[For Regina] Pent up Energy

[st_arknaked]

It was inevitable really that he would start to feel like a caged animal again, there was only so much nightly runs and long workouts could do to sooth the animal that didn't like being trapped. Normally he'd find a willing woman and work off some raw energy, but that wasn;t feasible at the moment.

Dyson didn't usually have trouble finding female company if he wanted it but there were two things putting a crimp in his usual style (so to speak). One, there weren't that many people at the Inn, not compared to the city he'd come from and as such indiscriminate womanizing, probably not wise.

Two lived next door.

He thought about knocking on her door, and suggesting a mutually beneficial arrangement where they were... mutually beneficial, and didn't talk since that usually ended up with them arguing. But as he went to knock he remembered Snow. He remembered the things she'd said about Snow and her past and he decided that the better part of valor or not discretion was way less likely to get him thrown across the room again.

So instead of propositioning his neighbor he pulled on workout clothes and went to the sauna, maybe a little steam would help him relax and sleep. Once there he stripped down, tossed his clothes in a locker and was soon kicked back in the dark sauna enjoying the heat.

Comments

[st_oriedqueen]

His neighbor happened to be in her room alone and not sleeping. Usually when she didn't sleep it was worrying or theorizing magic or remembering, but tonight it was either too hot or uncomfortably cool when she turned on the air conditioning and everything that touched her skin prickled or annoyed or worse, aroused.

She considered knocking on Dyson's door. He would probably be willing to put an end to her torment, but then she'd have to ask and admit she wanted to. If it happened again (it would, she imagined) it would be best if it was spontaneous mutual agreement.

Instead, she transmuted her silk nightgown into a skirt and blouse and went for a workout. After, she adjourned to the locker room, stripped down, and entered the dark sauna in naught but a towel.

[st_arknaked]

"We have to stop meeting like this," he drawled as the door closed them in steamy darkness. His eyes were closed but he knew her scent now. This time he didn't even try to cover up, she' seen it all.

Hell she'd more than seen it.

"Or make it a date so I don't have to wait for you." There was a smile in his tone.

[st_oriedqueen]

Before he spoke, she'd sensed a presence within, straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin, prepared to ignore whoever it was. After... After she simply dropped the towel onto the bench and lay down on it. No point hiding what he'd already seen and had, especially if she was willing for it to happen again.

"You're early," she answered in response, a husky-soft chuckle hidden beneath the words. "I arrived precisely when I meant to." Implying, of course, that he'd come early out of anticipation of seeing her.

[st_arknaked]

Not anticipation really, more like an unacknowledged hope that she might be there since he knew late night sauna was on the list of things she enjoyed.

On the list of things he enjoyed was watching the imperious way she dropped her towel and lay down.

"I'll do my best to be on time in the future." Which didn't precisely sound like an offer, even if it was one.

[st_oriedqueen]

"See that you do." Under different circumstances (daylight circumstances), that would have been delivered as a snarled imperative. Now, someone with his hearing might easily detect the wicked sparkle of verbal foreplay in her eyes.

That said, she closed her eyes and focused on her breathing and the damp, steamy heat caressing her skin. His presence didn't solve the problem that had driven her out of her room, but it was a pleasure of its own.

"My son would suggest a knock code." Henry, not Roland. Henry liked secrets and mysteries and "operations." Roland liked people and hugs. "Knock code" probably didn't sound like an actual offer, but in its way, it was.

[st_arknaked]

"Two knocks means come over? One means yes and three means no?" They were adults of course, they needn't have a code. Just an agreement.

"What did your son use his code for?"

[st_oriedqueen]

"Something like that." She smiled in the dark and felt herself beginning to relax. "Two knocks for 'are you there', one for 'yes', three for 'not alone'." Since as long as Snow wasn't visiting, or Rebekah, she'd probably accept the company.

"For a very short while, he-Henry used two knocks for 'good night' and one for 'I love you'," she answered quietly, voice hitching over his name. She hadn't said it aloud much to anyone but Snow, and she always fortified herself against emotion first, so she didn't make Snow feel as though she wasn't enough.

[st_arknaked]

"My pack, when I had a pack," his voice was low, warm and clearly showed he understood the loss she felt saying Henry's name. "When we were apart we'd howl, so sometimes late at night you'd hear us, reminding each other that we weren't alone."

Even if distance separated them.

[st_oriedqueen]

Most of her life, she'd treated the wolf packs (werewolf packs) with disdain, but for the life of her she couldn't remember why or how it had started. The way he described it, the eerie, haunting and downright annoying wolf-line communication seemed caring, beautiful, a lifeline.

"Did it work?" Because even when she'd shared a bed with Robin for a short time and had been happy, as happy as she knew how to be, she'd still spent a lot of time feeling alone.

[st_arknaked]

"Sometimes, sometimes you were so far away you called and there wasn't anyone to answer." He considered that, considered how it had felt. "But I knew they were out there somewhere. It was worse when I left the pack, and sometimes I could hear the wolves...."

BUt they hadn't been speaking to him anymore.

[st_oriedqueen]

Already Regina knew it to be rare that Dyson chose to speak of himself, so she allowed herself the simple pleasure of listening and learning. When she did speak, it was only to ask, "Why did you leave?" in an unusually gentle tone.

