bolderfell | Prismatica Inbox

You're not in a hurry to be done with it, are you?

[Truthfully, he's not overly concerned about that; it's more a question of Therion's phrasing than anything else. But still, it pays to be certain.

Normally, he reflects, it wouldn't bother him, something so minor as phrasing. But they're both raw tonight, both vulnerable in their respective ways, and he wants — needs — to be sure.

Tonight isn't just an exchange of services, not to him. It would help to know if he's the only one who feels that way.]

The last thing I want is to be deified. Don't put me on a pedestal or an altar, not tonight.

It's not that. I don't do that. It's one of my failings.

[If he hadn't presumed all those years to think of Darius as a comrade, a partner, a brother--if he'd been what Darius wanted all along, a debased, obedient creature like his replacement, Gareth, with no pretensions to partnership--the Cliftlands wouldn't have torn their gnarled souvenir out of his back. He'd never have known what it was to lie broken at the foot of the ravine, abjectly alone.]

It's just something I've wanted to show you, and I... wouldn't want to forget.

[Flower petals and butterflies. If he's distracted now, how much more so once they actually begin? How much more so after? Even in the quiet guaranteed by the privacy box, Therion lowers his voice.]

You know what you're asking of me. [A pause, then quieter:] You should know I wouldn't say yes just to please you.

All right. I won't let you forget.

[He's so quiet. Every decrease in volume feels like another wall crumbling to the ground, a passageway narrowing until it finally reaches the small cramped spot where a hiding thief huddles. He reaches to catch Therion's hand, bringing it back to his cheek, and when he does he holds it there, covering over it with his own.]

I do, you know. Want to please you.

[His other hand moves to the back of Therion's neck, playing with the hair at his nape.]

I don't care about the chroma.

[He ends the sentence there, without clarifying what he does care about. Leave it to Therion, to finish the thought in whatever fashion he deems fit.]

[He shuts his eyes, breathes out, loosens and leans into Kurama like a lock undone beneath his fingers. He kisses Kurama without looking, brushes his thumb over his cheek, murmurs against his mouth.]

Easy to figure that one out. You keep spending it.

[Therion's habit is to leave implications unsaid. Far be it from him to expose Kurama's, far be it from him to want to, except in answer.]

Think I'm ready now, if you are.

[It hasn't been about the Chroma in a while. He has what he needs.]

All right. Let me take care of it.

[And he does take care of it, as tender as he is methodical; stroking Therion's body like a coveted prize, his fingers to first to his shirt and then to his waistband, catching the fabric of his clothes and divesting him of it piece by piece. There's never a time when he allows contact to break completely; even when both his hands are occupied, he makes sure a hip or a knee stays touching. If Therion wants to keep his eyes closed the entire time, then he can certainly do that, and never once will he be left not knowing precisely where Kurama is.

It's only after he's done that he finds the cotton nightshirt he'd brought and brings it over Therion's head, bidding him to raise his arms and slip it on, and caresses him the whole way as he smooths the hem down into place.]

[Therion does open his eyes once, and that's to take a dagger--the dagger, sheathed in leather patterned like a tree--from its place at his hip and set it carefully down on the bedside table. After that, they stay open, because watching Kurama is its own pleasure.

Kurama doesn't need his help for this, so he keeps his hands out of the way until he doesn't, until one of them finds its usual place in Kurama's hair, fiddling with the ends in a way he's never seen fit to toy with anyone else. It's a shame when he has to stop and slide his arms through the sleeves of the nightshirt.]

Never considered myself pretty, you know. Not saying that to be contrary. Just struck me as odd that's what you settled on for me.

Young foxes are often taught — or at the very least, encouraged — to think of their partners as playthings. Pleasant, enjoyable, even something to be possessive over. But not...something one would have a relationship with. An implicit boundary line to keep things impermanent.

[He leans forward, pressing his lips against Therion's abdomen a little above his navel, just around the base of his ribs, before drawing back and bringing the shirt down over it.]

By now it's just stuck. Though I suppose there's still some truth to it. You could disappear anytime you wanted.

[There's no sense in sugarcoating that piece; it's a truth they both know. But it's also not an accusation; he says it softly, and as tender as the brush of his fingers on warm skin.]

And you are still a treasure I've put my fingerprints on. That won't change, no matter where you are.

