[ The little taste of Azem's job he'd gotten over the years was plenty. While he could, while he did travel the shards, taking note of what was found to later show Hythlodaeus and Azem, he was better utilized as Emet-Selch. He certainly didn't have the patience of Azem, nor the disposition required. ]
The star can keep itself together for an evening. [ He almost sounds like he believes it when he says that, even. The star survives each night that they rest, each night they don't spend feverishly searching for the next option. He does not imagine it would be any different if they choose to spend their evening not entirely asleep. Much as it pains him to admit one can, in fact, take time for leisurely activities, the distraction is not wholly unwelcome.
And Viktor is, undeniably, a distraction. Just as Emet-Selch starts to work the thought over in his mind - duty, responsibility, the weight shared but still immensely heavy - Viktor steals a kiss from him and Emet-Selch cannot let it go unanswered, unaddressed, hungry to see what other noises the two of them can wrest free from Viktor. ]
Don't coddle. [ Emet-Selch doesn't quite wither under the too-understanding gaze, but he does scowl, imposing were it not for the fact his lips keep rebelling, Viktor's easy laughter and levity and incredibly bad jokes not entirely ineffective. ] I'm not struggling. Struggling implies - I am not.
[ He is, in fact, struggling with the reality of the answer he doesn't give: he's startled by the depths of his want. At how much he could want, when he allowed himself even the vaguest consideration. He wants what he once considered impossible and in the form he'd imagined it, it was; that time is past. But the shape of this new want, how easy it is, will take some getting used to.
Emet-Selch nearly misses the question, focused on thoughtlessly stroking fingers where he'd dug in earlier, marveling at the fact that Viktor's touched him throughout this entire process and the little jumps of disgust, of guilt, have been so far to the back of mind as to nearly be forgotten. Being pedantic is undoubtedly easier than focusing on any of those revelations, and so Emet-Selch lifts both eyebrows and asks, ]
I don't know, hero, would it? I am, for most intents and purposes, yours to command as you see fit.
[ Despite the colorful choice of word, Viktor's voice is too soft, too fond by half, hewing far closer to something more like I love you, that last sharp T clipped in his haste to catch Hades's mouth with his own. One firm, insistent kiss, the weight of his body thrown into it, until Emet-Selch is flattened back against the bed.
He draws away, less than an ilm. Purrs, between light brushes of lips against Hades's mouth and jaw, ]
Mine. To command or coddle as I see fit.
[ Viktor shifts, sitting straight and drawing one knee up to press against Hades's chest, pinning him in place. Predator quiet, Viktor studies him, memorizes the way his hair falls around his face, the set of his shoulders pressed into blankets, the look on his face from above. Coddling and commands, restraint and unbridled want - talk of those things can be saved for later, when the flame kindled low in Viktor's belly doesn't make any words at all half impossible to get out.
Once he's satisfied that he's committed the sight of Hades conquered beneath him to memory, Viktor slips his pinning leg ilms forward, over his shoulder - all the grace of an acrobat. ]
Now-
[ After softly exhaled breath, unsuccessfully trying to slow the rabbit pace of his heart, Viktor climbs forward, one palm flattening on Emet-Selch's stomach at he moves, dragging fingernails up to his chest, until he is settled, knees grazing ears, his other hand threading into long platinum hair. ]
You are going to p-put that lovely mouth of yours to work on something other than sass.
[ They have such hideous curses here. Emet-Selch does not point this out because he is behaving, but maybe he'll teach Viktor a swear or two from Amaurot just to never have to hear gobshite again.
He finds himself tumbled back a little too easily when distracted by a kiss, chasing the taste of wine in Viktor's mouth - no leverage to stay upright, tipped back into the bed with laughably little force as Viktor chases him, leans over and looks him over, a predator with his prey. It is, Emet-Selch finds, a novelty to be looked at so. To be so wholly out of control of the series of events, to make no effort to machinate or plan or orchestrate past getting to a bed instead of letting them prune in the bath. ]
A little more of the former, a little less of the latter if y-
[ He knows, abstractly, about a circus, about the implications of the circus, but it's one thing to know a fact and something else entirely to see it demonstrated with such clarity, ilms away. One leg settles, Emet-Selch taking a hand away from Viktor long enough to gather his hair back, twisting it out of the way so Viktor doesn't put weight on loose strands. Task complete, his hands make their way back to Viktor's bare skin wherever he can touch, while Viktor drags nails up his chest, little lines of heat and awareness that are not unpleasant in the slightest. Were he willing to allow himself the indulgence, he might even wish for more, later. ]
You may be frustrated to know I do not need my mouth to speak.
[ There are countless enchantments to project thought to spoken word; Emet-Selch knows over half of them, and could likely look up any he does not. That is not what he wants to do right now, though, not when confronted with Viktor knelt above him glistening, mint and soap and the heavy scent of want hanging thick in the air. Weeks ago, Viktor'd had specific instructions. Be in the moment, not in his own head. Touch, taste, breathe. Commands he finds himself all too happy to obey, curving one arm and bending it at the elbow so he can splay a hand on his waist while the other traces a line idly up and down the back of Viktor's calf.
He doesn't need to worry about wanting more than his due, doesn't need to concern himself with too much when Viktor rests atop him, able to remove himself should he need to. He must only concern himself with putting his mouth to use at the task at hand. At mouth, he thinks despairingly; Viktor's horrific sense of humor has rubbed off on him.
Coaxing Viktor to finally settle with faint pressure on his hip, Emet-Selch finds the motion - however quick - too slow and leans up to press a kiss against the inside of a thigh, another, another, until he finally gives into what they both want and allows himself to be as ravenous as someone twelve thousand years without could be. He tastes, he eats, he savors as instructed. Emet-Selch may be out of practice with the actual mechanics in practice but he had paid fervent attention to how Viktor enjoyed touching himself. Listening to the noises Viktor makes and adjusting is no hardship, and the scent and taste of Viktor's want heavy in the air makes the wine they'd been sharing seem barely better than vinegar. He finds himself making a noise, a hungry, pleased moan - no pressure against his cock save the fleeting one of the towel, nothing but the relief of a want he hadn't dared acknowledge finally, finally in the process of being sated. ]
[ It's been a while. Not so long that he has the luxury of claiming an eras-spanning devotion to one (or two) soul(s), unfortunately. Just long enough to be embarrassed by how hotly sensitive his skin is, how he has to stifle another whine when Emet-Selch's fingers press to the skin of his hip, how impossible it is to recall the sense memory of being on the receiving end of such attention, instead of giving, before it happens.
Let it never be said that Viktor cannot roll with the proverbial punches, though. He accepts with some trepidation that he can no longer imagine what to expect, and catches himself approaching the encounter as he might any battle - tense, hyperaware. But even resignation does not adequately prepare him for the feel of lips pressed to his thighs, moving higher as he settles. There is music in his breath when he sighs. ]
If you- If you m-must- [ A little gasp slips out of him, his composure falling to pieces despite his best efforts. Words escape between siezed breaths as Hades's mouth finds its mark, tongue splashing bright, twinkling color across Viktor's senses. ] If you want to complain so- ah- s-so badly, you are only allowed to do so if you- oh.
[ Viktor's fingers curl into the duvet, knuckles clenched near to white around fabric as he leans into the lapping of Hades's tongue. His lack of practice means little when he so diligently responds to each panting whimper that steals from Viktor's lips. ]
Lift our veil if you've more to complain about. Otherwise- [ He means it to sound teasing, flippant, but the intent is swallowed up in a low hum of pleasure. The hand not clinging to the bed for purchase grasps a handful of Emet-Selch's hair as Viktor rocks himself against his mouth, heat between his thighs building, climbing up his spine, until he's forgotten what he'd meant to say at all. ] That. Keep- keep doing-
[ Emet-Selch's muffled moan reaches Viktor's ears, sound wholly unexpected, and they lop back against his curls as lightning zings from his stomach up to his throat. Viktor lasts precisely five seconds more before he shudders, shoulders to feet, toes curling as he chokes out a sound somewhere between a curse and his lover's name. His thighs clench, fingers tightening in platinum hair, and he presses down, buckling over as he comes. He's barely caught his breath, still doubled over, before he urges, ] Keep- k-keep going.
[ That's a level of articulateness that he is not necessarily best pleased with when it comes to his performance, but the sound of Viktor's breathy exhale, the hitch to his words, the sting from the clench of his hand in Emet-Selch's hair, well. He supposes he cannot be performing too poorly, judging by the noises he wrests from the other man.
For a petty moment, he thinks to utilize one of several enchantments to throw one's voice but the urge fades just as soon as Viktor gives voice to needy instructions. The hand grasping Viktor's hip skims upward, feeling the tight line of his stomach clenching and his skin's warmth like it's not enough to stay still; he has to touch as much of Viktor as he can.
He could lift the veil. Even as distracted as he is, he thinks he could manage to raise but a corner, and maybe later he will when the novelty of a simple healing spell restoring them has faded. For now, he finds he's far too hungry for the tactile way, drinking in the sight of Viktor curling in on himself, flushed and needy because of him. He's made a wreck of him over countless lifetimes; this type of wreck is undeniably his favorite.
Would that he did not have to breathe, though. Viktor's thighs clench, his hips jerking and Emet-Selch makes a low, pleased noise in response, smoothing his hand down Viktor's flank content to work until his jaw and tongue ache and then do it all over again until Viktor tells him to stop. He lifts his head just long enough to breathe, interrupting the ragged intake of air with a wet kiss smeared against the inside of Viktor's thigh, and then adjusts his grip, shifts his weight on the bed and returns to his task with ruthless enthusiasm.
He does not lift a full edge so much as he does nudge the toe of a shoe beneath the hem and raise it incrementally. Enough that Viktor is made privy to a swell of feelings - a hunger he hadn't dared acknowledge for thousands of years, sated. A frisson of worry that he won't know when he's indulged too much, a brief, flickering emotion that feels like same kind of pure clarity Zodiark brought; a certainty in the shape of Viktor. A desire to execute this well - the briefest hint of amusement, a flicker of smut read over the years, glossed over. Distantly, there is surprise, too; surprise he could enjoy being this bare, surprise he hasn't overthought his way into a pit. ]
[ Stars cling to the corners of Viktor's vision, no sign of clearing as Emet-Selch again obeys his increasingly ragged commands and promptly robs him of the will to argue further. Words give way to little more than fluttered breaths, threaded through with bright, encouraging murmurings. Viktor's nails traces spirals against Emet-Selch's scalp, combing through his hair at a frantic pace, too firm to be strictly gentle.
Finally, finally he allows himself the luxury of being wholly present. Unfussed with the room's entry and exit points, careless about how loud he moans when Hades's mouth settles on his prick, forgetting entirely to brace for the next sudden hurt, the next unwanted surprise fate has in store. There is no end of the world. No greedy princelings. No infernal blue bird or ruined Seas. No needy masses. There is just this, just the two of them. Just light and sound and feeling. A knight sorcerer's calloused hands skimming his skin, cupping his body, taking measure of his shape and fitting neatly wherever they land. The dizzying levin zing of being licked and sucked and savored, fire building anew in the pit of his belly.
The hand not tangled in Hades's hair slides up into his own. Fingers catch on damp curls, drag down over neck and chest and stomach to splay over white fur, opening himself further as he leans into Hades's busy mouth with a low, cracking moan. His hips rock, finding rhythm to match Emet-Selch's ministrations, making him taste the spot Viktor likes best.
And then Hades lets him in, their veil hiked up as dancer's skirts, just a glimpse, enough to leave Viktor groaning, ecstatic, impatient with his inability to latch onto any one feeling as it flits by his awareness. His own emotions flood. Each one bright oil paint spilled across an incandescent canvas, too big, too vivid to have any clear definition. Rust red want makes a fine backdrop for brighter reds and twinkling gold, a slurry of hot pleasure softer feeling. Warm colors of comfort and safety, of home - and the silver white shock of how unfamiliar such a concept feels - blooming like little flowers in a more frantic field of clay. And between, silhouette glimpses of what he'd like next - held and explored with eager hands, atop, tangled together, bent and pressed into bed sheets, filled, drowned in this feeling, in Hades. Devoured.
Viktor feels his pleasure peak, a flood of lightning across his senses. He clenches his jaw, breathes and straightens, stretching his legs, breaking contact, to stop himself from toppling over the edge again. ]
Hades. [ Viktor closes a shaking palm around the back of one of Emet-Selch's hands, voice gone reedy. ] Ride you. L-let me ride you.
