don't leave without saying goodbye. [ian]

Ian

The drive back to Ian’s apartment takes about fifteen minutes. It’s dark by the time they get inside. Ian switches the lights on as he steps through the door, giving Kiara space to enter behind him. The place looks the same as she remembers it. Everything is still clean and in its place. The air has a hint of something herbal and citrusy in it.

Ian locks the door when she’s through, setting his keys on a little table inside the entrance. The band on his arm comes off next, carried into his bedroom to deposit in a drawer. The phone he leaves on his dresser.

As it happens, there is something different – and Kiara might notice it if she turns toward the kitchen. There are three potted orchids set out at the far end of the bar, each one unique in shape and color. The closest one is a brightly patterned odontoglossum with streaks of maroon and yellow. The center one is a small-flowered cymbidium – white with delicate stains of pink and lilac. The farthest one is solid white with an unusual and elegant-shaped flower spread out like the wings of a bird. Ian’s resonance hovers around them, making them feel like a focal point.

“You look like you could use a night off.” Ian sits down on the bed to pull his shoes off. His eyes follow Kiara instinctively. “What happened?”

Kiara

The drive isn't long from the park to Ian's but the brunette seated across from him seems distracted - subdued, somehow - for the duration. Kiara's eyes on the city streets flashing past her window in a blur of neon color and noise, after a point she leans her head back against the seat and a glance across at her finds her eyes closed against the artificial glow, her expression marred with the faintest frown; brows drawn and fingertips pressing at her temple.

-

His apartment hasn't changed much from the last time she'd seen it but the orchids on the bar draw the Verbena toward them instinctively. She's leaning over the furthest; her fingers carefully absent from its petals but skimming the air around it, feeling the shape and strength of Ian's resonance when he speaks, asks her what happened. She can feel the weight of his eyes on her as she turns; leans there against the bar for a moment, smoothing a hand over the surface of it.

"Elijah happened."

She surmises with this brief, nearly fond twist of her lips before she slides her hand off the bartop and moves to drop down beside him; pushing her hair over a shoulder in a fluid, absent gesture. "He called me the other night in a panic, said he was in trouble and asked if I'd come." Her eyes tick up to meet his. "He was there with his dealer who, as it turns out, is a - " Her expression turns quizzical for a moment, " - Mercurial Elite, or whatever they're going by these days. Virtual Adept. One of Grace's. His name is Samir." Kiara leans back, settles back on his bed on her elbow; her body turned to face Ian, fingers drawing patterns on his comforter.

"Elijah said something attacked them while they were meeting. It bit Samir on the face." Kiara's fingernail traces along a thread. "They used magic to defend themselves, killed it, but - Samir snapped afterwards. Flipped out and ran off before I got there." She draws in a breath, sharply and flattens her palm over the covers. "I helped Elijah bury the evidence of whatever it was. We weighted some of it down, threw it in the lake." The lake he'd seen her approach from tonight. There's a way Kiara's eyes tick to his face and then away that offer awareness of it.

That she'd returned to the place something unnatural had been disposed of. That it wasn't mere coincidence she'd been there tonight. "Then last night Grace called me while I was out. She'd found Samir, wandering around Federal, totally disoriented and paranoid. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. The bite on his face was untreated. He thought she was trying to kidnap him. Kill him, I don't know exactly, but - " She sits up, her expression constricted. Edged with remembered sympathy. "He was a mess. We managed to corner him and I cleaned him up, but - " There's a smile when she looks up, a certain exhaustion beneath her eyes.

"I'll be fine, it's just headaches." And a nose bleed that lasted nearly all night. "Grace took Samir back to her place to watch over him. He wasn't good. I think - " She looks away, frowning. " - I hope he'll recover.

Did you know Elijah had a dealer?" She searches his face, when she finally looks back and there's something in Kiara's voice, the quiet way she asks that, after everything else she's told him that betrays a sort of half formed disappointment.

Ian

There’s a pause in Ian’s movements when he sees Kiara drift toward the orchids. It’s subtle, and might just as well be explained by his focus on her, but his eyes pull to the flowers briefly before returning to her face. (He’d moved them last time – the orchids. Set them in the closet for the night. Tonight he hadn’t expected company.)

Elijah happened.

The answering expression in Ian’s eyes is one of instant comprehension. He finishes pulling his feet free, flexing his toes with relief as he drops his shoes and socks to the floor. When Kiara sits beside him, he tucks his knees to his chest and leans forward, spine curved as he watches her. The mattress sinks a little when she rolls onto her side.

He listens quietly while she tells the rest of her story. There’s a flicker of emotion when she mentions Elijah being involved in an attack – a little crease of tension that starts to form between his eyebrows before he takes a breath and lets it relax.

Did he know Elijah had a dealer?

“Not specifically, but it doesn’t surprise me.” There’s a subtle disappointment in Kiara’s eyes that, for a moment, Ian takes as oddly comforting – though there was a time in his life when he might have felt otherwise. He untucks his legs and stretches out on his side, mirroring Kiara’s pose. For a moment his eyes search hers as though he’s looking for something. “Is Elijah alright?” He rolls closer, brushing his nose beneath the corner of her jaw. “Are you alright? I don’t just mean the headaches.”

He doesn’t ask about Samir – a name he doesn’t know and has no personal connection to. There’s a passive concern, and likely one that might grow more acute if the man’s sanity degrades to the point of making him a danger. But right now what Ian cares about – what he wants to know – is that his friends are safe.

His hand trails down the side of Kiara’s face as he breathes her in, kissing the soft skin on her neck slowly. It’s as much ritual as it is intimacy, opening his senses up to her pattern – searching for damage, for signs of pain.

