#iii. i fell in love with the world in you. ( arthur x astoria )

[carelessgraces]

@valiantsword got:   1. good morning   ( fifty ways to kiss someone | accepting )

She wakes slowly, to a sensation of warmth — and the other side of the bed is empty, and she hears him moving in the kitchen, talking to the cats in a low voice that’s not entirely devoid of affection, but she’s warmed by his presence all the same. 

     A sabbatical, he’d said. Time away from the world at large, time he’s choosing to spend with her; Astoria’s not entirely sure what to make of that, except that she’d half-expected him to cut and run the first day, the second day, the third day. Now, a week later, he’s still here, and he’s still comfortable in the space they share. She’s not good at this; living with Iain had been troubling, the two of them constantly tiptoeing around one another for fear of breaking one of the thousand rules they put in place to protect themselves. Being here with Arthur is waking up warm, falling asleep held. Funny, she thinks, that people so accustomed to violence and bloodshed are able to fall into such an easy domesticity. Funny, how gentle they’ve become. Funny, the person she is when she’s with him — Astoria, just Astoria. Not Astoria-but-better, not Astoria-but-a-work-in-progress. 

     She slips out of bed and grabs the first thing she can find — the hoodie he’d loaned her that night in the cemetery, the hoodie she always makes excuses to hold onto when he’s gone. It falls past the shorts she slept in, and it’s warm. She’s still half-asleep as she makes her way to the bathroom, and there’s his toothbrush in the holder, his razor on the vanity near the sink, his soap on the edge of the bathtub, his towel on the rack. Freeing her hands from the sleeves takes more time than it should, given her questionable consciousness, but she manages, brushes her teeth, splashes water on her face, takes her hair out of the braid she’d put it in the night before and combs the worst of the tangles from her hair with her fingers. 

     There’s a little thump, one of the cats jumping from the counter, and a low chuckle she knows like her favorite song, and she takes a moment before she leaves the bathroom to simply listen. Her chest aches. She thinks she could do this all day — just listen to the sound of his movement, his laughter.

     Pathetic, mutters the part of her that knew she had to leave Iain once upon a time, the part of her that sends her packing whenever things get serious. Whenever things get real. I’m better than this. As if it’s a personal failing, to feel something for him. In the kitchen, he opens the faucet, fills the coffee pot, feeds the cats. Too much of a coward to tell him and too much of a masochist to leave him. 

     She could tell him today, she thinks, tell him every last detail of it. She should tell him today. And she’s almost convinced herself to by the time she gets to the kitchen and stands in the doorway, the younger of the cats weaving between her ankles, Arthur standing at the coffee maker with his back turned to her as he gets it going. The cat chirps; Arthur turns, says, “Mornin’, birdy” like he’s said it a thousand times already ( he has ) and will say it a thousand times more ( she hopes ), and then he takes a moment to look at her. 

     He raises an eyebrow, looks her over appreciatively. ( Who else looks at her like that? Almost like she’s miraculous — ) “It looks good on you,” he says after a beat, and he grins. It’s too early for him to smile at her like that, she decides; her body isn’t awake enough yet to regulate her responses. And, without noticing the crisis he’s causing, he turns around again, moving to the refrigerator, and asks, “I was about to get breakfast. It’s your morning off, right? What’ll you have? I’ll make it for you.” 

     It’s just too much, she thinks; she’s only human. Astoria crosses the kitchen to him and she stands on her toes when she reaches him; immediately, an arm catches her around the waist, his other hand catching a fistful of her hair, and she takes his face in both her hands and she kisses him, because if she doesn’t kiss him right now she’ll burst, if she doesn’t kiss him she’ll scream. 

     I should tell him, she thinks, and I love you. Fuck, I love you, but the grip on her hair loosens and he wraps both hands around her waist under his hoodie and he lifts her onto the counter, kicking the refrigerator closed beside them; she opens her knees for him to come closer and crosses her ankles behind his back. She’s always wondered why men like the sight of her in their clothes so much; is it the possessiveness in seeing her wearing something that belongs to them? The grown-up way to call dibs on someone. The reminder of an allegiance. She likes the sight of him in her flat for the same reason. 

