!! Spoilers for Julian’s route in Book VI & paid scenes !!
After the update, I wanted to try touching a little bit on Jules’s predilections. ;D It’s not nsfw or anything, so don’t get too excited lol. And it’s not too spoiler-y, but just in case.
1300 words, Julian/Apprentice, teen by AO3
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“Julian,” Xan hissed.
His closed eyelids scrunched up, and he made an unhappy sound. Leaning on her elbow over him, she reached out to squeeze his shoulder. ‘Leaning over him’ was a bit of a misnomer, though; the little twin bed had her practically sprawled over his chest. This had had its benefits and its detriments in the couple of hours she’d drifted asleep, and if he weren’t so exhausted from the vampire eel bite she’d suspect the ‘benefits and detriments’ would have increased tenfold.
“Julian.”
“I’m-- I’m up, I’m up,” he squinted at her, at the dark still pressing against the cottage’s little window. “What is it?”
“I need to go,” Xan said. She sat up. “I don’t want the palace missing me.”
He glanced at the dark window again. “So soon?”
She paused. His heavy eye gazed up at her, misty and with a knitted brow. Like a flitting, nervous bird, his hand brushed across her knuckles. He was a dangerous man, Julian Devorak-- but not in the way Nadia believed. His desperate staring and his red mouth parted and his rose-colored flush, which he had brandished at her on several occasions already in a single night-- threatened to tie themselves around her ankle like a bag of bricks and toss her in the canal. A canal of something she wouldn’t mind tasting.
Her hand still on his shoulder, she plucked at his shirt. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to try something before I go.”
“Oh?” he said, a smile threatening his lips.
“Easy, tiger,” she said. “Could you do the thing again?”
She tapped at her throat where the mark of his curse had appeared last night. His smile slipped away, and she could practically see the thoughts flashing through his head.
“I just want another look. Examine it. Play a little magical doctor.”
His chest puffed with a snort of laughter at that. He spread his arms over the thin straw mattress until his long arms had his hands dangling over the edge. He gave her a look.
“Like I said, darling,” he drawled. “The offer still stands.”
She cocked a brow at him.
He continued. “Although, you’ll have to--” His eye wandered up and down her form. “Mar some lovely--”
She was already up and digging in her bag before he could finish the thought. She returned to the bed with her dagger, and climbed back up. Except this time she swung her leg over to straddle him. His eye widening, he inhaled sharply. She settled back around his waist, keeping most of her weight in her legs and off his gut.
Xan gave him her own look.
“Comfortable?” she asked.
“...Yes,” he managed.
She couldn’t lie-- the immediate change in him, in the smoothness of his voice gone rough and tight, excited her. Her heart jumped and ran her pulse a little faster. Leaning forward, she picked his hand up by the wrist. As she bent, her breath ghosted over his chin and his mouth moved instinctively, as if he would chase pell-mell after a kiss if allowed. She placed his hand on the pillow by his head, palm-up.
She sat back.
Tightening her grip on the dagger, she paused. “I’m going to be using my magic-- I’ll be careful, but tell me if it’s uncomfortable or painful.”
The fingers of his hand on the pillow flexed, as if restricted by an invisible bind. He nodded sharply.
“Yes,” he blurted.
Xan avoided his overbright gaze; that was something for another time, when there was more time. Dagger flashing, she cut the palm of her hand. Blood welled up from the wound, the skin around it going pink. She presented the cut to him.
Julian blinked, and the seal on his throat blazed with white moonlight, illuminating his face. The skin of his palm, one moment clean and unbroken under long and elegant fingers, welled with a cut mirroring hers. Except she didn’t have hers anymore.
Quickly, Xan bent forward. She pushed his chin up with the heel of her hand, tilting his head back. She wasn’t exactly rough, but she wasn’t gentle either. Julian squirmed.
“Stay still,” she told him.
He stilled. She still had her weight on her legs, and only just barely hovered along his body. Heat pooled in that thin gap between them.
Xan focused on the sigil. Just by sight alone, she knew it was Asra’s. The certain turn and curls of the marks came from his hand, and the way the integral will of the magic was parsed brought his voice into her ear. Before the white light of the mark could dissipate, she tossed out her magic. She slipped through the twists and turns of the curse, intuiting the paths by her innate knowledge of Asra and his ways. Like body-memory.
It felt… dark. Dark and unknowable and intensely hungry. Ardent and needy.
And she couldn’t find the end of it. She could fumble her way through the labyrinth of the magic, but she couldn’t-- just a little more, and she could have it-- She knew--
The mark on his throat faded away.
Xan made a frustrated sound, her breath wafting over the blank patch of skin where it had been. She only realized then how deep and fast his chest was fluttering beneath her. She sat back.
Julian stared at her, half-jerking up as if to follow her. “Xanthioppe--”
She ignored this. “I couldn’t get it. But I feel as if I could, if just--”
His hand fumbled at her ankle, her calf. “Please. Anything. I want-- I want--”
She couldn’t help it; time was scarce, but his flushed face and bitten lip made her want to reward him a little.
