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caffeinatedmunchkin · 2 months ago

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Nourishment, Beyond the Physical

Emmrich Volkarin x Fem!Rook ✦ Rating: M (MDNI!) ✦ 11.7k words

He almost didn't recognize the sound that came from him as his own; a whimpering, pathetic noise. Sick. The closest comparison to the feverish hue that rushed his clammy skin. The most apt identifier to the brutal, qualmish onset. He was a lot for her to take, though she'd have it no other way. The first time she laid with Emmrich he left her ruined, and never before had she submit to ruination with such abandon. He had the tendency of holding her needs paramount to his own. Now given the chance to return the favor, she offered herself to his exigency, unconditional and absolute. If he lost himself in her, so be it. She'd light the way back, like a beacon to ships in the night. And she'd piece him back together again. Such messy business - love.

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Crossposted to AO3!

I had an out of state wedding, a death in the family, and double-shifts at work all week long, but none of that could STOP me from finally finishing whatever the hell this is. Inspired by the beautiful and wonderful Cole’s post here, this was one of the realest things I’ve ever read everyone say thank you Cole for being correct and being vocal about it !!

I honestly have nothing to say for myself, other than this was supposed to be no more than a quick and dirty drabble with a double shot of angst at best. Before I knew it, this thing grew legs and booked it. I hope you're as exhausted by the end of reading it, as I am now having finished writing it. I've been working on this one for a minute.

I love you all so much, and I pray to whoevers listening that you like it !!

The last gasp of winter stained his high cheeks, and nipped his nose. Blistering gusts whistling past his ears, the frigidity cut through the wool of his coat with icy talons; swiping at any and all that strode along in it's wake. Spurred by desperation it to cling to it's dwindling reign, as it slipped from it's clutches a little more with each day.

An early evening that marked the start of Wintersend, the suns retreat came later and later, yet the chill in the air refused its dismissal.

Emmrich was but one casualty of few who walked the thawing domain this time of night, having traced this exact path through Nevarra's streets many times.

An ordinary stroll home, after an unassuming day back within his classroom. During the middle of a week that was decidedly without note.

No stranger to the Necropolis's unforgiving temperatures, the elements outside it's walls throbbed bone deep. The bitterness raw, whereas the former was tempered.

A flush of nostalgia was quick to warm him, as he passed the storefront of the florist he had seen prior to his escapades with the Veilguard, Safeia.

She was delicate and attentive with their romance; he felt tended to, like one of her prized blooms. While their affair was as lovely, it wasn't meant to last. Just as the crisp of spring wilted to summers swelter, the annual that was their courtship neared it's end.

They wanted different things out of life, out of their partners. Gentle as she was considerate, their release of one another saw her wistful, but to the same end of her understanding. Their parting amicable, they sometimes bumped into one another around the city. Only ever having gratefulness to offer, in their exchanged nods, and kind smiles.

It allowed him to appreciate the flower shop every time he passed it by, more anxious than ever for the approach of springtime. To see budding greenery overflow through doors she liked to prop open, inviting the mellow sweetness of the air, and prospective patrons alike. His memory of her, just as the woman herself, was always perfumed by fresh soil, and Freesia.

A pleasant smell for a pleasant recollection, Emmrich held nothing but fondness as he thought back to his time with her, however brief.

Spring his favorite season, no one's anticipation for its arrival was greater. Though winters stubbornness held firm, he had his own, personal little slice of spring every day. Waiting for him back home, to where he was en route.

Yet as he strode past, the gentle smile that crept across his face was not for the florist.

Nor was the accompanying tightness in his chest for the anticipation of her floral arrangements that would soon line the windows.

It was for his destination, and his newfound eagerness to reach it. Eagerness that quickened his gait along the paved walk.

All for the woman who awaited him there. Milk and honey in her kiss. Petal curved, and satin soft.

The one who gave him reason to return at the end of each day, instead of idling at one shop or the next, stalling the loneliness that used to receive him.

The one he wanted to be back to, even more than he wanted to stop and admire Safeia's blossoms.

The one who made his house a home.

It was their first of this holiday spent together, and as a couple proper. Far away from the horrors of the blight, and genocidal elven gods that sought the worlds destruction. Though it was a morbid little thought, he couldn't help but pay due credit to those horrors. Stowing aside that guilt and selfishness, it was what brought he and Ariadne together, after all.

Without that interference - be it fate or coincidence or dumb luck - he may have spent the rest of his days without ever knowing the resplendence of her affection. Fierce and unbridled, just like the young necromancer was herself.

Many months had passed since then. Returned to Nevarra, he brought Ariadne back home with him, and brought her back for good.

After the expected reluctance, and no small sum of bluster, the order had agreed to reopen the case of her transgressions. All at his insistence, of course.

Insistence that expressed in no uncertain terms the thorn he'd pose in the sides of not only his colleagues, but the nobility whose favorable relations they prioritized, in the event it fell on sudden deaf ears.

It was almost comical, the utterance of Watcher Ingellvar shifted from the air of an ill-favored black sheep, to one of high esteem in but a blink.

With impressive restraint, Ariadne waited until she was given a formal pardon - as well as an invitation to return to their fold - before taunting with flippant indecision. Exaggerated hemming and hawing, as to whether or not she'd deign to grace their ranks with her presence once more. All through a cloying simper.

Emmrich expected no less.

Prior to his sabbatical, the right of Emmrich's predominant dwelling belonged to the Upper Mortuary, though he owned more than one property.

The Volkarin Estate in the heart of the Nevarran countryside made for an exceptional holiday retreat, and little else. It's distance from the obligations and responsibilities of his day to day made for an impractical primary residence.

It only made sense to whisk her away to his town home, tucked within the city walls on the upper-east side.

Accessible to both the Necropolis, and the tamer portions of the city he frequented, his private niche sat adjacent a sprawling botanical garden. A regular haunt of his, he now had a beautiful young blonde to steal away with amongst the orchids and delphiniums upon their return.

The space of this lodging was always meant for more than just one. Three spacious stories that boasted multiples rooms, each spanned a near obscene amount of square footage, when compared to its occupant; a single, lone necromancer.

So she came to live with him. No theatrics, or pondering. Just emphatic agreement, in the form of the arms she threw around his neck and wound tighter than a copper coil.

All that remained was for them to begin again, anew. To lay the foundation for the life they'd share; and theirs was a quiet one. Their mutual appreciation for that stillness the axis on which they thrived.

Ordinary strolls home, after unassuming days, and weeks without note.

Taking full advantage of her new status, she'd slink through the Necropolis' halls whenever the mood struck, otherwise her appearances were to surprise him. Luring him to the memorial gardens to share the lunch she'd prepared.

True to her reputation, she caused quite the stir amongst his pupils, much to the chagrin of their fellow superiors.

Legs folded beneath her in the grass while her lap cradled his head, his lank stretched along the ground beneath him in comfort. Rattling off the adjustments to his syllabus he was entertaining for the next semester. Or reading aloud to her the poetry of the late Nadia Ulpius, his possession of such rarity all thanks to their dear Neve.

During which she'd hum, and comb her nails through his hair, mindful to go with it's styled pattern, so as to not muss a single strand. Halting his prattling only to lift a strawberry, or wedge of clementine, to his lips for a bite.

Believing themselves to have ample privacy situated behind their preferred tomb, he had made the mistake - for the first and last time - to suck the juice from her finger-tips. Damning impropriety for long enough to indulge a throaty rumble, his tongue lapped the pads of her fingers and lacquered nails in suggestion.

Only to bolt upright once the giggles from some of his first year students burned his ears, rigid with mortification. Clustered and whispering to one other with fervency a little ways off, their distance suggested a discretion that didn't match their prying eyes, and craned necks.

From then on their lunch dates never went behind the walls of his classroom. Door shut and the shades drawn.

Of course it didn't deter Ariadne from trying her best to persuade him back. His romantic involvement with her was every bit as tantalizing as one would expect, and she delighted in the scandal of it all, the wretched little vixen that she was.

It had been only a few days since her last drop-in, but already he'd been spoiled by her presence there, natural as it was familiar. Though she had dashed any hope of the sort for that day, with the litany of errands she recited over breakfast, it didn't prevent his longing for her little figure to saunter through his door all the same.