She'd been placed at odds with the rest of her "pack" through bad choices and worse guidance. It was hard to imagine him choosing to go.

[st_arknaked]

He didn't say anything for a long moment, it hurt to remember Stefan. Hurt more because he'd hurt Ciara without meaning to. He leaned back and let his head rest against the wall his eyes closed.

"I was a member of the Laignach Faelad pack," he said finally, without opening his eyes. "Wolf-shifter mercenaries bound to one king. We pledged our honor, and our lives to him and to the pack, but he didn't deserve our loyalty." He could hear the bitterness, the anger in his voice even now centuries later.

"He sent a young warrior on a suicide mission so he could take the mans wife for his own. Stefan was my friend. My brother. I couldn't follow a king that would betray his own like that. Not even if leaving his service meant losing the rest of them as well."

[st_oriedqueen]

Seeing that from the other side when she actually wanted to... it hurt. She had done so many terrible things. If she had been his queen, he would have left her service too. And she would have killed him for it.

That she didn't jump to the King's defense proved that she'd grown, and she certainly wouldn't do such a thing now. But she couldn't respond honestly that she understood. For a long moment, she couldn't answer at all. Her chest felt compressed by the weight of memory.

Finally, she found words that were true. "I'm sorry."

[st_arknaked]

He heard everything she didn't say in her tone, in the way the words she did say sounded in the dark silence. He may not know why, but he knew the apology was an honest one.

Though he wasn't sure if she was apologizing for his loss, or for something he didn't understand.

"He was never sorry. He never saw the error in what he'd done, or the pain he'd caused." The king of Ailich hadn't deserved his title then, and if he wasn't dead he still wouldn't. But he thought, maybe Regina would.

[st_oriedqueen]

"I don't see you leaving someone like him in a place of leadership for long."

God knew Snow and Charming had tried to get rid of her as fiercely as she'd tried to be rid of them. If there was any saving grace for her, it was that by and large, that they'd prevented her from doing far more damage than she did. And for all the damage she had done, in other respects she'd been an exceptionally strong Queen and defended her demesne from worse than she. Even if her people would never have seen it that way.

[st_arknaked]

"He was the king, leadership was his by right. My fealty was the only thing I could take away." And the others, they hadn't found the betrayal to be as bad as he had. Stefan had been his closest friend.

[st_oriedqueen]

The urge to apologize again was nearly overwhelming. Instead, she reached across the space between them (not as far as last time, since she'd deliberately chosen the bench catty corner rather than directly across from him), stretching her fingers until they grazed his wrist in sympathy.

She stayed quiet then, eyes open and staring at her forearms in the dark rather than watch the parade of horrible behind her eyelids. After a little while, she said, "I never wanted to be Queen."

[st_arknaked]

He shifted just enough that his fingers tangled with hers.

"I know a man. He's a king. Not many know that any more, me and a few others who think they know. He would rather not be king either, but he is."

[st_oriedqueen]

His fingers should've felt alien tangled with hers. Should have, because he wasn't Robin. But they didn't, and while it felt disloyal, stung a little to be 'over him' so soon (as if she could ever be), she couldn't deny the comfort of a hand to hold.

"I stopped fighting it long ago. My mother made sure that I did." Even now, she couldn't speak of her mother without bitterness seeping into her voice. It curled her fingers, too, tensing them against his. "It was she who wanted it, but I who had the bloodline to have it. She declared my path when she announced my name, and then made sure there was no one and nothing in my way."

[st_arknaked]

"All those things are things she did," he was sure she'd done her share, but he didn't think she should take the blame for the choices that had been forced on her.

[st_oriedqueen]

"Those and many more," Regina agreed, voice rough with emotion. "She's never pleasant to think on." An understatement if ever there was one.

"I wouldn't object to a change of subject." Or a drink. Which abruptly made a startling amount of sense, and she summoned the bottle of wine and two glasses she had in her room. "Will you join me?"

[st_arknaked]

"I never say no to a drink with a naked woman." He reached for the bottle and deftly poured them each a glass before offering one to her.

[st_oriedqueen]

"Not particular about the company you keep," Regina murmured over the glass as she lifted it to her lips. She took a sip of the deep currant-colored Burgundy and let it wash away bitter memories. She was nevertheless wry when she added, "That explains the other night, then."

[st_arknaked]

Well, he was a dog - literally sometimes.

"The other night?" He had to think about it as he too sipped his wine, at first thinking she meant their little encounter in the field but then he remembered. "Not that it's particularly your business but Yasmeen and I weren't sharing... afterglow."

There was a smile in his tone. "So much as taking a break from trying to maim each other."

[st_oriedqueen]

The other night, she responded mentally. When they'd bypassed snarling for fucking. But he'd drawn the wrong conclusion--

No, it wasn't her business. Of course not. They weren't involved. But he didn't need to say it. And hearing it raised her irritation level enough for her jaw to clench against a biting remark--

And then he was smiling. Putting her mind at ease. Even though he didn't have to, and her emotional compass spun again. Flustered, she lowered her chin to shadow her face while she sipped her wine. "I meant in the field. You and I."