The sunlight cuts a warm line across the faded bedspread Jill tucks around the bed. Their new bed, an old thing abandoned long ago but still somehow an improvement from Clive's thin mattress and tired wooden planks. It's been quite the undertaking, moving their people from the Hideaway to Rosalith, and not all wished to leave a place they came to see as home yet again. Their choice, understandably, but even with some choosing to stay behind the halls have been busy. There's much to do. Too much, it often feels and perhaps teetering towards the realm of overwhelming, and so Jill is glad to ground herself with smaller tasks such as making this room feels like home.
Yet even that is easier said than done. The bed is nicer, but sleep hasn't come easily. It feels strange to be within these stone walls once more. Not as a ward, not as a pawn, but as... simply herself, though still often near Clive and Joshua despite their new responsibilities. There are ghosts in these halls, and Jill's certain she's not the only one who has been so distracted by them. It's a thought that has her sighing softly, turning to open the curtains wider so that more light can reach the far corners of the room.
"It's a beautiful day out, isn't it?" She says with a small smile towards Clive. "The breeze should chase away some of the stale air."
Clive hasn’t slept in so nice a bed in many years, and yet he never feels quite rested for it. He’d hoped that maybe that would change after a night or two, but it hasn’t, and even just this morning he’d woken with his heart hammering in his chest, back stiff. He has thousands of reasons to be glad to be here. Why can’t his body understand that?
Jill is his constant joy, though, as bright as the light she lets in, and Clive squints a little as it pours into every corner. He finds her by the window, gaze briefly roving over her before settling on the side of her face. He wants to go to her but he’s occupied, still half-dressed and seated in a dusty armchair, wearing only his braies as he tries to sort out the lacing on his trousers so he can put them on.
"We can certainly find out," Jill says, brushing her hair over her shoulder as she turns to face him. She wonders if Joshua is troubled by memories as they are, or if his new position leaves him too tired to do anything but sleep deeply. Clive gets a knowing look as she loosely crosses her arms over her chest.
"... it's strange, isn't it? Sleeping under this roof again. Living within these walls." As adults, as their own masters. "Every corner holds memories... but not always pleasant ones."
She remembers where she was when Rosaria was invaded. She remembers where they caught her, men four times her size and able to scruff her like a kitten to haul her away in the confusion and the violence. There are place she walks through quicker, or avoids altogether. But that's no way to live in their own home.
How much worse it must be for Clive, with memories of his mother and his father in every stone. This was his only childhood.
She looks pretty. She always does, but something about seeing her within castle walls makes her look more like the lady he’s always called her. Of all the ways he can picture their lives –– their future together –– seeing her with some ownership over a place with so many miserable memories feels promising.
He can’t imagine himself in that sort of role, but he has plenty of people to make it work for just the same.
“It is strange,” he agrees. “We’ve got a lot of new memories to make, too… enough to hopefully balance the old ones out.”
"It does already feel brighter," she agrees, the castle and town full of more laughter than she can recall ever hearing before. More life, lived freely.
"How shall we go about making some new memories today, Clive?"
A question asked as Jill approaches him, hand reaching out to skim over his shoulder once near enough. Her adoration for him has only continued to grow.
He watches her approach with a raised head, his trousers momentarily forgotten in his lap, the laces mostly untangled. He leans into her touch very subtly, the vaguest glimmer of joy in his eyes, even though his expression stays carefully neutral.
The door is closed. No one can see from their windows. It’s very far from the Hideaway, and the breezy open sides of his solar.
“I have a few errands to run, and some training to run in the afternoon, but I can make time for whatever you want to do.”
Vague it may be, but Jill's looked into his eyes often enough to see his happiness. Her smile warms and she lets her fingers linger, his skin always so pleasantly warm to her often chilly fingers.
"Surely there's some forbidden area of the castle you wish to see now as an adult," she offers. He'll do as she wants to please her, she knows, but this is their home now. He must have his own curiosities and dreams.
Clive reaches up to put a hand over hers, his broad palm engulfing her fingers, as if she might pull away. She’s cold. He’s supposed to be getting dressed, but her presence is distracting in the best way, and he sits up straighter still, daring to bring his other hand to her thigh. Like he could keep her there.
