#i'm going to stop wiffling in the tags and just post the stupid thing

[moiraineswife]

Shadow Fire - A Lucien/Azriel Fic

I wrote this ages ago. I didn’t post it because I meant to edit it. I have not edited it because editing is Hard. I am posting it anyway. Thank @pterodactylichexameter for this not being as bad as it might have been. Onwards. 

Title: Shadow Fire

Summary: Indeterminable time, context is irrelevant, sometime in the middle of ACOWAR, probably, if you need something. No spoilers because everything is vague af. Az and Lucien bang, I have no explanation for why or excuses beyond ‘just because’. NSFW. TW: Mentions of past abuse/child abuse/torture (real cheery fic, clearly) 

Teaser: ‘The first time he had taken Azriel by the hand once more and led him into this room and kissed him again. He had protested hoarsely, the blood, the darkness, the death that clung to him as surely as his shadows had. Lucien had only smiled, leaned in and murmured against his lips that he had been raised by death and bathed in blood from the moment he was born. He was not afraid.’

Link: AO3

There is blood on his hands.

There is blood on his hands and he trembles with the memory of it. He feels it gush over them again and again, as though he has trapped himself in that moment bound to relive it over and over and over again until some dark god claims him for their own.

There is blood on his hands and he can’t bear to look at them. He clenches them into fists and lets them shake by his sides, wreathed in shadows so he doesn’t have to look at them. The pain that comes from the bite of his nails into the stained skin helps dull the echoing screams in his head.

There is blood on his hands but Lucien doesn’t flinch from it. He holds those hands as though they are clean, as though they have never been sullied by violence or pain. He squeezes them in a reassurance that says he knows what they have suffered; what they have done. He meets his eyes in a way that says he understands.

He doesn’t speak. Silence embraces them as its own when they’re alone together. A part of him think that’s why Lucien keeps coming back to him; the silence. With others he feels a pressure to fill it, afraid of letting the conversation stop and stagnate. With others he was always taught that silence was the dangerous time, the calm before the storm.

Azriel had learned that too. His brothers never screamed when they struck him. The screaming came before. There was safety in that cacophony of sound, while they were screaming they had not yet been pushed too far, had not yet snapped. When the silence came...The pain followed.

Lucien knew that as well. They had both been raised in that silence. Lucien had found ways to overcome it. He taught himself to prevent it and distance himself from it. It was a constant, desperate effort; like trying to stop the sea from sweeping across the sand with a brush and a relentless will. Azriel had become the silence itself, had blended into it, had learned to control it, to bend it to his will, to deny it power over him.

He thinks Lucien might be learning that now too.

Lucien moves, leads him by the hand until he finds himself in a darkened bedroom. He could have lit the candles with a half a thought and the fire burning in his veins. He does not. He keeps them bound in blackness, the home of shadows and monsters and the lover he takes to bed.

The door closes behind them, softly, intimately, trapping them inside together. Azriel waits for the instincts to come, the ones that bid him to open the door, to have an exit, to always have an exit, but it doesn’t. He wants to be trapped here with this male, wants there to be no way out, wants to lose himself in this utterly.  

A soft rustle of clothes and then Lucien’s hand is on his cheek, turning his face, and then his lips are crashing against Azriel’s and he isn’t pulling away. He should. He should have pulled away that first time. He should have pulled away every other time after that. He shouldn’t be letting this happen. Again. Again. Again.

Blood still stains his hands but Lucien doesn’t seem to notice or care as they bury themselves in his hair and his tunic and drag him closer, kissing him harder, deeper.

The first time he had returned, blood-stained and a little more broken than he had been before he had left, he had been waiting for him.

The first time he had held his hand Azriel had pulled away, repulsed at the idea of staining another with his sins. Lucien had only cocked his head, eyes of fire blazing in the light caught from the candles that flickered in the room.

