save it for the morning after (3/3)
Pairing: Terra/Aqua
Rating: E (Explicit) for Smut
Word Count: 7,850
Summary: Aqua learns the value of being vulnerable.Terra learns to trust his body to another. Everyone gets a happy ending. ;)
Read on AO3
A/N: AAAAHHHH Happy Terraqua Day!!!! I can’t believe I finally finished this one, it always felt like it would never happen. I’m actually quite nervous - I don’t take the same kind of path of other smut and being so deviant honestly freaks me out so much. I really do pull this story into extreme directions for smut, that I wonder if I can call it smut at all. But let’s see. Hope you like. <3
~*~*~*~*~
“Aqua.”
“Hm?”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you…”
“Go ahead.”
“....”
“Are you okay?”
“The... um, your scars...”
“They’re not yours.”
“Aqua—”
“They aren’t.”
“Please.”
“...They’re not yours.”
~*~*~*~*~
Well, damn.
Ven hones in on Terra—a ballsy move considering it’s a super-bad idea to get this close to a large opponent—but Ven skids, spinning on his knees and tripping Terra like a pet running through its owner’s legs. Ven serves an uppercut with his short Keyblade. It almost jabs Terra on the ribs if not for his lurch backward, and he lands squarely on his ass against the desk behind him.
A pot of ink rattles and tips, spilling all over his pants and spreading up the spine of his shirt.
Ven snorts. “You look like you shit yourself.”
Terra wipes his backside, picking up excess ink in layers. It’s slick, skating through his fingers with the weight of iron and dripping onto the floor. More of it runs between his legs, finding a way in between cracks and folds of skin, moistening up his boxers. Damn it. He slathers his hand through Ven’s hair with so much force (Hey!) that Ven waddles to stay in balance.
“And you look like you’ve been picking through trash.”
Ink clumps chunks of blond hair together, drooling down Ven’s ears and staining his collar. It makes him look oily for lack of a better term, like someone who hasn’t taken a shower in weeks. When he touches his scalp out of reflex he flinches, wiping his coated fingers on his own shirt… before realizing what he’s doing. He groans.
“It suits you,” Terra says.
“I dunno.” Ven wipes the rest of it on Terra’s shirt. “Looks better on you.” Might as well. The shirt is honestly ruined.
One corner of the offending desk is covered in globs of shiny black. Terra corrects the ink bottle and surveys the damage. The tile floor will be easy to clean, but the wood is inhaling the color.
“Aqua’s going to kill us,” Ven mutters. “She spent a lot of time in this room.”
Weeks of time choosing which books to display on the shelves. Days researching the right chalkboard to purchase. Journeys spent gathering minerals for students to practice with: ash from a far away volcano, water from the forest river nearby, unearthed dirt from the garden, and feathers from nests settled at the peak of the tallest mountain. Aqua has a vision of this room playing the dual role of serving lectures and encouraging hands-on experimentation in a safe environment. She wants it to be respectable and impressive before the semester starts. They’re not allowed to traverse the room with shoes on, and Terra and Ven were respectable about that before one of them (Ven) started to get cocky about his fighting abilities.
Yeah, they fucked up. “Think of it this way. We proved it’s not practical for physical training,” Terra says.
“You’re the one who’s going to tell her that.” Ven scoffs, splaying a wet towel on the floor.
Terra pulls his suspenders over his head and lets them hang from his waistband. Pinching his stained muscle shirt off and bundling it up, he uses it as a rag to absorb the puddle on the table. What’s sinking into his socks is now warm. He ignores it.
“Do you think I could pull this off?” Ven asks as a by-the-way, twiddling a shy hand at the back of his greasy head.
“Black hair?”
“No, you’re right. It’s creepy.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Pfft, you also ‘didn’t’”—Ven bookends the word with finger quotations—“spar fairly.”
Terra considers throwing his damp shirt at Ven’s face. “I’m not at my prime yet.”
“That’s not it.” Ven flips the towel and swipes the remaining streaks with the cleaner side. “You’re holding back. You promised you wouldn’t do that anymore.”
“I’m not holding back.” He is. Just the image of raising his Keyblade against either of his friends is enough to make him nauseous, but he swallows it to be a good sport.
Giving it his all is something else entirely, a deeper, invasive illness.
“I know you can hit harder than that.” Ven dunks the towel in a pail of water, clouding it.
“I just have a lot in my mind and it’s hard to... relax, I guess.”
There’s a moment of pregnant quiet before Ven says pointedly, “I thought Aqua was helping you out with that.”
A moist squish slaps Ven on the nose.
“Now you’re being sensitive,” Ven says, pulling Terra’s shirt off his shoulder.
“You missed a spot,” says Terra, using his thumb to smear the stain across Ven’s cheek. For shits and giggles he continues upward, rubbing raccoon circles on Ven’s eyelids. “You really pull this off.”
“Do you annoy her this much?”
“She enjoys it.”
“Ugggh.” Ven throws Terra’s hands off of him, his chin tucked in so much that two layers of neck skin fold over. “Gross.”