Before he knew it he was rounding the corner of his block, spotting the lit candles that dressed the south facing windows of their home; the glow combating the dreariness with soft glints through the glass. Beckoning him back to her, like a beacon to ships in the night.

As Emmrich approached their front door, the steady thrum in his chest then soured, no longer weightless with his reminiscing. A once placid heartbeat, it jerked with every step he took that closed the distance.

No warning, no immediate trigger made obvious, as he thought of his little Watcher, and their home together.

They were now on the other side of the insurmountable odds they bested. Together at long last, and happy. The sap in him liked to attribute such things to fate, their story mirroring that of the fairy-tales Bellara had introduced to their book club.

He got the girl in the end. Even though she wasn't promised to him.

Nothing of their future was.

But if his experience with fate taught Emmrich one thing, it was that she was nothing if not a cruel mistress.

Simple, unadorned contentedness appealed to him more and more in his later years. He appreciated the little things; the magic in the mundane. Now having achieved such fortune, it only increased his anxiety that he would lose it.

Just as his fear of death had slithered it's way in when he was at his most unsuspecting, this startling new and very unwelcome loathing had roused when he lost her to the Fade, all those months ago. Her return should have seen it snuffed, but it continued to flicker, faint yet undying.

While he couldn't deny the predictability of such a turn, that was a beast he kept caged in the dark.

He tried to quell it by the way he hugged her a little tighter than he did before, and for longer than either of their full schedules would permit.

He thought to soothe it by staying up later than her, if only to watch her eyes twitch, and her lashes flutter in dreams. Tracing her clavicle, before resting his palm above her heart, stilling himself to it's mesmeric beating.

Able to take a breath in their bed; knowing that the heart that pulsed against his touch was indeed right there alongside him, to be cherished. To be held.

Foolish habits of a foolish man.

He blew in through the front door with an energetic burst of the cold, it's final stab at domination. Pulling the knob with a firm hand, he shut it out, denying it further infestation.

"Emmrich?"

Her call to him echoed the latch as it tumbled with a click. Surmising her to be in the kitchen, if the sugared aroma that tickled his nose upon entry was any indication, it returned his smile.

As did his fears subside. A flaming torch thrust into the snarling face of the beast, banishing it back into the fetid depths from whence it dragged itself. Back behind lock and key.

He was home.

"-Only me, darling." He called back, dropping his shoulder to let the strap of his satchel fall down the length of his arm. Beginning to shrug out of his coat, light foot falls pranced the distance of the hall runner behind him before he pulled out of the first sleeve.

"I missed you today." Ariadne then at his side, she pinched his coat sleeve to help it the rest of the way off.

"And I you." The elf poised on the very tips of her toes in a wordless request for a peck, one that Emmrich was already stooping down to steal. "How did your day treat you? Did those errands keep you very busy?"

"It was all wonderfully dull, thank you for asking." She beamed, relishing mundanity's pace. "What about yours?" Grasping his coat collar, she shimmied it from around his shoulders. "All went well?"

"Very well indeed. My junior apprentices have made remarkable progress, and their aptitude for psychometry continues to astound." He watched as she collected his jacket and bag, and left him for only as long as it took her to hang them up for the next morning.

His look of pride then struggled. "Though, while the subject presents, some have developed a worrisome habit of... oh, how shall I phrase this... enquiring on matters most private. In regards to myself, and my amorous displays with a certain elven Watcher."

Ariadne's lips pulled into a grin, and though her back was to him, he could hear it hugging her words. "Sounds like their fantasies have been piqued."

Back on him twice as fast, she knotted her fingers into the ends of his scarf to coax him back down to her. And he allowed himself to be, her fiendish simper spreading. "Surely you, least of all, are no stranger to some smitten pupils."

His grimace taut, it strained his usual velvet timbre to loose gravel. "They look at me as though I'm some roguish heartthrob straight from a pulpy Minrathous serial."

"Well, I can hardly blame them," she sighed with a bat of her long lashes, chest pressed to his abdomen as she continued to sag against him. "You really are quite dreamy."

"I've no doubt that my stunt in the gardens will shadow my academic career to an indefinite end."

She leaned back for a better view of the grave face angled down at her, one that didn't crick her neck so. For all his lamentation, his eyes sparkled.

"My perfect gentleman, assuming all the credit?" Her tease curled through a wicked pout, the saccharine purr of 'my perfect gentleman' dripping from the tip of her tongue like caramelized sugar, sticky on his teeth and heavy in his stomach. "I played a hand in that one myself, need I remind you."

"Your culpability needs no reminding, my dear." Rocking back to her toes, he seized the opportunity to snake an arm around her waist, sweeping her back into him with a wickedness all his own. "Nor does your insatiability."

A spot of flour dusting her nose caught his eye, it's placement looking purposeful. Spidery digits cupping a rosy cheekbone, he reached forward to brush it away with his thumb, though not before she squeaked from his frozen touch.

"You're as cold as death." She tsked, a flurry of fingers reached up to swipe across his cheeks and temple. He couldn't fight his smile if he wanted to. Emmrich leaned into her, savoring the infectious spread of her body-heat. Her nose crinkled in just the way he adored, murmuring as she fussed. "I'll go run you a hot bath."

"Lovely of you to offer, my darling, though unnecessary. I'll warm up before long." Without breaking their gaze, he turned to lay a kiss into her palm, as it continued to rub the chill from his blushed skin. "That aside, I'm much too interested in that exquisite scent wafting from the kitchen."

"Hmm? Scent?" Expert coyness he was now practiced to poke straight through, her efforts were all for naught, betrayed by the creep of her own sly grin. "What scent?"

Contentedness weighing as heavy on his lips as in his eyelids, he hummed in thought. "What ever are you up to?"

She wrinkled her nose; believable offense feigned, her grin persisted. "Do you always believe me to be up to something?"

Voice kicked into his chest, the abrupt lower in octave had her sway in his hold. "Not at all, my love. Only when you look as though you're up to nothing, is when I begin to suspect you're up to something."

"Wouldn't Neve be proud." Tittering as she slipped from his grasp, she gathered one hand in both of hers, toes planted behind her heel. "Come with me then, and close your eyes."

"Such secrecy." He mused, allowing her to disappear from sight as his eyes fell shut.

Spinning around, Ariadne began to coax him forward with a bounce to her bare step. Flitting a glance over her shoulder to make certain he followed instruction, her timing was precise enough to find his left eye slitting for a peek, only when he knew he'd get caught.

"Ah-!" She chided through a cheeky smirk. "Absolutely not, young man."

Emmrich did as he was told, though not before barking a deep chuckle.

Eyes shut, no so much as twitching to sneak a peep, he allowed his tiny elf to lead him by the hand from the foyer and down the main hall, into the kitchen that they shared. The fragrance strengthened the nearer they drew; something sweet, and still warm from the oven. He could lift the aroma of toasted hazelnut through a haze of fresh sugar paste.

It ghosted across his lungs in bittersweet familiarity, before it spread throughout the breadth of his chest at an alarming pace. Pooling around his heart, it roused an old, dull ache to spasm throughout the muscle. One he knew well, he hadn't felt it in quite some time.

Emmrich didn't need to open his eyes to know what it was.

A chair positioned for him at the table, she guided his tall frame down to take a seat. Traipsing to stand behind him, he felt her breasts against his back, as she gathered his tapered upper body into her arms. Linking them around his neck with fingers dangling against his buttons, her cheek came to rest at his temple.

"Alright." She cleared her throat, the words cracking under her anxiousness. "Now you may look."

The sight of a dessert came into view. A cake, propped up square in his field of view. But not just any cake, if his nose was to be believed.

His mother's hazelnut torte.

It's presentation was pristine. Centered on a black crystal server, the sides were smooth with the whipped silk frosting, though pebbled with crushed hazelnut, just how he liked. Swirled peaks dotted the circumference of the top, dusted with cardamom, and flecks of what appeared to be orange zest.

Both assembled and decorated with a diligent hand, Emmrich could scarcely believe it was crafted by the same one that blurred in a lackadaisical whirl when extending a whisk. Whose 'pinch's and 'dash's were more akin to 'handful's.

