(NSFW warning - please do not read if you should not / do not want to. <3 Scene to ensue the entire chapter so feel free to skip to the next. You know what's happening here.)
(take a moment to breathe. - normal the kid)
(you can listen to either the instrumental or original version (linked here) depending on your reading preference - both are equally as beautiful and connected to the chapter in their own way)
The fear I'd felt only moments ago slipped between his fingers and drifted along my jaw. The tears that had begun to drown my heart pressed into my skin before he'd even had a moment to register them. The pounding of my heart lit a spark and flamed beneath my ribs and I clung to it as if I wouldn't burn within its flickering strokes.
In this moment, with this decision, with him,
I felt infinite
I felt free
for the first time in a long time.
A relief stripped from my lungs and bound to each brush of his lips on mine.
I could tell, in some small way, Sebastian could feel it too as the heat of our embrace turned frenzied and full. The weight of Sebastian's chest against mine grew as he pressed my back further into the wall. His hands brushed against my neck, over my shoulders, along my ribs and then settled on my waist, my hips. The heat of them there sent splitting aches through my heart and down my stomach.
"Atley." His voice hoarse and moaning between kisses. "Atley."
I knew what they meant.
He wanted to pull back, wanted to slow down to honor his word in the Room. Our embrace so heated that the draw to one another seemed impossible to split solitarily. It would have to be a mutually agreed upon separation and my soul wanted no such thing.
"Sebastian."
Another gritted moan of my name.
"Please Atley."
I could feel his restraint loosening with every kiss though his hold on me only tightened - a physical barrier for himself.
"Do you want to continue?" I held his face close, lips lingering.
"Of bloody course I do but... You- you need-"
"I need you Sebastian."
And I did. Something had snapped deep within, a fragile fear broken and splintered into every bone.
If something were to go wrong with the extraction, if I were truly to be a danger as I knew I'd always been... my decision was set, but my heart still ached with possibility.
What if I failed.
What if it killed me?
The Devil inside starved of life, of breath, of more
of him.
I needed him.
I needed his air in my lungs,
his skin on mine.
I needed this moment - our moment - close and secure.
A fraction of a forever I may never have.
So I pleaded for him to trust me - that I was ready. I pleaded through the gentle tug of my teeth against his bottom lip, pleaded through the press of my hand to his chest, pleaded in the breathless moans scratched against my tongue that dove into his with reckless abandon.
And yet somehow, through the overwhelming urgency, the pull felt gentle and whole.
A promise of its own,
an exchange of souls.
My soul wanted his.
And his wanted mine.
It was as simple and as complicated as that.
The fingertips of his left hand ghosted along my side while the right kept me firmly rooted to the wall behind.
The back of his hand brushed across my cheek, his darkened eyes dipped low and as I stared into them, the evidence of his pain, of his worry, of his fear, of his crumbling restraint pooled in the corners.
His want,
his need,
his love.
"Atley." He spoke again, though this time no more than a whisper and this time breathed against my neck just below my ear. It seemed as if each other's names were the only word that tasted right in our mouths, or perhaps it was simply a lack of all other coherent thought.
My lungs burned, aching to breathe him in.
He pressed a kiss where his words had just been.
I had meant to say his name again but the syllables holed up in the pit of my stomach as he pressed another open mouthed kiss inches below the last, one thumb ghosting over the shadow of the first, pressing the warmth of his skin over mine. I could feel my pulse pressing back against his touch.
Again and again his lips trailed the vein in my neck, each time his thumb following in their place.
Just above my collarbone, hovering over the most sensitive part of my neck, he paused.
The room's silent flickers and ringing silence witness to the moment a restraint was dismantled. Crisp and sealed in the shallow breaths lodged between us.
Was it truly a broken word when it was asked to be broken?
My voice shook as the nerves found their hold. "Sebastian- I promise I'm fine. Don't hold back."
His breath stopped and his grip tightened.
"I'm alright. I'm fine. Everything is going to be fine. I know it will." I bargained. I lied. "If you want me... But if you don't, I understan-"
"I will always want you." Eyes searched mine. "Every breath I take wants you, every beat of my heart. As utterly ridiculous and as silly as that sounds-"
Something heavy sewed to his words, ragged and messy but I wove through them, lips to promises, a smile curved up my cheeks.
"I love you too."
