Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Malroth, please.” Elise flipped the page in her notes double checking the numbers for the upteenth time that afternoon. It had only taken that long because her particular companion decided today he only had one mission in life and it happened to be to get her into bed, apparently. He made this obvious by the way his lips were currently trailing kisses up the side of her neck.

3,200 loads...wait, was it 3,200 or 2,300?

Malroth’s hand found her thigh and gave a gentle squeeze that made a tiny shiver erupt over Elise’s skin.

“Come on now, I have to get this done.” She spoke the words but Malroth continued his ministrations and Elise found it increasingly more difficult to concentrate on her calculations and not the route that he was very clearly determined to take her on. It had started innocent enough; a little peck on her cheek and a “Can I wait for you to finish?” Except he must have grown impatient because his hand was now under her dress and dangerously high up her thigh and his teeth were grazing her ear and…

Elise let out a shaken breath that was just a blink away from a tiny moan.

Fuck.

“ Malroth! ” Elise slammed her fists down sending the bottle of ink flying off the small table’s edge and clattering to the dirt floor below. She probably should have picked it up but there wasn’t any flooring down to get stained and her mind was somewhere else with those hands and that mouth and at this point she was only pretending to be focused on anything else.

“Eliiiiiise,” he let out a teasing whine.

Fuck it.

Elise surrendered with a close of her book and Malroth smiled triumphantly. He turned the stool she sat on  Elise just had time to giggle out in excitement before Malroth sucked the breath right out of her lungs with a kiss and pulled her roughly against him as he stood in one fell swoop.

Elise melted into the kiss and felt her head spin and tingle as he hoisted her up onto the table.

“Finally.” It was intoxicating being with him. It wasn’t new for them and they’d been sharing a room pretty much since saving the aisle and relinquishing Malroth’s more demonic side. But this was different. It was as if he couldn’t get close enough to her, or get enough of her, or move any faster because he wanted to taste every inch of her and every freckle on her body until he could taste her happiness on his tongue.

Fuck . Elise’s back arched and she gasped after what felt like holding her breath for a decade. Malroth wasted no time in moving from her lips to her throat, kissing down the center of her neck and feeling the thick lump she swallowed as she dug her fingers into his hair and tightened her legs closer around him.

And then the door knocked.

Malroth growled in annoyance, only getting a laugh from the amused builder. He buried his face into the crook of her neck but kept his arms around her.

“Yes?” Elise attempted her best to keep her voice steady and not give away the more scandalous goal they’d just had in mind. The door creaked open and a blue head of very orange head of hair poked in.

“Elise? We’ve that load of…” he trailed off finding the builder still sitting on the edge of her workbench with a very annoyed Malroth seemingly hiding from view. Even Perry didn’t need to ask questions to know what was going on.

“Eh...I’ll come back later.” He said quickly with bright red cheeks nearly vanishing with the close of the door behind him.

Elise felt embarrassed. Malroth was clearly not because while he still kept his face in her neck she could feel his teeth grazing her skin and lips moving with a clearly mission in mind and his hands were sliding up her thighs. 

But she had a lot of work to do. 

She quickly halted his hands with her own and the man nearly pouted like a small child.

“Later,” she promised with a peck on his lips. She pushed him away just enough to give her room then hopped off the edge of the table with an extra bounce in her step.

“Later?!” Malroth repeated in disbelief. It didn’t matter what else he had planned to say however because the builder was long gone.

Malroth knew he wasn’t always the best at making rash decisions or preparations. He knew he was more of the reactive type than the planning type. Sure, it had improved significantly after relinquishing his more... monstrous side. But he still had a lot of that impulsiveness lingering. 

But today he had something planned. Something extra special.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t that special. Really it just involved him stupidly stripping and waiting in bed for his favorite little builder to come join him. A relatively bad idea spawned from the two kings of bad ideas, Dougie and Digbie.

Bad idea or not, he decided to try it. After all — he’d really been missing his builder as of late. With new expansions to new islands happening all the time now, she was busier than ever. That meant she had less time for him. And he missed her. A lot. More than he’d admit verbally. It didn’t help that lately every time he tried to get close to her someone was there to interrupt them. I mean he’d barely so much as touched her in weeks.

