Backdated to late May.
Lyra visits Will in his treehouse and they decide to do what grown ups do when they love each other.
Dated to late May.
Lyra was wearing her most comfortable linen dress as she walked off the path towards the treehouse where Will lived, Pan already in the tree and climbing its branches to find Kirjava. Her hands were stuffed into her dress's big, roomy pockets and her hair was tied back in a loose bun, trusty bag bouncing gently against her side as she crunched her way through the grass. She was soft from a recent scrubbing and her lips were pink from having stuffed too many wild, bitter raspberries in her mouth. Admittedly, she felt a thrill in her stomach with each step she took, but it was a good feeling. One that she hoped she would feel time and time again.
"Will!" she called up from just below the elaborate treehouse, one foot slipping free of her shoe to scratch her other ankle with her toes. "Will, you had better be up there."
Will bolted to the window as soon as he heard her, waving his arms frantically. "Shhhh!" he hissed at her, even though he was grinning. It was impossible not to, around Lyra. "You'll wake Nate." He didn't actually know if Nate was sleeping or not, as Will tried not to intrude on Nate and his mum, but he thought it was the kind of thing you were supposed to say when there was a newborn baby in the house. Don't wake the baby. "You coming up?" he added, in a more normal tone of voice.
Oh, yes, the baby Nate. The one who would never know his father, but Lyra couldn't afford to let her mood fade at that thought, not with Will beaming down at her like that. At the sight of his face Lyra found herself more determined than ever. He was handsome and she loved him dearly. It made such clear sense. "Of course I am," she spoke just loud enough for him to hear her, catching the rope ladder when it fell to her hands. It didn't take her long at all to climb all the way to the top, and she pressed her palms flat along the floor to heave herself up and turn to sit briefly with her legs dangling. "Who else is home?" she couldn't help but ask as she rose up to stand.
"I think just Gwen and Nate," said Will. "It's kind of quiet. Chase is probably at the clinic and the Doctor might be messing about with the TARDIS." It was something he liked about the two of them, that they didn't try to keep tabs on him every second of the day, at least not in a way that was obvious and suffocating. "What are you up to? You look like you've been into something," he added, gesturing to the pink on her lips, as if she'd been eating sweets.
Lyra looked around his room, absorbing everything inside that made it Will's own. She decided then that she ought to spend more nights there. She set her bag down on the floor and then turned her attention back to him with a broad, daring sort of smile. "I had target practice this morning," she said while toeing off her shoes. "I'm getting better, but anyway that's over and done with. I think we ought to spend the rest of the day together. There's a lot we ought to do."
Will eyed her as she kicked off her shoes and then proclaimed that they had 'a lot to do'. "Stuff you're going to do going about barefoot?" he asked, the corner of his mouth turning up. This was Lyra--there really was no telling. As far as he was concerned, just standing there looking at her was enough, with her hair in it's loose knot showing off her pale neck, and her skinny banged-up legs sticking out from beneath her wrinkled dress... except that the legs beneath the dress weren't quite as skinny as he remembered before, more curvy, and the dress itself hinted at other curves, too, beneath the wrinkled fabric.
"Well, I don't think it would work very well if I kept my shoes on," Lyra mused aloud, seemingly deep in thought. And truly, for a moment there, she was. She was not shy about her body around Will. Sometimes with the girls at St. Sophia's she found herself confused and uncertain about the way her limbs worked compared to the rest of her schoolmates, but never around Will. So she brought her hand up to the top button on her dress and tapped it briefly with the tip of one finger, adding thoughtfully, "In fact, I don't think it would work very well with our clothes on at all."
There was a long moment that Will just stared at her, not entirely sure she had said what he thought she had said. "Um," he said at last, when he managed to find his voice again, although to Will's ears his voice sounded very strange. It wasn't as though Will had never thought about that before--actually, he'd thought about it quite a bit, and sometimes thought about it at times he thought it was a good job Lyra didn't know about. He was a teenage boy who was as madly in love as a teenage boy could be, after all.
But thinking about it in the wee hours of the morning was one thing, and actually having Lyra standing right there in front of him in broad daylight, barefoot and with her fingers on the buttons of her dress, was completely another. And no, he didn't think he was misunderstanding her at all. There was a look in her eyes that was at once familiar and completely new, and while he'd seen something like it on her face sometimes when they were messing about, teetering on one side of a line they hadn't really talked about, this was a look that was unmistakable.
"Are you sure?" he asked, when he thought he could speak without squeaking like a little kid.
In that long moment of silence Lyra did not hesitate, waver or shrink. Instead, she stood there, her heart racing decidedly faster than normal, and stared back at him until she saw his usual composure return. She knew that sudden tongue-tied feeling well, better than she often let on, and felt another thrill when she realised what it meant to feel so certain. In the time it took Will to open his mouth and ask her that question, Lyra was certain she'd fallen in love with him all over again, and it was a powerful enough feeling to have her flushed and bright-eyed where she stood.
Lyra looked at his hands and his arms, at his broadened shoulders and the solid cut of his jaw, all familiar and real and tangible -- a far cry from all those times she sat on their bench back in Oxford and spoke to him in pictures inside her head. Quite suddenly, she wanted little more than to touch him and feel her skin beneath his own, so she stepped closer and took one of his hands, fingertips skirting Will's knuckles and pressing along his palm. "Of course I am," she insisted, her lips splitting into an uncontrollable smile. "Of course. And I brought supplies."
"Supplies." He had a sudden image of that very uncomfortable Conversation he'd had with Chase and the Doctor back at the holidays, and he closed his eyes briefly. Ohgod, he thought, his heart skipping a beat and threatening to beat right out of his chest. And then another image took its place, a memory of warm sun and little red fruits and sweet, fumbling kisses. The first time they'd kissed he'd felt like a whole world was opening up under his feet, waiting for him, and he felt the same way now, only more. The best reason is when you're with someone and you want the both of you to be one person, want it so badly that you can't help but keep going. When there's love, the Doctor had said, and Will had known then that was what he felt about Lyra, though he would not ever be able to put it in words like that. That was exactly what he wanted with Lyra, so much so that he ached for it right down to his bones.
