#tipseu

“You’ve put a stop to all my admiring you,” she pouts with a grin. He smiles over her in their bed and the warmth in it curls her toes. He is so full of joy these days, like some door has been thrown forever open and the sunlight in his heart is escaping onto the world at last. He has somehow become more generous, better natured. This is a thing she has learned love can do.

He has also become slightly—only slightly— less sly, and more openly playful.

“Please forgive me,” he begs, ducking his head to chase her mouth for kisses. “I simply” kiss “needed” kiss “to admire you” kiss “instead”.

When she laughs, he cups her face and kisses her cheeks, her lips, her teeth. There’s something freeing her own happiness in their love, as well. These days her joy feels like an endless dawn that shift colors and gives way to delight after delight. .

His breath becomes heavy and she can feel him against her, aroused— always, she now knows and marvels— and insistent in a way that is less polite than he would like, but precisely as needy as she likes. It is a powerful thing, to be desired by a man she desires so much.

“What should we do today?” she asks, putting her arms in their place around his neck.

Le Comte de Saint Germain hums his particular, thoughtful hum, and she has to try not to giggle because if she does that in their bed he will tickle her until she screams and then he will apologize by biting her while he is sheathed by her body (until she screams), and then nothing else will get done that day at all.

It wouldn’t be so bad. But it’s a lovely day and she wants to go to town with him.

“What would you like, mon coeur? I don’t imagine you will let me take you shopping.”

He is grinning, and she cannot help but do the same.

“Maybe I will surprise you,” she offers, and rolls toward the edge of their mattress even as her heart and sex cry rebellion against such foolishness. Denial now for satisfaction later, she reminds herself. To dress instead of returning to bed is a torture only lessened by the hungry way he watches her, and by the soft kiss he lays on the back of her neck when she is done.

—|—

A carriage ride and a boulangerie visit later (they buy only four baguettes and le Comte pays an obscene amount to have them delivered to the mansion so they do not have to carry them), she agrees to accompany him to a boutique. He was handsy in the bakery, pressing all advantage in the quiet shop. His palms found their way around her waist when the cheerful shopkeep turned to slip their bread into a bag, and he kissed the back of her hand before escorting her out the door.

So it is for their own good that she lets him take her into a dress shop before he scandalizes someone. Or before she does, not discouraging his behavior. Thankfully, the bored looking young man there to greet them at the door quickly smartens up when he sees her companion, and ushers them immediately to a private side room. A female attendant tells them she will be in to assist madame when they call for her.

The room is all warm wood and green velvet, with a pretty screen done in darker wood and champagne silk. There’s a small raised platform for her to stand on for measurements and pinning. There’s also a couch of deepest emerald green, and le Comte de Saint-Germain sits on one side and beckon-begs her to join him there.

“What should I try on?” she teases. “Something with a thousand buttons? What are you considering?”

“I am considering the virtue of ravishing you on this settee or asking you to bend over its back, my dear,” he whispers. “Do you have a preference?”

His easy way of promising exactly what she wants goes straight to a low place between her hips. She’s not sure she has it in herself to deny him now, but it will be better—she knows it will be better— if she can. So she calls in the attendant and tells her she would like to look at gowns in brown and blue.

“What game are you playing?” he rasps in her ear as soon as the other woman has left. His body is already over hers on the emerald velvet. “You have not told me the rules, and you know you have made me quite stupid with love, chérie.”

His skillful hands do not touch her waist and cherish her neck as though they are stupid. She is not fooled. “I suppose it is a waiting game,” she tells him. “Until you cannot wait any longer. But do not frighten the employees.”

He calls her a cruel beauty and kisses her slowly and deeply until just before there is a knock at the door and a soft announcement of entry.

She goes to the screen, where the attendant helps her take off the dress she has worn and try on the first gown, lovely brown satin that gleams in daylight and must look even lovelier in a ballroom at night. The woman respectfully takes her hand and helps her onto the little platform in the middle of the room, then adjusts a nearby mirror.

A mirror. Oh.

Their eyes lock as though they have noticed it together, and she hopes they have. A mirror changes things. Perhaps one dress more and they will dismiss the attendant. But only if she can make it that long! There is so much devilish heat in le Comte’s gaze, his brows low and eyes narrow, and any minute she expects him to put one of the knuckles of his beautiful fingers between his lips to test her resolve.