[ At least he's adequately positioned to watch, like this. Even when not attempting to put on a show, Viktor commands his attention. A bone-deep satisfaction fills him the more Viktor moves, the more he demands to be pleased takes what he doesn't know he's practically owed after countless lifetimes of Emet-Selch's far less gentle ministrations. Viktor is owed, Emet-Selch thinks wryly, countless evenings of this and it would never come close to evening out the scales.
It is not so bad to make the attempt, though; especially not when Viktor parts himself where he's blush-dark and wet and Emet-Selch doesn't bother to hide the pleased, low noise threatening to be a moan as he tilts his head in response to Viktor's obvious indication of where he should be. The clench, the shudders herald a second peak and Emet-Selch allows his head to rest back against the pillow, allows himself a proper breath and then goes back to nosing at the soft insides of Viktor's thigh. ]
Ah. [ Emet-Selch gives into the indulgence, presses teeth to flesh just to see warm, dark skin grow rosy with the imprint of his teeth, and then looks up at Viktor, indulgent. ] We'd find some difficulty there but not for lack of...enthusiasm.
[ Emet-Selch melts back into the bed, stretching one of the arms he'd contorted awkwardly to touch more of Viktor, flexing individual fingers and then just as soon as it's done brings them back like he cannot bear to stop touching if the option is made available to him. ]
If you require something inside you, that can be easily arranged.
[ The fingers tracing idle arcane marks against Viktor's thigh pauses in the motion pinky to index finger tapping in a slow order. ]
There are, you may be unsurprised to learn, spells to serve the same function but without the pesky flesh and blood cooperation bit. It has been an age but I am fairly certain I still recall them.
[ Basking in what slips under the veil from Viktor's side like a cat in sunlight, the only thing trade in return is loose-limbed, lazy satisfaction, and the edge of hunger, the awareness that once was not going to be enough, and Viktor is right there, close enough it would be a trifle to lean up, to pull Viktor's hips back down. ]
[ Clear thought turns slippery, dreamlike, as Viktor drifts back down from climax. He is aware, passingly, of the shaking of his own legs, hiking up to a quiver when Hades, insatiable, presses mouth and tongue and nose against them once again. He grasps for the echo of that low growl of pleasure slipping from Hades's mouth, muffled by the steady grind of Viktor's hips; that will be a heady distraction for moons to come. How will he see to anything successfully now, knowing he could be doing this, instead? His every want welcomed, relished with such greed. And with the veil lifted, with certainty making a sun of him in Emet-Selch's eyes, not even his buzzing bees can sow their usual doubt and fear.
It almost beggars belief, not merely being wanted, but feeling addictive. Not as the Warrior of Light, not as Azem - just Viktor. So fervently desired that the man who'd spent ten thousand years touching nothing cannot keep his hands off of him. A little deliriously, Viktor snickers at the realization that the Sharlayan's many planning meetings will no longer be such an unbearable bore. And in the next second, he decides that the only way he will ever be productive again is to run them both ragged tonight.
And then Hades's teeth sink into soft, warm skin, stealing another sharp sound - as much a laugh as a moan - from him, and everything is promptly forgotten. He lets the hand tangled in Hades's hair slip down to cup his face. Viktor tips Hades's chin back, taking a long, slow moment to admire the length of his neck, the wet shine around his perfect mouth. Delicious, that faint quirk at the corners of his lips. Just enough of an angle to be impossibly smug, made more delectable for the fog of Hades's own gratification hanging on the edges of Viktor's awareness.
He makes no effort to hide his own emotions, nor the way his awareness creeps right up to the barrier, searching. There's nothing sour in that admission of difficulty, and while Viktor can't quite hide his own hot, hungry impatience, there is an immeasurable relief there, too. No need to reassure - it is a certainty, an inevitability. And there's plenty else they can do in the meantime. ]
I want you. [ He shivers again at the working of Hades's fingers, slips his own over Hades's lips, nudging them into his mouth, lighting on his tongue. ] S-something of your aether, I mean. I want to f-feel you.
[ The aether of Emet-Selch, permeating, cold, yes. He still remembers the feel of being surrounded, filled by it, wrenched back into his body after spending too much of his own aether. He near aches for it. ]
But first- [ Viktor draws away from Hades's mouth. Uses the hand to brace himself against a bedpost. ] -bite me again.
Should I be concerned about that flicker of mischief I felt?
[ Indulgent, molasses slow. He cannot remember the last time he felt like this - the electric hot current of want still very much there, but sated, contented in some way he has otherwise not been in ages. There's a danger to this; too much indulgence, and well. He's seen what that can do without moderation, thinks a moment later about the casual comment very Allagan of us, drinking with Viktor and the warmth of Viktor's amusement, his pleasure burns the shadow out before it even has time to settle.
Viktor tips his chin back and Emet-Selch allows it, looks up at him through a lidded gaze, the smirk still teasing at his lips. ]
I've gathered, needy thing. [ He says it like a compliment, like a pet name, and accepts the press of fingers into his mouth with a slow, soft breath out around them, and daring, once again, to indulge. To suck, to lavish just as much attention on his fingers as he wants to anywhere else Viktor will deign to allow. He listens to the request, Viktor withdrawing his hand a moment later and Emet-Selch lifts an eyebrow. He'd intended to nip at his fingers, but with them removed he settles for a faint, unsatisfying little nip against Viktor's thigh once again. ]
Specifics, if you please, lest there be too much room for creative interpretation. You would like me to bite you again where? You wish to feel my aether, where? [ The bed creaks beneath them and Emet-Selch, irritatingly, misses their bed - the bed back in the Crystarium. He could make it again here but that would be far too telling and he need not be ridiculous about his indulences. ] So, let's have it, hero. Specifics.
[ The last time he says specifics, it's annunciated precisely, a little pause between each syllable, a tap of his fingers upon Viktor's bare skin. ]
'Twould be best, yes. [ Light, leveled with a grin. He has no specific plans just yet, but when does he ever? Knowing those words alone could spin up mystery enough to set Emet-Selch's gears to turning, trusting that he can make himself an entertaining distraction when the work that needs doing is of the busy variety, is a very specific jolt of pleasure that leaves Viktor's smile curling. Even that hint of color fading is gratifying, the moment it is swallowed up in fire renewed.
How he loves the idea of testing that will and winning.
Not that Viktor is innoculatd, himself. Needy thing, Hades calls him, and the words are honey. His tongue brushes the pads of Viktor's fingertips, and Viktor shuts his eyes, lingering in the feeling of his pulse dropping to his stomach again.
Fleetingly he thinks of a Light-drenched thread upon the weave. One he knows exists by sense, where his had been the weaker will, where not even Meteion's song permeates absolute stillness. Another Emet-Selch, still drown in Zodiark's dark despite the brightness he keeps and cossets, bridled only just, because the beast allows it. Emet-Selch's needy thing, his creature, across time, across reflections, across iterations of reality.
Viktor vastly prefers this one. Less chilling despite the cold. Where the closest thing to tempering is the two of them unable to stop touching each other, forging their own destiny, finding their own duty, driving each other mad. He huffs when Emet-Selch's teeth graze his thigh, catches his cheek in his hand before he can get away again. He'd meant for it to be playful, but the light touch, the soft gaze Viktor points at him, is a little too baldly adoring - even the flicker of fire in response to Hades's pedantry is fond.
Specific.
Viktor settles, sitting on Emet-Selch's chest and lazing back against his stomach. Seconds pass in silence, but it is not an empty, waiting quiet - it buzzes with the work of thinking as Viktor tries to grasp his own desire, chisel the fiery feeling down to something more specific than him, him, him.
Eventually, he props himself back up, enough to lock mismatched eyes on that glowing lamplight gaze. ]
On my th-thigh. Either one. Surprise me. Just low enough that the mark you leave might sh-show beneath the edges of shorts or smalls.
[ It is far too cold in this fissured reflection to wear anything so light outside of one's quarters, and such a mark surely would heal before they were in warm climes again, but the thought sits like fire, nonetheless. ]
And as for your aether- [ Viktor arches a brow, teasing smile creeping audibly into his voice as he sits back up properly. ] Anywhere you can fit it, my Aubergine.
[ But he is supposed to be specific, and so after a pause spent shaking off frankly unnecessary nerves, Viktor reins in his smile and presses his palms to the high point of his neck. He drags his hands down slowly, over chest and stomach, down to the dip between his thighs, fingers framing all the spots he wants Hades's attention. Then, with a shuddered breath, he says, ] Engulf me, embrace me with it. Then inside of me, from here. Slow. [ A pause, he shuts his eyes, wills himself to say the last bit. ] A-and use my name. S-say my name.
[ Viktor settles atop him with nary a care and Emet-Selch braces with an exhale that has the edge of a laugh within; sat upon like common furniture. The indignity would have made the not-so-old version of him burn with an entirely different sort of heat. ]
You're likely to lose an extremity simply exiting your bedroom, here. Linger too long and you may just freeze to the bare stone.
[ Viktor's secondary command is not nearly precise enough for Emet-Selch's liking, but then Viktor elaborates and Emet-Selch's mind rolls over a dozen different options and discards each of them on the basis of assuming Viktor was asking for less than he was. Emet-Selch watches the path of Viktor's hands with rapt attention, only centuries of court of various types allowing him to keep a still expression when Viktor makes his last request.
Of course. Whether or not Viktor noticed the use of a nickname and was gently calling him out on it or it was nothing so complicated: he simply wanted the last layer between them removed; it did not matter. Viktor had asked, and so he would acquiesce. He has questions but holds them back for the time being, obeying the easiest request first with a snap. Viktor's shorts from home find themselves upon his body for an instant, long enough for Emet-Selch to judge where they fall and then vanish with a second snap, Emet-Selch's hands tugging Viktor where he needs to be in order for him to obey Viktor's request.
He is single-minded in his execution of the ask, leaving not one mark, but several, littered about the lines where his smalls or shorts might not just show it but actively rub against, a constant, consistent awareness of the bruises, of Emet-Selch pressed into his skin, unignorable.Once he's satisfied, he lifts a hand from Viktor enough to flick his wrist; the fires within the room swell and grow, and the shadows yawn deeper, darker in turn, until as one, they lick their way across the ground, drawn toward Emet-Selch's hand.
The room heats incrementally as the flames burn hotter, and Emet-Selch draws the shadows around Viktor like a cloak, if a cloak could cling cooly to the flesh it touches rather than drape upon it. Another snap, and both of them find themselves rearranged on the bed, Viktor knelt above him but straddling just above his still towel-clad waist, and Emet-Selch lounged against the pillows with his legs firmly on the bed rather than dangling off.
He twirls a finger in the shadows draped over Viktor's shoulders and winds what he plucks around his palm, twisting and holding what he's gathered like a leash, tugging him in with the weight of the shadows behind the motion, not bothering to lean up to meet him. It is, he thinks, stretching idly beneath Viktor as he's held near immobile with gentle threat, nice to be able to show off once in a while. ]
Lest you make up a story in that pretty head of yours, these spells were not originally conceived for such uses.
[ Originally, he'd intended it for use in natural disasters - a rockslide, for example. Moments where Azem would not have access to light, and the sun could not be brought forth until morning. There is no pang across the veil as Emet-Selch has the thought. It is a momentary spark of fondness, followed by surprise at the lack of sting to the memory's edges. ]
[ A blink, a laugh. Viktor stares down at familiar shorts, there and gone too fast to even remark upon their presence. As Emet-Selch repositions him, Viktor attempts to soldier on, more laughter shaking his shoulders at the delightful absurdity of it all. He wriggles, thinking to help scoot into better place, but mostly just making a momentary nuisance of himself. ]
-I s-suppose it will- [ Teeth sink into soft skin. Viktor gasps, his laughter lowering, a dark, pleased little sound, turning into something not unlike a setting sun. The first of what will be several more bruises rises to blush his ochre skin, and he gets a little distracted admiring it, admiring the look of concentration on Hades's face as he leans in to mark him again. Viktor's voice thins, distant, too focused on watching Emet-Selch brand his skin with more nipping kisses. ] -have to be- oh -just for the t-two of- fuck, Hades.
[ With diligent application of rough fingers and softer mouth, Emet-Selch shakes his will. Viktor dips his head, ears falling forward as he breathes through another bite and then another. It will be impossible to pull on his trousers tomorrow, impossible to walk around this foolish fortress, without thinking of - feeling - Hades's signature upon his thigh, without daydreaming about what he will demand of the most eminent Emet-Selch tomorrow night and the night after that.
