A/N: More smut! Sadly, as I rewrote Monachopsis, a lot of the spicy scenes wound up on the cutting room floor thanks to Addie's injury and no fireflower cordial. I've felt the drought, so here's a deleted scene from the first draft of Chapter 33 (formerly...I don't even know what chapter this used to be, tbh). This one's angsty just like the last deleted scene, so proceed accordingly.

Content Warnings: sexual content (fingering, oral sex)

Addie

Evening finds her alone on his cloak, her palm pressed into the space he should be. They managed to take dinner together again, though he spent all of it strategising with the kings. But after dinner they all went back to the war room and with her role done, she couldn't follow them. So Addie helped with the cleanup after dinner and turned in early.

Sometimes, in the new pattern of her days, Addie would find herself talking to Marcos briefly between dinner and bedtime. But tonight, the raid and Marcos' question and Caspian's fear are too heavy on her mind. She needs the quiet.

She should be thinking of the raid, making sure she thought of all the little passages, nooks, and alcoves the Narnians might need. Addie tries to replay the map Caspian made, but it's not so easy without the paper in front of her. She sits up and traces her usual path in the dirt, even the staircase she wound her way down with the soldier racing after her. It really was lucky Queen Lucy had that magical potion, as strange as it was.

There's the stairs, and the halls, and the little passages Bruna disappeared into that she never followed to their end. There's the turn into the hall to the servants' quarters, and the branch toward the kitchen. Addie forgot nothing. She was every bit as thorough as Caspian.

Footsteps whisper further up the tunnel. Addie sits up so quickly her bottom bumps the divot for her hips hard enough to bruise, but it doesn't matter because he's here now, she can touch him.

Caspian's silhouette is a flickering thing thanks to the torchlight. He strips off his chestplate before easing down beside her. It's too easy to fall back down with him, to tangle herself in his arms and breathe him in like she has the promise of as many nights as they want ahead of them.

"If I'm not going with you," Addie whispers, "you promise me you're coming back." One of her arms is trapped between their chests, but she sends the other around to his back and crushes herself into his chest.

Caspian's lips brush her hair. "I intend to."

Addie presses in closer until her nose is so smushed she can barely breathe and all her air smells like him. "No. I want a promise."

The heartbeat before his answer is too long, even though hers stalls for a moment in her chest. And then, the moment passes.

"I promise." One of Caspian's hands slides up her back, which wouldn't be such a bad thing if Addie didn't need to feel him wrapped around every part of her. If she didn't need to remember that above everything, he's hers.

Addie lets her lips find his skin, traveling up his neck until she finds his pulse hammering away just under her kiss. "Say it again," she whispers, her fingers sliding up to the heartbeat on the other side of his neck.

Caspian hesitates again, long enough for water to gather in the corners of her eyes. "I promise," he says.

Addie can taste the lie as surely as if she'd spoken it herself. He'll try, she knows he will, but she can hear him thinking that this is a war and nothing is certain and that he accepted the possibility of his death a long time ago, before he ever met her.

He shouldn't be so resigned, not when he could march away with his army and kings from a bygone age and that could be the last time she sees him. It's not good, not fair, for him to be so ready for that possibility.

Addie moves before she's quite sure what she's doing. Caspian's usually on top if they're laying down. He's usually the one worked up into a frenzy by her doing so she can watch him unravel. She's liked it that way, before. But now she's slinging a leg over his hip and pushing him down by his shoulders, apparently without a care that the only thing between him and the packed dirt floor is a cloak that only barely softens the surface. The dirt is unforgiving against her knees and elbows as Addie leans over him, dragging her lips up to his mouth so she can pull out some truths she knows he won't fake.

Caspian has few secrets from her, if any, and he's almost always honest with her. But in this she knows he can't lie, even he wants to. She knows this part of him. If nothing else.

Addie kisses him exactly how he likes, with soft kisses that pull at his lips and harder kisses where she draws his tongue into her mouth. She kisses him until the beginnings of a moan tickle across her fingertips and his hips start to roll with hers. Caspian's hands find her ass quickly, holding her steady as he grinds up into her. He's quieter than usual, but with others nearby trying to sleep and how easily sound can carry in the tunnels, she doesn't blame him. He's not pushing her away, not meeting her kisses with anything short of enthusiasm. He's hard beneath her, where they meet even with her pants and his in the way.

Still, she misses his sounds. She misses how she could make him groan into her mouth when there were four walls between them and anyone else. How he never seemed to care if anyone heard them then.

