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| Details |
| Author: | inkie |
| Summary: | Lena and Mr. Shine encounter one another in the library on the evening of Lena's dance with the visiting Aszera Sunstrike. They practice dancing and communication; it isn't poetry, exactly, but maybe it will do. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
After dinner on the day following Aszera Sunstrike's arrival, Fallon House falls into its quiet evening routine; the wave of excitement over the new guest is now Yesterday. Although, really, who knows what Aze is up to right now with Siamus or Isla or any of the others? What we do know is that she is not in the library, because that's where Shine is seated at one of the farthest tables, his back to the windows, bent intently over some delicate work.
Lena is following her own usual evening routine, and she stops by the Aze-less library, stepping in quietly to not disturb whatever Shine is up to. She's carrying the same book from breakfast, and she trails along the bookcase, looking for the correct empty spot to place it.
Shine glances up with just his eye, his head still tilted down toward his work. He smiles. "Evening, Lena. Was it a good book?"
"More or less," Lena says with an answering smile, slotting it into place. "The story was rather interesting, but not all of the details were quite right on the sailing. What are you working on today?"
He lifts his head to grin at her when she critiques the sailing details. Setting his tools down, he settles back in his chair and laces his hands behind his head. "A watch-locket for Moirin."
"Oh?" Lena says, moving closer. "By request, or a gift?"
"Gift. She's got a birthday coming, and a while ago she was talking of one she saw in a shop window in the city." He considers Lena. "You don't wear a watch yourself, do you?"
"Not ordinarily, no," Lena shakes her head, peering down at Moirin's watch coming along. "Or I should just say no, I haven't got one. When is her birthday? I'm afraid I don't know Moirin all that well. I think perhaps I'd like to, but it was… difficult, from the perspective of a guest."
"February the 11th," says Shine. "Day before Lady Sintha. You'd like Moirin, she's a sharp girl. Came from a bad situation back home, done well for herself. She could probably go out on her own as a seamstress or the like, but she won't leave the House." He pauses. "When's your birthday?"
"Oh, it was months back now," Lena says, with an apologetic shrug. "I don't hardly mark them these days anyway. Late September, I was out at Vashj'ir. And yours?"
"June," says Shine. "June 30th." He takes his hands from behind his head and sits up to look around. "Will ye sit? If I bring a chair? Or we can sit someplace more comfortable." He nods toward the armchairs by the window where they once discussed art theory.
Lena considers, glancing at the desk, the armchairs, and then suggests, "Maybe the couch over there? If you've time to spare — I suppose you have near a month for the watch."
There's a little flicker of something in his one-eyed gaze, there and gone, and then he nods at her amiably. "Aye. That sounds better."
He carefully replaces tools and tiny watch-parts in a compartmentalized wooden box, then places the locket shell and its half finished watchworks interior in a little glass case and tucks this into the box as well. He closes it and rises to his feet. "After you," he says with a crooked smile.
"I'll have to remember your birthday next year, if you celebrate," Lena says as she moves over and takes a seat on the left side of the couch across from the fireplace. She looks up at him with an inviting smile, though there's something a little guarded in her eyes. "Speaking of guests, what do you make of our recent? Any guesses on the demon I might've missed?"
"The most I've celebrated my birthday recently was last year when Fallon gave me a bottle of shit whiskey six months early." Shine settles on the other end of the couch and draws a leg up comfortably so he can face Lena, one elbow propped on the couch's back. "As to Miss Sunstrike — well, she's only got the two arms, so. And she wouldn't have to be part sayaad to catch Fallon's eye." He frowns in feigned thought. "Should I rule out imp?"
"Hm, I wouldn't exclude it," Lena says with an amused smile. "She does seem to spread a bit of chaos. I expect you and I will be invited to this dance gathering of Isla's. I do think she was trying, though, not to create any extra pandemonium."
"Trying," Shine agrees. "It'll be an adjustment." He looks past Lena absently. "I'll hope it's worth it for her, in the end. And for Fallon." He knits his brow and stares at nothing a moment longer.
Then he focuses on her again. "D'ye like dancing?"
"Yes," Lena says, turning towards him on the couch. "I'm not so much an expert at it or anything, but I enjoy it. Do you?"
He smiles faintly. "I haven't done it in years, and never on the mainland. I've seen Stormwind dances often enough at events where I was working, but not done them myself." He shrugs a shoulder. "I used to enjoy it, aye. Though how much depends a great deal on the partner, I recall."
