She wants badly to kiss him, then. This man who has chosen to hold every memory so dear, to carry so much on broad shoulders. Instead, he inspects an old wound, and she squirms under his touch. Not at all unwilling- her movements mark impatience.
"Never forget you," she murmurs, eyes closed, trying to calm herself. "Terrible with names, I am, and faces. Remembered yours even after you took the helm off. Every detail."
Is this true, or what her memory has corrected through pure hope and desire? It doesn't matter; the outcome is the same.
He has no doubt she speaks the truth. Romanticized truth, perhaps, but a picture painted entirely from what she sees in him rather than its absolute reality is not so terrible a fate to submit to. Better than what he deserves. Better still than to be dust and ash, relegated to nothingness alongside Landis.
Of course, should all things go as they likely must, he will outlive her. And so those memories too will be forgotten.
But he’ll not forget her.
His mouth again sinks to press itself to her belly. He is done with this conversation, and desires no more. A truth unmistakable when he sinks yet lower, fitting himself between her thighs— mouthing at one with steadier attention where it settles high across his shoulder.
He has not finished reading, but it is possible he’s read enough.
It's been some time since she's had this, in any form. She can't, actually, remember when the last time was. Before joining Riftwatch, so over a year at least. She tenses, slightly, before letting herself relax into it. Her eyes slip closed. Her fingers find his hair.
"Love you," she murmurs, "wish I could say it cleverer."
It’s the last, lone bastion of sterner insistence offered up before his mouth is upon her, truly. Before silence prevails, his tongue to slickened heat and soft warmth, working at her with diligent focus in the dark.
Rough hands cling to the high point of her hips, a heavy brace against the way he moves himself against her— to draw her nearer against the steady press of his mouth, and the pressure it inspires with every kiss. Every touch. Every buried flick of his tongue.
As for the rest, he holds no objection to the feel of her fingers locked tight across his scalp. Arguably (a thought he’ll no doubt return to later, once this has all passed), he appreciates it somehow. Some absent part of him, arching into contact of its own accord.
The faintest dawning appreciation for something yet undiscovered. Like ribbon. Like rope. Like the feel of her throat between his fingertips.
And she hasn't the will to respond. A hiccuping gasp, and she's lost to it. His eagerness, his willingness, makes this all the sweeter. She never had to cajole him into it. The thought heightens her appreciation.
It isn't long before her knuckles press to his hair, fingers pulling, and his name is high and keen on her lips.
He does not stop. Does not think of himself, though the pit of his stomach is weighted with the yawning pull of desire.
The attention he pays her is demonstrative, devoted. There was a time when he would reel from being called by name, and yet here, when it’s called out with the most intimate of fervor, warmth blooms like spreading fire beneath the cage of his ribs.
He welcomes it. He wants it.
From her, only her.
And with an intensity spurred on by encouragement, he moves quicker, sinks deeper— does all that he can think to have her shivering in his grasp. Inexpert, perhaps, yet not insufficient by any measure.
Some efforts are more instinctive than others, and in this, he feels uniquely confident.
Hands in his hair, gasping his name, it's all too much, and it spills over. She no longer restrains herself, and so she grasps at him, tugging, legs wrapped around him. All through it, she has his name to give back.
And yet he offers more at the altar of her passion. Until she falls silent in his hold, hands fitted tightly across her waist— and then, with easing resignation, his cheek tips back to fall against her thigh. As relaxed as if it had been his own satisfaction found. He does not ask after his own performance. Her contentment is enough.
His thumbs press, breath slipping out across her skin. He lingers for a time before rising, slow to lay himself across her once more like an ill-suited blanket.
But attention is what she wants to give him. Her breathing is still heavy, so she presses her face, newly hot, into the crook of his neck. "Oh, Noah," she murmurs, like some silly princess in a play. Yet it's the only thing in the world to say that makes any sense, in this moment.
"Fuck me," there, that's more like her. "You'll like it better." And so will she.
spends 800 years writing u a literal novel I'm sorry
He is so uniquely accustomed to it now, every last one of her foreign patterns of speech, differing even from most of Riftwatch. Habits he knows how to effortlessly recognize— with or without context.
If something falls, fuck me is a curse. Should some hissing, untamed spirit assail her from the trees, fuck me is shock. Horror. When her eyes fill with thirst yet unslaked, and her arms wind themselves about his neck, fuck me is a request.