She fell back forward, slipped her hand behind his head, and dug her fingers into his red locks. She yanked him back into the pillow. He hissed. She nuzzled into his jaw.
“Don’t tell me what you want,” she said, low and imperious. “I know exactly what you want.”
Loud and guttural in her ear, he groaned. She trailed kisses up his jaw. His hands fluttered at her sides, and she tightened her grip in his hair. Her mouth found his, her tongue opened him, and her lips pushed him. She could taste heat in his mouth and in the thumping of his chest against her breast.
Xan released his hair from her grip and sat up.
Even with the long night and the short sleep, she’d still had enough red lip-paint on to leave a mess on his face. She turned to his palm again and ran a finger over the now completely unbroken skin. He briefly closed his fingers over hers before she slipped away and climbed down from the thin mattress.
“You should go back to sleep and really rest,” she told him.
He grinned up at her and spread his limbs out. “And how do you expect me to do that? Leaving me here, alone and weak and vulnerable to the ministrations of a callous old woman--”
“I’m telling her you said that.”
Xan picked up her bag and straightened her clothes.
“...Will I see you again?” Julian asked.
She turned back to him. “Shouldn’t you be a little more afraid of seeing me again? Remember where I’m returning?”
He just gazed back at her with that tremulous look in his eye. She went back, bent to him, and plucked at his shirt. Folding the fabric, she pressed her lips down hard around it. She released it and the red kiss she’d left behind.
“I’ll know you by the mark I left,” she smiled.
He smiled too, and despite the burning in her back from the lingering look he gave her, she left the little cottage for the quiet night.
♤ !!! with some hair washing thrown in? Julian and apprentice? I loved your writing so far <3
Aww!! Thank you so much for the compliment! I really liked this prompt. It was very fluffy and fun to write. :D
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Julian and Xan share a bath and are gross and cute.
1456 words, Julian/Apprentice, teen by AO3 (some nudity)
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“Your nose,” Xan tried.
“That’s too easy. And I’ll have you know– my nose is aquiline and quite dignified.”
“Hmm.”
Julian tried a wounded look, and nearly convinced with the broad pink flush he wore from the bath water’s heat. It made the freckles on his shoulders stand out like spilt drops of strawberry juice. They sat facing each other, the length of their bodies aligned and floaty (with Julian being a bit more scrunched up). Calves glanced off sides and thigh clung to thigh.
Lavender and soap scents wafted on copious steam rising from the water.
Leaning back against the wall of the brass tub covered in white cotton to protect from burns, Xan slipped a bit further into the froth and her leg broke the bath’s surface.
Her big toe booped him on the nose. He flinched from the flinging droplets and her brandished foot.
Xan laughed. “Don’t worry. I like your nose, too. Very dignified.”
He tried to cover just how much this mollified him by draping his arms over the edge of the tub and flexing his shoulders in the way he knew was so distracting. And she knew he knew, because he gave her that irritating knowing look. The one where he turned insultingly handsome.
“My turn,” Julian said. “Hm.”
She sat a bit straighter, and gave him sparkle-eyes. Head cocked to the side, he studied her with his full dark brow raised and his fine lips playing with a slow smile. She dipped her head back, and tossed her wet bundle of pitch-colored hair to the side, fluttering her lashes between dripping strands.
He grinned. “I can’t pick a single thing. You’re perfectly beautiful.”
She laughed and looked away, lifting a hand to push her hair back. “Don’t be such a quitter. Everyone has their hang-ups.”
He tilted, still grinning, so that her line of sight framed him again. “Isn’t this the bit where you thank me?”
Xan made herself look back up. Her hand patted at the water’s surface to splash him a little.
“Okay, handsome,” she said. “Thank you. That was sweet.”
His smile blossomed from smug to stupid-happy and pink. Steam clung to his lashes and hair.
“Well? What’s your hang-up, then?” he asked.
“My feet.”
“What?”
She laughed self-consciously. “My feet. They’re too big.”
She’d lift one out of the water to demonstrate, but now that she’d said it her gut felt all small and twisted up about it. Stupid. She just barely resisted the urge to pulled her legs out from beside him and curl them to her chest.
“But you never wear real boots or anything,” he said, surprised.
She only ever wore flimsy sandals. “Because I like my ankles. And my legs are just glorious, so…” She shrugged.
Julian chuckled. “I’m also pretty fond of your legs. But–” He reached under the water and ran a gentle thumb over the top of her foot. “But your feet are perfectly beautiful, too.”
“Stop, that tickles–” Xan laughed. She jerked her foot away, but he just captured her ankle and gave her a look that left her far more light-headed than the heat.
She pushed another miniature tidal wave at him. “Okay, okay. I confessed– now you.”
“Ah. Well…” he hesitated.
She gave him the sparkle-eyes again– a ridiculous enough face that cracked his sudden tension. He snorted.
“Don’t do that. You know I can’t resist that face.”
“Oh yeah? You like this, huh?”
