like lovers do

Vizaeth trails his fingers over the rubies decorating his collar and bites back his smile for the fifth time. Not wise, to practically skip through the halls of Sorcere, grinning like a fool—it makes others inclined to try to take advantage. Or to find a way to wipe it off your face. It tugs at his lips anyway. He can’t help it. Pharaun wants him. Wants him in his office after hours; a surprise, he said.

And so he’s dressed for it, his body just like Pharaun’s, black silk clinging to perfumed skin, the side-slit skirts of his new robes sweeping about his legs. The cut-out at the back, strung with spiderwebs of ivory thread and set with yet more rubies, leaves his skin prickling in the cool air. Expensive, but he knows his attention to detail will be appreciated for the worship it is.

He bites his lip as he approaches the door, then quickly scrubs a finger over his teeth, in case the dark lip stain has left a mark. Perfect. He has to be perfect. Little flickers of heat spark beneath his skin as he recalls the last time he was here. Pharaun hasn’t fucked him anywhere other than his quarters since then, though he’s offered. Too risky. Not that Vizaeth gives an Abyssal fuck who sees them together; the only reason to care if someone catches them is if it will endanger Pharaun’s status at Sorcere.

He adjusts the fall of his hair just so over his shoulder, skates his fingertips over the intricate braids decorating the left side. All in place. As immaculate as Pharaun’s reflection. Vizaeth takes a deliberately slow breath and knocks on the door.

There’s no answer.

He shifts his weight, tugs at a loose thread on his sleeve. Is he too early? He’s just raising his hand to knock again, when Pharaun calls for him to enter.

All remnants of a smile shrivel on his face as he steps in. There’s a stranger standing by Pharaun’s desk. Vizaeth gets a glimpse of a lithe, lightly muscled back beneath a cut-out the exact mirror of his own—though it’s missing the decoration—before the male turns, regarding him with cool, silvery eyes. For a moment Vizaeth can’t drag his gaze from his face—sharp angles, flawless dark grey skin, a jawline that makes his skin crawl with envy. Purple flowers pin back endless waves of hair that flow over one slender shoulder, accenting a neck that makes the sparks in his veins sizzle with interest.

But he’s in Pharaun’s office. And he’s dressed the same as Vizaeth is, only overloaded with violet organza and swirls of silver, the skirts of his robes slit high, baring slim hip bones and the faintest tease of a flat stomach. It’s excessive. Preening.

Seductive.

Vizaeth swallows hard, jaw clenching, but before he can say anything, an unholy, ear-splitting noise issues from behind the desk. Pharaun grimaces and shifts something off his lap. A moment later, a black fox trots into view, tail twitching, and scurries over to the stranger. Familiar, Vizaeth guesses.

“Is she okay?” Pharaun asks.

“Startled,” the stranger says, eyeing the fox intently for a moment before returning his attention to Vizaeth, offering an inscrutable smile. Vizaeth doesn’t return it. “Apprentice Thaezyr, is it? Master Mizzrym was just talking about you.”

“Indeed!” Pharaun leans forwards, beaming. At him, or at the stranger? Vizaeth can’t tell, hates that he can’t tell. “Apprentice Thaezyr, this is a…friend of mine, from my days at Sorcere.”

Vizaeth’s pulse thuds in his ears. “A good friend?”

“No,” the stranger cuts in. His tone is curt, cold. It reminds Vizaeth of the Archmage, and he wonders if the male is also a Baenre. If he is, it doesn’t matter. If he thinks he can inflict whatever First House charms he wants on Pharaun, he’ll soon learn how much it doesn’t matter.

The stranger bows very slightly to him.

“Nalfein Do’Urden.”

He knows that House. Bad things happened to that House, yet this one is still standing. This one is still alive, and he’s here, and he’s dressed like a tease, and Pharaun invited Vizaeth to surprise him, and…

Several things fall into place at once. His shallow answering bow is directed at Nalfein, his glare at Pharaun. The pulse pounding in his ears is so loud now he hardly hears the introduction he gives.

