Something I Need
by
Rooks
© Copyright 1999
E-Mail: njdingle@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca
Disclaimer: The characters of Xena, Gabrielle, Najara, and Marat are the sole copyright property of MCA/Universal and Renaissance Pictures. The rest is mine.
Warning: Explicit sex, phallic sex, slightly rough sex, and all between two women. Coarse language, and a bit of violence too.
Author's note: Ever written something, then look back at it and say 'I wrote that?!' Well, that's what I did here. Not because I think it's distasteful at all, just because it's such a major departure from my normal style. I guess I just did it to prove to myself that I could. I like to try new things now and then.
You should probably have seen the episode 'Crusader' in order to understand this story. I got the idea when I re-read a bunch of xenaverse messages after Crusader when people were all saying 'after all the horrible things Xena has done, why does Gabrielle still follow her?' and I said to myself, 'hey yeah...why does Gabrielle still follow her?' Then I wrote this story. Hope you like it.
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I'm lying on my back, only a thin layer of coarse fabric separating me from the hard, cold earth. The air is chill, the first night of the year that it's really been cold. There's a rock under me, but I don't notice it.
She's on top of me, fucking. My body is jerked up the bedroll a little with each thrust of the toy inside me, and the material gathers in a bunch under my neck. Beads of cold sweat dot my forehead. I can see our breath...stark puffs of heat in the dark.
"Unngh," comes a restrained grunt from deep within her throat, slipping out through gritted teeth, and her brow furrows with the effort of holding back the crest of an impending orgasm. I stare into her eyes for an instant, but I don't see what I need to see yet. I reach up to thumb the side of her neck, smearing moisture there.
I bought the toy a couple of days after we left that small village in Phoenicia, after turning Najara over to the local magistrate there. Xena had wanted to make sure that Marat hadn't escaped from where she had left him. Of course, he had, so we had to spend some time catching up to him. When we finally did, he and his two men put up only a nominal fight. One, however, was particularly stupid and Xena had to kill him. Had to grab his thrusting wrist and use his own momentum to spin him backwards, and then draw her chakram across his throat, spraying her hand with his blood.
After she had let the body crumple to the ground, I touched her shoulder and said "Xena, are you ok?"
She looked at me with eyes that were almost completely filled black with her dilated pupils. Filled with lust. It made my heart skip and go cold with fright. I had seen those eyes before.
She blinked and her eyes re-focused pale blue on me. She heaved a sigh. "Fine," she said.
Later, we turned the living slavers over to the authorities and picked up some supplies before heading in our original direction, west. I surprised myself and didn't blush when I bought the toy, and then hid it in my bag for later. I was eager more than embarrassed. It was just something I needed. Something that I knew I'd need later. After what had wound up happening with Najara, it was a justification of sorts.
Her mouth comes down onto mine in a fierce, lip-bruising kiss. Her tongue forces past my teeth with aggressive suddenness. I accept its probing and slip my hands up to cover her dangling, swollen breasts. I pinch her stiff nipples hard between my fingers. I'm provoking her...pushing my luck. She grunts and bites my lower lip in surprise. I cry out with the pain.
Almost angry, she bats my hands away with one brisk swipe and claims my own breasts roughly with her mouth and hands. I'm sure I'll have bruises later. Another thrust of her hips plunges the toy deep inside me and produces another wave of tight sensation and pleasure. I hook my arm around her neck.
We didn't run into anyone else after leaving the village, and not long after it was too dark to travel. It was starting to get cold too, and we set up camp a few miles into a forest, making a fire near an old fallen log.
Xena sat on the log as I cleaned up the dishes from supper. She was staring at her hand, the hand that had been sprayed red with blood earlier that day. It was clean now, but she was clearly still seeing it. She needed to let things out, it seemed to me.
As I dumped out some dirty water at the edge of the campsite and she said over her shoulder to me, "You know, that village could still have used a hospice." Her words were very carefully formed. Recited.
I stood behind her. "Are you trying to get rid of me?"
She looked up in alarm. "No! Gods no. I just thought it was something you wanted to do. Something you needed."
I sat and swung my legs around to sit next to her. I sighed heavily. "I guess I don't know what I need. I need something. I need all sorts of things."
"Like the Light?" she joked.
I smiled. "I feel stupid about that. You were right not to trust her."
"She had a lot of good ideas though," she replied. "You were right to consider them."
"Well, starting a hospice might be something good, but you and I help people too. And this way, I get to stay with you. I need to stay with you too, Xena."
She looked at me and her lips twitched in a small, mirthless smile. Then she stared into space and blew a puff of breath into her cold hands.
Our breathing is coming more quickly now in the cold air, sending clouds of vapour swirling about our rocking bodies. I can see steam rising off her back. She smells of sweat and sex. Another hard thrust and I let out a moan. She adjusts to a new rhythm, giving me thrilling sensations of confusion.
Her body lifts off me and her hand traces over my chest, then down, to splay fingers across my abdomen. One hand grips my hip, helping me to lift off the ground and buck against her. I'm having a hard time focusing but manage to lift one hand up to yank on her hair. She growls and her eyes flash. I watch them as intently as I can, waiting.
