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It’s the middle of the night when you hear Sevika walking around in the bedroom.
She shouldn’t be up. You know it, and she had better know it, given how many times you, Silco and Singed have reminded her in the last two weeks.
You exhale through your nose and heave yourself up from the couch, making your way through the apartment (and you hate that you aren’t sure if you can even call it your apartment anymore) knocking gently on the bedroom door. You get a grunt as your answer, which, fine, if that’s what she’s willing to give you right now, you’ll take it. It’s better than being snapped and barked at.
Sevika is out of bed almost fully dressed, only missing her boots and socks. Her hair is hanging loose around her face. Normally, seeing her like this, ninety percent ready to go out and do her job, but still a little soft, a little at home, would make your heart warm. Right now, it makes you furious. Not at Sevika, really, because you’re trying so hard to understand her right now. No, you’re furious at the situation you’re in, playing nurse, which wouldn’t be so bad if Sevika wasn’t so stubborn, and jailer, which would be awful no matter what.
You try not to look at the bed. You’ve been camping out on the couch since Sevika had had the prosthetic attached after you had tried to spend the night with her right after the surgery and she had flinched away when your hand had accidentally brushed her back.
Two months ago, Sevika’s arm got blown off in a mysterious explosion that no one can tell you anything about. A month and a half ago, Singed declared her arm irrecoverable and amputated it. Two weeks ago, Sevika had undergone another surgery to attach a metal, chemteach prosthetic arm in place of the one she’d lost. Ever since, she had been on strict instructions from Singed and Silco to stay off her feet until she was given the all-clear to start working again. She had been doing her best to ignore these instructions, much to everyone's annoyance. Even worse, Sevika is genuinely terrible at letting people take care of her.
People including you.
“What are you doing?” you sigh.
“Going to work,” Sevika grunts, tossing her new red cloak over her shoulders, effectively hiding her prosthetic from view. You kind of hate that damn cloak.
“Okay, I know for a fact that Silco didn’t call you in,” you tell her, “because he told you to stay in bed. Or at the very least -”
“‘Rest up until you are back to full working capacity,’” Sevika quotes Silco back at you, “I remember.”
“Sure you do. Want to explain why you’re ignoring him, then?” And Singed, you think. And me.
Sevika shoots you a dark look, but you’ve been on the receiving end of so many of those for the last month that it doesn’t even phase you anymore. Far cry from you breaking down in the shower at the end of Sevika’s first week back in the apartment after the explosion.
“I’m fine to go back,” Sevika says, again hunting around the room for the rest of her things. “Shit’s going down with Vander gone and Silco taking over officially. Can’t just sit around here, being fucking useless.”
“Alright, well you aren’t useless, you’re healing from two major surgeries,” you say, a bite in your voice.
“Done healing.”
That sends you sputtering, absolutely shocked that Sevika would even think that.
“No?” your shock makes it come out as a question. You clear your throat and try again. “No. No you are not done healing. What the hell, Sevika? Singed said a few more days at least before you can even go back to light work. You can just start walking around the Lanes, beating faces in. Honestly, I can’t believe you right now.”
“I’m fine,” Sevika barks, rolling her metal shoulder under the cloak. “The arm is fine. I’m useless sitting around here.”
And that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? Sevika and her hatred of feeling useless or weak. You’re well aware of your girlfriend's feelings on the matter. It has been one of the biggest things that’s driven a wedge between you two in the last few weeks.
“Silco isn’t going to let you stick around if you show up at the Drop,” you say, trying a new angle.
Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t go your way.
“He’ll survive,” Sevika says. She has come around the bed and is now standing only a few feet away from you, arms crossed over her chest. It’s the closest you’ve been to her in a while that didn’t involve you trying to check on her arm.
Her nonchalant tone sets a fire burning in your gut, and suddenly you’re deeply fucking upset. It’s like all of the hurt and anger that you’d been trying to push down for the last month is suddenly coming up again. You’re not even going to bother trying to push it back down, so you just end up shouting, “Yeah, but you might not!”
It's such an alarming sound coming from you that Sevika takes a step back, eyes widening.
