Menace!! He snorts, amused, “I do not. Although he is relevant, and therefore I hate this prospect already, just FYI.”
Probably they should disentangle and clean up. As a first grudging step, Stephen finally shifts slightly to pull out of her, until some small noise of protest from Gwenaëlle draws him back to not give up all the skin-to-skin contact: there’s a rearranging of limbs, her thigh still against his hip, his arm flung over her midriff. (What if she just slept here, he thinks, and almost as quickly shies away from that tempting thought.) For now, he’s in that pleasant haze of having worked particular muscles which haven’t been worked in a while, and it’s just— nice, lying here with her. In the warm, contented silence, his fingers absentmindedly trail down Gwenaëlle’s arm.
And now that they’re talking, his brain’s starting to hum back to coherence again, gears turning and ticking over like a machine left unattended but still trundling away in the background. So he finds himself revisiting their earlier conversation, before this incredibly effective distraction, suddenly pivoting back without much segue and as if no time had passed:
“—So, wait, your nighttime rendezvous. Does that mean you’ve some additional spies for Riftwatch?”
The longer she stays laying here, cosy in their entanglement, the harder it's going to be to convince herself that she really does need to find all of her clothes and ... maker, she's not even going to try and get dressed, she'll just have to bundle herself up in her cloak and carry the rest—
For a moment when she tips her head to look at him she's stupidly blank, and then it clears: oh, right. She'd done something tonight besides Stephen.
“No, well— maybe?” lilts up into a question, though not one she's posing to him, really. “Maybe. Nothing so direct as all that, but ... connections,” with a tip of her hand, “to Briala's network here. And we didn't have none, before, but it certainly doesn't hurt to cultivate. I wasn't sure if my name was going to help or hinder me, to be frank, but I think ...”
She thinks that she is having too nice a time, curled up with him, to start unpacking the way that Alix having not cursed her name to all and sundry has offered a hint of relief to an old wound she has only grown accustomed to the sluggish bleed of.
“I don't know that I could ask much of them, right now,” she says, eventually. “But it's an avenue. Potential.”
The fact that Gwenaëlle just rolls with Stephen’s insane pivot of topic, drifting back to plainly discussing work even with her naked in his bed— it’s another thing he likes about her, so very much.
But the subject is genuinely interesting to him: skullduggery and secrets and skulking about on rooftops. “I expect asking for a favour’s the wrong way to start off a new connection. But at least it’s a cracking open a door. And I suppose Rome wasn’t built in a…” he pauses, eyebrows crinkling, “Minrathous wasn’t built in a day? Is that a saying here? Anyway. You get the gist. Potential. It’s something to build towards.”
“Mmm, it's building credibility,” is delivered partially into his shoulder before she sprawls onto her back, exhaling and considering the shape of the thing. (Not this thing, which they probably should have discussed and which she isn't going to ruin the lazy moment after by broaching now.)
“Personal relationships, faces to names and organisations. I know a fellow who knows, etcetera, etcetera.”
With that conclusion reached, the silence sinks in again with the age-old question of: what do you do, after. He doesn’t want her to feel unwanted; similarly doesn’t want her to feel like he’s too needy, too clingy. God but it’s a difficult balance, and Stephen’s always been atrocious at handling it. By mutual agreement, he’d ejected women from that sterile penthouse apartment in Manhattan; had never lingered at theirs himself; until Christine, until it was someone he had to see at work the morning after and realised he wanted to see her again and again and again.
(Oh god it’s going to be the same for Gwenaëlle, isn’t it— he’s going to see her around the Gallows, in the infirmary—)
There’s probably a subtle panic about this question looming just over the metaphorical hill, but Stephen stubbornly looks away from it. That’s a problem for later, probably. He exhales against her shoulder; pivoting again, his thoughts always ping-pong around, but she’s good at keeping up:
“Okay. So, just for the sake of saying it aloud: you can stay if you like, and ordinarily I’d quite like you to,” he says, “but if the goal was discretion in getting back to your room…”
It’ll get more difficult, as the rest of the household wakes up and dawn eventually breaks and she’s not found back in her room.
The prospect of having to move isn't a thrilling one — and it's too easy to doubt I'd like you to, an instinct that has little to do with Stephen other than being wildly unfair to him — but the fact remains that trying to get back to her own room and luggage in the cold light of morning without having to have any sort of conversation with anyone else...
She'd already been caught leaving by Orlov in the first place. Coming back from her 'personal matter' carrying all of her clothes is not going to do wonders for her credibility.
