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iamtheswarm · 3 years

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↳ @captainjimraynor asked, “ Fiver Times Kissed -- Lucia Ortega (Xavier Hall) ”

1) the fine details and rituals surrounding this cult was off-putting. so much ceremony, so much pomp for festivals: equinoxes and solstices, bountiful harvests, welcoming new members ... weddings. her own wedding. white was reserved for the rituals where these people donned animal masks and drank herbal mixtures that made them hallucinate who the fuck knew what. but weddings were a black affair. and the masks were more ornate than anything she’d ever seen.

lucy didn’t recognize herself in the gown. lace, see-through in some places, dark as the night sky. and the details of the mask were gorgeous ---she’d have taken time to appreciate how ethereal and beautiful she appeared had this marriage not been arranged. had she perhaps known who she was marrying, who was on the other side of the dark suit and behind that sleek mask. this entire thing was fucked, really. three months ago she was living a normal life, and now? now she was pretending to understand, lest she be subjected to the hands of the inquisitor again.

she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t shaking a little. but she’d done her best to swallow back those fears. and now? with the head of this organization, of this family oozing words that felt more like a slap to the face than anything else, she held her ground. blood red roses seeped the loveliest of perfumes from the arrangement in her hands. from her knees, side-by-side with her soon-to-be husband, lucy listened to mister dempsey unite them. an unbreakable bond. she had been a prize for her husband’s successes. for how well he’d brought people into the fold, how successful he was. there was no use arguing it. with a word they were wed. and tentatively her husband reached for the edge of her mask.

her lips were stained as deep as the roses, her eyes bearing the smoky tell of dark paint and gold dust, glittering like a thousand stars when she dared glance at his face. to see who she’d be marrying, in earnest. handsome, familiar ---the man who’d pied pipered her into this situation in the first place. and he seemed just as nervous as she did ---the look in his eyes said it. their first kiss was terse, chaste, and lucy swore she could feel his lips quiver against hers.

2) she could feel the tea buzzing in her head. her first solstice. you don’t have to drink it, xavier assured, but he clutched his own glass in his hand and from behind the table mister gates smiled that wide and promising smile of his. the gates family had been nothing but accepting. missus gates had tended to the raw and aching wounds lucy garnered during her education and they’d opened their home to her during her adjustment period thereafter. it was, perhaps, stupid to trust that too-wide smile on his face but lucy did. and if he made it? from missus gates’ herbs, from the garden lucy had helped tender months before, then she supposed she trusted it.

what’s in it? ---hallucinogenics. and all around her lucy could see people dancing about, singing, playing instruments, laughing - enjoying because of it. all natural. completely optional. with a long gaze into the ever-changing hazel eyes of her husband, with the understanding that she didn’t need to, lucy nodded and swallowed back the flowered tea. it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great, either. and xavier followed suit behind her, slipping the empty glass from her hand and setting them both on the table beside mister gates and his ladling spoon. still he smiled that wide smile, and when lucy peered back at xavier, he smiled too.

by the time the golden sun began descending toward the horizon her head was full-spin. it felt like she was buzzing, the same tipsy sensation from alcohol but with colors and sounds more complex than she could imagine. she’d bumped so many members of their little village as she tumbled through the crowd but xavier had been there to right her again each time. and when the music shifted from something jaunty and springy to something sweet, still light but much different in tone. and she was out of breath, perhaps from weaving through so many twisting bodies and all of the white of their dresses, of their loose cotton shirts. with her husband close behind lucy peeled the rabbit mask from her face and flung her arms around his shoulders.

before he could protest, question, even glance through the eyes of his own animal veil she peeled his off, too. eager lips sought his, the brush of her chin against the scratch of his beard, the pressure of eager kisses laid against his own mouth. and he paused for only a moment before his hand found her hips, circled around her thin waist and tugged her forward to crush her form against his chest, against himself. so few kisses had been spared between them since their arrangement. it’d taken time to warm up to the idea, and thankfully xavier was not a cruel man. no, he afforded her space and kindness, dealt with her lashing out and coldness in response. perhaps it was the mood of the solstice. perhaps it was mister gates’ tea drink. who knew?

fingers laced into his hair, tugged at the soft curls. she could taste the sweetness from mister reininger’s bakery stall where they’d snatched goodies and scarfed them down maybe fifteen minutes before. the softness in his affection was staggering, belayed only by the way he pulled back to gather a breath and crested against her lips again with more vigor than before. lucy couldn’t help but whine softly against his tiers ---he stole the breath from her lungs in one movement, and silently she thanked him for pulling her toward his body moments before. her knees buckling may have had her falling away otherwise.

