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"You... what?" He asks, eyes wide and stomach swooping. He could've sworn he heard her say--
Rook sees the change in him, leans back to clarify, having never been so sure of anything in her life. The fine silk covers drape down to pool on her back as she pushes herself up over him. Her hair a dark curtain pulled to one side.
"I want to have your children, Lucanis," she says, leaning to one side to free a hand and gently touch his cheek. He turns to kiss it on instinct, tangling her fingers with his to press her palm to his mouth.
"You realise Caterina already likes you, yes? You don't need any more points in your favour. Teia will get jealous."
"Oh hush," she says as she bops his nose with hers. "You know Teia is her favourite. Plus, saving you, Treviso, and then the world got me plenty of points. This--" She lays down again, blanketed over him as she trails off, fingers now tracing idle shapes on his chest he copies on her lower back. "This is something for us. For me."
And Lucanis... he doesn't know what to say to that.
"Only if you want to, that is," she quickly adds as the silence spreads like an oilslick in water. He can feel her heart, strong and loud against his, pick up a beat. "Should've asked that first. We haven't actually talked about it--"
He peppers brief kisses to her knuckles, laces his fingers between hers proper and holds fast.
"Rook de Riva," he says. "I would deny you nothing, least of all myself."
She settles, sighs with a smile, but then the furrow in her brow deepens.
"But is it something that you want?" She asks, an emphasis on the 'you' that makes him uncomfortable. "This isn't something you just go along with for the ride. This is a whole other human we're talking abou--"
He has her beneath him with a quick twist and a startled yelp, her hair a dark, feathered halo on the silken sheets. He preens when Rook's legs instinctively wrap around his waist, hides his flushed face under her jaw so that he may say his piece.
"The idea of you being so vulnerable scares me," he whispers into her neck, palm finding its way to lay flat on her stomach. "But you, round, holding our children within you--"
He's tasting her before he can stop himself, the salt of her skin and the heated breaths intoxicating. Rooks fingers thread into his hair when he reaches the hollow of her throat, tensing when he bites, pulling him in closer. But he still feels that knot in his chest. The reservation borne of anxiety.
"--but then there are the children themselves," he whispers, laying himself comfortably against her. "What if something happens to us and they are left without guidance? Without love and tenderness? I love my grandmother with all my heart, and I am certain that she would love our children at least ten fold, but she is not a kind woman, Rook. They would be trained practically from birth. Not to mention Illario. Or Viago. If that man poisons our child I will not be held accountable for what--"
Rook's bubbling laugh under his chest makes him pause. Lift his face from his hiding spot under her chin.
"What?"
"You're talking as if it's happening tomorrow," she hums, warm and conent, fingers combing through his hair like a balm to his soul. "While I admire that quality in you, nothing is happening right now. You know that."
Ah yes. The tincture she takes every morning after. He takes a breath. Let's her voice wash over him.
"I know that."
"Good." She settles down into the pillows, accepting her new position as one of them. His favourite one. "We don't have to decide right now. You take your time to think on it."
He hums, but then her nails scratch at his scalp and it becomes a low moan, his eyes so heavy he might be dangerously close to nodding off for a second or two. He listens to her heart, loud and strong under his ear, and he's almost completely gone when she says something catastrophic.
"Just know, I think you'd make an amazing father," she whispers into his hairline, and something happens in his guts. It's not the cold dread of fear he'd expected, had felt at the idea of complications. It's warm and heavy and sets fire at the idea of Rook, his Rook, curled into his side with a bundle cradled between them. Her eyes soft and so full of boundless joy as she watches their baby --their baby-- fidget and reach for his beard.
Another image pops up, Rook by the window, lit up in the gold of the early morning glow and quietly singing to the fussy babe on her hip. She calls him over, tells him it's his fault they have a child so spitefully determined not to sleep a wink. And he kisses her. Kisses her and kisses her until the sun is high and full in the sky. He takes the child, their child, and he hums an old tune he can't quite remember until they fall silent in their curiosity.