     She draws back just barely, just enough to speak; he watches her as she opens her mouth, and she traces her fingers along his jaw, over his mouth. She could tell him. She should tell him. 

     But the words she’s thinking don’t make it out; she does manage a hoarse and breathless good morning, and he laughs, low in his throat, before he kisses her again. ( Sometimes, there’s this look in his eyes, a hunger, a need, that makes her think he feels it, too. ) 

     “Not sick of me yet?” he asks, lips moving against hers as he speaks, hands sliding under the hoodie, slipping beneath the waistband of her shorts. 

     “Not even close,” she answers ( a promise, a promise — she should tell him ). 

     The coffee burns. ( She doesn’t tell him, not yet. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow. )

#i. here's the truth from my red lips. ( answers ) #valiantsword #(under the cut for length & some suggestive text) #(she's DUMB and in LOVE and i'm just very !!!!! abt them now & always) #iii. i fell in love with the world in you. ( arthur x astoria )

[carelessgraces]

@valiantsword said:   🎉   ( new year’s eve kisses | not accepting )

"All your years on this planet and you never spent New Year’s in a disgusting bar in Boston?”

     “Don’t spend much time in America if I can help it — I’m only here for you.”

     “Flatterer.” 

     “Are you actually going to inflict the racist cops singing off-key to the Dropkick Murphys on me? Tell me it was a joke, Birdy, I’m begging you.”

     He has an arm wound around her shoulders and they’re sharing a cigarette; all the nuns would be horrified if they saw her now, tattoo-covered and smoking in front of a church. “I’ll spare you,” she promises magnanimously, and she hands off the cigarette to him with a flourish and a little bow. “We’ll just have to be sure we hit all the other stops in the teenage years tour. The things I do for love.” 

     And she grins, presses a kiss to his cheek, steps out of his grasp only to hold a hand out for him. “The school’s right over here. I was there for two years.”

     “You were a model student, I’m sure.”

     “Oh, the best there ever was. Got a 1560 on my SATs; got voted homecoming queen twice; I even joined student government my senior year. I was vice president. Some of the nuns thought I was the real power in the duo — somehow all my favorite motions passed.” She points to the fields behind the school, barely visible in the dark and the steadily falling snow. “I was careful to never end up top of the human pyramid, though.”

     “Fear of falling?” 

     “Fear of outshining everyone around me,” she shoots back, grinning, and Arthur laughs. When she shakes her outstretched hand at him again, he lets out a theatrical groan and pushes himself away from the wall he’d been leaning against and takes it, lacing his fingers securely into hers. 

     She looks up at him with a grin so wide it almost hurts. ( She doesn’t like to do this, usually; the past is the past is the past, rarely worth reliving, certainly not worth sharing. But the past several months have been a whirlwind — telling truths, sharing secrets, and Arthur has spent centuries preserving stories, and she thinks that, if this spell ends up fading, if their link ends up broken, if he outlives her like he outlives everyone else, she wants him to remember all the little details. She wants someone to have known her entirely. ) 

     “I’m glad you’re here.” 

     Her aunt had loved him, had taken one look at him and the way he looked at Astoria like she was Christmas morning and had simply smiled. Marry that one, she’d muttered to her niece when they had a moment alone, Astoria Pruitt has a nice ring to it. Funny, she thinks; they’ve already planned on a potential forever together, but she hadn’t considered how a name change might sound. ( It does have a ring to it, for what it’s worth. ) 

     Astoria releases his hand to wrap an arm around his waist again, and he responds in kind immediately, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. “I’m glad to be here,” he answers, and she feels a warm glow building in her chest. 

     “Over there is where I committed my first nonviolent crime.” Not one of the numerous little infractions her godparents persuaded her into; he’s heard those stories, too, and she’s sure he makes the connection. She drops her voice to a theatrical whisper. “I swiped some of the priest’s brandy.”

     “I didn’t think they used that for communion,” he says with a little snort of laughter.

     “Nope — from the stash in his desk. Stole the bottle after a cheer practice — I had to break into his office to get it, for the record — and I drank it under the bleachers with Malcolm Forrester. He was working up the nerve to ask me out, and the brandy did the trick, except that he got sick, and I had a secret boyfriend. I thought we were just commiserating together after a rough midterm.”

