(no subject)

[un_fallen]

"We should talk," was all he'd said to Coyote in the bar, after a few aborted (and silent, aside from the stilted greetings) attempts at broaching a conversation. There wasn't a corner removed enough, though, and the idea of the rooms upstairs, well. They didn't have the most appropriate atmosphere.

"Come see my new place!" he'd said instead, with a little too much enthusiasm. So they'd strolled through the door, up the street, and into his new apartment building with Raguel in grim silence and Coyote apparently in relaxed spirits. Once inside, though, Raguel came partially back to life to play tour guide.

"Front door opens onto the living room, but I don't mind. Er. Got a new table. Black," he adds helpfully.

Comments

[un_fallen]

He tries to think of a way to disagree with the self-worth thing that will not end in the specter of Joris coming up again.

"You know that's not true," he says. Fail.

[howling_laugh]

"Oh, I know it is mostly true. However, I can think of a good temporary fix."

She gets up, crosses the space between them in two steps, and settles herself on the arm of his chair.

"Your kiss was enough for me to consider more carefully the effects of some hotheadedness," Coyote says. "Perhaps I could persuade you to be more selfish."

She reaches forward carefully, and undoes the top button of his shirt.

[un_fallen]

"It did?" he asks belatedly. He glances down to her fingers, completely confused.

Well. Not completely. Even Raguel is not that dense.

"Selfish how?" he asks. She says jump, he asks how high.

[howling_laugh]

"You did ask me not to die again. And despite my troubles, here I sit."

She shrugs smoothly, and kicks off her shoes.

"And you refuse to hold a grudge. Revenge does not seem to be what you want. Tell me, Raguel. What do you want?"

[un_fallen]

Raguel's hands go around her waist. He's tried not to be possessive, but dammit. He's at a loss, really, and not happy with the way he's reacted to her marriage, inconvenient or not.

"Would be nice if you didn't get married again," he says. He meant to add a qualifier like 'without telling me' or something, but damn that, too. His forehead lands just beneath her ribcage.

[howling_laugh]

Coyote snorts, amused. "I assure you, it is not a goal of mine in the near future." She combs her fingers idly through his hair.

"O day and night, but you are wondrous strange," she says in a low murmur. "Why is it do you suppose, that fools are drawn to what they do not understand, even as they fear it?"

[un_fallen]

He snorts, which she can probably feel given that his face is in the vicinity of her hip.

"You don't fear me. Or is that supposed to be the other way around?"

[howling_laugh]

"I do not fear you. I fear only what you can do to me."

She slides down closer to his level, careful not to displace him from the chair entirely.

"Do you fear me, Raguel?"

[un_fallen]

He starts to reply two or three times, abandoning whatever he was going to say each time.

"A little, yeah," he admits. "Or. This." He gestures between the two of them.

[howling_laugh]

"Then we are both fools, hm?"

She doesn't seem to care, considering the fact that she is leaning in now, her hair brushing the sides of his face.

[un_fallen]

"Oh yes," he says. This is a much more familiar way to cast himself, though he feels dimly that it shouldn't be.

He brushes her hair back on one side and leaves his hand there against the side of her face to lean in for a kiss.