Chapter Text
They’re sopping wet when they arrive at the hall of mirrors. Leona has half considered which mirror to take and whose room to go to when he decides he doesn’t want to make that choice because it feels awfully final and he’s not sure he wants to face their inevitable end, even now when he’s staring directly at it.
He turns around but his question dies against Malleus’ mouth.
Malleus’ lips are starfire hot against his. Leona has already memorized their shape but he didn’t know how much he’s missed this, how much he missed Malleus. The umbrella drops to the floor and Leona tangles his fingers into wet hair as he presses closer, leans into the warm hand on his cheek and kisses back with just as much fervor and desperation. He swallows the sound Malleus makes deep in his throat like he’s a dying man and this is his last meal. When Malleus pulls back again it’s entirely too early and Leona has to fight the urge to chase after him.
“What was that for?” He asks in a halfhearted attempt to distract from how breathless he is.
Malleus looks at him, eyes lidded and swirling with all the emotions Leona is too afraid to put a name to. “Because I don’t do it enough.”
And then Malleus kisses him harder, all teeth and desperation like the first time at the magical shift field. His hands are holding Leona close, clutching onto him, and Leona suddenly feels dizzy. He needs something steady, something to ground himself. He needs the oppressing heat to keep his mind from wandering, dreaming, hoping. He needs to let Malleus in and never have him leave again.
He grabs Malleus by the collar and pushes him through the mirror.
It’s not raining in Savanaclaw, dry and hot and familiar. Malleus gathers his footing before he tumbles face first into the sand. Leona shakes his head like a wet dog and splashes hum with the residue of the downpour still clinging to his clothes.
“Leona-senpai?” A first year Savanaclaw student calls. He’s flanked by four of his peers, two Leona recognizes from the magical shift team, another a promising basketball player and the last an uprising member of the track and field club. They all look at him dumbfounded, then at Malleus, back to Leona.
“You’re a little later than usual.” He says, clueless but suspicious.
It’s not late. The sun has yet to set, still early enough for the other beastmen to finish cleaning up after their evening workout routine. Leona normally comes back from the greenhouse by the time they’re doing stretches. They’re in the middle of cleanup now, and by the puzzled looks on their faces, Leona figures they have never seen Malleus before, nor any idea of who he is.
They collectively keep cautiously looking between Malleus and him as if they’re not sure Malleus was safe to be around and whether or not they could trust Leona on that matter. Leona sighs, vaguely motions towards Malleus and says, “You don’t need to worry. He’s fine. He’s my …” He turns to Malleus and squints thoughtfully. His what exactly? It’s rather bad timing, they were just about to have that particular conversation. Malleus is looking at him now too, just as expectantly as the first years gathered around them, and waits for Leona to decide what he is to him.
“Well,” Leona continues and turns back towards his juniors, “He’s mine.”
The first years look at each other and make no move to leave. Leona’s patience steadily wears thin until he snaps his head and growls at them, “Now get going. The weak die young in Savanaclaw and you’re still fresh meat. We fight our battles alone in the wilderness, best develop that stamina of yours before I decide it’s time for a snack before dinner.”
They share another look, still uncertain, but ultimately hurry back towards where they came from, finally leaving them alone. Leona’s shoulders drop, when he looks at Malleus his expression is unreadable, surprised, confused, fond? Leona can’t tell. He shoves him towards his room instead.
“I missed you.” Is what Leona thinks he hears Malleus breathe into his mouth. He’s barely had enough time to lock the door before Malleus pressed him against it, fervent and burning and too intensely passionate to be mindful of elegance and grace. Leona doesn’t answer, he’s too busy giving just as well as he takes, biting and pushing and pulling and aching at the possibility of having misheard.
It's remarkable how little effort it takes Malleus to hoist him up and carry him across his bedroom and onto his bed. Malleus leans over him and gathers Leona’s wrists to hold them above his head where their combined hands sink into his mattress. The air in his lungs isn’t enough for this. When he gasps into Malleus’ mouth, Malleus almost caves in on himself.
