[Lamento] Etemmu, Part 3
Title: Etemmu
Fandom: Lamento - Beyond the Void
Parts: 3/3
Pairing: Razel/Verg
Rating: R
Warnings: sex, violence, swearing
Disclaimer: Lamento belongs to Nitro+Chiral.
Notes: Many thanks to sexual_ennui, whom I might as well call my muse, and to akuma_no_kage for looking this over.
Part I | Part II | Part III
Etemmu
Part III
It was true that few things tended to faze him.
Perhaps that was the reason why he barely even quirked an eyebrow at the other man's presence in his chambers anymore, Verg stretched out on the large pillows, and sometimes even the bed, after the first three times Razel had ignited his pants because he had not possessed the courtesy to take off his boots.
He lounged like a churl, too, legs spread wide, toes plucking at the linen bed sheets, and taking up an obscene amount of space. His pastime mainly seemed to consist of napping, talking-his speech sprinkled with references that Razel, more often than not, only understood partially-and when he was not doing either, complaining of boredom.
He also sporadically felt the need to share revelations of great significance with Razel.
"You know what? Your room smells totally girly."
Razel blinked and mentally debated whether it was worth lowering his book. "You don't say," he finally said, glancing over the pages at Verg, who was lying upside down, his bare feet placed dangerously close to Razel's head. At least he was not foolish enough to try and invade his personal space.
Verg grinned. "Yeah. All fruity and... weird."
Razel resisted the urge to sniff haughtily. "Orange blossoms. And incense. For your information."
"See? Totally girly."
"If it bothers you so much, feel free to return to your own space," Razel said, and turned his gaze back to the pages.
"Nah, mine isn't all fancy and comfy like that."
"These spaces are representations of what we remember. I am sure you could alter yours, with a little willpower."
Verg stretched. "Too used to living in closet spaces."
Suppressing a sigh, Razel went back to his book.
After a period of silence, Verg spoke again. "You and your books. What are you reading this time, anyway?"
Razel glanced up again, to catch the other man regarding him with a lazy stare. "Gilgamesh."
He had been feeling a little nostalgic, but he was not about to reveal that to Verg.
"Gilga-what?" came the predictable reply. "I don't suppose your fancy library has anything interesting?"
"Like what."
"Porn mags?"
"Pardon?"
Verg's deviant grin told him that he should have known better than to ask, and after receiving a detailed description of "porn mags" and their contents, Razel felt more than inclined to agree. Verg, thoroughly satisfied that he had at last succeeded in unsettling him a little bit, agreed to let himself be introduced to nineteenth century erotica instead.
----
Courtship, in Razel's time, had been an elaborate ritual.
Even in the lowest classes, there had been precise rules that needed to be followed, exact requirements that had to be fulfilled, in order to invite a person to share one's bed. And among the aristocracy, it had been unheard of that such invitations would be extended without proper wooing or outmost courtesy. To do anything else would have been considered an affront. Razel himself had made politeness into an art form, as he delighted in its finesse and subtleties, and saw no reason not to extend it even to his harem, despite the fact that most people would frown at bestowing politeness upon mere slaves.
Neither could he recall ever being propositioned before, as one simply did not proposition the king. Of course, there had been veiled glances, sometimes even thinly so-Razel was no stranger to desirous eyes following his every move, or temptations, from time to time, if the individual had been especially bold, even attempts at flattery or flirtation, but never anything overt, never anything that could not be taken another way.
So to be asked, in no uncertain terms, whether he wanted to "fuck"... was definitely something new.
Razel paused in retrieving a tome from one of the shelves in the palace library and turned to face the inquirer with an expression of mild curiosity.
"I beg your pardon?"
Verg, who was balancing one of the low-backed chairs on its hind legs, his feet propped up on the reading table, raised his eyebrows. "Oh come on, like you didn't hear me. I asked if you wanted to fuck."
"When I said that literature might have a stimulating effect on you, this is not quite what I meant."
"Heh, you're such a prude."
"Quite the contrary," Razel said calmly. "I simply do not see why I should lower my standards."
"Aw, you wound me," Verg sniffed, affecting a completely overdone expression. "I don't discriminate, as long as somebody looks like a good lay."
Razel smirked slightly. "And what tells me that you are?"
----
"Why not?"
Razel raised his eyes over the rim of his book to meet Verg's direct stare. "Why not what."
"Why not agree to a fuck?"
It took a certain amount of control to will himself not to sigh. Of course, it had been too much to hope that his initial refusal would deter the man. If anything, the rejection had only served to encourage him, and he had begun to make a game of it, with terribly unsubtle puns and gestures.
Truth be told, if Razel had really wanted to have peace and quiet, he could have simply sealed the entrance to his realm, but he had refrained from doing so. He could not even say that he was especially uninterested in the offer, as strange as it was to be thinking about sex with another person after a few thousand years of solitude. Verg was not even all that unattractive-for an unmannered churl, of course-it was simply that Razel detested the idea of being "easy". Others who had wished for his benevolence had been forced to work for it, and had worked for it gladly. He saw no reason to change this policy.
"C'mon..." Verg had rolled over on all fours and was bending over him. Razel stared back, unimpressed. "You can't tell me something silly like virtue is holding you back."
"No," Razel returned, "just good taste."
"You ever even done it with a guy before?"
"This has nothing to do with your original question, but if you must know, there were one or two slaves who had my favor."
"I asked if you ever did it with a guy, not some simpering little slave boy," Verg scoffed. "Bet I know tricks that'd make your toes curl. I'd break you in nice and slow, just push aside that silly skirt and suck you, all deep and good. I bet you'd like that. I bet I could-"
The swift, warning pressure of Razel's fingers at his throat stopped him, his hands inches from the complicated knot tying the skirt.
"You seem to forget whom you are talking to," Razel said, his eyes narrowing just slightly. "My favor must be earned. I have no intention of agreeing to a tryst just because there are no options."
"Fuck you," Verg growled.