“You know, Master Mizzrym was startlingly sparse on your classwork,” Nalfein says. “For a student he’s so fond of, I’m surprised the details are so lacking. I don’t think you could’ve gotten Archmage Baenre to keep quiet about my grades when I was at Sorcere.”

Arrogant. Just like Despana. Which parts of Pharaun has he put that bragging mouth on?

“I’m quite good at necromancy,” Vizaeth bites out.

“Fascinating subject, isn’t it? Oft misunderstood, but dangerous in the right hands.”

Yes. It is.

Pharaun clears his throat. “Indeed. Apprentice Thaezyr is proving he’ll make an excellent necromancer.”

He says nothing about any of Vizaeth’s other skills, nothing about his own classes. Vizaeth wants to leap across the desk, grab him by the throat; bite him, kiss him, remind him—show Nalfein—what they are. Classwork means nothing compared to that.

“What about you?” He snaps his attention back to Nalfein. “What does Archmage Baenre have to boast about, exactly?”

How often did you fuck him to get what you wanted?

Nalfein’s pretty lips curve in a smirk. “Oh, a good number of things. I prefer enchantments and alchemy, but my skills span a wide range.”

Vizaeth narrows his eyes. They’d both notice if he tried any true divinations, but he peers into the Weave anyway, trying to discern what snares this egotistical whore has wrapped around Pharaun. He can’t taste any, smell any. Even the flowers in his hair have no scent—they’re as much a lie as Pharaun’s surprise was.

Nalfein sighs and leans against the desk, casting a bored glance over his shoulder at Pharaun.

“I have a prior engagement soon,” he says. “I will talk with you about the matter you wanted my advice on later.” He turns his attention back to Vizaeth as he rises, every movement calculated elegance. “It was a pleasure to meet you, apprentice Thaezyr.”

“I’m sure.” He can’t keep his lip from curling. If Nalfein notices his disgust, he doesn’t comment. The black fox scurries after him, tail twitching, pausing at his feet as he halts at the door and looks back, not to Pharaun, but to Vizaeth.

“If you’d like, apprentice Thaezyr, I’ve gotten hold of a few necromantic tomes from Thay that are a bit more advanced than what you’ll learn here. It’s mostly theoretical, but if you have a talent for it, you may find them interesting.”

Vizaeth blinks. Thayan. Thayan necromancy. He stares at Nalfein, searching for the trap, the trick, the lie.

“You’d just give those to me?”

“I have little use for them,” Nalfein says, shrugging. “I’d happily see Szass Tam’s theories put to proper practice.”

Pharaun shifts behind his desk, nails click-click-tapping on the wood—his nervous tell, his irritated tic. For once, Vizaeth doesn’t care what he thinks. He knows Szass Tam, has devoured every scrap of information on the lich lord and his empire of undeath Sorcere’s libraries contain. If there’s one person on the foul surface he’d give up even Pharaun’s touch to learn from, it’s him.

Nalfein is not here, Vizaeth realises then, to play a part in Pharaun’s game. Or rather, he knows he was invited for it, and has chosen not to participate. To take Vizaeth’s side.

It’s not often anyone takes his side.

His bow this time is sincere. “I’m honoured by your faith in me, Master Do’Urden.”

“I’ll have Archmage Baenre send for you when I have the tomes ready.” His eyes are almost friendly when Vizaeth rises, his faint smile something approaching genuine. “Pharaun, I’m sure we’ll speak more later.”

“I’m sure,” Pharaun says, a tight edge to the words. Nalfein doesn’t spare him even a parting glance, just glides from the room, the fox trotting obediently at his heels. Vizaeth waits until they’re out of sight, then one heartbeat more, then slams the door shut. One of his nails splits as he does so, the sting lancing up his arm.

