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There’s a heavy silence among them all, when they return to Base. It’s hard to feel triumphant, Aloy thinks; the battle is won, yet somehow, the new threat they face will be much worse.
They are for now, at least, whole. Or at least, as whole as they can be without Varl there alongside them.
(She’s not sure when that will stop hurting. She’s not sure she wants it to.)
She follows her friends into cool quiet of the main room and tries not to think about how lucky they’ve all been. Any one of them could have been lost that day, and as Aloy is gently directed to sit at the end of the sofa, she can’t help but speculate how long their luck will hold. If Varl’s loss is the only one they will have to suffer.
Alva tends to her wounds with gentle hands while Aloy stares blankly over her shoulder, tired and numb. Across from her, Erend and Kotallo and Beta sit side by side, talking between themselves about something she can’t keep track of. They look as exhausted as she’s sure she must feel, but there’s an easiness there, a relief, that Aloy herself hasn’t quite yet found. She lets her gaze linger on Erend, on his crooked smile and the superficial scrapes across his knuckles, and the familiar fluttering in her stomach draws her slowly out of the numbness.
Another realisation surfaces, in the spark of excitement that follows when he turns his smile to her, and it’s the realisation that grief isn’t the only thing she’s been suppressing. For too long, she’s had no choice but to ignore the way Erend makes her feel - to exhume the fragile seed of affection taking root within her heart and stamp it down and hide it away, to bury it alongside her grief and despair. There hadn’t been the room for her to face any of it. Too much had been at stake, with time running out like an ever-tightening noose around her throat, all the while juggling allies and friends and politics and machines and battle tactics, utterly terrified of what would happen should she fail any of them. Now that she’s once again emerged victorious, only to be left staring down something much worse, she wonders if it’ll ever end. She wonders if the only endings she will ever have will be at the sharpened point of a spear - and if so, then why keep holding back?
Ultimately, if she’s to die at the mercy of Nemesis - if any of them are - she doesn’t want to leave anything unfinished. They have a reprieve now, albeit a short one, and if she has the slightest chance of some happiness, however long it lasts, then she’s going to grab it with both hands.
Beta hugs her again when Aloy’s wounds are cleaned and treated. There’s a pronounced tremor in her arms, and even though Aloy holds her tight, it isn’t long before she falls to pieces. It’s been going through her head too; that Tilda was the one to ultimately betray them, the things that could’ve happened to Aloy had she been successful. She’s exhausted from what the Zeniths put her through, and no amount of reassurance truly settles her. Alva suggests putting her to bed, and together the two of them lead Beta down to her room beneath GAIA. It’s exactly as she left it, Elisabet’s hologram standing watch over her unmade bed. Beta calms when they pass through the door, grows sluggish and clumsy. Aloy tucks her in and sits beside her, smoothes her hair back away from her temple. At Beta’s request her Focus stays on, and when Alva leaves them they’re watching holos together. Aloy stays until Beta finally falls asleep, but feels far from rested, herself; she’s pent up and full of adrenaline, her instincts still pushing her to keep moving. She’s restless, and it only gets worse when she returns to the main room to find it empty. There’s a couple of empty tankards atop the counter next to a strike board with its pieces scattered, and with nothing else to do she starts clearing it all away.
If she’s surprised to see Erend emerge from Zo’s room, she tries not to show it. He changes course towards her when he sees her there, gathering up the empty tankards.
“Hey, didn’t know you were still up.” He says, his voice kept low. It stirs her, warm and rumbly.
“And miss your late night walk of shame?” Aloy replies. “Unlikely.”
She’s joking, of course; the redness in his eyes clears up any ideas she might’ve had about what he was doing in there, and by the smile and shake of his head, he knows it.
“My armour took some damage from those Spectres; Zo’s gonna take a stab at repairing it enough for the trip back to Barren Light.” He says, which explains why he’s walking around the base without a trace of leather or metal on him - he’s clad only in his striped shirt and loose pants, which for Erend is practically like walking around naked. As quickly as the thought comes she stuffs it back down, and if he notices her quickly averting her eyes, he doesn’t betray himself; he gestures at the Strike board, its pieces neatly reset. “Want a game? Everyone else’s gone to bed, but I’m probably not gonna sleep for a while.”
