faderift | open | busy busy busy

[ He feels... hm. Not bad, exactly, for having so thoroughly derailed her earlier plans (he is a creature of chaos, after all) but there is a question in his eyes as the footman approaches. Is this alright? She wanted to know his heart and he still is uncertain of it, strange and cold thing that it is, except for its express desire to be nearest to her. To smell her perfume in every room, to watch her move through the world, to be there when she's angry or happy or sad and do his best to provide some equilibrium or perhaps just to be there. Nothing makes as much sense to him as Alexandrie does, because they're so alike in ways he hadn't expected, but perhaps he should have. Only something similar to himself could he learn to love, he thinks, not terribly kindly.

Only something similar to himself could love him, anyway.

That train of thought will not get him anywhere, he decides.

He leans back so she can speak to the footman but his hand remains with hers, the one that had pressed against her jaw falls to his lap as she speaks and redirects the carriage. He lifts their hands together so he can kiss the back of hers, a way to hide his small smile. ]

Philipe won't be terribly disappointed, I hope?

[ She doesn't hide hers. ]

Phillipe may be as disappointed as he likes.

[ If Phillipe were to swear to never put needle to cloth for her again so long as she lived, she would choose the same; even if Loki doesn't know, she knows enough. Enough to know he will not take what she gives to hurt her with it. Enough to know if she touches him like finest crystal, like the down of smallest bird, he will lean into her hands not pull away. Enough to know his eyes wonder as much as hers.

If she is wrong, let her be wrong.

But if she is right, Alexandrie will not waste a single numbered second of their lives on fear when it could be spent in joy. Not one.

There's an extra coin and a smile for the driver when they arrive at a building cunningly designed to be part of the city and apart from it; the lines of it are as severe as the rest, but instead of corners on the windows and doors there are curves; small clovers and wide and airy arches facing the sea. The bricks of stone are cut the same, but they are of white that sparkles subtly, setting off the moulding— harsh and angular but painted in blue and offset by the curving gold filigree that dances within— and the green of the carefully trellised vines that climb the sides. A little piece of Val Royeaux sitting primly, quietly rebellious, in Kirkwall.

It is little new to Alexandrie, but for a moment she sees it so and smiles; then turns that smile on Loki. ]

So?

It's quite something, [ he murmurs appreciatively, stepping out of the carriage and taking in the white and the blue and the climbing vines. The clovers and the arches and the curves of the doors and windows. This, honestly, he finds a much more aesthetically pleasing architectural foray than the rest of Kirkwall; he's sure that the city's varied and oftentimes quite dark history has something to do with the way its buildings are structured, but that doesn't mean his eye isn't at least a little more interested in what pleases it.

They stopped their handholding to alight from their mode of transportation; now, Loki reaches for it again, loathe to let go for longer than strictly necessary. ] I would like to fall into bed with you, [ he announces once their fingers are intertwined again. ] Even if it's just to hold and be held.

[ It's still early, after all. Far earlier than he'd be awake on his own. ]

[ How easily he reaches for her. How dangerous it feels to want something so much and to have it so readily given. Like it cannot but be taken away again somehow.

But that is fear again, and fear she will not have; so, quiet and earnest, she says ]

I would like that too.

[ Looks at him for a moment, and then turns toward the door that even now opens for them to tug him along behind her into the space.

Inside it is wide and open and given as much light as Alexandrie could manage to fit into the space. A staircase curves to the second floor— the which they are headed for now, past a young man with a preternaturally calm demeanor (likely Byron)— allowing access to both what is almost certainly her studio space and a hallway of several doors, one of which she opens to reveal a large and well appointed room that has been kept tidy but has the distinct feeling of not having been lived in for quite some time.

Just inside the room she pauses and looks at Loki a bit guiltily. ]

I am giving a poor tour at the moment, I fear.

[ Alexandrie looks at him and he has trouble holding her gaze, opting instead to glance towards their hands before he looks up again, but she has turned toward the door.

She hasn't let go. Loki has to belive, has to trust she means what she says. In the spirit of this trust, he allows himself to be led onward.

That the light is very different here than in the Gallows is the first thing he notices. His eyes take in the stylings of the space as they go up the stairs and he's momentarily captivated by the idea of kissing her on them, but they're continuing onward, into empty rooms that Loki belatedly realizes are for his use. ]

I don't mind at all, [ Loki admits, one corner of his mouth raised in half a smile. ] And I won't judge you for it.