Baking was a precise art, and Ariadne, by her own admission, was an imprecise woman.

Mother Volkarin's Nevarran Hazelnut Torte was every bit the labor of love she feared, one that consumed the lion's share of her day.

The hands that brought one of her gods to his knees before her, were the same that shook as she folded the egg whites into the batter. Emmrichs written instruction to 'do so gently' so heavy in it's emphasis, she could hear the ink admonish her from the page.

The cakes almost cracked during the transfer from pan to cooling rack. She drizzled the espresso into the icing before it was whipped, curdling the chocolate in the process, so she had to make it twice.

An adept cook, that skill was much looser with the rules. It allowed for improvisation, and fudging. She could afford to be distracted, and make substitutions without worry.

They often alternated the role of cook, unless it was a shared evening off, in which case they did it together. A testament to their complimentary opposition, seamless cohesion while preparing a meal was not a feat just any couple could boast. But they could.

Baking allowed no room for error, and would punish even minor offenses without discrimination. So much as one under performing ingredient would see the whole suffer. Baking would sooner bite the hand of the uninitiated than show it grace. Not dissimilar to how a beast snaps at one unfamiliar, one that approached with unease.

It required focus. Dedication. Her full, undivided attention.

Judging by it's looks, she had done just that. Having gone through the endeavor for no other reason than to surprise him. To do something special for his favorite time of year. To let him know her adoration of him was boundless, and what she was willing to give went without limit.

Even if it meant baking from scratch.

The length of ring adorned fingers closed around her wrist almost twice over. He stroked the knob of bone there with brisk thumb strokes, as if to quell her doubts through touch, while he was too overcome that moment to speak.

"I know you're not one to spoil your dinner, but your secret'll be safe with me." She pulled away, lips curling to a kiss against his forehead. Tugging the scarf from his shoulders to fold in half, she peered at him sheepish and sidelong. Unwilling to rush him, but anxious for his validation in the same breath.

Those bright eyes of hers boring into him in impatient wait, Emmrich shook himself free of the beginnings of his spiral only as her gaze began to burn.

Finally inclined to speak, the words snagged against his throat, strangling his inflection with what what of his voice managed to escape.

"Forgive me my discourtesy, dearest, I'm... at a loss for the proper words."

Draping his scarf over the back of an empty chair, she came to his side again. "How about your improper words, then?" Taming her nerves, Emmrich clasped her hand and lifted it to his lips.

A soft snicker misted into her skin, before molding his pout to the valleys of her knuckles. Spine then erected, he intoned through an easy smile. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather get on with spoiling my dinner."

She left him sitting there, alone with the torte, to fetch a plate and utensils. Shifting in his seat, Emmrich arranged himself over the side of it, one long leg crossed over the knee of the other. Turned away from the table to instead face her, she returned as if she had never stepped away.

He then eyed her as she placed the setting before him. Counting one plate between the two of them with a knit brow.

"Won't you join me?"

"I'll sneak a bite of yours." She teased, sinking the knife down in two clean, angled lines. Forming a neat triangle, she divulged where her motivations for such an act of service stemmed as she did.

"Lucanis told me when you gave him the recipe. I've been holding onto it for so long, I'd almost forgotten he'd given it to me." Lifting the wedge free, she plated it for him with ease. "It's only taken me so long to get around to because I saw you specified that your mother made it for you every Wintersend, and I wanted to do this properly."

Satisfied with the slice, she then passed it to him, trying to mask her shyness by babbling over it.

"I'm sure you could just make it for yourself perfectly well, but it's... different, I think, when it comes from someone else. Made for you, by someone who loves you." She continued to explain, and he continued his stunned silence. Willing himself to nod when appropriate, all else he could do was swallow hard against the cold lump in his throat.

A heaviness settled around him, but one that posed a comfort. Shielding. A hearty glass of mulled port on a frigid, lonesome night. That warded against the chill, and wrapped the heady spice of cinnamon and anise around his weariness, until it all melted away. An embrace of care. Of affection, and devotion.

For him, by one who loved him.

It patched another of his holes, one leftover from the accident. Another one of his empty gaps tailor-made for her shape, greedy to receive her. Left cold and open until she came along and filled it. No longer having a mother's doting, having been deprived of it at the tender age of old enough to suffer it's absence with appreciation.

Ariadne propped her hip against the edge of the table alongside where he sat. Arms folded, they then fell to twist her fingers at her naval.

Severing a piece with his fork that was both modest yet polite, Emmrich slid it between his teeth. Woefully heedless.

Until the taste settled.

Her fidgeting next balled fists at her hips, before dropping to hug herself around the middle.

Whipped frosting dissolved against the grooves of his tongue, and the airiness of the confection yielded to his thoughtful chewing in a slurry of rich mocha, coffee, and cream. All culminated with the barest hint of a crunch from pulverized hazelnut. With the first bite swallowed, he stilled.

Fingers knotted to keep still, she gnawed at her lower lip. Brows furrowed with an intensity that contrasted against her inhibition.

His stoic features twitched with pain, one that he fought to keep quiet.

Searching him for any signs of encouragement, he stared either directly into her - or through her - she wasn't certain. But it made little difference.

He didn't see her, or whatever it was he zeroed in on. Ever alert and keenly observant, Emmrich's look of foggy displeasure sank her heart to the pit of her stomach.

"That bad?" She offered in hesitation, as she steeled herself. Working her inflection gentle and light, he flinched against her words, as if her doubt struck him across the face. Her panic spiked.

Shutting his eyes, a harsh exhale flared his nostrils. And then nothing. Wound so tight and rocked stiff, not even his broad chest rose and fell with the rhythm of breaths.

She had tempered expectations.

Of course it would pale in comparison to his mother's, but surely her efforts would be appreciated, no matter how amateurish her attempt.

However he remained tensed, and aloof.

It bubbled resignation up her throat to spill between them, like a pot boiled over. Rushing to distance herself from the flicker of hope that she succeeded, only to retreat to forgone failure. Much more familiar to her, she burrowed in that experience, and sought it's shelter. "I know its not quite the same, but I did tr-,"

Breaking himself out of the reticence that held him captive, without addressing her - or even glancing back her way - he turned in his chair to face the slice head on, before he mauled it.

Wolfing it down like a man starved, he hunched over in his seat, no different from how a hound seeks to hide their bone from prying eyes before they gnaw it to shreds and marrow.

Ricocheting the fork back and forth between his mouth and the plate, not a hint of deviation, or break, in his ferine.

His heart throbbed by a chest that squeezed against it, intent to cave in. He didn't come up for air, not that his lungs would be able to suck it in against his body's constricting. Every part of him felt heavy and tender; the sore fatigue of succumbing to grief, after ignoring it for longer than it would tolerate.

The clinking of metal against the china was all the noise between them.

"Oh-," squeaked from her. One so quiet, he recognized it wasn't meant to be playful. He had startled her, just as he had himself.

Emmrich felt himself surrounded by her intent gaze, swelling with his every hurried inhale. Little muted whines were shook loose, before they were able to be strangled by his rabid mastication. With every one that groaned from the cavernous need he rushed to fill with her, the wider her eyes grew.

And the hotter her cheeks.

She couldn't fight the allure of when he presented so unrefined. To witness such vulnerability meant that she, and she alone, withheld the privilege of the one who he lowered his walls for. Ariadne offered to him her heart for his consumption, and he accepted. Selfish and with voracity, he took all she had to give, and it worsened his body's demand for more. It pulsed and twitched around a hollow hunger. One that would never be satiated, so long as she was near.

His teeth ground through her meaning behind the torte, as though the more earnest he was in savoring it, the closer he'd bind himself to her. The stronger the hit would be. The more potent the sense memory would cement itself, should he never get the chance for it again.

Should he ever lose her again.

A fool he was, to believe he reconciled the pain of being made to go without her.

Throbbing low and dull, it shared the space with his heart, and presented like an old scar. His body's hasty work to patch it saw it numbed and gnarled, stitched closed with a ragged touch before he bled out on the spot.