Terra pauses. Gross wasn’t what he expected out of Ven’s mouth.
In fact, Terra hasn’t been sure of how Ven took the news the first time.
Oh, Ven had said when they told him Aqua was moving into Terra’s room. Okay. Cool. He shrugged as if he could have heard more exciting news, and left to take a short walk in the woods with Chirithy. The three of them never spoke about it again. Ven wouldn’t mention a word when he saw them dragging her dresser and vanity table, and seldom joined them if he heard them laughing together with the door closed.
Things are changing in minute strokes, in seconds that cluster for as long as Terra can recognize them, until they dissipate and become something not quite foreign but never quite familiar anymore, as though where he comes from is far from home and who he thinks he knows are almost-strangers.
“Have we ever made you uncomfortable?” Terra asks.
“What, no!” Ven waves his hand, feigning shock, staring at his shoes and everywhere else but Terra. “I mean, Aqua’s been Aqua since we got back, and you’re just weird sometimes, but—”
“Then why do you...” Terra sighs, choosing his words. “Avoid us when we’re together?”
“I don’t want to interrupt.”
An almost-lie. “I hope you don’t think we don’t want you around.”
“Noooo. Neither of you make me feel that way.”
“But you do.”
Ven lifts his shoulders higher than his ears and drops them with the same weight as throwing books on the floor. “It’s just… nothing’s the same.”
Nothing is, what with the quiet mornings since the Master is no longer here to prepare breakfast before the sun rises, or huff at anyone when they disturb his meditation. Now they’re preparing the castle for the largest student body of Keyblade wielders it’s seen in years, something Terra thought would be a good distraction for everyone.
But Ven’s right. Home doesn’t feel like home when the floors are re-tiled, and specific rooms are repainted, and the Master’s favorite lounge chair sits empty in the same spot in the library by the fireplace. Maybe for Ven, home is the turn right to knock on Terra’s door and the turn left to knock on Aqua’s.
“It’s weird.” Ven grimaces. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m used to talking to you about things you promised to keep from Aqua—”
“I still wouldn’t tell her anything!”
“—and I’m used to it being the three of us.”
Terra pauses. “We’re still the three of us. We’re still best friends.”
“That’s not how it works, and you know it,” Ven says, smiling warmly. “You are one half of two. You share a language I can’t butt into.”
Terra kneels onto one knee, brushing oily hair out of Ven’s face. Aqua would have liked this look on him: less spiky. “Ven, you’re always going to be a part of our lives.”
“Stop worrying. What you have is not a bad thing. I think it’s kind of awesome. I wish you’d give it your all in a fight. I wanna see what you and her are capable of together, because it’d be huge.”
“I’m only trying to say that we don’t want you to feel like a third wheel. You’re more than welcome to knock on our door anytime—”
“Ah. No. No thanks.” He shoos Terra away.
“Why?”
“I don’t wanna see anything.” Ven squints.
Terra snorts. “You’re not going to see—”
“I don’t wanna hear about it either.”
“But—”
“Nope.” Ven covers his ears with his palms. “Nothing. No inside jokes. No pet names. Yuck. Keep that to yourself.”
Terra presses his lips together to zip up the snickering. “Okay, I won’t say anything.”
“Good. I don’t want any images in my head.” He wipes his hands like he’s done a good job explaining himself. “I should’ve expected it anyhow.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Ven says slowly. “I mean, the Master kinda knew.”
“He said something to you?” Terra asks with a shaky voice. He’s flipping through memories, when he and Aqua were very careful and very private, when they didn't touch each other in case there were witnesses near. He was so certain he’d suffer punishment if Eraqus ever found out. Lists of long essays about the dangers of being reckless with emotions every time Aqua made him laugh too much. Grueling physical regiments to knock discipline into his body every time he made bad decisions based on a tug between his legs.
“I didn’t understand it at the time,” Ven says, leaning back on his hands and tapping his heels on the floor. “We were all hanging out, and you and Aqua left, and then he got sad.
“When I asked him what was wrong, he told me you guys created a very bright Light together. A Light bonded is a Light stronger, he said.” Ven mimics the Master’s lilts in speech, using his finger to emphasize points. “But be aware, Ven. Such a blinding Light casts an equally blinding, deep Shadow. What a dangerous force that is.”
It’s a good imitation. The ache in Terra’s chest twists into his guts and warms him at the same time, like a loving hug that squeezes too hard.
“Honestly it made me think you and Aqua were doing something you weren’t supposed to.”
“Maybe we were.” Terra’s throat constricts, his voice gravelly and his shame nostalgic. “We thought the same sometimes.”
“Which isn’t fair. Why can normal people experience that but it’s such a big deal if Keybearers do it?”
Because when you elevate the person you admire to a standard you can’t match, it makes you do stupid things. Aqua had followed him world after world, expecting it would eventually lead to a fight. Too many Keyblades in a friendship does no one good.
To-may-to, to-mah-to. They did end up fighting, it just wasn’t his own Keyblade that inevitably hurt her. What a dangerous force that is.