“No, don’t– you’re the worst.”
She relented and smiled a normal smile.
Julian coughed. “My hair.”
Her brow rose.
“It’s– ah– very red. And curly.” He turned extremely pink. “I got teased a lot as a child.”
“Oh noooo,” Xan cooed.
“Yes. I’ve heard it all– ginger, tomato-head, fire crotch–”
She made a strangled sound. He gave her a look of stiff hauteur. She giggled, apologizing until she had herself back under control.
“Portia doesn’t seem to mind.”
“She’s made of tougher stuff.”
“So you still feel weird about it?”
“Well,” he continued. “I’ve mostly outgrown it. But I used to be miserable over it: tried to dye it black once.”
“Oh, Julian,” she sighed fondly. She propped her head on her arm, balancing on the edge of the tub. Her eyes softened to a hazy tenderness.
She straightened. She gestured to him. “Come here.”
He blinked at her.
“Just come on. Trust me.”
Hesitating a moment longer, he drifted more than swam across the tub’s span to her. He felt much like a nervy alley cat being coaxed by the scent of lavender and rosehip and a gentle smile. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t used to her touch by now, but he still felt a little raw when she put her hands on his shoulders. She pushed him softly until he had his back to her.
Somehow this was worse. He could feel the heat of her behind him, and he could feel the flicking water as she rose on her knees, but he couldn’t see her or gauge her expression.
She squeezed his shoulders, and he felt her soft lips press into his neck and pepper up to his cheek.
“Okay,” Xan said. “Get your hair in the water.”
Julian glanced at her, and she gave him another encouraging cheek peck. He complied and tilted back. She pushed up against the wall of the tub to give him room with her torso exposed. From this position he could admire a great deal of her, but he didn’t feel much like leering. He hadn’t been lying when he said she was perfectly beautiful.
Resurfacing, he pushed heavy wet curls off his face and sat up. Her hands pushed his out of the way, combing and raking over his scalp gently. The sensation made him pause and want to– to purr. He’d be glad that she couldn’t see his face, but knew that his ears had turned scarlet as well.
She stopped to reach for a glass bottle of shampoo, unstopping it and pouring out a good dollop. Her hands went back to his hair and slowly worked a lather all over his head. The smell of soap and flower perfume and the heady lullaby of lavender blanketed his senses. Her fingers spread and kneaded into his scalp in an easy and slow rhythm. The tension seemed to flood away from her hands, down his back, and away into the water’s heat. He found himself leaning back into her, his back pressing into her stomach and breasts.
The contact– the sheer sensation of sharing skin warmth with someone– sat with pleasant heaviness in his chest and surged like syrup to catch in his throat. He hummed.
Her fingers continued to massage thick suds in his hair until he felt completely weightless and noodle-y. She rested her elbows on his shoulders, dispersing the shampoo on her hands into the water.
Xan nuzzled her her nose into his cheek. “Ready?”
It took him a moment, but he nodded. With reluctant slowness he wiggled down to slip his hair back into the water. With the ocean roaring in his ears under the surface, her fingers found his scalp again. The same rhythm of kneading continued. Julian closed his eyes.
Everything felt close and suspended from time and good.
All too soon, her hand tapped him on the collar. He came up again, and she pressed excess water from his hair. She was careful about not combing through his curls and frizzing them out. Her hands found another bottle– hair oil– and worked that in as well.
He sat, content and without a single thought in his head, in her arms with their cheeks resting against one another.
“I like your hair,” Xan whispered. “Very, very much.”
Julian reached up a hand to her arm, stroking into the skin slightly chilled from sitting out of the water for so long. He shifted and turned his head.
Their eyes met, so close their noses brushed and their lashes danced together. Their lips so near in a not-quite-a-kiss. He didn’t have to think– this wasn’t complicated. It was the simplest thing in the world. Beginnings are nice in their own ways, once you’re out of the restless pacing and uncertainties of what if I’m not enough and there’s no possibility of them ever feeling the same. It’s nice to feel nostalgic about that.
But it was better not to have to second guess about capturing her lips and pushing them apart and tasting a response just as warm as his own.
He pulled back to stare at her. “I am very much in love with you.”
Red, she smiled. “Mmm.” She pressed yet another of those light nibbles to his cheek.
♡: Accidentally falling asleep together- For the Arcana, if you're up for that :)
Haha, this sort of grew beyond the bounds of the prompt??? Oh, whatever. Thank you so much for the prompt~~ :D
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Asra plans a Completely Platonic date to starwatch with Xan, and they succumb to a Completely Platonic falling asleep together situation which is Completely Platonic.
2357 words, Asra/Apprentice (Completely Platonic tho!!!), teen by AO3
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In a cold country many leagues away, where the air bites with the scent of pines and the homes huddle together against the abuse of icy winds– a woman makes clocks. Her workshop spans wide, and dozens of apprentices bustle through the sawdust and the copper shavings. On the exterior, the woman’s creations gleam with gilding. But on the interior cogs and wheels and delicate arms and counterweights reveal themselves like the labyrinth that is the human anatomy.
