Smoke curling, swirling, twirling past my lips
Mixing with the scent of whiskey, gin, and vodka
Eyes close
Nebulae dance
Memories stir
A scorching sun so hot, the palms appear to sway
Lazily lounging on the wafting wind, sugar and smoke sleep
Golden waves cascade down into a pearly, milky valley
Laced with love, the waters gather
Rushing in
Whispering out
Stealing my breath in wisps of steam
Raging fire
Scorching tempest
Singing earthquake
All within the sigh of a man
A seed is planted, soon to sprout
Bloom
Blossom
Bewitch my heart with the golden petals of sun
But not now
Not yet
Here we stand on the beaches, sandy and white
The moon and the sea
You and me
Untainted by the golden stream of Time, our hands entwined
Forever and the stars within our grasp
Bright
Beautiful
Breakable
With unwelcome musk, the whiskey appears in my hand
The umber ocean diluted with the salt of my soul's river
The moon, blackened and distant, sings no more
Smoke and sunflowers, her only echoes
(warnings for non-sexual D/s and bondage, and general self-worth issues. i don't really know what this is, but it's mostly a result of this art (nsfw), this song, and several things imperfectkreis has written.)
[ao3]
Lomadia lets Will keep his clothes on, the first time they do this. He's irrationally grateful for it – his clothing is his armour, after all, his waistcoat a breastplate and his shirt chainmail.
But Lomadia doesn't try and strip him of it. Instead, she carefully takes the glasses from the top of his head as he sinks to his knees like his joints are made of rusting iron, and sets them down on a cluttered side table. "There," she says, brisk and businesslike; but her hand lingers in his hair, running through the blonde softness of it and mussing it up.
“Um,” he says, the words sticking in his throat, not sure how to tell her to stop without making her stop. He fumbles for words, struggles to remember how to say slow down. “Yellow.”
Lomadia smiles, lets her fingers freeze too, the tips of them barely brushing his skin. “I’m not taking it off,” she says, rubs the thumb of her free hand over the freckled curve of one cheekbone. “Just undoing a few buttons. Is that okay?”
Her eyes bore into his, warm and unyeilding, and he has to look away or risk drowning in promise of safety in them. He starts to force himself to say yes, and then swallows it. “No,” he says, because he needs to – and then, at the sharp look she gives him, adds, “Green.”
It’s okay to do this, he reminds himself, as Lomadia simply looks at him for a long moment. To say no and mean it, but also not. It’s okay to need this.
His attempts at self-reassurance help very little.
“Okay,” she says, eventually, voice even as she pries open the top two buttons of his shirt. “That’s okay.” She loosens his tie a little, slips it over his collar, and then tightens it against the bare skin. “Better.” Slipping two fingers under it to test the give of it, to test Will’s ability to breathe. “Is that good?”
Will pauses for a moment, thinks about it. The tie is a silky band of pressure against his skin, soft and shiny. The movement of it whenever Lomadia’s fingers twitch sends shivers down his spine. “Yes,” he says, quietly, leans into the touch of her knuckles against his throat ever so slightly. The open buttons of his shirt, he finds, don’t bother him as much as he thought they would.
She pulls away with a slight sigh, slipping fingers out from under his tie and standing up with an soft exhale. “Stay there,” she says, tapping the top of his head gently with with her fingertips. “I’ll be right back.” He can hear her behind him as she walks away, rummages through a cluttered table-top or drawer with a scattered rustle of clink-scrape-swish sounds.
Relaxing into the static irregularity of the noise, Will closes his eyes, lets his shoulders drop and his spine round as some of the punishingly formal posture he usually holds slips out of him. It’s only when something swishes through the air by his head that he half-jumps, eyes snapping open in faint alarm.
“Just rope,” Lomadia says, reassuringly, stood next to him again. She presses a loop of it against his cheek so he can feel the smooth, tight weave of it on his skin. “Nothing fancy. I’m going to tie your hands behind your back.”
Swallowing, Will nods, shifts his hands obediently behind his back and presses his wrists together where they’ve settled at the base of his spine without Lomadia even having to ask. She tuts again – but this time it’s a noise of pride, of pleasure, rather than admonition. “Such a good boy,” she says, and he flinches at the praise, unable to help himself.