"I think I should make a skillful enough partner, if you're willing," Lena says, looking at him steadily. "Willing to go to Isla's little dance. I may not know all the steps, but I'm good at following." Lena glances away, down to her hands, and then back to Shine. "It sounded as though it might be a little larger than I would expect for a small gathering of friends."
"Oh, don't mistake me, I'm willing," he says. "Just making preemptive excuses for the showing I'll make, I suppose." He flashes a rueful smile, his lone-eyed gaze steady on her. "As I said, how enjoyable it can be depends on the partner, so I wouldn't miss this chance. But if I tread on your toes, I'm already sorry about it." He shifts to stretch his propped arm along the back of the couch. He doesn't seem to be extending it toward Lena, just sort of relaxing in her general direction. "It won't be all that big. Isla's not out in society yet, so it'll have to be kept smallish, and just friends of the family. You'll know everyone — or nearly everyone — there."
"You wouldn't be the first," Lena says with a faint smile, casually shifting towards the center of the couch. It's probably just so they're talking over a shorter distance. "She must be terribly eager to be out — I remember that age. Old enough to be frustrated that no one's treating you like an adult yet, but young enough to look at the idea with rosy-eyed glasses. I expect this will be good for her, kind of a preview, but one where everyone will be kind." Lena pauses briefly, and adds, "And she is taking it seriously, Miss Sunstrike. Enlisted me in practice just this morning. So… that's a thing we could do, if you want to brush up before."
Shine raises his eyebrow. "Oh, aye? I'd be glad of the opportunity, if you wouldn't mind it. Is Miss Sunstrike as good a dancer as you'd expect?"
"Mm, I'd say so," Lena says, tilting her head as she considers. "Not a style of dancing I'm familiar with, but she clearly knew what she was doing. I expect she'll also go a bit slower, when she's got folk learning."
Shine nods thoughtfully. "D'ye know her well? Friends, would you say?"
"Not very well," Lena says, watching Shine's expression. "Just… from the ship, mostly. When I summoned her in for the Admiral. Spent more time with her this last one, where she stuck around for a few weeks fighting naga. I would call her a friend, but… is there something sets you on edge?"
Shine shrugs again. "Never met one of her kind before. Curious, I suppose. And old habits, wanting to know what sort of trouble Fallon may have gotten himself into now." He smiles faintly. "But Annai's got that managed, I believe. What would you say she's like?"
"What's Miss Sunstrike like?" Lena pauses for a moment to think. "She's… rather straightforward and open about things, by preference. That may get in her way here, or serve her well, depending. Spontaneous — I summoned her out of her daily life into the middle of the Alliance fleet with no warning, after all, and she had no complaint." Another pause, and Lena adds, "And lonely, in a way. I'm not sure how to put it, exactly, but… I don't get the feeling she actually enjoys not… having direction?"
Shine nods. After a moment he says, "A thoughtful description. But I should know to expect that from a cartographer of faces." He shows that faint smile again. "D'ye trust her, then?"
"The question arising there would be 'with what?'," Lena says, with an answering smile. "I don't make a habit of trusting people unconditionally. I don't think she'd do anything to harm the Admiral, though, not intentionally, if that's what you mean. From what I can see, he's caught her trust, whether he's noticed that or not. I suppose it'll be up to him what to do with it, if anything."
Shine shakes his head, amused. "How he does that, I've not yet figured out. I don't even think he notices, as ye say, half the time — just goes absent-mindedly through life being trusted by people." There's a warmth of affection in his voice, and a note of resignation as well.
"I certainly don't have the knack," Lena says with a dry smile. "Most trust I have from people is carefully cultivated and intentional, and that doesn't even work more than half the time. There are some who'd just take one look at me and write me off no matter what I say or do. In that, I sympathize with her — she's forced to wear her flaws more visibly than most."
Shine arches his brow. He regards Lena steadily. "Have you felt that way here? Since falling in with the Fallons, I mean. That you have to carefully cultivate trust? And if it makes ye feel better, I've learned that outside the House, on the mainland people don't hurry to trust one eye and tattoos."
"I meant the demonic influence," Lena says, looking down with a faint blush to her cheeks. "I didn't mean to say — I suppose people can be ignorant, on the mainland, and quick to judge. And what trust I have here I've earned through loyalty."
