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English
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Published:
2021-04-27
Completed:
2021-04-27
Words:
2,217
Chapters:
3/3
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28
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274
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snippets

Summary:

three fulfilled prompts from the lovely qamariana, from three different points in eris and azriel's relationship.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: "Nothing like decades of unbridled hatred to make for the best sex you've ever had."

Chapter Text

"Nothing like decades of unbridled hatred to make for the best sex you've ever had."

Eris whispered the words into the dark skin on Azriel’s shoulder with a smirk, feeling him inhale and exhale with a huff. It was late at night - it always was with these two. Even if they’d never done this before, it was always night. Maybe it was because that’s where Azriel was the most comfortable, in the dark, where he could best pull secrets from people. Steal them from their lips the way he’d just done with Eris.

“Decades?” Azriel asked, and Eris turned to face the other way. Azriel laid on his back, slightly angled towards Eris, with his wings away from him, a protective measure he probably didn’t realize he was doing. Eris wanted to reach for them, to wrap them around him, but he knew better.

“Centuries, whatever.”

Azriel snorted at Eris’ grumbled reply.

He continued, “Of course you’d care about semantics like that. I assume as soon as I leave you’re going to go record all of this in one of those files you keep with everyone’s secrets.”

Azriel laughed this time at Eris’ snark, a real one, wings twitching with the movement. Eris watched them, wondering how they’d feel under his fingers. Soft, perhaps velvety.

They fell into another silence. At the edge of Eris’ vision, shadows curled around the bed, creeping closer. The shadowsinger’s namesakes were ever present, of course. Eris watched them draw up to his calf. He peered at them, curious, without trying to betray his noticing them. They did not go further, only hovered there for a moment. Then, retreating, sliding away and pulling closer to their master.

Eris turned his head, letting his eyes fall shut instead.

“I don’t hate you.” The admission was quiet (though, that was quintessentially Azriel). “Not anymore.”

Eris tensed, and Azriel did likewise in silent concern. “I don’t hate you either,” Eris carefully responded, forcing his muscles to relax again, until Azriel did the same. He received only a hum in response, and a light flapping of a wing.

Then Azriel pressed a kiss to the point where Eris’ neck met his shoulder, and his breath caught.

Of course Eris had been kissed before. But not… never like this. Mindful of the shadowsinger’s close proximity to him, his mouth at his pulse point, a scarred hand over his heart, Eris willed his breath even, his heartbeat slower.

He twisted in Azriel’s arm, and found the shadowsinger watching him.

Azriel leaned in closer. His lips brushed over Eris’ once, twice.

Not like this. Never like this.

Eris turned his head back down to rest on the pillow, and Azriel’s mouth instead trailed over his jaw. His heart twisted painfully, but Azriel thankfully took the motion in stride, his lips ghosting down his throat to rest where he’d just been. He kissed him there again, then settled.

He’d thought Azriel had gone to sleep, so he’d been startled when he felt Azriel’s usually stoic face curve into a small smirk against the skin of his shoulder. With a hint of cockiness Eris had never seen on him before, he asked, amused, “Best sex you’ve ever had?”

His soft laugh lingered in the air, and though Eris scowled, it followed him into his dreams.

Chapter 2: "Well, well, well look who came to their enemy's door holding presents."

Chapter Text

"Well, well, well look who came to their enemy's door holding presents."

Azriel scowled. “They’re not presents. Take this seriously.” Despite his ire with Eris, Azriel managed to keep his voice cool and smooth.

Eris widened the door to the Night Court guest room that had unofficially become his.

Azriel entered the room, steps silent, and set the papers he’d brought with him down on the desk. “And, at least for now, we are allies.”

“The files on my dear father,” Eris said rather than asked, and Azriel nodded. In a recent meeting with the High Lord and Lady, he’d offered to formally review the Night Court’s intelligence on Beron, filling in any gaps he could. A gesture of good faith, to renew their trust in him.

