written by the victors

"Wanna go at it again?"

"Sounds good, I ain't losing this time."

It is the middle of the night when he is woken up by the sensation of a hand being pressed firmly to his chest, directly above his steadily beating heart, and the fingers of another brushing gently over his lips, along his jawline. The feeling is pleasant, oddly soothing in combination with the effects of the alcohol still flowing through his veins, and he makes a small, low sound of content in his throat before forcing himself to open his eyes blearily. It takes a moment for his vision to adjust to the dark, and another moment still for him to realize that she is hovering above him, supporting her weight on her forearms as she continues to touch him, feather-light and fleeting, but his smile is no less wolfish nor genuine when their eyes finally meet.

"Sleep well, doll?" He quirks an eyebrow suggestively, lifts a hand to comb his fingers through the soft, dark curtain of her hair. "Or are you ready for the next round?"

But the response she gives instead takes him aback. "I saw you die." Her voice is little more than a breathless whisper, and despite the warmth of the room and the bed and her body on his, he feels his skin prickle with gooseflesh. "I saw you die, and I almost died, and we shouldn't be here but we are, and I don't understand."

At her responses, he feels something deep inside him turn to ice, and he panics, wonders if he had misinterpreted the drunken banter they'd exchanged in the castle ballroom earlier that evening before she'd come with him to the room the room he'd been so graciously allowed that night by the order of the king. He searches her face desperately for a sign, a hint, of any wrong he might have done to her, and his stomach clenches painfully, guiltily, when she blinks, and a tear falls from her lashes to land at the corner of his mouth. His tongue pokes from the corner of his mouth to taste it without a second thought half a moment later, and the guilt that has already started to gnaw away at him is quickly replaced by confusion when he sees that she is in fact smiling at him. Quickly, he sits up, brows furrowed in his own confusion, and he looks at her with as much sobriety as he can muster at that moment. "Cana, look — I had a great time earlier, but if I did something wrong by bringing you up here tonight, you have to tell me." He offers her a half-smile in an attempt to lighten the mood. "My pride as a man couldn't handle it otherwise, see."

She blinks at him through the darkness, and it takes her a few seconds before she understands the meaning behind his words; even in the darkness, he can see a hint of the flush on her cheeks as she responds, despite the confidence and bravado of her tone. "I'm a big girl, Bacchus — believe me, I can hold my own against mages tougher than a little puppy like you." And then she smirks, fixing him with a pointed look. "Don't think that I didn't enjoy it, though."

The relief that courses through his body, then, at her reply surprises even him, and for no other reason than the fact that he simply wants to, he snakes an arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him as he falls back into the comfort of the great bed with all the exuberance and eagerness of the very animal she'd called him just a moment before. The action takes her by surprise, and she places her hands against his chest in an attempt to brace herself; it hardly works, and they soon find themselves face-to-face, lips barely a hairsbreadth apart. He grins at her, and she gives him a smirk of her own in return, and he opens his mouth to tell her something witty and laced with innuendo when he remembers something.

I saw you die.

His expression falls, and he looks at her with genuine concern. "Did you sleep well?" he repeats, and once again it takes her a few minutes to understand the meaning of his words.

"I had a dream. At least, I think it was a dream, about the dragon attack. You were in it." She pulls back, long, dark hair falling forward and gaze fixed intently upon the center of his chest. "You died."

Once again he sits up, head tilted to one side in an attempt to better gauge her expression. "Yeah, you mentioned that — not really the sort of pillow-talk I'm used to, but I've definitely heard worse." He reaches forward and tucks her hair behind her ear, the gesture a strange mixture of gentle and intimate that causes his heart to give an awkward sort of jump in his chest. "Are you okay?"

"Honestly?" She looks at him, and her expression is unreadable. "I don't know." And then she laughs, even if it is soft and weak. "Sorry. I'm bad at this. I didn't mean to kill the mood."

He merely runs a hand through his hair — she'd taken it out of its normally severe style earlier, insisting on running her hands through it when they'd first arrive at his room after the banquet — and shrugs in response. "I don't ask people things like that if I don't mean it, doll. It's fine."

At that she falls silent, and minutes pass before she speaks again. "Can I ask you something?"

One eyebrow lifts in good-natured interest. "I think you just did."

She pouts at him, though the action is half-hearted, at best. "During that battle — you didn't die, but you could have, and all because you took on that dragon hatchling thing when it tried to attack me instead." Her voice has lost its playful tone, now, as she looks at him curiously. "Why?"

"Why what?" he returns, seemingly nonchalant and ignorant, although he is well aware of what it is she is asks.

"You protected me." Her gaze, he notices as she shifts forward to lean against him, her head resting easily upon his shoulder, is intense, focused; he isn't entirely sure what sort of reaction his body is having to it. "I want to know why."

