Work Text:
The sweat slides down his back, cooling and fiery all at once. He rolls his neck, lips twitching at the satisfying crack of his bones as they all settle back into place. The sword he'd been wielding stills in his ever moving hand, tip pointing to the floor, but not quite touching it.
His opponent, a ridiculous straw stuffed dummy, is in tatters all around him. He curses Aelin yet again for giving them these. He curses her more for the devilish grin she had sported and the “we're on a tight budget while the kingdoms recovering" excuse she enjoys giving him whenever he asks for things.
But he looks at the straw around him and sets up another dummy. This time he chooses two daggers, barely bigger than his hands and as sharp as his queen's wit. As sharp as some other being's anger too.
Lorcan shoves those thoughts aside at the same time that he flings a dagger into the fake heart of the scarecrow. The patchwork red on its chest folds inwards getting lost in the straw. It reminds him, unhelpfully, of the blood red lipstick she always wears, painted on her lips like the echo of a battle cry. With another growl, he throws the second dagger, letting it arc across the air and slice the dummy’s head clean off its shoulders. The straw bursts in a shower of dying gold. It is the exact same shade of her favourite colour to torture him with. Those red lips, that gold holster. His teeth hurt with the effort to keep his control leashed.
There’s a shift of sound to his right and before he can take his next breath a knife is flying from his hands and sailing past a very calm Amren as she moves slightly to the left.
"If you want to kill me Trysor Onyx," Her voice is everything cruel in the world. It sets his blood on fire. "You should have heard me coming.“
“I have not heard you approaching since we met two centuries ago."
She smirks. He holds back every dark thought bellowing to encase her. "And yet we are still here.“
He has heard this speech a thousand times. In the middle of a battle field, shouted across the screams of dying soldiers. On the infirmary bed, whispered in desperate hope and demanding survival. At the very edge of the tallest mountains, as casual and insignificant as a star without its constellation.
"Why are you still fighting?" She picks up a discarded dummy's head, throwing it between her palms like a basketball.
"Because we cannot go there." He shudders into himself, imagining the consequences.
"And why is that Trysor Onyx?" She flings the head, moves like a blade made form towards him. She is piercing when her black eyes settle on his. Lips red red red.
"The world would not survive it.“
“Then the world is fickle." She sneers, "And I do not care for it anyway."
"If we destroy the world ọbara-rubi," He let's a tendril of power wash around the room. The straw turns to dust. Her eyes burn. "Who will be there to admire you and your power?"
"Don't be petulant," She scoffs. It sounds like appetency. "I'm not vain enough to need people to watch me."
"If I recall your speech to a certain Archeron sister was dramatic enough to suggest otherwise." He raises a brow, a grin playing at his lips.
Her hands, so much smaller than his own, so much more powerful too, come up to rest against his chest. He feels every point of heat where they touch, even through the sweat drenched shirt.
"Why are you really fighting this?" There is something so earnest, so open about her expression that he feels himself fold in half from the inside out.
"Because ọbara-rubi, if I start—" He takes a shuddering breath, covering her hands with his, still on him. "I will not be able to stop. And I cannot lose you the way I lost her." His voice cracks. Even three centuries later he is not over the death of his Elide. She who forced Yrene to separate their bond so that he may live to watch their children grow.
"And if you get bored of me," The world narrows to the gaze piercing him like black flames, like confession. "I would not survive the heart ache. The world would not survive the carnage."
She releases her hands from him and immediately cups his cheeks pulling his face down until they're only centimeters apart. "You have me." She says. "Repeat."
“I have you." He doesn't even hesitate.
"And you will not lose me."
"And I will not lose you."
"Good," And the smile on her face is enough to make death himself scream. "Now please stop behaving and do what we've been dancing around for the last fucking—"
He crashes his lips to hers. It is chaos. She is immediately fighting with him, wanting to be in control. He nips her bottom lip. She growls. He grabs her ass, pulls her to him. She doesn't hold in a wild moan. He takes the opportunity to shove his tongue in her mouth. He can almost hear the curse she's thinking. But then she's jumping to his waist, and his arms are wrapped around her and they are moving through time and space and bottled fear as they finally unleash themselves.
And when his hand grazes her signature gold holster strapped to her thigh, and holding a pretty star-stone dagger— she never uses it for any other weapon— every morsel of perseverance he's kept in the last centuries burns to nothing against their skin.
"So you've finally decided to make the right decision." She smirks.
He marvels that she knows. He shouldn't. She's always been able to sense him. Maybe its their power, so similar, yet so vastly opposing.
"Stop thinking Lorcan." She frowns, sucking at the sensitive skin just behind his ear.
He is divelling, drowning in everything she is. He is alive.
"You have me." He gasps as she bites down on the pulse at his neck.
"I have you." She echoes. Her tongue trails a heated path down his brown skin.
"You will not lose me."
"I will not lose you."
"Let's go home ọbara-rubi,"
She smiles into his neck, finger nails digging into his shoulders, hard from tension.
"Can I peg you when we do?"
He gives her a thorough once over, enjoying how she squirms with impatience. "You can do whatever you want, as long as I get to fuck you to oblivion first."
Her eyes roll back as they disappear through the folds and into a candlelit room, opulence bleeding through its walls.
And the sparring room they left behind is burning to the ground, the poor straw dummies still scattered inside.
Let the destruction begin.