"Surely if we frame it as research he'll allow it..." He may wish to tag along. Not that Jill minds. Time with Joshua and Clive together is nearly as precious to her as time with Clive alone. And there's a sense of more of that, here. The wonder of solid walls.
That hand on her thigh is taken as an invitation to disrupt Clive's schedule, at least until his sense of responsibility calls, and so Jill steps between his knees to wrap her arms around his shoulders and bring him to her chest.
"As long as we're together, we'll be making a happy memory."
“Research,” he repeats, and as she moves in closer, he parts his thighs to make space for her, and presses his forehead to her sternum. He exhales long and slow –– it’s the closest thing to comfort he’s ever felt, he thinks, holding her, and he wraps his arms around her waist in turn.
He presses an absent-minded kiss to the space between her breasts, fabric be damned, and remarks, slightly muffled: “This is already becoming one, actually.”
"How did you know what I was thinking?" She replies, voice soft and amused. He could have easily pulled her in, but she supposes it's good she can read him. He wants more than he'd after ask for, even if it's a simple request.
"How urgent are these errands?" A hand traces down the back of his shoulder, finding one scar or another and follows the path.
He feels his body relax as her touch trails down his skin, as if his body, tense and steeled for another day, is some animal thing, separate from his mind.
“I can put them off a little,” he says, breathing in the scent of her clothes, her skin. He closes his eyes. He really could sleep a little more, if time and his pulse permitted it, but he’ll just have to indulge what he can. “What excuse should I offer?”
“Mm, that could work,” he rumbles, nose still pressed in her cleavage. He tries to think of how to say it without risking innuendo, or making her sound shrill or cumbersome to him; he recalls with a lump in his throat the way his father had occasionally remarked on his mother that way, and how in drips and drabs it had given everyone permission to sneer about her when her back was turned.
His shoulders slouch as he holds Jill, sinking a little bit of his weight against her ribs. Jill can’t be made out that way. He’ll protect her.
“I’ll say… I wanted my lady to have a good morning.”
"A good morning for me is time with the man I love," she confirms warmly, giving him affection as easily as breathing, arms snug around him.
"It's been... difficult, hasn't it? Adjusting to life within these walls again." It feels now like a number of lifetimes have met and twisted around one another. The Hideaway, now in Rosaria, where they first met.
"I lose myself in my thoughts and memories, sometimes, but I'm happy to be here again with you, Clive."
For a moment, Clive isn’t sure what to say. That she loves him is hardly news, especially not when she expresses it in one way or another every day, but even on his best days it brings his breath to the top of his chest. It makes him wonder if he’ll snap awake in another time and place, back and hips aching from sleeping in the dirt, hunger gnawing at his gut, orders barking in his direction. But that’s sad, sad in a way he can’t burden her with, and his reluctance to reply feels like he’s spoiling the moment in a different way, so he just nods against her in agreement. It’s difficult.
It should feel easier to be here than it does, but he’s sure that will come in time.
He does manage, pulling his head back just the slightest bit to look up at her:
“I wouldn’t be able to live here at all without you, Jill.”
"You would manage for your brother's sake," she tells him with a knowing smile. He would do anything for Joshua, and it's something she's admired in him since they first met. "But I understand your sentiment."
The kiss to his forehead is playful, but reverent.
"But we're here. I hope... I hope it feels like home, for all of us."
He nods again, and he lets her go just enough for her to bend to kiss him, wondering how he ever survived without these little motes of affection. How he lived at her side for five years without any more touch than her hand placed in his.
“It will in time. We’ll make it into a new one.”
He presses another brief kiss to her, this time at the side of her neck, face tucked under her jaw.
Sometimes it feels as if he sneaks little dosages of affection, as if someone might come along and grab him by the ear for it. It wouldn't be Jill, whose palm cups Clive's face, thumb caressing his scarred cheek.
"I believe you. You've yet to disappoint me, and I doubt you will in this."
His eyes drift closed again for a slow second, his cheek pressed into her palm. No one else touches him this way. He wants to appreciate it.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he promises her.
He untangles his arms from around her, still moving slow, his hands roving to her hips to tug her –– gently, as if only a suggestion –– to sit in his lap.
