#i managed to draw something for it in time!!!! hell yeahhhhhh

[tianhai03]

happy 20th anniversary, devil may cry!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉 can't believe it's been so long already...

[damienthepious]

Elle, I would LOVE to hear your commentary on the last chunk of the latest HB3 chapter! maybe from "you could..." to the end— if you're feeling it? as always, thank you for the good words!

[Pick a short passage from any fanfic I’ve written and send it to me, and I’ll give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet!]

hwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa hell yeah hell yeah hell yeahhhhhh, these two are in. TROUBLE.

["Delicate honeysuckle," Arum murmurs, nuzzling his jaw with his snout. "Your body is still recovering, despite your stubbornness. Healing takes energy," he says, drawing soothing claws through the poet's hair when he pouts in stubborn disagreement. "You could-"]

Damien gets pouty because he knows that Arum is right. Rilla's been telling him the same thing for the last week, too! And Arum... forgets himself for a moment, because he's mellow and pleased and holding Damien safe and warm in his arms, and... he forgets what he's allowed, for a second.

[Arum pauses. It isn't- he shouldn't. He should not offer that. No matter how easy the words are. No matter how much he wants to, he should not.]

Arum falls into the trap of worrying about what he should do. Damien has this issue far more often, in this 'verse in particular. He also kinda does this thing where, even in his own head, he dances around the words. he shouldn't do WHAT? he shouldn't offer WHAT? It's woefully obvious, i think, to the reader, and if not it will be in a MOMENT, but Arum is embarrassed to have even slipped this much, so he pulls back from it, going skittish.

[It is far beyond the limits of their arrangement. It is far beyond the limits of what should not be any more than sex.]

Despite the fact that he's been stretching those bounds as much as he can manage, for quite a long time. Gifts, wine, extra affection, and now bringing Damien home with him, too? He wants to treat Damien so well, and he's skirting the edges of what he thinks he's allowed, in order to sneak in some extra care. He doesn't think he can get away with this one, though.

[Damien would never say yes, so- better not to offer in the first place.]

Typical Arum Fatalism. Assume the worst so you won't be disappointed. Don't give people the chance to know what you want, and they won't have the ability to take it from you.

... he doesn't assume that Damien would do this with malice, either, but that almost makes it worse in a way.

["I could... what?" Damien asks, tilting his head just slightly and glancing up at Arum through his absurd lashes. "What is it?"]

Damien doesn't have a fucking clue, though. He's too sleepy and pleased himself to worry about any potential social discomfort, just now.

[Arum swallows, flicks his tail absently, frowns hard enough to curl his lip.]

Hoping vaguely Damien will drop it. Trying to come up with some other alternate excuse, some other thing to suggest that feels less vulnerable. Nothin' doin', tho. Lizard is running out of excuses.

[Damien only waits, though, and after a moment or two, Arum simply- he simply-]

another failed internal thought. He simply can't resist the urge. He simply wants to keep Damien, a little while longer. He simply... hurts.

["Stay," he says, quick and flat and simple, and then he shakes his head and continues in a rush. "The night.]

🥺

good fucking god. alright. Arum asking Damien to stay is something that fucks me up in multiple verses, including canon, which i fucked around with in TTRtBBIDTS (christ, that acronym,). In this case, poor Arum tries to get away with just, spitting it out, saying it as quickly and plainly as he can to ask Damien to stay over, but- it backfires because the simplicity of just asking him to Stay, without modifiers, is ACCIDENTALLY too honest, too vulnerable! of COURSE he wants Damien to stay, that's the entire fucking problem.

But right now, this moment, he wants him to stay the night, and he needs to fumble and race to correct himself, which puts him on the defensive and makes everything else he says come out stilted and rushing and panicked and repetitive.

[If you would like. It wouldn't bother me to- if you did not wish to trudge all the way back to your Citadel in the middle of the night, this time, if you wished to- to use my washroom to bathe, then sleep here and wait for morning-"]

he just BABBLES. he just says too much and not enough and freaks out about it. He says everything and says it just obliquely enough.

[he pauses, grits his teeth, and closes his eyes to help resist the self-destructive urge to watch Damien's face.]

because he doesn't want to watch Damien reject him. fatalist lizard.

