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It starts, as unlikely as it sounds, innocently enough.
Granted, innocence doesn’t play a huge part in either of their lives; it probably never has. But Neve’s only purpose was truly just to spend some time with him. Some nice, quiet time while nobody is trying to kill them, she means: as fun as it is to trade barbs and compliments while taking down darkspawn and Venatori, they’re too old to do that all the time.
The wooden spoon hits her knuckles so lightly, it’s more like a caress. “You are not as sneaky as you think you are, Gallus,” Lucanis says without looking at her.
In his mouth, her family name sounds different from how anyone else says it. Her contacts and clients, the other Shadow Dragons, even Rana when she’s pissed at her, use it as a way to keep her at a distance.
When Lucanis says it, it sounds intimate.
Just for show, she hisses and shakes her hand out, emphatically enough so he can see her in his peripheral vision. She’s satisfied when he rolls his eyes. “I just wanted to help,” she lies.
“You were trying to steal my raw tortellini.” With a last frown at the salted water that’s been taking approximately seven years to reach boiling point, Lucanis turns toward her. “How is that considered helping?”
He leans with his hip against the stove and crosses his arms. From the counter she’s sitting on, she watches him. He’s all lean, solid lines, rolled-up sleeves and bare forearms, and his eyes are black gemstones. There’s something unsettling and gratifying at the same time in the way he openly watches her back.
This fledgling thing between them, more than friendship but less than… something Neve doesn’t know how — or have the guts — to name, has been ever-present in her mind despite her efforts to ignore it, turning up like a bad coin in her thoughts whenever she gets distracted.
She blinks. Lucanis is still looking at her. She’s always thought he was beautiful, of course, but the way she’s slowly falling in love (there, she’s named it) gives the adjective a whole new dimension.
“Quality control, of course,” she says, self-righteously straightening her back.
His dark eyes narrow with what could be skepticism or amusement. It’s hard to tell, but she’s almost sure the corner of his mouth twitched under the beard. “This act might work with templars…”
Her perfect posture slumps a little. “Not as often as I’d like,” she mutters.
“…but I know you’re just a common dumpling thief. Patience, please. I promise you won’t starve.”
“I’m not sure, since you keep denying me sustenance.”
Instead of paying attention to her, he turns to the simmering sauce that’s been spreading its heavenly smell throughout the kitchen, and stirs it with the wooden spoon. “Twenty minutes. The sauce needs more time to simmer.” He turns toward the water again, in which bubbles are finally — finally — drifting to the surface. The tortellini take only four minutes, so we’ll put them in the water later. Then, we mix.”
The way he intentionally includes her in the process is surprisingly heart-warming. “Can I do the mixing?”
“No,” he replies immediately. “I don’t trust you.”
“Hurtful.” The fact she’s laughing while she says it might undermine the believability of the statement, though.
“I was better behaved than you when I was a child.”
“Your grandmother surely employed a legion of cooks,” she muses, leaning back on her palms with some awkwardness. The counter is busy, and one of the reasons is that she stacked unused pots and pushed utensils to the side so she could perch there. “Surely they wouldn’t just smack young Master Dellamorte’s knuckles with a spoon.”
“You’d be surprised.” With a practised, pensive motion he stirs the sauce. “The kitchens at Villa Dellamorte were run with military discipline. Unruly children were promptly banned.”
“Let me guess: Illario?”
That’s clearly a smile, although bitter. “I, on the other hand, have always appreciated good food, so I was on my best behavior.”
“Afraid to lose taste-testing privileges?”
He acknowledges the bait with an arched eyebrow, but doesn’t take it. “I was interested in the preparation, mostly. Cooking is an underappreciated fine art.” He lifts the spoon. The sauce is so thick it clings eagerly to the worn wooden surface. “Speaking of taste-testing.”
Her mind is still busy filing away all this new information, and also lingering on the image of a young Lucanis getting underfoot a small army of fond cooks, so it takes her a second more than would usually be necessary for her to notice that he’s holding out the spoon — glittering with a modest coating of sauce — to her, keeping his hand underneath it to prevent any stray drop from staining her clothes. Heat spirals from the sauce in seductive swirls, and the smell is even better than before.
She looks at the spoon, then back at Lucanis. His expression is the textbook definition of neutral, entirely devoid of guile; then again, he deceives people by trade.
