Welcome to Gaia! ::

After his return to Eowyn, and Ara, Detraeus spent a span of three days in flux, simply being: sharing space with her again, learning the sound of her footsteps again, re-accustomizing himself with the way the house smelled when she cooked, and the way morning looked in her hair. He got used to having her touch him again — surprised every time, at first, that she still seemed to want to — and slowly, after that, began learning to incorporate small touches of his own into their casual routines. On the fourth day, though, Detraeus wanted definitions.

He could not live in flux. They could not live in flux, and he knew, if she let him, he might remain there forever, avoid crucial questions, and allow the fragile balance they maintained now to deteriorate forever. He desperately wanted to avoid that. So, he made himself speak. On the evening of the fourth day, after their meal, and just as she was stepping to leave the kitchen, he touched his fingers to her wrist, inciting a pause and a glance back towards him.

“Detraeus?”

He eyed her, weighing his options and the timing before saying simply: “I need a conversation with you.”

“A long one?” she asked, and after a brief pause, he shrugged.

“Perhaps?”

Eager to please her — and, in fact, of plenty inclination himself to stretch his legs — Detraeus nodded without argument. Together, they left the house, and Detraeus let his topic rest as they walked, preferring to make it fully through the town and well out onto the beach before even considering broaching his questions. Even then, it was many long minutes in before he began to slow his pace, the incoming swells licking at their footprints in the sand as he considered how to word himself.

“I…” He frowned, hesitating, and stopped walking altogether. This, he realized, was going to be more difficult than he anticipated. “There are things you should know about me. And things I need to know about you. I have never…” His tail flicked side to side, and he raised a hand, brow furrowed as he tugged absently at the length of his ear. “I have not…cared, before, for anyone. I have not cared to make anyone happy the way I want you to be happy. I want to make you happy. I want you to help…teach me…how to make you happy. But I do not know if I can do all the things you might…want…” Curbing the need to grimace as heat climbed up his neck and into his face, he shifted his weight. “But I want to try everything it is that you want…in time. If you will help me.” He eyed her, studying her range of expressions before dipping his lashes and his lids. “I want to be good to you…in so far as it is possible for me. And it would help me to know what you want with me and from me so that I can strive to be that…because I have never been what anyone wanted before, but if I am to start, I would like it to be with you.”

‘…until we can enjoy them together…and then many times after that…’

Detraeus’ heart fluttered uncertainly in his chest. This was a promise, an extensive promise, to engage in a commitment over the long term and bind himself in obligation to another person. But then, it wasn’t just any person. It was this woman standing before him. And he found that he wanted the commitment more than he wanted anything else in that moment.

At her inquiry, he leaned in, and her lips were exactly as he remembered them: soft, warm, and inviting. She looped an arm up and around to catch behind his neck, and his tail coiled, holding her fast to him even as his hands perched, nervous as fledgling birds upon her hips. His wings stretched more confidently, out and around them like a dark guard from the rest of the world in the shadow of which she was his, and his alone.

When she broke the kiss, it felt too soon. But then, her hand was at his wrist, tugging and guiding him off down the beach until they arrived at a nook all their own. An outcropping of rock, smoothed by the surf, that blocked them from any and all wandering eyes. There, she settled her back to it and with a gentle pull, encouraged him forward. Shivering, he sank into another kiss and braced his hands to either side of her head as he opened his mouth to her explorations.

Her fingers teased and burned, but he let them touch. Let them trace his sides like careful travelers, wary of pitfalls, despite the way his skin tightened and muscles bunched beneath them. When she caught his hands, ushering them down towards her hips, he shuddered, but did not object; when she touched his thumbs to skin, he tensed.

“Ara…”

She stilled, and he watched with riveted attention as her lashes lifted and eyes turned to meet his stare. “Tell me when,” she said. “Tell me no, and we’ll stop.”

He held his ground, waiting for his pulse to ease back out of his throat before grunting and shaking his head. Instead, he leaned back in, touching first their foreheads and then their lips, his thumbs circling — delicately as firebugs — along the smooth expanse of her stomach. They froze at the texture of scales. Before he could jerk his hands away, however, she held them in.

“Nnnh—” Detraeus shut his eyes, pulse darting back up. “I didn’t—I’m sorry—if I hurt—”

“It doesn’t hurt,” Ara said. “It doesn’t hurt. It’s alright. You can touch them…” She hesitated only a moment before adding, “I want you to touch them.”

Detraeus stilled his backwards pull, some of the rigid tension in his posture easing back out, and he let himself grow used to the feel of her hands over his, holding his to her skin before she slowly let go. Painstakingly careful and experimental, he moved his thumbs again, tracing the tiny, rounded shapes of hardened scales decorating her skin and exploring the difference in texture. He watched her intently as he did, ready to withdraw at any instant. But she gave no sign she wanted him gone, and so, moment by moment, minute by minute, he relaxed into the process. When she smiled, he savored it.

“You see…it’s not so bad, is it?” she asked, and he eyed her, holding her gaze level before finally giving a minute shake of the head. He leaned down, kissing once of his own regard, and then frowning as he withdrew, pulling back to watch her critically.

“Only I do this,” he said. “Only I can touch you…yes?” Only after he asked it did it occur to Detraeus how absolutely crucial it was to him that the statement be true.

‘Mine.’

Detraeus’ pulse thrummed with private thrill at the words. His. All his. He leaned back in, his tail coiling possessively around her narrow frame as he kissed her. No one, no one, no one could touch but him, and he would see to it. Here, now, she was his to keep, to protect, and to love. And he intended to.