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for obi_wanmanshow

The name had been a part of her nearly all her life, as familiar to her as her own. When it had first appeared - glowing golden script on her inner arm - she had been fascinated, spending hours upon hours staring at it, tracing the letters with one finger, dreaming about the kind of person her soulmate might be. The name was strange to her, not Nevarran or Orlesian or anything she had heard of, but that had only added to the mystery and excitement.

His name had appeared on her skin at the time of her first flowering - one more marker on her path from girlhood into womanhood. If she had been the sort to go to school and have friends, it might have been the kind of thing to giggle over with the other girls, to shyly hide away, only to shriek in feigned indigence when her sleeve was playfully pushed up and the name finally revealed. As it was, Cassandra learned from tutors, and rarely had contact with other children. The name, like her beloved books and dreams of dragon-hunting, became a solitary escape, a daydream of a better life.

Both had faded, in time, as such things do. Fantasies of true love and romance had been replaced by the realities of work and duty (though Cassandra had never quite been able to let go of her fondness for romance, if only entirely fictional ones). And the name on her arm had faded from a bright gold to something duller and duller as the years went on, until it was something that could not be seen at all except in the brightest light of day.

(The longer it took, they said, the more your soulmate's name faded, the less likely you were ever to find him at all. And this one - an unknown, foreign name, one belonging to a man who clearly lacked either the interest or the means to seek out a soulmate with the name Pentaghast, well...)

Cassandra herself couldn't say exactly when it was she had stopped expecting to find him. Certainly it had been nothing overnight, no sudden revelation. She had simply woken up one day, no longer a girl in her twenties eager to make the world her own, but a woman in her late thirties - accomplished, certainly, perhaps even fulfilled - but utterly alone, and more and more likely to stay that way.

But the name is still a part of her, as much as it ever had been. And so it is that when she hears it spoken aloud for the first time, she doesn't even blink; hearing the words she had whispered so reverently to herself for twenty-five years is as natural as breathing.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi." She nods sharply, focused on her work, ignoring the tiny voice in the back of her mind that is urgently whispering something, something is happening, this is important - She holds her hand out to shake - her arms, as they always are these days, fully covered by long sleeves that meet her gloves, the barely-visible name securely hidden from even the most prying eyes. "I am Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast."

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He is, at the moment, an unimpressive skill at kissing. In his defense, however, very little of his mind is living in his head. Most of it is focused very tightly under the pressure of Cassandra's fingers, the dry, hot slide of her palm, and really he's doing his best in any regard.

It doesn't matter, what his mind is doing, reflexes have taken over, bucking his hips up against her grasp without asking Obi-Wan's opinion on the motion. Frantic for a distraction, to draw out the inevitable, he shakes himself out of reverie and applies more of himself to her mouth, fiery and importunate.

Where once she had been tentative, now she explored with confidence; it had taken less time than the sunset for her to find her stride, this far at least. In retrospect, it was silly to expect anything less.

Her own hips twitch in response, jerking forward uselessly against nothing. She would not have predicted that his own obvious arousal would have such an impact, but as he moves under her hand and redoubles his efforts at kissing her, she finds herself gasping, needing him, her own body already responding.

And it is glorious to have him here, needing her just as much, and to know that satisfaction will soon be within both their grasps. She lets go of him just long enough to pull him down onto the bed, pushing him firmly into position, and crawls onto his lap, cupping his face in her hands for a deep kiss and straddling him deeply.

She rolls her hips against him, his hardness sliding along her wetness, and moans, loudly and with abandon.

In the few seconds of coherent thought he can manage with his friction-clouded focus, Obi-Wan realizes one thing very clearly; he has created a monster.

Maker, she was strong. He could do nothing save for moan his own reply, drawn down inexorably against the hot core of her, grab her by the hip and hold on for dear life.

"Cassandra, please... Please, I--" He wanted more, he was reduced to begging within moments, breathless, longing. But she had the leverage, had pinned him down, and begging was all he could do, "...Please."

