Chapter Text
Even in a room built for sex and an enthusiastic new friend to give it - even with Pike's tiny bag improbably full of magic things just for the occasion - Yasha was the most interesting thing there. And that excitement, the wonder, the way Beau couldn't look anywhere was before Yasha leaned her bare body over Beau's to capture her mouth with her own. The hotness factor of being left in her own slick and sweat while Pike went downstairs all cheerful like she hadn't just reduced an Expositor of the Cobalt Soul to a whimpering mess had been slightly diminished by the usual effects of being left to stew in her own thoughts, but with the help of Pike's soft restraints and Yasha's softer kiss, all of that missed potential came roaring back in full force.
Couldn't have been half an hour since she'd been fucked into oblivion, but it was only when Yasha broke away to spend a second just looking down at her that Beau realized her hips were twitching in search of purchase on Yasha's thigh. And she'd definitely noticed - in her gaze was all of the complicated mess Beau would expect from the circumstances, the absolute ton of lust and affection she was still trying to get her head around, and - yeah. Unmistakable amusement.
"Oh I'm sorry," Yasha said in a decidedly non-apologetic way, "I thought you had already come tonight. Did I misunderstand?"
Before Beau could reply, she felt Pike tie off the last of whatever she'd been doing with Beau's wrists and give them a tug as she chirped, "Oh she's had a great time. In fact, I think maybe she should let someone else have a turn now, what do you think?"
Beau made a noise of protest and squirmed in the attempt to sit up, but Yasha's hand was there in the next moment - on her shoulder, carefully away from her scar - to push her firmly back down. Those eyes flicked to Pike for a moment, leaving Beau feeling cold somehow in that brief absence even as her cunt throbbed with heat.
"I think that's only fair. I could fuck you while she watches, if you like."
Beau's air stopped entirely at that, and then Pike stepped into view with her huge grin and a notable absence of the kind look she'd been giving Beau all evening. In place of soft confidence was a kind of full-on swagger, an abandonment of caution in favor of meeting a match. "I love how you think, but I was imagining it the other way. After all, Beau and I have a head start."
The fragile confidence Yasha had gained from gloating over Beau fractured immediately, and suddenly Pike didn't seem the smallest one there. "I, um." Her eyes flicked to Beau's shoulder, and Beau knew she was avoiding that vivid pink scar with her glance as much as she had with her hand. It was no hard thing to guess from there where her mind might be.
"We aren't at the Stone Coffin." The words were blunted by lust, chosen to shake Yasha out of her thoughts, and the way her startled eyes snapped to Beau's told her she'd been successful. Beau cleared her throat, ignored her tied hands and her tits out (like they were to blame for her social ineptitude, but hey) and stumbled forward. Urgency couldn't be trusted not to sound like anger - most things did, if she wasn't careful - so she kept her voice slow and neutral as she went on. "I mean this isn't the time to be thinking about shit you do or don't deserve. Trust me." She nodded down her own body. "If you start, I will too. And I…would rather not." She'd almost slipped there, almost fell to the post-fucking vulnerability and told Yasha how much she missed her body, was starving for it after everything. It fucking sucked to have had those times before with Yasha, the stress relief of their bodies colliding under the guise of friends with benefits, only to need that release most when it most impossible.
She might not have said any of that, but she liked to imagine she saw the sentiment reflected there in the softening of Yasha's eyes, reddening again as though they'd been waiting for an excuse. "I'm sorry, Pike. That's kind of you, but I don't think…" Yasha's head bowed, and then she took a deep breath and flicked her eyes to Beau's. "What do you want, Beau?"
Something in Beau cracked with Yasha's voice, and she swallowed before replying. "I want you to get fucked." She frowned. Godsdammit. "Like, literally. I want to watch."
"That body you're in can take a great deal of pain," Pike cut in softly, hand reaching up to rest on Yasha's hip. "Letting it have some pleasure doesn't mean that stops forever. Even if I wish it worked that way, there's still a lot for both of you to process." She looked between Beau and Yasha, that faraway look there behind her features again, reminding Beau that this small woman had lived more than her share. "Think of it as a little bit of rest so you can keep going. For better or for worse."
It was the strangest comfort Beau had ever heard, but she understood the purpose of it. Yasha needed the reassurance that setting aside her guilt for a moment wouldn't erase it - after so long carrying this burden, she was attached to it in some way. Beau could relate on a level she was firmly avoiding looking directly at, tonight of all nights. Her friends had come for her - Yasha had come for her - and if accepting that just for tonight would help Yasha to do the same, she could do nothing else. There would be plenty of time to keep mulling it over later.
"It's just stress relief," she murmured.
Yasha seemed to wake up a little at that, and though her smile had a yawning lack of real humor in it, there was a miracle in its very existence as she squeezed Beau's shoulder. "I think we both know it's more than that now."
"Not tonight," Pike declared. "That's what I'm here for. No getting lost in your heads. You've clearly done this before -"
"Clearly?" Yasha mumbled, face as red as Beau's.
"My fault," Beau muttered back. "Should have drooled more when your shirt came off, really sold it."
