heorte | when i go towards you it is with my whole life.

"The floors are hardwood," is somewhere between protest and amusement. Beneath the blankets, his fingers find her hip on the way to taking her hand. A brief, lingering pressure there, before Ellis turns onto his side to face her. His feet are obliging angled away. "They'll warm."

And it's some kind of novelty, to think about cold feet when their usual fare is so far removed from such a weightless concern. Ellis is thinking about Wysteria objecting to the presence of ants, of sweeping sawdust away so they might lay down together.

"If you'd rather not take your chances, I can sleep on the chaise."

"You'll do no such thing," she grouses back at him, faux sullen as she allows her legs to straighten to their original place. Meanwhile, her hand in his turns so as to get a better grip on him in return. "What would the point of that be? After all that effort of going around locking doors. We might as well simply switch rooms if that were the case. Or not have bothered at all. Honestly, Mister Ellis."

Don't be absurd.

She might continue on in a similar vein for some time if she wished to. Instead, Wysteria gathers up his hand in hers, drawing it up to set his knuckles against her neck and the soft underside of her jaw. It's a gentle thing, and might indeed be a perfectly chaste way of reeling him a little closer to her if not for their general states of mutual undress.

"As I was saying. I think your scars are dashing. There is a sort appeal, you know. To a person being as you imagine they ought to be. And you can't very well imagine a Warden without thinking of one or two great marks on them. Even I know that much."

Had Wysteria not had hold of his hand, Ellis might have let it fall to where he knows a scar has been slashed across her chest. The very tip of it peeks over the edge of her chemise.

"So I needn't collect anymore?" he questions, low and teasing, as his thumb lifts free to run along her jawline. "You find the present assortment satisfactory?"

They are just close enough that Ellis has some sense of her, even with the blankets and all to obscure the lines of their bodies. He can think of how he might fit more closely, how his arm might settle about her waist.

He can also think of how much he likes looking at her in such a setting. He is fond of looking at her regardless of where they find themselves, but there is some especially rewarding aspect of seeing her in his bed. Even if the bed is not truly his, and if he would rather try to lay down with her with the ghost clattering around the bottom floor of her house, or in the narrow slip of bed waiting for him in the Gallows.

Her laugh is small in that drawn narrow space, more breath and the shift of her ribs under the line of his forearm than it is real sound. His low tone has reminded her that she's meant to be quiet, and that if they're going to have some conversation here in the almost dark that it should be done softly.

"Yes, very satisfactory." She tips her chin down in answer to the path of his thumb, saying firmly there against the calloused edge of it, "You must avoid any others."

"That's a tall order."

The nature of who he is, how he fights, makes the collection of further scars inevitable. Yes, there are long stretches of time where Riftwatch's work keeps him from the kind of scrape that will turn to a desperate scrap, but inevitably, some occasion arises where Ellis need put himself more directly into harm's way.

He thinks to say Is there some penalty for if I fail? but surely they already know all the downsides to his acquisition of injuries. Instead, his eyes move over her face, taking her in, lingering a moment on her mouth before observing the sweep of his thumb along her jawline. The singular observation stands.

So it is.

She knows it perfectly well, and so will only pretend at asking for him to commit to avoiding danger. Besides, if she were to even consider making such a request then she might have to be willing to bend similarly. Imagine—her agreeing to stay fully out of all harm's way. Who would be ridiculous then?

Instead of insisting she only looks at him in the low light, her face half in Ellis's own shadow and he breath warm across his knuckles. When she turns her hand and his in it, it's to press a soft little kiss to the back of his hand. Beyond the context of this shared bed, it would be only sweet—a little silly, uselessly teasing. But it's a different thing to put her mouth on him here compared to anywhere else. She thinks so, anyway.

Despite all the time that's passed since he kissed her that first time, the moments when Wysteria initiates in this way always catch him by surprise. Even such a small thing, her mouth against the back of his hand, carries such weight. He feels it reverberating through his body, a leaping sensation that crackles from the point she'd placed her lips up along his arm, shivering across his skin.

This close, the intake of breath is very easy to note.

"Wysteria," is said softly, a murmur between them. A question.