“Leona.” He says and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, then his cheek, the scar running across his left eye. Then he’s losing steam, his face contorts, expression twists into something sad, maybe hopeful, definitely desperate. “I want more.”
Leona’s pretty sure he’d do anything for Malleus right now. He bucks his hips up and nods his head, but for Malleus, it’s not enough.
“I want more, Leona.” He repeats, letting his head drop to press his nose into the fluff at the base of Leona’s ear. “I need to know if you want more too.”
Of course Leona wants more but he also knows ‘more’ was never meant to be his. Malleus could have everything he wants if he keeps pressing him into the mattress like that, and Leona can have this, maybe not Malleus but whatever this is, whatever dance they’re doing, whatever neither here nor there they’ve created for themselves. He’s never really had a future, something to look forward to, something worth growing old for. But Leona can have at least this much for himself. Maybe he doesn’t need Malleus forever, maybe right now will be fine. He understands ’right now’. He understands that ‘right now’ was not even close to ‘forever’ or ‘always’ or ‘indefinitely’ – he’s not naïve anymore, he’s learnt nothing is ‘forever’ long ago, that nothing is ever truly his. Leona wants more than right now, but right now will have to do if that’s all he can get his hands on, until he turns that too into sand.
He nods again. Malleus smiles into sunkissed skin.
“Good.” Malleus laughs, breathless and relieved, and presses his lips against the taut muscle of Leona’s throat. “We can figure everything else out later. For now it’s enough to know you won’t push me away again.”
“Push you away?” Leona snaps. Something coils in his stomach, something whitehot and ugly, something he knows to be maybe not rage but anger. He shoves Malleus’s shoulder until he can look at him, all of his disgust and irritation bleeding into the contorting features of his face, “That’s rich coming from you.” He roars, loud enough for the sound to hurt his own ears. “After all, Idia mistaking us for a couple was enough to leave you running.”
Malleus looks at him, shocked and scandalized, and takes far too long to unfreeze from his sudden stupor. When he speaks his voice comes out rough and shaky, “What?” He pushes up on his elbows, shifts his weight until he’s sitting on Leona’s thighs and runs an unstable hand through charcoal hair. Malleus breathes in deeply through his mouth but his voice still comes out choked and fiery hot, wisps of smoke drifting from his nostrils. “Leona. What the fuck.”
Leona knees him in the stomach.
“Don’t worry, your highness.” He spits while Malleus wheezes, “I didn’t give him the idea.”
He’s lashing out again, another hissy fit in the making, but right now that’s the only thing that will stop the ringing in his ears. He thought he was over hoping and wanting and dreaming. Why couldn’t he just turn it all off? Why did he have to want for Malleus to warm all of the cold spots in his life? Why couldn’t things ever be easy?
“Yes, that was fairly obvious.” Malleus snaps once his lungs have filled with air again and he can breathe semi-normally, a continuous stream of little smoke puffs now dancing from the tip of his nose into the heavy air around them, “You were quick to correct him, if I remember correctly.”
Leona’s already bared his fangs, his nails have dug into the bedsheets and ripped them, but then he takes a moment to process what Malleus said and comes up thunderstruck. This cannot be right but he’s certain he didn’t mishear this time. He blinks and wills his hands to flatten against the mattress.
“Malleus.” He says, inhales for a heartbeat, a pause, a lifetime. He can feel the fear that sits coiled tight around his chest. His ears are still ringing but he pushes forward anyways. This is his last card to play, the only thing he has left in his arsenal – the only hope he’s still clinging on to. There isn’t enough air in his lungs, his voice wretchedly hopeful and uncertain. “You aren’t upset Idia mistook us for a couple.”
Malleus glares at him, half-offended and bordering on disgust, this close to throwing his own hissy fit. “Of course I’m not.”
And suddenly Leona can breathe again.
The evening breeze gently sways his sunblinds, taking the ash at the bottom of his heart and dispersing it over vast fields outside. Time becomes a fuzzy thing when Malleus’ voice echoes in his mind but it laps at his heart like the ocean at the shore and brings him back to reality. His heartbeat doesn’t return to normal but his heart is beating, blood rushing, tension disappearing when he looks into lime green eyes.