The inner workings of these clocks are so fussy and convoluted, that if just one miniscule part goes amiss then the whole thing could fail. He had seen several of the clockmaker’s apprentices told off for letting the workshop grow cold; the chill saps the energy of those mechanisms like blight.
Asra wondered just what mysterious little inner part of him had gone so astray as to leave him to do the things he did.
The restaurant owner sneezed again. “Those damn things in the cellar are gonna kill me.”
“I’ll be sure to give you a poignant eulogy,” Asra smiled. “All about what a saint you were, helping a dear customer.”
The man snorted. “A customer that sits on a tab and lets his apprentice pay for it.”
“Hmm,” Asra hummed. “As enlightened as you are, I’d have thought you beyond materialism.”
The man made a disgusted noise and turned away. He snuffled.
“I swear. Pollen’ll be the death of me one of these days.”
As the restaurant owner turned his attention to a handkerchief, Asra topped off his tea with the warm pot sitting on his table. He cradled the delicate porcelain of the cup and gazed back out the open arches into the square. The sun sat heavy in the sky, and the bleached blue of day took on the peaches and tangerines of an encroaching evening. The stall hawkers set up in the square and the cafe owners lining it had returned some hours ago from the midday siesta the whole city took everyday when the heat became truly unbearable.
Now, even the lazy late business hours would come to a close and the taverns would light their lanterns, inviting them all in to forget the sweat of the day.
Asra watched the half-hearted work of the stall owners. He watched the strolling passerby laden with packages or empty-handed and merely looking for social calls. He sipped his tea. It flowered on his tongue, and made him think of a bundle of blooming amaranth and jasmine tea he had sitting on the shelf at home.
He saw her and he straightened in his seat, leaning back into the restaurant’s shade.
Xan emerged from a side street. In a flutter of sheer dusk-colored silks, she circled around the plaza with steps that always reminded him of the eternally smooth ebb and flow of the ocean. And she could always catch you, hold you and your gaze hostage, even from leagues away with her brilliantly red lip-paint. Or at least it seemed that way to him.
Asra’s hand rotated his teacup by rote memory of idle behavior as his eyes followed Xan. She stopped at their favorite vegetable peddler. If you were just another city dweller, you’d have to get up in time for the best of the day’s wares, but the shopkeeps in their area tended to stick together. This peddler always saved good pickings from her stock for Xan to pick up when she had time at the end of the day.
As Xan chatted away, the sun slipped low, hovering above the horizon with a glory of gold spilling into the world.
This, honestly, had been what he’d sat at this table for hours for. The reason he’d skulked around town and avoided all the more talkative gossips. The reason he’d returned to Vesuvia and hadn’t instantly turned his feet toward home.
He watched light paint her soft and rich. It made gilding of her dark hair, and glitter of her amber skin.
The restaurant owner plopped a fresh tea pot on his table and Asra jumped. The man gave him a look.
“This your last pot?” he asked.
Asra smiled and made a show of considering this. “Most likely.”
The man huffed and muttered something along the lines of ‘Why does she put up with him.’ Asra nursed his tea again and waited until Xan finished her shopping. She left the square in the direction of her shop. He put down his cup and gave the restaurant owner a new order. The sun was properly setting by the time he left, and dark blue threatened the wisps of gold and pink in the sky.
“Ready to go home, Faust?” Asra asked.
Over his shoulder, he hefted a large cloth-covered bundle emitting delicious spiced steam, and on his hip he clutched an enormous bouquet of roses, blush and many-petaled and decidedly chilled from the restaurant’s cellar. Faust uncurled from around his collar. She poked her head into the roses, and wiggled off his shoulder into them.
“She’ll like that,” he laughed softly.
He trailed pink petals and mouth-watering scents through alleys and lanes all the way home.
Slipping around the side of the building, he had to set down the flowers on the step by the backdoor as he dug out his key. He always half-expected (half-dreaded) for things to be different when he came back. Occasionally new silks went up in the windows, or a container of tea would disappear, but the smell of incense and herbs and lemon balm was always the same. A canvas bag of vegetables and bread sat on the wobbly kitchen table (the one she was always threatening to turn into kindling), and a fire had been lit in the brick oven.
Attracted by the sound of the door and his clatter in putting down the food, Xan appeared in the doorway.
She blinked at him, brandishing a bottle of wine and a dagger.
His chest tightening, Asra raised a brow. “I guess I’m relieved to know it’s not just Faust protecting this place.”
Silent, she studied his face. Her eyes dropped to her hands and the dagger; she laughed.
A line of tension in his back loosened. Truly, he still did expect that one of these days he would return and the locks would all be changed and she would no longer give him a laugh and a smile like that. In fact, the partings were growing harder. Her face stony and her words clipped and ironic, she wouldn’t look at him as he said goodbye.
But even so, she always met his return with a smile.
As evidence of his cruelty, of the single faulty cog destroying his mechanism, he sometimes wanted to leave just to have that smile turned towards him again.