They aren't married. Ellis has always insisted on certain limits between them regardless. But they have still never done this, even in all the times they've shared a bed.

His soft use of her name doesn't waylay her. What it does accomplish is the sharpening of the point of her attention, something of the playful spark in her expression veering sideways into a more fixed curiosity. The shape of her pulse, conveniently placed near to his wrist, jumps faintly. For the bed is very large and he is cinched in close alongside her and doesn't need to be. And the line of his arm is warm and so is the soft sense of his breathing. In the low light, she can just make out the faintest shadow of the line her nail had scratched across his cheek. Between it and his hand at her jaw, she is reminded of the earlier set of her thumb against his mouth.

The tip of her chin rises just a little—

"Will you kiss me?" isn't a tentative question even if she asks it quietly and follows it briskly with, "You may say no if you would prefer otherwise. But if you cared to, then I suppose I wouldn't mind."

Humor pulls at his expression, both for the idea of denying her and for the way she's phrased it. I suppose I wouldn't mind.

"I'm not in the habit of telling you no."

Consider: the agreement they've come to on this very night.

He doesn't leave her room for comment, regardless. He tightens his arm around her. They are already satisfyingly close, but Ellis narrows that slight space between them to a sliver before he lifts his head from the pillow to kiss her. It's a careful thing. Maintaining that space, returning his hand to her jaw without dislodging her grip, setting his fingers gently along her neck as he settles his hand.

It's a soft kiss. Not lacking in intent, just—

Soft. Considered. Attentive. Easily directed and easy to break off.

No, he isn't, is he? It's possible that's some measure of the appeal, that he is so bad at refusing her anything. For what does Wysteria like more than things being done according to her wishes? Even when he digs in his heels, what purpose does it serve but to allow her something to grapple with?

(For what does Wysteria like more than an argument?)

As far as kisses go, it's a very careful one. Not tentative but patient, maybe. It's rather like how Ellis has lingered at the margins of so many debates—not disengaged, but intent and observing and waiting either for a welcome invitation or to be backed into some corner where an unequivocal demand might be made of him. And she's played both parts before, hasn't she? She's very good at them, almost entirely by instinct.

(It has bothered her. The not knowing—not with respect to his attachment, but what she's meant to do and what he wants. And how, if he's so keen, then why will he not simply ask things of her? She hasn't characterized herself as unreasonable when it comes to his requests, has she? But—)

Yes, she's very good at being stubborn. Which means if he isn't willing to dislodge her hold on him, then she is—carefully and quietly unraveling her fingers from his hand and wrist as he kisses her so she may instead move to take his face into both her hands. It's easier, like that. To coax him along with the press of her fingers and the insistent tip of her mouth in relation to his.

You give everything far too much consideration, she doesn't tell him, though she ought to. Maybe her hands do it for her.

In spite of all good intentions, Ellis is—

He is easily coaxed.

There is a distant rustling of sheets as that last sliver of space between them closes under the sweet urging of her palms. His hand at her back loops up, hitching her in tight against him as his hand splays out between her shoulder blades. The considering, patient quality of the kiss doesn't ebb away, but—

A sigh, very soft against her mouth.

"Wysteria."

Not a question, not really. Just some soft, tender thing, said into the warmth that's been kindled between them. The way her hands move at his face, over his temples, drums up the same sort of demand she'd levied that day at the lake. It's not a hardship, to kiss her until good sense reminds them to draw apart.

It's not a question, but it catches her interest in the same way one might. She likes questions, you see. And she likes how low and gentle her name sounds when he says it into that very narrow space. And the sensation of his hand firm at her back, and how warm it is under their shared blankets—

It takes a few of those very close, very thoughtful kisses before her hands soften about his face. Her fingertips scuff gently at the rasp of his cheeks. The space between them doesn't widen, really, for she makes no move to withdraw. She only tips her face a little so she might look at him slightly better and to say near the corner of his mouth,

"I promise not to make any further demands of you today."

"I like your demands."

Mostly. Always.

Having made no move to unravel himself from her, Ellis can kiss her once more, brief and sweet, before asking, "I know you said you didn't know, before. That you needed—"

A pause. A moment of gathering, carefully pulling threads of a question together before he continues, "That you needed me to lead you. If we were to dance."

