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“What is it I’m supposed to call you?”It’s hard to concentrate on the words when the world sways beneath his feet, each cobble jolting against the soles of his boots. Men complained about the roll of the sea, but she was a much gentler mistress than the unforgiving rattle of a carriage. “What did my m–” his teeth close around the word– “what were you told?”“That man said to call you anything I like.” He can’t see his master’s face, not with the shades pulled so tight over the windows, but he can hear his disdain. “He suggested quite a few things I suppose were well-earned.”He shrugs, teeth flashing quick in the dark. “Can’t say, Master.”“Hm.” Seems like this man won’t be impressed by a quick tongue. Pity; none of his masters ever seem to be. “I assume you have a name you prefer to be called.”It’s not a question, it’s a command, but he’s got a talent for flouting those. “I’ve got many names. A lot of secrets too.”He doesn’t need to see his master’s face to know he scowls. “I was under the impression that names mattered in business like this.”“Maybe.” He wouldn’t know, not having one. Maybe he’s saved himself a world of heartache just by forgetting. “But you can call me what you like.”“I’d like for you to tell me yourself.” He shifts, the bench creaking beneath him. “I name animals, not associates.”It’s right on his tongue, I’m not far from either, but he stills his tongue, letting his teeth rattle as he gives it some thought.“Obi,” he says finally. “You can call me Obi.”Already, he likes the sound of it. One of his better names, if he says so himself. Maybe he’ll keep it for a while, this time.The carriage hits a hole, sending a jolt right up his spine. Hells, but he’d take a sway-backed nag over this any day. Why lords thought this was traveling in comfort, he’d never know.“Kind of stuffy in here, don’t you think, Master?” It’s a miracle how he manages the words when his stomach wants to heave itself out the first convenient hole. “Mind if I open a shade?”A silence stretches between them, suspicion thick on the air. “If you must,” his master allows grudgingly. “I suppose we’re far enough.”That’s more than enough for Obi. With quick fingers, he gives it a sharp tug, letting it snap up into its coil. The light pours in, spilling over sash and sill to paint the cab with color. His master squints into it, mouth furrowed in a frown, and ah yes, he’s just as dour as Obi remembers from the street corner, a sober presence with shoulders as wide as he is stern. A responsible man, at least. Not one apt to keep a–Glossy sable shines on the seat next to him, brindled and black, and everything grinds to a halt.It’s here. It’s here. Right within arm’s reach. Just a grab away. Already, the sea sits thick on the air.He could go home.“How does this work?” Master rumbles, tearing his attention away. It wouldn’t do for him to be obvious after all. “I have this and now you…grant me a wish? Do me a favor?”Obi bares his teeth in a grin. “Surely it was explained to you that I am in your service,” he hesitates, “Master.”Master’s mouth twists. “There’s a catch, isn’t there?”He blinks. “A catch?”His master shifts, displeasure rumbling in his chest. “Yes. I read fables as a boy. There’s always some price, a twist.”If only that were true. “No. Not in this. Not as long as you…”His teeth snap around the words. If the man doesn’t know what he has, he isn’t compelled to tell him. It would make this all much, much easier if he was unaware–“As long as I hold your pelt?” Master eyes it warily on the bench next to, as if it might bite. “What’s to stop you from taking it?”The lie is quick to coat his tongue, the feel of fur already prickling his palms in anticipation, but Master is even faster. He turns back, mouth open to ask another of his questions, and Obi–Obi does not lift his gaze fast enough.“Ahh, I see.” The man settles back in his seat, hands folding nearly over his lap. “Your old master told me to keep this under lock and key. I’d thought it was only due to his own…proclivities, but–”His finger brushes the pelt, against the grain, and Obi’s skin crawls.“Hm.” Master pulls his hand away, gaze pinning him like a butterfly to a cork board. “I can almost believe it’s your skin, when you look like that.” His eyes narrow. “What does this really mean to you?”The smile on his face is stiff, a dead thing floating on calm waters. “That tatty old thing?” he croaks. “Nothing at all.”Master raises a hand, holding it just above the fur as if he might stroke it, as if he might take a great fistful of it, and–He hesitates. A moment later, still with that wary gaze, he pulls away. “I suppose I can’t expect a man like you to share all his secrets.”Obi’s smile stretches thin. “You’ll excuse me, Master, if I don’t trust a man who hires men like me.”Something like a smile ghosts over his face. “That is entirely fair.”Obi settles back, striving for a calm he cannot feel, not when it’s so close, not when he could touch it. “I like to think so.”Master’s good humor disappears as quickly as it arrives. “I assume this is your first time on retainer.”His jaw drops. “Retainer?”“You will have apartments,” Master continues, as if he never spoke at all. “First with the guard, and then, should you prove yourself trustworthy, in the castle itself. You are entitled to three meals, what funds you need to appropriately attire yourself in the crown’s livery, and a purse of–”“Master.” He shouldn’t interrupt– his masters never like that– but still, still– “Just what are you hiring me for?”The man blinks. “I beg your pardon?”“Why would you…?” His jaw snaps shut with a snick.Master’s brow arches. “Is there some problem with the arrangement?”He lets out a harsh breath. “Murderers don’t hold on to the bloody knife.”“Ah.” Master’s mouth quirks at the corner. “Well, I’m hoping it won’t come to that.”His face grows thoughtful, fingers steepling over his thighs. “I need you to help me take care of a small nuisance around the palace…”
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“Hurry,” Miss urges, peering down the hall. “I don’t know how long the smoke will keep them busy.”He frowns around the picks in his mouth, distracted by the way her sleeve keeps brushing his hair. “I told you to light a fire.”“Fire can get out of control, Obi,” she tells him sternly, as if she’s disappointed in him for even entertaining the idea. “A little bit of smoke should keep them guessing for long enough.”The lock gives with a small pop. “There we go.” He shoves at the door. “One breaking and entering, as promised.”The hinges creak, of course, spoiling the effect. Miss peers in, leaning over his head and – honestly, these people, couldn’t they tell that it was sensitive –“This is where Haruka lives?” she squeaks, toeing the threshold. “It looks…plain.”It’s not as opulent as he expected either; it seems the Marquis favors high quality but understated decoration in his private quarters. There’s little that gleams or glitters, but the fabrics are sumptuous if dull in color, and the woods are all hard and imported. He swears the bedframe is made out of a single piece of teak, but that can’t be, not with the expense –“Where do you think he’s keeping it?” Miss asks, creeping into the room. He doesn’t know why he brought her, other than that she asked and he – he –He didn’t want to do this alone. Not really.“I don’t know,” he admits, getting to his feet. His hands shake at his side. He’s so close now, he can feel it. It calls to him “It’s probably hidden somewhere. He knows I’ll be coming for it.”“Right.” She nods, determined. “What is it that we’re looking for, again?”His gaze slips from hers. “You’ll know it when you see it. I’ll start over here,” he says, gesturing to a large chest, the perfect size for blankets and furs.“Right.” She peers about the room, a little lost. “Obi, is there…is there anything I can do? I know I can’t pick a lock, but I…I would like to help.”Right, he should have some sort of distraction for her; the last thing he needs is her seeing what he’s after. He’s getting sloppy, this close to freedom. Already he hears the waves calling him home, the siren song of his sisters reaching him even here where no salt water touches earth.