"You seem to be quite stuck on that. The way I see it, it is you who is begging me for sex. I have spent around eight thousand years without a partner. I can easily survive another eight thousand. What about you?"
There was a heavy pause, filled only with Verg's measuring glare. "...What do you want."
"I want you to hold still."
For a moment, Verg seemed to hesitate, as if he were contemplating refusal, but then he gave a sharp nod. Smiling triumphantly, Razel reached between his legs. It was quite amusing to see the man's eyes widen, to feel him jolt when his hand closed around its target.
A slight push against his throat made Verg still again, small points of heat radiating threateningly from the black-gloved fingers.
"Son of a bitch."
"We can stop this," Razel said amiably, "if this is too hard for you."
"Fu-ah!"
Whatever profanity had been about to escape his mouth was lost when Razel began to move his hand, slow, precise motions and steady pressure. Making Verg want it was not particularly difficult; he was already half-hard, had been so from the beginning of his unrefined attempt at seduction, and Razel might have felt insulted if he had not been able to feel the trembling movement of his throat when he swallowed, his entire body rigid in an attempt to stop himself from moving.
Verg's gaze remained fixed on him, simultaneously defiant and challenging. And Razel had never been one to resist a good challenge.
"You want it faster, don't you?" he asked, a purely rhetorical question. Verg's hips were almost rocking, despite the threat of a crushed larynx.
"Shit, yeah," came the reply, hissed between clenched teeth. "Yeah, do it."
Razel withdrew his hand.
It took a moment for awareness to settle in Verg's eyes. "What the-?"
Razel smirked. "And now... I want you to wait."
"…Fuck. Until when?"
"Until I feel like giving you the time of day, of course."
He did not show Verg the door, but that was not really necessary-he vanished in a yellow flare, the furious crackle of lightning echoing through the room in the wake of his disappearance, bringing a smile to Razel's lips.
----
Verg's departure was but a temporary one. The next day, he returned, and although he did not say anything on the matter, Razel could feel his eyes on him the entire time-unveiled and predatory, like he was waiting for a chance to pounce.
The intent in that gaze, nothing at all like the casual attention from before, was what kept Razel's interest, what turned this into a game worth playing. To be perfectly honest, he had not expected Verg to go along with his conditions so thoroughly, but once again, the man had managed to surprise him.
Verg did not bring up the topic again; in fact, he did not speak much at all, but simply kept following him with his eyes. At first, Razel pretended to ignore it, but after a time, he found out that paying minute attention to this overt scrutiny made Verg stiffen and sit up a little straighter, expectant despite himself, until he finally noticed the ruse and slumped in his chair, cursing Razel under his breath.
A day later, Razel found himself pushed against the wall in a sparring match, the handle of the axe pressing against his throat and Verg's breath hot against his ear.
"I'm still waiting. Aren't I a good boy?"
Spoken with an edge of strained patience, of barely perceptible menace-Right now, I could get away with anything. You're at my mercy.
The implicit threat made Razel smile, despite the fact that it was quite empty. "Very good. Would you like me to reward you?"
The only response was Verg's pupils dilating as he reached out to loosen the latch of his belt, sliding a hand inside. It was almost too easy-Verg was already half-aroused before he even touched him, readily pushing into his hand, panting and shuddering when Razel ran sharp nails along the sensitive flesh.
At the first hint of wetness, Razel pulled away, waiting a fraction of a second for awareness to register on Verg's face, before searing him straight across the stomach.
----
It did not really surprise when Verg began to appear in his bath, the intrusion a subtle warning that his patience was wearing thin. But still, he did not act.
Anyone else would have likely been intimidated by the unwavering stare piercing the steam, but to Razel, it felt almost… exciting. He had never been able to engage in this kind of game before, certainly not with someone who had no real reason to follow his orders. If Verg noticed that he was dragging out his routine, he did not say anything, and after two more days of this, Razel decided that such restraint deserved to be honored.
When Verg followed him from the bathroom to the bedroom, he paused. "You have not come yet, have you?"
"No."
Dead-seriousness and no hesitation. Allowing a pleased smile to show, Razel turned to face him.
"What if I told you to wait longer?" Reaching down, he slowly untied the towel from around his waist. "What if I told you that I am going to let you come if you impress me?"
A barely perceptible intake of breath. "What do you want."
Razel's eyes flashed. "The way I recall you boasting of your skills, this should be easy for you. Show me what that crude tongue of yours can do."
"Fuck," Verg breathed. "You want that?"
"Hm. I propose we retire to the bed, though. It seems rather more comfortable for activities like these."
"Heh, prude."
"Not at all," Razel said. "I was merely being considerate, since I doubt you will be standing at all once I am done with you."
----
It was difficult to tell how much time had passed, was passing in the real world, as they remained locked in timeless darkness. The only thing Razel could be certain of was that neither of them had been called in a very, very long time, longer than any period of silence he had ever experienced before.
In the beginning, Verg had kept complaining about the inactivity and making a nuisance of himself, sometimes even provoking Razel into using his powers to achieve a little peace and quiet, but he had given that up long ago. Now, he had redirected most of his complaints towards Razel's choice in authors and beverages. Razel suspected that his protests were more a matter of principle than anything else, as he kept picking and reading books, regardless, and downing mint tea with as much refinement as one could expect from a churl, which was to say, none at all. Most of the time, Razel found himself willing to indulge him-Verg was not nearly as brutish as liked to present himself, and could actually be persuaded to engage in interesting, meaningful discourse at times.
Razel found himself willing to indulge him in other aspects, as well; the man's complete lack of manners or restraint during sex was oddly attractive, and his remarkable streak of sadomasochism was something that bore further study. His tendency to snore afterwards with the volume of a thunderstorm was regrettable, but after what must have been a few hundred years, Razel had noticed that he had mysteriously gained the ability to sleep through it.
But the one thing that told him that it really must have been a very long time, indeed, was when he caught himself crunching on the distasteful caffeinated candy Verg was unreasonably fond of, and discovered that he really did not mind the flavor that much anymore.