And when she is tired, and her breathing gone shallow with pleasure, fuck me is contentment, expressed without shame.
So it’s only with the latent addition of you’ll like it better— her face burrowed sweet against the slope of his throat— that he understands it is neither a curse nor appeasement, nor fear, nor fury itself.
It is a command.
One that manages to draw a puff of exhaled air from him as surely as the near-carnal compliments she once paid him, before he was truly capable of weathering the merciless storm of her (often deliberately) vexatious companionship.
But to be asked twice would be inexcusable. Whatever delay is brought about by confusion, Noah is more than swift to correct: hands shifting to frame her ribs, fitted to corded muscle flush with smoldering heat. His hips roll, levering against her where she remains suffused with slickness from his efforts, finding it all too undemanding a task to press himself to her— to slide himself, slow and twitchingly impatient— inside of her, even without the aid of his own fingertips. Or hers.
And from there he moves to bear his balance against the edge of the bed, almost tucking her legs higher against him with it. Beginning the drawn-out process of rocking his hips against her own.
This, when achieved, is one of her favorite things. Embarrassingly simple, maybe, but rare enough to be cherished. Everything feels a bit more glossy, a bit heightened, sore yet sweet. A little whine escapes her as her arms stretch around him, feeling the noble slope of his back, the curve of his shoulders.
"Tha-hat's good." Her speech is nonsense, pressed into his throat among lazy kisses and the occasional fragmented moan.
It is almost as if she rises to meet him, borne of the way she listlessly stretches up into his arms, entirely open to the pattern of his thrusts. And it means that her pacing— like his— is almost languid: both of them, having already basked in the luxury of deeper touch, aren’t doggedly rushing for any immediate finish. Time swims beneath the current of her doting attentions, and where normally he’d be struggling to stay abreast of the sensation running high along his spine (beneath the sweeter press of her rough hands), he finds no such weakness knifing into him now, when all he need content himself with lies beneath him.
And him within her.
Buried to the hilt, dragging without friction. Breathing high in his throat, a heavier pattern as his own rhythm quickens at last.
Jone yelps embarrassing little sounds of contentment, for Noah's ears alone. Her mouth is pressed to them, the cool shell, the hot skin just next to it. Luxuriating in him.
Isn't this nice she wants to ask, but he doesn't like talking. Everyone has their deficiency. She'd rather drag blunt nails down his back as a spike of phantom pleasure hits, and her back arches, slow and appreciative. She's left laughing in its wake, her mouth pressed to his throat.
do you like how I took my time doing this so you'd be too sleepy to rush to give me tagbacks >]
Her nails catch on old scars, the sensation digging right into the overwhelming rush already burning like stoked embers in his veins, causing his eyelashes to flutter when he pauses (briefly) to groan into the warm span of her skin, profile tucked beneath her collarbone.
He could lose himself to this.
He is losing: his exhales stuttering and ragged, voice now entirely untethered to all the false growls and deeper, gritted tones he so normally expresses. His hips buck in irregular patterns, his blunted nails biting into her skin.
And her laugh—
So far from any sense of self, he takes it only as a welcome gift, rather than some subconscious criticism. Drinks deep of it, as he does Jone herself, consuming everything she grants in this moment.
Her hands move up, once more exploring the curve of his spine. One finds the nape of his neck, and stays there, cradling him close. He is beautiful, unfairly so, hers and close and lovely. She groans back, pleasure shared.
The jerk of his moments, slowly unraveling, make her gasp against him, wordless encouragement delivered directly to his ear. Her hand reaches between them, and her spine curves. "Fuck, Noah."
A quick snap of his senses— as though pulled too tight— and he’s gone in a hitching, gasping fit: mouth to her shoulder, teeth digging, hands dragging at her side until they pin low across her hips, bracing against the last of his own ragged, panting exertion.
When he slumps against her, he does not think to ask after her. To shift aside so she can satisfy herself, or to sink his fingertips lower across her waist. He does not think of anything, in fact, settled heavily like silt across her, panting through the edges of his teeth as though he were an animal run far too hard for far too long.
It is a pleasantness he's come to appreciate, though he'll not deign to openly admit to it anywhere else but within the circle of her embrace.
