#I intense that thing often and I’m very aware and I scrub soap and water style every other week or so. but well this time I started thinking

[maddiewritesstucky]

Rating: Explicit (18+)

Pairing: Stripper Bucky / Architect Steve

Words: 3790

Tags: Sexy shower antics, post-exercise endorphin highs, Steve is a badass for like 10 minutes, Bucky is not a morning person (until he suddenly is), enthusiastic morning sex

A follow-up one-shot to the slow death of Steve Rogers. Many thanks to my radiant cassowary @kalee60​ for giving it your clever eyes. Infinite birdseed for you 😘

(Also on Ao3)

When Bucky wakes up, he is aware of two things, and two things only.

One - it’s way too fucking early for his eyelids to have peeled themselves back the way they have, if the rosy tint of the sky outside is anything to go by, and two - his foot should have connected with some part of Steve’s anatomy by now on it’s customary post-waking stretch across the mattress.

His body is coming online one limb at a time, and he grunts his displeasure into the rumpled sheets; gaze firmly averted from the clock on the bedside table. Putting a number to it will only make him angry, and the stupid beautiful soft dawn light filling the bedroom tells him everything he needs to know anyway. 

Why they had decided to move into Steve’s apartment when Bucky’s actually had things like properly functioning curtains, he has no idea. 

"Steve,”  he groans, voice thick with the remnants of sleep and the injustice of waking before he intended to. 

He kicks his foot out a little further; throws an arm out to join the search party too, but finds Steve’s side of the bed decidedly more vacant than it had been when he fell asleep last night. 

Running, some vaguely helpful part of Bucky’s subconscious supplies, you fell for a man who goes running at bastard o’clock in the morning. 

He flops over onto his back and scrubs his hands up over his face; up through the tangled mess of hair that seems to find new ways of defying its scrunchie-prison every night. His vision sharpens into focus and sticks a moment on the giant canvas print photo of himself and Steve smiling back at him from the far wall; a grinning relic of a Bucky who was not woken before his time.

It still makes his stomach flip a little, that picture - the two of them stuffed into the heavy-knit sweaters Bucky’s ma had made them last Christmas; both in the  throes of losing their shit over the comically absurd miscalculation she’d made on size. Steve’s got tears in his eyes, and Bucky’s aren’t even open, and they’re clinging to each other with that special kind of desperation that intense, prolonged laughter seems to spawn.

It’s everything good about their life together, that photo; the sheer warmth and joy they’ve found in one another over the past year, the sense of  home and family and right. 

It’s even more heartwarming, Bucky finds, when the sun is a reasonable distance above the horizon.

He drags his protesting body out of its sleep-warmed cocoon, his intentions set on the brand new bag of espresso grind that Last-Night Bucky had so wisely left sitting on the kitchen counter. 

He’s going to use Steve’s favorite mug, the one he’d happened across in a yard sale that reads ‘architects do it on drafting tables’  with a lewd stick figure drawing. Partially because it holds the most coffee, and partially because if Steve had remained in bed this morning, with all his familiar warmth and dependable big-spoon behavior, Bucky would have remained blissfully unconscious until his alarm went off. 

...Steve’s not here to actually  see  this particular middle-finger of a gesture, but that’s beside the point. Bucky will  know.

It’s not until he’s shuffling his way down the hall, already two steps past the closed bathroom door, that Bucky registers the faint sounds of water hitting tile, and the sporadic, off-key hum of a post-run Steve. 

His feet halt in their tracks before he’s even made the conscious decision that coffee can wait.

He wants to keep walking, to get his precious cup of bean nectar and crawl back into bed for another hour or three, it’s just...

Post-run Steve is kind of Bucky’s jam. 

He’s sweaty, and loose-limbed, and hopped up on exercise endorphins which, more often than not, make him inexplicably horny and give him the closest approximation of a bad boy complex that someone with Steve’s demeanor could possibly get. 

Post-run Steve is the only good thing about being awake at this god forsaken hour. 