You take a deep breath, taking the last pieces of your patience to calm yourself down, and repeat more softly, “You might not survive, okay? You’ve had two major surgeries in the last six weeks, Sevika. You’re still adjusting to your new arm, and you’ve hardly been sleeping. There’s no way that you can go back out like this.”
Sevika is still staring at you. Her eyes are wide and her jaw is slack. You’re most concerned about how pale her face is, but you have to get everything out before you try and get her back to bed. Again. Plus, now that you’ve started, really started, you can’t seem to stop.
“And I get it, Sev. I get why you’re being so fucking stubborn about this. I know that Zaun will always come first for you. I have always known that, and I have no problem being second to that, and I never have. I don’t care that you don’t want to share a bed with me anymore, and I don’t care if you don’t want me to touch you, or that you don’t want to touch me. That’s up to you, Sevika, and I would never be upset at you for making those choices, especially if that’s what you want. If it’s what’s best for you. My problem is with you dying. Be as pissed with me as you want, but I will be damned if you die, and I could have done something to keep it from happening.”
You finish, face flushed and wringing your hands in front of you, while Sevika sits heavily on the edge of the bed. Her face is ashen, and her own breathing is shallow. She looks well and truly like she has had the rug pulled out from under her. You stare at her and she stares at you, the air between the two of you feels like it’s weighing you down.
Sevika takes a deep breath before she says, “You’re wrong.”
“About what?” you snap, and you’re winding yourself up again, but Sevika beats you to the punch, saying, “There isn’t anything more fucking important to me in this world than you, okay? Everything I do, for Zaun and our people? At the end of the day, it’s all for you.”
That brings you up short. Partially because this kind of emotional vulnerability is always shocking when it’s coming from Sevika, but more so because you’d never once thought that anything, even you, would be more important to her than Zaun. It really hadn’t bothered you. Truthfully, you’ve always found her dedication to the liberation of her nation and her people one of the most attractive things about her. To have her admit differently makes you feel a little light-headed.
But that is not the point right now.
“Being here feels wrong. I feel wrong. My arm is gone, and I have this thing,” Sevika continues, gesturing aggressively to her prosthetic, “and no matter how much I want you next to me, I’ve got nightmares coming all the time, and an arm that I can’t feel properly that could hurt you like it was nothing. Fuck, if I lash out while I’m asleep and hit you with this thing, I might not even know it. I can’t risk it, and I don’t know how to fix it, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want you in our bed.”
You’ve never heard her say so much all at once. Normally she doesn't need to. Sevika is concise, picks her words carefully so she doesn’t have to say things more than once or offer elaborate explanations.
You move quietly over to the bed, sitting down next to her, on her right side. You’re close enough to touch, but you don’t. You’ll leave that choice up to her.
“Thank you,” you say.
Sevika huffs, eyeing you wearily, “What for?”
“For telling me how you’re feeling,” you say. “I know it’s hard for you.”
Reaching out with her flesh hand, Sevika runs one finger down your jaw and neck. It’s the first time she’s really touched you in weeks, and you kind of want to cry.
“I’ve missed you,” you whisper.
She sighs, long and low, and keeps cupping the side of your neck with her hand. You lean into the warmth of her palm, and rush to wipe the few tears on your cheeks away.
“I miss you too,” Sevika says, leaning in and placing a gentle kiss on your temple.
You lean into that, too, relishing in the warmth of these small touches from the woman you love, especially after so long without them. Sevika’s lips leave your temple and you feel her press her nose into your hair.
“Come closer,” she mumbles.
“Honey, I don’t know how much closer I can get,” you say.
Sevika grunts and shifts to loop her organic arm around your waist, pulling you tighter to her side before trying to slide you into her lap.
“Okay, okay,” you laugh, batting her arm away and turning to slide one leg over her lap so you’re straddling her. “Happy?”
Her answer is the briefest brush of her lips against yours, but she startles back before either of you have a chance to process it.
“Sorry,” she says, and you can see her starting to close herself off again.
You let out a low hum before asking, “Do you regret it?” And when she shakes her head, you smile.
“Well, me neither. If you're down, I’d like you to do it again.”