     “The secret boyfriend became the fiance a few years later, right?”

     “Yeah.”

     “You ever talk to him?”

     “We ran into each other in London last month and grabbed a cup of coffee. He spent about forty minutes showing me pictures of his kids — two girls, a third on the way, the house is a mess of toys and his wife is mild-mannered while pregnant. I’ve known him a long time and I’ve never seen him happier.” She laughs, suddenly a little self-conscious, and bumps Arthur’s hip lightly with her own. “He said the same about me, when I mentioned you.”

     “Yeah? My boyfriend’s a mercenary gets good reviews?”

     “I said you had an interest in antiquities,” Astoria laughs, “and that we met through work. He didn’t ask many follow-up questions; do you know how easy it is to direct a conversation with someone with young kids? All I had to ask was so does she really know how to count to ten in French already? and he was a goner. But he said it was nice to see me look so... happy. Genuinely happy with where I was. My aunt said the same thing before we left.”

     “And how do you answer these accusations?” he asks, and his tone is teasing but his expression is just a little serious. 

     “That I’ve never actually been this happy before,” she answers, shrugging one shoulder. “And that I didn’t think I was actually capable of loving somebody this much, and that I’m really glad I was proven wrong.” She pauses, considering, then — “And that I hope I’m half as good for you as you’ve been for me.”

     The nuns would be horrified to see her: tattooed, with a cigarette between the fingers of one hand, the other sliding across his back to settle at his side before she kisses him, all in front of a church. Then again, maybe not; there’s something holy in the way he touches her, the careful balance of tenderness and strength, like she’s something holy, too. 

     He reaches up to tangle his fingers lightly in her hair, and when he pulls back it’s to press a kiss to her temple, her cheek, her jaw, her throat. “How many more stops on the tour?” he asks, stubble scratching lightly against her neck, and Astoria shivers delightedly. 

     “Just the hotel,” she promises with a breathless laugh. 

     It’s a conversation to have soon, she thinks — I don’t want to imagine a life without you. I want to spend every second I can with you. Is it silly, to make that official, when we might literally have forever? — but for now she kisses him through midnight and the arrival of the new year and just for now, that’s all they need.

#valiantsword #i. here's the truth from my red lips. ( answers ) #v. it hurt for the first few times but at last i've learned to love a little blood in my wine. ( main timeline: modern witch | collector ) #(excuse me i Love them) #iii. i fell in love with the world in you. ( arthur x astoria )

[carelessgraces]

@valiantsword​​ said:   ❛ What odd turns our lives have taken. ❜   ( reign sentence starters | accepting )

It’s a nice change. 

     The spell still needs some work. They’ve been testing it out with little injuries, nothing serious and nothing over the palm of the hand, no matter how dramatic it would have looked, that seems unnecessarily unsafe and definitely impractical. He’s still healing at about the same rate, and she’s healing, at least, so that’s something. It could use some tweaking, especially before either one of them goes back to work in a field that involves people shooting at them on a semi-regular basis.

     “Can you imagine,” she’d laughed, “if I was giving someone a tarot reading and I dropped dead halfway through? Do you know how hard it is already to convince people that the Death card doesn’t actually mean they’re going to die? God, I’d get such good reviews on Yelp, though. Went for a psychic reading. The reader died and came back to life. She’s definitely speaking with arcane knowledge from the Other Side.” 

     "Can’t have your Yelp score hurt,” Arthur drawled in response, holding a washcloth to a small cut on her arm while the skin slowly knit itself back together, and he leaned closer to press a kiss to her temple. “Should I start coughing up blood whenever you’ve really got to sell a haunting?”

     An hour later they’d popped down to the shop — if she was going to be tweaking spells and testing injuries, she wanted some aromatherapy to go with it — and he’d sneezed when she took in a breath of a candle that smelled so strongly of patchouli it made her eyes water. “That might undermine how smooth you are,” she’d pointed out. “You, staring down the barrel of a gun, daring the bad guys to make their move. A thousand miles away, I smell some flowers, and then instead of — god, I don’t know, what’s your move there? Cocking an eyebrow, saying make my day — ”

     “What exactly do you think I do?” he asked, laughing, and she only grinned and powered through, picking up another candle.