Well, at least Rhysand and Feyre Cursebreaker’s trust. He doubted the shadowsinger currently spreading parchment over his desk, meticulously arranging them, would ever trust him. Eris, noted the for now Azriel had put forth. Clearly, he had little faith in the tenuous political alliance between Night and Eris.

“Review the documents here and confirm the information,” Azriel instructed. “I’ve marked the sections I want you to fill out.”

Eris nodded, striding to the desk and taking a seat. He began skimming what he assumed to be Azriel’s handwriting - Cauldron, it may be incomplete but the information the shadowsinger had managed to find on Beron was impressive.

Without letting any of that admiration show, Eris looked up at Azriel, who was still there. “And you’re here because…?”

He very visibly did not want to be. “To make sure you don’t tamper with any of the current information.” Azriel gritted his teeth. “And… to assist you… with any questions you may have.”

Well. Eris can’t imagine that conversation with Azriel’s High Lord going well, Rhysand appointing Azriel as his… what, assistant? He smirked at the shadowsinger, who leveled a heavy look at Eris. His smirk widened at the signs of anger simmering behind Azriel’s hazel eyes.

Azriel held his stance, kept the rest of his face impassive. “The first empty line is on section 2B.” The command was clear: start writing.

Still sneering, Eris turned his attention back to the papers. He started writing, feeling Azriel’s eyes on him. His shadows, watching him too.

An hour later, the scratching of nib on paper stopped. “I hope you aren’t waiting for me to tell you to take a seat, shadowsinger,” Eris finally bit out, noting that said Illyrian had not moved from his place leaning against the wall, shadows gathering at his feet. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, or it was real - Cauldron knew Eris had seen stranger - but the shadows seemed to be… agitated. Angry, lashing, snappy, darkening to match the mood of their master.

Shadow, personified. He said nothing, only stared at Eris, silently commanding him to return to his task in annoyance.

It wasn’t Eris’ fault there were so many damn pages. It seemed that one of the Night Court’s spymaster’s greatest skills was being very, very, thorough. Eris swallowed and flicked his gaze back down to the page.

“There’s dinner on the other table if you’re hungry,” he said while filling in a line asking for Beron’s preferred form of potatoes (boiled). Two wraiths, twins, had brought it in earlier, though Eris had only managed a few bites between work. After all, trying to overthrow your despotic father without him noticing was not an easy job. The plate still sat there, food still warm.

Illyrians looked massive, Eris was sure they had an appetite to go with it. Azriel still didn’t move.

“I didn’t poison it, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Eris turned a page. “Though it was prepared by your wraiths, so it may very well be.”

That, at least, got a response. “I did not poison your dinner.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

Back to silence.

At least Eris preferred this to general. After the last time he’d spoken alone with him… what he’d revealed… he couldn’t stand the way Cassian even looked at him. Uncertainty, a pained expression, Cauldron-forbid, pity. At least the shadowsinger just hated him. Simple and straightforward.

Then, Eris turned to the last section and his gut wrenched painfully. He was suddenly thankful he hadn’t left his dinner mostly untouched.

Azriel sensed the change in him immediately. His eyes dropped to the paper in front of Eris, read the title of the section- “That section is- complete. You don’t need to…”

Cauldron, Cassian had told him. Of course he had, why would he ever keep secrets from his family? Especially ones about Eris. He’d probably run to the shadowsinger and Morrigan as soon as he’d left Eris’ room.

“I can still review it. For accuracy,” he schooled his expression into something neutral. He was the heir to the Autumn Court, who’d survived centuries in that hell and even the Under the Mountain. He knew better than to let a handful of fucking words catch him off guard. Preferred methods of torture. Whipping; Burning. Subsection A: Iron Pokers…

Azriel let the scarred hand he’d extended come back to his side. Maybe he understood, how- how Eris couldn’t let him treat him like that.

“Alright,” Eris stood. He gathered the papers back into a neat stack, all the pages in order the way Azriel had probably organized it.

Azriel took it from him, avoiding touching his hands.