Ian

[Life 1 - how hurt are you? diff 4 -1 (going slow)]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )

Kiara

[Kiara's pattern feels - bruised. As if she'd suffered some kind of subtle mystical blow or trauma to her head. Indications of pressure there, behind her eyes. A sort of congestion; a blockage that feels like a vague, discomforting ache. There's the faintest trace of blood; tiny vessels that had burst and were now healing inside her sinuses; the brunette wears the physical indicators of someone who'd suffered some degree of violence, however minor. The exhaustion seems to be part of it, though whether that stems from the aftermath of magic or is simply Kiara's energy having burned out emotionally and physically - is harder for him to deduce.

In short - she's not badly hurt, her body is already starting the process of healing - but he can feel the tender points when he seeks for them; feel the disconnection around her temples; the tension that's collected there.]

-

He rolls closer to her, brushing his nose and then his lips over her skin and Kiara's arms fold around him, a hand sliding over his shoulder, mapping vague circuits there as he touches her face; feels the heat of her skin; the vital, vibrant thrum of her pattern pressed against him as he searches beneath it for the points where her body wears the worst of the whiplash she'd suffered at the hands of reality, pushed too far before it snapped back; striking at the Verbena as if to cast back into the world the wounds she'd removed from Samir's face.

Is Elijah alright?

"Mm, define alright. I worry about him." She murmurs, letting her eyes close against his lips on her neck; he can feel the way her pulse jumps a little at the base of her throat; the dip where her clavicle meets her shoulder smelling vaguely sweet with a lingering trace of perfume. "Trouble just has a way of seeking him out. Or maybe it's the other way around." Kiara's hand slides down, tracing her fingertips idly over the line of his spine; drawing whirls over the skin.

Are you alright?

Her eyes open, she turns her face to find his eyes and rubs the edge of her nose against his; drags her hand up to touch the edge of his jaw; her mouth framing the slightest suggestion of a smile; tinged as it is with exhaustion. "I've survived worse weeks." She confirms and traces his lower lip with her thumb. "It's happening more here. Things like that in the park. First the vampires, then that strange stuff Alexander found. Somebody messing with spirits."

She searches his face: "It's like everything is being pulled in."

Ian

Ian's only response to Kiara's assertions about Elijah is a low sound of agreement. Perhaps for a moment it weighs him down - this awareness that his friends' fates are out of his control. If so, he doesn't speak of it. His skin smells of sweat from his run, but after sitting in the car and now the air conditioned space of his apartment, the surface of his back feels dry and gently warm beneath her touch. He lets his attention linger when he senses the fading after-effects of paradox damage, kissing the side of her neck with soft lips before she turns to look at him.

I've survived worse weeks.

He smiles faintly. "I know you have." (And almost certainly will again.) His lips part when she touches his mouth, and she can feel his breath ghosting over her hand.

"Those kinds of encounters tend to come and go. Not just here. I wonder sometimes if there's a reason for it, or if it's just... random." He looks at Kiara intently for a moment before sitting up. "I need a shower. But first..." He stands up and walks into the kitchen, opening a cabinet to retrieve a couple of wine glasses. Next he pulls a bottle of pinot noir off the wine rack next to the fridge and sets it down so Kiara can see the label. "I believe I promised wine." There's a pause as he fetches a bottle opener from a drawer and pops the cork free, but he doesn't pour a glass for himself just yet. He does pour and offer one to her, but he's just been running and his throat feels parched and thirsty, so he fills a different glass with water and gulps it down a bit faster than he probably needs to. A drop of it manages to escape and run down his chin, but he catches it with his thumb.

He doesn't go so far as to invite her to join him, but he doesn't lock the bathroom door either. Either way, Kiara is left to her own devices for a few minutes - to rest or enjoy her wine or to nose through his things if she so chooses.

Kiara

She watches him when he sits up, remains where she is, reclined on one elbow on his bed, her fingers idly toying with one of the bracelets adorning her wrist. There's a smile, this brief, appreciative curl of her mouth when he unearths a bottle of wine and a pair of glasses.

I believe I promised wine.

"You did," she confirms softly and slides off the bed with a stretch; uncurls her body and meanders to the kitchen in time to watch him drinking a glass of water; her eyes very dark as they watch his throat working to swallow it; the trickle of water that escapes to slide down his chin. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were planning ahead just for me."

Her mouth flexes again with that little satisfied curve and she accepts the offered glass with a deliberate little slide of her fingers over his around the stem. The flirtation in her voice lingers until he slips into the shower, leaving her to her whims for a short stretch.

-

She's never had the same sense of modesty that some do, Kiara. When Ian returns from showering he doesn't find her reclining on his bed but he does find a small pile of clothing. The brunette's shoes, socks, jeans - outer layers have been shucked and set to one side in a loosely folded bundle and he finds her sitting cross-legged on the edge of the counter beside the orchids in a sheer white camisole and matching silk underwear; a glass of the pinot noir balanced on a knee.

She's made the presumption of filling the second glass in his absence and holds it out with a little lift of a brow; notching up in deliberate temptation. "I like these." She gestures at the three flowers. "They're beautiful. How long have you been growing them?"

Ian

Ian laughs when Kiara accuses him of planning ahead. There's a wry slant to his smile, and though in this case it isn't true (he usually keeps a few bottles of wine in his apartment,) he doesn't seem to mind the suggestion. On another day, he might just as well have bought it for her. There's a hint of reluctance in the way he leaves her side, throwing a glance over his shoulder to take in the lingering flirtation in her smile.