----
"Hey… How long were you planning on hiding this beauty from me, Mr. Flawless?"
Sex made Verg amazingly mellow, though no less of an imbecile. His newest pastime, if one could call it that, was examining Razel's body for clues to his past, and demanding the stories behind them. Since Razel had not been especially forthcoming on the subject, he had begun to make up his own, which were utterly ridiculous and a fairly plump attempt in annoying Razel into revealing the truth.
Currently, his attention was on two long, thin, crescent-shaped scars on either side of Razel's left thigh, so faded that they were hardly visible against the rest of the skin.
"Let me guess… a cobra."
Razel twitched his leg to make Verg stop prodding. "I sincerely doubt the animal would be able to open its jaws wide enough for that."
"You haven't seen what Mother Nature came up with in recent years." Verg thought for a moment. "Alligator wrestling."
Razel gave him a look.
"C'mon, tell me. I'll tell you one of mine, too."
"You are not going to give up on this, are you," Razel said. "Fine. Pet lion."
"Wait a minute, there's no way in hell a baby lion-"
"Who said it was an infant?"
"Dude. You had a full-grown pet lion maul you?"
"In her defense, it was a love bite," Razel shrugged, "and I was eight."
After a good minute of staring at him like he was crazy, Verg shook himself. "You are unbelievable."
"I will choose to take that as a compliment," Razel said. "Now then, I believe you owe me something."
Verg grinned, like he had just been waiting for it. "Do you know how I got that?"
He was pointing to his eyes, waggling his fingers between the gray and the green pupil.
"I would think it is fairly obvious that I do not know."
"Wanna?"
Razel sighed and made a prompting gesture.
"I got punched in the face."
"I can't imagine why anyone would do that," Razel returned, rolling his eyes when Verg broke into uproarious laughter.
----
"You ever wonder what happens to us if there's no one around anymore?"
Razel looked up from moving one of his white disks across the board, to catch Verg regarding him with an uncharacteristically contemplative stare, his mind not at all on the game spread out between them. The man's ability to ask the most difficult questions at the most unexpected times never ceased to amaze him, making him wonder just what was going through his mind.
When he remained silent, Verg continued, "I mean, do we just stay here until the universe implodes or something?"
"...I doubt it," Razel said, after a pause.
"But you don't know?"
Razel smiled wryly. "One never knows what is on the other side until one gets there, isn't that how it goes?"
"Bull," Verg retorted, leaning forward to claim one of Razel's white disks with his own black one and tossing it back to him. "You can't tell me you don't have a gazillion theories doing a chorus line in your fancy head. And anyway, you've been here a lot longer than me. You know how this works."
"Not nearly well enough," Razel said, which was the truth. He rolled the dice and put the disk back into play.
"But?"
"But I think the most likely scenario is that we will... fade."
Verg was looking at him expectantly.
"You have noticed it, have you not? What brought us here, what ties us to the other world. What sustains us."
Frowning slightly at the colorful tiles, Verg nodded, rolled the dice and moved his piece again. "There's just a tiny little problem, then."
Razel moved his piece towards the goal and jotted down the points.
"Half-life."
"Pardon?"
"The time it takes for the shit they spread all over the planet to change into other shit. Until it finally becomes harmless. You know how long that takes?"
"Do tell," Razel said, leaning forward with interest.
Verg grinned mirthlessly. "Something around four hundred thousand years. At least."
Razel drew his brows together, rolling the dice back and forth in his palm. "The world I have seen was dying. Poisonous and unfit for human life."
"Exactly. So that's making me wonder. Why are we still here?"
"Res ipsa loquitur," Razel murmured.
"Bah, stop that," Verg said, grimacing. "I never got your fetish with that language."
"I seem to recall you being quite enamored with it last night."
"Don't make me kick you in the Latin quarter."
Razel smiled. "'The thing speaks for itself'. The answer is fairly obvious, I would think."
Slowly, he reached out and moved his final disk to the goal.
"There is something out there, keeping us alive."
----
For all his experience with summoning, Razel had never had the chance to observe it.
By impression alone, it was quite difficult to describe, something that was as much a force from the outside as it was something from within, an urge perhaps, or a need, although neither word truly fit the sensation. Even the brief feeling of disorientation he had experienced in the beginning had gradually disappeared.
So when Verg vanished in a bright yellow flare in mid-conversation, it was definitely something new.
Catching Verg's newly ownerless cup in his palm, Razel settled back to wait.
----
"Cats."
"Welcome back," Razel said calmly, heating the cups again with a flick of his wrist. "Tea?"
"Fuck that," Verg said, pinching the bridge of his nose to combat the spell of dizziness. "There is a world out there. Populated. By freaking kitty-cats!"
"From what I understand, most so-called civilized societies are outnumbered by the pets they keep. But I take it this is not what you are referring to?"
"I want booze. I want to get drunk. Why can't I fucking get drunk anymore?"
"I suppose if you concentrate on your memory of being drunk..." Razel suggested, more amused than anything else. In all the time he had known Verg, he had never seen the man being quite so melodramatic.
"That would defeat the entire purpose of trying to become drunk," Verg grumbled, and gracelessly flopped down on the sitting pillows.
Razel waited for a while to see if any information would be forthcoming, but eventually prompted, "Cats?"
"Quit reminding me," Verg said, "It's like a freaking vegetable patch exploded all over the place. Giant trees and plants everywhere."
"I would think that compared to a toxic wasteland, this is most definitely an improvement."
"Would be, if it weren't inhabited by a race of kittypeople."
Razel's brows almost rose to his hairline. "Cat people? This is... most interesting."
Dismayed by the lack of moral support, Verg groaned. "Only you would think so. At first, I thought I'd walked in on a costume party, with all the ears and tails."
"Anthropomorphic cats, then? The ways of evolution are truly... fascinating."
"This isn't fascinating, this is insulting. As if serving fucking humans wasn't bad enough."
"Clearly, you have never met any of the imbeciles I had to deal with over the ages," Razel replied.