He grasps, urgent, thinking to forego anything fancier than pressing Hades's mouth against him until he's eaten both their fill again. Before he can commit to giving up the greater prize, though, the hearth roars to life anew. There is a snap, and Viktor's position has changed again.
He presses a palm against Emet-Selch's chest to steady himself, grinning like mad at the easy show of magic, but before he can do more, before he can even compute just how warm the room has grown, he is embraced by familiar, permeating cold. Across back and shoulders, down his arms and legs, his skin prickles to gooseflesh. The soft, fine fur on his arms and stomach stands as Viktor quakes, a whole body shiver that shakes a shuddering sigh out of him.
Instinct makes him resist. Just a flare of tensed muscles and fear, riding the flicker of remembered feeling - this selfsame shadow wreathing and binding him, meaning to press the life and Light from his lungs until that incandescence spilled out. Now, what had been meant to harm holds, and he relaxes into the chilling embrace. Something dangerous made darkly sweet, decadent as bitter chocolate.
Viktor stills, shuts his eyes, and tries something he's never done before - grasps the thread of his own memory and pulls, passing dreamlike through what must be a thousand bodies, 'til he catches glimpses of feeling, of thought and taste and smell, far too fragmented to be memories properly. Sun and moon, entangled. A densely freckled body, wreathed in darkness, pressing lines into fair skin with golden thread. Just a taste of the twining of shadow and light, and even these slivers, matched to Hades's aether enveloping him, feel like fitting something lost back into place. Icy indigo used to heal the broken parts of his kintsugi soul.
Opening his eyes only just, Viktor looks through lashes at Hades laid out beneath him. ]
Far be it from me to j-judge a Sorcerer of Eld for finding creative ways to use his m-magic. [ One corner of Viktor's mouth tugs up. ] I thought I told you to fill me, Hades, not t-torment me from two fulms away. Or shall we test Light and Dark again?
[ He could, he thinks, have a go at conjuring those glowing braids. Lasso his sorcerer in to close the distance between them, perhaps. That would take considerable effort, though. And he finds he rather likes being leashed by the most eminent Emet-Selch - far more than he'd thought he would, all those many, many moons ago upon the First, at least. ]
Oh? This is torment? I think, perhaps, you have not been properly tormented in the past if this is what you believe is torment.
[ Easy, to slide back into the position of being in charge. To orchestrate, to machinate, to take what he wants from a situation. Easier still when he knows beyond a shadow of doubt that Viktor wants as much, if not more than Emet-Selch does. Viktor's skin prickles and Emet-Selch chases the reaction with hands and mouth, grazing kisses over skin, the shadows parting for him thoughtlessly.
He feels when Viktor tenes, stills, waiting the few moments that feel like they stretch out forever until Viktor settles into this, into the chill weight of darkness spun into cloth draped around him. He feels the moment Viktor goes somewhere else, the moment a memory of his own. How many times did Aepymetes sit there, present, but not at the same time. It does not seem nearly as strong, as overwhelming as Aepymetes' visions, but for a brief second of time Viktor is there but not, and then he returns, looking down at Emet-Selch.
Insanely, he doesn't want that to happen again. He wants Viktor here in the present no matter how traitorous he would have previously believed having that thought to be. ]
You asked, and I am loosely quoting, for me to engulf and embrace you. [ Which, he has. The room burns with brightness, all the shadows stolen from within, spun to rest atop Viktor's shoulders. Emet-Selch lounges, petting over the malms of bare skin beneath his fingers, shadows starting to creep behind the wake of his touch when he begins speaking again, his fingers stroking just above the thatch of hair between Viktor's thighs, ] Then inside of you, from here.
[ Gauzy, insubstantial as they are, they seem to grow heavier, stronger when Emet-Selch focuses, warming as they swell between Viktor's thighs and then ease upward; the chill remains for everywhere the shadows touch above his waist, but below it takes a thoughtless little charm to at least keep them the same approximate warmth as their bodies as the shadows obey Viktor's earlier command. Against the narrow line of Viktor's waist, Emet-Selch's fingers twitch and swirl against skin, a conductor at the head of his orchestra, the shadows nestling, filling Viktor with gradual warmth. The hand not in the process of directing the spellwork he angles only a little awkwardly to fit between Viktor's thighs, tracing fingers over where he's parted, stretched around the insubstantial made tangible, slick fingers starting to rub slow, intent circles where his mouth had worshipped earlier. ]
You had, at risk of being pedantic, said anywhere they could fit, as well.
[ As if he doesn't enjoy being pedantic any chance he gets. There is a question with no expectation behind its answer there, Emet-Selch's shadows pausing even when the slow, steady circles of his fingers do not. ]
[ A defiant little laugh slips from Viktor's lips. He shuts his eyes, relishing this new sensation, cold darkness chased away by the warmth of Hades's hands and mouth. Intoxicating, to feel so much at once, to allow himself the luxury of enjoying being obeyed. No reluctance, no complaint, no guilt - just fervor met with fervor.
His muscles twitch as Emet-Selch's hand drifts lower — that pause, so close, drags an impatient sound out of the back of his throat, but he needn't wait long. A second later, matching the pace of Hades's molten sugar voice, the shadow, all that aether, presses up, presses in, and Viktor voices his most ecstatic approval with a slow, sighing moan. He leans back, letting shadow hold him, half delirious from the feel of being so wholly surrounded, so gently touched. Viktor bucks into Emet-Selch's fingers as they settle into place, murmuring his name barely a whisper.
His eyes open only just at this next question, the implied suggestion zinging levin up his spine. Yes, stars, yes, anywhere. He wants to be surrounded, stuffed, fucked senseless. His lips part, a shuddered breath escapes.
But he has waited weeks, moons, for exactly this, too. Touched and tasted and loved with such specific care. His own pleasure demanded, and Emet-Selch, Hades, chasing it with the sort of eager reverence typically reserved for religious fervor. Every shiver, every little noise, every urgent press into friction, devoured like something holy. Answered in turn with that unbearably perfect smirk of his and the dark, delicious sounds he makes.
As gods have worshippers. Viktor's indeed.
And he wants to live in every second of it; memorize how slight he feels set upon Emet-Selch's hips, a world-shaking warrior reduced to little more than panting breath and bright whispers of approval, each grasping hand and low moan from Hades in answer, every brush of lips and fingers, the shape of his body memorized like scripture. To say nothing of the electrifying press of Hades's aether inside him as he is coaxed slowly toward greater pleasure.
This, this - it leaves him nearly delirious. They will have more time later - they will have centuries, later - to push further, to drive each other to breaking in other, wilder ways. And though it sounds unbearably delicious, what he wants all the more is simply to be loved.
Viktor tries to say as much, to give voice to his thoughts, but Emet-Selch's shadows still, and between that warm and insistent fullness and the maddeningly slow ministrations of his fingers, what escapes in place of words is a frankly vulgar groan. Pleasure twinkles, exploding stars across his awareness, swirling light and gold slipping past their barrier. Odd, perhaps, to follow that up with so romantic an admission, but Viktor grits his teeth and breathes, resisting the urge to grind his hips in time with Hades's hand, refusing to relent control of himself, to lose this slowness, this closeness he so desperately wants. ]
A-another night. [ It feels like it takes ages just to say that much. Two words, stolen between between ragged breaths. ] Another night. I- I want you to fill me, fuck me. Anywhere. B-but. Tonight- just, this. [ How horrendously embarrassing, to feel so embarrassed - so embarrassed that it spills citrus pink feeling between them - about something like this. Like some virgin, never touched properly before. Ridiculous. And yet. ] Slow. I- I want our first night to be... soft.
[ Viktor takes pleasure as beautifully as suffering. Emet-Selch had been endlessly frustrated, what feels like an age ago, to feel anything other than disgust for the thing masquerading as a fragment of Azem. Now, he thinks the most frustrating part is feeling to such excess after an age of near nothing. A cup usually no more than half empty now filled to the brim so much so that it is a wonder it does not spill over. Viktor feels everything so much more vividly, so brightly he can almost taste the strongest emotions when they unfurl.
Lightly, he nudges the veil back, thumbing over the seam to seal it in place once again the way one would an envelope full to bursting. A taste was one thing, but sex had the - ideally if he were using it to manipulate people, not ideal when he is directly involved - an unfortunate side effect of revealing too much, at times, and there was something he wished to keep for himself. That he had the ability to keep for himself, a choice Zodiark certainly never offered. ]
As we are, then, Viktor.
[ He likes the shape of Viktor's name in his mouth too much, perhaps. To close down the connection between the two of them meant nothing when he was so obvious with tells. Around Viktor, the shadows give a pulse, almost like a massive, near-insubstantial hand squeezing gently around him, while Emet-Selch's flesh and blood hands stay busy, pressed against Viktor's skin.
He thinks very few people would ever describe him as soft, but Viktor would. Viktor, who only saw the best in him, seemingly, despite everything else that was so much worse. He was granted absolution from anything he could do through Zodiark, the manifestation of the will of their people. It is, he thinks a little wearily, much easier to only need to concern himself with just one person's wants, needs.
It has been an age since he had to be soft, since he could allow himself to be soft, but he tries. The shadows and Emet-Selch's hands coax and cajole pleasure from Viktor rather than demand it, and all too quickly the indulgent lounge Emet-Selch had settled into becomes onerous if he wishes to take in every bit of Vitktor's reactions to the flex of the shadows rocking in and out of him. Foolish, he thinks, to be envious of them when he'd had an invitation, but better this way; some measure of distance, not depending on the frankly mercurial nature of flesh and blood to cooperate. With a flick of the wrist with its hand not occupied between Viktor's thighs and the pillows grow in size and quantity, Emet-Selch effortlessly propped enough so that when the shadows gently urge Viktor in, he can close the distance to a kiss with minimal effort.
He forgets himself just as soon as he slots his lips against Viktor's; the kiss goes from glancing to intent, the hand not nestled between Viktor's thighs lifting up to curve around the nape of his neck, up until he can wind through damp curls, licking into Viktor's mouth to chase the taste of the wine they'd shared. Then, a shiver twists through him, the shadows twitching in reflex. Soft, Viktor had said. Slowly, he forces himself away, lingering on the kiss-swollen bow of Viktor's mouth, meeting his eyes for a heartbeat and then absently, he finds himself leaning in to lavish attention and a line of intent kisses over Viktor's throat just as intently as Emet-Selch had his thighs. A confession, somewhere in the curve of Viktor's throat, followed by the press of teeth into the meat of Viktor's shoulder, just hard enough to be felt.]
[ Struck matches take fractions of a second to ignite, but Viktor finds himself held at the moment between friction and fire. When Hades closes the ilms-opened window between them, he hasn't the time to be disappointed — not when his name sounds sweet as caramel on Hades's lips, when feeling hangs on the sharp corners of each syllable. Not hero, not creature, not Azem. Viktor, listened to, loved, obeyed.
And engulfed by Hades's indomitable presence, filled by his aether; every shift of muscle, met with gentle, cold resistance, a reminder that he relents physical control, but not his own command. He needs but say a word to receive just what he wants, exacting, enthusiastic. What he settles on is a soft, ecstatic sound, drawn from deep in his lungs by the shadow gathering in tight around him. His nails press crescent divots into his own thighs and he sighs, letting himself disappear into the hypnotic rhythm of moving magic inside and against him, of warm hands savoring skin, of total safety, of trust.
Hades comes closer and Viktor wills a hand free to slide it over the back of the palm pressed between his thighs. As his own cries grow increasingly sharp, he urges Hades fingers on with an eager hand, thighs parting farther as he pushes against resistance to better ride the shadows pressing inside of him.
He cannot recall a time where it had been this easy, this welcome, this desperately wanted. Not just satisfying a physical urge, not just a means to an end, but the gratification of attention, of pleasure, from the one man who feels wholly his equal. He jolts when Hades lips find his own, but it is no unwelcome surprise and he presses forward, hungry, as far as shadow will allow to chase breath, to devour that delicious shiver as it shakes another ecstatic sound out of him. ]
Not so bad, aye? Giving in. [ Viktor slows his fervent rocking only just, head dipping to whisper against Hades's ear as he worships his pulse point. Second stretch as he grapples for his voice, shadow and fingertips and teeth making it near impossible to think clearly- to think of anything at all. ] Oh, Hades. [ His voice drops to a whisper. ] Grab it. Embrace it.
