exsilium | 007 ¤ [voice]

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007 ¤ [voice]

[ It's not video this time for no apparent reason. The reasons are not apparent because you can't see him. It's like a catch-22, just without the catch, or maybe the other twenty parts involved. Maybe even twenty-one. Who knows. ]

Friends, transports, exiles, lend me your engineers. [ Appreciate that stunning wordplay for a moment. ]And your scientists, assistants, researchers, mechanics, and technicians. Anybody who can function in a room filled with things that they sort of understand and not break each one systematically. And pass a basic skills test. You have to actually be able to do the job.

And speaking of that - I'm employing people. Contrast Mechanics is starting up and I need basicaly everybody. So, Exsilium, what've you got?

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[ He does pause a little as she starts to shake her head no, even though it's clearly not what she meant. But is it not what she meant in that it wasn't what she wanted to actually say, or because it wasn't what she wanted him to be aware of? Either way, he'd given her the pause because it just - it fit. She can't talk right now, so he'd looked up at her face to see how she was feeling, how things were going. It was the look there that had arrested him, momentarily, caused him to want to ask what he'd never felt the need to ask for before.

But she reaches for him, pulling him against her, towards her, into her, and fuuuuuuck, okay, that's so much of what he's been looking for here and not been able to find. And not just, you know, the obvious, but this connection, with this person, in this way. God, it's been basically eating him up inside not having it at hand. Without this for nourishment, he's been back to his own natural toxicity, and everybody knows that Tony isn't good when he's left by himself for too long. All his neutrals turn to acids and bases in the form of acerbic interactions and too much imbibing, and everyone knows that iron when left alone to the elements becomes flakey, flakey rust.

This is to fix that. It won't fix it by itself, nor even really do a whole lot beyond the moment, but when you live in a time outside time, moments are really all you've got. He takes her reactions, relishes in them, in their simultaneous familiarity (the way her breath falls across him just there) and marginal differences (he's a little more angular now, with regular training and a lack of anyone around to tell him to eat. Not unhealthy, just more toned, more slender, because he's always lent towards the smaller side, for the most part). He takes her reactions and translates them and the follows the orders that issue from the new texts, starting to move against her, just rocking initially, because he is over-loathe to relinquish any space here between them. He tugs his head slightly against the fingers in his hair, hums appreciatively into her kiss as his tongue traces hers and his hips rock hers in tandem. ]

[ She loves those little things, how vocal and responsive he is. It's always something she's found endearing too, less when he talks and more about the times he's working or generally preoccupied or focused. It's everything that adds up to equate who he is, and even if more than months separated them, she thinks she'd discover him again through those alone. She knows him the best, after all, and the way she feels being with him is so much more, cant be taken away that easily.

The hum vibrates through her, an echo of her own if she could give it. At least this is mostly the same - only important somehow, magnified intensity - and the slightest shift into his hips draws another breathy sound from her because right there and he's here with her, which draws the tension out of her and replaces it with a different kind that's starting to build. It's not easily mistakable like this, and she closes her eyes in an attempt to gain some control over it, the emotion sweeping through her. She's sure her face gives it away; there's not much she can do about that.

Her hands eventually fall from his hair to clutch at his shoulders, rocking back in response with a bit more fervor now that there's this communication between them. She doesn't want space, but she needs something. She's gentle in nipping at his tongue as a tease, almost demanding when she wraps her legs around him to pull him deeper into her. It's a repeat of before, gasping and shivering with how good this is, and Pepper strains to say his name, wants it enough she can hear it in her head exactly the way it would be: soft, intimate, pleading. ]

[ He follows her silent instructions, to push deeper, to stay close, to move more, and he does. He rocks and pushes and buries himself in her as far as he can go, and continues rocking, because yes, this, all of this. This is what was needed, whether by both of them or just him or just her except it can't have been just her because he definitely needed it, and this is it. He groans at being fully encased within her, because the sensation, and also because it's just how they are, isn't it? Wrapped up in each other all the time, and she around him to keep him grounded more than anything.

He doesn't need both of his arms to hold him up though, not when she's pulling him so close to her, he hardly needs to support his weight at all, just leave an elbow on the mattress for leverage. He takes the advantage of this to leave his other arm free, settling on her stomach, fingers splayed and simply feeling the warmth of her between them, the muscle under skin shifting as they move together, debating whether to slide up or down just yet. He's leaning in a particular direction, but undecided, even as he continues to kiss her, open and passionate and vulnerable. ]

[ She wants this just as much as he does. The reasons may be different in retrospect, but they only have each other, so it's good enough and works well enough that there's really no need to question it. She would always want him regardless.

