"This is how I die," Harri mumbles. "Exhausted. Dehydrated. Laid until my heart gives out."
"My poor indecorosa," Vespidine purrs, and Harri lifts her head a little.
"I am barely home from work," she says, entirely failing to sound accusing; too sleepy, too satisfaction-honeyed. "You come to the door and say may I come in and you put your hands on my hips and say may I and you kiss me and next thing I know I'm bent over the kitchen table—"
"I waited," Vespidine says. "I wanted it to be your desk in your wretched doorless office at work."
Harri buries her face in her own arm and makes a muffled noise, which escalates to a breathless squeak as Vespidine strokes relentless fingers over her. "Again?"
"You're still talking," Vespidine says, as if that settles the matter.
"Vespidine, you are making us late—"
Vespidine's fingers are laced with Harri's, then her arms wrapped around her, trapping Harri's hands behind her back. Harri is perched on the very edge of Vespidine's dressing-table, legs wrapped around her waist, flushed and whimpering as the elf very thoroughly kisses her swollen lips.
"Vespidine."
"Harri lost a hairpin," Vespidine draws back barely a hair's breadth to say, husky, eyes closed.
"Vespidine," her mother says again, firmly, and Harri's dazed eyes finally fly open; she makes a squeak of dismayed horror and dives to hide in Vespidine's shoulder.
Vespidine's mother sighs loudly.
"Ten minutes," she says. "If you think you can button your trousers and meet us outside by the motor-car in so little time?"
Vespidine inhales deeply, nuzzling the top of Harri's head. "Yes, Mamma," she says meekly.
"Your parents are going to have me murdered," Harri's voice filters down the corridor outside the room, followed by Vespidine's throaty reply.
"Dinner reservations at Bertoldo's aren't that hard to come by—"
"Harika, are you scheming, by any chance?" Vespidine asks in a casual, unconcerned way, flicking through the morning newspaper.
"Why do you ask?" Harri says sweetly, buttering a slice of toast, dressed only in Vespidine's button-down shirt from the night before. She slides herself, plate of toast and all, onto the elf's lap.
Vespidine obligingly lifts the circle of her arms for Harri to duck beneath and into, ensconcing Harri within them and the day's headlines; and murmurs, "It's less accusatory than simply stating it," into her ear.
Harri fills her mouth with toast in lieu of answering.
"I heard," Vespidine says, turning the newspaper's page — possibly to have an excuse to bring her hands near enough to run her thumb across Harri's cheek — "that you had lunch with my cousin."
Toast is only so much of an excuse. "I wanted to learn more about the family," Harri says, which is true, if a little obliquely.
"Mm," says Vespidine, and noses into the crook of Harri's neck. "You have my support," she says quietly into Harri's skin, "should you need it," and stifles any thanks Harri might have given by kissing moans out of her.
"Excuse us," Vespidine says, half an hour into attending an event that's simply an excuse to take Harri dancing again; "Harika needs a glass of water—" and gently but firmly whisks Harri off the dancefloor, down a corridor, and into a silent, unused, more intimate function room.
"You," the elf says, low and intense, backing Harri into a wall, "have been teasing me."
Harri smiles. "Sì," she says.
"Is this what you want?" Vespidine kisses her. "Yes?" And rucking Harri's skirt higher; "This?"
Harri murmurs something unintelligible even to herself against Vespidine's mouth, as the elf wedges her thigh between Harri's.
"Il generale wants to see you ride," Vespidine growls back, and Harri whimpers and grinds on her, the elf's fingers digging into her hip, eyes boring into her, unwavering, whenever Harri can flutter her own open; eyes more possessive than even the elf's firm grip, and Harri sobs a sudden climax against her lips.
"Now I think you do need a glass of water," Vespidine rasps eventually, as Harri begins to hold up her own trembling weight, and Harri laughs — a wild little too-obvious just-fucked laugh; and glances down.
"Oh," she says, "oh, no. Vespidine. I've — ruined your trousers," and two mental images of perfect clarity strike her simultaneously, both of futile penance on her knees, tongue on wet cloth; one of Vespidine, glorious Signore, stroking her hair as she works — the other a sickening fear-clench around Cosimisa's imagined expression, looking down at her with disgusted and enraged contempt, the words Clean it! ringing from her mouth, and Harri clutches at Vespidine's shoulders, finding her eyes brimming.
"Harika?" Vespidine cups her chin. "Harri?" The elf's breath catches. "Have I—"
"No," Harri says, tone wrong, voice cracked, but as swift and sure as she can. "No. Not you."
"Used in a private nook at the Ostermann," Vespidine says; sotto voce, self-excoriating. "I'm so sorry, preziosa mia—"
"No," Harri says, and gives an angry little half-sob. "Vespidine — Signore, I need you—"
"You have me," the elf says, enfolding her tightly in her arms, and Harri burrows into her, sniffling, searching for a safe place from which to take a breath, then several more, and speak.
"I'm broken and I'm ruined," she says shakily.
"No," Vespidine says. "Broken, perhaps, a little — we live in the End of the World; many things are broken. But all of them are precious, and we nurture all of them for the future. You're not ruined, and you're my indecorosa."
"Vespidine," Harri begs into her shoulder, not even knowing what she begs for, knowing only that she hurts and she needs.
"I didn't mean to remind you of her," Vespidine says quietly.
Harri makes a noise of frustration, and bites at her clothed shoulder a little. "You didn't," she says sharply. "I want things, Vespidine, I want cruelty, she didn't make me that way; it's just that — six years, Signore mia. When you want cruelty, your wants are also fears, and she...gave all my fears teeth."
Vespidine hums and gently lifts her chin and waits for Harri's reluctant eyes to settle on hers; gives her a slow, serious kiss.
"I need you," Harri mutters, afterwards, a little calmer. "I need you senza rimorsi, spietata, implacabile, Signore mia."
"You need me to be cruel," Vespidine murmurs. "—But you need me to be safe."
And these are the words, it seems, to finally deflate Harri onto the elf's shoulder, drained. "Even when I'm like this," she says wretchedly, and puts her head down on Vespidine's warmth.
"There's no even about it, Harri," Vespidine says patiently. "Let me take you home."
In Harri's apartment, Vespidine kneels to remove Harri's third mysteriously necessary pair of dancing shoes; takes her by the hand and leads her to the bathroom. Harri wearily tugs at her dress while Vespidine fiddles with the bathtub, until the elf notices. "I am going to do that, preziosa," she says, gently.
"I can—" Harri starts, and Vespidine gently presses her to the wall, gently takes her hand and presses the back of it to the tiles just above her head; takes Harri's other hand and layers it over the first; fastens them there immovably with a kiss to her topmost out-turned palm.
"I am going to do that," Vespidine repeats, and Harri closes her eyes and gratefully becomes only done to; an object at rest. Vespidine runs a bath, undresses her, gently scrubs and rinses her; pulls her out and towels her dry, carries her to the bedroom, brushes her hair, tucks the two of them into Harri's soft bed.
"Amatissima," Vespidine murmurs, pressed along the length of Harri's back, the protective shell to Harri's weak and briny seashell-meat.
"Signore," Harri says, and laces their fingers together, holds tight to the hand that's wrapped over her.
