'Kay! Early-early posting, because I'll be doing crazy work-related travel next week, and won't have time to post in transit DX This chapter turned out waaaay angstier than intended, but there ya go.
So, ahem. Without further ado: Lemon ahead. Contains elements of katoptronophilia. By which I mean mirrors. Don't know what that is? Then you're too young to be reading this. Go watch the Disney channel or something. You're making me antsy.
On another note, this lemon's probably grittier than others I've done, in terms of description. But don't worry. It's nothing traumatic or kinky. Hell, it's so vanilla, you could ice a cake with it XP
Enjoy, and review, pretty please!
Fantasia: a free-form musical composition incorporating familiar themes.
The brass bed—once a no-man's land of sleep and Saya—is now a terrain of bodyheat.
The dresser lamp is on, its golden light flecking a dusty mirror. Arched over Saya, Haji sees their reflections in it. Extraneous fabric is caught everywhere between them. His coat and shirt are puddled on the floor, but he's given up on shaking the trousers off.
For now.
Saya's fingers stroke his face, twine in his hair. Her mouth is wet and hot on his—blinding everything around him to red. Her big sweater makes her seem larger than she is. Hands reverently coasting her body, Haji reacquaints himself with her smallness. Stroking where there is taut muscle, kneading where there are soft curves. Her black tights turn out to be stockings—she has nothing on beneath. When his cool fingers slip from her knee to the warm skin of her inner-thigh, she gasps into his mouth.
Haji hears the sound as if from underwater. Blood gallops in his veins, crushing self-restraint. He tells himself to slow down. But all he can focus on is her delicious lips and slipping tongue; the kittenish noises she makes in her throat and how she moves beneath him. Desperate to devour every inch of her, to feel and taste everything from her curling toes to her tense legs to the slope and swell of belly and breasts. Wild hunger grips him, even as he tries to pull back.
Their lips part wetly as he grips her sweater's hem. Panting, Haji presses his forehead to hers. Saya's eyelashes kiss his cheek, lips brushing his jawline. Her pulse makes everything thrum.
"Oh God," she gasps.
"Saya," he says, and thrills at how she shivers beneath him. "Are—are you sure about this?"
"Haji—yes."
His fingers inch the sweater higher. "Can I—take this off?"
No words. Just a slurred Mmm. She stretches her arms over her head. Lips swollen, eyes all glassy, as if fearing he will reject her. Obliging, he drags the fabric up and off her body. Her hot skin on his coolness is a shock. So long since he's seen her naked; neither smeared in amniotic fluid from her cocoon, nor bloodstained from battles. Bright red blotches her already pink cheeks, spreading down to her breasts. The vein in her neck tics, periwinkle-blue. Greedily, Haji licks up the arc. Gnaws the point where jaw melts into neck, her blood a raspberry-sweet aroma beneath.
Saya sighs, tossing her head. Warm hands stroke the lines of his back, cupping the sharp shoulderblades. Her nails dig into his flesh. Haji hisses, sliding his hands up her sides to encompass her breasts in both palms. Her heartbeat half-makes her skin vibrate. He dips his head, swirling his slick tongue across each nipple, until her breath comes in hot matching gusts. Gulps them into his mouth one at a time, suckling as if to draw her entire body in.
Saya mewls, rippling under him. The sound—shocking, delicious—suffuses him with greed. Slipping one arm under her back to lift her, he feeds harder on her breasts, more hungrily. Not stopping until she is squirming from one side to the other. Hands scrabbling at his shoulders, his hair, short raw cries shuddering out of her. Each sound and movement sets his blood alight. It is only when her struggles turn half-frantic—edging on a stuttered litany of please please please—does he release her.
Panting, she slumps back against the pillows. The look in her eyes is nothing he's seen before. Darker than loneliness. Deeper than lust. Heat boils off her, but it feels so innocent. She seems stunned by her own body, stunned by its sensations.
Overwhelmed.
"Haji," she says, as if begging for mercy.
Perhaps she is.
