Sit With Me, Hold My Hands

[For your comfort, a short pause has been put in place between part one and part two. Please enjoy.]

“Oh, this is quite thoughtful of the staff.” Artoria muses out loud. “A lifetime does make for a rather long story, after all.”

Oberon does not reply, merely eyeing at her with suspicion. It’s far from his first time in this allegorical theater- there’s not much else to do in the abyss aside from dreaming- but it is the first time he’s seen an interlude in the middle of the movie of his life. The fact that this is also the first time he sees anyone else here- and Artoria, no less- tells him this is no coincidence.

“Do you intend to go stretch your legs?” She asks him, a curious look on her face.

He sneers at her. “This theater is metaphorical. Everything here is symbolic in some way. Where would I even walk to?”

He means for it to sound like an insult. She doesn’t seem bothered at all. She imply nods, as if it were common sense.

Man. What an unpleasant person. The absolute audacity of her, to kill him and not even resent him afterwards.

From the corner of his eyes, he sees Artoria getting up from her seat, stretching her arms. He makes a point to not look at her. Come in uninvited, get ready to be ghosted.

This turns out to be a rather bad idea. If he’d looked at her, maybe he would have had any sort of prior warning to her suddenly sitting on his laps.

“What are you doing?!” He hisses at her. His hands hover over her hips, as if he were about to grab her and push her away- though he does not.

Her hand comes up, fingers tracing lazy lines over his collarbone. This Artoria is much taller than the one he’s used to; they’re about the same height now, the two of them forcefully brought to eye level. “This place is allegoric, you said it yourself. So, it’s up to you to tell me. What could this possibly symbolize?”

“That you are horny as hell?” Finally, he settles his hands on the armrests. If he touches her right now- even an actor like himself won’t be able to keep up his role.

Artoria quirks up an eyebrow. Gently, she picks up his right hand. “Symbolic is the opposite of literal. It means something that isn’t obvious. Something that is hidden under a couple layers. Subtext, if you will.” Then, unceremoniously, she shoves his hand under her breastplate. “My current lust isn’t subtext. It’s just text.”

The first thing Oberon thinks is: I can feel her heartbeat. With barely a layer of cloth between his fingers and her skin, he’s all too aware of the flow of her blood, the rise of her lungs, all proofs that even if they have both been killed neither of them have properly died.

The second thing Oberon thinks is: titties.

She shifts onto his laps, and he holds back a grunt. Against his will, he is starting to get hard. “So, do you whore yourself to every doomsday device you run into, or am I special?”

“I don’t know.” She grinds against him, earning her a wordless gasp. “Do you just let anyone ride you, or am I special?”

Special. That’s the word for it. She is his (enemy) (friend) (murderer) (victim) (the one person tied to him by fate) (the one person who severed their shared karma) she is special. There is no other word for her.

Not that he’d tell her. Unfortunately- she already knows. He is the worm of the abyss, the dragon Vortigern. If he had truly meant to keep her away, he would have pushed her the second she’d sat on him.

She cups his face, then leans down to kiss him. If she is surprised by his forked tongue, she doesn’t show it. He bites at her lips, a couple times, because he’s feeling mean. The only reaction this gets him are her fingers pulling his trousers down.

“So?” She whispers afterwards, lips red from his teeth. “What do you think this symbolizes?”

What’s the meaning of a kiss? Nothing, really. Loneliness, perhaps. The go-to gesture of people who want to feel like they matter to another human- ah!

She sinks down on him in one go. Oh, fuck. She’s so warm, and wet, and tight. His hand squeezes her breast, his claws nipping at the fabric of her dress. This earns him a long, drawn-out sigh, right by his ear.

“How do you think our star would feel?”

“Whuh?” He replies, which yes is perhaps not the most eloquent response, but he thinks he can be forgiven on account of having someone sitting on his dick.

“Ritsuka,” she clarifies, right before rolling her hips. “How do you think they’d feel- around your cock?”

“Don’t say that word. It’s unbecoming of a king.” Who taught this girl to be so crass? So much for becoming a shining star. (Everything in this theater is metaphorical and allegorical; there is symbolism in here too, in how she is willing to show him the country girl beneath the crown) “Besides, don’t you know it’s rude to bring up other people in the middle of sex?”

“Since when do you care about being rude?” She laughs to his face, breathless, face flushed. She leans forward as she rides him, resting her head against his chest. “I’ve thought about them. And about you. And about the two of you together. Have you not?”

“Shut up.” What dream would that be, anyways? One way too forced, too unrealistic. The two heroes completing each other; that’s a classic, a logical conclusion to two people supporting each other. The villain has a role in a tragedy, not a romance. Besides, what kind of story would have three people ending up together?

“Oh? You’d be so greedy as to wish for every world to burn, but you draw the line at yearning for anyone other than Titania?”

She may look more noble now, but she’s still the same stubborn Artoria- which means nothing he can say will get her to stop. So he kisses her instead; she cannot speak with two tongues in her mouth.

His hands grab her hips, pull her up and down in rhythm. The whole thing becomes a rather quiet affair from this point on; there is no loud moaning, no calling each other’s name, no whispering sweet nothing to each other. Just their erratic breathing, the slap of flesh against flesh, and the omnipresent question: if this intercourse too is symbolic, what does this represent?

(Intercourse, he calls it, because he refuses to be so cheesy as to call it making love, because everything he says rots the moment it leaves his mouth and that means he cannot say something as obvious as this is how much you care.)

He comes first, with a guttural sound, his claws sinking deep into her hips. She keeps riding him for a bit afterwards- then goes limp against him.

They stay like this in silence for a while. He has no idea how long. Time doesn’t mean much in a place like this.

[The screening will resume shortly. Please go back to your seats.]

Slowly, Artoria pulls herself off him. When she gets up, Oberon sees a flash of white running over her inner thigh- and then she straightens her dress, and it’s like nothing ever happened. The only remaining proof of their act are the ten pinpricks by Artoria’s hips- and her blood under his nails.

“So, what did you think this symbolized?”

“Once again: you should be silent during movies.” He replies curtly. Annoying. Annoying little king who does not know how to give up on that which cannot be saved.

Without any further word, Artoria goes back to her own seat, but- from the corner of his eyes, he catches her smiling.