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The Last Days of Lucien Lachance	By : pirouette Category: +A through F > Elder Scrolls - Oblivion Views: 3475 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I neither own nor am affiliated with Bethesda/TES: Oblivion. I'm also not making any money from this fic.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
Chapter Two: The Lonely Wanderer

[A/N: A huge thanks to Lennanightrun and all my other friends at Elljay for giving me the comaradarie and enthusiasm I needed to keep at this. Also a thanks to The Boy, whose opinion decides for us all whether or not the sex is "hot enough yet." Chapters three, four, and five have been drafted, so don't expect this to be a WIP for much longer.]

The next few weeks were excruciating. When I heard the news that Caleigh had indeed arrived at the Sanctuary it took everything I had not to rush down and see her myself. Only the knowledge of the danger I would be putting her in kept me ensconced in Fort Farragut, pacing absently and remembering the feel of her skin against mine. News drifted back to me through Ocheeva, who was keeping a close eye on her via Vicente. Caleigh was completing contracts rapidly and with incredible ease, leaving the clients pleased and her Brothers and Sisters impressed with the cleanliness of her kills. Well, most of them. M'raaj-Dar was openly abusive to her, which surprised no one, but the others took to her immediately, especially Vicente Valtieri. According to Ocheeva, he had gone so far as to suggest making her a vampire--an offer I had never heard him make to a single Brother or Sister before. The news made me incredibly jealous of his attentions toward her. Was he hoping to turn her into his lifelong companion? Hundreds of years alone must have taken their toll on him, after all. It was becoming increasingly clear to me that I'd done poorly under the duress of only a few decades.

She chose not to sleep in the Sanctuary, instead returning to her home on the nights she was not out doing the will of the Night Mother. This made things at once difficult and incredibly easy for me. It meant that should I wish it, I could visit her whenever I liked. But, I would rather she had lived in the Sanctuary so it would have been easier for me to resist the temptation entirely. The fear of being caught watching her sleep would have kept me away. Unfortunately, I found I had no qualms breaking into her home and watching her sleep there. At my worst, I visited her more than once a week, sitting beside her bureau for hours as she enjoyed her peaceful oblivion. Her bedroom was covered with necklaces, rings, and jewels she had collected on her travels, which reflected the candlelight from her dresser drawers and made the room seem eerily bright.

It must have been my fifteenth visit since her initiation when she caught me off my guard. I am so used to moving unseen that it never occurred to me that once she knew I had been watching her, she would learn to recognize the signs of my presence.

"Lucien, is that you?" she murmured, suddenly wakeful, and I felt my heart leap into my throat as she gazed right at the spot where I was standing. I thought it best not to reply on the off-chance that she decided she had been dreaming and went back to sleep. But I was not so lucky.

"I can hear you breathing." Her voice was rife with irritation, but still I did not respond. Minutes passed, and her eyes drifted shut again. Just when I thought she had fallen back asleep, she turned away from me and spoke one final time. "At least lie down with me. It will give you an excuse to stare."

Against my better judgement, I removed my Chameleon ring and exposed myself to the light of her bedchamber. Before moving to rest beside her, I unbelted my robe and removed my hood, setting them atop a nearby chest--the only vacant space in the room. When I lay down beside her she reached and grabbed my arm, pulling me so that I was pressed against her, sheltering her in my arms. I was worried that having her so close to me would give me the inclination to repeat our encounter at the Inn of Ill Omen, but this time the warmth of her skin was relaxing. Neither of us spoke, and as time passed I found myself drifting sleepily.

I told myself I'd leave when she was sound asleep again. I told myself she'd wake in the morning and wonder if I had really been there at all. Instead, I was the one who woke alone with light streaming mockingly through her vaulted windows and informing me of just how late in the day it was. She could have taken me out in my sleep and I never would have had a chance. Yet again, she made me feel like I'd lost my edge.

I redressed and followed the sounds of grinding and bubbling to find her in her alchemy alcove, mixing up what smelled like a silencing poison. She was wearing a black-and-gold gown that day, which made her hair seem even redder than it really was. When she heard me walking toward her she looked up from her mortar and pestle and gave me a soft smile. Instantly, I felt better about letting my guard down and sleeping heavily through the night. Despite what I had done to her at our last meeting, she appeared to actually like me.