“Look around,” he tells her, bemused. “If anything looks out of place, tell me.”He thinks he will make quick work of the lock – he had with the door, and he doubts a clothing chest would be much harder – but a few long moments later see it still firmly shut. His hands shake far too much for finesse work; he needs to calm himself, needs to remember that he has to get to it first before he can be free.Free. Free. His hair prickles at the thought.“Obi,” Miss says softly, her voice hardly above a whisper. “Thank you.”He sits back on his heels, hands fisted in his lap. “For what, Miss?”“You didn’t have to tell me that – that Haruka had taken your things.” Her eyes, so verdant in the moonlight, almost seem to glow with their own warmth. “Thank you for trusting me.”His gut churns, bile rising in his throat. If only she knew. “I should thank you, Miss. I think anyone else would have told me to give it up as lost.”She stares down at the blankets grasped in her hands. “I think most people don’t know what it’s like to leave something behind.”He laughs weakly, smoothing his hands along his thighs. It isn’t fair that he’s found her now, when he’s so close – “True enough, Miss.”He lifts his hands back to the chest, feeling with sensitive finger tips the inner workings of the tumbles, and –“Strange,” Miss hums. He turns to her, seeing the stack of blankets under her hands, the way one of them seems to spill like liquid night across the bedcovers –He is on his feet, moving toward her, hands outstretched, but he has no words, none at all –“Lord Haruka doesn’t seem the sort to keep furs –” Her hands sink into the dark sable, the deep black and he –He drops to his knees with a groan, arching as he feels blunt nails run down his back. His hands barely brace him above the carpet, and he only manages to wring out a hoarse, “Miss.”“Obi!” she stares at him, and he can still feel the heat of her palms on either side of his spine. It shouldn’t feel like this, it’s never felt like this –“Obi, are you –?” She stares down at the fur on her lap, and he sees it, the moment it comes together for her. Her mouth shifts from concerned to pensive, and she lifts her hands, just slightly, before raking them down the pelt.There is no masking just what his moan means. Her eyes go so wide, so dark, and her little tongue peeks out from her lips –Something clatters in the hall; a guard running from his post to the kitchens, it sounds like, yelling for more water. It looks like that smoke turned fire after all.“Ah,” she sighs, pushing it off of her lap, so gentle. “This is….yours?”His only reply, for a long while, is the ragged sound of his breath. This has never happened, not ever. When other have touched it, it’s felt wrong, made his skin crawl, but even now he feels the aftershocks of pleasure. He longs for her to touch him again, to sink her fingers deep into his pelt and never let go.“We should…” She eyes the fur speculatively, her hands buried in her skirts. “You should take this.”He’s gotten to his feet now, though it feels like there’s no earth beneath him, no air for him to breathe. They’d warned him about going on land, how humans would steal his skin and cut his hair and make him do their bidding, and oh, how he had wished he’d listened then, but this, this –Why had his sister never warned him they could take his heart too? It’s not fair for her to be holding both, this girl who smells like earth and growing, the girl whose feet stand firmly on land but whose depths remind him of where he longs to go.“No,” he says, and it feels like tearing away a piece of himself, it feels like coming home. “Keep it. For now.”
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It occurs to Obi in that endless moment before his body hits the surface – he has no idea how his shift works. That maybe, just maybe, he is about to have a very painful re-acquaintance with reality.For such a little thing, Miss’s weight drives them down faster than he expects. His pelt is crushed between them, the edges flapping in the wind, reminding him that for all his years as a sometimes-human, he’s never once question how this worked. Maybe he should have taken up Miss on her implied offer of testing his limits before he signed on for heroics. His belly – his still terribly human belly, lacking all that beautiful blubber – hits the water first in a slap that rattles his teeth. Gods alive, he would have preferred the stabbing over this.He gasps, breath driven from him and cold surrounding him, and for a desperate second he wonders if he’s thrown away his gift, if he had only that one chance when he dove off the shore to go back to the sea or lose it forever –And in the next, he’s wrapped tight in his fur, a dark streak in the waters below Umihebi’s ship, cutting sharply away from its wake.“Obi!” Miss’s arms tighten around his neck, trying to accommodate the change in shape, fingers knotting deep into the fur of his chest. “Are you all right?”He’s never tried this before, this – this having a human touch him when he’s in his pelt. There’d been no reason with his sisters – they’d always been so careful to keep him away from the shore, from fisher’s nets – and his other masters had never risked his escape, had never dared bring him so close to his skin. It should feel strange, unwelcome –So he’s not prepared, not in the least, when her body fits along his back like she was made for it.It’s awkward still; he doesn’t know how to maneuver with her weight along his spine, doesn’t know how to account for the way her shape slows him in the water. She presses close, no air between them, and suddenly it’s like breathing, like holding a blade –He didn’t need to know this. Not when she is so thoroughly Master’s.“Obi!” Miss breathes against his neck, fear filling the air with copper. His whiskers twitch “They’ll see us.”He wishes he had his words, a signal, anything to warn her, but – he dives, deep down, hoping she knows to take a breath and hold tight. Her knees tighten on his flank, but that’s the only sign of her surprise, the only sign she’s unprepared for the sort of flight one of his kind can provide.He’ll have to surface soon, let her take in another breath – she certainly wasn’t planning on him diving like that, and she’s got to be hurting for air, but –But their songs reach him, arresting him in the water, his own breath rushing from his lungs.His sisters, his sisters. It’s been so long since he’s heard them so clearly, since it’s been anything more than a memory drawing him home. They aren’t close, but if he turned around now, if he swam day and night, he could reach them, could call to them –Miss’s fingers tighten at his chest, her face pressing hard into his back, and – and –Obi makes his choice.The first time, it was agony.Bones popping and sinew sawing, like both birthing and being birthed. Hands flaying him with fingers alone as men laugh and clap, impressed by the magic trick. A seal into a sobbing boy, what a show that must have been.This is not that.Sand grates his belly when the surf beaches them on the shore, but he barely feels it – it’s nothing compare to her hands on him, on his fur rippling, pulling away from his skin –It’s the sweetest agony, like nails run down his back when he’s about to –He flops away from her, awkward in his human skin. She’s too close and yet not close enough to be making him feel this way. Miss stumbles up from the surf, his pelt in her hands, dropping to her knees when the earth steadies beneath her. He can feel her every breath, his skin draped across her lap, fingers still knotted in his fur, every part of her white and cold with terror.He drags himself up onto the beach, spent. He barely has the energy for it, but he can’t – he can’t stay that close to the water, not knowing how near his sisters may be. Not knowing how he turned away from them.“You…” His chest heaves against the sand, and he levers himself up, gaze fixed on his mistress. “You brought it with you!”She flinches at the accusation, but still she lifts her gaze to him, defiant. “Just in case.”