i'm a ghost around this town and you're a phantom limb

VESPER

Colt's thoughts come at him like rainfall in reverse; not falling, but rising, climbing the walls of her mind until she’s drowning in what-ifs and never-agains, until her whole skull feels like a floodplain. He can feel it pressing outward as if her pulse were laced with thunder, her heart trying to outpace the fact of his leaving, to outrun a tide she knows she can’t stop.

It isn’t fair. None of it is. Not the storm she hides behind wry smiles, not the questions she throws at him in steady escalation, and certainly not the way her grief makes a home in him even when she doesn’t want it known. He sees it in the curl of her fingers, feels it in the tautness of her jaw, but most of all, he hears it. That’s the part she’ll never understand. It’s not just what she says. It’s what she feels that barrels through him, raw and unfiltered, no matter how tightly she tries to batten down the hatches.

And it’s because of that—precisely that—he knows he has to go.

So when she offers that faint smile, dry as a cracked field, and says she wouldn’t be coming north to sightsee, he lets the curve of his own mouth catch on hers like a hook, lazy and crooked and fond despite everything. "Least I could do is make sure the backdrop’s interesting if you came all the way up," he murmurs. There’s heat behind them, and memory, and something he doesn’t let reach his eyes.

He arches a brow slightly as she mentions Thorn and nods in vague acknowledgement, but the warmth of her voice is already bleeding into the undercurrent again, her composure buckling just slightly beneath the weight of her thoughts.

Then the tide crests.

Her voice sharpens, her palm slaps the counter, and the dogs shrink back, but Vesper doesn’t move; the crash already hit him before her voice ever rose. Her mind strikes first, words second, and that is what exhausts him most. Not her anger, not her pain, but how unrelenting it is. How it leaves no room for silence. No corner of peace untouched.

He straightens slightly, not in defence, not in retreat, but because she deserves some answer, even if it isn’t the one she wants. A long breath escapes him. It hangs faintly in the warm kitchen air, caught between firelight and the threadbare hush of what’s left. "What good would it do to be bothered?" he asks softly, swallowing, jaw shifting. There’s a crack forming behind his sternum, invisible and precise, like hairline fractures in something polished too smooth. His thumb brushes the rim of the glass, more nervous tic than habit.

"I’ve got my orders," he adds quietly, voice softening, because that’s all he can say. No confession about the circumstances of his orders or why they matter more than her tears or his own reluctance. Jack’s warning looms large in his mind, and even if it didn’t, the look in her eyes would stop him. She already feels like she’s being lied to; what would it do to her to know the truth and realise he’s been inside her head every time?

So he gives her the only honest thing he can. "I ain't unbothered about it," he says at last, after a long pause, eyes steady on hers. "I just...don't show it the way you do." His voice cracks just slightly at the end, not enough for her to pity him, but enough that she might hear the echo of what he’s holding back. It isn’t that he doesn’t feel it. It’s that if he lets himself feel it here, he won’t be able to walk out that door.

rot gut whiskey's gonna ease your mind
but when the hell are you gonna ease mine?

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

COLT

I've been sleeping wide awake
Slow dancing 'round the cracks in the floorboards
Fighting myself while lying in a
Bed I made and can't ignore

It feels like something has started to erode. She can't tell what, but there's a shift, the gathering of something before it breaks. Between all her storms, fire or water or wind, she's taken pieces of them away, carving out something whether she meant to or not. With the long sigh that eases from him, it seems it could be his patience that's finally whittling away underneath all this time. The memory of him yanking open gates for bulls rises up behind her eyes, a complaint buried there with a smile. She swallows it back, fingers uncurling a bit.

Quiet now in the wake of her noise, the force of it a drain on what remains, she considers a different version of this night for just a moment. One where she did things differently, where he did, where it wouldn't end the way she knows this one will. If she'd never even wondered that he'd stay, would he just have remained, and she would have found the answer in that? "Because then I'd know it mattered," she says, voice gone low and thready, the sound of something surrendering. The current has slowed to a crawl, all that feeling spreading thin and soaking in, mud instead of flood.

She's asking him to give things she frequently doesn't freely offer, but she feels like her heart's the only one on the line here, and that's half the problem of it all too. Each time with him, he's sunken closer to it, even with all her attempts to keep it tucked away. Maybe she hasn't reached his quite so thoroughly, given the only risks she's been willing to take with him have been opening her front door and standing beside him, and they don't feel like nearly enough to ask him to hand over all the rest. She wasn't going to blame him for leaving tonight, and she can't blame him for leaving at all; expected it really, despite a rising hope for something else.

