. A group of people so open to the notion of second chances that they allow a man like him, with a bloody history that outstrips them all, to stay. To be part of their little ragtag family.

"What we will do here doesn't have a place to stand on ceremony enough for politeness," he says and this time it's more of a growl, her attention at his growing arousal drawing more heat out of him.

His hands glide over the ridges of her torso, fingers working deftly at the form-fitting waistband of her trousers. Perhaps it seems unfair that he is unwrapping her like a gift and he is still fully clothed. But that's just part of handing control over to him. His own body is of less interest to him than that of his playmate.

"Though if you enjoy to beg, I would not part either of us from that delight," he adds, lips fastening at the crook of her bare neck in punctuation.

[infernaling]

It would've been hypocritical of Ea to judge the bloodstains on everyone's hands, when her own past is marred with it. After all, she had her start in a criminal guild not all dissimilar to the Guild of Baldur's Gate, though Nine-Fingers Keene is a nicer Guildmaster than her old bastard. And how did that end, if not with twenty-years-old Ea poisoning the man who claimed he'd moulded her into who she was, a good spy and an even better killer, after he'd generously taken her off the streets? There's marred history and blood on everyone's hands, is the bottom line. She has made it a point to judge people by their current actions, not their pasts. She's not a stranger to crime, but she knows to recognise when someone's working on improving themselves.

They are a weird little ragtag family, aren't they? (Hopefully she's not expected to call him Daddy in that context, because she might laugh. Might.)

There's the rumble of a growl against her back that snaps her out of those thoughts, and a tremble runs through her from head to toes. What we will do here...

Fuck her, honestly. She lets out a little groan at his lips on her neck, her free hand reaching up to cradle the back of his head. "I'll beg," she promises softly, "you'll find that I'm so easy for it..." A beat longer. "Quiet or begging, darling? How do you want me?"

[unspooling]

He switches sides, his mouth latching on to the previously unattended side of her neck as his fingers wiggle the fabric of her trousers down. Enough that the cool air of the disused chapel seeps against her skin where he reveals it. He uses sound as his cue that he's achieved his first goal, waiting for those clothes to hit the stone floor beneath before he's turning her on her heel again. Holds her well enough that she doesn't fall with the way her ankles are lashed together by her pooling trousers.

He barely has time to contemplate how pretty she is before his desire demands more.

Face to face again, he doesn't wait to stake a claim over her mouth as his hands run down the outside of her arms. Eventually they end up at her hips, rocking them forward to bring them flush up against his. He's still contained within his trousers and smallclothes, but the intent and desire is easily felt.

"I want to hear you," he eventually admits as he relinquishes her mouth to do precisely that, ducking down to start trailing kisses across to a shoulder and then down the centre of her chest, sucking briefly on ridges when he finds them. When he gets low enough - and it won't take long - he'll get to his knees, lips and tongue exploring every inch of her ribs and belly that he can see, just like he promised.

[infernaling]

Rather than continue to try and touch him in this awkward position, she does them both a favour and undoes the clasp that holds her trousers up over her tail, so when he pushes them down her hips, they go. It's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it move, and she's clearly had the experience with it. (Her sleight of hand is exquisite.)

It's easy to get distracted, assaulted on all sides and all senses by pleasure as she is. She doesn't even have the chance to toe off her boots and shuck the trousers off completely, let alone reach back to touch him again, before she's spun around again.

Her surprised expression becomes one of smug triumph - "You sure love doing th - mmh," - and then all her words get consumed by the kiss. Yes. Perfect. She wraps her arms around his shoulders all so she can pull herself up on tiptoes and kiss him back, hungry and hard.

Speaking of.

"Fuck," she groans as soon as he breaks apart from her mouth, because he is. He's hard and she feels her mouth water with need - there are too many options for what she could do right now, so perhaps it's a good thing that he gets to decide the order of things.

He wants to hear her, so she doesn't bite back the moan that each suck on each of the ridges on her chest pulls out of her. He has no hair she can grab onto, no horns either, so she has to contend herself with giving him all the sounds instead. He drops to his knees, so she can hold onto his shoulders for balance.

Barely works; there's a kiss that he lands on one rib (where she got stabbed last week in a battle against his sister, the scar gone now, fully healed over, but) it sends a spark of something up her spine and makes her knees buckle.

"Gods... your mouth is something," she murmurs, frankly because she couldn't keep that thought inside even if she tried. "I love it."

[unspooling]

Those lips pepper kisses across her abdomen as though he's worshipping at an altar, and it doesn't pass him by how much less destructive this kind of worship is. Beneath him, he blindly slips his fingers into the top of her boot, tugging both it and the trouser leg further down her calf until it's bunched at her ankle.

"Lift," he murmurs, pats her foot and chances an icy glance up her body as he prepares to take that boot and half her trousers off for her. It'll make what comes next a whole lot easier.

Maybe it's also easy enough to read in his gaze upwards that he's having a good time too. A hefty dose of fondness mixed in with a lot of chemistry, culminating in his desire to strip her naked and finally get intimately acquainted with her body, no blades in sight. Whatever dark whispers for violence may exist even now in his mind, they are eclipsed by his desire for her pleasure. His desire to enjoy pleasure with her.

And if they don't end up waking the others, it will be a small miracle.

[infernaling]

She bites the inside of her cheek when she meets his gaze, lifting her foot automatically on request. Until he slips her boot and trousers off, she doesn't look away from him, so she doesn't miss that hint of a smile on his face.

Good, he should be having a good time. She would like to make sure of it, he's earned himself that.

She sets her bare foot down and raises one eyebrow.

"You like being the one moving my body, don't you, sweetheart?"

[unspooling]

There are so many thoughts that fire through his mind at the same time that he momentarily pauses, his gaze meeting hers as his fingers stay at her now bare ankle. She knows his darkness, even if he doesn't share how viscerally disturbing it gets more often than not. The thrill that comes with it that makes him feel broken and whole in the same breath.

He pulls himself back to what remains the most important: she knows him. Knows that he battles it every moment of every day. And so, starting from that base, dark humour presents itself, as though part of him thinks she would enjoy the absurdness of his timing. The rise of an eyebrow to match hers, the twitch of his lips as he decides that if this is what ruins the mood, perhaps it wasn't going to work out anyway.

Does she trust him?

"I have a lot of experience with moving bodies."