“Just in –” He lets out a long breath to calm himself. She doesn’t know what he turned away from to keep her safe. It’s not her fault that – that – “What did you think would happen? Did you know–?”“No!” Warmth streaks down his back, calming. Her hands, they’re – “I only thought…we were so close to the sea, in the capital. We could have…you could have…”Words fail her, but he understands anyway.“You meant to help me return.”She nods, slowly, carefully. Still her palms brush over him. Only now it changes, now her fingers dig deep, nails scratching, and he –He sighs, hard, suddenly realizing he is – he is not wearing anything. And that feels – good. Too good.“Oh!” she gasps, hands still fisted in his pelt. “I –”“No,” he breathes. He’s too tired to pretend he doesn’t want. “Don’t…don’t stop.”She doesn’t.“I’m sorry,” he gasps, long moments later, when he’s come back to himself. Her eyes jump to his, wide, confused. “My job was to guard you, and look what I let happen.” If only he hadn’t been distracted, hadn’t been – “I’m sorry.”“W-wait!” Her hands hook rigidly in his pelt. “Th-that’s not what I think –”His hand moves without thought, eclipsing the words she might of said. They don’t matter. They don’t matter. He knows what happened.“Even if you say it, I won’t listen.” Every word tears from his chest. “Because I came to –”“They’re over here!”His hand flies from her mouth, and hers leap from his fur. What a picture they must make when broad shoulders break through the brush, him naked, the both of them soaked and guilty. The rebel captain stares at the both of them, but not surprised, just knowing, and –The breath falls from Shirayuki all at once. “Dad?”When all is said and done, it’s easier to hide than to try to face – whatever it is Miss wants to say to him. He doesn’t deserve her forgiveness for failing; if he’d only been more focused, if he’d only been less distracted by – by –It doesn’t bear thinking about. Whatever he thinks he feels –It’s not something he can have. It’s late when she knocks on his door, the frivolity of celebration well under way. He had his fair share of drinks, and so when Master rides through the gates, Mister and Miss Kiki at his back, it’s all too easy to slip out, to pretend he’s had one too many so he doesn’t see their joyous reunion.Of course, she can’t leave well enough alone. He hopes he’d drunk enough in front of her to make the excuse extend here too –silly Obi, too soused to even come to his door.Her steps clack against the boards, headed away, and his heart doesn’t break, it just…creaks a little. Nothing to get heated over.That’s what he tells himself as he counts knots in the ceiling, trying to forget about her. What he’s telling himself when palms press firmly on his back, when they give one smooth stroke from head to tail.He scrubs a hand down his face. That was a tactical mistake, letting her keep it. She can’t have missed how it affected him on the beach, how her touch –Warmth settles in beside him, around him, and he – he –She’s laying with it. His pelt. In the bed just one room over.He nearly gets up then, nearly stomps down the hall to ask her just what she thinks she’s about but –But in three breaths he’s gone, deep into a blissfully dreamless sleep.The hand on his belly wakes him.It’s different from last night; not smooth petting, meant to lull him to sleep, but –But purposeful. Fingers digging into the softest fur and dragging, nails tracing from the bottom of his belly to his breastbone, and –And, oh gods, this was making a problem for him. A decently sized one.He tosses off the blankets, not bothering to dress as he stalked to her door, throwing it open. She stares at him, wide-eyed, fingers still buried in his pelt.“O-Obi!”“I’m guessing,” he pants, trying to calm how his chest heaves. “That you wanted to talk to me.”“Oh, I –“ Her hands still, though she does not remove the pelt from her lap. “Yesterday. What you said, on the beach – do you mean it doesn’t matter what I think?”He stares. Only she would think to talk about that right now. “I guess it does…”“All right.” She hunches over his pelt, voice so small. “But –”There’s steel in her when she straightens, every inch his miss that left Clarines. “The next time I come to Tanbarun, you’ll be my guard again, won’t you?”He blinks. “I –”“You said we could go to the market next time, right?” She smiles at him.It slips out of him, unbidden. “Shirayu –” He catches himself on a gasp, but she hears him, he knows by the way her fingers curl pleasantly into his fur.“I’ll be counting on you,” she tells him an almost teasing lilt to to her voice.“I’ll keep that in mind, Miss.” He clears his throat. “Though maybe…If you don’t want to –“ he coughs “—maybe it’s best if Master holds onto that. For safe keeping.”She stares at the pelt in her lap, her hands loosening in the fur. “Oh, uh, yes. Perhaps that might be…for the best.”
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He’s not used to the lights in Lyrias, not anymore.Sereg may be shoved into the furthest, most godforsaken corner of the country, but it was a military installation, funded for by the crown and kept in the best condition. It would not do for the men on its walls to think more of the contents of their stomach or the lumps of their mattress than what lurked in the dark. It has been a decade since Clarines went to war, but no one has forgotten what they learned. A single flinch could change the tide, when brother fought against brother.The lamps were always full at the knights’ circle, each sconce blaring like its own sun, every hall lit up like daybreak. But here in Lyrias –Well, most scholars don’t want to spent their budget on things like candles and lamp oil, not when they only use the dorms for sleeping.Miss’s back treads before him in the dim, the black of her cloak making her little more than a shape glimpsed through dark waters, a swimmer lost in the fog. Each time they pass a lamp, her gold stitching glitters, outlining the proud set of her shoulders with St. Elmo’s fire. She cuts through shadow as a hull cuts through a swell, never a moment’s hesitation.He ducks his chin, smothering a smile. Of course. No matter what tricks his eyes play on him, Miss has never truly been adrift in her life. She’s got a compass where her heart should be, and it always points her home.Welcome home. A breath rasps out of his lungs, ugly and awkward; a seal’s groan from a human throat. Goosebumps pimple his arms, his legs, and, ah, even his scalp tingles, so tight he’s sure his hair must be on end, trying to figure out which way is up.If Miss hears, she doesn’t give a sign of it, just forging on through each twist and turn. The slope of her shoulders before him is as familiar to Obi as the ache in his chest, as the beat of his heart. He’d been half-lost at the castle, each step taken on the wrong foot, but he’s hardly been back an hour and already he’s back on course. It’s so much easier to find himself when his north star is just above him.Welcome home. She’s right before him and his palms itch, his pelt growing heavier by the step. Obi’s not supposed to touch her, not supposed to get in the way, but he’d seen her in the street, had met eyes with her through the press, raised his hand and –And he had not known until her gaze hooked his, until her eyes lit with recognition and she took that first trembling step toward him, how long he had been holding his breath. Each one at Sereg had been like gulping down seawater, drowning so slowly he hadn’t even noticed, hadn’t even felt it until he looked at her and took his first pull of air in weeks.Welcome home.She had said that to him, to him. His wrists still burn where she held them, and he cannot forget the way his hands felt wrapped around her hips, how light she had felt in his arms –He shakes his head. Ah, he thought he might be used to her touch by now, but – her hands in his fur and her hands on his skin are two different things, and though it was muted through the leather of his gloves he still – still–He wants her to do it again. The castle’s sconces set her hair ablaze each time they pass, and he’s sharply reminded of the last time he walked these halls. He had been alone then, dressed for bed, breathless, and she – she had answered her door the same way, his pelt clutched to her chest.She couldn’t have known what she’d done, what he’d done, but she’d looked up at him with dark eyes and –He shouldn’t think about that. The guilt had practically eaten him alive when he was with Master, those thoughts creeping up on him in the silent moments between. They’d snuck in while he traveled to Sereg, while he’d waited for Master to make his decision, while he’d laid in bed with physicians fussing over him, telling him he’d best stay there another week.Obi had tried, at least. But idle hands did him no good when he had thoughts like these waiting to overtake him.Miss might scold, but it was worth it to be free of – of that. Save that here they are again with her right here before him and –“Your hair got long.”He blinks, but Miss is already pinking up quite nicely, her hand hesitating over her door. “I mean, longer.”This, he can deal with. His teeth peek between his lips. “It’s only been a month, Miss.”