Happy Friday! ā you can kiss me, you know. ā for Neve/Lucanis
Thank you!! @dadrunkwriting
The canal water caught the dying light of sunset, oil-slick rainbows dancing across dark waters. Neve stood at the railing, one hand resting on the worn stone, her weight shifted to her good leg in that way she did when she was thinking. The wind pulled at her hair, dark strands escaping the careful arrangement, and she didn't bother to fix them.
Lucanis watched her from the table where he sat cleaning a blade he'd already cleaned twice. The cloth moved in slow, mechanical circles over steel that needed no attention. His eyes kept drifting upward despite himself.
She looks like moonlight, Spite hissed Pretty. Dark. You should touch.
"I'm not going toā" Lucanis caught himself before he said it aloud. The words sat behind his teeth instead, pressed against the inside of his lips. I'm not going to burden her with any of this.
Why? The demon's presence curled tighter behind his ribs, restless and sharp. She looks. She looks at you. I see her looking.Trying to see inside.
Neve looks at everyone like that Spite. It's her job to read people, remember?
No Insistent. Petulant. She looks differently at us now. Softer. You know this. You feel this. I feel YOU feel this.
Lucanis's jaw tightened. The cloth stilled on the blade. Of course he felt itāthe thing that had been growing in his chest like ivy climbing old walls, slow and inexorable and impossible to rip out without taking part of the masonry with it. He'd been a fool to let it take root. A worse fool to water it with every conversation, every shared look across the Lighthouse, every time she'd laughed at something dry he'd said and he'd felt like a man seeing the sun after years in the Ossuary dark.
SO WHAT? Spite's frustration cracked through him like a whip There is your mouth and her mouth and the space betweenā
She deserves someone whole. The thought was bitter and true. Someone who isn't carrying a demon who might hurt her. Someone whose hands are clean.
Your hands are clean now. You just wiped them. On the cloth. For an hour. Stupid.
A breath of almost-laughter escaped him. Spite had a way of being absurdly literal when it suited him.
Neve turned from the canal.
The motion caught himāshe moved with that particular economy of hers, no wasted energy, everything purposeful. Her gaze found his across the space between them, and she didn't look away. Didn't pretend she hadn't noticed him staring.
It was small, private, the kind of smile that didn't perform for anyone. The kind that started in her dark eyes before it reached her lips. It knocked the air from his lungs every single time.
She smiles. Go to her. NOW.
He stayed exactly where he was, fingers wrapped around a knife handle, it weight familiar and comforting.
Neve pushed off from the railing and walked toward him. Her gait was unevenāthe prosthetic clicking against stone, the slight hitch in her step that she'd never seemed self-conscious about. She came around the table, and he tracked her movement like a hawk watching a mouse in open field, except she was no prey and he was the one caught.
She leaned her hip against the table's edge, close enough that he could smell canal water and something else underneathāsomething warm, distinctly her. Her arms crossed loosely over her chest, and she looked down at him with that appraising gaze she used on crime scenes and difficult witnesses.
"You can kiss me, you know?"
The words landed in his chest like a crossbow bolt.
DO IT. DO IT NOW. SHE SAIDā
Lucanis's throat worked. The cloth fell from his fingers. The knife clattered against the table, forgotten. He stared up at her, searching for the catch, the angle, the thing that would make this make sense. "Neveā"
"As much as I love a good song I'm not much for dancing these days," Her voice was calm, matter-of-fact, but something flickered in her expression. Something vulnerable she was choosing to show him anyway. "I've been waiting for you, in case that wasn't clear."
SHE WAS WATCHING. I TOLD YOU. I TOLD YOU SHE WASā
"I know." His voice came out rougher than intended. "I know you were."
"Then what are you waiting for?" She uncrossed her arms, let them fall to her sides. Open. Unshielded. "Permission? An invitation in writing?"
YES. YES. KISS HER. LUCANIS.
He rose slowly, the chair scraping back behind him. She didn't step awayāif anything, she tilted her chin up, holding her ground. They stood close enough that he could see the individual lashes framing her dark eyes, the faint scar near her hairline he'd always wanted to trace with his thumb.
"My hands aren't clean," he said quietly. "Not really. Never really."
"I'm from Dock Town, Lucanis, no one I know has clean hands, least of all me, " One eyebrow lifted.
A purple light flared behind Lucanis's eyes. He could feel it, see it reflected in Neve's gaze, in the way her breath caught and smiled.
The demon's voice dissolved into static as Lucanis lifted one hand, finally, and cupped the side of her face. His palm was rough with calluses from blades and poisons and work that left marks deeper than skin. Her cheek was soft against it, warm, real. She leaned into the touchājust slightly, just enoughāand something in his chest cracked wide open.
"Neve." Her name tasted like confession on his tongue.
"Lucanis." She said it back at him, and there was challenge in it, and patience, and something that made his breath catch.
Not fast, not desperateāslow. Giving her every chance to pull back, to change her mind, to decide that this was a mistake and he wasn't worth the complication. His mouth found hers like a question he didn't deserve to have answered.
But she answered it anyway.
Neve's hand came up to rest against his chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, and she kissed him back with deliberate intent. Her lips were softer than he'd imagined in the moments he'd let himself imagine, and she tasted like the bitter tea she always drank and something sweeter underneath. She didn't hesitate, didn't hold backākissed him like she'd made up her mind a long time ago and was simply waiting for him to catch up.
FINALLY, Spite crowed, and for once, Lucanis didn't argue with him.
His other hand found her waist, drew her closer, and she came willingly, her hip pressing against his as she deepened the kiss. The sound she madeāsomewhere between a sigh and a humāvibrated against his lips and sent heat pooling low in his stomach.
When they finally broke apart, her eyes were bright and slightly dazed. Her fingers were still twisted in his shirt. She didn't let go.
"Took you long enough," she murmured.
TELL HER SPITE HELPED. TELL HER Iā
"Thank you," he said instead, thumb stroking across her cheekbone. "For being patient with me."
Her smile returnedāwider this time, less guarded. "I'm a detective. Patience is half the job." She tugged lightly at his shirt. "The other half is following up on leads."
He laughedāactually laughedāand the sound surprised them both. "Is that what this is? Investigation?"
"Preliminary findings are good butā¦" She pretended to consider, her free hand coming up to rest over his heart. "I might need to do a bit more investigating on this one."
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