𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏.

[demainvient]

𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 ⊹ 𝒆𝒑𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒍𝒂𝒓𝒚 ⊹ 𝒗𝒊𝒔𝒖𝒂𝒍
 

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[demainvient]

[ She turns into him, her hand lifting to the side of his face, and he's never been this close to her before, close enough for her mouth to press to the corner of his. Her eyes are huge and dark and her voice is a barely there whisper, and then he's leaning in, quick and stuttered like a belated reflex, his mouth on hers firm enough to be almost forceful.

Sophie had teased him about Lune only the other day. Sophie had— Sophie—

An anguished sound tears from his chest and he shifts more to face her, his arm moving from around her back to drive his fingers into the slippery, mussed waves of her hair. It isn't romantic, the way he might have been if they'd sidled along a winding path to this point over cups of coffee and glasses of wine and lingering glances and touches that smolder in memory— it's needy and, he thinks (with what's left enough of him to think at all) needed. Maybe she'll take some comfort in the solidity of his body, his beating pulse, the way his breath scrapes in his chest.

He kisses her again, and again, lips parting to lavish kisses over her mouth, his fabricated hand gripping the cloth of her uniform as he holds her to him. His head is still fuzzy and strange, but it's emptying now into clouds of steam. If she wants this distraction, if she needs this closeness, he's more than happy to provide. He needs it, too. ]

[trebuchim]

[ Lune's fingers tremble against his face and her eyes squeeze shut when his mouth mashes firmly against her own, issuing a low sound of her own from the back of her throat; less desire than it is relief. For a second she remains stock-still, but then she's sliding those fingers properly into his hair at the back of his head and fisting the messy strands as if to hold him where he is. A heavy shudder shakes her entire frame, borne out of anxiety and the slow release of it rather than the chill clinging to the night air.

She manages to snake her other arm around Gustave, clutching his shoulder hard and clinging on like a drowning sailor to a lifeline. Their bodies press together tightly and she thinks she can feel the frantic beat of his heart against her own ribcage as she returns each urgent kiss without hesitation, each point of contact between them limned with desperation to feel anything else but misery.

Part of her recognizes distantly that they're both hurting and reeling from recent events, moral considerations of doing this briefly flickering somewhere in the back of her mind— but how wrong can it be to seek this comfort in each other if it helps them carry on?

She gasps for air once they break apart long enough to breathe, tasting him still on kiss-swollen lips while her forehead presses against his, as if pulling further back would break this wordless understanding between them. But she has to after a moment, just enough to meet his eyes again, her own hooded and dilated and almost black in the gloom, her hand drifting from his shoulder to his chest. There's hesitation in her movements there, a question— because kissing is one thing, but more than that, well... she's not so far gone she'll assume consent, no matter how urgent the need. ]

[demainvient]

[ Her strong, slender fingers slip into his hair and grip hard and another half-choked groan lurches from his chest. It's impossible to tell if she's shaking in his arms or if he's shaking in hers, hard shudders tensing every muscle as he brings her close. She meets him like a gathering storm, overwhelming him with sensation as his metal arm winds around her waist and drags her close, nearly into his lap.

Even when she pulls back, her eyes huge and dark in the flickering firelight, he feels caught in her gravity, her kisses still burning on his mouth, in his blood. He feels as drunk on her touch as he's ever been on a bottle of wine, with the same fuzzy, numbed heat of alcohol flushing color into his pale cheeks.

There's a question in her eyes, in the way she slides her hand to his chest to spread her fingers over his racing heart, and he slides his left arm from around her to place his cool fabricated hand over hers. Despite the rising flood of need, his touch is gentle when he curls metal fingers around hers.

He swallows; nods. ]

Yes.

[ His eyes, too, are wide and dark, nearly black with dilated pupils, but he has just enough of a slipping fingerhold on his own sanity to try and catch his breath, to ask her the same question. ]

Yes?

[trebuchim]

[ Her fingers tighten gently against his chest under the press of his artificial ones, something almost symbolic in the way her palm covers his heart as she meets his eyes, the pain and sorrow she sees in them reflected in her own. ]

Yes. [ Lune nods her agreement, voice a ragged whisper. ] Yes.

[ Empathic now, encroaching on needy once more; evidenced by the way she surges like a storm front and hungrily claims Gustave's mouth with hers again, a little groan muffled against his lips as she kisses him with mounting urgency, over and over, a taste of electricity on her tongue. In contrast, trembling fingers comb a bit shakily through his hair, gentler now than a moment ago. ]

Gustave... I need you— [ She entreats in between kisses and shaky breaths of air gasped against his lips and cheek, voice so soft it's barely audible; her hands have now slipped down to frantically tug open buttons and fastenings of his uniform. ]

[demainvient]

[ Yes, she breathes, and then her mouth is crashing into his again and he lets go of her hand to skate metal fingers over her shoulder, her arm, around to her back, pulling her in as much as she's pushing herself. Little flickers of electricity sputter between them, sharpening the kisses he presses to her mouth more than the edge of his teeth that run lightly over her bottom lip do. He can feel it gathering between them, the looming promise of a storm about to break. ]

I'm here.