A challenge, then. A spark of excitement flicks down her back. It’s almost embarrassing, how quickly and resolutely she’s already decided to play along. She just has to know what happens.
Without breaking eye contact, she leans forward and parts her lips. She’s not angling for seduction (it’s both too simple and unthinkable), but there aren’t many ways to make this particular act not look suggestive. Worth it, though, if he breaks first.
Lucanis, for his part, remains unperturbed, his eyes following her every movement with analytic focus. It dawns on her, suddenly: this is Lucanis, almost pathologically incapable of flirting with a straight face. And he meant it when he said he cares about cooking. If there are ulterior motives on his side, they’re buried so deep to be practically meaningless.
The ridiculousness of this whole situation almost makes her laugh. Then — sour sweetness, a hint of herbs, a subtle spiciness, enhancing the creamy tanginess without overpowering it.
She barely remembers to cover her lips with her hand before saying, “This is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.” It’s not even an understatement. She’s almost angry about it.
This time there’s absolutely no mistaking the pleased smile on Lucanis’s face. “Antivan cuisine might like to get fancy sometimes,” he says as he turns back towards the stove, “but nothing beats a simple basil and tomato sauce.”
Neve, who’s never had an opinion on food that went beyond its taste-to-price ratio, finds herself inclined to agree. “If these are the results…”
“Do you think it lacks salt?”
The suggestion is almost insulting. “I’m not sure,” she lies anyway. “I might have to taste it again.”
Now Lucanis outright laughs. It’s open and unselfconscious, and it gives her the same feeling she gets when two pieces of evidence click together to point towards a conclusion: something twisting and dropping in her chest with the inevitability of gravity. “Do you think you’re the first to try that trick?”
He used to laugh so rarely, she thinks. Most times it was barely a snort, as though he wouldn’t allow himself — or wasn’t capable of — anything more. She keeps looking at him, his hawkish profile, made sweet by familiarity. She likes to make him laugh, and to puzzle him out too, of course, but, one, he has probably as many issues as she does, so removing a layer of deflection only reveals a deeper one, and, two, he’s doing the same in reverse.
She smirks. “Let me guess: young Master Dellamorte resorted to it, too?”
“With little more success, I’m ashamed to admit,” he says, laughter still lingering in the corners of his eyes.
“Do you need me to taste those as well?” she asks, leaning towards the bowl of tortellini that look more tempting by the minute.
“No.” Wiping his hands on a dishcloth, Lucanis gets closer to the counter where she’s sitting. It takes but a step.
As she watches him, she’s reminded of something Taash said about the allure of a mage-killer, the excitement of feeling like prey. Neve has to admit the idea has merit, but only theoretically, abstractly. She is what she is, and being cornered and overpowered means death. She’s not interested in subverting or even analyzing that too deeply.
No, what draws her to Lucanis is this: she can see the person beneath all the layers, and he can see the same in her, too. If she sets Spite aside (and, fair, a demon is a cumbersome item to set aside, but Spite is as familiar as Lucanis these days; he’s a dark mirror, someone who understands her. A friend, perhaps. Isn’t that something), if she disregards those protective layers (and does she even have any right to try and peel them off? Is she only doing it by habit now?), if she takes Lucanis at face value, well. Neve is self-aware enough to admit she’s always been drawn to people whose minds work like hers.
So, right now, as Lucanis steps forward, getting close without crowding her, she sees past the deadly Crow and the abomination. She sees a man roughly her age, broken in a very similar way, opening himself to her with a degree of sincerity and bravery he frankly shouldn’t be capable of. She’s been desperately trying to match that earnestness, even though she has to swim against the current of all of her instincts.
It’s so much easier to deflect. “Would you stand to be distracted, I wonder,” she says, and leans imperceptibly back.
His eyebrows arch and he stops. ‘Imperceptibly’ for anyone but a Crow, apparently. “And how would you achieve that, exactly?”
She suddenly hates the polite distance she hears in his voice even as he’s teasing her, so she deliberately relaxes her shoulders, wills the permanent knot of tension in her back to soften. “Well,” she says lightly, “I was going to ask politely, but maybe I’ll use my wiles instead.”
Their eyes are locked onto each other. Has the air always been so thin in the Fade?