3) heat poured from the window sill, cracked to let whatever breeze dared come into their cottage home in ---but it has long since been stagnant. summer was brutal and though she’d changed the sheets to lighter fabrics the night before they stuck to her skin now. whether it was from the humidity or the tangle of limbs however ... was an entire other debate. his nose buried into the crook of her neck, arms wrapped around her shoulders keeping her tight to him beneath. their hips moved together in a sweet harmony that felt simultaneously agonizing and delightful in the best and worst of ways.

her nails sank into his shoulders, the taut muscle there resisting the dig as he shifted. the hard press of teeth in the space between her shoulder and neck loosed a gasp from her lips and as if it reminded him that her mouth was there he moved to cover it with his own. his kisses were hotter than the air, flashing teeth and the threat of a gasp treading their shared breath. when he pulled away for just a moment she felt her tiers throb for the missed pressure, grateful when he came back and teased at the trail of her lower lip with the tip of his tongue.

and her night was spent gasping for air, desperate for the reprieve of something cool to balance out the heat radiating off of his skin, from starved kisses that she was sure tugged little pieces of her soul out with each crest and press of his tiers. she was utterly captivated, and oh how dangerous it was.

4) hands snaked around her hips, tugged lucy back and flush against xavier’s chest. she’d been working on breakfast ---a mass amount of bacon to sate his appetite for it ( which seemed so endless that lucy wondered how he could stomach so much in one sitting ). immediately she craned her neck, exposed more flesh for him to press a butterfly of sweet kisses down the line of it. between the feather-light touch of his lips and the insistent scrape of his beard a threat of chills rolled up the column of her spine and it took everything lucy had to keep from shuddering.

when she peered at him, first from the corner of her gaze then turning her head away from the frying pan, he planted the lightest of kisses to the corner of her mouth. and though they’d shared many between their fateful marriage and now ---though she’d begun this relationship afraid of the family in this little, sleepy village, she’d come to love him ---that light peck was more than enough to stir the fluttering in her belly. the warm smile slipped across her full features and only the crackling of bacon from the pan below could tear her eyes away from his features.

5) if she bothered him even in slight when he slept, he hummed his responses softly. xavier had a way of slinking his entire body around hers when he’d given way to the cusp of dreamland ---once he slipped into the beyond there was no escaping the bed, for any reason. in moments like these he looked peaceful, the slight flutter of his long lashes when his eyes shifted from beneath his lids was mesmerizing, the easy rise and fall of his chest when he breathed, the shape of his lips ... his lips.

ever since becoming missus hall lucy had spent time adjusting to this situation. he’d been brought into this life, too. taken from something before and molded by the harsh hands of the inquisitor, even re-educated by mister de rosa for defying the laws of their town. he hadn’t chosen her specifically for marriage, not out of spite, and the trepidation she felt roll from him on their wedding day had stemmed from his own guilt. she’d deny and allegations of her feelings for him being born of syndromes ---she’d fallen in love with xavier hall the natural way, even if their start had been unnatural as they came.

slowly she shifted in his airtight grasp, craned her neck so she could lean forward and press her lips to his ------the sweetest of pecks, soft and easy, to the tiers she couldn’t tear her eyes away from. he stirred only slightly, settled just as easily back into full rest where he tightened his hold on her like a vice. with a quiet chuckle lucy settled, pressed her nose into his neck and breathed the warm sleepy scent of him in. dreams came easily for her here, safe in his grasp from the fights of the world outside.

#« dancing shadows and firelight » l. ortega; interactions ×#.lucy & xavier #.lucy & xavier 1 #captainjimraynor #this came out longer than intended but #i love them so much #my honest to god otp in all of their verses

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