Caspian's hands aren't roaming like usual. He's meeting her, giving as good as he gets, but he's still not here, not really. Not the way she wants him to be. Not the way where everything else falls away and they're nothing more than a boy and a girl in a bed together.

Addie lets her kisses trail away to whispers, and then into nothing. It doesn't feel right, to kiss him like this with so many distractions and worries keeping him away from her. And if she can't bring him to the present with her mouth, that's her best method gone to dust. At least for now.

Her hands stutter to a halt too, one tangled in his hair at the base of his neck and the other loosening on his shoulder. She'd clutched it hard enough her fingers ache now as she pulls away. Caspian's hand closes over hers before she can quite move away, his fingers pressing between hers and holding her down before she can finish sitting up. He guides their hands over his heart, though the usual rhythm is distant with his shirt and his fingers in the way.

"I promise," Caspian whispers again, as if a third time will make her believe him. With how his eyes shine up at her in the dark with so little torchlight in the tunnel, it would be so, so easy to accept the attempt at soothing.

Addie shivers. Truth slips out of her lips before she can bite the words back. "I'm losing you already," she breathes.

Her voice shakes more than she'd like, more than she'd ever allow if she'd just taken a moment to wrap the honesty in some sort of resignation. The kind Caspian's so good at. And not just since she found him in the forest - since the bookshelf, since they started learning each other's bodies, since the day she met him.

She tries to set her mouth and lift her chin and trade the tears pooling in her eyes for the polite distance Caspian's always done so well. She tries. But she's not like him. No matter how much she wishes she could be.

The first tear falls, and then the second. He still hasn't said anything. Hasn't denied the chasm she's felt opening between them since that night he first suggested they stop.

"Aren't I?" Addie sinks her teeth into her tongue the moment the whisper escapes. That's enough of confessions and honesty. When has honesty ever really done them good, anyway?

Caspian cradles her face, and it's foolish how easily she sinks into his touch.

"No," he says simply, his usual tone wavering at the edges. "Not unless you want to."

Gods, what does that even mean? How can he even think that, when everything she's done has been because she can't?

"Of course I don't," Addie says, so softly the obvious answer sticks heavy in her chest. "Do you?"

Caspian pulls her down too fast for her to catch her breath before his lips sear against hers. His teeth sink into her lower lip just long enough to sting, not hard enough to draw blood but only just. He devours her like they're back in his bed, with his tongue deep in her mouth and his teeth bumping her when he changes angles in a messy, torrid attempt at going back to how things were. And yet, even with the hard dirt bruising her knees and the cool damp air a constant reminder that they're not in the castle anymore, Addie falls into him willingly. The kisses turn salty as her tears drip between them in the rare moments Caspian draws back before pulling her back in close, but she doesn't care. Let him taste them. Maybe then he'll know better than to ask her such things.

He pushes her sideways, and she lets herself fall until her shoulder finds the dirt. But when Caspian tries to flip them completely, she tightens her legs and holds him in place. Lying sideways like this isn't entirely comfortable, true, but it's better than her towering over him or him towering over her. And this way, at least half her tears drip down into his cloak. It's comforting, somehow, how neither of them has the upper hand like this.

Finally, Caspian answers her.

"Never," he murmurs, his breath a warm promise against her lips. "Never, remember? I'd have you at my side for the rest of…"

Caspian trails off, trading the rest of the words for kisses. His mouth carves a frantic line from her lips to her jaw to her neck until her skin is between his teeth.

He's not marked her before, not where anyone could see. Not ever. The one time she asked, he was thinking of the danger. Caspian spent so long asking if the other maids would notice when she bathed that Addie dropped the topic entirely. Besides, there was a certain satisfaction in her being the one to mark him where his clothes would cover while he never seared matching bruises into her skin.

She'd loved thinking of him walking the castle, reciting his lessons or sparring on the training grounds or whatever else princes did during the day with a mark she gave him hiding just under his clothes. It helped, to think of how he was so clearly hers.

Tonight, Caspian apparently doesn't remember a single of his polite, perfectly logical reasons. Or he doesn't care, or he's not worried what the Narnians think. Addie almost teases him, just for old times' sake, but when he sucks on the tender skin right where her neck meets her shoulder, it's all she can do to keep quiet. Speaking, if she has any care at all for their neighbors' sleep or general courtesy, is entirely out of the question. Addie sinks her teeth into her bottom lip and tries, tries not to arch into him just how he likes, with that easy roll of her hips. He's not pressing into her; it would be cruel to grind into him when they really shouldn't wake anyone.