"How many times have you been in my home since I got back?" she asked conversationally, grinding leaves into a green pulpy mess with a practiced twist of her arm.

"Too many times."

"At least, what? I've counted eleven."

Her eyes met mine cautiously, and I had to smile despite my qualms that she was making me act sloppily. Weak. "How long have you known?"

Caleigh shrugged and added a dash of a root I was unfamiliar with to the mash in her mortar. "I don't know. Ever since--I realized just how often I'd seen you around, and I've been wondering if you've ever been in my house."

There was a long pause. I supposed I'd be getting used to those, the way things were going.

"Fifteen," I said at last.

"Ha, I was nearly right!" She set the pestle down and stepped closer to me. "Lucien..."

She smelled of the forests around Cheydinhal that morning. Whatever she was grinding was fresh indeed. I had the urge to draw her to me and inhale her while she was closest to her wild state, her natural state, but I did not. It occurs to me now that this may be my greatest regret.

"Lucien, am I a bad person?" She was staring dejectedly at my boots.

"What?"

"I honestly can't tell anymore."

"Why would you be?"

"I'm not upset! I've been killing people, even other Bosmeri, and I'm not upset. If anything, I'm--I'm enjoying it." The last three words were almost whispered.

"You're doing what you're supposed to be doing, my dear. You're doing what you were made for."

"That's what worries me." She took me by the hand and led me downstairs to the dining table, where breakfast had been set. Wine, mutton, and strawberries--the last turned out to be just for me, as Caleigh seemed to generally adhere to the Green Pact of her people. As far as I knew, the fact that she drank West Weald wine could probably be overlooked. Only when I saw the meal did I realize just how hungry I was, both for food and for a normal dining experience with another person. Perhaps I had been wrong to distance myself so completely from my brethren in the Sanctuary.

We sat down in silence and began to eat. I thought the morning would end as quietly as it had begun, but for once Caleigh seemed determined to talk to me.

"You've been following me for a while now," she began.

"Yes."

"Do you know why I was imprisoned?" She picked at her mutton with a fork.

I shook my head. "No one knows that, as far as I can tell."

"Well, I was caught robbing a noblewoman in the Temple District. I was drunk, and things went badly." She sighed. "She died."

I wasn't sure if I was supposed to say anything, though I wouldn't have been able to either way, so shocked was I at this revelation. I had convinced myself that she had not been a killer before I had let myself into her life, and I was not used to being wrong. After a moment of staring at me in silence, she continued speaking. "So I was thrown in jail, and all of a sudden the Emperor came along and told me to take some amulet and find his son. I'd been having a bit of a crisis over how much fun I'd had killing that woman I robbed, so I threw myself into it whole-heartedly."

Another pause. I was terrified to move for fear of distracting her. She was willingly giving me information I had been craving for months, information that no one else knew, but that I wouldn't have dared ask for on my own. After a few false, sighing starts, she continued. "Then I met Martin, and, well. He believed in me for some reason. I did everything I could to keep him safe. Did everything I could to save his lands. And then he killed himself and left me all alone with this great reputation and no idea how to keep it up."

She shook her head, then continued on her own. "So then I heard about the strange door at Niben Bay. I figured I had nothing else to lose, so I made my way there and entered the services of Sheogorath. The Nine aren't happy about that," she added, taking a sip of wine.

"You've spoken with a Daedric Lord?" I stared at her in genuine shock. Despite my unconditional love for Sithis and the Night Mother, neither of them had ever returned my attentions directly. I know the Daedra operate differently than my Dread Lord and Lady, but the knowledge that it is so easy for some made my chest feel tight all the same.

"Oh, he's not the first. I should show you my artifacts sometime," she added absently. "If you haven't seen them yourself already. But Sheogorath is the first I ever saw in the flesh, in his own realm."

It occurred to me yet again just how unusual the girl sitting adjacent to me was. I could count the number of people known to have entered and survived an Oblivion gate on the fingers of one hand. To have done that countless times, and entered Sheogorath's realm? Perhaps she was simply insane.