“You absolute moron.” He says, grabs one of his pillows and smacks Malleus right into the face.
“Idiotic lizard.” Another smack.
“Horned bastard.” Malleus grabs hold of the pillow. Leona simply takes another and smothers him with it.
“You are foul and awful.” He accuses while Malleus struggles.
“I could spend a week telling you all the reasons why you’re the worst.” He hisses but throws the pillow to the other side of the room so he can properly straddle Malleus who’s still not sure he won’t get mauled and have his body thrown to the hyenas before the sun sets.
“But what good would that do?” Leona asks, quickly losing steam. His shoulders drop, he leans down until his forehead rests against Malleus’ and closes his eyes. The words come easy now, falling from his mouth and washing over his skin, settling into his bones, as if he was always meant to voice them out loud.
“I still love you. Nothing could change that.”
Malleus almost burns up beneath him. Leona kisses him before he can say anything else.
Maybe Malleus isn’t the only one burning. Maybe Leona’s caught fire somewhere along the line even when he’d though his own flame had been snubbed out long ago. Malleus kisses him like a phenomenon, and Leona feels like maybe he is – not quite a supernova made of dragonfire but more like a star that never stops falling, no longer burning out and dying.
He loses track of time, everything happens slowly but all at once as the air around them shifts until there’s nothing but heat and fluttering heartbeats. Supernova meets falling star and the entire universe catches fire. Heat crawls up Leona’s spine, flushing every inch of skin it touches along the way.
Leona’s throat feels strangely tight as he allows Malleus to turn them over and press him into the sheets. It’s difficult to maintain some measure of aloofness when impatience claws at him so desperately. Malleus’ fingers slide down his abdomen, lower still, until they trip over the zip of his pants. His stomach wrings tighter.
“Tell me if it’s too much.” Malleus says and presses a chaste kiss to his lips. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”
Leona groans, huffs, grows impossibly relentless when Malleus simply keeps his hand there and dutifully busies himself with mapping Leona’s skin with his mouth as he waits for permission.
“Malleus.” Leona says when he takes hold of his wrist and moves Malleus’ hand where he wants it. “If you stop now I’ll eat you alive.”
Malleus breathlessly laughs against the heated skin of Leona’s neck, sounding overwhelmed with every inhale of stale air. “While that does sound lovely” He says, moving his way up so he can nuzzle the tip of his nose into the softness of Leona’s hair, “I thought tonight I could be the one eating you instead.”
Leona sucks in a sharp breath. “We can make that happen.” He says, tightens his fingers in Malleus’ hair and pulls harshly. “If you’d get on with it already.”
“So bossy.” Malleus drawls but his complaint is the only thing in his room that lacks any sort of fire. He finally moves his hand, this time much more enthusiastic and helpful. Between them they manage to kick off Leona’s pants to the floor, next to the already forgotten pillow. Leona struggles upright so he can pull off his shirt which requires far more coordination than he thought it would when Malleus drops his hand down low, around him, and moves first experimentally, then so incredibly unashamedly.
He isn’t shy about showing Malleus where he wants him to touch, neither is he about touching Malleus so he reaches out and skates his hands along every curve of Malleus’ body while Malleus works his hand in a maddening pace. Leona is demanding and Malleus can barely do anything but watch him with rapt fascination as Leona writhes completely unrestrained. It’s rare to see Leona unabashedly enjoy himself, to see Leona happy. Malleus is terrified of missing even a second of it.
He drinks the sound Leona makes from his lips, then he moves lower, almost clinical in the way he commits the shape of Leona’s body to memory by touch alone – the sharp edge of his jawline, the subtle curve of his Adam’s apple, the dip of collarbones, then his sternum and each of his rips down to his pelvis where he skips straight to the inside of Leona’s thighs. The powerful muscles clench and unclench rhythmically underneath his fingers as he presses kisses and bites into tender flesh. The hand in Malleus’ hair moves to the base of his horns and pulls, and Malleus lets himself be guided forward more than willingly.
