Nessian One-shots (post ACOSF)

Love you

Nesta sat in the antique chair, half of a set flanking the fireplace in her room- their room. Her feet were tucked under her thighs and she focused on the words in her book, carefully drowning out the harsh sounds of the fireplace. A thought sent from a hollow, ancient place told her she was glad that her mother wasn't around to correct her posture anymore as her shoulders curled over the pages, forming a shield against the simmering memories. The intensity of the warring noises in her mind were enough that she probably wouldn't have noticed the male enter the room, were it not her mate.

She could feel his presence like a tangible thing when he entered a room. A calm settling around her shoulders like a warm blanket. The bond igniting and going taut, yanking on her heart, pulling her towards him. Like there was no more difficult thing than to be in the same room as him without being able to touch him, to hold him tightly, to run her fingers down his smooth skin and feel his heat searing into her.

But for everything that Nesta had accepted of the mating bond, this stubborn, inherently human part of her called out above the glow of the invisible string pulled tight between them, and beckoned her to rebel. To see how long she could resist the instinctive urge to bury herself under him. A battle of strength fought with only herself.

So she sat by the fire, looking up from her book only for a moment as Cassian crossed the room to stand in front of their bed and peel the tight cotton shirt from his sweat-soaked skin. She quickly averted her eyes back to the words on her book. Oh, Cauldron this would be harder than she thought. But she set her resolve, and glued her eyes to the page. Paying attention was hard when her arched ears automatically keyed in to his shuffling across the room, begging her to track his movements. But, she kept her eyes lowered. The shuffling moved closer until she felt his presence settle into the chair next to hers, both facing each other, slightly angled towards the fireplace.

She kept reading. Despite the fire growing within her, the face just feet away, she kept reading. He hadn't greeted her and she hadn't greeted him, so the silence stretched across the room. It wasn't uncomfortable or awkward or spiteful. Nesta was way past ignoring him just to get a rise out of him as she would have done mere months ago. She now had much more fun ways of getting a rise out of him.

Cassian had been quiet for much longer than he usually managed, causing her to finally look up and examine him, his mouth drawn into a tight line. His body was leaned slightly into hers, likely also feeling the magnetism, yet his gaze was off somewhere caught in the flames.

And the internalized intensity of his face made her forget the little bet she had going on inside.

"Cassian?"

"Yes," he said, eyes quickly shooting over to her, his features relaxing at the sight. It became clear that what he was thinking about wasn't worrisome, rather encompassing.

"What are you thinking about?" The question was careful, and she reached a hand across to place on his forearm laid on the arm of the chair.

Cassian took a breath before answering and his mouth twitched up into a quiet, genuine smile, "just how much I love you."

She chuckled and her hand moved swiftly from his arm up to her mouth. She continued laughing and his mouth fell back into a tight line. No, that couldn't have been the right reaction.

"Well, surely you can't be serious," Nesta stated blatantly. His face said he surely was. Nesta's eyes softened and all the humor left them as she gazed into his. "You actually think about that?"

He reached across the space between them and took both her hands in his, pulling them back against his chest, "Nesta, you're my mate, my wife. Few thoughts pass through my mind that aren't about you. And where you go, my love follows. I'm just so proud of you, of us, and how far we've come that I can't help but stop to dwell on it; reflect on the happiness you've brought me. Don't tell me you've never thought about it?" He had laid himself bare, and his eyes dipped lower, eyebrows bunched, like he almost regretted uttering that final question.

But he needn't worry because, "of course I have, Cassian. I thought maybe there was something wrong with me, that normal people didn't fill their heads with such glossy ideas, didn't dream such things for the future. I thought this obsession that my brain seems to have with you must simply be a side effect of a person learning to love." A cold, broken person learning to love. Nesta's words trembled slightly as they left her lips and her hands squeezed Cassian's tighter as she slid to the edge of her chair, needing to be ever closer.

"Because I don't know if you know that Cassian, but you are the only person I've ever truly loved. Sure, I have my sisters, but I've had to love them my whole life. Even when I didn't want to, it was there. I didn't get a choice in the matter. But you, Cassian, it's different. I got to experience the feeling of falling in love. I got to enjoy every moment as, slowly, my body, my mind, my heart,  became completely yours. And I think about it all the time." Bet be damned, Nesta closed the final distance between them until she was sitting in his lap with her brow rested against his and their hands still intertwined between them.

"I love you," she said and brought up his hand to her mouth to place a kiss upon it.

"I love you more," he said, taking his hand away to cup her face.

"I think you're wrong," she said, unable to take the challenge in her own voice seriously as the words bubbled out around the joyous lump welling in her throat.

His mouth claimed hers suddenly, as he stood and she automatically wrapped her legs around his waist, "then I guess I'll just have to prove it to you."

A/N: Let's hope y'all think my writing skills are better than my editing skills cuz that cover is lookin' rough. Side note: anyone else totally picture Cassian as Booboo Stewart? Anyways, thanks for reading. I just couldn't get enough of Nessian after ACOSF and the number of fics are lacking. I should have another chapter up before the weekend is over.