Silence stretched between us again. I knew that encouraging her to tell me more would only feed my obsession, but I decided to coax her on despite my better judgement. "What happened?"

"It wasn't as bad as an Oblivion gate," she said slowly, staring into the depths of her wineglass. "I mean, that's what I thought at first. But the fact that it looked pretty on the surface just made all the bad things worse."

Caleigh told me then about the Capitol in Sheogorath's realm, and how the people there wore her down little by little. She did what she could to help them initially, finding useless medicines, tracking down bizarre artifacts to stave off impending cataclysms, and something about forks that I didn't quite understand. Everything she did felt useless to her, but it made them more comfortable, and so she kept going. Then she met an Imperial named Hirrus Clutumnus. He begged her to end his life, telling her he was unhappy, but unwilling to suffer in the afterlife as a suicide. At first she refused because she was afraid to kill another innocent. And, of all the members of the town, he seemed the sanest.

"But I did it," she said eventually, blinking back angry tears. "I shoved him off a flight of steps and into a gorge, and as he fell he--he thanked me!" For a moment she was unable to go on because her breath was hitching uncontrollably. "And then--he told me to check his pockets after he died, so I did, and I went to his house and found his will."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a softly glimmering ring. "He left me this. Try it on."

I took it from her open palm and slid it onto my littlest finger. The change was instantaneous. I felt lighter. Everything seemed more radiant, and for the first time in my life I believed that I might be likable. I tore it off with a snarl and tossed it onto the table. I expected Caleigh to be taken aback, but she simply nodded and carefully picked it back up, sliding it onto her index finger thoughtfully. It covered her in a gentle glow, and for a moment I was almost willing to admit to myself why I was so taken with her.

"Take it off!" I snapped, and she obliged with another quiet nod.

"I know, I'm sorry." The ring was returned to her pocket, and she took another sip of wine before continuing. "His will told me he'd never been happy, and that the ring made it worse because it made him feel like he wasn't himself."

I kept my face carefully blank, though we both already knew my opinion on the subject. "And after I killed him, or helped him, or whatever it was I did," she went on, "I couldn't help but think--he said he wasn't meant to be happy. And if he wasn't meant to be happy, maybe I wasn't meant to be good."

We sat together for several minutes, she brooding on the implications of her inability to be a good person, and I wondering just how seriously I should take my reaction to the ring. How could it be that I was not happy? I had everything I desired, and reveled in the nuances of my work. What in Sithis' name was this Bosmer doing to me?

"It makes me feel strange, too," she murmured, guessing my line of thought with an accuracy that made me uneasy. "But that makes sense, if I'm not meant to be good."

Suddenly I felt much better, but I did not reply. I found it mildly amusing that I had no qualms with being a reprehensible human being, only an unhappy one. "Why does it bother you so much to be a bad person?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"What bothers me is that it doesn't bother me," she replied, wiping her face dry on her sleeve. "Does that make any sense?"

"No."

"I appreciate your honesty," she grumbled, downing the rest of her wine. A slight flush was creeping across her cheeks that reminded me of her face when she burst into the Inn all those weeks ago. She licked her lips absently, which made the desire to press my mouth to hers almost overwhelming. When she looked up at me again she gave me a merry smile.

"I haven't told anyone that."

"Why not?"

She paused again, and her smile faded. "I don't know anyone to tell anymore. All my friends are dead, or remind me too much of Martin, and I feel so strange after coming back from the Isles."

I couldn't think of anything to say, so I put my arm around her and drew her closer to me. She pressed her face into my shoulder and breathed deeply for a few minutes.

"Where do you live? You always smell so familiar, like the forest."

"Outside the city," I said vaguely, and she didn't press further.

"Maybe I should move back out. Maybe that would make me feel right again," she mused, digging her fingers into my shoulder. "Then again, you wouldn't be able to watch me sleep anymore."

"I'd find you," I said before I had completely considered the implications, and she giggled at me.

"I doubt that."

I was too busy enjoying the warmth of her skin to defend my tracking abilities. I found out later that she was right--she melded too well with the woods, and I could never find her when I actually needed to. In the end, that was our undoing. But at the time I was so certain that I was her equal. More specifically, that she was mine.