"Yes," Cassandra says, brokenly, with another firm roll of her hips. She almost feels as if that could be enough, if she only moved a little faster, just a little more...

But it is not enough. Not for her, and certainly not for him. With an effort, she lets go and reaches for the hem of the hated gown - suddenly, even that is too much of a barrier between them. With a fluid motion, she pulls it off over her head, casting it onto the floor, and looks at Obi-Wan with wild eyes.

"Please." She doesn't even know what she's asking for, exactly, only that she needs, needs all of him, even as her stomach flips wildly with sudden anxiety. Her body is ready, her mind whipped along in its current, any leftover protests not enough to make her stop.

I don't know what I'm doing - I will make a fool of myself - will it hurt?

She forces herself to slow down, to take a breath, and meets Obi-Wan's eyes, biting her lower lip almost painfully.

"Please - please - touch me." She leans forward, murmuring into his ear. "Your hand, the only one to ever touch."

He knows suddenly, wild instinct, knows exactly what she means by it, drawn along that same inexorable path, lodestone to their twin desires. Please she asks, and he reaches for her, thumbing the peak of her breasts, suddenly bare before him, and beautifully pliant under his grasp. His other hand teases down between her legs-- their legs, for they are too closely entwined there to call it by the singular.

Gentle enough in his haste, he spreads her open, the only hand to ever touch, and looks up from that too-engrossing work to meet her eyes.

"Breathe. Deep breath," He tells her, hoping it will be enough as he takes her by the hips and arcs his spine, hips twitching, to tease the blunt head of himself against her slickness. Hers to press forward, yes, but he is the one who knows the way, "Come on, now-- slow. I have you."

Either he has her, or perhaps more technically, he's about to.

Cassandra shudders, nearly shaking herself out of Obi-Wan's grasp, as he brushes his fingers over her. Her breasts, her folds - and then there is more than just his hand there, and she gasps.

"Obi-Wan..."

Her love. Her soulmate. Her eyes fly open suddenly as a thought occurs to her, and she looks down at his bare arm - but no, her name there is as pale as it ever was.

Perhaps...perhaps now...

She nods, breathes in deeply, and tries to relax as she pushes forward.

It isn't easy. There's so much going on, too much to consider, and she wants him so badly she feels as taut as a bowstring. He stretches her as she begins to slide onto him, uncomfortably so, and the sensation is so new that she jerks back rather than pushing through it, making a noise of pain and frustration.

"I...I am sorry..."

Her cheeks flush in embarrassment, but it's more than that, forehead creased in annoyance. She wants this, she wants him and without delay, but in this, for once, she cannot force her body to cooperate.

He cannot help his grimace, or the hiss of indrawn breath, but even so, he is not deaf to the pain in her voice.

"No, love-- it's alright," He is the next thing to cursing with frustration, but in truth, she had nothing to apologize for, "It was too fast. There shouldn't be pain."

Instead, he pulls her down against his chest, out of alignment, but flush against him, skin to skin. The contact is glorious, bare peaks of her nipples against him. He tries to focus on that, and not the sudden loss of heat and wetness, to focus on her.

"There's no rush, truly," He murmurs, kissing her, not slowly, but deeply, lingering against her mouth even after, "I would never want to hurt you."

"It was not fast at all," Cassandra mutters, upset and humiliated. She wraps her arms around him when he pulls her close, grateful for the contact, but far from appeased.

There's no rush. But there is. She returns the kiss, pouring all her frustration into it, and leans her forehead against his. "I do not want to wait," she whispers. She can smell the scent of his skin, feel his heartbeat against her chest. Obi-Wan fills her every sense, and it is almost too much to bear. "I have..."

Does she want to say it? Already she can feel the loss of him, the emptiness. "I have endured worse pain."

"Oh, that's very flattering," He chuckles, frustration opening the gates to sarcasm, however gentle, "You're tense. And you thinking too hard. Let me touch you."

He asks, but roving hands are already there, hiking her higher against him so that he can curl his fingers around her thighs and touch there, where it is hot and wet and intimate. If all at once is too much, and because she is burning so fiercely for him, he'll start with less.