“Ugh,” is a profound groan, exhaling a harsh breath as she stretches, sits up; her hair a mess of curls, half her back a mess of scars from the rage demon's claws. Shaking a hand through her hair to loosen it out, she doesn't — besides sitting up — rush to disentangle, though it's an immediate acknowledgment of the point. “It was the goal,” she sighs; if she'd been strategically planning, it could have been an excuse, but she really hadn't. Hadn't seen this coming,
though she should have, she thinks.
“I should go,” she says, the slightly unconvincing tone of someone convincing herself.
Despite the fact that Stephen was the one to broach the idea of leaving, there’s still the sudden kneejerk instinct to backtrack: nevermind, I take it all back, I changed my mind. Please don’t go.
As Gwenaëlle straightens and her back comes into view, his hand trails down the knobs of her spine, unconsciously counting the vertebrae, the scars on her back he hadn’t gotten a look at earlier. There’s still so much about her he wants to explore.
But if he keeps touching her, that’s a fast track to them never parting. And what’s the right thing to say here, now, in this circumstance? I’m glad you chose my window? Let’s do this again?
He bites down on the thought; straightens up behind her instead, and tries to convince himself too. “Don’t get caught,” Stephen says, a smile in his voice, still warm. “Holler if you are and you need backup.”
What’s he gonna do, come flying to her defense barefoot and dick flapping in the halls of an Orlesian manor? (I mean, maybe.)
The prospect thereof prompts an amused glance back over her shoulder — and it's hard to deny the appeal of just burrowing back down into the bedding beside him, taking in how much closer he is when he sits up and the dissipating warmth where his hand was on her back. It takes some stern self-discipline to slide off the side of the bed—
although leaving is not any quicker a process than undressing her was, as she yanks her slouching stockings toward her thighs instead of finally taking them off, searching around the mess they've made for where she discarded this and that. The chemise is the only part she bothers pulling back on; she'll ring a servant for a bath when she's in her own room, she decides, acutely conscious now she's standing up that she is leaking. The rest of her clothes she flings into a pile and uses her skirts like a sack, gathering her cloak around herself for the sake of— well, not modesty. Discretion. Making the prospect of bumping into anyone else marginally less awkward. The last thing she gathers up are her boots, taking in the room for a moment to be sure he's not going to have to shove her smallclothes in a pocket before someone tidies this room,
and him, in tangled bedsheets and out of clothing.
Self-discipline only goes so far. Gwenaëlle leans a hand on the edge of the bed and leans closer, her pile of things to be urgently laundered shoved under one arm, catching him in a kiss that would be briefer if making sure he's still thinking about her when she's gone wasn't mostly the point.
“Goodnight, Stephen.”
Stockings are quieter on tile than barefeet. The door slips shut terribly softly behind her, and there's nothing to strain listening to, just— quiet.
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portalling) wrote2022-04-02 01:17 pm
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no subject
Probably they should disentangle and clean up. As a first grudging step, Stephen finally shifts slightly to pull out of her, until some small noise of protest from Gwenaëlle draws him back to not give up all the skin-to-skin contact: there’s a rearranging of limbs, her thigh still against his hip, his arm flung over her midriff. (What if she just slept here, he thinks, and almost as quickly shies away from that tempting thought.) For now, he’s in that pleasant haze of having worked particular muscles which haven’t been worked in a while, and it’s just— nice, lying here with her. In the warm, contented silence, his fingers absentmindedly trail down Gwenaëlle’s arm.
And now that they’re talking, his brain’s starting to hum back to coherence again, gears turning and ticking over like a machine left unattended but still trundling away in the background. So he finds himself revisiting their earlier conversation, before this incredibly effective distraction, suddenly pivoting back without much segue and as if no time had passed:
“—So, wait, your nighttime rendezvous. Does that mean you’ve some additional spies for Riftwatch?”
no subject
For a moment when she tips her head to look at him she's stupidly blank, and then it clears: oh, right. She'd done something tonight besides Stephen.
“No, well— maybe?” lilts up into a question, though not one she's posing to him, really. “Maybe. Nothing so direct as all that, but ... connections,” with a tip of her hand, “to Briala's network here. And we didn't have none, before, but it certainly doesn't hurt to cultivate. I wasn't sure if my name was going to help or hinder me, to be frank, but I think ...”
