#but rest assured we are really earning the 'inappropriate use of pelts' tags

[sabraeal]

A Home Between Two Breaths

[He Who Fell in the Sea | Read on Ao3]

The snow starts just out of Luidas– big, thick flakes. A dusting, at first; they settle on Miss’s hair like fine lace, melting before she can brush them off. But now the horses wade through the drifts, nickering with displeasure when snow crumples beneath their hooves. His own coat sags, a thick, wet film against his skin, but Miss–

Well, Miss sits snugly beneath a bridled pelt, one hand absently brushing along the edge. His chest tingles with every sweep of her fingers, a shiver trembling down his spine that has nothing to do with the cold. Her heat’s been his constantly companion these past few hours, keeping him warm and wary long past when his own coat abandons him. But the colder he gets, well, the more he’s tempted to stop, to haul up to one of the inns they pass and see if they can’t generate their own heat between them.

His teeth grit down, jaw aching. If only he could bring himself to love a woman whose heart wasn’t already spoken for, given to a man who could keep her warm with far more than just the pelt off his back.

Still, taking shelter isn’t a bad idea, not when there’s no telling how long the storm will last. Lamps burns brightly in the distance, up the hill but not too far. He remembers the place; it’s not one of their usual stops– too close to the checkpoint to bother with, mostly made more for lords with carriages and delicate constitutions to care for. Pricey, and with the weather, the innkeep will be sure to wring them for more than two beds are worth, but, well–

He’s going to go crazy if she doesn’t stop petting him like this. Obi tugs at his reins, bringing himself up alongside Miss. Their knees don’t knock– he’s too careful a rider for that, even if she’s not– but he’s close enough to be heard over the howling winds. “We should stop.”

A contemplative pout settles on her cold-stung lips; she’s doing the complex calculations he’d mulled over moments ago. It’s not quite dusk– on a fairer day, they’d be on the road for another hour or two at least– but with the storm only growing stronger at their backs…

“It’ll get worse before it gets better.” The darkening sky hangs heavy overhead, only adding a more dire edge to his warning, but Miss’s jaw still sets stubbornly, the I can keep going loud in her silence. “We should think of the horses.”

“Oh!” She frowns down at her mare’s mane, snow tangling in the long, frozen ropes its settled into, and nods. “Of course. Is there some place near?”

His cowl is raised, covering his lips, but he smothers his smile, just in case. Miss might press on past wisdom if it were only herself she had to worry about, but bring the horses into it…

“Just there.” He points, voice struggling against the wind. “Up on the rise. Hopefully they’ll have two rooms ready to go.”

Miss coughs, ducking her head to cover it. Her next words are mumbled, lost in the wool of her scarf and the roar of the storm, but the winds twist and turn as they press on and he could swear–

Well, he could swear he hears, “We could do with less.”

“Two rooms,” Miss says, trying to raise her voice over the din. They’re far from the only weary travelers escaping the storm; the common room is packed wall-to-wall with boisterous custom, their coats damp but spirits as warm as the brew in their mugs. “If you please.”

“I do.” The innkeep’s round-faced, cheery, but with enough height to convey that she could, if pressed, handle rowdy customers right to the door. The kind of woman Obi would like, if her smile wasn’t already saying exactly what he didn’t want to hear. “But I’m afraid we’ve only got the one left. Busy night, you know.”

“Two beds?” he asks, already knowing the answer. If Master had been with them, three would have appeared from thin air with rooms to keep them. But with just a court herbalist and a knight, the only title between them a friendship to the wrong crown–

“One.” The innkeep’s kind enough to offer a sorrowful smile. “A nice one, though, if I do say so myself.”

A slender finger traces down his chest, as if there were not three layers of clothes and a safe distance between them, and he yelps out, “A cot?”

“‘Fraid not.” The innkeep brushes some flour off her apron, brusque yet strangely sympathetic at the same time. “All spoken for. You’re hardly the only ones who’ve had to make due with less than you came in wanting.”

Still that finger runs, collar to breast, following the length of his sternum. It should be lulling, comforting, but instead he just– “Maybe there’s space in the barn?”

