linknet | IC INBOX| SCHNEIDER

[Schneider is elusive like she is, so Kainé doesn't bother checking the dorms first. She already knows that she probably isn't there.

Kainé is normally...content, giving others space when they take it. If they want to get away from her, then whatever. But something has its hooks in her now, an insidious voice blossoming in her mind that has nothing to do with Tyrann's smug, hedonistic blood lust. She's felt the vanishing, the disintegration, all for herself, at the mercy of Schneider's nightmares. It's a sensation she doesn't want to repeat.

It's too late for most stores to be open, which rules out most of the shops where she might otherwise be digging through the racks. The park should also be mostly closed, but that doesn't stop anyone who knows how to get in. Kainé's spent her share of nights here. It's less like the city and more like some quiet play-pretend place away from it...in the middle of it.

And...yeah, found her.]

Thank fuck, I won't have to go on some puzzle-solving dungeon crawl to get you to come back.[God, would she do that? Some people would notice Schneider's absence quickly, too - more than would notice hers, she's sure - but Kainé doesn't know when they'd start digging or if she'd be the first to go.]

[People don't peg Schneider for it, with the way she dresses and behaves. But she's always been more at ease in nature, without buildings stifling her and leaving her trigger finger itchy for a fight, ready to eliminate a would-be hitman before they got to her first. This is not at all an orchard or a forest, but it's as close to it as it comes. She's on a swing, pushing herself off lazily as she watches the stormy clouds darken the sky in the distance.

She didn't think anyone would come looking for her. If people might notice her absence...she can't fathom it. She looks up at Kaine, her lips curving up into a smile that doesn't meet her eyes. Behind her, her shadow seems to be more present than ever as the lines between the real world and Nekiya blur further]

Mmm? I would like to think no god here has the power to compel me to create some place for people to dig through my brain and memories.

[a pause, a moment of confusion]

You were looking for me?

Yeah, you'd forcefeed him his own lackeys' guts before something like that happened. [Famous last words, from both of them...but that's to realize later, when the trees have grown in and Schneider really can't be found. Kainé leans her back against the A-frame of the swingset, tapping her heel a few times in lazy agitation.]

It's a free park. ...When it's open. You wouldn't find an upstanding hero out here alone after hours. [Without saying yes, she means she did come looking on purpose... and that they're probably the same in believing that most people would leave them alone - and should, maybe.]

You gonna camp out here tonight? [The weather isn't great for it; it's dreary, and the sky smells like a storm that hasn't happened yet. The worse it gets out here, the more unforgiven it is for the strays to find a place to set up when they don't want to go indoors.]

Mmmhmm. It only suits people like us. Not-heroes. Villains...do you think that's what we are?

[Schneider smiles again, her gaze drifting up to the stormy sky. The smell of rain is heavy in the air and her stomach gives a little lurch and grumble. She hasn't eaten all day but the fear of placing food in her mouth and finding it tasted like the rancid undersides of a garbage bin again had been overwhelming.

She would simply not eat than risk it.]

...no. I hate the rain now. It is not the weather for camping.

[Eventually, much much later, Schneider will return. Whether she retreats to her own shared dorm room with Aerith, hide with Maika or just...spend the night endlessly doing anything else is up in the air. But then she turns to Kaine]

Ah, but if you are here...then you are company I more than welcome. That might change a thing or two.

Eh. I don't think I give enough of a shit to be either. You're better off asking someone else what they think of me - maybe one of the real do-gooders here. Pretty sure they'd say something embarrassing about you.

[There's no refuting the rain or Schneider's hatred of it. It's making her itch listening to the dry rumble in the distance, waiting for the shoe to drop and the water to fall. The nightmares might be over, but there are parts of them everywhere. Parts of them were always there. Sometimes being awake is bad enough.

God, what a shitty mood she's in. Kainé feels like she's monologuing in her head. Or maybe that's Tyrann's voice, a fake mockery of it, she images from her own other form lingering in mirrors and the depths of sleep. His voice was there for so long it rings perfectly. Got a crush, princess? Putting on a big brave show because someone might not hate your guts for once? Hot stuff, at least you're used to blowing them up again and again and again.

She looks at the specter of Schneider's shadow, how close it's hovering, and silently determines that she won't be leaving again unless she's driven out. So very aware of the emptiness of her hands, she flexes one a few times.]

Change what? I've got nowhere else to be. I'd be out here anyway. So... I'll stay. with you

Mmm... you'd be surprised. Making a point makes people angry. And people are quick to make justifications for people they have already decided is righteous and not. [ Schneider doesn't mind. She was glad that at back of people's minds, when they saw her, they remembered a little fear.

Good.

She jumps off her swing, digging her heels into the grass. If it was anyone else she would have chased them away. Or she would have left without a second glance backwards.

But Kaine had listened to her.