In which dance is weighted down with meaning, and a little bit of humor, inescapably. The question is measured in spite of all of it. There's no sense of immediacy, more speculative than anything else as he speaks nearly against her mouth.

"Would you—could you try to tell me, if there's a step you've thought of?"

A question shadowed with I'd like to know what you want.

There's something about being reminded of that ridiculous thing she'd said those many weeks ago, about hearing it said back to her in such close quarters with that whisper of humor lurking at the edge of his voice, that makes her laugh a little. It's an impulsive, smothered thing tickling at the bristling edge of his mouth. It's half flustered embarrassment and half delight.

(His hand is warm just there between her shoulder blades, sturdy and square.)

"Tell you?" is soft, sotto voce. "You want me to— to say it out loud?"

"Aye."

Aye folding into a kiss, chasing after the ring of her laugh. They are flushed warm beneath the covers and he can feel the vibration of her words beneath his palm, against his chest. They are meant to be sleeping, but not yet. Ellis won't rearrange their position here just yet.

"Please tell me."

Because he knows she is pleased by such things, by how Ellis asks her quietly and intimately. And in it is the easy, permissive fact: Wysteria can decline, and Ellis will take it in stride.

But he'd like to hear her. There was something behind that pause earlier tonight, and he could have asked then, were they not so intent on other topics.

I want, she'd said, and in the moment there had been some intentional thing waiting behind it just there at the tip of her tongue. It had been an exercise in restraint not to say it. But here, in this exceptionally sweet and narrow space, its shadow refuses to resolve into something solid. Not for lack of imagination—she has been doing all the proper research, of course—, but rather—

Why? Because it feels foolish. Presumptive. Like they are things that aren't meant to be said aloud, just intuited. But he had asked, which he does so rarely. How is she meant to refuse him?

In that cinched tight space, Wysteria's hand intercedes between their mouths—fingertips softly covering his.

"You must swear not to laugh. No, not to even speak. And you must close your eyes. I can't say it if you're looking at me."

His own hand follows after, fingers looping delicately about her wrist. His lips move behind her hand. There is no effort to dislodge her, only to say—

"I swear," in low, amused tones.

Though presumably this is all he is entitled to say, considering the nature of the promise. His thumb returns to light tracery over the inside of her wrist as he closes his eyes obligingly.

It has never been difficult to put himself at her mercy. Wysteria will never make him regret it. And between them, she is the one offering up more vulnerability, isn't she?

He swears, and he closes his eyes, and so now she must find something to say to him. It's only after a very long and hesitating beat, with the soft shifting rasp of his thumb and their breathing being the only sound in that drawn tight space, that Wysteria eventually works her way to—

"I have thought," she says very carefully, her fingertips drifting absently against his top lip. "Very distantly, mind you. In a very abstract sense, you understand. But I have thought that I might wish for you to—well, let us say that if you cared to touch me elsewhere than on the knee, that I might not be opposed."

She has thought, were he to wish to take her to bed (not in this fashion; the other one), that she would find it very difficult to say no to him. But that is another thing altogether. And far too direct. Even with his eyes closed, in nothing but her chemise and the circle of his arm, she couldn't speak that aloud.

Does he speak now?

Between them, the quiet pulls taut. Her fingers are light against his mouth. Ellis' lips part slightly as she speaks, breath shallow. Wysteria is not specific. She is not even demanding. What she describes is a wisp of a thing, so thinly described that she might mean anything by it.

But Ellis does not need her to say more than this to understand her meaning.

His hand slides up, thumb over her palm. Ellis kisses her fingertips, in lieu of any other thing. He's kept his eyes obligingly closed, despite wishing he could see her expression and better gauge what she'd looked like as she described her train of thought.

The shift of his hand and the press of his mouth seems like such an important thing in that little space, the nominal made vastly significant by simple merit of their proximity. What has she just said to him? Virtually nothing. And what if he'd known it already? Maybe she's boring him. Or maybe—

"I know you've wished to be very mindful and methodical about this whole business between us. So it's perfectly all right if you've given such a thing no consideration at all. I shouldn't wish to alarm or embarass you."

