#rokutouxei
Author:@rokutouxei
Fandom: Ikemen Revolution
Character(s): Ray Blackwell / Female MC
Rating: E
Warnings: aphrodisiacs, cockwarming, implied oral sex, implied fingering, vaginal sex, dirty talk, begging, creampie, Black Army Officers Being Idiots And Messing With Each Other In Harmless But Horny Fun, sirius & mc being good friends
Prompt: “You enjoy what I do to you.”
Summary: Sometimes, you decide to take a little vacation back to the Land of Reason. It’s not much, and you never really spend more than a month there, just enough to come in and out, but even a month sometimes is too much for Ray…
“Alice? Sweetie, are you alright?”
You jolt from where you’ve just been intently staring at the pea on your plate to turn slowly to Seth across the table. For a moment, you’d completely forgotten you were still at the dining table with the rest of the Black Army leaders. You grin, a little half-heartedly, but it’s all acting on your part.
“Yeah. Just a little tired, sorry.”
Sirius doesn’t seem to buy it. “You’re not usually this tired when you cross.”
Ah, why must Sirius be so observant? You’ve been in Cradle for years but you’ve only crossed a total of four times for this reason or that, so you’d think he wouldn’t notice, but… “I was running around all day before I got back, I severely underestimated the sheer amount of things I’d have to do.” You bring a spoonful of food up to your mouth. Details? Lying was in the details, right?
Except Ray’s hand is going up your thigh again and your brain goes blank.
Seth sighs. “Oh, Ray, really, you should go with Alice sometimes, if she’s running errands. We’ll live without you for a month. Right, Fenrir?”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah.” You mentally slap your forehead. Ah, great, no one’s a good actor here, huh? Fenrir’s sitting on your other side, fully aware of what’s going on. He’s usually better than that, but Ray’s being really handsy tonight, and you can only imagine how distracting it is for him.
Not that you’re any better.
Sirius’ eye twitches and you freeze as you put your utensils together in the middle of your plate. Luka, ever the angel, ever the lifesaver, stands up. “Sirius. Help me wash up in the kitchen.”
The Queen of Spades takes a full moment to stare at you and your lover from across the table. Ray is just casually finishing up the juice in his glass. Sirius sighs. “Sure.”
You’re sure Sirius knows already, he’s just letting it slide. Ah, sometimes Sirius really is the best.
Seth stands up from his seat as well, humming as he’s clearing out the plates, and Fenrir takes it as a cue for him to get up too. When he turns to you he shoots you a small, comforting smile. He’ll be the one to bring you something to soothe your aching muscles tomorrow.
“Thank you for dinner, Luka!” You manage to call out, thankful your voice is steady despite Ray having had already pulled your skirt’s hem up to your mid-thigh. He squeezes the soft flesh.
Luka shoots a smile at you from the door, and seeing that innocent look on his face makes you ever so thankful he didn’t have an inkling of what was going on just two feet from him earlier. “Go get to bed, I’m sure you’re tired.”
“Yes,” Ray answers for you, his voice nearly two octaves deeper. He’s helping you up from your seat, and you’re thankful, because your legs are already wobbling. The other officers, still in the room, turn back to the both of you curiously. Your face feels like it’s burning. “I’ll make sure she rests well.”
-
Fuck, you weren’t even going to make it to the room. Ray has his mouth pressing wet kisses on your neck and his door is still three meters away. You groan, half for the touch, and half because if you don’t push him away right now (and you don’t want to) you’re going to get caught!
Ray is stronger than you are but when he’s desperate like this you can get him to do whatever you want, so when you push him back he doesn’t resist, just huffs a little in disappointment. Why is he so adorable? You pull him by the collar to press a kiss square on his mouth just enough to take his breath away before squeezing his hand in yours, marching right up to his door.
You pull him in and turn just long enough to lock the door. “I swearto god, Ray, if we were caught right there—”
Your legs are pulled out from under you. Ray has you pressed against his chest, carrying you princess-style to the bed. Breathless, you laugh, hitting his shoulder without much power.
“Warn me next time,” you say.
“You didn’t warn me that you were going to do that,” Ray chides, and you don’t hold back the smirk that graces your face.