Forcibly, Haji slows his breathing. Stifles the impatience as a dizzying tenderness takes hold. Gently, he takes the small hand tangled in his hair, and the other white-knuckling the sheets. Presses a worshipful kiss to each palm. They are still blood-smeared. He tongues it off impulsively. The taste hits him like pure adrenaline—her life-force made liquid. Craving more, he licks the creases of her palms, the webbing between her fingers. Sucks each digit into his mouth, one by one, swallowing every saltysweet drop into himself.
Saya shivers to the sensation. Then her fingers tighten on his. She presses them to her belly. Lower.
"Here…Please." It is a petition.
He seals a trembling palm between her thighs. Testing her with one gentle finger, two. Saya jerks in his arms, whimpering. He knows she probably hasn't had anything larger than her own fingers down here. "Ssh," he soothes, and covers her gasping mouth with his. Cool fingers, slightly callused at the tips, explore her gently. Dabbling in liquid heat, learning what pleases her. Drinking her cries on shudders.
Flushed, fevery, she twists against his hand. He feels the tension shimmering through her. Such a great cache, stockpiled without outlet. How much hotter would she burn, if he—? The idea barely blooms before he is tonguing a wet trail down her body. Biting her navel, sliding slower. Mouth pressing, cool and wet, to where his fingers stroke between her thighs, then slightly above.
"Ha-Haji."
Saya jerks beneath him, thighs enveloping his head. Tensing dangerously, more in resistance than encouragement, even as she twists under his teasing fingers, his lapping tongue. The heat of her is intense. He feels it eddying through his whole body. Swamping him with want. Peeling her legs away from his head, he holds her down. Freeing her to shudder and mewl and claw at the sheets, head tossing back and lips parting in a succulent 'O' as he delves in deeper.
God, all the times he's fantasized about her this way. Spilled across the bed, entirely open to him; the plane of her pulsing belly superseded by rising breasts and uptilted chin. Sweat blooms across her body—glittery star-clusters. She breathes in high pleading gasps in time with her moans. Those sounds undo him more than anything. His own breathing sharpens, superseding hers as if he is being tortured.
He wants to know how she looks when she spends. How she moves, what kinds of noises she makes. Wants her to forget about the war—if only for a few seconds.
But then Saya thrashes under him, clutching his head. Forcibly, she tears his mouth away, sobbing, "Please—please, stop—I-I can't—!"
He reads the fear clearly in her eyes, and wonders from what. Fear of losing control? Or of crossing some threshold she feels unworthy of?
"Saya," he says. "It—it's all right. Just—"
But then she is dragging his head up, filling his mouth with deep gulping kisses. Erasing all thought. One little hand trips between them. Fumbles for the clasp of his trousers. Unlike him, she asks no permission. Click-click-snap go belt and buttons. She yanks the zipper clumsily to circle him in a hot palm.
Haji breaks the kiss on a jittery gasp. Her fingers tighten in a sword-grip that bursts stars behind his eyes. His voice is a choked plea. "S-Saya—"
Lip bit, she fastens her gaze on his. Slides her grip shakily down, and up, watching his face alternate between pleasure and desperation. Squeezes until his taut thighs quiver and he groans. Control slips further as she guides him awkwardly between her legs, so hot skin brushes hot skin with a liquid kiss. Just holding him there. Rubbing back and forth with a tantalizing lightness that makes them both shiver. Eyes squeezed shut, Haji buries his face in her hair. Struggling, over their sawing gasps, to blot out the wrongness of this—think only of how long it's been since he was touched this way.
And tonight, the thrill spirals higher, knowing this is Saya.
Saya, whom he almost lost in today's battle.
Whom he may still lose, when their mission ends.
Dimly, he feels her kicking at his pants, toeing the fabric down and off. Then her lips brush his ear. Dirty words breathed in a kitty-whisper, so soft he may have fantasized them. His eyes open to take her in. So tiny and succulent. A dozen fantasies strobe. Of hooking her legs over his shoulders, fusing himself to her in one stroke. Of rolling her onto her belly, covering her like a beast. He wants it fast and frantic; wants it syrupy and slow. Wants to show her everything she does to him, and the million things he aches to do for her.