Miss’s hand stills, eyes too wide, too green as she peers up at him. He can’t bear to look, not when he’s in danger of losing himself in them. The last time they’d been in the room with a bed–

Well, there’s a reminder twitching right against his thigh about that. “I’m not above a good night in the hay.”

The innkeep’s brows lift in amusement. “Full up to the manger.”

His sigh hollows him out, leaving him to slouch over the remains of his chest. “I could–”

“We’ll take it,” Miss says, stepping up in front of him. The dir glitter in her palm as she lays them on the counter. “The room, that is. And the bed.”

Obi lets out a plaintive whine, lost in the noise. “Extra blankets?”

The innkeep smiles at him, wide and wry. “Now that I can do.”

After all his years on the road, Obi considers himself a connoisseur of lodging. A adept of accommodations. A man who knows what a coin might bring him, greasing the right palm. Someone who speaks the lingo, one might say.

So when a proprietor of sleeping arrangements says one bed, he knows there’s a connotation to that. One bed, of course, but enough mattress to be shared between two. The sort of thing where one could divide between the pillows and trust that, without a very adventurous sleeper on the other side, he could expect to wake up undisturbed.

This is not that.

“Well,” Miss murmurs, taking a ponderous step into the room. “There certainly is…one.”

He’s seen bigger in the garrison. It’s only a little wider than a standard cot– meant to fit one and half maids, if only so the help might feel kingly for a night as well–

“Ah, isn’t that just our luck, Miss.” Obi lets out a noise that is somewhere between a laugh and a swan song. “In an inn full of lordly accommodations, we get…the servant’s quarters.”

Another room might have a sofa, a chaise, or, failing that, a hard-backed chair that he could at least make a credible attempt at sleep in. But this– this is a room meant for sleeping, not entertaining. At least, not if he wasn’t planning on doing it horizontal.

Which he isn’t. Not at all. That’s not what’s happening here. Between them. Ever. No matter what happened before. Master may not be here now, but Obi won’t forget him.

Again.

“It’s fine,” Miss blusters, as if he can’t hear her voice squeak up at the top of her range. “We’ll make do.”

She draws herself up, utilizing every scant inch, and officiously scurries over to the edge of the mattress, giving it the sort of calculating stare generals leveled on fields of battle. With a steeling breath, her shoulders lift, and in a smooth motion, toss his pelt wholesale onto the covers.

The wind knocks out of him, for more than one reason. “I was going to use that.”

“You are going to be using it,” she agrees primly, letting her own cloak fall, sopping, in to her arms. “In the bed. Tonight.”

His mouth works as she crosses to the one ladder-backed chair that the room provides, spreading the wet wool across it. “I was going to sleep on the floor.”

The gaze she turns to him may be wide-eyed, but it’s knowing too, braced. This isn’t a misunderstanding, it’s a negotiation. “Why would you do that? It’s freezing, Obi.”

Again, his mouth can only open and close, words picked up and quickly abandoned in his search for something other than, don’t you remember? Or worse, how could you forget?

He couldn’t, not when he’d spent the night staring up at a ceiling he hardly remembered the pattern of, listening to the soft lull of Master’s breath and wondering why, why he has to ruin everything he touches. It would be better if he listened to the songs of his sisters, letting them guide him back to the sea, pelt wrapped around him and life brought back to the simple sensation of the water against his fur–

But he’d miss her. And he can control himself just fine, as long as there’s some space between them. Which there won’t be if they’re in that bed together, his skin covering them as one body.

“I just–” he flounders under her inquisitive confusion; it doesn’t help that she’s taken off her dress as well, left in only in her underthings, every shapely curve bared to him– “it would be best.”

Miss’s fingers still on her stays, head cocked, considering. Her gaze sweeps from the pelt on the bed to her own state of undress, hesitating a moment before she takes in his position against the door.

With a long, thoughtful breath, she exhales a very firm, “No.”

“No?” His mouth works, at a loss, and she takes the opportunity to place a single, bare leg on the mattress, right along his spine. Hell, that is making it a little hard to breathe, let alone think. “That is my skin, you know.”