“I might not be the best wizard at Sorcere, Pharaun, but I’m not stupid,” he snarls, whirling to face him. His voice shakes with the effort of not screaming. “Why? Why are you trying to make me jealous?”

Pharaun leans back in his chair, one eyebrow arched. “And why would I do a thing like that?”

“Because you like how I fuck when I’m jealous.”

There’s no denial. No protest. No attempt at a pretty lie to cover up what he did. Cracks splinter through Vizaeth’s heart, glass shattering in slow motion.

“Is that all I am to you?” He takes a step towards Pharaun’s desk. Another, then another, then he’s slamming his hands down, sweeping papers and ink and pointless decorations to the floor. “After everything I’ve done for you—!”

“What exactly have you done for me?” Pharaun interrupts, shoving to his feet.

“I killed for you.”

Blood on his hands, his face. His teeth. Still on his tongue when Pharaun fucked him afterwards; death has always made him giddy, and they both left the bed bruised that night. Now Pharaun only glares at him.

“I never asked you to,” he says, hard and low. The denial itself is a threat. “I never told you to do that.”

“Yes you did, you wanted—”

“I wanted you to find something to blackmail him with, not paint him over his office!” Pharaun shoves a hand through his hair. A garnet clip catches on his fingers and he flicks it aside with a curse. He sighs sharply, pinches the bridge of his nose. As though he’s the one having to exercise restraint, when it’s Vizaeth who’s been slighted. “I have things to take care of. Get back to your books.”

He holds the door until Vizaeth leaves, then stalks off down the corridor. Vizaeth watches him go. The jagged shards of his heart carve their way through his veins, and by the time they make it back to their point of origin, they are white hot. Incandescent. His nails, black and red and sharp, cut into his palms.

You don’t get to walk away. Not from me.

---

Sorcere is riddled with dark veins, cramped and hidden corridors that twist and turn through the tower’s many floors. Vizaeth has used them before, hidden here to watch and listen like a good drow should, although mostly when he tucked himself into the small black spaces, it was to be alone.

And they are alone now, as he slips on silent feet after Pharaun, who hasn’t noticed him. Or maybe has and is ignoring him.

It takes a few minutes to catch up, find him in the dark. This particular corridor runs near various private chambers, and where Pharaun’s paused there’s a glimmer of dark glass in the wall—a one-way mirror, or similar. A spying place.

Vizaeth can easily enough guess who Pharaun’s come to spy on, before he even sees the chamber beyond.

Nalfein is over the shoulder of some other drow, laughing as the male gropes under his robes. Silk shirt, tight breeches…no hair. There’s only one person in all Menzoberranzan that can be, and why he’s at Sorcere, Lolth only knows. To fuck Nalfein, presumably, given the way he flings the wizard to the bed, and what bargain have they struck, Archmage Baenre’s prize student and the Houseless rogue? What secrets of Sorcere is Nalfein whispering into his greedy ears?

“Fuck me,” Vizaeth hears, and it sounds like Nalfein. Pharaun presses his forehead to the glass, fixated on the chamber beyond. His breath hisses out of him, his hands fisted at his sides, flexing like they want to smash through and wrap, bloody, around someone’s throat.

Jealous. Pharaun is jealous. Something like wonder widens Vizaeth’s eyes. He’s jealous of Jarlaxle, isn’t he? That he’s the one now stripping Nalfein out of his robes, running his hands over his skin, shoving his tongue into an eager mouth that to Pharaun’s claim of friendship said no. But why? Why feel that way about a former fuck—for that’s what Nalfein must be—he invited to his office only to rile Vizaeth?

The faint sounds of sex echo dimly from beyond the mirror. In Nalfein’s chamber, the positions have switched, the wizard now atop the mercenary, who seems all too pleased at the role reversal. Pharaun’s hand has drifted between his legs, his palm pressing to where his cock, Vizaeth can tell even in the dark, strains beneath his breeches. A pulse-rending roar thunders in his head, and he knows. He knows why Pharaun is jealous.