The gown she was wearing had a wide neckline that exposed a swath of skin underneath her short, tangled hair. The angle she was at against me gave me a perfect view of her neck and collarbone, a view which I once again found draining my resolve not to take her. I'd been watching her for weeks with perfect restraint. Surely it was time to reward myself. Soon my mouth was on her skin and she had thrown her head back to give me easier access to the sensitive flesh of her neck.

"You hurt me last time," she said accusingly, eyes shut tight.

"Make some noise and I won't. Enjoy yourself a little." I emphasized my words with a nip to her shoulder, and she groaned obligingly.

"Like that?" Her voice was low with what I could only assume was shame.

"Good girl." My tongue ran gently along her neck to her ear, and she gasped again. I let her sounds guide me, seeking new places on her neck, at her ear, that made her groan and twitch against me. Her face was flushed in earnest, and she was clutching at my shirt, fingers digging into my skin every time I hit a spot that made her feel good.

My own breathing was just becoming ragged with need when she pulled away from me, biting her lip uncertainly. "No. It feels wrong. I shouldn't--Why do I enjoy what you do to me?"

I pulled her back to me roughly and bit her shoulder with more force than before, reveling in the gasp my teeth elicited from her. My lips moved against her ear, and I whispered "I am consistently amazed by how much you care."

My tongue was back at her neck as soon as the words were spoken, and she pressed insistently against me once more. Her hands were unclasping the belt to my robe while mine worked at the laces to her gown, and this time we stripped each other. The feel of her fingers against my skin as she slid my robe off made my arms shake. My nerves were frantic with want, but I ordered myself to be patient. As long as she did as she was told, I didn't want to be rough. If she did as she was told, I wanted her to feel like we had all the time in the world.

The indirect light streaming in from the door's picture window caught her hair, making it shimmer as I picked her up and carelessly shoved all the plates away with a raucous crash. I was dimly aware of one of them shattering against the steps. My goblet and the few remaining strawberries went clattering to the floor and rolled into her bookshelf, but we both ignored them. I coaxed her to lie back against the wood of the dining table with gentle kisses that progressed lower and lower down her stomach. By the time she was flat on her back, I was nipping at her hip, leaving tiny red marks on her skin. This time, she wasn't trying to remain silent, and the noises she made were more intoxicating than the wine I'd just spilled all over her dining room floor. I felt dizzy. The candlelight of Rufio's room had done her body no justice.

I leaned over and began licking at her breasts, teasing first one nipple, then the other. She grabbed the edge of the table with one hand and buried her other in my hair, panting and moaning unabashedly. When I increased the force of my tongue, her hand raked down my back, nails leaving long, burning trails in my skin. It was my turn to moan, an act which shocked her out of her reverie. Her blue eyes opened and stared at me hazily.

"That didn't hurt?"

"Yes, it hurt."

"I'm sorry," she began, but I took the opportunity to bite into her shoulder again, and the sentence ended with a shocked gasp.

"Don't be." My lips met hers and she kissed me passionately. When two of my fingers slid into her seconds later, I felt her moan into my mouth and almost lost any remaining shreds of discipline to my desire to be inside her. I stood beside the table, one hand working deftly to make her buck and moan, mouth moving along her neck, ears, chest, doing my best to make her beg. The way I was able to make her back arch, her hips jerk, and her breath hitch was almost maddening. Any time her hands moved to her mouth to stifle her cries I bit the same spot on her shoulder. All the while my nerves were ordering me to take her, take her immediately, but I refused. I wanted to hear her say the words. And so I kept her at the brink of orgasm for as long as possible.

"Lucien," she gasped eventually, looking up at me with sex-hazed eyes.

"Yes, my dear?" I replied eagerly.

There was a long pause, and in the end she merely shook her head and groaned. She needed coaxing.

"Do you need something?" I paired the words with an expert flick of the fingers buried within her.

A nod.

"What do you need?"

This time she shook her head, and so I bit her on the shoulder again. She gasped and glared at me reproachfully.

"What do you need?" I repeated, and this time her hand moved to encircle me with aching slowness, mimicking the rhythm with which I was pleasuring her. As I felt her fingers play across me, the shaking in my arms increased, but I refused to give in.

"You need me?" I gasped, attempting to ignore the feel of her fingers stroking along my length.