His shiver visible, I watched his hesitations fall like shattered glass, replaced with the hint of something deeper, chest now heaving at the effort to keep his heart in his chest. A soft smile bright and reassuring - my home.
Something clattered behind us and Sebastian whirled around, pulling me behind him.
Brahms curled around one of the Undercroft pillars with a satisfied chirp, a few unlit candles scattered over the floor behind him. His hair puffed and tail full as if the sound had startled him as well.
Sebastian let out a sharp breath, dropping his hold on me.
"Brahms-" He scolded as if the cat had truly anywhere else to be.
The brush of cold air against my skin seemed to sizzle at the loss of contact, desperate to continue stoking the flames.
"Sebastian-"
He was nearly laughing now as the abrupt interruption dripped through his adrenaline.
"-let's go to the Room."
His brown wavy hair jostled as he peeked back over his shoulder at me, a thin pressed grin spreading up his cheeks.
And so we ran.
Hand in hand with stolen kisses pressed in shadows and along hallways, the publicity of it electric and terrifying all the same.
Up a flight of stairs
a kiss against my collarbone.
Another flight
a caressing hand that lingered too low.
We passed Floo station after Floo station but I had shook my head, the tear of my curse still protesting the thought. The ache of my lungs a far better sacrifice.
Up
Up
Up.
Until the hall of the room, warm and inviting, split its stones and we toppled inside - his body over mine in a fevered, giggling rush.
The wall sealed tight.
We were at last alone again.
Finally breathing together, though mine more labored trying to catch itself as Sebastian's lips tasted mine again and again.
Our boots scuffled back further and further until my back was once again pressed firmly to the wall, his body nudged into mine. A couple of books toppled over but we paid them no mind.
Every pulsing feeling from the Undercroft rushed back to our blood, thick and sweet and demanding. All laughter swallowed by desire.
Sebastian's hands drifted from my cheeks to my shoulders where he held firm and then spun me, pressing my chest to the cold stone, my arms pinned up between me.
His body covered mine.
One of his hands swept aside my braid, kissing along my neck and down my spine to the collar of my shirt.
Peppered and practiced, I shivered at the dip of his tongue along the curve of my bones.
My lids fluttered closed, the smallest of breaths twisted around a little noise from my throat and Sebastian smirked to my skin.
His fingers wound delicately around the clasps and closures of my clothes, dipping a fingertip along the edges before pulling them gently and releasing them in a bundle of linen and lace. The intentional, measured leisure of his motions allowing the space and the freedom for my protests should I want them while somehow still stoking the fire in my gut.
His clothes too had been discarded just as slowly,
his kisses pressed through my soul - heat to an open wound.
And yet I felt no pain.
Only the fragmented shards of hope and fear wrapped tightly in his embrace.
I felt it in the way he nestled his body to mine, in the way his hands explored and my heart followed suit.
We had been this intimate before but something about this time felt an entirely different shade of different.
Unhurried where it ought to be but frantic in all other demeanor.
He devoured me in pieces
and held me together whole.
I made promises to his freckles I wasn't sure I could keep and we ignored an ending where those promises unraveled as easily as we became in each others arms.
Each kiss a declaration to life and a defiance to death.
The warmth of his hands trailed down my stomach and dipped between the crease of my thighs. Touch trailing need.
Lower still until he wound those little noises he loved so much from my lips.
"Please."
I begged, though perhaps it wasn't only him I pleaded to
but to a universe that might spare him the heartbreak of a world he didn't deserve
to a world where he might forgive himself if I failed.
Closer still we clung until his whimpered moans dipped inside, our bodies bound slowly and then all at once.
He lost himself in me with a desperate hope
I lost myself in him with an aching longing.
"I love you so much." He whispered to my hair in rich breaths.
"I will always love you." I promised.
I arched my spine and tilted my head as far back to him as I could, feeling the weight of it all in intricate pleasure.
Lengthening,
heightening,
boundless pleasure.
Again
and again.
Deeper,
harder,
longer.
Sounds numbed to my ears, hands pressed to the wall, his fingers entwined with mine.
Again
and again
and again.
The fever of his movements rapid and unrelenting, mirroring my pleasure until I felt my body tighten.
His kiss to my neck the final ribbon frayed and pulled undone.
His name a thread of syllables in my lungs.
His groan followed close behind.
Together we held each other,
together we fell apart.
Threads and ribbons.