Language Lesson: Saranghae: (Korean) I love you. (Informal)
Layers
Chapter Fourteen
By: Brenli and Jael
"So where's Uncle Mika?" The tiny little ponytail of white hair, pulled to the nape of Abel's neck, had proven useless after hours of scrambling around and roughhousing with Nathan and the young Vampire boy, Aaron. When his bicolored eyes noticed Aaron's dark brows pinching together, he reworded himself, "Michael. Where's Michael?" That felt weird... calling him Michael. It felt even weirder that he had only seen him for the briefest of moments, since he'd gotten here. Watching the shock and then the rage play over the Fire Angel's face when his father had told him about Nema bleeding from her face... that was all he'd seen of Michael, and Abel didn't like it; it didn't feel right. "... Nathan, you hear me?"
The younger of the Rabbit boys hadn't heard Abel at all, dirty knees on the marble of the fountain's edge as he leaned over to bother water striders with the edge of yet another stolen steak knife. His mouth was locked into a pout that pulled all the attention to the roundness of his snowy cheeks. A frown crossed Abel's face, but then he felt the nudge of Aaron's elbow against his ribs. The Revenant boy sent a small, fluorescent rubber ball through the air as he stood near Nathan. "Hey! We're talkin' to you!"
The ball ricocheted off the top of Nathan's head, but was enough to make him lose his balance, tumbling into the cold water of the fountain and losing his knife on the shallow floor of it. "What the fuck?" The child cursed and dragged Aaron into the water with him, and for a few short moments all Abel could see and hear were splashes and boyhood yells and laughter. He laughed with them, but was happy to stay dry.
Nathan ended the fight with a final shove, squirming his way to the edge of the fountain and resting his hands on the marble that nearly matched his skin. "So Abel, will you show us the healy thing you did to yourself?"
"Told you; I don't know how." Abel frowned at him, sitting on the edge of the fountain.
"Let's figure out how!"
"I don't know how to figure out how...!"
"Well you're not gonna figure out how to figure out how 'till you try to figure out how." Aaron piped up, finding Nathan's knife and pulling it out of the water.
The Rabbit boys stared at him, three red eyes and an ice blue one. "... What?" But the confusion sent all three boys into laughter again.
Abel took the knife that Aaron set upon the marble, and his voice was quiet as he asked again. "For real, Nathan. Where's Uncle Mika?"
Nathan's pale arms crossed over the edge of the fountain, and every trace of happiness suddenly left his young face. "I dunno. Guess he has to find Ma..."
"I thought she was here?" Aaron asked with a confused frown.
Nathan wished that his own frown was one of confusion... "I dunno, man... My parents are... being... dumb." He buried that frown in his arms.
Abel twirled the knife between his fingers – a trick he'd learned from a very eager Nathan not long before he'd left for Assiah – and asked, "How're they being dumb?"
"I don't know; they're just dumb! They're just dumb, okay?" But no sooner than Nathan had snapped, he began scrambling out of the fountain and running across the fresh, green grass. "Dad...! Dad!"
Michael was a bundle of nerves rubbed raw, shoulders tense and jaw firmly set, but even at his worst, he softened for his children. "What the Hell are you doing in the fountain?" The question was tempered with surprised laughs, kneeling before his son, but Nathan ignored it.
"You find Ma?" His ruby eyes were wide and anxious.
Try as he might to keep the amused, warm smile on his face, it slipped. He hated the way Nathan's face mirrored his... confirming too many things he tried hard to keep locked up tight. "... No. Not yet." He made sure to add, ruffling his wet, white hair. "You go have fun, all right?"
But no sooner than he stood, his son was calling to him again. "Dad...?"
The look on Nathan's face would kill him if he had to see it for much longer... but he couldn't think of any way to console him. Not without lying, and he would never lie to his son. "Come here..." Michael knelt all over again, pulling Nathan into a tight, warm hug. Warmer than anyone else could ever give. "When you see your mother... you tell her to find me, okay? I need to see her."
Nathan hadn't realized how cold the fountain's water had made him until he was wrapped up in his father's welcoming heat. "Will do, Dad."
They parted with a silly salute, one that made the both of them laugh in their usual loud, brazen way. Michael hoped the smile would stay on Nathan's face... it had trouble staying on his own.
Where the Hell was she...? It would be dark, soon. He'd ended his training early when Setsuna had asked if Nathan and Isobelle would be staying with him for another night, and was told that Nema wasn't able to be found. That hadn't made sense. Nema had no reason to leave and plenty of reasons to stay... Bleeding out of her face, oh God...!
But the paranoia hadn't fully woken up within him until he tried calling her and got nothing... and then found her phone in her little bowl of glass shards. Battery popped out. A bit of blood smeared across the white plastic.
His phone rang as he stepped back into the mansion, but as soon as he saw the name 'Raziel' flash across his screen, he rejected the damn call. If he was going to take any call, it was going to be Nema's. She may have left her phone behind – and bloody – but he was sure that she would reach out to him, somehow...
"- another night, then?"
"Yeah, I think so. Just one more... please."
She was back.
"You don't need to ask like that; you know we love them-"
Four faces turned to look at Michael as he burst into the parlor that led out to the yard. Setsuna's face was etched with worry; Jibril's, too, her hand still resting upon her daughter's cheek.
Nema's face was tired and worn and sad and distant, snowy lashes dropping over her eyes as she kissed the top of Isobelle's little head. Only Isobelle's face wore a smile, pudgy white hands waving at him. "Papa...!"
The tension felt thick in his lungs, suffocating him, but even so, he smiled. "Bell Bell..." His darling daughter was the only thing that was going to keep his head screwed on, by this point.
"We're taking the little ones in for another night, Michael," Jibril said while receiving the two-year-old in her arms.
"We figure you need the... quiet." Setsuna was never good at masking his feelings, and Micheal kind of wanted to punch him in the face for it, father-in-law or not. He'd been tense when he'd spoken to Michael earlier, and he was even more tense, now. Bordering on angry.
As soon as Nema had given her daughter to her mother, it became clear that she was bordering on angry, herself. "Why aren't you training her?" Her voice was moody and seemed strained. Had she been yelling, earlier?
"Where were you?" He wasn't going to reply to that question of hers. The answer should have been obvious. She'd left her phone behind and smeared with blood; did she think he was going to keep training Lilith?
But Nema didn't answer his question, either, slipping right past him even as he tried to step in front of her, her name a whisper on his lips. He had no choice but to follow her, hurrying up the stairs, down the hall. His phone rang. He rejected the call, not bothering to see who had dialed him. "Nema-"
"Get the fuck out of my way!"
Michael blinked wide eyes as his suddenly much more livid wife pushed aside Lilith, who had stepped out of her room just in time to get caught in Nema's warpath. Jesus Christ...
"What the fuck, Your Majesty?" Lilith hissed, her cat-eye pupils narrowing into aggressive slits... and then she was in Michael's way, turning all of her annoyance on him. "What the Hell was that about?"
He really didn't have time for this. "Move, Lilith."