A visit. An unknown amount of time gone. None of it's truly leaving, but it's absence wrapped up just a touch nicer and she doesn't fully trust it.

Her eyes drift at the sound of orders, and she slides away from the counter, backing into another that's behind her and grabbing the bottle of tequila there. She'd like to hear him and just nod. To understand so wholly that she's as neat as him about it, that she'd see him anywhere from a week to years and be fine. To pretend he hasn't swept her so cleanly off her feet that now being asked to stand on them again is as simple as rolling out of bed. Wouldn't be the first time she got good at crawling, she just thought she'd been careful enough to never have to do so again.

She tilts the bottle back, taking a large swig before setting it down. Her gaze feels like a heavy thing to move as she swings it back towards him, the silence breaking with him unbothered after all. That's something, she supposes. The only thing she's gotten so far is his calm, and she's holding it in her chest like it's proof of feeling, a sticky note being passed off as a love letter. "I get it," she murmurs, and truthfully she does. She doesn't need him loud, she just wants...an assurance that there's more than silence. Something to convince her that the way she knows she's gonna miss him won't be a mistake, that Thalassa's just a bitter bitch in a bar. For every warning twisting her gut that she heeded, she ignored twice as many, and she's not sure if doing so just handed over their hilts for him to use later or not. "I just wish I knew what you were thinking more often, seems it'd make everything easier."

I'm tired of running from the conversations
Screaming in the silence, all alone
I'm frustrated, I can't take it
But I'll fake it, then I'll hate myself again

VESPER

The sigh that escapes him is quiet, but heavy with the weight of all the things he can’t say. He drags a hand up the side of his face, fingers catching on the edge of his cheekbone before raking back through his hair, pale strands falling momentarily out of place. "What, do I gotta go around kickin’ in doors and raisin’ hell just to prove something mattered to me?" he mutters, dry as cracked ice and just as brittle beneath. 

"I could’ve just written you a letter," he adds, quieter now, the words slower. "Could’ve not come at all. Not when the whole world’s gone cold and dark, and.." But he doesn’t finish the thought. His jaw works once, and then the sentence drops away into the silence like a flare that sputters before it ever lights. There’s no use in pointing out that he’s here. That he came. 

As she moves, as the bottle tilts and the sharp scent of tequila cuts through the space between them, Vesper turns his head. His gaze drifts out toward the darker edge of the room—the shadows that move just enough to mimic life—and lets his focus unravel. The corners of his eyes twitch. His jaw feathers tight. Because what she says—I just wish I knew what you were thinking—strikes directly at the heart of the thing he’s been keeping buried. His secret flares in his chest like a swallowed blade, sharp and hot, and for a breathless moment he nearly does tell her.

But then Jack’s voice curls in his mind like smoke, and gods help him, but he knows what it would become if he spoke the truth now. Knowing would fix nothing. Not for her. All it would do is open a new wound she didn’t even know she had. Her thoughts already lash out at the space between them like it’s something he built on purpose. What would she do if she knew how many of them he hears? If she knew just how much she’s asking him to carry?

He blinks, slow and deliberate, forcing the pressure behind his eyes to fade. A single shoulder rolls with careful ease, as though that alone might coax the tension to flee. Then, finally, he glances back at her. "No," he says softly. "It wouldn’t."

His whiskey sour sits forgotten now, condensation glistening down the side like sweat, but he leaves it where it is. Instead, he crosses the space between them, footsteps quiet on the old wooden floor, until he’s standing directly in front of her. Close enough to feel the warmth coming off her skin. Close enough to see how the firelight carves golden edges into the curve of her cheek, the hollow of her collarbone.

She looks like a bonfire waiting for wind; all sharp blonde, all dry heat and stubborn drawl. Her eyes, the same ones he’s caught full of mischief and narrowed against gunfire, are darker now, hooded with something too soft to name. She’s unguarded in a way that makes him ache. Like she’s half the girl she used to be and twice the woman she was, held together with spit and grit and the memory of what it felt like to fall too hard for something that didn’t stay.

He could touch her. Could press a hand to her waist, to her hip, to the line of her jaw and watch her lean into it. Like at Vox's Drop when he'd reached out for her, like that single breath when she leaned into him despite leaving, he knows he could make it all easier; tonight, at least. But gods if that wouldn’t make everything worse.

