Who: Desmond and OPEN What: Nodding off... When: Evening Where: On a bench on campus grounds Rating: PG-13ish Status: Complete
"Marcus! Please... if my father found us together, he might kill us..." Her voice rang out like a bell in the evening, but it was a sunrise in winter to the one who knelt calmly upon the stone floor, it was as bright and seemingly warm as ever was, but in the context of time it did nothing to stop the chill that was slowly spreading over him. His knees pressed lightly together, legs tucked underneath him, head bowed, he was the very model of a proper slave, a pale adonis that could have been a statue for all he moved. Inside, however, a tempest raged greater than any storm of agony at the voice that was floating around with Mari's voice out in the garden. He closed his eyes tighter, making certain not to clench them, to show any emotion on his face, or let anything show. She would not be happy with that, and there had to be... hope... in this.
"You are the one who invited me here, Maris..." His tone was deep, the husky baritone of one who had seen many a battle in it's time. He was older than she was, by more than a few winters, and Mari had suspected that he had already known his way around the female figure. All of this she had confided in him, and he had swallowed each bit of information like a bitter wine, his stomach twisting with anger with each mouthful that he was forced to consume. To him Marcus was a film upon a pond, something wretched and worthless. It was not understood by him why Marcus happened to be here, but had he been asked a few moments ago, he would have sworn that the only reason why he might be within 10 miles of Mari would be if he had snuck his way onto the grounds. Now... now he didn't know what to believe, but he could feel a lump starting to form in his throat.
"To talk... to talk, my dear boy... and here you are pawing at me like an animal..." She replied softly with a hint of huskiness to her tone that the slave who stayed so very still recognized. The lump in his throat grew to be a boulder, something choking, something impossibly huge. How it was that he managed to swallow, he could not even begin to fathom.
"I cannot control myself around you, Mari... the ceremony is so far away... and there are things that I want... things that you want... right now..." The deep tone rumbled while the shuffling became louder. The slave forced himself not to close his eyes as they stepped into the room, the silloutte of them doing painfully little to hide the fact that her back was to him, but his hand had wound it's way to her chest and gripped it firmly, pulling the woman against him. The force with which he did it made the slave shift slightly, starting to plant one foot in the ground. He could be across the room faster than any of the other guards could, and he had already started to realize that he had nearly the strength of 2 men...
"mmmnn.... you are starting to talk me into it..." Mari whimpered in response, and stopped the slave dead in his tracks as she turned suddenly and roughly wound her hands into the stranger's golden curls. The slave could see the dim light reflecting on his green eyes as he closed them, and returned her kiss. He knew that kiss... he knew what it felt like, he had burned it into his memory the few times that she had given it to him. He knew that it could move the world, that it could shake everything to it's core and suck all of the air from a room. Yet when he looked he saw no uneasiness in Marcus' form, heard no intake of breath, nothing to indicate anything beyond a passive understanding of what was going on.
Mari, on the other hand, came out of the kiss breathless, her chest heaving in a way that seemed... foreign, and yet far closer to the way that his own chest had heaved. "I have an idea... go into my chambers, I will join you in a moment." she whispered to him sultrily as she crossed the room over to where the slave sat, his crystaline eyes staring up at her questioningly, wanting more than anything at this moment to break the silence that was expected of his position, to demand to know what was happening. And yet his tongue felt like lead in his mouth, weighted perhaps by the boulder that still was lodged in his throat as he looked at her, opening his mouth then closing it.
"I need you to watch the doorway and make certain no one comes to disturb us..."
The slave felt his blood freeze as his heart stopped. "I..." He shook his head slowly. "No..."
His cheek stung before he realized what had happened, and the ache in his scalp made him realized that she was holding him by his hair as she tugged him up to look at her face. "You do not get to tell me 'no'. You will not RUIN this for me. What happened between us was a momentary weakness... it is never to be discussed again, and it does not give you the right to talk to me as you and I were equal..."
A tear blazed it's way down his cheek as he stared up at her, uncertain of what exactly he could say at this moment, what it was that wanted to be released from his chest. "You told me you loved me." he breathed out softly, painfully.
"I... of course I did. I wanted to believe I did. And you refused... until I said it..." she said softly, frowning at him. "I need you to be my friend... you are the only true friend that I have... you told me that you would do anything for me... was that just something that you whisper to a woman after you've had your way with her?"
"No!" He said loud enough that she slapped her hand against his lips to muffle it.
"Then prove your words true, slave. You told me that you would do anything for me... so do it then. Or leave... if I cannot trust you... and I will find someone that I can trust..."
The slave just looked down at that, watching as droplets of moisture fell to the ground at his knees. Slowly he rose and moved to a more central position, pressing his hands against his ears as tight as he could as Mari began to moan in an all too familiar fashion. He wondered if by the morning he would be insane from that sound... how something that had once been the soundtrack for hours of bliss could be turned into something so agonizing that it would make the very comprehension of it misery.
And while it felt like hours passed, moon had barely shifted in the sky when the sounds fell silent. In fact, he realized calmly that it had only been but a handful of minutes, really. The silence almost seemed deafening as he sat there for a few moments more, only to watch as a lithe form moved it's way from the hallway, past him. Marcus looked like the cat that had eaten the canary as he raised an eyebrow at the slave standing guard in the hallway. A slow smirk spread across his features before he headed out into the night.
The slave blinked as the stared at Marcus' back, but it was forgotten as he heard the soft sound of crying coming from the room behind him. Rising swiftly to his feet, he walked towards the room so quickly it felt almost like he was a blur doing it, blinking as he saw Mari on her bed, curled around one of her soft pillows crying. Taking a step with enough force that she would be able to hear his skin padding against the soft stone he started to move towards her.
"Go away. Just go away..." she whispered to him.
The air was cool around Desmond, but he didn't really feel it, in part due to the wonderful white chocolate mocha in his hands. As he leaned down and sipped it he breathed in and smiled a little as the sweetness of it rolled over his tongue. As sweet as it was, however, it could not stop him from frowning a little immediately after he took a sip of it, closing his eyes and breathing out as he felt the wind start to rustle it's way through the dark locks of hair. For one of his classes he'd been instructed to get something off of the internet, of all things, and that in itself had taken hours to actually get back up and working with his laptop, then more hours of searching.
Now... he felt a strong desire to just relax. But he knew that he could not. Since Raina had walked out, he had made this his nightly ritual, to be close to where she was and make certain that nothing happened to her. The idea of what had happened to Beth was still fresh on his mind... and thus he often found himself leaping across the rooftops to check on her as well, to make certain that she too was alright. It was exhausting, and he found in the mornings that he was barely able to get enough sleep to feel somewhat rested for the first class. It was still relatively early in the evening, however, so Beth and Raina likely would still be up and not in their dorm rooms safe and sound just yet for the night.
Desmond was fairly certain that Raina was in hers at the moment, but that did not mean that she was in for good. Usually his ritual would end when he could be fairly certain that both of them were asleep in their beds and not planning on going out for the night. Still, he was trying to be realistic. Raina had made a valid point, he couldn't really expect himself to be watching over them all the time, it just wasn't possible for any single creature that needed sleep to do. Still, he wanted to at least... try... as much as he could. After breaking her heart... it felt like he owed her that much.
As he sat there with cup in hand, feeling warm from the drink, however, his eyes began to feel a little heavy until eventually...