Who: Cian Wilde & Aisling Wilde What: (Temporarily) living together vignettes Where: Cian’s apartment When: From April 24th through today Rating: PG-13, lots of bad language (what did you expect??) and an implied sexual situation Status: Complete
Coming home just before dawn wasn’t that unusual in Cian Wilde’s world. He’d made a circuit of all the casinos, spent some time at the Bear, visited the Docks. Some business flowed more easily under cover of darkness, and the hour wasn’t a problem. No, the problem was something else entirely.
How did one tiny woman manage to take up an entire fucking bed?
He gave her and her makeshift pajamas (worn, no doubt, for his benefit, because they were trying something but the trust was clearly absent) an annoyed look before reaching down to push her over. “Move it, your highness.”
Her highness groaned and burrowed deeper into the blanket, legs widening to take up more of the bed. There was no way she was moving anytime soon - the sun wasn’t even up yet. Her arms wrapped around Cian’s pillow and she sighed, content, before falling back to sleep.
“Fuck that,” he muttered under his breath.
He’d carried her around unconscious, so really, picking her up wasn’t much challenge. He picked her up from her sprawl, then, cursing again under his breath, settled onto the mattress -- more or less -- and yanked her pillow rather forcibly towards himself, right out from under her head.
It was the loss of the pillow that had her turning and glaring. “Give that back,” she mumbled sleepily. “S’my pillow, Ci.” Well, technically his, but she’d been using it, damn it. And it was comfortable. The only really comfortable thing in this entire Faram cursed situation.
She turned around and onto her side, positioning Cian’s pillow so that it was under her head, and yawned. “Pillow.” As if that would be enough to get it back, she held out her hand.
“Nope,” he said. But, having finally gotten at least some of the blanket, he relented, and reached out in the dark, pulling her up against his side until her head rested against his shoulder. It was a familiar position, comfortable to fall into despite years of disuse. And why should he feel strange about it? She was in his bed, wasn’t she? They’d slept with an invisible wall between them, but why the hell should they? “Go to sleep,” he told her.
She was in the process of pouting when suddenly her head was pillowed against his shoulder. There was a little surprise, but she was still half asleep to fully process it. Instead, she tossed one hand over his chest, gave his shoulder a kiss, and mumbled, “I guess this is okay.” And then she was out.
The thing about staying with someone else was that she didn’t know where jack shit was. Sure, she’d practically moved herself in when Cian had been ill, but Neil had known where she was, and had brought her food. Right now, Neil was dealing with his own personal matters - she was still ridiculously grateful that his family had gotten somewhere safe, and that Neil had managed to stay alive - and so she was left to fend for herself.
She could have always asked Cian where to grab a pot, but he’d seemed busy, and really, she was doing her damnedest to make sure that her presence was minimal. Hence the slowly opening and closing cabinet drawers until she found what she was looking for, which she withdrew in triumph.
Now, all she needed to do was find the pasta she’d bought… Locating the noodles, she filled the pot with water and waited (impatiently) for it to start boiling. Neil usually added something to the water, though; she couldn’t remember what.
Pepper? No, that didn’t seem right.
Salt. That’s what it was. By the time she found it, though, the water was boiling and she shrugged, dropping the entire contents of the pasta container into the pot.
Easy.
Until the pot started boiling over. Without thinking, she grabbed for it with her bare hands, not reaching for the handle. “Shit!” she exclaimed, dropping the pot - and what was supposed to be her dinner - onto the floor with a loud crash.
He came running, gun in hand, face hard, then… stopped.
Stared.
“Doing some redecorating?” he asked as the adrenaline faded, as he assured that the only reason she had shrieked had been idiocy. “Washing the floors with salted water, maybe? Fucking hell,” he added, striding across the wet, noodle-splattered floor to take her reddened hands in his, “you can’t even boil water without fucking yourself up?” The look on his face had rapidly gone from wary to annoyed to pained. “I’ve got a poultice somewhere,” he muttered. “Hier keeps sending them over. Tell me you at least managed not to splash it all over yourself, for fuck’s sake.”