"They're pets. Skittering around all bug-eyed and bristling when you lift a finger and going 'Lord Verg this' and 'Lord Verg that'... ugh. Wimps."
"Let me just see if I comprehend," Razel said slowly. "You are complaining about being revered? I would say that makes them an improvement over humanity already."
Verg paused, blinked, and frowned slightly. Suddenly, a dirty grin lit on his face. "You know what, you're right."
There was a pause as Verg absorbed this new revelation, and then, "Hey, maybe this won't be so bad. I mean, sure, civilization has gone ass-backwards since I last saw it, but anything's an improvement over nuclear warfare."
"Backwards?"
"Well, I didn't really see much of it. Busy dealing with a bunch of pets, and all that. But it all seemed pretty simple. Rickety houses, wooden contraptions. Tons of pseudo-voodoo stuff."
"Ah," Razel said. "I suppose we can only hope for the library to yield some information, then."
Verg nodded, "You know... I wonder if somebody thought about making a kitty sex ed book. I'd love to read that."
Razel blinked and decided that no amount of culture shock could deter the man's one-track mind.
"I wonder if they fuck like cats. I mean. You know how cats do it. Actually, do you think they have spikes down there? Or kitty-tongues. I wonder what it feels like to get licked by a kitty-tongue."
Draining his cup, Razel rose from his chair. "As fascinating as contemplating the sexual activities of an unknown species may be, I shall be on my way to the library. To my knowledge, there was a much-celebrated twentieth-century psychologist who might have a name for your fetishes."
----
While Verg regrettably seemed to use his discoveries to fuel his deviant fantasies, Razel was much more interested in the workings of the new world than in the many uses of cat ears.
The Ribika literature-for so they preferred to call themselves-was one of the most elaborate and refined collections of music and poetry he had ever seen, one that would have made many a human artist envious, and for this craft alone, they considerably rose in Razel's esteem. What he was less than pleased with was their tendency to mystify events, no matter if they were normal or unusual, and their complete inability to keep consistent historical records. There were even cases of one and the same village chronicler constantly contradicting himself, which made puzzling out their history unnecessarily complicated. More often than not, when more than one report on an event was available, they tended to differ vastly in their presentation, quite obviously colored by their authors' beliefs and superstitions.
Indeed, superstition seemed to be the primary undertone, or even motivation, for producing texts, apart from something Razel would have been inclined to label an "unusually high degree of sentimentality", had the authors been human. The lack of scientific approach to worldly matters bothered him to an extent, but when he himself finally had the opportunity to see the land, however briefly, he immediately felt it, something Verg had predictably, thoroughly missed.
The land was teeming with magic, every inch of earth, every plant and being suffused with an energy that was nearly impossible to describe, save for the fact that it was completely different from the magic Razel could feel running in his own veins. It was small wonder that a world so drenched with magical power should produce beings sensitive to the supernatural, when their world was so ripe with phenomena Razel's own knowledge of science could not hope to explain.
Two moons and no sun, yet a world warm with light. A lake of water, its surface hard like glass. A circle of stones in a field of yellow and red, bearing both of their signs.
So, for the most part, he found himself withholding his judgment, partially because he had been confronted with a new species, and partially because not doing so would mean lowering himself to the imbecile's level, who tended to scoff at the Ribika's sophistication.
Razel privately thought about ruined towers under a poison sky, and did not say anything.
----
"Such a shame I couldn't stay and see the end of it. You should've been there. It was like... live-action drama or something. The whole village after them like a bunch of good old-fashioned witch hunters. All that was missing were the pitchforks, really."
Razel frowned disdainfully. Verg's habit of meddling in the affairs of the Ribika was bothersome, mostly because it was so unnecessary. The man seemed to delight in having puppets to dance at his will, a behavior Razel found unfit for a being of their power and standing. It was rather like stomping on ants to see them squirm and scramble, a pointless upsetting of structures.
"I refuse to believe that you did not have a hand in this."
"Maybe I did, and maybe I didn't," Verg shrugged, smirking. "It sure didn't hurt to see that insolent little bugger taken down a notch. All this time I spent chipping at his attitude, and the thing to break him is a woman. Figures."
Razel snorted.
"What?"
"I find it oddly amusing," Razel said, "that you would allow one of those 'wimpy kittens' to get to you so much."
"That's got nothing to do with it," Verg said, his pleased expression fading. "He just needs to know his place, for all the cheek he's been giving me. Let's hope they'll call me again in a few days, I'd love to see how that turned out."
"Cedes maiori," Razel murmured.
Verg glared. "What did you say?"
Razel smiled and decided to stay silent on the matter. Even if he were to translate the words, explaining their meaning to Verg would be an exercise in futility. The man would never understand that he had yielded to one greater by lowering himself to such petty games. "Clearly, I have been neglecting your training, if you now go looking for your opponents among mortals."
Verg, predictably, rose to the challenge. "Heh, wanna make something of it? I'm gonna have you eat-"
Suddenly, the space began to shake, the floor vibrating, the great columns almost swaying, dust trickling down from the walls and things tumbling down from their proper perch. Razel caught himself from lurching forward, but Verg ended up slipping out of his chair.
When the reverberations faded away, he straightened from his undignified position. "The fuck? Since when does this place have earthquakes?!"
"It doesn't," Razel said, dusting off his robes and negligently waving a hand to repair the damage done to his rooms.
"Then what does this mean?"
Razel rose from his seat, the red portal shimmering into existence almost at the same time.
"It means things are about to get interesting."
- FIN -
----
A/N: And it is done. Depending on how willing Verg is, there might be a quasi-sequel, since I still owe ayonoi a proper thank-you. ^^ Meanwhile, C&C is appreciated.
- The game Razel and Verg were playing is the Royal Game of Ur. Go check out the link, it's fun to play. XD
- Cedes maiori: lit. "You yield to one greater." I don't speak ancient Sumerian, I'm afraid, but Latin's the language of science.
