Good Puppy, Dima thinks, and shivers with the thought.
Shivers sharper, down across his spine at the kiss to his pulse, the threat and promise of teeth so near his throat. (Would he like that, Faolan's teeth upon him, Faolan's teeth levelled to free his blood to blossom? Gods, gods yes, gods yes he would.) Bows his body, arcs his back into the rush of his own pulse, his pin-pricked skin, and to the dark fire tremoring beneath the Fae's whispers, the ardency that could lead to blessed viciousness, the adoration (oh, the love) that twines itself with flame.
As Faolan kisses him, holds him, breathes words like offerings upon an altar shared, Dima's own whispers, his own gasps ring in kind between them, to the air above his Fae's bright hair, his Fae's lips and prowling kisses, forming words of “Our children, yes" and "My Fae, my own" and "Listen, Dearest, listen only for your Dima" and "There is nothing, there is nothing in the world beyond our reach; there is nothing in existence that evades us."
And between one press of lips and another, as Dima's hand brushes Fae's own hair, as Dima shifts his head into Fae's carding, as he feels himself a being burning tenderness and fervor in equal measure, he speaks again with that hinted growl: "I'm going to take care of you.
"Your Dima will take care of everything for you."
Another kiss, its pressure soft though the gasp caught in his throat speaks of rising fire. And when Dima shifts himself onto Fae's thigh, Fae's lap, when he wraps himself tighter around his Faolan (his love, yes, yes his love), it's with equal parts soft care and spark-bright wanting.
It's with another low growling of words: "Let me take care of you now.
"My Fae, let me bring you into fire, and burn all else to ash.
"My Faolan. My Fae."
These last words are spoken as he leans inward again, seizes another kiss. Not without tenderness, not without a sudden soft sigh - “Oh, Fae” - the shiver of his growl catching with soft starlight, with a melting to Fae's hold and a pressing of his own.
<.>
For a few blessed, blissful hours, the world stands still as Faolan burns in Dima's arms. The thieves sleep and Liviana keeps her silent, circling guard in flight, and nothing intrudes. They press and twine beside the fire, blooming fertile at one another's hands and sinking again against the earth with satiated sighs.
He's never done this before. He's never come close to whatever this is, this easy, luxuriant inferno. He's never been caught safe after reaching ecstatic heights, allowed to rest dreamy-eyed, allowed to relish the after before another ache ignites.
He's never been guided, instructed toward his own pleasure. The words whispered in the dark have never been our children, or home, or my love, my only, my all - but then, they aren't in the dark. The fire beside them glows brilliant with Fae's throes, subsiding as he sinks, then, with Dima's rapture, blazing again around them like the harmless flames he conjured around their joined hands. The world is lit by flame.
Dima takes care of him, burns him to ash and coaxes him to growth again, again, purifying. Breathing life into him. (And that's all necromancy is, really: gifts of life. Reversal of death come too soon.) (He dies small deaths over and over at Dima's touch.)
Long after, when the fire dies down to faint tongues of flame from embers and ashing logs, they lie together in Faolan's hammock, swaying gently in a warm nighttime breeze. Even here, the shadows aren't so deep; he can see Dima's face in the moonlight. Dima's head against his chest, arms around him, held safe in his own arms.
He doesn't ask if Dima was satisfied. He matches the rise and fall of his breath to that of the man in his arms, times inhale with exhale and exhale with inhale. Feels wholeness - peace like he's never known.
Neither does he plead for Dima to stay, to never leave. As he winds into a deeper, more comfortable embrace, as he kisses Dima's hair, he whispers instead, "Tell me to stay at your side and I'll never leave you.
"Where you go, I'll follow endlessly. Obediently. Whatever you ask, I'll give. Whatever pleases, whatever draws your smile.
"If you want me, I'm yours, Dima. Faithfully and forever."
He huffs a drowsy little laugh and, chagrined, amends, "I'm yours whether you want me or not. I'll follow you regardless.
"But I do like it - When you tell me what I ought to do. It's so much clearer, so much simpler. You make the world fall away until there's only you - and me at your feet. Oh, I like that. I could worship you that way, my love. Mm - if you told me to."
<.>
Above, the glow of stars.