He isn’t half the things she thinks he is. But nor can he be what she needs, not without lying, not without tearing open something inside of himself and constantly stuffing it full of enough bullshit to drown out the noise. So he just looks at her, quietly, his constellation freckles shifting faintly across the bridge of his nose and over his cheekbones, moving in time with thoughts that never find words. The fire snaps in the hearth. Outside, darkness waits like a closing mouth, and the time for bright ideas slips gently past, unclaimed.

rot gut whiskey's gonna ease your mind
but when the hell are you gonna ease mine?

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

COLT

I've been sleeping wide awake
Slow dancing 'round the cracks in the floorboards
Fighting myself while lying in a
Bed I made and can't ignore

The tequila keeps back the set of a frown. Seems she's gone and asked too much of him again, when she never meant to ask anything at all. It had started with him offering, just a casual hand offered through twilight, but somewhere between deserts and dates she began to want more, and hated that she did. If she'd done like she wanted, then she could shrug at this new career and say she'd see him around eventually, and Vesper would become just another weather pattern she had no control over, that showed up sometimes and plenty of others not. "Yeah," she agrees, soft as first snowfall. "I know. You've always been good at showin' up Ves." That's part of what worries her. When he's gone, what'll she be left with? Memories and a sweater, pretending one doesn't fade from the good and linger on the bad and the other's capable of sticking with her all through the seasons without fraying.

A hint of something breaks through him, but by then her attention has drifted, and it's only returned, catching back on his blue as he glances back too from some side where they each tried to put down something too heavy to keep holding. No, he says easy and light, and her lips purse faintly in response, considering just what that means about the thoughts inside his head then. She knows she keeps hers back, but maybe all this time he's laid everything out on the table for her after all, so if that still hasn't been enough, then what is she asking of him?

"I suppose you're right," she says with a huff and a tweak of a smile, too sad at the edges to really even count. "Just not meant to be easy," she offers as some sort of consolation, needing something to believe in, even if it's hell.

She doesn't move when he does, just watches the steady way he closes the gap, wishing it could always be so simple as one foot after the other. Her breath slows as he gets close enough to touch, her head forced to tilt up to keep hold of his gaze. There's no sense in getting around to missing him before he's even gone, not when she's already needing to make up for missing him after the last time she saw him.

She reaches out, cautious but sure, fingers curling around either edge of his pants to tug him in the rest of the way. At least he's here, like he has been, and maybe that'd just have to be proof enough that there's something worth holding onto, even if she has to wait to grab hold of it again after tonight.

One hand lifts to coast against his cheek, fingertips trying to keep the feel of him as something stronger than memory. She leans up on her toes to press in a kiss built to linger, as though she could brand this feeling into staying if she held it long enough to hurt. "Stay," she demands when parting finally comes, and though she knows he won't, not in the way she wants, it's the last thing she'll ask of him tonight. By her count, there's enough LongNight left for to memorize more of him yet.

I'm tired of running from the conversations
Screaming in the silence, all alone
I'm frustrated, I can't take it
But I'll fake it, then I'll hate myself again

VESPER

If he were a betting man—and he is, in most ways that matter—Vesper would’ve placed good coin on the next words out of Colt’s mouth being then get out. Maybe not in those exact terms, but in the same tone her silence sometimes held when she wanted to say more than she dared. The sort of cold dismissal she wielded like a shield, sharp-edged and distant. It wouldn’t have been unfair. Wouldn’t even have surprised him.

But that’s the trouble with being a telepath it doesn’t make you a fortune teller. And as her gaze finds his, not with fury but with something quieter, heavier, her fingers hook into the edges of his pants. They tug him forward in a gesture too simple to be misunderstood. For one breathless instant he wonders what else he might’ve been wrong about—what else she might accept even with her heart still half armoured—and then her lips are on his.

Being with Colt is easy; not in a cheap forgettable way, not in a simple pleasure kind of way, but in a way that smooths out the edges of his thoughts. Her mind, when wrapped around his, isn’t a barbed wire mess of what-ifs and withheld truths. It’s heat and texture, grit and grain and the smell of her dogs still clinging to the walls. It’s wind over ranchland and woodsmoke in early evening. Her want never tries to trap him; it just exists, honest and unflinching. And maybe it’s selfish—probably is—to want more of that, to give her what she asks for when he knows he can’t give her what she means. But as she pulls away and says that word—stay—he stops thinking entirely.

His hands move before his mouth can form a lie.

His hands clasp beneath her thighs and he lifts her easily, shadows swirling up from the floor like a second pair of arms to help. They cradle her weight and drape around him like ribbons, tugging the world out of the way as he carries her through it. They make it past the kitchen, the table; his fingers find the wall, then the back of the couch, fumbling once but never breaking from her mouth. Every time their lips part, it’s only to breathe, to murmur her name low against her skin or to let her do the same. He wants to speak something more into the hollow of her throat, but he doesn’t trust the words to mean what they should. She’s already given him more than he knows how to carry, and gods if that isn't half of the problem.