"Your wife needs get the stick out of her-"
"Fucking move, Lilith!" It was his turn to push Lilith aside, making it to his room just in time to catch the door before it slammed shut. What the Hell happened to piss off Nema this much? "Nema?" He was quick to shut the door, to lock it, even. Nema seemed like she needed to be confined until she calmed the fuck down... "Nema, you gonna tell me what the fucking Hell-"
She came at him so hard, he'd smacked the back of his head against the door. Fingers like ivory claws, tearing at his shirt. Lips that somehow felt like they were burning against his own... and despite himself, his eyes shut. He realized that it had been months since they had slept together.
"Fuck me," The words were an aggressive growl slipping from her mouth and into his.
The words brought him back to reality, and he gripped onto her shoulders. "Nema, hang on..."
"No. Fuck me." Cotton tore under her fingers, and it made her purr.
He tried pushing her away, but she merely pulled him back to herself, the stiff boning of her corset accentuating the curves of her body, as her torso pressed tight against him. Michael hissed, one part overwhelmed need and one part anger, as they moved... somewhere. He had no idea where all of this pushing and pulling was leading them. "We need to talk."
"We need to fuck." She tugged his ripped up, useless shirt away from his chest, her nails dragged hard against his skin. "Fuck until we can't move, anymore-"
"Stop." Michael shoved her away in violent desperation, sending her stumbling back against that little table. Her body bumped into it with an uncomfortable thump and the tinkle of glass shards in a little bowl. His breath came out in a shuddery rush as he tried to clear his head. "... Where were you?"
"Out."
"And you left your phone behind."
"Oh, you noticed."
"Of course I fucking noticed!" He snapped at her, closing the gap between them. He allowed Nema to kiss him all over again as he reached around her, behind her. He tried to break their kiss twice, even as he realized he tingled from it... it took grabbing Nema by her chin, holding her away from him in order to succeed. He held up the battery of her phone, "What the fuck is this?"
"My phone battery."
"Nema...!" Michael gave her a green-eyed glare, holding the bit of bloody plastic closer. "What. Is. This?"
His grip on her chin tightened... and she seemed to relish it, taking her time to briefly shut her eyes and part her lips. When Nema's eyes opened again, they were happy. "It's blood. It's my blood." She held up her bandaged hand, showing him the palm, and the spot of blood that had run clean through the gauze. "I hurt myself."
Nema reveled in the concern he showed, his hand cradling her own as he looked down at it... but it was brief, the battery tumbling back onto the table as he caught some faint smell upon her hand... Was that kerosene?
"Can we fuck, now?"
Oh God, what was wrong with his wife? "I'm not having sex with you like this...!" Michael snapped at her, releasing her chin.
And then she struck him.
It was no unhappy tap, no slapping of her fingers against his dragon-covered cheek.
She had pulled back her tight little ivory fist and smashed it into his face. The hit rippled through to his feet, and he stumbled backward, blinking away the stars clouding his vision.
"You don't want to fuck? Let's fight, then!" She didn't wait for him to reply. She didn't want to. Her boots thudded hard against the ground as she launched herself at him, fists pummeling, legs locking around him so that he couldn't hope to get away...
And yet she knew he was so much better than that. Her skirt tore in the process of him throwing her off of him, sending her body crashing against the nearest wall... and she loved it. She loved that Michael roared in war-like aggression as he threw her, loved the way that one of his boots slid out to help him stand firm on the ground. That was all the acceptance she needed, all the permission to run at him, yet again.
She wanted to tear him limb from limb, but she settled for clothing, the shirt mere tatters around his neck and the remnants of sleeves slipping to his wrists. He wanted to cage her, but she would never let him get that far, no. Her petticoat was sloppy, ripped up layers underneath the scraps of what was once a skirt. Her little crown was torn from her hair, taking a few snowy strands with it... crushed under the heel of his boot.
She tore at his hair and spat in his face and he growled and slapped her once, her cheek burning red, his eyes burning green. She tried to hit him with their lamp, but he had batted it aside, making it shatter in the corner of their bedroom. Everything punctuated by the crack of wood... Chairs, one of which she had thrown at his head, blurring his vision. The little table crumbled on one side when Michael had wildly thrown Nema onto it, two legs buckling and snapping free as her body slid over the wood and clear through to the tiny kitchenette. Little shards of glass from the bowl marked the trail her body had made.
They were destroying each other.
Finally some loudly-quiet pause punctuated their brawl, both of them dizzy from the impact of furniture. Their stances were hunched, already partly-spent, breath escaping them in puffs. Their gazes pierced at each other...
Michael raised his hands, beckoning her forward. "More..." He needed more of this. No one could ever fight him like Nema could... more than skill, more than luck. Something all their own, which he hadn't tasted in so many months.
Nema lunged at him with an aggressive roar, taking him around his stomach, bringing him to the floor. He growled at the pain of a broken chair at his back, felt it crunch flat against the ground as Nema grappled with him, sought to pin him by his wrists. But one leg hooked around her shoulder and pulled her right off of him. Debris crunched against her back, and she snarled at him, flailed, scrambled. She'd lasted longer against him before, and she wanted to do it again. She wanted to make him earn her defeat. Her legs, both of them, curled up... the feel of his pants, of the cold buckle of his belt against the warmth between her legs pried a much more wanton cry from her mouth... the sharp heels of her boots stabbed into his sides, making him yell out in pain. He slapped her for it, grabbed her face with a firm grip, kissed her. For all the insisting she had done earlier, Nema's fingers clawed into his skin, tearing at his sides, his arms, drawing blood along his shoulder blades. Her heels still digging into him, even as she tilted into his demanding, violent, crushing kiss.
And then she bit his lip, spurring another painful cry from him. It was enough for him to release her, fingers touching at the tinge of blood at his mouth, but as she rolled onto her front and tried to crawl away, he grabbed her. His fingers curled into the lacing of her corset and pulled her, bringing her beneath him all over again... this time, on her belly.
"I don't remember you being a dirty fighter," Michael growled to her, tearing the lacing of her corset wide open, pulling it away from every eyelet.
"I don't remember you being a little bitch," She snarled back, realizing her sudden helplessness. The way her tattered skirt had hiked up so high she could feel the fabric of his pants, seeming to scrape against the curve of her rear.
He flipped her back over, the corset left on the floor, baring her snowy-pale breasts to him. "We'll see who's the little bitch soon enough," One hand planted itself squarely against her chest, pinning her... the other disappearing, though the telltale tink of his belt being undone rang loud in their ears, the unzipping, the rustling of fabric.
"Will we?" The question came out in a rush of excited, aggressive, primal moaning. "Because I will fight you until my body gives out...!"
Every word sent a shudder through Michael's body, and he relished the flash of pain that crossed her face when he tore her underwear from her body, the thin, elastic straps snapping. "Counting on it...!"
There had been smiles upon their faces as they challenged each other, combative, fevered smiles that promptly disappeared when he thrust into her, right to the hilt, hips meeting with a force that would leave them bruised by the end of the night. Their mouths became o's, releasing overwhelmed cries into the darkness. It had been too long...