Unbothered to make it clean, or pretty. To lay nice beneath the skin so he wouldn't feel it there. To eventually fade away with time, like all the rest.

This picked it back open. Confronting him with the blood, and the mess. The beast found a weak spot in the cage.

And Emmrich kept eating.

His throat felt thick, and his molars buzzed. Head clotted and hazy from the rush of sugar, it wasn't enough discomfort to keep him from going in for more.

Until every crumb was devoured. Until his fork scratched empty plate. Only to then use the flat of it to scrape the smears of leftover frosting, he sucked it clean from the tines.

He didn't indulge in sweets often, not in a long while. And never like this.

It was like just his mother's, and it wasn't.

So different from how he remembered, yet it warmed him from the inside out, just as it did when he was a boy.

He detected her use of both rum and coffee in the icing, in place of the orange liqueur. A personal preference of his mother's in which her faithfulness was strict.

It tasted like Ariadne. Her bite. How she burned down his throat and boiled in his stomach. An addictive delight, tinged with the inescapable aftertaste of regret that plagued a treat. Something that tasted too good to resist, though he knew better.

Her heavy-hand, and decadence.

Her affection for him, overwhelming as it was unapologetic.

He didn't need his mother's torte. He needed hers. And now that he got a taste, he was ravenous.

It awakened something so deep-seeded within him he didn't recognize it at first. He didn't know how to appease it. Dredged from his depths, it ordered his acknowledgment with the same loud insistence that begged her consolation.

All he could do was reach for her.

He clawed at her hips with too much strength behind his nails, and yanked her into him. Blossoming a squeal that reached his ears, but went no further.

All but snatching her off her feet, Emmrich closed in to curl around her like a sniveling child. Burying his face in her abdomen, he wrapped himself around her in a plea for security only she could give.

He was the small and frightened boy, and the man he worked so hard to become in order to leave him behind, all at once.

Too tall and long-limbed to hide himself in her, it didn't stop him from trying.

The precious trivialities on which they'd built a life upon teased behind his squeezed lids.

Her call of his name through the door when he got in. How she hung herself from his neck, and gazed up at him with those soft brown eyes, like there existed an additional lifetime just for them to admire one another.

How he'd come into their bedroom from his morning bath, to her choice of his cuff links, or ascot for the day, laid out and ready for him. How serious she contemplated his wardrobe whenever he desired her input. A regular occurrence, as he delighted in the perk of her pointy ears when deep in consideration.

Cooking together. Wine blushing her cheeks and loosening her grin. Throaty giggles echoed into her glass at some-off hand remark of his that wasn't meant for laughs, but adoring it had done so.

Eating their meal in silence shared, for even their lack of conversation was a comfort.

Her nimble fingers gliding over the curve of his rump in a playful, yet possessive squeeze as she slipped past to goose him. Her preferred method of getting his attention.

How effortless she could communicate to him, the very same sentiment she spoke aloud just as often.

I love you.

The beast was loose, and it lunged straight for his weakness, snapping at the vestiges of his composure with it's slobbering maw. No longer would it be ignored.

Vision speckled and swimming, Emmrich blinked against it in hopes that would return his acuity, while his fingers curled their way around the waistband of her pants. A thin, clinging material, they goaded his ferocious weakness for the curvature of her hips and thighs. Soft, supple, full. Fecund. What of his faculties persisted, it was not near enough to stop him from yanking them down her legs.

Needing no further clarification of his needs, one of her hands hand grabbed for the meat of his broad shoulder to steady herself. Helping him pull her leggings the rest of the way in hurried accommodation, before kicking the pooled material from her feet.

Having forgone her underthings, a keening whine rattled his teeth at the discovery. Had it been any other time, he would have better expressed his appreciation for such boldness. Her womanhood bared to him, pink and puffy, he gazed at her and began to salivate, sugar still coating the inside of his cheeks.

Another time. When he didn't feel like he might have been ill if he didn't push himself inside her that very moment.

Naked from the waste down, he knocked the chair out from under him with a squawk of its feet skidding across tile. Clutching at the little elf, he sank to the floor, and dragged her down with him.

Scrambling to mount her, he insisted she lay down and open herself up to him; beyond mere words, but begged by way of how he pushed and pulled her.

Emmrich had weathered many romances and heart break, all of which conditioned his hands with an expertise that now failed him. Gifted with unspeakable adroitness with the body of a lover, those hands now shook and misfired, and with his own trousers, no less.

Directionless, he pawed her with brutish fumbling, grabbing at her everywhere and touching her nowhere. Breaths too tattered for blush-worthy adulation. Trembling with such force he was unable to free himself as quick as he needed, much less still himself long enough for a kiss, even one chaste.

Embarrassment had set for a myriad of reasons, though the feud with his clasps whipped him back to his first time - that sweet classmate of his, all those years ago - flushed and inexperienced.

A gangling lad on the edge of seventeen, not yet acquainted with his new height fresh off a growth spurt. Navigating his hormones and fledgling manhood with tragic ineptitude, that was, until Julian.

A strapping young man with the vibrancy of a midday sky in the blue of his eyes. The same height as Emmrich, he carried it so much better, having hit his metamorphosis much earlier. He moved with confidence, an attribute that both attracted Emmrich, and made him green with envy.

Julian kissed him sweeter than his perpetual mischievousness hinted. A biting wit softened to moaned praise. Assertive hands with an exploratory touch over Emmrich's wiry, virgin body. It was romantic in the way that young, puppy love often was; affection warm and dewy as early morning grass in mid summer, their romance carried through that season to the following.

Their end reached it's natural conclusion. He missed his companionship as he did the intimacy. But more seasons came and went, missing him a little less with each one. Dulling the sharp edges of his longing to rosy remembrance, like sand and waves to fragments of glass.

In that light, he held no pain, or grudges. How could he, when he had been left with something so beautiful from his first love? A memento forever treasured.

One shaking hand pulled himself through his slacks, having at last slipped the buttons free after much fervent appeal. Unable to take the time to fold the flaps out of the way, let alone remove his clothes, for his flaring need forbade any further delay.

Her breaths were just as uneven as his own. Hazelnut eyes full of assurance, and all for him, the sight had him twitch with a vengeance against the crease of his palm. Buried beneath his furious desideratum, he was almost appalled to feel himself erect with such ferocity. The sensitive flesh hot and angry grasped within his ringed fingers.

He shifted himself further up her body, seeking to align their sexes. Taking care not to rest too much of his weight atop her, the first nudge of his swollen crown to her folds saw him hiss at the sensation. She was ready for him. Despite the absence of proper foreplay, rubbing his length at the apex of her thighs, it came away puckered raspberry and drooling.

He found his little elf always seemed to be just a little primed for him, an affect of his presence he hoped would never calm with complacency.

A reality he accepted with shame, he could spare her no further attention, or prelude, driven mad with the urgency to be inside her.

His bruised head resting heavy at her entrance, he dropped himself between her spread thighs, and crammed himself in with a stuttered cant. A choked gasp ripped from him while he ripped his way through her, wet and guttural. Shuddering against her frantic contractions to his abrupt intrusion.

Ariadne arched up off the ground as far as the cage of his body allowed. A harsh yelp shot through her lips. The ringing in his ears deadened the blow, as it did the breathless cry of his name that followed, fragile and tumbling. Fingers grabbing at his drawn shoulders, she twisted the cotton of his shirt to anchor herself.

Time was on pause. A hush fell over them as he stalled on top of her, his thumping heartbeat nipping the heels of her own. Only once her dainty hands swept up and down his back, a pressure deliberate to stroke him still, did he realize he was trembling.

He was a lot for her to take, though she'd have it no other way. The sweet sting of his brunt hilted inside her was ecstasy unlike any she had ever tasted. The first time she laid with Emmrich he left her ruined, and never before had she submit to ruination with such abandon.

He had the tendency of holding her needs paramount to his own. Now given the chance to return the favor, she offered herself to his exigency, unconditional and absolute. Thrust as deep as her body's accommodation could withstand, with widened thighs and a nurturing caress, she welcomed his struggles as she did his prowess.

If he lost himself in her, so be it. She'd light the way back, like a beacon to ships in the night. And she'd piece him back together again.

