Chapter Text
July 22, N.F. 113
Shalom’s Home, Erica Villa, Eastside
“Let’s go back inside now.”
The rain continues to pour down around them. The sound of it splatting on the umbrella she’s holding over both of their heads fills Rahu’s ears, drowning out Shalom’s voice. Her vision is still blurry around the edges, and a sharp pain radiates all through her head. Her entire body feels heavy. She honestly doesn’t know how she’s still standing up.
“Rahu,” Shalom tries again, pulling Rahu back to here and now. Back to her.
Rahu tries to blink away the pain. (It hurts—it hurts everywhere.) Mumbles, “Right,” but even that takes some serious effort.
Something smile-like flickers across Shalom’s face. She wraps her fingers around Rahu’s wrist and tugs ever so slightly. She’s looking up at Rahu expectantly and, somehow, Rahu manages to unroot herself from where she’d been standing. Manages to get her leaden, exhausted legs moving again as she lets Shalom pull her back inside her house. If she were in a better, less mangled state, Rahu would have it in her to feel… something about getting dragged along like this, like a helpless, mindless dog on a leash, but as is, it’s probably for the best that Shalom is here to hold her hand, literally or otherwise, through it. She probably wouldn’t have had the energy left to drag herself back inside and away from the Blue Rain.
Rahu looks down at Shalom’s hand again: at her fingers, elegant and slender, wrapped around her wrist. She’d never noticed before—never needed to, never had the time to, never cared to—but Shalom’s hands are… so much smaller than hers. She doesn’t really know what to do with or feel about that observation, about why she’s even thinking about it in the first place, though, so she brushes the thought aside for now.
It’s dead silent inside the house, the maid nowhere in sight. Rahu lets Shalom continue to guide her, up the stairs and then to the room that’s been assigned to her. When they stop in front of the door, Shalom looks up at Rahu and says, “I’ll go get changed then I’ll come back to patch you up. Do you think you’ll be fine on your own until then?”
It takes a second for Rahu’s brain to unscramble itself enough to find that offensive. She jerks her hand out of Shalom’s grasp and replies, “I can handle myself,” tersely.
“Alright,” is all Shalom says in that unnervingly impassive manner of hers, “I’ll see you later then.”
Rahu watches Shalom as she walks down the hall towards her own room. Her shirt, spattered with mud and soaked by the rain, clings to skin, almost translucent. Her scorch marks, weaker than Rahu’s, are still glowing a dull scarlet. For some reason, looking at Shalom, the faint scarlet burning across her skin, she feels a… warm tingle around her wrist. The ghost of Shalom’s touch. Her hand twitches reflexively.
With some difficulty, she manages to tear her eyes away from Shalom and finally steps into her room.
Once she’s inside and all alone, Rahu’s body finally gives in on her and sends her slumping back against the door. All of her exhaustion, not just from today but what feels like an entire lifetime of it, bone-deep, has finally caught up with her, hitting her with full force. She lowers herself slowly until she’s sitting on the floor, then she lets her head fall back against the door with a soft thunk and squeezes her eyes shut. She stays like that for a while, gathering herself, breathing in and out slowly, deeply, then she peels her eyes open and hauls herself back up on her feet again with a strained groan.
Rahu starts to undress, peeling the layers upon layers of tattered, torn, soaking wet clothes off of her body. Even that proves to be herculean with how heavy her limbs feel and how she still can’t seem to get a hold of her body, make it move the way she wants it to, but she manages to get all of her clothes off somehow, until she’s left standing in the middle of her room in nothing but her underwear. It’s tempting, but she fights the urge to lie down in bed and let herself melt into the mattress. Instead, sets out a plain t-shirt and sweatpants on the bed for her to change into later, and heads into the bathroom with her wet and worn clothes in one hand and a fresh pair of underwear in the other.
She strips down completely, tosses her clothes into the laundry basket—though, if she’s going to be completely honest, she thinks she ought to have just tossed them into the bin instead, given the state they’re in—then catches her reflection in the mirror as she turns towards the shower. She winces. She’s more than just a little worse for wear, covered in new bruises and gashes and drying blood (hers or Garofano’s: she doesn’t know anymore) on top of her old, faded scars. She’s definitely seen better days… but this isn’t anything she isn’t used to, either, so she pulls her gaze from her reflection and steps into the shower.
Rahu stands still under the spray of the shower. The Mania had subsided already, but her body still feels like a furnace, fever-like heat still raging through her insides and coming to pool at the pit of her stomach. She tenses for a second before she looks down and finds that she’s starting to get a little hard. As embarrassing as it is, she can’t say she’s surprised. This wouldn’t be the first time this has happened, even if she still doesn’t know why it happens at all in the first place. Maybe it’s just the way Mania gets her entire body so… worked up, or something. All that blood pumping through her veins, the rush of it all. Maybe it’s just all the Mania she hasn’t worked out of her system yet, begging to be released one way or another.
What feels like an eternity stretches out before her before Rahu lets out a shaky breath then slides her hand down between her legs. She takes her cock in her hand and just holds it for a moment, lip caught between her teeth, still hesitating, before starts pumping her hand up and down her shaft. It takes nothing to get her all the way hard from there; she fills up so quickly that it leaves her dizzy. She stops again for a second to just feel the weight of her cock in her palm, feel how hard and hot and sensitive to touch it is now, then she clenches her hand tight around it and starts jacking off in earnest.
Better that she does this instead of rampaging through all of Eastside again, Rahu tells herself.
The friction sends shivers of pleasure up Rahu’s thighs and sets her nerves, her entire body, on fire again. She braces her free hand against the cold, tiled wall of the shower so she’s hunched over herself, water running down her back and soothing the sweat on her skin. She hopes it drowns out the labored, desperate noises she’s making as she pumps her hand around her cock punishingly hard and punishingly fast, chasing after the telltale coil in her gut. Just par for the course for her, whenever she does this on her own. She supposes it’s just a force of habit too: working on the frontlines with the FAC for years meant little to no time to herself, and while she didn’t often feel the need to relieve herself, whenever she did, she had to be quick about it. All of them had to be.
Her mind starts to wander as she works her hand furiously on her dick. She never usually thinks of anything or anyone in particular when she gets off, settling on vague and faceless woman-shaped approximations of what she would find arousing. Sometimes she thinks about the only woman she’s ever been with, or it’s more that she thinks about how it felt fucking her. How she felt around her cock, so tight and so wet, nothing like Rahu had ever felt before and so much better than anything she could have ever imagined, and how she looked on her knees as Rahu finished in her mouth, her release flooding down her throat. Everything about it had been clumsy and rushed, the both of them too touch-starved to care, but it still felt like a revelation at the time, to be inside someone like that. It was about as good as a first time could be.