[Kurama bends, and Therion's hand follows him down, sinking into his hair and cradling the back of his head. He kisses Therion, he calls him a treasure, and Therion shivers. His fingers tighten slightly, as if to anchor himself here with Kurama.]

...I'll disappear someday. That's just the nature of things like me.

[Short-lived things. Thieves, humans, travelers. Poor children without anyone to love them enough, tether them tightly enough to life. Twenty-two already is, could be, a whole lifetime, and Kurama will outlive mountains.]

But if I wanted to, I wouldn't have shown you here.

[Is it enough--it is anything--to know he doesn't want to? He strokes Kurama's hair, just looking at him.]

You give me so much to remember you by. Don't know how you think I'd ever forget.

It's not about being remembered. I've had centuries to ensure that part of my ugly legacy.

[He sinks down slowly, settling between Therion's knees with his hand still resting in his hair, watching him through eyes that are — and have stayed — rich green with no trace of gold.]

Then I met someone who changed me, without even meaning to. Someone who took the world I thought I understood and turned it on its head, and made me realize just how much I had been missing all along.

[He lowers his chin, just slightly; it's a movement that makes his bangs fall across his eyes. It's not enough to obscure them, but enough to add a level of security, like a fox settling back into a walled den.]

I wonder if I'll matter like that, someday. I wouldn't mind it if, in the end, my memory mattered to you.

[The words get stuck in Therion's throat, looking at him like that, listening to confessions like these. Kurama's human detective, his own Cordelia and Heathcote--he gets it. He knows those unexpected, world-upending moments that come on a rooftop or at the city gates, before a flash of sword or beneath a crumbling church--the dramatic conversations that mark off chapters of their lives like illuminations in an unfinished manuscript.

He wants to tell Kurama what he's done already matters, that the marks he's really made on him aren't so easily thwarted by a nightshirt, but talk is cheap. What more can he do or say to convince him of that than this: letting Kurama take away the use of his hands, his legs, his freedom of movement, and trusting that I want to runs parallel to what's been left, more meaningfully, more believably, unspoken. I care about you.]

I'm here now.

[It's such a small thing to say when what he means is so much larger. Dissatisfied, he swallows and searches Kurama's face, his shaded eyes, for some scrap of his gift with words so that he can get across how important he's been.

Without a dramatic, moonlit skyline, without some rush against death--by only confirming, over and over in inventive and unforeseeable ways, that trust is possible, good, necessary, even for people like them--he's broadened Therion's world. Given him a view from the top, wide and breathtaking, high above where he might have climbed alone.

Therion releases the thick of Kurama's hair, brushes his fingers lightly over the top of his head, lingers there a moment, and then smooths his hand down over his bangs--stroking without moving his hair aside.]

I wouldn't be, if... if you took me back to the world I understood.

[Words don't come easily after a confession like that. Even someone as eloquent and silver-tongued as he is would be hard-pressed to come up with something that didn't cheapen the weight of the emotion already present between them, and it's the benefit of his years upon years of experience that he knows better than to even try. He won't have the last word; he doesn't need it. But now Therion is waiting for him to act, and so he leans into the petting a minute before nodding and reclaiming the initiative.

He gets to his feet, then tugs Therion up with him; he'll need to be standing in order to get the knotwork set in place, and to have full range of movement to wrap it around and around him. If he were doing this with normal ropes, he'd need both his hands with their clever fingers to wrap and tie and set knots in place.

As it is, he's doing it with vines, and so practically speaking he doesn't need any hands at all — but for Therion's benefit he still uses one, plucking a seed from his hair and pressing it against his wrist before pushing energy into it to cause it to sprout.

The vine coils, but doesn't tighten, not at first. Letting it go is more like watching macrame take shape than being bound; it slips and snakes and splits off into different sections, slithering in and out through loops and rings made of its own length. And as it goes, Kurama steps to the side and turns Therion to angle toward the mirror, letting him watch himself as, over the smooth white cotton of his shirt, green vines twist and wrap into a pattern that all but resembles artwork.

It's only once the form of it has been crafted into place that the vines begin to tighten like a boa constrictor, tugging the slack out of the coils until at last the vines themselves are pressed carefully against the cotton — leaving enough give that circulation isn't at risk, and with a little room to wiggle, but there's certainly no slipping them no matter how much he squirms.

