"Buongiorno, amore mio."
Eliana opened her eyes, but once she inhaled the warm, musky scent that was undoubtedly Marcus', her eyes closed again instantly. She could already tell that they were in his bed, her body curled up towards his.
"Tesoro," Marcus chuckled amusedly, the sound rumbling through his chest, "whether you choose to awaken or not, I do have work to get done today."
"Don't then," she mumbled, "just stay here instead."
"I can spare . . ." He glanced at the clock across the room, "no longer than 5 minutes, but then I really do have to go." He kissed the top of her head. "Come on. I'll let you cling onto me for as long as you'd like after that. You can spend today with Aro and Caius instead."
Eliana made a humming sound, but whether it was in agreement or not, Marcus couldn't be certain. However, judging by how she simply burrowed herself further under the covers, he had the feeling it was the latter.
"Would you prefer to be carried to Aro's office?" he questioned. "Or left to sleep here instead?"
"I don't mind," she sighed. "I just want to sleep . . ."
Eliana kept her eyes closed after that, even when Marcus, slightly exasperatedly, lifted her into his arms wrapped in a blanket, carried her a short distance to Aro's office where Caius and Aro already were, and placed her down with Aro, all in under a second.
"Hi there, cara mia."
She could tell it was Aro instantly, even before he'd spoken. As his fingers threaded into her hair, holding her head to his chest as she lay beside him across the sofa, she still didn't open her eyes, only subtly nodding in acknowledgement.
All he needed to do was pull the blanket that Marcus had brought with her up to her neck and purr softly in order for her to fall back asleep within minutes. In her defence, Marcus had brought her over at around 6am, so her tiredness was completely understandable considering her regular sleep schedule.
This nap of hers continued for 3 more hours. While Aro kept a hand touching her face during that time, quietly observing each absent thought and dream that crossed her mind, Caius worked at Aro's desk, only leaving the room once to take a phone call.
Inevitably, she did eventually awaken. Her heartbeat sped up to a pretty regular heart rate for an awake human, and her breathing pattern altered, but she kept her eyes closed regardless.
"I assume you want to sleep for longer?" Caius asked her.
"I'm just comfy," she replied quietly with a yawn. "Please don't leave. Unless you have to. I don't want to get in your way."
"Eliana, you're never in our way," Aro assured her, "and lucky for you, neither I nor Caius have any prior commitments scheduled for today."
"Was there anything you wanted to do?" She turned onto her front and rested her chin against his chest, blinking up at him sleepily.
"Nothing too taxing for your wrist while it heals," Aro responded. "That means nothing like yesterday morning. In my opinion, Caius should have waited until you were of optimal health."
Caius could not have rolled his eyes harder. "If you wish it was yourself fingering Eliana, just say so, Aro."
Eliana pursed her lips and glanced off into the distance. "Should I leave the room for this conversation?"
"It's quite alright, amore," Aro reassured her. "Caius is just being defensive. But as I said, at least until you get that wrist brace off, nothing that has a remote chance of causing you any physical injury."
"That's . . . most things, honestly," she noted, her eyebrows furrowed. "If anything, I'd say sex is possibly the most inoffensive thing I could do. I'm a human, remember?"
"All the more reason to ensure your safety," he concluded. "So nothing of the sort. No amount of thoughts you place in my head will convince me otherwise. I've seen it all."
"Okay, fine. If I'm too fragile for most things, what can I do all day?" she asked.
Silence followed, until Caius offhandedly suggested, "Go for a walk?"
"I hate walking aimlessly," she told him.
"In my day," Aro began, and Eliana saw the unimpressed look Caius gave him, "if we wanted something to do, the two main options were to read or have a conversation."
"What would we talk about?" she questioned. "I'm not that interesting, so I'm sure you have way better stories to tell about yourselves than I do."
"If I hear one more of Aro's life stories, I might develop a brain aneurysm," Caius grumbled.
Aro shook his head. "Like you are any more interesting, brother."
"So I'm guessing it looks like we're talking about me," she cut in. "Great. Strap in for the longest few minutes of your life."
"Your life isn't nearly as uninteresting as you make it sound," Aro reassured her. "For instance, not many people can say they escaped a near-fatal car collision –"
Caius' eyes widened. "You what?!"
"I was 10, it's no –"
"Don't you fucking dare say it's no big deal," Caius interrupted her. "You being in life-threatening danger is absolutely a "big deal"."
"But it really wasn't as bad as Aro made it sound," she insisted. "My uncle was driving me home from school when I was 10 and the roads were icy, so the car skidded straight into a tree. No one died, no one has any lasting injuries, so –"
"But you did break your leg, suffer whiplash with glass shards impaling your face, and fall unconscious as you were transferred into an ambulance," Aro reminded her nonchalantly. At this point, she was fairly certain that he was only adding these dramatised details to force a greater reaction from Caius.
"I was overwhelmed, that's all," Eliana quickly added before Caius' expression could become any stiffer. "All of that was healed with minimal if any scarring within that year. Just don't — I don't know — kill my uncle or anything."