[ He twists his shoulders to give her room, letting go of her only long enough to reach up and shove the straps of his backpack off himself, followed by the jacket Sophie and his apprentices had worked so hard on.

That thought yawns in front of him like a deep, jagged ravine, and he shies from it in the next second. He can't think about Sophie, about his apprentices, about how proud they all were to wear their uniforms together for the first time —

Her fingers work loose the buttons of his waistcoat, and he shucks that off, too, before reaching for the fastenings of her own uniform, fingers shaking with urgency even as he leans in to kiss her again, deep and drowning. ]

I'm here.

[trebuchim]

You're here.

[ She agrees breathlessly even as she helps him push off the fabric from his shoulders, catching her breath from his urgent kisses, confirmation as much as it is a reassurance right back at him. He's here with her in this moment, alive, surviving however they can.

We continue.

Lune shrugs off her own coat, squirming a little to tug the short sleeves down and away; buckles and buttons are worked loose by shaking fingers, his or hers, it hardly matters. The buttons of her overshirt give away, but there's more still in the white vest underneath —too fucking many buttons.

She doesn't entirely realize she's mumbling the complaint against Gustave's lips, a half-formed thought before she's kissing him again hungrily, with teeth and tongue and a low moan at the back of her throat. ]

[demainvient]

[ She's swearing against his mouth as her fingers compete with his to undo all her myriad buttons, and he could almost laugh if he weren't just as likely to cry. His own fingers are trembling, but he works one button loose — two, three — and leaves the last few to her care to reach up and shuck off his shirt, leaving it aside in a pile of fabric.

It leaves him bare from the waist up, moonlight glimmering on his pale skin and off the metal of his left arm, the gold lines of pictos traced through the metal gleaming in the wash of cool light. His chest heaves with every breath, and he leaves off pressing kisses against her mouth to let his lips find the slender column of her throat, moving against the pulse he can feel there.

He has just enough presence of mind left to straighten after a moment, reaching for her right hand to begin loosening the fingers of her glove. His own right hand slips up along her arm and gently works the glove free where it's tugged right up over her biceps. Slowly, carefully, he drags the glove all the way off ofer arm, leaving it bare to him before he lowers his head and presses warm kisses on the newly bared skin: first on her forearm, then up over the delicate warm crux of her elbow, along her upper arm to her shoulder. ]

Lune.

[trebuchim]

[ Lune gets the last of her buttons undone while Gustave disposes of his own shirt, tipping her head back with a low sigh to give his mouth room to caress along her throat, the sensation of soft and rough as his beard scratches at her skin sending shivers down her spine. She no longer feels the cold, even when she manages to finally shrug off her own shirt to leave herself as bare-chested as he is; now everything is warm, heat building beneath her skin.

Where every movement was only a moment ago cast in such urgency, now time seems to slow to a crawl as Gustave removes her glove, careful and deliberate; Lune's still for a moment and simply watches, mesmerized, her breaths shortening slightly with every soft kiss he trails up her bare arm once he's done.

The flickering firelight catches and glints on the golden patterns of her pictos etched straight into the skin of her left arm and shoulder, her expedition sash still wrapped about her bicep as she brings her hand to cradle Gustave's face gently, wordlessly guiding him up from the slope of her shoulder to meet her eyes. There's heat and yearning in them, but also something softer— a shared understanding. Her free hand finds his bare chest, sliding reverently over skin and muscle. ]

Gustave. [ She leans in slowly and presses her lips to his in a soft kiss, then another and another— the hand on his chest strokes up, over his shoulder and ends up wrapping loosely around his neck, pressing herself closer until their bare fronts brush and meld intimately. ]

[demainvient]

[ He's never heard her same his name like that before, like it's burning off her tongue, breathless and wanting, and it's as strange as it isn't. Lune's beautiful, but he's always known that, even as he's simply observed that fact from a distance. Now that she's here in his arms, pressing kisses against his mouth and shuddering at his touch, she's as glorious and impossibly lovely as the glowing moon that is her namesake.

The air is cool against his bare skin, except for where heat licks over it from the fire and from Lune's scalding touch. He doesn't think it's her abilities that make her fingers feel like flames sheeting over him, but it's always a possibility — not that he can care at all. If he wakes up tomorrow with burn marks pinking his skin, so be it; he needs this too much, her hands on him, her bared front pressing to his one, her mouth plush and sharp all at the same time, driving him insane.