“And you’re going to be using it,” she informs him, unimpressed, as she drags another tantalizing calf beneath her, warmth radiating along his back. It’s the last thing he needs when she’s got that stubborn pout on her lips. “You can’t sleep on the floor, Obi. Even with seal skin, you’ll freeze.”

He’s lived in water colder and darker than nights like these, dove into deeper currents than the Lilias’s winds could ever drop, but it’s impossible to explain to that to Miss, who has only this one, soft skin. The kind that is begging him to touch it with his own, to press her between his pelt and his body, and–

“I have extra blankets,” he mutters dumbly, thrusting them out in front of him like they might ward off her arguments. It’s a weak volley, a desperate measure to avoid the inevitable rout, and she deflects it with barely more than a dubious glance.

His shoulders slump, wet fur sopping around his neck. By the victorious glint in Miss’s eyes, she doesn’t miss the moment of his defeat.

“Your should take off your coat, at least,” she tells him, so innocent. “It’d be no good for you to come to bed wet.”

Obi can’t, unfortunately, argue with her logic. He lays his shield down, the thick quilts the innkeep pressed on him falling in a slumped pile against the footboard. And with a sweep of his arms, the first of his armor falls as well, arranged flat on hearth’s screen.

It’s a relief to be rid of its damp weight; warm as it is, another creature’s fur sits strangely on him, as if his body wants to take its shape as well. And when it’s almost clinging to him, dripping sweat and ice down his spine– well, it’s a new layer of discomfort.

His boots follow, stockings soon after, though their removal is another battle, the wool sticking to every inch. When his feet finally press bare to stone– ah, the cold seeped through him more than he’d thought. For all his talk, his soles stretch against its ambient warmth and, oh, how they burn. Maybe Miss was right about sleeping on the floor; as a seal, his blubber would protect him, but as a man–

Well, he certainly lacked a certain sleekness over these bones. It was easier to forget now that he was allowed both.

Obi hesitates, thumbs hooked into the waistband of his pants. They were wet too– damp at the knees and clinging to his thighs at parts– but still…

“Are you coming to bed?” Miss inquires, muffled. He glances back, and there she is, smothered in blankets, radiating warmth along his back. “It’s warm in here.”

The smart thing would be to take his blankets and suffer as best he could by the fire. Or take the invitation but keep the clothes, hoping they would dry in the warmth of the blankets. But Obi–

Well, Obi hadn’t ended up on shore by being more clever than bold. He strips down to his skivvies, laying his clothes beside Miss’s on the stone. It left him far from naked– his woolens might leave little to the imagination, but they were still as thick and warm as his pelt– but the way Miss watches him–

Maybe he should risk the floor.

He shakes himself. Too late to change his mind now.

Soft fur tickles his hands as he slips into bed beside her, Miss extending from a pleasant, abstract warmth along his back, to a present, insistent heat along his side. It’s disconcerting, to say the least.

“Beneath?” he manages after a moment. “I thought you enjoyed it as a blanket.”

“We have plenty of those.” Her eyes glitter guilelessly in the dim, fingers stroking the pelt in mindless, soothing circles. “Having it under us will stop any heat from escaping through the mattress. Like a little oven!”

“Oh,” he murmurs, watching her fingers carve runnels through his fur. “Smart.”

“I thought so,” she says with no little pride. “Blow out the lamp?”

He nods, reaching over to turn the wick down, watching the flame gutter behind the glass. Even when it’s out, the fire keeps a low, merry glow, and beneath his shirt–

“Oh!” The cord lies tangled in his chain, tag and stone knotted together in a way that takes a good moment of patience and another of dexterity to sort out. Still, it’s easy work, and with a few quick loops he lifts it over his head, stone pulsing gently in the dark. “Here you go.”

He’s seen his miss in firelight, but the stone’s glow does something to the shape of her face, to the round of her eye. In her hushed awe, it’s as if he’s never seen her before. “This…?”

“Sorry I borrowed it for so long.” Her gaze darts to his, and he can’t help but wonder if she’s thinking the same. “Thanks for lending it to me.”

“Ah!” Her fingers reach, plucking the cord from his grasp, an infinite amount of stones glittering in her eyes. “The stone! Did you–?” She hesitates, mouth rounding around words she doesn’t say. “Did you use it for something?”