Xan put the bottle and dagger down. “I couldn’t find the corkscrew.”
She held out her hands and fluttered her fingers, her lips curled with self-satisfaction. Asra’s stomach flipped. He stepped closer and placed the enormous bouquet into her waiting arms.
With the warm light of candles casting a reflection of the roses’ pink color up onto her face, Xan hummed as she stuck her nose into the petals and their perfume. Faust burst from the flowers, and Xan jumped.
She laughed and pet the top of her little head with a single finger. “Well, hello to you, too, cutie.”
“Shouldn’t you greet Faust, too?” Asra asked.
Xan glanced at him. She rolled her eyes.
“Yes,” she said, staring him down. “It’s good to see you, too. You’re also terribly cute– Faust.”
She punctuated this by leaning forward to peck him on the cheek. As she bustled around him, he did his best to squash his rising blush. Xan put down the bouquet, and Faust slithered off to find a warm spot.
“What’s all this?” Xan asked, untying the cloth bundle he’d brought in. She opened the tins of food. “This is from Maro’s– did you put all this on tabs?”
Asra bent to the oven, flicking a little spell out to dampen the wood fire.
“And the flowers, too–”
Crouching, Asra looked up at her with a soft smile. “I thought we could make a picnic of watching the meteor shower.”
Her emotions clearly battled one another as she gazed at him. She relented with a reluctantly amused sigh.
“I really thought you weren’t going to make it,” she said.
“It’s only once every few decades,” he said. “Who knows where we’ll be the next time?”
Something passed through her eyes. “Hmm. Hopefully not too far.”
Asra just smiled. He plucked a rose from the bouquet and snapped off the long stem. With light fingers, he tucked it into the hair piled on her head. His hands fell, and lingered on her shoulders. Xan was just a bit taller than him, and the problem with being similar heights was that it made a flush and a charged expression all the more evident. Much closer and harder to escape.
He stepped back.
They busied themselves with taking the food, the flowers, the wine, and a blanket up to the rooftop terrace. Another trip for every cushion and pillow in the house, and they sat together in the encroaching darkness, laughing when they mixed up the dishes and played a dangerous game of who could get the wine open without properly seeing it. And then an even more dangerous game because they’d forgotten the glasses and passed the bottle between them, tasting the lingering heat of each other’s lips.
Juvenile, but he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about it. He was glad of the dark and the quickly emptying bottle of wine and the quickly opened second bottle. He was glad of these screens against her gaze, which he knew would so easily discern that faulty cog within him. All the faulty cogs that broke his mechanism and froze him in eternal suspension, never ticking ahead.
He feared her seeing him for who he really was one day: petty and cruel and heartless.
Undeserving.
Surely, surely she must already know. But if she did, then how could she smile every time he returned, how could she lay there on the roof with him, their arms burning where they touched, and laughing as he spun some elaborate, exaggerated tale from far away for her?
Even so, he wanted her to continue laughing like that, mouth wide and lip-paint smudged and tears leaking from her eyes. He wanted her to come closer like that and let her legs tangle with his. He wanted her to spill to him the secrets of her heart, all her insecurities. He wanted all of it without reciprocity. He wanted all of her beautiful defects without revealing his own.
Those were the lengths his selfishness would go.
“Xan,” he whispered. “Xan.”
She breathed deep against his shoulder. Her hand rested on his chest where his vest parted, below his sternum. The warmth of her palm against his bare skin hurt.
“Xanthioppe,” he said.
She’d long banned him from using her full name; that was for great-aunts and lovers, she’d said. Asra reached up to lightly touch the flower he’d put in her hair. She breathed deep.
For a while, he just watched the slow turn of the dark heavens and the blue stars with the heavy scent of roses pulling his heart tight. The wine in his head wore down, and the awareness of her body against his made him want to squirm. He froze, trying to steady his breath.
One brilliant spark shot across the sky, and then another. And another and another until his heart pounded and trembled in his chest. A great flock of rampant lights fled over the black dome above. Asra’s breath caught. The heavens and the earth moved, the whip-lash leaving him paralyzed and breathless.
He should wake her. He should let her see this and he should watch the dance of starlight mirror in her eyes.
But he couldn’t bring himself to disturb her. It would mean she’d move from him and take away her closeness and heat. It would break the spell the night and the wine and the flowers had cast over them.
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Xan opened her eyes to an expanse of azure, green, and gold above, dotted with wispy clouds. She shifted, aware of Asra beside her and a stiffness in her limbs. She sat up with a small sigh. The rose has fallen out of her hair and gotten crushed at some point, its petals littering the blanket and sticking to her skin. The city rooftops sprawled around them and the small sounds of the populace stirring drifted up.
“I missed it,” she said.
Soft movements led her eye down. Asra had a forearm lifted to shield his eyes, and a small frown sat on his lips. He never was much of a morning person.
Mindful of the little plates and open tins around them, Xan stood and padded to the steps down into the house. She returned as the blue and green of first light had warmed, juggling a covered cup of hot tea in one hand and a hooded falcon on the gauntlet of the other. She laid the tea beside Asra’s head where he could smell the jasmine.