"You're certain?" He asks Rook, the real Rook, the one of flesh and blood and chaos beneath him. His voice is so quiet he finds it hard to hear himself. "It will not be easy."
"Nothing worth the effort usually is," she says, arms now wound around his neck as he looks at her with those soft eyes. "Anyway, we've literally saved the world before. How much more difficult can parenting be?"
And he laughs. Nuzzles into her neck once more. "You'll be the death of me."
-_-_-
It's not until he sees her with Jacobus, how she looks at him with such joy when he thrives, puffs up with pride when he builds himself and others a home, when he sees how she gets that low, venomous stare if someone even thinks of threatening him and his house-- like a wyvern sizing up a danger to her young, trying to determine if it'd take one bite or two to stop the squirming-- that's when he feels it, truly, claw into his gut. That want. A desire to give her-- to give himself-- that opportunity to nurture something. To care for it, protect it, love it like nothing else in the world.
Her fierce protective streak... he thinks that's what does it. Rook is dangerous, just as he is dangerous, and he loves that. How she uses that darkness in herself to keep others safe.
A rival house will send an upstart, someone to cause problems in house Egrativi. Rook would dispatch them with the ruthless efficiency of her own house's namesake, and Lucanis would fall in love all over again just from the sight of her snarling.
Poor bastard didn't even make it back to the door before his innards melted out of him. That carpet is going to need burning.
They're in the aftermath of that one such event when it happens.
"Thanks mom--" came out of Jacobus' mouth before he could stop it. Rook froze, Jacobus froze, Lucanis? Didn't even breathe for a few moments. Spite nudged him to see if he was still alive.
They all laugh it off in the end. Rook just glad Teia or Viago wasn't there to hear it. She knew they'd never let her live it down. But the damage had been done. The air tense and thick between them on the way back home.
He'd seen how her face blew wide open in surprise, then softened with delighted confusion, and then sharpened into that protectiveness, that instinct she had to care and nurture--
He's going to give her that. He wants to. Wants that for them both.
He trusts her judgement. If she knows they can do it, well. Far be it from him to question.
-_-_-
What if their child doesn't like him? What if Spite has a bad reaction to them? He has never been around an infant while bonded with Spite, what if he finds them boring, or frustrating, or simply pilots away his body while he's supposed to be looking after them--
"You're spiraling, love," Rook says from across his office floor. She's clad in her leathers and leaned casually against the doorframe, head tilted and smile sad and knowing.
He sighs, drops the quil that'd been dribbling ink blots all over a page that was otherwise empty. He's careful to check for stains on his hands before dropping his head into them. The ache behind his eyes dull but persistent when he rubs against them. His breath shakes out of him, and a familiar palm soothes over his shoulders. His hands end up circling her waist, face buried in her shirt.
She doesn't have to wait long.
"I have... thought about it. What you said."
"Oh?"
He looks up at her, expression bare and honest.
"About children."
"Oh." She seems so quickly resigned, mentally withdrawing. He has to fix that.
"I want them," he breathes out, and she freezes. "With you. But mierda, the thoughts, the worry-- are you sure we can handle a child and Spite?"
He says it with a lilt of humour, but the question is a real one. She has to be certain.
Please be certain.
"I am." She takes his hand, conviction in each syllable she speaks, a spark in her eye he's certain is trying to set him aflame. "Are you?"
And that faith she has, it makes his anxiety still. The rhetorical what ifs scattering in the wind with how she looks at him then, with something warm like love. Light like hope. He stands, holds her as if she might disappear in a blink. Like he could press his determination into her through his hands on her skin.
"I am," he breathes, and he takes her lips with his.
And then Lucanis receives a letter for a contract, and they don't see eachother for a month.
-_-_-
Correspondence is difficult when on the job, but not impossible.