"- so the rest is just set dressing. Speaking of, Yasha I could use your help for this." Pike held out a metal bar, black and silky smooth in the light. Yasha let go of Beau and took it, eyebrows drawn together in puzzlement. "There's a button," said Pike, "just come over here and hold it flat over your head and press it for me."
Beau watched with interest as Pike hopped off the bed and led Yasha to the middle of the room, trying not to think too hard about how much she immediately missed the presence of the two of them when they were a whole six feet away.
Yasha held the rod obediently over her head and tapped the end of the bar at Pike's nod. "Now what?"
Pike squinted at the rod and looked back to Beau, mischief in her eyes. "I think it needs to be a little higher. Okay if I climb up and stand on your shoulders?"
Naked Pike on naked Yasha - they were actually trying to kill her, weren't they.
Yasha shrugged obligingly and held still as Pike scrambled up her sculpted torso and up to balance carefully with her legs on either side of Yasha's head and one hand braced on top. Her reach wasn't much higher than Yasha's had been, but the thought hardly registered as curiosity and arousal warred in Beau with equal measure.
Pike pressed the button and released the rod, and Beau had to blink to overwrite the image her mind tried to give her of the metal pitching towards the ground. It should have plummeted, put a dent in the wooden floor, but it hung there suspended by nothing at all as Pike dusted her hands and started to scramble back down Yasha's body - but not before kissing her on the cheek on the way past. "You did great. You're gonna love this."
Beau's heart warmed with the quiet "oh" Yasha gave at Pike's friendly kiss, but she wasn't allowed to linger. Her bound wrists had been relaxed on the pillow above her head, and then they were being yanked by a much longer trail of rope than Pike had used previously with the headboard as Pike tugged her toward the middle of the room like she was leading a horse.
Beau opened her mouth to make some kind of half-hearted and perfunctory protest about being paraded, but whatever she was going to say died in her throat at the sight of Yasha's intense expression as she stood and watched. The gentle bewilderment at Pike's kiss was scrubbed away, smoldering lust unmistakably in its place as she stared a hole in the rope binding her wrists. Beau had been naked for more than hour by this point, but she'd never felt quite as exposed as she did now, watching Yasha's eyes blow a little further when Pike handed her the trail of rope.
"She looks amazing all tied up, doesn't she?"
Yasha looked blankly at the rope in her hands, then to Pike. "Absolutely stunning. What do I…" Her eyes followed Pike's finger when she pointed almost straight up, and Beau swore her knees trembled at the implication that hit her a second before Yasha's eyes widened. "Oh," she said again. "Fuck."
The swear sounded musical in Yasha's voice, especially in contrast to the roughness of Beau's when she echoed it.
"There's an anchor point on the wall over there." Pike pointed a couple of feet away to a ring jutting solidly from the stone by the door. "Toss that rope over the rod a couple of times - from this side, there you go - and pull it nice and tight."
Beau was too turned on to even speak by then, but that didn't stop the gasp that pulled from her as her wrists were hauled up over her head with a smooth force that caused her to take a stumbling step forward to center herself. If she'd felt exposed before, now she was on full display - arms up, tits out, dried mess from earlier still visible on the insides of her thighs, fresh scar she resolutely refused to think about giving zero fucks whether she thought about it or not and just as pink and white as ever. The recognition that she was theirs for the taking and the anticipation of just that had her breath coming in small, quick gasps as she turned eyes that felt as wide as Yasha's own to hers and jumped when Pike patted her thigh.
"Are you comfortable?"
By now it was clear that Pike's questions encompassed the full range of meaning, but the answer was the same. Beau nodded and searched for her voice, tugging gently at the restraints as indication and not resistance. "I'm um. Fuck."
"Don't be shy, Beau." Pike drew out the second half in a way meant to fluster her and which would have roundly succeeded if not for the fact that she was already about as embarrassed as it was possible to be. Felt good, felt…right.
"A little higher?" She stayed looking at Pike, didn't dare look over to Yasha yet, and a moment after Pike's bright grin of appreciation she felt herself pulled almost to the point of pain - almost, but not quite. Just a quiet burn beginning along her shoulders, a little more weight on the balls of her feet. The skin around her scar tightened, but she breathed through it and nodded once she was certain nothing would tear.
"You're amazing, you know that?" Pike rose up on tiptoe to press a kiss above Beau's navel, just under the end of that pale and bloodless stretch. "A little lower," she said to Yasha. "Not all the way back, just…perfect." To Beau, she said, "I don't want anything pulling your attention from us, okay?"
Beau saw the accommodation for what it was and set her jaw against the urge to argue about it. She'd had plenty of time to get used to adjusting to new ways of getting around annoying aftermaths of cuts and other bullshit. That's all this needed to be, tonight. "I'd like to see anything try," she retorted instead, and Pike heard the acquiescence inside of it and smiled before turning to Yasha.
"She's all secured and pretty for us. So. What do you think we should do with her?"
Yasha was still staring at Beau, slack-jawed and slow to shake herself out of it to reply. At least, Beau noticed, she'd been staring mostly at the rope and the fact of Beau's exposure - not so much at the scar. That was nice - more of the good kind of embarrassment, less room for unwanted thoughts as planned.
