I'm in love with the rain, the flood only takes

I'll let the flames take me high, burn down the whole damn sky

A small shrug moves her shoulders, because of all the things her late husband had to complain about, the shaving had been the least of the concerns, so she almost doesn't notice the oddity in comparison. "I dunno," she defends without meaning to, lips tilting from a steady purse of concentration to something secretly amused. "Some days, I feel like the effort of taking a shower just might kill me." She sighs through her nose, "hasn't, yet, but when you're low, small things feel too big to see the other side of, when really all you have to do is stand up and step over 'em." Case in point, here she is shaving Sunjata's unusual amount of scruff from him. Clyde hadn't had nearly as good a reason, and she suspects she doesn't either, all things considered.

Admittedly, she doesn't want to dwell on past misery when there's plenty at present, so she happily hangs onto his next words, gaze flicking briefly back to the earrings as he mentions them before resuming the guidance of the metal blade across his skin and hair. "No shit? I sp'ose I should keep my voice down around you," she says, dropping to a whisper by the end. Then, as a test, she mumbles out nearly inaudibly on just breath, "if you can hear this, stick out your tongue."

She keeps the humor up as if it could shield against the tension humming under her own skin, the very same her own hand drew taut. It's been months now since she has touched anyone this closely or this tenderly, crawling into glass bottles and smoke rings instead of the heat she feels rolling off him like a tide that she knows could pull her under so easily. She has not wanted it all this while, the habit of finding comfort in someone's body no longer as simple as it had once been. Part of her doesn't trust herself to dare, afraid her sense would flee again, as it's already proven to do once before. The other part, the one she doesn't want to give any light to, is using this stretch like one more way to hold onto the hurt. It keeps her missing him, like she's afraid to find out she's okay, that she's let go, because some small, quiet part of her wishes he hasn't. She keeps her ghosts on purpose, like being haunted is the only thing truly keeping her from being alone.

Pausing with a knowing glance when he mentions Nate, her defenses drop for the moment. From one haunted heart to another, she leaves room for the ghost to join them. "They're lovely," she murmurs, gentle with affection rather than play this time. Then, because she knows the chill the phantom visits leave, sees it now like fresh strain on the grain of his expression, her decisive touch softens. Leaving his cheek be, allowing him to prop his head himself as her razor finishes its last trails down his neck, she instead cards those fingers along his hairline, tucking back errant strands, not that she has any right to try and help him piece himself back together when she's still a mess.

It's not long before she decalres, "there, good as new," with a final flourish of her blade, both in mouth and hand. The towel at his neck would work well for wiping himself clean.

Colt

I spent the night on the ceiling, drank the whole weight of my weakness

// now knowing how to think, i scream aloud, begin to sink
my legs and arms are broken down with envy for the solid ground //

He gets it. He’d sequestered himself away in the confines of the Refuge once he’d heard Nate passed. He’d stayed there for months and months by himself, alone, not having anyone to complain to – not even a companion. He’d chosen to remain alone in that regard, because it was easier than having to explain it. And he can see the irony that’s in the way Colt talks about it, because of how she’s currently leaning over him, running that straight razor along his skin without a single nick for the easy slide.

So he hums a note of yeah, yeah, I get it, before he’s moving on to explain the earrings while she pauses in between cleaning off the blade and continuing. Her whisper is one that has him snorting softly, trying not to jostle himself as he works. “Only if you don’t cut it off.” Comes the tease, his tongue sticking out shortly after as he hears her whisper like it was right beside his ear.

When it comes to the earrings from Nate, however, the Heartless draws quiet after the explanation, his emotions feeling as though they’re going through a roller-coaster without any ups lately. Just a never ending tunnel down to the varying circles of hell waiting for something to come out of it that was good when so much continues to be bad and the thrill he felt when he’d started the descent has turned into nothing more than just a rapid heartbeat with none of the adrenaline underneath it to show for it.

