[Semi-Open]

[sendthefallen]

Characters: Yuna, Rikku, Vergil, Dante, Auron, Vanille, Winry, Train, Kurt, others?
Location: Yuna and Vergil's Apartment, 1A - Fatality Condominiums
Rating: PG-13 for now.
Time: November 9th, Evening to Late Night
Description: It's Rikku's birthday! Time for celebration! But...who spiked the punch? (We'll give you one guess.)

Comments

[blue_darkslayer]

Feeling the tension from Yuna's body ease beneath his arm came as a relief to Vergil. Well, that's a start. The sigh was encouraging, though. Now that he wasn't partially disconnected by the influence of alcohol it felt somewhat strange and foreign to engage in affection, but it seemed like the best way to go. He couldn't deny a sense of, well, afterglow either which made the matter significantly easier. For weeks he'd denied that there was anything more than friendship between them, and even since deciding otherwise he'd stalled due to circumstance.

With that in mind, he trailed two fingertips at the end of his draped arm against the smooth skin of Yuna's stomach in a seemingly idle caress. That was a new one, too. He sincerely doubted that they did anything more serious than kiss the night before, though. He was sure that he would remember if they did, and he was still wearing pants besides. Good thing, otherwise the situation truly would be awkward. It seemed at least partially diffused for the time being, but that was no reason to desist from his present line of thought.

He wasn't nearly in the mood for a long and complicated conversation so early in the morning, even if the situation needed to be dealt with. Instead he decided on being far more concise in regards to addressing whether or not the night before had been purely fueled by drunkenness. Vergil leaned down and, quite softly, pressed his lips to her exposed shoulder. Not something that he'd done before - that he could remember - but it felt fitting.

"Sleep well?" he asked, like absolutely nothing was going on at all. Here they were in bed together, and he was making small talk..

[sendthefallen]

Yuna took a moment to consider how she felt physically before moving on to any other worries. Other than the slight headache, and perhaps a bit of dizziness, she didn't feel any different, so that mostly dispelled any concern she had for, well, the slightly foggy bits of her memory after leaving the kitchen.

As she settled down from that train of thought, satisfied with her assumptions, she felt the tips of Vergil's fingers tracing lightly across the skin of her abdomen. The muscles there tightened instinctually, though not out of dislike. The sensation was merely unfamiliar, and another soft outward breath confirmed that she enjoyed the affection.

Still, Yuna couldn't help but have reservations. The way things had happened had been sudden, and just because he was attempting to show interest now didn't mean that he wasn't just doing it to save face or to make her feel better.

And then the soft lips that he pressed against her shoulder made her forget all about everything.

Yuna shifted in his embrace so that she could turn her face enough to look at him before finally deciding to slowly turn beneath the sheets so that she was facing him, still cocooned within the curve of his body. It was, perhaps, slightly more intimate, but if they were going to talk, she wanted eye contact. It was likely, and probably necessary, for this conversation to grow more serious.

"Mm, I think so," she said quietly, almost shyly. Again, a little too late for that, but she couldn't help it. "How about you?" The only thing now was to figure out how to broach the rather obvious subject that needed to be dealt with.

[blue_darkslayer]

"Mmn, well enough," Vergil answered amiably, feeling the hint of a half-smiling pulling at his mouth. He could feel her begin to shift from under his arm and so he eased back just a little to allow her movement before shifting in again. In doing so he propped his head up on one arm, and dragged his other hand through his hair which had been obscuring his face.

Thus he was perched just slightly above her, and he gazed down with a slightly amused, perhaps even smug expression. But there was unmistakable affection, there. Not to mention satisfaction. Each of her sudden exhalations or intakes of breath in response to his touch piqued his interest. Strange to think he'd been sensitive and mindful of her touch often enough and only now was fascinated with ways in which he could evoke a reaction from her.

