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The screech of machinery and wrending metal drills into Aloy’s ears, over her own pounding blood and adrenaline, so loud it’s painful. Erend is to her right, the back of his hammer lodged between the plates of a Trampler’s side, where the ribs would be on an organic animal; with a grunt he pulls back, and the plates snap off, sparks cascading out of the new wound. Before either of them can take advantage of this new weak spot, the Trampler lets out another deafening metallic roar and turns on Erend, gets him caught in its horns. Aloy has no time to react, fumbling with suddenly-clumsy fingers for an arrow as the Trampler whips its head, launching Erend a good fifteen feet longways, where he collides with the rocky cliffside and crumples into a motionless heap.
Aloy’s heart jumps into her throat, still fumbling for a fucking arrow, where the fuck is it, what’s wrong with her-- shouting at the Trampler to draw its attention away from Erend’s prone form. It works, and the machine turns to bear on her instead, but the moment spent deciding which target to pursue has given Aloy time to notch three arrows, which she draws with weak, shaking hands and tries not to think about how Erend might be dead.
Her aim is true, despite her exhaustion, and the arrows pierce the weak spot in the Trampler’s side. It jolts, collapsing onto its side, and Aloy runs to it, wasting no time in stabbing her spear up through its jaw and into its head, into the mechanical brain. It wails and struggles morbidly for a moment, hooves kicking in desperation, before the red lights fade and it finally goes still.
A beat passes, spent making absolutely sure the machine is fully dead, and then Aloy pulls her spear out of it and breaks into a sprint towards where Erend is still laying. She drops to her knees and skids the rest of the way to him, getting an arm under his shoulders and flipping him onto his back.
“Erend?” she says, surveying the damage; there’s a cut on his forehead, which, given his prior position, had been bleeding into his eyes. She reaches into her pack and pulls out a piece of linen cloth, trying to wipe as much blood off of his face as she can, then puts pressure on the wound, her heart racing. He looks too much like Ersa like this, too much like she did before she--
“Erend!” she says again, shaking him. “Wake up, dammit. Wake up!” She slips her hand beneath his scarf and presses it against his pulse point, checking it; it’s there, steady under her fingertips. He’s breathing, as well, but there are still a myriad of unknowns, too many possibilities that could end with him dying out here in the desert in her arms.
She brushes his hair away from his face, pressing the back of her hand against his forehead. He’s hot, but it’s far too early to tell if it’s some kind of infection or sickness or injury, or just exertion from the fight and the desert heat. Still, the physicality of touching him is comforting. Grounding. She strokes his hair again, finds herself petting his forehead, his cheek, dabbing at the fresh blood from the wound on his forehead as it attempts to scab over. Waiting. Wishing. Praying. Dreading.
Finally, finally, he stirs, taking a deep breath and attempting to move, then groaning in pain. His eyes are still closed.
“Hey, hey, hey,” she says, pushing on his chest to keep him down. “Take it easy, you’re hurt, Erend.”
His eyelids flutter, and then he grimaces as his senses gradually return to him. He groans again. “Ohhh… Holy fuck, that hurts.”
Aloy almost laughs. “What hurts?” she says.
His eyes finally crack open, and he blinks as the somewhat dried blood in his eyelashes dislodges itself. “My arm. My hand,” he says.
His hand? Aloy hadn’t even thought to check the rest of him, so preoccupied with the damage to his face and head (and potentially his brain), but now she lets herself take stock of him. His right side is cradled against her, his arm laying over his stomach, but his left arm is resting on the ground, and she can see blood staining what remains of his shredded sleeve. She leans over him to get a better look.
It’s bad. She’s not sure how she missed it. Two gashes across his bicep, deep and ragged and covered in sand. They’ll need stitches. Aloy swears under her breath as she examines his hand; there’s no outward damage to his glove, but when she attempts to remove it Erend almost screams in pain so she stops. Broken fingers, then, she guesses.
“Erend, you need a healer,” she says, with more calm firmness than she feels. Inside, her thoughts are still frenetic. “You need to get up. We need to get back to Meridian.”
He looks at her, a little unfocused. “This is really gonna suck,” he mutters.
“Yeah,” she says, unsure whether to be relieved or annoyed at his levity, “it is.”
Gingerly, she extricates herself from underneath him, standing up and offering him a hand. He nearly pulls her back down as he hoists himself up, all exhausted, sluggish weight and little of his own usually-considerable strength. Aloy tries not to panic. He’s up. He’s moving. They just need to get to Meridian. This will be okay.
“Stay here. I’ll get your hammer and get us a mount,” she says. Erend is usually argumentative about riding machines, but he is evidently either weary or disoriented enough that he remains silent this time.
Aloy taps on her Focus a few times as she goes to gather Erend’s hammer, sending a specialized signal to the closest suitable machine she can find: a Charger, not too far from their location. She spends the maybe twenty seconds until its arrival cracking open the Trampler’s cargo container and looting for any valuable or useful parts; when the Charger arrives, she helps Erend onto it and climbs on behind him, so that she can keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t get worse or fall off. They head for Meridian.
Despite his state, Erend is noticeably uncomfortable riding the Charger, fidgeting and overly straight in posture. She keeps her hands on his sides, holding him steady when he sways and staring at the giant, bleeding gashes on his arm.
“Hey,” she says, “we should wrap your arm.”
She should have done it before they left, but she’d been so distracted she didn’t think about it.
He looks at her over his shoulder. “Yeah, okay,” he says. “That’s probably a good idea.”
