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Angert lingers in the half-shadow of the study entrance, content, for now, to simply watch. Meghill sits at his desk, his shoulders a tight, tense line and his face shielded by the hand he uses to hold his head up. In his other hand, he taps the tip of his quill in a fast, absent rhythm on the parchment, surely leaving tiny splotches of ink that Angert knows Meghill will rewrite the entire page because of. Angert is often privy to Meghill's work, is usually physically close enough to read over Meghill's shoulder or emotionally close enough that Meghill simply tells him. But Meghill's inner world has become more and more of a mystery lately, after the too-recent events of the disastrous Soul Surge and Medael's death. Angert supposes he probably hasn't helped matters by telling Meghill, earlier today, that he would be leaving the next day on another one of his mysterious missions for an undisclosed amount of time.
They didn't fight about it, necessarily. Meghill never fights. He goes all tight-lipped and avoidant-eyed and says things that are objectively correct and expected of a chief with well-practiced decorum but also contain a double meaning only Angert can pick up on, like: Thank you for the courtesy of keeping me informed of your comings and goings (a jab at the many times Angert has slipped wordlessly in and out of Meghill's life like a stray emberpaw) and You have my leave to proceed (because they both know Meghill has never been able to keep Angert under his thumb) or, most bitingly, When you have finished, remember there is still a clan here (as in, come back to me).
He waits, listening to the idle sounds of Meghill's quill scratching against parchment when the words come to him and the occasional swish of his tail on the stone floor when they don't. Angert isn't known for being a patient man, but he is tonight. Not for the sake of Meghill's work, but for Angert's own desire to hold the shape of Meghill in his mind, to know every contour of him well enough to conjure the image every time he closes his eyes.
He's not entirely convinced that Meghill doesn't know he's there. Meghill has always had a sixth sense for even his stealthiest comings and goings, and it's horribly inconvenient every time Angert tries to sneak up on him only to have his efforts foiled.
Meghill lowers the quill, half-lifts the parchment, and his eyes scan back and forth as he rereads the words. A frown ghosts his lips, a crease forms between his brows, and then he's putting his head in his hands and breathing out a long sigh. A beat, and then he stands and is moving to round the desk, and Angert sees his opportunity. He steps out of the shadow and Meghill startles, stopping in his steps, and Angert only has a second to smirk, goading at the fact that he's managed to catch Meghill unaware, because he's too busy backing Meghill hard and fast into the bookshelves behind him. Meghill's breath catches, cuts off the beginnings of an undignified, surprised noise. A book falls and lands on its spine, open on the floor.
Angert leans in and leaves open-mouthed kisses down the column of Meghill’s neck, lips skimming from the smooth skin at the juncture of his jaw to the trail of cool, rough scales spanning chin to sternum. His tongue darts out, the tip dipping into the divot where skin meets scale right over Meghill’s pulse point, before he bites down and sucks.
“You’re–ah–eager tonight,” Meghill says, his words escaping between quiet, gasped moans. His fingers twitch where he’s gripped Angert, thumbs pressing into the sharp juts of his hipbones where his midriff is exposed. Meghill tries to push him back, but it’s a weak attempt, more a test of Angert’s hunger than anything.
“Please,” Angert whines. He presses closer and soothes the dark bruise blooming on Meghill’s skin with his tongue before nipping at his collarbone. "I'm sorry, for earlier."
Meghill moans low and deep, though he’s still grasping for self control when he says, “We should talk about this.”
He doesn't say it's okay or I forgive you, and Angert knows this is intentional because Meghill is nothing if not careful with every word he says, and Meghill never tells a lie.
“Tomorrow.”
“You’re leaving for your mission tomorrow,” Meghill argues.
“Please, Meghill, in the morning.”
“Do you mean it this time?” The waver in Meghill’s voice is a barely-there thing, concealed by years of carefully curated composure. Angert preens at the knowledge that only he can spot his chief’s weakness even while his self-loathing grows, knowing that he has caused it.
Angert lifts his head to meet Meghill’s honest gaze. He twirls Meghill's long braid around his fingers, imaging it undone. He knows what Meghill looks like beneath him, white hair splayed in a halo around him while Angert rides him and holds him down by the horns and takes him apart.
“I just want to make you mine,” Meghill whispers. His hand comes up and cups Angert's face, thumb tracing the scales on his cheekbone. "I want this to be real."
“I know." Angert closes his eyes. “We will talk. I promise.”
It isn't the first time he's lied to Meghill, but at least it will be the last.