The first time he had taken Azriel by the hand once more and led him into this room and kissed him again. He had protested hoarsely, the blood, the darkness, the death that clung to him as surely as his shadows had. Lucien had only smiled, leaned in and murmured against his lips that he had been raised by death and bathed in blood from the moment he was born. He was not afraid.

He is not afraid. He is here. He is holding him, kissing him, claiming him, devouring him. He is sinking into this darkness with him and he is no longer afraid either. He is...His.

Every time he leaves Lucien, all the time between being in his bed and his arms he wonders why he keeps letting this happen, why he keeps giving in to this male over and over again. Then Lucien’s lips are on his again and his scent is choking his lungs and his body is pressed again his and he knows, knows why he keeps surrendering to this; knows why he always will.

Magic burns against his skin and he knows that Lucien has cleansed him, has drawn the blood away from him. His body no longer bears witness to what he’s done this night. His skin is no longer branded with the list of the dead. But he feels it. He feels it.

He must know, must sense it, because his lips are on his again, parting, seeking for his tongue, a demand that must be answered. Azriel closes his eyes and gives it to him, every ragged, raw inch of desperation that’s tearing him apart he presses into that kiss and he doesn’t let himself regret it. Lucien asked for it, Lucien wanted it, Lucien can take it, everything that he needs to give.

Lucien’s own fingers start murmuring at the silver fastenings of his tunic, undoing them one by one. Azriel doesn’t reach out to help but his eyes don’t leave the other male’s slender golden fingers as he opens up the garment. A moment later he’s shrugging out of it, letting the heavy fabric drop to the floor by their feet. Neither of them break their gazes to watch it land.

Lucien drags his lips to his ear, his hair held taught in a hand, his eyes heavy with lust, half-lidded, only a faint sliver of red and gold visible in the faint moonlight. “I want you to fuck me, shadowsinger,” he whispers softly.

His tongue lightly wets his lips, teasing inviting, but Azriel doesn’t move, doesn’t give in to him, doesn’t let him see the trembling desperation inside him that wants to beg for that, doesn’t dare betray the deeper, darker impulse that tugs at him, demands that he press Lucien down onto the mattress and fuck him until he’s screaming. The soft smirk that tugs at the corner of Lucien’s mouth tells him that he knows anyway.

A soft snarl rumbles in Azriel’s chest, silenced when Lucien places the hand not in his hair on his chest. The gesture is intimate, gentle, almost casual, yet it drips with possessiveness all the same. Lust and want and that darkness that tugs at the hidden corners of Azriel’s want find their echoes in the male opposite him. The shadows Lucien’s fire casts inside himself are long and deep and hide almost as many secrets and monsters as his own.

Lucien’s hand slides slowly down his chest, down over his leathers until he reaches his trousers, cups him through them. Azriel doesn’t tear his eyes from Lucien’s as he starts to tease him, doesn’t move, doesn’t react at all save letting out a low hiss, unable to help himself.

As Lucien strokes him through the fabric he starts to harden for him and Lucien’s eyes glint at the feel, at the control he has over him, at how a few light kisses and touches already have him wanting him.“Good,” Lucien praises quietly, the word slipping easily from his lips, pleased at how his body responds to his touch, “Very good.”

Lucien gives a soft tug on Azriel’s hair, drawing his chin up, and a moment later his lips are on his neck, kissing, sucking, biting, trying to tease a sound from him, trying to shatter that control. Az closes his eyes, resists, clenches his mouth shut so tightly a muscle in his jaw feathers. This is the game the play, a game of submission and control, where Az resists him, resists the surrendering that he knows will come eventually, that they both know will come eventually, as long as he can. It lets him cling, just a little longer, to that illusion of control he surrounds himself with, the paper shield that he knows cannot withstand the flames, but that he holds in front of him anyway.