She turns her head, looking back. For a moment, she feels very uncertain and very vulnerable]

If you say it like that...I might take it a different way.

Will you really? Even if I ask you to hold me?

[Schneider's asked her before and turned to sand in her arms. At some point, Kainé had to realize that the nightmare had somehow become hers, too. The thought of her absence became like a gouge digging deeper into a hole that had already been emptied and filled.

This whole circus was meant to end when she went back to handle her own shit, everyone better off if she leaves the same way she came. And it'll still be that way - everyone better off. This is just for a little while, isn't it?

Kainé tenses again, a wild animal ready to run. Guilt bubbles in there, too, and it's not like it's anything new. She has at least a half dozen reasons to feel it choking in on her. They're not supposed to still be here for a very long time]

It won't end the same way. [It's difficult to say whose fears those words are trying to assuage, but there's a firmer, desperate confidence in her voice as it escalates.] That's how you want it to be, too, right? You can't just... up and leave this time. [It was not her fault the first time, either, but what's the point of doing it again and again and again otherwise?]

[ There's something wild and dark that jolts in her at Kaine's expression, the sound of her voice.

Oh.

She thinks she understands now. This is what it is like to be looked at and wanted for something beyond the bare physicality of it. Her absence would hurt Kaine.

Schneider isn't sure what to do with that. The yearning grief in her heart hadn't abated. It gnawed from the moment she woke up in a world that was not her own and realised she was alone. And from now on, she would without the loved ones she had built her 18 years of living around.

One step. Two steps. Then the distance between them is closed again and she's cupping Kaine's face between her hands]

...no. I don't want to disappear. But, if you can give me a reason, any at all...

[Make her want to live. Remind her, help her forget. Anything to help her keep moving.

And that's what that gnawing ache was, wasn't it? And now, this...

Her thumb traces over the curve of Kaine's cheek]

Will you?

[Kainé releases a soft-voiced breath, the shape of her quiet "damn it" almost inaudible. There's very real fear when she brings her hands into the valley at the small of Schneider's back and holds her there. She could touch her there and feel the solid plateau of her skin crumble to dust again.

What if it's the same? It'll be another three years of chasing phantoms in the night, getting so close to having some goddamn meaning before feeling it get twisted and disappear. Two stifling dreams instead of one.

The seconds pass, and what she's holding onto doesn't disintegrate. Again, she breathes, a little softer and more relieved.] Thanks...for sticking around. I don't know if I can give you a very good reason. But it'd be the least I could do.

[Her cheek is heavy in Schneider's palm; she hasn't realized yet that she's pressing into it. Touch is so confusing, especially with full ownership of her body back. Kainé moves a little closer into it, then stops. Because...]

... I can feel your heart now. [On the wrong side, same as she felt that single flutter before the Storm.]

[Schneider smiles, closes the distance for them, leaning up to press their foreheads together. She lets out a slow, gentle exhale]

...that's right. Remember that.

[That her heart beat on the right. That she was real and tangible. In this world at least, she wouldn't fade away to dust any time soon. She rubs her thumb along Kaine's cheek again, coaxing her a little closer]

I can think...of a good reason right now. If you let me.

I will. [It's her memory to keep, after all. She gets to demand to hold onto it. Schneider is one of only a few here who can really understand what Kainé is already missing. How could Kainé let her be erased? How could she, too, vanish from that dream of a beautiful but impossible future?

Her own heart is hammering, but even that isn't enough to drown out the feeling of someone else's next to hers. A lot of this is unfamiliar and strange in a way that doesn't fit what should be there. Height, scent, tenderness... the thing she's chasing isn't here. And despite that, maybe that also makes it easier. It isn't trying to fulfill anything else, just this moment.]

Yeah. Spit it out.

[Restraint is not her strong suit, but she exercises it to the best of her ability. She leans forward, breath stuttering, and lets her.]

[ Schneider had looked into Kaine's heart once and knew what she held close and dear. Schneider is not and never could be, the kind of person that Kaine had nurtured deep in her heart.

And yet, here they are, entwined together on a night with a storm threatening on the horizon]

Kiss me. Touch me. I do like you quite a lot after all.

[Her voice is low and soft, longing and desire pulsing through her as she leans in to finish closing the distance]

[What an easy reason. She might not deserve to be the one giving it, but Kainé lets that last restraint slip from her hands as soon as she crashes into the lips that come to meet hers. She has other things to hold onto right now.

Maybe Kainé's gone soft, but she can't claim to be a delicate person even then. She takes the kiss hungrily, begging with her mouth the way she tries to get a feel for all of Schneider's. There's no malicious voice beating her into a frenzy and making her veins throb. When she drags Schneider's body into hers, it's all her own appetite, and for a while, she even forgets to be ashamed of it.]