Her touch smooths out as she finishes the shave, though, her fingers thread through his hair – soft and wavy with the general humidity, and it has his gaze flitting back toward her with a vulnerable glint in the grey storm clouds. The closeness has gotten to him, in all the physical ways he hasn’t felt in what seemed like ages. And for Sunjata? A child that had grown so touch-starved growing up that it wasn’t a surprise he chose to spend it trying to not feel that way again. It makes sense why he’d called off the wedding and the engagement and turned to throwing himself into whomever might give him a time of day.

“Thanks.” He hums, his accent playing over his words gently as he sits up a little – using that towel to wipe his face and clean it from the soap – calloused fingertips touching along the edge of his cheek and chin to feel the smooth cut. “You sure you don’t need a second job as a barber?” He asks, letting some humor inject him to hide the vulnerable parts of missing the touch on his skin.

// i'm reaching for the life within me, how can one man stop his ending?
i thought of just your face, relaxed, and floated into space //

SUNJATA

I'll let the flames take me high, burn down the whole damn sky

The flash of his tongue earns a delighted gasp and a swift smirk. It'd been expected, after all, but it's still a shock to know he'd heard her so clearly. It swiftly melts into a theatrical wounding, and she even clutches at her chest with one hand for effect. "Why Sunjata, if I cut off your tongue I'm certain I'd become public enemy number one." A huff of a laugh then as she drops the act to resume the task. "Not that I'd dream of doing so either way, or any other part of you for that matter." Gods know he's had enough cut out of him already.

Then there's earrings and hair to sort, in more ways than one. She sets the razor down on the tray after cleaning it, his gratitude earning a shrug. "Don't mention it." Retreating from the pull of his heat, the gravity of longing like one she's pretended she could rise above, is easy enough when there's a drive to finish, work to do. Now that the tools are clean and her hands empty though, she suddenly finds herself without the same steely defenses to shelter behind.

The laugh that meets his joke of a question is brittle with an unusual wash of nerves, and she turns back fully to him, reaching to take the towel. "I'm sure if I needed a second job, barbering would not be it, but I'll take the praise of your much improved face." He looks almost presentable now, and might even if she didn't know better. Throwing the towel on her shoulder and dousing some aftershave in her palms, the last marker of the job, she leans in again to pat it over either side of his cheeks. Only meaning to do that, dry her hands, and then move on, she finds herself once more slipping into the tide of him. A touch, only meant to skate, lingers. There's a want she's been barreling past with stubbornness and sorrow, but every day aches with a dull pain she can't fully escape.

"Fuck it," she says under her breath, as if finally giving into the pull of something that's no longer worth fighting off. She swings her leg across the chair and spills across his lap and chest, fingers still perched on the roughness smoothed away from his jawline. She pauses, just long enough to see him, to watch for whether or not he's too raw for this even if she no longer is.

He had not helped her exorcise Vesper when she'd been possessed, but perhaps the expertise of the man beneath her lies with ghosts rather than demons. She's haunted enough now to need it.

Colt

I spent the night on the ceiling, drank the whole weight of my weakness

// now knowing how to think, i scream aloud, begin to sink
my legs and arms are broken down with envy for the solid ground //

“My clients do like the snake tongue thing.” He drawls a little playfully, finding the air a bit easier as the moments go on. Attention, perhaps, is what he needed to get through some of the fog, but it’s something he’d never dare to admit. He was raised subscribed to the thought that he wasn’t allowed to need anything. At least, nothing so simple as physical touch. And perhaps that had been his father’s thought process when he’d been raising him to be as emotionless as possible.

So, despite the awkward feeling and realization that he can’t feel much of anything in regards to a romantic kind of sensation or emotion, it sobers him a bit, letting him draw silent while she finishes up his face and he sits up a little to clean the rest of the soap off of his face to hand the towel off to her. “No?” He teases her immediate refusal of being a barber, and leans back a little to get more comfortable as he scents the aftershave in the air, split between her palms to warm it up and make it more malleable.

As her hands find his face they’re warm and soft, despite the callouses there from all of her hard work. It stings a touch, only in the spaces where his skin was more sensitive – not used to the close shave these days at all – but the Heartless doesn’t flinch or even so much as blink to feel it. It just has him inhaling a touch sharper, her hands on him, his eyes finding her face, the warmth of her palm lingering in a way that he doesn’t quite realize he’d needed until she’d offered him a shave.