Nema was true to her word, the heels of her boots stabbing at his body, again. Michael had to hold her thighs with bruising force in order to lean down between them, and when she leaned up with every intention of biting him, he took her by her chin, one hand holding her under her jaw as he pinned her head against the hard floor. He did plenty of biting of his own, a painful line down her neck, but when he arched his body and took one petal pink nipple into his mouth, his teeth were teasing, his tongue tracing circles around it. Nema could do no more than kick and claw at the skin of his back... and scream. Scream it out. God, it had been so long since she'd allowed herself to wail out her pleasure like this. Openly. No muffling with kisses or pillows. No care that others might hear...
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized that Lilith might hear. That made her cry out even louder, even more desperately. She hoped that rotten Princess would hear every ounce of ecstasy that she would never receive.
Michael braved a kiss upon her screaming lips, deep, invasive, demanding before withdrawing from her. The emptiness between her legs made tears suddenly spring into her eyes. She was incomplete. She was lonely. She needed him. That was when he grabbed her with a fiery-blue fierceness in his eyes, and threw her... no, slammed her mercilessly onto their bed, so hard that she had bounced and skidded across the blankets and sheets. He has back on top of her, within her, in seconds, and the pleasure bordered on pain, and she needed it. She needed him to push her into places she couldn't go, not without him, and that need pushed the tears out of her tightly-shut eyes and down her pale cheeks, blushing brightly from their exertions.
The tears triggered something else, and Nema could feel it in the way his thrusts slowed, stirring deep inside of her. She could feel it in the way his kisses dotted each shining tear trail...
Nema opened her eyes to see his own similarly-blushing face, lips parted with every deep sigh. Eyes blue and... carefully reading her.
She glared, felt her breath come out in a hiss, and it was her turn to grab him, to pull him down and mount him with all the angry, twisted need that had yet to be sated. So she had cried. So what? She wasn't done. She needed more just as he needed more. Oh, she could tell from the ever-present length of him, piercing her deep...
She rode him. She rode him with her hands pinning him, wincing when his grabbed on tightly to her bruised thighs, his fingers digging into the blue dragon circling one of them. She tore her nails down his chest in retaliation. Eventually her hands joined his, resting over them as she threw her head back and felt tremors run through her. Hips rolling, screaming at the ceiling, her orgasm tore her apart... it was everything that she wanted.
Neither was it over. Nema's orgasm had utterly drained her, causing her to crash onto his chest, her pale ear close to his mouth. She heard Michael perfectly. "I don't think so." He pushed her off, dragged her higher onto their bed, her panting face landing against the pile of soft pillows. "I'm not finished with you..." Nema didn't have a single drop of energy left to fight him as he lifted her hips and drove into her again, his groaning echoing in her ears. She felt one hand curl tightly into her snow-white hair, holding her face down into the bed, pinning her, and she couldn't fight him. She didn't want to.
For all her struggling, this was her favorite part. The best part... when he had utterly destroyed every barrier she put up, crashing through, leaving her at his mercy. She loved being at his mercy. She loved that he would take her over and carry her through... everything. All of it. Nema had thought it before, and she knew that she would think it for the rest of her life... Michael would be the only one who could do this to her.
It was all she could do not to cry, again.
"Somebody's about to come for me, again..."
Of course he read her like a book. She had no hope of restraining the telltale hitching of all her cries and she could finally hear the same hitching in his own voice... She loved hearing him in these moments. She loved hearing him tip over the edge, and just thinking about it sent her over.
Nema hadn't even realized that he had flipped her onto her back again, she was so lost in her second orgasm. She could do little more than scream out and revel in the way his cries sounded when mingled with her own... She could do little more than feel the pulse of him deep within her, and accept his kiss. His kiss, not like all the previous ones. The previous ones had been fevered and angry and needy. This kiss? This kiss was tender. The balm for all their wildness...
No sooner than Michael had gently withdrawn from her, settling by her side to join her in the attempt to catch their breaths, his phone began to ring all over again. "Fucking kidding me..."
"Don't..." Nema's voice was weak and pleading, rolling until she was half on top of him. "Don't answer it..."
"It's probably Raziel... He called me earlier." Michael groaned as his pulled his phone from his pocket, his pants still slung low against his thighs. "He won't stop."
"Take the battery out..." Nema sighed, teasingly nipped at his cheek. "That's what I did."
Michael flinched against the feel of her teeth against his skin. "We still have to talk about how much that pissed me the fuck off, Nema."
"Then let's talk," Nema said, brushing sweaty locks of fiery red hair away from his forehead, "Tell me what a bad girl I am..."
He chuckled at her, but still took the call. "What the fuck do you want, Raziel?" That was as good of a greeting as the Prime Minister of Heaven would get from him. Especially after what had just transpired...
Nema dotted kisses all along the Fire Angel's warm chest, following the angry red lines that her nails had left while Michael subjected himself to listening to Raziel's... bellowing? She couldn't make out what he was saying, but he clearly seemed upset. She felt his muscles grow tense and looked up to see his jaw firmly set, a little tick starting in one corner.
"... Well what the fuck do you want me to do about it? The damage is fucking done!" Michael started bellowing back. "... I'm not defending shit, Raziel! But I wasn't a part of this! It's on her!" Gone was the wonderful shade of blue Nema loved to gaze into after making love, rapidly replaced with that moody green shade. No less stunning, but it hurt to be under the heat of it... "Where is she?" He paused. His jaw ticked in that corner again. "... I don't fucking know, Raziel. She left her phone here. She could be anywhere. … Yeah, I'll tell her to call you." He didn't bother with a goodbye, immediately hanging up.
Nema went right back to kissing all the wounds she left him. She wondered if his back looked even more scratched up...
"So are you gonna 'fess up, Nema?"
"'Fess up to what?" Nema said in a tired moan, her hands trailing down his stomach.
Michael caught her hands before they could reach his waist. "You fucking lit up your old headquarters?"
Pale fingers clutched at his. "They're not mine, anymore. They're his. This way, I've crippled him." She sat up when he did, feeling briefly dizzy for how quickly they moved. "I should have done it a long time ago... I've been way too nice to Azrael and his group."
"What the fuck is wrong with you, Nema? Now you're lighting shit on fire?"
Nema blinked bleary, exhausted, confused ruby eyes at him. "What's wrong with that? It's what you would do."
The War Angel's angry eyes widened at her claim... however true it might have been. "It's not what you do!"
Her snowy brows began to knit together, a frown creasing lips that were still swollen from their earlier, more violent kisses. "And what if it's what I do, now?"
"Fuck this..." He climbed out of bed.
The air was suddenly far too cold, and empty, and lonely... and everything Nema had ached to avoid. "Why are you getting angry about this? The Uprising can riot through our neighborhood and it's expected of them. I retaliate and I'm a letdown?"
"You're ruining your shit, Nema!" He snapped at her, fumbling to remove the scraps of shirt still hanging from him. "Jesus fucking Christ, why am I the one telling you this? I don't even like this political gaming bullshit and I know you're undoing everything you've fought for! You wanna know why I'm pissed? You're getting to be no better than Azrael!"
The words cut deep... and she knew that Michael had known they would. "How could you think that of me...?"
He didn't answer her, fighting back an unwelcome tightness in his chest. "Are you happy?" The words left his lips like sharp, red-hot daggers, piercing and burning her all at once.
