Lily chose to sit by the mirror because it gave her something practical to do, and because the alternative was standing helplessly in the middle of the room while Samantha watched. She sat with careful stiffness, hands folded in her lap, as Samantha fetched the brush.
Samantha's walk back took only moments, but Lily became acutely aware of each second as Samantha came to stand behind her, brush in hand.
Then the first pass of the brush slid through her hair.
Lily shut her eyes.
It was not fair, really, that something so simple could feel so immediate. Samantha was careful - far more careful than her teasing nature suggested. She worked slowly, untangling patience from the ends upward. One hand steadied the fall of Lily's hair while the other guided the brush through. There was no tugging, no carelessness, only a strange, almost ceremonial gentleness. Lily's shoulders tightened for a moment, then began, against her will, to ease.
Lily found herself listening to the soft rhythm of the strokes, the faint sound of bristles through hair, and the quiet breath Samantha took now and then above her.
Ridiculous, Lily thought again, but the word had lost conviction.
After some time, Samantha spoke, her voice low and easy.
"You have beautiful hair."
Lily opened her eyes at once and glared at herself in the mirror. This was unhelpful, as it showed Samantha too: standing behind the chair, one hand full of silver hair and her expression softened by concentration.
"That was a remark," Lily said.
"It was an observation."
"It was both."
"Yes," Samantha said cheerfully. "I behaved all afternoon. I have earned one or two observations."
Samantha set the brush aside briefly and, using both hands, gathered Lily's hair more neatly over one shoulder; her fingers combed through the last of the loosened strands.
Then, in the mirror, her expression changed.
Not into mischief, exactly. Or not only that. There was a brightness to it - yes - but also a strange seriousness. She looked as though she had arrived at something and meant to handle it carefully.
"Lily," she said.
The use of her name in that tone made Lily straighten a little despite herself. "What?"
Samantha's hand settled lightly against the back of the chair. "May I ask you for a favour?"
Lily eyed her reflection with immediate suspicion. "That depends very much on the favour."
Samantha smiled faintly. "A sensible answer."
"That should warn you."
"If I could do anything I wanted for the rest of the evening - nothing cruel, nothing you would actually dislike - and if, the moment you found it too much or hated it, I stopped immediately... would you let me?"
Lily stared at her.
It was ambiguous enough to be unnerving and specific enough to be worse.
"Anything you wanted," she repeated.
"For the rest of the day," Samantha said. "Which is not long, now. And with immediate surrender if you object."
Lily narrowed her eyes. "You make this sound far too innocent to be trustworthy."
"It is not innocent," Samantha said frankly. "I did not mean it to sound so."
The honesty of that landed with more force than Lily liked.
She should have refused outright. Instead, she found herself thinking, absurdly, of the whole coming week with Samantha genuinely on good behaviour.
"A condition," Lily said at last, trying for severity and achieving only caution.
Samantha's brows lifted. "Name it."
"If I allow this ridiculous arrangement, then next week you will behave properly."
Samantha's mouth twitched. "Properly by whose standards?"
"Mine."
"That is a tyrannical standard."
"It is the only one currently under discussion."
Samantha pretended to consider. "No teasing at all?"
"No unbearable remarks."
"No provoking you in corridors?"
"No calling me little in public."
"That one was particularly effective."
Lily shot her a look sharp enough to cut paper. "Samantha."
"Very well," Samantha said, laughter tucked carefully behind the words. "A week of good behaviour."
Lily hesitated. "And you mean that."
"I do."
"You will not turn this into some technical argument where tormenting me in a softer tone somehow does not count."
Samantha's smile deepened. "You know me very well already."
"Unfortunately."
"But yes," Samantha said, gentling again. "I mean it."
Lily took a breath; she did not entirely like the sound of it. "Then... fine."
Samantha went still for half a beat, visibly pleased in a way she was trying not to make triumphant.
"Then," she said softly, "I have a few rules."