Intrigued as he was, though, Vergil knew the look Yuna gave him, even if the hint of shyness was definitely a new addition. It was the same expression she always gave him when they sat down and engaged in talking for extended periods of time about something serious, complicated, emotional in nature or both. Damn. He really had been hoping to just relax and savour what time he could before he had to start thinking about getting ready for training.

Idly, he settled his hand against her opposite hip comfortably while he searched her eyes studiously. He'd never been overly skilled at all at reading people emotionally, but this was Yuna. Still, what could he even say to her? He was certain by now that their sentiments toward one another were shared, but after last night, and just now... was there still doubt in her mind? How much of an assurance did the girl need?

With a breath that he hoped didn't quite sound like a muted sigh of exasperation, Vergil leaned down until his face was an inch from Yuna's and murmured ambiguously, "I think it should be obvious," before brushing his lips against hers just softly, almost tentatively. This time around, he had the presence of mind to be more considerate of her feelings.

[sendthefallen]

As she settled into the mattress on her opposite side, Yuna felt Vergil shift in closer to her again, their legs mingling together. His hand moved to rest against her partially exposed hip, and she pressed her lips together as she looked up at him through fluttering eyelashes. The way that he was looking down at her made her nervous; she had grown pretty adept at reading his expressions and getting a handle on his mood, but this was an entirely situation that she had little to no experience dealing with.

It wasn't that she was insecure, per say, but besides the occasional swim in the ocean, Yuna wasn't used to being so...disrobed. Not to mention, she'd never been so close to someone in that state, curled up in bed against a warm, bare chest.

She could feel that he was studying her, and so she raised her gaze to meet his, despite the butterflies in her stomach. This was Vergil; she knew him, she trusted him. There was no reason for her not to trust him with this, even if the circumstances that led to this moment had been somewhat beyond their usual train of thought. It hadn't changed how she'd felt about him; it had simply made her a bit more bold than usual. Hopefully, the same was true for him.

As if to answer her thoughts, he spoke, and his words reverberated through her. Yuna's body tensed as his lips brushed across hers, as she held absolutely still for a moment, having been unprepared for the sudden affection. She knew that there was something she'd wanted to say, that they should be talking about this, but her thoughts were quickly running away from her.

She supposed they could talk a bit later.

Yuna made a hushed noise as she hesitantly leaned into him with both her mouth and her body, her hands moving to slide along and then rest against his broad chest.

[blue_darkslayer]

Vergil made a pleased sound under his breath when Yuna finally began to respond to him. Finally. He felt something between a smile and smirk tug at the corner of his mouth even as he tilted his head and kissed her more firmly now that he was more certain of her reciprocated feelings. Or attraction, at the very least. Perhaps it was true that they would need to speak in full about their... situation, but for the time being he wasn't overly concerned.

No, at that time, he was far more conscious of her legs entwined with his, as well as the teasing caress of her trailing fingertips. More unfamiliar and enticing was the sensation of the warmth of exposed skin against his and he found his mind growing distracted from what his original purpose had been. What had begun as a mere assurance was steadily growing into piqued curiosity. Or perhaps it could be better described as a once long-restrained desire suddenly given free reign during an all-too-rich opportunity

Vergil's lips parted from Yuna's, but not in retreat. His breath mingled with hers as they hovered less than an inch away, nose brushing faintly against hers as he paused to gaze into her eyes, a mixture of satisfaction and longing colouring his own. Whether spurred by intrigue, instinct, or the simple fact that it was morning and the mood had unexpectedly come upon him that he came to break eye contact as his mouth descended and drifted past her jawline to find the smooth slope of her neck. It lingered provocatively as the whim befell him to actually consider what he was doing.

Between indulging the night before and her response in the short moments since awakening, he was quite taken by the notion of teasing Yuna, knowing that in a way that he hadn't before, he possessed a power over her. Neither was it one entirely selfish, despite the fact it entertained him greatly. In another regard, though, he couldn't afford to push her too far too fast. Regardless of the fact that he quite spontaneously entertained the whim of forgetting about approaching daylight and training in lieu of exploring these new-found urges more thoroughly, he needed to make sure that all this wasn't just physical.