He wants Nalfein.

It’s more than just a ploy to get a good fuck out of Vizaeth—Pharaun wants the arrogant wretch, wants him enough to spy, to lurk here in the dark and get off on watching him bury his cock in Jarlaxle who will, so the rumours go, do anything for enough coin.

Abruptly, Pharaun turns from the glass. He finds Vizaeth easily in the shadows, eyes glinting like fresh blood. His whisper shivers down Vizaeth’s spine as he stalks towards him.

“Spying again, are we?”

“What does he have that I don’t?” Vizaeth spits the words at him. “What’s so fucking special about him?”

Pharaun’s in touching distance now. His breath, their breath, is too loud in the narrow corridor. His presence rolls over Vizaeth like the shadow of a god, dark and ancient and terrible, and all Vizaeth’s blood rushes to his cock.

“Absolutely nothing,” Pharaun says.

The kiss is a crash of lips and teeth; a growl, a moan. They claw at each other, Vizaeth stumbling backwards until he hits the wall. Pharaun’s leg presses between his, and he grinds against it, feeling Pharaun’s own hardness rock along his thigh. Another growl, a deep, animal sound and he’s caught and spun, his face scraping on the stone. Something snags at his back. Tension, tight, and threads snap one by one, then all at once, rubies scattering every which way as Paraun rips the delicate webs apart.

Vizaeth spins beneath him, hissing, spitting fury. “Why?”

“I like it better this way.”

Pharaun shoves him back around, so hard his head cracks off the wall. His ears ring with static, and he can taste blood. He’s bitten his lip.

“Pretty little thing,” Pharaun purrs, and rakes his nails down Vizaeth’s now fully exposed back. Blood wets his spine, he feels Pharaun’s fingers smear it over his skin, knows it’s caught beneath his nails, and his lips can’t help but part in anticipation of the taste. It doesn’t come. Instead, Pharaun’s arm slams across his back, pinning him to the wall as he rips the rest of his robes to pieces. The material breaks easily beneath his hands, and when Vizaeth tries to grab them, stop him—for you, I dressed like this for you!—he gets his wrists pinned above his head for his trouble.

“Pretty little thing,” Pharaun says again. He slides his palm down Vizaeth’s side, over what’s now nothing more than black rags clinging to his body. His voice drops lower, and he digs his bloody nails into Vizaeth’s hip. “Open your legs.”

And Vizaeth does.

Pharaun shoves into him fast and hard and sinks his teeth into his shoulder. It’s animal, the bite, like a beast pinning prey. The touch of his mouth makes Vizaeth’s lips burn, and he wants to kiss him but every time he tries, Pharaun grabs his head and forces it back to the wall. When he cries out, pleading, Pharaun tears off a shred of his ruined robes and crams it into his mouth.

His breath is hot at Vizaeth’s ear, his lips hotter. He inhales, then chuckles, black like oblivion.

“You even smell pretty. All this effort, all for me? I’m flattered, truly.” Vizaeth tries again to free his hands. Pharaun tightens his grip. “Don’t tell me you don’t want this, not when you made yourself up so nicely for me, not when you’re this hard for it.”

He gives Vizaeth’s cock a few rough strokes, then grabs his hip again. His pace is brutal, scraping Vizaeth’s face against the wall with every thrust of his hips; his makeup, it’s ruining his makeup. He whimpers around the makeshift gag and Pharaun finally releases his wrists, only to grab his hair, yanking his head back.

“Oh, I know that sound.” He licks a hot stripe along Vizaeth’s jaw. “You want something more, don’t you, my dear?”