Such messy business - love.

A quavering sigh seethed through grit teeth, her flutters were almost too tight to be comfortable. Emmrich began to rock himself in and out to stretch her to better fit his girth. Beginning slow and shallow, his thrusts were stilted, unwilling to peel himself away from her embrace long enough for proper gyration.

Their mismatched heights made for an already awkward coupling on the floor even more difficult. Her face tucked into his chest, the top of her head bumped into his chin with her every jostle forward. Steadied by forearms planted along either side of her, he shifted his weight to his lower body, throwing as much into the momentum of his frenzied canting as possible.

The otherwise respectable kitchen now invaded by obscenity, the slap of flesh drowned only by the cacophony of their sighs, and the shrill clatter of his grave gold against both itself, and the tile.

It wasn't romantic, or impassioned. It was distressed, and sloppy. A fast-spreading sickness of which this crude joining was medicinal. Her honey, her heat; the strength and tightness of muscle, that ushered him inside her plush depths. Seeking to knead him to better health.

All of his finesse - his artistry - when it came to making love abandoned him. Exiled to flounder in a shallow pool of desperation. An aspect of all his relationships of which his confidence was unshakable, he then felt like he was laying with someone he was unfit to touch.

Beautiful, dexterous fingers clawed at the floor in front of him until the tips blotched white from the pressure. Afraid to sink them into her, he knew the scratches left behind would taunt him for as long as they'd last.

Locking her ankles at the small of his back, she wrapped her arms around his back to hold him. Her furrowed brow twitching above eyes screwed shut, as he chafed her backside against the edge of tile bared from uneven grout.

"It's okay-, it's alright-," lilting in breathlessness, she fought his attempts to steal them with every snap of penetration. "Y-you're okay."

He hadn't felt such helplessness since his Orlesian artist, Anastriana. Lissome and mystifying, she was the first woman he'd ever seduced that made him feel as though he had to prove himself in order to keep her. Or rather, she was the first woman who'd seduced him.

She liked to claim conquests instead of lovers, and he managed to hold on to her for longer then she planned to string him along. Endearing her with his eagerness to please, his devotion to her needs.

Emmrich would have pried himself open with nothing but blunt finger tips in servitude, all to pluck a rib from its cage, if it might have won her approval. But her approval wasn't equal to her love.

He proved himself a dutiful marionette, one too amusing to put back in the cupboard.

Until the next came along, and he was no longer a befitting muse.

More a heinous co-dependency than it was a relationship. To think he'd been such a willful accomplice of his own heartbreak, when he disregarded the obvious, and asked for her hand. A request denied, and none too gently.

It ripped him apart. Leaving him bitter with wounded pride, and sullied by wild jealousy. Yet, even with how thorough his dismantling by her fickle whims, he remained the same. That pain, visceral as it was, fizzled and faded. Swept away by time, the sting a distant memory.

He had gained better sense alongside self-respect as he matured. Far more guarded with his partners thereafter, Emmrich offered them a scrupulous love. He didn't know any other way to be. If what he had to give wasn't enough, then it simply wasn't meant.

"E-Emmrich-," Her moans brought him back, puffed against his collar bone as she squeezed her thighs against his hips. Her pelvis pinned under his, it wriggled in attempt to match his rhythm, but she couldn't follow a lead he didn't provide.

Withdrawn fully into himself, huffing and grunting as he rut her into their kitchen floor, still she sang for him, as if he were worshiping her the way he should. "F-feels so nice-," she sobbed, perhaps just as far gone herself. Toes curling and heels dug into his low back, her whimpers broke against his ear, finding him through the thundering of his blood, and the roar of his heart. "You're perfect - so perfect-,"

The haughty, bejeweled visage of Anastriana was exiled back to the cobwebbed annexes of his psyche where she belonged. A ghost of his past that deserved internment for what of his mind she saw fit to besiege.

He no longer looked to dissect himself, and discard the more unsavory bits. He'd never again rearrange his parts for a lovers favor.

But for Ariadne?

She'd sooner clap him against the cheek for daring to suggest such a thing, though his inescapable truth remained. The deeper in love he fell, the more certain he was of his unworthiness to have her.

Not with all his flaws. The very same unsavory bits he had been so self-righteous of before her.

Be it by shame, or neediness, he wanted to hide. Sheathed inside her as he was, the urge was demanding.

He couldn't bury himself at her neck in their current position. Stopping just long enough to shift to his knees, the joints bruised and aching from the press of the tile, she stuck to him like a leech. Refusing to detach for even that terse beat of readjustment, claws sunk and legs like a vice.

The first time he glimpsed her face since before they began, her eyes watered above cheeks smeared rogue. Loosened tendrils of silvery blonde clung to her forehead and wrapped around the front of her throat, she mewled up at him like a submissive kitten. The luster of her sex drunk haze heightened by how her pupils spilled across the irises.

Hoisting her up with him to keep her hips flush in his lap, his palms slid up along her back to grip her by her traps. Hunched over, he retreated within the crook of her neck, before rolling his hips in earnest.

His pants huffed against her throbbing pulse, the fingers he had been so worried about hurting her with prior, now bit down into her shoulders to hold her still. To keep her steady as he overwhelmed her with his gluttony.

Messy and without coordination, his heft pushed at the velvet confines of her channel, the ridges clenched tight around his every spear.

Wetness then leaked against the spot on her where he nuzzled. The gallop of her heart was all that protected it from breaking.

Though it was he who helmed this onslaught, Emmrich twisted himself around her with staggering necessity. A needful, clinging tender spot, and no more. Afraid the moment he eased up, she'd fade to nothingness beneath him. Ripped from a dream, the most beautiful he'd ever known.

"Darling, please-," He rasped into her skin, slick with perspiration and stray tears. "Don't- don't leave me."

His inner torment had been plain, but to hear it thicken his tone; so small and despondent, alarm sheared through her like cold wind.

"W-what?" Battling her own disorientation, bleary eyes blinked up at the ceiling, her grasp on him curled tighter. "What are you-t-talking about?"

Ariadne didn't make his townhouse their home. She was home. His home. A home that was taken from him long ago.

One he didn't have the stomach to lose. Not again. Never again.

And he almost had.

But not that dread. That only metastasized.

The sour taste at the back of his throat. Shaking and sweat-dampened in the middle of the night, pawing at her side of the bed to make sure she was still there.

The very thing he wanted most of all had been snatched away from him the moment he received it, and all before he could even recognize it for what it was. Their last argument echoing inside his head without end, his weaknesses and insecurities blinded him from what had been waiting there for him all along. Yet there he was, trying to reject what he had craved all his life. Perhaps the beast had been there from the start.

He could have drowned in that thought if he stayed in it any longer.

Grief was funny that way.

Unpredictable as it was unavoidable. The first week she was gone, Emmrich remained strong. Focused on what he needed to do in order to get her back, he busied himself with optimism, however contrived.

Neve began to visit him those nights in the beginning, when sleep refused them both, and cast each away.

She touched his shoulder as if the company was for his sake, but the bags beneath her eyes conveyed her struggles equaled his own. Telling him that burden was one shared.

"How are you holding up?"

"About as well as your estimations, if the look on your face is to give you away. Though truth be told, I fear I'm faring not even half as well." He attempted a chuckle, but the mirth that would have lent to it's credibility refused to surface with it, rending it a scratchy, parched wheeze. One he hadn't the bandwidth to smooth over, or excuse by that time of the night. "I'm... well."

Whether he said it to convince her, or himself, neither were sold.

The ice mage peered up at him with a tilt of her head. An invitation for him to unload. "And you know it's alright... not to be?"

"Of course..." He declined her lifeline with a tired smile, the sheen of his gaze intensified as it unfocused. "Though it would be of use to no one should I pander to such selfishness, to waste precious time wallowing. Least of all to... her." His throat closed around the acknowledgment, as if speaking about her would jinx her return.

Neve uttered a small noise of agreement from the back of her throat, before gesturing towards the spiral staircase. "Shall we, then?"

The two would set out on his balcony like weary sentinels amidst the starry night. Solemn in their silence, they were each granted a moment in the company of a friend, simply just to be. A break from having to pretend.