"Relax," He says, mouthing the easy expanse of breast this new position brings to him, and resolves to do for her as one does for any other over-tense muscle; though perhaps a massage from the inside out is somewhat more than simply rubbing out a cramping leg.

Cassandra frowns, displeased at his laughter, but she can offer no protest. At least his fingers have found her again; at least there is something, if not everything that she wants.

She breathes in and then out again slowly, trying to relax her body with her breaths, and wraps her arms around him, resting her chin on his shoulder.

Too tense. Too anxious. She closes her eyes, focusing on the slow drag of his fingers through her wetness, and tries not to think. Just this. Just his fingers teasing her gently, his own gentle breathing in her ear, his mouth moving over her. Nothing else matters.

"I want you," she whispers to him. She squirms, backside shifting impatiently on his lap as she seeks more, rolls her hips against his fingers. "I want all of you."

Teasingly, he strokes into her, at first with extreme gentleness, then more firmly, pressing fingertips against the walls of her body searchingly. Two fingers then, kissing her neck when she squirms, stilling his hands until she can be still again, before continuing, eventually adding another.

"I want you," He replies, in an echo, then continues, between the biting kisses he is peppering over her chest and collarbones, "I want to see you come apart in my hands, every night, every morning. I want you to ride me, just like that, quiet in our bedroll in camp, so no one knows, and then loud in the wilderness, miles from anyone who could hear. I want all of you, in all ways."

And this without ever slowing his fingers, nor speeding them up, a deliberately maddening, enticing pace, stretching and massaging and perhaps even driving her mad. But soon, soon now, it will be enough. And then he'll give her exactly what she wants.

And she had thought his closeness was too much to bear before. Cassandra all but sobs, burying her face against his shoulder, keening and rocking against him.

His fingers - oh, those are wonderful. But his words, the pictures he paints with them - she moves frantically against him, more and more frustrated by his steady, unchanging pace. She hardly registers the moment of discomfort this time when he adds a second finger, and at the third she hisses, then shudders, her body shifting and expanding to accommodate him.

"Yes," she breathes. She has to fight the urge to slide her own fingers between her legs, knowing that the barest touch will finish her off. A moment, while she holds her breath and marvels at his fingers inside her, stroking her -

It is so good. But it is not enough. She turns to kiss his neck, clenching tight around his fingers.

"I need you." She hardly dares to breathe the words. One hand slips down, not to further her own pleasure but to find him, squeezing, stroking. Oh, he will feel so good inside her -

She will go mad, if he refuses much longer.

"You may have me." She swallows, fighting with all her will not to move, not to simply push him down to the bed and impale herself on him - that she would regret, but with every moment she wonders more if it is worth it.

"Please - Obi-wan - please."

Although his hands tell him a tale of her readiness for more, and her own touch is urgency itself, it is her voice that at last decides him. It is an impossible fantasy; Cassandra Pentaghast, practically weeping with desire, begging, utterly wanton, all but helpless. For him.

Mindful still of the physical limiations, he drops a kiss against her temple, and whispers, "Yes" into her ear.

The slide of her body around his is an entirely new kind of agony. He knows it must be slow, but inch by inch his resolve wavers; he thinks he'll weep with it when the hot core of her finally rests against him, bodies flush, and for a moment he holds her there, firm and slightly desperate for the respite.

"I...Don't think," He grit out, as helpless for her in his own way, as she was in return, "Can't last."

He never should have married a dragonslayer; she was going to take a decade off his life in this room. Had he known what it was going to be like, he might have done it years ago and not lived to see this day-- and never regretted it.

She whimpers when he slides into her at last, excrutiatingly slowly. There is some pain, still, as her body stretches to accommodate him - and then he is inside her, filling her, and she catches her breath, going entirely still.

"Oh." She wraps her arms around him, her entire body pressed against his, heart pounding. There is nothing she wants more than to remain here, forever, so close to him as to nearly be one being - but she can no more last than Obi-Wan can.