Angert has lied to Meghill since their first hello, after the soul exchange that ripped a child from his own body and left Angert in his place, horrific and unnatural. He has lied to Meghill every day that they grew up together and every day, still. Their nebulous relationship is built on an unsteady foundation of lies upon lies, and the only true thing he has to offer is his selfish, festering love for Meghill. He can't give Meghill what he deserves, but he can make him feel good one final time.
He doesn't know if Meghill believes him, but Meghill doesn't fight when Angert stretches up on his tiptoes to finally, finally kiss him. It's chaster than Angert would like, barely more than an innocent press of lips, but Meghill deserves tenderness. Meghill makes a soft, surprised noise and brings his other hand to Angert's face, holding him still as their lips meet. Angert allows Meghill to regain a little bit of control when he straightens from where Angert had backed him up against the shelves. For a moment, Angert also allows himself to pretend that he can have this tomorrow and the next day and the day after that: Meghill holding him and kissing him slowly, like he matters, the scent of old paper and potted flowers and Meghill's musk thick in his nose, the swaying golden light of Meghill's lamp painting the backs of his eyelids a soft red, and the distant din of Great Lumieville's nighttime activity out the massive open wall a reminder that he isn't alone.
Angert's hold on Meghill's shoulders tightens. He is still here. He can have this, tonight. His traces his tongue along the seam of Meghill's lips, aching for more.
Meghill pulls back before Angert can deepen the kiss, and his eyes dart over Angert's head to that open wall and then to the closed door of his own bedroom. "We should..."
Angert quirks a brow, sentimentality lost in favor of causing mischief. "Don't want your citizens to see their chief ravaged?" Meghill flushes, a pretty pink high on his cheekbones, at the same time that a raucous cheer from the city below filters up into the study. Angert grins wickedly, stands back up on his tiptoes, and lets his lips brush Meghill's ear when he says, "Why don't we let them hear their chief fall apart?"
Only a single, quiet intake of breath gives away the thinning of Meghill's composure. He covers it with a smirk. "They would not."
"You doubt my skills?"
"I'm confident in my self control."
"Let's put it to the test, then." Angert's knees make two twin thumps when they connect with the stone floor. He pushes Meghill's hips back into the bookshelf, and Meghill gasps when Angert mouths at Meghill's cock through his pants.
Meghill's hands fly to Angert's hair, and he tugs him away. "Angert," he hisses.
Angert looks up at Meghill through half-lidded eyes. He sticks his tongue out, revels in the deepening blush on Meghill's cheeks, and leans forward against the sting in his scalp to run his tongue up the line of Meghill's rapidly hardening erection. He feels Meghill's hands spasm in his hair, unsure if he wants to push Angert away or pull him closer, and he hears the thunk of the back of Meghill's skull hitting the spines of the books behind him. A whine builds in the back of Meghill's throat when Angert opens his mouth to rub his lips along the outline of the shaft until he presses his tongue flat on the rough material of the pants right over the head.
With a chuckle, Angert stands. Meghill looks debauched already, flushed with his breaths coming in short, quick gasps. He would suck Meghill off right here (he has, before), but he has bigger plans for the evening. "Self control, huh?"
"You're evil," Meghill says, not knowing that is the closest thing to the truth he has ever said about Angert. He releases Angert's horns and instead pulls him closer by the hips. Angert goes willingly, slotting Meghill's right thigh between each of his own. Meghill grinds down on Angert's leg, and Angert's cock twitches in his pants at the brazen display of neediness. "Do you feel what you do to me? See what you do to me?" He pointedly taps the mark Angert left on his neck. "It's very unbecoming of a chief. Anybody could find out what we're up to."
"I think you would like that, my chief," Angert says, voice lilting up mockingly at the end. Meghill frowns, so Angert softens, just a bit, and says, "Zappy's on patrol. He would alert us before anybody walked in."
"Somehow, the idea of your rodent watching this doesn't make me feel better." One of Meghill's hands wanders, fingers splaying across the bare skin of Angert's lower back.
"He's a looptail, and you should be nice to your lookout if you want him to keep doing his job."
"He may be cute," Meghill says, smiling now, and he boops the tip of Angert's nose, "but he's still a conniving little rat."
Angert raises his brows. "I feel like you aren't talking about Zappy anymore."
Meghill hums, and then his face falls solemn again. His thumb traces a slow back and forth over Angert's spine when he asks, "How long will you be gone, this time?"