She'd offer her cigarette each time, and each time he abstained.

For about the first three evenings.

Catching his stolen, longing glances, and interpreting them as curiosity. An oversight she fast rescinded, for when he accepted it from her, he pulled the burn into his lungs without hesitation. His fluidity betrayed a practiced ease that hinted to an old - or secret - habit. With a taut bob of his Adams apple, he shut his eyes and tipped his head back.

Neve watched with a smirk, as Emmrich blew it back into the night a steady, flattened stream from between his lips, the smoke tugging with it a noise from him. A hum that bordered on a groan, and throaty with relief. It was one she knew well.

"I see you've met before."

"Oh yes, my dear, we're well acquainted. An admission I scorn the taste of almost as much." A hoarser edge snagging his signature silk, he rushed his next drag, and the acridity furled to mild retaliation within his rusty throat. Waving away the quick burst of a cough, he shook his head at himself with a smirk that more earnestly wanted to be a sneer. "Old friends turned adversaries, I dare say."

So became their ritual. Most nights saw them together on his balcony, passing her quellazaire back and forth about as often as their weak words of conciliatory encouragement. Whenever one would find it within themselves to proffer to the other.

Ever tactful, Neve opted to continue sharing hers, to perhaps lessen the blow of his relapse. He was as grateful for her discretion as he was her empathy.

The first week was like wading through wet cement. Every step forward a battle, he held tight to his vigilance, if only for Ariadne.

The second week was when it began to harden.

They had been moving at a break-neck pace, careening down their path quicker than they could formulate the next plan of attack. And then she was gone, and everything halted. Now idle, he had a little more time to think. To dwell.

It smothered him. Everything did. Waking, walking, breathing. A constricting pressure seeking faults so that it may get him to crack, in the form of steady, unhurried fear. The fear that no progress had been made. That she still wasn't back.

His presentation deteriorated a little more each long day that bled into the next. The circles around his eyes darkening, his stubble grown out from days unbothered to shave it. Though he held himself together with little more than threads of the hope, he held tight to them still. Regardless of how tattered.

Neve shortened the time between her visits to his balcony.

Before long, the length of those days strung him right along into the third week.

That milestone a bitter one to accept, the beast then came knocking.

Before it's arrival, he loathed being in his room at the lighthouse alone; for the whispers of their argument slithered through the air in suffocation whenever he opened himself to that vulnerability. With the beast taking that place, he would have welcomed those taunting echoes back with open arms.

It reached for him like a shadow stretching across the ground, its inevitability lurking in his periphery. In the dark corners of her quarters, when he ventured there to sit alone, and breath in her smell.

It sunk its claws into his feet and dragged him down, down, down. Into himself, into self-destruction, into agony so old and familiar it hurt just to look at it. A malignancy he believed to be bested rearing in spite.

It knew Emmrich, and knew him well. It had been a long time, but they had a history. The longer and harder Emmrich looked it in the eye, did the horrified realization dawn.

I know you. And it can't be you. It cannot be. You only come when... and she can't be...

To say he looked haggard from thereon was a kindness. Iron scruff covered his jaw, sunken in and hollow with starvation. He raked fingers through his hair over and over again, leaving it to stick up in erratic tufts that he never tamed back into place, no matter how often he threaded them through it.

By then, when Neve came calling for their regular commiseration, she discovered he'd taken to starting without her.

Perseverance no longer saw fit to bestow him it's mercy.

He turned to face her with bloodshot eyes. His tall height halved as he bent at the waist and slouched over the rail, his perfect posture disintegrated along with his nerve.

The stub of his second consecutive cigarette dangled from his shadowed frown. Without a word uttered, he snapped fingers out towards her, producing a spark between them, as a small flame appeared. Hovering above his fingertips, at the ready to light her up.

Heavy lidded eyes, they were glassy with the tears he denied himself. The top few of his buttons yanked loose, while his waist-coat hung wide open. Just so he could breath.

He had been doing so well.

Having spurned fate at numerous points throughout his life, childish as it now seemed, the frequency of the habit across all his combined years paled in comparison to those dreadful weeks.

And then, as vicious and greedy as it was; as much as it took from him, it at long last returned.

She was back.

One unassuming day. During the middle of a week that was decidedly without note.

All he could do was hold her close, and steady himself to the beat of her heart. Sighing into the top of her head how relieved he was she was back, over and over again. And he was.

They hadn't the time then for proper acknowledgment, or the right words. Already on borrowed time, and he'd squander none of it on dwelling over his anguish.

She was given back to him. And there was a god to kill.

So Emmrich laid to rest the horrifics of how he suffered in a shallow grave, one neither visited.

Why now, after all this time, after she was returned to him for a life shared, a life just beginning - why now did he see fit for its desecration?

Why couldn't it stay buried?

Somehow she managed to draw it out from him. That wound gaping once more, all either could do at that moment was let it weep. For where there was blood, coagulation would soon follow.

And then the sting would dull to an ache. An ache could be ignored, could be carried. Could be learned to live with.

That grief stripped him to his bones, weary and frail. And she cradled them. Shielding them from the hard floor, and using the heat from her own body to warm them. She looked at him no different from how she did when he was at his suavest, at his strongest. At his best.

The tragedy of his parents death shaped him, an inevitability in his story.

But those weeks where he never knew if he'd see Ariadne again, the fragmented echoes of their argument left unresolved, hers would be a loss that would define him.

And then she was back. Safe in his arms. Constant in his heart.

Emmrich spoke firmer, almost a growl. Sharpened with indignation, the words still shook with the tenuous resolve of agony just barely held at bey. "Don't ever leave me, ever again."

She laid there for him, clutching the hair of his nape her fingers thread through. Thinking to assuage him, the act of speech was was a challenging one. The mass of him stuttering into her, every time she opened her mouth, all that knocked from her were gasps.

As though she were fighting against the waves of a sea as they broke over her head, cold and unrelenting. Pushing her back, pushing her away. She hushed into the air in hopes he'd be able to hear.

"I'm-here," choked it's way out against his rutting. "I-It's alright-Emmrich- I'm here."

It wasn't enough. Unconvinced, his thrusts met her harsh and jagged. "I can't lose you, not again I-I'm not- I'm not strong enough, I-"

Far more stubborn than the two of them combined, she pulled him from his hiding place and down into a hug. Forcing him to feel her sincerity through the strength of her embrace.

Shielding him from the beast that snarled in wait.

"Not even death could keep me from you." Bruising him with the weight of dedication too heavy to hold, she begged for his trust. "I promise you, I'll never leave you again."

Usually just before release he quickened, and his movement became focused. Purposeful. This time he slowed, trying to savor her, or stall himself from too quick a release. But it was too late. Rigor had settled. He could feel the little tremors throughout his muscles as they burned. That coil seated behind the root of his cock began to un-spool with the finality of an over-tensioned wire then clipped.

"Ari-," somewhere between a hiccup and a sob, it was low and needful, and unexpected in the best of ways. If she wasn't darling, or love, or my dear - she was Ariadne. Proper, and with much reverence. He had never before called her just Ari.

Deepening the rosy hue that prickled over her every inch, it wound him tighter in her arms. To say that she knew. She understood.

As quick as it mounted, it all toppled over.

A harsh prickle behind his eyes that swept from left to right, the spasms held his lids shut. Not that he would have wanted her to look into them, even if he could fight his body to hold them open.

He emptied inside her, unable to hold it back. A sluggish release, one that seemed to worsen his inner malady as it oozed. Shaking like a wet dog and growing nauseous with the dawning of what he had just done, Emmrich didn't wait for his breath to return before falling over himself in apology.

"Oh, my darling, I-I... -forgive me, I-,"

"Don't you dare." Her tone as firm as the adoration that imbued it. "Of all the things you've sought forgiveness for, that is about the most foolish."

Emmrich felt as sensitive and needled as a nerve rubbed raw, and looked twice as battered, struggling for breath that stuck to the air too humid and thick for his lungs. He had just crashed through the final stage of grief, knotted inside her as he was. Right there, on the kitchen floor.

He thought to roll them to the opposite position, but he feared movement. He still felt everything, and entirely too much.