“I like this,” she blurts out, then recovers herself with an apologetic smile. “But I will need to discuss it with my husband. Could you give us a few moments, please?”

The attendant curtsies and gestures to a bell on a small table by the door, and tells them they need only ring whenever they are ready for her to return. She is respectful but clearly not new to this job. She leaves immediately once madame establishes she does not need help back to the floor. And then they are alone in a private room in a dress shop with a mirror.

“Ma femme,” he says, spreading his legs. “Come sit with me and let us discuss this gown.”

“As you say, mon mari,” she says, and carefully steps onto the floor and toward him. As she expects, he is on his feet and pulling her to him before she has taken two steps. His hand is pressed into the hair pinned behind her head, and his mouth his wet against her jaw— her throat— he is moving so quickly her brain cannot register his kisses as quickly as he makes them.

He turns her around, facing the mirror, and begins to undo the line of buttons at her back. He mutters a very low class curse and she puts a hand in front of her mouth to stifle her laughter. When he is in this gentleman’s panic, her sweet Comte, he says the silliest things.

At last, she is free of the dress, and he holds out a hand to help her be steady as she steps out of it, and his other hand gathers it from her feet and tosses the gown onto the seat. It’s even lovelier against the dark green, like a seam of soil in nourished grass. She knows he likes these thoughts, so she shares them.

He says something else shockingly, delightfully rude about a seam he would prefer to see, and then the game is clearly up. In the next moment he’s slipped in front of her, tilted her back over his arm, and put his other hand up her combinations without further preamble.

“You know,” he says onto her collarbone, and then he licks her as though it punctuates his quiet speech, “that it gives me great joy to see you in new dresses.”

“Is that true?” she tries to make the tease airy but his thumb and forefinger are gently, directly rolling a very sensitized part of her between them, and she can’t keep her voice even. He laughs right onto her skin, dark as his gaze from earlier, and she whimpers to get everything she wants so easily. His finger is already pushing inside her, making her feel like she could melt wax with the barest touch.

“There are few greater joys in this world,” he promises, turning them like they are dancing despite the location of his hand. She knows exactly where he’s putting her. When he moves behind her she is only surprised to see how rumpled her reflection is, and has to hope that’s from after the attendant left the room.

“There is one greater joy I am thinking of in particular,” he whispers from behind her. He is not hiding any of the desire in his voice, and she leans against him more heavily, already addicted. She doesn’t think she could tease him if she tried, and she is glad his fingers are working in earnest and not teasing her, either. She has wanted him since before they were flirting in bed.

He kisses her shoulder without breaking their eye contact in the mirror. She feels the tinest, most divine scrape of his fangs, small as needles. They raise heat, not blood. He’s so careful with this.

“When you fall apart,” he says without ever closing his mouth, “Now there is no greater joy than that.”

Her hand clutches at his forearm and her hips move forward toward the mess he is making, then back toward the unmistakable length trapped between their bodies. She fights the instinct to close her eyes and keeps watching the reflection of him loving her. Even over their breathing she can hear the wet, furtive squelch as his fingers spread wide when they leave her body, then push back inside, quicker than a mortal man could move.

“This precise moment,” he tells her, moving his thumb over her like a practiced string player. “Here.” And it is. She sags back against him and he kisses and praises her, lists the things he loves about her body until she covers his mouth with her hand and he kisses that instead.

“Please buy me the brown dress,” she says, “and take me home.”

Comte (DUH he’s here) is flattered and extremely gratified, because he has been waiting and wishing for this, and honestly perhaps only a week away from laying some sweet trap for her. Thankfully it’s not necessary; he returns early one afternoon from business at one of the arrondissement offices and he can  s m e l l  her from the minute the carriage door opens in front of their home. He can tell she is aroused and he knows what might be happening from how aroused she is, and he is practically feral with joy for it (he will think about anyone else knowing... later). His feet are outside his bedroom faster than any mortal or most vampires could manage. He puts his ear to the door without shame, he’s tempted to watch through the keyhole but by god, he just needs to hear her first, how is she touching herself and how wet is she? Which of her soft, beautiful sounds is she making?

He’ll fall to his knees before long and put one golden eye at that polished brass keyhole, desperate to voyeur. She has already let him see her at pleasure, but it is entirely different to watch her knowing she is free from the weight of his gaze. Once he opened himself to her, he has never been able to keep his greed in check.