She lets go of him to rummage in her pack for some suitable strips of cloth. Erend cautiously reaches over and rips the few remaining threads of his sleeve apart, then rolls what’s left up to the edge of his breastplate, baring his arm and shoulder fully.
Aloy is struck by several thoughts then, one after the other:
Firstly, that Erend’s wounds don’t seem to be quite as bad as she thought, now that she can seem them more clearly without his sleeve in the way.
Secondly, that Erend has a very nice arm under that sleeve, besides his wounds, thick and solid with muscle and dusted with dark hair, and…
Thirdly, tattoos. Erend’s shoulder and upper arm are covered in a weaving, geometric pattern of black tattoos.
Aloy, in the process of unfastening her waterskin to rinse his wounds, finds herself taking a long drink to quench her suddenly too-dry mouth. After that’s done, with what she hopes is a normal, unsuspicious amount of hesitation, she says, “I’m gonna rinse the sand and dirt off your arm, okay? It’s probably going to sting.”
“‘S alright,” he says. “It needs to be done, so no use drawing it ou--oww, fuck!”
“Sorry,” she says as she finishes, handing him the waterskin to take a drink. He does so, chugging it, leaning so far back his head is almost on her shoulder. She tries to ignore the peculiar heat in her lower stomach as she goes about wrapping Erend’s very nice, muscular, tattooed arm with cloth. “I didn’t know you had tattoos.” It’s a stupid thing to say -- why would she know? She’s never seen him in any state of undress before, and the sudden rabbit hole that thought kicks off in her head sends more of that heat through her body. She bites her tongue to distract herself.
Erend sighs as he finishes with the waterskin, trying valiantly not to flinch as she works despite what must be considerable pain. “Oh, yeah,” he says, “I got lots of ‘em.”
“Really?”
“Yeah?” he says, sounding amused. “You seem surprised by that.”
She shrugs, wrapping the cloth around his arm several times, ignoring the warmth of his skin when she accidentally brushes it with her fingers. “I mean, I dunno,” she says. “Maybe I shouldn’t be. Tattoos just aren’t that common in the Sacred Lands.”
“Cultural reason, or...?”
“No.” She ties off the strip she’s working with. “Well, I mean, there’s no cultural reason against them. There’s just, also not really a cultural reason for them.”
“Huh,” he says, then stiffens a bit as the Charger stumbles on some loose rocks. When it has settled back into its steady, loping almost-gallop, he relaxes again, and she continues wrapping his arm. “They’re really common in Oseram culture. Sometimes decorative, but sometimes cultural, too. Lots of...” He scratches his cheek idly with his free hand. “Lots of traditional designs are based on, y’know, familial legacy, homeland pride, stories and legends, shit like that.”
Probably the reason the Nora don’t have tattoos, Aloy thinks with some amount of bitterness. If one’s familial and citizen status are so easily and eagerly revoked, being permanently marked as belonging when you legally don’t would probably cause even more problems with the system than are already present. Familial face paint is easily washed away when one is outcast.
“What are yours?” she asks, drawing herself out of her anger.
“Oh, most of mine are just decorative,” Erend says. “Oseram are… We’re…” He searches for the right words. “We’re tinkerers. We create stuff, right? Improve stuff. That’s who we are. And why shouldn’t we tinker with our bodies, too, y’know? Within the realm of reason, I mean. So the thought process goes, anyway.”
She ties off the last fabric strip around his arm and surveys it for a moment. The cloth is already darkening with blood, but they’re not far from Meridian, and it will at least keep any further dust and sand and dirt out of his wounds.
“How many do you have?” she asks.
“Uhh… well, probably five or six by now?”
“You’ve lost count?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just, it’s hard to count ‘em because some are kinda… integrated into each other. So kinda depends on how you separate ‘em out, I guess.”
“Where else?”
“All over,” he says. “This one goes down onto my chest, but I’ve got another one on my other arm, and a couple on my legs, too. And my thighs.”
“I’d like to see them sometime,” she says, absentmindedly, and it takes a moment of awkward silence for her to remember what the last particular detail out of Erend’s mouth was and how she’d just responded to it.
Before she can decide if she should try to salvage the conversation somehow, change the subject, or just not say anything at all, Erend twists at the waist to look at her with an uncharacteristically smug expression.
“Aloy,” he says. “Y’know, if you wanted to get me into bed, there are more direct ways you can ask me.”
“Shut up, Erend,” she says, cheeks flushing with heat, grabbing his shoulders and trying to force him to turn back around and stop giving her that weird face. “You’re delirious.” She wants to fall into a hole. She wants to kick her own ass. She wants to jump off the Charger and let him go back to Meridian alone. She wants to kiss him.
She wants to kiss him.
Oh no, she wants to kiss him.
“Funny,” he says, smile turning lopsided, “I don’t feel delirious.”
“You must be, because otherwise you’re not nearly this annoying.” But she knows she’s damned by the color in her cheeks, and when he turns away he looks very amused.
They ride in excruciating silence. At least, it’s excruciating for Aloy. She still keeps her hands on Erend’s sides, but only barely, still caught up in the revelation that she wants to kiss him. Touching him now feels risky, somehow, like doing so too much will detonate a bomb inside of her and she’ll be unable to stop herself from wanting more .
Heat crawls through her belly again, low and languid, and this time she understands the feeling a little bit. She has never been attracted to anyone sexually before, but she has familiarized herself with her own body and her own libido enough to recognize her arousal. In response to Erend. In response to the thought of kissing Erend. Of touching him, of feeling those nice arms around her, of seeing every inch of his skin bared to her, tracing each of his tattoos. His muscles. His--
Oh, no.