The press of his hand gives her reason to arch up, fingers sliding over the curve of his shoulder and down to grip at his side like she's trying to hold onto him. Trying to keep the contact constant and solid. She doesn't particularly care which way he touches or how, only that he is and shouldn't stop. There's a shaky breath against his mouth, a muted moan at a particular movement that causes her to inhale sharply, and she's insistent rocking against him, taking him and urging for more, more, more. Anything at all, really. So, her other hand slips between them too, resting atop his and squeezing.

Her lips move against his mid-kiss, his name or encouragement or some lost affectionate thing in the silence of trying to speak. She's not sure, but she leaves it to his imagination because none would be wrong. Pepper simply leans into him, biting at his lower lip and trying to breathe. ]

[ Well if she's going to hold his hand, he won't move it, because he's touching her and that really is all that matters right now. He doesn't care about any of the rest of this crap, this whole place, because Pepper's here and that makes things better by default.

And it's good, that right now he wants to pay so much attention to her, because right now he needs to pay more attention to her than normal, to gauge her reactions. Normally it's the sound, the volume and the tone of them, that tell him when something was good or when something was almost good, just a little more, when something needs just a twist, just a bit more pressure, or when she has a completely different idea in mind. Not so right now. Right now he has to listen to her breathing, over the sounds of his own, to pay attention to the way she holds him in the moment, the way her body tightens around him at key points, arches towards him at others.

Right now, his rhythm remains steady, half thrusting and half just grinding against her because he's working out which one is better for the moment and he's also just not thinking about it too much. There are so many things on his mind right now that it's just one big ball of white noise, and looking at her is difficult so he lets her breathe for a little bit, buries his face in her shoulder instead and keeps moving. ]

[ She keeps up the best she can, half-formed words on her lips that wouldn't have mattered to say even if she could, and something seems to click when he presses his face into her shoulder, holding tight and leaving her those few moments to breathe. It's a very subtle realization anyway. Pepper takes them and slips the hand at his side back into his hair, tracing the line of his neck and embracing him gently. Though their movements aren't necessarily frantic, not yet since they're working to that build-up, there's a hint of desperation beneath all of it. In the tension of his body, the still of his hand against her and all those other little nuances he can't hide from her now.

Maybe she does something about it, drawing his hand up so that his palm is against her breast and she can arch into it. Have him feel her, touch her, anything at all. Her legs relax a little, foot flat to the bed when she bends her knee so she can gain just a bit more leverage when he thrust, and oh— That, right there, is so good. Pepper isn't thinking now, following the rhythm and letting her head fall back into the mattress as she clings to him.

She might have lost her breath again too, heart pounding so loud she barely hears anything over the sound of it in her ears, and the thrill of it is electric through her, how he can do so many things to drive her crazy or leave her speechless. Both good and bad, though this is so much more. It's nearly perfect, and she rolls her hips once, insistent. Please, please, please. ]

[ he responds to her replacement of his hand by coming closer to her, clinging back in return and holding her gently but with no hint of releasing her anytime soon. There is a kind of desperation here, quiet and unspoken, but it's nothing he's giving away intentionally. He wouldn't do that. The hand in his hair is appreciated, a good anchoring point for the both of them, but it's her shift in angle that makes him groan, break his rhythm just enough to push harder into her. Its not broken, not precisely, but he's quickly growing less and less controlled in his actions. ]

[ It's not as if she wants him to let go either, fingers curling and gripping at his hair with that particular movement since it causes her to exhale sharply, shudder when she arches against him to take more. Always more. The cadence of their bodies isn't entirely steady now, pressing a knee into his side and lifting up to meet whatever thrust he gives, and there's that pressure building at the center, not quite enough but almost.

Pepper has to give up the hand she holds in order to do something about it, pushing between them for additional stimulation. Her fingers brush against him, only a little, and she's gasping softly at her own touch, straining toward him. He doesn't have to be entirely gentle now if he doesn't want to be. ]

[ Everything that she's doing to keep him close - the hair, the arching, the knee at his side now - that's all perfect, and he does stay close, moving and thrusting but with less and less specificity.

He feels her reach down, feels her just barely against him as she works her way toward what she's aiming for, the way she clenches around him when she finds it, the gasp in her breath, and he can tell she's close too, and along with helping herself a bit - although he'd normally feel a little more about the fact that she needs to do that, apparently; who knows, maybe it means nothing. But he takes them all as signs that he can, in fact, go a little rougher, take a little more for himself specifically, even though most of it is still entirely for the both of them. He pushes in even deeper on a couple of harder thrusts, mostly erratic by this point and it'll only be another little while at this rate. ]

[ It honestly doesn't mean anything since it doesn't take much at all, just the lightest bit of contact coupled with the firmer rock of his hips. She tries to hold onto the last lingering bit of control, but there's the way he slides into her, how his body knows hers and exactly what she needs, and she's gripping at him before tensing - just a breath, heart racing even faster - and going taut beneath him. Her release is processed in the entire lack of thought for a solid moment, squeezing him to her and trying to keep the rhythm he has set.

