[… the first time they'd shed their clothes like second skins and used their bodies like flint to set their demons aflame …
That was why he changed his coat so often in the U-wing, you know… yes, adapting to different temperatures… switching wet for dry… range of movement for carrying vs. fighting vs. piloting…
But really it was to force himself out of the last moment into the next. Shed that skin. That being. Be who he needed to be now, not dwell on who he'd been just before. Someone he almost invariably deplored.
Curious. He's still fully clothed, right now.
…He doesn't think of this consciously. But… in the stillness—her allowance of it, her priceless trust—he cranes back his head again to meet her eyes. His face is expressionless—not hiding anything; the opposite, not putting anything on to fool her, not feigning to project—but his eyes are hers once more. And he shifts them, gently now, no less decisively, so the framework of his legs holds her up without also needing his arms; and he keeps them fully locked below, but deliberately disentangles his arms, arches back from the waist, so he can strip off his jacket. Give her access to what's below.
Then, eyes still fixed on hers, slides his hands up beneath her remaining clothes, shifting them loose, doesn't matter whether they stay on or come off, but he's replacing them most closely against her now with the flowing warmth of his hands on her skin, her ribs, breasts, everything.
And begins to move in her again; longer, slower, more deliberate strokes. That roll and propel her higher up and back against the wall. But unhurried now, and no danger of her hitting painfully against it.
He's with her now. Freed from anguish and need. So he knows what he wants next.]
[action]
That was why he changed his coat so often in the U-wing, you know… yes, adapting to different temperatures… switching wet for dry… range of movement for carrying vs. fighting vs. piloting…
But really it was to force himself out of the last moment into the next. Shed that skin. That being. Be who he needed to be now, not dwell on who he'd been just before. Someone he almost invariably deplored.
Curious. He's still fully clothed, right now.
…He doesn't think of this consciously. But… in the stillness—her allowance of it, her priceless trust—he cranes back his head again to meet her eyes. His face is expressionless—not hiding anything; the opposite, not putting anything on to fool her, not feigning to project—but his eyes are hers once more. And he shifts them, gently now, no less decisively, so the framework of his legs holds her up without also needing his arms; and he keeps them fully locked below, but deliberately disentangles his arms, arches back from the waist, so he can strip off his jacket. Give her access to what's below.
Then, eyes still fixed on hers, slides his hands up beneath her remaining clothes, shifting them loose, doesn't matter whether they stay on or come off, but he's replacing them most closely against her now with the flowing warmth of his hands on her skin, her ribs, breasts, everything.
And begins to move in her again; longer, slower, more deliberate strokes. That roll and propel her higher up and back against the wall. But unhurried now, and no danger of her hitting painfully against it.
He's with her now. Freed from anguish and need. So he knows what he wants next.]