----
Aloy accompanies Erend into the healer's residence and then leaves when she’s sure he’s in capable hands. She doesn’t give him time to question or object.
She leaves the city, takes the lift down to the Maizelands and then further, until she’s out of civilization again, into the marshland south of Meridian. The cool, damp air is a relief from the heat of the day as well as the heat inside of her body. Infuriating heat. Insatiable. Terrifying.
She checks her Focus for any sign of machines around -- Stalkers in particular, as they seem fond of this environment -- and when she’s satisfied that she’s safe, she flops down onto the ground and looks up at the sky.
She has bigger things to worry about. She should not be thinking about Erend, and his thick arms, and his intriguing tattoos, and his loyal, protective streak that runs deeper than a river, and the way his eyes go soft when he looks at her, and the way his mustache would probably tickle her skin if she kissed him.
She groans in annoyance.
Needing someone, that’s always been a non-issue, something that’s never even crossed her mind. She’s never needed anyone -- never had a choice.
But wanting someone?
She’s never wanted anyone before, either, but in this, she does have a choice. And that scares her -- that freedom, that unfamiliarity. She’s not even sure she could fully give her trust to anyone else, even Erend, who has been nothing but trustworthy the entire time she’s known him. How is she supposed to function in relation to someone else like that? How is she supposed to feel? Right now she feels terrified, annoyed, and horny, and she’s pretty sure at least two of those aren’t what she’s supposed to be feeling when she thinks of wanting someone. But then, how should she know? It’s not like she has any experience with this.
And what does wanting look like, anyway? Sex? A relationship? Marriage? Does she want those things from Erend? She hasn’t known him long enough to tell. What if he wants more than she does? Or less?
That thought makes her pause. The thought that Erend might not want her makes her feel… sad, maybe? Sick, definitely. She should be used to the idea of people not wanting her. It’s stupid. She’s being stupid, and she knows it.
She shuts her eyes.
Her thoughts keep drifting back to Erend. Of his head in her lap, motionless, bleeding, and her near panic when she thought he was dead. Of his bare, strong arm, glistening in the sun after she rinsed his wounds. Of that network of black ink curving over his muscles, disappearing tantalizingly under his breastplate, and her desire to trace her fingers over the lines. The idea that he has more of them, perhaps in more tender places. The way his voice was so earnest even though he was teasing her. Y’know, if you wanted to get me into bed, there are more direct ways you can ask me.
Groaning in mixed annoyance and arousal for what feels like the dozenth time today, Aloy slides a hand under the waistband of her leggings.
----
It’s very late when Aloy finally returns to Meridian. She first goes to the healer, but is told Erend went home after his injuries were treated. So she goes there instead.
She’s never felt so nervous in her entire life. Multiple times she stops in the middle of the street, debating on what she’s doing, why she’s doing it, thinking in circles until she decides she’s being fucking ridiculous and continues on. When she finally reaches Erend’s apartment, she knocks on the door before she can overthink herself away, keeping her hands resolutely by her sides, trying to look as casual as possible. She can do this. She can be normal. Erend is her friend.
The door opens and Aloy immediately feels fresh heat flood her face; Erend is wearing a thin, once-white tanktop and plain cotton pants. Probably pajamas. It leaves his arms bare, all that tantalizingly complex and beautiful ink on display for Aloy’s eyes to rake over unsubtly.
“Aloy!” Erend says, delighted. If he notices her abject staring, he thankfully does not comment on it. “Hey! I thought… I mean, you left so quickly, I thought maybe… I guess--I mean--er. Let me start over. Do you wanna come in?” He steps aside and Aloy enters his apartment, thankful for the momentary respite from his gaze so she can give her head a vigorous shake to try and calm her nerves.
“You want anything?” he asks after closing the door.
“No,” she says, and it comes out sounding terser than she’d meant. She’s too hot suddenly, and she tries not to fidget.
“Okay.” He sounds a little cautious now. She can sense his proximity as he walks over to her. “You wanna sit down?”
“Okay,” she says, doing so unceremoniously. Erend’s couch is probably uncomfortable by Meridian’s standards, but it’s far more plush than anything in the Sacred Lands, so it feels like the height of luxury to Aloy. It’s actually somewhat unsettling. Like if she leans too far back into the cushions it will swallow her whole.
“Aloy,” Erend says, sitting on the couch as well. He’s a respectable distance away but he still feels very close. “Is everything alright? You left so suddenly at the healer earlier today. I, uh, I felt like…” He clears his throat, absently scratching at his cheek, a movement Aloy only sees out of her peripheral vision because she still hasn’t fully looked at him again yet. “I felt like you were angry at me. And I… Well, I wanted to apologize, ‘cause I was being kind of an ass when we were on our way here. Teasing you and stuff.”
Aloy takes a deep breath and turns to look at him.
His left arm is bandaged properly now, and his hands are bare so she can see that two of his fingers are also bandaged and in a splint. Yet again, embarrassingly, she finds her eyes drawn to his tattoos. The one on his left shoulder is the more complex, small geometric shapes that interconnect and form a larger whole which crosses from his shoulder onto his chest, disappearing under his tanktop. He other arm is less complex (but just as beautiful) in that it’s made up of thick, interwoven stripes of black ink, also geometric in shape but a little more organic, following the curve of his muscles a bit more. It goes from his wrist all the way up to his shoulder, interrupted only by the occasional line of scar tissue.
