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“Laudna, I can feel you staring at me.”
Imogen is tired. She’s sore. Every part of her body aches, and there’s a distinct stinging somewhere on her chest that means she’s opened one of her wounds again. She rubs it absentmindedly as she sets her things down near the foot of the bed, starting to let her hair down for the evening. The sudden decrease of pressure on her scalp is wonderful as she shakes it out. It’s been a day.
Laudna hardly acknowledges Imogen’s tone, stepping forward into their rented room for the evening and shutting the door with a furious click. She’s got her gaze locked on Imogen, eyes wide and slightly insane. Maybe it’s just the remnants of the poison that worked its way through her system, but Laudna’s shaking slightly.
Imogen looks back in her direction, a sigh escaping her bruised, cracked lips. “What, Laudna? I’m still real banged up, and--”
“I know.” Laudna inches closer, head cocked. There’s a tremor buried somewhere in her words. “You died.”
“I didn’t die.”
“You nearly died.”
Imogen rubs the side of her head, the usual evening headache starting to make itself known. “Laudna--”
“No.” Laudna reaches Imogen now, doing a full sweep with her gaze, like she’s trying to memorize Imogen herself. “You don’t get to be angry with me for caring about you. I watched those creepers rip into you. I watched them take you down and pull strings of your blood from your chest before splattering it on the back wall; all the while I was helpless to escape that fucking sticky jizz stuff on the floor.”
Some of the irritation in Imogen’s body ebbs away as she watches Laudna, usually far more composed than the woman standing before her. In fact, on a closer look, the shaking has nothing to do with her poisoning.
“Wait, are you--are you cryin’?” Imogen’s mouth parts slightly, a hand reaching out to cup Laudna’s cold face. “Laudna, Laudna, I didn’t die, though. We all got banged up. Fearne, Letters, all of us. Hell, even you.”
“It’s different.” Laudna looks up at the ceiling, blinking rapidly as if that alone would push the tears back. “They’re different. I don’t want them to die, of course, but I’d be alright. I could go on.”
The unspoken meaning hangs between them, and Imogen doesn’t have to probe Laudna’s mind to understand the silent sentence that should follow.
“Hey.” Imogen leans in closer. “If those creepers really did, yknow, take me out, you’d have to keep going. For the both of us.”
Laudna shakes her head. “Imogen--”
“This is a really, really scary world we’ve stepped into,” Imogen tells her. “I walked into that fight knowin’ I might not walk out. All of us did. I mean, you saw that guy and his… goop. The back baby. I mean, that was just--”
“Horrifying?” Laudna laughs a little, much to Imogen’s relief.
“Yes, horrifying, thank you.” Imogen smiles back, earlier frustration melted. “But you can go on, Laudna. You’ve got to. And besides, I’ve got no intention of dying. I got back up. We’ve got a whole team now to watch our backs. So, can you be done worrying about me now?”
“I’ll never be done worrying about you.” It’s quiet, but firm--promised with fervor to this unfamiliar room and the walls currently doing an okay job of keeping the voices from the rest of the tavern at bay.
Imogen doesn’t know why she does it. Maybe it’s the way Laudna’s staring at her, gripping Imogen’s arm just a little too hard so that the nails dig into her flesh. Maybe it’s the way she’s met very few people who fight for her as absolutely as Laudna does. Or maybe the thought’s been on her mind all day, and there’s finally enough quiet to act on it.
Whatever the reason, Imogen takes a breath and closes the space between them. The kiss tastes like sweat and tears and the iron aftertaste of blood. Laudna immediately deepens the kiss, growling a little somewhere in her throat.
“Been thinking about that, huh?” Laudna gasps a little when they break apart, and Imogen has the decency to blush.
“Maybe a little.”
Laudna scans her face, traces of tears mostly gone now. There’s a new curiosity brimming behind her glittering black eyes, a sort of testing her limits that Imogen’s seen many times before. In this context, though, she’s a little ashamed to admit it sends a nice warm thrumming right between her legs.
“I gotta get ready for bed.” Imogen isn’t quite sure why she’s suddenly breathless. “Get out of these clothes and whatnot.”
Laudna’s hands ghost over her blouse, never touching, just hovering. “Want some help?”
“I wouldn’t say no.”
Laudna instructs Imogen to turn around with a gentle whisper near her ear, hands coming to hold her shoulders and slowly peel the day's garments off her body. This isn’t the first time she and Laudna have… been together like this. Long lonely days on the road have led to their companionship being a little fluid, blurred in all the right ways, but for some reason, tonight is charged with something that Imogen can’t quite put her finger on.
