bakerstreet | So, don't choose.

So, don't choose.

The Highly Inappropriate Sexual Tension Meme

Touches. Glances. Sides brushing, so close to each other. The moment is, most likely, quite, subdued, and calm. Or it could be loud and full of life, right in the middle of a vivacious party. Yet, no matter the case, your blood is pumping - no, nearly boiling with the passion bubbling between you and your companion.

Unfortunately, this sexual tension is completely and absolutely out of line. Whether it be the place, the time, your relationship with the person (be that literal relation or power difference, age difference, experience difference, and so on), your own lack of knowledge, or personal convictions, you should not act on any building desires.

But here's the thing about tension: it builds. It builds, and it builds, until...

Well, even subtlety can come to an inappropriate head.

HOW TO PLAY

This meme isn't for smut, though smut is allowed. What it is for is the delicious, anticipatory build up and the dances people can do to deny attraction. Foreplay, especially creative foreplay, is encouraged.
Comment with your character, canon, and preferences in the subject. In the comment body, be sure to mention if there are any squicks you have, scenarios you don't/do want to play out, and if you're okay with AUs or handwaved CR.
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(y/n with this one?)

ooc: yyyy

(ooc: feel free to switch to brackets if you want)

Between killing the First Army mongrels and rescuing the Grisha they had been torturing, the war, learning the limits of his new friends, and his damnable cough, he was exhausted. Which explain why he didn't notice the way his surroundings faded into darkness and shifted into a familiar space, warm with the glow of candles against familiar unscarred wood and polished marble, the familiarity of a hundred lifetimes built into the Little Palace.

His head did not ache here, nor did the scars pull as his mouth twisted into a reluctant smile. He looked down, and his kefta glinted in the light. Fresh, formal, as it had been the night of the winter fete. "Never thought I'd miss this."

The words came, unbidden.

They were not doing as well as she would have hoped. Aleksander had the Grisha in numbers. He had himself, the nichevo'ya. He was stronger than she wanted to admit. Alina wouldn't; she would keep fighting, going on pure determination at this point. She had the will and the drive. Now she just needed the power to end it all.

It was obviously something she was still working on. The candle was flickering in front of her, the darkness to her back. His voice shot down her spine as she lifted her chin and closed one of the books she was trying to read in the dead of night. She was in a shirt and a pair of trousers, her jacket tossed on the chair. Alina didn't turn around, yet.

"You chose what you did." There was no sympathy in her voice, a breathy sort of urgency that only he could pull from her.

He turns at the sound of her voice, turns, and the reluctant smile fades back into the shadows, and he is every inch himself again, the Darkling of a hundred lifetimes. Implacable as the night.

“Yes. I chose power.” He gestured to her, to the book she had been poring over, her obvious search, the power that clung to her like the radiant heat of day.

“But now, so are you.”

She turned sharply to see him standing there. Her brows furrowed. How dare he try to compare what she was doing to what he had already done, specifically to her. Alina wouldn't forget being bound to him. From first being able to learn and grow to being shackled and controlled, all while he was in the center of it. The clench of her jaw was sharp.

"Only because I must. But unlike you I'm not lying about it or manipulating people," she fired back. The people that were on her side were there because they wanted to help. She had been honest with what she was searching for, what she wanted to do for Ravka. There was a stark difference between them, a distance she fought to keep between them even if something kept drawing them together.

“‘Because you must’.” There was no mockery in his tone, just a fine edge of bitterness, of weariness honed over centuries.

The Darkling watched her, and a part of him wondered what his mother had seen in the little Saint, whether she had seen Alina’s determination and been drawn to it like a moth to a flame… or if she’d seen in Alina something familiar. Her own pathetic desire for redemption.

“Does it fill you with comfort, Alina? A fierce hot glow of righteousness? Of faith, of conviction? That you’re doing what you have to, to protect the people you love? To know you’re the only one who can?”

She was fighting the parallels he was constantly making. He was right about her shortsightedness, though it was a myriad of things she could not admit. Instead she pushed the book down and turned to face him fully, facing the darkness with the flicker of the flame behind her. Holding that firmness in her eyes, the anger almost palpable.

"None of this fills me with comfort. None of it. I never wanted any of this, but what did you expect? For me to roll over? I won't let you do to all of Ravka what you have already done." 'To me' goes unsaid as she stood opposite of him. They were supposed to change the world, but what he wanted was so much greater, something she could not agree to.

She was certain in her defiance of him even now. He could not convince her otherwise.

She glared at him and he took a step towards her, his height looming over her. Like a moth to the flame.

“The reluctant little saint. The honorable martyr with power suddenly thrust upon her,” he said, his voice a low rumbling purr. “You might lie to yourself but you can’t lie to me. Tell me you didn’t feel free with the Sea Whip around your wrist, feeling as if you had the sun itself at your fingertips, as if you could call down the moon and banish every shadow.”

His eyes seemed to drink in the faint flickering firelight, and his hand reached out, lightning fast, to grasp her wrist, warm and solid in this space that wasn’t real.

“Do you really think you’ll have peace when you tear down the Fold? That Ravka will see you as its savior and just let you go in peace? Or will the Lantsovs see you as a weapon? Something to point at their enemies? The great blinding light to finally melt the Ice Wall?”

His proximity would not bother her. That was what she told herself as she lifted her chin to stare defiantly back at him. She told herself she would not waver, she must not. Eyes pierce his, almost drawing him in despite whatever she might say about not wanting him there.

"Just because I didn't ask for it doesn't mean I can't do something with it, something great. We were going to change the world, remember?" Her head quirked to the side, the last few words falling out of gritted teeth like paper through a knife. How did he get her so worked up so simply? She was having a calm, albeit sleepless night with her books and her maps.

"I do not know what they will do. But we could have a united Ravka. And I am nobody's weapon. Never again," she told him, looking down and then up like she was thoroughly disgusted. "Why are you trying to convince me of the worst when so far what I have seen is the destruction and hurt you've caused?"

Obviously the Lantsovs are not blameless, but then didn't Kirigan hurt Genya by putting her with them? Alina was trying to cause as little suffering as possible. They could have reshaped everything together, made it better. Now she had to alone.

His brow furrowed, ~~his mother~~ Baghra's words echoing in his mind, unbidden. No, it was not his fault. The otkazat'sya would have turned against them again regardless of his actions. They always had, always would.

"Because it is in their nature," he hissed, darkness rising behind him, unbidden, as his grip tightened on her wrist. "They have always hated us, hated Grisha. As if we were mad dogs that needed drowning as puppies." Something dark and painful flickered through his eyes, and the Darkling looked down at her, at the little Saint in all of her naivete and optimism. "You believed me and I collared you without hesitation. Don't make the same mistake with the otkazat'sya. Because there will be no shadows to hide in if you do."

He pulled at her wrist, and she could feel it despite him not being there. Her brows furrowed out of defiance, but she could see the darkness growing behind him. He was getting bolder, and she couldn't quite pull free from him in any regard.

"So what? You destroy them to prove their point?" She countered, brows still pointed at him as she leaned in. Aline hated even more that he spoke about collaring her, because it was true, and she had never felt so helpless in her life for it.

"You took what was mine. They can't." That was the true difference. He might have convinced her about all of this, about his past, what he lived through and witnessed with his own eyes, but instead he just tried to lord it over her, and she was far too stubborn. He had hurt her, and she simply wasn't going to go back with her tail between her legs. That wasn't who she was.