Title: Not Yet by Lightning
Title: Not Yet by Lightning
Chapter: Fourteen
Author: Jade Sabre
Notes: This is the second chapter I ever wrote, and it still feels that way to me, but short of rewriting it entirely (which, frankly, is not my forte), I've just tweaked it until it feels a little better to me. Still, if it feels a little funny, that's why.
In other news, I'm actually about to beat NWN 2 for the first time ever. Yay!
Disclaimer: I don't own Neverwinter Nights, or any of its sequels or expansions, or any of the characters contained herein, aside from my PC, who was created on a Bioware engine and thus probably therefore partially belongs to them too.
14
They fucked whenever they got the chance. She couldn't come up with a better word for it; "fucked" was the only way to describe a pair of people dancing a dance of emotional noncommitment while having sex whenever they could steal an hour to themselves, the only word for the breathless yet oddly…"passionless" wasn't the word, but…well, it wasn't like anything she had ever thought about, when she had thought about it. The lack of time probably had something to do with it—they could hardly hope to conduct a clandestine affair by the fire circle while they traveled, and it seemed that traveling was all they were doing. Still, whenever they returned to the Keep, she always managed to wrestle a few days for everyone to "relax and recharge," which meant she spent most of her time cooped up in meetings or talking to disgruntled farmers, and then skipped dinner in favor of racing to her room and finding him waiting.
And then they would fuck, and it wasn't some kind of slow, passionate sex, but it wasn't like he was the only one enjoying it either. She couldn't say she wasn't satisfied (not that she would, even if she wasn't, because that would be admitting that she cared about what she got out of this), even though it was pretty much the same every time. Some nights she'd be so tired she'd have time to fall into bed once and then pass out, and he'd cross his arms behind his head and stare at the ceiling while she fell asleep curled on her side facing the wall; and other nights it was like she couldn't hold him tight enough, like he couldn't stop fucking her, like she couldn't let him stop, on and on until they fell asleep from exhaustion. And always, always, she would wake up alone.
He wasn't a cuddler. She had figured that out early on, unsure of the etiquette in a normal situation and far too…confused to attempt anything personal. So when he rolled away she didn't follow, and he didn't extend an offer, and so she'd lain in bed with the covers pulled up under her arms, trying to figure out exactly how deep the was shit she was in. Because she was totally fucked, in so many different ways, if anyone figured out what was up (not that it would be hard if they looked close enough), if she started examining why either of them had decided this was a good idea, if she started thinking she could affect him in any way, if she started feeling—
But there were no feelings involved. That much was obvious. Besides, it didn't do to play favorites. She let him fuck her and he did fuck her and they both came away feeling thoroughly well-fucked, and it didn't seem like anything else should matter.
But it did, and that was why sometimes, when they were both awake but taking a break, and the candlelight was still bright and she was coming out of the post-coital lethargy and he was staring implacably at the ceiling, she would turn on her side and prop up her head and talk to him.
o-o-o
o-o-o
"Yeah?" he asked, as she rolled over and rested her head on the pillow under his arm.
"Hm," she said, sighing, breathing in the scent of pines and dirt and sweat and sex that clung to him.
It was quiet, except for their breathing, and it was nice to notice that he did normal things like breathe, and his heart beat in his chest (which sometimes was more than he could say for her). Then she said, "…where you'd be, if you weren't here."
"That would be telling," he said.
"You'd be getting drunk at the Phoenix," she said.
"Not necessarily."
"I'm the only available woman for miles around. Neeshka does not, as far I as I can tell, have a libido, one day Elanee is going to break under your mocking comments and castrate you, and Kana…"
"…would just as soon have castrated me the first second she saw me. Care to talk about something other than the loss of my manhood which would also, I should say, result in me not being here?"
"I sleep better when you're not here," she said, not quite teasing, not quite truthful.
"Can't imagine why that would be."
She felt this would be an appropriate moment to rest her hand, lightly, on his chest; she knew he tilted his head to be able to look at her, but she concentrated her gaze on her hand, brushing her fingertips over his skin. "Though I suppose you could have your pick of any of the peasant girls hanging around here—I doubt any of them would be fast enough to escape you." She waited the space of his breath (only slightly slower than normal) and said, "I'm a peasant girl, so if you have anything disparaging to say…"
She was leading him on, and she knew it and she knew he knew it and she hated it, but even Laura, the quiet (peaceful calm in-control mediating powerful gentle subtle and a hundred more words she never thought she would hear) knight captain had the human weakness of wanting a sense of the person she pressed herself against in complete vulnerability. She couldn't help it, and it was maddening that she couldn't help it, and it was worse because of all the men she knew, it was the one who hated talking. He was still beneath her fingertips, and she knew he was mulling over an answer in his mind, or whether or not to bother answering, and she waited, afraid of babbling, wise enough to know what not to do but young enough to do it anyway if she wasn't careful.
