cian_oneill (![]() ![]() @ 2020-08-12 18:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | rhiannon lee, ~cian o'neill |
Morning after the Night before
Who: Cian & Rhiannon
What: The morning after the night before
When: Morning after this
Where: Cian’s cabin, Cottonwood Cove
Ratings PG
It had been a long time since he’d slept that well. As he lay there Cian had studied the woman beside him, taking in the way the light played across her bare skin, the shadows created by the angles. He resisted the temptation to trace his finger across the curve of her cheekbone, the spread of her lips, the length of her neck and the roundness of her exposed shoulder. With extreme care he’d slid out of bed, padded silently across the room and retrieved his shorts, and closed the bedroom door behind him. He picked his shirt up off the floor, hung hers on the door knob, and headed down the hall.
Once out in the living room he quickly dressed and pressed the button on the coffee maker he’d set up the night before… before Rhiannon had arrived. His smile broadened as he recalled her need for ‘distraction’, but a short while later a frown formed. He was sure there was more she wasn’t telling him, the things she had said had been triggered by something, some woman she’d met in the desert? He doubted it was Katherine, he knew her, and Rhiannon wouldn’t have felt any need to disguise them meeting. The one thing about it that did bring him comfort was she had come to him, of her own volition, and revealed a little more of what was going on in her head.
As he was standing there thinking his nose detected the scents floating across the park from the kitchen at the resort. After a final check on the progress of the coffee he headed out, returning a short while later with some of Sylvia’s best bacon and eggs rolls. He’d already eaten one while waiting for the others to be made fresh. He poured two cups of coffee and tried to figure out what to use as a tray. In the end he gave up, stacked the rolls on a dinner plate and with the two coffee mugs in his hand he headed back down to the bedroom.
When the door swung open, Rhiannon was standing by the bed wearing yesterday’s t-shirt, halfway through fastening her jeans. “Hey.” She buttoned up and reached out to rescue a wayward cup of coffee before Cian had a disaster. Looking around for a place to set it that wouldn’t leave a ring on the furniture, she settled for sliding a piece of fabric under the mug. “Sorry. I’m usually a light sleeper.”
Waking up in an unfamiliar spot with daylight streaming in the windows had been disorienting. During the time Cian was out of his home, she’d washed her face and finger combed the worst of the tangles out of her hair.
He nodded his thanks to her and offered her a roll.
“Well, it’s OK, I was letting you sleep till you’d finished,” he said. “Was getting you breakfast in bed, but looks like I’m too late.” He jerked his head to indicate the deck outside. “It’s still relatively cool out there, prefer to go outside?”
She bent over to stick her feet into her boots, leaving the laces untied for now. In the entirety of her life, Rhiannon couldn’t remember anyone serving her breakfast in bed. The closest was being too lazy to cook, so she ate slices of toast on her bed and got crumbs in her sheets. As she straightened, Rhiannon looked out the window. She didn’t have her sunglasses on her, so she shook her head. “The kitchen’s fine, if you want. Or here. Whatever.” She accepted the roll from him and picked up the mug of coffee “Thanks.”
“Kitchen it is,” Cian said, leaning in and giving her a kiss on the cheek before turning and heading back out the door. He placed the plate on the bench, picked up a roll and took a sip of his coffee as he leaned back against the sink.
Rhiannon trailed after him and rested her hip on the edge of the counter. It felt as if standing there with breakfast in her hand instead of darting for the door was personal growth. “I never figured out how to do this part,” she said, deciding to be candid. “The normal thing after the naked thing, and by naked, I don’t just mean physically. It’s a lot. Especially with you.”
Cian looked at her as he swallowed the mouthful of roll he’d been chewing. “Why especially with me?”
Rhiannon’s eyebrows went up and stayed that way. She took a sip of her coffee and tried to formulate her thoughts, while also wondering what it must be like to be a man. “Um. Were you ever with someone and you felt like you were participating, but it was only pieces of you? Or just the parts you wanted them to see? And even that was a lot to process, the fact that you let someone see you in a state of vulnerability? So imagine that, but now it’s all the pieces of you, and the chemicals have worn off and you’re standing in a kitchen with an egg roll with someone who gave you multiple orgasms?”
He watched her as she spoke, taking a slow sip of coffee to wash down the mouthful of roll as her words flowed. Even as he tried to piece together all the ‘pieces’ he couldn’t help but feel a small sense of achievement at the last part of her admission. He shook his head, as he rubbed at his mouth, and looked at her. “Is it that bad? Because I don’t feel like anythin’ that happened wasn’t meant to.” His eyes met hers, and again if she looked she would see the gold flecks flicker for a moment. “You’ve seen a side of me no-one else has,” he continued, “and if anythin’ I feel better this morning than I have in longer ‘n I can remember.” He let that admission settle in before adding, “D’ you feel like I shouldn’t have been the one to see those ‘vulnerabilities’ of yours,” he asked, taking a sip from his coffee, “or was it the multiple orgasms y’ didn’t like?” He twisted his mouth, trying not to smile at the last part.