[ Much as he wishes he hadn't felt the need for a proxy, to utilize one - only made of his own aether and spun shadows, thank you very much - was the proper decision. Even this amount of bare skin against skin straddles the line of too much, at times edging over across that line but the towel, the shadows do no small amount to keep him steady, grounded. Separate, enough, even if this little endeavor proves to him that he really, desperately does not wish to be that separate if given the choice, the opportunity.
Enough, to be present here in this moment, to listen to the noises Viktor makes - noises he wrests from Viktor. He wants, irriational as it is, to bottle the sound of them up. To not have to rely on the fragilty of memory. To stretch this moment out as long as either of them can bear, and commit it to those tapestries Viktor'd mentioned. He doubts any were half as salacious as this. ]
Don't be smug. [ Emet-Selch grouches, though some of the gravel in his voice cannot wholly be attributed to irrtation so much as the heat flaring through him when Viktor presses lips against the line of his throat, exhales breath against his ear.
Then, startling even him, a laugh escapes - the ghost of one, at least, half-choked as slippery fingers are guided where Viktor wants them, feeling the ghost of sensation from Viktor riding the shadows. No, it was absolutely better this way; he doesn't know what he would have doe if he'd felt all of this at once. Drawing back enough to look at Viktor's expression, the fan of lashes against his cheek, the flush to his skin, Emet-Selch nearly forgets to be faux-irritated. Nearly. ]
I think I've embraced it - and, in fact, you - quite thoroughly at this point.
[ Abruptly, it's too much to even look at him - to face the depths of his own want, easier to press a lingering kiss against Viktor's chest, and busy himself with leaving more marks where he has been woefully inattentive, laving his tongue over Viktor's nipple. Then he leans back enough to give Viktor a coy little look while his fingers press back to where the shadows stretch him open, a glancing little touch before he guides his hand back to where it's wanted most.]
Unless you've objections. Complaints, about my...efficacy, my diligence after your lessons.
[ This is how darkness could've bested light, with love, wild and ravenous. Viktor would have stood no chance, he knows, against Hades had he touched and teased, licked and laughed like this. And oh, that laugh. Fighting the cloak of magic restraining him, Viktor drags himself up the length the shadow with a moan, his desire dripping down the impossibly substantial darkness, all so that he can lean in and try to capture that sound with his mouth. Their lips crash together briefly, and he groans again as his body settles back down on Hades's aether, into his waiting fingers. He captures some of that laugh, he thinks - he hopes - alongside his own frantic voice. Viktor would, if he could, bottle Hades's laugh inside of him, write it into the make of his soul so deep a thousand cycles could not wash it away.
Their kiss breaks, and Viktor gives voice to a pleasured sigh as he admires the sight, the feel of Hades taking a pert nipple in his mouth. ]
Have I not kept your mouth busy enough? Perhaps I should put it back to work. You lose f-five points every time you s-sass, you kn-oh!
[ Viktor's teasing catches on a curse, mumbled under his breath, a vulgar prayer to Emet-Selch's true name coaxed out when his fingers drift forward. He sucks in a breath, does his level best to focus on the conversation and not the white blank levin scattering across his mind. ]
Two for the t-towel. You should be more fearless. [ More teeth, isn't that what he'd asked for? A breathy laugh slips past Viktor's lips.
Were his hands free, he might've grasped for Hades's face again. As it stands, he can only press a few ilms against the resistance, and the sudden sense of his own helplessness rocks a shiver of pleasure out of him. Viktor's laugh becomes a song, coaxed by feeling, by friction, by Hades, and he gives in just there to the desire to do nothing more than focus on the feel of Hades's mouth on his body, lift and drop himself into pulsing aether and eager fingers.
Viktor registers no more complaints, just sharp, wavering cries - to the dead gods, to the stars, to Hades - as his stomach clenches and his back bends into another body-shaking orgasm. ]
[ Emet-Selch hides the curve of his lips in the next kiss against Viktor's chest. He didn't expect to make it out of this without at least one little jab at the towel; Emet-Selch hums a vaguely disgruntled noise and scrapes his teeth across Viktor's nipple with a little more intent this time, wanting to leave a sting. Satisfied with the blush of blood risen to the surface from his handiwork, Emet-Selch thumbs over the start of a bruise and thinks they only look so lovely because of the canvas they sits upon. ]
I was plenty happy to keep my mouth busy betwixt your thighs until you couldn't bear it any longer.
[ While the shadows settled around Viktor are woven, in a way, Emet-Selch considers them more akin to webbing; he'd used an iteration of this in Amaurot to track them. With the Warrior's Light as bright as it was, the shadow Emet-Selch had been granted access to made keeping at least a vague awareness of him easier. The shadows curve and weigh Viktor when he tests his range of movement, like gently clenching a fist, but when Vitkor attempts to move, to ride, to demand his pleasure like Emet-Selch wants of him, they do not fight him. Thoughtless bits of magic to make repetitive muscle motions marginally less onerous, the sort he hadn't needed to use since attempting the arduous task of building a city.
Utilizing that little fragment of spellwork like this is preferable. This position, too, is preferable if he is not allowed to keep his mouth busy the way he wishes; from the previous position, he hadn't the easiest look up at Viktor's face. Now, at least, he can settle back into the lush spread of pillows and pay attention, rapturously drinking in sight, the sound, the smell, committing all of it to memory as best as he can.
The hand not nestled between Viktor's thighs begins to explore, tracing freckles up Viktor's belly, as it clenches, needing partway through to remind himself to breathe. The minutest shift of his fingers against Viktor's aether, akin to plucking a string, only the note is less music and very much the potential of another orgasm. He'd wanted to put in the effort with himself the first few at least but that task done, he's more than happy to cheat a little.]
Another? Or have you had your fill for the evening?
[ Hades wrests sound from him with the ease of a maestro. A gasp at the sharp prickle of teeth teasing his nipple, a low hum at the addition of another bruise. Once he's spent - or thinks he is - he leans heavily into the surrounding shadow, letting it support him as he regathers his senses from where they've been scattered about the room.
Each time Viktor thinks he has had his fill, Hades finds a new way to rekindle the sparks arcing beneath his skin. It is a hunger that seems insatiable, gnawing, ever ready to leap to life now that it has been stirred. Through the pleasant fog of satisfaction comes a vibrant buzz, thrumming nerves, thrumming awareness. Hades plays at the threads of his aether, and Viktor squirms, breath catching, very nearly toppling over the crest of another hill. One he hadn't even realized was there.
But how could he have forgotten? For moons, every bit of spellwork Emet-Selch had worked had plinked across his awareness, unignorable, maddening, until it became so routine that he nearly stopped noticing it entirely. Even then, as his senses dulled to the sensation of their mingled aether being drawn upon, he hadn't forgotten the feeling - had wanted it, found a place for it in his fantasies, and asked for it, once.
And here, when he feels like a particularly useless Sharlayan report, tossed into the air, all his pages scattered, Hades reminds him.
Viktor tips his head up, meets that golden gaze and grins. ]
I am not done with you yet, Hades. [ A pause, his eagerness undercut by discomfort. ] But I need- would you spare me a rejuvenation spell? I'm- [ The Warrior of Light is a little to vain to admit that he tires, that he aches, that his body cannot decide whether it is wholly satisfied or wants more. And so, instead, he settles on a different kind of truth. ] -If I work the magic myself, my f-flowers will steal away all your little monograms. After all that work.
[ He leans forward enough to dance fingers over Emet-Selch's chest, tracing the lines of his muscles, fingers brushing over a nipple. After a moment, he angles his gaze up just enough and adds, ]
And with regards to your mouth, if you are so fond and s-so hungry, why not break your fast with me in the morning, then?
[ It has been an age since he'd worked magics like this for anything other than serving himself. A thoughtless little charm placed to help builders work more efficiently was not kindness, it was necessity; he hadn't wanted to wait six lifetimes for a building to be built and so if he could speed the process along then all the better. Neither were healing spells typically used to avoid healing except in drastic, dire cases, like needing to avoid healing a broken bone left unset for fear of it healing shattered and necessitating breaking once again so it may heal properly.
To do so is not difficult it just requires a touch of finesse. He might not have Aepymetes' or Viktor's ability to heal so effectively without some effort, but fine, detail work he can manage with a little focus. ]
I do so hate to see all my hard work go to waste. As for the matter of hunger, I can promise there is no amount of breaking fasts [ There's a slight hitch, a faint, soft intake of breath at Viktor's touch - of course he would touch, but Emet-Selch hadn't expected his own skin to hum with such sensitivity - and then he soldiers on. ] that would have any impact upon the other hunger.
[ The cool chill of his own spellwork weaves its way through Viktor slowly, the first ice-cold gulp of water after a long, hard day underneath the sun, settling in Viktor's stomach and radiating outward. Every mark remains maintained, Emet-Selch strokes a thumb over one of them with a pleased little look before glancing up at Viktor. Slowly, the shadows that had acted simply as a chair begin to gain a sense of weight again, Emet-Selch's cool fist curling around him, the flames stoked higher once again. ]
An encore, then.
[ He finds he does not mislike being called to the stage, staying perhaps a touch after his welcome, thanks to Viktor.
Afterward, he coaxes Viktor back into the bath and from it, snaps fresh sheets onto the bed, unwilling to deal with the tediousness of making it himself and certainly not bothering to summon staff at this time of night. Morning, maybe; Emet-Selch glances out frosted windows and cannot quite tell if the glow is early morning dawn or lamplights not accosted by fog. It does not matter.
He's traded the empty wine bottle from earlier for glasses of mulled wine with cinnamon sticks soaking within, and, with far less reticence than their previous time in the bath, appreciating the press of bare skin on bare skin impossibly more after the evening. A rinse will suffice, but he is not particularly eager to leave, shockingly comfortable.
When he finishes the latest glass of mulled wine, maybe. His fingers are not yet too pruney, and he's kept himself entertained enough tracing freckles upon Viktor's shoulders with fingers and mouth. From between idle presses of his mouth beween the knobs of Viktor's spine, along the nape of his neck, Emet-Selch murmurs, ]
How cross will you be were I to wake us at our normal bell for lessons?
[ Emet-Selch leaves him languid, a head full of sunbathed summer flowers and little else. An easy thing, to draw him from the bed back into the water to soak, boneless and happy, seeking any excuse to slot himself against Hades once more. It helps that being welcomed into the tub feels a little like he's gotten away with something. So many nights, Emet-Selch would steal away behind a screen to take his too long soaks in fragrant waters; an escape, Viktor had thought, from him and his questions, his motion, his sound. But now he finds himself invited in and- does Hades realize what he's done, the door he has left open?
Gliding fingertips and glancing brushes of his lips make stories of the speckles that dapple Viktor's skin, and he can almost believe that Hades might, ready to accept his weeds, turn them into welcome flowers.
A strange feeling, this lack of fear, this certainty. Viktor cannot recall a time when intimacy did not have something cold trailing its coattails. Absent is the desire to pull away, the emptiness, the hollow shame that usually follows these encounters. He does not regret demanding his own pleasure, does not wish for space, wants only to be close, as though the trail of lips against his back, the fingers drawing lines from one freckle to the next, make him more solid, more himself - not less.
Viktor selects one of Emet-Selch's hands and runs his thumbs over his palm, pressing tension outward, then tracing each finger with grazing touches of his own. He shuts his eyes, bends himself to give Hades easier access to his neck, relishing the feel of being something addictive - something worth committing to memory. ]
Oh, terribly.
[ He tips his head back to plant a clumsy kiss around whatever he can manage to catch - Emet-Selch's temple, in this case. ]
But not intolerably so. Not for you. [ He studies, curious. A grin, crooked, settles across his features as he bends an arm back at an awkward angle to card a hand through Emet-Selch's hair. ] Why? Don't tell me you were drawing up lesson plans while I had you otherwise engaged?
[ He thinks, against his own will, about a time where they had massive pools to lounge about in, where they had endless time to linger, and the promise of countless mornings after. Except - it wasn't. The pools were countless times more superior, of course, but they didn't have forever to lounge. He remembers Hythlodaeus cajoling them both to stay longer, to sleep in later, to linger in the moment instead of driving forward to the next. But there was never the promise of more mornings, and endless time. Viktor draws him back into the present directly after, grazing a kiss against his temple.
If they survive this, ten thousand years from now will he think about these moments the same way? The first time, certain in the perfection of his recollection, only to find the illusion of it gives under any amount of scrutiny.