Aloy declines; she’s had enough of tactical strategy for a while, and the last thing that’ll help her post-battle nerves is more strategising.
“I could go for another drink, though.” She offers. He brightens at the suggestion and goes for the kegs without pause, his hand drifting absently across the small of her back and sending shivers up her spine as he passes closely behind her. They sit together at his usual spot by the low table, barely touching but still close enough that she can feel the heat from his body, and somehow that’s much, much worse.
“Remember what you said, when we were heading into the Zenith base?” She prompts. “If we don’t make it through this, you’d only regret one thing?”
He nods, drinking from his mug, not quite looking at her. She continues.
“I thought that if you were all safe - that if nobody got hurt, and Beta was here to repair the biosphere, and I had to die to make sure that happened - I wouldn’t have any regrets.” She admits, the words coming in a rush. “But there is something I’d regret.”
“Yeah?” He asks, barely a whisper.
Aloy nods, watches Erend’s throat bob as he swallows.
“What would you regret?”
She opens her mouth and tries to form the words, but she can’t get them to come. They’ve danced around this for so long, and when she looks at him, her blood beating steadily through her veins and bolstered by her newly-found resolve, he meets her gaze with a hunger to match her own. His expression is earnest and full of hope, and the weight of it is almost too much.
She cups his jaw, cards her fingers through the scruff of his beard until she finds skin, and when she kisses him, she finds the relief she’s been searching for.
Once the kiss has begun, once the line has been crossed, it’s impossible to stop.
Not that she wants to.
The candles in the main room burned low, she takes him by the hand and he follows her to her room without question, barely waits until the door has closed behind them before he turns her with a gentle nudge, sinks his hands into her hair at the base of her head and holds her. His eyes search hers, the iron-silver of them swallowed by his pupils. He finds what he’s looking for; whether it’s her determination or her desire for him, all of it is laid bare, and he kisses her like he aims to devour it all.
Her hands splay as wide as they can up the broad expanse of his back, his shirt rumpling under her scarred fingers. The butterflies in her stomach have stirred her pulse into a thunderous canter, and when he parts from the kiss in order to nip at her throat she positively melts, clutches at him even though her fingernails in his back make him hiss. This is all new to Aloy, the way his touch is both soothing and maddening at the same time, the way her legs start to shake beneath her, the sensation of his lips, tongue, and teeth on the delicate skin of her throat. Erend seems to know her body as if he’s studied it, each step in the dance practised and planned for, and lost as she is in a maelstrom of arousal, all she can do is let him lead.
Erend gently works at the ties to her armour, unravelling her with each piece that falls to the floor. Unwrapped until there’s nothing left but her cotton underthings, Erend steps back and watches fixated as Aloy pulls her tunic off over her head, her copper hair falling down her back in a tangled cascade. His irises drown in the pool of his blown pupils and yet still he drinks her in, his gaze leaving trails of goosebumps across her body. She’s been naked around other people before but never with a lover - never with Erend, with the intense look in his eyes and the heat for him burning in her gut - yet any nerves she has and any trepidation she might feel are quieted under the steadiness of his hands and the unwavering trust she holds in him. As excited and nervous as she feels, she won’t be lost in the storm they create. He will hold her steady, and he won’t falter.
She reaches for him, clumsy and unpractised as she loosens the ties to his shirt, his armour luckily already long abandoned. His shirt is easily tugged free of his waistband and lifted over his head, and suddenly there’s so much of him that she hardly knows where to begin. She touches him just for the sake of it, her first steps into this new territory, his chest an open expanse of tattooed skin and coarse hair that has yet to be mapped by her curious fingers. When she wraps her hand around his bicep he flexes and waggles his eyebrows, and the laugh that bubbles up from her chest catches her off-guard. Pleased, he ducks his head, presses his grinning lips to hers and pulls her flush against him, and if she had thought him hot before it’s nothing compared to the blazing forge-heart of his bare skin on hers.