Above, in Dima’s knowing, the aftermath of fire. Of the flames that rose beside them, seemed to wrap Dima and Faolan within protective, blazing tendrils. Of the flames that spoke their blissful tumult, the breath and life they gave to one another.
It’s never been this way before: The world, or Dima’s gasped desire (oh, there had been nothing of the sort before Faolan, before the night they slipped beyond the masquerade and made existence to their own), or connection, touch and wildness shared with any other.
It never was this way before: The way his own command took on the heart of care; the way obedience thrilled him onward and paired itself with tenderness, with strokes upon his own skin and with adorations gasped in jarring breath, inciting Dima toward sightless, thunder-stricken climax.
Before Faolan, Dmitri never wanted this: The touch of another being twined around him. The cataclysms found in sex. The times Dima had bothered were long past, and had ended in distaste, in drawing off and deciding never, never again. In deciding his energies were best turned elsewhere.
This, though.
Faolan, though.
Of course it would be different with Faolan, whose being sings a force to match Dmitri’s own; whose fire echoes and enhances Dima’s.
Of course sex itself would turn into ascension, to blood inciting blood, to the burn of Dima’s being and to tidal tenderness after, safety found in Faolan’s arms, safety offered through his own.
And it was simple, it was something far beyond gratifying to caress, to guide, to speak his Faolan toward rapture. To tell him what and when, to draw his hand along Faolan’s skin. To feel tingled brightness roaring up beneath his skin with each command obeyed; to feel the same in witnessing how eagerly his Faolan responded.
How natural it was, to cry his Faolan’s name. How staggering, to hear Fae call his own.
Now, wrapped in Faolan’s hammock in Faolan’s arms, Dima’s breathing sighs easy, settled into soft and steady rhythm. Now he tracks the steady pulse of Faolan’s heart, his head pressed to his lover’s (his love’s) chest, thinking that this heart is his; thinking that his own is Fae’s.
At the kiss to his hair, he nestles, nuzzles closer, sighs a soft and happy sound.
At Fae’s words, he knows a swelling of his chest toward joy, toward welcoming, toward tears alike. (Yes, yes, of course; he could ask nothing better. There *is* nothing brighter than that Faolan should remain with him, and know vibrancy in Dima’s nearness.) There’s a soft laugh at Fae’s emendation; a suggestion that there is no question of whether Dima wants him; a suggestion that the answer has been written clear, and will always be given, always stand legible: Of course, of course Dima wants him, and will have him.
And when Fae speaks his appreciation of command. When Fae speaks of the world falling away, an echo almost of the way the world shifts its focus, turns uncrowded, uncomplicated in Fae’s presence. When Faolan speaks of worship— Oh.
Oh, that is gratifying, just as well, and the shiver that brushes through Dima’s otherwise lolled form tells as much, as does the way he buries his head just a little firmer against Fae’s chest, with a grin, with a tilt of his head upward to meet Fae’s eyes and share the tenor of that smile.
And, his body falling languid again, he brushing his fingertips down Faolan’s cheek, Dima speaks, soft but clear—
“You burn so bright, my Dearest.
“You astonish me— You render me undone, and made anew.
“And as it happens, I want you very much, and will keep hold of all you are. Oh, Faolan, you will come with me— With your hand wrapped in my own. Stride-for-stride, and step-for-step.”
There’s a pause and a subtle hum, a cant of Dima’s head against Fae’s chest and a slight, smirking tic to his smile. “Mm. You will come with me in so many manners of the word, hm?
“Beautiful creature; you bring me to glory. Already you worship so well.” There’s a soft laugh, and there’s a kiss for Faolan, an easy, ardent brush of lips.
Then: “But I do have words for you. I will always have commands for you— So long as you might wish them.
“Your Dima will always guide you, and be infinitely pleased by your devotion.”
There’s another kiss, this time pressed upon Fae’s chest, above his heart before Dima looks upward again. When he speaks now, his tone carries the slightest, slightest hint of what could be command; what isn’t removed at all for admiration, adoration—
“Stay with me, Faolan.
“My lover. My Dearest. My” (does he dare it) (oh, he does) “Puppy.
no subject
Faolan, yes, and Faolan, good, very good—
Good Puppy, Dima thinks, and shivers with the thought.