Shouldn’t have been the one? He was the only one she would’ve gone to like that. Rhiannon started to say it, but God, look at that expression on his face! She rolled her eyes at him.
“I didn’t say it’s bad,” she reminded him, setting her roll aside uneaten. “I said I don’t know what I’m doing.” He was looking for logic in a place where logic didn’t exist. For the moment, she stared into her coffee and wondered how to explain that a similar phenomenon had happened to her twice in a row, first with Elfleda and then with Cian, which was only just occurring to her. Only the second time, she sought him out. Holy shit. Rhiannon’s collarbone started to flush, not because she was embarrassed but because it was startling.
“... In the moment, whether it’s sex or sharing secrets or letting someone see you’re afraid, it’s exhilarating, for someone to know everything about you, and you just give into it. Afterwards, when you’re not caught up in the moment anymore, it can feel kind of unsettling going back to doing ordinary things. Soft things.”
Rhiannon set her mug down. Perhaps it would have been better to just eat the egg and bacon roll. Or flee from a window.
It suddenly dawned on Cian he had been misunderstanding what she was saying from the beginning. He’d been so caught up in what was going on for him, how this was something he’d spent almost ten years seeking, and now looked like he was finally closing in on what he’d been searching for, that he’d taken for granted she was the strong, tough, capable and independent hunter, and in her own words was ‘not afraid of you’. And now he was starting to see that there was something that scared her. And that was her, that she was afraid of herself. Afraid she was stepping into new territory that was completely unfamiliar. That she too was feeling something was different, but she didn’t know how to deal with it. At least not yet.
He set his mug down, reached over and took a hold of her hands, shuffling his feet apart and gently encouraged her toward him. He shook his head at his own stupidity and saw the flush of colour around her throat. “I’m here,” he told her “Y’can talk to me. Or not. Y’can tell me t’ back off, or … whatever.” He lifted his hand till his fingers brushed under her chin and he was looking her in the eyes. “And while we’re still trying to… figure all this out? Well, you take all the time y’ need. But I think y’ know already, I’m not going anywhere. We’re not going anywhere.” He paused for a moment then added. “No matter what.”
Ironically, fear of abandonment wasn’t high on her list; it might even be the opposite. But if Cian had gotten anything out of what she had been rambling about, it would have been a miracle. Belatedly it occurred to Rhiannon that she had just vomited feelings all over him while simultaneously claiming she was uncomfortable with feelings. But he had them, too. He told her something was new about this for him, yet Cian wasn’t backing away. He was opening up.
Rhiannon took a breath and moved into the space between his legs. She put her fingers into his hair and ran them through. “You weren’t a distraction, Cian. It was an excuse. I needed to see you.” She nudged her nose against his and gave him a slow kiss, noticing now that her mouth still felt sensitive from the past seven hours. “Tell me what this is like for you. Y’know, when I’m not losing my mind.”
“What it’s like for me?” he repeated softly, lightly bumping the tips of their noses together, studying her face as he thought for a moment, then added, “when you’re not losing your mind? Hmm.” He looked up, off into the distance, as if trying to figure out just what that would be like. There was a jumble of words, some hers, some his own, some he didn’t know the source.
Finally he looked back down, focusing again on her face. “It feels like I’m skating down the face of a wave, can’t see bottom nor top, and I’ve no idea how long it’ll go, but I’m hanging on t’ the wheel for dear life, trying t’ stay the course, because it’s what I know I have to do.”
“Why do you have to?” Rhiannon stroked the back of his head. “Also, was that a boat analogy?”
He let out a laugh, shaking his head but not enough to dislodge her fingers. “What do you have against boats?” he joked, the smile fading a little before he continued. “I have to because if I don’t? The consequences could hurt.”
She didn’t have anything against them, but she liked pulling his leg. She liked it when he laughed, or really any kind of expression that got past that calm exterior, whether he was amused or irritated. “You’re gonna make me dig after I just spilled my guts like that?” Rhiannon asked. “Come on, green eyes. What’s going to hurt you?”
“Not saying it’s me who gets hurt,” he replied, reaching around her to pick up one of the rolls and tearing it in half and offering her one half. “I’ve spent too long learning how to control m’ shift, so I can do it when needed, and how, when I change back, to be able to walk away from it instead of writhing on the floor in absolute agony.” He paused, taking a bite of the half roll and studying the remaining part in his hand as he chewed and swallowed. “Now I just want t’ be able to communicate with who I am when I’m … him.”
Rhiannon frowned, shaking her head at the offer of food. “I don’t think I get the connection to what’s happening with us.” She wanted to know how all of it worked, but this was an odd element to consider.
Now Cian angled his head, looking first at the remains of the roll in his fingers, then at Rhiannon. “You talked about pieces of you, and being vulnerable, and you don’t know what you’re doing. And then being exhilarated, and then what sounded like deflated.” He stopped and looked down at the food again. “Imagine feeling all that, and add in that there’s another whole actual ‘you’, that you don’t know, but that you feel, who sometimes reacts but most times doesn’t, and you know that he’s there where you’re not, every single month, for 3 days, when you’re just… not even a figment in his imagination… “ His voice trailed off, the food discarded into the sink behind him. “And then imagine that you meet someone who seems to make all the difference in the world, all the difference to how you connect, and you begin to believe that maybe, just maybe, there is a chance you can finally get to meet yourself, and that you also have feelings for this person and they’re pretty much like being caught in a storm that’s sending you skating down the front of the wave from hell…”
Rhiannon watched him discard the breakfast. Whatever he was feeling must be deep-seated, if it was putting Cian off his food. She didn’t think he’d strung together that many words in two weeks.