“I know that!” She fusses with the knob, flush creeping up the pale skin of her neck. “I just…noticed it. Now.”He hums, eyeing where her own hair falls on her back. “Yours looks longer too.”Her hand flies up, fingering the ends of her hair, and though her back is to him, he sees her cheeks round in a soft grin. “It’s only been a month.”“Well,” he murmurs, far too close, the spice of her soap tickling his nose. “I only just noticed.”“Go sit on the bed,” she tells him, opening the door. “I still want to take a look at that cut.”“It’s all healed,” he protests, even though his side tweaks the moment he lifts his arm to fuss at the buckle for his cape. “Clean bill of health.”Mostly.The looks she turns on him is dubious. “That’s not what Mitsuhide’s letter said.”He should have known Sir would tattle. “Well, Sir is not exactly the best judge of…”Words desert him as he slips tongue though buckle and allows his pelt to slither down his side, and Miss –Her gaze follows it, heavy and dark, until it hits the mattress with a slump. Even when he starts in on his coat, her eyes are on it, breath coming out in a labored rasp, body unnaturally still. If he didn’t know any better –Well, he’d say she was holding back. That the look in her eye might be something like hunger.She blinks, dragging her gaze back up to his, and flushes under the question in it.“You should…” She takes a moment to shut the door behind her, and once again she hesitates before turning back, before taking a few more fluttering steps into the room. “You should lay down. It’s on your side, isn’t it?”He lets out a huff, annoyed, but drops himself to the mattress, rucking up his shirt until it’s up under his armpits. “I should have known he’d tell you.”Miss hums, buzzing in close, fingers brushing over his skin. His breath catches, tingling where her fingers press, but if she notices, she gives no sign. “It wasn’t him.”A laugh barks out of him, incredulous. “Then who–?”“You did.” She flicks him out of those sly glances that makes him want to kiss her. “Outside. Remember? A-tt-tt, my side!”She’s far too proud of herself. “I don’t sound like that.”“Mm.” Obi knows every flavor of Miss’s mms, and this one is distinctly not an agreement. “You’ve taken good care of this.”Praise cuts straight through his annoyance, and he can’t help but preen. “I did promise Miss I would be more careful.”Her mouth quirks, just the slightest bit. “And I promised I would never let you scar.”Her hand presses softly to the wound – one that almost certainly will leave a mark – and lets out a sigh. Against his skin, he could swear he feels her heart beating its swift tattoo. “Is it different now?”He can only stare at her, unsure of what she could possibly mean.“You hair,” she clarifies. “Is it different, now that you’ve let it grown out?”It’s a whole new world. He’d thought himself sensitive before, but now colors are brighter, smells are sharper, and he moves as if the world has gained another dimension.“I don’t need so much spice in my food,” he says instead, because anything else feels too intimate with so little space between them. “And I don’t get myself stuck in tight places.”She lets out a grunt of a giggle. “You never did before.”“Ah, didn’t I?” He waggles his eyebrows. “Or did you never catch me?”Miss smiles, but suddenly her touch is gone, only a memory of her warmth lingering against his skin.“All right,” she sighs, taking a step back. “You can get up, if you like.”He doesn’t like; he wants to stay right here, breathing in the soft lilac of her sheets, but Obi also knows a dismissal when he hears one. Doubtlessly Miss has a hundred other things she would rather be taking care of than him.He levers himself up, rolling the film of his shirt back over his stomach. Next to him, his pelt lays crumpled on the bed, smooth and sable as always, and –He could keep it. He could wear it every day, a choice he continues to not make, hold his own reins –“This is yours.” His hand is already outstretched, fur spilling over his fingers, holding it like a small child might hold out a favorite blanket. Miss stares down at it with eyes so wide he can almost see the whites around them.She won’t take it, he knows. Miss has never liked keeping it away, never liked forcing him to stay when he longed to be elsewhere, longed to be home – but his home is right here, and if he doesn’t give it to her, if he keeps it and catches the song of his sisters –Sparks shoot up his spine, his knees nearly going out from underneath him as her hand closes around the edge of it and rubs. A cry tears from his chest, hungry and inhuman, and she can’t possibly have missed it, can’t possibly –“Obi?” She’s never said his name this way, so thoughtful and yet…more. “You seem tense.”A breath raggedly escapes from his lungs, and – what can he say, when all his world had melted away to where her fingers idly trace patterns into his fur, like nails scraping down his back in the most delicious way.“Would you like me to help you?”He’s so turned around that he almost thinks she’s offering something else, something Master’s Mistress has no right offering, but then he remembers – relaxation. Just what they have always done, her hands on his pelt and him laying near, feeling safe in her company.Or near enough, save for that last time, the night before he left–“Yes,” he chokes around the knot in his throat. “That…yes.”It’s been a month, he knows, but somehow it’s too long; the moment she kneels on the bed, pelt spread over her knees and not even touching, he just – whines. Like a mutt who’s seen a lamb chop through a window.Miss doesn’t raise her gaze, but her eyelashes flutter and her mouth curves, and he knows she heard.“You should sit,” she says, and there is far too much amusement her tone for his comfort. “I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”He sniffs disdainfully, and for the entire circuitous route he takes to her bed, he refuses to look at her. In a fair and just world, she would be seared by his scathing disdain, be entirely repentant –Instead, her shoulders shake. She’s laughing.With a huff, he settles himself by the footboard, legs hanging off so the balls of his feet still brace on the floor. It’s a safe distance; any closer and he might smell her, might touch her – and with the memories of before haunting him, with the way she welcomed him home –He’s already reading far too much into this. She’s just – offering comfort, as she always has.Neither of them speak, but when his weight dips the mattress her lips curl at the corner, and her palms stretch flat on the fur.He sighs into it, the phantom pressure of her hands warm over the curve of his back. When she moves them, stroking slowly, surely, his head tips back. He’s never felt a touch like hers; every other hand to hold his pelt has set his teeth on edge, but with Miss it’s nearly a massage, working out all the tension beneath his skin.Perhaps this is the way of it, for his kind. He was stolen from his sisters too young to know, and now –Well, if he ever saw them again, he certainly wouldn’t let them touch him like this.Her hands are halfway down his spine when she laughs, and he jolts, nearly topping over. He’d been half asleep, listing where he sat.