Except she is not ready for that. And if he ruins this for her, he will not forgive himself.
"Not—like this," he says.
"Wh-what?"
He eases her gently onto her side. And, spooning her, lifts her upper-leg, draping it along the back of his. Saya tenses, then acquiesces, cradled in his arms, back to his chest. His palms are wide enough to span her ribcage, the curve of her hips. She radiates anxiety. But when he lays his face alongside hers, she flushes, lip caught. And nods.
The gesture breaks his control. He slips one hand between their bodies, and she gasps as he eases gently into her. Hot. Slick. Millimeter by millimeter. Her hands reach blindly around to pluck at his arms, his waist. He feels her quivering as she gives way, hears it in her whimpers, her thudding heart.
Slow, an inner-voice screams. Go very slow.
"H-Haji—!" He's not even halfway there when a strangled noise escapes her. She tenses as if facing some enemy slightly too much to take on alone. "I—ohgod. I-Is there more? I—"
He winces, terror warring with desire. What if this is horrible for her?
"J-just a little. Can you—?"
And then she is straining up to kiss him, openmouthed and wet. Sucking his tongue deep into her mouth as her arms and legs and body pull at him, vibrating and thrumming—and all restraint collapses.
Gripping her hips, he pushes all the way in, thumbs fitted into the dimples of her lower-back. Colors spangle everywhere. He shudders and gasps in spite of himself. Saya's right hand flies up as if poised on a tightrope. He catches it in his own, fingers lacing tight. Her left hand scrabbles unsteadily at the sheets, stockinged thighs trembling against his.
"Oh," she sobs, in vibrating shock. "Oh."
Delirious, Haji drops kisses through her hair. Ear, neck, back, shoulders, anywhere he can reach. "Are you—all right?"
She nods, shakes her head. Assurance. Negation. His lips brush her cheek, and he tastes tears. Terror paralyzes him. "Sh-should I stop?"
Every muscle in his body screams no. But if she says so, he will.
Saya half-turns to meet his gaze. Eyelashes webbed. Bee-stung lips quivering. "No—" she muffles a sob. Hides it in a kiss to his mouth. Another, another, until he's thirstily sipping each breath. "Please—please don't."
It is almost a sanction. He slips his left arm under her ribs, drawing her closer. Brings their joined right hands down to her belly, clasped in supplication. Lying on his side, he's pressed tight against her, legs intertwined, her hair sliding deliciously over his chest. Wearing her like a second-skin.
I love you. He wants to say it, but can't.
Sighing, he kisses the shell-like ear peeping through her hair. Whispers instead how warm she feels. She flushes magnificently, top to toe, melting to soft curves and slick heat against him. He stays with her that way, listening to the ragged sound of her breathing. Fighting friction—fighting not to lose control—until she has relaxed.
If it still hurts, she no longer shows it. But he doubts she is getting much pleasure out of this, either.
Questioningly, he presses a kiss to her shoulder, then a deeper one to her neck. She lets off a shaky sigh. "I-I'm all right, Haji. You can—keep going."
His body is past ready. Begging to move. Still, he falters. "Are—are you sure?"
"Mmm." She swallows. "I-I'll just—lie back a-and—think of England."
"England?" He winces. "God. Why should—anyone think of England?"
She makes a small noise. It takes him a moment to recognize it as a laugh. The sound—so sweet and unexpected—diffuses the last ounce of strain between them. Fills him with inexplicable joy. Even though it doesn't mean anything; even though this brief moment of warmth isn't going to reverse anything so terrible as the war, or decades of death and suffering.
But right now, he doesn't care.
Right now, everything is perfect.
"Saya." He whispers it. Over and over, as he starts, very carefully, to rock. "Saya."
Her little fingers tighten on his. She makes a tiny cry in her throat—half-strain, half-pleading. He fights to keep his movements gentle, insinuating. More ballast than force. Immersed into nothing but her exquisite heat and pulse. Watching her face as he finds a rhythm, an angle, that suits her. Keeping to it, until, bit by bit, Saya's tense expression melts to parted lips and broken sighs.