Lucien’s fingers start to work at the straps and buckles of his flying leathers. Az doesn’t stop him, doesn’t protest as he peels them from him. He doesn’t use magic to unseal the sections making room for his wings, using his hands instead, though he’s careful, so careful to make sure he touches nothing but leather as he works. Then Az is standing in nothing but a shirt until Lucien’s fingers are peeling that from him too, exposing his bare chest. He traces the tattoos, he traces the scars, then he meets his eyes once more.

“You will give in to me eventually, you know,” Lucien teases softly, as though reading his mind. Azriel’s eyes follow him as he moves, swaying before him like a snake in long grass, waiting to strike. He moves to the other side of his neck, kisses again, places a line of them up along his jaw, tugging on his hair like a leash to direct his head where he wants it, urging him to lift his chin to allow Lucien better access, letting him suck on his earlobe until he grits his teeth and closes his eyes.

“You know you will,” he purrs, biting gently at the shell of his ear, stroking him a little harder through his trousers. “Because you want me, shadowsinger,” he continues, his tone the perfect blend of casual nonchalance and arrogant certainty. “Don’t you?” he prompts him, nipping at the soft skin of his neck once more, tugging sharply on his hair when he fails to reply, “Answer me.”

It’s not an order. Lucien knows better than to issue Azriel commands in bed, knows that all that will get him is a flat stare and being put firmly in his place. But this...This treads a fine line and Az cocks his head slightly, considering, staring into this fire and gold eyes and weighing, testing, thinking. Lucien’s words are really a question: what do you want, tonight? It’s for him to choose, how he wishes to respond, Lucien will submit to his will, will give him whatever he wants. Either he pushes Lucien down onto the bed with a snarl and fucks him until he can barely breathe or...Or they keep playing this game together.

At last, after a long, heavy silence, Azriel lifts his gaze and looks Lucien deliberately in the eyes as he says quietly, simply, “Yes.”

A slow, heady smile spreads across Lucien’s face in response to that and his eyes dance as he pushes his luck just a little more, “What do you want, Azriel?” The way he says his name sends a faint shiver flickering along Azriel’s spine but he masters himself, keeps control, keeps looking at him, letting him touch him, feeling that familiar pressure start to contract in his stomach as they build towards what’s to come.

“I want you,” he says softly, Lucien growls his approval at that, strokes him a little harder, nods for him to continue. Azriel swallows, wondering, wondering how much to reveal. Somehow, standing here, inches apart, face to face, simply whispering these things to him as they stand eye to eye, is more intimate than simply pressing him down onto the bed and doing them. This involves a slow, controlled baring of his self to Lucien. There is no heat of the moment, no tangle of skin and teeth and sweat dragging him on, not thinking, instinct driving him. This is deliberate. This is intense. This is...Another step that they haven’t taken, that he’s teetering on the edge of, not sure if he wants to take it.

Lucien squeezes his hand and softly murmurs his name, letting his long, deft fingers tug gently, suggestively, at the laces of his trousers. “What do you want, Azriel?” he asks again, not pressing him, not ordering him, not even coaxing him, just giving him another opportunity to respond. The tips of those long, clever fingers whispering back and forth across the slim band of skin he’s exposed at his navel.

Swallowing, Azriel begins softly, “I want you on your knees for me, Lucien.”

Gaze never once faltering Lucien lowers himself to the ground before him, one knee, then the other hitting the solid wooden floor as Lucien kneels before him, a look of something close to reverence in his eyes. Az swallows as a sudden flush of power floods through his system and he feels himself regaining the parts of himself that were lost as he rent his soul apart again with the act of killing this night.

His breathing becomes heavier, dropping into a low pant, and he chooses his words more carefully as he lets one scarred hand slide into Lucien’s thick red hair, teasing it from the strap of leather that had been restraining it, letting it tumble around his fingers.

“Undress me.” The order is quiet but unyielding and hard. Tension tightens in the air between them and Az knows that they both notice the shift, the way Azriel has transitioned smoothly from telling Lucien what he wants while he kissed his neck and stroked his cock and murmured to him; to making demands of the male he has on his knees before him.