“Obi.” Her voice slips over him like her hands do, too warm and inviting. “Why don’t you lay down?”She pats her lap – tap tap, just over his kidneys – and it’s not the first time she’s offered, nor even the first time he’s taken, but –It feels dangerous, with all these thoughts rattling around in his head, making the air feel heavy with more. Still, it doesn’t stop him; she pats her lap again and he just tips, settling with his head pillowed by her thigh, pelt soft under his cheek.She starts again, running a hand right along his shoulders, making him sink further into her, face nuzzled right against her belly. It’s better like this, with both his skin and her scent so close to him, more lulling, and she’s barely stroked him twice before he’s drifting again, the siren call of sleep luring him under –Until he jolts, fingers clutching at the duvet, heart pounding in his chest. Her hands hover, uncertain, as he gasps hard against her belly.“O-Obi?” Her voice is small, worried. “Did I–?”“No. Just – my hair,” he manages. “It’s..sensitive.”An understatement. If whiskers feel like this naturally, then he’s sorry for every cat he’s ever touched.“Oh.” It’s hardly more than a breath, her palms settling flat against her thighs. Their phantom warmth presses against his back, and – that helps, at least, even if he’s still strung tight like a bowstring. “Hm.”That’s his only warning – one thoughtful hum, and then her fingers drag deep furrows into his pelt, down and down, towards her knees and –He arches off the bed with a gasp, writhing as he feels the warmth of her hands around the base of his cock. His breath rasps out of him, humid where he’s pressed himself into her belly, and it takes everything in him not to grind his hips into the mattress, not to get some relief from the way her fingers have sunk into his belly fur –Her hand lifts, burying itself deep into his hair, nails scraping his scalp, and –Her grabs her, fingers wrapped tight, purposeful around her wrist.“Miss,” he rumbles, peeking up at her with a gaze he knows says too much. “Either keep your hand on the pelt, or lay on it.”Her jaw drops as wide as her eyes, and for a moment he thinks he’s made his point, that she will balk and retreat to the safer boundaries of touch, but – but –Haah, no. It’s not in his Miss to retreat. Her lip takes a determined just, and with barely a moment of hesitation she plunges both hands deep into his hair, every nerve in him alight as he bolts upright, meaning to close the space between them as she spills back –“Obi!”He leaps back just before the door bursts open, Suzu collapsing breathlessly over his knees. He must have run all the way here. It would have been touching, if, well…“You’re alive!” Suzu cries out between gasps, hand pressed to his chest.“I am,” Obi agrees, maybe a little terse.“What did you expect? I told you I saw him,” Yuzuri complains, tucking herself between Suzu’s arm and the door. Her bright gaze fixes on him, smile curling her mouth, and she opens her mouth –Only for her eyes to flick to Miss, and then to him, and then to the entire room between them.“Well, you’ve seen him, Suzu,” she says brusquely, practically shoving him out the door. “You can work easy now.If anything, this only makes him struggle harder. “But–”“I think Obi and Shirayuki have things to talk about. Important things!” she says, with the sort of strident, pointed tone that implies he knows exactly what those things are, and he better not ruin it. If only she knew just how well Obi had done that, all on his.“But–!”Yuzuri shoves him the last little bit out of the room. “Good, glad we understand each other.” She leans back, smile bright and too-knowing. “Glad to see you’re alive, Obi.”“Thanks,” he grits out, but it’s covered by the slam of the door. And then once again, he’s alone with Miss.Only it’s different this time. Tense.“Obi–”“Master is looking forward to seeing you,” he says, because he’s never met a good thing he deserved.“Oh.” her face crumples with confusions. “Did he say that?”Obi hesitates, before forcing the smile on his face. “He doesn’t need to, Miss.”Her mouth pulls thin. “He might try, once in a while.”It’s dangerous being here when she says things like that. Hearing his own thoughts from her lips is too intoxicating.“I should get going.” The words come out far to breathless. “If you don’t think I’m going to die, His Lordship will want to hear my report.”“Oh.” She steps back from him. “Right. Of course. Yes. You look..fine. Very healthy.”“Yeah, I feel it,” he lies. “I should–”“Take this.” Miss’s arm thrusts out, pelt dangling from the end of it. “You should really…keep it.”He should, he should.“No.” His hand curls over hers, clasping it tighter around his pelt. “It’s where it’s supposed to be.”He can’t bring himself to say what he means, but she pulls it to her chest, looking up at him with such bright eyes, that he wonders if she can hear it.Home.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The snow starts just out of Luidas– big, thick flakes. A dusting, at first; they settle on Miss’s hair like fine lace, melting before she can brush them off. But now the horses wade through the drifts, nickering with displeasure when snow crumples beneath their hooves. His own coat sags, a thick, wet film against his skin, but Miss–Well, Miss sits snugly beneath a brindled pelt, one hand absently brushing along the edge. His chest tingles with every sweep of her fingers, a shiver trembling down his spine that has nothing to do with the cold. Her heat’s been his constantly companion these past few hours, keeping him warm and wary long past when his own coat abandons him. But the colder he gets, well, the more he’s tempted to stop, to haul up to one of the inns they pass and see if they can’t generate their own heat between them.His teeth grit down, jaw aching. If only he could bring himself to love a woman whose heart wasn’t already spoken for, given to a man who could keep her warm with far more than just the pelt off his back.Still, taking shelter isn’t a bad idea, not when there’s no telling how long the storm will last. Lamps burns brightly in the distance, up the hill but not too far. He remembers the place; it’s not one of their usual stops– too close to the checkpoint to bother with, mostly made more for lords with carriages and delicate constitutions to care for. Pricey, and with the weather, the innkeep will be sure to wring them for more than two beds are worth, but, well–He’s going to go crazy if she doesn’t stop petting him like this. Obi tugs at his reins, bringing himself up alongside Miss. Their knees don’t knock– he’s too careful a rider for that, even if she’s not– but he’s close enough to be heard over the howling winds. “We should stop.”A contemplative pout settles on her cold-stung lips; she’s doing the complex calculations he’d mulled over moments ago. It’s not quite dusk– on a fairer day, they’d be on the road for another hour or two at least– but with the storm only growing stronger at their backs…“It’ll get worse before it gets better.” The darkening sky hangs heavy overhead, only adding a more dire edge to his warning, but Miss’s jaw still sets stubbornly, the I can keep going loud in her silence. “We should think of the horses.”“Oh!” She frowns down at her mare’s mane, snow tangling in the long, frozen ropes its settled into, and nods. “Of course. Is there some place near?”His cowl is raised, covering his lips, but he smothers his smile, just in case. Miss might press on past wisdom if it were only herself she had to worry about, but bring the horses into it…“Just there.” He points, voice struggling against the wind. “Up on the rise. Hopefully they’ll have two rooms ready to go.”Miss coughs, ducking her head to cover it. Her next words are mumbled, lost in the wool of her scarf and the roar of the storm, but the winds twist and turn as they press on and he could swear–Well, he could swear he hears, “We could do with less.”