Maybe, he thinks with the faintest twinge at recalling the old, wretched women who play cards, maybe he will write a book. Capture all of this to the pages and how he remembers it, in exacting detail. Emet-Selch would not put Viktor through reading what would likely be an enormous tome, but the Shadowkeeper owes him a favor and he trusts her to speak plainly where others might not. ]
And if I were? [ He wasn't actively mapping out plans during the process, but there were a few moments where he caught his breath and thought they would both be terribly exhausted if they continued any longer. Then, he'd tossed a healing charm upon both of them and continued.
Against his will, a yawn wrests itself from him, and he dares to slouch a little bit into the warmth of Viktor and the steadiness of the wall, glancing over to the bed with only a little longing. Soon. ] Some lessons can be given in bed. [ Emet-Selch pauses, mulled wine lifted to his mouth, amending himself. ] Magic lessons, mind. I've indulged plenty and despite the unwise decisions made, I do have tasks I must needs attend to at some point.
'Tis proof I've not been distracting enough, it seems. [ Viktor replies in a voice of spun sugar, light and silly sweet, carrying little real concern. Of course Emet-Selch's mind would race whatever he were doing - that part is not so surprising. Viktor watches though, like a cat following the fluttering of bug's wings in sunlight. With his head angled so awkwardly, with eyes half-lidded, he studies every minute change on Hades's expression. Not quite worried, but wondering.
He lacks Aepymetes's clairvoyance, and simpler than that, he lacks ages of insight both his predecessor and Hythlodaeus had. Surely the two of them could tease out the tangles of Emet-Selch's mind before they were even snags. He finds himself a little unprepared to take the reins, but inexperience has never stopped Viktor before - certainly not from trying to tackle something that mattered. His fingertips stop in their spin of idle lines in Emet-Selch's hair so that he can flatten his palm clumsily against Emet-Selch's cheek. Then, Viktor sighs. ]
Stop thinking about tomorrow for a minute. [ He angles his chin down only just, butting his forehead against the side of Emet-Selch's face, and letting the contact linger. ] Stop thinking about what might could be, what was. For a minute. Indulge me once more, here, now, and t-tell me, how are you feeling? What weighs on your mind?
At the risk of putting further ideas between those furry ears, I am not certain you could be any more distracting.
[ Viktor's busied himself with Emet-Selch's hands and he's allowed it - allowed, like he hasn't been basking in the warmth of Viktor's touch and gaze, a lazy cat in an unending sunbeam. To have him stop now, and try to get Emet-Selch's attention is distraction, but instead of annoyed there's the briefest fissure of guilt. Life was easier when he forgot what guilt felt like. ]
How am I feeling? [ He repeats, a little incredulous before he tempers his tone to something a little less incredulous. It's a valid question. He knows why Viktor is asking. He can be present now instead of in the past, or in a future that has not even been won yet. His chin hooks over Viktor's shoulder, a breath inhaled and sighed out, chest rising and falling dramatically. ] Like I could sleep a dozen years or so, wake, and sleep a dozen more.
[ He nips at Viktor's shoulder, empty glass set aside and begins to rise up and grasp soap to begin the process of being one step closer to crawling into bed. ]
It has been an age, but I can promise you I am not some virginal creature who now needs gentle handling after being tupped. [ Another pause, glancing at Viktor. ] Nor should you fear I will wake in the morning aghast at my lack of control.
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[ The little taste of Azem's job he'd gotten over the years was plenty. While he could, while he did travel the shards, taking note of what was found to later show Hythlodaeus and Azem, he was better utilized as Emet-Selch. He certainly didn't have the patience of Azem, nor the disposition required. ]
The star can keep itself together for an evening. [ He almost sounds like he believes it when he says that, even. The star survives each night that they rest, each night they don't spend feverishly searching for the next option. He does not imagine it would be any different if they choose to spend their evening not entirely asleep. Much as it pains him to admit one can, in fact, take time for leisurely activities, the distraction is not wholly unwelcome.
And Viktor is, undeniably, a distraction. Just as Emet-Selch starts to work the thought over in his mind - duty, responsibility, the weight shared but still immensely heavy - Viktor steals a kiss from him and Emet-Selch cannot let it go unanswered, unaddressed, hungry to see what other noises the two of them can wrest free from Viktor. ]
Don't coddle. [ Emet-Selch doesn't quite wither under the too-understanding gaze, but he does scowl, imposing were it not for the fact his lips keep rebelling, Viktor's easy laughter and levity and incredibly bad jokes not entirely ineffective. ] I'm not struggling. Struggling implies - I am not.
[ He is, in fact, struggling with the reality of the answer he doesn't give: he's startled by the depths of his want. At how much he could want, when he allowed himself even the vaguest consideration. He wants what he once considered impossible and in the form he'd imagined it, it was; that time is past. But the shape of this new want, how easy it is, will take some getting used to.
Emet-Selch nearly misses the question, focused on thoughtlessly stroking fingers where he'd dug in earlier, marveling at the fact that Viktor's touched him throughout this entire process and the little jumps of disgust, of guilt, have been so far to the back of mind as to nearly be forgotten. Being pedantic is undoubtedly easier than focusing on any of those revelations, and so Emet-Selch lifts both eyebrows and asks, ]
I don't know, hero, would it? I am, for most intents and purposes, yours to command as you see fit.
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[ Despite the colorful choice of word, Viktor's voice is too soft, too fond by half, hewing far closer to something more like I love you, that last sharp T clipped in his haste to catch Hades's mouth with his own. One firm, insistent kiss, the weight of his body thrown into it, until Emet-Selch is flattened back against the bed.
He draws away, less than an ilm. Purrs, between light brushes of lips against Hades's mouth and jaw, ]
Mine. To command or coddle as I see fit.
[ Viktor shifts, sitting straight and drawing one knee up to press against Hades's chest, pinning him in place. Predator quiet, Viktor studies him, memorizes the way his hair falls around his face, the set of his shoulders pressed into blankets, the look on his face from above. Coddling and commands, restraint and unbridled want - talk of those things can be saved for later, when the flame kindled low in Viktor's belly doesn't make any words at all half impossible to get out.
Once he's satisfied that he's committed the sight of Hades conquered beneath him to memory, Viktor slips his pinning leg ilms forward, over his shoulder - all the grace of an acrobat. ]
Now-
[ After softly exhaled breath, unsuccessfully trying to slow the rabbit pace of his heart, Viktor climbs forward, one palm flattening on Emet-Selch's stomach at he moves, dragging fingernails up to his chest, until he is settled, knees grazing ears, his other hand threading into long platinum hair. ]
You are going to p-put that lovely mouth of yours to work on something other than sass.
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He finds himself tumbled back a little too easily when distracted by a kiss, chasing the taste of wine in Viktor's mouth - no leverage to stay upright, tipped back into the bed with laughably little force as Viktor chases him, leans over and looks him over, a predator with his prey. It is, Emet-Selch finds, a novelty to be looked at so. To be so wholly out of control of the series of events, to make no effort to machinate or plan or orchestrate past getting to a bed instead of letting them prune in the bath. ]
A little more of the former, a little less of the latter if y-
[ He knows, abstractly, about a circus, about the implications of the circus, but it's one thing to know a fact and something else entirely to see it demonstrated with such clarity, ilms away. One leg settles, Emet-Selch taking a hand away from Viktor long enough to gather his hair back, twisting it out of the way so Viktor doesn't put weight on loose strands. Task complete, his hands make their way back to Viktor's bare skin wherever he can touch, while Viktor drags nails up his chest, little lines of heat and awareness that are not unpleasant in the slightest. Were he willing to allow himself the indulgence, he might even wish for more, later. ]
You may be frustrated to know I do not need my mouth to speak.
[ There are countless enchantments to project thought to spoken word; Emet-Selch knows over half of them, and could likely look up any he does not. That is not what he wants to do right now, though, not when confronted with Viktor knelt above him glistening, mint and soap and the heavy scent of want hanging thick in the air. Weeks ago, Viktor'd had specific instructions. Be in the moment, not in his own head. Touch, taste, breathe. Commands he finds himself all too happy to obey, curving one arm and bending it at the elbow so he can splay a hand on his waist while the other traces a line idly up and down the back of Viktor's calf.
He doesn't need to worry about wanting more than his due, doesn't need to concern himself with too much when Viktor rests atop him, able to remove himself should he need to. He must only concern himself with putting his mouth to use at the task at hand. At mouth, he thinks despairingly; Viktor's horrific sense of humor has rubbed off on him.
Coaxing Viktor to finally settle with faint pressure on his hip, Emet-Selch finds the motion - however quick - too slow and leans up to press a kiss against the inside of a thigh, another, another, until he finally gives into what they both want and allows himself to be as ravenous as someone twelve thousand years without could be. He tastes, he eats, he savors as instructed. Emet-Selch may be out of practice with the actual mechanics in practice but he had paid fervent attention to how Viktor enjoyed touching himself. Listening to the noises Viktor makes and adjusting is no hardship, and the scent and taste of Viktor's want heavy in the air makes the wine they'd been sharing seem barely better than vinegar. He finds himself making a noise, a hungry, pleased moan - no pressure against his cock save the fleeting one of the towel, nothing but the relief of a want he hadn't dared acknowledge finally, finally in the process of being sated. ]
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Let it never be said that Viktor cannot roll with the proverbial punches, though. He accepts with some trepidation that he can no longer imagine what to expect, and catches himself approaching the encounter as he might any battle - tense, hyperaware. But even resignation does not adequately prepare him for the feel of lips pressed to his thighs, moving higher as he settles. There is music in his breath when he sighs. ]
If you- If you m-must- [ A little gasp slips out of him, his composure falling to pieces despite his best efforts. Words escape between siezed breaths as Hades's mouth finds its mark, tongue splashing bright, twinkling color across Viktor's senses. ] If you want to complain so- ah- s-so badly, you are only allowed to do so if you- oh.
[ Viktor's fingers curl into the duvet, knuckles clenched near to white around fabric as he leans into the lapping of Hades's tongue. His lack of practice means little when he so diligently responds to each panting whimper that steals from Viktor's lips. ]
Lift our veil if you've more to complain about. Otherwise- [ He means it to sound teasing, flippant, but the intent is swallowed up in a low hum of pleasure. The hand not clinging to the bed for purchase grasps a handful of Emet-Selch's hair as Viktor rocks himself against his mouth, heat between his thighs building, climbing up his spine, until he's forgotten what he'd meant to say at all. ] That. Keep- keep doing-
[ Emet-Selch's muffled moan reaches Viktor's ears, sound wholly unexpected, and they lop back against his curls as lightning zings from his stomach up to his throat. Viktor lasts precisely five seconds more before he shudders, shoulders to feet, toes curling as he chokes out a sound somewhere between a curse and his lover's name. His thighs clench, fingers tightening in platinum hair, and he presses down, buckling over as he comes. He's barely caught his breath, still doubled over, before he urges, ] Keep- k-keep going.
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For a petty moment, he thinks to utilize one of several enchantments to throw one's voice but the urge fades just as soon as Viktor gives voice to needy instructions. The hand grasping Viktor's hip skims upward, feeling the tight line of his stomach clenching and his skin's warmth like it's not enough to stay still; he has to touch as much of Viktor as he can.
He could lift the veil. Even as distracted as he is, he thinks he could manage to raise but a corner, and maybe later he will when the novelty of a simple healing spell restoring them has faded. For now, he finds he's far too hungry for the tactile way, drinking in the sight of Viktor curling in on himself, flushed and needy because of him. He's made a wreck of him over countless lifetimes; this type of wreck is undeniably his favorite.
Would that he did not have to breathe, though. Viktor's thighs clench, his hips jerking and Emet-Selch makes a low, pleased noise in response, smoothing his hand down Viktor's flank content to work until his jaw and tongue ache and then do it all over again until Viktor tells him to stop. He lifts his head just long enough to breathe, interrupting the ragged intake of air with a wet kiss smeared against the inside of Viktor's thigh, and then adjusts his grip, shifts his weight on the bed and returns to his task with ruthless enthusiasm.