Gently, Kurama reaches out and brushes Therion's hair out of his eyes, moving it to either side so that he can't help but look at himself.]

Now, watch.

[With a breath and a thought, the bonds slowly begin to take on a red hue as tiny flowers begin to open from the green of the vines, changing the color as well as adding an ethereal, fae-like beauty to the bolder severity of the knots.]

[Without guidance towards the mirror, without the careful arrangement of his hair, Therion might look at the loops and knotwork forever rather than at himself, appreciative as he is of craft. It distracts him from the strange sensation of plant life climbing all over him like a human trellis, allows him to allow it to happen without moving, up to the point where the bonds tighten and he inhales. No going back now.

And then Kurama gets his attention again, in time to see the colors shift across his body, and he breathes out.]

You weren't kidding.

[Instinct would be to touch, to gently trace the tiny petals with a fingertip, but the vines keep his arm from moving. He closes his eyes a moment, takes note of his heartbeat in his throat, the unmistakable recognition of his own helplessness, and looks again, accepting it. Having faith.]

It's beautiful.

[It is. He is, as part of the work, tan skin and white shirt and red, tiny-flowered vines bunching the fabric, pressing against him underneath it.

Therion tests his range again, just to know it in his body--just to see it, eyes open. Then his attention moves to Kurama's face in the mirror, drinking in what he finds there.]

Remember. You can be free of it in an instant.

[He's listening, carefully, to the sound of Therion's heartbeat; it's a little quicker than usual, but of course that's to be expected. What he's vigilant for, however, is the point when it tips over from quickened to runaway — when caught breath shifts to hyperventilation. The point when this stops being about boundaries and starts being about trauma. That's the moment when he needs to act, when a wave of his hand will disintegrate the vines in an instant and give Therion full range of motion again.

But that moment doesn't come. He's testing, yes, but he's not frightened. Apprehension is natural for a cautious thief with every reason to be suspicious of ropework. And yet, his faith holds.

He's right. It really is beautiful.]

You're magnificent, you know.

[Slowly, he steps behind Therion; he's got the advantage of height on him, enough so that his face is still visible over Therion's shoulder even as he wraps his arms around him from behind, letting him continue to watch as his fingertips stroke over the network of vines and knots.]

I could do more. But the right to decide is yours; I stop when you tell me to stop, and go no further.

[Therion tilts his head back slightly, coming to rest in Kurama's hold, watching with half-lidded eyes as his hands brush up and down the pretty cage he's tied him into.]

...What more do you want to do?

[His eyes don't leave the mirror, but he turns his head anyway, bringing his face and throat into profile.]

Not a decision if I don't know.

[It would be, but not a participatory one. Not one that keeps them both in the game.]

Would you like to feel them against your skin?

[He pauses in the movements of his hands for a moment, wrapping his arms carefully around Therion instead — switching from caressing to embracing, as he leans his head against Therion's.]

You're clever with your knives. I could be clever with them, too.

[One moment, he's starting to really lean into Kurama's chest; the next he straightens, as much as that's possible, with realization.]

That's why you had me change clothes.

[Niggling mystery, solved. He meets Kurama's eyes in the mirror, remembers a choice has been offered, and flushes a little as the implications sink in. In the end, he nods, glance flickering to the reflection of the nightstand.

He wouldn't blush if he could do anything about it himself. To ask Kurama, to let him take care of it, races new and hot under his skin.]

The one by the bed. [The foxflower dagger, safe in the sheath he had made for it.] Use that one.

Naturally. I wouldn't ruin anything important.

[He keeps his arms around Therion, but follows his eyes to the dagger on the nightstand — ah, that one. Aesthetically, it'll go neatly with the flowering vines keeping Therion bound; practically speaking, it'll be much safer for him, too, to use a blade as sharp as that one — and one that Kurama's own powers will have full control over, besides.]

I can do this two ways. You can stay standing, and watch yourself in the mirror. Or I can lift you onto the bed, and work with you lying on your back. The bed would likely be safer, but it's ultimately your choice.

[His choice, and he makes it watching Kurama intently in the mirror.]

Bed'll do.

[For practical reasons and reasons besides. To have Kurama over him, his hair and all it holds cascading down around them. To lie beneath him, another play on the theme. Surrender, and trust, and their reward.]