"I don't know," Angert answers. It's a half-truth. He knew he was doomed the moment he saw the mark of the cycle on the false Saintess, ever since she shot the arrow that shattered the Haven Veil. He knew he sealed his fate when he made the choice to deliver her invitation to the Golden Feast early and to travel to Heaven's Reach ahead of her. He will offer her to his father in the Soul Corridor, and he will try to reason with his father because he is still a foolish child at heart, and his father will be unable to hear reason. He knows he will make sure she escapes, even when it will inevitably cost him his life and cut him off from the cycle of regeneration. He will never rejoin the Soul Tide, and Meghill will still look for him in every new life.
Perhaps he's wrong. Maybe there's a version of events where he returns, but he can't see it. He's too damned for a second chance at a good life.
"You will come back to me?" Meghill's eyes search his. By now, he's used to Angert's absences, though Angert has never told him where he runs off to. His life is one of subterfuge and espionage, and Meghill's is one of honesty and loyalty.
Meghill has already lost too much, his sister and countless citizens to Soulrift. Angert could lie, again, just to delay Meghill's grief. He could say Yes or I will try, but for the first time in his life, the words stick in his throat. He kisses Meghill instead, frenzied this time, and when he feels Meghill try to pull away he murmurs, "Please, Meghill, please" against his lips until Meghill simply holds him instead. Angert nips at Meghill's lower lip, and Meghill groans, opening for him. Their tongues slide together, tasting each other as if they never have before. When Angert breaks for a gasp of air, Meghill's lips are red and spit-slicked.
Meghill's hand finds his. He squeezes once. "Can we move to my room?"
"You just want to get me in your bed," Angert quips while his heart clenches at the sight of their fingers entwined.
Desire darkens Meghill's blue eyes. "Yes, I very much do." He tugs Angert the short distance across the study to his room, and Angert has only a breath to try to memorize the space he's already so intimately familiar with (Meghill's books meticulously organized alphabetically by author, the half-written letter on his personal desk and the splotch of spilled ink on its corner, the heavy floral scent of dried boneflame blooms, the light of the moon intersected by the shadows of deep blue drapery across the ceiling and over the walls, and, and, and...) before Meghill is pressing another kiss to his lips and walking them back to his bed.
Angert fumbles with the buttons and buckles and clasps of Meghill's ridiculous layers of clothes, and Meghill does the same for him. Their gloves go first, and finally Angert can feel the warm strength of Meghill's bare hands when they slide up his torso, following the path of scales on his happy trail and v-line up to where he starts pulling at the buckles of Angert's leather armor. It would go faster, be easier, if they stopped kissing, but Angert would sooner stop breathing.
After their torsos are finally bare, Angert backs Meghill up until the backs of his knees hit the bed. Meghill sinks down on it and tries to pull Angert with him, but Angert again falls to his knees. He drops his head to kiss down Meghill's neck, pausing once on the mark he left there, and then along his shoulders while he hurries to undo the laces on Meghill's ridiculous thigh high boots. Any other night, Angert would have teased him about them, but not tonight. He pulls the second one free and flings it behind him and, undistracted now, kisses and nips and licks his way to one of Meghill's nipples. Meghill moans quietly when Angert swirls his tongue around the pink bud and pinches the other one between his fingers, and then he moans much louder when Angert latches onto it and sucks.
Popping off, Angert says, "You're very noisy now, Chief."
Meghill cradles the back of his head. "Please stop calling me that."
In place of a response, Angert plants a messy, open mouthed kiss at the softest spot of Meghill's stomach, right below his belly button, while his fingers curl around the waistband of Meghill's pants. There's a hitch in Meghill's breath, and then he's lifting his hips so Angert can work his pants off, and just like that Angert has an eyeful of Meghill, bare and vulnerable just for him. Angert smoothes his hands down the planes of Meghill's chest, and he pushes lightly until Meghill falls back on his elbows. Meghill stays half-propped up, watching as Angert mouths down the sharp jut of his hips and to the thin skin of his inner thigh, where he sucks and bites bruises into existence. He keeps his hands planted firmly on both of Meghill's thighs and feels the muscle bunching and relaxing under his teeth. Angert finally earns a moan when he latches onto the sensitive skin right at the base of Meghill's cock, and Meghill tenses beneath him like a livewire, spine arched and heels digging into the floor. His cock twitches, the head already weeping.
Angert presses his tongue to the bruise and takes Meghill in hand, pumping lightly before he pauses at the head and swipes his thumb over the slit. There's a bead of precum there already, and Angert rocks back on his heels, waits for Meghill's eyes to crack open before he takes his own thumb between his lips and tastes Meghill's saltiness.