(Rahu never would have hooked up with her in the first place if her squadmates hadn’t drunkenly egged her on, and even then it was still her who approached Rahu in the end after making eyes at her from across the bar all night.
That feels like an entire lifetime ago now. She doesn’t even remember the woman’s name anymore.)
Now, though, she finds herself thinking about Shalom—or her hands, more specifically. She thinks about how Shalom’s hands are smaller than hers, her fingers thinner, and then about how it felt to have them wrapped around her wrist. Before she can stop herself, she starts to imagine what it would be like, what it would feel and what it would look like, to have Shalom’s fingers wrapped around the girth of her cock instead. The thought of that makes something go tight in the back of Rahu’s throat.
Fuck. She shouldn’t be thinking about Shalom like this. She shouldn’t be thinking about her at all. But she just—she can’t help it, and she can’t stop herself from fisting her cock so desperately it’s pathetic, stroking herself just on the right side of painful, biting down on her lip so hard to keep herself from moaning or, worse—fuck, so much worse—crying out Shalom’s name that the coppery tang of blood fills her mouth. She has to swallow back the sobs that rise up her throat. She’s so close, so terribly, painfully close, and she’s so overwhelmed by it all, how she’s this hard and this turned on just from thinking about Shalom. It confuses her and frustrates her that she’s thinking of Shalom like this, but she’s already reached the point of no return. She just needs to come, she rationalizes, that’s all; she just needs to come and get this out of her system and then it’ll all be over with and she can pretend like this never happened, let the water wash away any and all proof of her shame.
A whimper slips out of Rahu’s mouth as she pumps her cock, palm gliding so fast that it blurs her vision. Pleasure buzzes up her thighs; her hips twitch. Her heart pounds thunderously in her ears, almost loud enough to completely drown out the cascading water and the slick pulls of her hand. Every flick of her wrist brings her closer and closer to the edge, and soon enough Rahu feels a familiar tightening in her balls, and she gasps out, “Fuck,” panting harshly as she pumps her hand even faster, pushing past the burn in her arm from all of the exertion. It’s pure static up in her brain as she chases after her release—relief—imagining it’s Shalom jerking her off instead with those soft, dainty hands of her. That it’s Shalom instead of that nameless woman from that drunken night all those years ago she’s driving her cock into over and over and over, ordering, not begging, her to give it to her faster, harder, what else is that cock of hers good for? Imagines Shalom watching her come apart for her, telling her to let go, come for her, and Rahu wants to, so bad, and just when she finally feels it creeping up on her, tingling up her legs and winding tight in her groin, her body tensing—
“Rahu?”
Rahu jumps, hands scrambling to her sides. She stands there, frozen still for a long, tense moment, caught between slowing her breathing and wanting to hold it in altogether. A few more seconds pass then comes the light rap of Shalom’s knuckles on the bathroom door. Rahu’s face burns hot and shameful. “Just,” she starts, voice cracking, then she clears her throat and says, “Just give me a minute.” She’d like to think she masked the slight tremble in her voice well enough for it to be entirely imperceptible.
She thinks she hears Shalom sigh. Then, the soft padding of Shalom’s feet against the carpeted floor, then it’s completely quiet again. It isn’t hard to imagine Shalom sitting by the edge of her bed as she waits for Rahu.
Rahu heaves out a breath. She turns the knob of the shower until the steady cascade of the water slows and the last trickle falls silent. She doesn’t need to look down and see it to know she’s still hard: the persistent throbbing, the ache, is more than enough. Instead, she closes her eyes and focuses all of her attention on her breathing, in and out, nice and slow, for a solid minute. When that still isn’t enough, she pinches her arm really, really hard until she feels her erection gradually start to wilt. She isn’t all the way soft yet, not really, but she doesn’t have the luxury of waiting it out either, so this’ll have to do; she’s definitely made Shalom wait for longer than just a minute. She hastily pulls her boy shorts up her legs and wraps herself up in a bathrobe as soon as she steps out of the shower.
Just like Rahu thought she would be, Shalom is waiting for her on her bed, her hands folded over her lap, her back ramrod-straight. There’s a first-aid kit and rolls of gauze beside her. Dressed in nothing but her slip, Shalom somehow looks even smaller, frailer. Softer. Her hair is still a little damp; she must have taken a shower too before heading back here. She looks up at Rahu, lets her eyes wander over her body and despite the dispassionate manner with which she assesses Rahu, Rahu still has to resist the urge to adjust the front of her bathrobe or just cover it up entirely with her hands. After another long, silent, awkward beat, Shalom’s lips curve into a kind smile—or at least as kind as she can make it, as kind as she can be—as she asks, “How are you feeling?”
Rahu feels heat crawling up her neck again. “I’m… alright,” she answers carefully, trying not to squirm under the weight of Shalom’s gaze. She clears her throat. “Better.”
“I’m relieved to hear that,” Shalom says, still smiling. It doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She rises to her feet. “Shall we get started?”
Not trusting herself to speak, Rahu gives a quick but small nod of her head. She thought Shalom would at least let her get dressed (not that she even needs her permission to do something like that) but she supposes it wouldn’t make sense for her to if she’s going to just take it all off again in the end anyway, given the state she’s in so—whatever. She walks towards the bed and lowers herself onto it. She sits with her hands folded over her lap and her back straight, unintentionally mirroring Shalom. She decides it’s best not to dwell on that thought.
Shalom suddenly steps forward into her space, and Rahu’s knee-jerk response is to spread her legs wider, making room for Shalom to stand in between them. A faint pulse spreads up between her legs to tingle in her stomach. She looks up at Shalom, swallowing down the lump in her throat.
Without missing a beat, Shalom tells Rahu, “I’m going to need you to take this off,” tugging lightly at the bathrobe draped around Rahu, swiftly adding, “If that’s alright with you.”
Rahu just nods again, averting her gaze. Without getting up, she shrugs off the bathrobe, letting it slip down her shoulders and pool around her waist. She doesn’t take it all the way off for obvious reasons.
Shalom, at least, doesn’t ask her to take it all the way off either. She just studies her for a second, eyes wandering over her scarred, wounded torso, her chest, before they flit back up to her face. It’s always so hard to tell exactly what she’s thinking—though, at least right now, Rahu isn’t sure if she wants to know. There’s just something about the way she looks at her that unnerves her, makes her feel like an exposed nerve, raw and open and just too fucking vulnerable. She doesn’t think Shalom can actually read minds or anything absurd like that, but she can’t help but feel mortified at the thought of her somehow knowing anyway that Rahu had touched herself to her.