Yasha had to try twice to take her eyes off Beau and look to Pike, and even then her gaze seemed to list a little in her direction, like she might snatch another look if Pike blinked. "I - there's so much, I thought you had an idea?"
Pike shrugged. "Several. Just seeing if you had anything you wanted in particular."
Now they both looked at her, and fuck. Beau had never been one to hide her body, and it wasn't that she wanted to now so much as she was helpless to do so and unable to stop thinking about it. The fact that she couldn't - it was that illusion of powerlessness, that game they were playing, that made her tug the ropes and shift a little, face flaming, and it was the way the sight of that seemed to square Yasha's shoulders and bring back that trace of confidence where little else could that made her turn away.
Soft footsteps on the wood, heavy with intent, and then Yasha's gentle fingers on her jaw turning her face up to look at her. She seemed very aware of the effect that simple motion had, the way Beau's blood felt made of spikes suddenly - glaring was the only thing Beau could do to deal with the arousal, and it just made Yasha smile.
"What about you?" Beau had enjoyed that flustered look on her face, but she couldn't lie and say the sudden lack of it wasn't also one of the hottest things she'd ever seen. Yasha's voice was soft but intentional. "What do you think we should do with you?"
It was debatable as to whether Beau even had a filter most days, but whatever she might have started the night with had vanished well before now. "I think you should stop fucking around and fuck me." Her voice was steadier than she'd expected - same for Yasha, going by the quirk of her eyebrows.
"I think that part is a given," she said, because of course she developed a sense of humor now (Beau did file the circumstances away for later reference and replication - vested interest in confident, jokey Yasha and all that). "But how?"
"I hear kissing's a good way to start."
That shadow flickered again behind Yasha's eyes, but it vanished a second later with a visible effort as she wrenched herself back to the present. Good girl. They wouldn't solve this shit in a night, but they might be able to put it down for one. It said a lot that she even wanted to try, was capable of imagining a moment in which she chased something besides punishment.
Said a lot that she wanted to try in this context, where Beau was involved, but she couldn't quite handle the weight of that thought and filed it with the others for later.
Yasha's eyes burned through Beau's as her head tilted slightly, flicking down to her lips as she leaned in - and jumped, pulling back from Beau to twist over her shoulder at the small body Beau could just see when she craned her neck with a whined "Piiike."
"Sorry," said Pike cheerfully, "but I have every confidence that as soon as you two get started you'll go til you're done, so it's last chance for me to hop in."
There was a pattern forming in Yasha's behavior - confidence Beau was familiar with when it was just her, flustered deference when Pike got involved. Very interesting. "Sorry Pike," she said. "You should probably tell us one of your ideas, in that case."
"You said you're okay with following, yeah?"
Yasha nodded quickly.
"You just handle Beau. I know what to do."
There was a moment wherein everybody gathered in the room understood at once that Pike's head was almost exactly level with the silver-splashed thatch of hair at the apex of Yasha's thighs, and when Yasha nodded again she was blushing almost as much as Beau had been only seconds before. "Okay," she said. "Focus on Beau. Nooo problem. Just. Um." She looked back up at Beau, who couldn't have named exactly what she saw there but knew what was being asked nonetheless. Half an hour ago, leaning forward and capturing Yasha's mouth with her own had been unthinkable - not even a fantasy, not in this lifetime. Not with her wife, not after months feeling safer trying to convince herself Yasha was evil and listening for thunder. Shit between them was about as fucked as it got.
But they were here now, and the part of Beau that might worry it was all just endorphins from getting fucked senseless by Pike had turned off for the night. Yasha needed help that Beau could give, and right now it could be that simple. Maybe, she thought dimly, a little rush to drown out the rational side of her was what she'd needed. Wasn't that why she came to a brothel in the first place?
Yasha didn't startle at Beau's initiative, but she did take a moment to gather herself before Beau felt her relax and step closer, other hand resting on her hip. Her lips were permissive at first, even allowed a flick of Beau's tongue between them, but then she inhaled sharply and squeezed Beau's jaw and she was actually helpless this time, could do nothing but open her own mouth for Yasha's urgent kiss and trust the rope and the bar to hold whatever weight she had a spare thought to distribute.
The hand at her hip squeezed, the one on her jaw loosened to slide down and around her ribs to push her closer between the shoulder blades. So tall, impossible to forget about Yasha's tits and how they were at the perfect height for Beau to latch on to one with her mouth if she ever got the stupid urge to pull away from this. That seemed more unlikely by the second, especially when Yasha moaned sharply and narrowly avoided giving Beau a lip piercing with the force of the jerk she gave. It was a reactive jerk, a response to something Beau couldn't see but which hit her like a ton of bricks as she remembered Pike somewhere below with her clever techniques and...giving spirit.
Yasha paused kissing her to brace some of her weight on Beau and gasp into her collarbone, and that was the first time Beau truly considered trying to slip her bonds. She wanted Yasha's attention on her, needed more of her kisses and to hold her head, stroke her hair, cling to her in a way she hadn't dared before, a way Yasha wouldn't have allowed - unless? Was it possible they'd been dancing around this even before she was taken?