She watched him as he dressed, his back much more scratched up, indeed. He fumbled with his belt, hissing when he realized that he'd torn two belt loops open when he'd pulled his belt apart. "… Are you?"
He didn't answer that, either, stepping over and around broken fragments of their room until he left. The slamming of the door shook her to her aching bones.
Aching, bruised, cold, and alone...
xXxXxXx
"I must confess... that it seems that as of late, I've felt less and less like... myself. I don't know if I can put it into words... which, in itself, should say everything, shouldn't it?"
There was no response.
He sighed and found himself straightening out the already perfect cravat. "I'm getting a bit worried... I couldn't remember something as simple to returning papers into an envelope. I've never been so... sloppy. If this starts bleeding over into the errands Lord Lucifer has me do..."
He paused. Still no response.
But the Gehenna Vampire, in all his dandy goth elegance, only smiled. "Then again, you probably don't care about this. You're the carefree one, the reckless one." His smile faltered. "So reckless..."
Silence.
"Not as... reckless as her, however." Jokes like that used to be enough, but they fell flat, and Jinho felt like he had crossed a line. "... I worry for her, too. I wouldn't have thought she needed anyone to worry for her, but..." Immaculate white gloves reached back to fuss with the hair tie at the back of his head... black ribbon serving as a drawstring to a fine silver clip, carved in the shape of three dragons circling a polished onyx. He pulled on the satiny ribbon tails, tightening it around the dark waves of his hair... only half pulled up, the rest flowing loose around his shoulders. "I don't understand how they could treat her like this. Illegitimate or not..." Some instinct made him check his pocket watch. It was late in London... he should be getting back. "... I'm worried for everyone, honestly. There is so much... stress, going around. The air is so heavy with it, I could almost swear I'm back in Sheol." A smooth, soft little sigh left his lips. "But I should go. I wish that I had more time to give..."
Yet more silence. That was all he received as he gracefully knelt, kissed his gloved fingers... pressed them to the cold tombstone.
"Saranghae..."
With a brief adjustment of his top hat, and a snap of his fingers, a smoky portal opened up just behind him, and he bid his dead sixth wife farewell. It felt good to finally find the time to see his dear, six wives. It felt horrible that his time with each of them was so short, too short. He hadn't realized that he needed to vent until he allowed the words to spill smoothly from his lips, like cool water over stones... even well-composed men needed to speak freely, even if it was to tombstones and bouquets of flowers laid over the withered remains of other bouquets...
Jinho's ink-black eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness of London's skies, stepping onto the paved concrete of the walkway that led to the front steps of Serissa's mansion. Cane tapping in time with his steps, he hadn't expected the hiccuping sobs coming from the far side the fountain... And curiosity fueled his silent steps, as he quietly crossed the lawn, circling the fountain until he found... her.
Lilith, sitting cross-legged on the edge of the fountain, swallowed up in her dark, unbuttoned sweater. She held her Dragonmaster earrings in the palm of one hand, and in the moment that he'd found her, her maroon eyes had been turned up to the stars in the sky, as if pleading, as if praying. Tear trails, some dried and some fresh upon her golden cheeks...
"Princess?"
The former Dragonmaster jumped, her hand closing around her earrings. A gasp left her throat when she lost balance, but the nimble Vampire was there to catch her by her arms and lift her back upright, leaving only her hair damp with cold water.
If he expected curses and striking hands, Jinho was left surprised. The Evil's face flared red, but her eyes turned to the earrings in the palm of her hand, and she said nothing. She seemed tired. "... Lilith?"
"What?" Her voice was cracked and worn.
He found himself reaching for his words. So, so unlike him... "What... What happened, what's wrong?"
Lilith's eyes were briefly angry, the cat-eye pupils thin slits... slipping away into sadness all over, again. As if anger simply took too much energy to conjure up. "... You'll think it's stupid." Oh, she knew he would think it's stupid. She thought it was stupid... but here she was. Wanting to avoid her room. Wanting to avoid the mansion. Wanting to avoid home. Wanting to avoid everything...
Jinho was slow to reply, his ink-black eyes openly concerned, but... Lilith couldn't read much else. Was there anything else to read? "How long have you been out here...?"
"As long as they've been fucking..." She tried to choose a word, and cried when she realized the last word was good enough. "Fucking..."
"... What? Who?"
"Who do you think?" Lilith tried to spit the bitterness out of her mouth. He was speechless yet again – so odd, how he was speechless – and her champagne blonde brows furrowed together. "Haven't you been here...?"
"No. I've been out..." He wasn't sure what he could possibly say about the event that had sent Lilith into tears. Michael and Nema were married, of course they would make love...
Lilith felt the sobs build up in her chest once again. "Lucky... They're like... fucking monsters or something, just..." She stopped when she heard a very quick, short chuckle leave the Vampire, and she turned hurt eyes up at him.
Jinho wasn't exactly surprised that those two would have been wild, or at least vocal enough to be overheard. That seemed to be their nature... But his amusement had been an invisible dagger stabbed deeply into her, and he had to wonder how many more of those metaphorical blades she had already wielded against herself. "I'm... sorry."
"Sure you are!" She snapped, sobbed and hung her head, champagne blonde hair sliding forward to shield her face.
"Lilith..." He took her pause as an allowance to keep speaking. "I am. I am sorry... I know you... cared."
This time, she laughed, but it was unhappy and tear-filled. "I guess I cared; I don't know." Her hand closed around her earrings again, and her fists tangled in her pale locks. "I don't know anything... She just... I don't know what her fucking problem is today. She plowed into me. Nearly ran me over. Yelled at me to get out of her way. I figured she was pissed at Michael, but he... he told me to move, too. And they shut themselves up in their room, and it was all... yelling, at first. Screaming at each other. I thought they were brawling... and then the noises changed." Her shoulders shook violently, despite all her efforts to contain herself. "The noises changed and I... Shinryu help me, I wanted to set things on fire...!" Her hands dropped to her lap, and she opened one to stare at her earrings again. "... I've been out here ever since. I... I think they're done; I don't know. I don't want to find out..."
Jinho listened to her pour out tears and pain-filled words, and tried to think of the words to say. He realized he was bearing witness to the Princess' first heartbreak, ever... and yet the ability to speak didn't match with his urge to comfort her. He could only offer silence...
"I just have this... ache, inside of me. I feel even more empty than before when I'm near him. Only he can make it feel better. Isn't that love...? Isn't it?" The confession was shaky and clumsy on her quivering lips. "I guess that's stupid, huh? To not even... know? I feel like an idiot..."
"Don't say that..." He kept his voice quiet, cool water over stones as he carefully gave her words that would likely hurt more than soothe. "... The heart feels many things, Lilith. Not just love. I've told you... Michael and Nema share something that they can never have with anyone else." A hiccup of a sob left her, and Jinho mentally berated himself for hurting her even more. "… I hate making you cry. I feel absolutely horrible for it... but it's the truth, Lilith. You need to know the truth."