In the mirror, their reflections are a gold-on-white symbiosis. Saya's head lolls indolently on the pillows, eyelashes teary, small pink mouth half-open, gasping. Her body is a visual fantasia—Baudelaire's Les Métamorphoses du Vampire. Mesmerized, Haji runs their linked hands from the crux of her hip to her thigh. Their reflections echo the motion—doppelgangers.
Then Saya's eyes catch his in the mirror. Her flush blazes, it seems, all the way to her center. He half-expects her to wrench her gaze away. Instead she stares. Eyes full of scandal, fascination, and he wonders if she sees herself as he can. Profaned yet pristine. A million emotions in her red eyes.
For all the horrors she's endured, that aliveness in her can never wane. She cannot be extinguished.
He wants to tell her that, and more. But words are impossible. Trails their joined hands across her belly instead, the sensation making her shiver. Glides them down between her thighs. In the mirror, Saya flushes, lip bit. He feels her simmering. Emboldened, he sucks her earlobe between his teeth, at the same time strumming their linked fingers where she's stretched wet and hot and open around him. Saya mewls, tossing her head. Clenches around him with a pressure that dizzies.
"Haji."
He hides his gasp in the crook of her neck. Plays her as if she's some fine new instrument he's learning—lyre if not cello. Saya whimpers, rocking against him, a liquid undulation like a bellydancer's. Head rolling on his shoulder as if in a fever. Pressure builds at the base of his spine. Lights him up until his nerves sing. He's eased her onto her belly before he realizes it. Letting her take his full weight now—chest to back, arms on arms, the slope of backside to groin. Covering her completely.
The mattress begins to rock beneath them with every movement. Desperation transmitting itself through the pulses of his hips, through Saya's sweet cries resonating around him. Her whole body has gone sweat-slippery. Trembling like an earthquake.
Concerned, he slows down. "S-Saya…?"
"No—don't—" She twists under him. Fingers tightening on his hand, pressed between her thighs. "Please—I-I…"
Oh God.
She is close. He feels all her muscles palpitating. Fighting for release.
All control snaps. Teeth clenched, he drives into her in one resonating stroke. Pushing to the extreme, drawing back so that he is almost free of her searing heat, and Saya whimpers and bucks to keep him inside her. Then in again, hot and fast, finding the sweetspot that makes her shudder; makes her bury her face in the pillow to muffle her sobs. Sweat drips, fusing him to the armature of her body. Reality dissolves into the dance of their entwined fingers, intensifying movement and delicious slippery friction.
He never wants to stop. Never wants to let her go. A million words wing through his overheated mind. Filthy things. Worshipful things. Endless mantras of love, agony, despair. Everything he yearns to tell her—but cannot.
Beneath him, Saya writhes, neck arched, sweat-slick hair splayed across the pillows. Breath leaves her in sobbing gasps, as if she's crying. Haji hears himself making the same sound, the pleasure so intense it is all he can do not to howl. Working her with his body, their joined hands, until she peaks in relentless snapping spasms—once, twice, thrice. The pressure paints red behind his eyes. He gasps, seizing up, his moan blending with hers—a dissonant crescendo.
Long plummet, like off the cliff at the Zoo. But the landing is gentle.
Bonelessly, they slump into the pillows. Gulp air as if resurfacing from drowning. Heart pounding, Haji lets all logic unspool. Body wrapped around Saya's as if melded to her; one cool hand cinching her breast, cool tip of nose parting her hair. He feels her still trembling from her upswell. Feels, from his own chest, a satiated purr.
"Haji…" Her voice is muffled by the pillows. "…I-I can't breathe."
Wincing, he rolls off her. Turns her gently around to face him. Her hair sticks everywhere to her disoriented face. Skin slick and flushed—but already cooling. An eerie premonition rises. But then she breathes his name again, and they are kissing, insatiable, excessive, words melting on his tongue.