     “ — you let out that monster of a sneeze. Or you’re hiding out somewhere, preparing to bust out into the open and take advantage of the element of surprise, but I’m visiting with a new cat and discover an allergy — ”

     She would have rattled on indefinitely if he hadn’t simply slung her over his shoulder, one arm around her legs to steady her, her whole body shaking with laughter while he carried her back up the stairs and stopped only to snatch up a candle that smelled like cranberries.

     She’s looking at that candle now, burned down to half its height — it’s the same candle she would have picked, if she’d gotten to it, and there’s a small smile playing at her lips as Arthur comes back into the bedroom, depositing a cup of freshly brewed tea at her bedside table. ( For a woman who has been so resistant to being seen, to being known, she certainly has come to relish it. ) Her smile only widens, and on a whim she shifts onto her knees on the mattress and tugs at the front of his shirt until he leans forward, just enough for her to reach him. 

     Her arm is still a little sore — that last minor injury still hasn’t healed all the way — and she’s fatigued from the constant healing and spellwork and she’s feeling the start of a headache, hence the tea, but he takes her face in his hands like she’s something precious and he kisses her like he can’t get enough of her and Astoria thinks she’s never felt better, never felt more like herself. 

     “No more tests tonight,” she promises. “I’m wiped out. Come to bed? We can watch Vikings and you can tell me about all the historical inaccuracies. I’ve been curious about the armor.” 

     “Nothing like winding down to the sounds of battle.”

     “You’re right. I found a new documentary on Netflix. It’s about exorcisms — ” 

     “I stand corrected. Nothing like winding down to the screams of the eternally damned — ”

     It’s a pretty picture, said screams of the eternally damned notwithstanding: the two of them sitting beside each other, blankets pulled up and pooled in their laps and the cats draped across them, Astoria’s phone on silent and cast aside for a change while business carries on without her and no threat that Arthur will have to take off to save the world any time soon. The elder of the cats makes her way to Arthur’s lap, chews on his hand until she falls asleep, and Astoria lets out a contented sigh wholly at odds with the scene playing out on the television across from them.

     He casts her a grin, careful not to move his hand and wake the cat. “What odd turns our lives have taken.”

     She knows what he means. The both of them have become desensitized to the bloodshed and the violence that follows them; their opportunities to breathe easily are rare, so often dependent upon the cooperation of the rest of the world, notoriously uncooperative as it is. More than that, they have become desensitized to half-truths and outright lies, to the numbing quiet of returning to an empty home, of having so few people upon whom they can truly rely. He sees her set off sparks in her hands or light flames with a touch and he smiles; she watches the little cuts and scrapes from the cat’s claws fade from his hand, from her own, in a matter of seconds and minutes and home feels more and more like home with him in it. 

     Last thousand years never prepared you for domesticity? she wants to laugh, but the teasing dies in her throat and paves the way for sincerity. She leans away from him only long enough to blow out the candle on her bedside table, the smell of cranberries still hanging in the air, before nestling into his side again. 

     “Yeah.” Odd turns, indeed. “I like it.”

#valiantsword #v. it hurt for the first few times but at last i've learned to love a little blood in my wine. ( main timeline: modern witch | collector ) #i. here's the truth from my red lips. ( answers ) #(i really intended to get action-y but they got cute instead and who am i to argue) #iii. i fell in love with the world in you. ( arthur x astoria )

[carelessgraces]

ships tag drop (1/?) — if we’re in the midst of reworking a ship / we haven’t done much with a ship yet, i may not drop a tag for it just yet, so i can make sure the tag fits the ship as we develop it more !!

#iii. i want you the way i want the sea: wildly. recklessly. gloriously. ( draco x astoria ) #iii. i fell in love with the world in you. ( arthur x astoria ) #iii. i do not tolerate a world emptied of you. ( rosalie x astoria ) #iii. i'd rot in hell with you if you'd just ask me to. ( ben x astoria ) #iii. i don't belong and my beloved neither do you. ( thom x astoria ) #iii. 'what do you want?' to be with you in hell. ( tom x astoria ) #iii. i knew you'd linger like a tattoo kiss. ( zevran x astoria ) #iii. until i wrap myself inside your arms i cannot rest. ( matthias x astoria ) #iii. the rest of you (the best of you) belongs to me. ( theo x astoria ) #( tag drop )

[carelessgraces]

@valiantsword said:   [ SLOW-BURN ] : after a long period of mutual pining, your muse makes the first move and kisses my muse.   ( kissing prompts | accepting )

"You know, you said this was a heist.” 

