"Though nothing
Will drive them away
We can beat them
Just for one day
We can be heroes
Just for one day"
-- David Bowie, Heroes

It was the day before when they'd started drinking -- light, at first. No point to getting carried away, not so early in the week-long festival, not when they had barely gained three days worth of freedom by nine months worth of behavior that made them both sick to think about. They had each other, drowning men clinging to driftwood. It was a temporary solution at best.

"What did you call this stuff?" Lucivar asked without much interest in the answer. He drank it before Daemon got more than halfway through a reply. "Ugh. Goat-piss."

"Is that a step above or a step below cat-vomit?"

"I'm not sure." He made a face as though he was actually thinking about it. "Give me some more of the other and I'll decide."

Daemon scowled and slid the bottle over to him. They'd abandoned cups after the first hour, neither one of them inclined to set foot out of the wing in case they were noticed, desired, and ordered out.

"This is a waste of time."

"Why?" Lucivar fell forward onto his stomach, fingers lacing over the back of his head. He said something that sounded like, "Be-fumpf you fump fuff..."

Daemon yanked the pillow from beneath his face. "Speak clearly."

"I said," Lucivar snarled, throwing the nearest object to hand at Daemon's head. "Because you would rather be out tearing up the nearest building or pack of witches with more hair than brains? For a sadist you can be more violent than I'm inclined to, sometimes."

The other man shrugged.

Lucivar swore under his breath, went over and started to pick fragments of the wine jug off the table, the floor, out from Daemon's shirt.

"What are you doing?"

"Cleaning up. Unless you really want to get yourself cut on sharp pieces of jug every time you reach around."

Daemon muttered something that sounded like give you a good reach around, but Lucivar pretended he didn't hear. The wine was starting to kick in and rather than make him belligerent it was just making him more tired. Not what he'd had in mind.

A hand in the middle of his chest stopped him from falling face-first onto the table. "Easy there, Prick. No point in wasting the freedom on sleep." Daemon's voice was soft, considering. "At least, not right now."

Lucivar shivered. He didn't resist, not when Daemon's hand drew him back to sit next to his knee, rest his head on his thigh. "I'm tired, Daemon. I'm old."

Fingers traced over the muscle of his shoulder, his upper arm. "No more so than I am," he pointed out, but there was a chuckle underlying the words and his voice was smooth as a fine wine. And like a good wine, it was putting him to sleep. Fingertips dragged up his arm and gently pushed his chin up from beneath. "Hey, now. No going to sleep on me."

Literally, on him.

"'s comfortable," Lucivar muttered. More for the sake of petulant rebellion than because he actually wanted to fall asleep that way. He'd get a crick in his neck, back, shoulders. And his head on Daemon's knee wasn't his preferred sleeping position, even if the fingers stroking through his hair were doing their work too well. But then, Daemon wouldn't have earned his reputation if he hadn't had the skills to

"What are you doing?" Lucivar was just sober, just awake enough to realize that Daemon was touching him in ways less than filial.

"I hate them," Daemon murmured, which was neither vehement nor germane. "I hate them all."

"Daemon?"

He was drunker than Lucivar had realized. Or he simply wasn't paying attention. The other man's fingertips were stroking across his cheek and it must have been too long since he'd felt any kind of soft touch because he sighed. Just a sigh.

Lucivar moved his hand to Daemon's knee, meaning to push himself up and away and instead he slipped and fell forward and he felt the hand curling at the back of his neck and pulling him forward. Cool lips brushed his own and made him gasp, too sharply aware of his own mouth and how he was kissing back.

"What..." He tried to speak but he was so cold. The air was cold around him and this was the first warmth he'd felt in years, turning to face Daemon as he turned to face him and one knee on either side of his chest, a hand on either cheek. Cupping his face in his hands like a lover. Kissing him like he meant it.

He didn't understand why this was happening. More than just the alcohol, even if the amount they'd drunk, or at least the amount he'd drunk was making him quiet about it. Passive. He tried to tell himself that, as Daemon combed his fingers through his hair. Down over his cheek again and he could taste the wine that the other man had been drinking. He could taste it on his tongue as it brushed against his. Along the inside of his mouth, over his lips as he pulled back only to kiss him again.

There was a moment when Daemon leaned too far forward and Lucivar leaned too far back and he thought, just for a second, that they were going to collapse. The impact on Daemon's knees jarred them both and sent them crashing together. He was cool, smooth, solid. Lucivar felt as though he were on fire.

"What..." he tried it again, and this time the words came out. "What are we doing?" You. What are you doing. I'm not doing anything.

Except he was. His body was on fire and his skin was flushed and sensitive to every creep of fabric and Daemon's body was pressing into his in ways that men didn't do to him. He was aware of every curve in front of him, and the way both of them were reacting. Aching.

"Daemon," he said.

Hands turned to curving claws and the only thing he got in answer was a snarl as Daemon tried to remove the offending clothing and Lucivar was too shocked, too drunk, too fucking horny to protest. After a moment he helped. He just wanted to be touched with something other than casual loathing. Right now Daemon was giving him every touch he'd ever wanted and he could only hope he was returning the favor. Noises said maybe he was.

They clawed into each other hard enough to leave stinging welts and Lucivar must have blacked out because Daemon was falling back beneath him and he knew they couldn't have gotten everything off and stayed in that position. But he could feel the other man's length against him and as they rocked in ways more instinctive than deliberate he couldn't tell whose touch was making him moan, his own or Daemon's.

Hands slicked over his chest. Nails pinched, scratched at his nipples, at his throat. Gestures that would have been violently met if he hadn't been biting his lip against the screams. His knees scraped along the floor as he moved. He'd stopped thinking about what he was doing just to rock against the other man's hips in desperate need of some friction, of some touch. Release.

He screamed as he came and he'd never screamed, not for them, not once. The thought crossed his mind as the fingers crossed his back and backside, strong. Clutching, holding on. Holding him secure.

Lucivar collapsed into his embrace, ancient mountain of a man giving way into the relief of Daemon's arms, Daemon's mouth. They kissed without any of the urgency of before and with half the skill, too, and he didn't seem to mind. Lucivar didn't mind. It wasn't his thing but Daemon was safe, he was trusted and safe and he didn't mind at all.

"You're drunk," Daemon said after a moment, but with a kind of affectionate chuckle.

Lucivar grunted, made as if to push himself off and then decided he didn't like that idea after all. "So're you."

"How is it possible to get drunk on this horse-piss?"

The sounds were different with his ear on Daemon's chest. Some kind of a grunt that might also have been a laugh and a few words he didn't catch. "We're both piss-drunk," Lucivar asserted. That point was very important.

"All right," Daemon didn't quite push him off. He did move to sit up a little, but he didn't push Lucivar off. Which was good, since Lucivar weighed more than he did. "They're not going to like it, you know."

"They don't..." Familiar tingle. Whatever they had done or not done they had been discovered now, and Daemon was right. Their so-called Queens weren't going to like it. "I don't care. They don't have to like it."

Daemon looked at him. He felt it too, Lucivar saw, in the split second before the assault. He felt it, and didn't care.

The pain, Lucivar decided, was worth it.

Go to the top! For you have reached the bottom.