[Original] Africa
Sep. 12th, 2011 01:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittydesadeTitle: Africa
Source: Black Stone Rising
Genre: Urban Fantasy/Erotic
Characters: Astrid Kessler, Greg Pearson
Word Count: 754
Summary: Towards the end of the siege, as everything runs short, so do Greg and Astrid's desires to maintain the century old lie that they did not care for each other that way.
A/N: Set roughly 100 years in the future and planned at least three years ago; any resemblance to current political issues is a less than remarkable coincidence. Part of the reasoning behind the plot was that it was entirely politically, socially, economically plausible. I just didn't expect it to be quite so damn accurate. No specific countries are referenced, but if parallels to real-life current situations as a backdrop for a love tragedy would bother you, it might be best to hit the back button now. Written for the![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
kink_bingo prompt "Danger"
They all but stopped talking after that.
After the evening of unexpected lovemaking and waking up tangled together in sweat and blankets, and after the world had failed to end for the last several weeks, the need to fill the silence with words seemed to ebb. The danger was right outside their front door, sometimes coming in on the backs of bullets. Very few people went down to the first floor any more, except to get water.
They slept during the day. Came out at night, when the heat was less stifling and it was still bright as day with the flames. And the smoke that never went away.
Astrid went onto the roof for some privacy, and to feel the air on her skin. More than anything, now, she wanted to shift and fly away but she was no longer able to. They'd lost weight, everyone had lost weight and mass from being on short rations, and she didn't have the nutrients to spare for the change. Let alone anything to eat once she was in her larger form.
Well, no. She could always eat the soldiers. But that was morbid humor, and made her shudder and heave just to think of it.
Greg's hands closed around her shoulders, keeping her upright but also keeping her warm. Steady. She'd stripped down to the skin, having no real problem with either nudity or vulnerability by now, but he was still in his threadbare jeans that by now were only held together by desperation and the accumulated filth of a fortnight. Life under siege, far less glamorous than the artfully distressed damsels of the silver screen would have one believe.
The sky caught fire as they kissed. In a movie, it would have been on the strength of their passion, but the strength of their passion was because the sky was on fire, because there was no way out and no reason left to fool themselves. Especially when they already knew they weren't fooling each other.
Still, no talking. No words. There was nothing left to say about the hotel, the war, the situation that could kill them at any moment, they both knew that. They'd exchanged the customary few sentences about the messages he still tried to send, every day, from that makeshift array they shared the roof with. She glanced over at it with a slight, sad smile as they stretched out on the gravel. Casting bottles into the ocean, he'd called it. With about as much chance of success. Maybe years later someone would find those messages and learn roughly what had happened to them.
And in the meantime, they had this. Making love by moonlight on the roof with the noise and smoke of mortars and shelling all around. Slow, long touches. Taking the time to enjoy every inch of their bodies, every sound and sensation because any of those shells could come crashing through the roof, now. Maybe that was why they were on the roof, so that the next hit would be sure to kill them in the midst of clutching at each other and drowning in each other's scent and bodies.
Greg pulled her on top of him, fingers digging into her hips, at her back. Increasing desperation, increasing roughness but not violence, never violence. They could both take a lot of punishment before the pain crept out of the sphere of pleasure. Her knees, his back scraped against the loose ground on the roof. Her leaner than usual frame silhouetted against the orange and red and purple-green hazed sky. And when she looked down his slightly sunburnt face made even more gold by the sunset and the blue eyes still heart-rending blue. The way he looked at her, more than the color itself.
He'd always looked at her that way, hadn't he? At least since she found out what he was. All of what he was. And he knew what she was, and for a century or so.
And none of it mattered when they were still two very fragile, very mortal creatures trying to cling to the last bit of what was good as their chances of survival dropped nearer to zero. Wrapped around each other, feeling less of the gravel and more of the warmth of bare skin on skin, listening to each other's heartbeat and breathing so close. Which said, in the end, all that they needed to say.