     “I was seducing you with the promise of adventure.” There’s only so sorry Astoria can pretend to be, particularly since she got exactly what she was hoping for — Arthur looks good in a suit, even with the abandoned tie and jacket dropped unceremoniously on the director’s desk. With a satisfied huff, she sets her lock pick aside, opening the desk drawer, though she does pause to offer Arthur her most dazzling smile. “And I mean, it’s technically a heist. I’m stealing something.”

     “I imagined there would be a team.”

     “You’re my team, sweet thing.”

     “I’m not doing anything.”

     “You’re standing there looking pretty,” she retorts, and he laughs. “Besides, you’re never here long enough for me not to mind if when I have to ditch you to work. If you want we can hit the Louvre after. Roll up the Mona Lisa and hide her in my bra.” 

     Arthur sighs, drops the pretense of annoyance — he seems pleased that she enjoys his company as much as she does, and she tries not to let her relief show too much. ( She has grown more and more attached to him these past several months. Whenever he’s in Dublin he occupies every last minute, every last thought, she has, and she tells herself sometimes that it’s simply how friendship works even though she knows there’s something else to it for her. )

     ( And sometimes she wonders if perhaps she’s not alone — if his eyes lingering for a moment when he thinks she can’t see him or the way his eyes widened and he cleared his throat when he saw her in this dress means something else, too. She tries not to dwell on it. ) 

     Astoria moves to sit in the director’s chair, taking a moment to bask in the satisfaction of her surroundings — the museum director’s office is stunning, a steady stream of moonlight pouring through the window and lighting her task as well as any flashlight, Arthur moving around the office to stand behind her. One of his hands toys idly with her hair, and he looks curiously over her shoulder and asks, “What are you looking for?”

     It takes her a moment to answer, what with her brain short-circuiting — Arthur’s fingers catch a small tangle and tug it loose, and she has the most sudden and overwhelming fixation on the image of him grabbing a fistful of her hair and pulling while she’s bent over this desk, and she has to stare fixedly at the director’s empty coffee cup until she resets. When she does speak, her voice is, perhaps, a little hoarse, though she pretends it’s not. 

     “His brother hired me,” she says finally. “They’re twins, this one is older, and their great-grandmother apparently left him a family heirloom that my guy wanted. Granny played favorites unfairly. Older brother and all that.” Astoria opens the drawers one by one, rummages through them; she knows it’s here. “Seventeenth-century ring, with a toadstone setting. Apparently they protect against poisons.” 

     “And that’s a big concern for your client?”

     “Well, he’s hiring strange Irish women to steal from his twin, so my guess is he’s a bit of a dick.” 

     Arthur laughs again, his hand falling from her hair to her back. “Why’d you take the job, then?”

     “Dicks pay. And I’ve never done a museum heist before.”

     “And this counts?”

     “You’re such a spoilsport. You keep this up, I’m never bringing you with me to commit a felony again. Ha. Here it is.” She picks up the ring, holds it up to examine. “Ugly little thing, isn’t it? He’s paying me eighty thousand pounds to get it back.”

     “Eighty thousand, for that?” 

     “Mm. I love the insanely wealthy. They don’t understand the value of anything. You can tell that’s not a man who’s ever bought his own groceries.” Astoria shuts all the drawers and stands, and she allows herself the briefest moment’s distraction, considering that all she’s done all night has been getting distracted thinking about him. 

     It’s getting out of control. It’s more than a little absurd. But she thinks about him all the time, and every time she imagines saying something to him she’s seized by a sudden and strange fear that she’ll ruin everything if she does. The over-the-top flirting will have to do. Anything else seems to be a nonstarter. “It’s a good look for you,” she says, and she’s certainly standing too close to him, smoothing a wrinkle in the front of his shirt. “Very sexy professor on his night off.” 