Malleus slides off the bed and drops to his knees with a horrid loud band against the wood floor but he’s too busy shuffling towards Leona to even flinch at it. Then there’s hands on Leona’s calves and open-mouthed kisses against the inside of his thighs and Malleus looking at him with clouded eyes. Leona lets Malleus part his legs a little further while Malleus slides, squeezes. Malleus touches him again, stroking slow and steady, enjoying the feel of Leona against the warm palm of his hand. The small noise of pleasure Leona lets out at the sudden electricity running down his spine has Malleus stunned for a moment.
Leona groans and impatiently tugs at the horn again, “Don’t you dare stop now, Malleus.”
A small smile spreads across Malleus’ lips, wicked and delicious and completely fond. Then he leans in to press an open-mouthed kiss to the tip the head. Leona preens at the attention, his toes curling into the soft carpet. Malleus grows thrilled, borderline endeared, and cradles the underside of him with his tongue.
Malleus gives his trembling thighs a comforting squeeze, and when Leona lets himself grow accustomed to the ever-growing warmth around them, he gives a tentative roll of his hips. Malleus lets his eyes fall shut, focusing on the feel of Leona in his mouth, the smell of him, the heat of him, and groans a wonderful sound, the vibrations in his throat making their way down to the tips of Leona’s fingers.
“Malleus.” Leona breathes, pulling and tugging and pawing at his horns. It’s amazing, soft and warm and loving and entirely too much to handle. His head is reeling, Malleus speeds up in earnest.
Malleus’ mouth works around him, pulls against him and sucks him into the flex of his throat. Leona’s head tips back, his neck straining. For a moment, he can’t speak at all, can’t even draw in a breath, too overwhelmed from the sensations vibrating through him. Malleus makes a sound around him, half growl, half moan. Its echo surges through Leona’s body, thrums all the tension inside him like a plucked string.
“Malleus.” Leona repeats with more urgency and desperation. It’s too hot, too much, and perfectly right, but Leona’s not sure he wants this to end yet. “Malleus, it’s not- I will … it’s too soon.”
Malleus doesn’t stop, swallows down again until he’s nearly choking, presses his tongue against him, and –
Leona’s hips push forward entirely on their own. The hand around Malleus’ horn holds on so tight he thinks it might snap, and then he comes with a gasp. He doesn’t recognize his own voice anymore but Malleus is stroking the flexing muscles of his thighs soothingly and takes what he’s given.
His face feels flushed, there’s sweat on his brow, legs wobbly when he’s already seated. When the world around him starts to focus again, Malleus pulls back and rests his cheek against his thigh. He makes a show of licking his lips and flicks his split tongue out with a radiant smile when he’s clean. Malleus looks so pleased with his handiwork Leona lets him reach up, thread his finger into the short hairs at the nape of his neck and coax him into a sweet kiss. It’s excruciatingly tender, and Leona finds himself unable but to return it. His head is spinning when Malleus pulls back again, the gleam in his eyes saying this had been his intention from the beginning.
Leona, impossible as it seems, falls for him just a little more.
“Incredulous lizard.” He laughs against Malleus’ mouth.
Malleus’ hands are still trembling. Close as they are, Leona can feel the hardness of him against his thigh. Leona kisses him again and Malleus seems to ease once his lips are on Leona, once he has one hand braced on the bare skin of his waist and the other clutching against the headboard, and for all that Leona can feel arousal begin to pool and tighten to a knot in the depths of his stomach once more. Despite pleasant static still lingering behind his eyes, the delay of it all mixed with a new bout of satisfaction cresting a distant horizon makes his ears snap to attention again.
There’s so much heat between them but no matter where he touches there’s no slide of naked skin, just him against the leather of Malleus’ uniform. It’s so unfair a new kind of intensity spikes up his spine.
“Take this off.” He snarls, tugging on the collar of Malleus’ cape and sounding far more demanding than he intended. Malleus takes well to being bossed around a bit though, or maybe he’s too far gone to make a clever quip, either way, he doesn’t need to be told twice. Malleus retreats down the bed, sits back on his heels and dutifully strips out of his uniform. Leona doesn’t even pretend he’s not outright staring while Malleus unzips his jacket and lazily drops it to the floor. Only then does Malleus remember that he is a fairly powerful wizard so a snap of his fingers takes care of the rest of his clothing.