The sweet torture of it-- his favorite part?-- is the weight of decision: let her finish and witness the joy only she can bring herself, or surprise her and take over so he can do all the things she likes until she begs him to stop? He wouldn’t tease her, not this first wonderful time catching her at it at last, but if he catches her again he might interrupt and beg (or demand) that she let him take over.

This time, he lets her work herself. Because his treasure and beauty is not even on their bed, she is in one of their armchairs-- his!-- and the toes of one foot just touch the ground and the others cannot, because that leg is thrown wide over the cushioned arm of the chair. Those lovely, intelligent fingers are moving over her underwear like she is a harp playing herself, and the lump in his throat is joy condensed into a diamond.

He watches and listens and does not breathe except to take in what of her is on the air. When she is done and she sags back against the seat, her skirt looks like a wine stain and he wants to suck it into his mouth, drop by drop.

She opens her eyes tiredly and meets his gaze through the keyhole. Holds out her pearl-coated fingers and curls them to coax him closer. The door slams shut behind him, and it is a miracle it does not shatter.

--|--

Dazai has not been waiting for this, but he’s certainly not unhappy. He enters the room and announces himself right away, voice soft and with a little edge in it, just a tiny sharpness from the degree of his interest.

He uses her name when he tells her to keep going. It’s not a request, but it is encouraging. That edge is still there, and it would glitter in the dark, she is sure. He pulls a chair beside the bed, and sits but leans forward instead of relaxing, chin on his hands. “Won’t you let me see you?” he asks. His fingers are pleasantly cool when they touch her thighs, soothing and arousing at the same time. “You’re so warm,” he marvels. “Working hard?”

He keeps up this soft, sensual chatter, and watches her like a owl. He never touches her in a directly sexual way, bu he continues to stroke her thighs, perhaps her face if he can reach it. Eventually he gets her to hang her legs over the edge of the mattress that faces him and he probably can’t resist the urge to blow a cooling little breath right on her sex as she puts her fingers in and out of herself. He definitely comments on how she must feel it, wet as her fingers are.

She is leaving, and he knows it is not likely to be a forever kind of leaving. But it is a leaving. He has pulled strings and made sharp, unquiet threats behind the scenes, but he must stay while she goes on this ambassador’s trip. Deep within himself he is sick with worry she’ll be ambushed and he cannot shake it. She knows how to deal with something head on. But she can’t travel in full armor and even if she could, it would leave vulnerabilities. Her graceful throat. The ticklish spots under each arm.

If he cannot stop the trip entirely--and he is not done trying-- he can delay the ambassador. That’s something comfortably within his capabilities. And enjoyments.

She can’t even make out all the syllables of his name, so there is a rain of mi-tsu, mitsu, mitsus falling upon his back as he works at her. Her pleasure is always gratifying, everything about her is gratifying. And they mean to send her far away and keep him from her? For a moon’s worth of nights at least? He’ll let Azuchi have it with all the dedication he’s currently letting her have it. He has to hope he will frustrate Hideyoshi into pulling at his hair as tightly as she is holding his. Hideyoshi really could do with some time spent between a woman’s legs. Anyone’s legs.

They have been together long enough that she can tell his full focus is not on her, and she tells him what she thinks of that with a sharp tug. “Apologies,” he murmurs, right against her slit, and he makes a show of bowing his head so his nose slips against the spot that makes her legs jump. Because he loves to rile her, he brings his face up on the exact same path to bump it again.

She doesn’t chastise him, she only moans his name in the night. It breaks free from her whole for the first time, and it gentles something in him that had been covetous and rough only the moment before.

“I’ll come back,” she sobs. “You need to trust me.”

He makes her come again before he answers. Her trembling is precious, but her star-eyes and her face are too far from him, so he pushes himself up and over her until his wet mouth slides against hers, softer than he had been before. Too wet to do anything but slide, really, so he enjoys that for awhile to keep the quiet between them.

One of her hands is stroking the back of his neck.

“You I trust,” he tells her when their kisses have smeared away most of what she left on his face. “The world, never.”

“I am in the world,” she says gently, putting her pillow palms on each side of his face.

“Then let me cover you from it and keep you safe,” he hisses. His frustration is not with her. He does not want to speak to her this way, even though the keenest edge of the pain and fear he feels at their soon to be separation is that she has never once tried to get out of it.

