Baccano!, Luck/Eve, inevitable offer [1/2]
Eve tilts the glass between her hands, and watches the pale liquid swirl within. "This is..."
"I got it from Firo." Her husband's voice is as diffident as if he just put a glass of some ordinary vintage in her hands, instead of the elixir of immortality.
Immortality. She can't quite make her mind accept the full scope of the idea. She's seen the ragged flesh of his ruined arm knit back together without leaving so much as a drop of blood behind, has seen herself nearly catch up to him in age in the handful of years that have passed since their first meeting, but even with that, when she tries to imagine herself living on through the ages, unchanging while the rest of the world moves on...
It's just like Luck, she thinks helplessly, to put her in this position - to put such a choice in her hands, and then stand back to let her think over the ramifications of it herself. She knows him far, far more intimately now than she did when it was her brother's life in her hands instead of her own, and she knows now that his inscrutability is because it's something important to him and Luck holds his cards close, but the knowing makes it no less maddening. Just once, she can't help but wonder, can't he tell her plainly what it is he wants from her?
Instead he waits patiently for her to think about it, and so Eve thinks about it for a while, trying to work out what it is that she wants instead. Finally she tightens her fingers around the glass and in a quick, decisive motion she turns to dash its contents out over the balcony railing, drops scattering in a shimmering arc that falls away and vanishes into the darkness of the lawn below.
"Eve." Luck's voice is low.
"I don't want it," she says, turning to face him again. "One lifetime is enough for me. Even if it would mean never having to worry about dying... I think, in time, it would become a living hell."
Luck just smiles, but there's something in it that's deep and aching and suddenly Eve realizes what she's just said, and the empty glass slips from her fingers to shatter on the tiles of the balcony.
He's there and lifting her off of her feet before she can think to protest, even though he's barefoot and she is at least wearing slippers. Even so, as he carries her in from the balcony and across the room, the faint smile on his face doesn't falter. "I didn't mean--" she begins to say as he lays her back on their bed, but he leans in over her and cups the side of her face with his hand, his thumb glancing lightly over her lips to stop her words.
"It's all right," he tells her quietly. "Don't give it another thought."
He kisses her so gently that it makes Eve's heart ache in her chest, his mouth moving soft and warm against hers and then lifting away only to kiss her again, and again. The familiar weight of his body bears down on her, pressing her into the mattress, and she wraps her arms around him, fingers splayed against the small of his back to hold him there.
When Luck drags her nightgown up her legs to slip his hand between her thighs, an inarticulate sound of pleasure escapes her and her head falls back against the pillow, letting him trail melting kisses one after another under her jawline and down along her throat.
She tugs at his shirt, hands pulling impatiently at buttons and undershirt; he is far too clothed and she's overcome by the desire to touch him, to feel the heat of his skin beneath her hands. "Luck, please--"
He brings his mouth down against hers again, quieting her with another long, slow kiss before he rises up off of her long enough to unfasten his own trousers while she rids him of his shirt. Then his hand is underneath her thigh, coaxing her legs apart as though she needed coaxing; when he slides into her she wraps her legs around him and rocks up against him, and she cannot possibly think of any other eternity than this, here and now and him and oh--