I have a couple of posters and keychains up, and if things go well will keep it updated with my other designs as I see fit! The pictures aren’t the only things on there so I’d really appreciate it if you could go check it out if you’ve liked my designs!
Rating: Explicit (oh lawd they fuckin')
Pairing: A bit of polyghouls but mostly Dew/Aether
Featuring: A family argument. A family reunion. A man carving out a place for himself more and more each day. A spate of sickness. A coronation. A confession. An incredibly long sex scene. An exchange of words.
Word Count: 12.8k
Warnings: Back at it again with the corruption, lads. Maybe a little bit of virginity-kink, from the POV of the "virgin"??? Way too much worldbuilding, but you all expect that by now. Also some smoking. You know what kind.
This literally would not have happened without @forlorn-crows, without whom no-one in this chapter would have busted even a single nut, and @jimothybarnes who kept me sane, consulted on basically everything, and talked me out of more spirals than I can (or want to) remember.
Can you guys believe it's only been three weeks since I uploaded the last chapter???? Crazy how time works. Anyway.
If he could have chosen what the first dramatic event for the pack to experience after he officially joined it would be, the announcement that Papa would in fact be surrendering the papacy to Cardinal Terzo was not the choice Aether would have made.
Mountain and Dew, as supporters of the previous incumbent - the gaunt, almost skeletal man who seemed to be using his retirement to rule the Abbey gardens - were relatively neutral on the subject, and Zeph didn't seem to have much of a stake in the matter. It mattered very little to them whose orders they were following, they said, as long as those orders didn't require them to compromise their morals or wake up too early. And he himself didn't know enough about either the outgoing or incoming candidate to have an opinion.
But, apparently, Ifrit and Mist had very strong opinions.
For a while, Aether feared he was about to witness a breakup from the inside. He'd never seen either of them as angry as he did in the days directly following the announcement, had never seen Ifrit genuinely bare his fangs at anyone or Mist speak with real vindictive venom. It was one thing to see Ifrit squabbling with Dew - it was as much a fact of life as sunrise. But Ifrit trailed after Mist like a puppy on a string. To watch them aim barbs at each other like this felt like the world turning on its head five times a minute.
One night, when the snapping had turned to snarling and fangs were clicking a little too loudly, when Aether had slipped out of the room to take refuge in his own space, it was a surprise - a gratifying one, but still a surprise - when Dew knocked on his door a little later. He hadn't known the ghoul long, but he still understood the tension in his muscles, the way his usually-upright posture was curling in on itself just a little. However nervous he himself was about the arguing, it all evaporated in the face of Dew looking almost sullenly afraid. He pasted on a carefree smile, turned his music up just a little, and did whatever he could to distract his friend.
Lying on his bed tucked into that little nook, that warm body tucked against his own as they murmured to each other about nothing like kids at a sleepover, his whole being filled with a rush of contentment that somehow only felt half his own. With his back to the door, his body placed firmly between Dew and the outside world, he found himself oddly uninterested in the stars beyond his window. Nothing had ever been more precious to him than his beloved constellations. And now he found his eyes tracing the spaces between Dew's freckles instead. Speckles of moonlight scattered across his face like molten silver, spelling out stories he had no way of knowing and ached to learn.
A silence stretched out just a little too long. Dew tilted his head back to look up at him, his usually-sharp eyes softened into a gentle, lazy flicker of orange and blue flames. For a moment, Aether felt like he could live for centuries if only he could see those eyes every so often. Dew opened his mouth to speak.
Distantly, a door slammed, voices raised again, and Dew's whole body went tense and stiff immediately. Aether couldn't hear the words, or understand them if he did, but he recognized the voices - not that it could have been anyone except Ifrit and Mist. She snapped something vicious and pained, and Ifrit snarled like a trapped lion as his footsteps thudded across the room. The common room door opened and closed, there was the sound of shoes avalanching out of their precarious pile, the front door squealed as he wrenched it open, and then the walls themselves seemed to shake as he slammed it behind him.
Silence hung heavy in the air through the whole den. Aether hardly dared to breathe. In his arms, Dew lay stiff and unmoving. Almost without thinking, he pressed a kiss into the ghoul's hair, a futile attempt at comfort that nevertheless seemed to ease a little of the tension in his narrow shoulders.
In the hallway, Mountain's door opened, and his voice announced, loudly and with forced nonchalance, that he would be making dumpling stew, and that anyone who wanted to join in was welcome. Aether saw the distraction technique for what it was. Looking at the faces around him as they all gathered around the table, putting in the tedious hand-work to make the dozens of tiny dumplings and chop the vegetables and mince the garlic and smokeroot, they all saw it. But they were glad of it, even Mist. Especially Mist, whose vindictive glee had faded in the past couple of days, and was now a tension that seemed to hollow out her cheeks and dim the silvery glow of her eyes into worry and misery.
The next morning, when Ifrit slipped hesitantly back into the den and was immediately almost thrown off his feet by the force with which she hurled herself into his arms, Aether swore he felt the combined relief of all six of them at once.
He'd heard rumors of Mist's temper, her tendency to hold grudges eternally, so he held his breath for the rest of the arguing, even if the worst of it was over. But apparently, her fabled propensity to wrath did not extend to her packmates, because almost immediately the two of them were as close again as they ever had been. A few days later, lying on a nest of duvets and blankets on the floor of Ifrit's room while he and Mist used the big warm idiot as a pillow, he had trouble believing anything had happened at all.
"So you're not even gonna be one of, like his ghouls?" Aether asked, passing her the joint over Ifrit's stomach. A few flakes of ash crumbled off and onto an exposed stripe of skin, and he didn't even flinch. "He's obsessed with you."
Mist made the noise that always accompanied one of her more extravagant eyerolls, a tut crossed with a sigh crossed with a click of teeth. "Technically speaking, he inherits the papal ghouls from Bone Boy, it's a whole formal thing. Once he has the papacy, he can do what he wants, but Omega and the others will be his official guard at least for now. And he'll never let go of Omega, no matter what." She took a long, luxurious drag, stretching her back out as she exhaled. "I'm not wrought about it. Just because I'm not officially his doesn't mean he doesn't trust me."
"And at least this way, you don't have any official responsibilities," Aether added with a lazy grin, and Mist cackled.
"You know, I like you more and more every day, priest."
"Aww, you didn't like me before?" he replied, with an exaggerated false pout that he hoped concealed the pang of real concern he felt. Mist waved a hand dismissively, just at the edge of his peripheral.
"Sure, I wasn't exactly thrilled about you at first." There was a sleepy edge to her voice, comfortable and easy, a creature utterly complacent in the company of her own people. "But as long as you didn't cause trouble, I was willing to put up with you. For Dew's sake." She twisted around until she could look at him, waiting for him to do the same before she continued. "Then I got to know you. And now you're just as much rakhana as Zeph is."