You preen the moment he puts you down on the center of the bed, raising one leg up so your skirt slides down your thigh, one hand tracing the bare skin revealed by your little off-shoulder number, then, like a killer blow, tracing the leather of your new choker, dark black against your neck.
You ring the little bell on it like beckoning Ray to pounce on you.
Ray chucks his shirt off his frame, and you welcome him with open arms when he crawls over you. What previously was desperation when he was clamoring for your touch in the hallway is now just adoration, the worship of a devotee whose god has left them alone during a time of hunger. He smiles in that way that sends your heart fluttering before taking your lips into his.
Slowly, like he’s aware he has all night to shower you with his love, that you have much to catch up on.
He slides his tongue in your mouth the same time he brings his knee up between your legs. Just enough to keep them open, but not high enough for you to grind against. You whine and push yourself down with all the force you can muster, sighing when you feel him against you. You feel Ray smile against your mouth. You want to kick him.
This is how you make love every time you return to Cradle. Ray, hiding a month’s worth of longing with teasing, and you, taking all that you can.
Some days you kiss like you’re fighting, all teeth and tongues craving the heat of the other’s mouth, and some days you kiss like there’s no end in sight, just you, and him, and exchanging breaths. Tonight, you kiss like he’s given you the universe all over again, like he’s all you’ve really ever held in your hands. You feel your heart climbing up your throat.
You’re gasping for air when Ray finally breaks away. He only looks a little bit winded, but his face is flushed red, his pupils blown wide. This a look of hunger that’s only for your eyes. You tangle a hand in his hair to pull him close and he begins the slow, torturous journey down your body he’s missed so much.
He doesn’t mark you yet. The night is way too early for that. Instead, he presses kisses filled with reverence, tracing your curves he’s long memorized. Down your jaw; the line of your neck; the expanse of your shoulders. He strips you of your clothes without losing rhythm—opens the buttons of your blouse nimbly without even looking, pulls it off of you without a word. One hand cups the weight of a breast while his tongue traces the other. The taste of your sweat mingled with your distinct scent only amplifies his need to get his hands all over you after a month of being on his own.
You sigh as he makes his way down your torso, his hands careful on your sides—just enough to make you shiver, not really to tickle. He looks up at you as he’s undoing the ribbons on your skirt, and when your eyes make contact as it falls with a thump on the ground, the way you smile at him makes his hands tighten where he holds your hips.
“I missed you too, Ray.”
He looks at you like he knows you know what you’re doing. Oh, whatever he does after this is definitelyon you—
-
Tears are pooling on the corner of your eyes, and Ray is all blurry. But you know its him, from the wild black shuffle of his hair, his deep emerald eyes, and the way his hands are pressing your hips down against him mercilessly.
He hasn’t let go for minutes. Or hours. At this point, you’re not sure anymore.
You grind your hips weakly to get a semblance of friction, the bell on your choker ringing with your movement, and Ray lets you, but only because you both know it will never be enough. You whimper weakly and meet his eyes again, just as he had asked you to.
“There you are, kitten,” he says, his voice that same timbre from at the dining table, and it sends a shudder down your spine. You know he feels it too. “Where were we?”
Where were you? More like where the hell did he learn this! You think to yourself. Exploring kinks with Ray wasn’t a new thing, but he hadn’t brought this up at all in the past, so you weren’t expecting to get home, lock yourself up in his room, and just stay here warming his cock, sitting pretty.
You drag your voice out from somewhere. It takes all your strength to. “You were asking… what I was doing when I missed you.”
“Yes, I was,” Ray says. Slowly. Like he was letting every syllable seep through your skin. “You were all I could think about. The bed was so cold. And I… I missed your heat.”
“Me too,” you say, your voice trembling. You sob when you feel Ray thrust just enough for you to feel it, but not to sate anything. “I missed you too, Ray.”
“What did you do?” Ray asks, leaning forward to press a kiss on your shoulder. The night breeze was cold everywhere he didn’t touch you. You’re fully naked save for the little choker Ray seems to fancy. “Did you think of me?”
You’d tried begging, you’d tried bargaining, you’d tried just wrestling him out of this, and none of them worked. You have one last card up your sleeve.
That card was honesty.