It's enough for Jill to understand the invitation. She sits, keeping her hand on his face so that once she's got her legs over his thigh she can guide his face to hers and press a sweet kiss to his lips.
"The best seat in all of Rosia," she teases. "All this furniture we have now and I would prefer to be right here."
He breathes in as she kisses him, barely pulling back when it breaks.
“Well… it is a kind of throne,” he says amiably, hands staying on her hips, settling there a little more comfortably to stay. Her weight is pleasant on his lap, and he thinks that any chair should be thrilled to host her. The buzzing in his chest from bracing himself for another day of castle life fades out, replaced by something else: anticipation for time with her. “You can stay here as long as you like.”
“They’ll understand.” The chance to hold her gaze alone would make anyone understand, let alone the chance to hold her. Clive smiles, ears a little red as he feels his cock stiffen under the press of her skin. Trapped under Jill’s firm thighs, her round hips? Heaven. “I think we’ll have to make arrangements to eat, though… and bathe…”
"All things that can be done together, last I was aware," she hums, smile growing a touch because she doesn't need to feel him getting hard to know he enjoys having her using him as furniture. Always eager to serve, regardless of the task.
"I suppose I'll just have to tolerate leaving your lap every now and then. How unfortunate."
He lets out a short breath, a hair away from being a laugh. He momentarily presses his forehead to her cheek, his thumbs stroking over her hips, ruffling the fabric of her dress.
“Thank you for your mercy, my lady,” he says. “I don’t know that I’ve earned it.”
So close. Jill thinks she'll fade away if she doesn't get a real laugh out of him, as difficult as that may be some days. His laughter is a precious, rare gift.
"Well, you haven't not earned it," she points out, turning her face towards his to nuzzle her nose against his brow. "And you've only made by day better by lingering here with me."
Oh, to have his face this close to hers. It’s mundane, without fanfare, and yet it feels like some tremendous miracle, a thing that he never imagined he would be lucky enough to have.
Every time they have an opportunity to be sweet to one another like this makes Jill feel like she could win any battle. It's a rush, butterflies still fluttering around in her chest when he holds her, stomach doing flips whenever they kiss. He makes her feel like she's pleasantly tipsy.
"Tell me about the future you see here," she says. That's likely not what he hoped to hear, and so she continues.
He opens his mouth slightly, like he might start answering in earnest, but she wants to be taken back to bed. He meets her eyes for a moment, fit for the base labour of the latter task but unsure what to say. He’s terrible at the future.
“Ah,” he trails. “Joshua will direct us in rebuilding Rosaria, and I will continue to serve as his Shield. You’ll be at my side, happy and well-cared for…”
He sits forward a little, both hands sliding down to find the backs of her thighs, preparing himself to lift them both out of this seat.
A valid answer. A nice life, certainly. The fact that she gets to be by his side is more than she ever thought she'd have. Jill slides her arms around his neck to help with the carry, moving some of the weight from his arms to his shoulders.
"And what of yourself? Will you be happy?" Here, once more.
Up he goes, the brief strain of muscle and the tensing of his arms around her as he lifts and gets to his feet. When he’s up, he gives her a gentle little boost up in his arms so she can lean the bulk of her weight against his chest, and he’s happy to be held in turn.
The distance from the chair to their bed is not far enough to be able to relish it properly, so he walks slowly.
“With you, I’m happier than I’ve ever been,” he promises her.
"What would the boy that once lived here think?" She teases. If she had any idea as a girl that she would one day be with Clive, she'd never believe it no matter how much she wished it to be true.
"Sometimes it feels like a dream. We found one another again despite the odds, and not only that... you care for me as I care for you."
What would that boy have thought? He’d be overwhelmed, surely, by the magnitude of the grief and pain he’d endure, and how much of it he’d realize had started well before that fateful night when Rosaria had fallen, how much he’d been blind to. It puts a frog in his throat just to think about it, but he doesn’t want to let that grip him, not when he has her in his arms, not when she speaks to him so sweetly.
He grips her a little tighter, happy to just feel the shape of her through her dress, happy to be here now, and when he reaches the bedside, he stoops to lay her down on her back, and follows right after, looming overtop her on his hands.
“I’m glad this is real,” he says. She’s real and breathing under him. “We get… a future.”