Shivers sharper, down across his spine at the kiss to his pulse, the threat and promise of teeth so near his throat. (Would he like that, Faolan's teeth upon him, Faolan's teeth levelled to free his blood to blossom? Gods, gods yes, gods yes he would.) Bows his body, arcs his back into the rush of his own pulse, his pin-pricked skin, and to the dark fire tremoring beneath the Fae's whispers, the ardency that could lead to blessed viciousness, the adoration (oh, the love) that twines itself with flame.
As Faolan kisses him, holds him, breathes words like offerings upon an altar shared, Dima's own whispers, his own gasps ring in kind between them, to the air above his Fae's bright hair, his Fae's lips and prowling kisses, forming words of “Our children, yes" and "My Fae, my own" and "Listen, Dearest, listen only for your Dima" and "There is nothing, there is nothing in the world beyond our reach; there is nothing in existence that evades us."
And between one press of lips and another, as Dima's hand brushes Fae's own hair, as Dima shifts his head into Fae's carding, as he feels himself a being burning tenderness and fervor in equal measure, he speaks again with that hinted growl: "I'm going to take care of you.
"Your Dima will take care of everything for you."
Another kiss, its pressure soft though the gasp caught in his throat speaks of rising fire. And when Dima shifts himself onto Fae's thigh, Fae's lap, when he wraps himself tighter around his Faolan (his love, yes, yes his love), it's with equal parts soft care and spark-bright wanting.
It's with another low growling of words: "Let me take care of you now.
"My Fae, let me bring you into fire, and burn all else to ash.
"My Faolan. My Fae."
These last words are spoken as he leans inward again, seizes another kiss. Not without tenderness, not without a sudden soft sigh - “Oh, Fae” - the shiver of his growl catching with soft starlight, with a melting to Fae's hold and a pressing of his own.
<.>
For a few blessed, blissful hours, the world stands still as Faolan burns in Dima's arms. The thieves sleep and Liviana keeps her silent, circling guard in flight, and nothing intrudes. They press and twine beside the fire, blooming fertile at one another's hands and sinking again against the earth with satiated sighs.
He's never done this before. He's never come close to whatever this is, this easy, luxuriant inferno. He's never been caught safe after reaching ecstatic heights, allowed to rest dreamy-eyed, allowed to relish the after before another ache ignites.
He's never been guided, instructed toward his own pleasure. The words whispered in the dark have never been our children, or home, or my love, my only, my all - but then, they aren't in the dark. The fire beside them glows brilliant with Fae's throes, subsiding as he sinks, then, with Dima's rapture, blazing again around them like the harmless flames he conjured around their joined hands. The world is lit by flame.
Dima takes care of him, burns him to ash and coaxes him to growth again, again, purifying. Breathing life into him. (And that's all necromancy is, really: gifts of life. Reversal of death come too soon.) (He dies small deaths over and over at Dima's touch.)
Long after, when the fire dies down to faint tongues of flame from embers and ashing logs, they lie together in Faolan's hammock, swaying gently in a warm nighttime breeze. Even here, the shadows aren't so deep; he can see Dima's face in the moonlight. Dima's head against his chest, arms around him, held safe in his own arms.
He doesn't ask if Dima was satisfied. He matches the rise and fall of his breath to that of the man in his arms, times inhale with exhale and exhale with inhale. Feels wholeness - peace like he's never known.
Neither does he plead for Dima to stay, to never leave. As he winds into a deeper, more comfortable embrace, as he kisses Dima's hair, he whispers instead, "Tell me to stay at your side and I'll never leave you.
"Where you go, I'll follow endlessly. Obediently. Whatever you ask, I'll give. Whatever pleases, whatever draws your smile.
"If you want me, I'm yours, Dima. Faithfully and forever."
He huffs a drowsy little laugh and, chagrined, amends, "I'm yours whether you want me or not. I'll follow you regardless.
"But I do like it - When you tell me what I ought to do. It's so much clearer, so much simpler. You make the world fall away until there's only you - and me at your feet. Oh, I like that. I could worship you that way, my love. Mm - if you told me to."
<.>
Above, the glow of stars.