“Slowly,” he adds as an afterthought as Lucien moves closer to begin his task. Lucien nods his head once then starts picking at the laces of Az’s boots with deft, sure motions, slowly teasing them open then sliding one free, looking up at him as he lets it drop to the floor with a soft thud. Azriel’s eyes glitter but he gives no further answer. The second follows the first in due course.

Then Lucien rises a little higher on his knees and starts to loosen his trousers, opening the laces further than he’d done when teasing him earlier. Azriel watches in stoic silence, letting the anticipation swell. Already is body knows what will come to it, knows what it feels like to have Lucien’s mouth hot around him, licking and sucking and pleasuring him. He craves it. But the game dictates that they go slowly, that he drag it out, that he make Lucien wait for it; that he make them both wait for it.

Lucien tugs Az’s trousers from his hips, pulling his underwear with them and leaving Az bare before him. He wets his tongue with his lips as he stares at him, then looks up at him again, that russet eye obliterated with black lust. “Can I touch you?” he asks, his voice rough and guttural, his hand half rising where he’d had it braced on his thigh, waiting for Az’s permission before he moves.

“Yes,” Azriel agrees, his voice low, silken.

Lucien takes him in his hand, strokes him slowly, teases him gently with the tip of his thumb and Az closes his eyes, indulges in him for a few long, heavy minutes. Then he says thickly, “Use your mouth.” Lucien inches forwards on his knees, licks him once, hard and slow, then parts his lips and takes him in his mouth. Azriel nods, letting a soft groan drop from his lips, feeling Lucien’s answering sound vibrate through him in turn.

“Let me-“ Azriel says quietly, tugging gently on Lucien’s hair to indicate that he wants to guide his movements on him as they do this. Lucien manages to nod his consent and then Az is drawing him forwards, having him take him as deeply as he can, feeling Lucien brace a hand against his hip to steady himself.

“Good,” he praises softly, then urges Lucien back, controlling his movements, coaxing him into a rhythm that he likes. Lucien closes his eyes, sinks into him, lets him take over entirely, obeying every soft command that Azriel gives him, to use his tongue, harder, like that, again.

Azriel’s mouth drops open after a while, his lips trembling as pleasure starts to thicken and pulse in his core. Breathing heavily he releases the tension from his grip on Lucien’s hair and orders, “Keep going.” He does as he’s told, maintaining the pattern of strokes Azriel had urged him into while he wraps a scarred hand around the pillar of the four-poster bed in front of him, trying to ground himself with the feel of Lucien’s tongue swirling around him as he moves on him.

“Stop.” His voice is soft, barely audible, even in the tender silence of the room, but Lucien obeys at once. His eyes meet Azriel’s, his lips sliding slowly, gently from his cock as he looks up at him, awaiting his next orders.

“Stand up,” Azriel murmurs to him and Lucien again obeys him without hesitation. That heady flush of power is thundering through him again but now he realises that he doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want to feel in control of this male, it reminds him too much of where he was earlier, of what he was and he can’t stand it, can’t take it a second longer.  

As though sensing this, Lucien steps in closer, cradles Azrie’s cheek in his hand and draws him closer, kissing him gently, drawing him out of the pit he had been spiralling steadily down into. “You’re here with me,” he breathes quietly, kissing him again, pressing his tongue against Az’s lips, groaning when they part for him. “I’m yours,” he coaxes, taking one of Az’s scarred hands and placing it on his chest, against the skin the deep, loose v of his shirt exposes. “What do you want?” he whispers again, pressing his body gently against Azriel’s, heat burning where skin meets skin.  

“I want,” Azriel says quietly, lowering his head a fraction, swallowing, “What you want, Lucien.” He lowers his head further, brushes his lips gently against his, shifting his body, softening it, forcing some of the tension out of it as he says, “What do you want?”