Straightening, she smoothed down the speckled plumage of Pazu’s breast. He made an inquisitive chirp.
At the edge of the terrace, Xan pulled his hood away. His black eyes considered her before she held her arm aloft and let him fly free. He promised to bring her back a rabbit; much better than the magician’s ill-smelling offerings.
She laughed under her breath and watched Pazu go.
Her gaze drew back to Asra. He gazed back. Her laughter died. He’d seen something she hadn’t, and he made it difficult to meet his eyes, as prickled and thorned and caught all over her as they were.
She padded to the blanket and sat back down beside him. He straightened, sipping his tea, and they watched as the sun rose in a furor of orange.
hoho~ “Where are you going? It’s late.” for anything the arcana~ :3c
Hohohohoho~~~ Giving this ship a whirl. :DDD
960 words, Asra/Apprentice/Julian, OT3, teen rating by AO3 (some nudity)
At night, the screams of desert owls drifted from leagues away over dunes and dusty scree, and the coyotes mournfully cried for each other, for good hunting. Sometimes a dream of a dream of the viridian and aqua scents of an oasis can be imagined to have found its way to civilization, on beams of starlight. But this was all long and away from the city and its pockets of laughing revelers and the wailing alley cats in heat.
Here, in the little loft above the little shop on a little street, the quiet hung heavy with the breath of sleepers and Asra’s soft movements. They’d put up the silk curtains before bed, but only the barest of a breeze pulled at his white curls. Yet a great deal of moonlight poured in, washing their little world in blue and brightness.
Perhaps that great pool of moonlight could fill the void of his absence.
Asra slipped off the end of the mattress, careful not to disturb them. They’d brought his mattress up some time ago and pushed it up against hers to make a bed just big enough for three. In the cooler seasons, anyway. During the real swelters of summer, Julian and Xan would complain of the sweaty closeness until they escaped up to the roof.
In some ways, Asra liked those months of spreading his limbs wide across the cool surface of blankets. But sometimes the empty spaces beside him dug into him in a way his lone pallet for traveling never did. Or much more infrequently, anyway.
Asra padded across the room and scooped up an item here and there. Coiled around his waist, Faust stirred and crawled up about his shoulders. He absently stroked her head with a finger, letting her curious tongue flick against his skin. On his perch and hooded, Pazu ignored him.
“Where are you going? It’s late.”
He looked up. Julian sat up on an elbow, gazing at him. His pale skin particularly caught the violet gleam of the moon, mingling with the hair on his bare chest. And the hair elsewhere. He abhorred wearing anything to bed, as did Xan many nights. Beyond Julian, her chest still rose and fell evenly, her face turned to the wall.
“You were supposed to go in the morning,” Julian added.
At that, his eyes darted and heat traveled over his face. Asra couldn’t do anything but smile. That wasn’t strictly, true, though. He could put down the bag in his hand and climb back into bed. Let Julian wrap him up again in his arms, and pull Xan to himself.
But he just smiled and watched the flit of emotion over Julian’s features.
Jules sighed. He gestured to Asra, and Asra retraced his steps, kneeling by the edge of the mattress. Julian’s hand cupped his cheek. His thumb feathered gently across his cheekbone. Hesitating just a moment, Asra leaned into the warm palm. He did his best not to turn away, to flinch, from the look in Julian’s eye. That dark brow came down to shadow a feeling with a depth both beguiling Asra and stirring within him a jolt of fear.
An old and familiar jolt of fear. He’d improved, of course; he could say the things that needed to be said without wishing them undone, he could envision a future with the two recipients of those words. He could tell them ahead of time when he would be gone.
He’d improved, really.
Julian’s hand traveled around behind Asra’s neck. They met in a kiss. For once, Asra bent over Julian, but that dragging pull in the deepest part of his soul that should no longer catch him unawares but yet always did– that terribly, horribly, voluntary drowning in a trap of his own making seized him. Of their own making.
Julian’s mouth moved against his like a tide of sand at high-noon, like lava. The scent of those red curls brushing his eyelids comforted him, made his throat catch and heat rise behind his eyes. The coffee and the sweat and something unmistakably Jules. It was one half of the world Asra woke up to, fell asleep to.
What was he doing? Was he really going?
Julian sighed, pulling back. He rested his forehead against Asra’s. Their breath mingled, hot and acrid.
Julian brushed his nose against his. “We’ll be waiting.”
Asra blinked back the heat and tried to pull on his smile again. He glanced over at Xan. She was still asleep. Julian shifted and gave him space to crawl back over to her. She was darker than Julian– she was golden and bare and painted orchid with moonlight. That old guilt rose in his gut.
“Xan,” Asra whispered.
She didn’t stir, and he bent to brush a kiss against her jaw, on her throat. Xan grunted unhappily, mumbled a curse at him, and rolled over onto her stomach. She curled around his knees with her black hair sprawling.
