Fucking hell.

Literally, if he wasn't careful.

He'd been so damned close to the only thing he want- Alright, not the only thing he wanted, not today, but the only thing he wanted that he trusted himself to have. When Vax'ildan had come up to the rooftop and found himself blessedly alone, nestled into a deep fold of shadow, he'd only meant to sit and take a few moments to calm himself in the cool night air before he locked himself away in his room until morning.

It was an intensely disconcerting feeling, to not trust himself. The people he'd unintentionally collided with earlier were all lovely, in their own ways. But he should be a better man than to become so preoccupied with it. He should be stronger than some stupid, primal, animal impulse to bone. And Vax was, was the thing. He'd learned to put himself in check long ago and keep himself there unless it was something he wanted enough to devote himself to it, damn the consequences. He loved Keyleth, and had decided there would be none but her. Yet they'd been apart for hardly a month, and... It wasn't the women he'd had to stop from getting too far into his pants that bothered him. It was how much the day's events had stirred him up and confused him. He was more tempted by the flesh than he should be, even when he hadn't been dosed with whatever sex madness this was, and that troubled him in a way that reached deep.

Not fucking her. Not now. Please. He watched. Silently, uselessly willing her to go away.

"I've had...similar, today," Vax'ildan admitted, his voice especially soft and just slightly raspy. Like he'd done all of the yelling at himself going on in his own head out loud, almost. "And not many people think of the roof."

Get a hold of yourself, Vax'ildan. Really, he wasn't keeping either of them out of harm's way by treating her - no, treating himself - like a potentially lethal trap he hardly knew the workings of.

"I'll go first, if you want to stay," he volunteered, drawing himself up and absently tracking the motion of the balm where it rubbed a welcome shine across her lips.

He felt a little... Pop, of something like tension at the base of his spine, barely there, but Vax couldn't for the life of him think of how it mattered when her mouth, her hair, the lines of her body were all as sweet and ripe as summer. She was all... Thick, juicy strawberry he could all but taste on his tongue, and he knew through the flush of hard heat that hit him she must be so warm and soft and wet under her clothes.

"I want to be your company," he insisted, low and fervent as a desperate prayer. She was everything bright and strong and shining, golden warmth to his dark chill. Sure, he know what he was, so often somber and moody. That's why she was so wonderful. So right.

He ignored the path he'd set with his bootheels to walk away from her only a moment before, closing the gap of caution between them heedlessly. Vax'ildan reached for her, as sure and natural as anything, to brush a gloved hand back over the golden tumble of her hair, pressing kisses to her temple, her cheek, her earlobe, the line of her neck, equal parts reverence and maddeningly worsening need. "You're so beautiful, Stephanie."

It was one thing, to desire a person - and a much greater thing, to be desired as eagerly in return. For all of the day's encounters, this was the first Vax wasn't chasing or being chased at something of a loss. Stephanie shivered with her need beneath his smaller kisses, and when her hands found his hair, he lifted his face to press himself against her waiting lips with a shared, singular purpose. They were going to feel such beautiful things together, like this, and no reason why it should ever be different than the two of them twined in the sweet play of their shared mouths entered his lust-drugged thoughts.

He had impatience of his own, pulling her close against the hard sculpt of his armor. His hands cupped and caressed her back, the shape of her waist, the curve of buttocks and thighs, until they were so well frustrated by these pleasures that he reached between them for the fastenings of her trousers.

Vax hissed softly under her little love bite - though not for the bite really. Such a small hurt as that barely registered for a seasoned rogue. It was the increasing frustration that his would-be erection was very much caged in the confines of hardened leather protection that proved painful.

The great tragedy (or salvation, he'd come to think later) of it was that there was no shortcut to the involved unlacing, unbuckling, and otherwise unfastening of such interlocked pieces and parts as custom-fit armor. He'd learned to take a ritual piss before putting it on, because even getting everything apart to allow for that took a bit of doing. "Be - a few minutes for mine," he panted against her neck to try and explain. But he'd have to leave off of Stephanie for all that, and that seemed a miserable prospect.

"Yours are much easier," he admired, getting her waist button apart and the following line of fine metal teeth undone.

"So you're asking me to stop stroking you, and stop undressing you?" His hands had come to mirror hers, pushing up the hem of her shirt to cup just beneath her breasts on either side. She wore fitted underclothes finer than what the ladies of Tal'Dorei were ever likely to own, and he found caressing the shapes of her bra a fascinating curiosity.

He bent his head again, finding where one of her soft, pert breasts peaked through her garments, to give it a suckle of a kiss. "Tell me to stop," his tone dared her. She wanted this just as badly, and he knew it.

What she looked was absolutely breath-taking. Her smile, the chime of her laughter, the shine of her hair, curves and planes cast in near-silhouette with the shades of deepening dusk. He could find her, there, in the almost-dark, every part of her promising intense satisfaction. He could get well lost in her, and never think to make his way back.

Tell me to stop.

Her mouth was heavy and artificial berry-sweet on his once more, and he closed his eyes to focus entirely on the feel of her, accepting her kiss eagerly but mad with want for the rest. He'd never encountered such a brassiere before, but his thieving fingers had the clasps apart before he could stop to consider the fact.

Tell me to stop.

There was something that nagged at him. He tried very hard to shove it aside, to be in this place with Stephanie, to stay there, until they were both stupidly happy and utterly spent. He didn't understand what the nagging sensation was, but somehow he was becoming lucid again, the rational part of him sobering.

Tell me to stop. It hadn't been for her. It was for him. He shouldn't be here, he shouldn't be doing this, because... Because?

All the fucking hells. Keyleth. He loved Keyleth.

He sucked in a sharp, deep breath like an exhausted man breaching the surface of a drowning pool, his hands grasping for Stephanie's shoulders, trying reflexively to push her away. "I...Stephanie. Stop. We have to stop."

"No, I know," he tried to catch his breath. Vax set his hands on his thighs, letting his head hang between his shoulders for a moment as he tried to rein himself in. It would take a minute for his body to relax enough to get him back down off of the roof comfortably. "It was so much more than... A double dose, is what that was. Must've been."

"You did. I did. It didn't do me any more good than it did you, and I'm the one with the reason to keep my fucking head on straight." Keyleth was... Beautiful, and statuesque, yet a force of nature to be reckoned with. She was light and life and laughter, a Druidic elven princess who would one day lead her people. Her heart was so tender, even after all the shit they'd been through, and he wanted so much to be even half as good as she was so effortlessly. He would do anything for her.

Which made him feel so much worse about wanting to reassure Stephanie with more than words.

"Let's just... We can let this one go. Can't we?"

He reached up to fold a gloved hand lightly around her wrist, and looked into her eyes to let her see him fully. Holding, rather than pulling. "I meant everything I said. You are beautiful." And he did want her. Still.

"I'm not going to cover it. I'm not ashamed of you, I'm ashamed of me."

Had she really heard 'that one' before?

Vax was perceptive enough to know he'd said the wrong thing. It had stung her, and he hadn't meant for that. But he also knew that there were some situations that were too much a mess for everyone to walk away well pleased. There were times you had to choose, between one person and the other, or sets of principles, no matter how hard you tried to make a place between them. It reminded him very much of his love for Gilmore.

So Vax'ildan let his hand slide away from her, and pulled himself upright. "I'm sorry, too," he offered quietly.

Then he turned and walked away, and within one stride and the next, he let the dark of evening swallow him whole.