"Already so needy for me," Angert drawls. Meghill throws an arm over his eyes, not yet far gone enough to beg, but Angert knows he's close. He's been suffocating his moans before they fully form. He peeks out from beneath his forearm, and Angert holds eye contact while he flattens his tongue on Meghill's shaft and licks from root to tip.
Meghill stops trying to hold himself together when Angert closes his lips around the tip and suckles gently, swirling his tongue to collect the pre leaking there. He falls back onto the mattress with a whispered oh, gods, and Angert sinks down further. Meghill is thick and heavy in his mouth, and Angert finally lets his own eyes slip shut as he falls into a rhythm. He hollows his cheeks, curls his tongue as best he can, and drags his mouth up and down the length of him. Meghill's hips twitch once, and the head bumps the back of Angert's throat. Angert sneaks an arm up to pin Meghill's hips down. A strangled moan forces its way out of Meghill, and when his hips buck uselessly, Angert presses him into the mattress harder.
He's good at this, making Meghill fall apart. There's always been too much on Meghill's shoulders, the entire clan and the Soulrift and his sister's descent to madness and Angert and their relationship that Angert has refused to let him name. He hears from other people and on the breeze and sometimes from Meghill, himself, how Meghill refers to this delicate thing between them. Companions or partners or, once, after too much drink, lovers. It has always been Meghill who has taken Angert by the hand and pulled him through life, insisting that he needs to worry about his future, that he deserves a future, and Angert can't let him continue doing it when it means Meghill tying himself to someone that simply does not have one.
Angert can't give Meghill a future if he can't even be truthful about the monster he is. He has always known this, and still he has been selfish and cruel and has given Meghill scraps of the kind of love he deserves. The only tangible thing he has ever been able to offer Meghill is pleasure, and he has at least become very good at that.
He pauses at the tip to take a gasp of air, tonguing at the sensitive underside and then at the slit. Out of the corner of half-opened eyes, he sees Meghill's hands twisted white-knuckled in the sheets. Angert reaches for him and guides Meghill to his hair, until both of his hands are carding through his hair and then massaging around the base of his horns. Meghill holds on when Angert drops his head, taking him in earnest now, pushing until Meghill hits the back of his throat again and then swallowing to take him deeper. They both groan when Meghill's cock slides into the tight, hot channel of Angert's throat.
It's filthy and perfect, the pace Angert sets. He sucks and bobs as fast as he can manage, taking quick breaths through his nose and moaning when he can and soon his cheeks and chin are wet with his own spit and tears. He's distantly aware of his own hard cock, almost painful in the confines of his pants, but he's more focused on teasing every noise he can out of Meghill and keeping his hips pinned to the bed.
"Gods," Meghill gasps, thick and laced with desire. His hands flex around Angert's horns, but he doesn't try to take back any control and set the pace. He simply holds, takes everything Angert gives him, and only tries to push Angert away when his feet start to scuff across the floor, searching useless for any leverage. "Angert, I'm close, you should–"
Angert takes Meghill deep, until his nose brushes the spattering of white hair and azure scales around the base, and Meghill's back arches off the mattress with a soundless shout. The taste of him is salty and familiar on the back of Angert's tongue, and he swallows and sucks, wringing the last shocks of pleasure from him until Meghill collapses back onto the bed, twitching weakly as Angert pulls off.
He gives Meghill time to collect himself and pillows his cheek on Meghill's thigh, gazing up at Meghill while his chest heaves and his hand runs idly through Angert's hair. After a moment, Meghill props himself up on his elbows to look down at Angert, and he's truly a sight to behold, his lips slightly parted and a blush painting his cheeks and his hair already mussed up, flyaways escaping from his braid.
Angert slowly runs the point of his tongue over his lips, top then bottom, just to see Meghill's pupils dilate while he watches. "Think you can give me another tonight?"
"You're trying to kill me." Meghill flops back onto the bed, rubs a hand over his face, and then sits up again anyway and reaches for Angert. "Come here."
"I have every confidence in your stamina," Angert says while he rises, ignoring the soreness in his knees, to crawl up the bed and straddle Meghill, "unlike your self control."
"I would say my self control remains remarkably intact," Meghill says, but the cadence of his voice is soft, not rising to the bait. His hands run up Angert's ribs, then his fingers dance lightly back down his spine, leaving goosebumps in their wake. He smiles up at Angert with more unguarded adoration than he deserves and says, "You were so good to me. Would you like a reward?"
It's suddenly very, very hard to ignore his own erection. Angert pretends not to melt under the praise and to think very hard about this, though in his head he's already scripted how tonight will go (and he knows Meghill would give him anything he ask for), while Meghill finds the swell of his ass and squeezes.