Source: Black Stone Rising
Genre: Urban Fantasy/Erotic
Characters: Astrid Kessler, Greg Pearson
Word Count: 754
Summary: Towards the end of the siege, as everything runs short, so do Greg and Astrid's desires to maintain the century old lie that they did not care for each other that way.
A/N: Set roughly 100 years in the future and planned at least three years ago; any resemblance to current political issues is a less than remarkable coincidence. Part of the reasoning behind the plot was that it was entirely politically, socially, economically plausible. I just didn't expect it to be quite so damn accurate. No specific countries are referenced, but if parallels to real-life current situations as a backdrop for a love tragedy would bother you, it might be best to hit the back button now. Written for the
kink_bingo prompt "Danger"They all but stopped talking after that.
After the evening of unexpected lovemaking and waking up tangled together in sweat and blankets, and after the world had failed to end for the last several weeks, the need to fill the silence with words seemed to ebb. The danger was right outside their front door, sometimes coming in on the backs of bullets. Very few people went down to the first floor any more, except to get water.
They slept during the day. Came out at night, when the heat was less stifling and it was still bright as day with the flames. And the smoke that never went away.
Astrid went onto the roof for some privacy, and to feel the air on her skin. More than anything, now, she wanted to shift and fly away but she was no longer able to. They'd lost weight, everyone had lost weight and mass from being on short rations, and she didn't have the nutrients to spare for the change. Let alone anything to eat once she was in her larger form.
Well, no. She could always eat the soldiers. But that was morbid humor, and made her shudder and heave just to think of it.
Greg's hands closed around her shoulders, keeping her upright but also keeping her warm. Steady. She'd stripped down to the skin, having no real problem with either nudity or vulnerability by now, but he was still in his threadbare jeans that by now were only held together by desperation and the accumulated filth of a fortnight. Life under siege, far less glamorous than the artfully distressed damsels of the silver screen would have one believe.
The sky caught fire as they kissed. In a movie, it would have been on the strength of their passion, but the strength of their passion was because the sky was on fire, because there was no way out and no reason left to fool themselves. Especially when they already knew they weren't fooling each other.
Still, no talking. No words. There was nothing left to say about the hotel, the war, the situation that could kill them at any moment, they both knew that. They'd exchanged the customary few sentences about the messages he still tried to send, every day, from that makeshift array they shared the roof with. She glanced over at it with a slight, sad smile as they stretched out on the gravel. Casting bottles into the ocean, he'd called it. With about as much chance of success. Maybe years later someone would find those messages and learn roughly what had happened to them.
And in the meantime, they had this. Making love by moonlight on the roof with the noise and smoke of mortars and shelling all around. Slow, long touches. Taking the time to enjoy every inch of their bodies, every sound and sensation because any of those shells could come crashing through the roof, now. Maybe that was why they were on the roof, so that the next hit would be sure to kill them in the midst of clutching at each other and drowning in each other's scent and bodies.
Greg pulled her on top of him, fingers digging into her hips, at her back. Increasing desperation, increasing roughness but not violence, never violence. They could both take a lot of punishment before the pain crept out of the sphere of pleasure. Her knees, his back scraped against the loose ground on the roof. Her leaner than usual frame silhouetted against the orange and red and purple-green hazed sky. And when she looked down his slightly sunburnt face made even more gold by the sunset and the blue eyes still heart-rending blue. The way he looked at her, more than the color itself.
He'd always looked at her that way, hadn't he? At least since she found out what he was. All of what he was. And he knew what she was, and for a century or so.
And none of it mattered when they were still two very fragile, very mortal creatures trying to cling to the last bit of what was good as their chances of survival dropped nearer to zero. Wrapped around each other, feeling less of the gravel and more of the warmth of bare skin on skin, listening to each other's heartbeat and breathing so close. Which said, in the end, all that they needed to say.