Her fuck it confuses him initially, surprise flickering across his face in the streak of a lightning strike that flows through each and every one of his scars as she settles into his lap and he realizes that perhaps either she’s helping him to not feel anything – like they’d talked about before – or that she needs this too and they’d both offered to be there for one another if it ever came down to it.

And truthfully? Without the complexities of his heart getting in the way, Sunjata finds himself falling back into old habits to cope and deal. So no, it isn’t rawness that fills the Heartless’ face, but an understanding that softens once the surprise begins to vanish, the echo of the silent lightning along his face as him moving. A slow inhale, a shift of his hands to smooth up the outside of her thighs to her hips, his gaze lightening a touch as he pushes through the hands still on his face to meet her close enough as his chin lifts. “You sure?” He asks in a voice suddenly thick with his accent, giving her the opportunity just as she’s given him one to decide whether or not she wanted to.

He certainly wasn’t going to complain.

// i'm reaching for the life within me, how can one man stop his ending?
i thought of just your face, relaxed, and floated into space //

SUNJATA

I'll let the flames take me high, burn down the whole damn sky

The streak of light that flares across his myriad of scars is enough to stiffen her. Wanting to light someone up is usually not so literal, and in Sunjata's case, she's seen that bright effect for a few reasons now, and most recently, it's been when he's uneasy. Certain that she has overstepped, assuming far too much about Sunjata's dedication to his role given everything that's just fucking happened to him. Fucking embarrassing. Though none more so than her shift as she starts to attempt to extract herself from his lap and out of the chair, any manner of grace in doing so is completely out the window now. "Oh I'm—" she starts to awkwardly apologize, but it all pulls up short. The backtracking, the words, all of it freezes the moment his hands seat against her thighs.

He's molten to her skin. The residual wash of that heat seeps eagerly into her core in a tempo with her heart, and that is quickening like a horse that means to grab the bit and run. Her grip slides towards his shirt's neckline to steady herself a touch, the fabric sure to soak up any lingering aftershave, especially as her fingers tighten and curl in, pulling the straps of his tank top like reins she means to command. Fed by the heat and the reassurance that he's willing, she sharply slams shut the door he tries to keep open for her. "You better start saying better things than that, sugar." She doesn't need the hesitation now that would let her think twice, would let the hurt come hurtling back in when she's finally shouldered it aside enough to feel something better for a change.

She meant it, though, about him closing her eyes. She knows her wig won't survive this, and she might trust him, but the tightness in her spine won't yield so easily to the idea that there won't be an accidental glimpse. What a terrible state she's in to finally give in. "Frey," she murmurs with a low, crooked smile to the sex god. "Please make sure Sunjata keeps his eyes shut for the rest of the night, I don't want him spoiling a good time," she croons, hips rolling into him with a promise that if she's taking one sense from him, she'll provide others. "A fancy blindfold should do the trick."

---

Colt channels sex Frey to keep Sunjata from peeking w/ a blindfold. 2/2 channels Longeheat 320.

Colt

I spent the night on the ceiling, drank the whole weight of my weakness

Frey

The scent arrives before the heat; lush and wild, like crushed flowers beneath sun-warmed skin. Then comes the sound, not quite laughter but pleasure braided into breath, curling between the trees and catching in the damp air like rising steam. Frey appears as they always do: naked, perfect, exquisitely alive. Whatever shape Colt might desire most, whatever form calls to her body’s secrets and her mind’s edge, that is how they take shape. Their skin gleams like heat lightning on river-stone, limbs fluid with temptation. Arousal follows in their wake like a tide pulled taut by moonsong.