"I would like you underneath me," Angert finally says, and just to be mean, he rolls his hips once against Meghill's softening, still sensitive cock.
His antic earns him a groan. "Lucky for you, I'm already here."
Angert regards Meghill, takes in the teasing glint in Meghill's eyes and the slight quirk at the corner of his mouth, and he knows Meghill is trying to be coy. It's never a game Meghill wins. Angert lays one hand flat on Meghill's breastbone, scales cool and rough under his palm when he presses down, and traces the base of one of Meghill's horns with the tips of his fingers, and he doesn't miss the shudder that travels up Meghill's spine.
Leaning forward and letting his weight put more pressure on Meghill's chest, Angert closes his hand around Meghill's horn and uses it to guide Meghill's head back until his throat is bared to Angert. In this position, Angert can feel every stuttering breath even if he can't hear it.
"I want you to open me up." Angert presses his lips to the underside of Meghill's jaw, then down his throat again, murmuring into Meghill's skin as he goes. "I want you to take your time, slow just how you like it. You're always so sweet to me. Can you do that for me?"
He feels when Meghill tries to nod, and he holds strong to his horn. Meghill whines, then cuts himself off and squirms under Angert while his hands flex on his ass.
"Use your words," Angert says, raising his head to look Meghill in the eye now.
Another whine, another useless attempt to nod, and then Meghill whispers, "Yes."
"And then," Angert continues, "I want to hold you down, just like this–" he pulls Meghill's head impossibly further, until he has to arch up off the bed–"and ride you until you forget everything except how good I make you feel when I fuck you. Do you want that?"
It draws from Meghill a high-pitched, needy keen. It always amazing him, how a few filthy words can make Meghill lose his mind.
"Yes," Meghill says, and then the words are falling from his lips faster because he knows a simple yes won't be enough for Angert twice in a row. "Yes, yes, I want that."
Angert hums. He lets go of Meghill's horn and eases up on his chest, sitting on Meghill's hips at full height and crossing his arms over his chest with a feigned air of contemplation. "I'm not convinced you do."
There's a challenge in Meghill's gaze, and then he crumbles. "Please, let me touch you."
And Angert might be putting on a great show, but he has always been weak for Meghill. He presses a kiss to Meghill's lips and says into his mouth, "I could never deny you."
Meghill's answering groan sends a shiver of anticipation through him, and then Meghill has a steadying arm around his lower back while he flips them in one smooth, practiced motion. Angert hits the bed softly, Meghill guiding his descent the whole way, and then his entire world becomes Meghill: Meghill kissing him, licking into his mouth, Meghill on top of him, strong thighs pushing his own apart, Meghill touching every part of him he can reach, his hair and his chest and then his nipples, pinching and twisting until Angert's pressing his chest up into the touch. Meghill has been holding back until now, and the force of his want is dizzying. Angert gasps when Meghill finally breaks their kiss, and then gasps louder when Meghill locks his lips onto his collarbone and sucks a mark into the delicate skin while he rolls both nipples between his forefinger and thumb.
"Something to remember me by while you're away," Meghill says, using his thumb to swipe away the spit from the bruise he's left behind.
Angert could cry right then, if he thought about that too hard, but it's too early for that display of emotion and Meghill's making his way down his body, anyway, all wandering hands and wet kisses and gently scraping teeth. It's enough to make Angert's toes curl, and Meghill hasn't even really started yet. He swallows thickly when Meghill coaxes him to lift his hips, sliding his pants off while he does so, and then he's exposed and laid out for Meghill's feasting eyes.
Being so vulnerable never gets easier, even if it's only ever for Meghill. He just can't understand what Meghill sees, doesn't know what he's done to earn the way Meghill's pupils dilate and how he wets his lips at the sight of him.
"You're beautiful," Meghill breathes. His hands find Angert's thighs and then he's pushing until Angert opens for him. "So perfect for me."
Meghill would never say such a thing if he could see the true shape of the man lurking within this stolen body. But he can't, and praise keeps falling from his lips, so Angert screws his eyes shut and presses the side of his face into the mattress.
His hips buck upward involuntarily when Meghill presses an open-mouthed kiss to the side of his cock and then the other, and then takes him halfway down with no preamble and sucks. Angert's hands search for a hold on reality, or maybe just on the sheets or in Meghill's hair, whatever he can grab onto first. But Meghill pulls off almost as quickly as he came on with a couple last kitten licks to the head. He smiles in a way that Angert thinks is supposed to be teasing but just comes across as shy, which Angert finds absurd because they've done this same song and dance so many times that he's lost count, couldn't tally them all up if they tried, and Meghill has always been so good at it that he has no business being a blushing tease, and–
And then his thought screech to a halt when Meghill guides both of Angert's legs onto his shoulders, pulls his hips up and into the air, and spreads him with his thumbs.