Lily immediately grew suspicious again. "Of course you do."
Samantha picked up the brush and moved it once more through the length of Lily's hair, unhurried, smoothing. "I want you to be quiet and listen to me."
Lily opened her mouth.
Samantha lifted one brow in the mirror. "I am not done."
That look alone made Lily close it again, if only out of reflexive annoyance.
"I will do everything slowly. I will not laugh at you. And nothing that happens this evening will be spoken of later unless you want it spoken of. Does that sound reasonable?"
It did, which was deeply inconvenient.
Lily gave a guarded nod.
Samantha considered, then said with faint amusement, "And if at any point it becomes too much, safeword will be... Marris."
Lily blinked. Then, against her own will, she let out a startled breath of laughter.
Samantha looked pleased with herself. "I thought that might serve."
"It is a dreadful word."
"It is an effective one."
Lily folded and unfolded her fingers in her lap. "Do I have to stay silent?"
"To the best of your ability. No talking back unless I tell you."
"That is an absurd instruction."
"It is also my favourite."
Lily made a face at her own reflection. "I dislike agreeing to things when the terms continue multiplying."
"And yet," Samantha murmured, drawing the brush down once more, "you do not object."
That, annoyingly, was true.
Lily looked at the mirror, at Samantha behind her, at the hand guiding silver hair in careful sections. Her pulse had become something she was trying not to notice.
"Very well," she said, with the solemnity of someone authorising a military surrender. "I will... attempt silence."
Samantha's smile shifted, warming into something gentler than triumph.
"Good girl," she said quietly.
Lily's entire body reacted before her pride could intervene.
Her shoulders tightened; a visible shiver ran through her; heat rushed mercilessly up her face and throat. In the mirror, Samantha saw all of it and, to her credit, did not laugh.
She only resumed brushing.
"Before I continue," Samantha said, her voice low and even behind her, "close your eyes, Lily."
Lily's lashes lowered after only the briefest hesitation.
"There," Samantha murmured. "No mirror. No audience. No one is watching how you react but me. And once the day ends, I will not use any of it against you."
That made Lily's mouth tighten despite herself. "You say that as though I would assume otherwise."
"I know you would," Samantha said, with such calm certainty that Lily could not even object. "So I am saying it plainly."
The brush moved again, slowly.
From crown to ends, each stroke was careful enough that Lily could feel the separation of strands, the gradual ordering of them, the small, pleasant drag where the bristles met a tangle and eased it free instead of pulling. Samantha gathered Lily's hair over one shoulder once more, let it spill through her fingers, then began again with maddening patience.
"Allow yourself to feel it," Samantha said quietly. "You do not have to brace against everything."
Lily's hands tightened in her lap.
"That is very easy for you to say."
"Yes," Samantha agreed. "It is. I am not the one in the chair."
There was no mockery in it. If anything, the answer was almost thoughtful.
The brush passed through her hair again.
"You have beautiful hair," Samantha said. "It catches every bit of brightness in the room and then somehow still looks softer than the light itself."
Lily swallowed.
"Samantha..."
"No talking back," Samantha reminded her gently.
Lily pressed her lips together.
"Good," Samantha said, and Lily felt the words like a second touch.
The brushing continued. Her hair had long since been free of tangles, but Samantha did not stop. She seemed content simply to keep going, letting repetition do its work until Lily's shoulders had unknotted by degrees she had not meant to surrender. The chair beneath her felt solid. The room felt warm. Samantha's presence at her back was no longer a source of alarm. It had become something stranger: more constant, more enclosing.
Not trapped, exactly.
Held.
Samantha set the brush down at last. Lily heard the soft click of wood against the dressing table. For one brief, stupid moment, she thought that was the end of it.
Then Samantha stepped closer and gently rested her hands on her shoulders.
Lily inhaled too sharply.
Samantha waited.