That thought would force Beau to reckon with a lot more than she was capable of right now, so she pushed it away and butted Yasha's head gently with her own. "Come back. I need…"
She wasn't sure she could have finished that sentence or with what, but Yasha was already moving at the first gasped words to spare Beau having to find out - or possibly herself. Now that she knew what to listen for, Beau could just hear a fainter, heavier slicking sound under the one their lips made. An echo, a refrain, whatever you wanted to call it. Music of the profane, blah blah sappy kissing shit. It was fine, except her feelings sort of had permission to worm their way into stuff now and seemed like they were making up for lost time.
Beau almost didn't register the first touch of Yasha's fingers to her cunt, when it came. Everything was too slick, no friction but where the sides of her hand brushed against Beau's inner thighs.
"Gods, please," Beau whimpered into her mouth.
"Wider for me?" Yasha breathed, and only the reflexes that came from years of physical discipline kept Beau from making a complete idiot of herself in her haste to spread her legs further. Pike had been right to allow her that little extra slack; the burn returned, adding to the pleasure instead of threatening it the way it might've.
Yasha's free hand roamed up Beau's ribs and rolled a nipple, and then she groaned at whatever Pike was doing to her below and Beau thought she might actually explode as a roll became a hard and involuntary pinch in the next moment. Beau yelped for the both of them, and when the sparks fizzled from her vision she started to pull against the ropes in earnest - to no avail, it turned out. Evidently, whoever Pike thought of when she looked at Beau had managed to set something in motion that carried all the way through to today. She wondered fleetingly whether the past tense Pike had used was the "parted ways" kind or the "dead" kind, because right now if she knew who he was she might kill him herself.
"Yash-" she cut off with an airless squeak at the two fingers that finally unfroze to sink up inside of her with oh so little in the way of resistance, tipped her head back when they curled and felt Yasha's hot breath on her exposed neck.
"She's good." Yasha's voice was fuzzy, grinding out from a throat Beau could hear straining with pleasure. "I can see why you like her."
She liked Pike before the fucking, but there was no point explaining right now even if she had any thoughts left besides gods yes please more on a loop. It drove her crazy to know Pike was just out of sight and doing to Yasha what Beau had wanted to since the first time they fucked, since the moment she'd slapped on that fake air of flippancy and said "yeah, fingers only, you got it."
Maybe it said something that Yasha was allowing it from Pike - maybe something had changed.
Or maybe Pike was only three feet tall and you did what made the most sense in times like these.
Another pinch to her nipple made Beau twitch and pull hard on her bonds, and she snapped back from her thoughts to find Yasha's eyes on hers - no condemnation, just intent.
"Stay here with me."
She didn't say don't go again, but it was there in the undercurrent of everything that had brought them to this place.
"I'm here," Beau managed, which wasn't exactly thank you for coming after me again twice in one night but close enough that she saw Yasha's eyes soften a bit before she slipped in a third large finger that had Beau gasping and clenching as much as she was able - which wasn't much.
"Not yet you aren't," Yasha replied, "but soon."
"Ha," Beau said weakly, then, "fuck." She tried to grind down on Yasha's fingers, but the tension pulled threateningly at her scar and she had to relax again before she did something embarrassing like undo all the healing that had gone into it and start bleeding.
If Yasha noticed Beau wince she said nothing, just obliged the attempt and pumped her fingers with a force that would have made jelly of her knees if she'd had any real need for them and which mercifully wiped out any further ability to think at all. Everything was Yasha's touch, Yasha's quiet grunts getting louder and more frequent as Pike took her apart out of sight. Another flash of frustration to be unable to see it happening or free her hands to - what, help? - chased by a stronger jolt of arousal at the reminder of being trapped and forced to imagine Pike's mouth on Yasha's cunt.
Before long, the rhythm of Yasha's fingers began to falter and the noises she made stopped. She was like that - loud and responsive right up until she was ready to come, biting back the sounds like there was a cap on how far she could let herself go. Beau watched Yasha's eyes roll back and close as her whole body locked up, and it was there in that lust-scrambled moment that a wild and desperate resolution wedged itself into her mind. She would get Yasha to let go - induce a rage if she had to, but more than that she wanted nothing more in that split second than to be the rock to break Yasha's wave. One day.
But for now, this was still everything - Yasha locked up with her head thrown back, long muscle standing out in her throat as her fingers curled harshly against Beau's front wall and into her shoulder where her free hand braced herself. Beau watched her stay there a second longer, a trembling statue of marble and sweat and pleasure, and then she surged forward as much as she could and was just able to mouth at the base of Yasha's neck with a flash of teeth that drew a muted squeak of a grunt from under her lip.
Yasha dropped against Beau in the next moment, almost boneless, and made no attempt to move as Beau tried to nose her hair out of the way, realized it was less than useless, and kissed along the side of her head until she found Yasha's ear and gave it a gentle nip.
"Whoah." It was the first time Beau had heard Pike sound so…affected, and a moment later she stepped away far enough for Beau to see her. "Yasha, you're amazing."
She glistened from nose to chin with slick, looking slightly dazed but smiling up at Yasha when she turned her head to see her.