With a low, indulgent chuckle, Frey lets their fingers drift across the muscles of Colt's back—a featherlight brush that leaves a wake of tingling sensation behind—before circling around her like a cat themselves, their hips swaying, grin wicked. Over her shoulder they flash Sunjata a grin, all teeth and mirth and innuendo. "Luckily for you," they purr, "Sunjata and I have a long history of using blindfolds. Don't we gray eyes?" By the time the sentence finishes, they’ve slipped behind him. Their hands lift, palms splayed wide to gently cover his eyes. Where their skin touches his, warmth surges like liquid gold, the divine tease of arousal rippling through every inch of his blood and bone. When Frey lifts their hand away, a blindfold remains, silky and near-weightless, clinging with barely-there sensation; not an obstruction, but a gift. 

They press a slow and decadent kiss against his cheek before turning to Colt, eyes aglow. "Don’t worry," they assure her. "He’ll see exactly what he wants to see." Men could be such visual creatures, after all. 

And just like that, they’re gone, vanished in a puff of honeysuckle and honey-warm wind, laughter still curling around the room like smoke, and leaving them both with a familiar, maddening ache.

---

Until he takes it off, Sunjata will be able to 'see' whatever he wants through the blindfold!

// now knowing how to think, i scream aloud, begin to sink
my legs and arms are broken down with envy for the solid ground //

In all fairness, the Heartless hasn’t had many varieties in the reasonings for his scars lighting up lately, but it really only seems to occur with heightened emotions. Shock and surprise tended to be the bigger ones to draw it out of him like a lightning strike, so while he understands how she might take it as a reason for her to get up and forget that this had even started, he’s doing everything but that as the thought settles.

His hands find her thighs, hot and with the scrape of callouses from weaponry and his day to day, his chest rising and falling with ease beneath where her hands have snatched the neckline. It only reveals more of his tattoos, the way that she’s sat perfectly in place for the northern points of his compass arrow to point to aim right at her as she tugs on the straps of the tank top like the reins of her horses.

And honestly? If she wants to control every ounce of this, he’ll let her just so he can feel something compared to the numbness and the overwhelming sense of everything else that seemed to keep piling on. The fact that he’s rusty, how he’s not been available like this in quite some time, so it’s with a lopsided smirk to her reassurance as she offers it in many more words than the yes he’s anticipating that Sunjata’s hands slip up along her sides, curving at her hips and drawing up beneath her shirt to feel the heat and softness of her skin. “I think I can manage that.” He reassures her with a wink, lips parting to say something else when she’s channeling Frey and the laugh that leaves him is warm, happy to have the boon his god would likely offer.

They steal the words out of his mouth, though, because they very much do have a history with blindfolds, just none quite like this. “A long history of it.” He purrs a little deeper, hips rolling back against Colt’s as if to prove that the combination of her and Frey have brought out a sharper, needier beast within him with his arousal – all before she can take his breath away from him again as he cements the glimpse of Frey he gets over her shoulder – the dark curls over a sharp face, too bright blue eyes staring back at him, the distinct combination of mostly Nate, hints of Lusea in the bronze of their skin, the mischief that glints back at him.

Paired with the sight and weight of Colt pressing against him, the sensation of Frey’s arrival, the pleasure and relief they offer, it only becomes stronger the second the blindfold is placed. Practically weightless, his fingertips dig into Colt’s sides in a twitch he can’t stop as his head tilts into the kiss Frey places to his cheek, a huff of a nearly there sound leaving him when he can sense Frey’s departure and it leaves him bolstered even more for the beautiful woman in his lap.

“I can keep secrets, you know.” He murmurs to her, blindfolded as he is but able to see precisely what he needs to in order to work in a pace much faster than he had been to slip her shirt off, precisely in the right spot to drag his fingers along the curvature of her breasts before his breath ghosts across her skin in its own sweet caress. "Happy now, Colt?"

// i'm reaching for the life within me, how can one man stop his ending?
i thought of just your face, relaxed, and floated into space //

SUNJATA

I'll let the flames take me high, burn down the whole damn sky

Her skin ripples beneath his touch as it glides higher up her sides, little better than a pond begging to be disturbed in the summer time heat. The drag of his worn hands is like her own, the scrape enough to make his touch land and linger, the memory of it held within the nerves even as his fingers slip away. His accent has the same effect on her, certain vowels or words scraping against her mind with a shiver that bends her expression to something more sly. She'd had a good time with him before, and she's no doubt he'll fulfill just what she needs tonight.