Grinding against him hoping it’ll make your strategy a little more effective, you wind your fingers in his hair and stare at him straight into his eyes. Well, as much as your teary-eyed ones can. “I did,” you say, nearly out of breath. “I did think of you. I thought of you every night. My bed was cold too. I know that’s the world I’m from, but everything felt so unfamiliar.” You lick your lips. “I wanted to go home. Here. With you. On our bed. Where everything smells like you.” You buck against him particularly hard, and Ray holds back a groan. “I touched myself. I pretended it was you, Ray. All the time. I was never as good as you. But I missed you so much… everything you did to me, I wanted it.” You grin. “Even when you tease me like this, until I’m crying.”
Ray grins. “You enjoy what I do to you.”
And, well, there’s no denying that. “I do. I do, everything you do.”
That seems enough to break him.
Ray pulls you off of him in a move that makes you cry out with the sudden loss of his comforting weight inside of you. Just enough to get you on all fours, and then to bury himself back into your welcoming heat.
“Ray!” You call out, as he begins to thrust, slow, and then faster, because you’re ready for him and you’ve been ready for him from the moment your feet touched Cradle again. His hands’ hold on your hips is bruising but it’s a sting you’re thankful for feeling.
The bell on your neck keeps ringing. It sounds like it’s counting down to you finally breaking, right into a puddle of love and limbs for your beloved.
When he finds his groove, Ray usually is pretty quiet, but tonight he’s different. When he groans out your name, it’s followed by a hoarse “I love you,” and that’s when it finally feels like you’re home again.
Rayishome.
He hovers over you, pressing kisses down the nape of your neck after he’s brushed your hair aside, and then sucking bruises onto your shoulder until they’re a multicolored mess. You belatedly realize it’s a reprimand, for that off-shoulder blouse you’d chosen solely to mess with him. You laugh when it dawns on you, and Ray pulls your hair back in response.
“What’s funny?” he growls in between thrusts, and it only makes you laugh even more.
“Didn’t think you’d be jealous, baby,” you say. “They weren’t even staring.”
Ray huffs. “Only because I wasn’t letting them.”
As if to drive that home, he changes his pace and angle so that he can thrust into you even faster, one hand straying from your hips to mess with your clit that exact way you like it. You feel him everywhere.
“Fuck,” you drawl out, “Ray, Ray, Ray, I’m cumming—"
“Do it,” he says, orders, as if your thighs weren’t shaking, hadn’t stopped shaking, because you’ve already cum twice just before, with his mouth and his fingers. As if you weren’t collapsing into the black hole of pleasure all because of his doing. “Do it, baby.”
“You’re so good to me,” you gasp out, teetering, so close—“You’re so good to me, always, I love you, I love you, Ray, my King—”
You lose yourself into the white-hot searing flames of your orgasm, walls clenching around Ray, at the very same moment Ray’s entire world shrinks into your small, shaking voice, calling him your king.
That’s all he needs to finally surrender as well.
When consciousness finally returns to you, you’ve settled on the bed as Ray’s little spoon, the both of you still catching your breaths.
You feel the drip of his cum coming out of you. You have half a heart to reprimand him. Instead, you snort. “Really?”
Ray nuzzles your neck guiltlessly, the movement causing your little bell to ring. “Couldn’t help it.”
And as comfortable as the cuddle is right now, you want to see him, so ignoring the ache of your straining muscles, you turn to face him, your noses nearly touching.
“I really missed you, you know,” you say softly.
He grins, that boyish grin that made you fall in love with him in the first place. “I know.” He presses a kiss to your forehead, like willing you to sleep. “Welcome home, my Alice.”
-
Ray spots the empty bottle of aphrodisiac in the kitchen late the next morning, when he’s gone to get coffee for the both of you. Fenrir bought it for him as a gag while he was lonely waiting for you, and he’s sure he’d joked about taking it when you came back, but he didn’t drink it last night.
And he didn’t really mind, if someone had messed with him, he’d openly said he’d be up for it, it’s just that he just wanted to know who did it…
Sirius, who was in the kitchen with him, frowns in disappointment when Ray glances at him suspiciously. “Really, Ray?”
“Okay, fine, sorry,” Ray concedes. “I didn’t reallythink it was you, I just thought you’d know something.”
No one takes Ray seriously over lunch when he uses his “I am the King of the Black Army” voice to ask who put an aphrodisiac in his drink the night before.
