Hold my Heart {Lana & Zalgiman}

He says yes. The world completes for her. Joy lighting up in her heart and in her eyes. All he had to do was say yes to set fire to the hearth burning now in her chest. She wants him. She needs him. Her soulmate is here and she will show him that they are intended wholly to be together.

She completes the kiss. Her lips so gently on his, at least at first, but then there's that little sound of yearning in her throat, to have him at last. To have him here, in her house, in a given and returned embrace. Her hand brushes at his hair and at his cheek so gently as she pushes in a little firmer into his mouth. It makes her feel so wonderfully warm, that hearth-fire in her chest blazing all the brighter for their kiss.

It's then that she realizes she'll never let go of him ever again. That she needs him in her life, that she can't imagine a day where they don't do this. Where they don't kiss. Where they don't embrace. She doesn't want a life where it's a lonely existence without this kind of intimacy anymore. She has to be with him. She has to give him every ounce of her love and adoration for him. Otherwise...

She pulls away at last, a daydreamer's hazy smile on her face, a flush on her cheeks, just a little to catch her breath. Her heart's pounding in her chest and in her ears. She wants to say something but once again finds herself without words.

"I love you," Lana breathes out at last. Reiterating what she'd said before. It doesn't hurt to repeat the truth.

They’ve kissed before, but he’d never meant it in a truly romantic sense. It might seem strange to say it, since he’d been working for an escort service, but he was loyal at heart. Being loyal to Marsward had simply boiled down to doing what he wanted. As much as it had hurt Zalgiamn, he’d always been clinging to the idea that they were together.

You’ll always be mine

It wasn’t true though. He belonged… to Lana.

She kisses him softly, so gently. Like he’ll break and then more. More and more until he’s swept up in it. That little place where she’s built a spark of light in his chest burning him up inside. He feels it flare to life and his hands are in her hair before he can think of it. He’s kissing her back like it comes naturally to him. She tastes like something sweet and ready to be bitten. He finds himself making a soft sad sound when she pulls away, blinking at her purple eyes.

His head is swimming. There’s been too much today. To much emotion and too much darkness. He’s not able to lie to her and say that he’s in love, but he can’t leave her unrequited. “YA tebya obozhayu.”

He traces the edge of her jaw and then with a trace of embarrassment he removes his hand. “You were going to tell me what they put on American pizza’s?” His stomach rumbles at the thought of food.

Those violet eyes of hers, rare and precious things that they are, stare into his eyes, and while Lana doesn't know Zalgiman's mother tongue, she can tell simply by the way that he says it that these are words of affection. Soft and wonderful little words for her and the kiss they've shared, the affection they've given each other.

She almost leans her face into his touch, like a cat trying to direct the stroking hand into the place where it feels best, but then he takes it away. She already misses the intimacy, the touch, the warm feeling where everything feels right and complete in the world with him.

It takes a moment for her to register what he says, and her face blooms in a red hue all over again. "Oh!" she exclaims softly. "Well, typically... Pepperoni is probably the most popular. And then there's bacon, ham, sausage, olives... There's a popular kind of pizza called a Hawaiian pizza, which is a pineapple and ham pizza."

She looks up at him. "I can't say I've ever seen egg on a pizza here," she says, referring to his earlier question about eggs on pizza. "I'm personally rather fond of roasted broccoli on pizzas. And I like margherita pizza, too, with the stretchy mozzarella and tomatoes as toppings. But I'm not a vegetarian; I'll happily eat meat."

There’s a light smile on his face when his query causes her to launch into a full description of what there is as far as toppings go. It’s a nice distraction from kisses and injuries, and he quietly starts to pack up the medical supplies while she talks to him about what there is here to be had. Really it’s a strange list to his perspective, but then it’s not surprising. Russia is half a world away now.

He thinks about it for a moment, using the time that it takes to clean up the supplies as a cover for his thoughts. “Mmm.”

The thoughtful sound leaves him and he finishes packing up the materials. “I do not know what sizes they offer here, but… Do they do half-and-half pizzas? We could get something with more meat on one side and then something like the mozzarella and tomatoes on the other half?” He doesn’t add that broccoli on pizza sounds probably as odd to him as eggs on pizza sounds to her.

Tomatoes on a pizza that already has a tomato-based pizza sauce also sounds a little odd, but not like something that will be unpleasant to eat. To the contrary if the tomatoes get a nice roasted effect while being cooked. He smiles to himself. “A nice tea, or sbiten, and pizza sounds like a good meal.” He’s in the mood for something warm in spite of the weather.

Lana smiles broadly at him when he suggests half-and-half on the pizza. "That's a terrific idea!" she says, before she gets her phone back out, wandering out of the bathroom and flopping onto her bed in the bedroom. Her legs, covered in the floral-knit tights, splay out a little lazily. It's quickly evident this is her usual lazy-day pose of choice, although the fact it's paired with a dress that cuts off just a bit above the knees is... a little unfortunate. Or fortunate, depending on the perspective.