The sunrise, and the stillness, and the smell of fresh dew can get fucked, but Bucky will carpe the hell out of a diem for some Post-run Steve.

He slips quietly into the bathroom, and is immediately grateful for the time he spent descaling the shower door yesterday when he’s met with an unimpeded view of Steve’s glorious back. What goddamn right an architect has looking like that, Bucky has no idea, but you wanna talk about some aesthetically pleasing angles?

Steve’s got one hand braced against the wall, head dipped to draw out the line of his back. His skin’s a little flushed; water channeling in fast-flowing rivulets between the soft ridges and swells of his drawn-taut muscles, and he’s breathing those quiet grunts of the recently-exerted. 

He’s a living, breathing thirst-trap, and the knowledge that he’d only blush and change the subject if Bucky told him so just makes it a thousand times better. 

Bucky pushes his soft flannel sleep pants off his hips and lets them fall to the floor, sending up another silent salute to Last-Night Bucky for going commando, and steps forward to pull open the shower door.

...Later on, when Bucky is reflecting on it all, he’ll blame the early hour and his pre-caffeinated state for the fact that he didn’t realise. The soft noises falling from Steve’s lips, the very particular bunch and flex of very particular muscles…

Any other time of day, Bucky would have known straight away. 

Any other time of day, and Bucky wouldn’t have even needed to be in the same room - he could be at the bodega down the street, and his nipples would inexplicably harden at the pluck of Steve’s distant arousal on the cosmic spiderweb. 

But as it happens in the moment, it’s not until Steve’s head is falling back on a low moan that Bucky realizes exactly what it is he’s walked in on. 

“Oh, shit...”

It’s off his tongue before he can reel it back in, and Steve almost jumps out of his skin. 

His head whips around, and for the briefest flicker of a moment, he looks shocked and uncertain and embarrassed as all hell. 

But this right here is no weekday-afternoon Steve. This is not the blushing, bumbling hunk of love meee that occupies the corporeal form of Steve Rogers 95% of the time. 

No, this is Post-run Steve, and it’s all of about two seconds before he’s schooling his features into something more akin to vaguely-smirking indifference; turning until he’s facing Bucky front on, and settling his weight back against the shower wall.

“Babe, I’m sorry, I didn’t--” Bucky begins, as close to apologetic as one can really be about seeing their significant other in a compromising yet Very Sexy position. But the words dry up on his lips as Steve lifts a finger to his own in the universal gesture of ‘shush.’   

He watches, rapt, as Steve first reaches over to the tap and shuts off the water, and then takes up the bottle of Bucky’s conditioner, squirting some into his hand before wrapping it back around his cock. 

And then that jacked-up idiot, that neuro-chemical flooded pseudo bad bitch, looks Bucky dead in the eye...and goes right back to jerking off. 

He’s putting on a goddamn show with it too - pulling at his cock, long and slow and tight; dropping his head back against the wall and letting his moans ricochet shamelessly off the tile. The sound of his fist working over his dick is lewd as hell, so much more audible for the fact that there’s no rush of running water to mask it anymore, and Bucky wonders briefly if he ever actually woke up at all, if this isn’t just all a very believable wet dream. 

It certainly contains all the usual elements - intense eye contact; a big fat dick getting rubbed off by a beefy, naked, wet dude (bonus that it’s Bucky’s actual, real-life boyfriend); the kinds of sounds you usually only hear in porn…

For all Bucky knows, he could still be tucked up in bed asleep, and not standing here naked and painfully erect in this steamed up bathroom, watching his boyfriend jack it like he’s starring in some locker-room porno.

“You need somethin’, or you just come in here to watch?” Steve drawls, arching a brow at him, and yeah  - there’s a  lot of things Bucky needs all of a sudden.

He rakes an assessing gaze over Steve’s body, stepping into the shower and pressing his palms to the swell of Steve’s pecs.

“I just wanted to make sure your run went okay,” he shrugs, “no pulled tendons, shin splints...aching muscles…that kinda thing.” 