Another nod.

"What do you need me to do?" I managed, looking down at her face, nearly caving and begging her myself to just say the words and get it over with.

"Lucien, please," she gasped. "Don't make me say it."

My fingers withdrew from her, deliberately teasing, and she groaned in frustration as I deprived her of the sensation she so craved. I rose to my full height and stared down at her. "Beg me."

"N-no," she stammered, turning her head away.

"Why not? I know what you want."

"Then why don't you just do it?" Her words were barely audible.

"Because I want to hear you say it," I replied, bringing my hand down to force her to meet my eyes. Her cheeks were hot against my fingers. Still, she shook her head. She was making me angry again.

"Do you want me to spank it out of you?" I asked at last, and she tried to wrench herself away from me.

"No!"

"Then say it!"

"Lucien, please!" Her voice was choked with the effort she was exerting not to cry.

"Please what."

"Please," she whispered. "I want you."

"And just where do you want me?"

She turned her head away, crying genuinely now. "Inside me," she sobbed, wiping away a tear-trail with one hand. "I want you inside me."

Her voice was barely audible, but now was not the time to force her to speak her request more loudly. I stepped between her legs and bade her wrap her them around my waist. She was half-lifting herself off the table with her hands when I slid into her gently, so when she tossed her head back and groaned in relief I was able to lean in and press my mouth to her neck. My arms were still shaking, but I ordered them to hold onto her hips and guide her as I worked up a steady rhythm. It occured to me as the ecstacy of being within her overwhelmed my nerves that I should have given in to my urges weeks ago.

Thanks to all the teasing with my fingers, it didn't take her long to come for the first time. Her cries grew louder, and as her body began to shudder around me she looked me in the eyes, leaning up to twine one hand through my hair. I watched as she rode out her climax, captivated by the sweat on her brow, the flush of her cheeks, and the way she stared at me defiantly as she moaned in rapture. I ran my hands through her hair and leaned in to kiss her. She took the opportunity to rake her nails down my back again, and I hissed obligingly in response.

"You deserved that, if that was really pain," she panted, leaning back again and bracing herself against the table as I increased my rhythm. I wanted her to come again before the end. I needed to pace myself, but just like last time she was making it difficult. She was too warm, too soft, too eager.

"I'm being good to you right now," I retorted, bending over to bring my lips directly to her ear. When my breath played across her neck, she groaned. At the time I couldn't believe how sensitive I'd made her. "If you want, I can actually hurt you again." My hands grabbed her wrists and tightened suggestively, eyes darting to my belt, which had been discarded nearby. She closed her eyes and shook her head emphatically in response, so I slid my hands back to her hips and gave her another kiss. If she was angry with me, she hid it well.

Watching her from this angle was more alluring than taking her from behind because I was able to see the effects of each thrust play across her face and body. Her legs and torso were longer than any other woman I'd been with, and the tone of her skin was warmer even though her skin was pale. Human women tended to be stockier and more curvaceous. But Caleigh was delicate. Lithe, even. Chances were she was at least my age, maybe even older, but she felt younger. Much of that was due to the enthusiasm with which she greeted my every thrust. Her hands were white-knuckled against the table-rim, arms taut with the effort of keeping herself stable, breasts bouncing gently. The spot on her shoulder which I had bitten repeatedly was blooming into a dark, splotchy bruise before my eyes. The instant I noticed that I groaned and almost lost all control. But I was determined to see her come once more and hear her voice as she was overwhelmed by sensation. When her eyes rolled shut again, I knew she was close, and leaned in to nibble her neck. Her cries this time were louder, and by the end she was flat against the table, no longer able to hold herself up away from the wood. We were both drenched in sweat, and her hair was clinging to her neck in a thick, coppery mat.

I knew that if I kept this up much longer she would be in pain. Thankfully, I had reached the end of my stamina, and was soon gripping the table myself, eyes tightly shut, mouth open in a low groan, finishing inside of her. My legs quickly became too shaky to hold me up, and I was forced to sit heavily into one of the dining chairs. Both of us were breathing raggedly. It seemed as though there was no air left in her house, and I wondered briefly if this was how all Bosmeri felt when they were indoors. I lived in an underground ruin, so was generally accustomed to closeness, but in that moment I felt that everything was too stale. Picking her up, I hauled us both upstairs where there was light, at least, and stretched her out on the bed. I wanted to open the windows, but they were too close to the ceiling. I've hated Cheydinhal-style houses for years, but never with such passion as in that moment.

