Work Text:
“I’m not that drunk.” Violet leaned more heavily on Xaden as he helped her up the stairs to their bedroom.
Most of the partygoers had returned to their rooms hours ago, but Xaden and Violet had stayed downstairs to finish up Imogen’s birthday with shots. A bad idea, clearly, considering Violet could barely walk in a straight line.
“No, of course not. Quite the responsible drinker, aren’t you?” Xaden said sarcastically, half carrying, half supporting Violet up the last few steps to the landing.
Violet giggled and nearly fell backwards down the stairs.
Every year on her birthday, Imogen liked to throw a party with loud music and unlimited alcohol. This was far from the most out of control it had gotten, but Xaden winced when he remembered the fire that had somehow been started on the table earlier that evening. The wooden table. But that was tomorrow’s problem. Tonight’s problem was currently doubled over laughing at something one of her dragons had said through their bond.
“Ok.” Xaden lifted Violet into his arms and carried her the last few metres into their bedroom. She pressed her face into his neck and he held her closer, breathing in the scent of her unbound hair cascading over his arms. He had almost swallowed his tongue at the sight of her earlier that night, black dress hugging the curves of her body, dipping low in the neckline, revealing tantalising amounts of her skin that caused all other thoughts to flee from his head other than how mad he would look carrying her back upstairs to worship every inch of her body.
Violet sighed and squirmed in his arms. Sitting her down on the bed, he stared into her eyes and asked, “Do you need help getting changed?”
She scoffed. “Xaden. I’mnotthatdrunk.” Her words slurred together and she immediately lost interest in the conversation, instead fascinated by something she could see out of one of the windows.
Smirking, he helped her to her feet and nudged her in the direction of the bathroom. “If you say so.”
While Violet was in the bathroom, Xaden stripped off his own clothes and changed into what he slept in. He lounged on the bed until the bathroom door unlocked and Violet came out, wearing her underwear and one of his old shirts, playing with the hem as she walked towards him.
He reached for her, and she climbed into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck.
She muttered something incoherent, and he tipped her face up to his with one hand on her chin. “What was that, Violence?”
“You’re my favourite person, Xaden.”
Xaden’s arms tightened around her and as he gazed into the hazel eyes that had haunted him since Parapet, something in his chest gave way.
“You’re my favourite person too, Violet.”
She smiled, a hazy, tipsy smile, and pressed her face into his neck.
It occurred to Xaden in that moment, that there was nowhere on the Continent he’d rather be.
They stayed like that for a while, Xaden cradling Violet in his arms, and he stroked her hair as she shifted in his lap. It was hard to put it into words, the extent of the love he felt for her. It was all-consuming, all he knew, the way he felt about her… it was everything. She was everything.
From the first moment he laid eyes on her before the Parapet, he’d been unable to think of anyone else. Whenever she entered a room, his centre of gravity shifted. His world zeroed in on her.
“I love you,” he said then, just because he could. The words didn’t feel like enough. Those three little words, eight letters, to tell her how he would do anything for her. How he would bring the sun down from the sky if she said she wanted him to. How if anything ever took her from him, his world would end because nothing could ever feel right again without her.
She looked up at him, staring into his eyes. She smelt of tequila and citrus and Violet, and his . “I love you so much, Vi.” Maybe it was the alcohol he had drunk himself, maybe it was how fucking beautiful she looked in his arms, maybe he just needed to say it, needed her to know it. “You’re my entire world.”
Her eyes welled with tears, and she leaned up to brush her mouth over his, slowly and softly. “I love you, Xaden.”
It didn’t take long for Violet to fall asleep. They had shifted so Xaden was lying down, Violet sprawled on top of him, her hair fanned out across his torso and onto the pillow. He rubbed one hand up and down on her back. She’d be hungover tomorrow, with a headache and a bad mood. He didn’t care.
Her favourite person.
He loved her, and she loved him, and he knew in his bones that nothing could ever separate them, not even death itself.