Her dislodged her arm but she stubbornly put it right back again. She was admittedly starting to feel some discomfort but it was dulled and not really bothering her. Ideally, she'd much rather not look like she'd just wrestled a mountain lion in the morning when she had to face his family, but she wasn't thinking of what future Antigone would want, in the present moment she didn't much care.

"Ha!" ...Was not what she'd been planning to say. Something felt different, nicely different. "Leave marks or don't, doesn't matter!" She spoke as though he'd politely asked her preference on something very trivial at an inconvenient moment. "Just don't- Don't stop." Tig couldn't be bothered to feel embarrassed, although she probably would be later.

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Don't stop? Tiberius had no intention of doing so, but the words struck him as odd none the less. With everything that was happening, it took him a few moments to muster up enough conscious thought to make the connection: she was enjoying this. That was rather ironic, wasn't it?

He wasn't even sure whether it mattered anymore. Was he still trying to hurt her, or was he too consumed with the way it felt to be able to really use her body like this? Tiberius and Antigone had had habitual sex since their marriage, barring the months of her pregnancies, but it had never been like this; this was better even than being with Valeria, better than any whore he'd ever had. He could feel himself building to climax soon after they'd started, but he purposefully throttled his pacing back. He wasn't quite ready to let go of this, because he still wasn't sure how they'd gotten there and Merlin knew he would never be able to navigate his way back to it without Antigone at least meeting him halfway.

As he worked his way towards climax once again, he let his free hand explore her body in a way he hadn't done previously. He squeezed her naked buttocks as it bounced beneath him. He twisted one of her nipples. He let his fingers close around the base of her throat with just enough pressure to feel her jugular pulse beneath them. He wanted to hear her, and he didn't much care whether she gasped in pleasure or yelped in pain so long as there was something audible for him to internalize; he would let his hand roam until he found the proper trigger.

[sex montage]

"Oh — Merlin," he gasped; he had never announced his ejaculations before but then they had never been like this before, like a wave that he was trying to hold back and could no longer contain. There were beads of sweat dotting his back and arms. "This is — it," he huffed, pushing himself as deep inside of her as he could and holding himself in that position while it finished.

  

Something felt as though it changed, something had shifted, though she couldn't tell whether it was her imagination or not. Hadn't he said he was going to hurt her? Was he just taking a moment to decide the where and how of it? It was hard to properly think about it though with what was happening. That too struck her for a brief moment as being strange, ordinarily when he came to her bed she intentionally passed the time thinking about other things and with great ease. Now it was as though she could only take snatches of thought, even that she didn't want to think of other things.

There had been a fleeting concern that he'd do the opposite of what she'd said but it seemed apparent after a couple seconds that he had no intention of doing that. His hand was suddenly touching and grabbing at her - was he looking for somewhere to really hurt her? Her rear seemed a poor choice - it felt sort of nice but that was all. The same went for her breast when he moved there - it was probably possibly to bruise there but she couldn't imagine it with the way he touched her. He clearly realized this too because he suddenly sought out her throat and that made sense. Was he trying to scare her? She probably should have found a hand around her throat instinctively alarming but the possibility of him fatally strangling her never even crossed her mind. Tig laughed - or rather she tried to laugh, what came was not distinctively mirthful sounding, but something whinier and almost guttural.

Why wasn't he squeezing any harder? She wanted to demand this of him but could tell that her capacity for word-forming was almost nil; if he'd had his wand she'd have assumed he'd have hit her with a tongue-tying jinx or something. Thought soon followed the way of speech and the assortment of noises she was making didn't even register as originating from her.

Although she couldn't string a thought together, she had the distinct impression that she dying. His hand on her throat must be tighter than she realized and he was putting an end to her. He even seemed to be saying something to that effect, she thought. This was it. It all seemed to be reaching a conclusion and strangely it felt better than anything else she could ever recall. Her body seemed to writhe of its own accord, apparently it wasn't as ready to go out even if it was on a high. She made a loud, almost sob-like exclamation and was vaguely aware of her fingernails digging into him once more on their way to making a tight fist.