Finally he said, "Rape is…a bother."
It wasn't his normal cold drawl, though it was certainly a drawl, more of a drawling rumble of a murmur, the sort of quiet, tired response that made her think maybe, just maybe, he was being honest. He was almost always truthful, but he wasn't completely honest, yet when he was tired and well-pleased he sometimes didn't seem to see any harm in talking, and these were the moments she pounced. She waited, still tracing circles on his chest with her fingers, nails barely brushing the skin, tickling the light hair that curled over it.
"I mean, what do you get when you rape someone?" he said, staring at the ceiling again. "A whole lot of pissed-off people, and the law, and her brother or uncle or cousin or the boy down the street who's too scared to talk to her coming after your blood, and it's just not worth the trouble. Whores may cost money, but in the long run it's cheaper than dying, and worth being able to show your face in town when you have to."
"So it's the principle of the thing, really."
"Hm?"
"Randomly bedding a girl against her will is free but has more repercussions than a night spent with a whore." A very, very tiny part of Laura couldn't believe she was having this conversation, the same part that liked making daisy chains and was horrified that she had let this man be the first one (though if he had noticed that, which he almost certainly had, he had curiously never mentioned it). It was the part that wondered what Daeghun would think to know she was lying naked in a bed with a man who may or may not have actually raped someone in order to come by the knowledge he was espousing. "So where does seducing your leader come in?"
"It's free."
"I should start charging you. Or just take it out of your cut."
"What cut?" There was a hint of actual interest in his voice, now, not just the lazy humoring of before. He was coming out of his stupor, then, or else he really wanted his cut. She suspected—hoped?—no, suspected the latter. "I'm pretty sure my last cut disappeared the same time Veedle was building that tower for that ridiculous planewalker of yours."
"He's not mine," she said. "I don't own anyone."
"No?" He looked down at her again.
"No," she said. "I can't help the fact that they want to be here, that they think—I give orders because they expect me—they want something to do, and so I give it to them. I don't own anyone."
"So if they didn't follow your orders…"
"Well, I'd wonder why they bothered being around in the first place, knowing that I had been placed in charge…but I can't—slavish devotion isn't…" She trailed off, afraid of saying too much, because they second they started discussing their feelings was the second he bailed—or he won their battle of wills. She wasn't sure which scenario frightened her more. "But if you can pay a whore, I think you can pay me part of your cut. I bathe and this bed is much nicer than any whore's bed."
"Oh, that's definitely true." He cast his eye about the room, and she heard the disquiet in his voice, barely disguised, as he said, "Your lovely big bed in your lovely big castle, all stone and walls keeping you safe and warm…"
She looked up at his face and saw in the downturn of his mouth the same emotions she heard in his voice, and her stomach—her gut—clenched painfully inside her because she knew, she knew, that he wouldn't stay, and there was no way to make him stay. And she couldn't say why she wanted him to stay, except that when he fucked her it was the most breathlessly exhilarating feeling she knew and when he laughed with her instead of at her she—
She focused back on his chest, on the solidity of him, on all the things she liked about having a warm body in her bed and none of the things she wasn't sure about, and it stayed that way for a long time until he broke the silence and said, "What?"
"Hm?"
"Are you thinking?"
"Yes," she said, and the half-formed thoughts pressing to complete themselves in her mind renewed their attack, and her fingers convulsively curled on his chest.
"Well now," he said, turning, one arm coming down to run a hand through her hair, "we can't have that."
"Oh, I don't know," she said, tilting her head up, calm again, flirting.
"Thinking's dangerous," he told her, shifting again as she acquiesced and pressed herself down into the bed, his body coming over hers.
"Then make me stop," she said, looking up but unable to meet his eyes, afraid he would see that somewhere inside she was begging.
He chuckled, a low, dangerous sound that vibrated against her skin as he kissed her neck. She closed her eyes and put her arms around him and dug her fingers into his back and pushed all her worries aside in favor of the feel of his skin sliding against hers.