Private Masters Of Our Own Fates

[Vizion Trozky]

EMERALD HEIGHTS
GALLO MOUNTAINS ☛ NABOO

He accepted the glass, gold-flecked eyes continuing to be fixed on her as he took a much longer draw of wine from the vessel than she had from hers. As much to soothe his suddenly parched insides, as it was to loosen up the feeling of tension building throughout.

"It means..." her voice trailed off, heart giving a steady thump. "...that I want to be with someone who reminds me what it feels like not to hurt."

[ Be with? ] He was pulled in two directions - mind in one, body in the other. A wandering thought he was only a little distracted from when she continued.

"It means..."

And when she became closer still and put her hand atop his. He lowered the glass, and slowly set it aside without a glance, trying to decipher her answers.

"...I trust you not to break me more, and that right now...that's all I need."

His whole being begged for an assumption he didn't want to make. Either one. The furled hand turned, slipping under her palm, thumb over her fingers... the other lifted, reaching and curled, brushing against her cheek. It had to be too soon for her, and if that was true? His hand came to rest in a soft grasp of her chin, lifting pressure given by his curled fingers to keep her head where he wanted it. He didn't want her evading him any further. He could think of no other way to go about this.

"I... need you," he swallowed - his tone was direct, despite speaking softly, "to be very clear about what you're asking of me, Briana."

Briana Sal-Soren​

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

The tension radiating off of him was a near tangible thing—the careful stillness, the restraint coiled in every muscle like he was holding back a storm. Her body went stock still as his coarse fingers wrapped beneath her chin, feeling some of that tension transfer into her through the action, letting him tilt her head and force her sharp blue eyes to focus on him — pinned beneath that familiar, burning gaze that made everything around them fade into nothing more than white noise, the tone and delivery of his words coaxing her to confront the decision she was making.

With anyone else, Briana would have undoubtedly pulled away by now, would have found some clever way to deflect and reclaim the upper hand. She was good at that — had been for years.

Except with him, never with him. Viz had always been the one exception.

Her fingers curled against his palm, holding him in return as her throat worked, the sound of her own breathing and the veritable drum of her own heart, magnified in her ears.

All she had to do was be honest. Such a simple thing, really. So then, why did the truth feel like stepping off the edge of a cliff? Briana caught her lower lip between her teeth, the slight sting centering her, giving her something to focus on beyond the chaos of her scattered thoughts and the growing intensity of his presence.

"I want you," finally came her reply, the words low, soft, and breathy as they carried across what narrow space remained. "Just you..." she added, careful in the way she framed it, not wanting to give the illusion that she was offering more than what she was capable of. "...in this moment." Her lips parted as if to say more, but closed again. Fear crept through her veins—fear of how he'd look at her once he truly understood what she was asking. Would drawing this line be what forced him away? Gathering the dredges of her courage, Briana pulled a breath into her lungs and forced the rest of her words out. "Without promises, without commitments — only tonight."

Vizion Trozky​

 

[Vizion Trozky]

EMERALD HEIGHTS
GALLO MOUNTAINS ☛ NABOO

Watching Briana nip hard on her lower lip was a transfixion that gave Vizion more than she perhaps realised or even intended. He wasn’t sure if it was just a thing she did, or if it was also indicative.

His eyes went to hers as she started to speak. By the time she was done unfurling her response, however, he wasn’t certain he’d ever get to find out… too soon, all things considered, but he wasn’t going to forget it; with other realisations coming to the fore on the heels of her response, that fleeting curiosity was set aside.

There was so much else to learn, first. He could do this, but it wasn't anything he'd expected. Not in his foresight. Perhaps now he'd know better.

He loosened his grip on her chin, the pad of his thumb tracing along that same lip and his eyes drawn to it, while he started to mull over what he’d say, how many times he had imagined this, and how little remained of those idealisations, in the face of reality. How much he had wanted this, only to get in his own damn way.

“So that’s what you need,” he uttered absently, quietly, almost an accusation while the hand at her chin and his gaze went to one of her bare shoulders, “incredible. That’s--” and the remaining hand let go of hers and went to the opposite shoulder, with the same gentle hold, as his eyes found hers again, “--in hindsight? Very clear.”

It wasn't clever - no, it was bratty; nothing he could rightly do about that, here.

“The dress, your behaviour,” he shook his head slowly, mildly amused, as much as perturbed and keyed up, thumbs rubbing softly, “your parlour, Miss Spider, and I am the fly.”