He squeezes at Steve’s shoulders and his biceps and his tiny waist; threads his hands up through Steve’s hair and slots a thigh between Steve’s to push their hips together. 

Steve’s skin is so warm, and slippery, and he smells like soap, and Bucky starts mentally calculating just how much time they have and how much energy he can feasibly expend before their respective work days start.

He’s not on stage tonight, but he is on shift for his day job at the community center, teaching a preschool ballet class at 10am, and then a seniors ballroom dancing session at midday before his contemporary classes in the afternoon. Steve’s working from home today, so hypothetically it wouldn’t matter if Bucky wore him out a little…

“Buck...” 

“Mm?” 

He rubs his whole self shamelessly against Steve, pressing in so the barbells spiked through his nipples drag across the wet expanse of Steve’s chest. He kisses Steve’s neck and his tits and his mouth, hungry and handsy and a little frantic, and Steve laughs softly against his lips as he turns them to push Bucky up against the slick tile of the shower wall.

“Your concern is deeply moving,” he deadpans, caging Bucky in with hands planted either side of his head, “but I think we need to talk about your bathroom etiquette...didn’t anybody ever teach you to knock?” 

He’s staring Bucky down with eyes lit up something wicked; his body so very nearly touching Bucky’s but not quite, and it hits Bucky all over again that his boyfriend is, physically speaking...really fucking imposing.

It’s easy to forget, when he’s being...well, Steve. Perpetually polite, kind-hearted, goofy...Bucky feels like when he looks at Steve, he sees the softness of his nature, the quiet goodness that radiates out of him. 

He sees the sensible shoes and the khaki pants, the careful artist hands and the way Steve still sometimes carries himself like the much-smaller man he claims to have once been. 

He’s Stevie, and Bucky wouldn’t have him any other way. 

But all of that also happens to be contained within a 6’2”, 200lb frame, and right now...Bucky kind of wants to suffocate under it. 

“I am so sorry, Steven,” he says, though it’s entirely negated by the raging hard on he’s sporting and the giddy, gratuitous manner in which he’s still feeling Steve up. 

He skates his fingertips down the rippled plain of Steve’s stomach, down to the trail of dusky blond hair leading south from his belly button, but Steve catches his hands and pins them up above his head. 

“I’m sure you are,” Steve hums, “but I don’t think you appreciate the gravity of the situation here. See, you caught me in a very private moment, one that I was very much enjoying, and now I’m all thrown off. You got me feelin’ shy.” 

...There’s some very compelling evidence to the contrary rubbing up against Bucky’s hip right now, but that’s beside the point. Steve’s teeth are scraping a line all the way down Bucky’s neck to nip at the ice fractals tattooed across his shoulder, and Bucky’s more than willing to play along.

“However can I make it up to you?” 

He arches into the press of Steve’s body, the hard line of Steve’s cock nestled into the crease of his hip.

If Steve shifted just slightly, he’d be rubbing up against Bucky’s dick. 

It’s not an accident that Steve isn’t making that shift. 

“You really want to?” Steve kisses the question against his skin, making his way slowly back up to Bucky’s mouth, and Bucky nods vehemently.

He’s already wetting his lips in preparation for all the ‘making up’ they’re about to do; signalling his knees to get ready to bend and pulling at Steve’s grip on his wrists, but Steve doesn’t release him.

Instead, he pulls back just far enough to look Bucky square in the eye, and smiles entirely too sweet for the authoritative edge that rumbles into his voice. “Go back to bed, Bucky.” 

Bucky has to blink a few times as the words circulate in his ears. His expression turns from I’m about to get some D!  to  oh god I’m being denied the D in about 0.2 seconds flat.

Bed is very far away from the dick that is currently in need of reparations, he can’t achieve anything from bed.

“But—you said—I was gonna—”

“Go. back. to bed.”  Steve tightens his grip on Bucky’s wrists and leans his whole weight against him, right up in his space so his lips catch against Bucky’s as he speaks, “...and wait for me.” 

Oh. 

Oh. 