"A future together, at that." Jill's smile brightens, the only warning before she makes her attempt to roll him over, onto their bed. It's a feat that will only be possible if he humors her, because she could never hope to move all that muscle if it didn't wish to go. It's why she laughs. Silly, but how glad she is they can be silly together.
Clive huffs out an amused breath as she pushes at him, and he goes where she bids, sinking onto his side and grasping at her to help her roll on top of him.
Rolling onto him, Jill pushes her hair back over her shoulder before kissing him. This time, she lingers, chest pressed to his with no effort made to hold herself above him.
It feels good, having her weight on him, and he lifts a knee so he can gently press a thigh between her legs. It’s so good to touch her, to hold her, to feel the press of her lips against his, and to feel the way she draws breath.
“At the Hideaway?” he murmurs, just off her lips. “Or…?”
"... any, actually." Their childhood beds, the beds of the Hideaway, the inn beds that often left him sleeping on the floor. They're afforded much more space, here, though Jill will tuck herself against him no matter how much room there is.
"I often worried the bed at the Hideaway wouldn't survive us."
Another kiss, her weight lowering onto his thigh. That poor bed did complain under their combined weight.
“It did already sag in one corner,” he murmurs. The old bed ropes were so loose that one had come right out. Not very handy for a sound sleep, let alone lovemaking. “We haven’t tested this one much…”
Easy to attribute to being busy, but more like they've been learning how to fall asleep here. Jill doesn't say it, but rather chooses to slide her fingers into his hair, cradling his head in her hands as she looks down at him.
"No time like the present. And, should it fail us, better it happen in the morning rather than the middle of the night. Isn't that right, Clive?"
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Yet even that is easier said than done. The bed is nicer, but sleep hasn't come easily. It feels strange to be within these stone walls once more. Not as a ward, not as a pawn, but as... simply herself, though still often near Clive and Joshua despite their new responsibilities. There are ghosts in these halls, and Jill's certain she's not the only one who has been so distracted by them. It's a thought that has her sighing softly, turning to open the curtains wider so that more light can reach the far corners of the room.
"It's a beautiful day out, isn't it?" She says with a small smile towards Clive. "The breeze should chase away some of the stale air."
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Jill is his constant joy, though, as bright as the light she lets in, and Clive squints a little as it pours into every corner. He finds her by the window, gaze briefly roving over her before settling on the side of her face. He wants to go to her but he’s occupied, still half-dressed and seated in a dusty armchair, wearing only his braies as he tries to sort out the lacing on his trousers so he can put them on.
“Think we’ll sleep better with some fresh air?”
He’s felt her tossing and squirming, too.
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"... it's strange, isn't it? Sleeping under this roof again. Living within these walls." As adults, as their own masters. "Every corner holds memories... but not always pleasant ones."
She remembers where she was when Rosaria was invaded. She remembers where they caught her, men four times her size and able to scruff her like a kitten to haul her away in the confusion and the violence. There are place she walks through quicker, or avoids altogether. But that's no way to live in their own home.
How much worse it must be for Clive, with memories of his mother and his father in every stone. This was his only childhood.
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He can’t imagine himself in that sort of role, but he has plenty of people to make it work for just the same.
“It is strange,” he agrees. “We’ve got a lot of new memories to make, too… enough to hopefully balance the old ones out.”
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"How shall we go about making some new memories today, Clive?"
A question asked as Jill approaches him, hand reaching out to skim over his shoulder once near enough. Her adoration for him has only continued to grow.
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The door is closed. No one can see from their windows. It’s very far from the Hideaway, and the breezy open sides of his solar.
“I have a few errands to run, and some training to run in the afternoon, but I can make time for whatever you want to do.”
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"Surely there's some forbidden area of the castle you wish to see now as an adult," she offers. He'll do as she wants to please her, she knows, but this is their home now. He must have his own curiosities and dreams.
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“Do you think we’ll have to ask Joshua now?”
He’s only partially joking.
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That hand on her thigh is taken as an invitation to disrupt Clive's schedule, at least until his sense of responsibility calls, and so Jill steps between his knees to wrap her arms around his shoulders and bring him to her chest.
"As long as we're together, we'll be making a happy memory."
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He presses an absent-minded kiss to the space between her breasts, fabric be damned, and remarks, slightly muffled: “This is already becoming one, actually.”