With that, he pressed a light kiss and murmured against her soft skin, "How long?" Were he paying more attention to his thoughts rather than his urges, Vergil might have phrased it more clearly. How long have you had feelings for me? How long do we have? Both were pertinent questions, and he wasn't particularly fussed as to which was answered.

[sendthefallen]

There was the slightest sense of urgency and need as their lips pressed together with more purpose, her own head tilting from beneath to match his. Her fingertips trailed along his skin before her hands closed, lightly dragging nails along his chest in a silent attempt to get closer, even if it wasn't possible.

Her body felt almost unbearably warm against his, though she couldn't be sure if it was her temperature, the blankets, or if it was just a reaction from the feel of his skin pressed against hers. Perhaps a bit of both, as her cheeks felt like that were burning as well, spreading upward into her head so that her thoughts felt fuzzy and down into her chest where her heart was beating fast enough that she thought it might run away on her.

As Vergil's lips parted from hers and she quietly took in a cold sip of air, tasting him there in their mingled breath, their eyes met, and Yuna was sure that he would be amused by the bright flush of color in her cheeks. Her eyes were bright even if her expression was a mixture of elation, surprise, joy, and the slightest bit of insecurity masked by something even deeper. The eye contact broke a moment later, though, as his head descended lower until she could feel his breath against the gentle curve of her throat.

Yuna didn't know what time it was, and she honestly didn't care. As far as her thoughts were concerned, they were far away from anything logical or practical, a distant haze obscured by feeling and instinct. It was true that she was nervous, though not afraid, that things might go too far before they had a chance to address a thing or two, but her body didn't seem to care. She was dimly aware that Vergil had spoken, and she exhaled as his lips pressed against the sensitive skin above her pulse point.

"H-huh?" Yuna replied quietly against his ear, though the first syllable came out more as a quiet little gasp instead of anything intelligible. Whether she had caught his words and simply didn't know what he was asking or if she hadn't quite been able to process the words through her rather distracted mind in the first place, even she couldn't be certain.

[blue_darkslayer]

If Vergil wasn't amused enough by the flush to Yuna's cheeks or the hitch to her every breath, the faint gasp and her evident distraction most certainly did the trick. He chuckled quietly after deeply inhaling, even as angled his face down and dusted a second kiss even lower, grazing against her collar-bone. Where else is she sensitive? He had half a mind to find out for certain, despite the fact he was in completely uncharted territory. It was only in his nature to fully assess and probe for weaknesses, after all.

At the same time, though, he was most definitely awake now, and it didn't seem like he would be able to avoid the subject of conversation forever. Nor was he exactly graced by an abundance of time, since the sun was already rising. He was reluctant to desist, but other matters were more important than the notion of finding out exactly how many different touches could elicit gasps from Yuna. But only barely. They had all the time in the world for that... assuming the ensuing conversation went well. Vergil was confident, nonetheless.

Then again, why not do both? It seemed like the most prudent course of action.

Not without reservations, he rose from his perch just enough to glance across at the alarm clock to check the time. Tch. Not more than ten minutes. That's one thing, at least. Lowering back down, he leaned against his arm once more and slid a finger beneath Yuna's chin to lift her face to his, to be sure he had her attention. Almost as if to contradict the point, though, his touch trailed away along her jawline to her shoulder, stroking a long line slowly absent-mindedly to her arm and crawling up her wrist to one hand in contact with his chest.

While doing so, he asked with feigned casualness, "How long have you been interested in me?" His first choices of words had been 'had feelings for' and 'attracted to', but settled for something more ambiguous instead. Before she could answer though, he explained, "I meant to speak with you about it on Halloween, after Rikku... well, gave you away." He'd been perplexed at first when Rikku had apologized to Yuna and not him when she mistakenly kissed him thinking he was Dante, but recent discussions with Mustang had cast a certain light over the exchange.