[ She is quiet then. Looks at him, at the bed, back at him, and it’s been long enough since that kiss in the carriage that Alexandrie has lost the reckless momentum of it, again has a nervous flutter in her chest that makes her breathless.

Dressed as she is, she cannot casually lie about in a way comfortable for either of them— even if it is simply to hold one another— which means the question is whether or not it is best to leave him here and have her maid help her with buttons and laces.

But there is nothing in the twining of their fingers that will allow her to leave; it will barely allow her to let his hand go if he requires the use of it to complete the task she now slowly turns to offer: the row of small pearl buttons down her back. ]

Would you?

[ Asked softly as Alexandrie looks over her shoulder, her eyes searching his for any sign that she is doing wrong.

Softer still: ]

I cannot do it on my own.

[ The buttons. The laces of the corset beneath. The navigating of whatever is between the two of them now, of whatever happens next. ]

[ He gives her fingers a small squeeze but does let go when she presents him with the row of buttons, swallowing as his mouth has suddenly gone dry. Is this how it will always feel, this precipice between a friendship and something more complex? It hasn't been this... intense, in the past, the way his heart beats fast, but there's been less chance of somehow badly altering something between himself and a lover before.

Mostly because there was nothing between them other than the moment of lust. Nothing precious or precarious to ruin.

This is different, and that is frightening, surely, but he's not going to start by regretting meaninglessness. ]

Of course, [ he answers, meeting her gaze again with a small but no less sincere smile. She can probably see his slight nervousness there, anyway; despite her promise that she wouldn't be upset if he slept with others, he hasn't managed it just yet. She'll be his first as a mortal, as human, and that feels...

Important, in its own way.

He wants to say something reassuring, something like that he wouldn't want her to do things with him alone, but the words sound clunky in his head so he sets them aside for now. Brushes his fingers along the back of her neck where the buttons begin and starts to unfasten them, one by one, using both hands and being very careful. ]

I've never done this before, [ he admits. The buttons, he means. Usually, there were fewer of them, or it was armor, or he just enchanted people out of their clothes. But he continues, focused on the task at hand until he reaches the end of the column, reaching back up to smooth the fabric away from her shoulders. ]

[ Alexandrie had ceased to watch. Rather, her face is lowered, her eyes are closed such that she can pay better attention to the small and careful movements of his hands and their progress down the length of her spine. When he smooths her free of the top of the gown she shivers under the touch, curves forward a little to help the light summer fabrics fall from her.

She looks back at him again over a now bared shoulder, her smile full of the delicate warmth engendered by the admission he'd made that means it is not only her who needs him, that they need one another, before murmuring ]

I shall show you.

[ And she does. Reaches behind her for one of his hands, pulls it to the place at her waist where the tie for the petticoat will be. Where, under it, the one for the farthingale. Watches again with anticipatory mirth to see how Loki will react when their loosing abruptly drops the structure from her skirts.

There is something about this process, this patience that is also action, that makes it a moment in and of itself. She finds she does not want everything undone now, she wants this. ]

[ Her dress creates quite the beginnings of a pool of fabric at their feet as he reaches for the first tie, the petticoat, adding even more to the pile. When he releases the farthingale there's an audible sound of surprise; he hadn't expected the shape of what she was wearing to change so drastically with just one item. He huffs out a laugh. ]

I was worried you were rather hot, under all these skirts in the height of summer. I see now the error of my understanding.

[ That last bit lifted the fabric away from her legs, as opposed to the several miles of such he'd presumed were under there, but. He can marvel at the fascinating aspects of her attire later, Loki figures; for now, he has the not indelicate task of getting her out of them.

The corset, at least, is self-explanatory; laces are laces everywhere, so it is merely a matter of finding where they are tied together and loosening from that point. He uses both hands, again, careful not to dislodge too much of the lacing from the eyelets, running his hands beneath the panels of the corset to loosen it from where it's wrapped around her body. There's still material between his hands and her skin and so he leans in and presses a kiss to her bare shoulder before helping her take off the corset as well.

Everything that remains he knows and understands; the shift dress, and the stockings, and whatever lays beneath the former. Loki takes her hand, stepping around the pile of clothes at her feet, with the intention of helping her also step free of it all. ]

[ When his fingers slide over her ribs beneath the corset, Alexandrie is living in that strange doubled world again: he has never touched her this way before, she has been touched by him this way hundreds of times. Hands that are sure because they are careful, because the man whose hands they are moves with such intention that she can feel his touch left on her skin long moments after he has lifted it.