A big, stupid, ‘bout-to-get-railed grin stretches across Bucky’s face. He wriggles free of Steve’s grasp and stumbles out of the shower, stopping himself just shy of a wildly enthusiastic ‘yes sir!’

He thinks he can hear Steve’s laughter as he takes off back down the hall toward the bedroom, but it might just be his own echoing back to him. He throws himself down onto the unmade bed, still warm from when he got up not ten minutes ago, and honestly who needs to sleep in anyway? Sleeping in is for people who don’t have absolute poundcake boyfriends to screw them into the sunrise.

He should have toweled off, he realizes as his damp skin rubs against the bedding, but he cannot be blamed for life choices made before six am, and there are far more important things afoot anyway. 

Things like the sound of the shower turning back on for approximately forty-five seconds, then the muted pass of a towel being scrubbed over hair, and footsteps on the hardwood growing ever closer to the bedroom.

God, this is gonna be a good day. What  a beautiful day to be greeting the dawn, making the most of his youth, seizing everything life throws at him!

He has the good sense to snatch the lube out of the bedside drawer just as Steve walks into the room, eyeing him with amusement and hunger in equal measures. 

“You know what the problem is, with what just happened back there, Buck?” 

Steve saunters toward the bed with all the nonchalance of a man whose work day doesn’t start for another three hours. 

He wraps his sizable hands around Bucky’s ankles and yanks him down the bed a little - for no other purpose than to hear Bucky’s breath hitch at the unnecessary show of strength - and climbs up onto the mattress to straddle Bucky’s shins. 

“The problem is, I don’t like to make a spectacle of myself.” He plucks the lube from Bucky’s hand and pours some into his own, spreading it over his cock in lazy pulls. “Being the center of attention, having eyes on me...that’s more your speed.”

“Mhmm, yes, I am an attention whore,” Bucky nods, reaching grabby hands out at Steve who refuses to shift any further up his body, “and you are humble and handsome and have a big dick. Make out with me.” 

Steve tuts and shakes his head, reaching his unoccupied hand to flick at one of Bucky’s nipple piercings. 

“Oh, I don’t think you get to make requests right now. See, the worst part of you throwin’ me off back there? I was so fucking close.  So now what you get to do, James, is flip the fuck over, and let me finish what I started.” 

...Jesus, Bucky loves Post-run Steve.

He’s gonna marry Post-run Steve and have his hopped up little post-run babies, and make sure Steve never misses a single day of early morning exercise so he can bask in the glory of this magnificent bastard every goddamn day of his life.

Bucky flops over onto his front and gets his knees under himself, sticking his ass up in the air with a wiggle that’s probably a lot more comical than it is enticing. But the heat of Steve’s palms hook around the front of his thighs and pull them out from under him, sprawling him flat against the mattress.

There’s a sudden clamping of teeth on his ass cheek and the sharp swat of an open palm, and then Bucky’s being pressed firmly into the sheets by Steve’s weight settling high up on the backs of his thighs. 

“Here’s what’s gonna happen,” Steve sighs, planting his hands on the dip in Bucky’s spine, “I’m gonna use your ass to get off, and then I’m going to get back into bed, while you go make us some coffee.”

Bucky nods into the mess of blankets under his cheek, futilely trying to rock his hips up against Steve’s considerable weight. “Yes, agreed, punishment fits the cri-hi wow okay.” 

A wholly undignified sound is wrenched from Bucky’s chest as Steve skips all pretense of tease, and thrusts his slicked up cock into the crease of Bucky’s ass, rubbing off between his cheeks with a very singular purpose. 

Bucky scrabbles to grab hold of his pillow and drags it down, wedging it under his hips with as much success as can be expected when you’re being pinned by a 200lb adrenaline-testosterone cocktail. It’s enough though, to very favorably cushion the rub of his dick, and all things considered…this whole thing is working out pretty well for him.

He’s expending precisely zero effort, but the wet glide of Steve’s cock over his hole and the push of Steve’s hips rubbing him into the pillow is very much Doing It for him, and he lets his body go loose and pliant as Steve does all the work for the both of them.