Leona makes a mental note to forbid magic next time just so he could indulge in watching Malleus get undressed. As is, he’s already reaching for Malleus before all of the residual particles have dissipated in the air and tilts his knees open wider. Malleus fits himself between them once more easily. There’s no coordination needed in this, they’ve spent too many lazy evenings and drawn-out nights learning each other, even if they’ve never gotten this far. They match each other, their bodies, their heat, their desire in every which way. Malleus presses a warm palm to Leona’s thigh to hold him down and Leona lets himself lie heavy against the bed. The weight of his body presses him in place while another spark of magic flares through the air, then Malleus’ hand slides lower than before.
Malleus presses kisses to the junction of his throat and jawline while Leona grows accustomed to the small circles being traced into sensitive skin. It’s strange but not unpleasant and feels perplexingly right. By the time Malleus moves the first digit inside Leona tremors of pleasure course through him like waves passing through the endless depths of the ocean. Leona moans and angles his knees a bit wider as Malleus works decadent currents through his body. Malleus’ lashes drop heavy and dim the stormy desire clouding his vision. He presses his nose into Leona’s neck and adds another finger, making a shudder of friction run up Leona’s spine.
“Malleus.” Leona says, this side of breathless as the sound of Malleus’ name spills through the room like the endless waves of heat licking and curling through the air. Malleus’s grip on his hips tightens, as if bracing himself against his name on Leona’s lips. Leona lets Malleus feed him the ghostly sensation of three fingers dragging against his walls, curling, pumping and twisting cruelly sensual. He can feel the flex of his own muscles like lightning trapped in his ribcage until his nails dig deep into the soft meat of Malleus’ shoulder. His body is arching in time with the motions of Malleus’ fingers, religiously following the sensations until he’s pulsing with the excess energy coursing through his veins.
Malleus keeps him there for an endless span of time, pressing Leona into the give of the mattress while he works him open with each twist of his fingers. Leona’s still spent and slack from before but every inch of his skin feels alive. There’s new tension everywhere, and Leona doesn’t need to look down to know Malleus is straining and hard between them.
Leona unclenches his right hand and lets it drop between Malleus’ legs. The reaction is instant, Malleus shudders a deep guttural groan and bucks up against his palm. Leona lets a self-satisfied smile spread across his lips. He leans in for a kiss, soft and slow and so tender.
Malleus presses his lips to the corner of Leona’s mouth. “Are you still okay?”
“I might not be if you don’t get on with it.” Leona growls and chases after him to bite Malleus’ lower lip. “I’m ready Malleus. Don’t you dare make me wait any longer.”
The groan Malleus presses into his neck is unearthly. He feels Malleus whisper right against the sensitive spot behind his ear, “Lift a leg for me.”
Leona makes an extremely needy sound when Malleus slides his fingers out of him, one he might deny were his mind not so delightfully fogged over. As is, he complies easily and lets Malleus shadow him beneath a curtain of silky midnight colored hair. Leona groans again, somewhere between desire and frustration. Malleus grants him another kiss, mostly to soothe his need as he lines himself up.
It’s getting to Malleus too, and Leona very much likes the look of him now, too pleasured to stay still, eyes unfocussed. “Is this still what you want, Leona?”
Leona growls impatiently. Everything he wants is right in front of him, Malleus should know that by now. All he needs to do is reach out. He doesn’t want to wait another second.
“You perfect horned bastard.” He swears, hand wrenching into Malleus, anchoring him close as he wraps his legs around Malleus’ waist and pulls him close, pulls him home.
They groan in tandem, needy and desperate and completely overwhelmed. Leona’s entire body moves with his breaths, labored at the sudden fullness of it all. Malleus struggles to fill his lungs with enough air. There’s another plume of smoke forming underneath his nostril as he lets out a tortured exhale. It’s so tight and warm, Malleus getting lost the undiluted feeling of Leona.