“Fenrir,” Sirius pointedly calls out with no hesitation.
“HAH?!” Fenrir is mid-chew, and food nearly falls out of his mouth. “No way that was me. Ray’s been waitin’ for little Alice to come home for weeks, I ain’t gonna ruin it for ‘em like that.”
Sure, you think to yourself, ‘ruin’.Quietly taking a sip of your drink, you wonder if someone’s spiked this one with aphrodisiac too. .
“I betcha it was Luka,” Fenrir finishes.
Everyone turns to Luka, who is quiet, a solemn expression on his face. There’s a pause before he finally speaks up. “Why me?”
The others are silent for a moment, considering, and then they nod in agreement.
Luka seems to hesitate, but he offers, “Maybe it was Seth.”
“Luka! Is this what you think of me?” Seth has an expression that’s a cross of shock and offense. “Did you think I’d resort to low-level crime like Fenrir would?”
“Hey, whaddya mean low-level—”
“Besides, it was probably Rayfrom the beginning! Setting us up to take the fall,” Seth sighs. “Ray, you just have to be honestabout your feelings, okay?”
“I don’t need an aphrodisiac to improve my performance—“
“We’re not talking about your performance!”
The Black Army officers bicker like children until lunch is over.
-
You hear a knock on your door later that day, and in comes Sirius, with a glass of water… and the empty bottle of the aphrodisiac.
You already look pretty silly enough in the turtleneck Ray made you wear under your usual clothes, but you look doubly silly now, sitting on your bedside with a look of bewilderment.
Andalso mild amusement.
Sirius sighs. “Look, he missed you so much, I had to make sure he could get it all out of his system as quickly as possible. I needed him back on his work. I’m sorry if he went too hard on you, little miss.” Sirius hands you the glass of water and a small white pill. “Here’s a painkiller.”
Ah, you think to yourself. Sirius really is the best.
Thank you for supporting our little charity drive! I have no excuse for this being so late, but I hope you enjoyed it!
Author:@rokutouxei
Fandom: Ikemen Vampire
Character(s): Theodorus van Gogh / Female MC
Rating: T for language
Prompt: Touch as a way of getting their attention
Summary: She knew she was coming down with something before she’d even left the mansion this morning. But she had no fever, no cold, just that general muhstate that meant life would be a little harder today than usual. She argued, if she could handle a time-traveling door, she could handle a little bit of trembling. If Theo was next to her, she could handle anything. She hoped.
The front door to the mansion swings open in a near-bang. Barely awake, she weakly squeezes his collar into her fist. Theodorus enters the threshold with her in his arms, limp, lightly shivering from an oncoming fever.
“Sebastian!”
-
She was her usual self this morning.
She scurried down the stairs, the hurried tapping of her shoes announcing her arrival to Theodorus—her partner, the word makes even him dizzy—already waiting at the entrance with his hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry I’m late!” She called out, on the way down, her skirt in her hands, as she nearly jumped the last five steps of the stairs to get to him.
“What did I tell you about running down the stairs, hondje?” His voice was grumpy, but he still looked her up and down in concern—finishing by tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She smiled at the gesture.
“I’m very, very careful, I promise,” she said, taking his hand in hers instead. “I’m just excited for tonight. I was actually worrying so much about what to wear—which is why I took so long. We hadn’t had a date in a long while.”
Theo felt the tips of his ears heating up. He diverted her attention by intertwining his fingers with hers. How was it that he always felt a good kind of warm when she was around? “Work very hard today and I’ll make your night worth it. Got it?”
She grinned. “Yessir!”
-
She knew she was coming down with something before she’d even left the mansion this morning. Nothing dangerous, just that vague feeling of being a little under the weather. Not enough to beg off of work, gods no, or even telling Theo in the first place—it couldn’t be thatbad. Work had been heavy the past few weeks, and with the approaching dates for the exhibits, she couldn’t just excuse herself for something so minor as a possible cold. The more hands on the job, the better. Besides, this was a client she actually enjoyed dealing with, and she’d missed visiting them and hearing their insights on art. As she rushed down the stairs to Theo, she argued to herself that she didn’t have any symptoms anyway: no fever, no cold, just that general muhstate that meant life would be a little harder today than usual.