He does not lift a full edge so much as he does nudge the toe of a shoe beneath the hem and raise it incrementally. Enough that Viktor is made privy to a swell of feelings - a hunger he hadn't dared acknowledge for thousands of years, sated. A frisson of worry that he won't know when he's indulged too much, a brief, flickering emotion that feels like same kind of pure clarity Zodiark brought; a certainty in the shape of Viktor. A desire to execute this well - the briefest hint of amusement, a flicker of smut read over the years, glossed over. Distantly, there is surprise, too; surprise he could enjoy being this bare, surprise he hasn't overthought his way into a pit. ]
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Finally, finally he allows himself the luxury of being wholly present. Unfussed with the room's entry and exit points, careless about how loud he moans when Hades's mouth settles on his prick, forgetting entirely to brace for the next sudden hurt, the next unwanted surprise fate has in store. There is no end of the world. No greedy princelings. No infernal blue bird or ruined Seas. No needy masses. There is just this, just the two of them. Just light and sound and feeling. A knight sorcerer's calloused hands skimming his skin, cupping his body, taking measure of his shape and fitting neatly wherever they land. The dizzying levin zing of being licked and sucked and savored, fire building anew in the pit of his belly.
The hand not tangled in Hades's hair slides up into his own. Fingers catch on damp curls, drag down over neck and chest and stomach to splay over white fur, opening himself further as he leans into Hades's busy mouth with a low, cracking moan. His hips rock, finding rhythm to match Emet-Selch's ministrations, making him taste the spot Viktor likes best.
And then Hades lets him in, their veil hiked up as dancer's skirts, just a glimpse, enough to leave Viktor groaning, ecstatic, impatient with his inability to latch onto any one feeling as it flits by his awareness. His own emotions flood. Each one bright oil paint spilled across an incandescent canvas, too big, too vivid to have any clear definition. Rust red want makes a fine backdrop for brighter reds and twinkling gold, a slurry of hot pleasure softer feeling. Warm colors of comfort and safety, of home - and the silver white shock of how unfamiliar such a concept feels - blooming like little flowers in a more frantic field of clay. And between, silhouette glimpses of what he'd like next - held and explored with eager hands, atop, tangled together, bent and pressed into bed sheets, filled, drowned in this feeling, in Hades. Devoured.
Viktor feels his pleasure peak, a flood of lightning across his senses. He clenches his jaw, breathes and straightens, stretching his legs, breaking contact, to stop himself from toppling over the edge again. ]
Hades. [ Viktor closes a shaking palm around the back of one of Emet-Selch's hands, voice gone reedy. ] Ride you. L-let me ride you.
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It is not so bad to make the attempt, though; especially not when Viktor parts himself where he's blush-dark and wet and Emet-Selch doesn't bother to hide the pleased, low noise threatening to be a moan as he tilts his head in response to Viktor's obvious indication of where he should be. The clench, the shudders herald a second peak and Emet-Selch allows his head to rest back against the pillow, allows himself a proper breath and then goes back to nosing at the soft insides of Viktor's thigh. ]
Ah. [ Emet-Selch gives into the indulgence, presses teeth to flesh just to see warm, dark skin grow rosy with the imprint of his teeth, and then looks up at Viktor, indulgent. ] We'd find some difficulty there but not for lack of...enthusiasm.
[ Emet-Selch melts back into the bed, stretching one of the arms he'd contorted awkwardly to touch more of Viktor, flexing individual fingers and then just as soon as it's done brings them back like he cannot bear to stop touching if the option is made available to him. ]
If you require something inside you, that can be easily arranged.
[ The fingers tracing idle arcane marks against Viktor's thigh pauses in the motion pinky to index finger tapping in a slow order. ]
There are, you may be unsurprised to learn, spells to serve the same function but without the pesky flesh and blood cooperation bit. It has been an age but I am fairly certain I still recall them.
[ Basking in what slips under the veil from Viktor's side like a cat in sunlight, the only thing trade in return is loose-limbed, lazy satisfaction, and the edge of hunger, the awareness that once was not going to be enough, and Viktor is right there, close enough it would be a trifle to lean up, to pull Viktor's hips back down. ]
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It almost beggars belief, not merely being wanted, but feeling addictive. Not as the Warrior of Light, not as Azem - just Viktor. So fervently desired that the man who'd spent ten thousand years touching nothing cannot keep his hands off of him. A little deliriously, Viktor snickers at the realization that the Sharlayan's many planning meetings will no longer be such an unbearable bore. And in the next second, he decides that the only way he will ever be productive again is to run them both ragged tonight.
And then Hades's teeth sink into soft, warm skin, stealing another sharp sound - as much a laugh as a moan - from him, and everything is promptly forgotten. He lets the hand tangled in Hades's hair slip down to cup his face. Viktor tips Hades's chin back, taking a long, slow moment to admire the length of his neck, the wet shine around his perfect mouth. Delicious, that faint quirk at the corners of his lips. Just enough of an angle to be impossibly smug, made more delectable for the fog of Hades's own gratification hanging on the edges of Viktor's awareness.
He makes no effort to hide his own emotions, nor the way his awareness creeps right up to the barrier, searching. There's nothing sour in that admission of difficulty, and while Viktor can't quite hide his own hot, hungry impatience, there is an immeasurable relief there, too. No need to reassure - it is a certainty, an inevitability. And there's plenty else they can do in the meantime. ]
I want you. [ He shivers again at the working of Hades's fingers, slips his own over Hades's lips, nudging them into his mouth, lighting on his tongue. ] S-something of your aether, I mean. I want to f-feel you.
[ The aether of Emet-Selch, permeating, cold, yes. He still remembers the feel of being surrounded, filled by it, wrenched back into his body after spending too much of his own aether. He near aches for it. ]
But first- [ Viktor draws away from Hades's mouth. Uses the hand to brace himself against a bedpost. ] -bite me again.
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[ Indulgent, molasses slow. He cannot remember the last time he felt like this - the electric hot current of want still very much there, but sated, contented in some way he has otherwise not been in ages. There's a danger to this; too much indulgence, and well. He's seen what that can do without moderation, thinks a moment later about the casual comment very Allagan of us, drinking with Viktor and the warmth of Viktor's amusement, his pleasure burns the shadow out before it even has time to settle.
Viktor tips his chin back and Emet-Selch allows it, looks up at him through a lidded gaze, the smirk still teasing at his lips. ]
I've gathered, needy thing. [ He says it like a compliment, like a pet name, and accepts the press of fingers into his mouth with a slow, soft breath out around them, and daring, once again, to indulge. To suck, to lavish just as much attention on his fingers as he wants to anywhere else Viktor will deign to allow. He listens to the request, Viktor withdrawing his hand a moment later and Emet-Selch lifts an eyebrow. He'd intended to nip at his fingers, but with them removed he settles for a faint, unsatisfying little nip against Viktor's thigh once again. ]
Specifics, if you please, lest there be too much room for creative interpretation. You would like me to bite you again where? You wish to feel my aether, where? [ The bed creaks beneath them and Emet-Selch, irritatingly, misses their bed - the bed back in the Crystarium. He could make it again here but that would be far too telling and he need not be ridiculous about his indulences. ] So, let's have it, hero. Specifics.
[ The last time he says specifics, it's annunciated precisely, a little pause between each syllable, a tap of his fingers upon Viktor's bare skin. ]
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How he loves the idea of testing that will and winning.
Not that Viktor is innoculatd, himself. Needy thing, Hades calls him, and the words are honey. His tongue brushes the pads of Viktor's fingertips, and Viktor shuts his eyes, lingering in the feeling of his pulse dropping to his stomach again.
Fleetingly he thinks of a Light-drenched thread upon the weave. One he knows exists by sense, where his had been the weaker will, where not even Meteion's song permeates absolute stillness. Another Emet-Selch, still drown in Zodiark's dark despite the brightness he keeps and cossets, bridled only just, because the beast allows it. Emet-Selch's needy thing, his creature, across time, across reflections, across iterations of reality.
Viktor vastly prefers this one. Less chilling despite the cold. Where the closest thing to tempering is the two of them unable to stop touching each other, forging their own destiny, finding their own duty, driving each other mad. He huffs when Emet-Selch's teeth graze his thigh, catches his cheek in his hand before he can get away again. He'd meant for it to be playful, but the light touch, the soft gaze Viktor points at him, is a little too baldly adoring - even the flicker of fire in response to Hades's pedantry is fond.
Specific.
Viktor settles, sitting on Emet-Selch's chest and lazing back against his stomach. Seconds pass in silence, but it is not an empty, waiting quiet - it buzzes with the work of thinking as Viktor tries to grasp his own desire, chisel the fiery feeling down to something more specific than him, him, him.
Eventually, he props himself back up, enough to lock mismatched eyes on that glowing lamplight gaze. ]
On my th-thigh. Either one. Surprise me. Just low enough that the mark you leave might sh-show beneath the edges of shorts or smalls.
[ It is far too cold in this fissured reflection to wear anything so light outside of one's quarters, and such a mark surely would heal before they were in warm climes again, but the thought sits like fire, nonetheless. ]
And as for your aether- [ Viktor arches a brow, teasing smile creeping audibly into his voice as he sits back up properly. ] Anywhere you can fit it, my Aubergine.
[ But he is supposed to be specific, and so after a pause spent shaking off frankly unnecessary nerves, Viktor reins in his smile and presses his palms to the high point of his neck. He drags his hands down slowly, over chest and stomach, down to the dip between his thighs, fingers framing all the spots he wants Hades's attention. Then, with a shuddered breath, he says, ] Engulf me, embrace me with it. Then inside of me, from here. Slow. [ A pause, he shuts his eyes, wills himself to say the last bit. ] A-and use my name. S-say my name.
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You're likely to lose an extremity simply exiting your bedroom, here. Linger too long and you may just freeze to the bare stone.
[ Viktor's secondary command is not nearly precise enough for Emet-Selch's liking, but then Viktor elaborates and Emet-Selch's mind rolls over a dozen different options and discards each of them on the basis of assuming Viktor was asking for less than he was. Emet-Selch watches the path of Viktor's hands with rapt attention, only centuries of court of various types allowing him to keep a still expression when Viktor makes his last request.
Of course. Whether or not Viktor noticed the use of a nickname and was gently calling him out on it or it was nothing so complicated: he simply wanted the last layer between them removed; it did not matter. Viktor had asked, and so he would acquiesce. He has questions but holds them back for the time being, obeying the easiest request first with a snap. Viktor's shorts from home find themselves upon his body for an instant, long enough for Emet-Selch to judge where they fall and then vanish with a second snap, Emet-Selch's hands tugging Viktor where he needs to be in order for him to obey Viktor's request.
He is single-minded in his execution of the ask, leaving not one mark, but several, littered about the lines where his smalls or shorts might not just show it but actively rub against, a constant, consistent awareness of the bruises, of Emet-Selch pressed into his skin, unignorable.Once he's satisfied, he lifts a hand from Viktor enough to flick his wrist; the fires within the room swell and grow, and the shadows yawn deeper, darker in turn, until as one, they lick their way across the ground, drawn toward Emet-Selch's hand.
The room heats incrementally as the flames burn hotter, and Emet-Selch draws the shadows around Viktor like a cloak, if a cloak could cling cooly to the flesh it touches rather than drape upon it. Another snap, and both of them find themselves rearranged on the bed, Viktor knelt above him but straddling just above his still towel-clad waist, and Emet-Selch lounged against the pillows with his legs firmly on the bed rather than dangling off.
He twirls a finger in the shadows draped over Viktor's shoulders and winds what he plucks around his palm, twisting and holding what he's gathered like a leash, tugging him in with the weight of the shadows behind the motion, not bothering to lean up to meet him. It is, he thinks, stretching idly beneath Viktor as he's held near immobile with gentle threat, nice to be able to show off once in a while. ]
Lest you make up a story in that pretty head of yours, these spells were not originally conceived for such uses.
[ Originally, he'd intended it for use in natural disasters - a rockslide, for example. Moments where Azem would not have access to light, and the sun could not be brought forth until morning. There is no pang across the veil as Emet-Selch has the thought. It is a momentary spark of fondness, followed by surprise at the lack of sting to the memory's edges. ]
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[ A blink, a laugh. Viktor stares down at familiar shorts, there and gone too fast to even remark upon their presence. As Emet-Selch repositions him, Viktor attempts to soldier on, more laughter shaking his shoulders at the delightful absurdity of it all. He wriggles, thinking to help scoot into better place, but mostly just making a momentary nuisance of himself. ]
-I s-suppose it will- [ Teeth sink into soft skin. Viktor gasps, his laughter lowering, a dark, pleased little sound, turning into something not unlike a setting sun. The first of what will be several more bruises rises to blush his ochre skin, and he gets a little distracted admiring it, admiring the look of concentration on Hades's face as he leans in to mark him again. Viktor's voice thins, distant, too focused on watching Emet-Selch brand his skin with more nipping kisses. ] -have to be- oh -just for the t-two of- fuck, Hades.