"Perfect," Meghill says, again, and Angert covers his face with both hands so Meghill can't gloat about the flush in his cheeks. Meghill chuckles anyway, and then he licks a hot, wet stripe from the base of Angert's tail to his balls, and Angert moans, a low, needy noise deep in his throat. He knows Meghill is entirely too pleased with himself, but he's at least too busy to talk, laving his tongue over Angert's entrance, soft and patient until Angert starts to open up, and then he points his tongue and plunges inside.
Angert always forgets that Meghill knows how to make him fall to pieces just as well as Angert knows how to do the same for Meghill, and Meghill goes until Angert is moaning wantonly and digging his heels into his back and pulling him closer, urging him deeper, pulling him in by the horns, everything short of begging. It's so much and not enough and Angert is nearly desperate enough to beg by the time Meghill eases away from him and lowers him back to the bed, grinning like he's won something.
"You sound so gorgeous when you're moaning for me," Meghill says, voice full of unabashed want and soft with more tenderness than Angert knows what to do with. He leans across Angert, fishing around the nightstand for their small vial of oil, and Angert catches him by the chin on his way back over. Angert kisses him, tastes himself in Meghill's mouth and runs his fingers through the roots of Meghill's hair until he snags on the beginnings of his braid. He distracts Meghill by sucking his lower lip between his teeth while he finds the end of Meghill's braid and undoes it.
"My hair's going to tangle!" Meghill pulls back, cheeks flushed and lips kiss-swollen, and he looks affronted. His hair cascades down his shoulders and back, and a curtain of it falls forward around his right shoulder. He smells like the drying boneflame blooms hanging by the window, the scent growing heady now that his hair has been freed. He's backlit by the moon, hair an ethereal white glow.
"I'll redo it," Angert promises. Meghill's hair is silky as it falls between his fingers, and Meghill huffs indignantly but it's worth it to have him like this, and Angert has to tell him. "You're so pretty when you're all undone for me." His hand moves from Meghill's hair to his jaw, cradling Meghill's face in his palm while his thumb swipes along his bottom lip and then presses gently. Meghill's lips part easily, and his tongue darts out, a flash of pink, and then he's sucking Angert's thumb into his mouth. Angert bites his lip and presses down on Meghill's tongue until his mouth falls open. "Only I get to see you like this."
Meghill pants open-mouthed, his pupils blown and cheeks pink.
"Tell me." Angert slides his thumb out and smears spit across Meghill's chin. "Only me."
"Only you," Meghill says, voice low and rough. He catches Angert's hand and turns his head, pressing a kiss to the inside of his wrist. "It's only ever been you."
Angert bites the inside of his cheek, hard, to keep the sudden tears pricking at the corners of his eyes at bay. If Meghill notices, he's graceful enough not to say while he opens the vial of oil and drizzles it over his fingers.
Meghill has opened him enough that the first finger slips easily while Meghill circles his rim, and he goes slowly, up to the first knuckle and then the second after Angert adjusts. It's always like this when Angert gives Meghill control, slow and deliberate and so tender that Angert feels he's flayed open and bleeding under his hands. Meghill thrusts his finger in an out a few times, and only when Angert starts meeting his thrusts does Meghill add a second. It burns, but it's fleeting and Meghill mercifully wraps a hand around Angert's cock and strokes him through it. When Angert starts to loosen up, moaning and canting his hips into it, Meghill curls his fingers.
Angert arches his back at the spark of pleasure that zips up his spine, and Meghill doesn't let up, brushing his fingers into that spot over and over as he thrusts and scissors and them open, immediately setting a ruthless pace that has Angert seeing stars. Expletives fall from his lips, curses to every god Angert can think of and one he's pretty sure he's just made up. Meghill strokes his cock in time with the thrust of his fingers, squeezing at the head and thumbing over the slit, and the dual stimulation is too sharp, too much too fast, for Angert to last as long as he wants.
"Stop, Meghil, stop, stop, I can't–oh!" Angert scrambles to get a hold of Meghill's wrists, to stop him before he makes Anger come too early, but Meghill wraps his fingers around the base of Angert's cock. He pumps meanly into Angert once, twice more, until Angert is shaking and whimpering with his denied release. Meghill moves back up his body, planting soothing kisses on the inside of his thighs, on his stomach, his chest, and finally his lips. Angert feels Meghill's cock, hard again, resting heavy on his hip.