Caius raised an eyebrow. "I'm not going to lay a finger on your precious uncle. Although, maybe if he lived locally, that would be a different story."
"The uncle in question recently moved into a villa in Sicily –"
"Aro!" she gasped. "Don't tell him that, for goodness sake!"
Caius merely chuckled under his breath and shook his head. "Other than your evidently traumatic childhood, surely you have some other interests and hobbies that lie outside of vehicle collisions."
"No, I don't," she deadpanned. "I actually only came here so I could fulfil my fantasy of getting into a lorry accident in Italy. It's all I ever dreamed of."
"Ironically, lorries are possibly the only kind of vehicle we don't have immediate access to," Caius retorted.
She sarcastically sighed. "You really had to crush my dreams like that, didn't you? Um . . . but really, I don't have any particularly interesting hobbies. I guess I play the piano, if that counts."
"I'd say music certainly would count as a hobby. How well do you play?" he asked.
She shrugged a little. "I've played for 12 years now. It was just one of those things my parents got me into when I was little and I just turned out to be good at. I passed my most recent exam a year or so ago, but I haven't played much since then."
"In that case, you may very well play the piano better than Caius does," Aro mused. "How does it feel to be bested by a girl 3000 years younger than you, brother?"
Caius scoffed. "I could play the piano well if I wanted to. And if she can pick up a cello and play that decently, then we'll talk."
She nodded. "I can play the cello too. I started those lessons when I was 11 and took them for 3 years. I also play chess."
The moment those words left her mouth, Caius vanished. She began to sit up and question where he'd gone, when he appeared again, with a clearly expensive chess board fully set up on Aro's desk. The pieces were all intricately carved, and judging by the appearance of the board itself, she'd guess it was older than her great-grandparents.
"Caius, this seems petty," Aro noted.
"No, it's okay. If he wants to play me at chess, he can."
Eliana slid off Aro and stood up in front of the desk, with Caius standing on the other side. Aro came to stand behind her, draping the blanket she'd been using over her shoulders. If there was one thing she knew about her blond mate, it was that he was more competitive than possibly any person alive.
"White moves first," she murmured calmly.
Caius smirked at her slightly and made his first move. Unsurprisingly, it only took him 8 more moves after that to get her into checkmate, but he had been quite surprised to see that she knew exactly how to avoid his attempt at a 3 move win, and then another tactic he'd utilised straight after that. Clearly she was more experienced than he'd expected.
"Happy now?" Eliana sat back on the sofa again. "Is your ego satisfied now that you have proof that you're still better than me?"
"Maybe you should play Marcus some time," Aro suggested. "I'd imagine he could only be faster at winning against you."
"And you?" she asked.
"Chess is not exactly my favourite pastime. That's definitely Caius' and Marcus' thing. But I do play the piano," he informed her. "And, coincidentally, the cello, although Caius admittedly is the best cellist I have seen in centuries."
"Does Marcus play an instrument?"
"Marcus doesn't enjoy music as much as you'd expect," Caius explained, "although he can play the piano to a decent standard regardless. But I have another question for you: were you ever employed as a teenager?"
"Oh . . . yeah," she said slowly, "why do you ask?"
"I was just curious," he replied.
Sightly wary of the seemingly random question, Eliana nodded her head. "When I was at school, I used to work at a milkshake bar. It was pretty low paying, as you can imagine, but at least there was always air con in the summer, and sometimes I'd "accidentally" get an order wrong to give myself free milkshakes. It was only with that job that I was able to save up for a car, not that I use it much anyway. I also used to help teach baby ballet some evenings too, but by "help teach" I mean fixing their hair whenever it came undone and tying everyone's shoe laces for tap class."
"You do ballet?"
"Again, not for a while now. I stopped enjoying it as much after a short while, so instead I only really danced for fun whenever I had time to, and occasionally helped out with the younger kids." She shrugged. "Like I said, I'm not that interesting."
Caius' expression, by the end of that, was more confused than she'd been expecting. "So, correct me if I misunderstand, but you took regular piano and cello lessons, oversaw dance classes, had a part-time job, played chess, and somehow achieved straight A grades during that time period?"
"For a lazy person, I can be very organised," she responded honestly. "I guess it was an excuse for me to kiss my social life goodbye. I never liked people."
Aro made an amused hum. "That's Marcus."
Eliana turned her head slowly. Nothing but pure bemusement was written on her features. ". . . Huh?"
"Don't you think there is some reason as to why you are our mate specifically? It is only natural for true mated pairs to share traits in common," Aro explained to her. "They are effectively made for one another, a perfect match if you will."
"Should I be insulted that I share a personality with him?" Eliana pointed a finger lazily in Caius' approximate direction.
"I believe that retort may have proven my point," Aro said before Caius could come up with any form of comeback. "You share personality traits with each of us, so that social awkwardness of yours — there's no need to look at me like that," he added as she frowned at him, "that is almost certainly a trait you share with Marcus."
"This is weird," she sighed. "Honestly, this is all weird. If someone were to tell me two years ago that my true loves are vampire overlords who somehow, after 3000 years worth of women and men, think I'm the hottest person alive, I would've laughed."
