chef_chocobro | The Creepy-on-the-Outside, Not-Abandoned-on-the-Inside Mansion in the Woods; Tuesday [04/16].

It was well into the morning, well past the time that Ignis would usually be strolling into Luke's to start ordering the staff around to help him get the ingredients to work on the day's specials, and he was still very much in bed, and not at all fussed about it. The weekend had been a whirlwind and it had been a gauntlet of keeping himself calm and composed through a great deal of hurdles and a fair amount of uncomfortable situations that he tried to...well, if not make the best of, at least survive through, and he might just be perfectly content to just stay here with Liliana and make up for all the time they'd lost due to the various moving parts of their unexpected progeny.

Besides, he hadn't slept too terribly well. Quite possibly not at all, his hands idly drifting through Liliana's hair as she curled up next him (for the comfort of the position and the lulling tempo of a heartbeat, of course, and no other reasons, perish the thought), with the darkness that usually surrounded him now filled with the reminiscence of Irrim's gift. How could he sleep, with all that to replay in his head, again and again? He supposed they might graciously leak into dreams, as well, but when Ignis had dreams, they weren't exactly good ones, and it seemed like too much of a risk to chance it.

Nothing a little coffee later couldn't fix, if they ever decided to leave the bed, or, really, not even that, as the steward could just bring some, confirming even more that there truly was very little reason to leave this spot, this moment.

[[ and for the brazenly modded sleeping necromancer beside him, of course ]]

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"Something of that nature, yes," Liliana said, slowly nodding. "I may say that I am unfit for motherhood, but that is more in my temperament and overall desire, not capabilities. And yet, that's not how it feels. It's like watching someone do a spectacularly poor job at something and realizing that person is me. And then wondering if I, myself, would do better."

Further frowning and burrowing into him. For the warmth, of course. "I feel obscurely guilty, as if I were the one letting these children down, which is, frankly, preposterous, but also not an emotion I am used to indulging and I am not at all best pleased with it."

Well, no. She was used to her guilt being for specific and discreet incidents. This was new guilt, and therefore still very uncomfortable to carry.

Glancing up at him, her frown changed slightly and she lifted a hand to rub a small circle between his eyes. "Are you quite all right, 'Nys?"

There was a small wince, as the lifted hand he expected to land somewhere like his cheek wound up much higher. "I'm alright," he said. "Just a bit of a headache."

And there was a hesitation, a compulsion to just leave it at that, but he pushed past it with the decision to elaborate after all.

"Irrim shared with me some images," he explained, "before she left. I am just...unaccustomed, to the visual stimulation, I believe."

Liliana started pushing herself upright. "She did? Are you all right? Why?"

Dammit, she'd told the girl not to use telepathy to mess with Ignis' head!

"No, it's alright," said Ignis, reaching his hand out gently for Liliana's arm as she drew away, maybe to also gently coax her back, as well. And if his words, his actions, didn't convince her, then perhaps to soft, almost wistful smile on his face would.

"She did it as a way to say thank you. To share with me things I missed."

And if that didn't convince her still...

His hand lifted from her arm, to find her face.

"Mostly images of you, my 'Iana. I can hardly fault her anything for giving me that."

"Of me?" After the first second of confusion, she could follow the logic, yes.

And his smile...there were many things she would do to get Ignis to smile like that, and few of them so wholesome.

I do so love to look at you.
I just wish I could look back...

She settled against him once more, her hand massaging his forehead. "You...were very good with her. Good with both of them. I appreciate that. Goodness knows you had your own concerns and yet, you took great care with them." Her hand did slip then, to cup his face, to guide it to hers. "I know you will say it is simply what you were trained for and that's true enough, but...you did not have to. But you did. And I can still appreciate that. And you."

And then she kissed him, to make up for where words fell short.

Well, Ignis was going to lightly dismiss it all by chalking it up to old habits rather than training, but he was very uninterested in arguing the point. Because she was there and she was kissing her, and he wrapped his arms around her to pull her in to kiss her back, and the only thing he was interested in was getting completely, utterly lost in that.

This weekend truly had been far too long.

It seemed Liliana was inclined to agree. Because after their kiss had finally drawn to a close (though it had been a lengthy, lingering thing, the kind that had encouraged hands to wander bodies to shift closer), Liliana felt the need to inform him, "My bed was very cold and lonely the other night."

Yes, she understood the decision and even reluctantly agreed with it, but that didn't mean she couldn't let him know how terribly she had suffered in his absence.

"And mine," Ignis added, as he drew his hand away from where it had all but tangled itself in Liliana's hair, to brush it back behind her ear and trail his fingers along her jaw, then to the corner of her mouth, to match the touch of it to her sharp but subtle smile, now tattoed on his mind and mirrored on his own lips, "was far too warm. As well as a apt reminder that leaving your side is always a deeply rregrettable decision."

That earned him another kiss, the kind that started questioning the necessity of further conversation, though it ended before it could answer it, too. "I'm glad you're coming to realize that," she told him, voice surprisingly prim considering the way she'd just been kissing him a moment ago. "Do you remember, back in the beginning of our relationship, how you used to leave me deliberately? Pull yourself away from me to go elsewhere and do other things as if that could possibly keep you safe from me." She chuckled, low and dark.

Surely that would be enough to distract him from the off-hand upgrade, from dalliance to relationship.

The Creepy-on-the-Outside, Not-Abandoned-on-the-Inside Mansion in the Woods; Tuesday [04/16].

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