"I'm sorry for being so mean to you," Meghill says between the slide of their lips and tongue and teeth, "but I love the sounds you make."
Breathless, Angert says, "On your back."
Meghill complies with an airy laugh, rolling off him to stretch languidly across the sheets. He's perfection like this, eyes dark while he looks at Angert through his lashes, pale skin glowing in the moonlight and hair a wavy pool around him. Angert's mouth goes dry at the sight, and his breath leaves him when Meghill gasps and bucks as Angert slicks oil up his cock.
Angert throws a leg over Meghill's hips and and kisses him while he reaches back and holds Meghill steady so he can sink down onto him. The drag of Meghill's cock inside him is hot and slow, and he usually prefers to take Meghill hard and fast, but tonight he wants to feel every inch of Meghill. He wants Meghill to carve him open, wants to remember this with every step he takes, wants to know that when he has nothing else, he once had Meghill.
He wants, he wants, he wants too much. More than he's allowed, more than he could ever have.
"Angert," Meghill breathes his name reverently, like a prayer.
Meghill is a mess by the time Angert has fully seated himself, his flush creeping down onto his neck, his collarbones, the marks Angert had sucked into his skin a stark, mottled contrast. Angert feels Meghill's tail thrashing on the bed while his fingers dig into Angert's hips. Angert hopes it's hard enough to bruise. His tail finds Meghill's and they twine together when Angert starts to move.
It's a steady rocking, more a grind than anything, but Meghill moans all the same, any attempt at control forgotten. He tries to buck up into Angert, but Angert hooks his ankles around Meghill's thighs and presses him down. He's got Meghill at the perfect angle like this, pressing insistently up against the spot that makes heat coil between Angert's hips and static travel up his spine, and he feels drunk off it, the rush of power when Meghill goes pliant under him heady and thick in his skull.
"Angert, Angert, please," Meghill whimpers, hands touching everywhere they can, holding Angert's hips, skimming up his back, cupping his face, thumbing over his nipples. Angert rewards him by lifting himself up a few inches and then dropping back down, and Meghill's head falls back onto the pillows, neck bared beautifully for him as a broken moan escapes him. "Please, more, I need you."
"Want me to make you feel good?" Angert's proud of how composed he manages to sound.
"Yes, yes, gods, Angert," Meghill says, and Angert feels the thin thread of his own control snap. He leans forward, takes Meghill by the horns just like he promised, and sets a punishing pace.
It's exactly how Angert remembers and somehow better. Meghill's gone from the first real push of Angert's hips downward, blunt nails scratching down Angert's spine and heels digging into the mattress and hips futilely trying to thrust upward. Angert's not much better off, stilted moans punching from him with every drag of Meghill's cock, every time the head pressed deliciously on that spot inside of him. He won't last long. Neither of them will.
And Meghill's babbling beneath him, stilted praises and endearments between expletives and whines, things like you're perfect for me and so gorgeous when you ride me and you always make me feel so good, so good, Angert, and it's the closest Angert has ever gotten to letting Meghill say what he knows he wants to say, what he knows it always on the tip of Meghill's tongue.
Meghill's fingers spasm around Angert's hips, and Angert knows he's close, that he's holding himself back just like Angert is. He takes pity on him, finally unhooks his angles from Meghill's thighs at the same time that he pushes Meghill's head harsher into the mattress. He teases one of Meghill's earlobes between his teeth, the metal hoops of his piercings clinking on enamel, and says, "Let go for me."
Meghill curses and his grip on Angert's hips turns to iron, his hips snapping up, and it hits Angert so much deeper this way, fills him up so completely that his toes curl with it. He feels Meghill's thighs flex as he plants his feet on the mattress, and then he's fucking up into him with abandon and holding him in place.
"Tell me how good I make you feel," Angert demands, but it comes out whiny as he lets go of Meghill's horns to twist his fingers in his hair instead.
"So good, so good, Angert," Meghill moans out. "Only feel this way when I'm with you. No one else can–gods!" Meghill's eyes close again, head tipping onto the mattress, mouth open around a soundless moan, and then he says, "I love you."
Time stops. Meghill's thrusts pause his eyes flutter open, the gravity of what he's just said catching up to them, and they stare at each other, eyes wide and chests heaving.
Angert opens his mouth, closes it. Meghill's eyes close again, his head turns away, a hand leaves Angert's hip to clamp over his own mouth, as if he can force the words back inside.