If not for the years of separation, would it have been more obvious to him? There was no way to know for sure. There was still a question that needed to be asked.

“Stims?”

Briana Sal-Soren​

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

The line he traced along her lip with the rough pad of his thumb sent a prickle of warmth radiating down her spine, his hands ultimately finding purchase against her bare shoulders. It was electric. But, it was his words and the way that he delivered them, that truly caught her off guard, made her brows pull quizzically together and caused her to pause.

He seemed strangely, pleased? If not amused? Like he'd finally found the lost pieces to a complex puzzle. Then the little reference. Miss Spider. Briana supposed he wasn't wrong, entirely. She'd orchestrated this...hadn't she? However unconsciously those thoughts had initially been, unable to pinpoint exactly where the idea even started — not that it mattered, really. It was there all the same. As undeniable as the thin black dress hugging her frame and the feel of Vizion's branding touch drawing faint circles over her heating skin.

“Stims?”

Of course he would think to ask.

"Yes," she answered, no hesitation or shame in the admission. It was the responsible decision, one she'd made a long while before anything with Aiden, having given it the same careful consideration that applied to anything that could potentially affect her future and goals. Though, taking them these past few weeks felt...different — the routine turning into a constant reminder of possibilities lost and that elusive 'future' she'd once coveted, stolen. "Force of habit."

Reaching up, Briana laid the hand that'd been in his, against his uninjured cheek, stroking her thumb over the stubble. "But, you're hardly trapped here, Viz." Not quite catching on to the meaning of whatever conclusion he'd drawn, her chin lifting with that familiar touch of pride, of challenge, of provocation, even as the action caused her heart to strangely tick up a few beats. "You can still walk away." Shiraya help her, she hoped he didn't.

Leaning in those last few inches, until their noses were nearly touching and her lips hovered just above his, made it easy for Briana to catch the whiff of wine lingering on his breath, mingled with the scent of something else that was so uniquely him that she could have recognized it blindfolded.

"Although...I hope you make the choice to stay." She added, waiting in that silent space for several beats until she saw what she believed to be an answer reflected back at her from deep within those predatory eyes, placing her hand at the back of his neck and letting her full lips slant over his in a feather-light kiss, free of the desperation and neediness from earlier — just a gentle question, waiting for confirmation.

Stay or go?

Stay.

Warmth cushioned Briana from all sides. Soft, buttery sunlight, filtering in through the floor-to-ceiling windows and prodding gently at her closed eyelids. She'd been burrowed into the warmth of Vizion's side after being spent, not a night terror in sight, for the first time in weeks. The spill of her dark hair, disheveled and wild, was splayed over her bare shoulders and pillow, her breathing holding the sound of long-lost contentment... until the sun finally won out, and her blue eyes fluttered open.

The dream ended in an instant and reality crashed in with merciless clarity.

Briana's fingers curled into the sheets she was still wrapped in, her breath catching as the bleariness of sleep fell away and her mind fully registered her surroundings: the solid warmth of Vizion's body still pressed against her side, his breathing deep and even as made evident by the gentle cadence of his chest as it rose and fell, the tangle of their clothes strewn about the room in this place and that.

Without the haze of lust to keep her in a pleasant stupor, guilt had arrived to take its place. But, it wasn't the sharp, stabbing pang of despair she'd anticipated. Instead, it settled as a light mist around the edges of her earlier contentment without ever fully obscuring it.

That, somehow, made it worse.

She should be drowning in guilt, shouldn't she? Flooded by remorse for finding comfort in another man's arms so soon after... after everything. What was so fundamentally broken in her that rather than feeling guilty for taking to bed another lover, she instead found a visceral sense of peace? That instead, her traitorous body felt rested... felt truly present in her own skin for the first time in months, felt that deep, hollow ache in her chest give way to something warm and alive and real.

Traitor.

Traitor.

Traitor.

The accusation echoed in her mind as she extracted herself from the tangle of the once freshly pressed linen sheets, desperate not to disturb Vizion, but more desperate to put distance between herself and the magnetic pull urging her to curl back against him and forget everything else. She didn't want to think about what that meant, didn't want to think about what she'd done, about whatever this feeling was.

The floor was cool beneath her bare feet, and Briana wasted no time to abscond from the situation, from that room, from him.

Vizion Trozky
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