He tried, and knew he failed, to hide his bashful grin. "Means a lot."
"Good. I don't say that kinda shit to just anyone." She gestured for the mug-slash-ashtray, taking one last drag as he passed it over and pinching the cherry out into the not-insubstantial pile of ash and burnt-out ends. "While we're on the subject. Lemme talk to you. Private-style."
"I mean, sure, but…" He glanced pointedly up the length of Ifrit's body, and she rolled her eyes again.
"Iff, my tits are cold."
No response except maybe a slightly louder-than-usual snuffle. She gave Aether a look of told you so, and he held up one hand in surrender. There was no way Ifrit could have resisted the urge to offer to warm them up if he had been awake - especially not after they'd gotten the room this smokey. "Okay, talk private-style."
She took a long, slow breath, watching the slow, steady rise and fall of Ifrit's tummy. Aether knew she was just gathering her words - English was her third language, after all - but there was something in her bearing that made him slightly nervous. Almost as if he could feel her caution in his own heart. "Listen," she began eventually. "Dew's everything to me."
"Oh, I know that, he -"
Mist held up a hand, and his mouth snapped shut with an audible click. "Now is listening time, not talking time." He nodded obediently, perfectly silent, and she sighed as she picked up her thread, glancing up at Ifrit again. "Look, he's my baby brother. And I've seen him go through some truly unbearable things and been the only one he had to turn to. I've held him in the middle of the night while he cried like a kit in a hailstorm. I've held his heart together with my bare fucking hands, Aether, I -" She cut herself off, silvery eyes closing as she took a shuddering breath, and Aether reached across Ifrit to squeeze her shoulder, the only comfort he could coordinate his lazy limbs into offering. She laid one hand over his, as much holding him in place as accepting the gesture. When she looked up at him, every single one of the badly-hidden tears in her eyes were like another knife in his chest. "I can't watch him get hurt, Aeth, not again. I can't. Promise me."
He frowned slightly, squeezing her arm rhythmically as his thumb brushed over the point of her shoulder. "Of course I don't want to hurt him. I hope I don't ever hurt any of you, I -"
"Aeth, please. Just… humor me, okay?"
She sounded so desperate, it hurt. Too much like the night she'd called to ask if he'd seen her brother as Dew stood in his kitchen, covered in his own blood and wrapped in Aether's cardigan. But this time, he had no obligation to lie to her, to deny her what her heart so obviously needed. And the part of his brain that still belonged to his own sister wouldn't allow him to leave her hanging now. Clumsily, teetering on the knife-edge of his already-compromised balance, he held his hand out to her, wrist up as he'd seen the others do when they promised something seriously. "Okay, fine. I promise."
She gave a weak chuckle as she looked down at his hand, slowly adjusting her own position so she could wrap her hand around his wrist. Five tiny, deadly pinpricks pressed gently into his skin, just hard enough to be a threat. "You promise what?"
He sighed over-dramatically, enough that she would know it wasn't serious. "I promise I will -"
"Swear."
"I swear I will do everything in my power to never hurt Dewdrop. Lava and fog."
She laughed again, brighter and more genuine, and released his wrist in favor of lacing their fingers together so she could kiss the back of his hand. "That's a pretty serious promise. Even if you did say it the wrong way around."
"Bitch, I know what I'm doing, I know how you people work by now," he grinned, sticking the point of his tongue out between his teeth, and this time she couldn't help but laugh with all her chest. A bright sound, as merry and free as rain on grass, a sound that filled him with nothing but the feeling of home. Of peace.
And peace seemed in shorter supply by the day after that, as the plans for the inauguration mass grew more and more more frantic. At St Jude's, organizing events on short notice was almost the norm, and Aether considered himself something of an expert at it. But he had never tried to organize something like this. Something so grand and important, on such a huge scale and in such a lavish way. This wasn't some everyday event that could be cobbled together with the contents of a storage closet, the big printer and some hopes and dreams. This was the coronation of the new head of the Church. And, because he had managed to get himself involved with a pack with very close connections to that new head of the Church, Aether found himself closer to the middle of the whole affair than he honestly felt comfortable with.
He would make it through, he knew he would. But fuck, would it be a hell of a time getting there.
Every day, there seemed to be some new disaster to resolve, some fresh problem to find a solution for. Some were relatively easy - flights rescheduled for visiting clergy from the Geneva Abbey, or a broken chandelier that was a pity but ultimately not a disaster. Some were more unusual but simple to fix, some seemed simple on first assessment but took a whole team of minds to resolve.
And then, with barely two weeks to go, a flurry of illness struck the Abbey. Under normal circumstances, Aether would have dealt with it without a care - long periods of hard urgent work were hardly new to him - but these were not normal circumstances, even for the Abbey.
The way Omega said the name of the sickness - nightlung - made him shiver, even the very first time he heard it. Nothing that wasn't worth every scrap of seriousness in his body could be named with so much apprehension and concern. While apparently not deadly except in the most unlucky of circumstances, and (at least so far) completely impossible for humans to contract, for any ghouls unlucky enough to fall victim, it deserved all the attention, resources and effort everyone in the infirmary could spare.
So Aether and Jakob, along with the other human staff, found themselves completely devoted to organizing care for the ten or so cases that managed to take hold before the infirmary figured out what was happening. Meanwhile, Omega and the other hellish members of the medical staff dealt with the human illnesses - and, most importantly, stayed a safe distance from the isolation ward. Aether could see the distress on their faces, the pain that they couldn't help their own people directly. If he worked a little harder on their behalf, it was no-one's business but his own.
It was exhausting, but he couldn't help but admit that there was a little exhilaration mixed in there too. Even Alpha, their most ornery and difficult patient, admitted he was impressed with Aether's control of the situation as he finallly left the infirmary. And he felt no shame at all in wallowing in more than a little pride.
He'd helped - really helped people. Saved their lives. In just over a month, he'd achieved more here than he had in his whole doomed career as a priest. This, finally, was something he could really shine at. He hadn't been able to save his sister, and he'd all but damned himself, but finally, he could help everyone else.
As gratifying as it was, however, it also left him exhausted. With only a few days to go until the coronation, he was running on fumes, determination and coffee, and had simply put himself into the hands of whatever higher (or lower) power would take him. Like the rest of the pack - the rest of the Abbey - he was happy to just do whatever needed to be done day by day, and hope for a good night's sleep at the end of it. Whatever would happen, would happen, and there was no use even trying to hold expectations.
And he certainly didn't expect Bell to turn up at the infirmary with a small parcel of what would upon closer inspection turn out to be spring cakes. He'd seen plenty of examples since his first encounter with them, but these were incredible, meticulously shaped into stars and wrapped in paper and ribbon in the most beautiful shades of purple Aether had ever seen.
