Work Text:
A cold waft of air drifted into the dim studio, carrying the scent of her floral fragrance to his nose. He had grown to appreciate her preference for sumeru roses.
He softly hums, his face hidden behind the lenses of his camera with its strap slung around his neck. Dottore runs his fingers through his tousled hair before swiftly fixing his glasses from sliding lower on his nose.
On the other side of his lens, Lumine stretched herself on a chaise longue adorned in a navy silk robe. “Perfect. Don't move." Her eyes squint playfully, a gaze that had Dottore's heart fluttering often.
A faint sigh escapes him as his fingers tightened on the focus ring at the sight of her languid smile. Dottore doesn’t blink for one second, watching her through the lens as the shutter clicks, the sound of it louder than the soft music playing.
“Again. Do it again.” Lumine adjusts herself briefly, arching her back before she directs her gaze to him. She had never cared for his camera.
His pulse spikes as he adjusts the camera to frame all of her, and once he gets another picture, he steps closer. “Few more.” He murmurs as his cold fingers brush a loose strand away from her cheek before gliding his fingers down her jawline.
Dottore didn't adjust anything important. Still, he gently tilts her face to the side before taking a frontal picture.
He had spent years being her personal photographer, seen her in all her forms, fully clothed and bared to his eyes alone, and seen her admired by all, but for a fact, he knew no living being on this earth would admire her like he did.
He prided himself on the fact he knew her better than most of those around her. He had seen all of her throughout the years. Every vulnerability was laid out before him.
Dottore takes off his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose as the ceaseless sense of nostalgia hits him once more. He remembers every photoshoot—the first time she trusted him to take the best pictures with her face bare from makeup; the days when he would take a few pictures as she laughed during shoots; or the uncountable days when tears painted her cheeks, photographing them eternally through his memories.
He doesn’t know when exactly his profession had turned into an obsession, for Lumine had become his muse. No painter could replicate her grace, and no poet could sing it to its full verity.
“You seem distracted.” Lumine murmurs it the way one would a secret as dottore lowers the camera from his grasp. His eyes set on her, and Lumine could tell his usual composure had cracked. She always sees right through him.
She has long known his love and devotion for her, for she had seen it pour out of his eyes, the lifetime of stolen glances, and his obvious worship of her through every photograph he had taken of her.
He inches closer, brushing his index against her cheekbone, feeling how warm she is in contrast to him. A thing that had wandered in his mind frequently: had it been all the lights and flashes that made her warm, or had she always been destined for a life of a star?
His star, his lumine.
“I’m not distracted.” He utters his lie softly. “I’m just looking at you.” He retreats his hand away.
“Merely doing your job.” She teases, sitting up to lean her back against the armrest of the chaise lounge. Dottore swallows his response, keeping his hand by his side; for once, he doesn’t rush to adjust something immediately.
There has been one rule he stuck with: Be respectful. Keep it professional. Never let his obsession bleed into his touches, and he had followed that rule diligently throughout the years, even on nights when she looked like his religion and god.
He exhales softly, exhausted by the excessiveness of his feelings. He reaches his hands toward her shoulder, adjusting the ripples of her robe as Lumine smiles faintly at how he smoothed out nothing, as if fidgeting with her attire always seemed to ease his nerves.
After all, this photoshoot wasn’t for Dottore's eyes, and he hated that simple fact, how it filled him with bitter hatred that he had to share her with the world. Yet that in itself was Dottore's spite to capture her flawlessly. The world would know the essence of beauty through his lens.
“I will need you with me during fashion week.” She asks in a hushed tone, tilting her head to the side. “Are you going to decline again?” A hint of disappointment seeps into her voice.
Dottore had said "No" last year and the year before that. It’s not that he hated how popular she is; heaven above, Dottore faithfully believed she deserved to be seen, but he hated the crowds, the unfamiliar cameras seeking every angle of her, and, importantly, the hungry stares of every stranger looking at her as if she were a doll for display.
His gaze trailed to her eyes, and if he could utter it plainly, she’d hear how he dislikes sharing her, yet he sees the vulnerability in her eyes. He had known their mutual disdain for all the performances without purposes and hollow admiration.
“I need you with me.” She repeats softly, her eyebrows knitting as her hand grasps the edge of his dangling tie. The robe shifts, exposing the pale baby blue lingerie she wore underneath it, and though Dottore knew about it, his breath hitched regardless.
Perhaps she's only being herself, or perhaps she is fully aware that every inch of her weakens his resolve like a candlelit flame shakily wavering in the night wind.
His fingers twitch before he allows himself to graze the warmth of her collarbones. “As you wish." At that response, Lumine sighs in relief.