Malleus is still breathing hard once he’s completely pushed in. “Leona” He sighs. Leona is so devastatingly overwhelming, making his mind to come a halt as every atom vibrates with need, “You- you feel … incredible.”
Malleus hasn’t moved, but he’s also not sure he can. Leona has slung an arm over his face and is kind of just nodding, chest heaving. It’s all a bit much. He clenches and unclenches his hands and finally reaches up over Malleus’ shoulders and grabs on tight, hiding his face into the crook of Malleus neck.
“Good to know.”
His legs are still hooked around Malleus, a little shaky but still very strong when it comes to shifting his hips up in an encouraging push. Malleus slides deeper, groans, starts to move, slowly, unsure of where to start but he figures out the whole rhythm business with every thrust of his hips. It all feels natural. Sex with Leona feels natural. It’s such a devastatingly heart-wrenching conclusion he absolutely has to kiss Leona right now.
“Tell me what to do.” He whispers against the curve of Leona’s lips, pressing his mouth everywhere he can reach. “Tell me how to make this perfect for you.”
Leona makes a sound that completely unmoors him, so desperate and beautiful. Leona presses his eyes closed when he hears his own breath hitch. It’s easier to give in and tell Malleus the full truth of things like this. He digs his nails deep enough to draw blood. “Love me.”
“I already do.”
When Leona opens his eyes he sees his own desperation reflected twofold on Malleus’ face, flushed to the shoulders and heavy eyes dark and clouded over. He is an absolute mess when Malleus gives him what he wants, raw and open sounds tearing from his throat with every thrust, first tender then soul crushingly deep. He had no idea anything could feel this good.
Malleus looks at him like he’s in awe of it, of Leona. He slides a hand over Leona’s abdomen, then down again so he can wrap that hand around the length of him. Leona screws his eyes shut, throws his head back and makes a wounded sound, falling apart right underneath the slick palms of Malleus’ hands.
“Too fast?” Malleus asks.
Leona laughs, or tries to laugh. A hysterical noise comes bubbling up in his throat and spills out of his mouth. “Don’t you ever dare stop.”
Malleus presses a wanton sound against his throat, soft kisses against his flexing tendons when Leona moans out at a particularly nice thrust.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Malleus says, voice cool like the latest hour of the night, and such a stark contrast to the accumulating heat surrounding them. He punctuates his words with a rough grind that has Leona see stars. He cries out and rakes a hand down Malleus’ back, leaving five angry red trails in his wake while Malleus’ name falls from his lips on every downstroke.
Malleus drags in a breath, sounding like he’s struggling for it. “Leona,” he grates out past tightly clenched teeth, as if he’s on the verge of caving in but still arduously holding himself back, clinging onto the last fragments of coherence and fighting the urge to give in to the desire that cackles through the air like lightning.
“Leona, I want-” Malleus says but his voice breaks with desperation. He trails off with a shake of his head, squeezing his eyes shut tightly.
“Leona.” Malleus groans, whimpers, begs, as he drives forward and bottoms out entirely. The skin of his back breaks as his wings unfurl with a flutter. Black leathery skin brushes over Leona’s thighs, sleek and so exquisitely indulgent before they span out in their entirety and knock the plant Leona keeps in between the bed and the balcony to the floor with a loud clatter.
“Sorry.” Malleus gasps, his wings flopping uselessly and sending Leona’s chess set on his nightstand to the carpet. His eyes are unfocussed when he hurriedly vanishes them again with a strained flick of his wrist and a sharp bite to his own bottom lip that draws blood. “I lost control for a second. “He says, voice strained, “... I- It won’t happen again.”
Leona laughs, still more than a little dazed by the shock of being filled so abruptly and how wonderful that had felt. He unlatches one hand from Malleus’ shoulders to soothingly stroke it over his cheek instead and licks the little trickle of red from his mouth before he presses his lips to Malleus’ plush ones. When his nails scrape bluntly where jawline meets the tender skin beneath his ear Malleus gives a full-body shudder and works his hips even harder. Malleus’ hands are bruise-tight on his hips but Leona finds comfort in the dull steadying pressure of Malleus being so close when the tangle of want and urgency inside him threatens to choke him.
