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Yamatai was getting smaller and smaller on the horizon, her sharp mountain peaks and deadly cliffs so beautiful at a distance if you never had to step foot there. Lu Ren thought about his father's bones resting there, somewhere out in the wilderness. They would never be found and he would never get a proper burial, but at least now Lu knew where he was and what had happened to him all those years ago. To have found out for sure was only a confirmation of what he had already sensed. He had long since made peace with it.
Lara, however, had lost her father twice. Lu watched her as she leaned against the window of the helicopter that was taking them away from the island, and it was so odd to see her sitting still and quiet, when normally she was so vital and larger than life. He ached to go to her so they could both look out at Yamatai and grieve for their dads together. Instead, he hefted his gun in his good hand, kept his eye on the pilots and watched over the men he and Lara had rescued so they could all rest.
It occurred to him that he had grown very attached to her in very little time. Maybe it was her natural charm. She’d certainly charmed him, without even really trying. Lu had never met anyone like her. Or maybe it was her intrepid spirit, because if it hadn’t been for her courage and determination, they’d never have found out what had happened to their dads. Or maybe it was the way she’d brought a bow to a gunfight, and won.
It wasn’t until they’d made it back to the mainland that he had a chance to talk to her again, and by then the moment seemed to have passed; they were too busy escorting all the rescued prisoners to medical care, and then chasing and shouting after the cargo helicopter they’d hijacked for the rescue, whose pilots had taken advantage of the commotion and managed to roll away down the tarmac and take off again, leaving them all stranded.
Lu had found a quiet spot and sank down on the ground, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes to doze in the sun. Lara found him there - he wasn’t sure how much later, enough time for her to procure a clean bandage that was bulging under her rolled-up tank top.
She sat down beside him and offered him a hip flask. He took a swig and grimaced.
“Trying to take advantage of a drunken sailor again?”
“You’re not drunk,” she said, and leaned back, offering her face to the sun and closing her eyes against the glare. Her braid was a mess, wisps of hair stuck to her neck, her throat. There was mud on her face, cuts and bruises and a graze across her nose. She was gorgeous.
“Or a sailor, anymore, but give me a minute to work on that first one,” he muttered, and took another long swig, and where the hell Lara had managed to procure good brandy, he couldn’t imagine, but the longer he knew her, the less surprised he was at her resourcefulness.
“Aren’t you going to get that shoulder looked at?” Lara asked, and they both looked over to where a team of airport EMTs were still working on assessing everyone’s level of injury or dehydration. Lu thought they’d be busy for a while and the others needed help more than he did; they’d been in a slave camp for years. He was still wrapping his mind around it.
“I’m too comfortable here. Maybe later,” he muttered, closing his eyes again and ignoring the throb of the wound and the weight of his useless arm strapped across his chest. It would keep a while longer.
“Next stop, Hong Kong?” she said after a while, and it wasn’t a question, but it was a question.
“Why, are you planning on doing some sight-seeing?”
He felt her eyes on him then, and sighed. The sun on his face made him languid, like all his problems were far, far away as long as he could stay here in the honey-slow warmth. “Aside from the debts, that boat was all I had left of my dad. It was all I had left at all.” A silence fell between them, but it wasn’t loaded with guilt or regret. It was just what it was.
“Ever been to Surrey?” Lara asked, and Lu took another swig from the hip flask, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Can’t say that I have,” he said, squinting, side-eying her. In her hand, she held a cell phone. Lu huffed a laugh. “Who you gonna call, ghostship busters?”
Lara grinned a little sadly and cleared her throat. “Hi, Ana. Yes, I’m- yes, I’m fine. I’ll be home soon. But first, I’m going to need a ride.”
☯
It was like a dream - the sleek private jet, Lara laughing it off when Lu mentioned he didn’t have his passport or any papers. All the money she’d paid him, everything he had in the world had been on the Endurance when she went down. He wanted to challenge Lara, demand answers, but then he registered the level of luxury on said private jet and, gratefully accepting the offered martini and canapes, decided not to ask any questions for a while longer.
He was a little stunned at the ease of all this after everything they’d been through on Yamatai. Before Lara, his life had been simple; booze, gambling, some low risk smuggling if he was lucky, more booze, a little paid charter if he could get the work, rinse, repeat. He’d been caught in a self-destructive orbit and she’d crashed into him and knocked him out of it and now he was free falling.
And then, the house. The manor. The castle. Lu didn’t know what the hell to think.
Lara walked in like she owned the place, and was met at the enormous doors by an honest-to-god butler, who seemed only marginally surprised when she walked straight up to him and hugged him tightly around the neck and murmured something to him that Lu couldn’t quite hear.
“Of course, madam. Just as you left it,” he replied with a slightly wobbly lip and a little sniffle.
“I feel like I’ve interrupted a family reunion,” Lu said, following Lara up the central staircase, trying to take in every grand thing at once, and Lara huffed a laugh.
“You weren’t interrupting.” She walked on ahead and he followed her into the wings, but it wasn’t until they were in an antique-lined hallway, then some kind of fancy tapestried antechamber, and then a bedroom the size of most people’s whole house that he understood. She lived here. This was Lara’s house. But then, why had she--
“I can hear you thinking,” she said and sat on a huge camphor chest to start unlacing her boots.
Lu made a point of looking around. “So that’s what’s in the other shoe.”
“This is Croft Manor,” she said, smiling, and yanked off her boots, dropping them to the floor and stretching her toes. “It was my father’s. And now it’s mine. Or, well. It will be very soon.” She stripped off her filthy socks, and looked up, and Lu had never felt so out of place anywhere as he did right now in his blood-soaked clothes, dirt and sweat crusting on his face, a mind awash with mild panic. What was he even doing here? And then Lara stood and came towards him, got up close to him and looked up into his eyes, and he suddenly remembered the look in those eyes when she’d put an arrow through the heart of a man who had been standing over him with a machine gun. Lu took a deep breath, and let it out again, letting his anxiety roll away.