He isn't long in the shower. Just enough to wash away the accumulation of sweat on his skin. By the time he reappears, there's a towel knotted low around his hips and his skin has a warm glow from the hot water. A section of damp hair hangs down over his forehead, and he's just reaching to sweep it back when he catches Kiara in his gaze. There's a half-second where the movement slows, a subtle smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"Now I wish I had a camera."

He does have one (more than one, actually,) but - sentiments aside - he doesn't really mean it (would never steal a picture of her like that without permission.) Neither of them are especially modest, and they're familiar in ways that render clothing optional anyway. If Ian closed his eyes, he could map out the shape of Kiara's body in his mind: recreate the lines of her collar bones, the curve of her spine, the angle of her nose - even the arches of her feet. He knows her pattern in ways most people will never be capable of. Even so, the experience has yet to lose its capacity to captivate.

His feet tread across the wooden floor slowly, barely making a sound as he comes around to join her. There's a glass of wine set out for him on the bar. He takes it in one hand and drinks from it without letting his eyes leave Kiara's face.

She asks about the orchids and his expression veils a little. Becomes harder to read. "I made them, actually. Back in April."

It explains why they feel so much like him. If Kiara is especially well-versed in orchid taxonomy, she might recognize that the particular shape and color patterns of these orchids do not exactly match any of the common varieties, but the resemblance is close enough that no one but an expert would be likely to notice.

"I'll tell you about them, if you want. But... not right now." He takes another drink of wine before setting the glass down. Placing his hands on the edge of the counter, he lifts his frame up and leans into her space, balancing on his arms. The action causes the muscles in his upper body to flex and go taut, which... given the circumstances, might well be intentional. "You're kind of distracting me." There's still wine on his lips when he kisses her. The taste is heady and sensual as he rolls his tongue slowly against hers. He makes a sound low in his throat when he pulls away; moves down to her neck where he grazes her with his teeth.

Kiara

The wine helps.

At least it dulls the persistent ache behind Kiara's temples enough that when Ian re-discovers her sitting cross-legged on the counter she seems to be in better spirits.

The alcohol giving color back to her cheeks, a certain gleam to her dark eyes he knows well as she watches him approach. About as well as he's acquainted with the rest of her, the brunette's lean frame; the freckles that can only be seen across her nose and cheeks in direct sunlight, faded as they are, the scar left on her upper left thigh she's demurred from ever properly healing (you need character, I don't want to live my life without a single thing to show for it, she'd murmured to him at some point when it was first sighted, a slight unevenness where the tiny jagged line ran); the dark ink of a tattoo on her lower back, the imperfections and intimacies that close proximity to another human being offered.

His expression shifts when she mentions the orchids, she notices it. Mentions making them in April and that - makes her pause. Sets her awareness back almost instinctively (how could it not?) to that time, to Spring and Beltane and the last night she saw Sadie and there's this tick upward at the edge of the Verbena's mouth as she lets her eyes slip over that expression of his. "There's still so many things I don't know about you." A beat, her focus slips lower; over the slope of shoulders and downward, ticks back and that smile softens at the corners.

"I forget that I don't and then out of nowhere - " She turns her face to look at the orchids for a longer moment and there's something in that, her consideration of them, it's both contemplative and uncertain. He'll tell her about them, if she wants and she makes this quiet noise, affirmative, before he's leaning in, balanced on his arms and in her space and they both taste like wine. She breathes out, tips her head back and her hair is wild and thick and tumbling over his shoulders when she slides her legs out, wraps them around his body and just - anchors him there.

"I should have told you -" She manages, whispers it like a confession, her mouth tasting his jaw, throat, his shoulder. "-you could have waited to shower until after." Kiara's hand slides down, teases the edge of the towel around his hips. "I had plans of my own to distract myself tonight."

Ian

There's still so many things I don't know about you.

For an instant, there's an echo of something Alexander once said (does anyone really know you?) Perhaps that's why Ian makes her that concession - promises to tell her the story about the orchids, which is really a story about his family. He does not say that he doesn't think he can tell her while she's sitting on his kitchen counter in her underwear looking as beautiful as she is; that there is something about that juxtaposition that leans a little too close to memories that are both volatile and fragile. Instead he chases the thought away with a kiss. Because Kiara wishes for a distraction and, truthfully, so does he. But this thing between them has long been something more than a distraction. They use the word playfully, but it isn't really what they mean.

Her legs circle around his waist, and Ian makes this soft sound against her neck like he's frustrated by the fact the height isn't quite right - that the counter's edge is in the way of his hips. It becomes a low bubble of laughter when Kiara points out he could have waited to shower. "I can take more than one."

He lets his weight off his arms and sinks down a little, drawing his mouth against her skin in these loose almost-kisses that descend from her neck to her sternum. Then he wraps his arms around her and, getting a good hold, lifts her bodily off the counter. He keeps her weight balanced with her legs still wrapped around his torso, and when he shifts her slightly in his arms he looks up and grins this toothy smile.

(Got you.)

Unless Kiara fights him, she'll find herself being carried back toward the bed. If she still has her wine glass, he takes it from her and sets it down on the end-table. There's a moment where he thinks about tossing her. She can see the way his eyes travel to the bed and hover there for a second. But he knows she's still in pain (at least a little, dulled though it may be,) so he refrains from anything quite that exuberant. Instead he sets her down on the mattress and crawls up over her, sliding them both back into the center of the bed. Then he kisses her the way she so often kisses him - sudden and claiming - before he drops down to push the hem of her camisole off her stomach. One of his hands slides up beneath the fabric to trace the curve of her breast.