Lucien doesn’t waste any time in complying with this sudden change of the game. When his eyes open again they’re calculating, sharp and gleaming and Azriel feels the exact moment the power balance shifts. He knows without a single reservation that one word from Lucien would have him on his knees before him, eager to serve. And this, this lack of control, this submission, this ability to place the power in the hands of another, to have himself utterly exposed and vulnerable, without a scrap of power yet somehow not feeling out of control or unsafe, is a liberation unlike any he has ever felt before and he needs it.

“I told you, shadowsinger,” Lucien croons quietly, “Weren’t you paying attention?” Azriel opens his mouth, to say what he doesn’t know, but then Lucien is sucking on his earlobe again and he’s murmuring thickly in his ear, “I want you to fuck me, Azriel. I want you to fuck me hard,” Azriel lets a soft breath ghost from his lips, landing against Lucien’s skin like a kiss. He smiles, nuzzles against his neck, “Will you like that?” he asks him quietly.

Az nods slowly, his movements feeling thick with the pleasure that’s still throbbing through him from having his cock in Lucien’s mouth. Somehow he knows, somehow, even when Azriel had asked him to demand what he wanted, Lucien knows exactly what he wants, exactly what he needs from him tonight. He needs to be inside him, needs him pressed against the mattress, needs it to be fast and rough and hard.

This what he is, a monster made for this darkness, this kind of pleasure, the kind that teeters on the edges of pain, a volatile blend of the two mixed in the bodies of him and his partner. Lucien knows that. Lucien has spent enough time with him after missions to know how he needs this to be. Knows enough, too, that the self-hatred that’s thundering through him is too strong to let him take that, that he needs to be offered it, needs to be given it, needs, almost, to be ordered to do.

So Lucien gives him that order.

“You’re going to fuck me, shadowsinger,” he promises him, that smooth, silver-tongued voice now sharp as steel and twice as hard. Two fingers slide beneath his chin, tilting his face up, making Az’s lowered eyes meet Lucien’s as he says slowly, easily, “You’re going to push me down onto that bed and hold me there and fuck me hard and fast until we both come screaming, do you understand?”

Azriel nods mutely and a satisfied smirk spreads across Lucien’s face. “Good,” he says, panting, eager as his lifts his chin and looks down at him, wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue. “But first,” he says evenly, his voice softer, steadier, as though he’s forcing a cool calm to settle the fire raging inside him. “First,” he says, stroking his fingers lazily through Azriel’s hair, “You’re going to kiss me as you undress me.”

Azriel obeys him, scarred hands deft and gentle as he pulls the loose white shirt from Lucien’s body, dropping it on the floor. Before he can begin on his trousers Lucien backs up a step, forcing Az to step forwards to match, following him. Lucien smirks and does it again and again Az mirrors him, on and on, back and back and back until Lucien is pressed against the bed, Azriel’s body hard against his.

“Continue,” Lucien simply orders, a little breathless, a moment later. Swallowing Az obeys, kneeling and removing his boots, as Lucien had done for him earlier, then tugging his trousers down from around his narrow hips, then his underwear, baring him.

Az watches as he crawls onto the bed, dragging open the top drawer of the dresser as he does so, making his next order blatantly obvious as he does so. While Lucien positions himself on the bed, pillows beneath his chin, settling on his stomach, waiting for him, Azriel withdraws the small bottle from the drawer and pushes it gently closed, looking up at Lucien.

“Come here,” he says silkily and Azriel climbs up onto the bed, feeling it dip beneath his weight as he moves towards him. Lucien is staring at him over his shoulder and simply raises an impatient eyebrow, jerking his chin at the bottle in his hands.

He pulls the stopper from it and at the sound Lucien buries his face in the pillow in front of him, arching his hips in invitation. Az bites his lip to contain the soft snarl that gathers like thunder in his chest at the sight. Mastering himself he eases forwards and takes his time getting Lucien ready. He had told him that he wanted him to fuck him, hard and fast, but the build up, the torment that’s tugging against the leash of his self-control, is in making this slow, controlled.