“So the Master did not approve?” Terra asks.
“I wouldn’t say that.” Ven rubs his cheek in thought, forgetting all about the ink. “He said your combined Light looked beautiful and warm. And that you’d have many nights where it would be enough when it gets hard... Honestly, he only wished that you keep your head on your shoulders.”
Wishes asked for are wishes granted, the Master used to say, so long as you work for them. The years Terra had wished for this exact approval had only left him with space to forge false hope. Nothing major, nothing long-winded. Just a simple, impossible wish as they placed the flower wreath on his memorial and bid their goodbyes.
Finally, that wish is fulfilled. As Ven grants it to him, it’s hard to believe or accept, sitting on the floor of what used to be a ballroom, covered in drying ink.
“Thanks, Ven.” Tears cascade down his cheeks, pretending to be inconspicuous. He wipes them with his clean forearm but he can’t keep up. There’s one for every moment in the last twelve years when he wanted to apologize to the Master, leaving his eyes burning. “I’m sorry, I’ll stop soon.”
“S’okay.” Ven tucks his ankles under, giving Terra time to process. Ven knows when a topic is too sensitive. But he can also tell when enough time has passed for the raw cuts to seal, when everyone’s ready to laugh. It’s his special gift. Only after Terra slows down does Ven lean forward. “Did you know you make this ugly face when you cry? You’re a train wreck.”
Terra yanks Ven’s head under his arm (Oomph, grunts Ven), locking his elbow around the neck.
Ven beats on Terra’s biceps. “Let go of me.”
Terra summons his pauldron, elbow pad, and gauntlet—for good measure. He licks salt from his lips and smirks, clutching Ven more, sinking him into the pecs.
Ven coughs. “You smell horrible.”
“Nasty-horrible or heroic-horrible?”
“Do you make Aqua sniff your armpit? Let go of me.”
A poor mistake. Ven tumbles back when he’s let go, but he grabs Terra’s shirt before his head hits the floor. He punches it into Terra’s stomach so quickly that Terra isn’t allowed time to react or block, leaving a sprawled, black bruise over his abs.
“Put a shirt on,” Ven says when Terra can’t rub it off. “Freak.”
~*~*~*~
Their bedroom door is ajar. Terra hears the shuffling of feet. He quiets his arrival, crumpling his messed-up shirt in a fist, and leans on the door frame to watch her. Aqua pulls a book out of a stack deftly with one hand, the other carrying a cheese pastry. She swallows a final bite, licking her fingers (something she’d never do in front of anybody else but him), and meditates on the chew before sitting at her desk.
He likes her best like this: half-dressed, without her usual corset and sashes, down to nothing else except her shirt and shorts, simple and free.
Her longest scar creeps out of her backless shirt. A snake, a reminder of the damage Keyblades are capable of: they never heal and barely fade. This is why wielders shouldn’t raise them against people.
Gluing her attention to an open book, Aqua reaches over for more cheese pastry, but her hand meets a plate of crumbs. When she realizes, she snaps up, alert as if she’s been robbed, glancing over her shoulder for signs of movement. This is also something she would not appreciate anyone else seeing, how she’s afraid of being alone, how she’s paranoid that she’s actually not.
Terra steps in and taps her shoulder before she could ask him what happened to the pastry. “That looked delicious.”
She blinks, slowly absorbing his words; she doesn’t feel well today, nothing to be ashamed of. Terra says nothing else. This way, he doesn’t bring more attention to the fact. He won’t touch her so she doesn’t feel coddled (despite how much he wants to). He won’t crack a dumb joke when there’s better moments for them. This way, she keeps her dignity.
When Aqua sees the smears and handprints on him, her eyes finally find reality. “What happened to you?” She stands up and swipes the stain on his chest. It’s dry but not enough, leaving a mark of gray on her fingers.
“An accident.” Terra clears his throat, trying to seem unbothered. Just another day in the castle. Everyone gets covered in ink, what’s the big deal?
If she hears the hesitation in his voice (and she should, she knows him too well), she doesn’t care, marching to their bathroom. The sink turns on.
“What kind of an accident?” she calls. The water flow is disturbed. She’s washing her own hands first.
“Eh, we spilled some ink,” Terra says, praying to the stars she won’t interrogate further. He tosses his ruined shirt into a wastebasket and opens the first dresser drawer for another. Gone are the days when Terra used to stuff his clothes into a heap; Aqua likes to fold every single article, his on one side and hers on the other.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s fixable, I promise.” At least he hopes there’s some magic spell in some book somewhere that could lift ink out of cracks of wood.
He goes down one drawer for pants and it’s the same story.
Down to the middle for socks and underwear, each tightly rolled. Tucked into the back of this one are two newly purchased books, their hardcovers wrapped in plain paper so that anyone peeking in couldn’t read the titles. Edited with illustrations of anatomy, they are lectures of techniques on what to try with your partner. Where to place your hands, how to play with your fingers and tongues, how to listen, when to take it slow and when to take it fast...