(Rahu doesn’t need Shalom to tell her how pathetic it is for her to have done that, to have fantasized about a woman she’s supposed to despise, whose very existence she should want to eradicate, to want her to touch her—but she knows, too, that she lost long before that: out in the rain, the tip of an umbrella piercing the meat of her shoulder. Shalom had been standing over her then, too.)
Wordlessly, Shalom gets to work. She cleans Rahu’s wounds with soaked cotton swabs, her touch light and careful, but even then Rahu can’t help but hiss at the inevitable sting or jerk when Shalom’s fingers graze over a fresh bruise. Shalom stops every now and then to ask if she’s alright, and Rahu says, “I’m fine,” each time behind gritted teeth, only a little irritated by the constant asking, like Rahu needs to be coddled. Still, she can appreciate how deftly and how efficiently Shalom goes about her work, and she finds herself thinking about how long it’s been since anyone last did this for her. She thinks of Varna: of all the times she used to patch her up like this too, but she was never nearly as gentle as Shalom is, and most of the time she’d be giving Rahu and earful while she was at it, lamenting her recklessness, how fucking stubborn and impulsive she is, telling her, Quit squirming, you punk, as she makes sure the bandaging is tight enough.
Rahu is pulled out of her thoughts when Shalom says, “I’m sorry about this, by the way,” fingers hovering close to the puncture wound from the umbrella. She sounds like she means it.
“I’ve suffered worse,” is all Rahu offers in response, wincing as Shalom proceeds to treat the wound. From the corner of her eye, she catches the bruise on Shalom’s forearm—the one she gave her when she lost all control of herself. “I’m sorry about that too,” she tells Shalom softly. “It… was never my intention to harm you.”
Shalom just smiles at her wryly and throws her own words right back at her: “I’ve suffered worse.” Rahu’s stomach goes tight. She pauses for a second, then tells Rahu more gently, “It’s okay, Rahu. I know.”
Rahu murmurs, “Okay,” and they leave it at that.
It’s quiet again after that. Rahu’s entire body is tense, and it takes her a minute to realize she feels lightheaded because she’s stopped breathing properly to hold absolutely still. That, and the fact that Shalom is just so close. Shalom doesn’t seem to notice, or maybe she just doesn’t care—that seems more likely—but Rahu… Rahu notices. She fucking notices, alright, how Shalom’s pebbled nipples are visible through the thin and flimsy fabric of her slip, and how her breasts are practically in Rahu’s face given the positions they’re in. She notices—feels—all of the warmth that radiates off of Shalom’s body in waves, and that potent, nauseating scent of flowers that clings onto her fills Rahu’s nose. Suddenly she finds herself missing Varna’s patch-up sermons because those are so much easier to deal with than this. She can’t stop her cock from stirring again. It’s hot and heavy between her legs, straining against her boy shorts, a smear of precum. It doesn’t help that Shalom keeps touching her, and that for as long as this goes on, she’ll have to keep touching her.
Rahu exhales in measured increments, trying to focus on anything but the persistent throbbing between her legs. She digs her blunt nails into her palms to distract herself, but it just barely works. It’s hard to think straight, hard to breathe, with Shalom so close to her, her careful, precise hands wandering over her body systematically as she cleans up and treats the last of her wounds. She’s started working up a sweat too, heart pounding in her chest. She’s caught between wanting to get this over with already and never wanting it to end, if it means she gets to keep Shalom’s hands on her and gets to be the sole focus of her attention.
A quiet noise wrangles its way out of Rahu’s mouth when Shalom’s hand brushes against the side of her breast. Shalom’s hand freezes. Her gaze flickers back up to Rahu’s face, unreadable. Before she can ask the same question she’s been asking her, Rahu croaks out, “It’s nothing. I’m—fine. You can keep going.”
Shalom doesn’t let up, though. “Are you sure?” she asks, too neutral. She stands up straight and reaches up to place the back of her hand against Rahu’s neck. After a long, excruciating moment, she says, “You’re burning up again.”
Rahu swallows, neck bobbing. “It’s nothing,” she insists. She pulls the bathrobe back up and around herself again, subtly adjusting the front again to hide the bulge of her erection as much as she can as she gets up to her feet too, towering over Shalom. “Thank you,” she tells Shalom tersely, the only thing on her mind being the need to get Shalom out of her space and out of her room immediately so she can deal with her pesky problem already, “but I’m fine, I’m good already, and I’ve kept you long enough, so—”
The rest of Rahu’s words die in her mouth: she lets out a strangled gasp, knees almost buckling underneath her, when Shalom suddenly reaches down between her legs, cups her cock, and squeezes.
“Are you sure?” Shalom asks again, with meaning this time. She gives Rahu’s cock a more insistent squeeze and Rahu’s hips snap up against the pressure.
“Shalom,” Rahu says hoarsely. Her head spins. It’s one thing to imagine Shalom touching her, but to actually have her hand on her now, squeezing her, feeling her up—fuck. Fuck.
“Is this,” Shalom says, teasing and a little cruel and oh-so casual like she’s talking about the weather as she squeezes Rahu’s cock again, just on the right side of painful this time (but it all just circles right back to pleasure in the end anyway, so Rahu can’t tell the difference anymore), “what you were so busy with inside there earlier?”
“Shalom,” Rahu tries again. Her body has a mind of its own, moves on its own, against her will, and has her rutting against the press of Shalom’s warm hand.
“You poor thing,” Shalom coos, not sounding the least bit sympathetic, and Rahu doesn’t know whether to be relieved or frustrated when she suddenly pulls her hand away from her cock to undo the belt of her bathrobe. She pushes it off Rahu’s shoulders and lets it drop to the floor and pool around her feet. Rahu is down to her underwear; Shalom takes a small step back and eyes her, how achingly hard she is, the fabric of her boy shorts stained dark with precum. She hums thoughtfully, a slight upturn at the corners of her mouth.
Shalom looks back up at Rahu. “Sit back down.”
Rahu gawks at her. “W-what?”
“Sit back down, Rahu,” Shalom commands, just the faintest hint of impatience in her voice, and there’s nothing else Rahu can do but obey.
