Work Text:
Coin, Flipped
“You feel like you were made for this”, the target said, balls deep, and something that Illario had somehow kept safe until then broke beyond repair. He buried his face into the silken sheets and bucked his hips as he tried to count to ten and find that liminal space between consciousness and catatonia where he made the sweetest noises and got to hide away when a job proved taxing. He barely made it till five before the target began to pepper his neck with kisses. It was too intimate, somehow, and Illario flinched back to reality, sick to his stomach. His every instinct told him to struggle, to get out from under this hunk of a man and stab, stab, stab him until he was unrecognisable even to his mother (just like Illario’s mother had been unrecognizable to him, really, when he had been asked to identify the body) but struggle was useless and meant blowing his cover so instead he just gasped and moaned until the man was thoroughly spent and rolled off with a grunt. The target did not have the courtesy to fall asleep at the earliest convenience. Instead, he gathered Illario up like a puppet and began running beringed fingers through his hair, whispering sweet nothings that, from what Illario knew, were usually reserved for his wife. It might have been pleasant, on any other night, just as the entire encounter had been nothing but sweet compared to some of Illario's other contracts, and yet every single gentle caress made Illario's skin itch to the point where he could barely keep himself from bolting. Still, Illario was a professional. He did his fair share of pillow-talk, gathered all the intel he was meant to secure, stole away in the dead of night once the target had finally dozed off, and threw up about half a litre of expensive Tevinter wine in some bleak back-alley. Pitiful.
Lucanis was still awake when Illario came home, of course he was, sitting cross-legged on Illario's bed while his fingers were fidgeting with a dagger, whetstone recently discarded.
“There you are”, he said softly when Illario closed the door. “I've been starting to wonder if something went wrong.” Illario made a dismissive gesture, then began to shrug out of his coat. Lucanis stood and took the garment without comment, hanging it by the door.
“The target was clingy.” Lucanis snorted.
“And here I was worried you'd gotten into a fight.” Illario paused, mid-motion, shirt hanging half-open around his shoulders. Lucanis fought the urge to count the love-bites peppered from jaw to navel and, for all he knew, further down.
“Every single second of it was a fight - which you’d know if she'd assign you the kinds of contracts I'm stuck with.” Lucanis shifted, uncomfortable with Illario's tone
“You wouldn't like mine much better. Besides, Caterina knows what she's doing.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” Illario asked, hackles raised. Lucanis ran a tired hand across his face. He hadn't come here to fight but, Andraste have mercy, apparently it was one of those nights.
“You're naturally good at what you do, is what I'm saying. That's why she's let you-”
“Let me?” Illario snapped, suddenly furious. “Are you for fucking real right now?” Lucanis eyes narrowed, like he was trying to figure out what had his cousin in a mood, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
“Alright, I'm sorry. We both know she's making the calls all on her own. But she has her reasons. And I do think you're being a bit self-centered right now. I've had to gut half a dozen cultists tonight. You've had a nice evening with, what, one disgraced emissary?”
Illario snarled and took a step towards Lucanis. He shoved him, feeling vicious, and grabbed him by the shirt.
“Sure, it's all just a game, isn't it? Fun, even. Hardly work.” He kissed Lucanis on the mouth, because he could, and bit his lip as a parting gift. “Fuck you, Lucanis. We both know that the only reason I get assigned these contracts is because Caterina thinks they would break you, and we can't have that, can we now? Her precious little boy.”
“That's ridiculous”, Lucanis sputtered, but his face was red and rigid. He looked like a rabbit, about to be skinned alive. It should have been funny, but Illario just felt numb and oh so petty.
“Don't tell me you hadn't figured it out? Come on, Lucanis, you're not that stupid.” He ran his fingers through his cousin's hair, just to see him squirm.
“Are you drunk?” Lucanis blurted, because really, this was ridiculous, and he could smell wine on Illario's breath. His heart was beating so fast that it hurt and every single one of his instincts was screaming bloody murder, but he could hardly stab Illario, could he now? Illario rolled his eyes.
“Maybe. Don't change the subject.” He gave another little shove, harder this time, and when Lucanis sat down on the bed, defeated, he straddled his lap in one smooth motion.
“You'll regret this tomorrow”, Lucanis warned, and Illario knew he was right but didn't care.