So he stripped down completely, lay in her bed and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And got a little sleepy waiting.

And waited some more.

He was just beginning to doze off when he heard her voice approaching. He knew that voice anywhere. He crossed his arms behind his head, reclined back on the pillows and put on the biggest smile that made his intentions clear as day.

The door opened.

“We can talk about it tomorrow. I just wanted to show you these blueprints I made up real-oh!” Elise nearly yelped in startle, stopping abruptly at her door, causing the very unprepared commander behind her to bump into her and all eyes to snap to the very naked Malroth in bed.

He didn’t even try to hide. He kept the wide smile as if all his hopes and dreams had been fulfilled.

Anessa’s eyes went wide and her face may have pinkened a little but if rewards were given for color changing abilities, Elise would have won because she skipped pink and red and went straight to crimson.

“Malroth!” It was the only word the flustered builder could sputter in such humiliation. Elise spun around back to her army captain flustered and annoyed and looking as if she’d just been thrown into a lava pit.

“I-uh...he…” she couldn’t even form words, so instead she made an ungrateful shove forward moving both her and Anessa out of the room and slamming the door closed behind her.

“Oh my…” 

Anessa did something very uncharacteristic of hers and burst into a fit of laughter.

“I-I’m so sorry!” The builder finally managed to spit out. It did nothing to quiet Anessa’s fit. “I had no idea he’d be up still.”

He wasn’t the only thing still ‘up.’

“Clearly!” Anessa continued her laugh but tried to tone down for the embarrassed younger woman’s own self respect. “It’s perfectly fine, I won’t tell a soul!”

Oh Goddess be.

“We’ll look at those blueprints tomorrow, Elise! Have a great night!” Anessa finally walked away, laughing the entire way back towards the Cerulean bridge. 

Malroth should have taken that as a clue that he was not going to get his wishes fulfilled tonight. But he didn’t. 

And so when a very, very put-off builder stormed into the room sometime later and he still wore that smug grin, it only made it worse.

The next morning Malroth hadn’t even managed to find her.

He ended up spending the night in his own room without any company. Pretty much the first time since he and Elise had realized the trauma they’d endured was much easier to work through when you had someone next to you.

But after he’d inadvertently exposed himself to one of Elise’s most respected personnel...well, it hadn’t sat well.

So she’d demanded he put on a pair of shorts and without so much as a kiss goodnight kicked him out of the room barefoot and half dressed into the snowy night and promptly locked the door behind her.

It was probably a good thing he’d relinquished his god-like powers because the aisle could only imagine what hell would rain down on them after that fiasco.

Still, it wasn’t long after the next morning that Malroth made it his mission to track her down once more and this time found it oddly difficult.

He’d tried the gardens and they sent him to the desert with promise of a busy builder with some flower seeds.

Then the desert had sent her snow-bound with sights of her carrying some blueprints.

By the time he made it to the Cerulean Castle, he was beginning to think she was specifically evading him. He wasn’t sure exactly what that meant but he was certain it wasn’t anything good.

“Have you seen Elise?” He asked Lulu late into the afternoon after having enough snow in his shoes to last him a lifetime.

He hated the cold. If he were being frank...it was a pain in the ass.

“She was here earlier to go over some blueprints with Anessa. Sounded like they had quite the event last night by the sound of it!”

If Lulu was looking for a reaction from Malroth, she didn’t get it.

“But then she said she had a special project she wanted to get some work done on. I’m not sure what it was, she didn’t tell me.”

Malroth was already walking away before she even finished her sentence.

“She took off towards the canyons!”

Malroth grumbled begrudgingly as he changed coarse towards what he hoped were they aforementioned “canyons.” It was a small strip of land between the Gardens' mountain top and the desert. He only even knew that place existed because he’d stumbled onto it when he was running rogue through the aisle after the events of Moonbrooke.

He didn’t want to think about those times anymore.

He climbed his way up the mountain taking two steps at a time until his legs burned so bad even his own annoyance wasn’t enough to fuel him and he completed the climb at average human speeds. By the time he made it to the top and headed through the path between cliffs the sun was beginning to drop into the horizon.