Stay... please. All right? [She breathes that almost desperate plea out against Schneider's jaw as her mouth caresses it, following it like a leadline until she can bury her face against the side of her neck.] I'll pull you back with my bare hands if that's what I have to do. [It's not the same inevitable ending for either of them. They get to choose this one. He tongue marks her pulse in a quick little reminder.]

... I want you here, remember? [It's an echo of another time, though maybe this one is just as temporary and idyllic.]

[Schneider draws in a sharp breath, desire pounding in her veins as Kaine pulls her in. It's been a long time since she's touched anyone like this, and even longer since she's wanted anyone this badly. She tips her head back, baring her neck for Kaine, and reaches up to sink her fingers into Kaine's hair (so beautiful and so lovely against her fingertips), pulling her in roughly]

You'll chase me down no matter what? How bold[She closes her eyes, an unfamiliar sting to them. She turns those words over in her head, holding them close to her heart in wonder. It had been a warm surprise back in that distant dreamscape, and now, the echo of it reminds her that this is real and tangible in a way it wasn't quite earlier]

I'll stay. [Her voice is soft, needy] I wont leave. Not--

[Yet but she bites down on that word, and does not let herself think about what will come after, and the dreams Kaine must still be chasing]

Don't get any ideas about making me do that shit. [Despite the cold bite of the air and the desperation arcing between them, her words are a little lighthearted, teasing in a way she can really only be when she's comfortable with someone seeing that from her.] I've been running all over the place already.

[It's not because she wouldn't. She would try to find her and recognize her from far away. It's branded into her, even if she were to forget a million times... and maybe she will; isn't that already her luck?

Not yet. Schneider bites down on the word and Kainé bites down on a soft patch of skin beneath her lips that hums with life.

The rain is coming, but it isn't here yet.

Rough hands in her hair make her feel a little better about her own roughness, that she doesn't think she knows how to be a tender or gentle person. Especially not now, clumsily still trying to understand what it means to be wanted, trying to keep her mind off her own body to stifle its reactions. When she returns to Schneider's mouth for another kiss, she hesitates, suddenly shy about sealing it.]

Ahahaha. I'll be sure to keep it in mind. And-- [She makes a soft quiet approving noise when Kaine bites down on her pulse point and she presses in a little harder. She's suddenly overwhelmed with the desperate need for leverage, some kind of surface--

Ah. Well.

Schneider has never been anything but shameless so she seals their lips together in Kaine's moment of hesitation and presses forward, hard to press Kaine back against a tree. Can Kaine feel how strong her desire has grown, after she had kept it under iron shackles, tethered close beneath her skin ]

Mmnf? [And...? doesn't even have the chance to be asked before her back's against that tree. The bark chafes behind her hips and thighs, but the minor pain just ends up exciting her further. When it seems they can't possibly get any closer, Kainé's body cants forward, just once, before she stifles the movement. A little, girlish moan leaks into Schneider's mouth past her slightly parted lips.

Her hands begin touching in earnest, abandoning their tight-fingered post at the small of Schneider's back to rove: each segment along the length of her spine, the wings of her shoulder blades, the loose curls at the nape of her neck. Hold her, touch her - what started as a plaintive request is now just her earnest attempt to keep up.

She can feel it, so strong and so sudden and so this-can't-be-for-her that it could be frightening. How long has it been? When did it start? Was it the moment they met in that strange, far-off dream and saw something they shouldn't have been able to see? Or has it been building since she put her hand where Schneider's heart wasn't? The realization has the same intensity as the thunder rolling in the distance.]

[Oh. Now that is cute and any rational thought Schneider once had is easily swept away. The looming storm doesn't matter. What matters is Kaine's hands are on her body, hot against her skin and Schneider presses in even harder as she licks into Kaine's mouth, taking advantage of that opening.

Whatever Schneider wanted to add clearly doesn't matter anymore. Kaine's body is hot, and pressing against it like this makes Schneider want more, and more. It started off as an absent attraction at first; anyone would be blind not to notice Kaine's attractiveness at a glance.

But then, she thinks, she was charmed when Kaine had kicked down that door at Yoon's palace, the way Kaine had held her dreams so tenderly, even though she didn't know where to place them. And the feeling kept burrowing, sinking its roots into Schneider's heart and suddenly, she didn't know what to do with herself.

With one hand pressing Kaine to the tree by her shoulder, she lets her other hand explore, cupping Kaine's breast gently, then sliding down over the curve of her waist, and settling at her hip. ]

[Taking her turn to knot her fingers more roughly into the hair beneath them, Kainé lets the curls of the bob tangle into her knuckles and tugs at them while the kiss deepens. It's a little clumsy until she finds the right rhythm of it; a plaintive noise followed by the hunger flicker of her tongue against the one she invited into her mouth.