Emmrich mentioned once the existence of a smooth mirror-like amulet that allowed two people to communicate regardless of distance. Sending stones. Rare, expensive, difficult to enchant, but they both had connections.
They don't make it a habit, what with the nature of thier occupations. Usually they only use them to let the other know when a job is done, when they'll be making thier way back home, and that's what has Rook rabidly towel drying her hair and reaching for the amulet around her neck.
"A week?"
"Sì," is his quick confirmation. "Any longer than that, assume the worst."
"Got it. Somehow Solas returned and managed to seduce you."
A choked laugh crackles through, the enchantment flickering with the cadence.
"Rook," he just sighs. It's strikingly similar to that time Rook pointed out (ha!) the great craftsmanship of the ancient elves hand statues. "How could you possibly think that man is my type?"
"I dunno," she goads. "The wolf and the crow? Sounds like a love ballad waiting to happen."
"Rook." It's sharper now, but still with that playful lilt. "You're my type. You're insulting yourself."
"Oh shush," Rook blushes. No matter how many times he says it, it still lights her up inside. "Sweet talker."
A silence ensues, one with mutual stupid smiles on each end.
"How secure do you think these things are?" Rook muses, rolling to the side on Lucanis' bed, the planned book of the evening forgotten in light of the sending stone coming to life with her loves voice. "You think there are weirdos that sit around just to hijack sweet goodnight messages?"
"Absolutely," is his response. Then a thoughtful pause. "We should ask Emmrich about safeguarding wards."
"Not a bad idea," Rook replies, groaning with a whole body stretch and then falling down boneless. His bed really was so much better than hers, just miles of softness in every direction. "I'll send a message tomorrow."
Lucanis gives a warm chuckle, and it fills Rook with bubbly light.
"Comfortable?" He asks, a smile in his voice.
"In your grand, king-sized bed?" Rook hums. "Yes. Yes I am."
"Ours," Lucanis corrects.
"Hm?"
"You're in our bed, amore."
And if that didn't just drive Rook a little bit crazy...
"Yeah, well, this is definitely your shirt," she jabs, pinching at the collar of the button-down she threw on after her bath. "Who's your tailor, anyway? Do they take commissions? This is really nice."
"I can get you in touch," Lucanis says, far too quickly. "Or would you rather steal my clothes instead?"
At that, she burrows down into the soft cotton, pressing the neck of it to her lips.
"Smells like you," she mumbles, suddenly shy despite technically being completely alone. His hum vibrates through the stone, the exhale of it familiar, deep with longing. She places it next to her ear on the pillow, closing her eyes to pretend he's there with her.
"Are you wearing it?" He tentatively asks. "The shirt?"
"I am," is Rooks hesitant reply. "Would you rather I not...?"
"No no, I-- you--" he stops, breathes, and it sounds uneven. "I cannot imagine a single image better right now than you in nothing but my shirt, Rook."
"Now, that's a lie," she laughs. "Not a single image, hm?"
"Not a one."
And he says it with such conviction that Rook feels striken.
"Oh."
"Yes. Oh."
"This is really doing it for you. What is it about it?" Rook asks, genuinely curious.
"Think of the marks you leave on me. Do they not make you feel things?"
"Warm," Rook muses. "Content. Satisfied. Like I've staked a claim. Like you've let me have you in every sense one could ever have another."
He hums, more vibration than sound. "Thinking of you like that, in nothing but my shirt--"
It's a deep, roiling groan that escapes him then. Something breaking, cracks forming around the sides. Rook's stomach clenches.
"It makes me want to be there," he groans, and there's something vicious in the sound. Something just tip toeing on an edge.
"Not that I don't feel like that already," he laments. "But, right now, I want to take your thighs in my hands," he grits out, and Rook all but stops breathing from the flash of heat it struck in her. "I want to feel you, drag you to the edge of the bed, get on my knees--"
"Lucanis!"