After a few pointed glances from the ghoul, Aether made the assumption that the expected course of action was for him to try one right away. And the first bite filled his mouth with such a burst of fresh, earthy spiciness that all he could do was stare. The cakes that Omega had shared with him were delicious, but these? They were on a whole other level entirely.
When he said so, Bell only gave a knowing grin and a click of the tongue that was almost certainly meant to communicate gratified pride. Then he turned on his heel and sauntered back out of the infirmary, conveniently reaching the door just in time for Jakob to hold it open for him.
"Nothing good ever happens when that freak's in here, what did he want?" Jakob asked affectionately as he reached the front desk, and, mouth still full, Aether held up the small pile of cakes. Jakob's eyes widened a little. "Bell brought those? For you?"
"Mm-hmph."
Jakob let out a delighted little cackle. "Does Omega know?"
"Does Omega know what?" the ghoul himself asked, stepping out of the office, and Jakob gestured for Aether to show him.
"Bell's started bringing Aether fancy little presents."
"Oh, he has, va?" Omega's usually-welcoming smile turned ever so slightly sly. "About time, I think."
"I hope the soundproofing in your wing is good, Aeth."
"What the fuck are you freaks talking about?" Aether asked, but both of them were already going back to their work, although not without casting knowing glances at each other. Aether rolled his eyes and went back to the notes he was transcribing. After the rush of the night-lung outbreak, a little weirdness from his friends was so close to the bottom of the Things He Needed To Worry About scale, it didn't even register.
Lying on his bed with Dew stretched out next to him later, still revelling in the ability to rest without worry for his ghoulish patients, he thought briefly of seeing if he could contact Aiden (or whatever more truthful name she had chosen for herself by now). But Brother Deo had installed a contact in the town to keep an eye on her and any other kids who might need protection, and according to them, she was safe and happy. There was no use in risking harm to either of them. She didn't need him anymore, now that she didn't have to hide.
The rhythm of Dew's voice stopped for a second, jolting him back out of his thoughts and into the gentle flicker of those bright orange eyes he already sought out more than anything other sight. The ghoul chuckled. "Where were you?"
"Nowhere important. Sorry, didn't mean to ignore you."
Dew waved the apology away. "I know you don't like talking about this stuff. I shouldn't have brought it up."
"Even if I don't know how I feel about it, it's her decision, not mine." He leaned in to press an affectionate kiss to the tip of Dew's nose. "And anyway. It's a big deal, right? It's not every month someone literally asks to be turned into a literal ghoul."
Dew hummed a soft confirmation. "'S a huge deal. She's literally becoming one of us. She'll be pack now, not just a Sibling." He sighed happily, and Aether swore he could feel the joy pulsing through his friend's body, like it was dissolved into his blood. "And you're gonna love the afterparty."
"Feels kinda rude to join the celebration when I'm not even sure I like why we're having it," Aether mused, rearranging himself halfway onto his side and pillowing his head with a bent arm. "But. I'm determined to be happy for her, if she's happy."
"It's not as terrible as you think," Dew murmured as he craned his head back to meet Aether's gaze. There was something behind those flickering orange eyes that Aether couldn't decipher - not yet. "I know it's scary to think ab- and it's right that it should be, your humanity is important, but… Mn. I don't wanna talk about this anymore today."
"Fine by me." Dew made a soft noise of thanks as he rolled onto his side to mirror Aether, their noses inches apart, and Aether leaned in easily to steal a brief kiss that left them both grinning. "So let's talk about something else."
Dew let out a hum of contentment that quickly morphed into a satisfied groan as he stretched his arms above his head. "Got any good gossip from the infirmary?"
Aether shook his head with a dramatic sigh. "Polaris says the night-lung bullshit took up all the gossip quota for the rest of the year." Dew hummed in understanding, the sound underscored by the noise of the front door opening and closing and the low hum of voices as Mist greeted whoever it was she had just let in. "Nothing interesting's happened for days, unless you count Cowbell turning up with snacks out of nowhere."
Dew sat bolt upright. "Wait, he did what?"
"Uhhh…" Aether pushed himself up out of the pillows much more slowly, searching Dew for any signs he should be concerned. "He came in and gave me some spring cakes. Star-shaped ones. I still have some, if you want one, but they -"
His words were cut off as Dew grabbed his cheeks, squishing his lips into a contorted pout. "Are you serious? Aether, I swear, don't fuck with me about this, this is important."
"Yeah, he - oof -" Aether pulled himself out of Dew's grasp. In the hallway, whoever had come to visit knocked on Ifrit's door. "He just came in, handed them over, waited for me to eat one and then left. Then Jacke and Omega said something about the soundproofing and -"
Dew cut him off again with an almost giddy laugh, grabbing his hands with such a delighted expression that Aether felt the excitement in his own heart. "You don't even know what this means, do you?"
Any reply Aether could have strung together was silenced by the sound of Ifrit's door thudding closed. He could have sworn he heard a second, softer thud straight after. The kind he might expect to hear as someone, for example, pushed someone else against a thick wooden door. Gesturing frantically for Aether to keep quiet, Dew leaned over him and pushed the window open as silently as possible.
A few feet away, Ifrit's window was also open.
And voices were drifting out into the warm summer air. Two voices. One of them intimately familiar, the other less so, but still recognisable.
"Is that…"
"Bell," Dew whispered, grinning with such giddy excitement that Aether couldn't help but mirror it. He pressed one knuckle to his lips and Aether closed his mouth obediently, both of them leaning towards the window to see what they could overhear.
Distantly, but very clearly, someone - two someones - moaned.
"… wanted me, you - fuck - you could've just asked -"
"How? Look at you, you're -" Ifrit's words were muffled into silence with a soft groan, and Aether didn't have to be able to see them to know how frantically they were kissing. "Zhunne, oldorun kuu tik, Bell, te -" Ifrit let out the most helpless moan, loud and long and shameless, and Aether's hand instinctively settled on Dew's hip as the ghoul shivered.
"Off," Bell demanded, breathless in a way Aether had never heard on him. "Get them off, eshtak, fuckin' moanin' at me in my own damn language like that, I need you two months ago -"
"At fuckin' last," Dew breathed, barely audible over the sound of the breeze and Aether's own heartbeat. He looked down at the human, his grin so wide it must have hurt, and Aether was suddenly painfully aware that he was on his back with Dew straddling his hips. "That's what the presents meant. It's an old tradition, you give presents to their packmates just before you make your move, he was…" He gave up and leaned down to kiss Aether, laughing into his lips until Aether had no choice but to join in. "He's serious! He fuckin' means it, Aeth, he doesn't just want to fuck, he wants to try and -" Another loud, shuddering moan drifted in through the window, and Dew chuckled guiltily. "I mean, he wants to fuck too, I guess, who wouldn't…"
Aether gave a quiet hum of acknowledgement, squeezing gently where his hands still rested on Dew's narrow hips. They unconsciously rocked against his own, even as Dew still stared out of the window, and Aether leaned up on one hand to press a soft kiss to the crook of the ghoul's neck. "Maybe we should give them some competition, huh?"