<< Return to Lamento Index | Return to Fanfiction Index >>
Fandom: Lamento - Beyond the Void
Parts: 3/3
Pairing: Razel/Verg
Rating: R
Warnings: sex, violence, swearing
Disclaimer: Lamento belongs to Nitro+Chiral.
Notes: Many thanks to sexual_ennui, whom I might as well call my muse, and to akuma_no_kage for looking this over.
Part I | Part II | Part III
Etemmu
Part III
It was true that few things tended to faze him.
Perhaps that was the reason why he barely even quirked an eyebrow at the other man's presence in his chambers anymore, Verg stretched out on the large pillows, and sometimes even the bed, after the first three times Razel had ignited his pants because he had not possessed the courtesy to take off his boots.
He lounged like a churl, too, legs spread wide, toes plucking at the linen bed sheets, and taking up an obscene amount of space. His pastime mainly seemed to consist of napping, talking-his speech sprinkled with references that Razel, more often than not, only understood partially-and when he was not doing either, complaining of boredom.
He also sporadically felt the need to share revelations of great significance with Razel.
"You know what? Your room smells totally girly."
Razel blinked and mentally debated whether it was worth lowering his book. "You don't say," he finally said, glancing over the pages at Verg, who was lying upside down, his bare feet placed dangerously close to Razel's head. At least he was not foolish enough to try and invade his personal space.
Verg grinned. "Yeah. All fruity and... weird."
Razel resisted the urge to sniff haughtily. "Orange blossoms. And incense. For your information."
"See? Totally girly."
"If it bothers you so much, feel free to return to your own space," Razel said, and turned his gaze back to the pages.
"Nah, mine isn't all fancy and comfy like that."
"These spaces are representations of what we remember. I am sure you could alter yours, with a little willpower."
Verg stretched. "Too used to living in closet spaces."
Suppressing a sigh, Razel went back to his book.
After a period of silence, Verg spoke again. "You and your books. What are you reading this time, anyway?"
Razel glanced up again, to catch the other man regarding him with a lazy stare. "Gilgamesh."
He had been feeling a little nostalgic, but he was not about to reveal that to Verg.
"Gilga-what?" came the predictable reply. "I don't suppose your fancy library has anything interesting?"
"Like what."
"Porn mags?"
"Pardon?"
Verg's deviant grin told him that he should have known better than to ask, and after receiving a detailed description of "porn mags" and their contents, Razel felt more than inclined to agree. Verg, thoroughly satisfied that he had at last succeeded in unsettling him a little bit, agreed to let himself be introduced to nineteenth century erotica instead.
----
Courtship, in Razel's time, had been an elaborate ritual.
Even in the lowest classes, there had been precise rules that needed to be followed, exact requirements that had to be fulfilled, in order to invite a person to share one's bed. And among the aristocracy, it had been unheard of that such invitations would be extended without proper wooing or outmost courtesy. To do anything else would have been considered an affront. Razel himself had made politeness into an art form, as he delighted in its finesse and subtleties, and saw no reason not to extend it even to his harem, despite the fact that most people would frown at bestowing politeness upon mere slaves.
Neither could he recall ever being propositioned before, as one simply did not proposition the king. Of course, there had been veiled glances, sometimes even thinly so-Razel was no stranger to desirous eyes following his every move, or temptations, from time to time, if the individual had been especially bold, even attempts at flattery or flirtation, but never anything overt, never anything that could not be taken another way.
So to be asked, in no uncertain terms, whether he wanted to "fuck"... was definitely something new.
Razel paused in retrieving a tome from one of the shelves in the palace library and turned to face the inquirer with an expression of mild curiosity.
"I beg your pardon?"
Verg, who was balancing one of the low-backed chairs on its hind legs, his feet propped up on the reading table, raised his eyebrows. "Oh come on, like you didn't hear me. I asked if you wanted to fuck."
"When I said that literature might have a stimulating effect on you, this is not quite what I meant."
"Heh, you're such a prude."
"Quite the contrary," Razel said calmly. "I simply do not see why I should lower my standards."
"Aw, you wound me," Verg sniffed, affecting a completely overdone expression. "I don't discriminate, as long as somebody looks like a good lay."
Razel smirked slightly. "And what tells me that you are?"
----
"Why not?"
Razel raised his eyes over the rim of his book to meet Verg's direct stare. "Why not what."
"Why not agree to a fuck?"
It took a certain amount of control to will himself not to sigh. Of course, it had been too much to hope that his initial refusal would deter the man. If anything, the rejection had only served to encourage him, and he had begun to make a game of it, with terribly unsubtle puns and gestures.
Truth be told, if Razel had really wanted to have peace and quiet, he could have simply sealed the entrance to his realm, but he had refrained from doing so. He could not even say that he was especially uninterested in the offer, as strange as it was to be thinking about sex with another person after a few thousand years of solitude. Verg was not even all that unattractive-for an unmannered churl, of course-it was simply that Razel detested the idea of being "easy". Others who had wished for his benevolence had been forced to work for it, and had worked for it gladly. He saw no reason to change this policy.
"C'mon..." Verg had rolled over on all fours and was bending over him. Razel stared back, unimpressed. "You can't tell me something silly like virtue is holding you back."
"No," Razel returned, "just good taste."
"You ever even done it with a guy before?"
"This has nothing to do with your original question, but if you must know, there were one or two slaves who had my favor."
"I asked if you ever did it with a guy, not some simpering little slave boy," Verg scoffed. "Bet I know tricks that'd make your toes curl. I'd break you in nice and slow, just push aside that silly skirt and suck you, all deep and good. I bet you'd like that. I bet I could-"
The swift, warning pressure of Razel's fingers at his throat stopped him, his hands inches from the complicated knot tying the skirt.
"You seem to forget whom you are talking to," Razel said, his eyes narrowing just slightly. "My favor must be earned. I have no intention of agreeing to a tryst just because there are no options."
"Fuck you," Verg growled.