When I laid down on the bedroll after supper, I was sure she could read the look in my eyes. We hadn't had a chance to be intimate for several nights. I needed her, needed something from her. But she only knelt and looked at me, as though wanting to talk.
She finally said, "Do I really scare you?"
My body went cold, brought to tingling awareness. My heart started doubletime. I could hear it in my ears. "What do you mean?"
"You said so to Najara."
"You heard that?" I asked, sitting up.
"It was the last thing I heard before I blacked out."
I watched her, feeling a stirring inside, a heat, and trying to decide whether or not to lie to her. Honesty first, I finally decided. "Yes," I confessed. "Your dark side does scare me."
She hung her head, ashamed. "You should have stayed in the village. Started the hospice. Being with me isn't good for you. Why did you come with me?"
I knelt before her and whispered. "Let me show you why I came with you." Then I cupped her face and kissed her tenderly.
She kissed me back after a moment, and I gently eased back to the bedroll, pulling her on top of me as I did.
I let the kiss grow more passionate but I could still feel her holding back. I tugged her hair, and let my tongue explore her mouth more thoroughly. She held my sides. I pulled her hair again, hard enough to cause pain and she jerked away, warning sternly: "Gabrielle..." I ignored the warning and massaged her breast firmly through the pliant leather, and ran my hand briskly over her back. Then I grabbed the back of her head by the hair and yanked it, exposing the long shaft of her throat. She cried out, and her fingers tightened like talons on my shoulders. My pulse raced as I kissed her neck. Her lust was loose now. I could see it in her eyes. I kissed her again briefly, then pushed up on her chest. She resisted me, her primal urges beginning to take her over.
I quickly reached into the bag, sitting where I had placed it conveniently close to the bedroll, and pulled out the sex toy. "Here," I breathed. "Use this."
Her eyes widened, but it only seemed to increase her arousal. Her face was something akin to a tiger's, stalking prey in tall grass. "Gabrielle--"
"The small part goes in you." I showed her. "And it straps around like this."
"I know how it works," she said in a low tone that set my blood to boiling. "You want this?"
I nodded. "Oh yes." And I knew she wouldn't be able to resist my request. She had never been able to.
I watched with growing hunger as she removed her leather. I shivered when she stood before me naked. She was trembling with desire. The firelight shone gold against a bright line of liquid that trailed down the inside of her leg. I had to swallow.
She let me watch as she pushed the toy slowly inside herself, groaning all the while, and then fastened it around her waist. She dropped to all fours and stared at me with carnal, hooded eyes. She crawled like a leopard overtop me, sliding open hands up my thighs, pushing my skirt up to my hips while I undid the laces of my top with shaking fingers.
"You want this," she rumbled.
"I need this," I whispered.
She tested me with a finger, feeling my wetness, making me inhale. She teased me with the tip of the toy at first, but not for long. She could sense my readiness. Then, with a suddenness that I could never have prepared for, she plunged completely inside, leaving me gasping at the invasive, powerless, vulnerable sensation of being filled. Filled by her, while her eyes flashed with a darkness that owned me.
Now, I can see her eyes flash even more and I tangle my hands in her hair, pulling hard. She lets out hot breaths, and increases her pace. I grunt exertedly with each rhythmic thrust.
"Harder..." I moan to her, feeling the heat of friction start to expand outward. Her hands are under my knees now, holding my legs up, bent and jerking in the air, giving her a better angle.
Her cry starts deep inside her chest as a moan, but soon bursts forth into the cold air, echoing shrilly. She has to drop forward and hold herself up on muscled arms to either side of me, staring down at me unmasked as the uncontrollable orgasm washes over her.
And finally, I see it. The untamed animal that lurks under her skin. That darkness I have glimpsed before. In a confining room in Mercer's fort. Rising to its feet on the cliff above Illusia. It crouches over me, possesses me. I'm drawn to it. I think it might sink its teeth into me. I'm utterly terrified.
It's gone the next instant, but the brief appearance is enough. I come with soul-shattering force, crying out into the night like a siren. My entire being is racing...writhing with equal parts pleasure and panic. And it feels so good. So incredibly good. Better, because of the fear.
She collapses against me, breathing hard. She whispers in my ear, "I love you, Gabrielle."
"I know," I whisper, breathless.
We're silent for a while longer and then she lifts off, pulling out of me, leaving my insides crying out with relief. Soon, she spoons herself around my back and we settle in the afterglow. She seems unaware of what was almost let loose. Just like always.
"I told you I needed it," I say.
"You did," she chuckles, thinking of her endearment.
"It's why I stay with you," I say.
"I'm glad. I'm glad you stopped me from killing Najara," she says softly, drifting off.
"You did that yourself," I say.
I can hear her smile in her voice. "I couldn't have done it without you."
I feel a leftover tremble at the power that's inside her, just beneath the surface. But I also tremble with the knowledge that I help her contain her dark side.
So she can save it for later.
"We'll keep looking, Gabrielle. We'll find the real light for you. You really need to find something like that, don't you?" she asks.
I can feel the bruises forming on my skin where her fingers gripped me. Where her darkness gripped me. "I do," I say, staring off into the trees, feeling the fear subside again for a while. "I guess I do need something like that." But I don't tell her why.
End
Written: January 2nd, 1999