Slowly, tentatively, she rocks her hips, nearly sobbing with relief and building desire as she moves against him. She is so close, so close, and she needs -

"Please." She rocks again, more insistent, and bites back a cry. "Please - help me - "

"I'm here," He gasps, nonsensical, because of all people, she is most intimately aware of that fact-- and yet, he wants nothing more to reassure her. He is here, present with her, and he will not leave her wanting, "I'll take care of you."

Perhaps it is the soulbond, perhaps it is simply Cassandra, glorious and wild, stronger than steel above and around him-- perhaps it is simply the emotion of the moment that makes everything seem so much more, and better, than it has ever done before. He feels new again, marveling at every sensation, swept under and over by the current of heat. She moves, only slightly, and he falls apart, incapable of silence, or control.

His hips answer that lack like an unruly dog, jerking upward, deep, deep inside, and the sound he makes is as much a surprise to him as it is to her, surely. Desperate not to be overtaken by his own reflex, Obi-Wan slides his palms around her hips, pressing against her clit with a firm thumb, circling through the moist detritus of the rest.

"Now, Cassandra. Now. Let go," He pants, knowing that as short as these few minutes might seem, they still contained multitudes enough for the both of them, "With me."

She does, nearly before he finishes speaking, keening as his thumb presses against her, setting her body alight. Back arching, head thrown back on a cry - and she climaxes all at once, the force and intensity of it shocking her.

Cassandra drops her head against Obi-Wan's shoulder, coming down slowly, whimpering softly as she throbs around him. Her body is warm, covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and she shudders, sliding her hips slowly against him as she chases the aftershocks.

He is wonderful. And she is lost, a jellied mass against him, barely able to think, much less react. She mouths a soft, wet kiss against his neck, trying to communicate her gratitude without words.

Everything goes tight and white-hot, and all at once he is spilling himself within her and she is voicing a cry that echoes his own. He is transfixed, eyes open, and she is the most glorious thing he has ever seen, like a vision from a dream. Nothing mortal should be so searing, so perfect, as Cassandra Pentaghast in the throes of her pleasure. No hunting-hawk she, this was a Dragon.

The moment is frighteningly intense and, waiting for the spots to clear from his vision, he has time enough to wonder if he had died before she twitches through the aftershocks, leaving him once again breathless.

He hadn't died, then.

Reality returns, in the soft touch of her mouth, the air cooling along sweat and skin, and the natural way his arms settle around her. Obi-Wan cannot remember ever being so tired, nor so satisfied.

"Cassandra," He sighs, stroking up the smooth, lovely expanse of her back. He turns his face toward her and breathes into her hair, "Oh, I love you."

"I love you," she murmurs, then says it again, awed and enthusiastic. "I love you."

She does. Has she said it, until now? Whether or not she has, it is true. He is everything she could have dreamed, everything she had nearly convinced herself she could never have. Joining with him had not been embarrassing or awkward, as she had feared. It had taken some effort, but it had seemed...right, and she is surprised to find herself already anticipating trying again.

Something occurs to her, and she pulls back without warning, turning her head to see Obi-Wan's arm. Surely now...

But the mark is as pale as ever, and the hopeful expression on her face crashes into devastated disappointment.

"Oh."

Obi-Wan watches her eyes, not daring to hope, and is surprised at the dispassion of himself, when her face falls. It doesn't matter, does it? He can hardly complain; she has said that she loves him, and he has no reason to doubt her. To the contrary, she has always been honest; too honest, occasionally, but that is her nature, to blunt the world on the edge of truth. Surely, surely now, it doesn't matter.

How, can it not matter?

He has no words, instead, simply curls his hands around her face, and pulls her down to kiss. This is nothing like the passionate, breath-starved kisses of before, this is slow, loving in a way that has nothing to do with the Maker, or the soulnames, and is only about himself, about the two of them. He tries to give her what words cannot do; reassurance, his love, and whatever else there is to salve her crippled optimism.