He’s so… big. Has she never noticed before? Or maybe she thought it was mostly his armor padding, but even without it, he’s just a Very Big Man, thick and tall and maybe a little soft around the middle, but well-muscled underneath. Fuzzy, too, that coarse black hair of his dusting over his arms, shoulders, and chest.
“Aloy?”
Aloy’s eyes snap to his, cheeks burning. What had he been saying?
“N-No, I’m--” She swallows, hopes it’s not obvious. “I wasn’t--I’m not-- angry at you,” she says, and then exhales. “I just needed to clear my head. You scared me.”
“I scared you?”
“Well, not you,” she says. “You being hurt scared me.”
He does a poor job of hiding his happiness, grinning crookedly in a way that suggests he’s thinking something self-deprecating.
“How are you feeling?” she asks, gesturing to his injured arm. Now that she’s looking at him more fully, she can also see the mottling of bruises that are beginning to appear on his skin.
“Better than I was. Thanks for saving my sorry hide.” He says it with the weight of his self-destructive insecurities that she’s already very familiar with. “Sorry I wasn’t much help.”
She shakes her head. “Erend,” she says, unable to keep the exasperated affection out of her voice, “do you really think I only hang around you because I want your help?”
“Well…” He trails off, rubbing the back of his neck.
“I hang around you because I like you,” she says. “Dumbass.”
Erend smiles, all teeth, relaxing and straightening up, and the movement accentuates the fact that his shirt is very thin and leaves very little to the imagination. “Well, I like you, too,” he says, and his eyes are soft when he looks at her.
Something inside of Aloy snaps, and she realizes a moment too late that it’s the last bit of her self-control.
She half-slides, half-leans across the couch and kisses him. His whole body goes stiff, and when he doesn’t reciprocate, she pulls away absolutely mortified.
“Sorry,” she says, a mere fraction of what she feels. She wants to get up and bolt for the door, but she is frozen in shame and embarrassment. For once in her entire life, her fight or flight reflex has failed her.
After a moment, realizing Erend still hasn’t responded, she looks up at him. He’s staring at her, looking stunned, his cheeks and ears and nose flushed. He lifts a hand to his mouth, pressing his fingers against his lips, as if in disbelief.
“Did you, uh--” He swallows loudly. “Did you mean to do that?”
“Erend!” she snaps. “What, you think I’d do something like that by accident?”
“N-No, I just. Fire and spit. I-I just didn’t think…” He looks contemplative for a moment, almost troubled, and then he leans towards her, his uninjured hand reaching up to her face, the backs of his fingers brushing against her cheek. It’s all so agonizingly slow that Aloy can almost feel her patience literally fraying to threads, yet the anticipation and tension is incredible. Still, she grabs his wrist, pressing her cheek into his palm, too nervous for his tenderness. His fingers stretch out and press into her skin, warm and calloused.
He kisses her.
Aloy sighs into his mouth, and he into hers. Goddess it’s so much better than she imagined, heat flaring to life inside her like a campfire. Erend’s mustache does tickle her skin, and when that tickle is contrasted with the nip of his teeth or the wetness of his tongue it’s all Aloy can do not to shiver out of her own skin. She tilts her head as he trails kisses from her mouth to her jaw to her neck, pausing to nibble at the line of her pulse. She lets her hand slide down his arm to trace the thick, solid black lines of his tattoo.
He returns to kissing her mouth for a moment before pulling away, breathing just as hard as she is. He licks his lips, flushed all the way down his neck. “Aloy, I-I...”
“Are you okay?”
He laughs, spluttering a little. “‘Are you okay’ she asks.” He sounds highly amused. “I--yeah, I’d say I’m doing just fine.” He rests his injured hand on her waist, and the warmth of his palm even through her clothing is almost overwhelming. “Are you… Not to, y’know, pressure you or anything, but would you… want to stay the night?”
Aloy bristles despite herself, her free hand landing high on his chest and digging into the fabric of his tanktop. She hadn’t thought this far. Or she had, but it had seemed like a far off dream, or a fantasy, and she hadn’t really expected it to become reality. Now that it’s becoming a reality, however, she’s unsure. What does she want? Erend must sense her trepidation because he pulls away a little bit, lowering his hand from her face.
“Hey,” he says, “if you don’t want to, that’s okay. But I’m not ever gonna try to make you do anything you don’t want to, alright? You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I do,” she says fondly, “but… I appreciate you saying it, anyway.”
She drops her head to rest on his shoulder, looking down to where she continues to idly trace the lines of his tattoo. The muscles under her fingers shift, and his skin is warm and deceptively soft. “Erend, I… I’m not sure what I want,” she says at length.
“That’s okay,” he says, turning his head as if to look at her. “If you want, I-I can make a bed up for you out here. If you need--er, want, a place to stay tonight.”
She shakes her head a bit, pressing her fingers into his arm. “No, I mean… with you. With us.” She swallows.
“Oh,” he says, sounding a little less enthused, but the hand on her waist slides to her back and pulls her a little closer. “That’s okay.” A pause, and then he leans his head down and presses his face into her hair. “I’m no good at talking about stuff like this, but… we can talk about it, if you want.”
She grins despite herself, pushing away to look at him. He looks earnest, serious but hopeful, searching her face as she searches his. “Yeah,” she says, “we should.” She presses both hands into his chest, hooking her fingers over the hem of his neckline. “But… maybe just for tonight, we could…?”
Could what? Cuddle and try not to fuck each other senseless? Pretend that having sex isn’t going to fundamentally change their relationship? Act like they aren’t both probably head over heels in love with each other?