The tension in her body suddenly started to ebb and rational thought started to return to her. She wasn't dying at all, how ridiculous to have thought so! She couldn't explain it either but she was clearly not on the brink of a fatal asphyxiation - was his hand even still in the vicinity of her throat? She had questions suddenly and several of them, but still couldn't quite bring herself to speak. Was it incapability or unwillingness? The arm she'd clutched him with seemed suddenly to remember the rules of gravity and limply dropped to her side.
""

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There was a long moment before he withdrew from her, not because he was savoring the feeling, but rather because it took his mind a few seconds to remember that removing himself from her body was the next step. All of the previous occasions of intercourse between the two of them had been so mundane by comparison to what had just occurred that it seemed as though he was breaking new ground and learning this process all over again. Even with Valeria things had been far more focused and more businesslike than the no-holds-barred way he had just ravished his wife.

With what felt like the last bit of strength in his limbs he lifted himself off of her and rolled onto his back on the empty side of the bed. He was still breathing heavily as he stared up at the ceiling, though he was starting to regain his regulation. His muscles relaxed without his intending them to.

"You liked that," he said. From his flat tone it was difficult to tell whether he intended the words as a question, a statement, an accusation, or a taunt. Honestly, Tiberius wasn't sure, either.

  

Once she started to settle and her heart was steadily coaxing itself into a less frantic rhythm, she became aware of a throbbing ache that while not exactly comfortable wasn't painful enough to make her regret what had transpired. She was far more likely to regret it if he taunted her about it. He spoke and she couldn't help but wonder if he was already trying to tease her for it. She seemed to lack the energy to whip up her temper beyond a vague sense of annoyance. Even that emotion was lost when it suddenly dawned on her that he wouldn't be getting up and leaving her as he always did. Tig wasn't sure how she felt about that. Her instinct was to lament it, but on the second thought she realized that as relieved as she usually was for him to go, it also felt insulting that he came and went as though she was a privy or a billiards room. Not that she particularly wanted his company afterwards. That he had to stay now she anticipated would be awkward and unpleasant.

"And what if I did?" There was only a hint of defensiveness in her voice. She felt pleasantly calm and everything outside of her calm felt trivial and unimportant. Feeling a little chilly, she pulled the sheets closer around her. "Did you not?"

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Tiberius didn't answer her question, but he did consider it in pensive silence. He had enjoyed that, and could not pretend to himself that he hadn't, but he wondered about the wisdom of admitting as much to Antigone. She had initiated that particular part of the evening, after all, in her own roundabout way. If he admitted that he'd enjoyed himself, would she try to find some way to use this against him?

This was really a moot question, however. As if she needed verbal confirmation to deduce what was obvious. It had been obvious, hadn't it? He hadn't taken any pains to hide the pleasure he was taking from the event during intercourse... but then, he had also spoken primarily in profanities and insults until the end. Under normal circumstances that would hardly be construed as a sign of enjoyment, but nothing had had ever occurred in the whole of Tiberius and Antigone's marriage could qualify as having happened under normal circumstances.

He was roused from this particular line of thinking when she pulled the sheets tighter, causing the bedding covering him to shift and draw his attention. He glanced over at Antigone — not at her face, but rather her sheet-wrapped body — and frowned. "Those sheets are wet," he muttered. He ought to know — he had been the one sweating all over them for the past half hour. Rolling over, he leaned over the side of the bed and retrieved his wand from where it had fallen half an age ago, still faithfully producing a soft glow against the floor boards. Returning to his position in bed, he cast a quick drying spell on the linens, then extinguished the light from his wand and plunged the room back into darkness.

  

He didn't say anything. She supposed that was unsurprising. They'd probably lapse into silence until one or both of them fell asleep. She thought he'd probably be the first to fall asleep considering he'd left her with the damp side. The feeling of cold, moist fabric on her bare skin was going to soil her good mood quickly.

It would have, anyway. As if he had sensed her discomfort, he retrieved his wand and fixed it. Apparently she could still be surprised. Tig didn't say anything at first, not until the light from his wand had been extinguished and her eyes had adjusted to the absence. "Thank you." The words felt stiff and strange, especially being uttered to him. She fell silent for a minute or so during which she tried to get comfortable. The remaining problem, she quickly deduced, was that she wasn't used to wearing nothing in bed and it felt odd. "Did you really have to ruin my nightdress?"