He has just enough presence of mind to reach blindly behind himself, fingers scrabbling in the grass until he finds his discarded jacket. He drags it around them, spreading it behind her as well as he can with only one hand and no eyes on his work and a great deal of impatience truncating any attempt at smoothing it out or making it perfect. It just needs to be what barrier he can manage between her bare back and the cool grass as he shifts his weight forward, left arm going around her to support her as he coaxes her back and follows her down, mouth pressed hungrily to hers. ]

[trebuchim]

[ Lune smiles slightly into their kisses when she feels him move, hears fabric drag softly against grass and already guesses what Gustave's doing— considerate even now, when she would have been fine bedding down on bare ground in this very moment. The metal of his fabricated arm is cool against her warm back as it curls about her supportively, her suspicion confirmed when her back hits not only night-cooled grass but sturdy fabric as well.

She breathes a fervid little noise against his mouth at the change of position, the way their bodies press together more firmly with gravity playing its part, skin to skin. Now she kisses him more intensely again with probing tongue and nipping teeth, matching his hunger with her own, one hand buried in the tousled waves of his soft hair whilst the other strokes greedily up and down his back, enjoying the play of shifting muscle beneath her palm. She feels like she could happily drown in this closeness, this visceral comfort of another's warm body, and blissfully forget about everything that came before. She wants that more than anything now, wants to gorge herself on this mounting physical pleasure until it burns her out from within. ]

Yes, [ she gasps once more against his jaw when she tears her mouth from his to catch her breath, her hot, heaving breaths puffing against his skin for a moment as she tips her head back and bares her throat to him in the process, smooth and pale like marble in the cool wash of moonlight. ]

[demainvient]

[ He kisses her back into the mussed fabric of his jacket, open-mouthed and deep, back arching into her touch as her hands run along heated skin. She's nothing like Sophie, and this is nothing like an act of love, except for the kind of love that helps two people keep one another alive, that reminds them both they aren't alone. That's a sort of love, too, deep and drowning and woven into their bones, their veins. He doesn't love Lune the way he'd loved Sophie, but in this moment he loves her in a different way; the only friend he has left, the only person here he can take care of.

And he will take care of her, he promises himself. She lets her head fall back and he takes the invitation to kiss along the curve of her pale, perfect throat, stubble brushing over skin before he laves it with his tongue.

He doesn't stop when he gets to the curve where her neck meets her shoulder, but spends a long moment there adoring the muscle that keeps her shoulders so straight and her head so high, grazing his teeth over skin before he soothes it with a kiss. And then he ducks his head, back shifting under her hands as he leans on an elbow and pushes himself downward, kissing over the plane of her chest to the soft curve of one perfect breast. She's so soft beneath his mouth, soft and yielding as he pulls gently at skin. He tries not to rush, but impatience and need lash at him, and he lifts his head to set his mouth over her nipple, drawing up on the tight bud of flesh and running his tongue warmly over her.

A sound rolls out of him, a groan that rumbles in his chest, and he shifts his weight to his left side so he can run the palm of his right hand up her bare belly to her other breast, curving his fingers over her, stroking, wanting to drive everything but pleasure out of her mind entirely. ]

[trebuchim]

Merde... [ The curse lacks its usual impact, a mere stuttering sigh of wonderment at the sensations he's arousing in her, shuddering beneath him as his lips meander down from the crook of her neck to traverse her heaving chest— his mouth burns a trail across her skin, and the earnest devotion takes her aback. She can feel the care he pours into every touch, the comfort he's doing his best to offer her, just like she'd beseeched. The world around them has shrunken, crystallized into nothing but this; this need and this connection that exists between them for this moment.

She matches his groan with a low moan of her own when his mouth finds her tight nipple, his hand palming her opposite breast. Her back arches off the ground a little and her fingers grasp at his back, blunt nails digging into his flesh as she writhes beneath his touches. Blood rushes in her ears, and she's no longer thinking. Just feeling, every kiss and caress and brush of skin against skin, scalding and heady. The more attention he pays to her chest, the more inflamed and impatient she feels. Her hands begin to drift restlessly, stroking over his back and shoulders, brushing over the nape of his neck and slipping down along his sides, nails scraping lightly here and there, her breaths coming in trembling little huffs.

She bites her lip on a groan as his fingers roll her hardened nipple just so, and her hands suddenly snake down to scrabble with the fastenings of her own trousers, evidently intent of being rid of those too soon enough. ]

[demainvient]

[ Lune's cursing and arching beneath him, already starting to come undone, and he's glad, so glad, he can do this for her. For her, and a little for himself. It's a far, far better way to expend their energy than arguing or getting fruitlessly lost in the meadows that wind every which way around them. With every kiss and every caress, he reminds them both that they're still alive.