The cool air causes her to shiver as she balls up her shirt and tosses it near her things. Imogen promises herself to do some spell work on it in the morning, maybe something to help with the blood that has darkened along… well, most of it. Laudna’s hands creep up the front of her bare stomach now, stopping to examine the partially healed wound the creepers inflicted on her chest.
“Oh, Imogen.” Laudna’s voice falls to a whisper.
“It’s okay,” Imogen finds herself comforting Laudna instead of the other way around. “It’s okay. I got some healing for it. It’ll be fine. Hardly hurts anymore.”
“We’ll be gentle.” It’s a promise.
Laudna moves forward, pushing Imogen just slightly until the back of her knees hit the mattress, and she folds to perch at the edge. Shirtless, she feels a little exposed and brings her arms up to hug herself.
Laudna notices. “You’re beautiful, Imogen.”
“Oh, I hardly think so.” It’s not that Imogen doesn’t think she’s pretty. She likes most parts of herself, certain features, certain angles. She’s always carried herself with decent confidence. It’s just… right now, she’s bruised and worried, the dark circles deeper than they’ve been in a long time. At the moment, she feels farther from pretty than anything else.
“Then, stop thinking,” Laudna commands, towering over Imogen like something out of a haunted nightmare if nightmares were striking and gorgeous and mostly harmless. “Let me take care of you.”
Healing, as Imogen has come to realize in moments like these, takes many different forms. Letters and Fearne and the others in the group who possess the power to seal over wounds and breathe life back into the dying have one kind -- powerful, functional. And Laudna has another, purely her own, with the way she’s able to coax Imogen’s broken and overwhelmed body towards something wonderful.
“Yeah, Laudna.” Imogen arches a little as Laudna’s hands start traveling across her shoulders and massaging those hard-to-reach places on her neck. “Oh, you’re a downright blessing, you know that?”
Lauda smiles, teeth showing a bit. “You always get really complimentary when I put my hands on you, do you know that?”
A flush heats up Imogen’s cheeks. “Well, it feels nice. Most things on my body today have been trying to kill me.”
At that, Laudna’s grip tightens, and she grows almost possessive. “I wanted to rip them to shreds,” she hisses. “I wanted to so badly. I tried so hard to get to them. To you.”
“I know, baby, I know.” It just kind of slips out, and Imogen doesn’t fully regret it. It feels right, and Laudna barely bats an eyelash.
Laudna isn’t finished, though. She runs her hands along Imogen’s bruised collarbone, swooping down to suck and kiss gently at the warm skin. Her long fingers trace farther down, towards Imogen’s tits until she can cup them both -- one in each palm.
“I’ve always loved these,” she says, as if letting Imogen in on a giant secret. “I think they’re perfect. Shape. Size. Fit.”
“No one’s perfect, Laudna.” Still, Imogen tips her head back, allowing Laudna to palm and knead her tits until she’s certain the woman has officially claimed them as her own.
“They can’t have you,” Laudna says, pushing Imogen back onto the bed before stepping away to undress herself. “Crawl up there by the pillows and wait for me.”
And Imogen hurries to comply, watching Laudna’s clothes drop to the floor. Lauda’s body is skeletal in places, ribs showing in patches. Her skin is grey and often cold to the touch, limbs able to pop in and out of their sockets at will. To most people, Laudna would seem a freak of nature, a monster, a mood-killer, definitely, but not to Imogen.
She’s seen Laudna’s body many times, and never grows tired of it. There’s a certain regal beauty about her as she situates Pâté on the dresser (facing away, of course) and pats his little head for good measure.
“You’ve got that look in your eye,” Imogen remarks as she runs a hand through her curls, now loose and spread across the pillow.
“Which look might that be?” Laudna, now fully naked, climbs onto the bed.
“The dangerous one.” Imogen gestures to the wound on her chest. “I thought we were going gentle.”
Laudna laughs, situating herself above Imogen and tugging on her brown pants. “Who said I won’t be? These. Off.”
Raising her hips, Imogen wriggles until she’s able to slide the tight pants down her hips and shed them, too. Laudna grins as she does so.
“That’s more like it, dear.” Laudna’s hand comes to rest on her hip, and Imogen leans into the touch. “Now, I’m gonna make sure those creepers know whose person they nearly took.”