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"How urgent are these errands?" A hand traces down the back of his shoulder, finding one scar or another and follows the path.
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“I can put them off a little,” he says, breathing in the scent of her clothes, her skin. He closes his eyes. He really could sleep a little more, if time and his pulse permitted it, but he’ll just have to indulge what he can. “What excuse should I offer?”
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"Your lady demanded it," she says, after thinking on it. "I don't think anyone here would suggest you disobey her, hmm?"
And then she'll join him on his errands. She has her own to take care of, but today she doesn't wish to be apart from him if she can help it.
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His shoulders slouch as he holds Jill, sinking a little bit of his weight against her ribs. Jill can’t be made out that way. He’ll protect her.
“I’ll say… I wanted my lady to have a good morning.”
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"It's been... difficult, hasn't it? Adjusting to life within these walls again." It feels now like a number of lifetimes have met and twisted around one another. The Hideaway, now in Rosaria, where they first met.
"I lose myself in my thoughts and memories, sometimes, but I'm happy to be here again with you, Clive."
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It should feel easier to be here than it does, but he’s sure that will come in time.
He does manage, pulling his head back just the slightest bit to look up at her:
“I wouldn’t be able to live here at all without you, Jill.”
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The kiss to his forehead is playful, but reverent.
"But we're here. I hope... I hope it feels like home, for all of us."
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“It will in time. We’ll make it into a new one.”
He presses another brief kiss to her, this time at the side of her neck, face tucked under her jaw.
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"I believe you. You've yet to disappoint me, and I doubt you will in this."
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“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he promises her.
He untangles his arms from around her, still moving slow, his hands roving to her hips to tug her –– gently, as if only a suggestion –– to sit in his lap.
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"The best seat in all of Rosia," she teases. "All this furniture we have now and I would prefer to be right here."
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“Well… it is a kind of throne,” he says amiably, hands staying on her hips, settling there a little more comfortably to stay. Her weight is pleasant on his lap, and he thinks that any chair should be thrilled to host her. The buzzing in his chest from bracing himself for another day of castle life fades out, replaced by something else: anticipation for time with her. “You can stay here as long as you like.”
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"Oh? Then I'll stay here forever," she says simply, claiming another brief kiss. "The others will manage without us, surely."
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"I suppose I'll just have to tolerate leaving your lap every now and then. How unfortunate."
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“Thank you for your mercy, my lady,” he says. “I don’t know that I’ve earned it.”
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"Well, you haven't not earned it," she points out, turning her face towards his to nuzzle her nose against his brow. "And you've only made by day better by lingering here with me."
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He’d give her anything he could.
“How do I make it even better?”
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"Tell me about the future you see here," she says. That's likely not what he hoped to hear, and so she continues.
"... as you take us to bed."
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“Ah,” he trails. “Joshua will direct us in rebuilding Rosaria, and I will continue to serve as his Shield. You’ll be at my side, happy and well-cared for…”
He sits forward a little, both hands sliding down to find the backs of her thighs, preparing himself to lift them both out of this seat.
“And we’ll share a bed every single night.”
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"And what of yourself? Will you be happy?" Here, once more.
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The distance from the chair to their bed is not far enough to be able to relish it properly, so he walks slowly.
“With you, I’m happier than I’ve ever been,” he promises her.
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"Sometimes it feels like a dream. We found one another again despite the odds, and not only that... you care for me as I care for you."
Fate. It must be.
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He grips her a little tighter, happy to just feel the shape of her through her dress, happy to be here now, and when he reaches the bedside, he stoops to lay her down on her back, and follows right after, looming overtop her on his hands.
“I’m glad this is real,” he says. She’s real and breathing under him. “We get… a future.”
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“Together,” he promises.
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The kiss only stops when she laughs.
"Couldn't do that in the old bed, could I?"
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“At the Hideaway?” he murmurs, just off her lips. “Or…?”
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"I often worried the bed at the Hideaway wouldn't survive us."
Another kiss, her weight lowering onto his thigh. That poor bed did complain under their combined weight.
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"No time like the present. And, should it fail us, better it happen in the morning rather than the middle of the night. Isn't that right, Clive?"
It only makes sense.