And Steve is putting in work - rocking Bucky into the mattress with a fervor that knocks the breath out of him and sends the headboard careening rhythmically into the wall. 

“Y’hear that, Buck?” Steve pants, not for a second breaking his frankly devastating pace. “That’s what a fuckin’ knock sounds like.” 

“Oh my god.”   

This is exactly how every single day of Bucky’s life should begin. Naked, giddy, cocks enthusiastically rubbing up against holes, and Steve running his mouth like he won’t be turning ten shades of red about it later. 

If this is the payoff, Bucky will bust in on every single shower Steve has for the rest of his life.

“I love you,” he laughs a little breathlessly into the bedding, biting off a moan at the heat coiling low in his belly. 

It’s entirely sincere, and he says it because he means it...but if he also happens to know by now that those words are a direct hit to Steve’s prostate during sex?

That’s just a happy coincidence.

Steve makes a sound like he’s been punched, his thighs twitching and tensing where they’re clamped around Bucky’s hips. 

His breaths are coming sharp and shallow, his movements taking on a frantic edge that betrays exactly how close he is, and Bucky would ask him to slow down, except he really, really doesn’t want him to. 

“I love you, Stevie,” he says again, letting his own building climax bleed into his voice, “love you so much...come on, baby...” 

“Fuck,  Bucky, I...oh...” 

His weight falls forward over Bucky as he comes, and it’s all the shove Bucky needs to tip over the edge with him. 

He spills all over his pillow, burying a moan into the sheets and huffing under the weight of Steve’s body going lax on top of him.   

“Oh my god, Buck,” Steve groans, vaguely awed like it wasn’t his own efforts that just brought them both to sticky ruin, and Bucky reaches a hand back to swat weakly at him. 

“You said it, pal.” 

Steve nuzzles into the crook of his neck, planting breathless kisses against his skin and running his hands over every part of Bucky he can reach. 

It’s so tangible, that shift back to normalcy, back to  Steve.  It always hits Bucky square in the chest, the way he can feel Steve’s edges softening, feel that boisterous energy turn sweet and mellow in the aftermath. 

It’s kind of precious, actually, though Bucky would never phrase it like that to Steve’s face.  

He squirms beneath Steve’s weight, getting himself turned over until he’s on his back beneath him. “Good morning,” he smiles up at Steve softly, running his fingers through the still-damp tufts of his hair. 

Steve sighs happily, letting his eyes drift shut and tilting his head into Bucky’s hand. “Good morning, pervert.” 

“Hey, come on, you know I didn't do that on purpose!  ” Bucky laughs, cupping Steve’s face and kissing him all over his cheeks. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you, I’m sorry.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve rolls his eyes, though the smile on his face says Bucky’s doesn’t really have anything to be sorry about. “Guess I can forgive you this one  time.”

“You’re a gracious man.”

Bucky drags him down and kisses him right on his smile, sweet and lazy. When they pull apart, Steve’s got that dopey look on his face like he’s feeling a whole lot of something, and Bucky knows exactly what’s coming before Steve says it.

“Glad you love me, Bucky Barnes.” 

...He knew it was coming, but it still gets him every time. 

“Glad to love you, Steve Rogers.” He feels like he’s glowing a little as he leans up to peck Steve on the tip of his nose. “Now if I’m not mistaken, I owe you a cup of coffee...you’re gonna have to let me up if you want me to follow through on that.” 

“Mm, counter offer - we both go wash off, together, and then I’ll make us breakfast while you handle the coffee?” 

Bucky pretends to consider for a second before he nods, stretching his body out as Steve rolls his weight off him. 

“Agreed.” He waves a hand in the general direction of the door, shooting Steve a wink and a lopsided grin. “Lead the way, pal. I believe you are intimately familiar with where the shower is.”

[inadistantworld]

Washing the Soul Clean

F/F Pairing: Keyleth/Vex’ahlia

Vex deals with some of her guilt for Keyleth’s death and they have an emotional talk in the bath

Sleep didn’t find Vex that night, not that she was looking for it. Instead she took first watch and sat very close to Keyleth and watched her closely.