Her star eyes close, and she kisses him again. “Cover me like this,” she tells him, hands slipping behind his shoulders and pulling him close. She bends one of her legs to cradle him close.

“Don’t think I don’t know you are covering me, little ambassador,” he says, but his body cannot deny hers. He has no interest in doing such a fool thing. Instead, like a blessed scholar, he takes himself in hand and fits himself at her entrance. As always, the warmth of her threatens to obliterate him. He must never, ever let her know this. Or confirm it, if she already does.

So instead he allows her to push him inside by the pressure of her palms on his back, with that one leg keeping him centered at her hips.

How he is expected to live without his wife for at least a month, he does not understand. It is so cruel a torture he will be using it on their enemies. And perhaps on their newest allies, if she is not back in Azuchi quickly.

“Mitsuhide,” she whispers. “I love you.”

His panic is so great that he kisses her instead of telling her the same. But she is his wife. She knows. And if she were to forget, he is inside her and above her. The slowest pull and push of their hips and the gentle embrace of their arms keep them wound together like one of her clever thread knots.

“So big,” she groans, blissed out beneath him, and he swears he’d grow another foot taller if he could just from the pride of it. Her hips are moving in her sweet, needy circles, they’ve been trying to edge each other a bit lately before going at it and it makes that first moment of being inside that much hotter. He kind of feels like he’s gonna die from feeling this good. She’s here with him and totally into it— if he thinks about it too long his eyes prickle, so he looks at where their bodies are flush and tries not to be an idiot, this one time. Fuck, his hair against her. So hot.

“Yeah, well,” he says, not willing to try and fuck up saying anything about how happy he is about what she said. He can give it right back to her, though. “How are you always so tight, huh?”

The word isn’t enough. It’s correct but imprecise, he feels like he’s fumbling meaning between his hands like a too-hot food. She is tight, but it’s more than that. She’s snug, just absolutely perfect around him. When he pulls his hips back she makes this ugly but adorable sound that’s half whine, half moan, and he all the way moans when he sees his cock pull her vivid lips with it when he moves. What is that color? Not purple or brown or pink. It’s really pretty.

Something dumb in him says it’s a Maeda color, and something dumber tells him to fuck a Maeda into her, fast.

“Hey,” he says. He’s proud his voice doesn’t catch because it absolutely should, her little circles are killing him and the thought of her with a belly full of their baby is definitely making him weak. Weak and wild, and he doesn’t want to be like that for her. “You okay?”

She hums a distracted mmmhmm and reaches up for him, her tiny hands landing on his hips. “Inuchiyo,” she whispers, opening her eyes to seek him out. “I’m okay.”

“You sure?” She’s never lied about this before, but he’s gotta be sure.

“Yeah,” she promises. “C’mon, move. You feel so good.”

He feels his eyes roll back as he rests his arms beside her body and lets them take his weight. “Don’t say stuff like that,” he says, embarrassed at how much he loves it.

“What?” she asks. He can tell she knows, the minx. “You don’t want me to tell you how good it feels when you fill me up? How hot you feel inside?”

“Knock it off,” he snaps, and he rolls his hips to fit them back together. It’s slick and she stretches without tensing— in fact she relaxes onto their futon and coos, she coos beneath him, and he’s definitely gonna die.

A starless night, with a slice of moon so thin it must cut its way out of the clouds. So dark out, and so windy, that it is unseasonably cold. Hard weather to hope in, for anyone so unfortunate as to be stuck outside.

But they are indoors, in a little room with a window to the entire sky. So when the moon triumphs over the cold and the clouds to cast her light on the earth, it falls through the skylight onto a pair of new lovers, curled so thoroughly together they may look to the moon as though they have been braided that way.

“I’m sorry it’s so cold,” he apologizes.

She pulls back just enough that her voice won’t be muffled by his chest. “It’s not really so cold,” she says quietly, and squeezes him and returns to her place to remind him of the warmth they are sharing. His coverlet is thin and his sheets even more so, but the meager bedding holds their heat.

“And it is dark-- I don’t keep many candles,” he confesses. He looks so pained by his own self-imposed austerity that she reaches for his lips and presses her fingertip to their line.

“Jean,” she says, shaking her head. “Night can be dark. And the dark can be beautiful. I am happy and comfortable wherever we are together. Believe me.”

He inclines his head and kisses her finger with great remorse and sincerity. The way he does everything.