Imogen wants to argue with that logic. The creepers, after all, are dead. They have no idea Laudna is poised above her in this tavern bedroom, ready to sink her fingers or her tongue into Imogen’s most sensitive places. She doubted she wanted those monsters to know, anyway. But none of that seems to bother Laudna, so she puts it out of her mind.
Maybe she’s thinking too much about it.
“Last time,” she pants as Laudna begins to stroke her body carefully, kick-starting the blood flow. “You, like, kept your fingers still and let me get off around them. I liked that.”
Laudna smiles again, that wide, too-long grin. “Is that so?” She reaches a hand down and cups Imogen just for good measure. The coolness of her hand feels heavenly against her warmth.
“Oh, fuck .”
“You like when I touch your cunt, huh?”
Cunt.
The word sends a shoot of pleasure down her thighs, and Imogen wonders if she should be more… humiliated that Laudna’s crude talk turns her on so much. She isn’t against a cuss word here and there, but on the whole, she tries to refrain from overusing them. Perhaps that’s why she likes it so much in the bedroom. A sort of kink or something.
“I like you like this,” Laudna continues, her long fingers just brushing through Imogen’s folds, avoiding the clit. “Here. Warm. Alive.”
In a sudden movement, she hoists an arm under Imogen’s back and leans her across her own lap, ass up and waiting. Imogen nearly moans aloud, swallowing hard to keep from letting it out.
“Look at you,” Laudna croons, hands now running up and down her back before coming to cup her ass. “So beautiful for me. I bet I could fuck you like this, huh? You wanna come with your face in my thighs?”
At this point, Imogen will cum anywhere, anyhow. She just nods, hands coming forward to fist the bedsheets in her hand.
“Words, Imogen, dear.”
“ Yes.”
Her bruises hurt; her chest wound hurts; and at the moment, the sparks of pain are almost a relief. They’re a reminder that she’s still here, pulled from that inky blackness to make it back here, back in Laudna’s arms.
And now, Laudna’s easing a finger into Imogen from this angle, spreading her legs and giving a few experimental pumps. Imogen shudders, taking it.
“So responsive,” Laudna says appreciatively. “I like it.”
She pumps a little faster, the angle just enough to find several of Imogen’s more sensitive spots. She gasps a little, body rocking with the sensations.
“Wait, wait,” she pants out finally, and Laudna immediately slows. With the arms lifted, she rights herself, straddling Laudna’s bare lap and facing the woman tit to tit. “I wanna… wanna be right here up close when I cum.”
“You’re fucking adorable.”
Laudna slides two fingers up into Imogen without much warning, and Imogen’s legs nearly go weak. She whines, nodding as her head falls back. Encouraged, Laudna slides them in deeper and resumes her slow, steady rhythm.
Imogen has never liked rough penetration. She’s always appreciated how long Laudna’s fingers are, easily reaching the deepest parts of her. And Launda’s just about mastered the exact right way to get Imogen falling over the edge, with gentle pressure and slow, determined movements.
“ Laudna ,” Imogen groans, twisting her hips to find the perfect angle. “ Laudna, Laudna!”
And there, she’s found it, Laudna’s fingers hitting it just right as she raises and lowers herself down onto them. Getting the message, Laudna stills her fingers, other hand on Imogen’s hip to guide her up then down onto their length.
“Oh, oh, oh,” Imogen babbles a bit, her head coming forward now to rest on Laudna’s shoulder.
“You’re tight,” Laudna says, urging Imogen to keep pace. “Lean forward just a bit. There’s a good girl; clench down for me.”
Imogen obeys; of course, she obeys, and that nearly does it for her. Her hips stutter for a moment, the peak building rapidly. Just a little more… just one more…
Laudna clicks her teeth, pulling her fingers out, and suddenly Imogen is clenching around nothing. She practically sobs into Laudna’s shoulder.
“Wh--no, Laud, put them back .”
“I don’t want you cumming just yet,” Laudna explains, petting her hair. “You can hold on a little longer; I know you can.”
Laudna lays a shaking Imogen back out across the bed, taking her time exploring and admiring each part of her body. She traces along her hardened nipples, twisting every so often before traveling down to her hips and thighs. Laudna inspects each bruise, kissing each one delicately.
“So patient for me,” she comments as she goes, glancing at Imogen’s soaked inner thighs. “And clearly enjoying this. Are you enjoying yourself, Imogen? Enjoy letting loose like this? Enjoy being claimed?”