“Oh don't be precious, I'm trying to make a point.” He rocked his hips and Lucanis went very, very still. “You really think you could do even a single one of my contracts? Look at you, giving me those big puppy eyes when I've barely touched you. What would you do if I was a pushy target? Hm? Let me have my way with you and cry yourself to sleep? Slash my throat and run home to Caterina so she can cane you for your troubles?” Illario had done both, and worse, but he doubted Lucanis knew the extent of it. There had been a time, years ago, when they'd been as close as brothers. Sometimes, Illario wondered when it had all started to fall apart. He ran his fingers across Lucanis’ lips, swollen from their unkind kiss. “Come on, cousin. If my contracts are so trivial, the favoured Dellamorte must be more than equipped to handle them." Lucanis’ brows knit in something like annoyance.
“Are you - are you daring me? What are we, ten?” Illario smiled bitterly. That would be lovely, wouldn't it? To return to a world before he'd realised that, try as he might, he would never gain Caterina's approval. He wondered if, even then, she'd already known which grandson was to be groomed into a talon and which was the spare. At what point in their life had she looked at them and decided that all Illario was good for was his face, his tongue? Illario tried not to think too hard about it, tried to focus on his anger instead. He gave Lucanis’ hair a little tug.
“Yeah”, he said. “I dare you. Come on, if it's that easy you should be able to do it in your sleep.” Why was he doing this? It's not like he wanted to fuck his cousin. (There's a thought best locked away). Although perhaps that's what would finally give Caterina a long-deserved heart-attack. Regardless, there was a much more primal, desperate motivator than lust at play: Lucanis was his other half, the only thing that had kept him sane these last 15 years under Caterina's so-called care. They had shared everything, the pain, the tears, everything but this, the very special disgust, the exhaustion, the sheer dread of a seduction job gone wrong - or right, depending on the day. He wanted Lucanis to hurt, the way he did, wanted to make his skin crawl so that they could scratch each other bloody. Lucanis’ hands hovered awkwardly for a moment, then he grabbed Illario by the hips. For a split second, Illario was certain that Lucanis would kill him (where was that coming from? Let's lock that up together with the whole ‘maybe wanting to fuck your cousin’ thing) but then, with more force than he could have predicted, Lucanis flipped them over, driving the air out Illario’s lungs with a soft thud.
“We’ve taken the same seduction classes”, Lucanis said very close to Illario's ear, and somehow that sent a not-so-unpleasant shiver down his spine. (Okay, definitely going to lock that one far, far away). “If you were my target, I'd know the mechanics well enough to make it work.” Oh no, Illario would not let that stand. He smiled, too sweetly, and moved his leg to rub slowly against Lucanis’ groin, eliciting a sharp inhale.
“Keep talking”, Illario purred. “Because that's all you’ll do. Talk my ear off without getting anywhere near to fulfilling the contract.” Lucanis moved back like he'd been slapped but Illario didn't let him go far. He hooked his leg and tugged. Lucanis didn't go down easily, but he was distracted and Illario was not above touching him in all kinds of indecent places to regain the upper hand in their little struggle, and by the end they both lay on their sides, panting, noses almost touching. Fighting, Illario had often found, was basically foreplay.
“Not funny”, Lucanis bit out in a tight voice, but Illario ignored him. He drew Lucanis back in for another kiss, slower, softer, a little awkward because of the angle. Illario ran his tongue over Lucanis' teeth and hummed in amusement when Lucanis tried to match his movements. He felt almost jealous of how clumsily his cousin kissed.
“You could play into it, I suppose”, he murmured when they parted. “Go for the good old-fashioned virgin act. But I doubt you could bring yourself to do even that.” Something in Lucanis’ expression gave him away so quickly that Illario almost gasped. He sat up abruptly. “Oh, you- Really? For fuck's sake, Lucanis. How? I mean, I’ve had my suspicions, but I'd assumed that, by now, she would have made you get it over with for the sake of cruelty alone, if nothing else.” Once, he would have thought it impossible that Lucanis could do anything and not share it the second it was done, especially something like this. But they were men now, and Lucanis spent more and more weeks outside of Treviso, working on contracts they had dreamed of as children, while Illario had to make believe at one party or another - and do it with a smile too, lest anyone use it against him. Some nights, he almost believed it when he pretended to enjoy the game of false pleasantries and even falser pleasures.
“Caterina doesn't know”, Lucanis said quietly, mirroring Illario's posture but refusing to meet his eyes, and something about that, the sheer innocent stupidity of it all, made Illario feel sick. “Do you-”
“Nevermind”, Illario interrupted before Lucanis could say something that might have closed the rift between them. “Let’s stick to what we're good for.”
*
Kill! Kill! Kill!
The demon was raging, rattling at the bars of Lucanis’ mind till his teeth ached and his nose bled.
“Hush”, Lucanis spat, knees drawn tight to his chest. “It's over.”