"I guess I don't know what I'm doing, anymore…" She heard her voice hitch, choke, and her vision blurred. She took the silk handkerchief when it was offered, her emotions too frayed to bother pushing it away. "I wish I could talk to her about all of this." Her eyes met his, and she smiled despite herself… just slightly, weak and broken. "To Jade. She's… she's the closest thing to a mother I've ever really had. She loved me…" Her gaze dropped to the handkerchief as it dangled from her hand, the Dragonmaster earrings still glinting from the palm of her other one. "Even when I was at my worst, she loved me…"
A frown, however charming, curled his lips. How was it that his words came slowly to him, now? As though it took extra care to gently pick each one? "… She's not gone. She's still here, near you… She never left you."
"... You're right." Lilith desperately tried to catch tears with the soft square of silk before they could tumble too far down her face. "You're right, but I... I feel so alone...!" She'd already sniffled and sobbed, but she hadn't wanted to outright wail before him. She hadn't wanted to wail in front of anyone. And when she felt the immaculate, dark sleeves covering Jinho's arms circle around her, she felt like throwing up white flags and being left for dead. All she could do was cry, and even cling to him. "I just want to go home, to go into the Temple and pray and pray... But the Elders would pounce and soon they'd drag you down, too, and they'd-"
"Fuck the Elder Council."
The shock as entirely mutual, Lilith blinking away tears to look up at him, Jinho's ink-black eyes slightly wide before turning away. That had slipped out of his mouth like barbed silk... uncontrolled and painful. "... Do you know... how many times I have said that? Screamed it, even. To their faces. They say it's the bastard in me, showing itself..."
"They know so much about bastards?" Jinho could still hear the thorny tones, wrapping around the soft smoothness of his voice. He couldn't help but be offended in her stead. He couldn't begin to explain why. "Have they thrown this at you... all your life?"
"Don't I deserve it? For killing off the royal family?"
What was he listening to...? "None of these deaths are your responsibility...! Is that what they tell you?" She was silent. She was silent and he felt his heart drop down low into his stomach. "Your father's death is the King's fault, and his suicide is something he answers for! Only him!" The barbs grew larger in his throat. Jinho swallowed them down. "... The same for Queen Kurai."
"No." Lilith shook her head, and tears lined her eyes. "No, I killed her..."
Jinho felt the blood drain from his tan face. Did she believe the story? That Kurai had died in childbirth...? "Lilith..." Dare he tell her the truth? She deserved the truth, didn't she? "... I think... you need to go through those papers my father brought me..."
"No, I don't. I know more than those papers have told you." She pushed herself away from his embrace, shrugging her sweater tighter around herself to fight off a chill. Lilith couldn't look at him, her tear-filled eyes staring up at the sky, and on instinct her hand slid outward again, the earrings in her palm. "... You think it was a suicide... right? Double suicide?"
That had been what the dates on the records of death implied... Jinho could only offer a very quiet, apprehensive, "Yes..."
Lilith's head shook, hung low as she cried. "... It wasn't a double. I..." The handkerchief slipped into her lap as she covered her mouth and sniffed back tears and sobs. "Jinho, the King wanted me murdered, he wanted me dead..." She was met with silence, but... she knew she couldn't expect responses. Not really. Not even from him. "There's this... My mother left a note, with Jade. I wish I could... I wonder if I could... summon it. You could read it. I don't know if I can say it without..." Blubbering and sobbing and wailing. Like she already was... But her hands closed together around the earrings, and she tried, anyway. A muttered chant in the language of the Evils, but nothing happened. She tried again. Nothing. Again...
Of course nothing would happen. She wasn't the Dragonmaster, anymore... And the weight of it caused more pathetic hiccups, pathetic like her sorry self. Her eyes shot open when she felt the softness of his pristine, white glove rest over her golden hands. "... I can't do it." She sighed apologetically.
"I know..." His voice mirrored hers, but remained ever soft, like cool water, like mist. "But if you want to tell me, on your own... I can wait."
He was true to his word, sitting there with his cane resting against his hip while Lilith went through bouts of brief composure, crying, composure again. "... In the note... my mother said... that King Amin wanted me dead. After executing my father... he wanted any hint of this whole scandal erased. That meant... getting rid of me. And my mother couldn't do it; she said... she said that she's lost so many people she loves. So many, and... she said that she left everything to me. The... legacy, I guess. Of being a Dragonmaster. She left it with me... and then she killed herself." Her shoulders shook, and sobs warped the rest of her words. "She knew they wouldn't kill me if I was the only Dragonmaster left... She killed herself to save me...! And... and the King killed himself after the Guard found her. Because why would he want to raise the little bastard girl who caused the death of his wife? Why would he?"
Jinho wound his arms around her all over again, though he couldn't be sure they did much to comfort her. He hoped they would. The sheer weight of hearing this for the first time made him feel like his body would buckle. How much worse would it be to carry this weight for years...? To have it twist in ugly ways on the inside? "No, no... Lilith, listen to me. Queen Kurai died protecting you... that is a mother's love. You can't blame this on yourself. It was her decision to protect you..."
"Shouldn't I?" She pulled away and felt that chill again, grabbing his handkerchief and pressing it against his chest. Holding him away... but when he made motions to move back, her fingers curled into his cravat and held him in place. "Shouldn't this be my fault? If I'd never been born then she'd be alive, right now. And my father. Maybe they'd be together. Maybe only in secret. I don't know. Nobody really knows, except... they'd be alive if I didn't exist."
The Gehenna Vampire wasn't sure that he wanted this to lead where it seemed to...
"And my mother was so good...! She was such a good Queen...!" Lilith wept. "Every book, every letter says so...! The Shinryu even say so! She was a brat as a child, but she grew up and she was so wise, and so giving, and so brave, and... and what am I? What am I, except for a selfish little girl, who never wanted to grow up, who lashes out and loves it? Who chases married men, and who fucking cries when they don't want her back? Why am I here, and not my mother? Why am I the one living?"
"Lilith..."
She released him to press his handkerchief against her throat. "When you grabbed my neck, you should have held tight and twisted."
"Don't talk like that!" The words were a silken cry in the night air, ink-black eyes wide in horror, in pain, in sadness. The unmistakable flutter of wings too large to belong to anyone other than an Angel managed to reach Jinho's ears, and he didn't take more than two seconds to see who'd arrived. It was Michael, coming from who knows where... Jinho wouldn't have figured he would be out, anywhere, if what Lilith said was true. He assumed that the Fire Angel would have barricaded himself in with Nema... And then he heard the soft, choked up sob escape Lilith's mouth. "Let's go."
Lilith didn't have the energy to fight him, not right now. "What...? Where?" She stood when he pulled her to her feet, allowed him to pull her into the smoky void he'd snapped into existence, though she had no idea what this would feel like or where it would lead to.
The void had felt like nothing, which was unsettling in a way all it's own. As easy as slipping through a doorway, though smoke had briefly made her blind... She was in her room again, and for the first time ever, she was... a tiny bit ashamed of the state of her room. Boxes of clothes donated from Jibril were opened, with clothes spilling out... but nothing was hanging in the closet. She'd tried to settle in to as little of the room as possible, as though it might have made her less of an inconvenience. "... I'm sorry about the room." That felt entirely too strange. She didn't like to apologize. Not out loud, at least...
"I don't mind the room." He was gentle, trying not to upset her.
And that was exactly what upset her. "I'm sorry..."