He knew what he wanted, but he didn't have the first clue about where to start. It was almost funny, in a way, but he didn't laugh. Whenever he'd thought about this it had somehow never involved Lyra coming into his room and boldly declaring they ought to do it--although now that she'd done it he was pretty sure that was the only way it could have happened, with Lyra. Stupidly, he wished he could ask Kirjava what to do. You might want to start by kissing her, he imagined she would say (if she would say anything about it at all), so that's what he did. It was clumsy at first, nearly as clumsy as their very first kiss, because Will was all over nerves, but he held tight to her hand. She'd been eating some kind of berries, Will realised, because her mouth was tart and sweet from them. Somehow it made the wanting even stronger, and he kissed her a little too hard, almost biting her lip. "Sorry," he whispered, looking sheepish.
Lyra could hear him breathing. In the midst of it all, with her blood hot and rushing loudly in her ears, through her veins, pumping under her skin, she could hear him breathing and wondered, absently, if her own breathing was just as heavy. Part of her hoped it was if only to confirm that her lungs were indeed still working properly because she was feeling so much all at once that she could barely feel anything at all. And then she opened her heavily lidded eyes and laughed behind her teeth, just a rush of air carried on a faint sound, and then she cleared her throat, impossibly giddy and overeager. "Don't say that," she ordered, and she didn't mean to sound so adamant but there was nothing for it. With Will she was all impulse, and it would have been embarrassing how little control she had over herself if it were anyone but Will standing before her.
She squeezed his hand and then pressed his palm to her hip, soft and gently rounding under the linen where once she'd been sharp and narrow. "We shouldn't apologise, all right?" she lifted her brow and then reached up to curve her hand along his shoulder, still marveling at even the slightest changes in his image even though she knew them well by now. Lyra moved in closer until she was pressed up against him and sparking with awkward, clumsy heat. And when she kissed him again their lips seemed to fit that much better.
"Okay," Will murmured, but the word was cut off when she pressed against him and he could feel every curve of her slim body through her thin dress, making him groan a little. He was pretty sure she could feel him, too, and his face flushed, but he didn't stop kissing her. His hand on her hip slid down across her backside, holding her close--he'd done that briefly before when they were messing about but this was different, her dress was soft and thin and he could feel the outline of her knickers beneath it. That excited him more than he thought it would, and for a moment he felt vaguely ashamed about it before it passed and he forgot about it.
He drew back a little to look at Lyra. Her cheeks were flushed bright and her eyes sparkled with nervousness and something he knew to be love, and her chin jutted out in the way it always did when she had her mind set on something. Will wanted to put his hands everywhere at once but instead he settled on fingering the buttons in front of her dress. Buttons were ordinary, something he knew what to do with. He was going to ask her if he could undo them, but he was afraid of sounding dumb, so instead he just pushed the first one through it's neat little buttonhole, glancing at Lyra to see if she wanted him to stop.
Oh, yes. Yes, she could feel him and it made her want to do something foolish and utterly stupid like giggle, but Lyra knew better than that. Instead, she took a deep breath and warmed even more if at all possible, her body responding in all the ways it had in the past, though, the feelings seemed to intensify tenfold this time around. She swallowed and released a dizzying little sigh at the sudden humidity condensing in the hollows of her body, one hand reaching up to twist her fingers into his dark hair while the other covered Will's hand on the front of her dress and drew his fingers down to the next button.
She must be one of those girls, she decided, because her patience was already beginning to thin. But if that was the case, then so be it, for she wouldn't have traded in her hastiness for anything in that moment. Will's hand was heavy and so very solid just between her small, modest breasts, and its proximity was equal parts maddening and satisfying, so when she opened her mouth and said, "It's not an important dress. No one can bother me here if it gets ruined," she decided this was no fault of her own.
No way was Will going to do anything like rip her dress, whether anyone was going to bother her or not. He couldn't imagine doing anything to her that was anything less than gentle, no matter how hot his blood got. He was having a hard enough time concentrating on undoing the buttons that he couldn't really reply to her, so he just nodded. His lower lip was caught between his teeth in concentration, trying to keep his hands from trembling with nerves.
She was wearing a bra, Will realised as he pushed her dress off her shoulders, and also realising that he had no idea how to undo it. Hooks in the back, possibly? But he wasn't going to take the time to find out, not yet, not when he wanted to kiss her again so badly and feel how soft her skin was, at least the parts of it that weren't covered by her underwear. Will set to finding out, his face serious--not because he wasn't enjoying it or because he didn't want to, because he did want to, more than anything, but being Will he could only approach something like this with complete seriousness. He hooked his fingers under the straps at her shoulders and slid them down her arms. Part of him half-expected Lyra to punch him for it, and that did make him crack a grin for a moment; then he pushed the material down further and uncovered her pale nipples and he wanted to put his mouth on them. So he did. It was different than kissing her, and so close to her heart he could feel it beating, and he wanted to keep on doing it because the softness of her skin against his cheek and on his tongue and the faint scent of her sweat all got under his skin and gave him a sort of itch all over.
"Oh --" Truly, Lyra meant to finish her sentence, but somewhere along the way the words got all mixed up in her mouth and fell out in a light, garbled moan once Will made it apparent that he meant to turn her pink. Immediately, Lyra draped a skinny arm around his back, forearm pressed tight to his shoulder blades, ruffling his t-shirt as she hugged him close. Something sparked and tingled between her thighs whenever his tongue moved just so; she pressed them tightly together to prolong the sensation as she lovingly combed her fingers through his hair, murmuring, "Will," just under her breath and grazing her fingers along the nape of her neck.