Sevika’s nostrils flare before she crushes her lips into yours. You moan and twine your arms around her neck, pressing both of your chests together. She is just as warm and broad and wonderful as ever, and you feel yourself settle down immediately in the presence of all this familiarity.
Ducking her head down, Sevika presses a series of quick kisses to your shoulder, where the shirt you wear to bed has slipped down. You turn your head, trying to watch, and all you can really see is her ear, covered by the dark fall of her hair.
“Baby,” you say.
Her responding, “Fuck me,” is so unexpected, you almost fall off of her lap in surprise.
“Really?” you ask, a little bit breathless with the shock of her request and your building excitement.
“Wouldn’t’ve asked if I wasn’t serious.”
You roll your eyes but you’re smiling because, yep, that's your woman, alright. Pragmatic to the last.
You drop a quick kiss to her lips, and when you pull away Sevika is fucking smiling. You feel like you could float away from happiness at the sight.
“How do you want it?” you ask her, and watch her start to clam up again, which you’d been expecting. This is always the bit that Sevika struggles with - telling you the specifics of her wants.
Cupping her face in your hands, you try to keep your voice as level as possible when you say, “I can get one of the toys? See how many times you can come from the wand?”
Ever so gently, you suck a mark into the side of her neck, which has her panting by the time you pull away.
“Or I could eat you out? Maybe let you ride my face a bit, see where that gets us?”
Under your hands, Sevika freezes, and her breathing gets a little bit more ragged. You manage to say, “I missed the taste of you,” before Sevika kisses you again, and you have your answer.
This kiss is feverish and you feel a little like you’re trying to burn the memory of it into her mouth, mind and heart. You never want her to forget this.
Rubbing a thumb over the top button on her shirt you break the kiss to ask, “Can I?”
Sevika’s jaw clenches and she drums her fingers against your spine.
“We don’t have to,” you reassure her, taking your hands away from the button and putting them on her shoulders.
“I want you to,” Sevika licks her lips, “but the explosion left a bunch of fresh scars.”
“Okay,” you say, and you slip the first button through the hole.
Sevika knocks her forehead into yours as you undo the next few buttons on her shirt, and you still your hands.
“Sev?”
“Keep going,” she huffs. “You can keep going.”
Her voice is a little shaky, but Sevika has never said something she doesn’t mean. You keep your forehead pressed to hers as you move your hands down her shirt, deftly undoing the buttons as you go. About half-way down, your hands start to tremble the tiniest bit, which is mildly funny. It isn't as if you haven’t seen her topless countless times before.
When you get to the last button, you let Sevika’s shirt fall open and give yourself a minute to take her in. You press your pointer finger into the space between her collarbones and then run it down her chest. As you swipe a thumb over each of her nipples, you relish in her sharp inhale and the immediate darkening of her eyes, and start pushing her shirt off even more in your desperate efforts to gain access to more of her skin.
You stop when you see what she’d been talking about before. The shiny scars that branch across her cheek and down her neck extend down her side, ending in the middle of her ribcage.
"Can I touch them?" you ask, keeping your hand on the leather of her shirt, not wanting to risk brushing them even accidentally.
"If you want," Sevika says. She has fixed her gaze on your sternum, unblinking.
As softly as you can, you slip your hand under her shirt and place two fingers on the scars at her shoulder. Then you pull them away when Sevika hisses through her teeth.
"Sorry, honey," you say, but she's shaking her head.
"Didn't hurt. Just felt wrong, I guess."
That doesn't make you any less concerned. "Wrong how?"
"It just doesn't feel like it normally does when you touch me. It's more sensitive, but kind of dulled I guess," she shrugs. "Does that make sense?"
"Not really, but that doesn't matter. Do you want me to stay away from them?"
“No, just,” Sevika tilts her head to one side, looking for all the world like she’s gearing up for a fight, “be gentle.”
You brush a feather-light kiss to her scared cheek and say, “Of course,” before you put your fingers back on her shoulder to continue your exploration.