A beat of quiet, and then she adds: "Oh, you may speak now. But you must leave your eyes closed."

So he won't see the attentive way she is studying him.

The work of his mouth is interrupted by the curve of a smile, amusement moving across his face. He keeps it pressed against her fingers, before murmuring, "Aye," in agreement. Yes, he will keep his eyes closed, regardless of how badly he would like to be looking at her.

"Yes, I've thought of it."

A straightforward admission, made easier in the wake of what's been said already. He is thinking of her waist between his hands in Markham, the way he'd dipped his face in against her neck as she'd flushed over the questions he'd asked then.

"I'm not alarmed," comes after a long stretch of quiet, his mouth warm behind her hand. "But I shouldn't start guessing at where you might like me to put my hands until we've managed some vows."

"No, you may guess," is her instant reply, hand gentle over his mouth. She can feel the curve of his smile clearly there, and there is something in the look of the rest of his face—what she can see of it, what with him being so near—which prompts a thrill of fondness to clench behind her ribs. It's a remarkably effective defense against any embarrassment.

"Only you must keep it secret until after you've made me your wife. And then you can tell me all your guesses and I'll tell you whether they were right. Agreed? —Oh, you may open your eyes now."

"Agreed," is spoken aloud first. Agreed and then his mouth setting a kiss to the center of her palm. All of this before he opens his eyes to look at her.

Where would he touch her? Everywhere. Every inch of her body, to know her entirely. He has considered how long they might devote to it. He has considered what Wysteria might be comfortable with, and whether or not they could entertain such an exploration at length.

He has considered the scar on her chest, and what it might look like in it's entirety.

But as all of this is to be kept secret, he draws her hand down so he can kiss her instead. It is a very sweet thing, all affection and adoration. Neither are secret. Ellis has carried them for a very long time, and it is a kind of relief to bare them to her, to have made himself known beyond confusion or doubt.

This too, she thinks, is a very fine kiss. It is characterized by the scuff of his beard and the smell of the oil he uses, and the curve of his shoulder, and his hand cinching her close, and the shape of a lingering smile, and all of his fondness. Which in turn becomes all of her fondness—something grown as much as it is something mirrored. How pleasant it is, to be so thrilled by his company. She thinks that would be true even if he never thought to touch her. Even if he didn't care to be her husband. Even if he'd never kissed her at all, either now or before in the kitchen of the Hightown house. Without those things, he would still be a foundation. He would have her heart regardless, because he has had it since before he'd done any of those things.

What would she be if not for all those traded letters, and their exchange of books, and his willingness to follow her, and his patient hours spend tending the house's garden, and the shape of his and Tony's companionship, and on and on. She has never had so good a friend, and wouldn't have known to describe how lonely she was before it but knows now exactly the extent of it. It's far easier to study the whole form of something when removed from it—

Wysteria laughs into the end of that kiss, all pleased with him and herself as she makes to twist away and writhe playfully in his grip.

"You're not meant to agree to something so outrageous," she scolds him, but is clearly lying. "You truly have become quite the scoundrel in your absence, Mister Ellis."

There are ways to sleep comfortably alongside another. He and Wysteria have nearly mastered the art of it, aided perhaps by the majority of their sleeping arrangements being narrow or hard floors or some other degree of uncomfortable in their own right, so that any defect in the way they settle their bodies together goes unnoticed beside such conditions.

Perhaps, to facilitate comfort, Ellis might loosen his grasp on her. They might come a little apart, and then return to each other to fit themselves in a way more conducive to sleep.

But it is impossible, he finds. Wysteria fits so sweetly into his arms, and he has discovered he likes her cinched so close, likes the way his hand fits at her back. So she is permitted only so much latitude to squirm away, ending in a low noise of complaint, nearly up against her mouth.

"I've missed you so much I've forgotten my manners."

Though as he says this, there is some minor shift in movement. An allowance, for their bodies, as his hand readjusts from her back to her waist. How will he sleep, if not by fitting himself in alongside her to whatever degree is acceptable?

"Will you forgive me the imposition?"

when i go towards you it is with my whole life.

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clenches fist so tightly

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is this thread bow-ready i ask

outrageous but yeah tbh