     He smiles at that, a little crooked, entirely infuriating, and Astoria is preparing to do something very impulsive and very stupid when they hear something echoing down the hall. Immediately, Arthur’s moving, collecting his jacket and his tie and peering surreptitiously out the office window. “Security,” he says quietly, “come on — ”

     They could maybe make it out if Astoria could use magic in front of him. Her fingers are itching for a little spellwork and she’s about to do something impulsive and stupid in a totally opposite direction when Arthur very gently grabs her wrist and tugs her after him. There are file cabinets stacked high in the corner of the office, behind the door, and quietly, carefully, he presses her into the corner, jacket and tie draped over his arm, his hands on her waist and holding her firmly against the wall. The fabric starts to slip and Astoria catches it, holds it between them, and the door to the office opens, and Arthur moves closer to her until he’s practically on top of her, every inch of him flush against her, and Astoria’s fairly certain that she’s going to simply explode and that will be that, no need to explain that she’s so attracted to him it’s almost physically painful being in his presence — 

     The guard comes in, and Astoria hears her moving around the office; it’s the sort of lazy once-over with a flashlight that suggests that it’s more for the sake of appearances than any actual desire to secure the space. Which, she supposes, is fair; Astoria did have to get past four locks to get in this wing of the museum at all. Just to be safe, Astoria carefully slides her free hand around to his back, as if to keep him steady, though once she can move it freely she gently grabs hold of the shadows and twists them until she and Arthur are fully covered. 

     The guard pauses, her squeaking shoes falling silent for a moment, and she swings her flashlight, calls out a quiet “hello?” Arthur tucks his face against Astoria’s shoulder, his own shoulders shaking with silent laughter, and the guard decides she’s seen enough, heads out to the hall, pulls the door closed behind her.

     For a moment, they’re perfectly still, and Astoria releases the shadows around them; Arthur’s laughter fades and he lifts his head, looks down at her with obvious amusement. Heist might be appropriate now, if only barely. “Alright, Birdy?” he asks, and Astoria nods, and there it is again, the desire to say something, to do something — 

     — Arthur moves to step back but she presses the hand behind him firmly against his back. She’s certainly not strong enough to hold him where he is against his will, but it’s enough to communicate a desire, and he pauses for a moment before wordlessly pushing closer to her. Their silences have always spoken volumes — secrets neither feels particularly compelled to share just yet, secrets that are always present and felt but never resented. There’s no reason that would change now. The hands at her waist flex and tighten incrementally, his grip on her solid, and Astoria withdraws her free hand to bring it between them again, to reach up to hook around the back of his neck. 

     And he’s watching her — the way her teeth clamp nervously around her lower lip, stained the same deep red as her hair, the rise and fall of her chest against his with every breath, the spasm of the fingers gripping his clothes as she tries and fails to make sense of what she’s doing. Stupid, she wants to scream at herself, foolish, don’t fuck this up, don’t fuck this up, but all she can think about is how badly, how desperately she wants in this moment. ( The job is forgotten. The ring in her hand is forgotten. The security guard is forgotten. Everything is forgotten except the thought of how his scruff would feel against her throat or the inside of her thighs and the strength in his hands and the hungry way he’s watching her. ) 

     She pulls him closer and tentatively, carefully, she brushes her lips over his, the kiss chaste and questioning, and Arthur responds by pressing her harder against the wall, hands slipping down to hold her hips, and he draws back from her only enough to meet her eyes, expression questioning.

     She clears her throat, bites the inside of her cheek, before she tries to speak. “Is that okay?” she manages finally, and Arthur nods. She takes it as an invitation, surges forward to meet him, kisses him until she’s breathless and flushed, his hands roaming appreciatively along her frame. She wonders if he’s wanted this as much as she has. She wonders how many times he’s thought of her like this, so responsive, so hungry. 

     The jacket and tie fall from her hands, the ring following shortly after. ( He is — intoxicating, infuriating, and she’s insatiable. It’s a long time before she remembers how to do anything but keep him close. )

#valiantsword #v. it hurt for the first few times but at last i've learned to love a little blood in my wine. ( main timeline: modern witch | collector ) #i. here's the truth from my red lips. ( answers ) #(ANYWAY) #( queue ) #iii. i fell in love with the world in you. ( arthur x astoria )