“Good night, shadowsinger,” Eris drawled, turning back to his desk. With his back to Azriel, he wouldn’t know when he left, his every move being silent even to Fae ears.

Instead, he heard a thunk as the still full plate was set down at the edge of the desk. Eris looked up, surprised.

Azriel cut a piece of meat from the plate with the fork and knife on it, ate it, chewed, swallowed. He held a glass of wine in his hand, a light, bubbly kind specific to the Night Court. Eris watched the bob of Azriel’s throat as he swallowed, then set the glass down next to the plate.

“Not poisoned,” was all he said. Eris watched in disbelief as he strode back to the door and opened it. He paused looking over his shoulder. The shadows, which seemed, though still on edge, more calmed now, gathered around his form, smoky wisps curling around him. “Good night, Vanserra.”

The door closed behind him without a sound.

Chapter 3: "You keep pointing that dagger at me and blabbering on about how much you've been wanting to kill me. I am beginning to doubt your commitment."

Chapter Text

"You keep pointing that dagger at me and blabbering on about how much you've been wanting to kill me. I am beginning to doubt your commitment."

“Try that again and I really will,” Eris snarled. “And it’s a knife. Stop being dramatic.”

Azriel started forward, and Eris immediately snapped the knife back up to point at him. “I mean it. I will kill you.”

A slight smirk pulled at Azriel’s lips, but he mercifully stayed back, sufficiently convinced by the threat of Eris waving a knife at him.

For all the he griped, Eris did love this side to Azriel - the snarkiness, the dry humor, peeking through his usual quiet and cool demeanor. It most commonly came out when Nesta and Cassian were fucking someplace they should not have been fucking.

Eris returned to the task at hand, concentrating on carefully piping the batter Azriel had kept swiping his finger through into perfect circles on the tray before him.

He’d never do something like this out of the safety, the comfort of Velaris. And he sure as hell wouldn’t be able to anywhere near the Autumn Court. At least, not yet, a voice that sounded like Azriel sounded in his head. Eris hummed lightly to himself, a long lost tune his mother used to sing to him, when he was too young to understand the role he’d have to play in this world. It was a song he’d taught to Azriel, one of the few afternoons he could coax a melody from the shadowsinger, Eris’ own hands dancing over the piano in the living room of the townhouse.

He let the memory fill his mind as he filled one tray and moved on to the next. Normally, baking was an activity he’d do with his dear sister-in-law, while Lucien conversed with Azriel just across from the kitchen. However, with Lucien and Elain in the human lands on official court business, Eris was left to fend for himself against Azriel’s attacks.

That was one of the many things about him that had surprised Eris, Azriel’s extreme sweet tooth (it lent itself to Eris’ hobbies). One would think the dark and brooding Fae would prefer bitter tastes, that he'd take tea with neither milk nor sugar.

But no, one of the most powerful Illyrians to ever exist, the Night Court’s feared spymaster, the shadowsinger who could make his victims sing with screams, the centuries old picture of stoic darkness, acted like a fucking child stealing batter from Eris working in the kitchen.

It was infuriating, but endearing. But mostly infuriating.

Azriel finally settled, it seemed, content with the few heists he’d pulled off before Eris had pulled out the butter knife. He came up behind Eris softly, letting his steps sound as to not startle him. His chin rested on Eris’ head to silently watch him work, arms circling his waist gently. Eris softened into the embrace as Azriel dropped a swift kiss to the top of Eris’ head. He loved this, Azriel around him, especially when he cocooned Eris with his wings. As if reading his thoughts, Azriel drew his wings up to wrap around them, blocking his vision-

“AZRIEL.”

Azriel darted away, clutching his prize- a comically large spoonful from the bowl Eris was now holding protectively. His mouth quirked again with that small, rare smirk- the one that Eris wanted to kiss at the corners of- right after stabbing him.

Eris watched, incredulous, as Azriel licked the batter off the spoon. Shaking his head softly, Eris sighed, ducking his head to hide his exasperated smile.

Notes:

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