His tongue delves into her mouth and she moans, wraps her arms around his muscled shoulders, presses herself up against him as much as she can. Her body responds eagerly to him, her skin prickling wherever they touch, the sensation dwarfed in intensity only by the growing ache between her legs. He crowds her against a desk for a moment, the edge of it hitting the backs of her thighs, before he pauses and reluctantly breaks away. There’s a cautious question in his eyes when he considers her, and she barely resists the urge to pull him down again and kiss it away from his lips before he can voice it.
“I know this’ll probably mean more to me than it does to you.” He carefully says, like the depth and breadth of his feelings for her have ever been a secret - like he doesn’t believe she could ever reciprocate, and want him just as much as he has wanted her. “I’m probably gonna kick myself for saying this, cus if you just need someone to warm your bed, that’s fine; I can be that guy. But I can’t lie to you and pretend this isn’t gonna matter to me.”
“It matters to me too,” she replies immediately, her voice barely more than a breath. “I can’t tell you how much.”
The things she wants to tell him taste clumsy on her tongue, and so she takes him by the chin and kisses him again. Months she’s spent with her brain on overdrive, full of nothing but training and planning and politics and data, and finally she frees herself of it, lets it all go. There’s no room left in her for fear or restraint - there’s no need for them here, braced against her desk, wrapped in Erend’s sturdy arms. She’s ready for this, wants it more than she can remember letting herself want anything since her Proving, and if he’s having second thoughts, they can’t be for her sake.
“Erend-“ She turns her head enough to speak, enough for him to give her more room, because she knows what to say to him now, and as nervous as she might feel, the courage she draws from him is deeper. “This is all new to me, all of it. You’re the only person I trust to-… you’re the only person I want to do this with. I need you to know that.”
He studies her, the love in his eyes more open and bare than it has ever been before. It’s another thing she’s burdening him with, and he shoulders it with ease.
“If I do anything you don’t like- anything-“
He’s good with his words but he doesn’t need them to tell her what she already knows; her trust is safe with him. She is safe with him.
“Take me to bed,” she murmurs.
Scooping her up into his arms, Erend carries her across her room with ease. He lays her down on her bed, and at her indication, drops the heavy curtains that separate this safe cocoon from the bustling hive of the rest of the Base. She sits up as she watches him move, her eyes drawn to the persistent bulge in his pants, his thick cockhead straining against the orange linen and bobbing with each step. The sight of it makes her core throb in time with her pulse, and she can’t help but stare. He catches her looking, of course; he tucks his hand into his pants and for a moment her mouth goes dry and she thinks he’s going to finish what she started and bare himself to her, but instead he takes himself in hand and adjusts, and then the bulge is less visible.
“You don’t need to hide it.” She says, her voice low and hushed, as he approaches.
“I know,” he replies, laying himself beside her and spreading an open palm on a path northwards up her abdomen, guiding her down onto her back. “Don’t think I can hide much from you, anyway.” He adds as a tender afterthought, presses his lips to her cheek, her jaw, the corner of her mouth.
She turns her head and catches him in another kiss, his beard rough on her cheeks. The hand he’s not using to brace himself above her drags over her breast band, massages and teases until her nipples are tight and hard and she squirms, desperate for more but unable to direct him exactly where she wants when it all feels so good. She’s never really thought she could be this sensitive - she touches herself when she’s alone and chasing relief, and it feels nice, but now she’s realising that it barely compares to the touch of someone she trusts and cares for, with his body responding to her just as much as she responds to him.
She wriggles her breast band off, desperate to feel the roughness of his fingertips, the kiss breaking as she lifts it over her head. His eyes fall to her chest immediately when he pulls away from her, and he licks his reddened lips. The thought that he might kiss them too, and use his clever mouth on her body, sends a sharp jolt of pleasure through her gut. He strokes again first with a firm sweep of his thumb and she finds her bare skin much more sensitive than expected; her head tips back onto the pillow and a whine peals from between her parted lips as the sheer pleasure of it laps at her senses.
His mouth trails hot and wet down her sternum, and for an excited moment she thinks he’s going to continue down over her stomach (and lower…?) he instead gathers her breast in his hand and guides her pebbled nipple between his lips. It’s hard to describe how each smooth lick of his tongue and each suck of his mouth feels - it tingles, and it sends heat rushing downwards and between her legs and she needs— more. Aloy squirms, presses her thighs together and rocks her hips, anything for a little friction and a little relief. Mindlessly she pleads his name, and he groans into her skin.