The kiss makes her draw swift breath, pulls all her thoughts, and then she cannot remember what she had been doing before this moment; it is as if the day were starting now. He holds her hand, helps her step free, and she blinks dazedly into the shifting sea of Loki's eyes like he might know what she no longer did, her lips parted slightly in wonder, lost in him again. ]

[ He blinks back at her, smiling, before raising the hand he's holding to his lips. He keeps his eyes locked on hers, sees that something has happened, some shift in Alexandrie that he isn't sure of the cause of, but... well.

Loki can make a guess. Not exactly a stab in the dark, all things considered. Still. The hand not holding one of her own comes up to her chin, thumb brushing along her jaw before it settles at the very corner of her mouth. ]

Still with me? [ He asks quietly. ]

[ Perhaps it is some kind of answer that her eyes have closed, that she turns her face slowly towards his hand so she can continue the brush of his thumb for him part way across her bottom lip, breathes there for a moment, barely drags her teeth against the pad of it. ]

[ His breath comes out heavy through his nose when she lightly rakes her teeth across his thumb. It's such a small thing, and yet the kiss he leans in to grant her as a response is neither as gentle nor as light. It's wanting, and possessive, full of teeth and tongue, a silent entreaty that she be here with him in this moment, not lost to memory and sensation alone. ]

[ As Alexandrie is now, the passion that is meant to pull her back only drives her deeper. Even the brief bright flash of teeth in her lip is not enough to return to her the understanding of where she is, when she is, which Loki she gasps for and yearns towards.

She could disappear into this and if they don't stop now she will. ]

Wait.

[ It's ragged and breathless but she manages it; drags herself away from the kiss before darting back towards him to bury her face in his chest. To wrap her arms around him tightly and grip into the cloth of his tunic as she gasps for air, grasps for purchase in the world again. ]

Wait. I will not— I will not know it is you. I want to know.

[ She shakes her head against him. ]

I want to know.

[ He freezes when she speaks, but she's embracing him and he'd be a cold, heartless sort of fool not to hold her back in response, so his arms come up around her to keep her close as he leans down to kiss the top of her head. ]

Alright. [ He takes a few breaths and counts, in his head, attempting to calm his body and quiet his thoughts. ] I want you to know, [ he promises her, because that is true. ] What do you need from me? Tell me, and I shall make it happen.

[ She counts, breathes, tenses and relaxes as her Bardmistress first taught her to more than a decade ago. Her hands unclench from cloth to rest flat against his back as she makes herself think through the morning, through her plans and their changing: her waking, his, the ferry, the carriage. She is looking for all the things, small and large, that belong to the Loki she embraces now so she can collect them. Hold them. Weave them into the feeling of these arms around her, of these lips against the top of her head.

She finally opens her eyes, reaching for his hand again as she steps back to look at the room. At the position of the light. At him. ]

I do not know. Only this, perhaps. Only sometimes a moment to find myself again. To find you.

[ A smile, small and helpless. ]

This must be so strange. I am sorry for it.

[ She pulls his hand to her lips, then steps toward the bed with the intent to settle herself, to settle him in her arms. ]

Come and lie with me?

[ Loki takes slow, measured breaths to try and match hers. To reassure them both that there is no rush, no hurry to be made. He isn't going anywhere. ]

Don't be sorry, [ he tells her, feeling helpless in the face of the memories that threaten to overwhelm Alexandrie. ] Please.

[ He doesn't know what he could say to reassure her that he still wants, that moments to pause do little to unseat that wanting; it's like a small fire within him that grows with every breath he pulls in of her perfume. He doesn't even know if that is a useful thing to tell her at all so instead of trying to speak on it he nods, once, and lets her pull him toward the bed, toeing off his boots before he follows to lay down with her. ]

I've never... [ he begins, then stops, frowning. Reaches out to trace runic patterns against her bare shoulder. ] I've never gone slow. [ He imagines that is part of it, the devouring need to possess that fills him with insistence. He imagines that it is not very different from how her husband has been.

He imagines it says something about him, that he has no frame of reference for slow, for gentle. He doesn't want to look at that too closely in this moment, however. ]

For a lack of desire to?