"I'll make you a deal," he murmurs against her skin, kissing down the lines of her ribs. "If we're still awake after this, you can ask me anything you want."

Kiara

I can take more than one.

She's smiling against his neck, fingers buried in his hair, the other gripping against his shoulder when he leans down to bodily lift her from the counter.

Her legs lock tighter around his hips when he does in response, pulling back to read the expression on his face; to match his smile with one of her own; with a flash of white teeth as he walks them back toward his bed. The maneuver wouldn't be possible (or at least, as fluid as he makes it seem) if it weren't for the strength in Ian's arms; that dancer's poise and endurance to lift and hold and maintain poses on a stage.

He deposits her on the mattress and she's already reaching to pull him down as he crawls over her; sliding her hands over his back and coiling her legs around him. There's a ferocity to the way this happens, Kiara's fingernails drawing sharp lines across his skin and the searing claim of his mouth on hers.

She answers it; matches it: the aggression, the passion.

It's always been there between them, the edge of competition. The playful banter that verged on something more than flirtation. The distraction that wasn't just distraction and just like the night they'd wound up on top of a car in the parking lot of Washington Park; shattering light-bulbs and all but devouring one another in a quest to feel closer and connected -  "Anything?" - the intensity of it; the drugging quality of his mouth on her ribs; the way it felt to be physically pressed together was enough to obliterate Kiara's capacity for much in the way of rational thought. Leaving only the baser, primal instinct - to take; to feel.

(To live).

Her back arches and he can feel the protracted way she draws in breath to speak; the contraction of her muscles beneath him. Her fingers are back in his hair; sliding through the still damp strands and she's looking down at him; her eyes hooded and dark, her mouth red with the aggression of their kisses and the wine.

"In that case I'd better go easy on you tonight."

The towel around his hips doesn't last long against Kiara's impatient, traveling hands.

Ian

In that case I'd better go easy on you tonight.

"Don't you dare."

He's already breathing hard against her skin. Her nails leave red lines down the slope of his back and with the way they're pressed together she can feel the way he reacts to that. The way it turns him on like a fucking light switch. She gets the towel off his waist without much effort. He even shifts a little to allow her easier access. Then he slides up and rolls his hips into her in this slow, fluid motion. The act is teasingly frustrating with the thin fabric of her underwear still in the way, but he manages to pull her camisole the rest of the way off, mindful as he does not to snag or pull at her hair. He slides his hands under her then, arching her back off the bed until her breast meets his mouth.

It isn't what he expected of her tonight. But the ferocity in her hands and her mouth - the way she grabs onto him with her legs - it sends him from this slow, luxuriating arousal into something much more primal. There's a place beneath the lower curve of her breast where his teeth meet skin and bite down hard enough to leave a fading mark. He bites her again on her stomach as he works his way down, slipping free of her grip so that he can get his fingers under the straps of her underwear and slide them off.

He gets the comforter and the sheet out of their way pretty quickly, pulling them aside in a manner that destroys the neatly folded lines. (He is so precise, see? And yet, given a different kind of impulse, he ceases to care what his bed looks like; if he's making a fucking mess.) There's a sudden movement when he buries his head between her legs, exhales this gust of warm breath and slide his tongue up between the soft folds of skin. His fingers claw at her hips, angling them up a little. It's probably not a surprise. What was it he said to her at the park that day? (Not: how about I fuck you in the parking lot, but how about I go down on you...)

And what did she say to him in return?

There's a rough, almost blissed-out moan from him when he slides his hands to her legs, drags his nails up the inside of her thighs.

Kiara

A (fucking) mess. That's what this always was, between them.

It was the way it worked. At least, with Kiara it had always seemed to be more often than not. The stronger her need (to forget, to push aside) the faster, harder, more aggressive she became when she had him on top of her, underneath her (in her hands). The edge of something that was almost pain (in the way she touched him, gripped his body, pushed him to hold her) coupled with the pleasure that came from it. Being so physically in each other's space.

She gets his towel off, he pulls the sheets and comforter off the bed and they're half rolling; his teeth against her skin and her lower half extended off the mattress; hips in his hands; the flimsy layers that separated her from his mouth and tongue torn away and she makes this noise as her fingers find her mouth, as his mouth finds her -

(How about no matter who wins you do?)

- his nails scratch up the inside of her thighs and she sinks her teeth hard enough into her lower lip that she does draw blood; feels the ache behind her temples intensify; the flicker-dance of color where pressure lingered behind her eyes as they close; the ebbing tide of Paradox where it had collided with her Working; her hands on Samir's body; feeding energy back into him and her revitalizing will knitting his tissue back together.

Her fingers slide down to cup the back of his neck; nails gouging into his shoulder to hold him against her; there; her legs like a vice where they close around him; riding the sensation of his mouth against her. The Verbena's spine arching off the bed as she yokes every last ounce of pleasure from it and it's his name she offers - this half formed susurrous like an invocation as she comes.

Locks her muscles and claws at his shoulder and pulls him up in the aftermath; licks into his mouth and there's something utterly primal to it; the cut on her lip; the taste of her blood and her body as she rolls to keep him close with a thigh between his, bites down on his shoulder before kissing a path down his chest.

"My turn."

Ian

He almost comes when she does.

It's an empathic response. Like he forgets sometimes where his body ends and hers begins. And he's already so turned on, so keyed in and hyper-aware of every breath, every moan, every tense and shudder of her muscles, that when he feels her convulse beneath him (hears her utter his name like it's a prayer) this coil of tension rolls down his spine in a shiver that he can't quite suppress. She's got her legs locked around him and her nails dug into the meat of his neck and shoulder as she holds him there - keeps his mouth on her until she's done. And maybe he seems sometimes like the type of person who doesn't like to be held down and controlled, but there isn't an ounce of resistance in him. Not now (not like this.) On the contrary...