"Foolish habits of a foolish man." He winced upon hearing himself without the tinnitus to muffle it. Gruff beyond recognition, a raw voice belonging to someone else. In that suspension of sobriety, he very much wished he was.

"Mmm, my foolish man." Her correction loving, her arms draped lazily around his neck, peering up at him glossy eyed and meek.

Humiliation digging at his back, he peered down at her with too grim an expression for all their common vulnerability. "May I... make a confession?"

Her own face fluttered a little as it softened. "Please do."

A palm at her cheek, her crystalline gaze was alight with sincere infatuation. His tongue stalled, hesitation slithering back in. The beast heeled, but still breathing down his neck.

Would he tell her of how he couldn't eat when she disappeared? That scarcity rivaled only by his lapse in personal hygiene? Would he crush that blinding acceptance she basked him in, as he told her how often he had lost his temper with Manfred?

Or that in his withdrawal of her, he thought the dry bitterness of tobacco a worthy substitute for her sweetness? That he replaced one addiction with the other, as if his relapse reduced her to no more than a vice. One he was forced to quit, one he had to reconstitute.

No, he couldn't allow her to visualize him in such a way. Though the jaws of the beast would not unlatch until it was appeased, lest he be left with those punctures for the rest of his days, hot and festered, like wounds that wouldn't close. With a deep breath, he lowered his gaze to the space of her chest that covered her heart. Trained to it's rise and fall, instead of looking her in the eye.

"All this time I thought ill of fate; thinking it cruel to have lead me to you so much later in my life. But I was wrong. It wasn't cruel, but merciful. I've been left behind to live on in the absence of those I loved most. I could not... do that again. Not with you." His utterance just above a whisper. "Not again."

The dour severity of his words flustered her. "That's very sweet."

"Rather disconcerting of you to perceive that declaration as such." He shook, eyes wide and head hung in defeat. The ruefulness of his inflection cut through them both. "I'm a weak man, Ariadne. A coward."

"And I'm a horrid little woman." She all but groaned.

He drew back with a blink. A more familiar, perplexed look settled into the lines of his face, one she was ever grateful to see back on him.

She hadn't meant to snap, but it startled him out of self-loathing long enough to allow for reason. At the very least, their eyes had finally met. "While we're exchanging confessions I have something of my own, if you'll hear it."

Emmrich urged her on, wordless. The pallor in his face receding.

"If I died tomorrow, I'd haunt you for the rest of your days." The mischievous twinkle was unable to mask her honesty, one she was none too proud of. "I know I'm supposed to say that I'd want you moved on and happy, but I'm viciously jealous."

To what she offered, he scoffed, though not one of contempt, or ridicule. That candor of hers brought him solace, one he was gracious to accept. A fullness in his heart, a balm to that nagging ache that throbbed low and steady when she was gone. A piece of it missing in the shape of her, he was then strong enough in acceptance that it was back.

Steadfast, and unequivocal.

As was a different nagging he had been trouble by on and off, in the months following their homecoming. It was far less monstrous, though it frightened him much the same.

Though the way she gazed up at him with those big, brown eyes confronted him with a decision then made. That his rationale for its evasion was unfounded.

He could think of no better time than now, tangled in one another on the floor, as bared to her as he'd ever been.

True to his creed, he didn't dissect himself to rearrangement. He ripped himself open and let her see it all; the ugliness, the cowardice, the unsavory bits. The parts of him that begged recoil, the parts to be shunned. He bared it all. A soul laid naked and plain in oblation. All he had to give.

Should she accept, it would be hers. Forever and always.

And Emmrich knew better than most the rot of things left unsaid, how they lingered like a restless spirit when their time came to an abrupt end, and it was too late to voice them.

"Marry me?"

Clawing it's way through a tight throat that sought to cage it, the blurted plea left him breathless. Hanging between them, tender and exposed.

There was no grand romance. No honeyed poeticism, or candlelight dinner. Not the way Emmrich had expected it might be. Not the way he felt she deserved. It was coarse and raw, just as she made him feel.

Then again, he knew the little Watcher better than that.

She'd always prefer unrefined sincerity, to overwhelming sentimentality. Perhaps this was just as it should be.

No matter the dressing, whether there were dozens of candles - or not one - the promise was the same. The words themselves were the heavy lifting. She trembled beneath them.

"I-," her words caught, and she winced. A blush pooled outward from the bridge of her nose, and moisture webbed across her eyes that only broke over her lashes when she tried to will it away. She continued to blink, looking to hide her face as fresh tears welled to replace the old. "You want a horrid little woman for a wife?"

"Does she love the weak, cowardly man?"

"Point that man out and she'll tell you." She sniffed, allowing for silence to coalesce between them as she collected herself. Though the importance of the request was one that ordered immediate response, he felt weightless as she kept him waiting for it.

"Ariadne Volkarin." Her breath hitched at the taste of the title in full, the flutter of her heart kicked to dizzying thumps with every syllable, every press of her tongue to her teeth. Trying it on for size.

A name she'd be honored to bear.

The first name she'd been offered. And not because there was simply no one else for her to be, but because he wanted her to be no one else.

"Ariadne Volkarin." He repeated, a hoarseness to his deep inflection. "My love... I must burden you once more with a confession, one I'm far more hesitant to impart."

Eyes widened to saucers, they glistened with delicate tears she did well in blinking back. "Oh?"

"I... I don't have a ring." Brows bowed, frown sheepish, resignation muddled his cadence.

Her gaze still blown and shining, it fixed on him, unflinching.

And then she laughed. Breathy, gentle, and blessedly reassuring.

"Does that mean I can't accept your proposal?"

A pressure closed around his heart and squeezed. Unbearable, he could have lived a lifetime in that heartache all the same. "Do you?"

"Yes." Her touch light and trembling, she guided his head down to rest his forehead against hers. When next she spoke, it was no more than a whisper, and a reflection of his frailty she handled with such care. "I do."

Tagging as per request: @pinkuranium @goddessnyx216

#im so dumb im literally shaking as i post this ahhhh #emmrook #emmrook smut #emmrook angst #emmrich volkarin #emmrich volkarin romance #emmrich volkarin smut #emmrich volkarin angst #emmrich volkarin fanfic #emmrich volkarin fanfiction #emmrook fanfic #emmrook fanfiction

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torturedblue · 1 year ago

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It’s the middle of the week, have some dancing turtles

Spoilers below as I gush about my Mutant Mayhem Monday experience 🤗 please feel free to gush with me I wanna hear other people’s thoughts too!

First off… When Seth wanted to put the teenager in TMNT he meant it. Like, all the versions act like teenagers, but like Nickelodeon PG stereotypical teens. MM turtles were the realest PG-13 outta pocket 21st century teenagers I’ve ever seen and I love that shit because it’s the first time I actually felt like I was around the kids in middle school and high school again with the way they talk. Kinda appreciate Superfly cussing too? Like idk it’s Ice Cube and this villain goes hard tryna kill some teenage turtles he formally saw as his lil cousins, let the grown mutant cuss

Also uh, was not expecting to be sad so early in the movie? Like I could tell from the trailers it was gon be an emotional rollercoaster but shit like ten minutes in and these turtles are fuckin depressed. And to see it really hit me because in every other version (except for Bayverse) the turtles literally never let not being part of the human world get to them. In the shows especially they’re so well adjusted and never bothered by sticking to the shadows. Then there’s Rise where they pretty much go out whenever they want and indulge in most of the human world stuff they want to. For these guys to be so stunted and desperate to have more freedom was so heart wrenching. Especially when Splinter grounds them for a whole month and the reality sinks in of how much they know the life they want isn’t an option for them

Wasn’t expecting any kind of ship or romance but that crush Leo has on April hit me like truck because…… holy crap the Leo-April pair has never been a thing? On top of that this is only the second on screen black April we’ve seen and I’ve been a Leo kinnie across the board since day one so to see this combo of my favorite character liking a black girl is making me lose my mind 🥲 and like it got me thinking of several of my favorite shows and the single characters I kin in those and if they’ve ever had black love interests and it’s just still not a common normalized thing honestly.