[ With diligent application of rough fingers and softer mouth, Emet-Selch shakes his will. Viktor dips his head, ears falling forward as he breathes through another bite and then another. It will be impossible to pull on his trousers tomorrow, impossible to walk around this foolish fortress, without thinking of - feeling - Hades's signature upon his thigh, without daydreaming about what he will demand of the most eminent Emet-Selch tomorrow night and the night after that.
He grasps, urgent, thinking to forego anything fancier than pressing Hades's mouth against him until he's eaten both their fill again. Before he can commit to giving up the greater prize, though, the hearth roars to life anew. There is a snap, and Viktor's position has changed again.
He presses a palm against Emet-Selch's chest to steady himself, grinning like mad at the easy show of magic, but before he can do more, before he can even compute just how warm the room has grown, he is embraced by familiar, permeating cold. Across back and shoulders, down his arms and legs, his skin prickles to gooseflesh. The soft, fine fur on his arms and stomach stands as Viktor quakes, a whole body shiver that shakes a shuddering sigh out of him.
Instinct makes him resist. Just a flare of tensed muscles and fear, riding the flicker of remembered feeling - this selfsame shadow wreathing and binding him, meaning to press the life and Light from his lungs until that incandescence spilled out. Now, what had been meant to harm holds, and he relaxes into the chilling embrace. Something dangerous made darkly sweet, decadent as bitter chocolate.
Viktor stills, shuts his eyes, and tries something he's never done before - grasps the thread of his own memory and pulls, passing dreamlike through what must be a thousand bodies, 'til he catches glimpses of feeling, of thought and taste and smell, far too fragmented to be memories properly. Sun and moon, entangled. A densely freckled body, wreathed in darkness, pressing lines into fair skin with golden thread. Just a taste of the twining of shadow and light, and even these slivers, matched to Hades's aether enveloping him, feel like fitting something lost back into place. Icy indigo used to heal the broken parts of his kintsugi soul.
Opening his eyes only just, Viktor looks through lashes at Hades laid out beneath him. ]
Far be it from me to j-judge a Sorcerer of Eld for finding creative ways to use his m-magic. [ One corner of Viktor's mouth tugs up. ] I thought I told you to fill me, Hades, not t-torment me from two fulms away. Or shall we test Light and Dark again?
[ He could, he thinks, have a go at conjuring those glowing braids. Lasso his sorcerer in to close the distance between them, perhaps. That would take considerable effort, though. And he finds he rather likes being leashed by the most eminent Emet-Selch - far more than he'd thought he would, all those many, many moons ago upon the First, at least. ]
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[ Easy, to slide back into the position of being in charge. To orchestrate, to machinate, to take what he wants from a situation. Easier still when he knows beyond a shadow of doubt that Viktor wants as much, if not more than Emet-Selch does. Viktor's skin prickles and Emet-Selch chases the reaction with hands and mouth, grazing kisses over skin, the shadows parting for him thoughtlessly.
He feels when Viktor tenes, stills, waiting the few moments that feel like they stretch out forever until Viktor settles into this, into the chill weight of darkness spun into cloth draped around him. He feels the moment Viktor goes somewhere else, the moment a memory of his own. How many times did Aepymetes sit there, present, but not at the same time. It does not seem nearly as strong, as overwhelming as Aepymetes' visions, but for a brief second of time Viktor is there but not, and then he returns, looking down at Emet-Selch.
Insanely, he doesn't want that to happen again. He wants Viktor here in the present no matter how traitorous he would have previously believed having that thought to be. ]
You asked, and I am loosely quoting, for me to engulf and embrace you. [ Which, he has. The room burns with brightness, all the shadows stolen from within, spun to rest atop Viktor's shoulders. Emet-Selch lounges, petting over the malms of bare skin beneath his fingers, shadows starting to creep behind the wake of his touch when he begins speaking again, his fingers stroking just above the thatch of hair between Viktor's thighs, ] Then inside of you, from here.
[ Gauzy, insubstantial as they are, they seem to grow heavier, stronger when Emet-Selch focuses, warming as they swell between Viktor's thighs and then ease upward; the chill remains for everywhere the shadows touch above his waist, but below it takes a thoughtless little charm to at least keep them the same approximate warmth as their bodies as the shadows obey Viktor's earlier command. Against the narrow line of Viktor's waist, Emet-Selch's fingers twitch and swirl against skin, a conductor at the head of his orchestra, the shadows nestling, filling Viktor with gradual warmth. The hand not in the process of directing the spellwork he angles only a little awkwardly to fit between Viktor's thighs, tracing fingers over where he's parted, stretched around the insubstantial made tangible, slick fingers starting to rub slow, intent circles where his mouth had worshipped earlier. ]
You had, at risk of being pedantic, said anywhere they could fit, as well.
[ As if he doesn't enjoy being pedantic any chance he gets. There is a question with no expectation behind its answer there, Emet-Selch's shadows pausing even when the slow, steady circles of his fingers do not. ]
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His muscles twitch as Emet-Selch's hand drifts lower — that pause, so close, drags an impatient sound out of the back of his throat, but he needn't wait long. A second later, matching the pace of Hades's molten sugar voice, the shadow, all that aether, presses up, presses in, and Viktor voices his most ecstatic approval with a slow, sighing moan. He leans back, letting shadow hold him, half delirious from the feel of being so wholly surrounded, so gently touched. Viktor bucks into Emet-Selch's fingers as they settle into place, murmuring his name barely a whisper.
His eyes open only just at this next question, the implied suggestion zinging levin up his spine. Yes, stars, yes, anywhere. He wants to be surrounded, stuffed, fucked senseless. His lips part, a shuddered breath escapes.
But he has waited weeks, moons, for exactly this, too. Touched and tasted and loved with such specific care. His own pleasure demanded, and Emet-Selch, Hades, chasing it with the sort of eager reverence typically reserved for religious fervor. Every shiver, every little noise, every urgent press into friction, devoured like something holy. Answered in turn with that unbearably perfect smirk of his and the dark, delicious sounds he makes.
As gods have worshippers. Viktor's indeed.
And he wants to live in every second of it; memorize how slight he feels set upon Emet-Selch's hips, a world-shaking warrior reduced to little more than panting breath and bright whispers of approval, each grasping hand and low moan from Hades in answer, every brush of lips and fingers, the shape of his body memorized like scripture. To say nothing of the electrifying press of Hades's aether inside him as he is coaxed slowly toward greater pleasure.
This, this - it leaves him nearly delirious. They will have more time later - they will have centuries, later - to push further, to drive each other to breaking in other, wilder ways. And though it sounds unbearably delicious, what he wants all the more is simply to be loved.
Viktor tries to say as much, to give voice to his thoughts, but Emet-Selch's shadows still, and between that warm and insistent fullness and the maddeningly slow ministrations of his fingers, what escapes in place of words is a frankly vulgar groan. Pleasure twinkles, exploding stars across his awareness, swirling light and gold slipping past their barrier. Odd, perhaps, to follow that up with so romantic an admission, but Viktor grits his teeth and breathes, resisting the urge to grind his hips in time with Hades's hand, refusing to relent control of himself, to lose this slowness, this closeness he so desperately wants. ]
A-another night. [ It feels like it takes ages just to say that much. Two words, stolen between between ragged breaths. ] Another night. I- I want you to fill me, fuck me. Anywhere. B-but. Tonight- just, this. [ How horrendously embarrassing, to feel so embarrassed - so embarrassed that it spills citrus pink feeling between them - about something like this. Like some virgin, never touched properly before. Ridiculous. And yet. ] Slow. I- I want our first night to be... soft.
grgfgfgk i gotta renew my sub surprise peepaw
Lightly, he nudges the veil back, thumbing over the seam to seal it in place once again the way one would an envelope full to bursting. A taste was one thing, but sex had the - ideally if he were using it to manipulate people, not ideal when he is directly involved - an unfortunate side effect of revealing too much, at times, and there was something he wished to keep for himself. That he had the ability to keep for himself, a choice Zodiark certainly never offered. ]
As we are, then, Viktor.
[ He likes the shape of Viktor's name in his mouth too much, perhaps. To close down the connection between the two of them meant nothing when he was so obvious with tells. Around Viktor, the shadows give a pulse, almost like a massive, near-insubstantial hand squeezing gently around him, while Emet-Selch's flesh and blood hands stay busy, pressed against Viktor's skin.
He thinks very few people would ever describe him as soft, but Viktor would. Viktor, who only saw the best in him, seemingly, despite everything else that was so much worse. He was granted absolution from anything he could do through Zodiark, the manifestation of the will of their people. It is, he thinks a little wearily, much easier to only need to concern himself with just one person's wants, needs.
It has been an age since he had to be soft, since he could allow himself to be soft, but he tries. The shadows and Emet-Selch's hands coax and cajole pleasure from Viktor rather than demand it, and all too quickly the indulgent lounge Emet-Selch had settled into becomes onerous if he wishes to take in every bit of Vitktor's reactions to the flex of the shadows rocking in and out of him. Foolish, he thinks, to be envious of them when he'd had an invitation, but better this way; some measure of distance, not depending on the frankly mercurial nature of flesh and blood to cooperate. With a flick of the wrist with its hand not occupied between Viktor's thighs and the pillows grow in size and quantity, Emet-Selch effortlessly propped enough so that when the shadows gently urge Viktor in, he can close the distance to a kiss with minimal effort.
He forgets himself just as soon as he slots his lips against Viktor's; the kiss goes from glancing to intent, the hand not nestled between Viktor's thighs lifting up to curve around the nape of his neck, up until he can wind through damp curls, licking into Viktor's mouth to chase the taste of the wine they'd shared. Then, a shiver twists through him, the shadows twitching in reflex. Soft, Viktor had said. Slowly, he forces himself away, lingering on the kiss-swollen bow of Viktor's mouth, meeting his eyes for a heartbeat and then absently, he finds himself leaning in to lavish attention and a line of intent kisses over Viktor's throat just as intently as Emet-Selch had his thighs. A confession, somewhere in the curve of Viktor's throat, followed by the press of teeth into the meat of Viktor's shoulder, just hard enough to be felt.]
I had forgotten how... acute desire could be.
peepaw icon kinda appropriate at least shsjshs
And engulfed by Hades's indomitable presence, filled by his aether; every shift of muscle, met with gentle, cold resistance, a reminder that he relents physical control, but not his own command. He needs but say a word to receive just what he wants, exacting, enthusiastic. What he settles on is a soft, ecstatic sound, drawn from deep in his lungs by the shadow gathering in tight around him. His nails press crescent divots into his own thighs and he sighs, letting himself disappear into the hypnotic rhythm of moving magic inside and against him, of warm hands savoring skin, of total safety, of trust.
Hades comes closer and Viktor wills a hand free to slide it over the back of the palm pressed between his thighs. As his own cries grow increasingly sharp, he urges Hades fingers on with an eager hand, thighs parting farther as he pushes against resistance to better ride the shadows pressing inside of him.
He cannot recall a time where it had been this easy, this welcome, this desperately wanted. Not just satisfying a physical urge, not just a means to an end, but the gratification of attention, of pleasure, from the one man who feels wholly his equal. He jolts when Hades lips find his own, but it is no unwelcome surprise and he presses forward, hungry, as far as shadow will allow to chase breath, to devour that delicious shiver as it shakes another ecstatic sound out of him. ]
Not so bad, aye? Giving in. [ Viktor slows his fervent rocking only just, head dipping to whisper against Hades's ear as he worships his pulse point. Second stretch as he grapples for his voice, shadow and fingertips and teeth making it near impossible to think clearly- to think of anything at all. ] Oh, Hades. [ His voice drops to a whisper. ] Grab it. Embrace it.
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Enough, to be present here in this moment, to listen to the noises Viktor makes - noises he wrests from Viktor. He wants, irriational as it is, to bottle the sound of them up. To not have to rely on the fragilty of memory. To stretch this moment out as long as either of them can bear, and commit it to those tapestries Viktor'd mentioned. He doubts any were half as salacious as this. ]
Don't be smug. [ Emet-Selch grouches, though some of the gravel in his voice cannot wholly be attributed to irrtation so much as the heat flaring through him when Viktor presses lips against the line of his throat, exhales breath against his ear.