"If I were there I would taste you, amore. And you would moan so beautifully for me I would return the favour," he hurries before she can further object, needing her to understand how thoroughly destroyed he is by the mere thought alone. "It's only fair, after all. You giving me this gift. It'd be so easy. Your legs parting for me as if of their own accord--"
"Oh, fuck--" is Rook's eloquent reply, knees spilling apart, just as he'd said. One hand fisted in red silk, the other clutching at the shirt, bringing it to her face to try and build the fantasy behind her eyes. Lucanis chuckles, only slightly haggard, and it's like a spark to dry kindling, the edges only just aflame enough to smolder and then die down.
"Weren't you the one saying we should look into security measures for these things?" Rook says, sounding scandalised, feeling like she can't breathe, wanting him to keep going forever.
"Later," he says. "Are you touching, amore?"
"No--" she gulps. "Should I? Do you want that?"
"Yes," is his choked reply. "Before I start begging."
"Oh?" Rook breathes, hand now on her stomach, fingers tracing soothing little patterns just as he would in his sleep. "You're willing to beg, Dellamorte? Just to hear little old me?"
"Yes," he states with his whole chest, and it melts her insides, that heat pooling in her core, making a mess between her thighs. "Please."
"Then I need something from you."
"Anything," he says, breath crackling through the stone. "Consider it done."
"Are you properly alone?" Rook asks, needing to know so she can plan her method of attack. "Somewhere you can get comfortable?"
"Safe house," he says. "Cot similar to the one at the Lighthouse."
"Maker, that cot," Rook sighs, fingers getting more bold, dipping below the hem. "Do you have any idea how many times I wanted to kiss you on that thing?"
"Tell me."
"Don't think we have the time, love."
"Tell me of the first, then."
"The first?" She thinks back, fingertips idly exploring her smalls, the waistband, the seams, the slick stained cotton the only thing between her and her aching clit. She lightly circles it over the cloth, easing into the sensation, her hips twitching with a mind of thier own.
"The almost kiss," she admits, other hand trailing over a breast. "I thought about it often. About you being sure and taking what you wanted then and there, about if I were to do the same. Just grab you by the collar and force you to look at me. See me as I bared myself to you. Backed you onto the cot. Gave myself to you. Took your mouth with mine."
"I would have crumbled, amore," Lucanis says, a gentle desperation in his voice. "If you had wanted-- I would not have been able to stop myself."
"I wouldn't have wanted you to," she admits, breath thready as she circles the peak of one breast the same way she does her clothed clit. "I thought of you that night in this same way. Needy. Needing you--"
"You have me," he vows. "You have me, Rook."
"I'd have had you then, too, if you'd wanted it," Rook admits, and the slight hitch in breath it gets her through the stone has her mouth running away from her. "I would've climbed on that cot with you, Lucanis. Knee either side of you, pinned you down, devoured you until we were both breathless--"
"Rook," he says, sounding like a string pulled taut. "Please--"
Ohhhh, he may have started this, but she was fucking finishing it.
"I need you to tell me what you're doing." A whine escapes her when she pinches a breast, wishing it was his mouth there instead. "Tell me how it feels, Luca."
"I am-- I'm in the dark, stripped from the waist down, touching myself to the thought of you-- Maker, you, your fingers are where mine should be, arent they? On your skin, deep in your sweet, soaking cunt--"
Fuck, he has her heels digging down into the bed, her lip raw between her teeth as she pulls her smalls to the side.
"This is exactly what I did before in the fade," he admits. "Every other night just to satiate this relentless, hungry thing you ingite within me, amore."
"Luca--"
"I thought of you saying my name just like that. Thighs shaking under my hands as I kissed where yours are now. Nipped at the delicate flesh until it bloomed blood red. Ate at you like a man starved--"
"I've not even touched there yet and I'm--" She dips into herself.
"You're what, amore?"
"F--fuck. I'm soaked."
