Chapter Text
Coen opens the door to their shared room to find Ambrus sprawled out on the lone bed, one of Anca's books held open in his clawed hands. His blond head tilts up at Coen's presence, the shining disks of his eyes glinting unnervingly in the low candlelight.
Ambrus is stripped down to a white blouse that falls open to reveal the pallid skin of his chest, framed by a ruffled collar, his long legs crossed in front of him. The curtains are nailed closed against the last few dregs of the evening, the sun slowly setting over the horizon, shifting hues of red flickering across the floorboards at the foot of the windows.
“Ah, he returns.” There is an oddly pleased note to Ambrus’s voice, primly snapping the book closed as Coen ambles further into the room.
His entire body feels like dead weight, heavy steps thumping against the floor, the wooden boards giving a protesting groan beneath his feet. “Well, I thought I had left you unsupervised for long enough,” Coen says dryly, even though a hint of amusement marks his tone. “Keeping yourself busy?”
“As much as I can.” Ambrus tosses the book onto a rickety side table with a put-upon sigh. “I did not think this little adventure of ours would include so many dark rooms and tomes from a witch.”
“Changing your mind already?” Coen says mildly, unloading his sword and gear onto the low tables across from the bed. It leaves his back facing Ambrus—something he would have balked at not even a week beforehand. Especially now, with his body still resembling that of a human before nightfall was truly upon them, leaving him feeling particularly vulnerable with a vrakhiri only ten steps away from him.
But most of the fear that resided within him was the instinctual sort—one born of the anxieties a man with razor sharp teeth and knife point claws might give you. But he had given up on truly thinking Ambrus intended to kill him sometime after that first morning, where Coen had returned to find Ambrus right where he had left him, hidden in a shaded grove and fussing about the mosquitoes.
They had been travelling for nearly four days now. However little Coen might fear for his life in his presence by this point, it had him under no illusion that Ambrus was harmless. They’ve already torn down two of Bakir’s camps together, something that Coen hadn’t realized would delight Ambrus quite as much as it had. Apparently, Ambrus had not gotten along much with the other vrakhiri.
There is still an image of Ambrus tearing a man in Bakir’s colors open from spleen to chin vividly springing to mind, blood painting the sharp curves of Ambrus’s manic grin. His clawed hands had gleefully ripped out the innards of fragile men, his blond hair tainted a reddish-brown with gore, and when he was done he would lick at his slick fingers like a cat grooming itself at the end of a long day.
Ambrus might have decided to align himself with Coen, but it had seemingly done very little to quell his innate bloodlust. At least it was now redirected towards Coen’s enemies, which would likely be all that he should expect from a monster shoved unceremoniously into the flesh of man.
Ambrus glowers up at him from the bed. “I’m bored.”
“We could fight to the death again, if you’d like.”
Ambrus scoffs, raising his chin haughtily, looking down the perfectly pointing edge of his nose. “Maybe we should. You cheated the first time.”
“I was bettering my odds.”
“By acting like a coward?”
Despite himself, Coen’s mouth twitches up just slightly. “Take it as a compliment to your strengths.”
Ambrus pauses at this, his lips pursed as if he were truly considering it. Coen stifles a snort and turns back to taking proper inventory—rations for daylight hours, vials of animal blood tucked carefully into leather sleeves, herbs for healing salves wrapped carefully by Anca’s hand. He would need to meet up with her again in a few days time, and still had not yet decided if he should allow Ambrus in tow or leave him to his own devices for the time being. Something about letting Ambrus out of his sight for too long left him feeling vaguely uneasy.
He blinks past the encroaching blur that threatens to take over his vision, rubbing absently at the ache in his shoulders. There was a bone deep sort of exhaustion that seemed to have taken home inside of his marrow, a steady pulsing starting up behind his brow. He ignored it and looked down at the contents of his pack—he could eat for two days on this, maybe three if he could stretch it, which would cut down on the time wasted on restocking—
Ambrus appears at Coen’s side, a startled jolt racing up his spine, muscles locking as if preparing for an attack.
“Fuck—”
“You’re usually much sharper than this, Coen,” Ambrus says flatly, as if he were making a simple observation, looking up from beneath his lashes.
Coen fumbles dumbly for a moment, turning his body away from Ambrus in a way that suddenly makes him feel like he’s trying to hide, so he aborts the motion. “It’s nothing—”
“When did you last sleep?” Ambrus says it as if he has just now come to a realization himself.
It had been four nights since he last slept—a few hours right before he took Ambrus up on his duel.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m fine.” Coen turns back to rearrange his gear, preparing to take on Bakir’s men in a few short hours. Maybe he could stand to sharpen his sword in that time, or patch up that annoying hole in the seam of his trousers—
Ambrus makes a low, humming sound in response. Then he snatches Coen’s bag right out from under him, faster than he can even register. His limbs feel sluggish, darting out to grab at Ambrus’s wrist, but he easily dances away and out of range. He’s across the room in the blink of an eye, a deeply unimpressed look on his face.
“Ambrus, what—”
“You’re so slow that a toddler could contend with you right now.” Ambrus tsks his disappointment, and Coen can feel something in his jaw twitch.
