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Luna Rose, Lux thinks, is more gorgeous than any mortal has the right to be.
Lux Rose, she reminds herself a second later, still staring dreamily at her wife- her wife! - as Luna surveys the game on the table with a keen eye. She’s been doing that often, the reminder, and perhaps it should embarrass her, continually badgering her own thought processes with something so simple as a last name- but when one’s married to someone like Luna Rose, how could she not be expected to preen in its glory whenever she’s given the opportunity?
“...don’t even see why you’re putting that much on the line,” their opponent- Major Dylan MacArthur, Lux recalls, a flash of distaste cutting through her very pleasant thoughts about her dear wife- sneers, and Lux sneers back. Neither he nor the three silent bodyguards behind him notice, distracted as they are by Luna, but she feels a childish sense of satisfaction fill her nonetheless. “We both know you can’t afford it, not against the empire I’ve built. Better to give up now- or, if you’re gonna be stubborn about it, the offer’s still open.” He gestures at a box of hexagonal tokens, and Luna rolls her eyes.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re horrible at trash talk?” she snorts, wrapping an arm around Lux’s waist where she’s perched on the armrest of the oversized chair to pull her a bit closer to her lap. Lux’s face flushes, and the ditzy grin tugging at her lips wins out over any sense of “professionalism” in an instant when Luna’s thumb starts rubbing circles into her side through her suit jacket. “Besides, I don’t need your damned bargaining chips, old man. I’ve got my good Lux charm with me.”
Her lips curl around the pet name in a smirk that shows her teeth, and were she a weaker woman Lux might’ve dropped to her knees right then and there. She’d been ever so proud of herself when she came up with that, though getting Luna to catch onto it was an entirely different manner- the cocky, smooth way she slides it across the table now was preceded by months of hinting, eye-rolling, and adorably flushed cheeks. She’s ever so stubborn when it comes to that sort of thing, but Lux doesn’t mind. The firm pressure of her arm against Lux’s lower back says more to her than any flowery nickname ever could.
Lux giggles to herself, pressing as close to Luna as she possibly can without falling off the armrest entirely. There’s more going on now, which she absentmindedly picks up, turns over in her hands, then discards, resolving to save her brainpower for something a bit more meaningful- like the wedding ring gleaming on her finger.
It’s very pretty, two strands of silver and rose gold twining around each other and hammered into a single band. Lux has been enamored with it since the wedding, but really, who could blame her? It’s become habit to get lost in it, in the idea of being Luna Rose’s husband, when she has time, giving her a center for her whirling thoughts to condense around. Sometimes, Luna will see her and laugh, not unkindly, at the way she’s staring at her finger like it’ll buy her a drink if she burns a hole through it- but when she looks up, a bit flustered in the way she only is around Luna, Luna just grins and opens her arms, murmurs, “c’mere, Lux,” and Lux will smile back and come home.
“Lux, hun? Could you pass me my drink?” Luna asks, snapping Lux from her reverie. One of the bodyguards laughs, definitely unkindly, and Lux can see Luna’s hackles raise as she slides her martini across the table.
“You really know how to pick ‘em, eh?” MacArthur remarks, echoing the derogatory sentiment of his goon. Luna’s eyes narrow.
“The hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“Your husband’s been out of it this entire game, Rose. I get having arm candy for the aesthetic, but marrying her? That’s a whole extra mile.”
Luna’s hands slam down on the table as her chair goes screeching backwards, startling Lux from her perch and sending stacks of tokens clattering out of balance. “You don’t talk about Lux like that,” she snarls, and a shock of vindictive pleasure shoots through Lux when MacArthur barely stifles a flinch.
“Oh, Luna- I think it’s only fair, my moonlight,” she coos anyways, pushing the chair back into place and tugging Luna down by her sleeve. “He’s right, you know- I have been distracted.”
“Yeah?” Luna raises an eyebrow as Lux’s hand begins to wander up her sleeve to her shoulder. “By what?”
“I would’ve thought that was obvious,” Lux grins back, moving up to catch Luna’s jaw between finger and thumb. She delights in the little shiver that emanates from that point of contact, just as much as the hard glint in Luna’s eyes when she does so.