And so instead he sinks with her into the nest of blankets she’s built like a den—soft and familiar, warm from old fires and long nights—lowering her with impossible care. His body follows hers, covering her without crowding, as though the shape of him might press down all the sharpness still humming in her chest. His hands find her jaw, her waist, her thigh, in a touch that borders on possessive before stilling and softening.

rot gut whiskey's gonna ease your mind
but when the hell are you gonna ease mine?

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

COLT

I've been sleeping wide awake
Slow dancing 'round the cracks in the floorboards
Fighting myself while lying in a
Bed I made and can't ignore

There's little that competes with being gathered by him and her legs wrap around him in response, eagerly claiming his gravity instead, comfortable in the dusk that guides and settles around her. Her mind empties into the rhythm of touch, her only thoughts now on which place of him to lay claim to next, and even those are just a scatter of sparks catching on any part of him she can.

Fingers argue with fabric, slip tight through his hair, curl across the rough edge of his jaw. Her mouth trades lips, tongue, and teeth in equal measure, skimming along him and swallowing the sound of her name with a feral grin. Breathing is nothing other than a nuisance, every pause to manage it a punishing interruption that leaves her panting his name through the frenzy. The flicker of lanterns and fire spill over him, shadows rising in-between in a pattern of varying darkness as he moves, but she can't see beyond the constellations now.

Lowering into the couch is a sigh of relief her whole body takes. There’s no leaving, no wondering, no haunted pasts, no nights without stars—just him now. Her pulse rises to the weight of him and the way he always fits against her like he knows every empty part that aches for him. She arches into him, meeting him that much faster, distance something she can't afford. Her breath catches on contact, a low sound slipping free that speaks to all her want. Not promises, not plans, not even words. Just the feel of him. 

Her hands hold either side of his head, curling into a hungry kiss that she presses into him with nearly violent need. It breaks just as fiercely, an unintelligible sound loosing as she sinks fully into the sea of blankets and comfort, gaze unshakable from his. One leg remains draped around his back, heel begging him lower, while the other curls up to brush against the side of his waist, an unspoken complaint at the rasp of clothing instead of the glide of skin.

Fingers find the hem of his shirt, tugging hard enough to feel the seams strain in her haste before she pushes it up over his ribs. The warmth of his skin hits her palms, the feeling better than air yanked in after breaking through water. Fingers run across the surface of him, rolling along the lines of muscle he's earned from spars and more weight than he deserves to carry, lean with travel and worry he keeps back with a roll of his teeth or shoulder. He sparkles with his private night mapped across the tan of his skin, a scene worthy of slowing down to admire for a moment.

I'm tired of running from the conversations
Screaming in the silence, all alone
I'm frustrated, I can't take it
But I'll fake it, then I'll hate myself again

VESPER

Colt's mind softens around him like warm dusk, all sharpness blunted into honey and heat. And gods, he hadn’t realised how tightly he’d been holding himself until now; until the violence of needing her gave way to the comfort of having her. It pours through him like a tide finally finding shore. His whole body seems to sag with it, muscles loosening one by one in the glow of her desire, as if for just this flicker of time she could be his balm instead of his burden. If only he could make her feel like this all the time. If only it were this easy to hold her in a way that didn’t mean she’d have to hurt when he left.

But she arches against him like she’s never doubted he’d catch her, and he does; quickly, fully, like he was made for it. One hand braces behind her shoulder, not to keep distance but to anchor himself, to feel the presence of her beneath him, to know her shape by more than just memory or longing. She’s caging him now as much as he ever could her, fingers wrapped around his jaw and a leg hooked over his hips to keep him where she wants him. He rolls his weight slowly against her, hips grinding down with aching deliberation, and gods, the friction is glorious, maddening and magnetic all at once. The feel of her heat pressed tight to him even through clothes is enough to send lightning crawling along his spine, sparking under every vertebrae, flaring up behind his ribs. He kisses her harder for it, hungrily, bruisingly, until she’s stealing the breath right out of him.

When she tugs at his shirt, he lets the kiss break, but just barely. A shallow gasp parts his lips just long enough for shadows to rise, obedient and invisible in the glow of her fire, tugging the fabric over his head like hands far more graceful than his. His body shivers in the cold air for only a moment before her touch scorches it warm again.