Shalom drops to her knees and settles herself between Rahu’s widespread legs. She runs her hands along the seams of Rahu’s thighs, strong and thick, and the sensation of it sends shivers of pleasure down Rahu’s spine. Make her cock twitch. Shalom doesn’t miss this, of course. She dips her fingers past the waistband of Rahu’s boy shorts and—stops there. She looks up at Rahu again.
Rahu swallows around the tightness in the back of her throat and, without really thinking about it, offers a small nod in response.
Satisfied, Shalom peels the waistband down until Rahu’s cock springs free, very nearly hitting her in the chin. The breath that escapes her is the closest Rahu’s going to get to a disbelieving laugh out of her. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you,” Shalom says, eyes dark with want, with hunger, as she takes Rahu’s cock into her hand.
Rahu couldn’t look away if she tried. It’s obscene, the way Shalom’s fingers look wrapped around her, her cock almost dwarfing Shalom’s already small hands. Just the image of that alone is almost enough to send her hurtling right over the precipice, but the first stroke her hips rising into the loose circle of Shalom’s fist, torso curling in on itself and abdomen clenching. She isn’t proud of the noise she lets out, high-pitched and desperate and just too fucking needy.
“Has anyone ever done this for you before?” Shalom asks conversationally as she pumps her hand up and down Rahu’s shaft, keeping her touch light. She jerks her off like they’ve got all the time in the world, much, much too slow for Rahu’s liking.
Still, Rahu manages to grit out, “Yes,” her next exhale hissing out of her, too loud. “But it was—ah, a long time ago. Shalom,” she gasps out, even if her actions, her entire body directly contradicts everything she says, “y-you don’t—ngh, you don’t have to—”
But Shalom just shushes her. “You silly girl,” she sighs, rubbing her thumb just beneath the tip; Rahu’s hips jerk so violently that the Shalom almost loses her grip on her cock. Seeing Rahu’s reaction to that, she does it again, naturally, until Rahu is squirming in her grip like she’s trying to get away from the sensation. Rahu doesn’t think she’s ever seen Shalom look so alive. “You should have just asked, you know. You don’t need to keep things from me anymore. I would have gladly helped you.”
She looks up at Rahu pointedly, a flutter of her eyelashes, as she leans forward to lick away the bead of precum that oozes out of the glistening tip. Rahu doesn’t know how she manages to not come right then and there just from the first touch of Shalom’s tongue.
“I take care of my things,” Shalom says, “so let me take care of you.”
Rahu is too far gone to take offense at being called Shalom’s thing or to question her sincerity. She’s too far gone to care. Her entire body is as stiff as a board as Shalom works her hand faster on Rahu’s red, hard, leaking cock. Her lungs burn and her legs shake. Her eyes prickle but the humiliation of Shalom reducing her to tears only feeds into the wave of arousal that rises up rapidly in her stomach.
“Shalom,” she wheezes out, hips stuttering, and her voice breaks around the next word out of her mouth: “Please.”
“Tell me what you want,” Shalom says, still so self-satisfied and commanding even when there’s an audible tightness in her voice, a heaviness in her breathing too. It’s the only confirmation Rahu has that this is affecting her too. Her only consolation. “Use your words, Rahu.”
There’s still a voice in the back of Rahu’s head telling her that this isn’t a good idea, that she can still put a stop to this and that she should put a stop to this if she doesn’t want to make things any more complicated than they already are. But, just like earlier, under the influence of Mania, she’s lost herself already, this time to an all-consuming want rather than the blind, burning rage that she’s so intimately familiar with. It’s nothing to surrender herself completely to the feeling.
“Let me come,” Rahu begs, twisting her hands into the sheets, head spinning and body burning white-hot, her arousal and desperation loosening her lips, “please, Shalom. I—I’ll do anything you want, anything you say, just—please.”
“Good girl,” Shalom says, leaning in closer, and god, Rahu never thought getting called that could do her in like this, or that she even ever wanted to be called that. “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Then with her hand still wrapped around Rahu’s length and the other planted firmly against her thigh, she licks a slow, broad stripe up the underside of Rahu’s cock. She brushes her lips against the tip, almost like a kiss, before she takes it into her mouth.
Rahu tosses her head back and groans. It’s all just—so much. It’s been so long, too long, since anyone’s sucked her off that she’s almost forgotten how it actually feels to have her dick in someone’s mouth, soft, pretty lips stretched around the thickness of it. She’s almost forgotten just how good it can feel. And it isn’t just anybody, it’s Shalom taking her deeper and deeper into her mouth, inch by excruciating inch, until the tip of Rahu’s erection hits the back of her throat and then slides even further. Rahu’s seeing stars by this point, but then Shalom moans around her and the next second, without meaning to, Rahu’s snapping her hips up so hard that she hears Shalom gag on her dick, slick and wet.
Shalom pulls away, coughing to clear her throat. “S-sorry,” Rahu mumbles, dazed and more than a little distracted by the spit dribbling down the corners of her mouth and down Shalom’s chin. She didn’t think Shalom would actually take her in all the way like that. Frankly, she didn’t think she could, but if there’s anything she should have learned by now, it’s to never underestimate Shalom. She’s full of surprises too, and Rahu can’t wait to find out what else she can do, what else she knows. She wants back inside her so bad it makes her cock ache something fierce.
Shalom wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and tells Rahu, “Sit still,” voice hoarse. She’s frowning a little but is quick to school her expression back to neutrality.
“I—yes,” Rahu says, blinking through the haze of her arousal. “Okay.”
Shalom huffs, a little amused, then she pinches Rahu’s thigh. It’s almost affectionate. She curls her arms around Rahu’s thighs, mouth hovering over the tip of Rahu’s cock. Rahu’s entire body tenses up in anticipation. Shalom glances up at Rahu through her eyelashes. “If you feel yourself getting close,” she says, slow and deliberate, the hot puff of her breath against Rahu’s cockhead sending her brain haywire, “you have to say so. Pay attention. Can you do that for me, Rahu?”
Rahu nods, all too eager. It’s not enough for Shalom, though, with the way she’s looking at her, waiting, so she pushes past the frustration bubbling beneath her skin and hurriedly says, “Yes. I can, yes.”
“Good,” Shalom says, smiling a little, then her mouth descends on Rahu’s dick again.