I’m sure a lot of people aren’t excited for the prospect of ships coming back (especially after 2012 scarred us) but as a Leo lover and black girl it got me so excited to see something like this. I’m just hopeful and optimistic they won’t mess it up like a lot of shows do. The “this is just as friends line” already makes me a little worried bc that trope never has a good history but I have faith they’ll handle things tastefully and not make it toxic or messy

MURDER THE SHREKS!

“I assume you’d wanna be on camera. ‘Cause you have, like a very camera ready look…” OKAY SMOOOOOTH LEONARDOOOOOO 👏🏽

Could not stop laughing while he was shooting his shot my face was literally donnie’s restraining myself from bursting out laughing

Just a couple of my favorite questions that April wrote down for them:

“Do you carry salmonella?” Look I still don’t know wtf salmonella is but it’s the second time a TMNT iteration has joked about it so I’m starting to think it has something specifically to do with turtles 👀

“Have you caught covid?” Oml covid exists in this world

“Are you the source of covid?” OUT OF LINE 💀

“How many people has the red bandana turtle stabbed? Does he need therapy?” Yes.

“Does sunlight cause you to burst into flames?” They’re- they’re not vampires? 😂

Leon Ardo deserves the world and whatever he wants in it give him everything 😭

I will never understand what made Donnie laugh so hard at the name Nardo other than it being because it’s his sibling and that it bothers Leo lmao

All imma say about the puke scene is that I’m glad I heard an “out of context” spoiler about it bc I knew exactly when to look away and I’m glad I did bc the scene lasted for so long??? 😀❓But hey at least I had Unwritten to listen too while I was sparing my eyes 😂

The sequence of them going around and shaking down those gangs and Superfly’s connections. BAD. ASS. And each of them got their own moments to shine? Loved it. Like they each even got to take point and have their moments where they got to kick in the door lol. And the fight scenes were just, muah. Chef’s kiss, they all looked amazing taking grown ass adults down together

Okay Splinter definitely gets the best dad award for putting together that little surprise party, with all the celebrity Chris’s and pretending to wait on them 🥺 so pure. It did make me sad the guys immediately left and you can just see such a sad dejected look on Splinter’s face, knowing he can’t provide what his kids really want or make them happy enough without it 🥲 At the very least they say thanks and that they appreciate but I would’ve at least stayed for a lil bit and gone along with it, Splinter just looked so excited about it and it was so sweet 😭

And he doesn’t even get upset though he knows they’re hiding something, he just says he’ll help them if they’ve gotten into trouble, which is something I’m sure almost every kid has wanted instead of having the kind of relationship where they’re more scared of telling their parents they messed up instead of handling it on their own

I love how musical Superfly’s family is 😂 Ray Filet just starts sing-introducing his name and Mondo and the other couple mutants when they drive with in the car trying to find music they could all sing to together 🥹 not to mention the musical references Superfly makes later that I’ll get to. “Kinda don’t wanna murder everyone on Earth, I just kinda wanna sing” Me too bruh.

Raph immediately going “goochi goochi goo” and playing peekaboo with Genghis frog is so underrated that boy has such a soft side he’s not even that afraid of showing at times, and maybe it’s continuing the trope of Raph having a soft spot for pets/animals? Who knows 😌

Yo I was kinda shook when that government guy knocked Leo out and he just fell unconscious on the ground 😶 Like we’re used to seeing the authorities be brutal especially in movies like this but that’s a whole teenager? You just assaulted a minor? 🙂 Crazy

Also I know it’s sad they got captured and drained painfully but Mikey in that scene was hilarious 😂 like even the way he was dramatically crying and Leo was just started to cry with him like “iM sO sOrRy mIkEeEeEy! 😭” gold. When one of his children is hurting Leo hurts too. One of my favorite moments 🤣

They literally started singing BTS while being tortured they’re so unserious but like in a serious way to them and I love it. Also the fact that they did it just to make Donnie feel better? So pure. Like Raph of all turtles offered to sing while being drained of blood (bc I refuse to use the m word 💀)

The way Splinter snuck in and soloed literal government soldiers single handedly? Badass. Never loved seeing a Splinter save his sons so much 🥹

“But it’s the only way we’ll be accepted.”

“No! We accept you!”

“You can come live with us! We accept you!”

“WE VIBE!”

Oml they’re so puuuuure 😭 I really thought this was gonna be a moment where the guys invite them all to come live with them and Splinter was gonna be like ‘aha 😬 whoa slow down there’ but damn nah he was just as enthusiastic as them inviting all those mutants to come live in their home forever “The more the merrier!” Like ugh he just loves finding family like Baxter Stockman and we see where the guys got their loving nature from 🥹

The amount of his soul Mikey put into that BROSEEEPH was so real like I’ve never heard the name broseph be said in any other way, I’m so glad they put that moment in there

“New York, New York!” “I’m the king of New York!”

Oml superfly’s a Broadway baby 🤗 he’s a big bad villain marching through time square and talking about King Kong but he’s fill gonna nerd out and make his musical theatre references 😂

“For once in your life you didn’t sound lame. You actually started to sound like a leader”

“That was really heartfelt Raph”

I love the Leo Raph dynamic in this movie. Like they don’t always agree or understand each other but they will show love towards one another and show mutual appreciation

Something about any of the turtles shells cracking always gets to me for some reason like those are some serious permanent injuries so I want to see if they do anything special with that in the sequel or show maybe 🤔 And I couldn’t tell if all of theirs cracked or just one, and if so which turtle it was. I think Leo or Raph. I feel like it was Leo but Raph’s are also starting to have a trend of getting cracks in their shells so 🤷🏽‍♀️

Also I do not want to judge what other people like to wear but why are Raph and Donnie the only normal dressed ones 😭 like Mikey looks like he’s going on vacation and Leo looks like he’s going to clock in at Best Buy 😂 tell me it’s because they have limited resources for clothes lmao. HE’S LITERALLY WEARING A LANYARD

Them taking off the masks was crazy honestly… like them deciding not to wear them made my brain pause until I realize they’re kids going to school now and not being ninjas all the time… they don’t need them anymore. I’m just so pleased with the fact that this movie was willing to do what all other iterations weren’t. I see why they’re getting a sequel and show already, these guys and the plot development deserve so much more exploration

Maybe I missed something in the beginning but I’m wondering where Stockman went. Like is he still in custody? Did he die? Because not seeing him again that’s what I assumed but we only saw him get arrested or whatever, so if anything I don’t get why Superfly and the others wouldn’t try to break him out 🤔 I was surprised they didn’t make him a villain though, but I’m pretty happy about him getting to be a more optimistic kind character tho

SHREDDER HAD ME SHOOK LIKE THE ARMOR ALREADY LOOKED SO COOL AND I WAS NOT EXPECTING THEM TO GET THE BIG BAD INVOLVED AHHHH I’M SO READY TO SEE THEM REACT TO THIS ANGRY GIANT TIN CAN

Although I do wonder if Shredder’s gonna have some personal gripe with them since they have a different backstory he doesn’t seem to be a part of. And shit now that they’re public and in school it’s gonna be so much easier for him to go after them 😅 pluses and minuses…

The soundtrack: golden. Cultured. Nothing but range. Goes from a 90’s rap song to Natasha Bedingfield’s soulful 2000’s song. Most movies only ever have all pop mainstream songs or only rap songs because they think they can’t mix but MM does it effortlessly. The turtles are so versatile not just with music genres but they make old and new references ‘cause they’re well rounded kings 💪🏽 Between rizz, Adele, broski, Hey Arnold, K-Pop, Ferris Bueller, etc… I mean Donnie’s literally doing the sprinkler and the funky chicken in that gif up top 😂 they’re born in 2008 I doubt any kids today know about those dances anymore

Clearly I have all the thoughts and feelings about these boys and the movie, but I think this is probably my favorite TMNT movie? I’ve loved all of them but I think this one definitely brings me the most comfort fr

#mutant mayhem spoilers #tmnt #mutant mayhem #tmnt 2023 #tmnt mutant mayhem #tmnt mm #tmntmm #mutant mayhem tmnt #tmntmm donnie #tmntmm leo #tmntmm mikey #tmntmm raph #tmnt mm splinter #superfly #tmnt superfly

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