“Good. I didn’t want to endure it alone.” She confesses bitterly, the crease still stuck on her face, and so without thinking twice, Dottore pressed his thumb between her eyebrows, smoothing it away.
Lumine laughed, a sound that always succeeded in sending goosebumps down his spine, and stepped away from her, restraining himself once more as he stood at the end of the chaise lounge, right at her feet.
“When do we leave?” He busies himself with adjusting the camera strap, a meaningless movement to compose himself. “Tomorrow night. Will that be enough time for you?” Just as he looks up, he sees the navy robe discarded on the floor, leaving her in that stunning lingerie.
Dottore doesn’t gawk at her like a beast starving for food; he looks at her the way a devout believer would at a sacred painting they had seen a thousand times and still felt awe and reverence from it.
“More than enough.”
Quietly, he takes a picture without the flash going off. “Will you still take pictures of me when I am no longer young and beautiful?” It takes him three seconds to fully process what she had just asked.
It gutted him. He wanted to erase that worry from her mind, to offer her a proper embrace, to make her believe that as fleeting as beauty may be, his devotion for her would never fade.
Dottore sighs, almost helplessly, before tilting his head as he looks at her, his camera resting against his chest. “I will take photos of you when your hair is silver and time has etched every wrinkle on your skin with a story.”
The rest of the sentence swallows itself down his throat; he wouldn’t dare say more. How he would take pictures of her until his own camera was too heavy a weight to carry anymore. After all, he spent endless nights and long years capturing how he loved her with every frame he took.
Suddenly Lumine rose from her seat, padding toward him. her lingerie shimmered faintly under the studio lights, her bare feet making no sound as dottore freezes in place. She stops inches away from him, held back by that damned camera.
Her lips quiver, and her gaze holds all her fragility, fear and worry that her beauty, the very thing he had immortalised, will vanish and leave her unworthy of his attention.
She lifts her hand, tentatively resting it against his chest, right over his erratic heart. “I want you to prove it.” Despite showing her tenderness for years, despite every photo honouring not just her beauty but also her soul, Lumine couldn’t believe she would be loved for anything that was not her looks. Still, she doubts.
For a long moment Dottore stands silent, then just as wordlessly he cups her cheeks, his thumbs brushing the faint hollowness beneath her eyes, bared from the lack of cosmetics.
His thumbs remain for a second more, as if apologising for every sleepless night she endured without complaint and for every tear and burden beauty demanded of her.
“I love the way you frown when someone says something stupid...and how you hum when you’re tired.” He whispers as low as a sinner would upon their confession.
“I remember the first time I had seen you cry, over a dead bird too, and how you insisted on burying it yourself.” A shaky exhale escapes the both of them as Dottore's thumb slides over her cheekbone.
Lumine sealed her lips shut, a lump forming in her throat instantly whilst his hand reverently trailed down to the slim bones of her shoulders, a proof of how much she starved herself for the sake of beauty and expectations.
Peace is the cost of beauty. A thing that he mourns over what she had endured.
He erases the boundaries that were hanging on by a thread as he presses his forehead gently against hers, mingling their shaky breaths together. He wouldn’t kiss her, not yet, and maybe never. Dottore always knew his never-ending fascination could hurt her, how it could add more to her doubts, and how his worship of her would suffocate her one day should she ever wish to forsake this wretched industry.
Still, he knew the gravity of staying quiet. “I have loved you like a religion. Like a desperate man searching for a god to believe in.” His hands slide down to her arms briefly before his grasp goes to her waist.
Then without breaking eye contact Dottore sank to his knees before his cold nose softly grazed her skin and inhaled her scent as deeply as one would after finally reaching their homeland.
Her eyes widened, staring at the top of his head, seeing how the man who kept his distance for the sake of professionalism was on his knees for her and how she felt his splayed fingers tremble against the small of her back.
A flush spread up across her whole body as her heartbeat drummed strongly; she could feel it in the veins of her neck. She wasn’t used to being utterly loved in such a holy way that someone would kneel without shame. She couldn’t comprehend her mere existence deserved this level of devotion.
For years, Lumine believed beauty was all there was to her, that whatever love she had would disappear with her youth, and that Dottore’s attentive interest in her would waver at the first wrinkle or if her skin dimmed and lost its flawless light.
“Show me how you’d love me, please." Dottore’s gaze travels to her, seeing her parted lips, the two tears that rolled down to her jaw, and the sight of her flushed cheeks.
She lifts her foot off the floor, placing it on his knee, and nods, allowing him to untie the laces of her lingerie, the very ones he tied himself earlier tonight. Lumine couldn’t care about anything in the world more than how she desired him, as carnally as can be in this moment.
The laces slipped free one by one, the fabric easily undone beneath his touch as he held the loosened laces between his fingers before letting all of it fall onto the floor.