"Don't be sorry. Truly. I don't mind the room-" The last word caught in his throat, sat in his mouth in surprise when he felt Lilith's arms wrap tight around him. When he heard her weep again... but what else could he do but hold her, hold her and let her weep? "Lilith... what can I do to make the hurt go away...? What can I do...?"
"... I don't know. I don't know if you can do anything to help..."
The hopelessness struck him silent. He could only hold her and let her cry it out, cry until the tears had run dry and her breathing slowed...
"This... sucks. I just want... I want a whole pint of ice cream..."
Jinho hadn't realized that his cheek had been resting on the crown of her head. "Is that what you want?"
She laughed, but it was quiet, strained with tears, and tired. "No... not really... it would be nice, I guess, but..."
"I could get you it, if you really wanted it..." When had his arms wound around her this tightly? Usually he was so much more self-aware than this...
"I'm not sending you out to the fucking... corner store for a pint of ice cream, Jinho."
"You don't have to send me anywhere. I can simply..."
It was only when she had to rest her chin against his cravat that he realized he had begun cradling her. "You can summon ice cream?"
"... It's, um..." He verbally stumbled. He never verbally stumbled. "It's not particularly difficult for a person of my... rank, in Lord Lucifer's court."
"Lucifer turned you into..." She sniffed back the last few tears and somehow, despite all her sadness, found it in herself to smile. To laugh. "... He turned you into a Demonic freezer?"
"No, no...!" What a horrifyingly awful way to simplify one of a list of powers he'd gained over the years...! And yet he laughed with her. He laughed over how wrong and stupid and silly and wonderful such a claim was. How it made her laugh. It felt so much better that she was happy, again... He could not keep himself from cupping her tear-stained face with his perfect, white gloved hands. "That's better..." Thumbs stroked over soft, golden cheeks, across tear trails, and suddenly the silence was... loud. Very loud. He noticed how she had looked down at the Dragonmaster earrings in her hand... without thinking, he took them and gently slipped them into her pierced ears.
He noticed how mussed her champagne blonde hair had become over all the tears and the fingers tearing through it, and he sought to smooth the strands out, his hands gently brushing along the crown of her head... He didn't pause until her brows had arched together, her eyes crinkling as she laughed and asked, "Why are you... petting me...?"
Jinho's mouth fell open. Speechless, floundering again... he was never like this. "I... I don't know..." A strange and extremely rare laugh of bashfulness left him, but he cupped her baffled face in his hands just once more... and then stepped away. "I should leave you, I think. You need rest."
Lilith nodded, her face still carrying traces of her puzzlement. A peculiar pout to her mouth, a slight squint to her eyes... "One thing, though...?"
"What is it?" He used to pride himself on be ever-unshakeable, but when Lilith closed in on him, her arms reaching around him, his entire body had tensed...
She tugged on the silver hair tie, pulling it free, and the top half of his dark waves fanned across the lower half he'd already left loose. "... That's what I thought."
His dark brows gently knit together. "What did you think...?"
"It looks even better when it's all down."
Jinho's eyes went wide before he could regain composure, and he settled for a humble, "I feel unkempt..."
Lilith's nose scrunched up in response, and she slipped the hair tie around her wrist before reaching up to fluff and adjust his hair. "You're an idiot." She turned and pointed out his reflection in the vanity mirror just across the room, "Look, you look good."
He stared at his dark locks, dusting along his collarbones, a wave or two resting along the outer edges of his cheeks... But his dark eyes settled on her face, tired and tear-stained but relaxed, and whatever smile had touched his face faded... "I really should go." He reached out for her wrist, for the hair tie that circled it, but she snatched it away, walking toward her vanity and slipping her own, partly-dry hair through it. A tug of the black ribbon drawstrings, and the silver crest of three dragons settled at the nape of her neck... he realized that he was due for a drink.
"Go, then."
He wasn't about to let the opportunity to immediately leave slip past him, and he turned, his cane tapping against the floor as he made his way to the door.
"And, hey..."
He already had his silver flask of blood at his lips when he turned to her.
The fact that she'd caught him off guard seemed to please her, if the way her smile grew meant anything. "Thank you."
He finished his sip, and tipped his top hat to her, feeling the loose waves of his hair slip over his shoulders. "Goodnight, Princess." At least that much, he was able to say and do with perfect grace... but as soon as he slipped through the wood and paint of her door, his cane touched the ground with a thunk that shook him. He stood, resting both gloved hands on the silver head of that cane, his frown and his furrowed brows pulling hard on his face…
"Jinho?" A soft and surprised female voice cut into Jinho's racing thoughts. Serissa stood in the hallway, stopped dead in her tracks when Jinho phased through Lilith's door before her. "Umm." A blush turned the Revenant's cheeks scarlet, and she instinctually took one step back. "What are you doing here?"
Jinho wished he could summon up that traditional, perfect composure, but that composure was suddenly miles and miles away. Funny… he had no reason to feel like he'd been caught in the wrong. "I…" His cane tapped rapidly against the ground in painfully obvious nervousness. "I just… came back." A half-truth, he supposed. He'd returned, but was far from settling in… and then his ink-black eyes blinked. "And you? Aren't you usually out around now? Taking care of… all of Judas' little errands and such?"
"Not until around ten, or so… usually." Serissa swallowed, not knowing why it was so hard to lie to Jinho. Normally she would have been leaving around ten o'clock at night to go and do her work, but ten o'clock was still a few hours away. "I was just on my way to the kitchen."
The dandy goth's head tilted, loose dark waves of hair settling against his cheekbone in the process. "The kitchen." He said flatly. "The kitchen which is… that way." A dainty white glove pointed over her shoulder, and he wondered the point was, in lying to him. What could she possibly feel the need to hide?
Serissa frowned and cleared her throat, suddenly looking at the ground. "Oh, I um… suppose you're right. Silly me." Serissa's hazel eyes darted to a door down the hallway. A closed door. But she quickly shook her head. "I, uh. I'll go, then." She turned on her strappy heels, in a hurry to just get away from Jinho and this suddenly very painfully awkward moment.
Impossibly dark eyes had followed her gaze, and he was thankful that however… strangely undone he felt, he could at least still read others well enough. "... You were going to see Uriel." A pity that his words no longer came carefully…
Serissa's feet halted dead in her tracks. Her shoulders slumped a little, shoulders cased in a dress that clung to every curve of her body. A dress she never would have worn before… Of course she couldn't have kept that from Jinho. Least of all from Jinho. She laughed softly. "If you hadn't caught me by surprise, I could have covered it up better."
"Yes, well… the feeling is very mutual." He admitted with a quiet, bashful kind of laugh, and then his brain scrambled. He refused to give Serissa the chance to latch on to his sincere, if… awkward, subtle admission. "Forgive me, but I'm not sure what you feel you have to cover up." A corner of his mouth lifted, and he had to appraise her dress. "I've seen more… revealing dresses."
Sighing heavily, Serissa ran a hand over her stomach to smooth imaginary wrinkles from her dress. "I don't know what's come over me." She finally turned again to face him, the scarlet blush of her cheeks fading to little more than a dark pink tint. "I guess my only answer, is that I'm covering this up for the same reason you're covering up your feelings for Lilith: it's complicated."