It's her that pulls him up, brings his face to hers and licks into his mouth. He smells like her. Tastes like her. She tastes like blood. It gets into his mouth and mixes with everything when he runs his tongue over her lip. There's a bit of blood on his shoulder too from where her nails broke the skin, little beads of crimson marking a set of half-moon indentations.

My turn, she says. And for a moment he almost seems to object. Starts to sit up when she kisses his chest because his instincts tell him not to sit still. But then she starts to get lower and the implications catch up in his mind. His chest expands and contracts beneath her, the muscles in his abdomen tight with hyper-sensitive anticipation. He watches her make her way down the length of his torso, and when her mouth finds him there's a shuddering breath as he closes his eyes; lets his head roll back into the pillow. One of his fists balls up under his neck. His other hand inevitably finds its way into her hair - softly at first (carding through it, fingertips sliding along her scalp) and then... harder, as he winds his fingers into a tight grip.

There's a flush of color on his skin. Even with his tan, Kiara can see it. Blood rising into capillaries, spreading across his neck and chest.

"Fuck, you look so beautiful right now."

He opens his eyes again when he says it - looks down at her like she's this exquisite thing he can't fully believe he really gets to touch.

Kiara

There's something a little intoxicating about the act of it; having him spread out and (nearly) helpless beneath her.

Kiara kissing a trail down that flat expanse of chest to navel and letting her breath just - ghost over his hipbone. She relishes it as much as any other part of this - putting her mouth on him; tasting him; the heat of him underneath her hands; the way she can feel pleasure and tension cresting; the way blood rushes to flush his neck and chest.

She hums when he winds his fingers into her hair and tugs at it; feels the sting where it pulls against her scalp; the scratch of fingernails against her skin and when he says she looks beautiful those dark eyes of hers open beneath those (fucking) long eyelashes to meet his gaze and she lifts her head; gives him this slow, red-lipped smile that's as predatory as any she's ever directed his way; her mouth swollen and wet; cheeks as flushed as his chest.

"I wish you could see yourself the way I do." She murmurs in return; voice gone husky and deposits a kiss against the wrist that has fingers threaded in her hair before her mouth returns and she slides her palms over the ridges of his torso; mapping the planes of his body as far as she can reach without relinquishing the control she's taken.

There's power in this, too. In the sweat that gathers at the small of her back; the ache in her jaw; the tiny flex and spasm of the body under her hands. There's no shame in Kiara for it; giving back the pleasure he offers her; putting her mouth on him; swallowing down his sounds of pleasure and refusing to give over or relinquish until he's coming apart as readily as she had, moments before.

And even afterwards; when she crawls up the length of his body; there's a demand to it. A refusal to cede personal space - a need, threaded somewhere in the Verbena's aching body and the dull throb inside her head - for that connection. For the reminder.

(I'm alive. I'm here.)

Ian

There's a control that they both share - a mastery of their own bodies that enables them to do things others can't. If Ian wanted to, he could last longer. Let the evening unspool into this endless stretch of almost. There's a certain appeal to that. But the best parts of sex aren't about having control - they're about losing it. It's what turns him on, more often than not. Watching someone come undone beneath him.

So he doesn't try to control this. Instead he gets lost in it, and even though they've done this before, there's a newness to it each time. A sort of exquisite visceral joy that one might not normally expect from either of them. (They who are both so measured, so controlled in their daily lives.) Ian's lips are red and wet and swollen, his eyes so dark they look black in the light of the apartment. He was already impossibly hard when she started. It only takes a few minutes before he starts to arch his back, before his intermittent moans become quick, gasping breaths and sharp curses.

He warns her, right before his orgasm hits. Though he probably doesn't need to. She can feel the way the blood rushes up beneath his skin. Hears him suddenly go quiet for a half-beat before giving this long, chest-deep moan that hums its way through his entire body.

He has to let go of her hair so he doesn't hurt her. Instead he fists rough handfuls of his pillow in both hands, the muscles in his arms flexing tightly when he shouts.

Kiara doesn't stop until he's gone still, panting to catch his breath while beads of sweat roll down his stomach. She crawls up the length of his body and he reaches out to pull her down beside him. He kisses her the way she kissed him, though there's a little less urgency to it.

He starts to try and say something, but it turns into a long, happy sound instead.

Finally he manages, "Mm, I love your mouth." He sucks a little on her lower lip. "You're perfect."

Kiara

There's a looseness to them both in the aftermath.

Their bodies thrumming with the glow of pleasure, of physical exertion and as she crawls up the length of his body and is pulled down into an open-mouthed kiss every degree as appreciative (if slightly less demanding) as hers had been - Kiara hums into it and lets herself settle into the crook of his body; her dark hair spilling like a dark halo around her bare shoulders; over the pillow, tickling his chest where she curls herself inward and strokes the tips of her fingers along his ribcage; feeling the rapid rise and fall as his breathing calms; the staccato rhythm of his heart.

In another mood, with different intention, she might even have delved deeper, let her senses expand further and wrapped herself in the way his pattern felt right now; the color and shape of it; the strength. Tonight, however, her head aches with the faint reminder of what cost they offer their abilities to others. The risk that comes with the desire to re-shape and mend; to twist and better the patterns of the universe.

I love your mouth.