Dew huffed out a short, almost silent laugh, sitting back onto Aether's thighs and looking down at him with an expression that was so different from the one he had worn just seconds ago it was dizzying. Soft, happy - grateful, even. But with a shadow of something dark. Something almost guilty. "Nah," he murmured, leaning down for one more gentle, innocent kiss. "Let him have this one."
As quietly as they could, they slipped out into the hallway and through to the living room, where Mist and Mountain were apparently losing their minds as quietly as they could. Aether's cakes had not been the only gift Bell had given. Mountain held a beautifully-polished fossil that filled his palm as he held it like a treasure, and Mist was examining a small, hollow metal ball that Aether didn't recognize, but which she seemed very excited about. Dew practically bounced off the walls as he retrieved his own gift from inside one of his books: a sheet of paper covered in Ghoulish calligraphy that was apparently one of his favorite poems. And when Zeph arrived ten minutes later, out of breath and grinning widely, they were clutching their cane in one white-knuckled hand and a sheaf of sheet music in the other. Aether didn't know their significance for sure, but he could guess easily from the joy on his oldest friend's face.
While Mountain explained the way Mist's gift would cast patterns by candlelight through its intricate pattern of pierced holes, Aether happened to glance up to see what Dew and Mist were doing, and found her hugging him as tight as she could. He couldn't see much of Dew's face, but he could just about hear the excited tone of his voice as he whispered rapidly into her shoulder, and judging by the grin she was wearing, her brother's couldn't have been much different.
For the next few days, everything seemed blissfully easy. The coronation crept closer one step at a time, and they, like the rest of the Abbey, woke early, worked frantically all day, and collapsed into whichever bed was closest at the end of it, congratulating themselves for the work they'd done and making plans for what they had left to do.
Three days out, people started to arrive, filling the Abbey with bustle and noise and joy and life.
With two days to go, he began to believe they might actually pull it off.
The night before the big day, he dropped into Dew's bed, exhausted, sore, and still smelling faintly of wood polish underneath the scent of his shampoo and Dew's soap. He kissed a demon goodnight, and fell asleep with a friend in his arms, fire-warm skin pressed close to his own and lulling him into some of the best sleep he'd ever had.
And then, far fewer hours later than he would have liked, he was waking up on the day itself. Midsummer. Even with 4am a few minutes ahead of them, warm sunlight was already beginning to stream through the windows to bless the day ahead and set the tone for their new Papa's reign.
But that wasn't why he and Dew were already awake. The rest of the Abbey was still sleeping around them as he let Dew lead him through the marbled halls, hand clutched in hand and feet falling almost in unison, whispering and giggling guiltily like schoolboys on a snack raid.
"Do we really have to go this fast?"
Dew half-turned to grin at him as they ran. "What, you tired already?"
"No, but you're out of breath, surely we can slow down -"
"Worry about that later, we're… fuck, we're already almost late!"
"Late for what?!"
"You'll fuckin' see!" Dew let go of his hand momentarily to haul open a heavy ancient door that Aether wasn't sure he'd ever seen being used before. "Maybe if you hadn't spent so long in the bathroom we could be going a little slower."
"Lucifer forbid a man spend more than two minutes -"
Dew shushed him in between panting breaths as they finished climbing the narrow flight of stone stairs, leading the way a few yards down a faded carpet that had probably been a vibrant red in its time, and through another, slightly younger door. Suddenly the faint singing he had been hearing was much louder, the smell of incense much stronger, and he realized that somehow they'd ended up in the choir-loft of the main cathedral. But in that case -
"Dew, we can't just crash morning prayers -"
"Relax, that happens down at the altar stalls, not up here," Dew hissed back. Sure enough, when they turned the corner and saw the pews of the choir-loft, they were totally empty - but Aether barely had the chance to notice it before a sharp bony hand was being slapped over his eyes. "You can't look yet."
"Okay, but I'll probably fall to my untimely tragic death," Aether replied, and Dew groaned in exasperation.
"Fine, cover your own eyes, you can look at the floor but nothing else, okay?"
"Dew, what are you even -"
"Come on, please, just trust me!"
And, because trusting Dew hadn't ever led him fatally wrong yet, he trusted. Obediently, one hand covering his eyes just enough to let him look down where his feet fell and nowhere else, he let himself be led forward, until the front rail of the choir stalls came into view. His other hand settled on the rail as he got his balance, and beside him Dew heaved a long, satisfied sigh. Below them, the beautiful harmonies of the praying Siblings rose a little louder, prayers coming to a close. "Dew -"
"Open your eyes."
There was something weighty in Dew's voice. Something serious - not quite solemn, too full of excitement for that. But he could sense, in the tone of his friend's voice, that whatever waited on the other side of his hand meant a lot to Dew.
And that meant it meant a lot to him too.
He let out the breath he was holding and lowered his hand.
He'd expected to just see the cathedral. What he saw instead looked like the inside of a jewel.
Every familiar surface was painted in a thousand shades of dawn and dusk all at once. Reds lanced across ancient gray stone, oranges danced with yellows on wood and cloth, gemstones and sunsets blended together until the air itself seemed to breathe and pulse with color and life. The rich, heady scent of a millennium of incense and beeswax filled his soul with every shallow breath of amazement he took, the beauty of the voices raised in the final prayers of the morning perfectly choreographed with a beauty and passion he had never heard anywhere before. Even in the midsummer light, a hundred candles already burned, their soft glow melding with the jewel-bright stains of the rose window behind him like they wanted to paint the world in color and warmth and devotion.
At the same instant he realized just what he was seeing, Dew's voice broke through his reverie.
"This is what I promised to show you." His voice was quiet, almost reverent, so similar to the way he'd spoken as he told the tale of the six sacrifices. Like even the words on his tongue were holy, like they made him holy just by saying them. "This is what you came here to see. This moment, right now, is why you left the life you made for yourself, every comfort you'd ever known, every word you'd ever believed. Just to see this morning, because a demon told you it was beautiful." Aether felt the pressure of eyes, flickering with a fire that felt more like home to him than anything ever had, on his face. When he turned to meet them there was a smile on Dew's lips, small and almost uncertain but so familiar he felt like he'd known it forever and would know it forevermore. "Is it worth it, priest?"