“I know it’s a lot,” she said, and looked around as if seeing the room through different eyes. “It’s a lot for me too. Let’s just take it a step at a time. Why don’t you take a shower, and then when you’re done I can take a look at that wound.”
“Wait, are you secretly a doctor, too?” Lu joked, not really joking. Who the hell knew, with Lara Croft.
“No. But how hard could it be,” she said and pushed him towards the bathroom.
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He couldn’t really wash himself properly with one useless arm, but he did the best he could until the water no longer ran rusty and dark with grit. His shoulder ached like hell, but it was a through and through just under the collar bone, and he hoped there was nothing trapped in there, festering. He didn’t have any other clothes but the ones he’d shucked were good only for rags, so he bundled them all together and shoved them in the corner. He’d ask Lara for a garbage bag later. For now, he had to tie a towel around his waist with one working arm.
When he came out, it was to Lara with a towel over her hair; she’d clearly showered too. She was laying clothes out for him. His throat felt suddenly tight, and there was the threat of heat behind his eyes.
“Thank you,” he managed, and she gave him a small smile.
“They were my father’s. I hope they fit well enough for now.”
He came over to stand next to her, and he couldn’t say anything. He wouldn’t have known what to say even if he’d been able to speak. It was more than anyone had done for him since - well.
“Sit,” Lara ordered, and he sat on the edge of the bed so she could look at the gun shot wound, gently touching the edges. She had a first aid kit ready, and he smiled and shook his head.
“You’re a regular boy scout,” he said. “Always prepared.”
“Not sure what you think a boy scout is but I’m neither,” she replied in that quietly amused way she had, lifting her brow, and Lu’s neck felt hot. She was standing between his legs and applying a dressing for him, touching him, her hands on him, and he had to close his eyes because there was no way he could point them anywhere safe. She smelled so good. Shit. Shit. He’d been working so hard to ignore this.
“You’re working pretty hard to ignore this,” Lara said, and his eyes snapped up to see her watching him with her frank brown eyes. She smoothed down the adhesive over the dressing and nodded down at his lap. He didn’t have to look, but he did. God. There was no hiding the tent he’d pitched, overwhelmed by her proximity and her care.
“I’m sorry, just, if you could just give me a minute, I’ll-” He didn’t even know how he’d meant to finish that sentence, but it wasn’t important because between one breath and the next, she was leaning down and kissing him, her hands light on his shoulders at first, then coming up to frame his face.
Driven by the need to be close, he tried to put his arms around her, only his bad arm was heavy and it pulled at his shoulder and he hissed.
“Well at least your face still works,” Lara said, and rubbed her thumb over his lip. Her mouth was red like a bruised peach.
“Yeah, my face works real good,” Lu replied and immediately wanted to dunk his head in cold water because what, what, but she just laughed a little, and lifted her camisole up over her head, and then she was pulling him to her to kiss her breasts and suck her nipples into his mouth. She held his head close and he put his good arm around her, careful around her dressing and her bruises and scrapes.
He kissed her belly and nosed happily at her small breasts and thought it couldn’t get much better, but she proved him wrong when she pushed him backwards to lie on the bed, and came up to straddle his hips, making him groan. He was hard as nails and heavy between his legs, aching with wanting her.
“So about that face,” she said, breathing fast, kissing his lips, stroking his mouth open with her tongue.
“Uh huh,” he groaned, because fuck, she was gonna, she was really gonna let him, so he helped her to edge up on her knees until she was balanced over him, and he used his good arm to pull her down to him until he could taste her, and lick up into her, letting her settle fully over his mouth. Fuck, he could die here, surrounded by her scent, her taste, the swollen flesh of her cunt sliding over his tongue. She had braced herself on one hand and used the other to scratch through his hair, to hold his head the way she wanted, and Lu let her take him, take what she wanted, kissing her cunt the way he’d kissed her mouth, slow and wet and setting a rhythm that she liked, that she drove, until she was bucking and pulling him close to her, moaning, “Don’t stop, oh god, please don’t stop,” until she was done, panting and smiling with her eyes closed.
She pulled away from his mouth to lie panting over his body, kissing herself from his lips and putting her hand around his cock, laving the head with the wetness she found there. God, he couldn’t even look down, he’d come right away, he wanted it to last but she gave him no respite, pushing him down into her bed and stroking him just this side of fast and hard enough to keep him lingering on the edge for a few delicious moments until he tumbled over with a startled cry, the heat of it tingling from the base of his spine out through his whole body, pulsing in her grip until he’d emptied himself all over his belly.
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“Not in any hurry to leave, are you?” Lara asked casually a short while later. A little too casually. Lu felt her stiffening in his arms, so he pulled her closer and kissed her hair.
“I am in absolutely no hurry to explore your lovely country with no clothes, no passport, and no money, so, no, guess not.”
Lara propped her face on her hand to look at him. Her cheeks were flushed pink. It was a good look on her. “I can fix all that.”
“I don’t doubt that, and when I want you to, I will ask you,” Lu said, and propped himself up on his elbow too, so he could kiss her, and pull her into his arms again.
“Not dead yet,” she murmured into his neck, her lips skimming along his sweaty skin and making him shiver. She’d made no more effort to move or even to clean her hand, seemingly content to lie in the mess they’d made together, and Lu fell a little more in love, just like that.
“No shit,” he said, smiling, and pulled her even closer.
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