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After so many years of knowing each other, they had developed a game they would play together. One meant for quiet nights like these, when nostalgia called to them and the only responsibility they had was to provide warmth to each other, arms around one another and legs intertwined, content within the other’s comforting presence.
Zoe settled back more firmly against Douxie’s chest as he wound his arms around her. She let out a pleased sigh and closed her eyes as she let his warm, comforting aura envelop her.
“My turn?” he whispered.
She nodded. He hummed thoughtfully as she traced patterns into his palm.
“Got it!” he said, “First time we tried to dye my hair.”
She chuckled.
“September 5th, 1755.”
---
It was a mild early-Autumn day, the sun bright and warm, despite the encroaching chill in the air. The pair sat across from each other on the floor of Zoe’s small cottage, tucked away from the prying eyes of the small, suspicious town, nestled in a clearing of pine trees. Archie licked a paw as his gaze shifted between the strange pair about to grow even stranger. Douxie, with a towel around his neck and shoulders, hands in his lap, legs folded, and knee bouncing excitedly. Zoe with her sleeves rolled up and brown hair pulled back from her face, an apron protecting her dress from the pot of indigo dye in her hands.
---
“You ended up with a blue forehead and I ended up with blue fingers,” Zoe said.
Douxie chuckled and hugged her tighter, giving her an affectionate squeeze. She huffed out a laugh.
“For two weeks, ” he added with a giggle, “Your turn.”
She thought for a moment, stroking one of her hands up his arm. He hummed and kissed the top of her head.
“Our first date.”
“What? That’s an easy one,” he said, words slightly muffled from where he nuzzled her neck, “June 1st, 1691.”
---
The early summer night was warm. Fireflies danced in the air above the grove, quiet but for the soft strumming of a lute. His song was pretty, even played on a long-outdated instrument as it was.
She never thought she’d fall for a bard - she’d always found them overconfident and rather annoying - but this one was different. He was gentle and kind, energetic and naive despite all the years he’d lived.
She allowed herself a soft smile. Immortality was a lonely thing, but with him she never felt alone.
---
“That was a nice night,” he murmured, letting his eyes fall closed and turning his head to press a kiss to her neck.
She chuckled, leaning into him further.
“Even back then you were a charmer.”
He smirked against her neck.
“You know you love it.”
She rolled her eyes with a small smirk of her own.
“Your turn, loverboy.”
He lifted his face from her neck.
“Our first kiss.”
He swooped forward to peck her on the cheek before burrowing back against her neck. She smiled remorsefully, the memory coming to mind bittersweet.
“October 20th, 1692.”
---
Zoe reached forward tentatively, testing her hands on his shoulders. His firm grip on her arms reassured her, and after one small nod, he slowly pulled her to her feet. She let herself stabilize, letting her weight settle in her legs.
She closed her eyes and waited for the stinging pain and awful tension that always followed these attempts, but it never came. There was a slight twinge of discomfort as she shifted her ankles, but nothing more. She took a tentative step forward, and then another, Douxie moving back all the while to allow her room. She was walking.
For the first time since the stake and the pyre and the flames, she was walking.
She lifted her gaze from her feet to meet his, a wide grin splitting her face, her first since that terrible day one month ago. She felt tears pricking at her eyes as Douxie’s gaze shifted to mirror her own. Then, in one swift, forward surge, his lips were crashing into hers, awkward and unrefined, but sweet just the same.
---
Zoe smiled lightly, interlacing her fingers with his where they rested against her stomach. She brought his hand up to her mouth and kissed it, murmuring against his knuckles,
“First time we said, ‘I love you?’”
She could feel him smiling against her neck.
“February 11th, 1864.”
---
They stood opposite each other in the small, dark, dingy apartment they shared, Douxie with one hand on the doorknob, Zoe with his other wrist held fast in her steely grip. They stood frozen as her grip slackened and his stern expression softened.
It had just slipped out. He was insisting on going to that strike. To a strike where he could be arrested or attacked or killed . She had been so angry, so frustrated, so scared… She hadn’t meant to say it, but those three words had just come out in a shout, and now she stared blankly at the floor, letting her hand slip from his arm.
She kept her eyes trained on the ground even as she heard the floorboards creak. He was still going.
He was still going and when he came back - if he came back - he would be bruised and battered and bleeding and of course that would be the least thing he heard-
She drew in a sharp breath as she felt arms wrap tightly around her.
One hand settled at her back, the other in her hair as he returned her words against her ear. They sank to the floor, her skirts pooling around them, as their lips met in a sweet kiss.
---
“You never did go to that strike,” she mused, closing her eyes and nestling further into his chest.
He hummed against her ear.
“No, but I did go to quite a few others,” he said, “Now, enough of that. My turn.”
His hand stroked down her side and over her hip, coming to rest on her inner thigh, fingertips curling against her skin. He leaned close to whisper against her ear,
“The first time we made love.”
Zoe huffed a chuckle as she turned in his arms to smirk at him.
“January 1st, 1926,” she said, “Probably the worst sex I’ve ever had.”
He, too, huffed a small laugh as he returned her facetious smile, leaning close to kiss the corner of her mouth.
“Does that mean every time after was better?”
She turned in his lap, pushing herself up to straddle his hips, her hands planted firmly on his shoulders as she grinned down at him.
“Much better.”
And she leaned down to capture his smiling lips in a deep kiss.