Aro hummed in thought as he slowly walked towards her. He tilted her chin up, his thumb brushing softly against her bottom lip and sending a shiver down her spine. "Hot is an understatement, piccola –"
"Aro, it was your idea to rule out any sexual activity with Eliana in the first place," Caius reminded him coolly.
Eliana gasped and glanced away from them both in subtle discomfort. "We can just . . . resume this another time, I guess."
She didn't even realise Aro was still holding her chin until her head was moved so that her gaze was forced to meet his. His irises were a lot darker than they usually were, which, if she were to judge from Caius' eye roll, the blond had noticed too.
Aro's gaze flickered down and then back up at her eyes again. "I think I'll hold you to that promise, bellissima."
"You didn't have to wake me up so early this morning."
Marcus was laying horizontally across a sofa in his quarters, and on top of him was Eliana, a blanket lazily draped over her. The TV was on in the background, but the volume was so quiet that all that could be heard was a calm low drone.
"But you still had the chance to sleep for longer, didn't you?" he reminded her. "Would you have rathered I leave you in my bed instead, tesoro?"
After a moment, she sighed. "Probably not. I just like to sleep, that's all."
Marcus hummed in agreement. "Yes, I've noticed. You seem to tire fairly quickly, especially with your current injury."
"I think you being so comfy like a teddy bear probably doesn't work in my favour," she admitted with a yawn.
"That's the first time I have ever heard that comparison made about myself," he humoured.
"I meant it though," she insisted. The side of her face was resting against his chest, but while the coolness of his skin was usually felt through the fabric, now that she'd been held against him her body heat had warmed him up considerably. "In theory, you should feel like a rock, but you're cuddly. I've never been so confused yet physically comfortable in my life."
"Cara mia, that's just the bond," he told her.
Eliana looked up at him slowly. "It is?"
She saw Marcus nod in confirmation. "What kind of true mate would I be if I couldn't provide you with optimum comfort as you sleep? We're yours as much as you are ours," he explained. "It's only natural for you to be so comfortable now. But you realise that it is for the best if you sleep by yourself in an actual bed, right?"
All she did to that was whimper, which forced a small chuckle out of him. "Why?" she whined.
"Because I don't want you developing any back problems or neck pain simply because my body doesn't provide the correct support your fragile human spine needs," he reasoned. "I'll stay with you for as long as you want me to, but your physical health comes first."
"Can't I just get Aro or Caius to sleep with me instead?" she questioned.
"They would agree to," Marcus answered, "but they share the same view as me on the matter and would ensure you sleep properly without inadvertently hurting yourself."
"So I can cuddle you, but not use you as a mattress?" Eliana clarified. "I can make that work, I think." She let out a quiet breath and stared blankly at the bookshelf opposite her. "I want to move in here. To Italy. Properly."
He raised an eyebrow. "You do?"
She nodded after a moment. "Yeah, I think I do. I just . . . Is it too sudden? I don't want to feel like I'm rushing anything, or maybe this is the wrong choice, and I don't want to get anything wrong or do anything that'll ruin everything, and –"
"That's enough, Eliana," he interjected sternly. His voice was so suddenly deep, and serious enough to immediately silence her. His hand slid up to cup her cheek, causing her to lean into his cold palm without hesitation, although her gaze was still fixed elsewhere. "Nothing you do could possibly be wrong. This is new territory for us as much as it is for you, but I promise you there is nothing you can do to "ruin everything". Alright?"
She looked up at him, but her expression wasn't exactly convinced by his words. "Well, if anyone would fuck anything up, it would be me –"
"No, it wouldn't, and it never will be." His arms wrapped around her waist securely to position her closer to him, close enough for him to kiss her forehead without having to reach far. "Tesoro, I am a difficult person to frustrate or annoy, but I'm not keen on the self-deprecating way you speak. Whether you acknowledge what I tell you at all or not, you are more than perfect. Nothing in this relationship will ever go wrong through fault of your own. That much I can promise."
"I agree with Marcus."
Eliana gasped in surprise and glanced over fast enough to see Aro sitting back in an armchair adjacent to the sofa. His feet were on the footrest, one ankle crossed over the other, with his joined hands resting on his chest. His eyes, which had been closed as if he were asleep, opened so that his crimson gaze was instantly on her instead.
"You hold yourself in such low regard that it's almost unsettling," Aro commented airily, "but I'm not here to give you a hard time about that. Come here, amore."
At this point, he was already standing in front of her with a hand outstretched for her to take. Both confused and curious, she placed one of her hands in his palm and accepted his assistance in standing up.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
He hummed in thought, as if inwardly debating on answering her question. "Consider this an exercise in trust."
{. .}
Author's note: I feel like this chapter turned out to be just a long ass dosage of backstory, which was honestly unintentional but I think turned out okay in the end. Also, my proof-reading on this was very rushed, so if there are any errors, that's my bad.
Anyway, thank you so much for reading, stay safe, and ily lots!