["If you want to. You could stay here, tonight. Sleep. Here. If you would like."]

He says it just obliquely enough. Because what he's actually saying is, Please stay. I want you to stay. Stay here with me. I'd rather be with you than alone. He's offering, because offering is less vulnerable than asking.

[There is a pause. Damien's breath stays steady, though his heartbeat kicks a little strangely for a moment before Arum feels his hand brush gently at his shoulder, and then his cheek.]

Damien a) is a little distracted worrying in his own head about what he should do, too, b) recognizes that Arum is uncomfortable, and c) decides to listen to his body, just this once, because it will make the both of them happy, and... that's the point, isn't it? That's why they're sleeping together. Because it's something enjoyable for them both. This doesn't break that rule.

[He hazards a glance back towards the knight, clenching his teeth to keep from growling in anxiety, and when he looks- Damien's face is careful, guarded, calm.]

But Damien is also... fully cognizant of the impropriety of this, beyond their frequent fraternization. He's in Arum's home. he's going to sleep within a gigantic, dangerous, region-defining monster, and he needs to sort of... steel himself against that. He's holding himself very stiff, and Arum knows him well enough by now to recognize it. Which is. bad. because it means that Arum is going to think that Damien is humoring him, with this.

["That might be... well, I suppose- just for one night, I suppose it couldn't hurt, could it?"]

ough. unfortunately, he's following Arum's lead wrt not... speaking directly. He doesn't say, I would like that very much, or, thank you for the invitation. He says "it couldn't hurt." which. ouch. because "it couldn't hurt" summons up a parallel to something Arum said when he agreed to Damien opening their relationship-

"I don't see what it could hurt," he rumbles, and it is only a lie if he counts himself.

Which is true here, as well. It couldn't hurt- except that it does.

[He smiles, just a little, then, and Arum tries not to let it show on his face that it- it does hurt, in fact. Strangely and sharply, like a thorn between his ribs.]

A little taste, just the tiniest crumb of what Arum really wants, and all it does is hurt. It hurts, because it highlights the shape of what he could have, and what he believes he never will. Tormenting himself, like he thought at the beginning of the chapter.

["You brought me all this way, after all. I may as well... I may as well indulge in as much as you are willing to share with me, while I may. When I am well enough to go back to my duties-"]

fucking fuckity OUCH, Damien. He's making the mistake of thinking out loud as he tries to justify himself, referring to his time with Arum as an indulgence, which he says with a hint of moral judgement towards himself, and also bringing up his knighthood! WHILE still laying in Arum's fucking arms! RUDE poet, oh my god.

[He pauses again, his expression stiffening, just a little, and then he looks away.]

Which he does, at least, realize. Damien torments himself, too, with the idea of his treason, but he usually doesn't bring it up with Arum. Not out loud, that's for goddamn sure.

["We will not be afforded so much time together," Arum finishes quietly, "of course. You cannot begrudge my own attempts at indulgence."]

oh, arum....

The thing is, he really isn't just talking about Damien going back to "work", so to speak. Arum is also convinced that his time with Damien is on a death clock because of his relationship with Rilla. That's part of the reason why he's started allowing himself to ask for things or do things with Damien that he wouldn't have allowed himself, before. Like bringing him dinner. Like taking him home. He thinks that any time he sleeps with Damien now might very well be the last, or at least... closing in on the last. He wants to take as much good with him as he can, even if he knows it will hurt more later.

Because he loves Damien, and he wants to give him as much as he can, while he still has the chance.

["No," Damien says, brushing his thumb across Arum's cheek very, very gently. "No, I certainly cannot."]

And Damien doesn't have a clue about all of that, but... he does feel the same about enjoying what time they have together while they still may. He doesn't understand his own feelings, not really (and that'll fuck with some fun stuff later, because Damien misinterpreting his own feelings will have consequences beyond his relationship with Arum), but he does know that he likes spending time with Arum, and he does know that he will be sorry to be gone again, all too soon.

ANYWAYYYYYYYYY thank you so much for asking!!!! i really do love doing these. i hope i sound. coherent.