But it's difficult lost in that feeling, shivering and rocking through the remainder of it until her hold is slipping a little. Pepper presses her face to the side of his neck, mouthing his name against skin. ]

[ It's okay, he's starting to stop cataloguing everything that's happening and just go with it, moving with her and without her, feeling her go taut and continuing to move as she rides it out, trying to make sure she gets everything out of it that she can. It certainly helps that he's not quite finished yet, holding off on his own release until he just isn't capable of it anymore, venting frustration and loss and all that time without her, into the moment where he can't feel it anymore for the sheer overload, where it's his turn to tighten with an overload in input and move with yet less coordination, slowing until he's more or less just holding himself up over her, and somewhat poorly at that. It's all more transparent than he typically likes to be, but there are times when it's just too much effort to hide things. ]

[ She gets plenty and more, straining against him in those final movements to take everything he exudes and soothe it away. Pepper understands though, probably a great deal more than anyone else can, and her arms slip around him to tug him down, bring him close so she can hold him. There's still the pleasant aftershock in her limbs, the same blissful calm she'd felt hearing his voice and seeing him here with her, and it's so very nice like this.

He doesn't need to keep with those pretenses, if there are any left. So, she kisses the side of his face, the angle of his jaw, neck and shoulder, the softest press of her mouth before squeezing him even closer. Entirely caught in the moment, she shuts her eyes and leans into him. ]

[ It's really just, once he gets his breath back, one of those moments to say incredibly stereotypical things to people. Things that you normally wouldn't say but for the heat and passion of the moment. Things like: ] Have I said what you actually are? [ And by that he means the somewhat more normal 'Have I ever told you what you actually mean to me?'; what he means is 'I love you', because that's the usual answer to questions like that, and he can't actually say the words; he can't even say the true question, but he can say the one that means basically the same thing, in his own words, and he can hope that she follows his convoluted thought process and understands it without him having to actually say it. Because he can't actually say it. And he's sorry about that, he really is, and his apology is in the way he touches her after he comes back to himself, all gentle and holding. ]

I'm happy you're here.

[ It's strange the things someone can accustom themselves to given the time and effort it takes to do so, and it's no different understanding that. Breaking them down, literally reading between the words to comprehend the things that should have been easy to say. Easy for someone who's not him, but it's okay because Pepper's so much more fluent in Tony than anyone else--even Tony himself. She's looking at him now with all of that in mind, fingers tracing the line of his cheekbone.

There's a short pause and then a nod because she knows and she does too - love him, more than anything - and that's all that important right now. That his feelings, what he admits to, haven't changed in the absence between his coming and hers. That she's glad to be here with him so she can take care of him and make sure things are as normal as they can possibly be.

Her only response is that since she can't say it back, would have if she could without hesitation, and Pepper kisses him softly to punctuate it. ]

[ It's not easy because yes, words are cheap and words are easy and words don't mean anything, words slide and glance off of you like so much water on oil, syrup on powdered sugar, rain on a rain-x'd sheet of glass. But words are huge, words change everything, words make you vulnerable in ways you can never physically be, and words frequently say more than you mean them to. Even right now: what he was saying wasn't what he meant, because he meant what he wasn't saying, but he didn't mean to say it. It's subtle, but it's a difference, and its enough of one to make him eternally wary of ever allowing words to maintain such a hold on him.

And that's how he knows that what he's saying - if he's saying anything at all - is something worth putting the effort into right now. The fact that in a whole year (close enough to one, anyway), his feelings actually didn't change, not in this one respect at least, and he's so ephemeral that he practically exists just out of reach. It means something, simply by virtue of the fact that it means, and for him, that's more than enough evidence. For all his protestations, he's never actually been that good at playing the cynic.

It's not quite the same, not hearing anything in response, even if her face says enough. He does better with the concrete and the sensate, so while he can imagine it, can hear the echoes of her having said it before, it doesn't entirely compare. But he drinks it in regardless, because he's so starved for her that he'll accept anything and appreciate it. He gently returns the kiss and shifts to support his own weight a little better, since he doesn't quite feel like moving away yet. ]

[ It's after the rush of adrenaline and all the other good things that it begins to, oh so slowly, become uncomfortable. Just those tiny details she hadn't minded before, still doesn't when he's this close and choosing not to leave her just yet. She's less vocal than she normally would be about it (and not for the very obvious reason she can't say anything at all), instead focusing on relearning what she might have missed in those minutes, in the months he hasn't been with her. They're subtle and not, a combination of specifics that leave her torn about all of this and why it's happened to them and why he'd be there without her.