If she could handle a time-traveling door, she could handle a little bit of trembling.
If Theo was next to her, she could handle anything.
She hoped.
-
Theo wasn’t there when she collapsed.
He wasn’t that far away, just four doors down the hallway, but in his head he was still too far. After a lavish lunch with the marquis and marquess, they decided to split up; him and the marquis to talk about the nitty-gritty of the upcoming exhibit in the study, and her with the marquess to view what’s new in their lavish gallery of artworks, so that she and Theo could have a better idea of what to offer them the next time they came to visit.
This was how the two of them did the work usually, anyway. Together. Sharing. It was a regular day.
Until it wasn’t.
One moment Theo was in deep discussion about ingress with the marquis, and the next, a young girl he quickly recognized as one of the marquess’ maids ran into the study, her face pale. “Sir Theodore! Your companion—”
“What happened?”
“She collapsed, sir! She’s in the gallery with the marquess—”
He ran.
-
Shit. Fuck. This morning, on the way to work, Theo had asked her “Are you okay?” after he had promptly pulled her out of harm’s way. He had his fingers around her wrist—that was a little bony, has it always been this thin?—to stop her in her tracks; one arm braced around her waist to steady her. The carriage breezed next to them loudly, leaving behind it the steady stomp of horse shoes. She instinctively pulled closer to his warmth. Theo wondered if the shivering was only in his imagination. When she looked up at him, it was almost blearily.
Nothing escapes Theo. Usually.
“Hmm? Yeah. I’m just a little tired, but we have so much more to do.” She put on a smile that made Theo’s mind go blank for a moment.
Godverdomme. It’s not that he didn’t notice that she was a little pale, or slightly shaky, or maybe a little more tired-looking than usual. Or maybe he did. Thinking back at it, Theo didn’t know what went in his mind, letting her go on after that, deciding to trust her judgment with a mere “Well. If you say so.”
He should have sent her home, should have stopped a carriage right there and shuttled her back to the mansion. Work didn’t matter. This exhibit didn’t matter. Shemattered.
Now he had to make up for lost time.
The marquis had a doctor nearby come to check on her, but not having much to say for himself—“probably just exhaustion, needs some rest”—there was little left to be done but to take her home. Theo cradled her in his arms as he deeply apologized to the marquis and marquess for the sudden interruption of business. He tried his best to not make it obvious that his hands were shaking too.
“Nonsense,” the marquis said, waving his hand. “Take care of your companion and make sure she gets better. It’s always nice doing business with the both of you. We can talk about the exhibit some other time.”
The marquess nodded in response. “Don’t tire her out so much, Sir Theodore. I’ll see you again soon.”
-
She awoke once, on the carriage ride home. Stirred ever so slowly from Theo’s embrace with a glazed look on her eyes. He wasn’t sure if she actually realized she awoke before she fell back into slumber. The fever, at this point, had begun to set in, a fever-flush resting on her cheeks. Despite the radiating heat, Theo held her against his chest, thinking to himself, I’m here, I’m here, I will take care of her, she will get better, trying to still the erratic racing of his heart.
-
Now, back at the mansion, Theo feels like he should feel more steady in a familiar place, but with her still unconscious and probably in pain, his head is spinning. And it’s just past lunch. Sebastian brings towels, warm water. Offers hot tea. Brings extra blankets, a fresh change of clothing. For Theo, rouge andblanc, some sweet bread. Sebastian is nothing but helpful, until he brings what Theo thinks would be least helpful: Arthur.
“What happened to our little miss?” he asks, leaning against the doorframe, arms across his chest. Eyes sunken from lack of sleep, glasses still on the bridge of his nose, holding a mug of coffee—Sebastian must have pried him off of writing to get the resident doctor to check on them. Theo curses inwardly, not wanting to owe this guy of all a favor.
“She collapsed while we were at work,” Theo admits, his voice shrinking with every syllable. “Now she’s got a fever. I’m—not sure what happened.”
Arthur enters the room, stands next to Theo by the bed. Theo will make fun of Arthur for his history as a “failed” doctor, but when the writer slips back into this persona, he is nothing but serious. And Theo respects that. Arthur presses a hand to her neck to check for temperature; inspects the color of the membrane under her eyes. Checks her pulse, and then takes her wrist in his hands. Theo flinches, remembering how thin it felt in his own this morning.