The strangest thing about these scars, you decide, isn’t their colour or their unnatural shine. It’s the way they feel. You’ve felt Sevika’s other scars, old and new, but none of them feel like this. The closest comparison you can make is that touching them feels like skimming your fingers over still water.
As you move your fingers across Sevika’s shoulder, over the side of her breast and down her ribs, she stills under you and her breathing becomes shallow. Once your fingers settle at the bottom of her rib cage Sevika takes in a long breath.
“Alright?” you ask.
“Yeah, sweetheart,” Sevika huffs.
“I’m glad,” you say, leaning in to kiss her again.
Just like before, Sevika deepens the kiss almost immediately. Ensuring her prosthetic stays on the bed, Sevika cups the back of your head and holds you close. It’s practically perfect, but now that you’re both here you need to get as close as possible.
Breaking the kiss, you watch Sevika’s face flash with anticipation as you push her shirt off of her shoulders and then drop your hands to undo the fastenings on her pants. Before you even have to ask, Sevika lifts her hips and you slide her pants and underwear down and off.
“Thanks,” you say, moving to kneel on the floor.
“Oh yeah, because getting naked for you is a real hardship,” she drawls.
It’s a heady reversal of your usual rolls. If one of you is going to be completely naked while the other stays dressed, you’re usually the one who loses your clothes. Having all of Sevika’s skin on display, soft and warm and all for you, makes you feel a little possessive. No one else gets to see her vulnerable like this. She only ever drops her guard for you.
You put your hands on her waist, pulling gently and getting her to come closer to the edge of the bed. Slipping your hands onto her knees you push her legs apart a little bit further, letting you shift into the space between her legs, and your eyes catch on her metal hand.
“If you want, you can touch me with this one,” you say, nodding at it, running your hands up and down her thighs.
Her fingers curl into the bedding, and she says, “No.”
“Alright,” you say. “It’s a standing offer though, if you ever change your mind.”
She nods but doesn’t say anything else, so you
“You okay, baby?” you say, rubbing your hands down the tops of her thighs again.
You look up as she mumbles “Uh huh.” She has her eyes closed, but her head is tilted down like she had been watching you.
You brush a kiss to the inside of her right knee, then her left. You keep moving up her legs, putting lingering kisses to the insides of her thighs, enjoying every minute of it. By the way that Sevika’s breathing deepens, you can tell that she’s enjoying it too. When you get to the very top of her right leg you nip a small spot, which earns you a soft grunt from Sevika. Pressing a smile into her skin you ask, “How does that feel?”
“Fucking amazing,” Sevika rasps.
Humming, you go back to the same spot and start to suck a mark into the skin. Sevika hisses and then sighs when you take your mouth away, pressing your thumb into the newly reddened skin instead.
Before you even have a chance to ask, Sevika says, “If you stop, I fucking swear-”
You chuckle, popping up on your knees to press a quick kiss to her stomach, before lowering back down. You don’t make Sevika wait any longer.
At the first swipe of your tongue, you moan into Sevika’s cunt. She tastes fucking perfect, exactly how you remeber. Salty and earthy, a tiny bit sour and unlike anything else. You hitch her left thigh over your shoulder, opening her up so that you can press in even more closely. Sevika threads the fingers of her organic hand through your hair when you swipe your tongue over her clit.
Sevika’s hand in your hair is all the encouragement that you need to keep going.
You focus on her clit, keeping your tongue soft as you draw circles around it. Every so often, you move down, running your tongue over her slit and tasting her, before returning to her clit. You keep the routine up before lifting a hand up circling her entrance with a finger but never pushing in.
“Fucks sake,” Sevika says, voice low. “Babygirl, c’mon.”
It’s as close to begging as Sevika will ever get, and it’s exactly what you had been aiming for. You wrap your lips around her clit and suck gently, but it’s enough. Sevika bucks her hips into your face. You don’t break away, but you do wrap an arm around each of her thighs in an attempt to keep her still. The hand in your hair tightens and you can hear Sevika cursing above you.
It doesn’t take much more than that. You dig your nails into her thighs when Sevika tightens them around your head. Sevika’s never really noisy, but she bucks against your face again as she comes, and her thighs shake as she drops them away from your head. You put another gentle kiss to the bruise you had left earlier before you pull back completely.