He’d hung it on a darker night than this, moon blotted out by thick, reaching branches, but as it swings in her grip, a slow, pendulous spin– well, it’s hard not to think of the shadow that approached. How confidently the assassin had slipped through the trees, fleet and sure-footed as any night creature. And then for him to pull up short, surprise writ large in those dark, fearful eyes–

“It would be a good reference point,” Miss presses, breathless. “For the future.”

He huffs out a laugh, head dropping onto the pillow. Ah, yes, he can see it now. Uses: luring assassins out of hiding. “I don’t think it’ll be much help to any of you scholars, but it worked perfectly when I used it.”

The crystal sets her face into harder angles; her cheeks sit sharp, carved from marble, and her jaw settles into a contemplative pout. It’s not answer enough, he knows, not for her, but she’s never been one to push, not even when she held a pelt in her hand.

“I’d say it was thanks to that thing that I made it to Master’s side in time.” Her eyes turn to him, wide, but it’s the least he can give her, when she’s put both his freedom and her trust into his bloodied hands. “And I was also able to pass on Mitsuhide’s message.”

“Because of this?” She cradles the stone in her hand, tender, but it’s him that she turns to, satisfaction curling her lips. “So it was helpful? I mean– it was worth having?”

“Of course.” If his grin is easy, it’s only because he’s so practiced at giving it. At least, instead of kissing her. “It would have been worth having just because it gave it to me. The rest was gravy, Miss.”

Her sigh is heavy, contented, the tension eking out of her shoulders with each second that passes until she’s settled fully into the pillow’s soft down.

“Obi?” He almost doesn’t catch her soft hum, muffled as it is. But one of her hands has dropped between them, fingers gently stroking in those small, soothing circles, and even part of him is attuned to every molecule of air in this room, if only because there doesn’t seem to be enough. “Come over here?”

He rolls up onto his elbow, so close a deep breath might make them touch if he weren’t careful. But he is. Always. “Hm?”

In a single, smooth swoop, she loops the cord right around his neck. “Eh–?”

Her smile is too much, mischief honing it sharper than any other knife he’s taken between his ribs. He hardly even feels the stab. “I bequeath this to you.”

“Eh?” he tries again, fingers plucking at the leather, since she clearly didn’t hear him the first time.

“I want you to have it.” Her gaze settles where it dangles between them, and he’s not ready for how his chest tightens with the softening of her smile. “If it was helpful to you at Sereg, I’d like you to keep it.”

He stares. But it’s precious, he nearly says, but it’s no use, not when he can’t survive her inevitable answer, the one clear in her eyes already–

So are you, Obi.

“Miss.” His voice doesn’t sound like his own, stilted and too low. “A while back, you asked about this scar.”

The neck of his woolens swoops low enough for a ragged edge to peep through, stark white against the shadow of his skin. He hooks a finger round it still, pulling it lower until he can feel the meat of that gnarled ruin against the tip of his fingers. In the pale light of the stone, he can see the way her eyes fix to it, body tense beside his.

“I never cared about getting injured.” The dark loosens his lips better than any bottle. “Or coming back. There wasn’t–” he licks his lips, only a wry smile left behind– “there wasn’t any point.”

Why worry about this strange skin when no matter how well he performed for them, his masters would never yield his reward. His pelt always laid under lock and key, a carrot and stick both: a well done job held the hope of seeing a glimpse of it, a chance to snatch it from their grasp; and a failed one–

Well, there were so many accidents that could happen to a beautiful pelt like this one. Fire. Scissors. A blade.

Obi might not have cared what happened to this body, but he could never return to his sisters with the proof of this life etched upon his skin,

His fingers clench in his fur. “Didn’t really see it as a drawback.”

The stone’s glow isn’t enough to illuminate the whole of Miss’s face, so he doesn’t so much see her jaw work as feel it, her restraint dragging her teeth down with a soft click. Her urge to speak is palpable, drawing the space between them to a taut thread but–

But Miss has always had that sense, the kind good healers always did, of when a wound needed salve or stitching, and when it just…needed to breathe. Which is what she does, muscles melting into the mattress beneath her, her fingers picking up those slow, soothing circles over his fur. If all this feeling is a festering poison, well– he needs to get it all out himself.