The priest breathed out a soft, silent laugh and laid his hand over the ghoul's on the smooth wood of the railing. "It's worth everything and more."
In the painted dawn light, Dew's glamoured skin glowed almost gold as the uncertainty melted out of his smile, still just as small but so full of joy Aether felt it in his own chest. He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the wooden railing, and Aether mirrored him without thinking. He remembered a time when they'd stood like this before, looking out over a graveyard instead of a living, breathing church full of life and joy. "You still gonna stick around, now you've seen it?"
Aether made an exaggerated noise of consideration. "I guess so. I'm kind of invested in the whole Ifrit-Bell thing now." Dew tutted in feigned annoyance as Aether gave a grin of delighted mischief.
With a sigh, he settled in to enjoy the calm of the morning. Below them, matins had finished, and the Sibings were tidying hymnbooks and kneeling for their own private prayers and chatting softly together. In a matter of hours, this beautiful space would be filled to the rafters with people from every corner of the world, bustling and chaotic and joyful, but this was enough for him. This quiet hum of energy and happiness, the painted air itself seeming to breathe with life, with Dew at his side and with peace and community below them, was all he needed.
He didn't realize he'd let out a soft huff of a laugh until he sensed Dew's ear twitching under his glamour. "What's funny?"
He shook his head. "Nothing important." Dew raised an eyebrow, and he surrendered immedately. "Just that… it's weird how even sunlight feels brighter when you're genuinely happy at last."
Dew scoffed softly, a glow of affection curling around the edge of the sound. "Have you always been this poetic, or is the Abbey just bringing out the best in you?"
"I don't know. I've never been in love before."
The words simply fell out of his mouth, as if they'd been waiting there behind his teeth.
Dew stared at him.
He stared back.
Both of them as shocked as the other.
"I… What?"
He hadn't even known he was about to say that.
But now that he had, he knew.
Now that he'd said it, he couldn't work out how anything else had ever been true in his life.
"I'm, uh… I'm in love. With you," he added helpfully.
Dew blinked, his eyes huge and round, the fire in them flickering quickly - more quickly than Aether had ever seen it dance. His lips moved soundlessly, stumbling to find words that wouldn't come to him, and Aether knew, so certainly that it almost hurt, that there was nothing in the world he wanted if he couldn't have this demon by his side.
"I love you, Dew."
For a moment the world hung between them, silent, unmoving, waiting.
They were close. So close, Aether could see Dew's chest moving as he breathed. Painfully close, in the boundless new world that already felt like home. He could make out every little freckle that dusted Dew’s skin, each one painted a new and perfect shade of red and gold. And then they both moved at once, frantic hands grasping to cling to each other like it would kill them both to be apart for one more second, and as their lips met the world was right at last.
He'd kissed Dew before, a hundred times. He knew it intimately, the press of his lips, the angles of his nose, the feel of his breath against his own. He knew every taste of him, the stale mornings and the rich trace of wine after dinner, the shock of alcohol and the deep, earthy tang of weed-smoke. This was none of them, and all of them at once, this was so new it was dizzying and so familiar he felt it in his bones.
How had he never seen it before now?
He loved him.
He felt his back hit solid, sturdy wood and steadied himself against it, Dew's hands tight in his shirt and his fingers threaded in between Dew's braids and Dew's mouth on his because he loved him and he was kissing him and he couldn't bear the thought of one moment without Dew ever again.
Suddenly, sharply, Dew pulled away from him, hands still gripping the front of his shirt so tight he'd be surprised if there weren't clawmarks in it. Their chests heaved against each other, sharing breath between kiss-bruised lips, and Aether's questioning sound died in his throat as he took in, as if for the first time, just how fucking beautiful Dewdrop was. "Nuu lekh tatik-ve," the ghoul breathed, like a curse, like a blessing, like a spell, and before Aether could question it those lips were on his own again and his world narrowed back down to nothing but Dew.
He loved him.
Every moment he'd spent with Dew, he'd loved him without knowing it. Every time he'd looked at him, he'd seen a friend and nothing more, because his heart hadn't known the shape of love to recognize it when he felt it. But oh, he knew it now. As if some invisible hand had pushed him over the precipice, he'd fallen headfirst into the realization, and nothing could ever drag him back now.
He'd kill it with his bare hands if it tried.
"Dew…"
"Oh fuck, Aeth -" What slipped from his lips as easily as a breath felt like a prayer on Dew's tongue. Whatever either of them had planned to say was lost, each kiss broken apart by one only for the other to reclaim it hungrily, words abandoned for the feeling of lips and tongues and breath. "I -"
"I don't know who's up there -" They both jumped as a voice called from the cathedral floor, sharp and tired but clearly amused. "- but either get out or help out, we've got decorating to do in here!"
They looked at each other, wide-eyed, panting, alight with adrenaline and the thrill of revelation.
Their hands laced together as easily as two halves of an apple, and they ran.
He loved him.
The Abbey still slept around them as they retraced their steps back home, but even in the stillness the whole world seemed to glitter and pulse with new light, new purpose. Aether barely noticed the hallways and doorways flickering past as they ran. All he knew, all that his mind would allow him to focus on, was the hand in his own, the all-consuming warmth of the creature at his side. His whole world, all there ever was, all he ever wanted there to be, was narrowed down to one pair of hands, one body, one voice, one heart that he swore he could feel beating in perfect rhythm with his own.
He barely even noticed where they were, what they were doing, until they finally made it back through endless miles of marble hallway and into Dew's room. But the moment that heavy door slammed shut behind them, and his breath was knocked out of his lungs and into Dew's mouth as his back thudded against it, it all hit him at once.
And it hurt, fuck, it hurt to break that kiss, to pull away from a touch that felt like it closed a circuit inside him that had been open and sparking for all the years of his life. But it hurt so much more not to see him. Not to be able to look into those eyes full of fire, and need, and something that he hadn't been able to find a name for in all the time he'd known the creature in his arms. But he knew it now. It couldn't be anything else. Nothing that reflected the aching blaze deep in his chest so perfectly could be anything except a mirror.
"I love you," he breathed, half a prayer and half a disbeliving laugh. "Dew, I fucking love you."
"Te daluun kuu." He didn't recognize the words themselves, but the weight of them on Dew's tongue, the way the fire in his eyes flared almost to yellow as they rushed from his lips, told him they couldn't be anything else. "Daluun kuu te, Aeth, fuck, esktake te kuu giinuta -"
"How long?"
Dew laughed helplessly, a wild, untethered thing that seemed to start in his chest and end in Aether's. "Since the start," he admitted, freely and unabashed. "I told you, didn't I? Since the moment I laid eyes on you."
"Every night?" Aether asked, and Dew groaned low at the memory of those words.
