"You have to… let me do… something…"
"Stop trembling first," Hercules challenged her, though he was already laughing, so he was sure it didn't sound as hot as he hoped it would.
Megara pouted down at him. "This is your fault."
"Yeah, I know." He only broadened his grin. "But worth every second. How'd I do?"
"You want me to score you?"
"I wanna know if I should change it up for next time. I've been reading that scroll more than my geometry homework."
"Can't blame you for that, at least…" She closed her eyes, took a steadying breath, then smoothed the hair back from his face. "I'll give you a solid nine and a half."
"Half?" Hercules scrambled through the last minutes for anything he could've done to displease her. Once he'd let her hands go free, she'd seemed content enough to play in his hair, and he was sure those sounds she made were encouragement.
"I have to leave room for improvement, or you'll never feel like you get better. Besides, you'll be insufferable if I praise you too much."
Hercules shrugged and settled Megara back down on the ground, then arranged her dress to make her more presentable when they returned to the party.
"But it's your turn now," Megara said and reached for him.
Hercules caught her hand before it could make contact. "Not yet. We're going back to the feast first."
"What? Doesn't it hurt by now?"
She had a point. He was starting to get sore and desperate, but he didn't want her to see that side of him. It would be better for her to think that he was completely composed and that she was the one struggling to control herself. That would make him seem cool and in control and maybe retain her interest for longer.
"So if I—" Megara didn't say what she was about to do, and in hindsight, it must've been so she wouldn't hint at her plans and make him realize what she was up to. She squeezed down on him and set off a thunder and lightning show behind his eyes.
He planted his hands on either side of her head against the wall and tried not to let his reactive howl sound too embarrassing.
"You're not going out there all stiff like this," Megara told him, and he believed her.
Whatever he'd like to pretend, she had him completely under her power. "They'll be here to check on us soon," he remarked, glancing at the door.
"Are you worried about people overhearing us or worried that you won't enjoy this?" Megara nudged him toward the bed, and he went there to please her.
"No… I know I'd enjoy it, but…" he worried his lower lip with his teeth. "Meg… the idea of something just for me is a little… it's horrifying to me."
"You're supposed to enjoy your life now and then, aren't you? And what if it pleases me to please you the way it was for you? Are you planning to deny me?"
The air went out of Hercules, and he shook his head. "But I'm not ready yet. When I'm ready, I'll let you know." Did he look ridiculous? How obvious was he right now?"
Megara looked him up and down, then brushed past him to reach the pin left on the bed so she could secure his tunic once again. "If you want to go back to the coronation banquet like that, it's your decision. When you beg me for relief, maybe I should make you weak. It's only fair, isn't it?"
"I guess," he grunted. He wanted to calm himself down and show control over his body, but he hungered for her so much that a new fear had crystallized. Could he ever truly enjoy himself in these scenarios without the extreme guilt associated with it?
Megara smoothed his clothes back into place, and he noted her eyes were full of questions she didn't ask him.
"You didn't do anything wrong. I'm struggling with something." Hercules sighed. "The truth is… I have no problem pleasing you, but when it comes to me… I don't know. It feels wrong. I should only enjoy it if you're getting something out of it, too. It doesn't seem heroic to ask anything of you."
"We're going to get married, right?"
Hercules blushed. "Yes."
"So, do you want to spend the rest of our lives dancing around the fact that it's not equal, and you won't let me express how much I care about you in a physical way?"
Hercules was sure he must have turned green. "I'm sure we'll adjust once it's finalized… I know I'll enjoy it when we've consummated this whole thing… when I'm allowed to…" he cleared his throat.
"Go on, tell me what you want."
"Oh, I can't, though… it's not… polite."
"So don't be polite, be honest. Tell me you want me."
Her words were a verbal smack across the face. He stared down at her for a long moment until he finally mustered, "You're right… I want you… and that terrifies me because you're so amazing, and I don't want to do anything that would disrespect or disappoint you."
"You're disappointing me right now, but whatever." She nodded at the door. "Maybe I'm too hungry; maybe that's why I feel this gaping hole in me, and the fact we can't fill it is making me impatient."
Hercules swayed on his feet. It felt as if water was surrounding his brain and sloshing around in his skull. "I guess I didn't see it that way…"
"Try to see it from my perspective. We can't connect all the way, but you can have pieces of me I can't have of you. You're not the only one who's been lying awake dreaming of this day; don't take it away from me." There were tears in the corners of her eyes.
Hercules took her hands. "I'd never do that, Meg. I was nervous. I have all these… heroism hangups. There are hundreds of rules, but I still don't understand them all. We'll get there, though. Let's take a break and have something to eat, and then you can do whatever you want to me."
"Deal, no takebacks."
Hercules chuckled at her vehemence. "You're the best thing that ever happened to me."
"You bet I am." Megara swung their hands, then released one so she could drag him to the door with the other.
