#davrook

Tall dead grass mixes at the edge of the drive. A crude mixture of rocks and mementos of seasons passed. The tires crunch against the stone. She thinks fleetingly that whoever lives on (what she assumes is) this private road may want to invest in laying fresh gravel. The entire frame of the truck seems to groan when they dip into a pot hole. Teeth gritted and scowl burning ever further into her cheeks, she sinks back into her seat. As beautiful of a distraction as it has been, she finds the enchantment has worn off along with what she thinks must be vital pieces of this damn vehicle.

At least when they came out to visit his family, they lived off of what appeared to be readily managed roads. The neighbors were still few and far between, and those that did exist wouldn't be able to hear someone in another house be violently murdered. But still, they were there. This is a great expanse of nothingness. On the cusp of winter, it is at the very least. All other times of year, she supposes all bets are off.

"Don't make that face," Davrin puffs, squeezing her knee. Amusement dances in the gaze that is trained ahead of them. 

She sucks her cheeks in and clamps her teeth down on one side to keep from allowing another smile touch her lips. "I'm not making a face." It's a half-hearted argument and also a blatant lie, but she says it anyway. What point she's trying to make by contradicting him, she doesn't know. Hasn't stopped her yet, though.

The hand on her leg yanks back toward him as he hunches his shoulders forward. Its absence leaves her yearning for his touch in a way that's absolutely fucking embarrassing. Like a stupid moth being drawn to an open flame that is sure to damn her into oblivion. His handsome idiot face with its exaggerated frown turning to face her almost pulls her out of it. Almost. But even such a mocking display can't take away from the beautiful planes of his cheekbones. The sharp lines of his jaw. The full pout of his lips. God, she hates how much she loves him sometimes.

He takes his hands off the wheel for a moment to fold them over his chest. One of his knees mans the steering wheel in the meantime. "'I'm not making a face,'" he repeats, high pitched and drawn out in a way only a mocking older brother can manage.

"I don't sound like that."

"'I don't sound like that.'"

Davrin turns his head to the side and smiles at nothing in particular before he regroups, his gaze flicking up to meet theirs. "Want company?"

"Only if it's yours."

The first kiss is terribly tender, it's hi and I'm home and I missed you, his hands cupping their face with a solemn warmth that feels all at once strange and familiar. He tastes like whiskey and he smells like tree-amber and something that dances between smoke and burnt sugar. Once it all fades from the forefront, Tofana knows he'll smell a little like soap and a little like himself, too. It makes them want to shrug off their plans and cuddle up in bed instead, their face nestled into his armpit and their leg curled over his hip, warm and safe and happy.

Ugh!

Fondness is fate far worse than they could ever have imagined. 

Best not to dwell.

The second kiss is something wholly different—a meditation on yearning, a slow sublimation that steals their breath away when Davrin dedicates himself to the ridges of their spine, trembling fingers tracing flirtations between the vertebrae. A temporary fling; he was always going to make for their hips, was always going to pull them in—pull them flush—was always going to get greedy, go for more, grab their behind with a needful agony and clutch their body to his like a man drowning. 

And Tofana was always going to throw an arm over his shoulder and nod and nod and nod and nod into the kiss, the slow, hard grind of their pelvis coaxing more and more and more from him until his movements match theirs, desperate for friction.

Wrapping her arms around her knees, she arched her brows. "So you're telling me you invented an animal that couldn't possibly exist for these kids to hunt and they believed you?"

"More than believed me," Davrin chuckled, mouth curving in good humor. "A few of them were convinced they'd seen one before."

Shaking her head, she looked at him skeptically. "What did they do when they figured it out?"

Tucking his hands behind his head, his expression turned smug. "You're assuming they did."

Her mouth fell open but she had no response to that. Instead, she asked, "What happened next, then?"

He told her of how he led a hunt for a made-up animal, guiding a gaggle of children through the forest at night, turning over rocks and logs in search of something that didn't exist, and somehow convincing them to do so for hours.

"Cruel," she murmured, pressing her lips together to hide her amusement.

"A rite of passage," he protested as he nudged her playfully with his foot. She pinched his ankle in revenge until he narrowed his eyes. When she continued her mock glaring, he sighed. "When I was their age, the hunters in our clan took a few of us out, convinced us the whipper mole had infested the area and set us all loose on the woods to catch them."

"What's a whipper mole?"

"Exactly." He smirked. "I was the one who figured it out first."