Not withdrawing, not tightening, only waiting long enough for Lily to say the word if she meant to. When none came, her hands slid with exquisite slowness from Lily's shoulders down her upper arms and back again, an absent, smoothing touch through the fabric of her dress.
"So tense," Samantha murmured near her ear. "Even now."
Lily's pulse stumbled.
"You sit as though kindness is a trap."
That struck far too close. Lily's throat worked, but she kept silent.
Samantha's hands returned to her shoulders. Her thumbs pressed very gently into the tight muscle there, not really a massage, only enough pressure to make Lily aware of just how much strain she had been carrying in her body.
"You do not have to prove anything for the next little while," Samantha said. "Not to me."
The words sank in with dangerous ease.
Then Samantha bent, and all at once her arms came around Lily from behind.
It was not sudden enough to startle, not forceful enough to pin. It was simply there: warmth at Lily's back, Samantha's forearms crossing lightly over her middle, the length of her settling carefully against the chair behind her. Her cheek did not quite touch Lily's temple, but she was close enough that Lily could feel the warmth of her breath near her ear.
Lily shivered.
Immediately, Samantha's hold loosened a fraction.
Lily made a small, involuntary sound of protest before pride could stop it.
Samantha's arms closed again, gentle and certain.
"There you are," she whispered.
Lily's eyes stayed shut. It felt safer that way now. Worse in some respects, safer in others. Without the mirror, without Samantha's face to survive, sensation spread too easily. The pressure of her embrace. The steady line of her body behind Lily's. The quiet rise and fall of her breathing. The faint, clean scent of her skin and soap and the outdoor air that always seemed to cling to her after training.
It was unbearable.
It was also very nearly blissful.
Samantha's mouth moved closer to her ear, though still without touching. "My brave girl," she said softly, and Lily's fingers curled hard in her own skirts. "You are trying so very hard not to melt over something as simple as being held."
Lily's shoulders drew up with another shiver.
"I can feel you thinking," Samantha murmured. "Do not."
Lily nearly laughed at the impossibility of that.
"As if that were simple," she muttered before she could stop herself.
Samantha made a quiet sound that might have been approval. "For you? No. But easier than you think."
Her hand moved up to Lily's hair, no longer brushing it now but letting it spill between her fingers, smoothing it down over her shoulder. Every touch was absurdly deliberate. None of it was hurried. Samantha was paying attention to her in a way that made Lily feel both acutely exposed and impossibly precious.
"You are lovely when you stop trying to vanish," Samantha whispered.
Heat rose mercilessly into Lily's face.
"You are lovely when you argue," she continued. "Lovely when you glare at me. Lovely when you are furious, and all your dignity turns sharp. And lovely like this too."
Lily's breathing went uneven. She opened her mouth...
"Quiet," Samantha said, not chastising, only soothing. "You do not have to answer every truth that frightens you."
Lily hated how deeply that landed.
A terrible thought occurred to her then - half panic, half pride, trying to save itself. She knew magic. She knew pressure. She knew suggestion wrapped in tone and rhythm and touch. She had used subtler things than most modern mages even knew existed. For one startled instant, she thought, absurdly and vividly: Is she doing something to me?
The suspicion came with a stab of alarm so strong it cut through the haze.
Lily reached instinctively inward, to the fine senses that had outlived kingdoms. She felt for foreign intent in the air, for woven influence hidden beneath Samantha's voice, for the slick wrongness of compulsion brushing at thought.
There was nothing.
No threaded charm.
No pressure against the mind.
No invasive magic lay across her nerves.
Only Samantha's ordinary warmth, Samantha's steady breathing, Samantha's hand at her chest, and Lily's own body betraying her by relaxing under kindness it wanted.
That realisation embarrassed her more than any spell could have.
She was not being compelled.
She was simply responding.
Somewhere behind her, Samantha seemed to sense the change anyway. She did not ask what Lily had done. She only said, very quietly, "You checked."
Lily went still.
"And?" Samantha asked.