It's a calculated risk, summoning Frey right now. It's one she does her best to dodge the moment that power coats the air with something thick and reckless, as heady as a summer fling in the wildflower meadows. Frey's presence is immediate and filling, and Colt's breath draws in sharp and cautious as blue eyes strike her. She slams her lashes down, unwilling to see further than that. She tries to find a steady seat upon Sunjata, to ride out this storm she's summoned. The god's touch trails across her, feeling less like a whisper on her skin than the consuming need for more contact, the slam of fingers sliding between each other and rooting into warm earth as body weight eases into motion and moans.

The trade of history between him and his god is no surprise, but is a quick reminder to her just what she done. Especially as Sunjata bucks beneath her, the strike of him rich between her thighs, the contact trailing high into the base of her gut with a fresh flare of heat, further fed by Frey's effects. Unprepared with her eyes shut, she tips further into his chest, surprise shortening her breath audibly. It does not become easier from here to breathe.

His grip digs in perfectly, each fingertip punctuating her curvature with pressure that plucks right against the chords of her desire. There's no keeping back the audible groan of appreciation for it now, even with Frey's company still lingering a moment longer. Colt's eyes part to check on the application of this magical blindfold, just catching the retreating figure of the god and the skin they wear. Colt's focus watches after the vanishing form even after it's left, as clear cut as any after image of a ghost that's just departed through a wall.

The voice that cuts the sweat-born heat still hanging around them turns her gaze back to the man that's present. An unashamed grin responds as she leans further back again, knees pressing in deeper around either side of him as she shifts. "It's not your mouth I'm worried about," she drawls with a lazy heat, a hand reaching out to cup his chin briefly before her thumb slides over his bottom lip, seeming to inspect the very claim she's made. "What can you see?" she wonders, curious not if it works, though she does lift a hand to wave back and forth across his eyes to see if he flinches a touch. If anything, she's wondering who she might become for him. Normally, she'd prefer to be the one who's seen, the one earning the release and every step in-between, but tonight? Tonight she doesn't mind stepping a bit further away from herself, as if all of her can be taken off as easily as the hat and wig she grabs and tosses aside now with a muffled thump on the floor.

It frees up the climb of her shirt, the fabric guided easily by his hands, her arms leaving their curls around him to clasp each other above her head and make the process fluid. Her back arches, breasts reaching for even more of her touch as her head tips back. "Quite," she manages out as a breathy moan, entirely pleased with her strategy.

Colt

I spent the night on the ceiling, drank the whole weight of my weakness

// now knowing how to think, i scream aloud, begin to sink
my legs and arms are broken down with envy for the solid ground //

It should come as no surprise with the way her thumb trails over his lips, unseen but felt enough that he can let the smirk of amusement curl the corners of his lips. They part, enough for the warmth of his tongue to sweep out and drag along her thumb before he’s decided to answer her. “Good.” He starts, glad that she isn’t concerned about that part of him.

As for what he can see? The thin slip of fabric hides all but his brows as they pinch together, he can feel her hand dart presumably in front of him but he doesn’t react, doesn’t see it enough to warrant any flinches or indicators he’s seen it. “Not much.” He admits softly, huffing a soft sound to feel her press further into him. “Your chest, mostly.” He admits, the signifier in knowing where to place his hands to slip her shirt off, letting it fall to join the other unknown muffled thump that sits somewhere else on the floor.

“I’m glad.” He murmurs to the fact she’s happy, her head tilting back despite how he can’t see it, but he can and does lean in to drag one hand down her side toward the waistband of her pants, his other hand focusing on teasing the breast that his mouth hasn’t sought out. A brief partial shift has his tongue forking, caressing and teasing at her nipple that his fingers mimic on the other side, his free hand dipping below the waistband of her pants to cup her ass and draw her closer to him one way or another.

Without the little sharp pricks of his beard and the smooth, clean shaven skin that meets her own, his head angles up to her face despite being blind enough to not see the fact her head is shaved nor the loss of the clunky horse hair wig, surging up to press his lips to her collarbone, searching entirely by touch and assumption.