He's too dear, and she's too tender-- his motions, hers, all melt into one. A high sound escapes her, and she falls for the second time into abandon, her body seizing around him. Her fingers scrape, her back arches, and it's all she can do to muffle herself, mouth pressed against his brow, lips bitten.
She moves with him until she can't think anymore. A momentary escape, an island of blessed nothingness, and she comes back to herself, panting for air. She moves some of the thick blankets they've amassed, just trying to get more air on her skin.
She lets her head loll back, sinking deeper into the bed. "Cor blimey," she murmurs into his salted skin, "don't think I'll be getting up ever again."
It takes time for his own thoughts to coalesce. Wearied and worn through by contentment, all he can offer is a slow start, the toughened edges of his thumbs sliding down across her sides as he relocates by the barest of degrees, chin tucked to her scarred and bespeckled shoulder.
“Would you,” he begins, a halting, hushed murmur, “then say I have read enough?”
That book all but forgotten by now, knocked somewhere to the floor.
It's not a beautiful laugh, more throaty and deep. She turns her head to kiss his brow, to pet at his hair and hold him close. This strange man, all hers, and she revels in it.
"You have, you have." She lies back, still catching her breath. "Don't get smug. It's too handsome on you; I'll be distracted for days."
“You would be distracted regardless.” Noah counters, leaning into the kiss she affords him with all the pressing need of a touch-starved hound. At odds with the image he otherwise cuts from stern features and harsher stares, made docile in her hold, her assurance— her adoration, for a man that has never known the luxury of it otherwise.
At times, he wonders if she remains certain that his loyalty will fade.
Warm breath wafts over him as she laughs. Jone holds him close, like the precious, beloved thing he is.
"'Cos you're lovely," she murmurs into his hairline. "Don't forget that."
She isn't thinking of her death and his agelessness. She thinks of how he'll one day tire of her-- it feels unlikely now, but it's distinctly possible. Not inevitable, but... not unheard of.
"The more you speak of it," He murmurs, the words almost lazy for his listlessness, and lacking in bite regardless. "The more tempted I become to remain in armor."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
"Never forget you," she murmurs, eyes closed, trying to calm herself. "Terrible with names, I am, and faces. Remembered yours even after you took the helm off. Every detail."
Is this true, or what her memory has corrected through pure hope and desire? It doesn't matter; the outcome is the same.
no subject
Of course, should all things go as they likely must, he will outlive her. And so those memories too will be forgotten.
But he’ll not forget her.
His mouth again sinks to press itself to her belly. He is done with this conversation, and desires no more. A truth unmistakable when he sinks yet lower, fitting himself between her thighs— mouthing at one with steadier attention where it settles high across his shoulder.
He has not finished reading, but it is possible he’s read enough.
no subject
"Love you," she murmurs, "wish I could say it cleverer."
no subject
It’s the last, lone bastion of sterner insistence offered up before his mouth is upon her, truly. Before silence prevails, his tongue to slickened heat and soft warmth, working at her with diligent focus in the dark.
Rough hands cling to the high point of her hips, a heavy brace against the way he moves himself against her— to draw her nearer against the steady press of his mouth, and the pressure it inspires with every kiss. Every touch. Every buried flick of his tongue.
As for the rest, he holds no objection to the feel of her fingers locked tight across his scalp. Arguably (a thought he’ll no doubt return to later, once this has all passed), he appreciates it somehow. Some absent part of him, arching into contact of its own accord.
The faintest dawning appreciation for something yet undiscovered. Like ribbon. Like rope. Like the feel of her throat between his fingertips.
no subject
It isn't long before her knuckles press to his hair, fingers pulling, and his name is high and keen on her lips.
no subject
The attention he pays her is demonstrative, devoted. There was a time when he would reel from being called by name, and yet here, when it’s called out with the most intimate of fervor, warmth blooms like spreading fire beneath the cage of his ribs.
He welcomes it. He wants it.
From her, only her.
And with an intensity spurred on by encouragement, he moves quicker, sinks deeper— does all that he can think to have her shivering in his grasp. Inexpert, perhaps, yet not insufficient by any measure.
Some efforts are more instinctive than others, and in this, he feels uniquely confident.
no subject
no subject
His thumbs press, breath slipping out across her skin. He lingers for a time before rising, slow to lay himself across her once more like an ill-suited blanket.