Lily should not have answered. It felt too naked. But her eyes were closed, and Samantha was holding her, and the whole evening had become a long series of catastrophes disguised as gentleness.
"No magic," Lily admitted.
"Of course not."
The certainty in that almost undid her.
"If I wanted your compliance," Samantha said, "I would ask for it. I would not steal it."
Lily's throat tightened.
Samantha shifted slightly, enough that her cheek now brushed, just barely, against Lily's hair. "You may still tell me to stop."
Lily thought about it. Truly thought about it. The option was real. That was the problem. If Samantha had cornered her, Lily could have fought. If this was mockery, she could have struck back. If it was coercion, she could have hardened herself against it.
But Samantha was doing none of those things. She was only offering tenderness with such impossible seriousness that Lily did not know where to set her defences.
And the warmth of her was so very, very good.
Lily gave the smallest shake of her head.
Samantha's breath left her in something almost like a laugh, but softer. "All right."
She tightened her arms a little - not enough to trap, just enough to feel like deliberate keeping.
"Then let me spoil you for a while."
The words should have sounded ridiculous. Instead, they made something low in Lily's chest ache.
Samantha's voice dropped still further. "You have spent too long acting as though every comfort must be justified before you are allowed to have it. You are allowed warmth. You are allowed rest. You are allowed to be cherished a little."
That last word nearly broke Lily.
Cherished.
Centuries of solitude did not vanish because one impossible girl decided to hold her in a chair before supper. Lily knew that. She knew it with perfect clarity. And yet her body reacted as if some starved thing in her had heard the word and lifted its head.
"See?" Samantha murmured. "Nothing dreadful happens if you let yourself feel good for a moment."
Lily wanted to protest that a great many dreadful things happened when one let oneself feel too much.
That was, in fact, the central problem of her life.
But Samantha went on before she could gather the thought into resistance.
"You think and think until you wound yourself with it," she whispered. "You worry every feeling into pieces before it can settle anywhere soft."
Lily's jaw tightened.
"And now you are angry because part of you knows I am right."
Samantha's fingers brushed once through the hair at Lily's shoulder. "Isn't it easier," she asked, "to let yourself be happy for a little while? To listen instead of fighting me at every turn?"
Lily's pulse leapt again, not only from the words but from the calm confidence of them. There was no cruelty in Samantha's tone. No sharp triumph. Only quiet conviction, as if she had laid hands on some frightened creature and was waiting for it to discover that it need not bolt.
"You don't need to think about everything at once," Samantha murmured. "Not tonight. I can do the thinking for a while. You can simply sit here."
That should have angered her beyond endurance.
In fact, some part of it did. Lily felt the flare of resistance at once - old pride, old caution, old fury at anything that sounded remotely like surrender. Her thoughts came sharp and quick beneath the warmth: This is dangerous. This is how one wakes and realises she has let someone inside all the locked rooms and cannot remember why.
She almost opened her eyes. Almost said the safeword just to prove she still could.
Then Samantha's thumb moved once, lightly, at Lily's shoulder. A tiny reassuring stroke. Nothing more.
Lily stayed where she was.
And that, more than anything, unsettled her.
The terrible fact was that Lily liked it. Perhaps too much. The realisation made anger flash hot and directionless - at Samantha for seeing so clearly what Lily wanted, and at herself for wanting anything so simple with such humiliating intensity.
Her breathing shifted. Samantha caught it at once.
"There," Samantha said softly. "You have gone tight again."
Lily did not answer.
"You are allowed to be conflicted."
That startled her enough that she went still.
Samantha's voice remained close to her ear, warm and unhurried. "You don't need to be graceful about it. You don't need to receive comfort elegantly. You may be angry with me and still enjoy being held."
The brutal accuracy of that nearly made Lily laugh and cry at once.
Samantha's arms stayed around her. "I am not asking you to become mindless," she said, and Lily felt her own face burn at how near that landed to the fear she had not voiced. "I am asking you, for one evening, to stop punishing yourself for having a heart."