A minute later, they returned to civilization. The banquet was laid out with all manner of delicacies that neither of them had seen in one place. There were knots of walnut-dusted pastries filled with fruit, grilled beef glazed in honey, and seed cakes that people could crack in half and dip in jewel-toned fig jam.
"We need one of everything," Megara informed Hercules in a matter-of-fact tone as if she were Doctor Hippocrates telling him a prescription for a patient's ills.
"Yes, ma'am. Sit right here." He set her down on the couch and didn't wait for any objection that she ought to help. At the banquet table, he encountered her middle brother, Haemon, eyeing him with sidelong violet suspicion.
"You've got that shifty look about you," Haemon said. "Did you deflower my sister?"
Hercules wasn't afraid of most monsters, but a confrontation with his girlfriend's brother had made him break out in the sweats before he could name that clammy sensation crawling down his back. "Uh, nope." Aphrodite's scroll was intentionally designed to postpone that deflowering, but he still thought there was a difference now that they'd been intimate twice.
He could still taste her. Did her brother somehow know that?
"You don't seem too sure, kid," Haemon slid closer, and suddenly Hercules was aware of Megarion flanking him silently from his other elbow. "You'd better not do anything to our sister that she can't get over if this engagement doesn't work out," Haemon continued.
"And don't embarrass her. She hates that," Megarion added.
"Easy, fellas," Hercules smiled broadest. "Meg and I are sticking together, and Meg is getting the best of me. She's calling a lot of shots, and I'm happy to let her."
"You mean there's nothing you can do about it, and that's okay," Megarion interpreted.
"Fair enough," Hercules chuckled. "Don't worry about Meg, though. Worry about me!" he laughed that off, too, piling something of everything onto a platter.
Megarion and Haemon took some time to come around, but gradually, they laughed as well.
"We'll still be watching," Haemon said.
"With limits, I still have a life," Megarion said.
"No, you don't," Haemon snickered at him.
"But I'd like to, and they'd cut into that."
"Happy to have you along," Hercules said. "Meg's waiting on this food. Do you wanna join us on the couches?"
"We will," Haemon said, and Megarion sighed.
Megara was lounging on the couch with her legs crossed. Maybe she was trying to hide any evidence of what they'd done, but Hercules thought maybe she was just showing off. She smirked at his arrival, and his stomach twisted with excitement that she was his and that she loved him. Once again, he was struck by the fact she loved him, and it showed no signs of stopping.
Hercules arranged himself alongside Megara on the couch, and his skin heated up immediately at the thought of what they could be doing if they were alone. Did he officially have a dirty mind? Was he less heroic now?
"Something the matter?" Megara asked. She'd taken a bite of the beef skewers he'd brought her, and now she offered him a bite of it.
"No…" Hercules hid his terrible lying skills by accepting her offer to share the food.
"We'll have to figure this out sometime if we're going to get married," she observed. "It can't be you pleasing me and only me the whole time. We'll never have children that way."
Hercules instantly felt as if someone had opened a hole in his guts, and they were spilling out all over the floor, leaving a cold hollow. Why? Of course, he wanted kids! Would his own hang-ups forestall the ability to meet said children?
"You have to trust me," Megara said with an ironic smirk, telling him she knew how funny it was for her, of all people, to say that. "When the time is right, we'll both know what to do."
"I doubt very much that I'll know what to do… but I trust you to help me figure it out."
She kissed his nose, then let him finish the beef skewer and picked up an orange wedge. "You know, I'm grateful this is our intimacy problem and not that all you do is take. But we still need to get around it."
"Yes, ma'am," he said reflexively.
Megara scoffed in her throat. "Oh, now it's ma'am, is it? Right up until you get your mouth—"
Hurriedly, Hercules pressed a grape into Megara's mouth and glanced around the room. "Not so loud, or I'll call you Meggie."
Megara sucked the grape in through her lips with a defiant little pop and narrowed her eyes dangerously at him. "You're playing with fire, Wonder Boy."
"This is how you're supposed to do it," he said and pulled her close so he could whisper into her ear, "I know how to make you squeal now, and you still need to get me figured out."
Her immediate response was to shudder against his body, awakening something he'd meant to suppress. Theoi. Would he ever learn how to manage himself around her? He was going to embarrass both of them.
The coronation banquet became all but a fresco the longer they stayed among the other partygoers. Hercules was wondering when Phil would come to collect him and force him away from Meg when a bony elbow nudged him in the chest.
"Would you like to see our sculpture gardens?" she whispered.
"Uh… sure…" Why though? Asking would be rude, but he couldn't put it together.
Megara turned in his arms, grabbed him by the fine hairs at the nape of his neck, and pulled him in so she could whisper directly into his face, "Just follow me around the sycophants, past the guards, I'll show you the secret path, and we're gone!"