"Hm." Her fingers skirt over his skin, mouth curving in a slow, satisfied shift, it's sincere enough to bring out the dimples in her cheeks. They cast her in a disarmingly sweet light for a moment, especially considering their current predicament, her face tilted up to read the sincerity from his expression, her palm pressing down to sweep with grander force over his body. "Yours doesn't do too badly for itself, either." A beat, then - You're perfect - she raises herself up on an elbow and considers him with her sharp little teeth playing over the edge of a swollen lower lip.

This familiar little edging smile surfacing, no less sincere than her last but - wielded with more purpose than simple appreciation.

"Perfectly imperfect, maybe." She gently finds the point where his chest tapers down; over his sternum, to the top most rib. "I'd hate to be too perfect. How boring." Her eyes tick up, hold his and she leans in to press a chaste kiss over his ribcage. "So, here we are. Both awake, I think you said something about asking you anything."

Kiara's eyes gleam as she re-settles herself. "Tell me about the orchids?" It's deliberate, the way she invites it, rather than demands it this time. Settled there with an arm folded beneath her; their legs tangled.

Ian

I'd hate to be too perfect.

She could have been talking about him. The near-inhuman vitality in his body. The shape of it. The lines and angles. The way sometimes the light hits him in a way that makes him look like a painting - like something that came out of an artist's imagination. There are no scars on his skin (nothing to give him that kind of character that Kiara proudly claims.) He gave those up a long time ago. But of course, he's far from perfect. Sink in past the skin and he's just as flawed and fragile and human as anyone. They both are.

"That's not how I meant it," he corrects with a lazy smile. Still, there's something in the way he looks at her that feels like more than just afterglow.

She points out that they're both awake, and he offers this small noise of objection, rolling into the shape of her body so he can apply a series of slow, lingering kisses to her throat. "We're far from finished, I hope." One of his arms wraps around her shoulders and pulls her more tightly against him, sliding a hand down the length of her spine with fingers splayed. He doesn't take it further though. Relaxes back a moment later and lets himself sink into the lull. The arm around Kiara's back slides away to curl behind his head as he stretches out.

He's quiet for a while.

"You might wish you hadn't lead with that one." She'll see it in his face, the way it starts to creep in. The... heaviness of it. His eyes slide toward her, trailing down the length of her body beside him. This time the look feels a little sad and wistful, as though there was space opening up between them (as though something were pulling her away.)

"I lost my family when I was in high school." He looks away when he says it, letting a few beats pass. "My parents and my sister. They were in a car accident. It happened at the end of April. I made the orchids for them. As a... remembrance, I guess. Usually, Spring comes around and I start getting..." he frowns softly. "Destructive. I've done so many fucked up things. This year I just... wanted to make something for once. Instead of just tearing things apart."

He lets his eyes meet hers again. "I didn't really feel better afterwards. But... they're still beautiful, I think."

Kiara

It's not the first time they've talked about the heavier things.

What had she said, the last time? Half naked on the sofa with his back to her: the fucked up parts don't scare me. He'd proceeded to tell her that he'd killed a woman, then. A woman who she, in some small way, reminded him of.

(And then he'd fucked her).

Kiara had just listened with that stillness about her; that absolute focus on him.

There's that same sense to it now, the intent way she watches him when he goes quiet. She's so much closer this time though, he can feel her pressed against him, feel the familiar weight of the Verbena's eyes on his face, giving him no breathing space even when he looks away at the talk of loss. "I'm sorry," she murmurs after a long, drawn out moment and there's a tiny curl at the edge of her mouth, an offering of empathy, the tempered display of her feelings. Her hand does slide up, though. A thumb stroking across his skin in some unspoken impression of the brunette's sense of his wistfulness; the remembered pain and anguish.

He mentions the orchids and she shifts her weight, pushes herself upwards on an elbow far enough to sight them again, then to read his expression with those damnably dark, expressive eyes of hers. "Yeah," she agrees softly, "they are. And I think - " Her mouth thins, lips drawn together in momentary hesitation; her brow furrowing. She sits up; uncurling herself from his side, sliding her legs beneath her. Her hair falls over shoulders; a wild tangle of waves; her skin still pink-flushed; still glowing with the aftermath of sweat and sex and satiation.

It presents an alluring picture, but then, even unclothed: there was that same quality about Kiara Woolfe. That vaguely aloof, otherness to her. As if the wild had touched her and left its claim in the fine quality of her features; the slope of her nose; the full mouth; the easy, direct candor of her speech at times. " - It's easier to mess things up. God, if you only knew the ways I had." She frowns, looks away, down at the tangle of sheets beside the bed. "It's a nice way to remember them, Ian." She says finally, forcing her eyes back to his face, her mouth tugging into a smile.

"You know, when I first came to this city I wanted to do that." She draws her knees up, rests her chin on one, watching him. "Fuck things up. I was angry all the time, on and off. At Aisling. At Sadie. At myself. I figured we'd blow into town, cause trouble, find trouble - " Her smile grows a little as she drags her eyes over him - "And keep going. Instead, I find that I'm still here. And I think - " She makes a quiet, wondering noise. A half realized breath. "I'm not angry anymore. Not the way I was, anyway."

Her eyes tick back to his face. Searching. "I'm not sure what that means.

I'm not so great at avoiding making a mess, though." It feels like a confession, the way she offers that last thought.

Ian

It'll be ten years next spring. Strange, how quickly time can disappear when you aren't paying attention to the passing of it. And then one day you wake up and you're an adult with a career and you're living in a place where nobody knows who you used to be, but sometimes you catch yourself forgetting that. Because people never really leave their ghosts behind - they either run (and never stop running,) or they make room.