It seemed only fair to have him topless as well. Without thinking, Lyra dropped her palms down along his back and bunched up handfuls of his shirt, tugging the fabric up and up and up until they were forced to part to let it slide over his head. With her linen dress in a puddle around her ankles and her bra slipping further down and to catch at her gradually widening hips, she stood there, shivering slightly as the air cooled the wet patch Will left on her heaving chest. Then, with her eyes wide open, Lyra leaned up again to press her lips to Will's chin, her hand guiding Will's own back to her breast while her other hand roamed up the length of his bared back. "I liked that," she sighed.
"Good," said Will, a nervous grin creeping across his face for a moment and making him look a little less serious as he pressed his face against hers. He felt hot and sort of dizzy and tingly all over. Lyra's sighs only made it worse, and he wanted to keep hearing them. He rubbed his thumb over her nipple, and kissed her; a bit clumsily, both at once, but he was a little too impatient to do it in turns. Will liked the way her skin flushed, the little sounds she made, the way her eyes widened when he touched her in certain ways. Lyra was always wiry and tough, but like this she was softer--not exactly vulnerable, but like he was seeing a part of her only he could see, a secret side of her. He focused on that, and tried not to think too much about the hardness in his jeans or the way her soft bare skin against his made his skin shiver.
For a moment, just standing there with so much of Will's skin touching her own was enough for her. Lyra felt new and exposed, and the power of those emotions was enough to make her both want to stop and savor the process, as well as to rush forward. In the end, she compromised with another kiss made clumsy when she brought her fingers to the top button on Will's jeans, her knuckles grazing the flat expanse of stomach peeking out over the waistband as she unbuttoned and unzipped without hesitation. The sound of metallic teeth parting was loud in the relative silence -- so loud that it made her smile impishly once her palms were inside his trousers and pushing them down away from his underwear. Admittedly, she liked that Will's nerves were more visible than ever before; they were a part of him that no one else got to see, and so she delighted in that nervous grin and the colour peeking out through his face. "I should get out of this too," she decided, pulling away enough to worm her way out of her bra and drop it on top of her dress.
Somehow, Will managed to step out of his jeans without falling on his backside, but it was a near thing. His breath came shallow and fast, and everything seemed all blurry around the edges. "C'mere," he said, taking her hands and stepping back to the bed, because if he had to stand there any longer he might just pass out. Lying beside her, a knee pressing between hers as he kissed her neck, everything felt like a series of disconnected moments that he wanted more of. He wouldn't realise it till later, but he was living on the edge of his nerves, almost the way he had been when he'd lost his fingers, trying to learn to use the knife, but it was different, too; there was a pain there, but it was sharper and hungrier, and he didn't want to get rid of it. There wasn't enough of him to touch Lyra everywhere he wanted to touch her--if he was touching her in one place, he wanted to touch her somewhere else, and his hands moved restlessly over her skin.
When he took her hands Lyra felt the space where his missing fingers should have been, and she was once again reminded that they were blessed somehow. Or if not blessed, then lucky; the grace that had allowed her to read the alethiometer so intuitively for a time, that had allowed Will to master the knife, that same grace had brought them here, on this island, for this reason. Beside him, she welcomed his knee with the spread of her legs and then began to shift closer when it wasn't enough. Shivering at the slide of Will's hands, Lyra swallowed thickly and stared up breathlessly at the ceiling while her own drew down the center of his spine, feeling the ridges beneath such familiar skin. "Will, oh... it's..." she hastily moaned, a hand sliding around to press flat along his stomach, the feel of the wiry beginnings of stretching, growing muscle beneath her palm making her all the more eager. She sat up on her elbows then and brought Will's whole hand to her plain white knickers. "Oh, get rid of them too," she urged, peering determinedly back into his face.
He started to ask her if she was sure, but didn't. This was Lyra--if she hadn't meant it, she wouldn't have said it. He held his breath for a moment, then let it out carefully, looking at her face to make sure she was sure. There was nothing but complete certainty in her expression, and Will knew her well enough by now to know if she wasn't being truthful with him.
Will caught the thin elastic band in his fingers and pulled it down, her skin seeming suddenly warmer and more alive against his hand. And when her knickers were gone, he touched that soft triangle of hair, tentatively at first, and then when Lyra's breath subtly shifted, with greater confidence. He had always thought her mouth incredibly warm when he kissed her, but this was something else entirely. He didn't know how a person could be this warm and not have a fever. Carefully he slid a finger inside, and the feel of her only made him get harder. "I don't want to hurt you," he said with a touch of worry. "Tell me if I do, I'll stop."
It did hurt, but only a little, and the last thing she wanted was for him to stop. Lyra swallowed and lifted her chin, throat working visibly around a low gasp of a moan, the strain visible in the delicate tendons in her neck and the tension in her clenched jaw. More than anything else, the invasive sensation was surprising, not least because the sting came with something good, something she wanted much, much more of. "You won't hurt me, Will," she managed, the effort to make her voice firm more noticeable than she would have liked. Shifting, Lyra closed her fingers tightly around his upper arm and lifted her head to tug her hair up from where it lay pinned beneath her shoulders. And then she simply breathed and gazed back at him, her skin fiery hot and the moisture continuing to gather everywhere. "Do something," she bit her lip and nodded. "Anything," she leaned up to kiss his chin and touch his broadening shoulders.
Her voice sounded so... un-Lyra-like, and yet very much like her at the same time that Will groaned, a shiver breaking out over his skin. He muttered something rough and desperate and completely unintelligible, and then sat up, carefully moving his hand from between Lyra's thighs. There was a small box under his bed, different things he didn't want lying about in plain sight, and among those things were a handful of condoms that Chase had given him after that conversation over the holidays. At the time, Will had thought that it would be a long time before he'd need these; now he was infinitely glad he had them. He fished one out of the box with fumbling fingers, then promptly dropped it on the floor as soon as he opened the package. "Crap," he muttered, and reached under the bed again, face burning.