A thousand foot cliff. And she turned into a goldfish of all things.

Vex looked back down at her hands, blood was still caked under her fingernails and in the grooves of her palms. No matter how hard she scrubbed there was always more. And Keyleth, gods they may have cleaned her up but there was only so much they could do.

Vex had barely breathed since she saw the small silhouette swan dive off the cliff and into the rocks.

“Vex,” Keyleth mumbled as her eyes cracked open. Sleeping in the open again brought back old habits of waking at the slightest sounds. “Vex go to sleep,” Keyleth reached out to her, fingers finding her hand and clasping it in her own.

“I’m keeping watch for a little longer,” Vex’s voice was soft and there was a small crack in it. A fracture in the stone.

Keyleth tugged, pulling her down and looped her arm around Vex’s waist, “Let Percy do it. Sleep with me.”

She forced a laugh through her whirlwind of emotions, expertly done of course, as it always was, “Darling I’m not sure you could handle that.”

“I can handle anything.” Keyleth mumbled and red hair drifted over her face. Her eyes finally closed again and her arm held Vex on the ground with her and Vex abandoned all hope of getting up again and just pulled Keyleth tight against her and kissed the top of her head. She didn’t sleep but she felt better feeling Keyleth’s heartbeat and her breath on the nape of her neck.

 They arrived in Whitestone the next morning. Pike was quiet and walking close to JB who was also almost silent. Grog tried to cheer them up but wasn’t getting very far. Tary and Percy were walking in the back and Vex smiled when she saw them holding hands. It wasn’t a sight often seen from adventurers or boys as awkward as they were, but it was cute and she enjoyed seeing them happy together. Vax was keeping a close eye on Vex.

Vex refused to step away from Keyleth. Keyleth chattered away, talking about Zephra and how she missed adventuring and how she missed everyone and just about everything that came to her mind fell out her lips. And Vex nodded along but had a hard time focusing on anything but the fact that she had a voice, she was still speaking.

They had all died of course, Keyleth may have ‘popped her cherry’ yesterday but Vex was no stranger to friends falling in battle, or in Grog’s case once something worse than a fight. And it never got easier, there had never been an experience that didn’t leave Vex crying and blaming herself, but this was different.

The first thing Keyleth did when they got back was bathe, as everyone encouraged her to do so. And Vex made it 12 minutes and half way out of her armor before she got too antsy and left her room. She made her own way to the bath, which was more like a small pool in all honesty. It was inset in the floor and held at least five people, Keyleth, Vex, and Pike had bathed together on many occasions, though in much different circumstances. And when Vex entered she found Keyleth sitting with her back to her, humming and running a washcloth over her arms.

Vex crossed the room silently, still clothed, and sat behind her on the floor and put her hands on Keyleth’s shoulders. “Here, let me,” she whispered.

Keyleth looked up and Vex forced another smile, this time less perfect, and she hoped the tears were far enough back that Keyleth couldn’t tell. She took a small bowl from the side, there were always a few around after Pike requested some so she could wash Vex’s hair. Vex filled it with warm water and put the edge of her hand on Keyleth’s hairline to block the water from running into Keyleth’s eyes as she poured it.

For once Keyleth was silent and the only sound in the room was the trickle of water running back into the bath as it ran through her hair. Vex ran her fingers through it, cleaned it thoroughly with soap, massaged her scalp with the tips of her fingers, the whole shebang. And soon Keyleth’s hair, once matted with blood, more of a crimson than the firey orange Vex was used to, was now back to the way she remembered it.

The bath had smoke like wisps of red running through it, blood that seemed to stay separate from the water.

Vex took the washcloth and washed her shoulders and the top of her back, as much as she could get from sitting above Keyleth like this. “You have to be more careful,” she finally whispered.

“I just…I just wanted to help you.” Keyleth didn’t try and shake it off this time.

“I could have flown up, you could have turned into a bird, you could have just climbed down or something. What you did…it was reckless and it was dangerous and there is no amount of money in the world that is worth losing you.”