Still, no sight of his elusive Builder. It looked relatively as unchanged as before—the old dilapidated ruins of what he assumed was a windmill at some point. Barren earth, a stream still running through, and…

He saw her red hair before he noticed the fresh patches of dirt where some seeds had just been planted. Elise was standing at the top of a half torn-down floor chewing on the end of her pencil and looking over her book of blueprints.

Malroth felt the triumph immediately and made his way towards her. The ruins were still...well, ruins. He had to take precaution stepping over piles of splinters and spots of wooden flooring that looked like they could give away at any second’s notice. There was a new ladder in the corner however, and he used that to climb to the next level and finally found himself in front of his elusive builder.

“You’re a hard woman to find,” he commented cheekily as he approached her. He was ready to pull her into a hug and smooch but Elise just stopped him with an outstretched arm, palm right in his face.

“Well you’re a hard man to love when I mad at you yet I still managed to.”

Malroth frowned but stayed put none the less. Elise retracted her hand once she was certain he was done trying to kiss her and returned to her notes busily adding to a sketch and writing some scribbles on the edge never once looking at him.

So Malroth waited. And waited. And when he got bored with waiting he sat with legs crossed beneath him on the floor watching the sun sink below the horizon and fill the entire space with impressive hurled of pinks and purples. And he still waited.

And she still completely ignored his presence.

Malroth didn’t budge this time and despite his own impatience figured it was best just to stomach it instead of mess up again so he stayed put. When all sunshine had faded and it became too difficult to make out details of his surroundings he stood to light a few lanterns conveniently spread throughout the old floorboards and then waited some more.

It was surprising pleasant on this old windmill. The warm air of the dessert kept the chill away but the evening had a nice breeze that made it the perfect temperature once the sun set. 

Malroth could see the outline of the pyramid from the direction he faced and he watched with some awe as slowly stars began to fill the dark sky. One here. A few there. Then all at once, millions glittering the night like diamond dust. 

Even he could admire the pristine location of such an old structure.

Elise made a noise that sounded an awful lot like a scoff and shifted weight from one foot to another but still refused to acknowledge him.

This was about the time that Malroth realized she was probably waiting for any apology.

“I’m sorry,” he said just barely loud enough for her to hear. Elise paused and finally looked over her book.

“For?” Her eyes bore into his and it dawned on him that this was exactly what she’d wanted.

“For being naked in front of Anessa?”

Elise pursed her lips. “Uh-uh. Try again.”

He growled. “For surprising you?”

Elise raised a brow.

Still not good enough.

“For always being so impatient and selfish and embarrassing you in the process because of my lack of foresight?”

Elise closed her book with audible boom and finally gave him her undivided attention.

“I was stupid.” Malroth added for luck. It worked because Elise finally cracked a smile.

“Yes, you really were.” She turned away from him and Malroth was almost ready to make some angry remark about doing all of that for no return when he noticed she was stashing away her book. Elise proceeded to pack away all her belongings and pull out a well-worn blanket from her bag before finally approaching him, laying the blanket down on the floor then coming down to the floor beside him.

“You’re forgiven.” And with that she wrapped her arms around his neck and finally gave him the attention he so craved.

Malroth seemed to suck the breath right out of her lungs and put the past two days of denial into that kiss until it was so powerful encompassing, Elise felt dizzy with adoration for him.

At some point his hands had wrapped around her waist and he’d somehow managed to pull her onto his lap and slide a hand up her dress. Elise half expected him to lay her down on the blanket and make a move to take it that extra step forward. Surprisingly though he remained fairly appropriate and apart having his hands on her outer thighs never made an attempt to undress her or get more of it.

By the time they finally separated they were both a little breathless and a lot lost in each other’s company. It was nice. It was comfortable. There was just something that felt like being home when they were together.

Elise chuckled lightly and let her fingers get lost in his hair. Malroth dropped his head to the crook of her neck and kissed that area of her skin where her shoulder and collar met.