And then his freehand is sliding beneath his own sweater. He’s known since she opened the door that there was nothing on underneath, and still, the first glide of his palm up her stomach is enough to have his breath catching. Her skin is silk beneath his rough fingers, soft in a way nothing else about her is. One hand curves upward, perfectly cupping the swell of her breast, like it was sculpted to fit him. His thumb brushes her nipple first, slow and coaxing, then rolls it gently between his fingers, drawing a hitch in his breath that escapes low and hot into her mouth. He aches to touch the other, to match the sensation, to give her everything evenly, but the angle of their bodies makes it difficult. Still, he tries, shifting slightly to run the backs of his knuckles across her other breast, 

Every part of this feels good. Gods, better than good; it’s rare and whole and deeply, deeply physical. Kissing her in this sea of tangled blankets, the scent of her hair filling his nose, her breath ragged beneath his, the press of her heel against his back making sure he never strays too far from the cradle of her hips, it's intoxicating. Real in a way most things aren’t. It silences the noise in his skull and wraps him in the singular, exquisite clarity of wanting her.

rot gut whiskey's gonna ease your mind
but when the hell are you gonna ease mine?

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

COLT

I've been sleeping wide awake
Slow dancing 'round the cracks in the floorboards
Fighting myself while lying in a
Bed I made and can't ignore

What a waste it is, wearing them both thin trying to hold him back. Because once she lets him in, it's always effortless. He just fits, and for as long as he remains, nothing could be simpler. It's not just when they burn like this, though it's easy to ignite off him when a look is spark enough; it's everything. Each moment Vesper touches turns silver, and she has never wanted for gold.

The sinful things his hand says to her as it slides across her stomach doesn't bear repeating beyond this couch. Each inch he claims sends a murmur of gossip rippling through her nerves until even her toes are bashful from it. Anticipation glides along with him, head tipping back, gaze tearing away at last as she gives in to feeling him completely. Without sight, everything grows taut, straining for his attention and the heat that blooms beneath it. In the wake of his motions, skin tingles as it cools, the memory of him fading to embers.

Her breath rolls into a moan as his palm finds a seat against her breast, fresh heat pouring down her spine until it's arching up into the conversation too, a physical gasp in response to the touch of his fingers along her nipple. His mouth finds hers, the exhale of his arousal scorching into her chest, stronger than any shot. It tears through the start of his name, forcing her to sip it back in, the curl of her body outcry enough.

She keeps a seal on his lips, chasing the bruise of his breath again, a brief pursuit before she tips into the side of his cheek to keep from entirely suffocating on this need. All the while her hands slide down his abdomen, nails leaving mild tracks as they drift lower. They fold into the waistband of his pants, tugging as her leg bears down on him, hips rolling up to meet his simultaneously. A groan shakes past her teeth at the jolt of the connection, pulse fluttering like something that means to combust if struck again. Her leg slides off him, leaving just the angle of her knees pressing in on either side of him, and her fingers yank the button of his pants apart.

Her questions have gone quiet, but he's still answering them, writing each one into her skin. Every fierce pass of his lips, each possessive curl of his hands, the shudder of his breath tangled with hers—they're all the proof she needs. If only she could remember them all before they fade into the cold of his absence. Gods know she's trying to.

I'm tired of running from the conversations
Screaming in the silence, all alone
I'm frustrated, I can't take it
But I'll fake it, then I'll hate myself again

VESPER

Colt shifts beneath him and the world rearranges. The weight of her thighs bracketing his hips, the glide of her breathless moans against his jaw, the rustle of blankets swallowing them whole, it all wraps around Vesper like an incantation, and he lets it claim him. There’s no room for restraint here, no virtue in patience. Not when her fingers are at his belt, not when her mouth is still pressed to his like it might devour the parts of him that won’t stay.

He leans hard into his elbow, spine bowed like a man in prayer, chasing her breath as if it might grant him absolution. Her hands are clumsy with urgency, but his shadows are not. They rise without instruction, obedient in their desire to keep him exactly where he is. They slip around her wrists, assiting her with ease as they begin to tug at the fabric that dares come between them, every dark wisp coaxing buttons and folds to part.

Rather than taking his hands from her to strip her of her pyjama bottoms, Vesper leaves that task to his shadows as well so that he might press his free palm to the line of her jaw, firm and unapologetic, dragging her mouth up to meet his with a low growl that vibrates all the way into his chest. "I want you," he says, and it’s more than just physical, more than skin against skin. He wants her in every selfish, impossible way. In the quiet spaces. In the hours no one else gets to see. In whatever version of life exists where wanting someone could make it so. If it could be that simple—if wanting her were enough—then maybe the sun wouldn’t have to rise on an empty bed again. But it’s never that simple.