Keyleth turned around to face her, “But it wasn’t the money. Vex you’ve always been the bravest person I’ve ever known and I just wanted to show you I can be like that. I can be like you. And I thought maybe if you saw how much I’d grown…well maybe we would see each other more often. And as much as I loved the vacation stuff, I really liked going out to beat up demons. Even if it wasn’t real.”

It wasn’t the right thing to say. “You did it to try and prove something to me?” Vex shook her head. She had blamed herself for asking Keyleth to help her but it was worse than that. She made Keyleth believe she had to do something like that. Keyleth was trying to be like her and it got the druid killed.

“I just wanted you to think I was cool—”

“I’ve always thought you were cool! Well, maybe not cool like that but you know, I’ve always thought you were cool for us. You are like, the most powerful one here and you fucking turn into crazy shit like elementals and you are like the queen of your people or something, why would I ever think you weren’t cool? And why would you try and be like me? I’m just—”

“You’re everything.” The silence that followed was heavy and Keyleth’s cheeks turned about as red as her hair. “I mean, not everything of course. But you know. You talk to people and you wink and you shoot arrows and you fly and I just, well you know I always really admired you. And after the battle and the whole Trickfoot thing and you asked me to help, well I just wanted to show you how much fun it would be to be back together.”

“You don’t need to show off to me. All you had to do was ask to do something. Pike and Grog went and crushed the Crucible together, we could always do some adventure ourselves. You wouldn’t have to convince me. I would have just said yes. But Keyleth, you were just. You were almost nothing. You were just washing away and there wasn’t anything that wasn’t red. And it was just me trying to hold on to you.”

“You brought me back.” Keyleth was trying to shrug it off, like it wasn’t the big deal that it was.

“Of course I did! But that’s not the point. We could have lost you. I could have lost you.” Vex looked away and took a shaky breath to calm herself, another crack in the calm cool and collected façade.

“I’ve almost lost you too. I’ve stood over your body too.” When Vex looked back at Keyleth she was more serious than she had been in a long time. “And I will again. That’s my destiny. To just stand over all of you. And I got reckless because I wanted to be reckless. Because I see you just do things based on instinct and you look so cool when you do it and because I just wanted you to look at me the way I look at you. Every day I get reminded that compared to me you don’t have much time left and I don’t want to spend the rest of our time together visiting every couple months and sipping mojitos. As much as I love those times I want to spend every moment I have with you with more than just vacation mind.”

“Then what is it you want Keyleth? All you have to do is ask and we can do it, you don’t have to do crazy stunts like that to get my attention. What is it you want?”

“I want you.” There are some thing reserved solely for the eyes, one of those things is expressing the intense love you have for someone while being terrified of what they’re going to do. It is the look everyone has when they throw themselves off a thousand foot cliff for another person without having a backup plan.

Vex was suddenly very aware of everything. Of Keyleth’s bright eyes hyper-focused on her, the uncomfortable way her clothes stuck to her in the steamy room, the fact that Keyleth was very very naked, and all the emotional buildup that had happened and how it itched inside her, begging for some kind of relief. And now, after all these years, she had permission to do what she’d been terrified to even think of.

She cupped Keyleth’s cheeks in her hands and kissed her.

Vex still expected Keyleth to pull away but she threw her arms around Vex’s neck and pulled her in closer, deeper into the kiss. And also, in her distracted state, pulled her off balance and toppling with her into the water with half of her armor still on.

When she came out of the water the first thing she heard was Keyleth’s laughter bouncing off the walls, filling every crevice in the room, including all the ones Vex’s heart had sustained in all her very long years of pining after the druid. And Vex wasted no time in capturing Keyleth’s lips again, grabbing her by the waste, lifting her from the floor of the bath, and spinning her around.

And for the first time in a long time Vex was sure nothing could take this away from her, there was no power strong enough to take Keyleth from her, not if she had any say in it. Spinning ball of doom beneath the castle be damned, this was all that mattered.