Rather than let him see any of it, she tucks her face against the side of his neck and simply breathes for a while to soak it in. She's not idle though, fingers stroking aimlessly at the curve of his bicep with no real meaning to it except one of comfort. Pepper thinks they both need it, he more than her, and there's something grounding about touch she can't necessarily put into words. It's then she has the idea, juvenile really but no less effective the moment she does it.

Her hand drops just left of the arc reactor, thumb pressing to his skin to work the outline of a rather basic shape she hopes he'll pick up. Pepper does it slowly, following the pattern once more and just as calmly as the first time before resting her palm against him. Unspoken but there, her love as inexpiable as the heart she's drawn but as solid as the hand holding it close. ]

[ Part of this still does feel uneasy; he's not aware to the full extent of it, but it's not that difficult to sense at least something. He allows himself a small shroud of obliviousness though, given that neither of them seems particularly inclined to acknowledge that unease, whatever it may be.

Rather, he lets her bury her face where she likes, hold him the way she feels like doing so, and he in turn does much the same.

It does take him until the second tracing to realize what it is that she's drawn, because he didn't catch her eyes until she'd done half of the first one and therefore didn't register it properly. By the time she's finished the second outline and pressed her palm to the inside of the shape, it's his turn to hide his own face from her, because it's so much. Too much, he's reading too much into it, too much out of it, and there's so much with all of this even still. The brief reprieve was all too brief and all too ineffective.

He accompanies the hiding of his face with a shift in posture. He adjusts himself, angling away from her just long enough to pull his trousers up from the minimum amount required he'd pushed them down, pulls a blanket up for her if she'd like it, but doesn't actually get any further from her in the process. It's really more that he'd sort of like to... Lie here, for a little while, and the way they were was a little weird having since finished what that position had been for. It's unspoken - almost entirely because he doesn't trust his voice, but hey, whatever, she's not talking either - but the request for them both to just sit a while longer is implicit in the way he settles back down at her side. ]

[ She's not talking because she doesn't want to, only because she can't in the first place. If she could, she'd have said his name to placate and so many other things. Idle, distracting things since she's occasionally good at those when most of his attention is focused on her, around her, in the vicinity of her, and now is the perfect opportunity for that. But Pepper has nothing at her disposal, so she gently tugs at the blanket to drape it across her middle before turning to press up against his side.

The silence is a bit intimidating with nothing to fill it, gaze falling across his face and along the shape of his neck and shoulder for a moment. Her hand strokes down his arm, circling his wrist before slipping her fingers to twine with his and drawing it up so she can press a kiss to skin. Pepper doesn't know what else he wants beyond that, beyond staying here like this for a while, and there are no complaints because she has no where else to be. There's no one else she'd rather be with more than him, especially right now, and she'll take that for as long as she can get it.

She'll wait as long as he needs her to, and she closes her eyes, resting her forehead against their hands in case he requires even more reassurance. She's there, and she's not going to leave him now. ]

[ Yeah he's not all that sure what to do with the silence either. On the one hand, it's not a bad thing. He is actually capable of appreciating silence when he feels like it, of appreciating just the way someone feels when they're near you in more ways than one, because words are powerful and everything like he said earlier, but they're also a potential barrier. It's why he uses so many of them - running the numbers. But silence isn't his default; it's so far from being his default that he forgets sometimes that it's even an option, and right now he's being almost painfully reminded that silence is actually a thing. The void of something is something in and of itself, and he's not totally sure how he feels about that. Tony is a loud and abrasive person - he's not well equipped to handle the soft and gentle cuts that come without blatant antagonism.

He's also well aware that he tends to take, and he's trying to be more careful with taking too much from her - he's trying to do right by Pepper now, more so than he was before, and that extends to before he even got here and before he grew however much he has in that year without her. He doesn't want to take too much from her in his gratefulness to see her, not when she still has adjusting to do. The fact that she can't talk, for reasons he's still not totally sure of, will only fuel his paranoia about fucking things up here. He's intellectually well aware that she's more than capable of still making her feelings as per particular subjects known, but even still. There's a certain amount of simply having not had her for so long and now working against that deprivation at play here.

But he lets himself be selfish for a little while, stays with her, here, lying with her warmth and her affection before he allows many of those thoughts to permeate the moment and bring it back down to this dystopian reality. ] Glad, but sorry. It's not always that bad here but it is a war. I hope there's nothing to the precision theory for the transporter. [ Precision being placed versus accuracy here, where one has to do with closeness to the target and one to the closeness of the other attempts. He means the tendency of several people from the same place to appear, rather than simply a handful of randomly selected individuals who would actually be useful in a war. ]

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007 ¤ [voice]

i think the sex

wow, that's so cheating

technically this is sex without cheating, actually

those were two different things, and you just made them one :|

yes i did

completely unacceptable

oops? also sorry short but he ran out of introspection

and with good reason. but it's okay me too

the best

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