Not for her attention, only to remain close.
no subject
"Fuck me," there, that's more like her. "You'll like it better." And so will she.
spends 800 years writing u a literal novel I'm sorry
If something falls, fuck me is a curse. Should some hissing, untamed spirit assail her from the trees, fuck me is shock. Horror. When her eyes fill with thirst yet unslaked, and her arms wind themselves about his neck, fuck me is a request.
And when she is tired, and her breathing gone shallow with pleasure, fuck me is contentment, expressed without shame.
So it’s only with the latent addition of you’ll like it better— her face burrowed sweet against the slope of his throat— that he understands it is neither a curse nor appeasement, nor fear, nor fury itself.
It is a command.
One that manages to draw a puff of exhaled air from him as surely as the near-carnal compliments she once paid him, before he was truly capable of weathering the merciless storm of her (often deliberately) vexatious companionship.
But to be asked twice would be inexcusable. Whatever delay is brought about by confusion, Noah is more than swift to correct: hands shifting to frame her ribs, fitted to corded muscle flush with smoldering heat. His hips roll, levering against her where she remains suffused with slickness from his efforts, finding it all too undemanding a task to press himself to her— to slide himself, slow and twitchingly impatient— inside of her, even without the aid of his own fingertips. Or hers.
And from there he moves to bear his balance against the edge of the bed, almost tucking her legs higher against him with it. Beginning the drawn-out process of rocking his hips against her own.
but love it tho.
"Tha-hat's good." Her speech is nonsense, pressed into his throat among lazy kisses and the occasional fragmented moan.
He truly is extraordinary.
no subject
And him within her.
Buried to the hilt, dragging without friction. Breathing high in his throat, a heavier pattern as his own rhythm quickens at last.
no subject
Isn't this nice she wants to ask, but he doesn't like talking. Everyone has their deficiency. She'd rather drag blunt nails down his back as a spike of phantom pleasure hits, and her back arches, slow and appreciative. She's left laughing in its wake, her mouth pressed to his throat.
do you like how I took my time doing this so you'd be too sleepy to rush to give me tagbacks >]
He could lose himself to this.
He is losing: his exhales stuttering and ragged, voice now entirely untethered to all the false growls and deeper, gritted tones he so normally expresses. His hips buck in irregular patterns, his blunted nails biting into her skin.
And her laugh—
So far from any sense of self, he takes it only as a welcome gift, rather than some subconscious criticism. Drinks deep of it, as he does Jone herself, consuming everything she grants in this moment.
no subject
The jerk of his moments, slowly unraveling, make her gasp against him, wordless encouragement delivered directly to his ear. Her hand reaches between them, and her spine curves. "Fuck, Noah."
no subject
A quick snap of his senses— as though pulled too tight— and he’s gone in a hitching, gasping fit: mouth to her shoulder, teeth digging, hands dragging at her side until they pin low across her hips, bracing against the last of his own ragged, panting exertion.
When he slumps against her, he does not think to ask after her. To shift aside so she can satisfy herself, or to sink his fingertips lower across her waist. He does not think of anything, in fact, settled heavily like silt across her, panting through the edges of his teeth as though he were an animal run far too hard for far too long.
It is a pleasantness he's come to appreciate, though he'll not deign to openly admit to it anywhere else but within the circle of her embrace.
no subject
She moves with him until she can't think anymore. A momentary escape, an island of blessed nothingness, and she comes back to herself, panting for air. She moves some of the thick blankets they've amassed, just trying to get more air on her skin.
She lets her head loll back, sinking deeper into the bed. "Cor blimey," she murmurs into his salted skin, "don't think I'll be getting up ever again."
no subject
“Would you,” he begins, a halting, hushed murmur, “then say I have read enough?”
That book all but forgotten by now, knocked somewhere to the floor.
no subject
"You have, you have." She lies back, still catching her breath. "Don't get smug. It's too handsome on you; I'll be distracted for days."
no subject
At times, he wonders if she remains certain that his loyalty will fade.
He never asks.
no subject
"'Cos you're lovely," she murmurs into his hairline. "Don't forget that."
She isn't thinking of her death and his agelessness. She thinks of how he'll one day tire of her-- it feels unlikely now, but it's distinctly possible. Not inevitable, but... not unheard of.
no subject