Asra pushed the hair off her neck and face, because it would drive her crazy if left alone.
“Will you talk to her in the morning?” he asked Julian.
“I’m not your intermediary.”
He glanced up at him. Another familiar conversation, that. But Julian’s sleepy eye held no venom, nor did his words. Just reminding him.
Julian pulled him near to plant another kiss on his forehead.
“We’ll be waiting.”
Asra left. As Faust curled around his shoulders, and his feet fell softly on the cobbles, he knew that in a little loft above a little shop on a little street he left behind an empty space pooled with moonlight. He also knew that empty spot, and the two halves of his world that cradled it, would be waiting for his return.
So I’m trying to do this inktober for writers, and I felt like doing something for Nadia, b/c I haven’t written for her yet. :)
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Frowning, Nadia flipped through the book of silks. Filmy charmeuse that pooled like springwater in her hand, chiffon that flirted with her skin like air, and ornate brocade that asserted itself like a millenia of ancestry. Examples of beading so heavy with stones and gems that she could imagine a full gown of such material dragging with delicious exhibitionism.
And she had to address not just the nature of the fabric, but the color! The color would be everything.
She was fond of a vivid lip, so red? Red, though… Such an unlucky color in Vesuvia. But Nadia knew she wouldn’t care a bit for that.
She suppressed a smile at the image of her, cocking that brow, whirling in a shock of red silk and daring anyone to comment.
Pink? Her favorite roses were pink… And pink did so suit those fine red lips…
Nadia tossed down the book of fabric, waving imperiously at the merchant’s fussing to hide her growing blush.
Silly. She was being positively silly. Worrying so about fabrics and patterns and embroidery of a single dress like this. Searching for the perfect ensemble for days.
But, what could she do? Sometimes she felt so helpless, trapped behind this mask of ‘Countess.’ What Countess? She didn’t know so many things, had to pretend to so many guises, and couldn’t even definitively say who she was, at her core.
Good food and courtly manners and finery-- she could at least be sure of these things. She could, at the very least, shower her money and taste on… people… she harbored warm affections for.
And perhaps these… people… would suffer an afternoon of Nadia comparing swatches to her skin.
She gestured for the servants to gather up all the silk and jewels. Yes. Perhaps she would.
Her thin sandals discarded by the door, she sat at the kitchen table with a basin of cool water by her feet. She flicked droplets at his shins in lieu of answering.
Asra knelt.
“What are you doing?” she said.
As his fingers worked the dust of the city from the pads of her toes and her arches and her heels, he thought about how far her feet had taken her from him. How far she still had to travel to come back.
He kneaded the water’s chill into her gradually relaxing muscles, and he thought it would be fine, too, if she went without shoes and never traveled any farther than this: this togetherness, this smile that resembled an old smile in that far away place.
This resembled it, but it was good on its own, too.
During a night at the Raven, Xan asks for a lock of Julian’s hair. ‘It’s not for anything untoward,’ she says with a smile. ‘Unless you want something a bit untoward.’
People are entitled to their secrets. Xan felt quite strongly about this. She herself had several: the bar she went to to be anonymous, her hidden stash of chocolate, her numerous middle names. But… certain people had so many damned secrets she highly suspected they needed a map to walk the line between the tangles of their lies. And these certain people were hobbling certain other people in the mire of their falsehoods-- chiefly, principally, and most importantly herself!
“I realize how unfair this sounds,” Julian said. “But really, some things are just meant to be left unsaid. For now.”
“For now,” Xan repeated. She cocked a brow at him.
He at least had the decency to look abashed, which is certainly more than she got out of others. At the crones’ card table, someone must have won, or cheated or something, because a great ruckus and pounding of tankards erupted from that corner of the tavern. Julian took the moment to recompose himself.
“How can I show you my trust?” he asked.
She paused. His brow drew soft and deep into his expression, neither the blushing self-consciousness he wore when surprised and flattered nor the devilish superiority he wore while teasing. Something of both and more. His gaze upon her and the way his fingers reached out across the table to graze across her knuckles-- without a word he told her how serious he was, and truthfully she could be content with that.
Except she wasn’t about to let him off that easily.
Xan propped her chin up on her hands and stared. “Give me a lock of your hair.”
His brow shot up. “A-- for what?”
“Nothing untoward,” she drawled with a small smile. That she had to say so was her own fault; she had been the one to tell him the demon story.
“Unless you want me to use it for something untoward,” she continued. He reddened a bit. “To make a charm so that I can always find you if I need to.”
A series of emotions passed through his eye. “In what circumstances?”
“I’m not going to be barging in on you day and night. But it would be nice to have some security in case Nadia ever gets ahead of me.”
Hesitation still pulled at his thin lips. She did her best to flush out her disappointment. She gentled her smirk to a smile and turned his hand over on the table, brushing her thumb into his palm. Clearing his throat, he looked away.
“And what if I want to find you?” Julian asked.