Rahu tries to regulate her breathing, tries not to make too much noise, and tries her hardest to sit still like Shalom asked her to, but Shalom is making it all just so fucking difficult for her. Her hips buck up into Shalom’s mouth as she swallows neatly around her. She can hear the way Shalom breathes in sharply through her nose, relaxing her jaw to take her in deeper and deeper still, until her nose is buried in Rahu’s hair. She stays still for a moment after that, her throat working around Rahu’s cock, then she starts sucking her Rahu in earnest, bobbing away before sucking her right back in, pausing every so often to either stuff Rahu’s cock all the way down her throat, as far and as deep as she can take her, or to pay special attention to the sensitive cockhead, teasing and suctioning her lips around it. She keeps her eyes locked onto Rahu the entire time, like she’s making sure Rahu is watching her take her apart.
Rahu is watching, alright. She couldn’t look away even if she tried, and even if she knows she isn’t going to last long like this. But Shalom is just—she just looks so pretty like this, on her knees for her, mouth stuffed full of her cock, drooling all over it. She just barely holds back a whimper when Shalom suddenly cups her balls, fondling them lightly before she pulls off of Rahu completely, chest heaving as she catches her breath for a second, to mouth at them. Rahu is so focused on what’s happening below her, too busy trying to burn the image of Shalom’s face nuzzling the underside of cock, the weight of it resting across her face, into her memory to register Shalom reaching for her hand and guiding it to her hair. She lets out a satisfied hum when Rahu tangles her fingers into her hair, then runs her tongue all the way back to the tip to suck on it again.
Shalom has a hand wrapped around her dick again, stroking her as she sucks hard on the tip. Pleasure buzzes up Rahu’s thighs as she digs her nails into Shalom’s scalp, hips twitching and head spinning from how good it feels. She’s been skating dangerously close to the edge for a while now, but what almost pushes her over the edge is the guttural, choked noise Shalom makes as takes Rahu down her throat again, until her lips meet her fingers where they’re clenched around the base. She manages to gasp out, “Close,” and then Shalom pulls off with a loud slurp.
Rahu lets out a frustrated whine. She would find that humiliating, but right now she cares about getting Shalom’s mouth back on her dick more than she does about keeping her dignity intact.
“Not yet,” Shalom rasps out, squeezing the base of her cock just hard enough to make Rahu’s hips jerk and make her twist her fingers tighter in her hair. If it hurts, Shalom doesn’t let it show on her face.
“Shalom,” Rahu starts, but Shalom cuts her off by saying, “You come when I say so, or you don’t come at all. Your choice, Rahu.” There’s really only one choice to make, and Shalom knows it. Rahu finds it all so incredibly unfair but she groans and says, “Okay.”
“Good girl,” Shalom says, a wicked smile twisting the corners of her mouth, before she starts pumping her hand up and down Rahu’s length again, agonizingly slow.
Rahu’s breaths come out uneven and shaky. It takes a while before her body relaxes again, her grip loosening in Shalom’s hair, but her stomach still twitches with every flick of Shalom’s wrist. Her cock flexes when Shalom tells her, “You’re doing good,” and she’s hit with the terrible realization that she’d do anything to have Shalom praise her like that over and over and over again, even if it means suffering through the absolute torture she’s being subjected to now. It’s intoxicating.
Shalom runs her tongue along the length of Rahu’s cock, wet and sloppy, a few times before she finally takes her into her mouth again. The desperate noise Rahu makes hangs in the air between them. She’s so relieved she could honestly cry. She groans, low and loud, when Shalom drags her mouth up her length to suck hard on the tip, where she knows Rahu is most sensitive, again, hands twisting at the base of her dick. Her thighs shake from how hard she’s trying not to just thrust wildly into Shalom’s mouth, bury herself inside as deep as Shalom can take her, have her choke on her cock again—
To Rahu’s surprise and frustration, Shalom pulls away again, but she quickly loses grasp of that when Shalom says, “Don’t hold back.” She sticks her tongue out and laps at the tip. “You can fuck my mouth, if you want to.”
Her brain feels like a toaster that’s been dumped into a bathtub, but Rahu’s still lucid enough to read between the lines: Shalom wants her to fuck her mouth. The thought of that has Rahu’s cock twitching in Shalom’s hand. She twists her fingers in Shalom’s hair—not too tight, but just tight enough for her to have a firm hold of her head—and Shalom leans forward reflexively, parting her lips for Rahu. She takes the head into her mouth, but just barely, waiting for Rahu. Rahu swallows then slowly, slowly, pushes Shalom’s face down onto her cock at the same time as she bucks up into Shalom’s mouth. It starts off as a slow grind, unhurried, careful rolls of her hips, but it isn’t long before Rahu’s fucking Shalom’s mouth, fast, forceful thrusts as she holds her down to take it all, moans and grunts unabashedly spilling from her own lips. Everything else around them ceases to exist: all that there is, in this moment, is the tight, wet heat of Shalom’s mouth, her throat, the tongue running desperately along the underside of her cock, the spit at the corners of her mouth.
Rahu doesn’t remember when she squeezed her eyes shut, but when she opens them again to look down at Shalom, she finds her looking up at her—watching her—eyes half-lidded, glassy, her skin flushed a deep red from her face all the way down to her chest. The jolt that hits her spine goes straight down between her legs. Rahu ruts into Shalom’s mouth desperately, frantically, sobbing as she chases the searing heat building up in the pit of her stomach. She almost doesn’t hear Shalom gagging on her cock over how loud she’s being. She slows her thrusts and feels Shalom’s body relax almost instantly. She’s holding on to whatever’s left of her whittled self-restraint, the last strands of her sanity, when she grits out, “I’m close,” voice breaking into a whimper. “Close, fuck, close.”
She’s half-expecting Shalom to stop again, but what she gets instead is Shalom jerking forward to hilt Rahu even deeper into her throat. She looks Rahu dead in the eye, digs her nails pointedly into the meat of Rahu’s thighs: she’s giving Rahu permission to come.
“Please,” Rahu chokes out, eyes bleary with tears as Shalom surges forward to swallow around her, coughing a little as the head of Rahu’s cock hits the back of her throat again. Her hips rise up helplessly to fuck into Shalom’s mouth. “Please, Shalom, I-I can’t—I can’t anymore, I need to—ah, fuck, m’so close.” Her head spins, her skin burns white-hot. “Please, Shalom, please.”
Please, please, please. She can hardly believe what’s coming out of her mouth, her own voice, reedy and broken around her gasps and moans, foreign to her ears. Shalom moans, approving, and pushes down onto her one last time until Rahu’s mouth drops open in a low, punched-out groan and a thick burst of cum floods across Shalom’s tongue.