She tenses when the wandering hand pauses at her hip, stilling in the kiss and then finally breaking it wetly. It's impossible to remember the last time she was touched like this, with equal desperation and want, if it ever happened at all. She can't even fathom how long it's been since she was this turned on by something other than violence, hot from someone else's body rather than fighting.]

Thought you were the one who wanted to be held? [Her thumb strokes with a little-too-hard pressure along Schneider's neck, playful but goading. While it compromises her own position more than she realizes, Kainé drags her knee up and between them, the fringes and feathers of Schneider's short dress bunching up along her leg as she rubs into her. Even then... she doesn't move to reverse their positions yet. That she's relinquishing this much control even while baiting her should speak volumes.]

[Schneider lets out a low little moan when Kaine gets rough with her hair and she gasps as they pull apart. Her eyes are dark with arousal and her lips curve up into a tiny satisfied smile]

Mmm. I do. But sometimes I get...impatient. [She squeezes at Kaine's hip, and grinds down against Kaine's thigh, shuddering a little. Kaine might feel the dampness between her own thighs already, desire pounding hard in her ears. She wants to feel Kaine properly, their bodies pressed completely together, instead of one inch apart. And
if Kaine lets her, she'll slot her thigh between Kaine's too, and grinding with more purpose but otherwise--really, she is in Kaine's hands and they both know it]

Will you hold that against me?

Edited 2024-10-24 06:09 (UTC)

Ah - No shit, you don't say. [It's breathless and maybe even incredulously amused. Sure, that's what they can call it. The light fall tights she's put on mask some of the arousal - both of theirs - but she sighs softly at the telltale heat and flat-out groans when Schneider's knee finds her, already straining painfully, already starting to make a mess in her clothes the longer they press against each other like this.

Kainé will hold something against Schneider: the tree at her back, as she gathers up the energy she needs to break from a position she'd be happy to remain in indefinitely and flip Schneider back against it instead, nudging her legs apart with her knee. She can be "impatient," too. Every bit of roughness has been rewarded so far, so she elaborates in kind, teeth sharp and hungry on her jaw, her throat, her collarbone.]

I'll let it slide this time. Keep them like that, okay? [Kainé might not be god's greatest communicator, but she slows the drag of her knuckles down Schneider's stomach, waiting for that last little approval before her hand replaces her leg beneath the skirt fringe. She'd also like to kiss lower, drag her teeth over more secret and sensitive skin, but there are feathers in the way - that's a problem for Kainé thirty seconds in the future.]

Mn--bossy. [But Schneider's eyes are bright and she grinds against Kaine a little harder. She keeps her thigh exactly as Kaine directs her, arching her back a little. Anticipation arcs up her spine as Kaine's hand slides lower and she's suddenly annoyed by Kaine's tights. But she remembers patience, only for a second and she nuzzles along Kaine's neck, biting and sucking at the curve of Kaine's neck in turn. She giggles, soft and breathless]

But I do like that on you too.

[~~smash cut to kainé later not understanding how she ends up getting topped before flashing back to this conversation:~~

Schneider gets a harder, mean little bite in retaliation for her teasing - which probably isn't going to do all that much to deter her from more or even meant to. If anything, there's something comforting in being egged on by her brattiness. Kainé noses lower, taking advantage of the loose, lower neckline of Schneider's dress to try and push it down and expose a little more of her chest.

She hates her now-unbearable tights, too; how annoying it is to be hard inside them... but there's something safe about having that barrier still in place. It lets her focus more on this. It's impossible to not be overeager with that focus: Her fingers deftly move past all the fabric and begin to move up, against, into her, motions aggressive and greedy.

Fuck, she feels really...real. Close. Vibrant.]

Ow. [Except, by the way Schneider jerks against Kaine, it doesn't really hurt at all. She hums, back arching with pleasure as she rolls her hips and grinds messily against Kaine's hand, crying out softly. She's hot and wet and Kaine's fingers slip easily against her. She presses up a little more, pressing her thigh between Kaine's legs to give her a little more friction, a little more pleasure as she digs her fingers a little against Kaine's shoulder blades. She would really, really like to get their clothes off...but perhaps not out here]

[It's a sentiment that Kainé would share if only she would stop and think of it. Clothing is basically the last thing between them, that inch that can't be bridged even as they're pressed together in every other way with Kainé's face now buried against Schneider's chest.

... But that would require thinking, and it would require stopping when everything feels so urgent and reciprocated and good. Her hand moves so easily against slick skin, palm rocking as it looks for the right place and pace - a task her fingers have less of a problem mastering. Their mission to explore every part of her, inside and out, is one Kainé is very, very close to fulfilling. Half-laughing, half-whimpering, she grinds their bodies together harder, pushing Schneider more against the tree with each movement. Suffice to say, as with most things, she might be getting a little carried away.]

before the orcharding

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well this is getting nsfw i guess so i'll slap the warning on now

dndjsalk yes nsfw indeed

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