For a long, agonizing moment Lyra stared unblinkingly at his fumbling hands, quite unsure what she was seeing. And then she stifled a noise in her throat and pressed her mouth into a tight, thin line to keep the grin at bay. Sitting up, she did not bother to close her legs, instead letting them fall gracelessly further open as she propped herself up on knobby elbows and followed his every move with a clouded stare. "Some of them are sticky on the inside," she idly volunteered because it seemed as good a time as any to wonder at the mechanics of those things, even while flushed pink in certain places, light and buzzing in others. "Some are even coloured but I can't imagine why... seems a bit silly to want to be purple down there," she breathed exasperatedly and rubbed a single strand of hair from where it agitated the waterline of one bleary, dark eye.
Will squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, trying not to laugh--if he did, that would be the end of him, and he wouldn't be able to go through with it. "I don't even want to know," he said, opening another one that was thankfully not coloured (he would have burst out laughing if it was). "I just don't." He managed not to drop this one in the floor, and though he wished Lyra wasn't intensely staring at him while he did this, he wasn't going to ask her not to. It would have resulted in questions like why not? and too many explanations that would have made him lose his nerve.
Even though he felt like a great idiot, he finally got the condom on--correctly, he hoped--and that made everything feel all the more inevitable. "Tell me if I hurt you," he said again, stubbornly. "I mean it."
Lyra failed miserably at keeping her amusement from showing, especially as the condom slid into place. But then Will spoke and she felt a rush of gratitude at the tone beneath his words; they anchored her to the present and had her nodding quickly, her own jaw set with the intensity of her own conviction. Once again determined, Lyra shifted on his bed and slid back down until she lay stretched out with one hand held out, toes squirming restlessly as she reached to help him back between her legs.
"You won't, but I'll let you know if you do, I promise," she cleared her throat and peered up at him, all at once uncertain as to where she ought to put her hands when she wanted to run them all over him.
It was a feeling unlike anything else Will had ever felt, what he felt when she looked up at him like that, and something else altogether when he pressed inside her. He was afraid it wasn't going to work at first, and then he felt something give (and that had to hurt her, but she still wasn't stopping him, and he had to trust that she would if that's what she wanted) and everything just fit. "Oh," he gasped, and his arms shook a little with the effort of not squashing her.
Lyra found that she liked the look on Will's face more than the intrusion, though, she did not hesitate to lift and shift and spread as wide as she could to make things that much easier. Still, the pressure proved immense, a painful stretch and a bizarre sort of pop that made her eyes go wide and her throat constrict around a stifled, swallowed yelp. And yet, it was still not the worst pain she'd ever felt. The burn was impossible to ignore and the sheer depth and spread of the sensation made her breathing spike, turn erratic, escape her nose in a few loud, heavy rushes, but having Will above her to look at made everything seem okay. "Oh," she echoed and then yanked him down against her completely, entirely willing to be squashed.
Will almost stopped then, when she made that sound, but then she gasped and pulled him close and that was the end of that thought. It was terrifying and thrilling all at once, the feel of being so connected to someone else, and he pressed his face against her neck, his breath coming short and sharp. He was intensely aware of every part of his body that touched hers, not only where he was inside her but where the soft insides of her thighs slid against his, bellies and chests pressed together, her breath hot in his ear. All his nerves were ablaze and a hot liquidy tension was building up in his stomach--he wanted to make it last as long as he could, but it was too much, too intense for his inexperience and nervousness, and it overtook him, making him cry out against Lyra's neck as he moved a final time inside her.
It took Lyra several seconds to realize that she was the only one still moving. Several foggy, dark seconds as she'd been staring somewhere between the dark locks of Will's hair when he made a sound that went straight to her stomach and awakened a whole slew of butterflies. It still burned something awful, but she was just beginning to go vaguely numb when it occurred to her that something might be wrong. "Will?" she murmured, voice still a bit strained and her muscles tense from wincing now and then, but more than anything else she was concerned. "Will, what is it?" she tried to pull his head back enough to get a look at his face, her own flushed pink and damp across the bridge of her nose with excitement and effort. She felt alive, and it was then that she really felt the absence of the motion and, despite the pain that had come from it, found herself already missing Will's movements.
It was a few moments before Will had enough breath to answer her back, his whole body tingling all over, and when he did, a hot flush spread over his face. "'m okay," he muttered, propping up on an elbow. His face grew even hotter, though he wasn't sure how that was possible. "I'm sorry," he added, and ducked his head. "I didn't mean for that to..."
Later, Lyra might be a bit annoyed with herself for being much slower on the uptake than usual, but her reaction time was still much shorter than the average girl's. As she did her best to get a better look at the redness spreading along his temples and just under the fall of his hair, her brow instinctively went up with dawning comprehension. "...oh," she uttered, a small pout passing over her mouth before she pressed her lips into another line. "Oh, no," she suddenly covered one of his cheeks with her palm and turned his face towards her, "but we said we wouldn't apologise," she pointed out for lack of anything else to say.
Admittedly, she was having a difficult time thinking straight, still hot all over to the point of being uncomfortable. He was still inside of her, though, and distantly her body began to recognize and accept the changes.
"Yeah, but... I'm sorry it wasn't... it couldn't have been that great for you," he said hastily. Once they'd made up their minds to do it, he'd been determined it was going to be special for Lyra, but he didn't think it had been and he wasn't sure how to fix it. Next time, it would be better. While he was thinking this, part of his brain realised he shouldn't try to stay inside her much longer, and he flushed again, turning away from her to clean up.
Lyra licked her lips and then pressed them closed, the tip of her tongue still visible as she lay there, awkwardly empty. She scooted back some and closed her thighs to squeeze away all those buzzing sensations. It... no, it hadn't been great; she hoped it could be better next time, but she was still happy. There was a thrill in her otherwise unsatisfied body, one that made her feel a bit dizzy and giddy. It was the knowledge that, however sloppy it'd been, they'd finally done it. And she'd gotten to do it with Will in a place where impossible things did happen fairly regularly.