HURTS!
The sudden urge to smash his head against a wall until the demon was gone came and went and was neatly tugged away before he could act on it. Lucanis wasn't sure if it had been intrinsic or a sick manifestation of the demon’s own anger, so best not to examine it too closely. Neither of them could afford the luxury of suicidal ideations.
“I know”, he said softly, years of training channelled into keeping his voice steady, even while arguing with this thing inside his skin. “But there's nothing we can do.”
KILL!
Lucanis exhaled and felt a trickle of blood run from his nose to his chin. He didn't bother to wipe it away. Caterina would disapprove, he knew, would say that giving up on one’s appearance was giving up nonetheless, but Lucanis was tired and his clothes were long ruined anyway. Besides-
Ruined? Are. We. Ruin-
“No”, Lucanis snapped. “Be quiet.” The demon obliged, although it felt more like sulking than obedience. Lucanis caught himself scratching the skin at his wrist. Red, angry lines cutting through the soot and prison dirt. His fingers tightened into a fist, then sank to the ground. Keep it together, Lucanis, he told himself, then wondered if he had already lost it. “You'd tell me if I’d gone crazy, wouldn't you?” He asked sardonically.
Not. Allowed. You're. Mine.
Lucanis huffed, the closest thing to a laugh he had left in him, and rested (there it was again, that intrusive thought, cracking his own skull open to get some peace and quiet) his head against the damp stone wall.
“Good to know.” His eyes fell shut. Maker, he had never felt such bone-deep-exhaustion before. Renata's thugs had really done a number on him, this time.
We. Kill. All. Of. Them. Kill. Her. Make. It. Hurt.
The demon was right, wasn't it? Killing was his calling. That ought to be a relief, a lifeline. It was all he was good at, after all, all he was allowed to be good at. But here, there was not much use for his skill. Oh sure, during the first weeks he had thrashed and lashed out, killed three guards with his bare hands and strangled a fourth with her own braid. But the guards had kept coming, and with them the pain, the humiliation, the experiments, which were a mix of both. By now, the little fight that was left in him was busy surviving long enough to actually get a chance at the one kill that still mattered, for the opportunity to break Zara Renata’s neck.
KILL! No? No. Kill? Wait?
“Yes, Spite”, Lucanis said and the demon all but purred at the name Lucanis had given it. “Now shush.”
Wait. Then. Kill. Kill. Kill. I know. Wait.
It sounded proud and Lucanis groaned. He'd spent an eternity trying to explain the concept of time to his parasite but most of it had been a lost cause. A quiet moment was all he wanted, a minute or two to pretend to be anywhere else. In a café, a busy street, his old room, Illario’s room, even. Was Illario still alive, he wondered? It seemed wrong, somehow, that Illario was out there, alive and well - or as well as Illario had ever been, which wasn't that much of a head start. Lucanis still remembered so clearly how Caterina had presented Illario to him, on the night both their families got slaughtered. Illario hadn't cried, that first night, but Lucanis had, big wet tears rolling down his little boy cheeks and Illario had wordlessly taken his blanket and curled up right next to Lucanis. For years, Lucanis had thought that there was nothing that could hurt Illario, but he'd had it all wrong. Illario hurt all the time but he buried it so deeply under smiles and jokes and silly games that even Lucanis had trouble telling when he was being serious or not.
Cousin. The demon supplied unhelpfully. Want. To. Smell. Bite!
Lucanis shut that train of thought down real quick but the demon kept going.
Makes. You. Safe. I want. Safe.
The demon had a point, Lucanis thought begrudgingly. Once, Illario had been the closest thing to home. Then, Illario had grown bitter and cruel and Lucanis had let him slip away because - well? Maybe he'd taken him for granted, hadn't thought it possible that there could ever be something like coldness between them. But the splinter of ice, undetected, had festered, and spread. Lucanis could have sworn that it had been a lifetime since they'd last shared a bed (but then again that was probably for the better).
Always. Cousin. Regret. Confusing. No. Fun.
It was true, of course. Lucanis had spent way too much time thinking about Illario these past months, but who could blame him? He was way out of his depth. Honed for murder, a well carved weapon, he had never had much need to practice endurance. His kinds of contracts required little talking and even less need to make nice. Would Illario have talked his way out of here and into Renata's bed, if their roles were reversed? Lucanis shuddered at the thought.
Not. That. No. More! Not. Hurt. Like. That. Don't!
The demon screeched - frightened? - and Lucanis would have laughed if it weren't so pitiful.
“Don't worry, little demon”, he said. “I wasn't made for that.”