"Sometimes twice." They both broke into helpless laughter as they leaned back into each other, trading kisses that were slower but no less desperate. "Couldn't help it, you were so fuckin' hot in that stupid shirt, couldn't get the image out of my head unless I did somethin' about it."
"The priests here wear them too," he pointed out, the last word cutting off into a sharp gasp as Dew's fang grazed his lip.
"Yeah, and I think they all look fuckin' stupid," he replied, before dragging the points of his tongue apologetically across the nick. Aether's laugh shook as he shivered.
"But I looked hot?"
Dew pulled away from the kiss, and there was a look in his eyes that Aether remembered so clearly it almost hurt. The look Dew had worn as he'd looked up from his knees like a pilgrim at the altar rail, the look he'd worn as he'd held Aether's face in his fire-warm hands and begged for the kiss that would tumble them into bed and seal Aether's fate at last. "It wasn't because of your clothes. It wasn't the vestments, or the church, or the fuckin'… the way you cared about the graveyard. It was you." Long, bony fingers wrapped around Aether's hand, dragging it gently but insistently between their bodies, and although it ached to put even an inch of space between them, the heat he felt as Dew pressed his palm over the hard, straining line of his cock was more than worth it. "I wanted you then, and by the Throne, I want you now."
"You can have me," Aether breathed, and Dew shivered against him. "I'm yours, Dew, now and forever. Whatever you want, you can take from me."
Dew's cock throbbed in his hand, and his breath trembled as he clutched Aether's shirt just a little tighter. "You…" He shook his head, the movement barely enough to be discernable to anyone except the man who loved him. "I can't."
"You can." Aether pulled his hand free gently, bringing them both up to cup Dew's jaw and hold him in place, so the ghoul couldn't look anywhere except at him. "What do you need?"
Dew groaned helplessly, his skin flared white-hot under his hands for half a second, and he would have held on forever just to feel it burn him. Dew shook his head, his eyes closing in desperation. Aether just shook his head between his hands, gentle but insistent, and eventually they flickered open again, fixing him with a pleading look full of nothing but fire and need and love. "I… I want…" He swallowed, his throat moving under Aether's hands. "Let me fuck you."
Aether's whole body froze as his breath caught in his throat. Even after all this time, he'd never… sure, a few touches here and there, when his cock had been down someone's throat, a few filthy words that were threats and promises in equal measure. One cautious, careful night speared on Zeph's long pianist's fingers, because they insisted on repaying the favor of finding his prostate. But he must have flinched away too obviously too often, they must have seen the apprehension in his eyes, and no-one had ever asked him for more. Months among ghouls had cured him of a lot of things, but the idea of someone fucking him, of surrendering the last vain vestige of pretense that kept him tied to the guilt of the past…
… was suddenly the only thing he wanted.
Dew's eyes dropped from his, and Aether swore he could feel the fire fade out of his skin. It sent a lance of panic through his soul like he'd never felt before. "Forget it, you don't have to -"
Whatever objection he would have made never made it out of him. It cut off into a surprised whine, muffled against Aether's mouth as he surged forward to drag Dew into a frantic kiss, insistent and needy and saying just as much as words ever could.
There was nothing he would hold back from Dew. Never again. Not even this. Especially not this.
When they pulled apart at last, they were rock-hard against each other's thighs, panting as if there was no air left in the world.
But Aether only needed enough to whisper two words.
"Fuck me."
Dew's eyes flashed dark with fire in the dawn sunlight. Full of a ravening hunger, a fire he thought would swallow him whole.
And oh, he wanted to burn.
He lost track of how they got to Dew's bed, how their clothes vanished, how the whole world faded and shrank to just this one spot that held the only things that mattered. Dew's lips on his, Dew's hands on his body, Dew's skin under his touch. The blankets and furs of the bed they had shared last night, the fire they had lit together still smouldering in the hearth. His clothes mixed with Dew's on the floor and the chairs, not just what they had shed moments before, but forgotten laundry from weeks of shared space and shared nights.
How long had he loved him without even knowing it?
All he could feel, all he knew, was more kisses, hot and fast and needy. Dew's weight on top of him, pinning him to the softness of the fur beneath him. Warm, familiar hands hands touching him everywhere, cradling his cheeks and squeezing his sides and tracing over his chest. Catching on his nipples and drawing moans and gasps from him that felt like the most natural thing in the world, one side of a harmony that he knew would define the rest of his life from this moment on.
"I'm not goin' anywhere," Dew muttered, a breathless laugh against Aether's lips, and he felt himself pout even before he realized he'd made a noise of complaint.
"You clearly are."
Dew tsked and rolled his eyes as he reached across the bed to his nightstand. "I'm not leavin'," he corrected himself over the clatter of his one-handed rummaging. "Just gotta get this."
He forced himself to break the kiss for long enough to look over at the object in Dew's hand. "… I thought we didn't need that?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know you had water ghoul genes too," Dew deadpanned, one pale eyebrow quirked up in disbelief as he snapped open the bottle of lube in his hand. "We can try without it if you really want, but I doubt you'll enjoy it unless you're suddenly a masochist now."
Aether's guilty chuckle was muffled into Dew's mouth as they reclaimed the kiss like they'd been separated for years. "Listen, all of my blood's in my dick right now, gimme a break."
Dew groaned smugly against his mouth. "Yeah? You so hard for me you can't even think anymore?"
"Fuck…" Now that Dew had said it, it all slammed into him with the force of a punch to the gut just how hard he was, how hard Dew was against him as they ground into each other. As much as it had been a joke, he really couldn't think about much except how much he needed this, how all his thoughts were nothing but a swirl of things he never thought he'd have. Giddy happiness, desire that consumed his whole soul without a shred of guilt, enough love to feel like he was drowning and burning alive at the same time.
Oh, he was in love and it was everything he'd ever hoped faith could be and more.
"Anyway," he panted against Dew's mouth, a wicked smirk beginning to curl his lips, "give it ten minutes and I'll have at least six inches of water ghoul in me."
Dew froze for a second, every muscle in his body stiffening slightly, before he pushed himself up on one hand to stare disbelievingly down at Aether's smug, self-satisfied grin. "… Lucifer protect me, this is my life now, isn't it?" he muttered, adoring exasperation dripping from every word, and Aether giggled.
"You still love me, though."
Dew sighed again, heavier and louder, more performative. "This is my life now. This is the kind of bullshit I gotta put up with from now on."
"Unfortunately, yes it is," Aether grinned, reaching up to pull Dew back down, and he went as willingly as a lamb to the shepherd's knife. "For as long as you can put up with them, I'm afraid you're stuck with my stupid jokes."
Dew made a soft noise of amusement, pressed like a promise against Aether's lips until he could pull away to rest their foreheads together. "You'd run out of them millenia before I even started to get tired of it."