"I kind of just stood there…" That uncertainty again, but oh the strain made it a wonder to hear.
"Uh, nope," said Beau. "I was there, can confirm. Now please, I was so close-" she squirmed without any real force to try and push Yasha up and off of her.
"Oh." She lifted her head, haze clearing from widened eyes as Pike just laughed behind her and wiped her mouth with her hand. "Yes, of course." Yasha looked over her shoulder as Pike hopped up on the bed and gave a little wave.
"You got this!"
Whatever had been behind Yasha's instinct to turn and look at Pike popped like a soap bubble with a playfully annoyed huff. "I know I 'got this' -" she pumped twice into Beau with the words and roundly ignored the absolutely mortifying half-sob that tore from her "- I was just checking. You're okay over there?"
Beau tried for a noise of indignance, but all that came out was a strangled sort of gurgle as her attention split far more in favor of rolling her hips against Yasha's hand in search of more.
"I'm fine," said Pike. "I'm going to enjoy watching this."
Beau saw her hand slip between her small thighs and had to shut her eyes at that point or she really would start screaming. The roll she gave at the thought of Pike getting off to watching Yasha fuck her apart came out more of a jerk, and she could hear the smile in Yasha's voice and the way it changed as she turned towards her.
"Oh, you like that."
An observation, not a question, but Beau would have taken it as an order if asked, and happily. She writhed on Yasha's fingers and full-on whimpered, a sound she wasn't certain she'd ever made and didn't hate how it immediately sent heat up from her chest to her ears. "Please."
Maybe she said it with more desperation than the situation warranted, but it had the desired effect as she opened her eyes just in time to watch Yasha's blow with want.
"I've got you," she said, and then her thumb found Beau's aching clit to quickly fall back into the rough rhythm Beau had come to crave. Yasha never fucked her like she was fragile, but Beau had always felt looked out for somehow - it was like Yasha hauled Beau to the edge of pleasure and pain just to make sure she understood the full scope of what she was capable of doing to her, only to reel her back in at the last second.
Beau couldn't stop the nonsense stream of words from pouring out, had nothing left with which to hear herself even if she wanted to as she clamped on Yasha's fingers and shook apart with a high keen and a rigid pull on the ropes. Some dim part of her registered the sound of Pike's appreciative groan, but there was nothing else but the feel of Yasha's calloused palm on her cheek and the blurry streak of lamplight in the corner of her eye as it all hit her in waves. Her legs gave way entirely just seconds after her thoughts, and Beau slumped forwards as much as she was able to let Yasha's weight hold her up as she gasped for breath and trembled. Her arms pulled behind her like this, a sort of soreness she only noticed once Yasha wrapped an arm around her and set her upright again to look her over and push that loose strand of hair behind her ear.
"Okay?"
So much of tonight had been new, but Beau looked at Yasha looking at her and realized that while she might never have asked her that question out loud, there was a familiarity to the words that hinted to the idea that maybe not as much was new as they'd maybe thought.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good."
She'd meant it to invoke the same meaning as okay (some part of her was present enough to keep her from saying those words out loud in any context, not yet) but Yasha dipped forward and kissed Beau's slack lips with a quiet tenderness and said, "So good."
And that was better and worse than the idea of saying she was okay, so Beau looked away and anchored on the next most interesting point in the room. That happened to be Pike, thighs spread and eyes screwed up as one hand rubbed at her clit and her knees bent like they were trying to smash the edge of mattress beneath her.
"Beau?"
She blinked back to Yasha's face - nope, still not ready - and nodded behind her to Pike. Yasha turned to follow her line of sight and relaxed, inhaling gently for a lingering moment before facing Beau again.
"If you're alright, I think I'm going to go thank our new friend. You can 'hang out' and watch?"
"Hold up," Beau whispered back. It took all of her willpower not to try kissing her again, or say some dumb shit about how she needed Yasha to make jokes like, every day from now on, but she managed to tamp down the sap factor and focus. "I only need like, a minute and then I wanna join too. She did like three times that on me!"
"Ah," said Yasha. "My mistake, I phrased that as a question." She gave Beau a grin then, still tinted by ghosts Beau wasn't sure she'd ever fully understand but reminiscent, incredibly, of Pike's apparently contagious luminance. "You stay here while I go and take care of Pike."
"Yes, please," Pike groaned, making them both jump. "I don't need thanks, but I think I absolutely need Yasha's mouth on me."
Keep dreaming for the both of us, Beau wanted to retort, but that felt like offering up too much that wasn't hers to give. Yasha could handle explaining herself, though Beau found herself thinking wistfully of a time when Yasha might allow her the gift of her lips and tongue -
"Okay."
Beau blinked at Yasha. Blinked again. "Sorry, what?"
Yasha's whole face softened in a way that turned whatever of Beau that hadn't been liquified to mush inside. "I'm going to go down on Pike." She reached for Beau's cheek hesitantly. "And later, after we've talked…"
Oh.
Oh. They were there? This was…she would…?
Focus.