Shine laughs. "You didn't say it, I did." He tilts his head. "I suppose I'd understand unease if the first sight anyone had of ye was you with a demon at your feet and calling fire down on their heads. That might seem troubling. But if they met you first, I'd think that would influence their trust of ye with the fel. Because you're Lena Coit first, and that will show in anything else ye do, won't it? Or am I the ignorant one?"
"I should like to think so," Lena says, looking back up at him. "And for those I keep company with, yes, I believe it does make the difference. There will always be those who don't give a damn who Lena Coit is, just as there are those who'd see missing eyes and tattoos and not look any closer."
Shine smiles at her. "Aye. And not to be exactly the sort of fellow they think I am, but fuck 'em. Don't want to consort with the likes of them ourselves. We know better people, have better things to do."
"Better people, better things," Lena agrees, smiling at him. "I wouldn't have said I was exactly looking for a place, myself, but I do seem to have found one. Maybe I prefer having a direction as well — a purpose."
Shine drums his fingers thoughtfully on the back of the couch. "D'ye know, I think you've hit on it, though. I expect that's how he does it. Fallon, that is. He picks people up and gives them a purpose, and then lets them manage themselves without meddling from him. It's a trust he puts in us first — I have a thing for ye to do, and I believe you're the man to do it — and then it's easy to trust him."
He considers this in silence. "… if that makes sense. But take even someone like Her Grace — Fallon didn't want an ornamental lady, he wanted one who could manage the finance of the House when he was away. That's a hell of a job, and he told Her Grace she was the lady for it, and I think that's just what she wanted to hear."
Lena shifts a little closer to Shine. "That could be it, yes. And it's not just looking at folk and seeing what they can be used for. It's seeing them for what they want to offer. That makes it less a cold calculation, and more like… he values a person in the way they mean to be valued. There are plenty of folk who use people, and they don't often invite trust."
"Aye, just so, aye. Her Grace is a lady with a fine mathematical and business mind but she was… in a bad place, on the verge of ruin. Not everyone would have looked at the lady and thought, 'There's a brilliant businesswoman'; they’d have thought of the debts she'd bring with her. They'd have been after her title or the like. Fallon looked into the actual work she'd done in the past, contracts she'd negotiated and so on, and then told her he wanted to marry her because she's a brilliant businesswoman. Not because she's a Duchess. He looked at the thing she was good at, that she wanted to be prized for.
"And wi'the Ebon Knights, it was something the same, aye? He's not interested in how people in general think of them, whether they're frightening or no. He said, 'If it's in your nature to be dangerous, then come and be dangerous on my side and I'll set ye loose on Scourge and Scarlets and so on.' He takes people in their own natures and sets them to a purpose." Shine is smiling faintly now, his gaze turned toward the fireplace.
Then he shrugs. "That's enough of me singing his praise." He unfolds and rises from the couch, then offers a hand down to Lena.
Lena reaches out to take his hand, a slight touch of wariness creasing between her brows. "You've something else in mind to speak of?"
"Not to speak of, precisely." He tugs at her hand to coax her to her feet. "Will you dance wi'me a few steps, Miss Coit?"
"Dancing the the library. Don't tell anyone we're misusing the room," Lena says with an playful smile, rising obediently to her feet and stepping close in to Shine's space. She holds her other hand hovering over his shoulder in uncertainty, and asks, "What dance? I don't know all of them."
He smiles and raises his eyebrow at her, drawing her closer and fitting his hand against the small of her back. It is not exactly formal-ballroom-appropriate. "The Stormwind ones I only know by sight, I've never done them. What's your favorite of them?"
Lena rests her arm on his shoulder, her hand against the back of his neck. "I suppose there's the waltz? It always looked so glamorous."
"All right," he says. "And when ye say 'looked so glamorous' — have ye not danced it yourself at a party?" He glances down to check where their feet are. He might not have been kidding about potentially stepping on her.
"Well, I don't see myself when I'm dancing," Lena says, shifting in a little closer, her chest touching his. This will help with the feet, maybe? "I might well have looked a bumpkin mouse trying her best, after all."
"I have a very hard time," Shine says gravely, "imagining you looking like a bumpkin mouse, whether trying her best or no." He does not seem to object to her adjusted positioning. Perhaps it does help with the feet, who knows? "Now — " He tilts his head as if catching the strains of imaginary music, and steps into the start of the waltz.
It is slow at first, and true that he does not seem terribly good at it (although he doesn't step on Lena's feet). It also seems true, however, that he is rusty rather than terrible, and as they go he begins to find his footing again — so to speak — and ease into a smoother confidence.