Even though he’s adjusted himself and hidden his erection away inside his pants she can still feel him when he presses snugly against her thigh. It feels unforgivingly hard, much harder than she’d assumed it would feel, and it’s because of her. He’s taking his pleasure in giving her pleasure, and she wonders how he will react when she touches him. She goes to reach for it but he moves away, his own plans in mind. His hand settles on her hip, over the last of her undergarments, and beneath the flush of his skin and the brightness of his eyes there’s a question. She nods and soon she lays bare before him, her spine tingling and nerves humming with excitement.
At the first brush of his fingers she realises just how much she aches for relief. She’s so aroused she could scream, and yet it still isn’t enough; he’s going easy on her and it does nothing but ratchet up her need for haste. She’s so slick and wet he strokes through her easily, teases the sensitive little bud of nerve endings with the rough pad of his thumb and then sweeps down to press lightly right at her core. She bucks her hips insistently and when he grins in satisfaction she pulls him back down, intent on kissing the smugness away.
Finally, he penetrates her for the first time, and she gasps at the novel feeling of fingers much, much thicker than her own. It’s the first time she’s felt this, too, this delicious stretching and the dizzying sensation of fullness. He makes a low noise in her ear, responding instinctively to her, strokes her slowly until her inner muscles relax and the motions become smoother. She starts to meet his steady thrusts with her own needier ones, urging him deeper and faster, but instead he slips his fingers free and brings them to his mouth. She whines pleadingly, tugs him down and tastes herself on his tongue, swallows all of his deep groans. The look on his face when she releases him is not one she’s ever seen before, and it drives her on.
Finally she reaches for him, buries into his pants and wraps her hand around the solid, stiff shaft of his erection. It’s thick and heavy in her palm, and when she strokes experimentally his eyes fall closed. He grunts under his breath, pushes his pants down his hips just enough that his cock comes free and she can stroke all of him that much easier.
“A little- uhn- tighter.” He says, and she does. His brows furrow, and his panting breaths get deeper, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards.
“Yeah, just like that.” He encourages, clearly enjoying what she’s doing regardless of her inexperience, and damn if that doesn’t just make her ache all the more. Aloy shimmies a little, and uses her legs to urge him into position. He opens his eyes and takes her in, matching her arousal for arousal, and still waits to check in with her first.
“You’re really sure about this?” He pauses to ask, his voice low and gravelly. He looks like nothing she’s ever seen; bare-chested, his skin flushed beneath ink and coarse hair, his dick hard and thick and rising out of his open trousers. By the forge, she wants him desperately - and when she tells him as much, the way he grins gets her heart pounding faster.
He sheds his pants entirely and shunts forwards on his knees towards her. Even the weight of him between her legs, the width of his hips urging her thighs further apart just so that he can fit inside them, feels so incredibly good and right, and far more comfortable than she could have imagined. Automatically, she tucks her feet behind his legs, urging him flush with her. He looks amazing, looming over her like this; all thick, powerful muscle, his knees either side of her hips and her lean legs draped over his. His cock lays heavy over her navel, and just for a moment, he ruts into her, his one hand on her waist and the other bracing himself on the bed furs.
He takes himself in hand and shifts, focusing down on where their bodies will be joined. Like he did with his fingers he strokes the head of himself through her folds, teasing her with the feel of it. It’s already different, already feels like more- when he finally enters her, and the length of him eases inside, it’s much, much bigger than his fingers.
Steadily, he sinks deeper and deeper, stretching her by fractions, responding to each soft moan and each hitch of her breath. Soon he sighs, buried as deep inside her as he can go, their hips pressed tightly together. For a delicious moment all she can feel is the fullness of him within her, her body accommodating his thick, solid length with relative ease. She’s breathing hard, borderline overwhelmed, and yet all she wants is for him to move.