Malleus whispers his heart into his ears and Leona relaxes with the certainty that it belongs to him. When their hands intertwine Leona feels as if he holds the entire universe inside of him and swallows his own name as it spills from Malleus’ lips in the sweetest plea.
The bedsheets are sticking to the curve of his spine, clinging to his shoulders. Leona would feel the discomfort of the heat they sear into his skin if he weren’t so radiant with the glow coursing through his veins that he hardly notices. His insides have turned to magma, honey-thick and blazing-sun warm. It’s almost too much to bear, the weight of a shooting star settling into his core as the ends of his nerves catch fire and burn up his bones.
“Yes.” He breathes, the words now tumbling out of his mouth without his permission. Malleus writhes above him, grinds down the hand he so lovingly has wrapped around Leona, making him squirm and pant heavily. It’s not enough, not when Leona can feel his orgasm weighting the base of his spine and the entirety of his body trembling with its inevitability.
Leona has lost all sense of time and attention to detail, has lost the concept of space, between him and Malleus, him and the burnt shell of his room, the heat still rising, always rising. His body aches and trembles with the need for more, more friction, more pressure, more dragonfire inferno and falling-star blaze. His voice no longer belongs to him, rips out of his throat with every thrust Malleus takes into him. His legs flex, fingers clawing into Malleus’ shoulder without abandon, but he can only pay attention to Malleus and the heat rippling through his body as his focus zeroes in on the knot of anticipation within him. Nothing matters anymore, the ripped bedsheets, broken plant pot, all of the flames licking up the walls, it’s all unimportant, utterly insignificant, so long as Malleus doesn’t slow.
“Now Malleus.” He hears himself say, voice distant as it echoes throughout the liquid heat of the room. He scrunches his nose to mask the thundering of his heart. “You can … come on –”
Malleus surrenders at his words with a sound like dying. He shudders another moan and tightens his arms around him, buries his face into the crook of Leona’s neck with a shiver and a gasp to brace himself against the force of Leona’s body working around him. Leona spills between them, his body a shivering wreck. He’s completely stunned by it, by its heat and intensity and how much it feels like coming home.
Malleus kisses him through it, long and languid and recklessly devoted. He follows Leona not a moment later, stuttering, wrung straight to the toes with the feeling of it all, and its enormity. When he’s no longer shaking he folds forwards onto Leona, comfortable in the curve of his neck.
The concept of time and space doesn’t return to Leona but he’s quite comfortable with just Malleus and him and their heartbeats settling down, returning to normal. The heat around them fades but doesn’t dissipate, never fizzles out beyond a comforting hum of liquid warmth steadily mixing into the firehot blood in his veins. Malleus is a steady weight on top of him, grounding him more than any person should ever have the right to. Leona pulls him tighter.
His legs eventually begin to loosen around Malleus’ hips but while his muscles scream at him to drop them against the soft sheets he keeps them half-circled around Malleus’ instead. Letting him go seems impossible right now, so he doesn’t. He can have this now, all of it, all of Malleus. His hands smooth over the angry lines he carved into Malleus’ back, his touch barely-there and uncharacteristically gentle. Normally he has to tilt his chin to even kiss him, but like this it’s so easy to lean down and nuzzle his nose into Malleus’ sweat damp hair. He finds the sensation delightful in its novelty.
They’re lying around like this for a good while, long enough for the sun outside to dip behind the horizon. There’s something awfully intimate about just being close and listening to each other’s breaths while the reds and yellows of Savanaclaw’s sky bleed into washed out purples and deep indigos. The last lone sunbeams glittering in through the balcony door slowly fade out as the light gives way to the shadows. Then they’re pillowed in familiar dark.
Leona cards his fingers through hair the same color of the velvety blackness settling around them and realizes what a rebellious act loving Malleus is. Nothing the light touches may ever be his but he’s quite comfortable in the obscure quiet of overcast skies and the thunderous gloom of drawn-out nights. He longer wants everything the light touches when Malleus is a being carved from ashgrey shadows and voidlike shapes cast onto the walls in the dead of the night. Malleus would wither in the bright of day, Leona has withered against the freezing touch of the blazing sun.