“Here,” Aqua says from behind him. She has a wet rag. It’s warm as she gently rubs it into his skin, across the spread of his chest. Her other hand is splayed on his hip.
Just the thought of those books now, of slipping her out of that shirt, the stains on his stomach be damned—
“Am I going to get mad at you?”
Be damned. Terra smirks in a way to invite her to join along with him. “At both of us. But... You never stay too angry for too long so… Why worry about it?”
She pauses. “What are you rambling about?”
“Nothing.” He glances away. “It happened in the new classroom.”
She digs the rag into the groove above the diaphragm as if contemplating his vivisection. A stream of water drips over his belly button, into the hem of his pants, down the dips of his pelvis, between his inner thighs. Let her get mad. Be damned.
“How bad is it?” Her voice is hard.
He caresses the small of her back, which is right now tense and stretched as she makes herself seem taller, like she’s about to take him on. “You’re smart. You’ll figure something out.” She opens her mouth to say something and he kisses the bottom lip. “I’ll do the dishes for three months. That’s enough atonement, right?”
Aqua clenches her teeth into a false smile, nails now leaving divots on his skin. “And the cooking.”
“Sounds fair.”
“And the gardening.”
“Now you’re pushing it.”
She continues to clean him, this time rubbing harder. It leaves his skin lightly raw. “You’re not in any position to bargain.”
“Do you expect me to beg?”
“Then beg.”
Terra would be lying if he says he doesn’t find this side of her hot. She’s a splash of freshwater that would bring him back from the brink. The woman standing in front of him chooses to clean him despite the shower being paces away. She’s the same girl who would plant an extra candle on his birthday cakes, for the year to come. To her, maybe it meant little or nothing. Stars, she’s beautiful, and he doesn’t say it enough.
“You’re doing better,” she says, leveling her voice, nodding to herself as if checking her information. That’s Aqua. Putting aside her annoyance for the sake of making sure he’s taken care of. “You’re not flinching as much.”
Maybe. Her touch is absolutely making the hairs on his neck stand. It is absolutely driving his dick insane. “You know, Ven’s okay with us.”
She stops. “He said something?”
“Kind of. He doesn’t want to know or see or hear anything.”
Her eyes go wide. “Excuse me?”
“He never said he actually heard anything.” He kisses her temple and lets it linger there, taking the opportunity to inhale her smell. Even when she sweats and spars for hours, there’s still a sweetness. Terra laughs into her hair. “He doesn’t want to know nicknames, either.”
Aqua flashes him a look.
“Now we have to,” says Terra. “We don’t have a choice.”
“What should we use?” Aqua moves to his abs, fighting an amused smile that’s twisting its way to her lips.
“Terr-able.”
“That one is awful. I think Terr-bear fits you better.”
“So you admit I’m big, strong, and scary?”
“I admit you’re adorable sometimes.”
Terra purses his lips. “What about you?”
She shrugs. “Maybe Aquamarine.”
“How about Aquafina?”
“That’s worse.”
“Babe?”
“Absolutely not.”
“We could call him Ven-tilation.”
“Stop.”
He follows his instinct to lower his head so when she laughs with him, their lips meet. They kiss everyday, but the first taste of the hour is always the one to discharge his breath, like he’s been underwater and she’s giving him the chance to surface.
“You’re going to get me dirty,” she says, giggling into his mouth.
He moves to her neck. “A little mess doesn’t hurt anybody.”
It’s when he brushes his fingers across her back, skating over the scar, coiled like rose thorns, that he hitches. Across from them is her vanity mirror. The scar is still red despite its age of twelve years. He’s so stupid.
“This again?” she whispers. She’s not upset but disappointed, though in him or in herself, he can’t tell. Moments like these are weird, when he can’t read what she’s thinking. Working on the straps on his left arm, she pulls off his gauntlet, finger by finger.
“I wish you would tell me,” he whispers back, as if having the conversation at a normal volume would shake them up.
She turns his bracer to make its removal easier. “I already did.”
“I wish you would be honest with me.” He leans his chin on her head, feeling her fingers slide down his arm.
“I am.” She flicks a knob and slips off the couter from his elbow. “You want me to tell you it was you who did this to me,” she continues, unbuckling the pauldron on his shoulder. “But it wasn’t.”
“I know better.”
“I know better.”
“It was done with my hands.”
To that she says nothing, rubbing the rag down his exposed left bicep. Ink had run under the armor. Darkness seeps in even with protection.
She sighs. “Promise me you won’t obsess over it.”
He really shouldn’t but… he nods.
Aqua hesitates anyway. Taking him by the wrist, she presses his right hand on the rib under her left breast. “This one was his.” She warns with her eyes. “Not yours.”
Terra can’t feel anything through her shirt. He slips it under, running the pads of his fingers across the bumps and ridges. This one was his, this one with the gnarly tear right through the middle of the scar tissue, a ravine rupturing open. This one would have been done by that nameless silver Keyblade, with its sharp, ornate frills and that giant hook at the tip of it. It would have caught her skin as it tried to disconnect her body from her heart. And Terra? He’s had so much to lose and nothing to give back.