His body still vibrates to her touch. At the same time, he is filled with a tenderness that tightens his throat. Sighing, he rolls over, taking her with him, so she lies sprawled on his chest. Breaks the kiss to smooth her hair back with both hands, memorizing her moist pink face and half-lidded eyes.
"Are you… all right?"
She nods, swallowing. Her heartbeat is erratic. Again, Haji feels that premonition. He knows when their pulses lose rhythm.
He kisses her teary eyelashes. "Do you want a drink of water? You must be thirsty from so much… crying."
She shakes her head, even as she licks her dry lips. Her fingers comb back his sweaty hair. Trace the shape of his mouth. Haji wonders why she seems so pensive. Was he too rough? Did he hurt her too much?
Before he can ask, she draws away. Sits up gingerly, gathering the smeared sheet around her. The scent of misgiving displaces the sweat lacing the air.
"I-I'm sorry," she says.
"What?"
"I shouldn't have—I had no right to—"
Temperature plunges to subzero. Propped on an elbow, Haji stares at her.
"Saya—w-what's wrong?"
She shakes her head, refusing to look at him. In the lamplight, a fresh tear rolls down her face.
Alarmed, he reaches out. "Saya—"
She shies from him, even as she curls into his twining arm. Her body shakes with sobs. She breathes I'm sorry over and over, as if she's butchered him instead of letting him bed her.
Now that cruel lust has lifted, guilt chokes him. The realization of what this might not mean to her. Understanding that he's deprived her of the one fragment she had left for innocence. Self-disgust rises. He envisages punching the walls, tearing the room apart, even as he sits up with his arms wrapped around her.
"Saya, p-perhaps you were not ready for this." Mentally, if not physically. "But we do not have to do this again. We can decide this was just an… incident. That will not have a follow-up." It shreds every fabric of joy to say it. But he will not insult her by daring to feel joy in her arms, when all she feels is pain.
Saya's head snaps up. "Why? Is that what you want?"
Startled, he says, "Of—of course not. But if you are having second thoughts—"
"What makes you think it has anything to do with—with what we just did? Do you even know what I'm sorry for?"
"N-no. But—"
"But what? Are you having second thoughts? Are you passing it off like it's my idea, so you can get out of this unscathed?"
"Saya, no. Th-that is not what I meant." What is this? Her temper has sparked out of nowhere.
He draws her closer, but to his surprise, she lashes out. He recoils, and Saya gasps, hand hovering in mid-air. Then, to his disbelief, she hits him again, more nerves than violence. He raises an arm, warding off her blows. They barely sting amid the confusion suffusing him. Evading her flying palms, he grabs her wrists, trying to calm her down. But when Saya flinches, he lets go.
Her expression plunges him back to when their carriage was marauded outside the Zoo. Her terror as she witnessed his sweeping black wings.
Of all her Least Loved Looks, that one still haunts the most.
He holds his hands up, palm-out. A supplication. "S-Saya, please. What is this about?"
Saya drops her hands. Her face is pale, the corners of her mouth ticcing.
"What's the matter? This is not about—what happened, is it?"
She shakes her head, eyes shut. Her voice is steely and terribly childlike. "Haji—who were you with before my Awakening?"
"What?"
The words ring like random arpeggios; illogical.
"You—you've had someone. Some other girl. Who was she? Who did you leave to come back to me?"
"Saya. What makes you think—?"
Her eyes open, red and raw. "I could tell from the day of my Awakening. Something about you seemed… different. More reserved, somehow. I told myself I was imagining it. We had other problems to worry about. But—the second you kissed me, I realized what was wrong."
"Saya—"
"Don't lie to me, Haji. I know you better than you think I do. Who was it? Who did you abandon to come fight with me?"
His heart hammers. He wants to look her in the eye, tell her, no one. What good would it do, telling her about his ill-fated affair? But her expression is harrowing. For a moment, he wonders if his confession to her cocoon was absorbed into her consciousness.
Like intuition.
Except it isn't intuition, but intimacy. Queen and Chevalier though they may be, they were best friends first. Each grew up learning the other's nature as a mirror-image of their own.