His mouth finds hers again, not with grace but with force, like a crash of storm waves into cliffstone. All hunger and ache and quiet fury at the way the world works. His kiss steals breath, steals thought, as his shadows move faster now, tugging their pants lower in messy tandem, dark ribbons unweaving whatever barriers remain. She’s heat and want and wildfire beneath him, and gods, gods, he needs to feel all of her.

Clothes loosen. Air sharpens. And Vesper stays pressed to her, every shift of his hips deliberate, every kiss a vow he cannot speak aloud. He can’t promise forever—never has, never will—but tonight? Tonight, she has him completely.

rot gut whiskey's gonna ease your mind
but when the hell are you gonna ease mine?

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

COLT

I've been sleeping wide awake
Slow dancing 'round the cracks in the floorboards
Fighting myself while lying in a
Bed I made and can't ignore

Her hands only still briefly when the addition of his own, darker grip finds them. She falls into the mindless guidance of them, more than happy to leave such matters to him if it'd happen that much faster. "Always so helpful, midnight," she murmurs, one of the names she's kept for him in her mind slipping free as her thoughts have already shifted back to more important matters. Such as the route his actual hands are taking and the way they drag against her like a match, or the impossible way she's still craving more of his mouth, uncertain when it'll be enough.

The firm request of his grip is one she heeds without resistance, pliant as warm butter in his hands as her chin tilts up. Expecting the hard press of his desire, the one that's been colliding with her through every kiss, she's instead struck by a vicious sound. It rumbles into every part of her, pitched low enough that his voice shakes into her marrow, and in three words, she's ruined.

Her gasp is shaky, as torn things trying to work again tend to be, but it's enough breath to whisper back a secret, "you have me." In this moment, and well before it. In ways she never meant to give, and regardless of how willingly he'd return them, she's lost them just the same. Right now, at least, she offers everything purposefully. It's all she can do to have anything remaining to survive him with, though maybe she doesn't intend to.

The brutal rain of his affection is a torrent that carves into her, and she means to replace every piece with one she takes off him, until there's nothing left of Colt or Vesper, it just becomes a sea of them. Her hands have abandoned the task of freeing him, but she claims him with a warm wrap of her fingers the moment he's released, her other hand fastening around his neck like a noose holding him to this inevitable demise. Her palm glides down the rigidity of his shaft, the pulse of heat she can feel there echoing up through the rest of her like a fever.

Every time, it feels like she might wither on the spot without his touch. It's as if she's been trying to flourish amid a drought, only realizing her thirst once the blooms that have unfurled in pretend can finally do so in earnest with him. "Fuck me," she groans, and it's less command than curse as her hand pushes the point of his head between her thighs, hips rolling into the friction with a tremble.

I'm tired of running from the conversations
Screaming in the silence, all alone
I'm frustrated, I can't take it
But I'll fake it, then I'll hate myself again

VESPER

The shadows don’t answer Colt’s groan, but they heed it. Threaded dark tendrils pull away the last of the fabric between them, dragging both their underwear and pants into a forgotten tangle behind the couch without the faintest rustle of protest. They do the work so neither of them has to part, not even by a breath. Not even for a second.

He nearly falters when she says it—you have me—because he knows. Not just from the way she looks at him, or the way her thoughts used to flutter and spill, but from the ache in her voice now, the way it curls around truth like a threadbare blanket she’s choosing to share anyway. And for all that Thalassa accused him of, for every cruel edge he’s learned to sharpen inside himself, he isn’t so far gone that he’d pretend that kind of trust doesn’t matter. He isn’t heartless enough to take what she offers without understanding how it could wreck her if he isn’t careful. And maybe that’s why, just for a second, his shadows stutter. As if some part of him wants to stop. To protect her further from himself.

But then her fingers wrap around his cock and all of it—conscience, caution, consequence—crumbles like ash. Every reason he shouldn’t disappears beneath the wildfire of her touch, and with a guttural, needy sound punched straight into her mouth, Vesper surges forward again. He’ll think about guilt later. Maybe. If there’s anything left of him to think with when this is over.

He drags his palm along her outer thigh, curling it around his hips as he angles in closer, the heat of her pulling at him like gravity itself. No teasing, no restraint, just a slow, steady press as he sinks into her, inch by inch, breath catching on a soundless moan as she stretches around him. The grip he keeps on her leg turns near-bruising for a moment, anchoring himself in the feel of her—warm, slick, impossible to resist—and he pushes in deeper, bracing one foot against the arm of the couch to thrust until he’s buried to the hilt.