“I lived like that for a long time.” The words leave him on a sigh, back stretching into her touch, wrong skin as it is. “But then when I came back, and I saw your face…”

The memory burns brighter than the stone in his eyes; even now he can picture the way she stood, half turned toward him, fingers flexed in disbelief. The way steam had rose from her rounded mouth, clouding the air between them. How she had run, falling just short of being in his arms–

– and how she’d just narrowly missed the same later, her nails dragging through his pelt, jaw slack–

Ah, that’s really not what he should be thinking about now. Not when she’s pressed so tight against him.

“All I could think,” he rasps, meeting the dark evergreen of her eyes, “was how glad I was that I didn’t get seriously injured. So I could…”

Come back to you. He can’t make the words leave him; it’s too much, too far, but Miss–

She hears them anyway. Her breath catches, hand flexing flat on his pelt, a brand against his spine.

“So,” he breathes, heart pounding in his throat, “I guess I’m– haah.”

His hips jerk hard as his miss rakes runnels slowly down his spine. Every inch of his skin shivers, hair and teeth on edge, and it’s definitely…good. Too good for what he’s trying to say.

“You’re being distracting.” The warning rumbles out of him, and even to his own ears, it sounds more promising than scolding.

Miss hums, too innocent, too interested. “Should I stop?”

She does, as a demonstration.

“No!” He coughs, glad there’s no possible way she can see the heat slapped across his cheeks. “I’m just trying to–” have a serious conversation– “and you’re–” making it hard– “it’s hard enough, talking like this, when we’re on…”

Me. He can’t say that either, not when she’s looking up at him so guilelessly, eyes wide and uncomprehending.

“I think,” he grits out, finally, “that maybe I haven’t properly explained the, ah, connotations of touching…that.”

Her eyelashes flutter in the dark. “You like it, don’t you?”

“Yes.” It hisses out of him, not enough but also entirely too much. “A lot. More than I think you–”

“I almost made you…” Her teeth sink into her bottom lip, and oh, how he wishes that were him. “Ah…come?”

He jerks, hands clenching in his fur to keep him still, keep him grounded. More than ‘almost,’  he nearly says, but even he isn’t so foolish. “You did.”

“Obi.” She squirms dangerously close, near enough that his cock, already hard, twitches like a mutt on a leash. “I am laying on it.”

Obi blinks, confused, but it comes to him– either keep your hand on the pelt, or lay on it.

Now his face burns. He’d said that, control hanging by a thread. Broken so effortlessly by her fingers in his hair.

“I…” His mind is blank, every thought static, but he manages, “I just wanted…”

She really, really doesn’t need to look so invested in what he wants. Not when he’s already flirting so closely with the shore.

He clears his throat. “I just wanted to say, I’ve come back.” To you is too dangerous to say. “I’m…home.”

Her chest rises in a long, hopeful breath, gaze fixed to him.

“Obi,” she breathes, laying her hand on his cheek. “Welcome home.”

He watches as her eyes flutter, heavy-lidded to half-mast, as her lips just barely part, chin angling upward, and– and on any other woman he’d know what that means. On any other woman he’d close this space between them, show her just what this man’s body could do, if he asked it, but with her–

It’s impossible. How can he fill the place Master already occupies?

He should move; he should roll back onto his side and leave her to do the same; he should know better than to have let them get this close again. “Miss–”

Her fingers sliding from the angle of his cheek into the bristle of his hair, and static sparks over the surface of his skin, chasing through his veins, curling his toes, filling him up until there’s nothing left but to ground himself at the source. He’s never been able to resist her, anyway.

He reaches for her, palm gently cupping the back of her head, but she reaches for him too, pulling him to her, and when their lips meet it’s not gentle. It’s no princely kiss, oh no, but hungry mouths needing to devour, tearing a groan from him that belongs to neither of his bodies but a different animal entirely.