“Are you saying that you think he -- Siofra -- is closer to you when I’m around you? That he lets you share,” she struggled with the words, “Awareness, I guess, more than before?” Rhiannon had seen times when the line between Cian and the animal blurred, which reminded her of how weres occasionally got before a fight. It wasn’t unusual to see a therianthrope get partly into a change and hold it off when emotions ran high (like a crack of bone, or the brief appearance of a claw). The difference was, Cian and Rhiannon weren’t fighting, and it wasn’t aggression he was displaying. “And that’s both good and terrifying?”
He shook his head, not in disagreement, but in a struggle to find ways to put it that made sense. “Ay, it’s somethin’ like that,” he said, a small hint of his frustration evident in his voice. “It’s like before, what I was telling y’, I’d go off m’ gut feeling, I’d read another player’s moves, watch his eyes and just know where he was going t’ send th’ ball,” he continued, using the scenarios he’d described to her in some detail on their trip to Vegas when talking about his original passion, football, and his dream of playing for his national team. “And I’d already be in place before the ball ‘d left his boot.” He rubbed at his neck then continued. “Now I can’t even see that player, because he’s me, and it’s like there’s a barrier between us.” He paused, looking directly at her again.
“But when y’ here? When we’re together? It’s like that barrier’s coming down, or something, I don’t know.” Again he paused to think before continuing. “Or there’s a bridge, or a door, there’s something different and I c’n feel him, like I never have before.
“And yeah, it’s both good… and terrifying,” he finished, repeating her own words. It had been so much simpler in his head.
Rhiannon’s hands went to his stomach and absently smoothed down the fabric of his shirt. Each answer brought another question. Why was it happening? Would it be the same around any hunter, or was it specific to her bloodline? Did her being a hunter matter at all? If she wasn’t a hunter, would they have parted ways when he dropped her off at the mechanic? How would Cian feel if the barrier between Siofra and him disappeared altogether? She didn’t ask those things because the baseline questions were hard enough.
Instead, she took Cian’s hands in hers and wrapped them behind her lower back, where she kept hold of them, her elbows fanning out. Locking both of them into place against the cabinets. “I’m skating, too, Cian. Don’t think I’m not there with you.”
Cian nodded slowly, tightening his arms a little more around her. “I’m glad t’ hear it. I don’t know where this is all gonna take us,” he admitted, “but m’ gut is telling me it is what I need, what he and I both need, and that should be good, right?”
He felt a seemingly soft push in his head, and ducked his head a little, smiling. “I think that was a ‘yes’ from someone,” he admitted with a grin. “And I hope I make it worth your while… sorry, that we make it worth y’ while.”
‘We.” Rhiannon bit her lip. She felt the need to make something clear. “Your were is amazing, Cian… and I know that it’s an inextricable part of you. One I care about. But I’m here for the man. And I think I would’ve felt the same way about you, even without that scar on your shoulder.”
As she spoke he was first confused, but then an odd feeling came over him. For the first time in more than 10 years he was being reminded of who he was. It was odd because from that first full moon, after he’d recovered from the original injuries, and Annie had told him the truth about them, his whole world had been consumed with coming to grips with the change, learning about it, managing it, seeking the source of it and trying to gain control of himself back again.
And now? As he was standing there a soft sigh sounded and a weak smile crept across his face. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Rhiannon pictured how running into him might have gone, with Cian a clean-cut, Irish ballplayer, full of swagger, who could probably drink her under the table. The kind of man she’d debate whether she wanted to knock off his stool or drag into a dark corner. “I bet you were sweet but cocky as hell. You still are. I can see it in your mouth, even in the dark.”
His grin widened as she spoke, his eyes roaming over her face as he gave a slow nod. “Shane might argue with y’ about the ‘sweet’, but would be high-fiving y’ on the cocky,” he replied. And an odd feeling came over him as he spoke, which was different and weird at the same time. He felt ‘himself’, not a part of an unseen pairing, but as he had when he had been just Cian. He leaned his head down, brushing his lips against hers. “And y’ know y’ best keep an eye on this mouth, because it has all sorts of ideas, both sweet and cocky, t’ show y’ yet!”
She smiled and ran her knee playfully against the inside of his leg. “If you’ve been paying attention, then you should already know what I’m gonna say next.” Rhiannon reached up and touched a fingertip to his lips. “Don’t tell me, Cian. Show me something.”
She gave him a quick kiss and pulled away from him.
He grinned, watching as she backed away from him, toward the hall down to the bedroom. He ran his tongue across his lips slowly, giving her a few moments to open the distance between them. Finally he pushed off from where he was leaning against the sink and slowly started to stalk after her. “Let the show begin!”