“Well, she’s pale,” Arthur begins. “Needs some iron in her, water. I’ll go tell Sebastian what might be good to feed her. Not much solids, probably, but I’m sure our dear butler will make good soup. Also, she might get clammy with the fever, so you’ll need to wipe her down often. But don’t let her get cold.” He pauses for a full moment, as if weighing his words, but then decides he might as well. Now, he sounds less like a doctor. He sounds like Arthur,herandTheo’s friend. “How hard have you been working her?”
Theo bristles. I haven’t, he wants to say. I take absolutely good care of her and you don’t get to ask me that, he wants to argue. But he knows defeat when it’s there. “Too hard, apparently.”
“I’m glad you know,” is all Arthur says. “Get her some rest and don’tmake her do anything until color comes back to her. Understood?”
“I owe you one, Arthur.”
Arthur doesn’t turn as he leaves, just waves. “You do,” he answers back.
-
She wakes up in short bursts. Theo is there for every minute of it. To carry her to the restroom, to give her some food. She doesn’t speak, the fever making her hazy, just looks up at him with half-lidded eyes and mouths what she needs. But she doesn’t last long either; wakes up just enough for two spoonfuls of soup, or a sip of water. Any more than that seems near-impossible, agonizing, by the way she groans. Every time Theo lifts her up in his arms, he wonders if she’s actually getting lighter and lighter, like she’s slowly disintegrating in front of his very eyes.
Stop. No. That’s not going to happen, he tells himself.
It’s past midnight now, and Theo has his armchair pulled up against the bedside, but he can’t quite sleep. The room is dim save for a lamp on the corner of the room, casting yellow light on the walls and making long shadows. He fusses with her hair, brushing off her bangs where they stick to her forehead with the sweat. Tries to smooth out the wrinkles on her forehead formed from where her eyebrows are knitted tight. He feels like he has to stay up all night to keep watch over her, or else something terrible will happen. Something worse. This time he’s not taking his eyes off of her.
Theo hears his brother’s voice in the hallway, but before he can call out, the bedroom door opens slightly. A familiar golden retriever’s face tries to fit through the little gap. Vincent peeks as well, smiling at Theo; Theo tries to return it, but he feels weak. So Vincent enters the room with King. Theo looks up at his brother, and he doesn’t know what kind of face he makes—exhausted, worried, at wit’s end—but it makes Vincent put a hand on his shoulder.
Comfort. Theo sighs at his brother’s touch. Vincent ruffles his hair.
“She’ll be okay, because you’re with her,” Vincent assures him, and though Theo thinks to himself that means nothing, changes nothing, doesn’t tilt things to his favor, Theo would like to believe his brother is right. His brother is somehow always right.
Vincent bids him good night before he leaves the room, the door closing behind him with a gentle click. Now, it’s just him again, the darkness, and the love of his life, sick in bed.
And King. The dog pads toward the bed and places his head on Theo’s knee. King whines. A small, sad noise, half in comfort, and half as if he is in pain too. With one hand, Theo pats his loyal dog in comfort; with the other, he reaches out to hold her hand in his.
“Let’s wait for her to get better, alright?”
-
Theo wakes up in the middle of the night to shuffling—a blanket being pushed gently to the side. He sits upright in a flash, a shot of pain jolting down his back with the sudden movement. The armchair he’s on creaks with the motion. She flinches at the sound.
“Sorry,”she sighs.
“No, it’s alright,” Theo says—his voice sleep-deep. He reaches out to her. “What do you need?”
She turns to the glass near him, but too far for her to reach. “Water.”
Theo takes the glass and sits on the bed, helping her drink. Her eyes close with the touch of water on her lips, sighs. When the glass is empty, he asks, “Do you want more?”
She shakes her head, places her hand on his. Theo puts the glass down and instinctively reaches out to hold her cheek. She rests against his touch.
She’s really cold now; whatever fever she had that morning, she had already long sweated off. Theo runs his other hand down her back, notices how damp the nightgown already is.
“We should change your clothes,” he says, and she only nods.