As she reminds herself to breathe, he slowly leans in. Neve is reminded of standing too close to a bonfire, but maybe it’s just the stove. When he places his hands on either side of her, just barely avoiding the clothed skin of her thighs, he leans a little to the right. Leaving her a way out. It’s symbolic, of course, but thoughtful. Sweet.
“I appreciate the effort.” His amused tone hides a deep, disconcerting fondness. All distance is gone. “And what do you foresee I’ll do?”
This time, she feels the equal and opposite impulse to lean forward. Always matching him. She doesn’t resist it. “Depends.” She’s aware of her open shirt, of the skin it shows, and of his pristine, perfectly pressed clothes — layers, layers everywhere, inside and out — of how close they are now.
Lowering her voice to a murmur, she says, “Do you feel distracted yet?”
She’s thankful he can’t feel the way her heart is racing, because it would give away her entire act. But maybe he can, or maybe Spite can. That thought makes her pulse stutter.
She groans when Lucanis catches her wrist, just as she had almost reached the bowl of raw dumplings sitting on the counter.
“I almost had it!” There’s no real heat in her remonstration, just as there’s no real strength in Lucanis’s hold around her wrist.
It’s hard to pretend she’s annoyed, but she does it anyway. She tries to smack him on his shoulder, only to get her other hand caught as well. Once again, he didn’t even have to look. She’s standing on the edge of a precipice, and she really, really wants to fall.
When he pulls her lightly, she follows reflexively, sliding off the counter. Her prosthetic makes a dull noise on the tiles, sending a small shock through her knee. He checks in with a glance, and she shakes her head. She’s had way worse.
For a moment, then, she’s sure he’s about to kiss her, and her only regret is that she was enjoying this game too much for it to be over already.
But he doesn’t. When he lets her go instead, a gust of reality blows between them, stopping them in place. She can sense his hesitation, the worry he’s pushing too much, that he’s gone too far. She reads it in the shuttering of his expression, the way his shoulders draw slightly in, and knows he’s about to take a step back and apologize.
Before he can do that, she moves. Slowly, deliberately letting him anticipate her movements, she rests her hands on his chest. As they flatten, her fingers and palms slide on the smooth, expensive fabric of his waistcoat. Underneath it, his heart is beating as fast as her own.
When she takes a deep breath, she can sense his scent underneath the lovely aroma of the sauce he’s making. He mirrors her, breathing in slowly, and they breathe out together. The apology dies unuttered on his lips, and he seems to steel himself.
One of them is going to break. The near certainty it’s going to be her sends a jolt through Neve’s core.
Quickly, she moves her hands from his chest to his bare forearms, and the contact with his skin is almost shocking. He’s warm, while her hands are always a touch too cold. She ignores everything about it as she grabs his wrists and pulls his arms around her waist.
It’s impulse that made her move, instinct. She’s always been like this: eager to get closer to what terrifies her. At least, as she rests her cheek against his shoulder, she has the perfect excuse to hide her expression.
A heartbeat, two, and she feels tension slip away like a poorly tucked bedsheet. It takes her a moment to notice it’s not hers, but Lucanis’s: she hadn’t quite realized how still he was keeping himself until he softens against her, leaning on her as much as she is on him. His palms fit perfectly on the small of her back. She exhales again, willing every muscle in her body to relax, and a smile flickers on her mouth when she realizes he’s following her lead.
They’re both unused to tenderness; and yet they’re determined to offer it, and most of all to accept it. Neve knows people can get accustomed to any circumstance if they spend long enough in it, but the idea of getting used to this makes her head spin with a mix of disbelief and longing.
Their bodies sway lightly, adjusting to the new balance, or maybe it’s just Neve’s head spinning. The sense of utter safety that spreads into her makes her want to run away and cling to him at the same time.
“If only we had some music,” Lucanis muses quietly, and Neve’s brain is still trying to adjust to the warm contentment that is flooding through it to immediately make sense of his words.
She wraps her arms around him in the same way. “There’s a place in Minrathous,” she says in the same tone, tightening her hold a little. “Cida Ciconia performs there from time to time. I like it.”
He hums pensively. “Isn’t she part of the Threads?”
She hides a smile against his shoulder. “That’s a well-kept secret. Or at least I thought it was.”