[He nods slightly, then bends his chin and presses his lips right up against Therion's ear to breathe hot against it.]

I'm going to make a mess of you, you know.

[Promise set in place, he nips at the shell of Therion's ear before moving around to his side, getting in position to bend and sweep an arm against the backs of Therion's knees, catching him easily in a princess carry before walking him over to the mattress.

Once he settles Therion in, head on a pillow and trussed body stretched out along the coverlet, Kurama picks up the foxflower dagger and brings it with him as he climbs up onto the bed and sits over Therion's hips.]

If you need me to stop, or to slow down, you know to say so. Otherwise, keep still as best you can, and motionless when I tell you to be motionless. All right?

[With a promise like that ringing between his ears, with his body still knotted in lines and loops of red, who can fault Therion his almost-noisy exhalation as Kurama's weight pins him neatly in place, or the small, reflexive pull against the vines. The spots where knots press into him through the shirt, the texture of the bedspread against the back of his legs, the solidity of Kurama above him and his legs to either side come together in this heated hyperawareness. He makes small--necessarily small--shifts to adjust himself and swallows, plain as day to see as he lies.]

All right.

[He doesn't nod, because nodding is moving, and he understands the need not to now on two levels. He looks at Kurama instead, hair starting to fall across his face again but not quite hiding either eye.]

Come here first.

Your wish is my command.

[He smiles faintly, then makes it clear he's setting the dagger to the side, on the mattress, before placing his hands on either side of Therion's shoulders and leaning down over him. Practically speaking, it's not as though he's any less dangerous now than he was with a knife in his hands — there's any manner of things he could use to hurt Therion with if he wanted, and the coils of plants wrapped around him are considerably more of a concern than one dagger, however sharp — but there's deliberate theater in what he does, making a show of freeing his hands of any overt threat.

He bends, his hair falling to either side, and brings his nose almost to touch against the tip of Therion's.]

I'm the one at your mercy right now, do you understand that?

[Before words, Therion expends what limited motion he has to rise up and capture Kurama's mouth in a kiss. That's his answer. That and briefly biting down, offering a light and fleeting pull before he lets go. Therion stares up at him, framed by red hair to either side and his own messy grey-white above, and licks his lips slowly.]

Yeah.

[He looks down towards the knife, where it lies like he does, awaiting Kurama's disposal, then back up. He's as ready as he'll ever be.]

Okay.

Good.

[He reaches over without looking, finding the dagger and bringing it back into his grasp as he slowly sits up to a safe distance to work.]

We'll start at the neck, and move down between the collarbones.

[With his free hand, his fingertips come to trace a gentle line down along the path he's describing, brushing light against Therion's Adam's apple before following it down along the vertical lines of the knotwork to a place about halfway down his ribcage.]

You can breathe, just not deeply. No sudden movements.

[The tip of the dagger comes around and presses lightly against the path Kurama's fingers had traced, and threads begin to split beneath the razor edge of its blade.]

[The tricks of quiet and motionlessness that keep Therion alive serve him well here. After the initial bob of his throat under Kurama's fingers, he remains still, breathing slowly and shallowly and quietly, so quietly he can hear the knife cut.

He doesn't need to see the threads of the nightshirt fray and part beneath his dagger, the dagger Kurama made for him, mottled and beautiful. Doesn't need to watch to see his skin exposed in a lengthening sliver in the blade's wake. Kurama's touch lingers in a tingling line from neck to breastbone, and, intensely aware in this charged space, he can track the knife's journey by feel. He doesn't need to look.

On his back on the bed, Therion finds his mirror in Kurama, studying his face as he works a delicate, dangerous path between cloth and vine and his own heated skin.]

There. Does it feel good?

[He brings the tip of the knife away, making space for Therion to breathe and talk, as his fingers catch beneath the now-severed edge of fabric and pull it free like turning back a page, opening up more of Therion's skin to his touch. Now the vines sit directly against his skin, faintly rough and thick-knotted, unblunted by the extra layer of cotton that had previously been between them.]

There's more of that to come. It's all right to enjoy it.

[His fingernail scrapes lightly against Therion's bared skin, working in a meandering spiral.]

You asked me before whether I like the challenge of drawing noise out of you. I'll have you moaning before long, rest assured of that.

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