Lucien’s next order doesn’t come until Azriel precisely places the bottle on top of the cabinet and it’s as guttural and harsh as it is simple, “Now fuck me.”

This time, Azriel can’t stop the snarl the slips from him as he moves forwards, tilting Lucien’s hips up a little higher for him as he settles behind him. His muscles are tense, body pulled tight in anticipation, his hands are spread flat against the pillows beneath him, not yet gripping them tightly, though he sees how they tremble, in spite of this display of control.  

One hand holds Lucien’s hips, keeping him steady, while he takes himself in the other, giving himself a few strokes, gritting his teeth, then guiding himself to Lucien’s entrance. Habit forces him to pause, just a moment, waiting for that final confirmation, which comes to him in a low, impatient growl torn from the lips of the male beneath him. “I said now, Azriel-“

He breaks off with a low moan as Az nudges forwards, pushing slowly into him until their bodies are pressed flush together and he’s fully sheathed inside him. He stops then, panting heavily himself, letting Lucien adjust to the feel of him inside him. A moment later he’s turning his head to look over his shoulder at him, russet eye dark and gleaming as his lip curls up in a silent snarl. His voice, however, is steady, quiet, dangerously so, when he hisses softly, “I am not fond of repeating myself, shadowsinger.”

Azriel growls in answer to that, pulls out and then pushes roughly back in, making Lucien bark out a harsh curse before he sets a fast, rough pace for them. Closing his eyes he curves forwards, moulding his body around Lucien’s, both hands on his hips, holding him steady against his hard thrusts. He can feel himself getting drunk on the slick sounds he makes inside Lucien, the soft moans and harsh instructions that fall from his lips.

This is bliss. Not to have to think beyond where their bodies are joined. Not to have to feel beyond the pleasure of being inside Lucien, the pain of what he’s done, what it is to have to exist in this battered, broken skin ebbing away slowly as he drowns it out to the tune of Lucien’s pants and groans. Not to exist at all beyond the fact that Lucien needs him, needs him to obey, needs him to follow his commands.

Azriel surrenders himself entirely to this, letting Lucien and his own roaring instincts guide him through this. “That’s it,” he murmurs quietly to him as Az keeps moving in him, fighting to keep his rhythm steady, already feeling himself rising. He presses messy kisses down the length of Lucien’s spine, his eyes still closed, his nails biting into his hips.

“Good,” Lucien grunts out, and the shadows that whisper around him say that he’s gripping onto the sheets in front of him, that his hands are clenched so tightly around the material in front of him that they’re shaking.

Close, he’s starting to get close and this isn’t enough. He wants more. He needs more, he needs that leash of restraint, all that’s holding him back, to tighten and strain until he’s choking on it. As though reading Azriel’s mind again, the order falls thickly from Lucien’s lips a heartbeat later, “Harder.” Azriel lets a faint moan slip through his self-control at that and immediately snaps his hips harder into Lucien’s, gritting his teeth, his breathing coming in ragged pants.

More, more, more.

“Azriel,” Lucien manages to choke out and with difficulty, “Look at me.” Az raises his head from where he’d had it resting against the middle of Lucien’s back. Lucien is looking over his shoulder again, his eyes blazing when Azriel meets them and he wants this, wants their gazes to be locked when he grits out harshly, “Let go.”

Azriel understands the order, understands it because it’s what he needs, in his bones, in that dark pit of caged demons within him that roar to be released that he knows Lucien understands, knows he hears their demands echoing inside him too, but still he hesitates.

A rough snarl tears from Lucien’s throat at the pause, the refusal to immediately carry out his order. A fist slams down onto the pillow in front of him, leaving a deep dent in the soft material as he spits out, “Stop holding back, Azriel, I’m not going to break.”