Terra holds his Aqua close as he continues to read the scar, how deep the hook sunk in, how she must have dodged back and broke that connection.
“Did it hurt?” he asks.
She sighs like she finds something amusing. Or trying to. She shudders, closing what little is left of the gaps between their bodies. “The Realm of Darkness numbs everything. I don’t think I felt it much.”
The view from their window looks over blossoming fields under mist, what’s left of snow capping just the mountaintops, everything else green. She’s lucky. So is he, ridiculously enough.
“I should have done more to stop it,” he says.
“You can’t continue to say things like that.” She swallows and stares at the wall. “What about the person I’ve become? I wouldn’t be here, standing in this room, now. It changed me. The Realm of Darkness did things to me that I’ll never be able to claim back. I will never be able to remedy it. I never wanted it, but I don’t know if I deserved it.”
“You didn’t.”
“I couldn’t make mistakes, in case I got hurt. I couldn’t be vulnerable. I had to be brave.”
“You already are.”
“And now I’m like stone.”
Terra presses his forehead to hers. “No, you’re not like stone at all.”
Aqua buries her face into his shoulder, anchoring herself to his waist. It’s so unlike her, to be unable to look him directly in the eyes. Whatever she has to say scares her. “You’re here, and I’m here. I give you my scars and you give me yours and… I don’t know if I would trade that for something else. For something that looks better on the outside. Every moment we shared since you woke up, how could I want to erase them? I need you, Terra. I have to chip away somehow. I’m braver now, to hold you like this.”
She says it like she has her chest cavity open, heart beating to open air.
She’s brave for not crying.
She’s brave for telling him what she can’t say right now. I’m braver now, to hold you like this. (I love you.)
He lifts her chin to kiss her. (I loved you first.)
She drops the rag to hold his face.
Before, their kisses were desperate, thirsty and famished, hoping to be found. Now, they’re deliberate, wandering but not lost. She tastes like sugar and flesh, her tongue inside with his, slow and careful. Their needs have more definition this time: please, and more, and yes, again.
Terra indulges in the impulse to press her onto him. She should feel how greedy he is, her chest arched against his. She’s soft and he’s in love.
“Where is Ven?” she says, breathless.
“Probably showering,” he mumbles.
She waves her hand and the door slams shut.
“I said probably,” Terra murmurs, but his mind turns off when she kisses him again. Who cares what Ven hears?
Aqua treads slower. She tempts Terra’s tongue to seek her out, puckering her lips around it and giving it a small tug.
“Touch me, please,” he begs.
The sound of his pants unbuttoning makes his heart hammer, his entire groin anticipating for what’s next. When, when, when. Terra closes his eyes. Her hand glides down, palm first, his breath snagging when she wraps her fingers around his erection. His pants are at his ankles, Aqua is on her knees, and she presses a kiss right under the tip, where it’s most sensitive, before licking the entire length. Terra buckles. He catches the dresser behind him to keep standing.
“Shhh,” she breathes onto him. It shoots a spark from his stomach to his scalp.
Terra braces his teeth with his finger to shut himself up. He watches her work. She takes him in bite-size pieces, snail-tracking with her tongue before her lips close in on him. Fuck. She sucks while she pulls. Fuck. To see her like this, Master Aqua with poise, with grace, with affection and care—with him in her mouth. The hand wrapped around him squeezes tighter, and the other comes up to meet him at the testicles.
He stifles another moan, staring at the ripples of the drywall, listening to the feathered tap of spring rain on the window and the noise she’s making. His erection twitches against the roof of her mouth, and he has to restrain himself from thrusting into her. Maybe he can let go and let be, finally throw himself off the cliff, ride the thrill all the way. Give it his all.
But he can’t. The moment gooseflesh spreads across his inner thighs, the moment he feels full, is the start. The floor will rip out from under him, the lights will go off, he will fall, he will lose all his fingers, he won’t remember anything, he’ll be the monster who makes her cry.
“I can’t,” he hisses, pushing her off. “I can’t.” He lurches over his knees, his insides twisting at the sudden cutoff, aching as it throbs and shrivels. He was so close. They were just laughing a few minutes ago. Stupid body, stupid mind. “Damn it,” he groans, pounding the dresser.
“Hey, you’re okay,” she says softly, holding him by the elbow. “You’re safe at home.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.” He digs his eyes into his palm, his body faraway like it’s a glass vial with his soul dumped inside. “Help me.”
Without letting him go, Aqua braces him with something cold—the rag, now on his lower back. It slaps him back to the bedroom, his beige carpet, the mist outside clearing out to a view of a forest that separates the castle from the mountains.
She greets him with a smile. “You really did something to yourself,” she says, cleaning him like it’s a lazy weekend day and there’s a list of chores.
Terra straightens up, shivers riding all the way up to his shoulders. “It’s so frustrating.”
“Don’t worry, Terra,” she says, softer and lower. “There’s no need to rush. I’ll wait.”