“I love you,” she whispers, and kisses the line in the center of his chest. She lays nineteen more kisses-- she counts them in her head-- before there is a sudden rush of warmth trickling down the front of her thigh, toward her hip resting on the thin mattress.

“Ah,” she says, “I should go clean up.”

He looks at her with confusion and concern. “You can’t possibly have been given chores for this time of night.”

She is ashamed of nothing they have done that night, her heart still sings from it all. But she is a little mortified to elaborate. 

“Your, ah--” her eyes go to the skylight as though the moon will help her, but it is hidden again by clouds. There is only the deepest gray-blue darkness beyond the glass. “Your release,” she whispers, feeling silly over the word but unwilling to use another in its place. “It’s slipping out. It will make a mess,” she explains. “I just want to go clean myself up, and then if it’s alright I’ll come back.” 

She’d tried her best to be clear and gentle, but he looks stricken.

“I don’t want you to go at all,” he says. “Let me.”

Her eyes glance to the battered-looking chest of drawers by the door to his bedroom. There is a small, equally roughly-used pitcher and basin sitting on top of it. But while she’s so comfortable in his bed she’s having trouble leaving, the room is cold. The idea of sensitive flesh being washed by unwarmed water alarms her.

She begins to make a sound of protest but stops when one elegant fingertip lays itself gently over her mouth. “Let me,” he says again. It is a plea.

She supposes if he is quick, they can go back to snuggling and she will warm back up and get to stay in his bed. She nods and tries to be brave. She’s not very brave about cold water when she wants warm, but she’s gone through a considerable amount of struggle to get this man to open his heart to her. That he wants her to stay here will keep her heart warm for a long, long time.

“Thank you,” he says. “I’m not going far. Watch for the moon.” His tiny, beautiful smile above her belongs in the sky.

He does not get out of bed. He gently presses her onto her back, and then he shuffles his lithe, impossibly lovely body down beneath the sheet. Then he stops, and not cold at all breath is there against her center, and she throws a hand over her mouth to stifle a yelp of surprise and interest.

Jean’s first touches are slow, his first licks tentative. But his breath, from the first and forever is hot, warm, alive and with her. He cleans her thigh, her hip, and then comes back to center and keeps “cleaning”. When she begins to say his name and fist the threadbare sheets and roll her hips toward his mouth, he reads her signs with gladness and gets bolder. Shows some of his strength. And tries, stars how he tries, to show some of his dedication to her. 

He can hear the way her blood moves in her body, faster as his tongue moves from cleaning to worshiping. In her thighs below his hands, deep her in belly-- the blood that keeps her alive dances to his song, and he is honored and more committed to her pleasure than ever.

“Jean,” she whispers. She sounds dizzy and it makes his heart ache like a wounded songbird and trill like a hale one. “The moon’s come out.”

“Is it beautiful?” he asks without looking up. His mouth is so wet it would gleam even in the room’s dimness, he knows it. She hums assent, blissful and dreamy. Perfect. She is perfect. And she is close. He’s not well-versed in this, but he knows that, too.

General style is to tease, tease, tease, but sweetly. He’s not trying to hurt her feelings, but a prickly little part of his brain is trying to keep her blushing (he will deny this in a Cradle Court of Law). He doesn’t use dirty dirty talk (momma raised him right), and would NEVER insult her body or call it anything harsher than “needy” which is, duh, exactly how he wants her anyway! But he does talk about what he’s seeing, and sometimes he gets a little appreciatively graphic, shall we say. When he’s complimenting her his volume dips because he feels a little shy about it. When they’re in it and he’s flushed and sweaty it becomes a little easier to be directly sweet, because he’s so turned on and he feels like he won’t get caught. Not sadly at all, his dick is so good he never gets caught. We cannot blame Alice, only live our surface lives wanting to be her.

(bury me here)

“Breathe,” he reminds her. “I’m flattered by your nerves, but I want you to be comfortable. And conscious.” When she giggles he smiles and laughs a little, too. Her eyes look at his mouth with open desire he doesn’t think she knows she’s showing.

“You want something like a kiss,” he tells her, slowly leaning close, “You have to show me how romanced you are, so I know you’re ready.”

He probably comes close to making her actually swoon a few times. Super amused by it. Not in a mean way, but... he won’t deny to himself that he loves the sweetness of her flusters, early on. He’s gratified by all her responses. When she manages to be the tiniest bit bold with him, maybe reaching for his hand under the table or pressing an innocent kiss to his face as he does paperwork?