"You do not," he reports, "look like a bumpkin mouse. Not from this angle, at least. Of course, I've only got the one eye, so."
"Maybe you're catching my good side, not my mouse side," Lena says with a soft smile, but she is keeping up with him, yielding easily to his movement and matching his footfalls — almost like someone drilled her on following an unpredictable array of different footwork not so long ago. "You seem a bit more experienced than you might've let on, yourself."
"I did say I used to enjoy it, didn't I? Just not had occasion to do it in years. But if ye'd like me to step on ye — " He's grinning down at her.
Lena laughs, and stretches up without thinking to kiss him lightly.
Now he does miss a beat — there is a step too short, half a stumble, and then he nearly does step on Lena's foot and actually stumbles to avoid doing so. He catches himself, laughing, and comes to a stop altogether to bend and kiss her again. It is a light kiss as well, and a laughing one, his lips still shaping a smile.
Lena welcomes the kiss, her body pressing gently against him and her frame completely relaxed. Then she straightens, a small smile lingering on her face, clearly ready to resume the waltz.
"A little test," Lena says, her eyes bright with amusement. "But you still didn't step on me, you see. So we've nothing to worry about."
He is grinning at her as he leads her back into the steps. "Oh, and if I had, would ye call the whole thing off, then?"
"Well, I suppose you don't have to find out," Lena says, moving back into the waltz with him, keeping her eyes on his face. From the soft curve of her smile, though, it doesn't look like she was planning on calling anything off.
Shine's expression softens, though his own smile remains. "Good," he says. "Ye'd break my heart, Lena Coit." He steps back, extending his arm to turn her playfully into a spin.
Lena keeps the three-beat rhythm as she follows the rotation, turning quickly to meet his gaze again. "Wouldn't want that. Hearts can be harder to mend than watches, though they've not got so many little moving parts."
"Aye, and it comes of them not having so many little moving parts. You can't replace bits of it so easily, so ye may find the action's been damaged past repair." He pauses and squints over Lena's head. "As it happens, I'm better at watches than analogies. Never ask a clockworks-man to write ye poetry." His smile has turned rueful again.
Lena laughs, a little breathless. "Clockwork poetry. Might be it's a genre, tucked away in a gnomish library. But aye, it can hard to replace the pieces of a broken heart — they don't separate so easy as metal gears."
"Well then," says Shine, "best to avoid them altogether, aye? Broken hearts, that is."
He lets go of Lena's hand to take her lightly by the waist and lift her onto the back of the couch, perching her there facing him. He tips her chin up and bends to kiss her again.
When he draws back — slowly — he asks, "What is it ye want, Lena Coit?"
Lena leans forward as he draws back, prolonging contact.
There's a brief flicker of startlement in her eyes at the question, but she covers it smoothly with a smile as she says, "Right this moment, I think I want to kiss you again."
"Mm," he says, and bends obligingly to answer that request. This time he slides his hands into her hair, cradling her head, and takes his leisurely time with the kiss.
When he raises his head again, he asks again huskily, "What is it ye want?"
Lena curls her arms around his back, arching her back into the kiss and parting her legs to draw him closer. This time, she answers in a low, breathless whisper, "What do you want, Costentyn Shine?"
He presses closer, his hands still in her hair, and kisses the corner of her mouth, her cheekbone, and then her mouth again. "You," he says.
"I'm right here," Lena murmurs, her fingers digging gently into his back. "Within your reach."
He makes a soft sound, half an exhalation and half a groan. "You are," he agrees, and frames her face with his hands to kiss her again. "Within my reach. But I'm not a thief, Lena. I won't reach for what I haven't been granted."
"I haven't asked you to stop," Lena says, reaching up to meet his lips with hers.
Shine pulls back very slightly. "You haven't asked me to continue," he observes.
"Have I not?" Lena asks, watching him, and the guarded look is back in her eyes. "Is that what you're waiting for me to say?"
He straightens further and smiles faintly at her, but his gaze is dark and searching. He brushes the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. "I ask what you want, and you ask what I want. I say I want you, and you say you're here. Which is a fact, and a lovely one, but still doesn't tell me what you want."
He lets go of her entirely — though he doesn't step back — and lets the fingers of one hand trail down her arm to her hand, which he takes. "Or should we just go back to dancing?"
"It matters to you that much," Lena says, not looking away, her eyes slightly dilated. "What I want. What I say I want. What if I want the same as you?"