"You're the only one who can carry this out for me… So swear that you will. And that—you won't throw your life away afterward."
"It's like Joel said at the meeting. Only trained dogs are faithful. Men… are not."
"I will not close my eyes while you betray me again."
Haji represses a chill.
God.
She has known all along.
"Saya, I-I—"
"No, Haji. Tell me the truth. Who was it?"
The edge of pain in her voice chokes him. Without planning it, without thinking, he says. "It was... a mistake."
"A mistake?"
"My mis—" Wincing, he drops his gaze. "It was… an error of judgment on my part. But it ended a month before you Awakened. I-I did not 'abandon' anyone to be with you."
As soon as he says the words, they seem to solidify in the air. Final. Unalterable. And, deep down, he feels relieved.
He has told her the truth, at last. He has come clean.
Saya is silent. Her expression is strange. Almost vacant. Instinctively, Haji counts the seconds before her temper will ignite. After the sweetness he's shared with her, he's earned it. Nothing good in life ever came without a price. Never where Saya is concerned.
But no tantrums erupt. Saya remains perched on the side of the bed. Needing to fill the blanks, he hastens on, "It was in Berlin. She was part of the Red Shield squadron I was assigned to. Our... companionship was out of convenience."
Even as he says the words, he feels their ineptitude. They have nothing to do with the recollections of Berlin that swamp him. The cold air and picturesque buildings by day; the Chiropterans prowling in shadows by night. Other recollections too. Of loneliness and endless bloodwork. Thoughts of Saya, her sightless future, his own. His resentful desires, and his even more resentful surrenders to them. The physical satiation of feeling a warm body against his, something that lived and verified his own life.
All amounting to nothing.
"She was a member of… Red Shield?" Saya's tone is dazed.
"Yes."
"Did you have feelings for her?"
"Saya—" Chagrin colors his face.
She flinches, but holds his gaze. "Tell me."
"I—" Not eloquent at his best, Haji flails for words now. It seems... clichéd, to explain it was 'just sex'. Nothing, particularly in his experience, is so cut-and-dried. But there is no comparison between those muddling encounters in Berlin to what he and Saya just shared. He still thinks about the other girl sometimes. But only slightly more than about his other comrades there—which itself is not saying much.
Certainly nothing like his breath-by-breath fixation for Saya.
Perhaps loving Saya has ruined him for all other love. Perhaps she's consumed all the space in his heart, blotted out room for anyone else. As it is, he finds it difficult to connect to people on a personal level. What point is there, given their duty—or the brevity of human life? He isn't like Saya, who, for all her warrior's coldness, is teemed in passion. She has the ability to lose herself completely; be it to battle, grief, or, apparently, to sex.
His affair in Berlin—No, I shouldn't, it is tawdry to compare—was a tealight to Saya's sunburst.
"We… were not together out of sentiment, Saya. That was an unfeasible luxury."
Which did not, however, explain the girl's anger when they parted ways. A bitter reminder that some things did not go both ways.
After decades of loving Saya, but always from a distance, one would think he understood this better.
Saya does not say anything. She is staring fixedly at him, as if she has never truly seen him before. He can tell she is becoming angry: the skin around her eyes is tightening, her nostrils flaring. " 'Not out of sentiment'?" she echoes. "What else could it be about, then? Boredom?"
"N-No—I—"
"Well—what then?"
"It—it was about… solace, I suppose."
It sounds stupid as soon as he says it. Sex has nothing to do with solace. His idiocy in Berlin was just a perverse fantasy to have something with Saya—with someone—before his duty destroyed him. A dying man clutching at straws.
"I don't believe you!" Saya snaps. "You must have cared for her a little. You said it was an 'unfeasible luxury'. Meaning you would have, if you had the chance to. If you did... would you have stayed with her, instead of returning to me?"
The questions she asks! Haji isn't sure, even as he fumbles for words, how to answer. The idea of not returning to Saya is like denying sunlight after weeks of frostbite. Without her, he will wither away.
"I would never not have returned to you, Saya." I exist for your sake.