"Y-yeah," Beau said quickly. "Uh. Cool, I'll um. Look forward to it? Only if you want, don't feel like -"
Yasha cut her off with another kiss, a little less soft in the way it not only stopped her words but seemed intent to draw out the ones she hadn't gotten to yet - words like "grieving" and "intimate" and "fine."
"I want to. I have wanted to for a while. I just couldn't…we'll figure it out?"
Beau only just managed to keep from nodding directly into Yasha's nose with the force of it, something only Yasha would find endearing instead of too much. She slid a hand up to Beau's topknot and gripped it gently. "May I borrow your hair tie?"
There was a ribbon tucked in Yasha's shed clothes for this purpose, Beau knew, just as she knew why this was a question and not an order. Beau's hair had been down plenty around the Nein, usually when baths were involved since that was the only time she bothered fucking with the hassle of it. There would be no point reading into the simple fact of having it down now, except that for all she was strung up to a magic pole hovering over her head, she knew and Yasha knew that somehow, the idea of being undone in this small and nothing way seemed like it might leave her feeling more exposed than something as mundane as sex between friends.
Because it wasn't between just friends, was it? Not anymore, if it had ever been. This was something else now, a knock on a door that would be Beau's to open but for the fact that it had been standing ajar for ages now in spite of her very best efforts.
She nodded once, and something squeezed tight behind her scar as Yasha's whole face pulled into a soft smile and her fingers began working at the thin strip of leather at the back of Beau's head. Her hair tumbled free within seconds, less of a wavy cascade and more with the sense of stumbling and sprawling over her shoulders like it had tripped and fallen.
Yasha didn't seem to think so; she dragged her fingers gently through the mess of it to pull it apart and just hold it in her hand, looking like she could just keep staring at it forever if not for the impatient throat clearing behind her. She gave Beau's hair a gentle tug and released her, looking uncertain again as she tied her own hair back before taking a deep breath at odds with the task at hand and turned.
And oh - Beau got it now. Her hair down, Yasha's up, and slicing across her neck where her mane was gathered, a crisscross of lines in various stages of healing. Some were silvery tracks in her skin, others an angry recent red, but most were the same pink as the long cleave of two strikes across and under Beau's own ribs.
Show you mine if you show me yours.
The ache of imagining Yasha tearing at her own skin was harsh, grated along her insides, but it was undeniably part and parcel with the things between them they were setting aside for tonight, and as such it slotted neatly with the rest. Whatever remnants she might not have been able to shake were obliterated seconds later, when Beau was treated to the sight of Yasha prowling towards Pike from the other side of the bed.
"Come this way," she said, and the surety of her voice was how Beau knew that for all the words were directed to Pike, everything happening was still for her benefit. None of the flustered confusion she'd had with Pike so far, just intent.
And Pike knew it too, paused with her fingers hilted inside of herself and threw Beau a flushed wink before pulling out and giggling as Yasha moved her where she wanted her. She seemed comfortable being manhandled in the same way she was comfortable taking charge - gods only knew the things Pike had seen and done and fucked. She really was amazing.
All thoughts of Pike, however sincere, disintegrated with a faint squeak when Yasha dipped her head and began kissing Pike from her forehead to her cheek and down to her jaw. Pike's squirms and chuckles stilled into quiet gasps when Yasha spent a moment mouthing at the base of her throat, and the sight of Yasha with her mouth on Pike's tits when she finally reached them had Beau seriously contemplating how quickly she could free herself - just her hands, gods above, anything to be able to touch herself along with the scene playing out before her.
The sheets wrinkled in Pike's fists, the lantern doled out flickering shadow and made art of every motion, and when Yasha's eyes flicked up to Beau's with Pike's nipple sucked firmly between her lips, the intent and the heat in her gaze was un-fucking-bearable.
"Yasha…" She tried to whine, but it just came out breathless like some kind of prayer. Appropriate she supposed - for reasons that had to do with gods and angels, sure, but moreso for the absolute devilish contrast Yasha's mouth made as she smiled and returned to her enthusiastic work.
Pike was selling it at first, seemed determined to make Beau come apart hands free or frustrate her to death, but then Yasha's hands guided her legs to either side of her head and the next moan Pike made was nothing but sincerity, indicated in large part by the pitch and the way it cut off in her throat almost immediately.
"Oh, fuck," she panted. "Fuck fuck f - ah! I'm not gonna last, fuck."
Beau felt a strange surge of pride on Yasha's behalf at the note of surprise in Pike's voice, clenched on nothing and did her best to memorize every detail of the scene before her: The way the light burnished Pike's flyaway hair as her head rolled back and forth, the divots Yasha's fingers made in Pike's skin as she held her down with those large hands wrapped nearly entirely around her ribcage, and - gods above, the shadowed pink of the tongue she dragged slowly up Pike's slit as her eyes returned to Beau's once more and held them unblinking.
A promise.
An extremely sexual and terrifyingly hot promise, so she wasn't quite sure why her number one reaction seemed to be the urge to start crying. Endorphins, man.
Pike's body locked up as threatened, bucking hard and high enough to obscure Yasha from Beau's vision for the seconds it took her to climax, and when she dropped back down Yasha's eyes were lowered again to chase her and keep lapping her through to the other side.