"Well," she began as she watched him, "that just means we have to do it again as soon as possible."
Dated to late May.
Lyra was wearing her most comfortable linen dress as she walked off the path towards the treehouse where Will lived, Pan already in the tree and climbing its branches to find Kirjava. Her hands were stuffed into her dress's big, roomy pockets and her hair was tied back in a loose bun, trusty bag bouncing gently against her side as she crunched her way through the grass. She was soft from a recent scrubbing and her lips were pink from having stuffed too many wild, bitter raspberries in her mouth. Admittedly, she felt a thrill in her stomach with each step she took, but it was a good feeling. One that she hoped she would feel time and time again.
"Will!" she called up from just below the elaborate treehouse, one foot slipping free of her shoe to scratch her other ankle with her toes. "Will, you had better be up there."
Will bolted to the window as soon as he heard her, waving his arms frantically. "Shhhh!" he hissed at her, even though he was grinning. It was impossible not to, around Lyra. "You'll wake Nate." He didn't actually know if Nate was sleeping or not, as Will tried not to intrude on Nate and his mum, but he thought it was the kind of thing you were supposed to say when there was a newborn baby in the house. Don't wake the baby. "You coming up?" he added, in a more normal tone of voice.
Oh, yes, the baby Nate. The one who would never know his father, but Lyra couldn't afford to let her mood fade at that thought, not with Will beaming down at her like that. At the sight of his face Lyra found herself more determined than ever. He was handsome and she loved him dearly. It made such clear sense. "Of course I am," she spoke just loud enough for him to hear her, catching the rope ladder when it fell to her hands. It didn't take her long at all to climb all the way to the top, and she pressed her palms flat along the floor to heave herself up and turn to sit briefly with her legs dangling. "Who else is home?" she couldn't help but ask as she rose up to stand.
"I think just Gwen and Nate," said Will. "It's kind of quiet. Chase is probably at the clinic and the Doctor might be messing about with the TARDIS." It was something he liked about the two of them, that they didn't try to keep tabs on him every second of the day, at least not in a way that was obvious and suffocating. "What are you up to? You look like you've been into something," he added, gesturing to the pink on her lips, as if she'd been eating sweets.
Lyra looked around his room, absorbing everything inside that made it Will's own. She decided then that she ought to spend more nights there. She set her bag down on the floor and then turned her attention back to him with a broad, daring sort of smile. "I had target practice this morning," she said while toeing off her shoes. "I'm getting better, but anyway that's over and done with. I think we ought to spend the rest of the day together. There's a lot we ought to do."
Will eyed her as she kicked off her shoes and then proclaimed that they had 'a lot to do'. "Stuff you're going to do going about barefoot?" he asked, the corner of his mouth turning up. This was Lyra--there really was no telling. As far as he was concerned, just standing there looking at her was enough, with her hair in it's loose knot showing off her pale neck, and her skinny banged-up legs sticking out from beneath her wrinkled dress... except that the legs beneath the dress weren't quite as skinny as he remembered before, more curvy, and the dress itself hinted at other curves, too, beneath the wrinkled fabric.
"Well, I don't think it would work very well if I kept my shoes on," Lyra mused aloud, seemingly deep in thought. And truly, for a moment there, she was. She was not shy about her body around Will. Sometimes with the girls at St. Sophia's she found herself confused and uncertain about the way her limbs worked compared to the rest of her schoolmates, but never around Will. So she brought her hand up to the top button on her dress and tapped it briefly with the tip of one finger, adding thoughtfully, "In fact, I don't think it would work very well with our clothes on at all."
There was a long moment that Will just stared at her, not entirely sure she had said what he thought she had said. "Um," he said at last, when he managed to find his voice again, although to Will's ears his voice sounded very strange. It wasn't as though Will had never thought about that before--actually, he'd thought about it quite a bit, and sometimes thought about it at times he thought it was a good job Lyra didn't know about. He was a teenage boy who was as madly in love as a teenage boy could be, after all.
But thinking about it in the wee hours of the morning was one thing, and actually having Lyra standing right there in front of him in broad daylight, barefoot and with her fingers on the buttons of her dress, was completely another. And no, he didn't think he was misunderstanding her at all. There was a look in her eyes that was at once familiar and completely new, and while he'd seen something like it on her face sometimes when they were messing about, teetering on one side of a line they hadn't really talked about, this was a look that was unmistakable.
"Are you sure?" he asked, when he thought he could speak without squeaking like a little kid.
In that long moment of silence Lyra did not hesitate, waver or shrink. Instead, she stood there, her heart racing decidedly faster than normal, and stared back at him until she saw his usual composure return. She knew that sudden tongue-tied feeling well, better than she often let on, and felt another thrill when she realised what it meant to feel so certain. In the time it took Will to open his mouth and ask her that question, Lyra was certain she'd fallen in love with him all over again, and it was a powerful enough feeling to have her flushed and bright-eyed where she stood.
Lyra looked at his hands and his arms, at his broadened shoulders and the solid cut of his jaw, all familiar and real and tangible -- a far cry from all those times she sat on their bench back in Oxford and spoke to him in pictures inside her head. Quite suddenly, she wanted little more than to touch him and feel her skin beneath his own, so she stepped closer and took one of his hands, fingertips skirting Will's knuckles and pressing along his palm. "Of course I am," she insisted, her lips splitting into an uncontrollable smile. "Of course. And I brought supplies."
"Supplies." He had a sudden image of that very uncomfortable Conversation he'd had with Chase and the Doctor back at the holidays, and he closed his eyes briefly. Ohgod, he thought, his heart skipping a beat and threatening to beat right out of his chest. And then another image took its place, a memory of warm sun and little red fruits and sweet, fumbling kisses. The first time they'd kissed he'd felt like a whole world was opening up under his feet, waiting for him, and he felt the same way now, only more. The best reason is when you're with someone and you want the both of you to be one person, want it so badly that you can't help but keep going. When there's love, the Doctor had said, and Will had known then that was what he felt about Lyra, though he would not ever be able to put it in words like that. That was exactly what he wanted with Lyra, so much so that he ached for it right down to his bones.