“Yeah,” he says, to her non-statement. “Works for me.”
He takes her hand and leads her to his bedroom. It’s sparse, a little messy but less than she’d imagined, an interesting mix of Oseram and Carja sensibilities. When they get near the bed, Erend stills, as if he’s unsure what to do next, his thumb brushing over the back of Aloy’s hand. He turns towards her, apparently deferring to her, and she closes the distance to kiss him again. He hums against her mouth, arms slipping around her back to pull her flush against him, and Aloy responds in kind, cupping his face between her hands as the kiss deepens. Her pulse kicks up, that heat from before coiling tighter inside of her as Erend slips a knee between her legs, just enough to tease her, his hands pressed into her sides.
They part, though only enough for Erend to lower his head to Aloy’s throat, biting and licking, and Aloy fails to suppress the whimper that escapes her; this seems to thrill Erend, however, as he hums again, his uninjured hand coming to massage the other side of her throat, as well as to hold her steady as he more fully bites down into her flesh, and then sucks hard. Aloy gasps, nails digging into Erend’s shoulders, her hips jerking against his thigh.
“Erend--” she breathes, pushing away, too hot, too overwhelmed, too much. He lets her go, panting. Those thin cotton pants of his leave as little to the imagination as his shirt, and his erection is obvious.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah,” she says. “Just need to catch my breath.”
“Okay,” he says, sitting on the edge of the bed. “No rush.”
After a moment of calming her nerves, Aloy goes about the methodical process of undressing, because she has a lot of layers, and trying to take them all off in the heat of passion is just going to end with her necklaces tangled in her hair or Erend further injuring himself.
Erend watches her with unabashed interest from his spot on the bed. He looks, amusingly, as though he’s about to pounce on her, all the muscles in his body pulled taut like a spring ready to snap. But he remains on the bed, patient and eager, as she pulls off all her clothes and drapes them neatly over the back of one of his chairs. When she turns around to face him, his normally light eyes are startlingly black, pupils blown wide like an animal.
He laughs. “Fire and spit, Aloy,” he says quietly. “You’re… You’re beautiful.”
She shakes her head, sitting down next to him and grabbing the hem of his shirt with a little more accidental force than necessary.
“You should take this off,” she says, and it’s not as casual or as confident as she’d wanted, her voice quivering, yet Erend wastes no time in pulling his shirt off over his head, being gentle with his injured arm.
He tosses his shirt onto the floor, much less concerned for his clothing than she is for hers, and she stares at him, at those damn tattoos that started this whole thing. Now, without a shirt on, she can see the full extent of the tattoo on his left side, the way it covers most of his pectoral muscle and then descends down to his ribcage. Between the angled geometric lines, high on his pectoral, there is an almost fractal circular shape. Aloy, throwing all her repressive tendencies out as best she can, reaches out and touches that circle, tracing over it. His skin is warm, softer than she’d expected given his history and his status as Vanguardsman. Like earlier today, she finds the physicality of touching him comforting, and something of a novelty, especially in so intimate a place. Erend shivers and sighs, leaning closer to her.
“What’s this one?” she asks. “It looks different from the other ones. Looks older.”
“Yeah,” he says, watching her finger like a Glinthawk. “‘S cause it is. Ersa got one just like it. We got ‘em together, a long time ago, when we first came to Meridian.”
“That’s sweet,” she says, going from tracing the circle to tracing the angled patterns around it. She thinks, somewhere in the back of her head, where her more intelligent thoughts are currently residing, about the Old World literature she’s read, about the universality of memorial tattoos. She wonders how often Erend’s tattoo, once a diptych, makes him feel connected to his sister, and how often it makes him feel the renewed sting of her absence. Maybe that’s why he added to his.
Attempting, with some amount of embarrassment given the situation, to push Erend’s sister out of her mind, Aloy traces those fractal shapes further down Erend’s pectoral, brushing her fingers over his nipple. She likes doing this to herself, and so she assumes (or hopes, rather) that she can replicate it on him.
Erend purrs in response to her touch, his hand settling between his legs. A reassuring reaction, she thinks, drawing closer to him. He smells strange, a mix of antiseptic and something floral, probably soap. No alcohol, though, a realization which makes Aloy’s heart flutter like a bird, only tangentially related to her arousal -- the easy realization: that he will be sober for this, and be fully present with her, and remember this in the morning. The complicated realization: that she might be (is) genuinely interested and hopeful for his future physical and mental health and wellbeing as a human. A human who she has grown attached to and invested in, maybe the first one in her entire life besides Rost.
The thought scares her for some reason, so she promptly compartmentalizes it and files it away for later, when she has time to anguish about her complicated personal feelings for relationships, and love, and family, and humanity in general. Sometime other than when Erend is making those soft, sweet eyes at her and palming himself through his trousers in response to her stimuli.
Aloy leans forward and kisses him. His hands slip from his own space into hers, calloused fingertips skimming her spine and ribs, featherlight. She shivers.
“That tickles,” she says.
“Good tickle or bad tickle?” he asks, fingers sweeping to her front, over her stomach, and then up, brushing the undersides of her breasts. She shuts her eyes, bracing herself against him, fire scorching her insides as he teases her there, brushing the sensitive skin where her breasts meet her ribs.
“Good tickle,” she says, laughing at the stupidity of this conversation, pressing her face into his. He huffs out a laugh as well, and then his hands ascend to cup her breasts, squeezing gently. His left hand, splinted as it is, is less dextrous than his right, but it doesn’t matter, and Aloy gasps, nails digging into Erend’s shoulders as she kisses him hungrily.