“But I’m tired of feeling caged up and stuck. I just want some semblance of control.”
Aqua kisses him on the shoulder to shoo away the haunting for a few seconds. “I’m here, anytime you need me. Would you like me to run you a bath?”
“No.” The rag is likely caked with ink, but its iciness is unlike the chill of clammy sweat a few seconds old. Every frigid touch is a reminder that he’s alive. “This is nice.”
Aqua runs the rag up his spine. “You know what I think? If we’re going to call each other pet names in front of Ven, we should have guests over.”
Terra snorts. “That’s evil.”
“He won’t be able to bark at us in front of other people.”
“I think I’m a bad influence on you.”
“I think you’re right.”
Terra sighs at her touch, cold at his neck, at his hairline. Like a light at the front porch in the dead of night, like hot tea on a sick day, she is what it feels like to come home.
She tells him, “Lean your head back a little,” and he obliges, letting her reach behind his ears. Her cheeks are flushed, her lips swollen, her hair frizzy, eyes blue and focused as she takes care of him.
“I can still kiss you, right?”
“You don’t have to ask.”
Tilting his chin down, he does. He braids his fingers into hers; from the rag they’re like icicles, and he brings them to his heart.
They’re barely millimeters apart, but he’s still in that cage. If only he could be touched the way he needs. If only the lock trapping him inside the cage is brittle and easy to crumble. What if he tries to test it? What if he finds there is nothing at all? Stupid mind. What if there are several, each of them needing unique keys when he has none, no hope of ever knowing what real freedom is? Stupid body.
Should he pretend? Should he try over and over, to slam his head against the bars each time? Should he submit, should he accept he will never have what he wants?
Life has made him uneager to trust. But her lips have a deliciousness unmatched by anything he’s ever tasted, and he’s still a silly, stupid man.
“Let me try again,” he says, breathing deeply. “I want to make you feel good.”
She’s surprised. “Only if you’re comfortable.”
“It will make me feel better.”
“...Okay,” she says so modestly. Terra never figured out how to knock it into her head that he wants to give her everything, that he is so, so guilty.
He invites her into an embrace, growing desperate the more he detaches his mind. Her body, the curve from her waist to her hips. The brush of her body against his reminds him that while he is naked, she is not. He picks her up by the thighs. Lost in the momentum of deep kisses, he carries her to bed, straddling her on his lap.
She hums. “The… the sheets.”
Dry, messy layers of ink still track down his legs. He groans into her mouth. She’s grinding him, and while he really likes that, it makes it incredibly difficult to take her clothes off, one hand rising the hem of her shirt and the other deep under her shorts, cupping her ass.
“Whatever, we can wash them later,” she says, lifting her arms up.
Her bare breasts—stars, this is what it feels like to come home.
“Kiss me,” she says, and he replies, nibbling down her neck, coming down to her breasts, where his lips and his tongue and his murmurs take in her nipples as they perk. Aqua stays quiet, leaning onto his shoulders.
There’s something about her amazing body, the silk of skin draped over defined muscle, treasure and tenderness in his hands, that he’s needy for. Every time he tries to define what that means, his mind ceases to function.
Xehanort tried to take it all away from him. If he lived, Terra would crush every tooth bloody. Damn him.
How dare Xehanort do this to him, lock him in this cage, keep him away from her? Damn him.
Why is he thinking about Xehanort?
“Are you okay?”
Terra is frozen, the nub of a nipple suctioned in his mouth. Oh, for fuck’s sake.
He lets her breast go with a pop. “I’m redirecting.” Leading her to the mattress, Terra lowers himself into her arms, but he’s halted by a light kiss and a hold of his face.
“Do you need me to check in on you?” she asks.
“No.” He smiles, kissing her with all the hope that she psychically understands his body is about to burst open, if only from the lack of space for the appreciation he keeps nurturing for her. “Thank you, but I’m okay.”
She nods, stroking his cheeks with her thumbs. “You take your time.”
Oh, he will. No more interruptions. Focus on the smell of her skin, on the collarbone at the base of her neck. Right here, it makes her bite her lip. On the hollow between her breasts, the sound of her breath getting heavy. On the slight movement of her legs as she instinctively responds, spreading them, hooking around his. The buoyancy of her breasts in his mouth. The way she arches to push them against his face.
Under that left breast is the scar, tightly knitted.
The purpose for living is for memories, not reminders. Do not linger. Do not think about the cage. Terra lightly kisses it and continues downward.
Terra’s fingers glide down, a caress at the hips, a squeeze of her ass, running a mile of goosebumps as he bunches her shorts and panties and pulls them off. Her skin is streaked with fingerprints of gray, at most of the places he’s been. Aqua shivers as his lips brush the sides of her waist, as he traces his tongue and inhales the dips of her pelvis, as he loops his arms under her thighs, as he kisses her between the legs. She gasps. He licks from bottom to top, sucking on the clitoris once, then starts over.
Footsteps walk by outside their bedroom door.
Aqua jerks up. “Terra,” she whispers, warning him.