He felt the delighted grin fade from his face into something softer, more vulnerable, as a quiet oh slipped from between his lips and evaporated in the heat between them. His hands tightened on Dew's cheeks as the ghoul - his ghoul - dipped his head again to lose himself in another kiss, and for a moment there was nothing else in the world.
He jumped slightly when a wet touch pressed against him, cold in a way he wasn't prepared for, and Dew made a quiet soothing noise against his mouth as spindly fingertips circled him cautiously. "You still want it?"
"I want you."
"Aeth -"
"Didn't we already have this discussion the first time?" Aether demanded. Dew clicked his tongue again as his fingers continued teasing gently. "I told you… from the first moment." He smiled ruefully as his hand settled along Dew's jawline. "Even if I didn't know it at first."
Dew ducked his head slightly, eyes dropping away from his, and Aether nudged it back up with a gentle press of noses. "Just… say it. Tell me you want it."
Aether's touch tightened as he spread his legs just a little more to cradle Dew's narrow hips. "I want you to fuck me, Dew."
Dew's fangs flashed in the dawning sunlight, a promise and a temptation all in one, and all Aether could think was that even Eve hadn't demanded her own downfall so eagerly.
The first press inside wasn't as much of a shock as he feared. The pleasure of the stretch rippled through his whole body and dragged a luxurious groan from him, pressing his head back into the pillows like some lascivious creature of sin as his demon lover opened him up. "Does…" He sighed heavily, trying desperately to steady the tremor in his voice. "Does this mean I have to stop fucking everyone else?"
Dew lifted his gaze to raise an eyebrow at him. "What, Ifrit's not good enough for you suddenly?"
"No, I - I mean, yes, of course he is, but -" An especially well-aimed curl of Dew's fingers silenced him for a moment, cutting his words off into a blissful, shaking moan. "I just mean… listen, I've never been in a, fuck… a real relationship before. Or any relationship, really. I don't know how it… or, like, ghoulish traditions. Or whatever. You know."
"Will fucking the others change the fact that you -"
"Never." The word snapped out of him with such force it almost hurt. He reached out desperately, and Dew slipped his free hand into his grasp like he needed the touch as much as Aether did. "Dew, nothing could ever change that."
"Then why should I care?" Dew lifted their joined hands to press a kiss to Aether's knuckles, never looking away from his gaze for a moment. "I don't want to keep you to myself, Aeth, that's not how we work. I want to share you with the world so everyone knows just how much the Prince blessed me when He put us together."
Aether swallowed with an audible click. "You really think that?"
Dew smiled to himself as he lowered his gaze again. "I don't pretend to know my Father's mind," he murmured. "But I do know that He Loves me. That He wants me to be happy." He bowed his head to press a kiss to the inside of Aether's thigh with a reverence Aether had only seen him show in the cathedral, and something deep in his chest throbbed. "He led me to you. Even if it wasn't His plan, it's by His hand."
The words struck his soul like a thousand arrows. "You make me sound like something sacred."
Another soft, barely audible breath of a laugh, another quiet gasp as Dew's fingers moved almost imperceptibly inside him. "You know the truth about the Fall," Dew murmured as his eyes met Aether's again. "What's more sacred to a ghoul than Love?"
Somewhere in Aether's soul, some wires must have been crossed long ago. There was no other explanation for the way those words made his cock throb in the crease of his hip, made him clench around Dew's fingers so hard he heard the ghoul - his ghoul - give a startled, satisfied hiss. "Fuck…" He groaned, loud and low and needy, and pushed himself up on his free hand, pulling Dew in for a messy, clumsy kiss that felt like the dawn was searing their souls together. "Fuck me, Dew, please, fuck, I need it."
Dew groaned into his mouth, fingers moving inside Aether as he nodded distractedly. "Yeah…" Another twist of his wrist, the barest stretch, testing. "Yeah, you're ready, fuck -"
"I don't care if I'm ready, Dew, I just fucking need you."
"I just don't want you to rush into something you'll regr-"
"You said that last time, too," Aether interrupted, silencing Dew's pained whine with another kiss. "I have regrets, Dew, but you will never be one of them." He leaned back into the pillows, never breaking the kiss and pulling Dew down with him until those narrow hips were settled perfectly against his own. Like they'd been carved from the stones of Hell itself to fit there. "Fuck me."
Dew growled, low and almost pained as his fangs grazed Aether's bottom lip, and somehow, deep in his soul, he knew this was the last time Dewdrop would ever hesitate to touch him again.
Maybe he should have paid more attention. Some part of him mourned the fact that he would never have a clear memory of the moment he felt the love of his life push into him for the first time. The first time they swallowed each other's moans of shocked, all-consuming pleasure as he surrendered the last tattered vestige of the dogma he'd sworn himself to, a lifetime of lies ago.
That part of him died as soon as it appeared. To have Dew fucking him, to feel him so deep inside it took up his whole soul, was as natural as breathing, as natural as feeling those flame-hot walls wrapped around him. This was simply the first time, no more or less precious for its newness than the others that lay ahead of them. Every other time, for the rest of his life, would be a better remembrance than some half-baked memory.
He wrapped his arms around Dew's neck, sank into the stretch of his thighs as Dew pressed them back between them, and forgot everything that wasn't this moment.
He loved him.
Dew groaned against his lips again, hips stuttering slightly in the luxurious rhythm they had picked up together. "Daluun kuu te," he breathed, and Aether let out a soft laugh, shaky with pleasure.
"Didn't know I'd actually said it."
"You takin' it back?"
"Maybe I will if you don't -" A sharp thrust, a little harder than the others so far, choked his words off into a whining little moan that the version of himself from four months ago would have been ashamed of. But four months ago, he hadn't been in love. "Fuck, never, Dew, I'll never take it back, I swear, I -"
Dew hushed him softly, cutting off what promised to be a tide of emotion with a gentle kiss so full of love it made his chest hurt. "You have me now," he murmured against his lips. "You won't get rid of me that easy." Five pinpricks pressed into the meat of one of his thighs as claws gripped him just a little harder and Dew gave a mock growl, the grin on his lips a sharp contrast to the dark, hungry sound. "You're mine now, priest."
"Fuck…" They both groaned loudly as he clenched hard around Dew, back arching and claws digging deeper into his thigh. He gave a breathless, giddy laugh as he relaxed back into the furs with a boneless thud. "Holy fuck, Dew, you can't just fucking say that kind of thing…"
Dew made a satisfied little noise as his nose nuzzled into the hollow behind Aether's ear. "Bad time for you to find out just how possessive I can get?"