“Keep going,” she urges, planting her feet on the bed and shifting her hips, every little motion sparking more pleasure. He does as he’s asked and makes several shallow thrusts, each one better than the last, and when she’s gasping and moaning and wetter than she’s ever been, he stops holding back. He draws out of her as far as he can without slipping free and fills her again just as smoothly, over and over, each thrust punctuated by the tight snap of his hips into hers. She can’t help the moans that escape her with each completed thrust, and as each pleasure-filled cry echoes in the space around them, there’s a small part of her that wonders if she’s being too loud. The larger part of her, however, simply doesn’t care anymore. Erend certainly doesn’t seem to mind, his hard pace unfaltering, filling her over and over again, his own pleasured noises intertwining with hers.
“Oh fuck, Aloy,” he groans. “I’m getting so close, I can’t-“ he shudders and presses deep into her, pants into the crook of her neck. She isn’t sure for a moment if he’s climaxed, but the broken way he moans when her muscles continue to clench around him make her think otherwise.
She rolls her hips in a tight back and forth, hyper aware of the unforgivingly stiff length of his cock inside her, and of a new, stronger sensation each time her clit strokes over his skin.
He lifts his head far enough to smirk at her. She’s never seen another person so wrecked before, and she’s thrilled just by the look in his eyes.
“You taking charge?” He purrs lowly, leaning his weight into his pelvis and pushing himself more firmly inside her. She meets his gaze in a challenge and keeps rolling her hips, the hard plane of his navel stimulating her clit with each pass. Her eyes flutter shut in the new rush of pleasure, and as she lags he starts to meet each of her movements with his own.
“You like that, huh?” Erend comments. She nods, whining softly with each wave of it. She can feel her orgasm nearing, creeping in at the edges of her pleasure, and she’s so far gone that she can’t hold back any longer; all she can do is chase it desperately. She didn’t think he had any more to give and yet somehow he presses down harder, trapping her against the mattress of furs and linen, and finds a rhythm that replicates her desperate attempts so perfectly that all she can do is gasp in the onset of her orgasm. It rips through her, searing every sensitive nerve ending and washing her through with white hot pleasure. Her skin flushes and tingles, her toes curling, and she almost doesn’t dare to breathe as the crest climbs and swells and finally breaks.
This is living, right here and now; the intimacy of being with someone you care for deeply, the pleasure burning through her veins and his skin on her skin, and-
And suddenly, her heart hurts so much she can’t breathe. She inhales and gasps, and before she can stop it, she’s sobbing. Everything, all of it, it’s all been too much for so long, and now-
Now all she can do is let Erend bring her close while she cries and shudders endlessly. All the pain and grief she’s been holding back for as long as she can remember gushes out of her like a burst dam, and she can’t hold any of it back. She’s so used to being steadfast, but between them, now, Erend is the one to hold her steady. He tucks her into his arms and against his chest, where the pulse of his heart beats strong. He speaks to her while she cries, though all she can make out is the deep rumble of his voice, the sensation of his open hand travelling a path up and down her back.
Eventually, Aloy runs out of tears. Her eyes sting in the aftermath.
“I’m sorry, I don’t… I don’t know where that came from.” She murmurs thickly, when she’s not shaking as much as before. He continues soothing her, his palm open on her naked back.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. I didn’t realise I was so bad.” He jokes.
“You weren’t-,” Aloy shakes her head minutely. She’s exhausted, and fights to get her words out. “It was… I needed it. I didn’t mean to ruin it.”
“You didn’t.” He says simply, and she believes him. Whatever was waiting inside her, so tense and coiled up, feels better for being set free. Content and tired, in his arms, she could stay like this for hours.
She frowns.
“You didn’t finish.”
“Uh… no.”
“Do you want…? I mean, can I-?”
“Nah, doesn’t matter.”
Her instinct is to protest, even as he gently lowers her back into the bedcovers and smoothes loose hair away from her face, but she feels too heavy to really argue. Her eyelids feel too heavy to open.
He covers her with the blankets and furs on her bed, all of it soft on her skin and sore muscles.
“Will you stay?” She asks quietly, before he leaves. Her bed is warm and familiar, but not as much as he is, and she doesn’t want to be apart from him right now. Maybe ever again.
He doesn’t answer immediately, but when he does, there’s a smile in his words.
“Yeah. I’ll stay.”