// i'm reaching for the life within me, how can one man stop his ending?
i thought of just your face, relaxed, and floated into space //

SUNJATA

I'll let the flames take me high, burn down the whole damn sky

It is a shame that the blindfold keeps his eyes from her now, but it's a small price to pay for hiding her bald head from him. Although, maybe she should have asked Frey for some magic hair for the night. Even if he can't see, Sunjata can still feel the absence of her usual golden locks, so she'll just have to work hard to keep his hands busy elsewhere. It is a relief though, taking off that lopsided, heavy, itching model of a wig she attempted. Assured now that he at least won't see it and be as repulsed as she is every time she catches her reflection, she'd very much like to forget the way it and so many other things feel as of late, letting the burn of his expert touch sear anything but him from her awareness.

It's a small smile that plays out in answer to him, head tilting faintly with the surprise. "My chest?" she repeats, bemused that if Frey let him see anything he wants, that's what he's holding onto. She knows bits of his past, old lovers now lost, numerous others in-between who's names he might not even remember but shapes and touch he does. "What about my chest is worth a sex god's eyes?" she wonders, coy despite knowing she's always had some feature or another that could snare a man, at least for the night. Given the choice though? Her tits over anything else? "You know how to flatter a girl," she croons in answer for him, and is more than content to let the proof exist in the cup of his hand and the warm embrace of his mouth against her nipples. It's enough to risk her balance as she closes her eyes and tips into the sensation, the surprise of his forked tongue soon melting into appreciation. Well, he certainly spoke true, before.

The descent of his hand at her waist has her hips rolling in response, heat chasing more friction, the desire pooling in her a restless, hungry thing now that he's fanned the flames of it. He tugs her closer and she grinds into her seat on his lap. "And you?" she breaths, a faint gasp squeaking out as his mouth trails higher, sensitive skin trembling beneath it, skittish and wanting all at once. "Are you happy?" She reaches to wind one arm around his head and pull him closer at the top too, trying to bury herself in the touch, wherever he places it. Her other hand reaches for his shirt, hasty and reckless in her tugs to get it up and over him in turn.

Colt

I spent the night on the ceiling, drank the whole weight of my weakness

// now knowing how to think, i scream aloud, begin to sink
my legs and arms are broken down with envy for the solid ground //

“It’s where my hands are, so I can see there specifically.” Sunjata explains with a huff of a laugh against her skin, the croon of how he flatters her – amusement glinting briefly there despite the heat that threads through his veins with her movements. His head tilts up, pressing his lips to her collarbone. “Y’want me to be poetic?” He asks her, wondering if she’s seeking out the fact that he should be pretending that this is for more than just feeling something. Like there might be more to their situation than equal misery holding hands in the dark.

His breath huffs as she rolls her hips against his own jostling, her question one that might have had him still had she not been working him up – enough that when she pulls him in and buries his face into her neck, his lips trailing gently against her skin, Sunjata doesn’t freeze or flinch from the question. His voice is heavy, rough, and jostled when she tugs at his shirt. “Yeah.” Right now at least, though when the shininess of their tangling in the figurative sheets are over, he can’t say he’d still be happy.

Right now, though, it’s easier to drown in the electricity that blossoms between them, the one that has him shedding the tank top and leaving it in a heap on the floor where all his scars and tattoos are fully on display – the feathers and compasses in their full glory, the fiery heart with the arrow shot through it over his heart, the sleeve with the waves that darkens only one arm while the other maps out the path of a lightning strike that had raged through his body with its fingers creeping toward his heart before stilling like gnarled branches.

“Been a while since I’ve had to wear a blindfold.” He aims for the joke, at least, rather than letting his melancholy get to him, surging up somewhat blindly but able to make out her neck to press his lips to, his hands finding the smooth skin of her back to glide back down and dip his fingers into the waistband of her pants before sliding them between them to unbutton her pants, incredibly willing to help her balance herself to slip them off (sure he’ll have to do something similar shortly). "I don't hate it, in case you were wondering."