"Thank you," she panted, stretching out langorously on the embroidered bedclothes. I sat down heavily beside her and inhaled deeply, feeling suddenly bone tired. She sighed next to me, and I looked over to find that she appeared to be going back to sleep.

"I'm sorry, Lucien. I'm just so drained," she murmured, curling inward upon herself like a wild cat. I reached down and stroked her hair, pulling it away from her neck. She shivered when the air of the room met her sweat-soaked skin.

"Would you stay with me until I sleep?" she asked after a moment, and I stared down at her in surprise. "I sleep better when you're here. It's why I haven't said anything." I ran my hands through her hair again, this time working out the tangles and spreading the tidied strands upon her pillow.

"I'll stay." As I said the words, every sinew of me screamed that it was a bad idea. I should have left as I did the last time. The fact that I didn't want to should have been compelling enough to convince me. But despite my better judgment, I lay down beside her and wrapped her in my arms, listening raptly to the even pace of her breathing as she slipped back into slumber.

I wish I'd left immediately after I felt her fall asleep in my arms. If I had, things would have gone much more smoothly for us. But instead I remained beside her, watching her sleep. Watching her dream. Whatever memory had her trapped must have been an unpleasant one indeed, because she began to cry. She pressed against my chest instinctively, and I ran my hand over her hair, completely at a loss for what to do. I didn't want to wake her. I didn't want to know what the Hero of Kvatch was tormented by in dreams.

"Shhhhh," I said at last, and I suppose she heard me, because her crying ceased. I was feeling rather good about myself until she began to talk in her sleep. One word. A name.

"Martin," she whispered, snuggling into me more firmly.

It was as though she'd stabbed me. I lay frozen, resenting every part of her that was touching me, but also too worried about rousing her to move. For a long time I considered killing her, but my clothing and weaponry were downstairs. I could have strangled her, but Sithis would have been angry that I had violated a Tenet. Every guild member I had terminated to date had committed a clear crime against the Brotherhood. In that sense, she was guiltless. And so I let her live.

As soon as she had escaped the nightmare, I rose and re-dressed, vowing to myself that this would never happen again. The scattered plates and food, the cloying smell of the spilled wine, all of it made me angry now. Her entire house, filled to the brim with relics of people she'd lost, felt suddenly more tomblike than my own home. There was no way to compete with the strength of her memories.

Of course she didn't have a back door, so I put my Chameleon ring back on and walked out through her main one into broad daylight. It felt so strange to be out during the afternoon. I should have stopped by the Sanctuary to check in and delegate contracts passed on to me by Ungolim, but I decided not to bother. Not only would Ocheeva be worried by the timing of my visit, but I did not wish to deal with any of the others just yet. She and M'raaj-Dar would likely smell Caleigh on me, in any case, and I was in no state of mind to explain that one. So I returned to Fort Farragut and collapsed wearily upon my own bed.

It was clear that this couldn't keep happening. I wasn't who she really wanted, and there was no reason why I should feel as though I needed her. What I couldn't understand was why I'd had such a hard time staying away. When I felt the need for sex, I always sought out Antionetta Marie, who was still young and naive enough to believe allowing me to bed her would give her a chance at Ocheeva's job someday. No, there was something different about Caleigh. I was too possessive of her, for one, and thought too much about her when we were apart. There were myriad reasons why I should transfer her to a different Sanctuary, under the supervision of a different Speaker. But I knew even as I thought it that I wouldn't be strong enough to send her away. Sadly, I appeared to actually care for her. The night I realized just how alien an emotion that was for me was a long one, especially because I worried that my feelings for her were entirely unreciprocated.

Looking back on it now, I can't think of a way that getting rid of her would have changed subsequent events, so at least all my good memories of her may remain untainted. It wasn't my weakness that ruined us both, as I spent so many nights fearing it would. Instead, it was my pride.
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The Last Days of Lucien Lachance