“That’s good, little lady, that’s good.” He palms her hot cheek like the treasure it is and praises and teases her until she squeaks or squirms.

“A little forward for you, but I liked it very much.” If they’re in public he’ll ask if she’s trying to tell him she wants to go even farther. If they’re in private he’ll tell her that’s where this is going, thanks to her display. He’d be a terrible example for the rest of the army if he didn’t respond appropriately to a lady’s affection.

If she runs away, he’ll be laughing. If she stays he’ll reach for the knot of his tie and tell her to go lock the door for a few minutes.

Sirius thinks the long flirtation before consummating a relationship (and most especially the long flirtation between entering and consummating a relationship) is one of life’s greatest pleasures, and the person who gets to see how smug he is about that... is the other person in the relationship. His brain is all about speculating what could come next and how to deal with it, that’s why he’s good at his job. He likes every stage they share and revels in wherever they are currently, but he can’t help but put her mind on future possibilities or sequences whenever he sees them. It’s not a form of pressuring her, it’s a form of pleasuring them both. A fantasy he shares aloud. By teasing her with it. 

“You’re so stiff I could use you as a level,” he murmurs at her neck. He’s got her on one of the bay window seats in a quiet room of headquarters. He helped her pick up the room so he could have time to do this with her. “What can we do to relax you back into being a lady, hmm?” He dances his fingertips from the tops of her shoulders to her back, brushes of touch so light they make her skin itch for real contact. Bingo.

“Shoulder rub, maybe?” he offers.

His hands go lower, to the tall waist of her skirt. “Or a back rub?”

His hands keep moving. She’s not quite brave enough yet to stay put and see what happens. He pulls her back on the seat with him and hugs her, really rubbing her shoulders and doing it and doing it and doing it well.

“Don’t run away, please,” he says. “I can tell you’re getting shy. Do you want to stay like this instead?” Her nod against his chest makes his heart feel like it’s blooming.

“You need to use your words, then, sweetheart,” he reminds her, and he keeps rubbing her shoulders as she gets through that gauntlet.

“You’re making this so difficult, silly,” he tells her at one point. But difficulty is his. 

When they’re at the point where they are touching each other more, he’s talking more, too. She’s wiser and a bit more comfortable dishing a little heat back at him-- not the kind of heat he serves her, but her own little objections, ways to call him on what he’s doing. He loves it. Their flirting makes him feel so free and happy and in love with her.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about this,” he confesses, watching her hands undo each button of her blouse. The bench at the end of his bed has never been the site of so much happiness (and of course that has him thinking about how eventually they’ll make each other happy on it. all in good time). It’s a comfortable spot to watch her progress. “You’re doing so well,” he tells her, because she is. But his voice must distract her, because her fingers slip over a pearl half-sphere and he stands up to help her.

He lets his gloved hands-- her request! brave girl-- wait in front of the swell of her chest. Her eyes are wide and pleading when they look at one another, but he only lifts a brow.

“H-help me?” she says. He kisses her forehead and helps with the buttons, surer and more careful work than taking the sides and tearing it open.

“Always so polite,” he tells her, and puts the tinest bit of teeth against her ear when he is done. As expected, her arms fly around his back. He can’t see anything she’s revealed by opening her shirt this way, but her embrace is its own reward.

“Careful manhandling me,” he whispers. “You’ll give me ideas.”

“You already have quite a few ideas, I think!” she hisses back. It makes him laugh much louder, more happy than seductive.

“You have no idea,” he tells her as he gently pushes her chin up from where it’s tucked so tightly against his chest. “Don’t hide from me and I’ll share a few of them with you.”

At first he only kisses her closed eyelids as he touches her and listens to every hitch of her breath. Then she gets too loud, and that’s when he pulls her down onto the blue velvet, uses his body to cover her dainty chemise with its lace edging and its hopeless fight against the points of her nipples, and he kisses her silly.

Eventually, of course, there’s more. Her own bed, in her own cheerful room. It smells like her in this space. Especially against all her pillows, where she’s sitting, beautifully bare, in his lap with her back to him. He likes his own bed but has to admit hers is perfect for this, soft and a little farther away from the others than his own room. She seems to feel more secure here, which is so cute he has to tease her about it by going a little more into explicit territory. They don’t get this time often, he wants to use it well.