"I…I see." It does not sound like a glowing endorsement. Shivering, she wraps the sheet tighter around herself. Her eyes are shut, but Haji smells her tears. His throat aches, pyrotechnics of shame flaring. But he doesn't reach for her.
He senses that Saya doesn't want to be touched right now. Especially by him.
"I am sorry for what I did, Saya. I cannot take it back—but the last thing I want is to cause you pain. I would have… told you eventually. But with our mission, there seemed no appropriate time. You have every right to be angry with me."
She bristles. "Every right? Oh, thank you for your permission!"
"Please. Do not take it that way. I-I only meant—"
"No. No. I know how you meant it. I just—" Her eyes open, bright with tears. "I'm not angry with you, Haji. Not that way. You shouldn't have to ask for my permission for—something like that. If I were in your place, I would never ask for yours. We were comrades. Not—lovers."
Were comrades?
A hopeful inner-voice asks, are we lovers now? But the battle-hardened part of him butchers it. It is not his way to invest in futile hope. Not when any given night could be his or Saya's last.
"Even so, Saya. I had—no right to initiate the dalliance. We are fighting a war. I must never lose sight of that. But—in Berlin, I lost sight of my duty. Even if you say it does not matter to you, I still—"
Saya's icy voice says: "Who said it didn't matter to me?"
Haji tenses. Eyes fixed on Saya as if to a live grenade. He's already bracing himself for the first blow.
But Saya remains perfectly still. "I'd like to say… that it doesn't matter to me. That you can do as you wish. But I guess I'm not that detached yet. Or that strong. It hurts; I won't say that it doesn't. And not having seen it … doesn't make it hurt any less. But after everything I've done, I have no right to pass judgments on you. I've ruined your life enough."
"Saya—" She is taking this in a completely different route—yet doubly excruciating.
Sinking to his knees before her, he clutches her hand. "Saya, w-walking out in Berlin was a mistake I made. You have no reason to blame yoursel—"
"How can I not?" Her fingers jerk from his. "Everytime I think of what you do during my Long Sleep, I feel sick. Not because I worry about you with—with other people. Not just that. I think of all the chances you might have to start your life over. And how you abandon them each time to return to the war with me. How can I not blame myself for that?"
"Saya—"
My only life is with you.
But his cowardly tongue can't say it. His fingers curl around hers instead, drawing her closer. He sings inside himself when she doesn't wrench away. The sheet is easy to part. Twined in his arms again, his palms refresh their memory of her sweet contours. The bitter revelations—his guilt, her disappointment—still hover in the air. Ready to coalesce into ugliness at the slightest misstep.
But now that he's holding her, and she's tucked her head against his shoulder, they are secure. That way he and Saya are so alike. The consolation they can weave through simple touch. Whether it is how he guards her from enemy fangs in battle, or how she grips his sleeve in silent possession during travels.
This physical link frees them from the tangle of duty. Demonstrates the simple truth.
"I am sorry, Saya." It's all he can say anymore.
She shakes her head, forehead against his chest. "It doesn't matter anymore, Haji. None of it does."
Doesn't matter…?
Her tone is ambiguous, neither angry nor pardoning. Needing absolution, Haji presses tentative lips to hers. Sopping up from her flesh what he needs to hear in words. She lets him kiss her with heart-stopping pliancy. Fingers threaded in his hair, pretty noises curling from her throat.
Pressed against him, her pulse is still too erratic. But even as his mind registers this, she is already coaxing him back on the bed, on top of her. Arms and legs snaking around him, suffusing him in her heat, the delicious salty aroma of her body. He nearly loses himself in it. Except—
Breaking the kiss, he searches her face. "Have you accepted my apology?"
"Haji…" Eyes shut, she exhales. "You don't have to ask."
"Yes—but—" He puts up a hand, touching her cheek. She opens her eyes to regard at him. So beautiful and small and mussed-looking. He can't resist tracing her swollen mouth with his thumb. "Saya—please tell me. Is this—out of resignation?
"What?"