“Hm?” Stars, what now? “Here.” He grabs the comforter and throws it over her head. She chuckles as she wraps both of them in hiding. “Relax,” he whispers back. “He’s not going to hear anything.” Not that Ven opts to stay; his footsteps are already fading away.
He goes back to work, and hears her sigh—it’s loud enough to make him look up but too hushed to escape the sheets. Bottom to top. Again. Again. She cloaks the sound of her moans with the comforter plastered on her face.
It’s her taste. It’s the softness and suppleness of the skin between her legs. The way she fastens her knees over his shoulders, how wet she is. Her reaction. When he tongues the inside of her slit, she jerks, chewing her lip hard enough to make it white. Master Aqua, with poise and grace, for her there’s only love and the way his tongue curls up.
Her fist crumples the sheet—it holds her own breast, caresses her stomach down to rake through his hair and hold him there.
“Don’t stop,” she breathes.
Stars, that did it. He’s hard again. He drapes his arms over her pelvis, using his fingers to open her up so he has more access to her clit. She bucks, and he holds her down.
Her entire body trembles: the first sign that she’s running off her own edge.
Terra strokes her, the outside lips, the tease inside, the puckering motions. She’s a sweet, musky taste he can’t compare to anything else.
Aqua throws herself back on the pillow. Her thighs crush his head, and she clamps her hand on her mouth like a topper. Her mewl shudders and stops, it heaves, it mumbles. The wave rises then crashes, and she finishes with a long sigh, a release, a settlement, a tempered peace.
It feels so good to listen to her. Terra rests his head on her hip and brings a hand to his erection. A little bit of freedom paid with a little bit of control.
“I’m ready,” he says. “I need you.”
She hums in contentment, fixing the comforter so they’re completely covered and opening her arms to him. “Come here.”
Terra crawls over her, bracketing her body like he’s a fort, tethering her fingers to his and cradling her head in a protective halo with his arms. Aqua has to spread her legs wide to take on his thick waist, and she breaks her kisses with whimpers when he enters—she’s always more sensitive after he goes down on her.
She’s warm and tight, oh stars. Massaging him as he moves inside her. Their bodies compress into each other, hers curled up to mold against the way he rocks his hips, as though the subtle air between would have split them up too far, as though he can melt into her when he pushes, their hearts only separated by muscle and bone. He plants a messy kiss on her cheek, exhaling and inhaling in rhythms opposite of hers, her breath loud against his ear, tickling his neck.
Here it comes again, the oncoming of the precipice where he has to step off.
Fuck.
He can’t do it.
At the sprint towards the edge of the cliff, he skids and scrambles to hang by the rockface. Terra grunts, all his muscles seizing up as he holds his breath.
Aqua strokes his hair. “Do you want to stop?”
Of course not. “Give me a minute.”
“Remember, you’re safe.”
Terra nearly chokes. “I’m scared of losing control.”
“You won’t. You’re in control.”
In control. The intent to wring his fingers through the bars, a sleight of hand to balance the padlock like it’s on strings, turning it over and pulling it out of the latch. But Terra is no escape artist.
Terra licks his lips. He’s not in danger. He should trust she’ll catch him when he falls. In her arms, there’s no safer place to be. He has to remember this. Shut that mind up.
“I want to continue.”
She rubs his back. It’s soothing. “Tell me what you need.”
Terra smirks. “To get back in the mood.” He takes one deep kiss. “Entice me.”
Her insides squeeze him and he trembles. “How is that?” she asks.
“Do it again.”
She wraps her ankles over his back and squeezes. He hums into her shoulder.
“Again.”
This time, she takes back her kiss.
“Don’t let me go,” he says, and she hugs him tightly.
He starts slow. Terra leans on his elbows, bunching the comforter in his fist so it stays in place. She looks at him with half-lidded eyes, a healthy red blush, her mouth gently open, cast in the filtered glow of a secret, sweaty cocoon. This body he’s thrusting into, the lips he’s kissing, may the stars bless her.
“Aqua.”
“You feel so good.”
She stole the words right out of his mouth, squeezing his hips again.
“Oh,” he moans. It provokes him to thrust harder, deeper, feel her, feel her breasts bouncing under him, feel her moans coming from her throat, the desperation in the way she squirms with her hands. She massages his slick back, her nails digging in.
There.
Let him throw himself off. Give it his all.
“Don’t let me go,” he repeats.
“I won’t.”
He throws himself off. It’s not the wind thrashing him all the way down. Instead it’s fire, a combustion of flames in his muscles as his entire body submits to its force, leaving his knees weak. A flash of white that blurs everything he sees, a hurricane that knocks his mind into a stupor, a delicious burn that slicks over his body, trickling embers on top of sweat, hot and cool, good and better, good and fucking good. Terra shoves his face into her shoulder to muffle the sounds of groans escaping him, shuddering as the climax picks up again, a body alight in an ignition that throws him out of any awareness.