"Other matters interfered, but I suppose we're here now." Vergil said the last part a little drolly, even as his hand neatly aligned with the back of Yuna's, shortly before his fingers began retracing their path. He was more interested in hearing her side of the matter first since... well. Feelings were far from being his area of expertise, and more often than not he relied on her to guide him when it came to emotions. In that regard she compensated for his weaknesses and shortcomings, and ultimately completed him. Saying as such was a difficult process for Vergil, however.

[sendthefallen]

Yuna wanted to protest, tell him not to laugh and that she wasn't being funny, but it died on her lips before the idea even fully formed in her mind, because his lips pressed against her again, this time along the the curved bone below her neck. The skin there seemed to tingle softly, as if she were laying out in the sun.

She had a bit of time to collect herself, though, as his weight shifted, seemingly to peer over her at the clock. Her eyes began to blink rapidly, clearing away the fog and her remaining sleepiness, so she was alert, as Vergil lifted her chin in order to meet her eyes, his fingertips leaving a warm trail along the length of her arm.

Yuna didn't have time to answer his first question before he clarified, and she would have glanced away from renewed embarrassment if he hadn't been so resolute in holding her gaze. "I was...angry with her," she replied, randomly. It seemed her brain wasn't quite working properly, so she had to think back a ways in order to come up with a decent answer.

Admitting to this was...difficult. It meant that he would know that she'd been spending all this time with him and sharing her apartment without being honest. Yuna had good reasons, and she was still convinced that acting on them earlier would not have resulted in their current situation, but it was still hard.

"Um, a month or so?" she said finally, suddenly reassaulted by nervousness. Surely, he could figure out what had happened a month ago between them. That dance. "Maybe longer. I think it just took me a bit to...realize it myself."

Yuna already knew that that wasn't the case for him, and she couldn't help but be curious. "I didn't think you'd return my...feelings, though. What changed?" Because it had to have been something. She didn't think he'd had any interest in her at all in this regard until he had already been pressing her up against the kitchen counter top the previous night.

[blue_darkslayer]

"Oh?" Vergil asked, his tone just a little amused with feigned incredulity. Yuna, angry? He couldn't recall a time when he'd seen it. He was, though, trying to think back to a month prior, and if anything particularly significant had occurred. It would've been easier if it weren't for the fact that something was always happening in Death City, and he had more of a tendency to savour those days when there wasn't some kind of crisis or grand event occurring to swallow up all of his time.

"I understand the sentiment," he replied thoughtfully. Even if he hadn't become aware of his own feelings for Yuna until very recently, he couldn't be certain how long ago they had actually begun to manifest. It was the unfortunate drawback behind suppressing human emotion and largely denying its existence. Developing a level of empathy for others wasn't something that had occurred on purpose, either. Under different circumstances, he would've called it a weakness in his defenses that grew without his noticing. Now, he wasn't so certain. Not with how things were beginning to turn out with Yuna.

"I'm not so sure it was anything specific that caused it, but the simplest answer would be me," Vergil said, before clarifying with a thoughtful expression, "It's been a slow process, but certain things, people, helped." He mused. So much had happened, and in a way almost everything that had occurred since he came to Death City had contributed in some way, from the moment that he'd decided to integrate into society. That... was no doubt where it had began. It had been easy to remain closed off from humans when he had regarded them as weak and insignificant, and had isolated himself from them. This world's brand of humans had forced him to reevaluate that assessment.

And now he was romantically attached to one. What remained of his former self felt disturbed and even ashamed at the thought, and he knew that getting further involved with Yuna wasn't going to be without a level of internal conflict. At the same time, though, he wasn't about to deceive himself by pretending he hadn't changed. He couldn't ignore where said changes had lead him, and it was far too late to go back. Now more than ever he was aware that he needed Yuna's presence as he was moving into the unfamiliar, even if that too irked his sense of self-reliance and independence. But Roy had caused him to question whether or not letting her in and in turn allowing himself to feel was truly weakness.