Lily's breath caught.
Silence stretched.
Then, very slowly, as if her body were making the decision before the rest of her had caught up, Lily let herself lean back.
Not far.
Just enough that some small portion of her weight came to rest against Samantha instead of holding itself alone.
Samantha went very still.
She did not make a joke. Did not praise her for it immediately. She only adjusted by a hair's breadth, supporting the new angle as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if Lily leaning into her were neither victory nor surprise but simply something to be cared for properly.
That carefulness was almost worse than any triumph would have been.
Lily felt Samantha smile against her hair.
"There you are," she whispered again, so gently that the words seemed to settle over Lily rather than enter her ears. "Much better."
Lily's entire face was hot. Her anger had not vanished. It had only gone soft at the edges, blunted by the wholly unreasonable comfort of being known too well and handled with care anyway.
Samantha's hand drifted once more through Lily's hair, then down her arm, then back to hold her lightly.
For a long while, she said nothing at all.
She only kept Lily in that warm, quiet circle of touch until Lily's breathing matched hers without conscious effort.
When Samantha finally spoke again, it was scarcely above a whisper.
"You do not have to decide everything tonight," she said. "You do not have to solve grief, or fear, or whatever else is bothering you."
Lily's throat tightened painfully.
"Tonight," Samantha murmured, "you may simply let me be good to you."
This time Lily did laugh, a tiny broken thing of a sound, because even now Samantha could make gentleness sound like a challenge.
"I hate," Lily said hoarsely, forgetting silence entirely, "how persuasive you are."
Samantha's arms tightened in amused affection.
"No, you do not."
Lily closed her eyes harder, leaned the slightest bit more into her, and did not say Marris.
Samantha did not move away after that.
She stayed wrapped around Lily with the same unhurried steadiness, as though she had no intention of demanding more and no particular need to prove what she already had: that Lily had not fled, had not protested, had even - humiliatingly, wonderfully - leaned back into her.
After a little while, Samantha's hand drifted up from Lily's arm and settled against the side of her face.
Not fully. Only the back of her fingers brushing Lily's cheek with such care that Lily felt the touch all the way down her throat.
"Lily," Samantha said quietly.
Lily opened her eyes at last, though only halfway. The room returned in softened shapes: the dressing table, the evening light gone honey-gold at the window, Samantha's reflection behind her, close and calm and very intent.
"You can be honest with me."
Lily's lashes fluttered. "That sounds ominous."
A small smile touched Samantha's mouth. "It is meant to sound reassuring."
"It has failed somewhat."
"Mm. Tragic." Samantha's fingers traced once, lightly, along Lily's cheekbone. "What I mean is this: if you like something, you may say so. If you dislike something, you may say so. If you want something, or do not want it, you may tell me plainly."
Lily stared at her own reflection, then at Samantha's.
"I will not laugh at you," Samantha continued. "I will not think less of you. I may," she added with a glint of honesty that was by now unmistakably hers, "continue to find your blush very endearing. For that, I do apologise in advance."
Lily shut her eyes briefly. "That is not an apology."
"No," Samantha admitted. "Not really."
The back of her hand brushed Lily's cheek again, softer this time. "But the rest is true. I want you to be happy. So anytime, anywhere - tell me. Or show me if words are being difficult. Alright?"
Lily's voice came out quieter than she intended. "You mean that."
Samantha's brows drew together faintly, as if she could not imagine why Lily would doubt it. "Of course I do."
The sheer lack of performance in that answer nearly undid her more than any pet name could have.
Samantha watched her for a moment, then said, a little more lightly, "Now. Since you are still allowing this extraordinary indulgence..."
"That is not how I would describe it."
"Your descriptions have often been inaccurate." Samantha's mouth curved. "Is there anything you would like me to do? Or say?"
Lily immediately tensed again.