He knew what he wanted, but he didn't have the first clue about where to start. It was almost funny, in a way, but he didn't laugh. Whenever he'd thought about this it had somehow never involved Lyra coming into his room and boldly declaring they ought to do it--although now that she'd done it he was pretty sure that was the only way it could have happened, with Lyra. Stupidly, he wished he could ask Kirjava what to do. You might want to start by kissing her, he imagined she would say (if she would say anything about it at all), so that's what he did. It was clumsy at first, nearly as clumsy as their very first kiss, because Will was all over nerves, but he held tight to her hand. She'd been eating some kind of berries, Will realised, because her mouth was tart and sweet from them. Somehow it made the wanting even stronger, and he kissed her a little too hard, almost biting her lip. "Sorry," he whispered, looking sheepish.
Lyra could hear him breathing. In the midst of it all, with her blood hot and rushing loudly in her ears, through her veins, pumping under her skin, she could hear him breathing and wondered, absently, if her own breathing was just as heavy. Part of her hoped it was if only to confirm that her lungs were indeed still working properly because she was feeling so much all at once that she could barely feel anything at all. And then she opened her heavily lidded eyes and laughed behind her teeth, just a rush of air carried on a faint sound, and then she cleared her throat, impossibly giddy and overeager. "Don't say that," she ordered, and she didn't mean to sound so adamant but there was nothing for it. With Will she was all impulse, and it would have been embarrassing how little control she had over herself if it were anyone but Will standing before her.
She squeezed his hand and then pressed his palm to her hip, soft and gently rounding under the linen where once she'd been sharp and narrow. "We shouldn't apologise, all right?" she lifted her brow and then reached up to curve her hand along his shoulder, still marveling at even the slightest changes in his image even though she knew them well by now. Lyra moved in closer until she was pressed up against him and sparking with awkward, clumsy heat. And when she kissed him again their lips seemed to fit that much better.
"Okay," Will murmured, but the word was cut off when she pressed against him and he could feel every curve of her slim body through her thin dress, making him groan a little. He was pretty sure she could feel him, too, and his face flushed, but he didn't stop kissing her. His hand on her hip slid down across her backside, holding her close--he'd done that briefly before when they were messing about but this was different, her dress was soft and thin and he could feel the outline of her knickers beneath it. That excited him more than he thought it would, and for a moment he felt vaguely ashamed about it before it passed and he forgot about it.
He drew back a little to look at Lyra. Her cheeks were flushed bright and her eyes sparkled with nervousness and something he knew to be love, and her chin jutted out in the way it always did when she had her mind set on something. Will wanted to put his hands everywhere at once but instead he settled on fingering the buttons in front of her dress. Buttons were ordinary, something he knew what to do with. He was going to ask her if he could undo them, but he was afraid of sounding dumb, so instead he just pushed the first one through it's neat little buttonhole, glancing at Lyra to see if she wanted him to stop.
Oh, yes. Yes, she could feel him and it made her want to do something foolish and utterly stupid like giggle, but Lyra knew better than that. Instead, she took a deep breath and warmed even more if at all possible, her body responding in all the ways it had in the past, though, the feelings seemed to intensify tenfold this time around. She swallowed and released a dizzying little sigh at the sudden humidity condensing in the hollows of her body, one hand reaching up to twist her fingers into his dark hair while the other covered Will's hand on the front of her dress and drew his fingers down to the next button.
She must be one of those girls, she decided, because her patience was already beginning to thin. But if that was the case, then so be it, for she wouldn't have traded in her hastiness for anything in that moment. Will's hand was heavy and so very solid just between her small, modest breasts, and its proximity was equal parts maddening and satisfying, so when she opened her mouth and said, "It's not an important dress. No one can bother me here if it gets ruined," she decided this was no fault of her own.
No way was Will going to do anything like rip her dress, whether anyone was going to bother her or not. He couldn't imagine doing anything to her that was anything less than gentle, no matter how hot his blood got. He was having a hard enough time concentrating on undoing the buttons that he couldn't really reply to her, so he just nodded. His lower lip was caught between his teeth in concentration, trying to keep his hands from trembling with nerves.
She was wearing a bra, Will realised as he pushed her dress off her shoulders, and also realising that he had no idea how to undo it. Hooks in the back, possibly? But he wasn't going to take the time to find out, not yet, not when he wanted to kiss her again so badly and feel how soft her skin was, at least the parts of it that weren't covered by her underwear. Will set to finding out, his face serious--not because he wasn't enjoying it or because he didn't want to, because he did want to, more than anything, but being Will he could only approach something like this with complete seriousness. He hooked his fingers under the straps at her shoulders and slid them down her arms. Part of him half-expected Lyra to punch him for it, and that did make him crack a grin for a moment; then he pushed the material down further and uncovered her pale nipples and he wanted to put his mouth on them. So he did. It was different than kissing her, and so close to her heart he could feel it beating, and he wanted to keep on doing it because the softness of her skin against his cheek and on his tongue and the faint scent of her sweat all got under his skin and gave him a sort of itch all over.
"Oh --" Truly, Lyra meant to finish her sentence, but somewhere along the way the words got all mixed up in her mouth and fell out in a light, garbled moan once Will made it apparent that he meant to turn her pink. Immediately, Lyra draped a skinny arm around his back, forearm pressed tight to his shoulder blades, ruffling his t-shirt as she hugged him close. Something sparked and tingled between her thighs whenever his tongue moved just so; she pressed them tightly together to prolong the sensation as she lovingly combed her fingers through his hair, murmuring, "Will," just under her breath and grazing her fingers along the nape of her neck.
