#yeah idk how theyd go on from there theyre in a fucknig meeting room

[awanderingtortoise]

my love mine all mine (zoyalai short fic, 600 words)

i miss these dumbasses sm i picked up right from the end of the confession scene in RoW ('she obliged him') and extended it because damn JUST one kiss?? we all needed more than that. so heres like-- two more kisses i think.

They are general and ruler but they are also just them, just Nikolai and Zoya; young and tired and tried and tested in wars of country and heart. So when she draws him back to her, she does it like an act of surrender: need and love and longing bared in the motions of her hands, her lips. Damn pride and damn reason, he was here and he was hers.

Nikolai responds in kind, still kneeling before her; ever golden, ever earnest. There is nothing trite or clever in the way he kisses her, only an desirous honesty; mouth fallen open, hand reaching desperately to cup her face, thumb run across her cheek, insistent, over and over again; that rapid fire, joyous beat of his pulse that resonates through her rib cage when she holds him closer than she has ever dared to even dream of. Neither of them are ever much good at saying what they really, truly feel, but there is no need for words, now; she thinks. There is no need to say what she can feel through every inch of her skin.

When they part it is only in a rush for air like it is the secondary need and closeness the first, wordlessness ceasing only when he speaks, solely to say her name; to gasp it on the millisecond he takes for breath; Zoya, voice breaking on the verge of delirium, then he is kissing her, again and again. At some point she regains enough self possession to throw one hand out and slide the deadbolts of the door closed with a gust of wind at the same time as her other drags at the buttons of his shirt. Nikolai pulls back suddenly, and the sound that escapes her as he does makes his own breath hitch so sharply he wonders how he still remembers he intended to say anything at all.

“They’ll— be expecting- us,” he manages, chest heaving, pupils blown wide. “To— speak. Again. Just so you— truth be told I can’t make myself give a damn but I know you might be— I mean. It would be practical. To give another address. To—“

“Nikolai.”

“Mm.”

“Right now,” she starts, pushing his hair back from where it had begun to plaster haphazardly on his forehead, and he melts easily into the touch. “I really don’t care.”

“Oh,” he says helplessly, his gaze falling back down to her lips. “Really? Fantastic. Well, in that case—“

She rolls her eyes and he laughs a little, dropping his forehead against hers.

“All Saints,” he breathes, his gaze locked with hers. “I love you. Have I said that yet? I love you, Zoya. I’ll love you for a lifetime if you’ll let me.”

He had said it, a hundred times over: in gazes held and stolen glances, in touches meant and yet never given meaning. But to hear it aloud, fervent like a wish, soft like a prayer– a quiet ache rises in her chest, her throat.

“You’re a fool, Nikolai.”

“Yours,” he counters, and she feels the breath of the word warm against her lips.

She only smiles, turning her head to kiss him once more, wordless, and yet every cell of his body feels her reply. Yours, yours. Mine.