Samantha felt it and, true to promise, did not press harder. She only kept her hand on Lily's cheek and let the question sit.
"We are," she said after a moment, with a softer thread of humour, "all alone."
Lily suspected the phrase was chosen on purpose purely because Samantha knew exactly what it would do to her nerves.
It worked.
"I dislike your tone," Lily muttered.
"I know." Samantha bent slightly, her voice dropping nearer Lily's ear. "I wondered whether, in private, I might call you my dear. Or sweetheart, perhaps."
Lily's eyes shut on their own.
Samantha, infuriatingly observant, noticed at once. "Too much?"
"No," Lily said too quickly.
That made Samantha smile against her hair.
"Noted," she murmured.
Lily felt heat sweep through her face.
"It can also remain Lily," Samantha said, gentling the moment instead of exploiting it. "I do like your name. Or..." and here there was unmistakable mischief again, though held carefully in check - "my little good girl."
Lily made a strangled sound.
Samantha actually laughed then, but only under her breath and with more affection than triumph. "Yes," she said softly. "I know. Far too much for your poor heart. But I did notice how much you like it."
Lily wanted the floor to open and swallow her whole.
"I said I would not judge," Samantha reminded her. "And I am not judging. I enjoy it myself."
That should have been impossible to survive. Somehow Lily did, though only by staring fixedly at a point on the dressing table and trying not to dissolve into steam.
Samantha's lips were very close to her ear now when she said, almost conspiratorially, "As for me... You may call me Sam whenever you like."
The nickname landed softly and directly, in the same place that everything real between them seemed to land now.
"I love it when you do," Samantha added.
Lily's hands tightened in her lap.
"You could call me dear as well, if you wished," Samantha went on. "Or something else entirely. I am accommodating by nature."
Lily turned her head just enough to give her reflection a narrow look. "You are many things. Accommodating is not first among them."
"Cruel."
"Accurate."
Samantha's grin returned in full for a moment. "Very well. You may call me almost anything you please, so long as it does not rhyme with unbearable or insufferable."
Lily laughed despite herself.
"There," Samantha said, pleased. "You are easier to coax into laughing than you pretend."
"That is because your standards are low."
"My standards," Samantha replied, "have become alarmingly specific."
Lily looked away at once.
Samantha let her have the retreat. Her hand slipped from Lily's cheek to smooth her hair back from her temple, then tucked a loose silver strand behind her ear with almost painful delicacy.
"Tell me," she said quietly. "Not because I demand it. Because I want to know."
Lily swallowed.
The answer seemed both simple and impossibly difficult. She could not remember the last time anyone had asked her what she wanted in a tone that did not already contain assumptions. Most people asked for an answer that suited them. Samantha, alarmingly, seemed prepared to hear the truth.
Which meant Lily might actually have to give it.
"I... do not know," she said at first.
Samantha nodded once, as if that too were a useful answer. "That is allowed."
Lily glanced at her in the mirror. "You make everything sound permitted."
"Only the things that should be."
That one sat between them for a moment.
Then Lily, because she was already so far beyond dignity that another step scarcely mattered, said in a low voice, "You may call me Lily."
Samantha's face softened. "All right."
"And..." Lily hated how difficult the next words were. "Dear is..."
"Too much?"
Lily considered, cheeks burning. "Not always."
Samantha's expression went very still. Not smug. Not triumphant. Just intent, listening.
"And sweetheart," Lily said, nearly to the mirror rather than to her, "is worse."
"Worse in the fatal sense or the unwelcome sense?"
Lily shut her eyes. "You know perfectly well."
"I do," Samantha said, sounding helplessly pleased.
Lily drew a slow breath. "The other one is unfair."
"My little good girl?"
Lily could not even answer that with words. The look she gave the mirror had to suffice.
Samantha's laughter this time was so soft it barely counted as sound. "Very well. Reserved for only the gravest emergencies."
"That is not remotely what I..."