“Eyes here, watch.” His arm is around her, the base of his palm snug against her mons , and his fingers spread her lips w i d e opening her to the air. He loves it when she sags against him that little bit more, helpless and whimpering, needing him “Ah ah,” he scolds. “Eyes, little lady. Tell me what you see, hmm?”

She sputters and he has to clench his jaw not to laugh. He’s glad she can’t see him. She’s been getting more decisive about how she will let him arrange them, so he likes to think she knew what she was getting into.

“Is there not enough to see?” he prompts. His middle finger curls to stroke her little button, and she starts making those soft puffs of breath he likes. “Ah ah,” he reminds her. “You’re still not looking. We’ll be here all night at this rate.”

“Oh no,” she huffs dramatically. “I’m sure that wasn’t your plan at all.” He laughs again and rubs the spiral she likes.

“Tell me,” he repeats, firmly now. “Or you know I’ll stop. And who knows what else I’ll do. You are very naked, you know.”

She does know, so she tries. He keeps making her describe how things look and feel until he swears he can feel the heat coming off her face from his place behind her. Her nipples have been pinched and stroked, her sweet sex has been cupped and patted and fingered in combinations that dizzy even him, and he’s the one who’s done it all.

“Good girl,” he says quietly, safe behind her and all her pillows and the headboard safe behind him. “You did well.”

She hums a questioning noise, a little too blissed out to have caught what he said in so hushed a voice.   

She can tell as soon as she walks through the library door that he’s upset. There are far more open books than usual on the table where he likes to work, and the floor is littered with loose pages-- that’s the biggest clue, he’s meticulous about communal spaces like the library. His own room can sometimes get messy when he’s getting the genius out of his head and onto paper, but he’s adamant about respecting spaces where others work. She’s seen him put himself in a tizzy over it, actually. So the untidiness is not a good sign, nor the tight set of his shoulders as he glances frantically from page to page in his hand, sets one down, then picks it up.

“Isaac?” she asks, setting down the tea tray on a table far from the carpet of paper. When he turns to her he looks like he might cry, and it takes everything in her not to make a sound of alarm. She minds her steps as she quickly goes to him and touches his arm. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Neither of these were bound,” he says, panic rising toward anger, mirroring the way he holds up two empty folios. “Someone left them here and they fell when I was trying to clean off our table”-- he gulps, adorably embarrassed at our table, which she leaves well enough alone-- “and now they are horribly out of order and they aren’t numbered in any fashion, who would put anything to paper in such a foolish way?!”

He is breathing heavily by the time he finishes. She looks at the many, many pages covering the desk and floor.

“Well,” she thinks outloud “it looks like at least some of them are different colors, see the ones that are on darker paper? Let’s put those together. If they’re all completely out of order, it won’t make anything worse.”

He agrees immediately, and they set to it. When the darkest pages are gathered into a pile, they look for significantly lighter ones and put those together, too. Then they consider the ink and the style of the diagrams. The focus of the task calms him and makes her feel useful. Their tea goes cold by the door, and they truly cannot put things in order, there is no pagination either of them recognize... but they do know which pages belong together, and the floor is clear enough that they sit on it, backs against the tall reading desk where they’d planned to work together today. 

She sighs, relieved and a bit tired. “It’s probably nearly time for lunch,” she says with a laugh. “So much for our morning of reading together.”

“We were still together!” Isaac says. When she looks at him, surprised by his insistence, he is quite pink, and looks as though he wants to grumble at himself. She looks at her hands in her lap instead and makes her lips into a line to keep them from becoming a smile.

“We were,” he says, more quietly. “And I’m... glad. You were here. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and... you really helped.”

She can feel the wash of happiness settling over her arms like a shawl. He’s still learning, but he tries, always. She scoots closer and can’t keep her mouth in a line when she realizes he’s doing the same. They meet in the middle of the deskfront, lovely varnished wood with carved wreaths and flourishes. His arm goes between her back and the pretty wreaths, and curls loosely around her. Neither of them say anything, but she opens her hands in her lap and his slides inside. There’s a stain of old ink or new soot on one finger and she can’t help herself-- she brings it up and ducks her head down to kiss it.

“I’m happy we were together, too,” she whispers. He goes a bit stiff around her, then she can feel the way he softens. As if to prove it, he tips his hand so the fingers lace with hers, and then he uses their knuckles to gently push her chin up.

