Ten past midnight, Knockturn Alley
Upstairs, The Inkwell[1]


The woman lay across the bed. The woman was bare in all the right places and concealed in all others. The woman was all paleness and undulations and strands of dark hair across the moonlit linen. The woman lay across his bed.

Dietrich was sat up leaning back on the headboard, sheets tangled 'round his thighs as he brought a knee up to rest his notepad against. There was a quill at hand- the correctable kind y'know - but his eyes were on the woman 'cause the sight of her demanded it.

The li'l flat above his parlour weren't much t'look at really. Had himself a big bedroom that opened out into the tiny kitchen corner and a living area; most of it covered wall-to-wall in parchment or sketches an' a coupla guitars that sat 'round just to trip ya over. Although, in the dark of the night you couldn't see anythin' of it 'cept the bed 'cause of the window that let in the outside light.

"Sleepin' yet?" the wizard asked, speaking to the air for all he knew.

Bai Yi Lang looked just right where she was so he spoke softly in case she'd dropped off. He slid a hand across the bed, reaching lightly for the tips of her fingers. Oh, fuck. The woman and her darlin' hands- he must've had it bad for her.

1.	Thread rated M for nudity and suggestive content.

Full, pink lips – still flushed and ruddy from earlier – curved gently in the gloom. “Yes,” Bai softly replied, and at his touch her own hand curled around his.

Last Christmas, she had been in London then, too—but at her brother’s flat in Knightsbridge, where she had retired after the obligatory crazy staff party (and had later gone to sleep with a book in her hand), not a small apartment overlooking a stretch of Knockturn Alley. With both of them on the outs with the rest of their family (for different reasons, of course) – and if neither had had plans already – she and Tao stuck together. While the ensuing quiet was never completely comfortable, it was peaceful, and strained only in the sense that they simply didn’t know what to say to each other instead of being afraid or too wary to speak.

It was a nice routine, and familiar. Not ideal, but satisfactory, and Bai had been okay with that.

She couldn’t help but think this was so much better, however. Preferable, even, if the contented feeling that warmed her bones was anything to go by. Waking up in silk sheets was never boring, but it hardly stood a chance against ones warmed by body heat, where the other half of the reason still lay beside you, unbroken shafts of light hitting bare skin.

And there was something to be said about arms as well, ones that inspired security (as well as hands that touched in ways both reverent and obscene), but oh, the man was beautiful.

Bai slowly propped herself up onto her elbows, curiosity in her eyes as she craned her head to look at the notepad on his knee. As black hair spilled down her shoulders at the movement, she still held his hand. “What are you up to?” she asked, absentmindedly lacing their fingers together.

"Wouldn't you like to know..." Dietrich smiled down wearily at his lover's face, revealed only in slivers by moonlight.

While she would have made a better subject asleep, it filled him with gladness that their companionship would extend further into the night. 'Cause he had to admit, it got kinda lonely 'round the Inkwell. You got the kids who worked there and then the mad loons who came waltzing in once in a while- people who stuck, maybe, but never at nights. Not the nights that mattered.

The wizard ran his thumb across Bai's fingers as they relaxed into his. He didn't think it were likely but she stuck and he couldn't have pulled himself away if he'd tried.

"I'm tryin' to get yer likeness down," he explained as his gaze dropped down to their intertwined digits. "Can't even get yer hands right." A quick, brazen tug of the lips. "Much less yer other bits."

Sketched lightly in pencil, her form was a predicament of softly drawn lines that met at quick curves and leisurely angles. Every bone was her collar bone- subtle and sensuous and telling. Ya don't draw shit like that over a couple've hours, this weren't no mark for a needle.

"Maddening." Dietrich commented aloud, making as amused sound as his gaze trailed upwards to the gentle swell of her breasts- and then her sloping neck, which oft escaped capture by quill. "Yer completely maddening."

Pleasure – and something warmer, deeper, and almost… alien, in its likeness – bloomed in her chest, until it was a warm flush in her cheeks. “Hyperbole,” Bai quirked a brow, mouth tugging into a dimpling smile even as she brought their hands to it. “But…” Lips pressed softly against knuckles that weren’t hers. When dark eyes slid up again to meet the tattoo artist’s gaze, there was warmth in what might have otherwise been pools of black glass. “The same could be said of you, I think.”

Because he was—and not just in that usual way of his, either, that had his name erupting from her lips in varying shades of irritation, exasperation, and/or shock, that only a select few could provoke. It was the way he’d have slight fingers uncurling from a fist with a word or a touch, how a lewd jibe could inspire as much affection as it would annoyance, or a frisson of awareness tingling down her skin; how he proved himself not to be a doormat over and over, and indulged her just as much; and how a similarity in...  views, on certain subjects, fostered understanding despite those stark differences between them.

How – scarcely two months into their relationship – there was already a degree of… stability, that made celebrating a holiday seem less of an expected milestone in something that might end, and more like one more day she could see herself losing track of for… for a long time.

And that thought alone both anchored and—frightened her.

‘Maddening’ indeed.

The smile took on a teasing lilt. “Should I be worried?” Bai asked, slowly urning onto her belly and pushing up into something resembling a sitting position, legs tucked beneath her as they were. She wasn’t, really – she had more than enough faith in his skills, until it wasn’t a matter of bias so much as fact – but she knew well enough there were still times that one’s hands surprised. “Perhaps you should draw yourself.”