Title: I've Just Seen A Face
Rating: MA. That means (some non-graphic) sex, boys and girls!
Characters: Archer x Rin
Word Count: 954
Warning/s: Nothing for the moment, but Heaven's Feel spoilers are coming in later chapters.
Summary: His face is never clear.
Dedication: To yukari rin. Think of this as a pre-birthday(or as I call it, "Christmas In October") present, warming you up for the actual gift. blows kiss
A/N: Done for my Archer x Rin 30 lemons challenge, using prompt 1: "Anonymity, or, "Taken by the Faceless Stranger". I'm planning on using all 30 themes as part of an interconnected story based on an alternate take on the Heaven's Feel(Sakura's) route of the game Fate/Stay Night. Chronologically, this chapter takes place some years after the end of the game. I promise the inevitable questions (i.e., how Archer is there at all) will be answered in upcoming chapters. I've been on an Across The Universe kick lately, so the overall story is being called a slight variation on that, and each chapter will be titled using lyrics from the movie songs. I'm a huge dork, I know, and really sorry if this causes any undue confusion.

Fate/stay night © TYPE-MOON / Kadokawa Shoten / Studio DEEN.

The dreams of mages have meaning.

Meaning regarding the past, the present.

The future.

Rin knows this well, but she always remembers it most keenly when she wakes from that dream in particular.

It's one she's had several times over the years since she had left childhood forever, her body blossoming steadily into womanhood. The kind of dream that left her hot and confused and aching for something she didn't really understand. Not at that point, anyway.

The first time she had had the dream, it had been so indistinct, like trying to see through a mist, getting slowly clearer as the years passed. Yet so very unmistakable at the same time, the details never changing but for clarity. There had been her-older, taller, fuller in chest and hips-and him.

Him.

Skin golden by the flickering candlelight, broad shoulders shimmering with sweat, toned muscles rippling underneath his skin as he moved oh-so-smoothly inside the Rin-That-Would-Be. She gasped again and again, slim hands twisting in silk sheets, raking her nails on his back when this was no longer enough. The diamond ring on her left hand shone against his dusky skin when she did this, capturing what little light was to be had in the dimness and reflecting it into something greater but unreal.

Him.

Lightly nipping the base of her throat, the fingers of one large hand splayed against the curve of her breast, the other gripping her hip with a firmness that is the only sign of his slipping control. Rin wrapped long legs ever more tightly around his waist, wanting still more of him, to have her empty spaces filled by him, however briefly. His face is never clear, but gleam from his smirk-at her need, at her wantonness, at what exactly, Rin isn't sure-is impossible to miss. As is the greater speed and power he now puts into each movement of his hips.

Him.

Drawing out her pleasure before his own with the same steady passion Michelangelo drew angels out of marble. Stoking the fire running through her body with every thrust, every kiss, every touch, until she can no longer help herself, muffling her cry of release as she pressed her mouth against his collarbone. He followed her into climax almost immediately afterwards, and brushed sweat from her face with hands that bear no rings, unlike her own.

Her lover. An enigma whose body she knows as well as her own, but whose face she's never caught more than a few hints of; the line of a strong jaw, dark eyes the color of forge-smoke. If she is married (a ring of promise bound her finger but his were free), it is not to him.

It's an idea that doesn't particularly surprise her. What was it her father had said, so long ago? That looks could be bought, but power had to be married. That mages think of the future before practically anything else. Some mages end up in reasonably happy marriages, based on love and respect, but many more do not. It's a fate Rin resigned herself to the moment she gave up her sister-following a mage's path first and foremost, even before her own happiness.

There is only one thing that confuses her. The man, whomever he is, knows her-knows her body-far too well to be a mere fling. There is a certain care in his actions, when he touches her that Rin doesn't think would come from someone interested in simple gratification.

A mystery to be sure, but one Rin never lets herself dwell on long beyond the dream's end. It isn't until many years later, when the future dream becomes present reality and she lies in her lover's arms, that she recalls it.

"I dreamt of this," Rin tells him as she breathes in the scent of his skin. "Years ago, long before we met."

"Oh?" Archer replies, and Rin doesn't need to see his face to tell he is amused, in his own fashion. Lazily, but with intent only Rin would have noticed, he toys with the engagement ring on her finger-one he made himself.

"Yes." Rin lets herself fall against the pillows, to better observe the handsome face she tried so hard to glimpse as a teenager. "I thought you were some illicit lover I had taken and was having a torrid affair with behind my husband's back."

She sent him her best steely-eyed glare at his valiant efforts to contain his laughter, smacking one toned bicep when this failed.

"I was wearing a ring and you weren't." Rin tells him hotly. "What was I supposed to think?"

Archer pulls himself into his usual semblance of control, though his smirk remains.

"Well, I must admit you ended up being right on most counts," Archer remarks, smirk gaining a wicked edge that has Rin tensing in anticipation despite herself. He pulls her closer, giving her a searing kiss that banishes-for the moment-her own irritation at him into non-existence. "After all, I'm not your husband yet."

"Keep up that attitude and I'll never marry you." Rin retorts with her few remaining shreds of resistance, although the breathy moan she lets out as Archer nips her throat in just the right place completely undermines her words.

Leaning over her, Archer grins.

"If it comes to that, I'll just have to settle for being your illicit lover."

And really, Rin knows she shouldn't let him get away with it, that she should at least reprimand him. But what she knows and what she wants can be two very different things, and as Archer hungrily slants his mouth against her own, Rin thinks she wouldn't trade being here with him for anything.