He licks his lips and—well, she's already on his lap, not that much work to turn that into a bridal-carry and stand up to take her upstairs.

She giggles airily on the way there. Then, once they're safely in his room, she pulls him down after her on the bed, and finally, finally kisses him.

Yeah, these are definitely some terrible things that she ends up doing to him. She is very good at magic. Also good at describing magic and the effects of magic.

But she's also sweet, and thoughtful, and attentive, and observant, and impish, and she appreciates him very much. It's crystal clear that however much she enjoys toying with him, she always, always respects him, and her priority is not actually her own pleasure. That's just a nice bonus. She wants him, but she wants his smile, his delight, his laughter, the hitch in his throat when she kisses the right place and the way his eyes soften or light up or crinkle when he sees her. There is an edge of need in her, for touch, for affection, for gentleness and sweetness and happiness, and clearly she's decided to get it by giving it. Freely and openly and without a trace of hesitation or shame. Because he should have it, and it's ever so much fun to give that to him.

He is ever so appreciative of everything she does, and he drinks her—her kiss, her skin, her touch, her smile, her laugh, her gasp, her moan—he drinks her like a man in the desert drinks water. He wants her, too, he wants her more than he's wanted anyone; they fit together more than he's fit with anyone. The closest he's had to this was Canach, and even that was a pale shadow compared to it.

Food for thought.

But that's for later, because for now he has to touch her, has to kiss her, has to hug her and hold her and bite her and please her and take her with him to the same heights she's taking him, be sweet when sweetness is called for and be rough when roughness is called for, be hers and hers only, if only for tonight. And in the end he looks at her, looks at her with fondness and care and passion and delight. He communicates, not with his words, but with his eyes, with his smile, with his touch, with his kiss.

And they sleep, because they have both had a very, very long day.

Vetareh hasn't slept in several centuries. She'd never tried, out of a mix of desire to get home and fear of what things might find her while she slept. Because of the Mists, there was never any need to.

Nestled contently in his arms, drifting off listening to his heartbeat, she can't imagine any better place to finally, finally fall asleep.

    Four hours later Taimi's voice comes from James's bag, muffled. "Commander? Can you read me? Are you decent?"

James's eyes open immediately and he sits up. "Taimi?"

    "I can't hear you if you said something, but we have a problem."

His partner's a little slower on the uptake. She makes an unhappy sound in the back of her throat and cracks open an eye.

"I'm here," he says, more loudly, standing up immediately and grabbing the communicator. "What do you have?"

    "Something possibly... slightly... marginally...cataclysmic," she says. "I managed to finally get detailed ley readings from the map and determined... well..."

"...yes?"

    "Primordus is active."

"Fuck off Dragon he's mine," mumbles Vetareh, grumpily. But yes, all right, she can start getting up. Look at her, sitting up and everything.

"I'm on my way. Get ahold of the rest of Dragon's Watch. Commander out." He turns around to look at Vetareh, opens his mouth as if to say something, then just sighs.

"Tell me there's coffee in the future," she grumbles, dragging herself out of bed and to the pile of clothes. With a little yawn, she casually starts sorting through it to disentangle which articles are hers and which belong to James.

"—yes, there is coffee," he laughs, then opens the door and sticks his head out. "Henry, I'm going to need some coffee here. Two cups."

    "Yes, Commander," comes a muffled voice from downstairs.

"And breakfast. I haven't eaten anything in literal centuries," she adds. There are now two piles of clothes, vaguely sorted by which pieces go on first to which go on last. For James's clothes, this is mostly guesswork from which objects she got off first the night before, but it approximates closely enough.

"Breakfast, too!" he calls, then closes the door. "...Taimi can wait. Do you want a bath?"

"I mean, yes, but I think I'd also want another set of clothes to change into. And if I'm getting new clothes they'd need to be enchanted so I would not be even more squishy and delicate, and I'd want to also get bags and supplies and—there would be a whole list. It can wait, Primordius being active sounds like a big deal?"

"Yes, but in the scale of days, not hours. Enchanted clothes—the very best ones can get pretty expensive and rare, but I can get good enough ones. We are just going to Taimi's lab for now, so we can hold off on the enchantment?"

"Oh. All right." Yaaawn. "Okay. Then yes, bath, yes clothes, and... I'll make a list of some kind, I definitely had some time to think about what sorts of things I'd want to carry around with me everywhere."

"I can imagine." The room has an adjoined bathroom! It is Rather Pretty.

She smiles fondly at him, leans up to give him a quick peck, and then: hello bathroom, you are excellent. Wow, this is some fancy magic, and some fancy not-magic. The plumbing situation is very impressive, she's quite pleased.

He aims to please!

"So," he says while he's rubbing her back in the rather expansive bath, "am I yours, now?"

"Um," she says, blinking. Oh. Oh, yes, she did say that, didn't she, uh. "I—I mean, if you'd like to be? I was being more cranky than possessive, we still haven't talked about what things we want from whatever it is that we have, I'm not under the impression that I have any actual claim on you just because we shared the best night of my life—oh no I'm babbling, help."

"It is my impression that these kinds of things tend to take longer than a day to be figured out," he muses aloud.

"In my experience it's in, mm... chunks? The people involved in the relationship figure out what they want at the start, and tell each other and see if it matches up, and then later they re-evaluate and do it again, and again, and again, until eventually they've either realized they're incompatible, or that they're not. All of that doesn't tend to happen in a day, because people are complicated and so are their needs." Pause. "That's not to say we need to figure anything out now, it sounds like you just want some time to think? Which, yeah, fair enough, it's been a day."

He nods. "It's... I like you a lot. And I've been with enough people—but this feels different. On the other hand, you spent yesterday with me, you saw what my life is like. It is not what most people look for, I think, to be running around all over Tyria doing what I do."

"Aw." She finds one of his hands and brings it to her lips to kiss. "I like you a lot, too. So, so much. I've had relationships of my own, some of them emotionally intimate, but, um. Yeah this feels different to me, too. Some of that might be Mist-related trauma, where I'm just so touch starved and lonely that I just fling myself at the first person available, but." She trails off. "... I don't think that's what's going on. And to be honest, after being stuck in the Mists for ages, unable to do anything that mattered, it sounds fantastic to be running all over Tyria doing things."

"Well, in that case." He disentangles his body from hers, walks in front of her and gets on one knee, a hand over his heart—yes, in the bath—then says, "Vetareh, will you be my partner in adventures all over Tyria?"