It would be just like her to try cooking and wind up with second-degree burns.
“Wasn’t salted,” she retorted, shaking her hands to get the burning sensation to stop. Leave it to her to fuck up pasta. It wasn’t even like she hadn’t made it before, either - it was why she’d decided on it - but fuck if she didn’t want to have to clean Cian’s stove because water had slopped onto it.
Now she had burned hands and an annoyed… whatever the fuck he was. Boss. Yeah, she thought darkly, let’s go with that.
“Don’t need a poultice,” she said after a moment; the pain was starting to subside, so she walked over to the sink and managed to turn the spigot on with her elbow. She stuck her hands under the cold water.
But he was already rummaging in a drawer, emerging finally with a tube of some sort and a roll of bandages. The latter had been easy to find; he found uses for the things often enough in his everyday life. “You need a fucking poultice,” he growled, turning off the water, grabbing the kitchen towel. “Hands,” he said, tone brooking no argument. Maybe it was a stupid reason to be pissed, but…
She was pricklier now than she had been during the truce. Had they taken about a dozen steps back while he wasn’t paying attention? “Hands,” he repeated ominously.
Aisling sighed but obediently held out her hands. “I’ve had worse burns, Ci,” she told him, not looking at him. This was just fucking embarrassing. On so many damned levels. “And it looked worse than it was.” The redness had already begun to fade from the water, and the burning sensation had mostly stopped. It wasn’t severe, and it wasn’t anything that a potion wouldn’t take care of later.
“That’s nice,” he said, in a tone that clearly added, I don’t care. Fortunately, the injury did seem fairly minor once he was done with it, and he made quick work of the bandaging. “You could’ve called for takeout,” he pointed out. “They do deliver here.” Only to the front door -- he was too paranoid to deactivate the security and let a delivery person up -- but a few flights of stairs weren’t that much of an issue in comparison to this disaster. “Pasta, too.”
“I’m tired of take out,” she said, finally looking up. “I figured I could at least boil some noodles and toss some sauce on it.” She’d done it a handful of times herself whenever Neil allowed her to. “But I can order out. Want anything?” He’d let go of her hands already and she grabbed for his, giving them a quick squeeze.
Awkwardness be damned.
He looked down at their joined hands briefly, wondering when he was ever going to understand what went on in her head (he suspected the answer was never). “I’m about as good a cook as you,” he said, pointedly looking at the mess on the floor, “so I’m not going to offer to make it.” A pause before he thought he’d found an answer that was better (Faram damn, but why did this have to be so difficult?): “Want to go out and get something instead?”
And he’d get someone in to wipe up the mess while they were gone. And buy a… what were they called? Potholder.
She couldn’t help it - she blinked. That hadn’t been what she’d expected, but it would get her out of here for a little while, and even though she had no clue what the fuck was going on with her and Cian, she did enjoy his company. “Sure. Let me just clean this up first.”
“Forget about it,” he told her, and, ignoring any protests she seemed determined to voice (you’re hungry, I’m hungry, let’s just go already), bustled her up the stairs and onto the roof, where the bike waited.
Some nights, she just couldn’t win. She was scheduled for floor that night - nothing else, just the fucking floor show. How the hell that had ended up with her in the middle of a fucking fight was beyond her. It was a fucking pity that Lena hadn’t been there - she’d have stopped the damn thing before the first punch had even been thrown.
She shook her head, wincing as her body cheerfully reminded her that her face had a nice fucking bruise on the jaw. The security was disarmed - last thing she needed was to get caught in it again - and slowly made her way up. With any luck, Cian was already asleep, she could take a shower and down a potion, and he would be none the wiser.
Carefully, she shut the door behind her and turned to look into the apartment.
Sadly, luck was not with her today.
Among the many, many things they didn’t talk about, the brothel was pretty near the top of the list. The nights she went there were nights he found himself agitated and generally foul-tempered. (Said she wanted to be with with him, sure. Mostly just fucked up his kitchen and stole his pillow, then took off to fuck strangers half the night. Whatever the hell a relationship was supposed to look like, he was pretty sure this wasn’t it.)