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The fate of the night dress was the last thing on his mind. Truth be told, there was nothing at all on his mind. After he'd dried out the sheets and returned his wand to its place besides the bed, he'd laid back and intended to left himself drift into the abyss of sleep, and his body had taken up the cue and begun shutting itself down.

She'd said thank you. That was strange.

He let out a long breath and muttered, "I paid for that night dress. I'll do what I like with it." Clearly, he already had.

  

It sounded to her like he was closer to falling asleep than she was which struck her as grossly unfair. It'd be even worse if it turned out he snored. Now she couldn't even go sleep elsewhere if she wanted, not unless she wanted to risk someone walking in on her naked and unconscious.

"Well I can't sleep like this." She rolled over onto her side facing him. "Distract me so I can fall asleep." Tig extended an arm out in his direction until her fingertips brushed against something that didn't feel like bedding. Lightly prodding him was somehow meant to be persuasive. She yawned. "Talk to me."

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He might have been inclined to ignore her entirely, had she not first started shifting around in the bed and thus disturbing the sheets on his naked body, and then reached out and put her fingertips against his arm. He wasn't sure whether she was trying to irritate him by poking him or whether she was, in some sort of post-coital haze of affection, trying to caress him. Tiberius didn't really know how cuddling worked, but he did know that it was a thing people sometimes did — mostly fools, he thought — and it did involve touching. Was that what Antigone wanted?

Tiberius looked over at her skeptically, but all he could see was a vague, shadowy outline. Not as though he would have been able to determine her motivation from her facial expression, anyway.

After a lengthy pause, Tiberius sighed and scooted a bit closer to the center of the bed, then reached out the hand closest to her and place it lightly on what he assumed to be her thigh. "Talk about what?" he asked wearily.

  

Her brow furrowed as she felt his hand on her leg. Why was he doing that? She'd said talk not use her as an arm rest! She couldn't be bothered to be venomous about it though and so didn't acknowledge it past a frown he almost certainly couldn't see. "I don't know," her shoulder twitched in a vague sort of shrug. "Something interesting." Tig yawned for a second time. When she spoke again it was little more than a murmur. "Are you still trying to become an animagus?"

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Trying was perhaps a strong word, but he nodded vaguely all the same. Typically, Tiberius' intellectual pursuits fell into one of two very distinct categories. Things that caught his interest and merited further study occupied a great deal of his thought and most, if not all, of his free time (and even some of his time at the Ministry, as well). He devoted a seemingly endless store of energy to them until he had exhausted every avenue of study. Things that did not catch his interest, on the other hand, he could not be bothered to waste an once of exertion on, even if the Department of Mysteries was paying him to do it, and he would never touch the subject beyond the barest glance through the material. There was seldom any overlap between the two. The subject of becoming an Anigamus would have fallen into the latter group, had he not once bragged to her that he could do it; now, setting it aside for other tasks seemed to be almost a sort of defeat.

That being said, he hadn't touched the stuff in a month or more. After reaching the end of what he could learn through casual study, he had balked at actually setting himself to the physical tasks such as the mandrake root. What was the point, when it seemed (by now, anyway) unlikely ever to come up again?

Except here it was, coming up, at the strangest of possible times.

"It hasn't been the only thing I've been working on," he said noncommittally. "But I've made a good deal of progress. Why? Are you still interested in trying it?"

  

If he wasn't downplaying it then it sounded as though he wasn't likely to beat her to the punch which was reassuring. She'd have preferred it if he hadn't bothered to ask after her own progress though. It was oh so tempting to boast about how close she was but for all she knew the next thunderstorm wouldn't be for months and he'd catch up to her in the interim. Doing it at the same time was better than being second but there was no satisfaction in a draw. Even if she was the only one thinking of it as a race.

Tig was starting to feel sleepy but wasn't quite there yet. For the sake of not giving herself away on the animagus issue, she said nothing and hoped he drew the conclusion from her silence that she'd fallen asleep.

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