Rahu comes so hard that her vision goes black for a long, long moment. Her chest heaves as she comes down from it, her body heavy and boneless all at once. Shalom sucks her through the aftershocks, swallowing thickly around her spend. She licks her lips when she draws away, exhaling gustily. “You were quite pent-up, weren’t you?” she says, teasing but not exactly mean, then she arches a brow at Rahu. Even though she just came, she’s still hard, cock stiff and leaking. “Is it… always like this?”
Rahu’s face heats up. “No,” she mumbles, every bit as surprised as Shalom. She supposes Shalom was right, too, in her… assessment. Maybe she has been pent-up, and thinking about it now, she doesn’t even remember the last time she got herself off. But even with Mania to contend with, she never stays hard like this after coming, so maybe it’s just—Shalom. Limited sexual experience aside, no one else has ever gotten her this hard or made her come that hard either. She doesn’t know what to make of that, or what it says about her, and this experience has been plenty confusing as is already.
Shalom just rubs salt into the wound by cooing, “You poor thing,” at Rahu as she wraps her fingers around Rahu’s cock again. Rahu hisses through the stinging sensitivity as Shalom pumps her hand up and down. It isn’t long before she’s running her tongue along the shaft again, like she’s cleaning up the mess they made. She suctions her lips around the tip, dipping her tongue into the divot, then she pulls away with a slick pop. “Move up a bit.”
Rahu freezes at first then she scrambles to crawl up the bed, erection bobbing between her legs. She ends up perched against the headboard. She makes a rough noise in the back of her throat when Shalom gets up from the floor and begins stripping. She isn’t wearing anything else underneath the slip, just a pair of really nice, undoubtedly expensive lace panties. Rahu’s mouth waters at the sight of Shalom’s bare tits, but all of the air is punched out of her lungs when Shalom shimmies out of her panties, lips curled into a smile as she watches Rahu watch her. She stands there for a moment, in all of her naked glory, letting Rahu just take all of it in, cock throbbing harder than ever, before she pushes up onto the bed.
Shalom positions herself on top of Rahu, straddling her hips. Rahu reflexively reaches out to grip at Shalom’s hips; her breath catches in her throat when Shalom suddenly lowers herself against her cock and starts grinding against it, smearing her slick all over the shaft. “Do you feel that?” Shalom husks out, wrapping her arms around Rahu’s broad shoulders and pressing their foreheads together, “That’s how wet you’ve made me.”
Rahu whimpers, canting her hips upwards to meet the roll of Shalom’s hips. She’d wondered, distantly, what it felt like for Shalom. What she was getting out of this. To actually feel it, proof of Shalom’s own arousal, proof that she liked every second of it as much as Rahu did, that she needs more of it—it has Rahu’s skin tingling, blood pumping loud in her ears. They continue to rock against each other, settling into a slow and steady grind, breathing each other’s air. Shalom angles herself just right so she gets a steady supply of pressure and friction on her clit, sighing softly as she grinds down against Rahu’s cock more insistently. Her hips stutter just the slightest and it makes Rahu’s heart leap in her throat.
She wants to hear Shalom—really hear her. She wants to hear her whimper and moan for her, wants to know what her name will sound like rolling off her tongue when she comes, if she’d ever give Rahu the satisfaction. She doesn’t think she’d mind, either way. Even just this once, she wants to hear her.
Rahu whines at the sudden loss of contact when Shalom lifts herself off of her, hovering right above her erection. That quickly turns into a strangled gasp when Shalom reaches down between them to take Rahu’s cock in her hand and line her up with her sopping wet cunt. Rahu feels hot, lightheaded, as she watches Shalom slowly lower herself onto her cock, letting Rahu fill her up an inch at a time. They’re close enough now for Rahu to realize that Shalom isn’t really breathing either, face pinched in concentration and what looks to be slight discomfort as she sinks lower and lower onto Rahu’s cock. A bead of sweat rolls down her temple. It makes her all too aware again of how much smaller Shalom is compared to her, how much frailer. Her concern for Shalom cuts through the thick, heady haze of arousal clouding her mind, but before she can tell her to be careful, that she doesn’t have to do this, that they can stop any time, Shalom suddenly slams her hips all the way down until Rahu is buried deep inside her.
They cry out at the same time. Rahu, a low, chest-deep groan; Shalom, a reedy, breathless whimper.
They hold each other for a while, neither of them moving. Rahu blinks back the stars in her eyes. Shalom is tight, so fucking tight, around her that it overwhelms her. So tight and so wet, pulsing and fluttering around her cock even as she holds still on top of her. She wraps her arms around Shalom and pulls her even closer, holding her firmly against her body. She can feel Shalom tremble in her arms, her breathing heavy and labored. She isn’t faring any better herself but still asks Shalom, “Is this okay?” But what she really means is, are you okay?
Shalom nods, exhaling shakily. “It’s been a while for me too,” she says, shockingly vulnerable, but she doesn’t give Rahu the time to dwell on just how intimate this all feels because she squeezes down around her cock and, grinding down against her to make Rahu feel just how well she’s filling her, purrs, “And you’re big.”
Rahu groans, twitching up into Shalom. She’s never given much thought to her size before, never really had any reason to and it’s not like she’s some sort of narcissist or whatever, but to have Shalom tell her she’s big is—a lot. She wishes it didn’t make her feel as good as it does, or that she weren’t as flattered as she is.
“Shalom,” she begs, but Shalom just continues to rock against her unhurried, languid, adjusting to the fullness and stretch of Rahu inside her. She lets out breathy, airy little gasps and sighs every time she fucks down and grinds her clit against Rahu. Her hands are planted firmly on Rahu’s chest now, and Rahu’s hands are bruising on her hips. She circles her hips once, sharply, and it punches a throaty, drawn-out moan from Rahu.
Shalom reaches up and touches her fingers against her lips and, instinctively, Rahu parts her lips for her; Shalom slips two fingers into Rahu’s mouth, pressing down on her tongue. Rahu doesn’t need to be told what to do: she starts sucking on Shalom’s fingers, moaning loudly around them when Shalom squeezes down tight around her cock just from watching her. She pushes her fingers even deeper into Rahu’s mouth, until Rahu’s teeth are scraping at her knuckles. Rahu’s eyes prickle when Shalom’s fingers reach deep enough into her mouth to hit the back of her throat, almost like she’s returning the favor for earlier, but she still swallows around them neatly, laving them with her tongue.
“Does it feel good, Rahu?” Shalom asks as she rides her so excruciatingly slow, “Do you like being inside me?”
