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[vecna]

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[velluminous]

Not punishment.

[vecna]

All right. Not punishment.

[Leans. Tiny nudge.]

What about… me making it up to you, instead?

[velluminous]

[ aching, she buries her cheek deeper into the pillow. how stupid, she thinks, to be hurt by all this. even now, she's that fragile. she shouldn't let anyone know that—not least of all a man who covets secrets as dearly as Henry Creel.

without meeting his eye, ] No.

[ hashtag blue balls ]

[vecna]

[rip Henry Creel

Though maybe blue balls is the least of his worries if he thinks about how utterly quickly this went downhill, just for saying one wrong thing. Is there something else there, churning in her mind?]

Sprezzatura. What’s actually wrong?

/2

[velluminous]

[ can she get away with giving up nothing?




... no.

she seems very small but very hard when she next speaks, like a lump of raw iron. cold, too. ]

Eonia and Selcouth. They so often forbid me from seeing my grandfather. Punishment for bad girl who does not behave. [ she speaks in a hoarse murmur only, nearly a strain to hear. ] He was only man in that girl's life who did not condescend to her, and she was kept from him. He was not well. Eventually illness took him away forever.

[velluminous]

[ deeeeeep inhale ]

So I do not enjoy bad girl's punishment.

[vecna]

[Oh. A little girl deprived of someone she loved, and someone who loved her back. Framed as a punishment, of course she’d balk at the verbiage he used.

He didn’t know. She never tells him these things. But now…

Now she is, and looking at her on her side, so small, he can see little Sapione still in there, somewhere, no matter how much Sprezzatura says she’s left her behind. And maybe that, too, is bothering her.

Henry doesn’t respond at first. He just leans in to kiss at her shoulder. And then, finally, he replies softly.]

Thank you for telling me. I didn’t mean to upset you. I want to keep your bad memories at bay — not bring them to the forefront.

[velluminous]

[ how she loathes to reveal any of this and admit to another how it affects her. that these punishments and disparagements worked. closing her eyes when Henry kisses her... ]

All I am is bad memories.

[vecna]

[Everyone is a product of their environment. As much as he hates all the parental figures he ever had, Henry knows that he was shaped by them permanently. He carries pieces of his mother, and father, and Dr. Brenner with him everywhere, even if they cut miserably, and that pain turns to anger.

It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Henry wouldn’t think any lesser of her for it.]

That’s not true. To me, you’ve been so many good memories. The most important ones I have. And we can make more. And more. Until someday, there’s no room for anything but the good.

[velluminous]

[ that sounds so sweet as to be naive. ] Has this place made you become optimist?

[vecna]

[A low, wry sound, despite the weight of the conversation.]

Not exactly. I just know what I’d like for…

[For her? For him? For a future where they find each other again, once they’re done with this awful town?]

…us, someday.

[velluminous]

I would not mind it, either.

[vecna]

[He feels all at once intensely warmed and hollowed out. Joyful that she’d also look forward to an “us” of the future, drowning in happy memories; but also aching, wishing it was now. And regretting that it had to come in the wake of melancholy and old scars of the past.

His voice trembles, as though the words themselves cannot fully represent the multi-layered feeling that is love. Simply, they cannot.]

I’m looking forward to it. [Another feather-light kiss on her shoulder.] And sorry, again.

[velluminous]

[ those shoulders hitch once, a brutally restrained hiccup, and then Sprezzatura rolls onto her back. it pains her to look at him when they're both like this, but she does look at him. she wants to see more than she wants to hide. ]

Your voice is shaking.

[ it has to be true. all of it.

she brings her legs up and hugs his hips with her inner thighs. ]

Don't cry.

[ she thinks it would be crying that would do that. even though he hasn't wept since they were children. ]

[vecna]

[His hands go to the sides of her thighs, just a light and smoothing touch. Good to feel her close again, after they had been so entwined and then disconnected just as suddenly. His heart still beats hard in his chest; that much had never stopped, but all for different reasons, now.

His expression is… caught between relief and want and apology and regret and affection, utterly clear that he doesn’t really know how to wear it, rare as it is. He pulls his lips up faintly at the corners.]

I’m not crying. I’m just— [It’s an overwhelm, but one he’s not trying to shove aside.] I don’t know how to say it. I’m just glad I met you.

[velluminous]

Come here.

[ her anger fizzled, she wallows in the ache instead. brings him closer by the nape to kiss up the apples of his cheeks. she loops her tail around him, too, and lets the soft tip brush against his inner thighs. ]

[vecna]

[He tilts down closer to her without needing extra encouragement, eager to remain close and just to revel in the existence of her. A hand on her side, the other pressed into the bed to keep him balanced. Her tail's a hug, too, tickling.

Closes his eyes when she kisses him, exhaling a shaky breath, but he's smiling.]

[velluminous]

[ nudges with her nose ] Better?

[vecna]

[There was never anything truly “wrong” to begin with, but… he nods, eyes fluttering open ever so slightly.]

I’m the one who should be asking you that.

[He gives her a kiss, though. Gentle.]

[velluminous]

[ shame hasn't left her entirely. shame, now, for having shaken this encounter to its foundations and left them both rattled. she nods. ]

Better now.

[vecna]

[He nuzzles in, face buried in the crook of her neck. It’s fine if they don’t continue as they did, but he doesn’t want to leave her side anytime soon.]

Good. [A small attempt at levity:] From now on, you’re only ever a good girl.

[velluminous]

[ even don't take that as coddling. don't take that as coddling. don't. do not.

mumbles something; not words, just voice. he's constantly fumbling through the mire trying to find the right thing to say, and she knows that she does not make it simple for him. lists her head to one side, revealing the twinned bruise where Henry sucked her raw. ]

We see about that.

[ her tail's drape falls loose and lower, so that it curls beneath his cock and cradles it. ]

[vecna]

[Fumbling through the mire is worth the effort. For all the muck and missteps, finding a patch of sun and reveling in it is a happiness unlike any he’s experienced in a long while.

His eyes open wider when her tail cradles his cock, though, clearly a mote of surprise. His erection has softened somewhat since they hit that dour note, but that’s likely not to her surprise — still, a hint of pleasant surprise in his voice.]

Still feeling— [naughty? eager? willing? He finds his eyes roving to the marks left on her skin.] —interested?

[velluminous]

[ what surprises her is that he's still hard at all, after all that. she avoids his gaze again, this time in an affect of being demure. and the embarrassment still too fresh. ]

It would be perfectly good waste if I were not...

[vecna]

[Another kiss, high on her cheek.]

Then let’s pick up where we left off.

[Smooth over that bump in the road, salvage the evening together, be all the better for it.]

Is your mouth still lonely, or…?

[Something else?]