That rumble comes through as a near growl this time. "Soaked. For me?"
"Always," she says like it's a given, because it is. "Only you."
"Rook--" He grits out like he'd been punched. "Fuck."
"Shit, I wish you could see the mess you've made of me," she says, plucking that taut string in him with practised ease. "What just your words have done to me."
"I'll see soon enough," he promises. "When I get back."
"Now that's an idea," she muses. "Trying this again with only a few walls between us..."
"You really will be the death of me."
"But what a way to go, hunting me down in your huge ancestral mansion, all the while listening to me making a mess thinking of you--"
"Rook, mi amore, I'm--"
"Close, my love?"
"Almost--" he gasps. "Almost."
"Stop."
He does. The wet sounds stop, and she's left with only his even, laboured breath.
"Good. Very good."
She hears him gasp, gently, but with such feeling it must have winded him.
"Now--" she moans load and clear as she plunges two digits into herself with barely any resistance. "Now-- you listen for me, okay?"
He has a chance to tap out. But will he take it? He breathes. Eager. Tense. And then--
"Yes." Fucking beautiful. "Please."
"Such a good boy," she coos as she fucks herself nice and deep for him, hitting that spongey spot he absolutely loves to abuse 'for the best noises'.
"Yes," she moans, fingers curling just right. "Fuck, yes, Luca, right there--"
"Rook--" and oh the way he says her name, like he's in agony, like he's found heaven. "Rook--"
"Please," she begs. "Please, I need--"
What comes out of his mouth then is a desperate string of words in his mother tongue. It makes her louder, makes her wetter.
"Yes," she gasps. "Keep going, keep talking to me--" and she finally, finally starts to rub her clit in time with her frantic thrusts, mouth agape with her cries, with her calling for him.
"Touch yourself," she demands when she feels that crest start approaching, and his voice, rough, broken, can't keep up anymore. His crooning becomes indecipherable, breaths harsh and quick as he does as she commands. The wet, rhythmic sounds of his own hand paired with hers, his desperate, muffled whining, is enough to have her on that edge, right there, right there--
"Come for me, amore," he growls out, a plea disguised as a demand. "I know you're there. I can hear it. Can picture your spine curving just so, the perfect angle for me to fuck--"
"Lucanis," she gasps. "Come--come inside, please-- please, I need it. I need you, please--"
"I will," he practically purrs. "When I get home it's the first fucking thing I'm doing. Going to put a baby in you--"
And just like that, the wire snaps. She comes like a bolt shot, spine arching, feet slipping on the silk sheets as her hips jolt. It lingers longer than expected, her head swimming while her body caves in and bursts. Then she's collapsing down, hips squirming and rolling with the aftershocks. She thinks she might've gone deaf for a moment until she hears Lucanis audibly panting on the other end, trying to get his breaths even again.
It feels like she could go again, overstimulation bleeding into something addictive, something not as sharp, but still deep and heavy and demanding.
"You mean that Luca?" She whispers, voice raw, aching. "Tell me you mean it."
"I do, amore," he breathes, a knowing lilt to his voice upon hearing how eager hers was. "First moment I see you, you're mine."
The moan she lets out is obscene. She keeps playing with her clit past the point of sharp pain, melting into dull pleasure.
"I don't care where we are. Kitchen. Library. The Grounds. I'll have you wherever you'll let me, and I'm not stopping until it takes."
"Holding you to that," she promises on a deep exhale, her calf feeling like it's about to cramp up if she doesn't get there soon. "You filling me up like that, every morning, every night--'
"You really are going to kill me, amore."
"Have a funny feeling you're up to the task."
"Of course," he says. Drops his voice to that low timbre he knows sends her unravelling. "Consider it done."
And that does it, has that small wave rising just enough to crest over with a small, strained whimper of his name.
"A week is too long," Rook laments after a while of just breathing, listening to eachother settle. "I need you here for cuddles."