“Aloy,” he breathes, thumbs catching her nipples and rubbing, working them in tiny little circles like she’d traced his tattoo. She whines into Erend’s mouth, that heat inside of her twisting like a knife, and she gracelessly clambers over to sit on his lap.
He groans as she rocks her hips against him, and she realizes she’s groaning as well; Erend replaces his injured hand with his mouth, lapping at her with the tip of his tongue, his mustache and beard tickling her skin. It feels incredible, amplified so much more than when she touches herself, Erend’s fingers and tongue like a brand that sends her nerves into a frenzy.
She rocks against him, can feel the outline of his erection pressed into the apex of her thighs, and something inside of her pops, and she’s suddenly climaxing in his arms with a shaky sigh.
Erend stills for a moment, and then lifts his head, brows furrowed.
“Did you just… come?” he asks, looking far too smug for his own good.
Aloy pants, pleasant pins and needles prickling under her skin. She flops against him, burying her face in the crook of his neck. “Outcast,” she says, by way of justification. “I don’t exactly have much experience with this.”
Erend chuckles and rubs up and down her ribs. “Hey, I’m the last person who’d judge you for something like that,” he says, “Fire and spit, I’ve had my fair share of, uh… let’s call them ‘expedient performances’.”
She laughs despite her relative embarrassment. He pulls her hair over one of her shoulders and leans down to kiss her shoulder and neck. “‘Sides, you’ve got the advantage here. Might as well go for the record.”
His voice is light, the slightest bit teasing, and Aloy brushes her fingers along his ribs in revenge for it. He yelps, writhing away from her grasp and laughing helplessly as he attempts to crawl up the bed and escape her hands.
“Don’t tease me,” she says, with no venom in her voice.
“Ah! Okay, alright! I’m sorry!” he says, grappling with her, grabbing her wrists and pushing her away. She relents, leaning back. Erend managed to crawl pretty far up the bed, actually, and now he is laying flat on his back with just his knees still hanging off the edge. Aloy is perched conspicuously on top of his hips. Just as he notices this, she gives her own a generous roll, and whatever he’d been about to say comes out as an unintelligible moan instead. He grabs her thighs, squeezing tightly, his eyes fluttering closed to revel in the sensation of her grinding down against him.
Aloy watches his throat bob as he swallows, and his chest heave as he breathes. Watches his brows furrow, watches his mouth drop open as he makes unashamed noises of pleasure. Watches his muscles twitch and flutter under her hands. Watches him meet her gaze with those damned soft, sweet, heartbroken eyes of his. He stares at her like she’s the only person who matters -- and not like the Nora do, not like she’s a deity, or a chosen one -- but like she’s a perfectly ordinary human being who just happens to be his favorite one in the entire world. It’s a distinctly different feeling. She tries very hard not to fall anymore in love with him than she already is.
Erend’s grip on her thighs suddenly tightens so hard it’s almost painful, evidently in an attempt to stop her. “Wait wait wait hold on stop for a second,” he babbles, pulling his hips back away from hers. She lifts her own hips, and then, after a moment, stands up, deciding that she’s tired of the fact that he still has pants on.
“You good?” she asks, hooking her fingers over the edge of his waistband.
Erend sighs, grinning up at the ceiling. “Y’know that thing I said about ‘expedient performances’?” He rubs his face, wiping at his eyes. Aloy pulls off his pants, somewhat unceremoniously. He is not wearing any undergarments, and indeed, his cock is flushed very deep red and leaking quite profusely.
Aloy has not seen a man naked in a sexual setting before. She finds herself fascinated, not only by Erend’s cock, but also the rest of him. Seeing as he’s taking a moment to catch his breath anyway, she has no qualms about letting herself stare and take in every detail; his thighs, in particular, are thick and muscular just like his arms, covered in more of those geometric tattoos just like he’d mentioned. On his left, more angular diamonds and squares, covering his outer thigh. On his right, rounded shapes, coalescing into a larger whole, a bit like a rounded diamond, with small black circles punctuating each of its four points. She finds herself singling out those circles, mostly because one is situated on his inner thigh, and it’s far more erotic than it has any right to be. It’s just a circle, after all. On his inner thigh. On his tender, intimate inner thigh, so close to his cock.
Aloy’s face flushes, and she draws closer to him again, crouching between his knees. Erend jolts when he realizes where she’s going. “Whoa whoa, what are you doing?” he asks. It’s maybe a stupid question, but she can’t blame him.
“Just looking,” she says, even though she immediately contradicts herself by reaching out to trace the lines of ink covering his thigh.
“Ah--” he says, settling on his elbows. “I’ve noticed you seem kind of… You like my tattoos.”
“They’re pretty,” she says absentmindedly. Honestly, though, she can’t pinpoint why she’s so fascinated with them. They are pretty, to be sure, but she’s seen tattoos before and she’s never been so enthralled with them as she is now. She imagines him under the needle, enduring hours of pain just to decorate his body; maybe she respects that -- though the sudden twist of heat that mental image elicits makes her reconsider that maybe she finds it… sexy instead? Well, she’s not about to question her sexual fantasies -- at least not at the moment -- questionable though they may be.
Maybe just because they are Erend’s, is why she likes them so much. They fit him. They belong to him. They’re a part of him, an extension of his personality and culture and tastes. That idea makes something else twist through her, something much scarier to her than lust: genuine affection. Fondness. Investment. Feelings.
She tries to push the sudden wave away, but she looks up at him to see him watching her with equal parts desire and equal parts something else, something that looks very similar to how she feels.