Shalom is just playing with her food now. The answer is obvious, the way Rahu is trying to thrust up into her with no leverage, cock twitching and pulsing inside her. Still, Rahu plays the part of the obedient bodyguard, nodding and moaning around the fingers in her mouth. She’s way past the point of caring about what she has to do just to get Shalom to fuck her already.
Her enthusiastic response seems to please Shalom, at least. She pulls her fingers out of Rahu’s mouth, hand gleaming with her spit, then braces both her hands against Rahu’s chest again. She swivels her hips on Rahu’s cock, drawing more desperate, little whining moans out of her. She squeezes down around her, hard, and it sends Rahu’s hips bucking up against her violently. There’s a hitch in her breath too when she tells Rahu, “You feel good too,” moaning around her next words, grinding down against Rahu again, pushing her so deep into her, “So hard for me, and so big.”
“Shalom,” Rahu moans, frustrated and aroused to the point of tears, “please, fuck me.”
But Shalom seems to be lost in her own world, eyes fluttering shut as she gradually picks up the pace, rolling her hips faster, harder, breathy moans and gasps spilling from her lips. “You feel so good,” she breathes out, and there’s something about the way she says it that makes Rahu feel like she isn’t meant to hear it, like she’s intruding on something private, somehow, even when it’s her dick Shalom is fucking herself on. She tries to reach out for her, pull her close, but Shalom pushes her back down, brows furrowed like she’s about to reprimand Rahu again, tell her to sit still again. She doesn’t, though, just rides Rahu harder and faster, alternating between grinding against her, getting as much friction on her clit as she can, and bouncing on her dick, keening every time she slams back down onto her and Rahu hits something deep and something so fucking sweet, so fucking good inside her.
Rahu is left with no choice but to just sit back and watch, dazed, as Shalom fucks her for all she’s worth. Uses her, and fuck, Rahu didn’t think it could ever feel so good to be used. Didn’t know it could ever feel like this. It’s a dangerous feeling, a dangerous line of thinking, and she knows she shouldn’t want to get hooked to it, but it’s hard to think straight when Shalom tightens around her every time she sinks back down on her cock, tits bouncing in Rahu’s face; when the sound of skin slapping against skin and the loud, slick squelch of Shalom’s pussy fill her ears, rings through the room; when Shalom moans and gasps for more, tells her how good she is, how good she feels, and fuck, so big.
It’s too much. Rahu isn’t going to last like this. “Shalom,” she gasps out, head thrown back, pleasure buzzing up her thighs and coiling in her gut. “Shalom, please, I—I’m close, please, so close—”
Shalom takes Rahu’s face in her hands, holding her by the jaw. Says, “So come for me,” then she surges forward to kiss her.
Rahu’s mouth opens easily to make room for Shalom. Shalom slides her hands into Rahu’s hair and Rahu wraps both arms around her in response, pulling Shalom down against her. The new position finally grants her the leverage she needs to fuck up into Shalom. Shalom whines into her mouth and she swallows it down, draws her cock back then drives it right back into her, balls slapping heavily against her ass, over and over and over, until Shalom is shaking and writhing in her lap. They kiss, messy and wet, all clashing teeth and tongue, through it all, crushed against each other, and eventually Shalom starts moving her hips again, meeting Rahu thrust for thrust.
“That’s it,” Shalom says against Rahu’s lips, twisting her fingers into Rahu’s hair and tugging just hard enough to have her dick twitching inside her, then she licks into her mouth. The kissing becomes even more frenzied, teeth digging into soft flesh. “Good girl, that’s it, fucking me so good. Take whatever you need.”
Rahu feels lightheaded all over again, and it has little to do with how Shalom’s practically sucked all the air out of her lungs. She puts her face against Shalom’s neck and starts mouthing at her throat, resisting the urge to sink her teeth into Shalom’s skin when her lips brush over her pulse point. Instead, she presses open-mouthed kisses down her chest, attacking her breasts with kisses and bites as she bounces on her lap frantically. Shalom flutters around her with every mark she leaves on her skin, but she squeezes down around her deliciously when she sucks Shalom’s nipple into her mouth. Shalom arches into her mouth with a low cry, pushing Rahu’s face even further into her chest and, really, Rahu thinks, out of all the most absurd ways to die, suffocating on a beautiful woman’s equally as beautiful tits wouldn’t be the worst way to go.
She’s gasping for air by the time she pulls off of Shalom’s breasts, but Shalom pulls her back in instantly, pressing their mouths together. “Come on, Rahu,” she goads, grinding her hips in small circles against her, “you want to come, don’t you? Want to fill me up?”
Rahu groans, driving her cock hard and deep into Shalom. “Yes,” she whimpers, losing herself to the silken heat all around her. She buries her face in Shalom’s neck again as she ruts into her desperately, crushing Shalom in her arms. “Yes,” she breathes out again, “please, Shalom.”
Shalom rests her chin on top of Rahu’s head, arms wrapped around her shoulders. “So come for me, Rahu,” she commands, clenching down on her every time she bottoms out inside her, “Give me everything you’ve got. Be a good girl and come for me.”
Rahu’s thrusts turn erratic, grunts and moans of Shalom and please spilling from her mouth, then her entire body tenses, waves of pleasure pulling her under, then—
She sobs against Shalom’s throat, hips bucking fitfully as she spills hot and wet into Shalom. Shalom continues to ride her through it, relentless and entirely focused on her own release now. She rocks her hips back and forth, gasping and moaning just loud enough to be heard over the roar in Rahu’s ears, nails scraping against Rahu’s shoulders, and then she’s sailing off the edge too, hips driving down hard against Rahu’s, coming hard around her. She cries out, low and satisfied, as she comes, a gush of wet running down her thighs, and she clenches so hard around Rahu that it forces a few, short spurts of cum more out of her.
Shalom rests her chin on top of Rahu’s head, running her fingers through her hair soothingly as they wind down from their shared high together. Rahu’s breath comes out in hot puffs against her neck. “You did well,” she tells Rahu, her voice winded and just sincere, or at least about as sincere as someone like Shalom can be, nails scritching pleasantly against Rahu’s scalp. When Rahu nuzzles her face further into her neck, Shalom just lets her. “Do you feel better now?”
Rahu hums. ‘Better’ would be one hell of an understatement. She feels warm and satisfied, and she feels like she’s finally relaxing for the first time in a long, long time. She can’t recall the last time she ever felt so at ease, or her head felt so clear. She’s floating. She feels herself starting to go soft too, though, concerningly, she’s caught between relief and disappointment over that.
Without pulling away from Shalom, she murmurs, “Thank you,” voice muffled against Shalom’s skin.