He's gotten better at some things. Talking about it without feeling like his body is going to break apart - that's always been more about disconnecting than processing. Looking at it though (really looking at it...)

That's probably something Kiara understands.

He doesn't really respond when she tells him she's sorry, but the muscles in his chest tense a little beneath her hand.

It's a nice way to remember them, Ian.

"It's sentimental," he counters quietly, as though sentiment were a character flaw (despite having given himself over to it moments earlier.) Perhaps he realizes the irony, because he gives this light exhale that almost verges into a tired laugh. "I seem to be prone to that lately." Kiara tells him she came to Denver expecting to cause trouble and he doesn't look surprised. Maybe they'd always sensed a bit of that in each other.

I'm not so great at avoiding making a mess, though.

"I'm not very good at it either." He reaches with his near hand to trace a slow, circling pattern over her hip. "Being with you feels a bit like I'm stealing something that wasn't meant for me.

"Tell me some of the things you've done." (The fucked up parts don't scare me.)

Kiara

Tell me some of the things you've done.

She's still, for a long moment after he asks her that. To tell him some of the things she's done and for a woman like Kiara Woolfe, who was so outwardly unafraid of sharing herself and offering her thoughts freely - it was captivating (and perhaps slightly unnerving) to see her look uncertain the way she does now, briefly. He traces patterns on her hip and she bends her face, just slightly and smiles into the caress.

Seems to draw some comfort from it before she pushes the heavy fall of her hair over a shoulder.

"There was this man, in New York. A Doctor. I - " Kiara's mouth curls down in tandem with the furrow that mars her brow. "Even before I met Aisling, I was sort of self destructive." She lets her eyes return to Ian's face, scans it with a brief, tugging expression of amusement at the confession, at the similarity between the two of them in many ways. "We worked at a clinic together and I - " She drops her gaze, a slim shoulder rising and falling. "I used him. We had this dysfunctional arrangement for a while. I think he cared about me, maybe even loved me in his own way but I never did.

I never could." She stops, breathes out sharply. "And then when everything happened - " When they found us. When Aisling died, she doesn't supply but he can sense the unspoken tension that thrums through her, the way it vibrates, even through to where he traces patterns on her hip. " - I just left. I never even told him goodbye. I saw him again a few months ago. I went back to New York for a funeral and I couldn't deal with it so I tracked him down."

She runs her tongue over her lower lip, shoots him this furtive, fleeting glance from under her lashes. "I had sex with him on his desk and afterwards, I couldn't wait to get out of there and he told me he was seeing somebody." Kiara's chin lifts, her eyes track over Ian's shoulder, to fix on some unseen point. There's a flicker there, when she finally brings her focus back to him, a glimpse of some contained regret.

"Not the worst of my crimes but I think the best thing I ever did for him was leaving." A beat. "I don't think he ever would have. He was too weak."

Ian

It's a story very similar to any number of his own. Ian listens to it quietly, his eyes fixed on her face. There's no hint of judgment in his expression, though it doesn't feel dismissive either. They are creatures of similar make.

After a while his hand stops moving.

When the room goes quiet again, he shifts onto his side. The look he offers her is subdued, but there are traces of softness in it. Maybe a little answering sadness too. He sits up and brings his hand over slowly, trailing the tips of his fingers up the line of her stomach until he reaches her heart. He can feel the beating of it behind her ribs. This small, simple organ - powerful and vulnerable all at once.

He'd called her perfect, a moment ago. Do perfect people do the kinds of things they do?

(Perfectly imperfect, maybe.)

"You were right, you know. About it being easier to break things. Sometimes it's... like falling. You start building momentum and you can see the ground coming but you don't know how to stop. Or maybe you don't want to." He flattens his palm over her chest and exhales. Closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them he says, "Why did you stay with me, that night?"

Kiara

Her eyes close when he trails his hand over her body to her heart. He can feel it working there, beneath skin and bone; that great muscle pumping blood to Kiara's organs. There was something so wholly overwhelming and encompassing to the idea of it: her life, her continued being held captive to that beat. It's no wonder pressing his palm to it; feeling the warmth of her radiate out from beneath his hand is enough to draw a reaction from him.

From them both, she makes a quiet noise and listens to him; folding dark hair behind the shell of an ear; tipping her face and sliding both her hands over the slope of his arm; tracing the line of it with her fingers to where his fingers were uncurled against her chest. She sets them on top of his hand, feeding the connection; that junction where their patterns met; the physicality between them for a long, stretched out moment before he asks why.

Why did she stay?

Her eyes open, shifting to his face. "I've spent a long time breaking things. I guess I wanted to try fixing something, for a change." She slides her fingers back down his arm, this tiny smile curving up at the edge of her mouth, her expression while not wholly sweet (Kiara was too worldly for that, she'd glimpsed the darkness out there too often to retain that), colored with something affectionate, gentler than most of the looks she's thrown him.

Though he'd seen something like it once before, standing on a tiny manicured lawn downtown; whispering the emphatic oath to fight armies for her. She'd cast him a look like the one is now, then. This one seems quieter, though. Steadier. Aware.

Conflicted and, beneath the smile, uncertain.

"Why did you call me that night." A beat, she searches his face. "Really."

Ian

He doesn't miss it, the way she deflects. Answers without really answering. His gaze takes on a shrewd cast when she tosses the question back at him, eyebrows slanting in a way that registers some dry amusement. There are times when he's with her that their similarities feel almost... karmic.