"I don't know," he says, holding her gaze. "What if you do? It's all hypothetical until ye decide it and ye say it. What if ye don't want the same as me? I'd better know that, hadn't I, before I just go stepping on someone I didn't mean to." He lifts her hand to his lips briefly, his gaze still on hers. "Of course it matters to me what you want."
"I don't…." Lena pauses, neither leaning towards him nor pulling away. "I don't want this to end."
He raises his free hand to skim his thumb along her cheekbone, then slides his fingers back into her hair. "Which part?"
"All parts," Lena says, trailing one hand up his shoulder blade as she pulls herself closer. "Talking, sailing, dancing, the way you look at me, how it feels when I walk in a room and find you there… how I…" Lena pauses, and there's something like fear in her eyes, the fear before a leap into unknown waters. "And you haven't. Stepped on me, that is. Not even when I startled you, nor when I all but invited you to. So… I want to follow where you're leading, and trust neither of us will be hurt."
His fingers slide farther into her hair, curling to cradle the back of her head. "All of those things," he agrees. "I don't want them to end either." He bends to kiss her again. The hand that has been holding hers releases it now and comes to rest lightly on her thigh, just above her knee.
"And nor do I want to hurt you," he murmurs, "and nor do I want to be hurt. So we're all agreed." He tilts her head to the side, kisses the side of her throat, and then lifts his head again. His eye is dark and solemn. "I won't make you promise me anything, aye? But I'd be grateful if ye could see your way to saying what ye want when ye want a thing, and saying what ye don't when ye don't.
"It's still down to me, mind, to be sure I don't step on ye — It's down to me to pay attention, and ye won't be taking blame if I foul up. But it will go easier, I think, if you're willing to steer me a little. Aye?" He studies her and his gaze softens. "You are a beautiful lady, Lena Coit. Ye have a glow inside ye, and it warms every room you're in."
Lena tilts her head over with a pleasant shiver as he kisses her neck, and she curls one leg to brush against the back of his. Despite the distractions, her gaze on his face is focused and serious.
"Still, I'm no starry-eyed maiden to merit such care," Lena says softly, a touch of regret in her smile. "I can handle being stepped on, now and again. Willing has always mattered more than want, for this, for me. But I'll… I'll try." Then she takes a breath, and tries. "I do want you, Costentyn Shine."
He inhales deeply, nods, and smiles down at her. "Wanting is better than willing. It does matter. And ye needn't be a starry-eyed maiden to merit care, Lena. That, ye should have no matter." His gaze gleams. "It's poetry I'm afraid you'll have to do without."
This time when he bends to kiss her, it is with that urgent, all-consuming ardor she has caught glimpses of before. His hand on her thigh moves to take hold of her skirt and draw it upward, baring her leg to the knee and then above the knee. He slides his hand under it and moves warmly, unhurriedly upward, his thumb tracing a slow line up her inner thigh.
Lena yields to the touch with a soft sound of need, but there are no words. One could assume, by the almost desperate way she clings to him as she draws her hands up towards the collar of his shirt, that this is poetry enough for her.
Shine makes a low sound and his hand tightens on her thigh as he crowds closer against her, as if to press her against the — There isn't anything to press her against, she is perched on the back of the couch, and her position there seems increasingly precarious.
He breaks the kiss to nuzzle at her temple, to turn his face in to her hair. "Lena," he says. "We should — "
Sentence words too many. He lets go of her thigh to fit his hands beneath her and lift her from the couch's edge. He carries her, still clinging to him, around to the front of the couch and resettles her there, tipping her down on her back to lay her full-length. He does not himself lie down with her but remains bent over her, braced with one knee on the couch between her thighs. He slides her skirt up again and lets it fall back around her hips, baring her legs.
Lena reaches up to draw him closer, trying to reach the buttons of his shirt. She lowers one foot to brace against the floor, and seems entirely unconcerned by her bare legs, or the potentially scandalous position. She's probably planning on being considerably more scandalous in the near future.
But then she says with a low laugh, "Think anyone will…?"
Shine regards her for a moment — processing, processing — and then looks up and toward the door sharply. After a moment, he drops his head again to smile down at her. "I could close the door," he suggests, laughter in his voice. "Or we could go elsewhere, if ye prefer. It might… be better to go elsewhere." He pauses and his smile takes a slyer cast. "But at least we're not misusing the room any longer."
"Is this what the library's for?" Lena asks with a wicked smile. "I suppose everyone knows in this house to knock at a closed door."