// i'm reaching for the life within me, how can one man stop his ending?
i thought of just your face, relaxed, and floated into space //

SUNJATA

I'll let the flames take me high, burn down the whole damn sky

There’s a straightforwardness to Sunjata that she has always appreciated. At least in her experiences with him thus far, she generally never has to guess what he means, his intent always clear, even when it’s been uncomfortable. He doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve exactly, but close enough that perhaps it’ss what made it all the easier to rob him of it. So when his answer comes so direct, she isn’t surprised, even as amusement warms her tone. ”No, no, sugar, I don’t need you as anything other than exactly as you are,” she reassures with a moan teasing past and crumpling the end of her words for a moment. Although she’s admittedly curious just what a poem by Sunjata might look like.

”Just didn’t expect your blindfold to be so magical. Thought maybe my tits would have sparklers or something on the end now,” she laughs faintly, giving her chest a mild shimmy as if that might spark them now. It’s only wonder at Frey’s touch, an addition she doesn’t normally bring to the bed, but such had been her need to blind him. That she’d be fine if he saw anyone but her is proof enough that she doesn’t need anything more from him than his touch, happy to be invisible tonight if it gives her a means to an end.

His response to happiness doesn’t need to run deeper than this instant. Just another reassurance that they’re fine, that they can build something for a moment to play pretend in. So she’ll take it, and doesn’t look any deeper, more than content to see what’s right in front of her, which is currently the expanse of his tattoos and scars that’d been hiding beneath his shirt. Both hands brace against his bare chest, thumb brushing over one lifted patch of repaired skin. He’s a sight of survival, all his corded muscle speaking to his capability as well as the rough edge to every gliding touch from his calloused hands. He’s been weathered by the world, and that carries its own sort of appreciation in her.

”That so?” she wonders, grip tightening as she leans into the press of his lips against her throat, a low hum responding to the touch. ”Is that because you’re always doing the blindfolding, or because it’s not as advanced as you prefer?” The demigod of sex, she imagines, has explored quite wilder approaches to sensory deprivation than a blindfold, among whatever other tools and tricks he has.

Loath to leave the crook of his hips, hers still rolling there, chasing the spark of friction that rises up like a bloom with every collision against him, she nonetheless acquiesces to the urging of his hands. Leaning onto his chest more and into whatever support from him she can find, she awkwardly shimmies out of her shorts, the Longheat air pressing in on her bare ass like its own bit of cloth. Another laugh rises at his comment, and though she wasn’t wondering, because it’s rather a requirement tonight, she’s glad to hear it just the same. ”And what would make you love it instead?” she coaxes, words dipped in enough want from the continued attention of his hands and mouth that they come out husky.

One hand rises to his ear, elbow propping up on his shoulder, allowing her fingers to curl in against his hair and lightly trace his earlobe. She keeps her balance there, and her other hand drifts from his chest, purposefully rolling and squeezing over one of his nipples, before dropping to his pants. The heel of her palm rubs against him first, testing firmness like a meal she’s cooking, before working to undo his button and zipper.

Colt

I spent the night on the ceiling, drank the whole weight of my weakness

// now knowing how to think, i scream aloud, begin to sink
my legs and arms are broken down with envy for the solid ground //

“That’s good.” He hums breathlessly, like he isn’t sure he can muster up the energy to pretend. It was already something he had to realize once the truth of his heart had come to light. It was no wonder he wasn’t as worried as he had been previously — unsure which part of it was truly love or just the concept of it. Right now, though, that portion of his heart and soul feels completely void — empty and impossible to cultivate.

Which made this easier, the way he could sink himself into this moment and let it sweep him away without the attachment and pretending to feel something more.

Hearing her laugh, though, his head tilts a fraction at the shimmy she does with her chest, body flaring a touch more at the view he does get, Sunjata can’t help but to laugh a touch in return. “No, not quite.” He admits to the idea of sparklers, though the thought is amusing in and of itself.

Her hand presses against his scars and tattoos and he only knows where bases off the touch left behind, the kind that blooms in the slight race of his heartbeat under her touch, the way his body responds in kind with the twitch of his still trapped cock and the subsequent roll of his hips to feel some friction.