If the sun touches it, he no longer wants it.
Half of Malleus’ face grows indistinct in the thick darkness lacing the air but Leona’s eyes have never had trouble adjusting to the dark. His fingers find the curve of Malleus’ cheeks easily, he pushes forward and lets the shadows of his own face join the shadows of everything else around them.
And then, when he pulls back for air, he laughs.
And he doesn’t stop.
Malleus pushes up on his elbows and shoots him a confused look. “Are you alright, Leona?” He asks, all worry and concern and love, “I didn’t break you, did I?”
Even with the added space between them Leona doesn’t feel cold. Night has fallen, the tips of his fingers don’t freeze and he doesn’t need to slide his toes underneath the covers. He thinks he might have grown incapable of being cold.
“No, you didn’t.” Leona laughs, head spinning, heart full. “Malleus, you ruined me.”
He grabs Malleus’ face and kisses him harder.
The only one surprised to find Leona can burn brighter than ever is none other than himself.
“Leona!”
He looks up to see Farena standing in the doorway, smiling at him from across the room, the entirety of his face radiant and ecstatic. Leona locks his phone before Farena can catch a glimpse of the photo Malleus has sent him – a gargoyle he saw at the abandoned castle he’s currently exploring.
“Yes?” He asks, somewhat annoyed. He hasn’t been back in the Afterglow Savanna for that long, and he’ll be gone before he starts his 4th year internship in a few weeks – not enough time for Farena to remember the concept of knocking before entering a room, not that anyone in his life has ever been privy to respecting his privacy.
“You’re smiling!” Farena says, shouts, points out with far too much excitement.
Leona frowns.
“Who’s texting you to make you smile?”
He drops his phone into the depths of his bed and pointedly ignores the question by angrily whipping his tail back and forth.
“I haven’t seen you smile like that in forever!” Farena says, already crossing the room with intimidating vigor and determination. “I’m going to hug you and maybe never let go.”
“Don’t you dare-” He begins but in the end, he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter.
He stays longer in the Afterglow Savanna than he intended. By week two Malleus claims the Valley of Thorns is too cold without Leona and shows up in a cloud of neon green particles of magic that Cheka mistakes for fireflies. Neither of them mentions that Leona has never been in the Valley of Thorns before.
Turns out, Malleus doesn’t wither in excessive light, neither does Leona, but they both flourish in the dark. That much doesn’t change.
Farena is a bit intimidated at first, at the underlying politics of it all and because he’s never really been confronted with shadowy black before, and most definitely by Lilia.
Cheka isn’t scared to begin with.
He perches on Malleus’ shoulders and steers him by his horns and hunts the scaley tail Malleus swishes from side to side whenever he pretends he doesn’t see Cheka approach. By day three they have their first accident, which is how Leona finds himself dabbing little trickles of blood from Malleus’ brow right before dinner.
Cheka had lost his footing and Malleus had underestimated how far lions could jump. There was crashing, there was falling, and a really loud thump, and Malleus had only had enough time to keep one of them from hurting themselves which is how Malleus had ended up with a tiny scratch over his left eye, one not even close to being deep enough to scar.
Leona presses the cotton pad against the ‘injury’ and snaps his teeth in the general direction of Malleus’ hand straying to pet the spot right where Leona’s tail meets his lower back. Leona would make sure his bite would actually scar but Malleus retreats his hand before impact and grins when he pulls his hand back in favor of shooting him a disapproving look.
Malleus smiles then, points at the thin line crossing over his left eye and proudly displays it as if Leona hadn’t personally dragged him into his room to clean it.
“We match now.” He says with all of the conviction of a child who the concepts of fire and pain were still wholly unrelated to.
They don’t.
Their scars don’t look anything alike. Leona’s is deeper and most importantly, an actual scar whereas Malleus has merely scratched his skin in a way that wouldn’t be visible by the end of the week. He tells Malleus as much.
Though what he really means is closer to, we already did.