“Thank heavens for you,” he says, just beside her mouth, and she’s shocked but so delighted she snaps her eyes shut instead of risking him feeling too watched. She thinks she hears his nearly-silent laugh, and she knows she gets to enjoy a sweet reward: a kiss, gentle and much bolder than she expected. He keeps his arm tucked around her and his hand under her face, and his other palm lands gently on her shoulder and keeps her there for kisses. They are quiet and alone in the library and she thinks his clever tongue on hers must be trying to say something in a language she doesn’t yet know. Maybe he can teach her.

She tells him so and he makes an exasperated, embarrassed huff and kisses her again. “You already know everything,” he whispers fiercely.

“Teach me anyway,” she whispers back. His smile is too close to be hidden from her at all, and she thinks it is more precious than the treasure of the Hesperides. 

Dancing in the current fashion of Paris involves more movement than a man in a kimono-- or a vampire in a kimono, even one who wears a kimono as well as he does-- can easily manage. So they go to these dances because it seems to please le Comte so much, but as she has lost her interest in dancing with other people, they have more and more often found themselves tucked beside the pillars lining dance floors, or standing together beside richly papered walls at the edge of a party. Sometimes there is a settee, sometimes not. She doesn’t mind standing with him.

She does mind making a scene. Like the kind he seems determined to make tonight.

“You’re not being proper,” she hisses on a whisper. There are only backs to them, belonging to all the guests ringing the ballroom floor and protecting them from the eyes of the dancers, but if anyone were to turn around, or leave the floor and walk in their direction...

“I don’t think I like what ‘proper’ means to these people, Toshiko-san,” he says. Sweet with an edge. His voice is a spice drop as the words land on her and make her swallow. One of his fingers strokes the little space behind her ear before her hair begins, and his gaze is so warm she wants to take off her gloves.

It will undo all their efforts to please le Comte by being here if they are caught like this, and she tells him so. Dazai laughs and it is all sweet.

“Being caught, that you’re worried about?”

She nods. She thinks it will dislodge his touch and she is wrong. He presses and he steps in front of her, and his other arm looms over her before it lands above her. She wonders how the creamy white of his shirt looks against the pale blue wall with its gold paint, but she cannot see it. She cannot even turn away from his eyes,

He looks at her like he has become a sleek, majestic cat. The big kind, the kind that could end her in one bite. The kind that purrs in rumbles and will not be told what to do by any creature, god, or man.

She cannot see the dancers or the people standing at the edge of the dance floor. His jacket blocks her, and it must block her from them as well.

“Let’s be careful not be caught, then,” he whispers. Every word moves his mouth against her forehead.

“This doesn’t feel very careful,” she whispers back.

He hums and his face is already there, but his body comes in a little closer as he leans on the arm propped above her on the wall. “Then let’s just not get caught,” he tells her. His cologne, the woods and water smell of him, is as sweet as it is sharp, as sure as it is strong. Strong enough to overwhelm her perfume, a delicate floral scent selected for enjoyment, not defense.

“Let’s at least go onto one of the patios,” she says. But she doesn’t really want to leave. He is sliding the tip of his nose along the length of hers. It really would be a scandal if they were caught, not because of what they are doing (what Parisienne hasn’t been against a wall with a man at a party?), but where: still so in the open, even if he’s the only one obvious to eyes.

“And miss the dancing?” he says drily. Something has touched his temper or offended him, she can tell.

So she dares to whisper “What dancing?” and relishes when his smile softens and he kisses her right between her eyebrows.

“You are so much more interesting than these silly people,” he tells her. “And their silly dancing. But it seems important to you.”

She thinks about that. She did enjoy it, months ago. But she doesn’t miss it.

Slowly, she says “It is only important to me to be with you.”

His expression becomes surprise, then concern. “Do you want to leave?”

“le Comte has already seen us here, yes? Then yes, I don’t think there’s anything to keep me here.”

His mouth comes to hers and hovers there. She feels crowded but also delightfully held by his body, by his hip pinning her, by his arm blocking out the rest of the world. Dazai doesn’t kiss her. He waits, like a giant cat, for her to move. So he can pounce on her.

Her hands are still gloved, so they slide without catch against his chest, warm under creamy white linen.“Won’t you take me home?” she murmurs. It makes her lips move against his, just like his moved against her forehead a moment ago.