"I apologize," Meghill says, muffled behind his palm. "I got carried away, and I–"
"I love you, too," Angert says, because it's the one thing he's promised himself he would never lie to Meghill about.
Meghill's eyes open, and they're glassy and red-rimmed.
"Oh," Meghill says.
Angert watches Meghill's throat bob when he swallows, sees his lower lip quiver.
"You're telling the truth." Meghill's voice is thick, choked and wet.
"I would never lie about this," Angert says, and he captures Meghill's lips with his own. Meghill whimpers beneath him, and Angert tastes salt when the tears finally fall. He rocks back against Meghill. Their kiss becomes more a wet slide of their lips and tongue over each other as Angert chases their release. It's gentle, now, soft and tender and so much more dangerous.
Angert finishes first when Meghill gets a hand around him and strokes in time with his thrusts, and it's less an explosive pleasure and more a gentle wave, washing over him from head to toe and leaving him boneless while Meghill locks an arm around his lower back, holding him close as he spills inside.
They stay still for a long moment, Meghill petting up and down Angert's spine and while Angert hides his face in the space where Meghill's neck meets his shoulder. He presses a kiss there and Meghill sighs contently underneath him.
He knows this is cruel. He has just given Meghill the one thing he wants, and he will never hear it again after tonight.
"I love you," Angert whispers helplessly, squeezing his eyes against the burning there.
"And I love you," Meghill murmurs back, arms snaking around Angert's waist in a tight embrace. The words sound natural, coming from him, where they had choked Angert on the way up. "I always have."
Angert muffles the pathetic noise that threatens to escape him into the crook of Meghill's neck. They stay that way until Meghill's softened inside of him, and he can't stand the tacky release drying between them. He eases out with a hiss of overstimulation and rolls Angert gently onto his back, kissing him once before he rises for a cloth to wipe them down with. Angert stretches over to the nightstand, very conscious of the mess across his stomach and leaking out of him, and fumbles around, searching for Meghill's dragon bone comb.
When they're clean, Meghill eases back onto the bed and Angert guides him to lay on his stomach, hair spilling down his back. He sits besides him, and Meghill turns his face, pressing his forehead against Angert's thigh while Angert runs the comb through his hair, coaxing the tangles out.
He's nearly done when Meghill raises his head, locks his sleepy eyes on Angert's, and says, "You will stay?"
"Yes," Angert lies.
"And in the morning, we will talk?"
"I promised."
Meghill's gaze is searching, bouncing between Angert's eyes and his mouth and down to the hand that Angert has clenched into a fist, fingernails digging into his palm. He sees Meghill turning something over in his head, his brows drawing together and his nose scrunching up in the way it always does when he's working through a puzzle. He worries that Meghill's about to push it harder.
All Meghill says is "I love you," quieter and more desperate than before. His eyes go a little glassy, and Angert understand right then that Meghill knows Angert isn't telling the truth but that he doesn't know exactly where the lie is.
"I love you, too, Meghill," Angert says, and Meghill pushes his face back into Angert's lap, hiding whatever emotion overtakes him. Angert presses his lips against the crown of Meghill's head and then returns to his hair, raking his fingers through it before separating it into three strands and beginning to braid it. His work is cruder, less precise, than Meghill's, but this way Meghill will have something of Angert's to wake up to.
He finishes and leans back against the headboard, tracing absent patterns into Meghill's back. The long shadows of his fingers dance on Meghill's skin in the moonlight. After some time, Meghill rises to kiss him, languid and unhurried, as if they have all the time in the world. They would, if Angert were anyone else. They should. He likes to think that if he were to reincarnate, he would find Meghill in every life.
Angert lays his head on Meghill's chest after they break apart, curling into his side, and Meghill wraps his arms around him almost desperately, as if he can keep Angert with him if he simply holds on hard enough. Angert's content to lie there and let him believe it, closing his eyes and committing the beat of Meghill's heart to memory. Meghill loses his battle with sleep, and Angert feels it when his hold slackens and his breath evens out. He props himself up on an elbow to look down at Meghill's sleeping face, unguarded and so young looking, and risks waking him up when he tucks a short strand of hair behind his ear.
He stays there as the shadows lengthen in the path the moon carves across the sky, eyes tracing over the planes of Meghill's face, the straight slope of his nose and the thin curve of his lips and the cut of his jaw, until he's sure that he'll remember every detail. As the sun starts to rise, bathing Meghill in the faint orange glow of morning, Angert presses a lingering kiss to his temple and slips out of bed.