There are dangerous words in her mouth, very close to spilling out. She swallows them down.
She looks away from his face, back to his tattoo, dipping her head to kiss his skin. His muscles stiffen in response, his breath catching audibly. She trails her lips over the rounded curve of ink, breathing him in; he smells different down here, much more like sweat and sex and human, and even though it’s somewhat unpleasant Aloy finds that she likes it. She lets her right hand rest on his other thigh, high up in the junction where it meets his hip, brushing her fingers through the curly hair there. He takes a deep breath.
“Aloy…”
She doesn’t look at him. His injured hand lands on her head, but doesn’t move her, just touches, fingers carding through her hair. Chills rush down her head and neck, and, somewhat overwhelmed, she bites down on the meat of his thigh. Surprised, he lets out a noise somewhere between a moan and a laugh, and Aloy’s own arousal spikes. She follows her teeth with her tongue, down from the top of his thigh to the inside, along that rounded diamond shape, until she reaches her target: that little circle from before.
She kisses it, but does not tease long. Erend is making incredible noises above her, and she has absolutely no desire to give him any reason to stop. She traces that circle with the tip of her tongue, and then attaches her mouth to it, biting down roughly. Erend lets out a strangled gasp, the un-splinted fingers of his hand digging into her scalp and sending sparks showering down her spine. She finds herself groaning into his thigh, and follows her teeth with another wet, messy kiss, and then another bite, a little gentler this time, only to follow that by sucking hard on his skin.
Erend shouts, jolting, his free leg jostling her as he writhes. His uninjured hand wraps around his cock and he moans long and loud as she sucks on his tattoo, drawing blood to the surface of his skin.
“Aloy, holy fucking shit, oh fuck-- ”
She relents, pulling away from him with one more lick. He is breathing hard, laying flat on his back again, hand working his cock. Aloy kneels, propping her elbows on his thighs. “Okay?” she asks, teasingly.
“Fuck,” he says again.
She laughs, watching his hand with rapt interest. The sight of him so undone, wrecked and flushed and sweaty, his moans still echoing in her ears, sends Aloy’s arousal into overdrive. Using his thighs for leverage, she pushes herself up and climbs onto his lap.
He looks up at her. “Wha--Okay, we’re doing this?” he says.
“Yeah,” she says, placing her hands on his chest to steady herself. She’s shaking in anticipation. “Yeah. I want you.” It’s out of her mouth before she thinks better of it. It might mean more than that.
Erend’s brows furrow a little, and then he grins, looking lovesick. “I want you, too, Aloy.”
She meets his grin with her own, a little trepidatious but no less enthusiastic. She feels full to bursting. He wants her, too.
She lowers her hips, letting him push her around a bit to get her better positioned, and then presses down. She expects it to hurt, and it does a little bit, but more than that she is startled by the feeling of invasion; he is hot and steel hard inside her, stretching her muscles, and she whimpers.
“You okay?” he asks, petting her thighs with those big, warm hands of his.
“Yeah,” she says, taking a second to get used to the feeling, kneading her fingers into his chest. “Yeah, it just feels weird.”
“Take your time,” he says, a bit strained. His hips are tense underneath her, obviously eager to move.
She twists a little, and the movement sends ripples of heat through her belly and thighs, easing the stretch as pleasure distracts her from the twinging sting where they meet. Erend lets out a measured breath, fingers digging into her.
“Oh-- you feel... amazing,” he whispers. It’s a sentiment she does not return, at the moment, but it’s getting better.
Is it supposed to be this anticlimactic? she wants to ask, but just as she thinks that, Erend adjusts his hips, pulls out a little, and then pushes back in. It’s a small movement, but he hits something inside of her and--
“Erend!” she yelps.
He goes very still. “Sorry--”
“Do that again.”
He does not need telling twice. He pulls out a little further this time, jerks back in, and Aloy literally sees stars. She gasps for air as it’s knocked out of her lungs, squeezing her eyes shut. “Erend--don’t stop--”
He doesn’t, his hips picking up speed, hitting that little sweet spot inside of her over and over again, and Aloy moans, digging her fingernails into Erend’s chest. He moans back, a lewd call and response between them, which only intensifies when she thinks to move as well, trying to find a corresponding rhythm to meet his. Erend swears, and Aloy swears too, and then the pad of Erend’s thumb presses against her clit, rubbing little circles into it.
Aloy comes, suddenly and with a loud, long moan, her whole body shuddering and twitching and on fire. It’s nothing like she’s ever experienced before, overtaking all of her senses so completely that for a moment it’s all she can feel, all she can think about, everything else pushed out of her to make room for the fireworks that are exploding inside of her body.
She drifts back to herself gradually, somewhat disoriented. Erend hasn’t stopped moving.
“Aloy, I… Can I… I gotta flip over,” he says.
“Okay,” she says.
He does so, rolling over, and the feeling of being caged in by his body is one that Aloy could very easily get used to. He gets his hands under her knees, pulling them over his arms so that she’s almost bent double. It feels obscene, but when he resumes that desperate, frantic snap of his hips he hits that spot inside her again, and she bites down on her knuckles so that the pain will distract her from the pleasure that already threatens to break apart and overtake her again.
Erend laughs. “We're gonna get that record, baby,” he says, leaning down to kiss her cheek.
“I highly doubt three is the --ah-- record,” she says, gritting her teeth, turning to kiss his mouth.
“Oh--hah--no doubt,” he says, “so we’ll just have to go all night, huh?”