"Everyone knows," Shine agrees dryly. He lifts his head again to look alertly toward the door. "Although — one of the likeliest to come looking for the library at this hour is Isla." He looks down at Lena again. "We'd best not give her any other fodder with which to scandalize the Admiral." Reluctantly, he eases back and away from her, drawing her skirt decorously down — with that shadow of a smile — as he does.
He steps back from the couch, smooths his shirt-front, and offers his hand to Lena. "Where would ye like to go, Miss Coit? May I invite ye to mine?"
"I would not want scandalize anyone," Lena says, smoothing her skirt down, and smoothing her expression into a mimicry of polite concern. The flush in her cheeks and the curl at the corners of her lips would give the lie to that act, to any observant watcher. Still, she stands up smoothly, fitting her hand in the crook of his arm, and says carefully, smile, "That would be agreeable, Mr. Shine."
Shine escorts Lena down the hall to the stairs as gallantly as if they were entering a ballroom, a gleam of sly humor in his manner. He seems neither hurried nor impatient, but he is definitely moving with purpose.
At the top of the main stair, they turn left toward the third-floor stair. The second-floor hallway is quiet, the door to Siamus's office closed, no sound from the nursery.
The third floor is even quieter; with the Hartrims gone from the Summer Suite, Shine is now the only resident of this hallway, and there is a single sconce lit at the top of the stairs. The two glass-paned doors at either end of the hall which open onto the balconies frame panels of night sky.
For her part, Lena gives no sign of any scandal — she is simply walking with Shine through the house, as she has done on many an occasion before. Perhaps she has never walked with him in definite purpose towards the third floor, but there's no one around to take note. There is no Isla, whose keen romantic eye might have put things together correctly.
Lena turns toward him at the top of the stairs, and comments, "Do you know, I've scarcely been to this floor, the whole time I've been here."
"It's not much used, this side of it," Shine says. "Lady Sintha's workshop is there" — he points to the northern end of the hall — "and Finley has the room there in the middle for a studio, in theory. But until I took the Astronomer's rooms, there was no one over here regularly. It's peaceable." He glances wryly at the door to the Summer Suite. "Barring the Hartrims' residency."
He opens the door to usher Lena into his sitting room. At present, it is dark; the only sources of illumination are the velvety softness of the nighttime sky beyond the window and the ruddy glow of the embers in the fireplace at the opposite end of the room.
"Peaceable," Lena repeats, not seeming to mind the dim light. She turns to Shine once they're safely in the sitting room, sliding one hand along his chest. "Less likely to be disturbed here. My suite is right in the middle of things, people passing by so often…"
"Aye," he agrees, laying his hand over hers on his chest. "You're at the heart of it down there." It is a small-talk sort of observation, distracted; his attention is already being pulled inexorably away from conversational nicety to the Serious Business that brought them here.
He puts his other hand on Lena's hip and begins to walk her backward toward the bedroom door. Not through it, but up against it. He gazes down at her, hot and intense, his smile slow as honey.
Lena matches him as easily as if they were dancing, a step backward for each of his forward. She trails her free hand up and around to the back of Shine's neck, gently pulling him down toward her as they move.
Her eyes are only for him, with an intensity that makes it clear the room has ceased to exist for her beyond a pace away. And then her back collides with the door, and she gives a sharp intake of breath in surprise.
Shine is already bending with her touch, and as she makes contact with the door, he captures her mouth with his as if to catch that little gasp. His kiss, unlike the walk into the door, is gentle; the second one is gentler still, a coaxing. His hands are at her hips, traveling up the curve of her waist, skimming over her ribs, and then his fingers are tracing the shape of her breasts, making a light and teasing survey.
Lena makes a low sound against his lips at the touch, one hand still on his neck and the other moving up to cup his cheek, the tips of her fingers carelessly brushing the bottom of the patch over his eye.
He shifts his head a little at that, twitching away from the careless touch, and it briefly breaks the kiss. He returns to it again at once, now with a new urgency in his manner, as though he might have missed something in that split-second adjustment and now has to catch up to her.
Lena pulls her hands back at the break in the kiss, leaving them hovering briefly by his shoulders, but she does not withdraw. One might argue that there's not really anywhere to withdraw, but it's more of a matter of manner — she meets his urgency with her own without hesitation.
Then she finds a better occupation for her hands, dropping them to his waist and reaching to unbuckle his belt with practiced ease, despite the darkness and the other enjoyable distractions.