"You seem to be quite stuck on that. The way I see it, it is you who is begging me for sex. I have spent around eight thousand years without a partner. I can easily survive another eight thousand. What about you?"
There was a heavy pause, filled only with Verg's measuring glare. "...What do you want."
"I want you to hold still."
For a moment, Verg seemed to hesitate, as if he were contemplating refusal, but then he gave a sharp nod. Smiling triumphantly, Razel reached between his legs. It was quite amusing to see the man's eyes widen, to feel him jolt when his hand closed around its target.
A slight push against his throat made Verg still again, small points of heat radiating threateningly from the black-gloved fingers.
"Son of a bitch."
"We can stop this," Razel said amiably, "if this is too hard for you."
"Fu-ah!"
Whatever profanity had been about to escape his mouth was lost when Razel began to move his hand, slow, precise motions and steady pressure. Making Verg want it was not particularly difficult; he was already half-hard, had been so from the beginning of his unrefined attempt at seduction, and Razel might have felt insulted if he had not been able to feel the trembling movement of his throat when he swallowed, his entire body rigid in an attempt to stop himself from moving.
Verg's gaze remained fixed on him, simultaneously defiant and challenging. And Razel had never been one to resist a good challenge.
"You want it faster, don't you?" he asked, a purely rhetorical question. Verg's hips were almost rocking, despite the threat of a crushed larynx.
"Shit, yeah," came the reply, hissed between clenched teeth. "Yeah, do it."
Razel withdrew his hand.
It took a moment for awareness to settle in Verg's eyes. "What the-?"
Razel smirked. "And now... I want you to wait."
"…Fuck. Until when?"
"Until I feel like giving you the time of day, of course."
He did not show Verg the door, but that was not really necessary-he vanished in a yellow flare, the furious crackle of lightning echoing through the room in the wake of his disappearance, bringing a smile to Razel's lips.
----
Verg's departure was but a temporary one. The next day, he returned, and although he did not say anything on the matter, Razel could feel his eyes on him the entire time-unveiled and predatory, like he was waiting for a chance to pounce.
The intent in that gaze, nothing at all like the casual attention from before, was what kept Razel's interest, what turned this into a game worth playing. To be perfectly honest, he had not expected Verg to go along with his conditions so thoroughly, but once again, the man had managed to surprise him.
Verg did not bring up the topic again; in fact, he did not speak much at all, but simply kept following him with his eyes. At first, Razel pretended to ignore it, but after a time, he found out that paying minute attention to this overt scrutiny made Verg stiffen and sit up a little straighter, expectant despite himself, until he finally noticed the ruse and slumped in his chair, cursing Razel under his breath.
A day later, Razel found himself pushed against the wall in a sparring match, the handle of the axe pressing against his throat and Verg's breath hot against his ear.
"I'm still waiting. Aren't I a good boy?"
Spoken with an edge of strained patience, of barely perceptible menace-Right now, I could get away with anything. You're at my mercy.
The implicit threat made Razel smile, despite the fact that it was quite empty. "Very good. Would you like me to reward you?"
The only response was Verg's pupils dilating as he reached out to loosen the latch of his belt, sliding a hand inside. It was almost too easy-Verg was already half-aroused before he even touched him, readily pushing into his hand, panting and shuddering when Razel ran sharp nails along the sensitive flesh.
At the first hint of wetness, Razel pulled away, waiting a fraction of a second for awareness to register on Verg's face, before searing him straight across the stomach.
----
It did not really surprise when Verg began to appear in his bath, the intrusion a subtle warning that his patience was wearing thin. But still, he did not act.
Anyone else would have likely been intimidated by the unwavering stare piercing the steam, but to Razel, it felt almost… exciting. He had never been able to engage in this kind of game before, certainly not with someone who had no real reason to follow his orders. If Verg noticed that he was dragging out his routine, he did not say anything, and after two more days of this, Razel decided that such restraint deserved to be honored.
When Verg followed him from the bathroom to the bedroom, he paused. "You have not come yet, have you?"
"No."
Dead-seriousness and no hesitation. Allowing a pleased smile to show, Razel turned to face him.
"What if I told you to wait longer?" Reaching down, he slowly untied the towel from around his waist. "What if I told you that I am going to let you come if you impress me?"
A barely perceptible intake of breath. "What do you want."
Razel's eyes flashed. "The way I recall you boasting of your skills, this should be easy for you. Show me what that crude tongue of yours can do."
"Fuck," Verg breathed. "You want that?"
"Hm. I propose we retire to the bed, though. It seems rather more comfortable for activities like these."
"Heh, prude."
"Not at all," Razel said. "I was merely being considerate, since I doubt you will be standing at all once I am done with you."
----
It was difficult to tell how much time had passed, was passing in the real world, as they remained locked in timeless darkness. The only thing Razel could be certain of was that neither of them had been called in a very, very long time, longer than any period of silence he had ever experienced before.
In the beginning, Verg had kept complaining about the inactivity and making a nuisance of himself, sometimes even provoking Razel into using his powers to achieve a little peace and quiet, but he had given that up long ago. Now, he had redirected most of his complaints towards Razel's choice in authors and beverages. Razel suspected that his protests were more a matter of principle than anything else, as he kept picking and reading books, regardless, and downing mint tea with as much refinement as one could expect from a churl, which was to say, none at all. Most of the time, Razel found himself willing to indulge him-Verg was not nearly as brutish as liked to present himself, and could actually be persuaded to engage in interesting, meaningful discourse at times.
Razel found himself willing to indulge him in other aspects, as well; the man's complete lack of manners or restraint during sex was oddly attractive, and his remarkable streak of sadomasochism was something that bore further study. His tendency to snore afterwards with the volume of a thunderstorm was regrettable, but after what must have been a few hundred years, Razel had noticed that he had mysteriously gained the ability to sleep through it.
But the one thing that told him that it really must have been a very long time, indeed, was when he caught himself crunching on the distasteful caffeinated candy Verg was unreasonably fond of, and discovered that he really did not mind the flavor that much anymore.