He swallows. "Are you pretending to forgive me because of the war? Because we need to fulfill our duty? I-Is that is the only reason you endure being near me? But inside, you resent what I did. You hate the fact that—"
"Wh-what?" She stiffens. "No! Th-that's not true! After what you just told me, I could ask you the same question—!"
Wincing, he smoothes back her hair. She jerks from his touch, bristling with anger. Accusing her of feigning forgiveness: a mistake. He didn't mean it.
"I-I am sorry, Saya. I just—don't want you to suffer more than you are. I don't want—"
More mistrust between us. More pain.
She seems to know what he is thinking. Her eyes soften. She fixes them on his, as if searching through murky water for glimmers of gold beneath. "Haji, I-I know what you're trying to say. I don't want more sadness between us either. Or secrets. A-and—there is something I have to tell you. Something important. But right now..." She expels a sigh against his lips. Touches him with widespread fingers, hands sliding down the expanse of his chest, his sides. "Right now, c-can we not talk about it? Just for a few moments? There's so little time. I just want—"
Without finishing, she lays her lips against his. Presses hot succulent kisses into his mouth, one after the other, until a groan rumbles from his throat. All hesitation unraveling.
She sighs as he covers her, his cool tongue whorling along her neck, raining kisses up and down its length. One hand cradling her head, the other coasting down her body, absorbing her warmth through his fingertips. Drawing her knees up, he sinks into her gently. Almost melting. She gasps, eyebrows drawn together; still raw from their first foray. But her little hands skim his body, urging him closer. Her potent heat enveloping him, welcoming him.
Making all misgivings fade.
Ecstatic, he starts a gentle rocking that works for her, makes her flush and roll her head on the pillows. Mind deliquescing to white-noise as she mewls and simmers around him. This must be, he reasons, why all creatures mate at all. To recapture, not the short-lived oblivion of A little death, but that tranquil cocoon before birth.
Cocoon.
Realization dawning, he stops.
"S-Saya—"
The epiphany throbs in his voice. She freezes, eyes wide, face and body all pink. Haji is aware, abruptly, of how malleable she feels. A somnambulist.
"There is something I have to tell you. Something important."
No.
No.
Although it feels like plunging naked into icewater, he rolls off her. "Saya…!"
She jerks up, closing her legs, chest half-shielded with her arms. Almost cringing. Her mouth opens and closes before she stammers: "It—it doesn't matter anymore. W-we have such little time as it is."
"Saya—wh-what are you saying?"
Except he already knows.
Saya swallows. "My Long Sleep is a week from now."
The sentence chills him. All arousal decalcifies, backing up into a harsh miserable ache.
"That—can't be possible," he rasps.
"Why?"
"It has not been three years yet."
"It…doesn't work that way, Haji. You know that."
Of course. Every hibernation's length is determined as much by how much stress Saya undergoes when awake as by how much time passes. And these two-and-a-half years have been more stressful than most.
"Sa-Saya—" His voice refuses to come unstuck.
She sighs, eyes shut. "That's why we need to find Diva. As soon as possible. Otherwise it could be decades before we get this chance again."
"Why—" He swallows thickly. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"It wouldn't have made a difference. You're carrying enough painful thoughts on my behalf as it is."
"All this time… you kept me at an arm's length. Because you did not want me to find out? Why?"
Her eyes snap open, rage sparking. "I told you! It would have made no difference! All that matters now is that we kill Diva. So this war will finally be over." Her gaze meets his. Wet with tears. Dark with that one terrible question. "And when that time comes, carry out your duty, Haji. Keep your promise."
Lol—no one kills the mood like ol' Saya XP
'Lie back and think of England': Advice supposedly given to brides of the Victorian era, about their wedding night. Haji's mildly disgusted reaction stems from the fact that he and Saya were raised in France. Anyone know the exact list of Anglo-French wars? XD
I'm interested in knowing readers thoughts on how the chapter turned out! Liked it? Loathed it? Don't hesitate to share! Also feel free to point out any OOC moments or any other glitches!
Hope you liked! Review, pretty please