And fuck, it’s good. The kind of good that scours his mind clean. Every flicker of static in his skull—every voice, every echo, every old ache and warning—goes silent. All that remains is this: the snug, perfect clutch of her around him; her nails at his neck; the taste of her breath against his tongue. Here is the only place that matters. Now is the only time that exists.

Beneath her, his shadows rise again, shifting and shoving the folds of blankets like obedient hands, lifting her hips just enough to tilt her upward. The new angle lets him drive in with more force, more precision, his hips rocking down into hers with each thrust, low and hard and unrelenting. He exhales raggedly, his mouth grazing hers but not kissing now, too overcome by the rhythm of her body pulling him in, again and again.

His free hand sprawls across her thigh, fingers pressing into the muscle as he guides the curve of her around him. Her heat is dizzying. Every thrust draws a sound from him, low and ruined and almost grateful. She makes it too easy to forget everything else; too easy to need her. To want to stay. And maybe that’s the cruelest part of all. Because he knows he won’t. Can't.  But for now, he fucks her like he might—like he already has.

rot gut whiskey's gonna ease your mind
but when the hell are you gonna ease mine?

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

COLT

I've been sleeping wide awake
Slow dancing 'round the cracks in the floorboards
Fighting myself while lying in a
Bed I made and can't ignore

The way he moves into her isn’t sudden so much as inevitable. It rolls through her in slow waves, every inch of her catching the heat of it and answering back. Her entire body ripples in response with a deep satisfaction that climbs through her like smoke from this low fire he's set. She tips her head back, mouth parting as though a physical plume of it might slip out. Only encouragement escapes her though, the sound a groan that strains with the adoration of every inch he gives, fading into an agreeable hum once she has all of him.

It should be a relief, having him buried in her with every sense of the word, fingers nearly bruising her thigh into the shape of pleasure. Yet, already she requires more of him. It's a senseless, incessant craving that gnaws through her, fed by every touch and passed breath, but growing larger with it too. Blessedly, he doesn't hesitate to provide.

Molding her into an angle designed to ruin her, each savage thrust of his hips reaches perfectly into the seat of her desire. It's all she can do to keep breathing, the brutal design of his pace and reach disrupting every thought and pattern in her until it's just a reality of him and little else—his heat scorching through her, his grip a brand she'd let reach her bones, the rough edge of his exhales on her skin. She lets him take her over, always has in this way, until he consumes her and leaves nothing but the bright flare of fulfillment that resonates through her like its own heartbeat.

Each drive of his body scatters her hands across him. Fingers slide through his hair, over his shoulder, down the drop of his arm and every taut muscle beneath that's straining to deliver salvation and damnation in tandem. Her other hand roams behind her over blankets and cushions, trying to grasp something solid, but everything slips before she can manage until she braces her palm flat against the arm above her head. All that’s left now is the rhythm they make together, a steady, punishing beat that swallows reason whole.

She meets him measure for measure, chasing the next collision, gathering each snap of ecstasy into a blinding pressure. It’s only motion now—pure, desperate, endless—and when her voice breaks through it’s barely a sound at all, just his name, small and wrecked and certain as the world shakes apart around them.

I'm tired of running from the conversations
Screaming in the silence, all alone
I'm frustrated, I can't take it
But I'll fake it, then I'll hate myself again

VESPER

Technically, it’s missionary—but only by name. There’s nothing gentle or passive about the way Vesper moves against her, nothing tame in the way he claims every inch of her like he was built for exactly this: the slide of skin against skin, the heat of her wrapped around him, the shape of her legs braced around his hips and thighs like she’d rather burn than ever let him leave.

He arches overtop of her in a way that makes the position feel anything but simple, height leveraged to drive every thrust into her like he’s marking territory, like he’s never going to let the memory of this slip free. The stretch of his body crowds hers, elbows locked into the couch cushion and armrest to press himself down with all the pressure he has to give. And gods, the sweater, still clinging to her like a fucking brand, bunched high around her chest, sleeves tangled beneath her shoulders. He hisses at the sight of it, low and unfiltered, because it should’ve been gone, even if she’s still his, even underneath it. But there’s no slowing down. Not for that. Not when she feels like this. Not when every motion of her hips beneath him stokes something ragged and wild in his blood.

His shadows slip slickly around her hips, pooling hot and restless between her thighs, massaging every breath and grind of her body into something more acute. They curl beneath her, teasing and pressing with the same possessive rhythm as his own thrusts, wrapping around her clit like they were made to learn her; soft when she arches up, firmer when her back curls against the couch cushions like she can’t help herself. The blanket nest he’d built beneath them shudders and gathers with every movement, reshaped by the ripples of his magic and the drive of his hips, until her body is angled just how he needs it, and just how she deserves.