Then, startling even him, a laugh escapes - the ghost of one, at least, half-choked as slippery fingers are guided where Viktor wants them, feeling the ghost of sensation from Viktor riding the shadows. No, it was absolutely better this way; he doesn't know what he would have doe if he'd felt all of this at once. Drawing back enough to look at Viktor's expression, the fan of lashes against his cheek, the flush to his skin, Emet-Selch nearly forgets to be faux-irritated. Nearly. ]
I think I've embraced it - and, in fact, you - quite thoroughly at this point.
[ Abruptly, it's too much to even look at him - to face the depths of his own want, easier to press a lingering kiss against Viktor's chest, and busy himself with leaving more marks where he has been woefully inattentive, laving his tongue over Viktor's nipple. Then he leans back enough to give Viktor a coy little look while his fingers press back to where the shadows stretch him open, a glancing little touch before he guides his hand back to where it's wanted most.]
Unless you've objections. Complaints, about my...efficacy, my diligence after your lessons.
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Their kiss breaks, and Viktor gives voice to a pleasured sigh as he admires the sight, the feel of Hades taking a pert nipple in his mouth. ]
Have I not kept your mouth busy enough? Perhaps I should put it back to work. You lose f-five points every time you s-sass, you kn-oh!
[ Viktor's teasing catches on a curse, mumbled under his breath, a vulgar prayer to Emet-Selch's true name coaxed out when his fingers drift forward. He sucks in a breath, does his level best to focus on the conversation and not the white blank levin scattering across his mind. ]
Two for the t-towel. You should be more fearless. [ More teeth, isn't that what he'd asked for? A breathy laugh slips past Viktor's lips.
Were his hands free, he might've grasped for Hades's face again. As it stands, he can only press a few ilms against the resistance, and the sudden sense of his own helplessness rocks a shiver of pleasure out of him. Viktor's laugh becomes a song, coaxed by feeling, by friction, by Hades, and he gives in just there to the desire to do nothing more than focus on the feel of Hades's mouth on his body, lift and drop himself into pulsing aether and eager fingers.
Viktor registers no more complaints, just sharp, wavering cries - to the dead gods, to the stars, to Hades - as his stomach clenches and his back bends into another body-shaking orgasm. ]
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[ Emet-Selch hides the curve of his lips in the next kiss against Viktor's chest. He didn't expect to make it out of this without at least one little jab at the towel; Emet-Selch hums a vaguely disgruntled noise and scrapes his teeth across Viktor's nipple with a little more intent this time, wanting to leave a sting. Satisfied with the blush of blood risen to the surface from his handiwork, Emet-Selch thumbs over the start of a bruise and thinks they only look so lovely because of the canvas they sits upon. ]
I was plenty happy to keep my mouth busy betwixt your thighs until you couldn't bear it any longer.
[ While the shadows settled around Viktor are woven, in a way, Emet-Selch considers them more akin to webbing; he'd used an iteration of this in Amaurot to track them. With the Warrior's Light as bright as it was, the shadow Emet-Selch had been granted access to made keeping at least a vague awareness of him easier. The shadows curve and weigh Viktor when he tests his range of movement, like gently clenching a fist, but when Vitkor attempts to move, to ride, to demand his pleasure like Emet-Selch wants of him, they do not fight him. Thoughtless bits of magic to make repetitive muscle motions marginally less onerous, the sort he hadn't needed to use since attempting the arduous task of building a city.
Utilizing that little fragment of spellwork like this is preferable. This position, too, is preferable if he is not allowed to keep his mouth busy the way he wishes; from the previous position, he hadn't the easiest look up at Viktor's face. Now, at least, he can settle back into the lush spread of pillows and pay attention, rapturously drinking in sight, the sound, the smell, committing all of it to memory as best as he can.
The hand not nestled between Viktor's thighs begins to explore, tracing freckles up Viktor's belly, as it clenches, needing partway through to remind himself to breathe. The minutest shift of his fingers against Viktor's aether, akin to plucking a string, only the note is less music and very much the potential of another orgasm. He'd wanted to put in the effort with himself the first few at least but that task done, he's more than happy to cheat a little.]
Another? Or have you had your fill for the evening?
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Each time Viktor thinks he has had his fill, Hades finds a new way to rekindle the sparks arcing beneath his skin. It is a hunger that seems insatiable, gnawing, ever ready to leap to life now that it has been stirred. Through the pleasant fog of satisfaction comes a vibrant buzz, thrumming nerves, thrumming awareness. Hades plays at the threads of his aether, and Viktor squirms, breath catching, very nearly toppling over the crest of another hill. One he hadn't even realized was there.
But how could he have forgotten? For moons, every bit of spellwork Emet-Selch had worked had plinked across his awareness, unignorable, maddening, until it became so routine that he nearly stopped noticing it entirely. Even then, as his senses dulled to the sensation of their mingled aether being drawn upon, he hadn't forgotten the feeling - had wanted it, found a place for it in his fantasies, and asked for it, once.
And here, when he feels like a particularly useless Sharlayan report, tossed into the air, all his pages scattered, Hades reminds him.
Viktor tips his head up, meets that golden gaze and grins. ]
I am not done with you yet, Hades. [ A pause, his eagerness undercut by discomfort. ] But I need- would you spare me a rejuvenation spell? I'm- [ The Warrior of Light is a little to vain to admit that he tires, that he aches, that his body cannot decide whether it is wholly satisfied or wants more. And so, instead, he settles on a different kind of truth. ] -If I work the magic myself, my f-flowers will steal away all your little monograms. After all that work.
[ He leans forward enough to dance fingers over Emet-Selch's chest, tracing the lines of his muscles, fingers brushing over a nipple. After a moment, he angles his gaze up just enough and adds, ]
And with regards to your mouth, if you are so fond and s-so hungry, why not break your fast with me in the morning, then?
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To do so is not difficult it just requires a touch of finesse. He might not have Aepymetes' or Viktor's ability to heal so effectively without some effort, but fine, detail work he can manage with a little focus. ]
I do so hate to see all my hard work go to waste. As for the matter of hunger, I can promise there is no amount of breaking fasts [ There's a slight hitch, a faint, soft intake of breath at Viktor's touch - of course he would touch, but Emet-Selch hadn't expected his own skin to hum with such sensitivity - and then he soldiers on. ] that would have any impact upon the other hunger.
[ The cool chill of his own spellwork weaves its way through Viktor slowly, the first ice-cold gulp of water after a long, hard day underneath the sun, settling in Viktor's stomach and radiating outward. Every mark remains maintained, Emet-Selch strokes a thumb over one of them with a pleased little look before glancing up at Viktor. Slowly, the shadows that had acted simply as a chair begin to gain a sense of weight again, Emet-Selch's cool fist curling around him, the flames stoked higher once again. ]
An encore, then.
[ He finds he does not mislike being called to the stage, staying perhaps a touch after his welcome, thanks to Viktor.
Afterward, he coaxes Viktor back into the bath and from it, snaps fresh sheets onto the bed, unwilling to deal with the tediousness of making it himself and certainly not bothering to summon staff at this time of night. Morning, maybe; Emet-Selch glances out frosted windows and cannot quite tell if the glow is early morning dawn or lamplights not accosted by fog. It does not matter.
He's traded the empty wine bottle from earlier for glasses of mulled wine with cinnamon sticks soaking within, and, with far less reticence than their previous time in the bath, appreciating the press of bare skin on bare skin impossibly more after the evening. A rinse will suffice, but he is not particularly eager to leave, shockingly comfortable.
When he finishes the latest glass of mulled wine, maybe. His fingers are not yet too pruney, and he's kept himself entertained enough tracing freckles upon Viktor's shoulders with fingers and mouth. From between idle presses of his mouth beween the knobs of Viktor's spine, along the nape of his neck, Emet-Selch murmurs, ]
How cross will you be were I to wake us at our normal bell for lessons?
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Gliding fingertips and glancing brushes of his lips make stories of the speckles that dapple Viktor's skin, and he can almost believe that Hades might, ready to accept his weeds, turn them into welcome flowers.
A strange feeling, this lack of fear, this certainty. Viktor cannot recall a time when intimacy did not have something cold trailing its coattails. Absent is the desire to pull away, the emptiness, the hollow shame that usually follows these encounters. He does not regret demanding his own pleasure, does not wish for space, wants only to be close, as though the trail of lips against his back, the fingers drawing lines from one freckle to the next, make him more solid, more himself - not less.
Viktor selects one of Emet-Selch's hands and runs his thumbs over his palm, pressing tension outward, then tracing each finger with grazing touches of his own. He shuts his eyes, bends himself to give Hades easier access to his neck, relishing the feel of being something addictive - something worth committing to memory. ]
Oh, terribly.
[ He tips his head back to plant a clumsy kiss around whatever he can manage to catch - Emet-Selch's temple, in this case. ]
But not intolerably so. Not for you. [ He studies, curious. A grin, crooked, settles across his features as he bends an arm back at an awkward angle to card a hand through Emet-Selch's hair. ] Why? Don't tell me you were drawing up lesson plans while I had you otherwise engaged?
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If they survive this, ten thousand years from now will he think about these moments the same way? The first time, certain in the perfection of his recollection, only to find the illusion of it gives under any amount of scrutiny.
Maybe, he thinks with the faintest twinge at recalling the old, wretched women who play cards, maybe he will write a book. Capture all of this to the pages and how he remembers it, in exacting detail. Emet-Selch would not put Viktor through reading what would likely be an enormous tome, but the Shadowkeeper owes him a favor and he trusts her to speak plainly where others might not. ]
And if I were? [ He wasn't actively mapping out plans during the process, but there were a few moments where he caught his breath and thought they would both be terribly exhausted if they continued any longer. Then, he'd tossed a healing charm upon both of them and continued.
Against his will, a yawn wrests itself from him, and he dares to slouch a little bit into the warmth of Viktor and the steadiness of the wall, glancing over to the bed with only a little longing. Soon. ] Some lessons can be given in bed. [ Emet-Selch pauses, mulled wine lifted to his mouth, amending himself. ] Magic lessons, mind. I've indulged plenty and despite the unwise decisions made, I do have tasks I must needs attend to at some point.
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He lacks Aepymetes's clairvoyance, and simpler than that, he lacks ages of insight both his predecessor and Hythlodaeus had. Surely the two of them could tease out the tangles of Emet-Selch's mind before they were even snags. He finds himself a little unprepared to take the reins, but inexperience has never stopped Viktor before - certainly not from trying to tackle something that mattered. His fingertips stop in their spin of idle lines in Emet-Selch's hair so that he can flatten his palm clumsily against Emet-Selch's cheek. Then, Viktor sighs. ]
Stop thinking about tomorrow for a minute. [ He angles his chin down only just, butting his forehead against the side of Emet-Selch's face, and letting the contact linger. ] Stop thinking about what might could be, what was. For a minute. Indulge me once more, here, now, and t-tell me, how are you feeling? What weighs on your mind?
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[ Viktor's busied himself with Emet-Selch's hands and he's allowed it - allowed, like he hasn't been basking in the warmth of Viktor's touch and gaze, a lazy cat in an unending sunbeam. To have him stop now, and try to get Emet-Selch's attention is distraction, but instead of annoyed there's the briefest fissure of guilt. Life was easier when he forgot what guilt felt like. ]
How am I feeling? [ He repeats, a little incredulous before he tempers his tone to something a little less incredulous. It's a valid question. He knows why Viktor is asking. He can be present now instead of in the past, or in a future that has not even been won yet. His chin hooks over Viktor's shoulder, a breath inhaled and sighed out, chest rising and falling dramatically. ] Like I could sleep a dozen years or so, wake, and sleep a dozen more.
[ He nips at Viktor's shoulder, empty glass set aside and begins to rise up and grasp soap to begin the process of being one step closer to crawling into bed. ]
It has been an age, but I can promise you I am not some virginal creature who now needs gentle handling after being tupped. [ Another pause, glancing at Viktor. ] Nor should you fear I will wake in the morning aghast at my lack of control.
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that should read to *NOT allow fuck
LMAO I knew what you meant at least sob
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oh my god
EATS IT
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your bf just wants to turn himself into a quantum computer emet-selch nbd
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lmao for some reason it replied as a whole new top level??
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forgot the rest of the caps UGHHH
this is so long sobdhshhsh
FOOD FOR ME THO also sorry viktor you're dating a dick
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