He makes a sound. Thoughtful. It isn't clear whether he feels any disappointment. Whether he really expected any particular response from her when he asked the question. But his hand stays on her chest, and after a moment his fingers begin to move in these slow, subtle motions, caressing the skin beneath her collar bone.

His expression smooths out a moment later.

"I ran into Sera at a bar earlier that week, and things got... I don't know. Fucked up." There's a slight hesitation before he continues. "I kissed her. And things got really intense really quickly, but then I just...stopped. Because the whole thing just didn't feel right. She got really angry at me. I probably deserved some of it."

Despite his words, there's a shadow of something that passes across his face. (Anger? Disgust? Guilt?)

"The thing is, I got hung up on the fact that she didn't smell like you." He starts to say more, but stops. Can't figure out how to articulate it, maybe. And maybe by then Kiara is already starting to pull away. Maybe she cares that he was kissing someone else that recently. Maybe she doesn't. The truth is, they've never spoken about it. Never had those kinds of conversations about wants and expectations. So Ian doesn't know what to expect. Doesn't know if what he's saying will hurt her or not.

"I was telling the truth, that night. I had a shitty week, and I wanted to see you. Not anyone else. Just you. I missed you."

There's enough honesty in that confession that it feels a little raw on his voice, for all that he may not be saying anything that most people would find especially significant.

"I feel more like myself when I'm with you."

Kiara

They've never really spoken about it before. The other people in their lives, the other lovers they've taken (still were, for all the other knew). There like an undercurrent, perhaps. The unspoken awareness seen in glimpses and looks and tiny exchanges and she's not without some degree of knowledge when it comes to the complicated connections that wove them all together.

The raggedy band on the edge of nothing. Survivors in a war that may as well have never ended (maybe it didn't).

He ran into Serafine. Things got fucked up and there's this flicker of amusement, this little momentary give at the edge of her mouth that spoke volumes about her feelings when it came to those two things: Serafine and a capacity for things to become a little fucked up. I kissed her, he continues and there's this way that Kiara's gaze turns very focused, hard and intent for a beat.

There's a definite edge of something in the way she offers: "Oh," (the surprise makes the tiny spark of jealousy harder to conceal and is she even cognizant of its existence there in those dark eyes when they turn on his face) and then, a harsher sound when he says he probably deserved whatever happened. "I doubt that." The thing is and she can't look at him directly when he says what he does, next. He can feel the way she's listening, though. Her entire body seems attuned to it.

His words, the inflection. The stops and starts and there's this tiny movement of her face; a reflective motion of her fingers where they're curled against her legs as if she meant to do something with them but aborted the gesture.

"Sera has a certain way of getting under your skin," she says eventually, her tone complicated, weighted down with conflicting feelings in the wake of his confession. "We hooked up once or twice when I came to Denver, I like her. I like Dan. I like that she's not apologetic for who she is or being a little fucked up." She doesn't pull away but it takes several moments before she can reciprocate his honesty with a hand reaching up to tangle around the one tracing patterns on her skin.

To draw it to her mouth and turn it and press her lips against his wrist; over the delicate point where his pulse beat. To lift against her cheek and trap it there; her hands sliding around his wrist to hold it captive.

"But being with you is different. You make me feel - " She presses her face a little firmer against his palm. " - alive. Connected to this shitty world. I don't care who we fuck, maybe I should but I don't, because none of them come close to this." She slides her hands down; leaves his hand to be pulled away or not, at his leisure.

"I stayed that night because for the first time, leaving was going to hurt."

It's still not everything but - there's a quiet sincerity to her words.

Ian

Oh, Kiara says, and Ian can hear the surprise in it. The sharper edges. It makes what she says next all the more unexpected. Those three words (I doubt that) catch him off guard in a way he can't entirely quantify. There's an idea of himself, this picture that he allows the world to see: crafted in part from the expectations and assumptions of others and in part from his own internalized self-image. Sometimes it fits him too easily, this idea that he isn't a good person. It becomes this kind of armor, almost.

She has every reason to reject him, in that moment. She doesn't. There are people (Sera included) who've lashed out at him for far less.

There's a piece of her that withdraws; curls her hands against her legs to keep them still, and Ian watches this with acute awareness. The admission that she makes - that she's been close with Sera before - cuts a little deeper than he expects it to. There's a subtle tick of anxiety in in his eyes (in the way they snap to her face) that almost mirrors her own. But whatever he feels, he doesn't give voice to it. His pulse is quick and a little unsteady where Kiara kisses him on the underside of his wrist. It's the same wrist he cut open once when he was seventeen. For a moment he almost feels a phantom of the old scar beneath the touch of her lips. Then she traps his hand against her cheek and she makes that confession and his breath gives this little stutter when he inhales.

There are so many fucking things he doesn't know how to tell her.

When she drops her hand away from his, he draws his fingers down over the curve of her jaw and looks at her like he can't imagine anything in the world more valuable. There's a beat, a caught breath, before he surges forward and kisses her. The act of it is bruising and vulnerable. He presses his body into hers, clutching at her face with both hands as though he means to sear himself onto her lips; leave a taste of his mouth stained on her tongue. They already taste like each other (like blood and cum and saliva.) He doesn't stop kissing her, even when he rolls them over and pushes his pelvis between her legs. His weight is heavy above her, crushing them both into the mattress before he finally relents his hold in order to prop himself up on one arm. He stays close though, kissing her a little more softly, his hair drifting down across her cheek.

When he pushes into her, he makes this sound that lingers between pleasure and pain.

"Don't leave without saying goodbye." It's whispered in a rush against her lips, and although he could claim he only means for her not to sneak off in the morning, it feels like more than that. "...Please."