Vergil closed his eyes momentarily. He still hadn't decided on an answer to that particular question, but that didn't much alter his resolve otherwise. "In any case... thank you for being patient," he murmured quietly, and as he opened his eyes the impulse took him to cup Yuna's cheek gently. He'd made her wait a month, and he already hated it when she compromised herself for his sake as is. No longer. Relationships work both ways, even if he couldn't do more than protect her and try to make her happy.

[sendthefallen]

"Well, maybe not angry exactly." Speaking was coming a bit easier now that he wasn't doing everything in his power to distract her. Yuna was at least somewhat used to the touch of his hands along her arms and even shoulders. It was when he pressed his lips against her skin or his hands traveled a bit lower that her mind wandered. "Rikku has been...pestering me about you a lot. She wanted me to talk to you about, well, this a long time ago, but I didn't think the timing was right."

More like she was too nervous, or thought she was crazy, or hadn't fully accepted her own feelings, or worried about extraneous things, or a multitude of other excuses that she'd piled one on top of the other in an attempt to convince herself that it didn't really matter.

"To be honest, I'm surprised she didn't try to tell you in secret or something sooner. Like she did with the ball." Yuna grew a little self-conscious as the memory. "She tried to convince me to do it myself, but I couldn't do it." She laughed a bit at her own silliness; even if he'd said no at the time, what would that have really changed?

"I think I've changed too," she said quietly in response, her thumb running idly over the smooth but hard skin of his chest. Yuna hadn't thought that she'd let anyone get quite this close, not after what had happened last time. "I...tried to fight it for a bit, to make myself just want to be your friend, but..."

"But it didn't work. Not at all." And now they'd gone way too far to ever go back again. It scared and thrilled her all at the same time.

His hand was still warm, even against the flushed expanse of her cheek, and she leaned into the contact, her eyes shutting briefly as if to just savor the moment. "You don't need to thank me," she said quietly before reopening her eyes. "The wait was worth it."

Vergil's alarm went off then, and the summoner turned her head toward the noise before reaching out with one arm to turn it off before returning to her previous position. Yuna leaned in closer then, taking a bit of initiative for one of the first times probably since they'd met. Her lips ghosted over his before she spoke. "Do you think we could...stay here for a little while? Please?"

[blue_darkslayer]

"Oh?" Vergil asked quietly, though in truth he wasn't surprised even remotely. Of course Rikku had been interfering. Something would be terribly wrong with his life if someone wasn't meddling in his affairs one way or another. But Yuna was right - if that particular discussion had come much sooner, the matter would have been much more complicated, and possibly bearing repercussions.

Aside from causing him to distance himself from her by matter of nature, it would've brought their entire friendship into question if he'd learned of her having bore feelings for him for such a time. All things considered, the timing was fortuitous.

"You made the right choice," he said, musing. But shortly he blinked and then snorted in amusement once the pieces rather abruptly fell together. "The ball? Rikku fed me some story about you needing an escort. She didn't speak a word to me otherwise." He had, naturally, been completely oblivious to her true motive. He was going to have to be more mindful of that one. At least the girl had respected their privacy enough to avoid directly interfering beyond that.

"I see." While his voice was quiet and his tone thoughtful, he was suppressing a sigh. He couldn't protest since he was no doubt equally guilty of having done so, albeit for different reasons, but it bothered him immensely that Yuna had had to suppress her feelings like that. Knowing how compassionate she was, but at the same aware that it was perhaps better for her than pining over him... it grated against his pride. He had made her wait, all because he was so emotionally stunted. The notion plagued him.

It made him want to be a better person for her sake.

He was surprised, pleasantly so, when she breezed across his lips and it touched him in a way far too intimately for her to ask the simple question so earnestly. With the thought lingering, it didn't even enter into his mind that he should or could refuse. All else be damned. Staying by her side was the very least he could do, though inwardly he knew that there was more to those words.

"If that's what you want..." he murmured, affecting a seemingly casual air. But his eyes were soft all the same and emotion coursed through him far more deeply than he would commit to expression. For now he could give himself to her but he was, nonetheless, still only himself.