He makes a soft, involuntary sound of approval or encouragement, and then — even softer and this time voluntary — spares a breath of laughter at himself, at the mindless drive of his desire. His teeth graze her lower lip as he draws smiling aside from the kiss now to kiss the corner of her mouth, and then he bends further to apply his lips to the side of her throat. One hand still skims the countours of her breast, his palm grazing her nipple, but with his other hand he takes a fistful of her skirt and draws it up again.
Lena is pulling off his belt and tugging at his waistband as his kisses begin to travel, and she catches her breath again as he bends to her throat. Then she shifts her weight to one leg, lifting the other to hook around his waist, aiding in the whole inconvenient skirt situation.
Shine lifts his head. "Hang on," he says in her ear, and then he's fumbling behind her for the doorknob. He wraps one arm around Lena and pulls her close against him so that when he does manage to get the door open — a moment later — she does not topple backward through it.
The bedroom is even darker than the sitting room; it's a larger room and the faint light through the windows fills less of it. Shine does not let this situation stand for long, however — just as he also does not let Lena stand for long. He walks her backwards into the room again, but this time before she can encounter the hazards of the bedframe or the bench at the foot of the bed, he simply picks her up again. Four steps more and then he swings her up onto the bed itself, safely past the bedpost at the corner.
Lena lets Shine move her to the bed without resistance, except for slight delays along the path that might be caused by wandering hands and eager lips.
He steps away to kindle a lamp on a bedside table. It isn't bright, casting a warm pool of soft illumination in a radius around the nightstand and bed and leaving the rest of the room more deeply shadowed than before. A dark wallpaper patterned with stars is revealed, and lamplight gleams on the frame of a star chart hung on the wall: stars on stars.
Shine's belt has been thoughtfully managed for him already. He climbs onto the bed with Lena and reciprocates this consideration by kneeling at her feet to lift them one at a time and remove her shoes. He drops them onto the floor and then with both hands lifts her skirt and slides it up again, spreading it back to leave it pooled on the mattress around her. He trails his fingers up the back of one bare calf. His other hand takes her knee and guides it aside, opening her legs again. He kisses the inside of her knee, and then kisses her again an inch or so higher.
Lena lies back on the bed, breathing deeply as she curls the toes of one foot into the bed's coverlet.
"You don't need… to be patient…" she says in between breaths.
He laughs, his breath warm against her inner thigh. "I've been months patient. Another few minutes won't kill me."
He sits back on his haunches to gaze at her with her blonde hair spread around her on the dark coverlet, her legs parted and her skirts around her waist. His gaze is hazy and heavy-lidded with lust. "Unless you're out of patience yourself?" He leans forward over her, bracing himself with a hand near her shoulder on the mattress; with his other hand, he begins to unbutton the bodice of her dress. "What is it ye want?"
"I want to feel you inside me," Lena says, breathless. Then she lets her hands fall above her head on the mattress, and raises her legs to curl around his waist.
That seems to settle the matter. Shine takes his hand from her bodice to deal with his own trousers instead. They are on the Same Page. "Open that for me," he tells Lena low-voiced, and tips his head breathlessly at her bodice. "I want to look at you." He shoves his trousers unceremoniously downward.
Lena is very skilled at following orders, after so long with the fleet. And, well, skilled at undressing. Her fingers dance down the buttons, unfastening them and pulling the bodice open to reveal breasts still held within simple a simple, white brassiere.
"That as well," Shine tells her; it's unclear whether that was an exhalation of impatience or laughter — or both? — as he's now negotiating with her underwear, which is hard to remove in their current positioning. There is a very real chance that something is going to get torn.
Something certainly is going to tear, as Lena contorts her torso to free her arms from the sleeves. It's a line of stitching that tears slightly, from the sound of it, and not her tendons. And then she arches her back, fitting her hands behind her to unlatch the bra and pull it off, leaving her bare above the waist. The whole affair likely shifts her breasts in interesting ways.
"I should've planned," Lena says with brief laugh. "Less twisty things to undo."
Shine has stopped wrestling with her underwear, perhaps out of concern when he heard… oh, no, it's because he was distracted by the bra-removal. "Tides, Lena," he says. "Look at ye."
"Look at me," Lena repeats softly, a command, her eyes gleaming with desire. She raises one bare hand again to his cheek, careful this time of the eyepatch, and says, "Touch me. I want you to."