Aloy laughs, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I don’t think--” She gasps, her thoughts fizzling out for a second. “I don’t think I’d be able to handle that.”
“Practice makes perfect, yeah?” He kisses her again, hips stuttering. He must be close. “We’ll get there.”
We’ll get there.
The idea of doing this again (and again, and again, and again) and what that might mean for them -- what would that make them? What would it mean? Would they be… together? It makes her feel like she’s freefalling, equal parts thrilling and terrifying.
She buries her face into Erend’s neck and lets herself get lost in sensation, emptying her mind of ‘what if’s and ‘but then’s and focusing on the present moment. Erend in turn kisses whatever skin he finds under his lips; he’s mumbling something, but Aloy can’t make it out over their shared gasping and the wet, rhythmic beat of skin-against-skin, except for when her name makes its way to her ears in a broken little whisper. She slips a hand down between her thighs and touches herself, and this time her climax is like climbing into a warm bath, a full-body, buzzing glow that washes over her from head to toe and lingers, tingling, in her limbs.
She turns her head away from his neck and traces his tattoo with her fingers once more, lets her fingers dip down to that circle over his pectoral, and then ever-so-gently tweak his nipple between her fingers. His hips snap forward and he buries deep inside her, coming with a groan, still babbling under his breath as he kisses her shoulder over and over again.
It takes several long moments for him to relax again. He pulls away slightly, pulling out of her, freeing her legs and letting her stretch out again, though he stays close enough to kiss her, slow and languid and still a little impassioned. “Okay?” he asks, brushing some stray hair out of her face.
“Yeah.”
“Alright,” he says, “C’mere.”
He wraps his arms around her and just… hugs her. He’s hot and sweaty, and his arms are so big and unyielding it’s almost suffocating; Aloy finds herself melting into his embrace, resting her head on his shoulder, her muscles slackening and her whole body relaxing into his.
Her eyes sting. She squeezes them shut.
Erend continues hugging her for a moment, and then he lets her go with a kiss on her cheek so he can climb properly onto the bed, under the covers. She follows after him, curling up against his right side, and he sighs, sliding his uninjured arm around her. Aloy decides she will probably never get tired of Erend’s arms. She lays her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, once again absentmindedly tracing over the tattoo on his pectoral.
“Aloy,” he says after a bit of silence, and the caution in his voice causes dread to needle into her shoulder blades. “You, uh… Earlier you mentioned that you didn’t know what you wanted. With regards to… to us, I mean.”
Aloy doesn’t reply, pressing her hand flat against his skin. Her anxiety thumps against the inside of her ribs.
“I just want to… To put it out there, y'know--not to try and influence you or pressure you or anything, just so you know where I stand.” He swallows audibly. “Like I said before, I’m not good at talking about stuff like this, but--”
“Erend,” she says, knocking on his chest with her knuckles. “It’s okay. Tell me.”
He sighs. “Okay. I like you, Aloy. I really like you,” he says. “And I, I understand if you don’t feel the same way, I mean, I know I’m not exactly the top catch in town, but I…” He pauses, scratches idly at his cheek with his injured hand. “If you ever decided you wanted to take a chance on us? I’d take that chance in an instant.” The words come out a little stilted, a little awkward, but it’s obvious he means them with every inch of his soul. Aloy’s eyes sting again, her heart lodging itself in her throat. She takes his injured hand in her own and gives it the gentlest of squeezes, just enough to make a point without hurting him.
“Erend…” She bites her lip, steeling herself, then pushes herself up to face him. He looks almost as nervous as she feels. It’s comforting. “I like you, too,” she says, and something in her chest dislodges as she says it, and she comes dangerously close to crying; her breath hitches and she takes a moment to collect herself before continuing on, hoping that he didn’t notice. “There’s just… There’s so much going on. So much I still have to do. I don’t know where it’ll take me, or what I’ll be doing, or how long I’ll be gone, and I--”
Erend’s reaches up to cup her face with his hand, his thumb brushing her cheekbone; Aloy presses into it, closing her eyes.
“I understand,” he says. “It’s okay.”
“Erend…” she says, when I’m sorry is what she means.
“I’m not in any rush,” he says.
She opens her eyes to look at him, finds him watching her with a small smile and those soft eyes. Chest aching, she leans forward to kiss him, burning as many details of this moment into her brain as she can -- the way he smells, the residual heat of his skin, the rough pads of his fingers against her face, the press of his mouth, the gentle scratch of his facial hair, his heart on his proverbial sleeve for her. When they part, she nestles as close to him as she can, and he strokes his fingers through her hair.
She’s almost drifted off to sleep when he says, “Hey,” and his voice is much lighter than before. Tired. Satiated. Happy.
“Hm?”
“What do you like to eat for breakfast?”
It takes her a moment, and then she tilts her head up towards him. “What?”
“I’ll make you breakfast tomorrow. What do you like? What’s your favorite?”
Her chest tightens and she huffs out a laugh. “I’m not picky... I usually eat whatever’s easiest to make on the road.”
“Mm hmm,” he hums, stroking his hand up and down her back. “I’ll surprise you, then.”
“You… don’t have to do that, Erend.”
“I want to.” Simple as that. He wants to. He wants her.
She squeezes him, and he squeezes her back. “Can’t deny it’d be nice to have a real meal again.”
“Done and done,” he says, settling further into the bed and kissing the top of her head. She sighs deeply as sleepiness overtakes her. “Goodnight, Aloy.” I love you.
“Goodnight, Erend.” I love you, too.
It’s mere minutes before she’s asleep, and she dreams of fractal tattoos.