#ALMOST DREW HIM WITH A WEDDING GARTER LMAO

[illusivedelights]

(WALTZ OF FLOWERS PLAYING LOUDLY IN THE BG)

H o n e s t l y......it was for comedic purposes but he makes it work and ????? JOHN PRICE, THE MAN YOU ARE??? Also the roses are English roses because I said so :')

BONUS:

"Well don't go abandoning me at the altar now. Don'cha wanna see your 'blushing bride' on the honeymoon?"

[chrysalispen]

a very rough bit of sappiness from a WIP i have on the back burner, just so y’all know i’m not dead LMAO

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Standing frozen before her bedchamber door all but vibrating with anxiety, trying not to grab handfuls of the Doman dressing robe that had been a nameday gift to herself last year, Aurelia found herself wondering what in all the seven hells she was thinking.

While still a student at the Valetudinarium she had attended a bridal shower for a young woman whose mother had been a friend of her aunt's. The majority of the gifts bestowed upon the bride had been of the practical variety, but she recalled in particular one carefully wrapped box passed amidst the flurry of gifts and foods and the nigh-unending flow of Dalmascan merlot. It had come with a knowing wink and a "to be shared with your husband." 

That message had been as cryptic to her as an Allagan hieroglyphic, until the moment the box’s lid had been removed and a chorus of piercing shrieks had erupted in scandalized delight at its contents: a sheer lacy black corset and a matching scrap of fabric that barely qualified as smallclothes.

A maid of seventeen winters not long in the capitol, she had never seen its like before. Her shocked reaction had prompted a fresh wave of laughter and not a few mutters about "rustic sensibilities" as the giggling bride placed the box on the hearth along with the piles of other gifts. She still recalled her own wide-eyed stare and the embarrassed heat in her cheeks, as she'd caught sight of both in the reflection of the mantelpiece mirror.

Over ten years later, peering into a hallway mirror to view the results of painstaking preparation, she felt the same distressing sense of acute self-consciousness. This set covered far more skin than that remembered bridal gift, but the delicate-looking straps of the garter belt supporting her thigh-high silk stockings somehow seemed every bit as salacious as that bare scrap of cloth. They peeked slyly beneath the hem of her robe like a half-revealed secret, no matter how snugly she wrapped it about herself for some semblance of modesty.

She was, if she were entirely honest, about two seconds away from hiding in her closet for the rest of the night.

Oh, for the gods' swiving sake, Laskaris, you can face a bleeding legatus on the battlefield but you can't be seen in some frivolous Thavnarian frippery? Gird your loins - with that ridiculous robe if it please you - and get on with it.

Unclenching her fists, Aurelia quickly opened the door- and paused, lingering small and shy and hesitant at the threshold. Nero still sat in her chair at the writing desk where she kept her journals, awaiting her return. His normally straight and exacting posture was a relaxed forward slouch, the laces of his fine shirt loose and open, chin braced upon his knuckles and his elbow upon the desk's well-worn surface. 

She could follow that characteristically hawkish gaze of his through the gap in the gauzy curtains of her bedroom window to their idle contemplation of the night sky beyond, if she cared to do so. She might have done in truth, were she not so charmed by the look of him in the moonlight, strangely serene and for once quite untroubled by the workings of the world.

A peasant's��face, her aunt would have sniffed: its features were what the aristocratic sensibilities of the capitol would call ‘coarse.’ Broad and strong and quite often haggard- although as he sat lost in whatever thoughts held his attention in that moment, the angles and lines of his face were nearly smooth, and the watery light lent an almost dreamlike cast to high cheekbones and strong nose and square jaw. Even his ever-present shadow of a beard seemed lovely to her eyes. It gleamed in soft shades of aurum and auburn upon alabaster, deliberate suggestions of a painter's sponge upon a canvas. 

No matter the time of day, it was a face she privately loved to look upon, especially when he seemed to be happy- or, at the very least, content. She wasn’t all that certain she had ever seen him genuinely happy, and the thought was both saddening and sobering. 

But, she thought, it was accurate. Nero was possessed of a quick mind, a sharp wit and an even sharper tongue. He was also an intensely private man - as secretive about his true self as he was his personal junkets - and so unguarded instances like this one were so few and far between that she had learned to appreciate them. He’d notice her silent perusal quickly enough, of course; he would let fly some witticism or other and she would respond in kind. This soft window would fall shut before her eyes like all the others and perhaps it might resurface at some later date and perhaps it would not. 

It was all very predictable- and probably, Aurelia thought, also for the best. She feared these moments as much as she cherished them, for she was always afforded the briefest glimpses of a man she knew it would be possible to love were he ever to allow it.

And were you ever possessed of sufficient courage to wish for it.

--but tonight was not the night for such somber considerations. She had made a promise, one she intended to keep.

The sound of the falling latch at her back wrested his attention away from the window, and the moon's spell was broken. 

Even so, he nearly returned to his quiet contemplation for all of a brace of seconds before her sigh caused him to snap sharply upright in his seat, startling at her presence in a double take that might have been comical were the entire situation not so nerve-wracking.

She offered an uncertain smile, arms still folded over her chest. "Did I interrupt?"