“God,” Sevika huffs, and you hear the sheets ruffle as she lays down.
You get up from the floor and wipe off your face roughly with the back of your hand. As you stand, you place two kisses on the crescent moon marks you’d left on her thighs before laying down next to her. You settle a hand on Sevika’s stomach and enjoy the heaving movements as she catches her breath. After barely a moment has passed, Sevika’s eyes open and her brows furrow in annoyance when she looks at you. Before you have the chance to worry about it, she says, “Why the hell are you still dressed?”
Your head falls back as you laugh, and you keep laughing as Sevika starts pushing your shirt up and over your head. Laughs turn to moans when she wraps her mouth around one nipple, sucking hard. You gently comb your fingers through her hair and Sevika pulls herself away, leaning up and slotting her lips over yours. She tugs you closer by your hips and groans as she licks her way into your mouth. You realize it is likely that she can still taste herself on you, and the idea makes your stomach roll in pleasure.
“What do you want?” Sevika demands when she breaks away. “Tell me. I’ll give you anything you want, sweetheart.”
Then she’s sucking a mark into the side of your neck, and fuck you have missed this . It isn’t even the sex (which you have absolutely missed, you aren’t going to lie) but just getting to be close to her, the warmth of Sevika’s skin on yours, her hands on your hips, waist, ass, anywhere and everywhere she wants to put them. You’re still aching to get closer to her, and the ceaseless attention she was paying to your neck was only making you need it more.
“Sevika, get the damn strap.”
She groans, “Fuck,” before getting off the bed and moving to dig through your dresser. You shuck off your sleep pants and underwear, kicking them to the floor, and promptly bury two fingers in your cunt. You’re so bloody wet already that they slide in easily, and you gasp quietly as you press them in nearly to the third knuckle. The feeling has become almost unfamiliar to you in the last few weeks as you had been in no mood to try and eke out an orgasm.
Sevika is still across the room with her back to you, but you can see the leather straps of the harness settled around her hips and thighs. You bite down on your lower lip and move your thumb across your clit, making yourself moan and buck your hips up into your own touch. The noise gets Sevika’s attention and she turns to look at you, her eyes widening and jaw slackening when she sees what you’re doing.
“Come here,” you whine, “please.”
You sink back into the pillows as Sevika comes back to the bed, putting an arm on either side of your head, bracing herself above you like she has a thousand times before. This time though her left arm buckles, pitching her forwards so quickly that the two of you nearly knock heads before you manage to catch the front of her shoulders, keeping her up.
“Dammit,” Sevika growls, rolling her metal shoulder and wincing.
You try to catch her gaze, but she lays down on top of you and plants her face on your shoulder before you get the chance. She has never really done anything like this before, and it’s alarming in its newness. What’s even more alarming is the realization that Sevika is hiding.
You run your fingers along the back of her organic shoulder and ask, “Are you alright?”
You feel the inhale Sevika takes before she says, “No. I missed you. Missed having this with you. I don’t like that I can’t fucking do it right, can’t give you what you want.”
Your heart breaks a bit at the exact same time that you roll your eyes to the ceiling. You understand her frustration and her insecurity, and would never begrudge her for having them, but honestly .
“You’re giving me everything I want,” you tell her. “We just need to adjust a bit because, oh yeah, you have a new limb, Sev.”
Sevika huffs a breath out through her nose, which is as much of an acquiescence to your statement as you can expect.
“Scootch forward a bit,” you say, waving your hand to emphasize your request.
She lifts her head to look at you, eyebrows raised in bemusement, likely because you just said ‘scootch’ completely seriously, and doesn’t move. This time when you roll your eyes, you make sure she sees it before you say, “Trust me honey, yeah?”
“Fine,” Sevika grumbles, sitting up and moving away from the headboard as you had requested.
Moving quickly, you rearrange the pillows, propping them up against the headboard. When you’re happy with your work, you get Sevika to settle against them. By now, she seems to have caught on to your plan, and there is a tiny smirk playing on her lips that gets bigger when you come to hover over her. Up on your knees, you have a little bit of height on her that you never do in any other circumstance. Sevika’s head is tilted up and her eyes, which are closer to black than grey right now, bore into yours. The returned spark of her old confidence has your stomach rolling.