He doesn’t have to wait long, his lips pressed against her neck and travel up to the underside of her jaw with a lingering intention. “I was always the one blindfolded.” He says, a bit of relief flooding through him as she leans into him as he works to remove her shorts. “I had to be blindfolded to see Frey for the longest time.” He lets her decide whether or not to read between the lines to figure out what he really means.

He draws quiet again as he works to remove her shorts, the fabric falling off the side of the couch in time for her to trace his ear, his head tilting into the touch briefly before he’s acutely aware of the path her hand takes as it passes over his nipple on the descent to his trapped length that only seems to ache more with the sudden sharp breath the Heartless takes. He doesn’t try to fight her in the space as she palms him and starts to work at his button, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want more of a taste of her right this second as she presses all the right buttons. “By drowning myself in you.” Which comes out far more poetic than he even imagined, even with the touch of irony in the fact that he was no longer the Flood and has nothing much to do with water and everything to do with the lack of a heart.

Adjusting where he can to help her get his pants unbuttoned and rising enough for the jeans to be tugged down, the Heartless exhales a shaky sound of relief once his cock springs free, and in spite of himself he slides both hands up to her face, cupping the sides of her jaw to tug her in for a kiss that feels more like a lifeline and a promise that he does intend to drown himself with her.

It’s a distraction, though, because the second that the kiss lands, his hand drops down her chest and pinches at a nipple on the descent, dropping down to her stomach, then down even further to slip his fingers between her folds to teasingly rub at her clit in easy slow circles, biting back the moan of anticipation that threatens to slip from his throat.

// i'm reaching for the life within me, how can one man stop his ending?
i thought of just your face, relaxed, and floated into space //

SUNJATA

I'll let the flames take me high, burn down the whole damn sky

She can guess at what he’s implying with Frey, knowing his losses, knowing what the god appears as. She’s averted her gaze herself a time or two, and she has the luxury he doesn’t of avoiding the dierty altogether if she wants. Not desiring to sink into such deep waters though, she rolls that knowledge away with a shoulder. ”Oh good,” she murmurs once she settles back against him in the nude, the words teased free from a moment stolen between heavier breaths, ones granted by his coasting touch. ”Then this won’t slow you down in the slightest.”

His earring jingles as her fingers trace against the shell of his ear, the faint metallic sound the only thing that rises over the whisper of skin on skin and crackle of desire starting to burn through all their air. Beneath her hand, his hard length is apparent, pressing back with an impatient readiness that stokes a fresh fire through her. She needs his pants off now.

Of a shared mind, his reach provides the rest of his freedom that her’s can’t. This, coupled with what he says, and he hits every last part of her with a heat that makes her melt back across his lap. ”That’s exactly what I was hoping you’d say.” The words come out as more breath than voice, working around the groan of appreciation that rises as her thighs fit around him, pressing her clit against his warm length with a tease that shudders through her spine.

His hands capture the rest of her, and it’s all she can do to turn out of the kiss he pulls her into, lips brushing before she offers up her throat with a lean. The words rise up behind her teeth, the subtle no, not that, nothing as intimate as that. She doesn’t want to feel anything close to real. Barely wants to feel like herself tonight. She wants to be someone who can dip herself into his arms and come out unscathed. The words dissolve to the hitched gasp as her nipple’s tweaked, nerves sparking beneath the descent of his touch. Her hips tremble in response to the press of his hand, thighs tightening around him as the sensation spikes and rolls through her, sharp and insistent. ”I need you,” she whispers, but she’s already unfolding from him, retreating like a tide going low.

The chair is not the prime place. It rocks with heavy motion, fighting back in the worst way, and he’s too subdued in its folds. If they mean to drown, the shallows simply won’t do. ”Here,” she coaxes, a fox’s smile worn now that her touch has left him and reappears. She ghosts her palm down his abdomen, sliding it warm and brief across the head of his cock before retreating again. ”Follow me,” and she’ll lead him with whispers of touch from the chair to her kitchen table, the nearest, sturdiest thing she can find.

Colt

I spent the night on the ceiling, drank the whole weight of my weakness