"Not at all. You were on that call for quite some time." She didn't have to see his smirk to know it was there; she heard it in the teasing note of his voice. He was humoring her, knew she was dancing around some subject or other, simply wasn't sure what or why. "I was half-minded to send a search party."

She was very aware of the thin silk of her robe's hem whispering against flesh, perhaps an ilm or two higher than the lacy tops of the hosiery. The straps on her thighs and the metal clasps that braced her stockings would be visible the moment she stepped into the golden corona of light cast upon the floor by her lamp.

Anxiety nearly overwhelmed her again and she froze in place, uncertain how to proceed.

"I-..." Her mouth felt as dry as the dunes of the Sagolii. "Yes, I suppose I was. I..."

She made her slow approach on near-silent feet, hands clutching at her silk: staring at the floor, at the window, at the wall, anywhere but his face. Above all, she was afraid to see the sardonic amusement that must surely be writ large in his eyes. She knew she could not possibly be the least bit enticing, stammering and sweating mess that she was. She didn't need the reminder.

She drew up short when her shin struck the lip of the chair.

He'd shifted his knees, spreading them apart to allow her space. One of his hands settled over one of her white-knuckled fists where it grasped a handful of silk and curled so tightly into the weave that her fingernails had distended the fabric (a distant part of her mind fretted over it; she'd probably ruined the godsdamned thing).

"....I had something to give you," she began. With a deft touch his fingers wound into the curl of her grip as if it were a piece of malfunctioning machinery and gently divested it of the silk she'd clutched. "It's... it's a surprise, so..."

"Not the robe, I assume."

There it was again, that smile in his voice, the one that put her in mind of a cat playing with a mouse it had caught. She paused, an idea blossoming to life in the back of her mind.

"No, not the robe. It's- actually, can I borrow your hands for a moment-... oh hells." She'd caught the unintentional innuendo a moment too late to take it back, and as if on cue, she saw the white flash of that toothy grin in the heartbeat before Nero began to cackle. "Damn it, no! I meant-"

He was openly laughing now. His hands had dropped to brace her hips, squeezing affectionately through thin silk.

Aurelia was so annoyed at her own clumsiness that she quite forgot her anxiety, and released a loud and irritable sigh, her posture drooping with disappointment like a wilting flower. "This was not my intention, I shall have you know."

"I am quite aware. Were you attempting to seduce me? Gods know I'm flattered, I'm just trying to figure out why the deuce you're acting like a bride on her wedding night." Playfully he tugged at the now quite rumbled panel over one of her breasts. "Are you naked under there or are you hiding contraband? Is that it? Diamonds? The imperial crown? A very small basket of coeurl kittens?"

Hells below, now she was laughing, hard enough to make her legs wobble. The whole mishap was too bloody ridiculous not to find humor in it.

"I'll keep guessing if you don't tell me," he warned. She swatted at his fingers, tried to scowl, ruined the effect by shrieking with laughter when he began to tickle her sides. "Is this some sort of extremely specific roleplay? Am I meant to be punishing you for a smuggling infraction-"

"Smuggling infraction," she chortled, gasping with laughter, "Scaeva, you pillock-"

"Oh, Tribunus, I've been a very naughty girl," he trilled, "perhaps if you would let me go I might show you the kitten in my pocket-"

She took the opportunity to attack his sides, cackled when he yelped and tried to grab her wrists. They mock-wrestled for a handful of moments, until her legs gave out beneath the force of her own mirth. Nero caught her as she pitched forward and buried her face against his chest, howling with the absurdity of it all.

It felt good, cathartic even, and all her low-level terror vanished.

Mutual accord came about when each abandoned their efforts in turn. Aurelia sat upright to see the other Garlean smiling at her, his hair already tousled, still chuckling.

"Contraband," she scoffed aloud. "Honestly, this robe barely covers my arse let alone aught of substance."

Put at her ease and amused by the night's misadventure despite herself, Aurelia paid little heed to the fact of her modest weight seated astride his long legs- until the friction of warm, rough palms skimming over the tops of her stockings served as a sudden reminder. The lower hem of her robe had slipped out of place during their tussle; the Doman silk sat bunched nearly at her waist, leaving her thighs exposed to his perusal.

Deft fingers continued their lazy exploration, pausing just long enough to catch in the garter belt's suspenders and give each ribbon a cheeky little tug, until their owner was bestowed with two generous handfuls of backside, neatly wrapped in soft lace and satin.

He gave a slow and experimental squeeze, and any retort she might have made died upon her lips before it could form.

"Contraband," the one-word observation was delivered with such a deadpan blandness that it would have been simplicity itself to miss the avaricious gleam in his eyes. His smile had turned from playful to wickedly speculative.

A soft laugh, this one ever so slightly tremulous, spilled forth from her throat - not nervousness, but anticipation.

His hands gave her rear another squeeze before retreating: calloused fingers tracing patterns in the lace and dragging against plush smoothness, coming to rest upon the tops of her thighs. She could hear her heart hammering in her ears. His eyes were the color of a clear Coerthan sky, wintry and bright.

"May I?" He leaned forward until he was close enough to rest his head against hers, the soft heat of his breath whispering against her cheekbone. She could feel the slight indent in her skin: his third eye pressed carefully against the smooth ridge of her brow. It was a gesture as intimate as any kiss. At length, she was able to whisper: “I was rather hoping you would.”