He doesn’t see the way she frowns at the back of his neck, a faint downwards twitch of her lips as she circles behind him.
The first touch of calloused fingers against his wrist nearly makes him jump again, but he manages to hold himself still. It’s worth it for the way Lomadia hums her approval, a whisper of air he feels against his hair, and squeezes his wrist before wrapping the first loop of rope around it.
He doesn’t quite slump forwards when she binds his hands together, but it’s a close thing. The change in his posture is remarkable – his shoulders sloping downwards, the frown lines on his forehead smoothing out, all the tension and fight falling from his muscles. She strokes a hand over his shoulder and smiles at how malleable he is, swaying easily beneath her touch, jaw half-slack.
She’d only intended to bind his wrists; but she’s got plenty of rope left, and he exhales shakily when she pulls the bindings a little tighter, so she keeps going. It’s a simple pattern, a criss-cross weave of knots and twists that has Will relaxing into it further and further with every line of pressure as the ropes draw tight across his skin through his shirt.
“You really are a good boy,” says Lomadia, tying off the last knot near his shoulders before standing up to admire the picture of him. He’s knelt on the floor at her feet; bound and hazy-eyed and looking almost lost. “Aren’t you?” She smiles, runs fingers through his hair again to turn it fluffed-up and messy, and this time he leans into the touch instead of trying to pull away. “Can you say that for me?”
She settles down into the worn armchair he’s knelt next to, reaching out a hand to pet his hair and tug him a little closer. He shuffles forwards at the coaxing, heedless of the way the floor scuffs at his trousers. “Can you say I’m a good boy?” It’s not supposed to be a difficult request.
“I’m-” Will starts, head pressed against her palm – and then stops, the words choking him.
He tries, tries so hard to get them out, but they lodge barbs into the soft inside of his throat and stick there, tearing. Even swallowing around them is a struggle. He tries to force them out, but they won’t come, a lie caught behind his teeth that he can’t quite bear to voice. “I-”
Pressing his forehead against Lomadia’s thigh, he tries to focus on the solid muscle of it rather than the way his shoulders have started to tremble. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
She doesn’t reprimand him – doesn’t tell him it’s okay, either. Instead, her fingers settle a little more deeply into his hair, blunt nails tracing circles on his scalp that send waves of static down his back. She just waits, silent, listening to the soft, hitching noises of Will’s apologies muffled against her trousers.
“Red?” she asks, eventually, tugging a little on Will’s hair to try and lift his eyes to meet hers. He resists the motion, keeps his eyes on the wooden planks of the floor so Lomadia won’t see the shame in them. “Will, look at me.” There’s a kind of urgency to her voice, something he’d call anxious if it were anyone but her. “Red?”
He raises his head reluctantly, focuses on a bundle of drying grasses hanging from the ceiling to the left of and behind her so he won’t have to meet her eyes. “Yellow,” he says, voice low and rough, licking his lips. He can do this, he knows he can. “I’m-”
Lomadia nods, makes a shushing noise in the back of her throat – one designed to soothe rather than quiet. “Take your time,” she says.
Her calm, the lack of pressure or need to rush, helps. He bites down on the apologies, swallows hard. Licks his lips again. For a long moment, he just kneels there and breathes; feels his rib cage expand with every breath in, feels the ropes tug around his arms like a safety net, feels the hard floor against his knees and the hand in his hair and the silk of his tie around his throat.
Feels the warmth of Lomadia next to and above him, patient and waiting.
Finally, finally, the words unstick enough for him to spit them out like stones. They taste bitter, a lie on his tongue that he doesn’t believe in, but he forces them out anyway. Lomadia asked him to, after all. “I’m- a good boy?” he says, rushes through the words and still doesn’t quite manage to stop them from sounding like a question.
It leaves him feeling drained, exhausted, and he slumps heavily against her leg before he can help himself – before he can remember he’s supposed to be staying still. Lomadia doesn’t seem to mind, though, tracing fingers along the line of his throat and jaw before patting his head gently.
“Yes,” she says, such warmth and pride in her voice that, for a second, he wants to stay here forever, warm and comfortable and with someone who wants him. Her hand drops from his hair, circles around the back of his neck like a half-collar, and his eyes shut tight with something between sadness and longing. “Yes, you are.”