You brush a quick kiss across her lips, ask, “Okay?” and when she nods, you sink down onto the dildo.
Your breath catches in your throat as you bottom out and comes out as a long whine when Sevika rolls her hips up, pushing the dildo in even deeper.
“Good?” she asks, settling her organic arm around your waist, using the prosthetic to brace herself against the mattress.
“Perfect,” you sigh.
And it is. The stretch is gorgeous, and you give yourself a moment to appreciate the feeling before you raise yourself up on your knees and slide back down. You keep your movements slow, doing your best to take in every single sensation - Sevika’s hand splayed across your ribs and the little shifts of her hips that pushes the strap in the barest bit more, meeting your own movements every time. You dig the fingernails of one hand into the skin of her left shoulder, thrilled with the little hiss it earns you in return.
Sevika’s hand moves from your ribs up to the back of your head, tangling it in your hair and using it to pull you closer. While you squirm on the strap, Sevika sucks bruises into your chest that leaves your breath stuttering in your chest. When she manages to pull herself away from your chest, Sevika leans into you. She tries to catch your mouth in a kiss but the two of you end up panting into each other's mouths instead, incapable of catching your breath.
You can feel your orgasm building steadily. The low smolder of it sits in your stomach, and a shaking starts in your thighs that makes your slow roll more of a stutter. You drop a hand to her chest and pass your thumb over her nipple, and Sevika grunts. Feeling it harden under your touch, you take your hand away and run your fingers up Sevika’s spine enjoying the shiver that it gets you in return.
She cups her hand over your jaw and pushes her thumb into your swollen bottom lip. Opening your mouth a tiny bit, you let her slip just the tip in. Lightly, you bite down, enjoying the way Sevika’s cheeks flush at the barely-there pressure of your teeth. It’s wild, you think, how even the smallest things you do drive her crazy, and vice versa.
You’re achingly close.
“Honey, Sevika, baby,” you say, and it’s more of a whine than anything else, “please.”
She drops her hand down between your legs. When you grind down on the strap, Sevika moves her thumb to press hard into your clit. It’s barely anything, but it’s more than enough. Your legs start to shake and you have to stop moving as your orgasm rolls through you. You drop your forehead to rest against hers while you try and catch your breath, enjoying the feeling of her hands settling on your waist.
Wincing a little as you slip off of the strap, you move to unbuckle the harness before dropping it at the foot of the bed and turning back to Sevika. Sevika, who has slid to lay down, who’s pupils were blown out making her grey eyes black, and was flexing her hands in the sheets, doing her best not to squirm.
“What do you need?”
“Anything,” Sevika says. “It won’t take much.”
Nodding, you come to settle between her legs, which she’s spread open to give you some room to maneuver.
“No wait,” Sevika says, “can you just -”
She cuts herself off, pulling you down towards her by your arm until you’re laid out next to her.
“Like this,” she says, looking at you.
“Sure, baby,” you drop a kiss on her lips as you drag your hand down her stomach, dipping your fingers down so you can thumb at her clit.
Sevika was right. It really doesn’t take much to have her coming for you again. You keep the pressure on her clit light as she gasps underneath you, rolling her hips just barely. With your free hand, you reach up to brush her bangs off her forehead, loving the way she chases your touch when you pull away. Sevika jerks when she comes, a full body thing that neither of you were expecting. The little cry she lets out is even more of a surprise. It’s also the best thing you have heard all week. You watch as her eyebrows furrow and her thighs tremble, and you're helpless to do anything other than smile down at her.
After, when you’ve wiped off your hand and Sevika has rolled the two of you onto your sides so your back is pressed to her chest, her nose tucked into the crook of your neck, Sevika says, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” you tell her. “Let’s try not to go that long without talking to each other again, yeah?”
She grunts her agreement, and you finally let yourself fully relax back into her, unwilling to move even an inch from your bed and beyond thrilled that the two of you are sharing it again.