Tangled Up In You (Lover To Lover)

[selenias]

Tangled Up In You (Lover To Lover) 

“He lies on his side, hips stacked, chest thrown
back, chin thrust forward as in waking, as if,
after his lover has seen to his lovely body
on the white sheets, he will rise and,
with the quivering firefly of his cigarette,
move nude through the predawn kitchen.”

-The Cadaver, after Jean Riolan's Les oeuvres anatomiques, 1629

-o-

The night could have gone on, but it wouldn't have felt near the equivalent of what it felt like when she was there.

What it felt like when her calves brushed his during the night, or when he'd wake before her and find her on his side of the bed, curled into his chest and smelling like frost because the quilt was never quite warm enough for her, and he didn't have the heart to tell her that Rita, there are blankets in the closet, hon, because he was selfish and cold and he took perverse delight in the fact that she was his.

The night could have gone on, but it wouldn't have felt normal if it had, because interruptions were frequent during the evenings, when wine and drink and sex were common, and they were lucky to ever make it past first base before something came up, in the form of a textbook, the damn neighbor next door who had called child services more than once, or the form of woozy tired gasps he never could ever figure out who exactly uttered first. You, old man, because you have no sense of stamina–

All the interruptions blurred together though, and tonight, lying half-stripped in bed with her shirt dangling teasingly from her shoulders, and eyes as blue as he'd ever seen them with the room lit up in the dullest and strangest shade of green, it was simply that.

“Please tell me it won't be doing this forever,” he said desperately, and she let out a quiet breath from her lungs, a sigh of frustration as he'd came to recognize it by, and it caressed his already exposed chest like a titillate. Something warm, something soft, something familiar. He deliberately ignored the breasts against his shoulder then, and tried to think thoughts that didn't involve being turned on–

Soft but calloused fingers ran flat across his chest, tapped the blastia with an undeniable curious but irritable rap, and then the formula lit up like a city of obnoxious sprawling lights, flaming orange in color above him, and he immediately felt like cursing because sleep was so obviously fleeting now when everything glowed like the surface of the sun.

“Sorry, old man, but I think I'm going to have to take a look at this...” Her voice was still quiet, and Raven closed his eyes, taking a heady breath of her. His head spun as her hair dipped too close, like that morning's shampoo, and he could have been drowning because the affect was anything but calming when brown strands and soft skin were smelling like paradise itself.

“Ya think?” He uttered, and it came out huskier than he'd intended, drawl deep and accent thick and tongue set to rolling. Rita jabbed him in the ribs gently, and her glowering expression was illuminated like a portrait as the light grew a little brighter, reflecting off the curtains and setting fire to the pale, pasty, surrounding drywall that they both despised ever so much.

“Shut up. I know so, okay? It's just the blastia's power reacting to your messed up old man hormones; calm the hell down and it'll go back to normal.”

Raven immediately pouted, and had to struggle to force the words out in his throat then, because they seemed so cruel with her looking like she was, hair lit up like flecks of gold and skin dangerous to look at for too long, because it taunted him. The sheets tangled in his legs as he shifted, took a breath, and forced himself into a sitting position where he didn't feel like a victim sprawled out on a surgical table, and she was face to face instead of face to chest (though he didn't mind that position much, either).

“...Does that mean no sex?” he whispered, and nearly choked when instead of nodding nonchalantly like she always did to such questions, she smiled bemusedly instead and promptly pressed a brief unexpected kiss to his lips.

“There's always tomorrow,” she said carefully, watching his heart, and in that moment, his blastia shined like sin, and her eyes flashed up and her look became so smug at that he was tempted to steal it for himself.

“Ya know... I'm gonna hold ya to that, darlin',” he growled, fingers reaching for her, and she simply fired back a wicked expression in response, one of her bolder moments, fingers tapping his collar bone once, twice, thrice tauntingly as he pulled her down, down, down...

“Don't pick fights you can't win, old man. This is my house, therefore, I make the decisions about what goes on here,” she whispered, but he didn't let her go on anymore, kissing all her soft spots until she was all soft skin and soft hair and soft charcoal-blue eyes and everything was melting as he stole the air from her lungs and the sheets tangled into knots and his blastia threatened to blind them both and he really couldn't give a damn about tomorrows when todays were always so much more preferable–

Pulling away, she clapped him on the chest, gasping. “–Are you even listening?” she demanded, and he smiled and kissed her wrist prettily, shaking his head no and trailing butterflies all the way up the underside of her arm to the vulnerable spot of her throat, where his job with her shirt was only half complete and her breath brushed by his ear like silk and he was reminded that calmness, despite all appearances, was actually rather important... and tomorrows were just as fine and lovely as any other day.

“Of course I am dear, just... takin' yer advice and relaxin'...” He sighed and sunk into her, head tucked just right into the curve of her neck where he'd familiarized himself with every trace of skin and strand that fell. Her body contoured against his own nicely, and a warm calf hesitantly slipped over the top of a trouser covered hip when he turned on his side, and he kissed the underside of her jaw in response about her cautious display affection, because despite appearances and denials, she always kept that same sweet area within reach his reach.

“...Aaaand you couldn't be more creative than this why?” Her voice was full or mirth, and absently she brushed a dark lock from his face, though while it fell back in place like a curtain would before a window only moments afterwords, she didn't stop in her pursuit, and he kissed her sweet skin whenever it came too close, as it did often and his words were typically heavy and muffled when he tried to speak around such obstacles as a result.

“Somethin' wrong with this?” He murmured, something wrong with us?, and Rita simply shook her head after a moment, head low on her pillow and fingers now tracing around his blastia, blocking the amount of light shining from it with the simple press of her thumb. She looked too pretty lying there next to him, and so, so sinful with her cheeks flushed and that single calf slung over his hip casually like some sort of throw blanket, and it was impossible to think straight much less clean thoughts when her other leg bumped his thigh.

He cocked an eyebrow at her, and it took a minute before Rita swore and promptly jabbed him in the chest harder than she had earlier, and he snuck his arms around her to make it more difficult. “Hey, I'm just trying to stay warm because you're hogging all the sheets again. And don't think I didn't see you turn down the thermostat before we came in here earlier,” she accused, and Raven laughed aloud, stretching out his legs and pulling the sheets over them both until they were both tangled, leg to leg and chest to chest and face to face.

Of course she would know his motives before he even had the chance to think twice about something so insignificant—and of course she would know him inside out better than he even knew himself, because Rita was smart, and that was only one of the many reasons why she shined as bright as she did.

Nights could try to pass, but they wouldn't without her. Because now, she was the sun in his life, and days couldn't pass when there was nothing to make them rise.

“Sure, darlin', go ahead an' make stuff up...” he murmured, lips close and voice shady, “But don't think I don't know ya secretly just wanna get cuddled.” Her blessed silence was only short lived.

“...Where the hell you come up with these interpretations is completely beyond me. Pulling them out of your ass again?” She quipped, and Raven smirked and silenced her with a deep kiss, trying not to laugh as she didn't resist his tugging her firmly into his arms and rolling rolling rolling, until they were both tangled up in each other like intricate ropes of knots and any hope of escape was impossible.

“Sweetheart, it's the finest ass you've ever seen,” he growled, and this time, it was her who laughed aloud in the silence of the room, chest shaking and head vibrating against his own bare one. The blastia was bright, still glowing, and it illuminated her face to a spectrum of hazy colors.

“Old Man,” she whispered, “it's the only ass I'll ever want to see...”