softer than rain, harder than pain | @dawnbreaked

[vergeltung]

[ Trusting him was a mistake.

It was easier when she was a free agent, not having to worry about anyone else, focusing only on what she needed, what her company needed, working on a professional and not personal level, keeping her distance from others and letting them keep their distance from her.

It was lonely, but it was easier.

As a free agent, for example, she never would have been pacing the kitchen of the Dawn Winery with clenched fists and burning eyes, trying not to just snap and break something while Diluc's staff tend to him behind closed doors, caring for him through an unconsciousness going on at least a few hours now. She wouldn't be trembling with the cold horror of her Vision's resonance, nor dealing with tears she's unable to hide, sparkling as they are like diamonds frosted to her eyelashes. It wouldn't have been her for whom Kaeya came running, grave anxiety written over his face, tears of his own evident in the redness of his eyes and cheeks despite his attempts to hide them; she wouldn't have even known this was happening—

Somehow the thought does nothing to ease her churning, angry stomach. Eula closes her eyes and cups a hand over her mouth, convinced for a moment she's going to vomit. The free hand waves away whatever staff member it is who's trying to comfort her— she doesn't know these people, not enough for this— before coming to rest on the counter in front of her. She can feel the anxiety trembling through her skin where it contacts the furniture.

I swear, Ragnvindr, she thinks, a tight hold on the counter as if that will somehow make it better, if you get through this I'm going to kill you myself.

...

He'd better get through this. ]

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[vergeltung]

[ She's steel reeling from her own orgasm when his hits, and the burst of warmth makes her exhale shakily against his mouth, a pause from kissing while their lungs desperately seek the air that they're lacking; and distantly, through the fog of pleasure and the alcohol they've consumed, there's a thought about how glad she is for the daily potion she'd been put onto that allowed him to fill her with no concerns about pregnancy, because she's starting to think she's addicted to the sensation of the warmth of him in her.

Worn out, it's all she can do to lift her hips from him, moving to lie next to him on the bed, hand splayed loosely over his chest and lips pressing soft kisses against the underside of his jaw as she settles against him. ]

Mm.

[ It's a murmur, half a word at best, because there are things she wants to say but no energy to say them, her body still pleasantly thrumming from her release and his, her mind clouded over with relaxed, distant pleasure. If she can think of anything at all, like this, it's all the other things she wants to do with him— some sexual in nature, some not. But mostly her mind is just empty, pleasantly so, and relaxed.

She's content to lie like that for several long moments— when she finally looks up at him again from a half-doze, there's a dreamy, content smile that no one other than him has ever seen her wear before, and she presses another lazy kiss against his skin. ]

I love you, Ragnvindr, [ she murmurs again, and her brain is blissfully silent on the matter. ]

[dawnbreaked]

(For now his arm rests comfortably around her, thinking over just how to go about bringing up staying home in between the fog of pleasure, alcohol, and his drowsiness from the time spent like this. It's relaxing him far too much than he once would have thought about to be with her in this state. Pleasantly drunk and without worries for a change combined with thoughts of what else they could do; the sexual aspect not in all of them just like with her even as he feels the tension fade in his muscles.

The words she speaks next after her first time attempting to speak causes a smile from him, the words themselves causing a flame to be stoked again but without surrounding him in the violent wall that it once was. His head is not arguing with him this time too. All of it is quiet now once he kisses along her hair in their closeness, in their drowsy yet dreamy state.)

I love you too, Eula...

(And he would forever. His heart goes to her, just like the rest of him even as he closes his eyes for now. The tiredness from the alcohol and the evening spent now twice with the heat of their love slowly catching more up to him as he wonders if he should remind her tomorrow that he tends to be rather clingy when drinking.

Maybe, but there was still the question he meant to ask, the words he wanted to say too about seeing if they should stay home again. Stay inside and simply take the breather they needed again from their work and more, the time that they needed and wanted to spend with one another.)

... stay home tomorrow then? (Dreamy is how his voice sounds, still a little raw from the loudness between them, but dreamy like a warm fireplace.)

[vergeltung]

[ Eula can't help but find her eyes lighting up at the suggestion, a soft laugh on her lips as her fingers dance across his chest and her lips press against the underside of his jaw. Once again, he's read her mind and spoken of the exact thing she's been wanting to say herself, and once again it stuns her just how attuned to one another they are in that regard, how she went so long thinking him to be someone unworthy of her time. ]

Mm... you know, I was going to suggest the same. [ And there's that same dreamy quality to her voice too, a sweetness as she yawns and curls in closer. ] Staying home, I mean. So it sounds perfect to me.

[ They'll have to get used to it, she thinks, the other knights— the other people in their lives, accustomed to them being workaholics who barely allow time for themselves, now seeing them actually take days, sometimes more than one at a time, for relaxation and for each other.

Heck, maybe they should take a proper holiday, she thinks. It would be her first in forever... ]

...You know. [ The words are a little abrupt perhaps, her tone too, something sudden in it as the idea strikes her, and she half-sits despite the lazy drowsiness in her voice, looking down at him with a little smile. ] We should go on a vacation.