He can feel her heart pounding as he kisses over her chest, before he lifts just enough to settle back on his knees and reach trembling, impatient fingers for the fastening of her trousers, his fingers winding with hers as they both try to loosen the damn things. And then they are loose, and he's got his fingers curled into the waistband to drag them down over her hips, along the beautiful long lines of her legs, and off her body completely, and then there's— nothing between his eyes and her bared skin, and for a moment all he can do is stare.

She's gorgeous, creamy and perfect in the moonlight, and he can feel the ache in his own groin as he looks at her, before he's leaning back down again, running his right hand up her leg, fingers curving around her thigh as he presses his mouth to the rise of her hip, following the angled line down below her belly until he's settling himself between her legs, arms beneath her thighs, coaxing them apart with one warm hand and one cool metal one, scattering kisses over the soft skin of her inner thigh. ]

[trebuchim]

[ Lune's last stitch of clothing is gone, cool air licking at her heated skin as she tries to steady her breathing, taking the moment to similarly just look at him beneath heavy eyelids. She's never seen him like this, mussed and breathless, the same impatient hunger in his eyes she knows resides in her own. It's insanely appealing, and she's about to shake off her passivity to tackle his pants next, to get him as naked as she so they can finally—

But Gustave moves first, and she isn't expecting him to begin inching downward, surprised into stillness for a second. A ragged little whimper escapes her when his mouth descends further down from her hip and she catches onto what's about to happen, her thoughts moving slowly from the heady onslaught of arousal. She jolts a little, a dash of uncertainty licking through her even as she shudders at the way the backs of her thighs pillow against his arms and shoulders, swallowing dryly as his lips love the sensitive inside of one thigh. It's intimate and vulnerable being this blatantly exposed, things that Lune isn't well-versed in, and yet a quiver of helpless excitement ripples across her skin regardless. ]

Gustave... y-you don't have to—

[ But if she really wanted to put a stop to it, she would have already. And when his mouth finds the hot center of her, the moan that gets dragged out of her is loud and filled with relief-soaked pleasure, her head dropping back to the rumpled uniform beneath her, eyes squeezed shut and fingers clawing at the grass as sheer sensation punches through her, relentless as a tidal wave. ]

[demainvient]

[ He doesn't have to, he knows it, but he's driven all the same, all his focus bent on a single thought: to give her just a few moments of something other than grief and fear and the strange muffling shock that's been covering both of them since they stumbled their way out of that cave.

She dragged him back into life, bullying and shoving. This, doing everything he can to bring her back into her body the way she did for him, can't even begin to touch the debt he owes to her, the apologies he owes to her. He'd been cruel, thoughtlessly, in his temper, and she hadn't deserved it, no matter if she'd accepted his apologies.

That bright moon is dark overhead now, cast behind some clouds, and some part of him is almost glad to have the excuse not to be able to push forward, to be able to offer her this for just a little while. The little cry she gives arrows straight through him, hot and sharp, and he responds by pressing his mouth more firmly to her, sucking and licking at that hard bud of nerves between her legs, pressing kiss after kiss to her core.

He shifts just enough to put his weight more on his right elbow, slipping his metal left hand from under her thigh and sliding his fingers, cool against slick, heated flesh, between her legs to rub over her, to push her gently apart so he can lave her with the flat of his tongue in long, firm licks before he draws up on that sensitive flesh with his mouth. He's always been single-minded and focused in his work, and now he turns all that focus on her, ignoring for the moment the way his own trousers strain, the heat between his own legs. ]

[trebuchim]

[ There's no debt, as far as she's concerned, but that's an argument to be had some other time. Some other time when she isn't actively losing her mind to the molten pleasure filling every inch of her, pushing out everything else; every thought and every other sensation effectively blotted out— hell, she'd nearly forgotten the human body is actually capable of experiencing pleasure like this.

She cries out again at the feel of his artificial fingers stroking her, the shock of coolness against the wet heat of her making her entire frame shudder, trembling thighs opening wide to invite more of his touch, everything else driven from her head that isn't a hunger for more, more, more. Her breath comes in heaving, heavy pants, loud in the quiet of the night, every exhale tinged with a faint moan as he edges her steadily ever higher, every lick and suck to the most sensitive parts of her driving her insane with pure wanting. Her heart hammers against her ribs and her thighs tremor harder, her hips squirming restlessly now; she sinks the fingers of one hand into Gustave's hair and holds on for dear life while the other finds her own breast, trapping a hard nipple between her thumb and forefinger. ]

Merde— please... [ She barely realizes she's pleading amidst her sighs and moans, so close now she can almost taste it. ]