"It's alright," It is, demonstrably, not alright-- but the knowledge that he is, in some vital, subtle way, not yet enough is... irrelevant. Life goes on, "I think we should eat. And... maybe have a bath? I think I saw a tub, earlier."

A big tub, large enough for the two of them, easily. And fancy indoor plumbing he's not seen in a very long time, bless Orlais and the their extravagance, for once.

She returns the kiss, grateful for it and for the comfort he attempts to convey, but her own response is lacking. Distracted, vaguely guilty, and when she pulls away, she's still frowning.

"All you had to do was touch me," she says quietly, gazing unhappily down at his arm. It's nearly unheard of, for a mere brush of fingers to light up the mark, especially for a relationship as new as theirs. And now this - all of this, and her own name on his skin is still faded?

She looks back at his face, anxious. Will he hate her? Will he think she hates him?

"It is not that I do not care."

"I know you care, for goodness' sake, Cassandra."

Maker have mercy on him, he's barely had time to finish with taking her maidenhead and they are, apparently, having this discussion. Naked, covered in the evidence of their tryst, with a toxic mixture of drowsiness and panic surging behind his eyelids, Obi-Wan leans back and sighs. She is worried that he might think she doesn't care.

Had he once complained of boredom? What an idiot he'd been.

"It... wasn't just a touch. I'd just spent... so much time, waiting. Thinking about you, or what might happen, settling my resolve-- and then, you found me. Then, when I saw that I'd lost you, in a way, I wasn't sure I'd get a second chance," He trails off for a moment, regarding the ceiling with a wistful sort of melancholy, "And the only thing I'd ever have, were the letters."

It wasn't the touch that had painted her gold, it was that he had given up the only part of her he had ever held, with no expectation of seeing it returned. No agenda. No plan, save to do his best for her sake; that he had cared more about her happiness than his own. What better definition was there, of love?

"You were hurt... And I could do nothing. It was all I had to give."

She scowls, reading exasperation into his tone, and frustrated with herself for causing it. Why is this so difficult? For a moment, she hates the soulnames, hates that their own degrees of loyalty and love for each other are so visibly displayed...but then, if not for the soulnames, she would never have given him a second thought.

She withdraws, awkwardly, in a tangle of sticky limbs, all but sulking - but she is listening to his explanation. It makes sense; she'd assumed that their long separation, his joy at seeing her again, had had something to do with it. But romantic as it is, all his story serves to do is to make her feel more guilty.

"I never..."

She trails off, hunched sitting at the edge of the bed, her back turned to him.

"I would not have left you. Not even after I...forgot."

Even losing her memory could not have changed what he is to her.

"I know that. I do," Uncertain of her mood, he reaches out, touches her back, neither sensual nor proprietary, not even comforting, truly. Just a connection, warmth to warmth, the knowledge that neither of them were alone, "But, in the dark, alone, with nothing else to think about... I kept waiting to hear, if your injury had killed you, or if you had changed your mind about me, suddenly. Senseless fears. Stupid. And here we are, all of them proven false. But at the time..."

At the time he had not known anything.

"...they lingered. Until you came back, to banish them."

She shudders, not at his touch, but at his words. They have not talked much about Obi-Wan's time in the cell, or what he had gone through trying to reach her in the days and weeks before.

If she had not found those letters...If she had waited another month to open that drawer, or a year...

She turns to him, wordless, and opens her arms, wrapping them tightly around him and tucking herself against him. Skin to skin once more, but there is nothing lustful or urgent about the contact now. Simply warmth and comfort, a surprisingly easy intimacy that is as profound, in its own way, as anything else.

And he pulls her in, in a way he cannot call with any honesty, anything other than clutching. He feels foolish, truly; he hadn't been tortured, or even mistreated, not by the standards of prisoners. He'd been given everything he needed, even a clean shirt, and none of his things had been stolen. But still. But still.

She is so fiercely independent, in his mind, some part of him fears the loss of her (as illogical as that is), every time she turns away. It takes some time before he can ease up again, loosen his arms, and let her go.

"Alright?"

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