Her hands trembled at her sides. She wanted to reach for him, wanted to run her fingers through his hair, so tentatively she hovered a hand over his head before brushing through his soft strands.
His eyes flutter shut at the contact as a shiver ran through his body, and then he blinks out of his trance. “You too.” She hesitantly mumbles it, diverting her gaze away in fear he’d reject her request.
Yet, he understood her need for him to bare his soul as much as she did, and so, without hesitation like most might, Dottore placed his camera on the floor then began undoing his buttons one by one. Modesty or shyness wouldn't hold him back from granting her wishes.
His shirt fell down his shoulders, pooling on the floor, revealing the consistent pallor he had throughout his years, unlike her, who always tanned from the scorching sun while he spent his days indoors with all his cameras.
Just as shamelessly, Dottore's hands went to his belt, pulling its grasp on his abdomen away and discarding it on the floor beside their clothes, then came the sound of his zipper sliding down as he stood up to properly step out of his trousers, left only in his black undergarments.
Although beauty wasn’t something Dottore sought for himself, he was undeniably deserving of praise too, but clothes have always been his shield against unnecessary attention.
Now the both of them stood before one another, bared and unjudged from the world. “Are you at ease?” A question he had asked a thousand times with every shoot, as he now tenderly wipes away the dampness clinging to her cheeks.
Lumine nods, tilting her head up slightly to look at him and tugs his arm closer. Such a gesture urged Dottore to inch more to her face as she felt his lips on hers. Chaste and hesitant.
Only after a breath from him does she lean into him, parting her lips beneath his, an approval of his affection and acceptance for a love she never dared to seek before.
Dottore guides her backwards toward the chaise lounge the moment he feels her surrender in his grasp as he slides his right arm around her waist for support whilst the other cradles her face.
Their kiss breaks apart the second he eases her onto the soft plush of the chaise, breathlessly searching each other’s eyes as dottore hovers over her, having his arm braced beside her head.
Lumine’s face twisted; the love he held for her was overwhelming to the point she could delude herself into thinking it had long been carved on his face.
His eyes traced the curve of her lips, enamoured by the softness he had the grace of kissing mere seconds ago as he tucks her hair behind her ears, not wishing for anything to obscure the sight of her from him.
Then as if he had eternity at his hands, Dottore began his pilgrimage, starting with the softest of kisses against her temple. “I love you here.” He follows by another on her nose. “And here too.” he mutters at the corners of each eye.
The fifth kiss caresses her cheek as she trembles, feeling how every ounce of his love pours directly from his heart to the gentle lips on her skin. How only now she realises the secrecy of his love through all the small gestures he has done for her, through every photo that went to his archive of her.
A myriad of emotions flooded her heart as tears welled up in her eyes again. “Dottore, I love you.” Her breath came out shallow and uneven as his lips settled against the shell of her ear. She always hid them behind her hair.
Dottore lingers against her ear before trailing his kisses down to her jaw. “I have loved you for so long.” Lumine inhaled sharply, squeezing her eyes shut as she felt his lips settle against the frantic heartbeat in her neck.
“I thought…you only saw me as a muse. As someone beautiful enough to glamorise in photoshoots.” Dottore didn’t lift his head off her; his heart skipped a beat in pure agony at the strained rasp in her voice.
“Terribly wrong.” Her hand lightly rested on his shoulder as he continued his descent on her. “You have always been more than beauty to me.” He presses a kiss against her stomach.
Her eyes drift to the camera, long forgotten on the floor, as a low whine slips past her lips at the sensation of his lips brushing on her hipbone, and it earns her a soft hum from Dottore.
“I told myself,” he sighs against her knee. “That you’d never reciprocate.” A shiver shocks her from the kiss he planted on her thigh. “I am selfish, Lumine.” His voice vibrated against her inner thigh as he kissed a path down her legs.
“I am not the angel you make me to be.” She lowers her voice, propping herself up slightly to look at him as once more she finds him on his knees, having her calf pressed against his lip.
Dottore shakes his head imperceptibly before Lumine grabs his arm, pulling him over her as he moves without an ounce of resistance in his bones. “Even Lucifer has followers. I only need you to accept me, us.”
Lumine answers him simply. she closes the nonexistent distance between them with a kiss, slithering her arm below his shoulder before her nails dig into his broad back as she breathes into his scent.
On this brightly illuminated night, Dottore wouldn’t chase for quick relief and fleeting emotions; he would make love to her as though every inch of her were a holy scripture he would learn to read by his lips and touch alone, for his worship to his light-bringer is pure and unfiltered.
No sounds but their syncing breathing would be heard when it is over, as exhaustion lulls them into a sleep where she wouldn’t dream of seeking the highest heights of perfection.
For as long as time continued to exist, they’d be entwined in love.