It seemed only fair to have him topless as well. Without thinking, Lyra dropped her palms down along his back and bunched up handfuls of his shirt, tugging the fabric up and up and up until they were forced to part to let it slide over his head. With her linen dress in a puddle around her ankles and her bra slipping further down and to catch at her gradually widening hips, she stood there, shivering slightly as the air cooled the wet patch Will left on her heaving chest. Then, with her eyes wide open, Lyra leaned up again to press her lips to Will's chin, her hand guiding Will's own back to her breast while her other hand roamed up the length of his bared back. "I liked that," she sighed.
"Good," said Will, a nervous grin creeping across his face for a moment and making him look a little less serious as he pressed his face against hers. He felt hot and sort of dizzy and tingly all over. Lyra's sighs only made it worse, and he wanted to keep hearing them. He rubbed his thumb over her nipple, and kissed her; a bit clumsily, both at once, but he was a little too impatient to do it in turns. Will liked the way her skin flushed, the little sounds she made, the way her eyes widened when he touched her in certain ways. Lyra was always wiry and tough, but like this she was softer--not exactly vulnerable, but like he was seeing a part of her only he could see, a secret side of her. He focused on that, and tried not to think too much about the hardness in his jeans or the way her soft bare skin against his made his skin shiver.
For a moment, just standing there with so much of Will's skin touching her own was enough for her. Lyra felt new and exposed, and the power of those emotions was enough to make her both want to stop and savor the process, as well as to rush forward. In the end, she compromised with another kiss made clumsy when she brought her fingers to the top button on Will's jeans, her knuckles grazing the flat expanse of stomach peeking out over the waistband as she unbuttoned and unzipped without hesitation. The sound of metallic teeth parting was loud in the relative silence -- so loud that it made her smile impishly once her palms were inside his trousers and pushing them down away from his underwear. Admittedly, she liked that Will's nerves were more visible than ever before; they were a part of him that no one else got to see, and so she delighted in that nervous grin and the colour peeking out through his face. "I should get out of this too," she decided, pulling away enough to worm her way out of her bra and drop it on top of her dress.
Somehow, Will managed to step out of his jeans without falling on his backside, but it was a near thing. His breath came shallow and fast, and everything seemed all blurry around the edges. "C'mere," he said, taking her hands and stepping back to the bed, because if he had to stand there any longer he might just pass out. Lying beside her, a knee pressing between hers as he kissed her neck, everything felt like a series of disconnected moments that he wanted more of. He wouldn't realise it till later, but he was living on the edge of his nerves, almost the way he had been when he'd lost his fingers, trying to learn to use the knife, but it was different, too; there was a pain there, but it was sharper and hungrier, and he didn't want to get rid of it. There wasn't enough of him to touch Lyra everywhere he wanted to touch her--if he was touching her in one place, he wanted to touch her somewhere else, and his hands moved restlessly over her skin.
When he took her hands Lyra felt the space where his missing fingers should have been, and she was once again reminded that they were blessed somehow. Or if not blessed, then lucky; the grace that had allowed her to read the alethiometer so intuitively for a time, that had allowed Will to master the knife, that same grace had brought them here, on this island, for this reason. Beside him, she welcomed his knee with the spread of her legs and then began to shift closer when it wasn't enough. Shivering at the slide of Will's hands, Lyra swallowed thickly and stared up breathlessly at the ceiling while her own drew down the center of his spine, feeling the ridges beneath such familiar skin. "Will, oh... it's..." she hastily moaned, a hand sliding around to press flat along his stomach, the feel of the wiry beginnings of stretching, growing muscle beneath her palm making her all the more eager. She sat up on her elbows then and brought Will's whole hand to her plain white knickers. "Oh, get rid of them too," she urged, peering determinedly back into his face.
He started to ask her if she was sure, but didn't. This was Lyra--if she hadn't meant it, she wouldn't have said it. He held his breath for a moment, then let it out carefully, looking at her face to make sure she was sure. There was nothing but complete certainty in her expression, and Will knew her well enough by now to know if she wasn't being truthful with him.
Will caught the thin elastic band in his fingers and pulled it down, her skin seeming suddenly warmer and more alive against his hand. And when her knickers were gone, he touched that soft triangle of hair, tentatively at first, and then when Lyra's breath subtly shifted, with greater confidence. He had always thought her mouth incredibly warm when he kissed her, but this was something else entirely. He didn't know how a person could be this warm and not have a fever. Carefully he slid a finger inside, and the feel of her only made him get harder. "I don't want to hurt you," he said with a touch of worry. "Tell me if I do, I'll stop."
It did hurt, but only a little, and the last thing she wanted was for him to stop. Lyra swallowed and lifted her chin, throat working visibly around a low gasp of a moan, the strain visible in the delicate tendons in her neck and the tension in her clenched jaw. More than anything else, the invasive sensation was surprising, not least because the sting came with something good, something she wanted much, much more of. "You won't hurt me, Will," she managed, the effort to make her voice firm more noticeable than she would have liked. Shifting, Lyra closed her fingers tightly around his upper arm and lifted her head to tug her hair up from where it lay pinned beneath her shoulders. And then she simply breathed and gazed back at him, her skin fiery hot and the moisture continuing to gather everywhere. "Do something," she bit her lip and nodded. "Anything," she leaned up to kiss his chin and touch his broadening shoulders.
Her voice sounded so... un-Lyra-like, and yet very much like her at the same time that Will groaned, a shiver breaking out over his skin. He muttered something rough and desperate and completely unintelligible, and then sat up, carefully moving his hand from between Lyra's thighs. There was a small box under his bed, different things he didn't want lying about in plain sight, and among those things were a handful of condoms that Chase had given him after that conversation over the holidays. At the time, Will had thought that it would be a long time before he'd need these; now he was infinitely glad he had them. He fished one out of the box with fumbling fingers, then promptly dropped it on the floor as soon as he opened the package. "Crap," he muttered, and reached under the bed again, face burning.