She thinks that she is having too nice a time, curled up with him, to start unpacking the way that Alix having not cursed her name to all and sundry has offered a hint of relief to an old wound she has only grown accustomed to the sluggish bleed of.
“I don't know that I could ask much of them, right now,” she says, eventually. “But it's an avenue. Potential.”
no subject
But the subject is genuinely interesting to him: skullduggery and secrets and skulking about on rooftops. “I expect asking for a favour’s the wrong way to start off a new connection. But at least it’s a cracking open a door. And I suppose Rome wasn’t built in a…” he pauses, eyebrows crinkling, “Minrathous wasn’t built in a day? Is that a saying here? Anyway. You get the gist. Potential. It’s something to build towards.”
no subject
“Personal relationships, faces to names and organisations. I know a fellow who knows, etcetera, etcetera.”
Such things don't happen overnight, after all.
no subject
With that conclusion reached, the silence sinks in again with the age-old question of: what do you do, after. He doesn’t want her to feel unwanted; similarly doesn’t want her to feel like he’s too needy, too clingy. God but it’s a difficult balance, and Stephen’s always been atrocious at handling it. By mutual agreement, he’d ejected women from that sterile penthouse apartment in Manhattan; had never lingered at theirs himself; until Christine, until it was someone he had to see at work the morning after and realised he wanted to see her again and again and again.
(Oh god it’s going to be the same for Gwenaëlle, isn’t it— he’s going to see her around the Gallows, in the infirmary—)
There’s probably a subtle panic about this question looming just over the metaphorical hill, but Stephen stubbornly looks away from it. That’s a problem for later, probably. He exhales against her shoulder; pivoting again, his thoughts always ping-pong around, but she’s good at keeping up:
“Okay. So, just for the sake of saying it aloud: you can stay if you like, and ordinarily I’d quite like you to,” he says, “but if the goal was discretion in getting back to your room…”
It’ll get more difficult, as the rest of the household wakes up and dawn eventually breaks and she’s not found back in her room.
no subject
She'd already been caught leaving by Orlov in the first place. Coming back from her 'personal matter' carrying all of her clothes is not going to do wonders for her credibility.
“Ugh,” is a profound groan, exhaling a harsh breath as she stretches, sits up; her hair a mess of curls, half her back a mess of scars from the rage demon's claws. Shaking a hand through her hair to loosen it out, she doesn't — besides sitting up — rush to disentangle, though it's an immediate acknowledgment of the point. “It was the goal,” she sighs; if she'd been strategically planning, it could have been an excuse, but she really hadn't. Hadn't seen this coming,
though she should have, she thinks.
“I should go,” she says, the slightly unconvincing tone of someone convincing herself.
no subject
As Gwenaëlle straightens and her back comes into view, his hand trails down the knobs of her spine, unconsciously counting the vertebrae, the scars on her back he hadn’t gotten a look at earlier. There’s still so much about her he wants to explore.
But if he keeps touching her, that’s a fast track to them never parting. And what’s the right thing to say here, now, in this circumstance? I’m glad you chose my window? Let’s do this again?
He bites down on the thought; straightens up behind her instead, and tries to convince himself too. “Don’t get caught,” Stephen says, a smile in his voice, still warm. “Holler if you are and you need backup.”
What’s he gonna do, come flying to her defense barefoot and dick flapping in the halls of an Orlesian manor? (I mean, maybe.)
no subject
although leaving is not any quicker a process than undressing her was, as she yanks her slouching stockings toward her thighs instead of finally taking them off, searching around the mess they've made for where she discarded this and that. The chemise is the only part she bothers pulling back on; she'll ring a servant for a bath when she's in her own room, she decides, acutely conscious now she's standing up that she is leaking. The rest of her clothes she flings into a pile and uses her skirts like a sack, gathering her cloak around herself for the sake of— well, not modesty. Discretion. Making the prospect of bumping into anyone else marginally less awkward. The last thing she gathers up are her boots, taking in the room for a moment to be sure he's not going to have to shove her smallclothes in a pocket before someone tidies this room,
and him, in tangled bedsheets and out of clothing.
Self-discipline only goes so far. Gwenaëlle leans a hand on the edge of the bed and leans closer, her pile of things to be urgently laundered shoved under one arm, catching him in a kiss that would be briefer if making sure he's still thinking about her when she's gone wasn't mostly the point.
“Goodnight, Stephen.”
Stockings are quieter on tile than barefeet. The door slips shut terribly softly behind her, and there's nothing to strain listening to, just— quiet.