Pike had a nasty fist-sized scar of her own, a long-healed knot towards the left of her spine that had to have come from some real devastation years and years ago. As Beau watched, mouth dry and eyes infuriatingly damp, Yasha leaned up to press a slow, almost reverent kiss not to the scar on Pike's stomach, but in the clear space between her breasts - where Beau's own scar was deepest.
Her vision blurred hard, and if Yasha looked up she couldn't see it through the hair she shook forward in hopes of gaining even a fraction of cover. Yasha's sword cutting her down - because it had been her sword, not her - hadn't really hurt. There'd been no time for the agony to bloom, just the dull sense of being hit somewhere deep and, then a cold sort of loss as her world dimmed.
This feeling, watching Yasha do to Pike what she wanted - promised - to do to Beau, felt the way being stabbed seemed like it ought to have felt, only her world seemed to sharpen and grow brighter this time instead of falling away into black. She felt suddenly dizzy with it all, to have not only lost and regained a whole family in the span of a couple of hours, but to only understand now the depth of Yasha's care for her in the light of very nearly having lost that too.
Yasha's steps on the floor again, but she didn't reach for Beau's face. The soft cleave of threads to a knife blade, and then all of the tension holding Beau up vanished and left her throwing out a shaky leg to catch herself completely.
She needn't have bothered; Yasha's arms had already shifted to catch her and now they lifted her with ease to carry her to the bed and deposit her gently with her head on a pillow.
"Okay?" Yasha kept her eyes on the ropes as she unwound them from Beau's wrists, and for once Beau felt like it was to give her the private moment she needed to come back to herself and not out of an inability to look at her directly.
"Yeah," she said. "I'm okay."
Yasha turned her head then with a smile of quiet delight, and Beau felt the bed stir as Pike presumably peeled herself upright and rested a hand on the inside of Beau's knee.
"I hate to break it to you," she said, serious even if breathless, "but you're way better than okay. You're both incredible, but Beau."
Now she understood Yasha's earlier reflex to protest that she'd just been standing there, because, well - literally - but Yasha's hands pulled the last of the ropes free and took one of hers between them as she said, "She's right, you know."
Neither of them took the exaggerated groan Beau made as her head dropped back against the pillow with any seriousness, but the free arm she flopped open was readily filled with Pike's warmth as she squirmed up to curl in against her side and breathe contentedly.
Beau looked down at her hand in Yasha's and up to her face, questioning. "Room for three." Room for you.
There really almost wasn't, but there was no version of tonight that ended any other way and Yasha accepted this with a soft kiss to Beau's forehead before shoving the both of them over a full six inches so she could crawl up too.
They had to make one weird-ass tangle, Beau figured hazily. All sizes of limbs, strange heights and awkward placement on the bed…but she was warm, and she was content, and it had been earlier this same night that she'd been certain she wasn't the kind of person equipped to comprehend either of those things. She was also aroused a bit further beyond her usual comfort level - who the fuck wouldn't be - but for once that wasn't the most important thing there. Something had come to a close, another first among many that it didn't hurt Beau to think about it or any of the other endings rushing up on them. For once, she could just drift.
Beau closed her eyes for a moment and swatted playfully at Pike's ass when she felt her small finger poke at her cheek. "Behave, you."
"Don't listen to her, Pike," Yasha mumbled, voice soft in that way it always got after a good fuck. "I don't think she even knows what that word means."
She laughed and tightened her arm over Beau's waist when she squirmed in mock protest, but Pike wasn't done meddling.
"I beg to differ," she said, the picture of innocence. "Beau was very well behaved tonight - at least she was for me. I can give you some pointers if you're having trouble getting her to be good."
Beau wiggled her arms free to slap both of her hands over her face, groaning even as Yasha blinked and said, "No, that's okay. I like…forcing her, kind of. Not really, since she lets me in the end, but still. She's great."
"Kill me now," Beau muttered as Pike cracked up and Yasha looked somewhat bemused.
"Maybe you can show me what that looks like sometime instead then," Pike said, and kissed Beau's cheek just on the outside of her wrist before darting out of reach of the half-hearted hand Beau flapped at her.
"I actually hate both of you, fuck off."
She heard Yasha make an amused sort of huff, but the fingers that drifted over the spot Pike had been lying were soft and careful and not at all playful. Beau held her breath as she felt - or rather felt the strange pressure and absence of - Yasha's touch run very gently down the scar winding down the front of her like a crooked river.
She was braced for Yasha's next words to be something melancholy, an apology she didn't have it in her to refute appropriately tonight of all nights, but she simply looked up to Pike and said, "Is there any way to help this heal faster, or more, or…?"
Pike was standing now, and the smile she gave Yasha was kind and diffusely soft in the low light. "She's already being taken care of. Just needs time now. But you…" She nodded to Yasha's head, and her hand left Beau's chest on reflex to reach for the back of her neck before she caught herself. "I won't do anything you don't want," Pike added, "but if there's something here to be healed…" She held up her hands and wiggled her fingers, head tilted encouragingly.
Yasha looked to Beau, and though uncertainty was stamped across her features the gesture came so naturally that it seemed to surprise them both a little.