"You are speaking rather a lot for someone who agreed to silence."
Lily stopped at once, scowling.
Samantha kissed her hair.
It was so light that Lily was not entirely sure it had happened until the warmth of it spread belatedly through her. Not on her mouth, not even on her skin - only the crown of her head, through the silver fall of her hair, with a tenderness so unguarded it felt almost ceremonial.
Lily froze.
Samantha waited, reading her as she now seemed to read everything: the startled stillness, the quickened breath, the lack of recoil.
After a beat, she asked, "Was that all right?"
The directness of it made Lily's chest tighten.
"Yes," she said, barely audible.
Samantha's arm around her middle tightened in something like reward, though gentler. "Good."
Then her hand slid down to rest over Lily's clasped hands in her lap. She did not pry them open. She only covered them with warm, steady pressure until, by inches, Lily's fingers uncurled.
Lily was acutely aware of everything now: Samantha's body behind hers, the cradle of her arm, the weight of her hand over Lily's, the calm pulse of her at Lily's back. It was not that Lily had stopped thinking. It was worse. She was thinking and feeling all at once, and Samantha somehow kept making room for both without demanding that one defeat the other.
It was maddeningly effective.
"Sam," Lily said before she had quite decided to.
Samantha went still - not dramatically, just enough that Lily felt her full attention sharpen.
The simple use of the name, so small a thing, seemed to move through Samantha like warmth through glass. When she answered, her voice was lower.
"Yes, Lily?"
Lily could not look at her. "I think..." She faltered. "I think I like it when you call me brave. When you mean it."
For a moment, Samantha said nothing at all.
Then her hand turned beneath Lily's, lacing their fingers together with such care that Lily's breath caught again.
"I always mean it," Samantha said quietly.
There was no teasing left in that. Only truth.
Lily stared at their joined hands as if she had never seen such a thing before.
"Would you like me to say it now?" Samantha asked.
Lily felt her pulse jump at the question itself. She hated how transparent she had become under this much gentleness. And yet Samantha had asked. She had not assumed.
So Lily answered honestly.
"Yes."
"Brave girl," she said, in the same soft tone she had used that night in the dark when Lily had been shaking her way out of nightmare and grief. "You are doing very well."
Every bit of fight went out of Lily for one fragile second.
She exhaled and, before she could stop herself, leaned fully back against Samantha's chest.
The reaction in Samantha was subtle but unmistakable: a deepened breath, a warmth in her hold, the faintest tightening of fingers around Lily's hand. No gloating. No smug claim of victory. Only a kind of pleased reverence, as if Lily had placed something valuable in her keeping and Samantha knew exactly how carefully it must be held.
That did dangerous things to Lily's heart.
"See?" Samantha murmured near her ear. "You are allowed to enjoy being cared for."
Lily frowned weakly. "I was not disputing the possibility. Only the wisdom."
"The wisdom may be left to me."
"That is precisely the alarming part."
Samantha smiled into Lily's hair. "Mm. And yet you are still listening."
Lily wanted to object. Instead, she found herself asking, very quietly, "Would you truly rather I told you? If something was too much?"
At once, Samantha's amusement gentled.
"Yes," she said. "Immediately."
Lily turned that over.
"And if I said I wanted something?"
"Then I would be glad you told me." Samantha paused. "And if I could give it, I would."
Lily felt a strange pressure behind her ribs, almost like grief and almost unlike it.
After a moment, she said, a little stiffly because the admission itself was awkward, "I do not think I want you to stop."
Samantha's breath caught, very slightly.
"That," she said after a beat, "is useful information."
Lily gave her a look in the mirror that was meant to be withering and probably failed.
Samantha accepted it with infuriating serenity.
"What else?" she asked softly.
Lily nearly said nothing. Then, because Samantha had asked with this maddening patience, because the room was warm, and because she was already ruined, she forced herself onward.
"I prefer," she said slowly, "when you warn me before something new."