The cane suddenly slipped from his hold, and he fumbled to catch it again. His mouth was slack-jawed and his eyes were wide and he felt stupid and nothing like himself… "Feelings?" He laughed it off. It came out nervous and horrible. "Now I think you're reading into things a bit too much."
And in the wake of Jinho's denial, all Serissa did was smile. Sadly. Like she pitied him... like she pitied herself. "It's okay, Jinho. I understand. I know what it's like to harbor feelings that just... aren't convenient." Again, Serissa's troubled eyes glanced at Uriel's closed door, down the hallway. "Believe me. I get it."
A million attempts to reject Serissa's claim sat in his throat, but refused to leave... He knew that every single one wouldn't help him. They would only drive the shaky and uncomfortable idea further into the spotlight... "How is Uriel not... convenient, as you put it? I'd say that... maybe you are lucky." He paused. "Luckier than I am." Saying that much felt like a guilty confession on his tan lips. Like he was admitting to things he'd only just begun to look at…
"Don't say that." Serissa murmured softly. "Even painful love... it's a good thing. It means you still feel something. Which is more than a lot of people can say." Serissa purposely skirted around the idea of talking about her and Uriel. It just seemed... too raw, that particular moment.
"I've never doubted whether I feel anything." That seemed like an even guiltier confession... "It's merely the difference... between willingness or not." Jinho was getting ahead of himself... in too many ways. Maybe every way? He missed being better than this... "He does... reciprocate, doesn't he? Hence the dress..."
"Yes." Serissa said quietly, threading her own fingers together and bashfully looking at her feet. "He reciprocates. But… like I said. It's complicated."
Jinho felt a strange tiredness run through him, some strung-out… maybe even annoyed kind of exhaustion. At least he managed to keep it at bay. Why was he angry? He had no right to be angry… "Complicated… how? Judas?"
"I'd rather not say." Serissa muttered. "This is why I didn't want anybody to know. I just… this is all too much. I shouldn't even be seeing him again, but… I can't stop. He's a good man."
"He is a good man, yes." He'd listened to her and he was trying to understand… but there were too many holes. Too many contradictions in what she said and how she said it… "He is also a powerful man. If this is Judas… you and I both know that his power means little to nothing in the presence of an Elemental Angel." He left the rest unsaid, even as he remembered meeting her, as he remembered the King of Revenants unceremoniously slamming her head against his desk…
"I know he would. He has before." Serissa swept a shaking hand through her loose brown hair. "He punched Judas in the face for me, not too long ago. But that isn't really the point. I have to ask what your excuse is." She smiled that same sad smile. "What's holding you back from telling the fiery whelp how you feel?"
The Gehenna Vampire's mind ran through a million postures and quotes and ways to say them, and… he came up with nothing. Nothing that could really… save him? Or… shield him from… something. Some painful thing the he didn't want to voice, even as Serissa seemed to pick it out with ease. With disturbing ease. Lucifer might have enjoyed having her serve in his Court, if only she weren't Assiahbound. "... I can't do that to her." His voice was no longer the smooth, soft, cool water over stones that it usually was. Like the barbs from earlier had shredded all of his words to ragged bits.
"Then I guess you and I really do understand each other. I've lived… a very long time. I've seen so much sadness and so much pain… it's easy for me to pick out brief bits of shining lights in the darkness. Perhaps you should learn to see them, too." Serissa sidestepped around Jinho. "Love may not be the easiest path, Jinho. But in your case? In hers? It's the right one. I'm sorry if I've made you uncomfortable… call it revenge for finding out my little dirty secret."
"It's not about what is right or not." He tapped his cane against the floor, never turning, never so much as looking over his shoulder at her. "... She doesn't want me. To her I am a lecher with six wives." And he wondered where that had come from. Words he'd said many times before, over years… but right now, they actually burned. They actually cut into him, and he had to gently even out his breathing. "... And there is no need for revenge." He willed himself to smile as he finally glanced at her. "If I didn't know how to keep a secret, Lord Lucifer wouldn't have sent for me. Ever."
"... There is always need for revenge, Jinho." Serissa said, her voice so quiet she wouldn't be surprised if Jinho hadn't heard her, at all. "And I'll thank you in advance for keeping what you know to yourself. Just as I will keep your secret, as well."
Of all the secrets Jinho had kept to himself, over the course of his life… he had hoped he'd never have to carry another one. But here he was… "Thank you… That will be for the best. For her."
"Good night, Jinho."
He returned her goodnight with a quiet, strained voice, and with a nod of his head. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to disappear, hurrying to the confines of his room with silent steps, with upset taps of his cane, with that same frown still pulling on his lips.
xXxXxXx
Serissa didn't even bother knocking on Uriel's door, anymore. After checking that nobody else would see her enter, she quietly opened the door and snuck inside.
"You're early, tonight."
A smile spread across Serissa's face before she even turned to look at him. All it took was hearing that voice, and she immediately forgot all the strain and stress and sadness in the conversation she'd had with Jinho, moments before. "Sorry."
"Don't be. Come here."
The sultry promise in his voice warmed all of Serissa's body. Uriel was sitting in his desk chair, the only light in the room coming from the lamp on the desk's surface. Her lover seemed to thrive in the darkness, and in the oddest of ways that made him perfect. "What are you working on?"
He watched her with a familiar glint in his green eyes as she strode over to him, his gaze steadily heating up with each step closer she took. "I've been researching Celestiel, still."
"Oh? And what have you found?" Serissa's fingers touched the surface of his desk, and ran across a few papers of handwritten notes.
"Nothing of importance. I'm chasing a ghost." Uriel's hand grasped Serissa's hips the moment she was within reach, and she giggled when he tugged her into his lap, forcing her to straddle him. The fabric of her dress bunched around her thighs and hiked up close to her waist. "How much time do we have?"
"Three or four hours." Serissa said, breathless as his kisses found her throat.
"That's the best thing I've heard all day."
"I thought you might like that."
"Tell me," Uriel murmured tenderly against the flesh of her neck, his hands brushing over her waist. "When you dropped off the kids at their tutors this morning… Did you get some sleep, afterwards?"
The tenderness and concern in his voice made Serissa's throat dry up. She wanted to lie so he wouldn't worry, but when his tongue worked the slope of her neck she felt the urge to tell him every secret she harbored. "No…" She muttered, her eyes fluttering shut. "I couldn't, I had to-"
"Shhhh. It's okay. Promise me you'll sleep tonight."
"I can't. I have to go to work."
"After, then. I'll take care of whatever the children need, tomorrow. You need sleep, Serissa… You're dead on your feet." Uriel pushed aside the strap of her dress to expose her shoulder, and he rained more lingering, erotic kisses.
"You are too kind to me." Serissa sighed.
"I want to give you everything you deserve." Uriel's hand fisted gently in Serissa's brown hair, and he tugged her mouth down to meet his. Their tongues dueled in a feverish kiss, their breath mingling as they panted against each other. His free hand pushed underneath her skirt, and he found himself chuckling. "I love this dress. No panties, tonight?"
Serissa returned his husky laugh. "You keep ripping them off me, anyway…" She had lost three pairs to Uriel's ferocity, already.