Coen, stubborn to a fault, makes another useless grapple for his bag that ends with Ambrus walking halfway up the wall and holding it out of his reach. Coen already feels somewhat winded, which does not work in his favor in the slightest, glaring up at an Ambrus that looks entirely unaffected.
“This is not the Coen that bested me in combat—poison or not—”
“Maybe you just weren't all that hard to best—”
“And you will not fight Bakir’s men in this state,” Ambrus talks over him easily, sniffing delicately in that pompous way he loves to. “It will embarrass me.”
“Embarass you?” Coen says incredulously.
“Yes, Coen, keep up. I am already a traitor—how badly do you think it will reflect upon me to have become one for a simpleton who cannot even hold his sword up?” Ambrus shudders dramatically at the thought, hanging upside down from the ceiling beams like the world’s largest, most annoying bat.
Coen works his jaw irritably, arms crossed over his chest and feeling a bit like a scolded child. Ambrus is right—of course the bastard is. Despite all of the strange and undesirable changes made to his body, sleep was still a necessity. Though Coen had found that his limits could be pushed further than they ever could be before.
And he was, unfortunately, rapidly approaching that upper limit.
Coen pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers, lips pressed tightly together, grinding his teeth against the confession that forces its way out. “Okay. Okay, fine, you’re right.”
Ambrus, predictably, begins to preen at his acquiescence. “I knew that you could see reason.”
Coen ignores him and holds out an expectant hand, which prompts Ambrus to finally relinquish his pack. Coen lays it back onto the low table before he checks the locks on the door and the seals of the windows. Ambrus watches him curiously as he does, still standing on the ceiling like a twat.
Coen sits on the edge of the bed and begins to work at untying his boots once he’s satisfied with the security of the room. Ambrus should be enough of a deterrent for most intruders, regardless. Despite any misgivings Coen might have for his frankly stunning personality, he was a formidable ally to have at his side, however briefly this arrangement may last.
It’s then that Ambrus decides to come down, dropping roughly onto the mattress behind him witch a loud fwump, the old frame giving a dangerous creak at the sudden weight.
“You’re sleeping here?” Ambrus asks suddenly and Coen pauses, turning back towards him with a look of confusion.
“Yes? Should I sleep somewhere else?”
Ambrus’s lips purse, head tilting up a bit, looking at Coen as if he were the one being odd. “You know, I thought you were just going somewhere else to sleep during the day.” He waves a hand, as if to encompass Coen’s entirety. “Evidently not, of course, but it seemed a smart idea.”
“Does it bother you?” Coen asks, brows slightly furrowed, “I could find a different—”
“It’s fine, Coen,” Ambrus says a little too quickly, picking absently at his nails, and Coen is getting a little too tired to even bother with pressing the matter.
Instead, he begins stripping down to his underclothes methodically, laying his armor close enough to the bed to still be within reach and leans his sword right beside the headboard. It's barely an hour before the sun will be setting—there’s already an odd, gnawing feeling low in his gut that belies a very specific sort of hunger, like an itch beneath his skin and an ache in his teeth. Some part of him still isn’t quite used to it, a violent reminder each night that he was slowly becoming something different.
Awkwardly, Coen slips beneath the threadbare blanket that spans the bed, scratchy but at least warm enough to fight off the chill. Ambrus sits at his side, a scant few inches away, his back straight against the sparse pillows. Coen looks up at him, feeling far more at ease in his presence than he likely should. His eyes trace the ragged skin that scars over Ambrus’s mouth, following the spiderweb cracks that gnarl his throat and chest. He wants to gently run his finger across it, as if he might hope to soothe the memory of the pain it must have caused. Maybe it’s the delirium brought on by exhaustion that prompts the thought, Coen’s throat going dry.
“You’re not going to stab me in my sleep, right?” Coen asks groggily, because it seems the sort of thing he should maybe be concerned about.
Ambrus gives him a long-suffering look. “Why would I stab you, Coen?” He says, as if he thought Coen were a particularly daft child. “It would be a waste. Besides, as I said—already a traitor. Brencis would not take me back even if I prostrated myself before his entire court. Men like that are not very forgiving. They never are.”
There is an uncharacteristically mellow note to his voice, low and strangely pleasant. The candlelight makes his skin look a little more lively, something resembling human, tracing the soft lines of his jaw. He can’t be much older than Coen—he hadn’t thought of that before.
“Sorry,” Coen murmurs, though he doesn’t really know what he’s apologizing for.
“Go to sleep, Coen.” Ambrus reaches again for his book, tucking stray blond hairs behind his ear. He’s fiddling with the pages, a deep shadow beneath his brows where they scrunch together.
“Just for a couple hours. Wake me?” Coen can barely even hold his eyes open any longer, as if laying down for just a moment has reminded him of how much he had been yearning to just take a moment to rest.
There's a voice in his head that tells him that he can't afford this, that his time is being wasted, that he would sleep when his family was safe again in his arms. That more insistent part of him was currently losing the battle against his slowing thoughts, blinking heavily against eyes that would quickly fall shut again.
He doesn’t hear if Ambrus answers him, already slipping into the soft embraces of sleep.