Azriel closes his eyes as the leash finally snaps.

He rarely does this, rarely lets the darkness coiling inside him win this way. They think they understand, they think they know what lives in because they think they see it on his skin. The scars that mar his hands, the shadows that wreathe his body, murmuring, always murmuring to him, the whispers of darkness that sometimes blur his eyes when something drags him back into the hell that he had grown up in.

They know nothing. Because they don’t know this. They don’t know what lurks inside him, what roars and pleads and screams and drags its claws against his nerves on nights like this, desperate to be unleashed.

Lucien...Lucien knows. Because Lucien has a monster of his own inside him and one day...One day, Azriel is sure, he will it unleashed upon him. And he is not afraid of that.

Lucien looses a hoarse cry as Azriel slams into him over and over and over again. Without thinking, blind and deaf to everything that isn’t the roaring of his instincts driving him towards his climax, Azriel reaches beneath Lucien, taking his cock in his hand and stroking him through the final moments of this. Close, fuck, he’s close, and a part of him knows that Lucien is too. The other part, the part that’s tearing itself further and further from his control, doesn’t give a damn.

Lucien shouts something that might have been his name, urging him on and Azriel growls, burying his face against his back once more, his entire body shaking with need as he draws them both closer and closer. Dimly, as though it’s little more than an echo from another world, he hears Lucien’s voice issue one final command, thick with pleasure and pain, “Come, Azriel.”

Even lost to his own surrender, Azriel obeys the order that’s given to him. With a roar he finishes inside Lucien, strokes him through it as he does and feels him tense and climax seconds later, reaching back to clutch at his shoulders, his nails leaving raw marks down the length of his bicep, the red stark against the black of his tattoos, as he does so.  

Azriel remains frozen for a long moment, slowly collecting himself, piecing himself slowly, carefully back together. Once he’s settled out a little, though still breathing as though he’s just stepped from a killing field, he’s gentle as he pulls out of Lucien. Magic ripples through the air and when they collapse down onto the bed beneath them it’s dry and clean, as are they.

They don’t reach for one another. Azriel makes no move to hold Lucien, to comfort him in the aftermath of what he’s just done to him. Lucien doesn’t try to help him as he struggles with the monster he has become. They simply lie there, the room full of the sounds of their heavy breathing as they both attempt to recover. They know what they are to each other. They are not lovers, not partners, barely even friends. They understand one another and they have sex because it helps. Because they’re at war and this fucked up mess is too hard to deal with without a little escapism every now and then.

There are no feelings, no tenderness, and even less desire to care for one another.

Az does rasp hoarsely, a hand over his eyes, waiting for his sluggish body to regain enough strength for him to slink back to his own chambers, cool and free of the scent of sex, “Are you alright?”

Lucien huffs a soft laugh and Az lifts his hand, turning his head to look at him, judging his response. Lucien’s lips only quirk into a rough smirk as he says lazily, “I told you I wouldn’t break.” Azriel stiffens slightly at this response, his jaw tightening and he seems to notice because his voice drops, softening just a little, though his tone is as casual as before when he insists blithely, “I’m fine, don’t fuss.”

Azriel nods and they lay in silence for a few long moments, Az nudging his shadows towards Lucien to assure himself that he really is as fine as he claims. Satisfied but feeling something heavy starting to form and twist in his gut, he drags his heavy limbs from the bed. The nightmares will come soon, and he has no intention of sharing those demons with Lucien.  

The other male watches him from the bed, not moving, as he slowly pads around the room, picking up his clothes and pulling them on again. Without hesitating he heads to the door. He doesn’t intend to look back, doesn’t intend to make this anything more than it is but he pauses in the open doorway and looks over his shoulder.

He doesn’t meet Lucien’s eyes but he feels him still, waiting, listening, as he says, voice raw, “Thank you.”

Azriel winnows into shadow and oblivion without giving Lucien a chance to reply.

****