Which was why he was still up, on the couch with umpteenth cup of coffee and a stack of reports and memstones from his various eyes and ears around the city. You’d think the fact that the place was a powderkeg was distracting enough, but he looked up the moment the door opened, his face settling into hard lines when he saw the state of her.
His voice, though, was carefully neutral as he asked, “Rough night?”
Fuck. She just couldn’t catch a fucking break. There was no point in smiling - it would just make her wince. Instead, she kicked of her shoes and padded across the room towards her bag. There was a potion in there - her last one, but she could always see Hier in the morning to get some more.
“Something like that,” she muttered, digging through the bag. “Some guy didn’t seem to like that one of the girls was a mage.”
“Right.” Was it better or worse that the bruises hadn’t come from some overeager john? He couldn’t say. He could say that the last time she’d decided to foolishly stand up for the Faram-damned brothel, she’d wound up unconscious in some shady-ass mage’s house.
“Guess setting him on fire wasn’t the answer?” He was, to his credit, still speaking calmly, though the temperature in the room had perceptibly dropped.
This was the last fucking thing she needed. She uncorked the potion and tossed it back, wincing at the taste. Once the bottle was empty, she turned on him. “Do you have a fucking problem, Cian? Because if you do, I’d love to hear it.”
“Do I have a fucking problem?” he asked, incredulous. “No, princess, no fucking problems here, neither of us has those.” He stood from his seat on the couch, a sudden, jerky motion. The desire to shake her was pretty fucking hard to resist, so he said, “I’m going out.” better away than here.
“Yeah, just run off,” she sneered. This was just going so fucking well, she couldn’t believe it. All she’d wanted to do was come back, take a shower, and go to bed. She hadn’t wanted to get into a fight with Cian about whatever the fuck it was they were fighting about. This was just ridiculous.
Aisling sighed and walked over to him, grabbing his hand. This fight had (most likely) started because she’d snapped, so she needed to be the bigger fucking person. “Sorry.”
His hand didn’t relax at her touch, nor did the rest of him. “I don’t tell you where to go or what to do,” he pointed out. “Sometimes it’s a real fucking trial not to say something, princess. So how about you return the favor? Because I want to say I wouldn’t try to choke you, but I can’t be sure I wouldn’t be lying right now.”
She’d tried; her hand dropped. “Fine. Whatever. Go do whatever the fuck it is you want to go do.” She turned around and stormed off -- just as he did, in the opposite direction.
Cian Wilde was a paranoid fucker. She couldn’t remember her father having nearly as much security as the current leader of the org did, and because she had so rarely ever come here before shit went to hell, she didn’t always remember to disarm the fucking traps.
Which is why she was currently lying on the floor, some type of restraint system wrapped around her, and cursing. Loudly. Her new communicator - barely a few days old - was in her back pocket, and it took some creative maneuvering to get it in her hand so she could send Cian a message to let her out of the goddamn trap.
He appeared ten solid minutes later, his pace clearly unhurried. He looked down at her, the corners of his lips twitching up with barely suppressed humor. “In the mood for some bondage, princess?”
He’d given her the disarm crystals and codes, hadn’t he? So he really couldn’t be blamed for taking amusement in her current situation, made funnier by the pissed off look on her face.
She glared. “Ha ha, fucking ha, Ci. Untie me.” She wiggled, trying to loosen her bonds on her own since she was sure that he was going to take his sweet fucking time. His face was just too fucking amused.
“I could watch you squirm instead,” he commented, but after only a few moments of doing exactly that, he pulled a crystal from his pocket, pressed his thumb against it. The bindings withdrew on their own, folding eventually into the shapes of small, buglike creatures once more -- useful new design, he had to admit sending the kid to Ordalia hadn’t been a total waste of resources -- which he scooped up in his hand and placed once more on the lintel above the door while she stood.