"Forgive me. You bring out the beast in me." Since Uriel didn't have to worry about removing Serissa's underwear, he wasted no time in slowly moving his hand up the inside of her thigh, to sink a single finger into the slick heat that rested between them. He held her tighter when her body clenched and a moan fell into the narrow space between them.
"There's nothing to forgive…" Serissa said, her breath hitching in pleasure. Her shaking fingers undid the buttons of his shirt, and she pushed the lapels of his shirt aside. "Jinho knows… about us." She bit her lip when her hips surged involuntarily against his hand.
"If anyone would find out, it would be him." Uriel muttered, burying his face back into the curve of her neck. "He won't tell anyone."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes," Uriel bit his lip and his body shuddered. "You're so wet, already…"
"You bring out the beast in me." Serissa replied with an ironic little laugh.
"Good." Uriel said, his voice coming off as a growl. "I want that." He released her hair to undo the clasp of his pants. "I want you. Every part of you."
His words stoked the fire burning between them, and Serissa's desperate hands worked to free his erection. They continued to pant and groan at one another until he finally removed his fingers from within her, to grip her hips and force that slick heat of hers down onto the part of him that ached.
This was what Uriel had always wanted. A real lover. Not just a haphazard one-night-stand. He wanted to sleep with a woman, pleasure her enough times to memorize the little signs her body would give him. His favorite ticks of Serissa's were how her hands always gripped the turf of his hair when she was close to orgasm, and how she would nibble her bottom lip before her mouth opened in a scream or moan of ultimate release. He loved that. Hell, he loved her. Not that he had the courage to admit it to her. Not yet, anyway… Someday, he would. When the time was right…
xXxXxXx
Three or four hours was complete ecstasy, for Uriel. She had never stayed with him, this long. Usually, she was so busy with the kids or with her work for Judas, she could only spare an hour. Once she spared two and it was the best two hours of his life.
But this… this was absolute bliss. He couldn't remember when she fell asleep in his sheets, but he didn't have the heart to wake her. She was so tired, especially after two rounds of lovemaking. Once in his desk chair and once in the blankets of his bed. She was sleeping face-down, her arms underneath her pillow. His sheets were bunched around her waist, leaving that tattooed back of hers exposed to him. Uriel had never really had a chance to study the designs inked into her skin, but he took that chance now. Even as she slept, he hovered over her and pressed his lips to every inch of the slope of her lower back.
Her tattoos were beautiful, even the morbid ones. On her back was a set of dark Angel wings. Cliche as he thought Angel wing tattoos were, these seemed different. Special. The wing on one side didn't stretch over her shoulder and tricep like the other. No. It was broken, snapped at one joint and hanging limp and useless down her ribs. An angel with a broken wing… it suited her.
Serissa moaned softly and stirred in her sleep, but still Uriel couldn't stop kissing her broken wing. "What time is it...?" She muttered sleepily.
"A little after ten o'clock." Uriel replied softly.
Serissa let out a soft curse. "I have to go… I'm late."
"You're already late. What's a few more minutes?"
"You're a terrible influence, you know." Serissa said, eyes fluttering shut and a smile spreading over her face. "What are you doing?"
"Studying your tattoos. They're beautiful, you know." Uriel let his fingers trace over her broken wing, softly enough to make Serissa shiver. "What do they mean?"
The question made Serissa laugh. "Nothing, really. I just picked them because I thought they looked cool."
"That's a strange reason to get tattoos." Uriel teased softly, still gently kissing her back, and ignoring how Serissa moaned. Her little moans would be the end of him…
"A few years ago I just… had this wild urge to reinvent myself. Hundreds of years of looking exactly the same… I needed a change. So I colored my hair, got colored contacts and inked myself."
"... Your hair isn't really brown?" Uriel blinked, reaching up to run his hand through her disheveled chocolate hair.
"No. It's black."
"And your eyes?"
"Blue."
"I'd like to see that, someday." Uriel murmured against her shoulder. "Why did you get colored contacts?"
Again, Serissa laughed quietly. "The black haired, blue eyed vampire thing was kind of trademarked by Kate Beckinsale."
"... I don't understand that reference."
Serissa laughed a little harder. "No, I guess you wouldn't." She raised herself up on her elbows. "I kind of regret it, though. I mean… I'm stuck with these… meaningless tattoos forever."
"Meaningless..." Uriel repeated, and he touched a tattoo that was etched on her spine, between her shoulder blades. "What about this one…?" He studied it. It was a simple tattoo, just a single name in cursive lettering. "Who's Maya?"
The smile instantly faded off of Serissa's face, and an air of tension and sadness suddenly settled in the room. "Someone I'm trying to put behind me. I don't really want to say anything more."
"Fair enough."
Serissa finally looked at the red numbers on Uriel's alarm clock and she groaned. "I really have to go."
"No, wait." Uriel leaned down to kiss her shoulder, letting his weight settle over hers, pressing his naked front to her very naked back. "Let me just ask you one question."
Serissa sighed and shivered. "Ask away."
Not being able to see her face made asking his question so much easier. "... Where do you see this going?"
The very loaded question made Serissa pause, and she too was grateful that she couldn't see his face. She didn't want to, at that moment. "'This' shouldn't even be happening, Uriel. I… I care about you. I do. You're the first thing that's made me feel truly alive since I adopted my children, but… You're going to leave. Once all of this is over, you're going to leave. I've accepted that." Serissa was so glad Uriel couldn't see the tears in her eyes, that he couldn't see a single tear trickle down her cheek. "Everything good always leaves."
Uriel felt the happiness and beauty of their time together suddenly shatter around them. He didn't have to see her face, he could hear the tears in her voice. And suddenly the need to comfort her overshadowed everything else. "Serissa, I'm not going anywhere." His arms tightened around her, and his thigh worked hers apart. "Do you hear me…? Once we've defeated Azrael and Celestiel, I will be here." Uriel felt a true confession of his feelings bubbling up inside of him, but a sudden, crippling fear made him choke back the words. The desperation made him hold her tighter, and he pressed his hips tighter against the curve of her backside. The tip of his erection rested at her entrance.
"Uriel…" Serissa's body quaked beneath him. "Don't… I have to go."
"Please don't leave." Uriel said in her ear, and he slowly, slowly inched himself forward, into her. "I won't leave you. Ever." He pressed himself just a little bit further inside of her, and Serissa cried out in bliss and anticipation and frustration. "As long as there is breath in my body… I will be with you. Now say… say you'll stay with me, tonight. I need you to stay with me, tonight." Yes, he was begging her. Torturing her with a teasing taste of his erection barely inside of her. Maybe it was cruel, maybe he didn't care. He needed her to understand. And if Judas had a problem with her skipping a night of work… he knew exactly where to find him.
"Yes… I'll stay."
A sense of joy overtook Uriel and he finally surged all the way inside of her. He took her with hard, deep and slow thrusts, burying his face in the beautiful scent of her hair. Once again, he knew that something had suddenly changed between them, and there was a subtle desperation in both their movements. Something was weighing down on Serissa, and Uriel could feel it. He felt two of her tears hit his forearm and it broke his heart.
"It's going to be okay." He murmured softly to her, punctuating his promise with his needy thrusts. "I promise. Everything will be okay..."