His eyes prick when he finally remembers where he is. Aqua is safeguarding him with a strong hold, keeping him in place with her. He sighs. The cinders that continue to radiate heat leave him with a hearth to wrap himself into, a happiness that he never thought he would ever feel again.
Aqua sniffs. She wipes tears onto his shoulder.
“We really should stop crying at these things,” he says.
She snorts, refusing to let her grip on him slack. “You did amazing. How are you feeling?”
“I’m…” he mumbles. Stars, wow. His arms can’t pick him up anymore but it’s a gratifying cloud to ride. He shifts his legs, alleviating the weight of his body. “A little weak.”
She runs a hand on the back of his head, coaxing him to rest on her chest. “When did you know?” she asks, brushing hair off his damp forehead. “That you wanted to kiss me? You must have spent some time thinking about it before it happened.”
Terra smiles into her chest. Somehow, they’ve never talked about it. “Long after I knew I was going to marry you.”
He feels her laugh. “Is that so? I’m going to marry you?”
“You will.” He looks up at her grinning face. “I can see the future.”
She scoffs. “You can see my eyes rolling at you.”
“I knew before you did.”
“Prove it.”
“I was seven.”
“You’re older than me, that doesn’t count.”
“You asked me to have a tea party with you, but the one thing that bothered you most”—he brings up his hand, pinky out—“was that I wasn’t drinking my tea right.” He mimics the high pitch of a little girl’s voice. “Pinky out. Pinky out, Terra, don’t be a slob.”
She gapes. “I don’t remember any of that.”
With renewed will, he props himself up, leaning close so their noses touch. “I knew then. That early on.”
“Since when is this a competition?”
“Still the first to know.”
Aqua interrupts what she’s about to say, like she’s about to step into cold water. She’s having an epiphany. Vulnerable again, like she’s allowing him to cut her right down the middle.
“I love you.”
She says it like the touch of a high note on a piano, a beautiful accident.
He leans closer, lips to lips, whispering, “I still got there first.”
She laughs into him. “I suppose, but I was the first to say it.”
“Then I’ll be the second,” Terra says. Like coming home, a shelter to withstand the downpour, that births life to the roots, that thunders, that opens for a clear day, he brushes her hair out of her eyes. “I love you.”
“Too,” she corrects. “You love me, too.”
A knock on their door jolts them, like a hard punch to the stomach.
“Okay, Terra,” Ven says from the other side. “I thought about it and I’m trying out this knocking thing.”
Wrong timing. Wrong timing.
“I’m going to kill him,” Terra hisses, and against Aqua’s hushed chuckles, he throws the comforter off their bodies and announces, “Ven, we’re naked.”
The silence that comes after is as loud as the crash of a chandelier. Terra can feel Ven recoil, a tea pot at the verge of whistling. “I didn’t need to know that!” Terra is about to reply but Ven groans dramatically. “I AM NEVER GOING TO KNOCK ON YOUR DOOR AGAIN.”
Ven stomps away, and if the door was actually open, he’d slam it.
Terra sits on his knees, pinching his nose. It’s hot in this room. He feels clogged again, back at the edge of the cliff. He wants to strangle Ven for dragging the moment away from him. “Great, I pissed him off.”
“Poor Ven.” When she sits up, Terra pulls her to him, sitting her on one of his thighs. “I can’t predict if he’ll ever get over that,” she says, balancing herself by hooking her arms around his neck.
Terra presses his lips to her ear, whispering, “But I did predict that you wouldn’t stay mad at me for long.”
She slaps his bicep. “I haven’t seen what you’ve done yet. Don’t be so proud of yourself.”
“But I am.”
“You’re still a slob.”
Slobby as he is, Aqua hugs him dearly. Hold her, you never know when the dream will end. You never know when the cage takes you back.
“I don’t know if,” Terra says, “it will be difficult for me next time.”
“Then it may be difficult,” Aqua says, kissing his forehead. “But it will be okay.”
Hold her. Not passively. Not half-minded. Hold her tightly. Hold her in the quiet, undisturbed, uninterrupted.
A drop of hot liquid spills from between her legs and drips down his thigh, almost burning. When Terra looks down to see that it’s white, Aqua jumps.
“Oh,” she squeaks.
“Oh. That would be me.”
She squeals, hiding her blush. “I’m going to wash up.”
“Such a slob.”
Aqua giggles, looking him in the eye when she rubs his chest. “Come with me?”
“Go ahead.” He kisses her. “I’ll catch up.”
If anyone told him twelve years ago that hope feels like a long day full of small conversations, the anticipation of cleaning a messy room, Terra would have considered that cynical. A sarcastic joke, the loss of the will to dream.
Twelve years later, it’s the sound of the shower running that teaches him to look forward to the next day, when he wakes up next to her, when he prepares dinner with her, when he kisses her in the middle of the night and play all over again. Peace is a long-distance acquaintance, a pen pal that urges you to look at your day like a spectacle.
Terra leans back to twist the latch of the window open, letting the spring haze billow in. Much better, the room is cooler now. The sky is bluer somehow, the mountains as grand as a painting.
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