“Tell me you didn’t lose your master disarm key at least,” he told her. This would stop being funny really damn fast if he had to replace all of this.
The disarm key was on a chain around her neck, which she pulled out from under her shirt to show him. “Didn’t lose, just forgot about it.” She shook her head. “You know, if you stopped pissing people off, you wouldn’t need all of this.” The voice of reason and rationale; too bad Cian rarely seemed to listen to it.
Not that she thought it would do any good - if he started playing nice, people would think he’d gone insane.
She picked herself up off the floor and dusted off her pants. The bag she’d been carrying - filled with paperwork for all of the shit she needed to catch up on - was off to the side. “Thanks,” she said after a moment, because even if he was a dick, she could still be polite.
“If people I barely know stopped trying to kill me, maybe I wouldn’t have to be an asshole who pisses people off all the time,” he retorted mildly. “Though if you’re looking for a guy who kisses babies and puts lace curtains instead of security bugs at the window, you’re in the wrong place.”
He walked past her into the living area, setting down his own bag -- previously attached to the back of his bike -- which held the work he might as well do at home, now that he was here. Weird, but having her around wasn’t quite so awkward anymore. He hardly felt the prickle between his shoulderblades when she was present. “You’re welcome. Stop forgetting about the security, it’s there for a reason.”
“You’d think after getting caught in it once a week, I would stop forgetting,” she muttered, mostly to herself. She kicked off her shoes and placed them neatly near the door before heading for the couch, paperwork in hand. It was still a little awkward and uncomfortable, but she was getting better at ignoring it lately. She was going to blame constant exposure.
“You’d think,” he said.
She’d settled on the couch and stretched out her legs, so without pause for thought he chose the armchair, opened his bag, and pulled out a folder and communicator, and settled in to work.
“Are we celebrating something?” It was the sort of thing tiny might have tried, back when they were still a thing -- sauntering around in one of his few rarely-worn button-down shirts with tousled hair and a come hither expression.
Well, okay, minus the come hither expression. She mostly looked surprised.
Ash blinked. “I didn’t think you’d be back for a few hours.” No explanation for why she had put on his white button up - one of the few decent shirts he owned that had come down to at least mid-thigh. She grinned. “I could take it off if you don’t want me wearing it.”
He raised an eyebrow at her, the only outward sign of quite genuine surprise (apparently, making a try at a relationship meant not having sex, who the fuck knew? But he hadn’t been pushing her, though there’d been a time or two he’d been tempted to bring it up). “By all means, feel free to strip. Make yourself at home or whatever.” He cursed himself the moment he’d said it but hell, she was plenty accustomed to taking her clothes off, wasn’t she?
Right, bad topic.
“Why the hell are you raiding my closet anyway?”
The mime rolled her eyes and walked past him to curl herself onto the armchair. “Fist fight,” she said. “Fucker brought a knife and I got blood all over my clothes.” She smiled sharply. “Guys seem to think a girl can’t use a knife. Never got that.” A shrug. “His blood, before you ask. I’ve only got a few clothes here, so I didn’t think it’d be a problem to run around the place in something you only wear when forced.”
Which was a damned shame considering he looked good in the button up. Still, not really her place to say anything (probably). And it was just another reminder that she needed to start getting her shit together. She hadn’t figured staying this long, but it had already been a few weeks, and refusing to go shopping for clothes (they would have to go in his closet or an empty drawer and for some inexplicable reason, that scared the living fuck out of her) was just being stupidly stubborn.
He looked her over -- no injuries that he could see -- before shrugging. “Sure he got what was coming to him.” How could he say anything else, considering the frequency with which he got into fistfights? Not to mention they were pretty good for blowing off steam, and if she was anything like him, she probably had a fair amount of it built up.
This whole situation made him want to punch something with a fair bit of regularity.
“You can have it, if you want it,” he added. Maybe insanity, but: “It looks good on you.” And then, “I’ve got work,” and he turned away, because even so simple a compliment -- all the smoothness he’d worked out over years with scores of women deserted him around this woman -- felt uncomfortably vulnerable to voice.