Breathless and burning for her, Vesper releases her thigh and drags a palm up the length of her side, letting it spread firm across her jaw as he tilts her face up into his. His grip is steady but not cruel, touch fierce with intention. For a moment—just a breath—he looks at her. Eyes bright and blue in the low light, wide and searching like he’s trying to find something hidden inside hers. Like there’s some unspoken answer waiting in the warm brown of her gaze, something that could explain why it’s always her, why it’s never simple, why he keeps needing her like this. Like maybe if he stares long enough, he’ll understand the piece of himself that aches when he’s not near her. But there is no salvation in the silence, and no promise in what they are.

With a guttural sound—half moan, half curse—he leans harder into her, weight braced on the armrest, his other hand leaves her face, curling tight around her hip to lock her in place. "Fuck, Colt," he growls, a wrecked admission of just how much he wants her—wants this—wants to keep pretending that he doesn’t have to leave before the sun rises.

Every time he sinks into her it’s like static burns clean from his skull, noise stripped away and replaced with something visceral and grounding. Her heat cradles him like a glove, taut and slick and alive, and with each rough drive of his hips, he can feel the rhythm echo up through his spine until all that’s left is instinct and her name burned into the back of his teeth. He doesn't slow, doesn’t soften. Just holds her tighter and fucks her harder, chasing that edge like it might catch him first.

rot gut whiskey's gonna ease your mind
but when the hell are you gonna ease mine?

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

COLT

I've been sleeping wide awake
Slow dancing 'round the cracks in the floorboards
Fighting myself while lying in a
Bed I made and can't ignore

This isn't a fuck, it's a fight. Every moan is an argument, one that begs for him to remain, straining until it breaks into nothing more than a gasp. Each violent snap between their hips is a disagreement that goes unsaid but shouts through their spines, testament to trying if nothing else. Through it all, the pleasure is just an apology trying not to be smothered.

More. More. More.

She needs every part of him, every bit she can have now, knowing that she might not get another chance, not for a while. This night stretches on longer than most, but it'll still end. Buried beneath all these flares of heat and empty halls where thoughts had roamed before his mouth chased them away into madness, she fears what she'll find in the dawn light. Years spent desperate for the night to end, and now she'd give anything for it to continue.

He responds like it's instinct, removing excess space between them in a way that tugs through her with a stutter of breath. He looms over her like something too large, her gaze losing him when her head can no longer tilt to follow the arc he draws across her. It's the same way he is inside her mind usually, impossible to contain.

It's already merciless, the perfect feel of him as he slides against her, driving into her so completely she's hollow with every retreat. That he guides the blankets with unseen hands into an angle of complete ecstasy is a cruel addition. Not content just to wreck her though, he turns ruthless with his care, shadows pooling and winding low against her until she's tangled in rapture. "Gods—Vesper—please," she rasps for relief even as she tilts into the press of dusk, then the thrust that hits just behind it. Her leg draws up higher on his side, writhing against the pressure that builds blindingly inside her at his behest.

She's bleeding away into his touch, torn open with every relentless reach. The spark of his hand up her side feels like it's on a separate body from hers, sensations collapsing into each other until she's nothing more than a chord vibrating beneath his attention. Her head twists in his hold, and its the only thing that feels grounding. Eyes snap open out of the sea of fire she’s been sinking through, just enough to catch on the part of him that's always done her in best. Blue shines through the dark, brighter than the glow of hearth light, or at least it feels like she could burn beneath the blaze of them. It's that, more than anything, that'll stay with her after this. Not the bliss that screams through her wherever they collide, but that brief, sharp way he looked at her like she could be something.

It tumbles away, seared into thoughts too deep to rouse when his lungs are pouring hot breath and need across her. Her name, spoken by him like that, sinks into her like a kiss he plants on her soul, and she radiates with the potential of ruin. She groans long and deep in response, her hands each languidly curving above her head, sighing into the inevitability of breaking around him. Her breasts rise with the motion, dragging her nipples across the spread of his sweater with a roll of friction that nearly topples her over, not requiring much more now. It pulls another gasp from her before she dissolves back into the rhythm of breath and want he draws from her.

Her ragged breath is a repeating plea to stay, though she's long since lost track of whether or not she's asking it of him, or of herself to keep the memory of this.

I'm tired of running from the conversations
Screaming in the silence, all alone
I'm frustrated, I can't take it
But I'll fake it, then I'll hate myself again