“Two rooms,” Miss says, trying to raise her voice over the din. They’re far from the only weary travelers escaping the storm; the common room is packed wall-to-wall with boisterous custom, their coats damp but spirits as warm as the brew in their mugs. “If you please.”“I do.” The innkeep’s round-faced, cheery, but with enough height to convey that she could, if pressed, handle rowdy customers right to the door. The kind of woman Obi would like, if her smile wasn’t already saying exactly what he didn’t want to hear. “But I’m afraid we’ve only got the one left. Busy night, you know.”“Two beds?” he asks, already knowing the answer. If Master had been with them, three would have appeared from thin air with rooms to keep them. But with just a court herbalist and a knight, the only title between them a friendship to the wrong crown–“One.” The innkeep’s kind enough to offer a sorrowful smile. “A nice one, though, if I do say so myself.”A slender finger traces down his chest, as if there were not three layers of clothes and a safe distance between them, and he yelps out, “A cot?”“‘Fraid not.” The innkeep brushes some flour off her apron, brusque yet strangely sympathetic at the same time. “All spoken for. You’re hardly the only ones who’ve had to make due with less than you came in wanting.”Still that finger runs, collar to breast, following the length of his sternum. It should be lulling, comforting, but instead he just– “Maybe there’s space in the barn?”Miss’s hand stills, eyes too wide, too green as she peers up at him. He can’t bear to look, not when he’s in danger of losing himself in them. The last time they’d been in the room with a bed–Well, there’s a reminder twitching right against his thigh about that. “I’m not above a good night in the hay.”The innkeep’s brows lift in amusement. “Full up to the manger.”His sigh hollows him out, leaving him to slouch over the remains of his chest. “I could–”“We’ll take it,” Miss says, stepping up in front of him. The dir glitter in her palm as she lays them on the counter. “The room, that is. And the bed.”Obi lets out a plaintive whine, lost in the noise. “Extra blankets?”The innkeep smiles at him, wide and wry. “Now that I can do.”After all his years on the road, Obi considers himself a connoisseur of lodging. A adept of accommodations. A man who knows what a coin might bring him, greasing the right palm. Someone who speaks the lingo, one might say.So when a proprietor of sleeping arrangements says one bed, he knows there’s a connotation to that. One bed, of course, but enough mattress to be shared between two. The sort of thing where one could divide between the pillows and trust that, without a very adventurous sleeper on the other side, he could expect to wake up undisturbed.This is not that.“Well,” Miss murmurs, taking a ponderous step into the room. “There certainly is…one.”He’s seen bigger in the garrison. It’s only a little wider than a standard cot– meant to fit one and half maids, if only so the help might feel kingly for a night as well–“Ah, isn’t that just our luck, Miss.” Obi lets out a noise that is somewhere between a laugh and a swan song. “In an inn full of lordly accommodations, we get…the servant’s quarters.”Another room might have a sofa, a chaise, or, failing that, a hard-backed chair that he could at least make a credible attempt at sleep in. But this– this is a room meant for sleeping, not entertaining. At least, not if he wasn’t planning on doing it horizontal.Which he isn’t. Not at all. That’s not what’s happening here. Between them. Ever. No matter what happened before. Master may not be here now, but Obi won’t forget him.Again.“It’s fine,” Miss blusters, as if he can’t hear her voice squeak up at the top of her range. “We’ll make do.”She draws herself up, utilizing every scant inch, and officiously scurries over to the edge of the mattress, giving it the sort of calculating stare generals leveled on fields of battle. With a steeling breath, her shoulders lift, and in a smooth motion, toss his pelt wholesale onto the covers.The wind knocks out of him, for more than one reason. “I was going to use that.”“You are going to be using it,” she agrees primly, letting her own cloak fall, sopping, in to her arms. “In the bed. Tonight.”His mouth works as she crosses to the one ladder-backed chair that the room provides, spreading the wet wool across it. “I was going to sleep on the floor.”The gaze she turns to him may be wide-eyed, but it’s knowing too, braced. This isn’t a misunderstanding, it’s a negotiation. “Why would you do that? It’s freezing, Obi.”Again, his mouth can only open and close, words picked up and quickly abandoned in his search for something other than, don’t you remember? Or worse, how could you forget?He couldn’t, not when he’d spent the night staring up at a ceiling he hardly remembered the pattern of, listening to the soft lull of Master’s breath and wondering why, why he has to ruin everything he touches. It would be better if he listened to the songs of his sisters, letting them guide him back to the sea, pelt wrapped around him and life brought back to the simple sensation of the water against his fur–But he’d miss her. And he can control himself just fine, as long as there’s some space between them. Which there won’t be if they’re in that bed together, his skin covering them as one body.“I just–” he flounders under her inquisitive confusion; it doesn’t help that she’s taken off her dress as well, left in only in her underthings, every shapely curve bared to him– “it would be best.”Miss’s fingers still on her stays, head cocked, considering. Her gaze sweeps from the pelt on the bed to her own state of undress, hesitating a moment before she takes in his position against the door.With a long, thoughtful breath, she exhales a very firm, “No.”“No?” His mouth works, at a loss, and she takes the opportunity to place a single, bare leg on the mattress, right along his spine. Hell, that is making it a little hard to breathe, let alone think. “That is my skin, you know.”“And you’re going to be using it,” she informs him, unimpressed, as she drags another tantalizing calf beneath her, warmth radiating along his back. It’s the last thing he needs when she’s got that stubborn pout on her lips. “You can’t sleep on the floor, Obi. Even with seal skin, you’ll freeze.”He’s lived in water colder and darker than nights like these, dove into deeper currents than the Lilias’s winds could ever drop, but it’s impossible to explain to that to Miss, who has only this one, soft skin. The kind that is begging him to touch it with his own, to press her between his pelt and his body, and–“I have extra blankets,” he mutters dumbly, thrusting them out in front of him like they might ward off her arguments. It’s a weak volley, a desperate measure to avoid the inevitable rout, and she deflects it with barely more than a dubious glance.His shoulders slump, wet fur sopping around his neck. By the victorious glint in Miss’s eyes, she doesn’t miss the moment of his defeat.