Then again, it's not fair of him to lave his tongue against her neck just when his marking starts to sting. And it's not fair that Caspian pulls his mouth away moments later, leaving nothing against her skin but the cool damp air.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, his hair tickling her cheeks as he pushes himself up and away. "I-"

Addie finds his arms before he can take his hands from her waist and neck to move away completely. She kisses him and holds him fast, tightly enough Caspian turns and sinks back towards her again and the comfort of his weight starts to press her down into the cloak.

The kiss ends too quickly for her liking, but it's something. For now, at least, Caspian is still warm and solid above her, his heartbeat a steady thing even with such ridiculous things as shirts in the way. His whisper is a forbidden thing across her lips.

"Can you keep quiet?"

Addie lifts an eyebrow, more impish than she feels.

"Can you?"

It's not quite a smile, the way his lips curve as they meet hers, but it's the closest thing they've had in a while. She's missed his smile, phantom as it is against her mouth. Caspian never smiles enough. Maybe after all this is over, the cloud of duty and tragedy and loss will ease and she can coax more smiles from him. It's nice, knowing she can still bring them out - the shadow of one, at least.

It's nice, how she could almost summon one of her own in the familiar press of his tongue against hers.

Caspian's hand plucks her shirt free of her waistband like he's done it a thousand times before. The warm, calloused squeeze of his fingers over her skin raises goosebumps down her arms as he traces a careful path up, up until her makeshift breastband stops him.

Addie curses inwardly. Knotting it tightly seemed like a good idea with sword training in her future, but now she could kick herself. A groan of frustration takes shape deep in her throat, trapped there by the niggling awareness of their tunnel neighbors and Caspian's question. Challenge, if his whisper had been more playful than desperate.

Caspian gets the tips of his fingers under the cloth, but no further. He kisses her deeper as his hand moves up and squeezes her over the band, as if the hot crush of lips and tongues will distract her from the annoyance. In fairness, the way he bites her lower lip does make her head swim. But even so, Addie is too aware that he's clothed and she's clothed and they have to be quiet and it's not as it should be, not an easy drowning where she can make him forget everything but her.

The ache in her chest is still there as Caspian's mouth traces familiar patterns with her, as he descends to her neck again and leaves a slow-burning trail of fire in the wake of his lips. When his second hand wraps around the other side of her neck, holding her in place so he can kiss her skin hard enough to bruise, Addie fists her hands in his shirt and pulls, until he stops just long enough to shuck it off before falling back to her like he never left.

Or like she never left.

Even with the smooth expanse of Caspian's skin under her fingertips, Addie can't sink into the pleasure. Not when she's just starting to understand what leaving like that did to him.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, as clearly as she dares with the carved earth all around them ready to bounce the words far beyond the breaths between them. Caspian's lips pause halfway down her neck, hovering just over one of her veins.

"I just wanted you to live," Addie continues. "I didn't care about anything else."

Her chest stutters around a breath too deep for the knife twisting in her ribs just thinking of how much danger he'd been in. How sure she was that there wasn't a world they could get away together and escape with their lives. How all she could think of was losing him somewhere she couldn't pull him back from.

Caspian's thumb brushes away the stray tear she barely realized had escaped. His voice is warm, softer than it has any right to be as he blinks slowly down at her.

"I know," he says. "I know you did."

He doesn't say anything else, but the first brush of his mouth on hers feels like forgiveness, like absolution, like he understands. The ache in Addie's chest eases enough she can breathe him in as she finally kisses him back like she means it. The fervent heat of his mouth slowly melts away the icy lump in her throat. His hands chase away the chill, wrap her in the flames she's usually winding around him. She should be the one kissing him until he loses his senses; that's how it's usually been. But when Addie's hands find his hair so she can set the pace, Caspian pins her arms down by the wrist and grinds down, the shape of him a scorching trail against her thigh.

Pants are odd enough on her, but Addie suddenly hates them on him. How can she feel him properly like this, with two layers of fabric between them? And though work has kept her arms strong, they're not strong enough to pull free from Caspian's hold.

Caspian traps both her wrists under one hand with his stupidly long fingers. His other hand skims down her arm to her side, lingering just under her breast like he's asking permission. Addie arches into him without a second thought. She'd be annoyed he's over her shirt this time if he wasn't sucking her tongue so thoroughly. And she can't tell him to help her get out of her clothes or at least just her shirt.

Well, she could.