Skin splits, his knees jarring as he falls. A sharp, hard slice of pain—some shard of rock slitting through what’s left of his leggings to rip into his shin. Pharaun’s on him again without a pause for breath, hilting deep. Vizaeth bites hard on the spit-sodden fabric and rocks into the weight of him, stars of blood exploding behind his eyes. He’s hard and he’s nauseous and he can’t breathe and he’s ruining his makeup all by himself now with the tears blurring his vision and it’s a good thing Pharaun has his face to the floor, so he doesn’t have to suffer seeing something so fundamentally unappealing.

Soft sounds of slow sex from beyond the mirror filter vaguely into his awareness. Skin on skin, indecipherable words, quiet laughter. In his ear, closer; Pharaun’s ragged breathing. He tugs at the still-intact collar of Vizaeth’s robes with his teeth, bites a ruby from its stitching and spits it into the dark.

“Those make you look like you cut your throat,” he pants out. His hand wraps around Vizaeth’s neck, nails digging in tight. Tighter. Vizaeth’s eyes throb as his air restricts. Pharaun kisses his cheek. “Would you like me to do that? Put another knife in you? Or shall we both put one in them?”

He hauls Vizaeth’s head up and he realises they’re facing the mirror, staring into Nalfein’s chambers. The two drow within are sprawled on the bed in a tangle of bare limbs, Jarlaxle curled against Nalfein’s back, toying with his beautifully tangled hair, pressing kisses to his shoulder. Nalfein’s foot rubs idly along his calf. There’s a flash of black fur and the fox is there, squirming into the non-space between them; Jarlaxle curses, Nalfein laughs and rolls to face him, and their smiles are wretchedly soft, their kiss softer, and—

Pharaun shoves his face back to the floor. Both hands grip his hips now, his motions harder, faster. Vizaeth tries to match him, but Pharaun only holds him down and fucks him until he comes, and when he does, he sinks his teeth back into Vizaeth’s shoulder and snarls something incomprehensible enough to be his name.

One breath. Two. He pulls free. Vizaeth makes a strangled noise, empty and lost—come back, come back, I need you, come back. Pharaun rolls him over and rips the wadded fabric from his mouth. Vizaeth sucks in a breath. It’s gone an instant later as Pharaun splays a hand over his chest and holds him down, whilst the other wraps around his cock. He leans in close as he strokes, quick rolls of his wrist, a sharp pull of pleasure.

“Tell me again,” he whispers against Vizaeth’s lips. A kiss, a bite. “Tell me what you told me when I cut you open.”

Vizaeth’s head swims. He clutches at Pharaun’s arms, his shoulders, his back. Pharaun presses harder on his ribs. There’s no red left in his eyes, just a dark star haunting each socket, drawing Vizaeth in, consuming him.

“Say it.”

“I love you,” he rasps out, his voice rough and raw-edged. Pharaun’s strokes speed, his nails clawing into Vizaeth’s chest. “I love you! I love you, I love you, I love you—”

Over and over he says it, until he comes and Pharaun presses a hand over his mouth to silence him. He shudders through aftershocks that stutter his heart, and then Pharaun is lying next to him, there on the cold floor. Turning him to his side. Curling to fit exactly to his back. A hand slides over his chest, possessive, holding him closer. Lips at his bloodied shoulder, fingers in the wreck of his hair.

Time passes. He doesn’t know how much. The room beyond the mirror goes dark. Pharaun’s breath is so soft on his neck, his fingers so gentle where they trace over his scars. Back and forth, up and down, down, down to where, not too long ago, there was nothing but an open wound.

Vizaeth wishes it was still there.

They get up. Pharaun sets his robes straight, and Vizaeth does what he can with what’s left of his. The shadows are heavy. Quiet. Waiting.

“Pharaun…” His throat hurts. Everything hurts. “Pharaun, do you love me?”

Pharaun looks at him, and cups a hand to his face, over grazed skin that stings at the touch. He brushes his thumb through a tear-track smear of makeup and blood, and smiles.

“Oh, Vizaeth,” he says softly. “No-one loves you as much as I do.”

And Vizaeth knows with absolute certainty that he’s telling the truth.