He closes his eye just for a moment at her touch, turning his face toward her hand, and then he opens it again to gaze down at her. He drinks in the sight like a man who's been lost in the desert. "Lena," he says. "Tides below, but you're a beautiful lady. Have I told you?"
"In a number of ways," Lena says with a smile.
Shine slides a warm hand up her ribs again to gather one of her breasts in the cradle of his palm. He brushes his thumb across its sensitive peak and then bends to kiss it. He shifts restlessly between her legs, pressing himself with mindless insistence against the inconvenient barrier of her underwear. After a moment, he lifts his head and laughs at himself, then rolls to the side to disentangle himself from her legs so he can, at last, slide her panties down. He tosses them away into the darkness of the bedroom — begone with thee! — and then returns his attention to her.
Lena makes a sound, a half-cry of pleasure, as his lips meet her breast. Her legs, entwined around him, urge him (uselessly, because underwear) closer. Then she reluctantly unwinds to allow him to deal with that situation.
When he turns back to her, she is already starting to sit up, her arms reaching for him. "Tell me this way."
He does.
TIME PASSES
The lamp still casts its soft halo of golden light against the wall and across the bed, where Shine is lying propped against the pillows, clasping Lena to his side with one arm.
The removal of his shirt had revealed a hard-muscled torso marked by scars — two of them, a perforation beneath his right collarbone and another in his side, are clearly old bullet wounds — and yet another tattoo, this one on his left pectoral, over his heart. It is a dreamlike whorl of clockwork and gears; as they spread outward from a central watch-face, they lose form, shifting here into a spiral nautilus shell, there into a ship's wheel or a coiled kraken's arm.
His fingers trace idle, spiraling patterns lightly on Lena's skin.
Lena's eyes are half-shut as she rests against him, loose-limbed and languid. One hand rests on his chest, between scars and tattoo.
She herself is mostly soft — her strength is not in her body — but not entirely unscarred. A thin scar, not terribly visible, traces down her side to the top of her hip.
Shine turns his head to tip his face down meditatively for a moment into Lena's hair. "Comfortable?" he asks her, low-voiced; there's the trace of a smile in his tone.
"Should I not be?" Lena asks, suddenly tensing a little.
Shine lifts his head to gaze down at her with some startled perplexity. "I'd be glad to know that you are. If you are. I am."
"Yes, of course," Lena says, relaxing again and blushing. Because of all the things they have done in the past hour, this is the part that merits blushing. "I am. Though I should… I suppose I should… I wouldn't want to take all your time…"
Lena may not be an expert on this part of a genuine tryst.
"All my time," Shine repeats. He looks around the darkened room. "Aye, the busy… night I had planned."
He's teasing, but there's no barbed edge to it, and he may have deduced the origin of her uncertainty because he tilts his head to rest it against hers and adds gently, "Even if I had plans for the night, I assure you I'd have canceled them for this. I suppose what I meant by 'Comfortable?' was, are you comfortable enough to stay?"
"If you want me to stay," Lena says, lowering her gaze to the hand on his chest. "If not, I would understand…"
"I want you to stay," Shine says. "I'd be glad if you did." He lifts his head again and threads his fingers into her hair. "I have been," he says after a silence, "trying not to ask too much of you too soon, because I didn't want ye wary of me. I'm patient. I can be patient. But if the patience is what's making ye wary now, and it would be better for me to just say a thing like, 'Lena, I want to take ye to bed, and I hope you'll stay the night with me,' then I'll just do that, aye?"
"Then I'll stay," Lena says, still not looking at him. Her voice is deceptively mild as she asks, "Is that the whole of what you wanted?"
"For tonight," he says, equally mild. "But while I have you here, perhaps I could invite you to spend the night tomorrow as well? Because I hope you will. Or do you want me to be clear on more than that?"
"You can be as clear as you want to be," Lena says quietly.
"I mean to court you," Shine tells her. "I am courting you. A little unconventionally, but so are the pair of us. I think you're a remarkable woman, Lena." He pauses, and his fingers move slowly, meditatively in her hair. "I want to keep… talking with you, trying to waltz with you in the library, crewing the little boat with you and seeing you at ease on the water with the wind in your hair. I want to go and see the broken Draenei world with you, and someday I want to go home to Kul Tiras with you.
"But for now I'd be glad if ye stayed the night with me. There's not an end on the things I want with you, so I can go on being patient for as long as you need."
A faint smile curls on Lena's face, and she shifts to rest her head against his chest. "I'll stay tonight. And tomorrow. Beyond that… maybe we don't need to worry about endings."