The demand trembles on the inside of her lips, nearly escaping into the scant spaces between them. But then Caspian's hand dives under the troublesome fabric and yanks once, twice. On the second, the breastband slides down and nestles at the top of her ribs, leaving nothing between Caspian's palm and her sensitive peaks. Finally. There wasn't time for this in the forest.

Caspian's mouth travels again, down the other side of her neck, sucking what must be half a dozen little bruises into her skin. Addie can't bring herself to care. What could possibly happen here, if she walks the tunnels with the proof that she's his all over her neck? There's no dungeon cell waiting for her here. So Addie bites away the graceless whimpers and stretches her neck as far as she can. Let him have as much of her skin as he wants. As much of her as he wants.

The fingers around her wrists loosen just a bit, just enough for pinpricks to dance over her fingers as the pressure lightens. Caspian's hand stutters down slowly to her waist, where her skin is open to the air. He hesitates again at her waistband, so Addie rolls her hips toward him. Her hands find Caspian's hair a moment later, just as he starts to push her pants down over her hips. His mouth descends further until his lips tighten over her nipple through her shirt.

It'll dry by morning. Addie's in no mood to discourage him, not when every swirl of his tongue sends sparks between her legs as he bares more and more of her skin to the cool air. His cloak is coarse against her ass, rough from laying on the dirt for weeks. If he grinds down into her any harder, she could be sporting a scrape over her rear come morning.

She doesn't care.

Caspian's fingers find her core just as his mouth switches to her other nipple and he pinches the one he just abandoned. A gasp slips out before Addie can stop it, so quickly it scrapes along her throat and leaves her hoarse. Caspian's mouth closes over her lips a second later, sealing around the second groan slithering its way onto her tongue. Addie curls her hands into fists, probably tangling his hair horribly, but she keeps it down. The only thing for his kiss to silence is an exhale only loud enough if someone's deliberately listening for it. Hopefully. If only he didn't care, she wouldn't either.

Apparently, he doesn't care enough to stop. Caspian slides a single finger in to the knuckle, the passage so so easy even though her mind won't shut up about keeping quiet and not embarrassing him and not to forget how precariously everything between them has been.

If Addie had any mind left to her at all, she'd pull away. She'd push him away, tuck her heart back behind a wall he can't breach and let that be the slow, tortuous beginning of the end. But how can she, how can she even think such things when the heat of his body is above her like this, two of his fingers inside her now as his kisses swallow a truly pitiful mewl she can't force down. Addie clenches around his fingers as Caspian kisses his way down her body. Putting a stop to anything is unthinkable, impossible, nothing to be entertained with his mouth a breath away from where she needs it most.

His mouth finds that sensitive nub before she can catch her breath and remind herself again to be quiet, don't make noise, prove she can meet the question she wishes he'd growled as a challenge.

He never said she couldn't move. If she's careful, she can move.

The roll of her hips against Caspian's mouth is anything but careful, all graceless desperation as the edge she needs starts to dance within reach. Caspian's remembered how she likes him to curl his fingers, damn him. The edge jolts closer as his tongue swirls over her while his fingers coax needy little flutters from deep inside her. Addie throws an arm over her face and sinks her teeth into her forearm, biting down against keens and pleas and all the sounds he likes when she makes.

Sometimes, when he made her cry out, her sound would bring a groan from him, a sinful rumble that magnified every pull of his lips and flick of his tongue. Addie can't have that now, so her other hand leaves Caspian's hair to grasp at her breasts in a frantic search for more, more, more.

Addie has just enough time to tighten her throat before Caspian guides her over the edge, but she still bites her arm hard enough she breaks skin, shuddering around him as she chases the high.

He kisses her almost softly enough to tickle as the aftershocks fade and he slides his fingers free. Addie can't resist threading her fingers through his hair again, gently this time. She guides out the inevitable little tangles as her arm falls away from her face and she inhales her first full breath since Caspian's fingers found her. It's harder to tell when steadiness returns to her limbs in the dark; usually her vision returns to normal first, and her muscles after that. But in the dark, she only has sensation to guide her.

Caspian crawls his way back up, peppering little kisses across any skin he finds. His hands pull her pants back into place as he goes, though it takes an extra moment to get the cloth under her ass. Stray grains of dirt stuck to her skin scrape as he covers her. It's annoying, those pricks over her skin, but not annoying enough she can find the words to complain. Not when Caspian's kissing her mouth like a drowning man, devouring her like he did moments ago. Not when his hands are covering her one moment and cupping her face like she's a treasure the next. Addie finds enough sense to kiss him lazily back. For now, she's content to drown in him.

For now, he's hers. And she is his.