Claimed .
Imogen hadn’t thought about it like that, but she doesn’t care. She likes it. She likes Laudna.
“Mark me,” she gasps out. “Make me yours.”
Funny enough, this is what makes Laudna balk. “I don't want to hurt you.”
Imogen shakes her head. “You won’t, you won’t. Rather see your bruises than theirs.”
So Laudna gets to work, her mouth nipping and biting across Imogen’s skin before soothing the bites with the flat expanse of her tongue. It hurts. It feels good. Imogen wants her whole body to be covered in Laudna’s symbols of possession.
After she’s confident no expanse of Imogen’s skin has been left unmarked, Laudna’s pulling Imogen back into her lap.
“You’ve been so patient, darling.” Laudna’s hands travel back down, down, down, and Imogen’s cunt clenches again in anticipation. “What a good girl.”
Laying her palm flat, Imogen feels the steady pressure finally applied to her aching bundle of nerves, and her hips jolt forward to find more.
“ Yes, yes, ” she chants, holding Laudna’s shoulders for balance as she grinds harder and harder. With each rock of her hips, she’s climbing higher on that peak again. Imogen half expects Laudna to deny her again, but apparently the enjoyment of Imogen rubbing one out on her hand is just too much, even for her.
“So close, Imogen,” Launda says in her ear, still guiding her hip with every thrust. “Find it. Find it, sweet girl.”
Another broken sound finds its way past Imogen’s lips. She rocks faster, harder, relishing each time Laudna’s palm hits her clit. “Oh, Laudna, oh, fuck, Laudna, yes!”
She’s so close, so close, and it feels so fucking good. She stood on the precipice of death today, teetered right off the edge until she was caught and pulled back towards the land of the living. This is the same and different all at once. This time, she wants nothing more than to throw herself off the edge.
“You’re mine, Imogen Temult,” Laudna’s voice grits out in her ear, and that does it.
With a cry, Imogen’s body lurches, and a gush of wetness coats Laudna’s hand and the bedsheets beneath her. She rides it out, hips still moving faintly until the pleasure is replaced by sharp twinges of pain from her spent clit.
Only then does Imogen slump forward, chills overtaking her body in the aftermath of her orgasm. Laudna hushes her gently, fingers tracing patterns up her bare back.
“You were so good, Imogen,” Laudna says, voice soft and lilting. “So, so good.”
“I almost died.” For some reason, in the clarity here, the realization finally takes hold. All it took was falling off the cliff of pleasure. “I died. I’m pretty sure I died, or almost did. Laudna…”
And Laudna holds her tightly, hands pressed into her back like a comforting anchor. “You didn’t. We saved you. You’re okay.”
Imogen sits back with a sniff, shaking her hands just a little. “I’m sorry. I’m being so silly. I should be offering to help you out after you were so good to me.”
“Hush now.” Laudna dismisses the idea with a wave of her hand. “I can rub one out once you fall asleep. As much as I love your mouth on my cunt, I did this for you. Tends to be grounding in my experience. Are you… quite alright?”
Imogen nods, sucking in a breath. “Yeah. Yeah, gosh, I am. I don’t even know what came over me there. I just realized… how close I was to losing all of this.”
“Believe me,” Laudna nods. “That, at least, I understand perfectly.”
If Imogen was tired before, now she’s thoroughly worn-out through and through. She hunkers down into the mattress, but is hardly lying there for a few moments when she feels a firm tap on her thigh.
“Piss before you sleep, darling,” Laudna reminds her, already rising from the bed to continue her preparations before sleep. “That’s a girl.”
By the time the two of them have re-crashed in the tavern bed, Imogen can hardly see straight. Her eyes drift shut, and she reaches out for Laudna.
“I’m here,” Laudna promises in the darkness, pulling Imogen’s warm body closer, and that’s enough.
“Don’ wanna be alone,” Imogen mumbles, already half asleep. The weight of Laudna’s arm across her is comforting, like a force keeping her tethered to this world. “Don’ wanna die.”
“I know.” Laudna’s long fingers stroke through her hair. “I know.”
“Goodnigh’ Laudna,” she slurs, darkness overtaking her for the third time. This time, it’s not pleasure. It’s not pain. Just sleep. Just crisp, calm, quiet sleep. And as she drifts off, she thanks her lucky fucking stars that she’s just saying goodnight.
And not goodbye.