----
"Hey… How long were you planning on hiding this beauty from me, Mr. Flawless?"
Sex made Verg amazingly mellow, though no less of an imbecile. His newest pastime, if one could call it that, was examining Razel's body for clues to his past, and demanding the stories behind them. Since Razel had not been especially forthcoming on the subject, he had begun to make up his own, which were utterly ridiculous and a fairly plump attempt in annoying Razel into revealing the truth.
Currently, his attention was on two long, thin, crescent-shaped scars on either side of Razel's left thigh, so faded that they were hardly visible against the rest of the skin.
"Let me guess… a cobra."
Razel twitched his leg to make Verg stop prodding. "I sincerely doubt the animal would be able to open its jaws wide enough for that."
"You haven't seen what Mother Nature came up with in recent years." Verg thought for a moment. "Alligator wrestling."
Razel gave him a look.
"C'mon, tell me. I'll tell you one of mine, too."
"You are not going to give up on this, are you," Razel said. "Fine. Pet lion."
"Wait a minute, there's no way in hell a baby lion-"
"Who said it was an infant?"
"Dude. You had a full-grown pet lion maul you?"
"In her defense, it was a love bite," Razel shrugged, "and I was eight."
After a good minute of staring at him like he was crazy, Verg shook himself. "You are unbelievable."
"I will choose to take that as a compliment," Razel said. "Now then, I believe you owe me something."
Verg grinned, like he had just been waiting for it. "Do you know how I got that?"
He was pointing to his eyes, waggling his fingers between the gray and the green pupil.
"I would think it is fairly obvious that I do not know."
"Wanna?"
Razel sighed and made a prompting gesture.
"I got punched in the face."
"I can't imagine why anyone would do that," Razel returned, rolling his eyes when Verg broke into uproarious laughter.
----
"You ever wonder what happens to us if there's no one around anymore?"
Razel looked up from moving one of his white disks across the board, to catch Verg regarding him with an uncharacteristically contemplative stare, his mind not at all on the game spread out between them. The man's ability to ask the most difficult questions at the most unexpected times never ceased to amaze him, making him wonder just what was going through his mind.
When he remained silent, Verg continued, "I mean, do we just stay here until the universe implodes or something?"
"...I doubt it," Razel said, after a pause.
"But you don't know?"
Razel smiled wryly. "One never knows what is on the other side until one gets there, isn't that how it goes?"
"Bull," Verg retorted, leaning forward to claim one of Razel's white disks with his own black one and tossing it back to him. "You can't tell me you don't have a gazillion theories doing a chorus line in your fancy head. And anyway, you've been here a lot longer than me. You know how this works."
"Not nearly well enough," Razel said, which was the truth. He rolled the dice and put the disk back into play.
"But?"
"But I think the most likely scenario is that we will... fade."
Verg was looking at him expectantly.
"You have noticed it, have you not? What brought us here, what ties us to the other world. What sustains us."
Frowning slightly at the colorful tiles, Verg nodded, rolled the dice and moved his piece again. "There's just a tiny little problem, then."
Razel moved his piece towards the goal and jotted down the points.
"Half-life."
"Pardon?"
"The time it takes for the shit they spread all over the planet to change into other shit. Until it finally becomes harmless. You know how long that takes?"
"Do tell," Razel said, leaning forward with interest.
Verg grinned mirthlessly. "Something around four hundred thousand years. At least."
Razel drew his brows together, rolling the dice back and forth in his palm. "The world I have seen was dying. Poisonous and unfit for human life."
"Exactly. So that's making me wonder. Why are we still here?"
"Res ipsa loquitur," Razel murmured.
"Bah, stop that," Verg said, grimacing. "I never got your fetish with that language."
"I seem to recall you being quite enamored with it last night."
"Don't make me kick you in the Latin quarter."
Razel smiled. "'The thing speaks for itself'. The answer is fairly obvious, I would think."
Slowly, he reached out and moved his final disk to the goal.
"There is something out there, keeping us alive."
----
For all his experience with summoning, Razel had never had the chance to observe it.
By impression alone, it was quite difficult to describe, something that was as much a force from the outside as it was something from within, an urge perhaps, or a need, although neither word truly fit the sensation. Even the brief feeling of disorientation he had experienced in the beginning had gradually disappeared.
So when Verg vanished in a bright yellow flare in mid-conversation, it was definitely something new.
Catching Verg's newly ownerless cup in his palm, Razel settled back to wait.
----
"Cats."
"Welcome back," Razel said calmly, heating the cups again with a flick of his wrist. "Tea?"
"Fuck that," Verg said, pinching the bridge of his nose to combat the spell of dizziness. "There is a world out there. Populated. By freaking kitty-cats!"
"From what I understand, most so-called civilized societies are outnumbered by the pets they keep. But I take it this is not what you are referring to?"
"I want booze. I want to get drunk. Why can't I fucking get drunk anymore?"
"I suppose if you concentrate on your memory of being drunk..." Razel suggested, more amused than anything else. In all the time he had known Verg, he had never seen the man being quite so melodramatic.
"That would defeat the entire purpose of trying to become drunk," Verg grumbled, and gracelessly flopped down on the sitting pillows.
Razel waited for a while to see if any information would be forthcoming, but eventually prompted, "Cats?"
"Quit reminding me," Verg said, "It's like a freaking vegetable patch exploded all over the place. Giant trees and plants everywhere."
"I would think that compared to a toxic wasteland, this is most definitely an improvement."
"Would be, if it weren't inhabited by a race of kittypeople."
Razel's brows almost rose to his hairline. "Cat people? This is... most interesting."
Dismayed by the lack of moral support, Verg groaned. "Only you would think so. At first, I thought I'd walked in on a costume party, with all the ears and tails."
"Anthropomorphic cats, then? The ways of evolution are truly... fascinating."
"This isn't fascinating, this is insulting. As if serving fucking humans wasn't bad enough."
"Clearly, you have never met any of the imbeciles I had to deal with over the ages," Razel replied.