Theo goes to their shared closet to pull out a fresh change of sleepwear. When he gets back to the bed she’s rubbing her arms weakly for warmth, and he can’t help but press a kiss on her forehead in comfort. When he pulls off the damp nightgown from her still-feverish body, there is nothing in her nakedness that fires him up, just pain, just worry. Her skin is cold. Her eyes look sunken. Half of him has the wits to think maybe his mind is fooling him, making her seem more sickly than she really is, but the other half believes this is all real. And it scares him. She struggles to slip her arms in the sleeves, and Theo has to help her get them in. She can hardly sit up, much less tie the ribbons. Theo wipes off the sweat on her face with a handkerchief. Her lips are pulled taut, like she’s in pain.
When he’s content with his work, she’s already drifting back to sleep, body nudging forward head-first into the mattress. He coaxes her back to a lying-down position, tucking her underneath the sheets. He tries his best to not make his voice shake when he says, “Go back to sleep. I’ll be here with you.”
But before he can stand, she has her pinky on his, just nearly missing him. When he turns, her eyes are barely open, but she’s looking right at him—through him. She pats the empty side of the bed meaningfully. The effort seems to strain her. Her voice is a whisper so small, it’s almost just an exhale. “Please stay?”
Of course, he thinks, turning in his seat so he can lie down next to her, lying on top of the sheets next to her. Of course. I will never leave you. He presses a kiss to the crown of her head just as her eyes flutter closed.
“Always.”
-
The first thing she sees when she wakes up from what seems like a very long fever-dream is Theo’s comforting sea-blue eyes. Their light softens when she finally opens her eyes fully.
He sounds he hadn’t slept in a week. “How are you?”
“Better,” she says, and it’s not convincing because of how wrecked her voice alsosounds, how dry her throat feels, but she really does. “Why are you here?”
Theo flinches. Did she think he wouldn’t be? “What?”
She turns slowly to look out the window, estimating the time in her head. It must be past noon now. “Didn’t you have something scheduled today?”
Work. Still. Every time, all she thinks about is him. His dreams. He doesn’t know how he deserves a woman like her. “It’s just a trip to the gallery… Vincent went for me.”
She nods, before pressing her face against his chest. “I’m sorry for worrying you.”
He narrows his eyes at her, even if she doesn’t quite see. He doesn’t try to hide his concern. “I told you to not push yourself.”
“I just wanted to do my best,” she tries to argue, but any sort of enthusiasm or persuasiveness is shot out by how she sounds. Better, true, but still off-center. “I knew if we finished all that yesterday, we would have a little bit more time to ourselves, so…” she looks up at him, eyes wide, that look he can’t resist. Godverdomme.“Forgive me for being an idiot?”
“Only because you know it,” Theo huffs. He presses a kiss on her forehead, and she reaches out to hold one of his hands tightly in hers.
“I’m really okay now, I promise,” she says, as cheerfully as possible, to reassure him. She even goes to press the back of his hand onto her neck. “See, no fever. Not lying this time.” Then she pulls on it again to press a kiss on his knuckles. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
Theostilldoesn’t quite believe her though, and for sure, it’ll take him some time convincing before he finally quiets down about it. That’s okay. She’ll take all the time he needs. The same time he took all the time she needed to get better. He brushes the fingers of his free hand along her face, cupping her cheek gently. She smiles into his touch, and something squeezes in his heart. But his frown is still deep when he speaks. “You’re not allowed to make me worry like that.”
She opens her mouth to apologize, but her brain catches up to her. She scans her body very quickly, before deciding…
“I can’t help it if I have such a great caretaker,” she teases, nudging closer toward him. “If that’s what being a little sick will get me, maybe I might do it again.”
The corner of Theo’s mouth twitches. Oh, he’ll be gentle, for sure, but he has to get the point across first. He narrows his eyes before flipping her over, caging her between him and the bed. “You’re right. You seem well enough now for punishment, hondje.” He grins. “You better be ready.”
Oh, maybe if she tells Sebastian later that she’s still kind of sore, he’ll think it’s from the fever?
In the time of the virus I hope you all take care of yourselves and stay home, safe, and clean; I hope this fic can bring a little light into your lives! Sorry this took so long! ♀️♀️
and don’t overexert someone who just came from a fever, please. theo, get her some food at least…