She laughed as he turned and shook her head. “Not planning on keeping it, Ci.” Though it was tempting - the shirt was comfortable and light, too big and the closest she’d gotten to him naked since this whole relationship (and fuck, was that still an uncomfortable thought) trying started up. “I’ll stay out your hair, let you work.” She blew a kiss at his back and picked up her communicator.
There was still some work she needed to catch up on, too.
He walked into a humid house scented with apples and very nearly turned right back around to walk out again. Her damn taste in soap apparently hadn’t changed in over a decade; the fresh, tangy scent was so very unlike the tough wary image she tried to project, with him especially, that it always threw his mind back to places it didn’t need to go.
Few more days, he reminded himself. A few more days, and her soap wouldn’t be in his bathroom, and why did that make him a little sad? He couldn’t even say whether this experiment, force upon them by circumstance, had been a success or not. They hadn’t yet killed each other, so that had to count for something, but it seemed a pretty fucking low bar.
But before he could finalize his decision of retreat, there she was, wandering out of the bathroom with short, wet hair sticking up in spikes and wrapped in one of his towels, bare feet silent on thick carpet, droplets of water still clinging to one tattooed shoulder, and why was it, he wondered, that she could still hit him like a fist to the gut sometimes. It didn’t make any fucking sense at all.
But he’d been serious when he’d told her early on that her staying here wasn’t contingent to sex; maybe, in his own way, he was trying to prove that she could rely on him to keep his word when it came to these things, at least this time around. Wanting to touch her and doing it weren’t the same. He could look at her, enjoy, and then go… find a cold drink.
Few more days.
“Need me to get out of your hair?” he asked, trying to keep his tone casual.
She looked up, startled. The urge to pull the towel tighter around her was pretty damn strong, but she didn’t; she was covered, and he had seen her in a hell of a lot less. Still, she hadn’t been expecting him back so damn soon - he usually stayed out pretty late. “Your place,” she said, keeping her voice nonchalant. “Not like it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”
Where did she leave her dress?
Oh. On the couch. Which was pretty damn close to where Cian was standing. For a second, she debated just tossing on his shirt again, but she couldn’t remember where she’d left it. She could always just grab a different one, but damn it, she’d just bought this dress and wanted to wear it.
She walked over. “I was thinking we could grab something to eat. My treat.” Keep it casual. It was only a few more days before she could go back home. The thought left her feeling empty, though - home was an empty house.
No point in thinking about it now, though.
“Dinner,” he said, a bit stupidly as she walked towards him, detouring to some scrap of cloth from the couch. She bent over to retrieve it and the words came unbidden: “Are you doing this on purpose?”
“Doing what on purpose?” she asked, confused. She straightened and frowned at him. The fuck did he think she was-- Oh. Oh. For some reason, the idea that Cian actually wanted to have sex with her hadn’t clicked in her head; he’d made a big deal about her not needing to fuck him in order to stay with him, and she had just taken that to mean that he didn’t want to sleep with her while she lived with him.
Apparently, she’d been wrong. Unless she was reading a hell of a lot more into this than she needed to be doing. Maybe he was just pissed that his house smelled like crisp green apple.
“You’re fucking impossible,” he told her. Because obviously -- obviously -- she hadn’t even considered it until this moment.
Fucking women. This one, especially.
She stood close enough that it was easy to put his hands on her shoulders, to look down into her face intently. “Listen,” he said, “we tried staying away from each other, and that didn’t fucking work. Then we tried whatever the hell that stage was which involved the wine cellar floor at that tavern -- which also didn’t fucking work. And then we tried walking on eggshells, which -- and I’m already sick of repeating myself. And now? If you’d rather wear that stupid tunic of yours to bed while you’re stuck with me, I can respect that. I can be reasonable,” he added, even if he looked anything but. “But fuck’s sake, Aisling, you don’t have to be an asshole about it. I’m trying my best to figure out what the hell you want so that I can consider giving it to you, because that was what I thought was the plan. Which I apparently misunderstood, which shouldn’t surprise me either at this point, considering whatever the fuck goes on in that head of yours is a mystery of the universe.” He released her shoulders, told her, “Go put some clothes on.”