For a long, agonizing moment Lyra stared unblinkingly at his fumbling hands, quite unsure what she was seeing. And then she stifled a noise in her throat and pressed her mouth into a tight, thin line to keep the grin at bay. Sitting up, she did not bother to close her legs, instead letting them fall gracelessly further open as she propped herself up on knobby elbows and followed his every move with a clouded stare. "Some of them are sticky on the inside," she idly volunteered because it seemed as good a time as any to wonder at the mechanics of those things, even while flushed pink in certain places, light and buzzing in others. "Some are even coloured but I can't imagine why... seems a bit silly to want to be purple down there," she breathed exasperatedly and rubbed a single strand of hair from where it agitated the waterline of one bleary, dark eye.
Will squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, trying not to laugh--if he did, that would be the end of him, and he wouldn't be able to go through with it. "I don't even want to know," he said, opening another one that was thankfully not coloured (he would have burst out laughing if it was). "I just don't." He managed not to drop this one in the floor, and though he wished Lyra wasn't intensely staring at him while he did this, he wasn't going to ask her not to. It would have resulted in questions like why not? and too many explanations that would have made him lose his nerve.
Even though he felt like a great idiot, he finally got the condom on--correctly, he hoped--and that made everything feel all the more inevitable. "Tell me if I hurt you," he said again, stubbornly. "I mean it."
Lyra failed miserably at keeping her amusement from showing, especially as the condom slid into place. But then Will spoke and she felt a rush of gratitude at the tone beneath his words; they anchored her to the present and had her nodding quickly, her own jaw set with the intensity of her own conviction. Once again determined, Lyra shifted on his bed and slid back down until she lay stretched out with one hand held out, toes squirming restlessly as she reached to help him back between her legs.
"You won't, but I'll let you know if you do, I promise," she cleared her throat and peered up at him, all at once uncertain as to where she ought to put her hands when she wanted to run them all over him.
It was a feeling unlike anything else Will had ever felt, what he felt when she looked up at him like that, and something else altogether when he pressed inside her. He was afraid it wasn't going to work at first, and then he felt something give (and that had to hurt her, but she still wasn't stopping him, and he had to trust that she would if that's what she wanted) and everything just fit. "Oh," he gasped, and his arms shook a little with the effort of not squashing her.
Lyra found that she liked the look on Will's face more than the intrusion, though, she did not hesitate to lift and shift and spread as wide as she could to make things that much easier. Still, the pressure proved immense, a painful stretch and a bizarre sort of pop that made her eyes go wide and her throat constrict around a stifled, swallowed yelp. And yet, it was still not the worst pain she'd ever felt. The burn was impossible to ignore and the sheer depth and spread of the sensation made her breathing spike, turn erratic, escape her nose in a few loud, heavy rushes, but having Will above her to look at made everything seem okay. "Oh," she echoed and then yanked him down against her completely, entirely willing to be squashed.
Will almost stopped then, when she made that sound, but then she gasped and pulled him close and that was the end of that thought. It was terrifying and thrilling all at once, the feel of being so connected to someone else, and he pressed his face against her neck, his breath coming short and sharp. He was intensely aware of every part of his body that touched hers, not only where he was inside her but where the soft insides of her thighs slid against his, bellies and chests pressed together, her breath hot in his ear. All his nerves were ablaze and a hot liquidy tension was building up in his stomach--he wanted to make it last as long as he could, but it was too much, too intense for his inexperience and nervousness, and it overtook him, making him cry out against Lyra's neck as he moved a final time inside her.
It took Lyra several seconds to realize that she was the only one still moving. Several foggy, dark seconds as she'd been staring somewhere between the dark locks of Will's hair when he made a sound that went straight to her stomach and awakened a whole slew of butterflies. It still burned something awful, but she was just beginning to go vaguely numb when it occurred to her that something might be wrong. "Will?" she murmured, voice still a bit strained and her muscles tense from wincing now and then, but more than anything else she was concerned. "Will, what is it?" she tried to pull his head back enough to get a look at his face, her own flushed pink and damp across the bridge of her nose with excitement and effort. She felt alive, and it was then that she really felt the absence of the motion and, despite the pain that had come from it, found herself already missing Will's movements.
It was a few moments before Will had enough breath to answer her back, his whole body tingling all over, and when he did, a hot flush spread over his face. "'m okay," he muttered, propping up on an elbow. His face grew even hotter, though he wasn't sure how that was possible. "I'm sorry," he added, and ducked his head. "I didn't mean for that to..."
Later, Lyra might be a bit annoyed with herself for being much slower on the uptake than usual, but her reaction time was still much shorter than the average girl's. As she did her best to get a better look at the redness spreading along his temples and just under the fall of his hair, her brow instinctively went up with dawning comprehension. "...oh," she uttered, a small pout passing over her mouth before she pressed her lips into another line. "Oh, no," she suddenly covered one of his cheeks with her palm and turned his face towards her, "but we said we wouldn't apologise," she pointed out for lack of anything else to say.
Admittedly, she was having a difficult time thinking straight, still hot all over to the point of being uncomfortable. He was still inside of her, though, and distantly her body began to recognize and accept the changes.
"Yeah, but... I'm sorry it wasn't... it couldn't have been that great for you," he said hastily. Once they'd made up their minds to do it, he'd been determined it was going to be special for Lyra, but he didn't think it had been and he wasn't sure how to fix it. Next time, it would be better. While he was thinking this, part of his brain realised he shouldn't try to stay inside her much longer, and he flushed again, turning away from her to clean up.
Lyra licked her lips and then pressed them closed, the tip of her tongue still visible as she lay there, awkwardly empty. She scooted back some and closed her thighs to squeeze away all those buzzing sensations. It... no, it hadn't been great; she hoped it could be better next time, but she was still happy. There was a thrill in her otherwise unsatisfied body, one that made her feel a bit dizzy and giddy. It was the knowledge that, however sloppy it'd been, they'd finally done it. And she'd gotten to do it with Will in a place where impossible things did happen fairly regularly.
"Well," she began as she watched him, "that just means we have to do it again as soon as possible."