She’s not close enough, not even when she rises up on her own side, pushing their bodies flush together, only cloth keeping them from the delicious friction he craves. He wants her, the proof of it obvious and hard against her hip now, but she doesn’t shy, only bucks into it, making sparks trail up his spine, behind his eyelids–

“Miss,” he tries again, but there’s nothing more to say, not when she squirms up him, pressing her lips even more fully against his. Nothing more to think when she scrapes her nails so deliciously over his scalp, moaning into his mouth.

His palm grips her hip, hard enough for him to swallow a gasp as he rolls her under him, aligning them the way they both want– at least, Miss doesn’t seem to be complaining, not when her legs wrap around his his, dragging him to her. She doesn’t complain when his tongue tests the gap between her lips, when he slips it inside her mouth entirely, and–

It’s not close enough, not when it’s never felt so right, when her body molds to fit his to perfectly. When even now he can feel her both above and below, his own skin calling to him in a way that it never has before, like he might wrap him and her in it both–

“Miss,” he moans, twisting his head away. It’s the only thing that keeps her from following him. “We should–we should stop.”

She blinks up at him, and even in the glow of the stone between them, her eyes are dark. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No! No.” He can’t imagine how she could think that, with his cock twitching against the curve of her hip. “I…you’re perfect.”

He can feel her breath catch beneath his ribs, as if it were his own, and oh, they are too close to be having this conversation. Still, he can’t bear to pull himself away, not when she bites her lip so anxiously and asks, “If you tell me what to do, I could–”

“No, Miss, it’s not–” he coughs, glad she can’t see his face– “I’m very, very interested in continuing…this.”

Her head tilts, curious, as are the fingers creeping beneath the hem of his shirt. “Then why do we have to stop?”

That’s becoming a more pressing question with every stroke of her fingers. “I’m just…” He licks his lips, mouth dry as they drift closer to his spine. His actual spine, not just…by proxy. “Maybe this isn’t something we should jump into this with both feet.”

“Ah.” Her smile is soft in the stone’s light, playful. “Do selkies get cold feet?”

A laugh huffs out of him. “We get nothing but.”

Her palm presses like a brand against his spine, drawing a low groan from his lips. “But you’ve always been so warm, Obi.”

“You are making a good case, Miss,” he admits, his hips rolling without his permission. It takes a concerted effort not to try to get Miss to repeat the noise she makes. “But I– I don’t know how this works.”

She stares, incredulous.

“I mean, obviously I know how to light fires. And tend to them,” he rumbles, pressing a kiss to her neck. “But I mean, the rest. With my…” He lets out a huff, frustrated. “I wasn’t old enough when I was…”

When he was taken from his sisters. It seems like the wrong time to be bringing up family when Miss is rubbing her bare leg against his. “I don’t know what this means, when I feel like this.”

“Obi?” Miss blinks, still beneath him. Her fingers trace the scar across his chest. “What do you feel?”

“A lot.” The admission bothers him more than he would like. “More than with…anyone else.” His breath hisses between his teeth, and finally he manages, “It’s never felt good when someone touches my pelt before.”

“Oh.” Her mouth rounds, and oh, how he wishes that were more of an invitation than it was. “Only…?”

He nods, cheeks burning. “Only you.”

“Ah.” Her palm flexes against his back. “So maybe…slower?”

“Yes,” he sighs, relief making his body sag. “ I just don’t know–” what this means– “what I can give you.”

“Obi…” He fingers trace those smooth, soothing circles, only this time on his skin. “You’re more than enough for me.”

“But I…”

“Don’t borrow trouble, Obi.” Her steady hands guide him beside her, fingers fanning out over his expanding ribs. “We don’t need to worry about tomorrow until the dawn. As long as I have you, we’ll take the days as they come.”

Miss squirms close, head resting on his chest, arm thrown tightly over him. “Goodnight, Obi. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”

A breath shudders out from him. “Goodnight, Miss.”

Her breath evens into sleep, so quickly he might laugh, it not for–

For the way his pelt tempts him, for the way the night wind calls. Even now, Miss in his arms, he hears the song of his sisters, smells the salt of the sea.  

As long as I have you.

That’s exactly what he’s afraid of.