There was the urge to protest that she wasn’t being an asshole about anything, but she was suddenly thinking about the fact that they hadn’t even so much as kissed since she’d woken up. Sure, she’d given his shoulder a kiss once or twice as she was falling asleep, and he’d kissed her on the forehead when she’d woken up, but that was about it. And the last time his hand had been on her bare skin was so long ago that she would have had trouble remembering it if it hadn’t been Cian.
So, instead of arguing, she fisted her hand in his dark blue t-shirt - the man needed more color in his Faram-damned wardrobe - and pulled him down into a kiss.
He’d considered this reaction possible if not probable, but he couldn't deny that this was preferable, for once, to her doing what he’d said. First (and last) time for everything. And considering she was obviously pretty enthusiastic about it (and fuck, why had they waited this long?) it seemed all too natural to pull her up against him, leaving the towel to fall to the floor before pulling her a bit higher yet, the motion familiar if unpracticed as her legs locked around his waist.
Against her mouth, he muttered, “Fuck dinner.”
She tugged at his shirt, pulling it up and over his head before tossing it behind her. Who the fuck cared where it landed? “Would rather you fucked me,” she murmured against his neck. Her teeth bit into the skin and she sucked, pulling away to see the bright red mark that had bloomed there before returning her mouth to his.
Maybe after this, she thought as he tossed her onto the bed and she watched him undo his pants, she could convince him to take a shower with her. After all, she intended to get dirty and sweaty - they were going to need another one.
She’d made sure to pack what few things she had. The contractor had told her the house was ready for her to move into at anytime, and she didn’t want to impose on Cian any longer than she had to. Besides, she was glad to be going back home, to the empty house that she had had to have completely refurnished. To the place where she had nothing except walls and furniture.
The pang of sadness that she’d been ignoring since she’d gotten the timeline was back.
“Thanks for letting me stay,” she said. Her fingers tapped against her thigh, a nervous habit she had never been able to kick. She offered him a small smile and held out her hand - the security key. “I’ll get out of your hair now.”
“You aren’t in my hair,” he dismissed. He didn’t say, keep it, though it popped into his mind. Too personal, too… not them. He reached out and closed his hand around the key, though he didn’t pocket it. “It’s fine. Glad to help.”
And this was still awkward as fuck, good to know. Apparently, even though they had managed not to kill each other and she wasn’t wearing the tunic to bed anymore, either, they still couldn’t converse like normal people.
Whatever.
“Go on, then. Let me know when you want your security installed, I’ll get someone out there. Don’t take too long.” A very roundabout way of showing he cared, but it was the best he had in the moment. There were words unsaid between them still, and he suspected she wanted to hear them but…
Well, she was just going to have to infer them for now. She wasn’t saying anything, either.
No, she wasn’t saying anything except “I guess I’ll see you around.” And it sounded too much like a question, which was ridiculous because of course she’d see him around. It would be strange to not see him every day, but she’d gone years without seeing him before - she would deal. She stepped closer and raised on her tiptoes, giving him a goodbye kiss.
Thank whatever deity that she wasn’t going to drag this out. This, at least, was easy. He pulled her closer, kissed back.
And dropped the security key into her pocket. Let her make of that what she would.
“I’ll see you,” he confirmed once they parted. Not a question, though he couldn’t deny that in a way it was going to be a relief to have his space back (and not to worry about someone sprawling across his bed like some giant cat). “I’ll lock up.”
There didn’t seem to be much to say after that. Uncomfortable silence followed until she took her bag and walked out the door, and for a minute he stood there, wondering whether he was more relieved or annoyed.
In any case, that seemed to be that. Time to get back to business as usual, emphasis on business. He turned away from the door and resolved to get something useful done.
(If she was stupid enough to try to give the key back, he’d play dumb, then call her an idiot and refuse to take it. That was all.)