“Couldn’t possibly be your wife,” Luna quips, smirking as Lux brushes a few wrinkles from her shirt and then… lingers, taking a slow, languid trip under her jacket to rest at her side.
“Oh, I’m not so sure about that.”
“Are you two done?” MacArthur gripes from the other end of the table. Luna looks at him with untold contempt, moving a sequence of three pieces on the board before immediately turning back to Lux.
“Let the lady grope her wife in peace, Douglas,” she drawls.
“Dylan.”
“I don’t care.”
Lux giggles, keeping her hand firmly where it is. “Terribly sorry, Major,” she chirps, not looking up. Luna’s brow furrows again, but Lux shakes her head minutely, keeping Luna’s eyes locked on hers. “I’d hate to waste your time.” Her fingers close around the knife in the lining of Luna’s suit jacket, and in one fluid motion, she pulls it from its sheath and throws it very satisfyingly into MacArthur’s chest.
There’s a brief moment of silence as the major chokes, and then all hell breaks loose.
MacArthur collapses to the floor, and the three bodyguards immediately rush forwards, each reaching inside their own jackets for something. Lux grins, pulling her own knife from her bra and meeting the rightmost one head on.
Something turns out to be blades as sharp and wicked as their own- a knife fight, then, which seems incredibly ironic considering the rule of no weapons allowed both parties’d had to agree to before the game, but, Lux supposes as she dodges a downwards slash and cuts a nasty slit up her guard’s side, those rules always were more for show anyways. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Luna fighting two on one, an intense look on her face that would be enough to make Lux swoon if not for the current situation. She moves quickly, near silently compared to the brutish stomping of their opponents, slipping between and around and under them with a deadly grace that’s always taken Lux’s breath away. Her knives find their target over and over easy as breathing, and within moments, one of them- the less skilled of the two- goes down.
“One to one,” Luna calls, lunging forward to attack the other, and Lux’s eyes light up. So that’s how it is, is it?
Well, she can hardly let Luna outdo her here. Her opponent slashes again, and this time she ducks close, sliding past the blade to grab their arm and dig her fingers in. They yelp when her acrylics pierce the fabric of their suit, then yell when she shifts her body weight and sends them arcing over her head and onto the floor. Their back hits the ground with a nasty thud and moments later, just as Luna’s other opponent crumples, she clocks them over the head as hard as she can with the hilt of her knife.
For a moment, it’s silent, with only Lux’s panting and the soft sound of Luna retrieving her dagger from MacArthur’s chest filling the air between them. Then-
“Well, I think it’s fair to say I won that one, don’t you?”
“What the hell- no you didn’t.”
“I did! ”
“We took down the same number of people-”
“Yes, but that knife throw?”
“I was fighting two at once! And,” Luna adds faux-bitterly, wiping off her knife and scowling over at Lux, “I was distracted.”
“Oh? Whatever for?” Lux smirks, ripping a scrap of fabric from one of the goons’ shirts and cleaning her knife as best she can before she tucks it back into her cleavage. Luna’s eyes follow the motion shamelessly.
“I think you can guess.” She chuckles, her gaze flicking back up. “That throw should be illegal, you know. Almost got me hit, I was so busy staring at…” The sentence trails off as Luna steps into Lux’s space, running one finger up her arm. Lux gasps, holding back a shudder at just that little bit of contact- she was draped across Luna’s lap not five minutes ago, she’s a big girl, pull it together, Lux.
“Oh, my moonlight, I didn’t realize I could’ve gotten you hurt!” she fawns instead, taking Luna’s face between her hands and dramatically checking her over for injuries until Luna stifles a laugh. “I’m terribly sorry for distracting you, dearest- is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”
Luna hums, as if considering. She steps closer, the hand on Lux’s bicep coming up to take her wrist in slender fingers. Slowly, she guides Lux’s hands to her waist and Lux lets her, leans further forward when Luna tugs her in by the collar of her shirt, gladly going wherever Luna wants her to be.
Then she laughs, a wicked, crescent-moon grin curling across her lips, and Lux wants nothing more than to kiss it off them. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll find a way.”
Lux does. Enthusiastically.