“Your should take off your coat, at least,” she tells him, so innocent. “It’d be no good for you to come to bed wet.”Obi can’t, unfortunately, argue with her logic. He lays his shield down, the thick quilts the innkeep pressed on him falling in a slumped pile against the footboard. And with a sweep of his arms, the first of his armor falls as well, arranged flat on hearth’s screen.It’s a relief to be rid of its damp weight; warm as it is, another creature’s fur sits strangely on him, as if his body wants to take its shape as well. And when it’s almost clinging to him, dripping sweat and ice down his spine– well, it’s a new layer of discomfort.His boots follow, stockings soon after, though their removal is another battle, the wool sticking to every inch. When his feet finally press bare to stone– ah, the cold seeped through him more than he’d thought. For all his talk, his soles stretch against its ambient warmth and, oh, how they burn. Maybe Miss was right about sleeping on the floor; as a seal, his blubber would protect him, but as a man–Well, he certainly lacked a certain sleekness over these bones. It was easier to forget now that he was allowed both.Obi hesitates, thumbs hooked into the waistband of his pants. They were wet too– damp at the knees and clinging to his thighs at parts– but still…“Are you coming to bed?” Miss inquires, muffled. He glances back, and there she is, smothered in blankets, radiating warmth along his back. “It’s warm in here.”The smart thing would be to take his blankets and suffer as best he could by the fire. Or take the invitation but keep the clothes, hoping they would dry in the warmth of the blankets. But Obi–Well, Obi hadn’t ended up on shore by being more clever than bold. He strips down to his skivvies, laying his clothes beside Miss’s on the stone. It left him far from naked– his woolens might leave little to the imagination, but they were still as thick and warm as his pelt– but the way Miss watches him–Maybe he should risk the floor.He shakes himself. Too late to change his mind now.Soft fur tickles his hands as he slips into bed beside her, Miss extending from a pleasant, abstract warmth along his back, to a present, insistent heat along his side. It’s disconcerting, to say the least.“Beneath?” he manages after a moment. “I thought you enjoyed it as a blanket.”“We have plenty of those.” Her eyes glitter guilelessly in the dim, fingers stroking the pelt in mindless, soothing circles. “Having it under us will stop any heat from escaping through the mattress. Like a little oven!”“Oh,” he murmurs, watching her fingers carve runnels through his fur. “Smart.”“I thought so,” she says with no little pride. “Blow out the lamp?”He nods, reaching over to turn the wick down, watching the flame gutter behind the glass. Even when it’s out, the fire keeps a low, merry glow, and beneath his shirt–“Oh!” The cord lies tangled in his chain, tag and stone knotted together in a way that takes a good moment of patience and another of dexterity to sort out. Still, it’s easy work, and with a few quick loops he lifts it over his head, stone pulsing gently in the dark. “Here you go.”He’s seen his miss in firelight, but the stone’s glow does something to the shape of her face, to the round of her eye. In her hushed awe, it’s as if he’s never seen her before. “This…?”“Sorry I borrowed it for so long.” Her gaze darts to his, and he can’t help but wonder if she’s thinking the same. “Thanks for lending it to me.”“Ah!” Her fingers reach, plucking the cord from his grasp, an infinite amount of stones glittering in her eyes. “The stone! Did you–?” She hesitates, mouth rounding around words she doesn’t say. “Did you use it for something?”He’d hung it on a darker night than this, moon blotted out by thick, reaching branches, but as it swings in her grip, a slow, pendulous spin– well, it’s hard not to think of the shadow that approached. How confidently the assassin had slipped through the trees, fleet and sure-footed as any night creature. And then for him to pull up short, surprise writ large in those dark, fearful eyes–“It would be a good reference point,” Miss presses, breathless. “For the future.”He huffs out a laugh, head dropping onto the pillow. Ah, yes, he can see it now. Uses: luring assassins out of hiding. “I don’t think it’ll be much help to any of you scholars, but it worked perfectly when I used it.”The crystal sets her face into harder angles; her cheeks sit sharp, carved from marble, and her jaw settles into a contemplative pout. It’s not answer enough, he knows, not for her, but she’s never been one to push, not even when she held a pelt in her hand.“I’d say it was thanks to that thing that I made it to Master’s side in time.” Her eyes turn to him, wide, but it’s the least he can give her, when she’s put both his freedom and her trust into his bloodied hands. “And I was also able to pass on Mitsuhide’s message.”“Because of this?” She cradles the stone in her hand, tender, but it’s him that she turns to, satisfaction curling her lips. “So it was helpful? I mean– it was worth having?”“Of course.” If his grin is easy, it’s only because he’s so practiced at giving it. At least, instead of kissing her. “It would have been worth having just because you gave it to me. The rest was gravy, Miss.”Her sigh is heavy, contented, the tension eking out of her shoulders with each second that passes until she’s settled fully into the pillow’s soft down.“Obi?” He almost doesn’t catch her soft hum, muffled as it is. But one of her hands has dropped between them, fingers gently stroking in those small, soothing circles, and every part of him is attuned to every molecule of air in this room, if only because there doesn’t seem to be enough. “Come over here?”He rolls up onto his elbow, so close a deep breath might make them touch if he weren’t careful. But he is. Always. “Hm?”In a single, smooth swoop, she loops the cord right around his neck. “Eh–?”Her smile is too much, mischief honing it sharper than any other knife he’s taken between his ribs. He hardly even feels the stab. “I bequeath this to you.”“Eh?” he tries again, fingers plucking at the leather, since she clearly didn’t hear him the first time.“I want you to have it.” Her gaze settles where it dangles between them, and he’s not ready for how his chest tightens with the softening of her smile. “If it was helpful to you at Sereg, I’d like you to keep it.”He stares. But it’s precious, he nearly says, but it’s no use, not when he can’t survive her inevitable answer, the one clear in her eyes already–So are you, Obi.“Miss.” His voice doesn’t sound like his own, stilted and too low. “A while back, you asked about this scar.”The neck of his woolens swoops low enough for a ragged edge to peep through, stark white against the shadow of his skin. He hooks a finger round it still, pulling it lower until he can feel the meat of that gnarled ruin against the tip of his fingers. In the pale light of the stone, he can see the way her eyes fix to it, body tense beside his.“I never cared about getting injured.” The dark loosens his lips better than any bottle. “Or coming back. There wasn’t–” he licks his lips, only a wry smile left behind– “there wasn’t any point.”Why worry about this strange skin when no matter how well he performed for them, his masters would never yield his reward. His pelt always laid under lock and key, a carrot and stick both: a well done job held the hope of seeing a glimpse of it, a chance to snatch it from their grasp; and a failed one–Well, there were so many accidents that could happen to a beautiful pelt like this one. Fire. Scissors. A blade.Obi might not have cared what happened to this body, but he could never return to his sisters with the proof of this life etched upon his skin,His fingers clench in his fur. “Didn’t really see it as a drawback.”The stone’s glow isn’t enough to illuminate the whole of Miss’s face, so he doesn’t so much see her jaw work as feel it, her restraint dragging her teeth down with a soft click. Her urge to speak is palpable, drawing the space between them to a taut thread but–But Miss has always had that sense, the kind good healers always did, of when a wound needed salve or stitching, and when it just…needed to breathe. Which is what she does, muscles melting into the mattress beneath her, her fingers picking up those slow, soothing circles over his fur. If all this feeling is a festering poison, well– he needs to get it all out himself.“I lived like that for a long time.” The words leave him on a sigh, back stretching into her touch, wrong skin as it is. “But then when I came back, and I saw your face…”The memory burns brighter than the stone in his eyes; even now he can picture the way she stood, half turned toward him, fingers flexed in disbelief. The way steam had rose from her rounded mouth, clouding the air between them. How she had run, falling just short of being in his arms–– and how she’d just narrowly missed the same later, her nails dragging through his pelt, jaw slack–Ah, that’s really not what he should be thinking about now. Not when she’s pressed so tight against him.