She considered this. Straightening, she reached up into her hair piled upon her head and released half of it. Her hand easily found her dagger in the bag beside her and cut away a few strands of long, silky black hair. She took the strands, pulled his hand closer, and tied a loosely-fitting ring around his finger.
He watched her, the corner of his mouth twitching and his gaze cycling through emotions.
Having tied the ring off with an overlarge bow, Xan lifted his hand closer. She glanced up at him for a fraction of a moment. Closing her eyes, she gently blew a warm breath across his finger and the ring. Willing it so, she imbued the charm with herself and a promise.
She looked up-- and blinked.
Julian largely resembled a tomato now-- the interior of a pomegranate, beet juice, and all other personages shocked beyond words (and frankly a little turned on). He coughed into his free hand as his nose wrinkled in annoyance at himself. Xan let go of his hand, but pinned it back to the table with a single finger as she smiled a cat’s smile.
“How does it work?” he asked.
Her pinning finger traveled back to the ring of hair and brushed it. “Just focus on it-- touch it if you need to-- and will yourself to find me.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
He stared down at the charm and her fingers. Pulling his gaze, he turned his hand over and captured hers. He tugged lightly.
“Alright,” he said.
“Alright…?”
He reached up to touch his own hair. “Make your charm.”
She felt a smile spread across her red lips. Her hand released his as she slid the dagger across the knobby surface of the table to him.
He slid it right back.
“No,” Julian said. He leaned back into the seat and propped his arm across the back of the bench. “You do it.”
Xan cocked a brow at him. With his height, he always took up a lot of room, but with his limbs spread and that tucked up little smug smirk about his lips-- their alcove pressed all that much closer. A boot skimmed up her calf under the table. He was too good-looking sometimes; with that aquiline nose, the soft scarlet curls, and the glow of candlelight slipping across a fine jawline and down a tender neck, a naked clavicle, and across a broad chest. Entirely too good-looking, indeed.
Another burst of laughter and anger from the card table shook her from her momentary lapse. She plucked the dagger up. Sliding out of her seat, she circled around to the other side of the table. Her raised brow met his roaming gaze. She reached out to his hair.
Julian snapped back from her hands. He leaned even further into the alcove, beyond her reach. He eyed her with that smirk.
“Nope,” he said.
Xan worked her jaw. He did like to posture a bit, didn’t he? Peacock.
She slapped the dagger down, planted a foot on the bench beside his thigh, and climbed up to sit directly on top the table. Before he could do more than blink at her, she tugged on his collar until he sat in front of her, pinned between her knees. The long silks of her mantle twisted aside and left her legs bare. His eye wide, Julian stared down at them.
Her hand still clutching his collar, Xan tugged again. “Up here, doctor.”
Her spine curled, pleased with herself and his expression. Her hand searched around for the dagger. As she found it and lifted it up, something in the light shifted the air between them. Something about the way they stared tied knots in their breath and brought heat up from the depths.
Xan shifted, breaking eye contact and licking her lips. His hands feathered up the side of her thighs and found her waist.
“Go on,” he said.
Exhaling, she straightened and ignored the coolness of his fingers pressing into her skin. He bent his head forward and she steadied him, choosing a velvety red curl and wielding her dagger. For all her own bluster, she did her best to be gentle: holding the lock at the base and sawing away with slow care.
His breath ghosted across her chest.
She had to stop for a second. Making herself continue, she prayed he hadn’t noticed but knew very well that he had. Damn him.
With the separated lock in her hand, the color stark against her amber palm, she presented it to Julian.
“Now blow on it,” she told him.
Despite his own (quite glaring) flush, he gave her a look that brought warmth up her neck. Still, he obliged, sending the hot humidity of his breath coiling into the cradle of her palm. Xan willed her desire into the charm. The familiar resettling of reality shot through her, like a soft summer sigh.
A tension she hadn’t known she’d been clutching unraveled; the assurance of finding him if she needed to had meant more to her than she’d realized.
Her fingers closed around the red curl, and he tilted upward for a slow drag of a kiss.
Tagging anyone who wishes to, and @squarelyblue, @eviemeli, @makuo-san, and @asras-damn-smirk but only if you want to~
Open curtains | Closed blinds
Stray dog | House cat
People | Pets (she’d refuse to pick)
Outside | Inside
Half-empty | Half-full
TV | Radio
Sing | Dance
Shoes | Sandals
Cash | Credit
Hike | Drive
Casual | Elegant
Center | Corner
Sword | Shield
Airplane | Boat
Fizzy | Flat
Garnished | Plain
Extra salt | Extra pepper
Spicy | Mild
Record player | Digital media
Opaque | Transparent
White lies | Complete truth
Blunt | Subtle
Noisy | Silent
Books | Music
Familiar | New
Youth | Experience
Spoon | Fork and knife
Knife | Baseball bat
Space | Ocean
Bow and arrow | Blow dart
Love at first sight | Slow burn
Freckles | Dimples
Long eyelashes | Long fingers
Soft lips | Sensitive neck
Stubble | Thick hair
Slow dance | Intimate conversation
Candlelight dinner | Stargazing