How strange, to just be allowed to be herself with someone who understands her. It’s not just that she doesn’t have to file down the unsavory parts of herself with Lucanis, that he’s not terrified of her because she’s a mage, that he understands the questionable places and people her job puts her in contact with, that he accepts how Neve never flinches before getting her hands dirty for a good cause.
It’s that he seems to like all that.
She’d never realized before how much of herself she kept from those she chose to let close to her. Not that she has much to show for it: a couple of one-sided crushes, some flirting that never went anywhere, and that brief thing with Tarquin that both of them pretend didn’t happen (forget what the serials and the novels want you to believe: a mage and a templar getting involved is generally a bad idea in the real world).
But in each of them there was the assumption that Neve was too complicated, too difficult, too much. And she was often the one to assume it.
Her fingers dig in the soft cloth and solid muscle of Lucanis’s back, and she realizes that the warm vibrations of his voice have been a counterpoint to her thoughts this whole time.
“Go on,” she says when he stops talking, and drinks in his low chuckle like the kind of fancy wine he would undoubtedly order for her if they really were at the Cobbled Swan.
“Am I boring you?” he asks, amusement still in his voice as his fingers — cautiously, hesitantly — spread on her back, tracing the edge of her ribcage over the shirt she’s wearing.
She makes herself notice: the heat, the pressure, the feeling he’s the only thing keeping her scattered thoughts and emotions together.
It’s so much power to give to a single person.
She considers deflecting, but firmly changes her mind. “My own thoughts were a bit loud,” she says instead. “Sorry.”
“No need to apologize.” Like this, his mouth is dangerously close to her ear. “Surely this is not the kind of entertainment you’re used to.”
“It’s the nicest evening I’ve had in a long time,” she replies immediately, truthfully. And then, mostly to prove a point to herself, “I don’t want it to end.”
“Not even when there’s tortellini on the other side?”
“Trust you to know my priorities.” Inhaling deeply, exhaling slowly. It’s such a struggle, she doesn’t know why she even bothers. “How much longer?”
“Five minutes.”
Five minutes of this, she tells herself sternly. Nothing beyond that. She’ll just be here for five minutes. “How do you know that?”
“I have a very keen sense of time. And a sixth sense for tortellini in particular, too.”
It’s hard to tell where the joke ends and the truth begins, but Neve leaves that tangle to be unraveled another time. She thinks about a year spent in an underwater prison, counting every minute, hour, day, month, then sets that thought aside too, with care.
With the next exhalation, she lets herself sink a bit more into his arms. The hands on her back are holding her delicately but firmly, not as something fragile but as something precious. The song comes out of her by itself, a low hum from her throat.
There’s a reaction from him, but without seeing him it’s hard to define. And yet, not seeing his face — and, more importantly, him not seeing her face — is the only way she can keep doing this. Their bodies start swaying to the wordless tune she’s humming, singing their own song. It’s purposeful and loose at the same time, unscripted, with no ceremony or pattern.
There’s some lesson here she should learn, perhaps, some moral in this story. But she promised herself to be just here for five minutes, so she’ll think about it later.
When the song ends, it’s hard to recall what the world was like before.
Neither of them lets the other go. Tenderly, cautiously, his lips brush her ear. “You are so lovely.”
The words are so low they’re barely there, as if not meant to be heard. Neve already knows she’s going to remember them for the rest of her life. She considers telling him the same, or pulling back and spending however many minutes they have left kissing him.
She does neither of those things. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” she warns him.
“It’s my choice,” he replies, his voice even softer. “Do you know what you’re getting yourself into, Neve?”
The words fall like lead in her stomach. She keeps her tone light as she says, “It’s a bit late to persuade me this is a terrible mistake.”
“If you say so.”
“We keep trying to convince each other what a bad idea this is,” she goes on, an icy edge creeping into her voice now, “even though neither of us is apparently willing to listen.”
She braces herself against the inevitable exasperation, the distance. For ‘why does everything need to be so complicated,’ for ‘I can’t do this anymore.’
The beard tickles slightly as Lucanis presses a kiss to her temple. “We are a pair, aren’t we?”
Falling. She understands why they call it that, she thinks distantly as she slowly disentangles herself from his hold, but not completely: just enough to catch his lips with her own.