“All I could think,” he rasps, meeting the dark evergreen of her eyes, “was how glad I was that I didn’t get seriously injured. So I could…”Come back to you. He can’t make the words leave him; it’s too much, too far, but Miss–She hears them anyway. Her breath catches, hand flexing flat on his pelt, a brand against his spine.“So,” he breathes, heart pounding in his throat, “I guess I’m– haah.”His hips jerk hard as his miss rakes runnels slowly down his spine. Every inch of his skin shivers, hair and teeth on edge, and it’s definitely…good. Too good for what he’s trying to say.“You’re being distracting.” The warning rumbles out of him, and even to his own ears, it sounds more promising than scolding.Miss hums, too innocent, too interested. “Should I stop?”She does, as a demonstration.“No!” He coughs, glad there’s no possible way she can see the heat slapped across his cheeks. “I’m just trying to–” have a serious conversation– “and you’re–” making it hard– “it’s hard enough, talking like this, when we’re on…”Me. He can’t say that either, not when she’s looking up at him so guilelessly, eyes wide and uncomprehending.“I think,” he grits out, finally, “that maybe I haven’t properly explained the, ah, connotations of touching…that.”Her eyelashes flutter in the dark. “You like it, don’t you?”“Yes.” It hisses out of him, not enough but also entirely too much. “A lot. More than I think you–”“I almost made you…” Her teeth sink into her bottom lip, and oh, how he wishes that were him. “Ah…come?”He jerks, hands clenching in his fur to keep him still, keep him grounded. More than ‘almost,’ he nearly says, but even he isn’t so foolish. “You did.”“Obi.” She squirms dangerously close, near enough that his cock, already hard, twitches like a mutt on a leash. “I am laying on it.”Obi blinks, confused, but it comes to him– either keep your hand on the pelt, or lay on it.Now his face burns. He’d said that, control hanging by a thread. Broken so effortlessly by her fingers in his hair.“I…” His mind is blank, every thought static, but he manages, “I just wanted…”She really, really doesn’t need to look so invested in what he wants. Not when he’s already flirting so closely with the shore.He clears his throat. “I just wanted to say, I’ve come back.” To you is too dangerous to say. “I’m…home.”Her chest rises in a long, hopeful breath, gaze fixed to him.“Obi,” she breathes, laying her hand on his cheek. “Welcome home.”He watches as her eyes flutter, heavy-lidded to half-mast, as her lips just barely part, chin angling upward, and– and on any other woman he’d know what that means. On any other woman he’d close this space between them, show her just what this man’s body could do, if he asked it, but with her–It’s impossible. How can he fill the place Master already occupies?He should move; he should roll back onto his side and leave her to do the same; he should know better than to have let them get this close again. “Miss–”Her fingers sliding from the angle of his cheek into the bristle of his hair, and static sparks over the surface of his skin, chasing through his veins, curling his toes, filling him up until there’s nothing left but to ground himself at the source. He’s never been able to resist her, anyway.He reaches for her, palm gently cupping the back of her head, but she reaches for him too, pulling him to her, and when their lips meet it’s not gentle. It’s no princely kiss, oh no, but hungry mouths needing to devour, tearing a groan from him that belongs to neither of his bodies but a different animal entirely.She’s not close enough, not even when she rises up on her own side, pushing their bodies flush together, only cloth keeping them from the delicious friction he craves. He wants her, the proof of it obvious and hard against her hip now, but she doesn’t shy, only bucks into it, making sparks trail up his spine, behind his eyelids–“Miss,” he tries again, but there’s nothing more to say, not when she squirms up him, pressing her lips even more fully against his. Nothing more to think when she scrapes her nails so deliciously over his scalp, moaning into his mouth.His palm grips her hip, hard enough for him to swallow a gasp as he rolls her under him, aligning them the way they both want– at least, Miss doesn’t seem to be complaining, not when her legs wrap around his his, dragging him to her. She doesn’t complain when his tongue tests the gap between her lips, when he slips it inside her mouth entirely, and–It’s not close enough, not when it’s never felt so right, when her body molds to fit his to perfectly. When even now he can feel her both above and below, his own skin calling to him in a way that it never has before, like he might wrap him and her in it both–“Miss,” he moans, twisting his head away. It’s the only thing that keeps her from following him. “We should–we should stop.”She blinks up at him, and even in the glow of the stone between them, her eyes are dark. “Did I do something wrong?”“No! No.” He can’t imagine how she could think that, with his cock twitching against the curve of her hip. “I…you’re perfect.”He can feel her breath catch beneath his ribs, as if it were his own, and oh, they are too close to be having this conversation. Still, he can’t bear to pull himself away, not when she bites her lip so anxiously and asks, “If you tell me what to do, I could–”“No, Miss, it’s not–” he coughs, glad she can’t see his face– “I’m very, very interested in continuing…this.”Her head tilts, curious, as are the fingers creeping beneath the hem of his shirt. “Then why do we have to stop?”That’s becoming a more pressing question with every stroke of her fingers. “I’m just…” He licks his lips, mouth dry as they drift closer to his spine. His actual spine, not just…by proxy. “Maybe this isn’t something we should jump into this with both feet.”“Ah.” Her smile is soft in the stone’s light, playful. “Do selkies get cold feet?”A laugh huffs out of him. “We get nothing but.”Her palm presses like a brand against his spine, drawing a low groan from his lips. “But you’ve always been so warm, Obi.”“You are making a good case, Miss,” he admits, his hips rolling without his permission. It takes a concerted effort not to try to get Miss to repeat the noise she makes. “But I– I don’t know how this works.”She stares, incredulous.“I mean, obviously I know how to light fires. And tend to them,” he rumbles, pressing a kiss to her neck. “But I mean, the rest. With my…” He lets out a huff, frustrated. “I wasn’t old enough when I was…”When he was taken from his sisters. It seems like the wrong time to be bringing up family when Miss is rubbing her bare leg against his. “I don’t know what this means, when I feel like this.”“Obi?” Miss blinks, still beneath him. Her fingers trace the scar across his chest. “What do you feel?”“A lot.” The admission bothers him more than he would like. “More than with…anyone else.” His breath hisses between his teeth, and finally he manages, “It’s never felt good when someone touches my pelt before.”“Oh.” Her mouth rounds, and oh, how he wishes that were more of an invitation than it was. “Only…?”He nods, cheeks burning. “Only you.”“Ah.” Her palm flexes against his back. “So maybe…slower?”“Yes,” he sighs, relief making his body sag. “ I just don’t know–” what this means– “what I can give you.”“Obi…” He fingers trace those smooth, soothing circles, only this time on his skin. “You’re more than enough for me.”“But I…”“Don’t borrow trouble, Obi.” Her steady hands guide him beside her, fingers fanning out over his expanding ribs. “We don’t need to worry about tomorrow until the dawn. As long as I have you, we’ll take the days as they come.”Miss squirms close, head resting on his chest, arm thrown tightly over him. “Goodnight, Obi. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”A breath shudders out from him. “Goodnight, Miss.”Her breath evens into sleep, so quickly he might laugh, it not for–For the way his pelt tempts him, for the way the night wind calls. Even now, Miss in his arms, he hears the song of his sisters, smells the salt of the sea. As long as I have you.That’s exactly what he’s afraid of.