Above, in Dima’s knowing, the aftermath of fire. Of the flames that rose beside them, seemed to wrap Dima and Faolan within protective, blazing tendrils. Of the flames that spoke their blissful tumult, the breath and life they gave to one another.
It’s never been this way before: The world, or Dima’s gasped desire (oh, there had been nothing of the sort before Faolan, before the night they slipped beyond the masquerade and made existence to their own), or connection, touch and wildness shared with any other.
It never was this way before: The way his own command took on the heart of care; the way obedience thrilled him onward and paired itself with tenderness, with strokes upon his own skin and with adorations gasped in jarring breath, inciting Dima toward sightless, thunder-stricken climax.
Before Faolan, Dmitri never wanted this: The touch of another being twined around him. The cataclysms found in sex. The times Dima had bothered were long past, and had ended in distaste, in drawing off and deciding never, never again. In deciding his energies were best turned elsewhere.
This, though.
Faolan, though.
Of course it would be different with Faolan, whose being sings a force to match Dmitri’s own; whose fire echoes and enhances Dima’s.
Of course sex itself would turn into ascension, to blood inciting blood, to the burn of Dima’s being and to tidal tenderness after, safety found in Faolan’s arms, safety offered through his own.
And it was simple, it was something far beyond gratifying to caress, to guide, to speak his Faolan toward rapture. To tell him what and when, to draw his hand along Faolan’s skin. To feel tingled brightness roaring up beneath his skin with each command obeyed; to feel the same in witnessing how eagerly his Faolan responded.
How natural it was, to cry his Faolan’s name. How staggering, to hear Fae call his own.
Now, wrapped in Faolan’s hammock in Faolan’s arms, Dima’s breathing sighs easy, settled into soft and steady rhythm. Now he tracks the steady pulse of Faolan’s heart, his head pressed to his lover’s (his love’s) chest, thinking that this heart is his; thinking that his own is Fae’s.
At the kiss to his hair, he nestles, nuzzles closer, sighs a soft and happy sound.
At Fae’s words, he knows a swelling of his chest toward joy, toward welcoming, toward tears alike. (Yes, yes, of course; he could ask nothing better. There *is* nothing brighter than that Faolan should remain with him, and know vibrancy in Dima’s nearness.) There’s a soft laugh at Fae’s emendation; a suggestion that there is no question of whether Dima wants him; a suggestion that the answer has been written clear, and will always be given, always stand legible: Of course, of course Dima wants him, and will have him.
And when Fae speaks his appreciation of command. When Fae speaks of the world falling away, an echo almost of the way the world shifts its focus, turns uncrowded, uncomplicated in Fae’s presence. When Faolan speaks of worship— Oh.
Oh, that is gratifying, just as well, and the shiver that brushes through Dima’s otherwise lolled form tells as much, as does the way he buries his head just a little firmer against Fae’s chest, with a grin, with a tilt of his head upward to meet Fae’s eyes and share the tenor of that smile.
And, his body falling languid again, he brushing his fingertips down Faolan’s cheek, Dima speaks, soft but clear—
“You burn so bright, my Dearest.
“You astonish me— You render me undone, and made anew.
“And as it happens, I want you very much, and will keep hold of all you are. Oh, Faolan, you will come with me— With your hand wrapped in my own. Stride-for-stride, and step-for-step.”
There’s a pause and a subtle hum, a cant of Dima’s head against Fae’s chest and a slight, smirking tic to his smile. “Mm. You will come with me in so many manners of the word, hm?
“Beautiful creature; you bring me to glory. Already you worship so well.” There’s a soft laugh, and there’s a kiss for Faolan, an easy, ardent brush of lips.
Then: “But I do have words for you. I will always have commands for you— So long as you might wish them.
“Your Dima will always guide you, and be infinitely pleased by your devotion.”
There’s another kiss, this time pressed upon Fae’s chest, above his heart before Dima looks upward again. When he speaks now, his tone carries the slightest, slightest hint of what could be command; what isn’t removed at all for admiration, adoration—
“Stay with me, Faolan.
“My lover. My Dearest. My” (does he dare it) (oh, he does) “Puppy.
“My Fae.
“Stay. And sleep here, with your arms around me.”
<.>