Samantha nodded at once. "Done."
"And I do not..." Lily's face burned hotter. "I do not mind being held."
"I had gathered," Samantha murmured.
Lily ignored that. "But if you laugh at me, I will bite you."
That made Samantha's shoulders shake with suppressed amusement. "I believe you."
"I mean it."
"I know." Samantha's hand squeezed hers once. "No laughing."
Lily hesitated, then added in a rush, "And not in front of others. Not like this."
Samantha's expression in the mirror changed again - softened, but with a sober attentiveness beneath it.
"Noted," she said quietly. "Private means private."
The relief that moved through Lily at that simple acceptance was, in itself, embarrassing.
Samantha touched her cheek once more with the back of her fingers. "Thank you for telling me."
Lily looked down at their joined hands. "It is not easy."
"No," Samantha said. "I know."
She shifted then, just enough to ease Lily more comfortably against her, and rested her chin lightly near Lily's shoulder rather than against it.
"Would this be all right for a little while?" she asked.
Lily, suspecting that Samantha would keep asking until she had no choice but to admit she wanted half of what was already happening, said, "Yes."
So Samantha stayed.
She murmured a few more things after that, the kind of sweet quiet words Lily would have once dismissed as sentimental nonsense and now found herself absorbing with humiliating hunger. That her hair was softer than silk. That she was lovelier and more relaxed than she realised. That she looked as though she had spent far too long carrying the world as if no one else could help her with it. That Samantha liked her sharp tongue perfectly well, but also liked this softened, trusting version of her more than Lily was prepared to hear.
Each one made Lily flush.
Each one, somehow, also made her settle a little more.
At some point, Lily stopped holding herself so rigidly upright. At some point, her head tipped, just slightly, until it rested back against Samantha's shoulder. At some point, she ceased thinking of escape except as a formality owed to pride.
The frightening part was not that Samantha seemed to notice every change.
It was that she answered each one correctly.
When Lily grew too warm with embarrassment, Samantha's voice turned quieter.
When Lily began to drift, Samantha grounded her with a touch to the hand or cheek.
When Lily stiffened at a phrase too loaded, Samantha adjusted and chose another without making Lily explain.
It was not mindless obedience.
That was what unsettled Lily most.
It was trust, slowly making itself possible.
And that was far more dangerous.
After a long, soft silence, Samantha said near her ear, "You are thinking again."
Lily made a small noise of complaint.
"I know," Samantha said, smiling. "But not so fiercely now."
She was right. Lily hated that she was right.
Samantha kissed her temple this time - light, brief, unmistakable.
Lily inhaled sharply but did not pull away.
"That," Samantha said, very gently, "was another new thing. Do you want me to do it again?"
Lily sat in terrible, burning silence.
Samantha waited.
At last Lily said, so quietly it was almost lost, "Yes."
The second kiss was just as soft.
And when it was over, Lily's eyes closed again on their own, her whole body easing by another small degree into Samantha's care, as though some ancient, exhausted part of her had finally decided that if she must be ruined, at least she would be ruined gently.
After a little while, Samantha loosened her hold just enough to speak without her mouth nearly at Lily's ear.
"May I ask for one more adjustment?"
Lily, still warm all through and not trusting her voice entirely, said, "That depends on what sort of adjustment."
Samantha's hands smoothed over her arms once. "Come sit on the bed with me."
Lily turned her head a fraction. "That is suspiciously broad."
"It is," Samantha agreed. "I can narrow it. I would like you to sit between my legs and lean back on me, if you are willing."
Lily's face heated again immediately.
Samantha, infuriatingly, only waited.
There was no pressure in it now. No coaxing beyond the question itself. Just the offer, set down plainly.
Lily could have refused.
Instead, she said, after a pause that was not nearly dignified enough, "You make very peculiar requests."
"And?"
"And..." Lily stood before she could talk herself out of it. "Move over."
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