[ While Loki makes runic inscriptions upon her shoulder, Alexandrie reaches too; to run light unhurried fingers across his cheek, along his jaw. To smooth the hair at his temple and comb loosely through the rest. It is her own kind of inscription, that same conscious weaving of the things she has learned of him into the way her fingertips touch the planes of his face, how they feel in his hair. ]

[ Her touch is soothing, even as her question makes him feel slightly unravelled in the moment. Has he ever desired to go slow? Left to his own devices, he'd rather not consider it at all, and yet.

This is not just about him, is it?

Loki sighs. ]

I've been... [ What? Chaotic, yes, but is that all? After a while that starts to feel like an excuse as opposed to a reason. ] There hasn't been anyone that mattered enough to slow down by the time I'd talked them into bed.

[ She’d heard that small exchange over the crystals.

Thinks about living a thousand years and never once finding someone she wanted to touch this way. Thinks about living a thousand years and of a sudden letting someone touch her.

She cannot understand a thousand years— not the passage of its time or the way he understands it— only what it had been in her own life. How different it had been, how terrifying. How much she had found she longed for it even so.

Alexandrie raises to her elbow, so she can look at him with solemn care. ]

Tell me, if you find you cannot.

[ Leans to kiss his forehead, his nose. Presses her own alongside it to murmur ] I will understand, [ before she dips further to press her lips to his, soft and sure, her hand sliding back into his hair. Thinks of him as she does so; of Loki the god of mischief, a thing of stories and songs. Of Loki the prince of a world that once hung in the stars. Of him the exile, of him the man, and she breathes slowly through her nose. Stretches her thumb back so she can stroke it over the back corner of his jaw, and parts her lips to welcome him to her. ]

[ It's such a gentle thing, her request, her kisses, that part of them feels like they cannot be for him. He's done nothing to deserve her sweetness, her understanding; he just wants and wants, wants her to touch him, to kiss him, to want him, and yet...

He has to believe what she says. Has had to, this entire time. That she means what she says when she tells him that he could be loved. By her, specifically. In general. His eyes slide shut by the time her kisses reach his lips and he tries above all else to simply match the same energy she bestows upon him. To be responsive, but not demanding.

To give them time. ]

I would like to try [ comes out hushed and shaken against her lips. ] I would like to do something... different. [ Be someone different, for once. ] This matters, you matter, and I... I need it to be different.

[ He feels overexposed as soon as the words are out of his mouth, shoulders attempting to hunch towards his ears, but her hand in his hair is at least a little grounding, a little soothing. This, too, is something she might understand. ]

[ The words, the need; they could be hers— are hers. The fragility of them in his mouth and the way he cannot but curl a little to protect himself once they are out sound in her heart like a struck bell, and the reverberation aches in her.

Skin. She wants her skin on his, a grounded thing to hold to. Settles for the momentary response of wriggling closer so her other hand can join the first in his hair. So she can stretch her body to half cover his in the soft weight of it, fitting her leg over and along the inside of his. Whispers ] Yes, [ against his mouth, as sure as she can make it. ] Yes.

[ There are still too many clothes between them for Loki's tastes, fully dressed as he still is, but he's hesitant to pull away to address that. Instead he allows himself to feel connected to her through the weight of her body against his, her hands in his hair, the feeling of her words against his lips.

He doesn't know what he's doing but perhaps to speak that into the space between them would be simply rehashing the obvious, so he doesn't. Instead he wraps his arms around her and kisses her again, before shifting his head so that his forehead rests against her shoulder. ]

[ Alexandrie rests her lips on top of Loki’s head. Closes her eyes and sighs there, breathes him, banishes the idea of time such that she does not know how long it is she spends stroking fingers through his hair before she speaks into it. ]

Shall we draw the curtains? Have candles instead?

[ Sometimes there are things too raw for the clarity of morning light. Sometimes there are things that need the softness of warm shadows. Or perhaps he would prefer to see her in this light; she doesn’t know. Perhaps he doesn’t.

Whatever he needs, whether or not it has a name, she wants with all her heart to give it. ]

No, [ he says after a long moment. ] If there is a shadow I will use it to hide. [ He's thinking of that, and of how things can be cleaned in the light of a sun; he'd like to see if that applies to himself too. Loki shifts again so he can look at her properly, touching the side of her face. ]

I don't want to hide from you. [ He doesn't know if that will always be true, but for this? He has to make different decisions. ]

Edited 2021-08-11 19:52 (UTC)

(no subject)

coquettish_trees - 2021-08-11 21:43 (UTC) - Expand