"They're pets. Skittering around all bug-eyed and bristling when you lift a finger and going 'Lord Verg this' and 'Lord Verg that'... ugh. Wimps."
"Let me just see if I comprehend," Razel said slowly. "You are complaining about being revered? I would say that makes them an improvement over humanity already."
Verg paused, blinked, and frowned slightly. Suddenly, a dirty grin lit on his face. "You know what, you're right."
There was a pause as Verg absorbed this new revelation, and then, "Hey, maybe this won't be so bad. I mean, sure, civilization has gone ass-backwards since I last saw it, but anything's an improvement over nuclear warfare."
"Backwards?"
"Well, I didn't really see much of it. Busy dealing with a bunch of pets, and all that. But it all seemed pretty simple. Rickety houses, wooden contraptions. Tons of pseudo-voodoo stuff."
"Ah," Razel said. "I suppose we can only hope for the library to yield some information, then."
Verg nodded, "You know... I wonder if somebody thought about making a kitty sex ed book. I'd love to read that."
Razel blinked and decided that no amount of culture shock could deter the man's one-track mind.
"I wonder if they fuck like cats. I mean. You know how cats do it. Actually, do you think they have spikes down there? Or kitty-tongues. I wonder what it feels like to get licked by a kitty-tongue."
Draining his cup, Razel rose from his chair. "As fascinating as contemplating the sexual activities of an unknown species may be, I shall be on my way to the library. To my knowledge, there was a much-celebrated twentieth-century psychologist who might have a name for your fetishes."
----
While Verg regrettably seemed to use his discoveries to fuel his deviant fantasies, Razel was much more interested in the workings of the new world than in the many uses of cat ears.
The Ribika literature-for so they preferred to call themselves-was one of the most elaborate and refined collections of music and poetry he had ever seen, one that would have made many a human artist envious, and for this craft alone, they considerably rose in Razel's esteem. What he was less than pleased with was their tendency to mystify events, no matter if they were normal or unusual, and their complete inability to keep consistent historical records. There were even cases of one and the same village chronicler constantly contradicting himself, which made puzzling out their history unnecessarily complicated. More often than not, when more than one report on an event was available, they tended to differ vastly in their presentation, quite obviously colored by their authors' beliefs and superstitions.
Indeed, superstition seemed to be the primary undertone, or even motivation, for producing texts, apart from something Razel would have been inclined to label an "unusually high degree of sentimentality", had the authors been human. The lack of scientific approach to worldly matters bothered him to an extent, but when he himself finally had the opportunity to see the land, however briefly, he immediately felt it, something Verg had predictably, thoroughly missed.
The land was teeming with magic, every inch of earth, every plant and being suffused with an energy that was nearly impossible to describe, save for the fact that it was completely different from the magic Razel could feel running in his own veins. It was small wonder that a world so drenched with magical power should produce beings sensitive to the supernatural, when their world was so ripe with phenomena Razel's own knowledge of science could not hope to explain.
Two moons and no sun, yet a world warm with light. A lake of water, its surface hard like glass. A circle of stones in a field of yellow and red, bearing both of their signs.
So, for the most part, he found himself withholding his judgment, partially because he had been confronted with a new species, and partially because not doing so would mean lowering himself to the imbecile's level, who tended to scoff at the Ribika's sophistication.
Razel privately thought about ruined towers under a poison sky, and did not say anything.
----
"Such a shame I couldn't stay and see the end of it. You should've been there. It was like... live-action drama or something. The whole village after them like a bunch of good old-fashioned witch hunters. All that was missing were the pitchforks, really."
Razel frowned disdainfully. Verg's habit of meddling in the affairs of the Ribika was bothersome, mostly because it was so unnecessary. The man seemed to delight in having puppets to dance at his will, a behavior Razel found unfit for a being of their power and standing. It was rather like stomping on ants to see them squirm and scramble, a pointless upsetting of structures.
"I refuse to believe that you did not have a hand in this."
"Maybe I did, and maybe I didn't," Verg shrugged, smirking. "It sure didn't hurt to see that insolent little bugger taken down a notch. All this time I spent chipping at his attitude, and the thing to break him is a woman. Figures."
Razel snorted.
"What?"
"I find it oddly amusing," Razel said, "that you would allow one of those 'wimpy kittens' to get to you so much."
"That's got nothing to do with it," Verg said, his pleased expression fading. "He just needs to know his place, for all the cheek he's been giving me. Let's hope they'll call me again in a few days, I'd love to see how that turned out."
"Cedes maiori," Razel murmured.
Verg glared. "What did you say?"
Razel smiled and decided to stay silent on the matter. Even if he were to translate the words, explaining their meaning to Verg would be an exercise in futility. The man would never understand that he had yielded to one greater by lowering himself to such petty games. "Clearly, I have been neglecting your training, if you now go looking for your opponents among mortals."
Verg, predictably, rose to the challenge. "Heh, wanna make something of it? I'm gonna have you eat-"
Suddenly, the space began to shake, the floor vibrating, the great columns almost swaying, dust trickling down from the walls and things tumbling down from their proper perch. Razel caught himself from lurching forward, but Verg ended up slipping out of his chair.
When the reverberations faded away, he straightened from his undignified position. "The fuck? Since when does this place have earthquakes?!"
"It doesn't," Razel said, dusting off his robes and negligently waving a hand to repair the damage done to his rooms.
"Then what does this mean?"
Razel rose from his seat, the red portal shimmering into existence almost at the same time.
"It means things are about to get interesting."
- FIN -
----
A/N: And it is done. Depending on how willing Verg is, there might be a quasi-sequel, since I still owe ayonoi a proper thank-you. ^^ Meanwhile, C&C is appreciated.
- The game Razel and Verg were playing is the Royal Game of Ur. Go check out the link, it's fun to play. XD
- Cedes maiori: lit. "You yield to one greater." I don't speak ancient Sumerian, I'm afraid, but Latin's the language of science.
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