Looking anywhere but her is proving to be quite the struggle, but he forces himself to meet her gaze nonetheless. He owes her that much, he tells himself firmly, though for what he is not quite entirely certain. "I don't know," he tells her. "It was instinct, I guess. In the moment." Idly he runs his hand through her hair once more. "But let me tell you something, doll, because I know you want to ask: no, I don't regret doing it, and I am pretty sure I never will."

She gives him a strange look, though the smile she is attempting to hide is undeniable. "You're still drunk." It's a statement, not a question.

"So are you."

At that, her smile fully blossoms, and she grins up at him. "Good point." And then she's about to say something else, but then —

I don't need to have a reason to protect you.

— but then he kisses her, and it's nothing like the way he kissed her earlier, firm and unyielding and urgent. This kiss is gentle and chaste (at least, as chaste a kiss from someone like him can be) and almost hesitant, and while he has never been the sort of man to act in such a way in the past, something is telling him to treasure her in a way she's never been treasured before.

He pulls away slightly, and the fact that he, that both of them, are panting so hard after such a seemingly innocuous kiss comes as an unexpected shock. "You know," he begins, "it's okay if you want to do this." It takes everything within him to not add a playful 'again' to the end of the sentence.

But her response is to just give a playful little huff of annoyance as she rolls her eyes, wraps her arms around his neck and pull him down with her as she falls back against the bed's soft mattress. "Just kiss me again, you mutt."

And he does just that, pressing his mouth against her own over and over again in the form of gentle kisses, each one fleeting and brief, and it's as if they aren't two naked and intoxicated adults who barely knew each other only looking for company for the night, as they had been earlier that evening, but instead a pair of innocents indulging shyly in the sensation of simply being together, and it's as if every touch magnifies the feeling a thousandfold and more. It takes her by surprise, he knows that; she'd expected the same wildness he'd had earlier, but if she has any reservations about the newfound tenderness with which he holds and touches her, she does not make it obvious. In fact, in a way it's as if she seems to appreciate it even more than the reckless vigor with which they'd proceeded earlier that evening, if the manner in which she's pulling him closer against her body is any indication, and when she gives him a small hum of approval after one particularly brief kiss, he decides that a bit of a change is in order.

The kisses, each one as feather-soft and fleeting as the one before it, begin to trail from her mouth to her chin, and along her jawline, and then down her neck. He stops when he reaches the hollow of her throat, pressing his lips against the soft skin just once before he repositions himself, bringing his face directly level with hers once more.

"Hey, wild lady," he murmurs. "You're beautiful, you know that?"

The compliment seems to take her by surprise once again, but she soon beams up at him, fingers tangling in the hair at the base of his neck as she responds. "'Wild lady'?" she asks. "When did you get to be such a gentleman?"

He grins down at her wolfishly. "Me? Doll, you wound me — I'm a gentleman wild, remember?"

"Get on with it, you horn dog."

And with another wild grin he complies, brushing his lips gentle against her forehead, and then each of her eyelids and her chin, before pressing them against hers once again. He doesn't know what has compelled him to be so gentle, now of all times, and with a woman he had only met barely a week prior. Perhaps it is the fact that only a few days ago their lives had been on the line, or maybe because they had already allowed primal instincts, the most carnal urges, to hold sway over them earlier that evening, but for whatever reason his touches remain gentle and light, and her sighs soft and content, and then —

When Bacchus wakes next, it is to the light of the sun filtering into the bedroom, the sound of bodies shouting and talk to one another in the hallway outside his door, and the realization that once again, he is alone, the taste of stale drink and a bittersweet emotion he cannot name like ash in his mouth .

Fin.

Post-GMG banquet fic, featuring Baccana shenanigan of a sort — if anything, think of it as a bit of character introspection and interpretation on my part, as well as an attempt at getting back into writing the more ambiguous sort of fic that I generally tend to write. Originally, this was going to actually be pwp, before I had a vague-ish sort of idea for a proper plot, especially since I'd never before seen a fic wherein both Cana and Bacchus were gentle with one another in such a situation, and, well. The ending changed a lot before I finally decided on one that kept the introspective mood from the beginning. Oh, and this may-or-may-not be connected to my other "main" Baccana fic, "Where the Wild Things Are" as a sort of prelude. So, yes. There you go.

Naturally, some artistic licenses were taken as well: no where in the manga does it say that Bacchus and Cana were fighting together during the dragon attack, nor does it mention that Bacchus was hurt "originally" while protecting Cana, but, hey. It worked for this fic, and I'm too tired to think about it too much at the moment, so I'm just going to go with it.

Once again, thank you for reading, and as always reviews, comments, and feedback of any sort is always immensely appreciated!