She scrolls on her phone. "Yup! Looks like they'll do half-and-half on a pizza. What do you want?" She wiggles her feet a little as she's already tapping selections on her screen.

But then she peers over the edge of her phone at Zalgiman, one brow raised. "Sbiten? What's that?" She finds herself regretting not having taken a crash course in Russian now. Not that she could have learned much in three days, but still.

Zalgiman finishes cleaning up the supplies and puts them back where Lana had gotten them from. She seems eager enough to eat herself, and he’s glad really to have her distracted from the things that he’d rather she not dwell on. His injuries and kissing him being primary on that list. Though… Kissing her had not been in any way a hardship. If anything he feels… good. Better even.

She wants a toy.

The thought gets shaken off almost violently. Even if she did, which he doubted - hoped was not so - then it would be better than the life he’d had before… Wouldn’t it?

As he exits the bathroom, he finds her sprawled out on her bed, and he moves politely to a position in the room where he won’t be in danger of viewing anything he ought not. It seems then, most natural to walk to the area she is facing and sit down on the edge of her bed.

“Whatever meats you like best is good. I’m not a picky eater myself.” He smiles warmly here. “The more the better.”

She tilts her face at him, and he almost laughs at the question she poses. “Sbiten is sbiten! You don’t have it here? It’s more a traditional drink now, but it is still good. I would not know how to explain what it is in English. Tea is a good… replacement.”

He's on my bed. It's the first thought that comes to mind for Lana when she realizes he's sitting on the edge. Her face burns immediately with a little blush that she tries to hide behind her phone screen. As though something as small as her rather petite phone (considering the size of modern top-of-the-line smartphones) could hide the thoughts that make her rosy and warm again.

"I'll get pepperoni and sausage."

Then she wants to scream. Why did she say sausage? "A-and the tomatoes and mozzarella for my side," she adds hastily. "We can share, too."

Hastily she scrolls the menu for something else. Anything else. Like it might suddenly pull her head out of the gutter. She finds herself hoping beyond hope that the place has sbiten on the menu just to make him happy, but alas. "I'll have to look it up and learn how to make sbiten for you," she murmurs. Her voice is a little clumsy on the word. She'd made a decent first-stab at saying it like he does, instead of sounding like an American trying to say it, but there's still something off in the way she says it.

She sits up in bed, joining him at the edge, crossing one leg over the other in an attempt to be ladylike. Finally she kicks off her little ballerina-style slippers. "Do you want anything else? Chicken wings and cheesy bread are common sides for pizza here in America." She even leans over to show him the entirety of the menu, scrolling through it slowly for him to read everything.

It also reveals a little chat bubble in the corner of her phone screen. Something with a letter initial Z.

It was almost exactly like being in the game with her again. Comfortable. Familiar. He smiled to himself at her light blush and the way she hurried to cover her flash of embarrassment. It’s adorable really, how gentle and warm she is. Utterly genuine. She doesn’t seem to hide anything. Well, she was in her way trying to hide her embarrassment, but she wasn’t - to his perspective - terribly good at it.

“That sounds lovely.” He says warmly, his voice soft with the edge of burgeoning happiness. He hadn’t expected that he’d feel happy today at all, but here she was doing her best to cheer him up. He wondered if she’d noticed that he was feeling sad, and was actively trying to make him feel better. Even if she hadn’t, the simple fact that she was trying to do something for him sat like a warm weight on his chest.

Especially when she offered to make something for him that she’d have to likely make with her own two hands. “It is mostly honey, spices, water, and jam.” He feels… odd to ask her to make something specifically for him. “But if you have tea, that will work just as well.”

His stomach rumbles as she offers him more in the way of food, and he peers at her phone when she offers him a view of the device. It’s a lot of food. Way more in the way of options than he’s used to. Side-dishes that look as big as the portions of pizza. Desserts of a dozen variations. “I think just the pizza will be enough for just the two of us? Unless you want to order for later as well?”

As hungry as he is, he doesn’t want any food to go to waste after all.

She does pick up on his happiness and seems all the happier for it, smiling just a little wider as she leans into him. Another little touch of affection that makes her all the happier once she does it. Touching him makes her feel warm. Being close to him makes her forget about all of her woes.

It also distracts her a little. Her legs press together a little tighter.

"I have plenty of tea," she says, putting herself back on track. "Several different kinds, actually. I have English breakfast, matcha green, lemon-ginger, apple-cinnamon, lavender-mint..."

She pauses a little when she mentions the lavender-mint, and bashfully admits, "The lavender-mint is my favorite. Let's get just the pizza for now. I usually like ordering a bunch and then having the rest over days, but that'll be boring for you, especially since you've never had American food. I..."

Lana's violet eyes light up then as she looks up at Zalgiman. "I need to take you to that nice place I pass by all the time," she says, the color still on her cheeks. "It'll be our--our first date for real." There's something that dances in her eyes as she says that. Their first date where she doesn't have to pay him at the end. Because he's not an escort anymore. Because he loves her for real.