“What’s funny?” He mumbled into her skin. He was kissing her, laving her skin with his tongue like it was a melting dessert. She really liked it.

“Only you could get me from mad to wrapped around you in one sitting.”

Malroth chuckled. “That’s because you loooooove me.” His tone sounded like a joke, but they both knew it was true.

“Yeah,” she spoke much lower than before. Malroth moved up until his lips barely hovered over hers, head tilted, eyes closed. “I do.”

It was a different kiss than before. Long and slow and full of something soft and warm and promise. It didn’t leave her breathless, it left her weightless. Like Elise could float up into the stars with that kiss.

It was perfect.

“Okay, I have to know though,” Malroth started when the kiss was over. Elise was raking soft shapes on the back of his neck with her short fingernails. “What the hell are you planning to do with this dump?”

Elise feigned hurt. “Don’t call it that!” She gasped dramatically. She separated from him and Malroth felt stupid once again for making her leave. Luckily once she stood she reached a hand out to him for him to join her.

Malroth had a flashback to the first time they met on the beach. He’d done something similar.

“Let me show you.” Elise took him by the hand and walked him to the very center of the space. “This,” she pointed her finger at the perimeter of the space. “I think this could be our master bedroom.”

Our bedroom?

“And over there,” she waved both hands at the empty space overlooking the stream down below, the canyon and pyramid’s crown out in the distance and stars even further still. “I’m imagining a wide open window where we can see the stars right from our bed. Maybe a reading nook in front of it with a comfy chair.”

It was beginning to dawn in Malroth what she was implying. 

“And then on the ground floor I want a cozy living and dinning space with a stone fireplace for the colder nights and a small dinning nook for us to eat when we don’t want to go back to the gardens for dinner.” She walked over to the one wall still standing. “And over here we can have two dressers, one for me and one for you.”

Malroth felt something tighten in his chest.

“You’re building this for us?”

Elise snapped around like it was a dumb question. “Of course!” She approached him with a sparkle in his eye he recognized so clearly he could spot it a mile away. “It would be just for us. Our home; our private little oasis.”

The tightness in his chest made sense then.

“So the whole time I’ve been an idiot, you’ve been planning out our future home together?” He really had been an idiot.

Never listen to Dougie and Digby.

Elise laughed, wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a kiss that almost seemed to stop time itself.

And boy, all those thoughts and desires and feelings he had before just seemed to come flooding back all at once.

Elise tightened her grip on the back of his head but only moved enough to free her lips. “How about you take me back to your room and show me exactly how happy you are about this surprise?”

She didn’t need to ask him twice. Without warning or hesitation, Malroth hoisted her up with a shriek of delight from the builder as she wrapped her legs tight around his hips and he carried her towards the ladder.

Malroth did have to place her down if they ever wanted to make it out with all bones still intact. 

He paused looking to the side.

“And what are you planning there?” He motioned with his head towards a small space off to the side of what would be their room. Elise pinkened.

“Space for expansion.”

He cocked his head. “Expansion?”

“You know…” she swallowed. “If we ever want to be more than just the two of us.”

He starred at her both not entirely comprehending and also trying not to put too much thought into it.

“Don’t worry about it,” Elise said quickly pulling him along. She begun her decent down the ladder. “We can talk more about that much, much later.”

Later. Right.

“Are you coming, Malroth?”

He snapped his attention back at the ladder and quickly scrambled to descend.

Yeah, they could talk about that later.

Chapter Text

Malroth and Elise's Home as I've built it in Dragon Quest Builders 2 (in case you're interested!)

View of the front steps and outdoor kitchen/swing area. There's a lot of glass. I like the windows, okay?

Living and Dinning area on the ground floor:

Fireplace to keep them warm on cold nights (because Malroth doesn't like the cold.) Theres also a bathroom off in that door that wasn't relevant to the story.

Just a cute pic of my builder. I'm not sure why I have her in bunny ears? I just really love bunnies?

Malroth sleeping in his bed. How cute!

This view from the bed was the best accident ever. Its so pretty! You can see the pyramid and so many stars right from bed!

Also, there's the reading nook she mentioned. It just makes it feel so cozy. I love the panoramic windows.