This time, it’s Shalom who hums in response. They stay like that for a while, just holding each other until it becomes a little uncomfortable for them to still be joined together. Shalom lifts herself off of Rahu’s lap, Rahu’s cock sliding out of her with a loud and wet squelch. Rahu watches, lip caught between her teeth, as mixture of Shalom’s slick and her cum ooze out and run down her thighs. Some of it drips down onto her stomach.
“I’ll be right back,” Shalom says as she climbs out of bed, business as usual.
“Okay,” Rahu mumbles, feeling awkward all of a sudden, and watches her disappear into the bathroom.
When the door clicks shut behind her, Rahu flops back down against the pillows and heaves a sigh. She throws her elbow over her eyes and just lays there for a while, then she drags herself out of bed too and picks the bathrobe and her underwear up from the floor. She uses the bathrobe to wipe away the cum drying on her stomach—objectively gross, but whatever—then gets dressed. After, she settles into the right side of the bed, stretching her legs out in front of her. There’s about a million and one things on her mind right now, but she finds herself latching onto one thing in particular, and it’s that it’s definitely, probably a little messed up that she got to fuck Shalom before Shalom ever even allowed her to kiss her. Maybe that’s just how Shalom operates; Rahu doesn’t know. She’s barely figured the other woman out and every time she feels like she’s close to doing just that, Shalom just throws her another curveball.
Rahu jolts upright when Shalom emerges from the bathroom. “Um,” she starts, but Shalom barrels on and asks, “Do you mind if I stay here for a while?,” as she pulls her panties back up her legs, a meaningful smile flickering over her face when she says, “I’m quite tired.”
Rahu clears her throat. “Go ahead,” she replies, unsure of where to look or what to do with her hands. She wonders distantly if sex is always just like this: she was inside Shalom just a few minutes ago and now she can barely look her in the eye. She wonders if a mind-blowing orgasm (or two) is worth all the awkwardness after. Drily, she adds, “It’s your house anyway.”
Shalom lets out an amused noise, not quite a laugh. Fully dressed, she joins Rahu in bed, occupying the left side. They sit beside each other, shoulder to shoulder, in complete silence.
Rahu keeps her eyes glued to her upward-facing palms, mapping out the calluses and scars all over them. They’re so much rougher than Shalom’s, less elegant. At the thought of her, though, she can’t help but turn her head to look at Shalom instead. Her eyes are shut, hands folded over her lap, breathing evenly. Just when she’s starting to think Shalom has dozed off, Shalom suddenly asks, “What is it?” She peels one eye open to look back at Rahu, lips curling into a smile. “I can feel you staring, you know.”
Heat rises up Rahu’s cheeks. “I-It’s nothing,” she mumbles, wringing her hands. Inwardly, she thinks, fuck—just what the hell do people talk about after sex?
Shalom spares her from having to scramble for something to say by asking, “Does that always happen, when you’re… affected by Mania?”
“Not always,” Rahu answers, averting her gaze, “but it does happen.”
“I see,” is all Shalom says. She seems fascinated by it but doesn’t prod further. What she says next is probably worse than if she’d done the former, though, because she teases, “You know, I find it hard to believe that someone as dashing as you doesn’t have a revolving door of girls to help you when you need it. Surely you must have admirers.”
“Don’t mock me,” Rahu grumbles, face burning so hot she could probably fry something on it.
“I’m quite sure I just complimented you,” Shalom replies, chuckling softly.
Rahu scoffs. She tries not to linger too much on the light, almost tender feeling that blossoms in her chest. “I guess I just never had the time for that sort of thing,” she says after a while, somber, and maybe it’s still just her orgasm(s) speaking for her, but she ends up telling Shalom, “All I ever cared about back then were my duties as a soldier of the FAC, my duties to my comrades.”
“To your master,” Shalom says, and Rahu winces.
“Yeah,” Rahu mumbles under her breath, feeling a dull ache in her chest at the mention of Varna. She goes quiet for a long moment after that, lost in her thoughts, her memories.
It takes her by surprise when Shalom suddenly reaches out to brush her bangs, letting her fingers smooth over Rahu’s cheek as she pulls away. “You should get some rest,” she tells Rahu.
Rahu’s exhaustion has started catching up to her again, but she reaches for Shalom’s hand, wrapping her fingers around her wrist, before she can slip out of bed and out of her room: “Wait,” she says, “before you go, there’s something else I need to tell you. It’s about the assassin. If we’re going to be… working together, then I think it’s best I tell you now rather than later.”
Shalom looks down at their hands, at Rahu’s much bigger hand encasing her own, then relaxes into her touch. “Alright,” she says, reclining back against the pillows again. “Tell me everything you know.”
So Rahu tells her everything. Garofano’s own words as well as everything unusual she’d noticed. It isn’t a very lengthy conversation, all things considered, but she feels heavier and heavier with every second that passes, drowsiness and exhaustion creeping its way into her system slowly but surely. She pushes past all of it just to get everything out there, keep Shalom up to speed, and by the time she’s put it all out there, she’s struggling to keep her eyes open.
“We can discuss this again in the morning,” Shalom tells Rahu, and Rahu nods, because what else is there to say, but when Shalom moves to get out of bed for good this time, Rahu finds herself reaching out for her again. “Wait,” she starts, but Shalom cuts her off by saying, “You’re tired, Rahu. Whatever it is can wait until tomorrow.”
“No, it’s not that.” Rahu doesn’t know what’s possessed her—maybe it’s the mention of Varna earlier, of her dead comrades, the fact that she’s lost everything and everyone that’s ever mattered to her, or maybe it’s the fact they shared an intimate evening with each other and it’s making her all mushy in the center, uncharacteristically touchy-feely, or maybe it’s just been a long fucking day—but she says, “I was hoping you could just stay for a bit longer. You don’t have to stay the entire night, just… just until I fall asleep.”
A beat, then Shalom says, “Okay.” Then she smiles at Rahu, and everything falls into place for Rahu. “I’ll stay with you.”
Curled opposite each other like perfectly mismatched parentheses, Shalom succumbs to her own exhaustion and dozes off first, and in the end it’s her quiet breathing and the warmth that radiates off of her that lulls Rahu to sleep too. She takes one last, good look at Shalom, at how tired but so much more peaceful she looks in her sleep, her flyaway hairs, the part of her lips, and the steady rise and fall of her chest, committing every detail to memory knowing she might never get to see this side of Shalom again, before she finally lets sleep overcome her.
(It was a dreamless night.)