"It's up to you," Beau said. "I don't…I can't say too much or I'll fuck it all up, but. You know. She can't take them all away, if that...helps?"
Yasha's hand rubbed slowly at her neck, eyes faraway. "I…I think I'm a little disappointed about that, actually. At least for now."
"Then I guess she can only do what she can do, and we'll figure out the rest. Like you said."
Caduceus could do this, was the thing. Or even Jester. But it felt right now like maybe that wasn't the point, that the healing had to be now if it was going to happen. More than that, it felt like it had to be Pike - someone who'd helped Yasha get to the place where she could even imagine a future in which the scars she wore were simply marks and nothing more. A lot of healing had been set in motion tonight, so what was a little more?
"Yeah," Yasha whispered. "She can only do what she can do." She looked up to Pike and nodded slowly, tucked her face into Beau's shoulder to expose her neck and, when Beau reached for her hand, squeezed it once.
Should Beau kiss her? Was that like, the thing to do here, when she flinched a little at the feel of Pike's hand? She couldn't be sure - take one more risk in a night full of new things or stay close but a little apart to keep it from all being too much at once? Gods, Beau didn't want to fuck this up - wanted it badly enough to size up all of the issues staring her down and plan, maybe for the first time, how she was going to deal with the fact of them instead of running. Not for herself, not yet, but maybe one day. Right now, it was enough that sorting some of this shit could be what gave Yasha a leg up on her own demons.
And she damn well couldn't put any of that into words, so fuck it. Beau turned her head a little stiffly and managed a kiss just under Yasha's ear - dry and clumsy and probably the opposite of erotic, but that wasn't the point. The point was Yasha's shuddery exhale, the way she seemed to melt against Beau and, unthinkable an hour ago, burrow that little bit deeper - closer.
"Thank you," she murmured. Beau wasn't sure which of them she was talking to, but somehow it didn't matter.
Beau squirmed a little closer to wrap a hesitant, awkward arm over her back and looked up at Pike. "Give us a sec and we'll go pay for our own room so you can like…sleep, since I think we're in your bed technically."
Pike shook her head and tenderly stroked at a strand of hair behind Yasha's ear. She didn't stir in the slightest - was she already out? "I actually think I'm going to hit the road tonight, head back home."
"Huh." Beau blinked at her, realized her eyelids were starting to take on weight. Actually it was entirely possible Yasha was out, if she was feeling it this hard. "You get that call you were talking about earlier? Your god like, wanted this to happen before you went?"
Pike giggled and patted Beau's cheek before starting to gather up her ropes (which had, Beau noticed, no sign of having ever been cut - whatever that meant). "Maybe something like that, but mostly being here with you tonight reminded me of a few people I think I need to go and spend some time with now, just because they're here and I can."
"Mmm." A longer blink now; Beau was fast losing the battle with sleep and going by the steady breaths against her neck, Yasha had in fact already slipped neatly over the edge even more quickly than usual. "Well, I have like….all of the authority issues, 'specially with gods, but if yours had anything to do with tonight then I guess they're okay in my book. You're sure you don't wanna sleep in the cuddle pile?"
"Oh I do," Pike assured, hopping down to pull her tunic over her head and backing up so that Beau could see her off the bed. "But I have to go tonight, so I guess that just means I'll have to take you up on it another time maybe."
Beau could feel Yasha's heartbeat like this, half tangled and half draped over her. She hummed sleepily and yawned, the white flag of defeat waving even as her own heart prickled like maybe it was getting used to being warm again. "Maybe nothing," she threatened hollowly. "Better see you again. Sex way if you want, but…fuck. Think I'm just trying to say thanks and doing a shit job, honestly."
Pike pulled her cloak around her shoulders and dragged Yasha's from the chair it was draped over, climbing up on the bed to cover the two of them with its thick insulation and thicker musk. Beau couldn't help the little sigh she gave - felt like home, or at least what she thought home might feel like.
"You're doing great." Pike leaned down to kiss Beau's temple and nosed playfully at her ear. "I bet we run into each other again."
"Cuz you're going to come looking for us?"
"If I have to." Pike slipped off the bed again and looked up at the bar still hovering. She muttered something and lifted her hand, and a translucent, dimly glowing version of it seemed to expand out to touch the end of the rod and catch it before it could hit the ground. Pike stowed it in her tiny bag and opened the door of the lantern before glancing back to Beau. "For what it's worth, though, I don't get the feeling that'll be necessary. Goodnight, Beau. Til next time."
The blackness was already calling, pulling Beau further inside of it as the lantern went out a second later. "G'night, Pike," she managed, and then the door shut and there was just the smell and the feel of Yasha all around, and not a single piece of Beau left conscious enough to consider anything but how right it all felt.
Probably she'd wake up freaking out, but that's what made all of this so great - not only had too much come out to go back on it now, there was no part of her that even wanted to. All she wanted was this, and this was what she had, somehow.
Beau fell asleep within moments, lulled by the beat of Yasha's heart and the sense that for the first time, the morning might dawn on something like a future. Maybe just a goal for now, or a goal of making a goal. But more than she'd ever hoped for - for once, it felt like enough.