"Dew, if I knew where it lived, I'd pull my soul out and put it in your hands." Dew's hips stuttered for a second, a low, almost pained groan tearing from his narrow chest and right into Aether's shoulder. "Every part of me is already yours, and I want every inch of you you'll give me."
"En, eshtak, Kuzhtal, shunne tehn…" Dew pushed himself up out of the safety of Aether's shoulder at last, holding himself up on one hand to look down at his priest with a mixture of love and bewilderment. He looked so innocent all of a sudden, Aether couldn't help thinking - like he'd never imagined hearing someone say these words to him, and now that he had, his whole world was changed. "Kuu… giinuta te kuu. Te gyal."
Aether shifted his hips, watching the flicker of pleasure flutter across Dew's face, and he couldn't help but raise his hand to cup a pale gray cheek like it was made of glass and moonbeams. "Teach me how to say it."
Dew's cheeks heated beneath his hand, and Aether traced his thumb distractedly along the bottom edge of that orange flush. "You… why d'you wanna know?"
"Because you deserve to hear it." He couldn't sit up to kiss him, but Dew turned his head to press his lips into the hollow of his palm, and that was just as good. "I want to tell you I love you in your own language. Because I don't think you've heard it enough, and if anyone should change that, it's me."
Emotions flickered across Dew's face, and a few weeks ago he wouldn't have understood. But now he felt every one as if they were his own - the shock, the surprise, the realization, the way he instinctively tried to suppress the hope before he consciously allowed it to flare. The love. Dew swallowed shakily, turning his head to press another kiss into Aether's palm before he spoke. "You… there's two ways. You can say te giinuta kuu, but the iin can be… te daluun kuu is probably easier."
Aether smiled, grateful and adoring, rolling the syllables over in his mind before he let himself attempt them. "Te daluun kuu, Dew."
For half a heartbeat, the look that bloomed over Dew's face was like the brightest, warmest sunrise Aether had ever seen.
And then, faster than it had risen, it crumpled into a hopeless darkness that sent a spike of fear and pain through Aether's whole body, so harsh and sharp that he feared he'd never recover.
There were tears in the eyes that already felt to him like the sun and the moon and every star Aether had ever loved. And he had put them there.
He felt himself murmuring quiet, near-frantic words of comfort, desperately swiping away the one tear that managed to fall with the pad of his thumb. He didn't even know what he was saying, only that he'd say anything, do anything, to make those tears vanish forever. He never wanted to see tears in those eyes again, and he'd die to make sure of it.
"It's not fair…" Dew mumbled, so quiet that at first he didn't even know for sure he'd heard it. He made a soft noise of encouragement and curiosity, urging Dew to continue, anything at all that might make the tears dry up. "It's not fuckin' fair, you gave me that and I can't even - I do, of course I do, don't think for a second that I don't, but…"
"Dew, look at me. Look at me." After a painfully long moment, Dew dragged his eyes open, meeting Aether's gaze with a look on his face that was closer to fear than Aether ever wanted to see on him again. "What d'you mean?"
"We don't… I mean, ghouls. We don't say it like that." Relief spread through him like wildfire, and although he tried to keep it off of his face, he knew by the pinch in Dew's eyebrows than some of it must have showed. This was all? This was what Dew was scared of? "Love is the Prince's domain, we… fuck, we don't say it about each other. Keeps it… y'know. Sacred. Reminds us how much He gave up for us."
Aether hummed quietly, a soft noise of understanding, just enough to show Dew that he understood, he wasn't angry, he wasn't going anywhere. "So what do you say instead?"
The little pinch between Dew's brows deepened, like he was expecting something else. Anger, dismissal, anything except this understanding and patience. Aether's thumb brushed against the ghoul's lip like a kiss, and his throat moved as he swallowed hard. "We say 'adore'. Or, at least… we use the word in every language that's closest to the - 'shtak, the religious meaning, in Ghoulish the word's closer to -" Aether's thumb pressed a little more insistently on Dew's lips, a silent urge to silence that the ghoul took willingly as that orange blush burned furiously on his cheeks.
"So, when you say 'I adore you', it means the same as when I say 'I love you'?" Dew nodded, the brush of his skin against Aether's palm like silk and joy, and for a moment he looked almost shy. It was the most beautiful and most heartwrenching thing Aether had ever seen. "Then that's all I ever want to hear."
"Aeth -"
"Dewdrop, I'm not going to ask you to go against your religion for me!"
Dew very nearly pouted as he rearranged his weight a little. "You did for me."
"We both know I hadn't truly believed for years before you found me." Aether leaned up as far as he could, and Dew, as if he could feel the need in Aether's mind, lowered himself to rest on his elbow so he could press a kiss to his priest's lips. Aether felt for sure it would burn the soul right out of him. And, really, what use would he have for a soul, now that the only thing in the world that mattered was a demon? "The only religion I need now is you."
"En, 'shtaaaak…"
Aether groaned as he felt Dew twitch inside him, and Dew dragged him into a kiss to swallow it down like wine, skinny hips jerking instinctively against his own. "Please," he panted, as soon as he could pull away for long enough to get the sound out, and Dew gave a whine like his soul was being torn apart. "Dew, please…"
Dew's breath shook in something somewhere between a laugh and a shudder of fear. Aether felt a spidery hand twist into his hair, felt the fingers grab onto him like an anchor, and he wrapped his arms around his ghoul's waist with an insistence that promised an eternity.
"I adore you, Aether." His heart jumped in his chest so violently, he would have been shocked if Dew couldn't feel it through his ribs. "I adore you, I have since the moment I met you. I should have just fuckin' told you but I was so scared -"
Aether shushed him, nudging him into a kiss with a press of his nose against Dew's. "We know now," he whispered, as reverent as if he was in the cathedral before the altar - not buried in the furs of his demon lover's bed with a cock so deep in him he could feel it in his heart. "I know I love you now, Dew, I fucking love you -"
The noise that ripped from Dew's throat was nothing less than a snarl, possessive and animalistic in a way that made Aether's cock twitch. "We know now, and I'm never fuckin' lettin' you go, eshtak, tan kuu tik…"
His hand wrapped around Aether's cock, fire-hot in a way that his soul already recognized as home. Dew began to stroke as if he'd known all his life just how to make Aether unravel, hips picking up a devastating rhythm.
And all Aether could do was lie there and take, blunt human nails digging half-moons into his demon's ash-gray skin, a tangle of pleasure tightening in his core that already threatened to eclipse everything else in the world.
"Fuck… God, oh my God, Dew."
"Yeah? You want Him to hear? Want Him to know a fuckin' demon took you away from Him?"
Aether shook his head against the pillows. "Don't - don't care what He hears. Not anymore."
There was that wounded sound again; it shook through Dew's entire body, and the way his expression darkened made Aether's stomach somersault just as it had the first time they'd truly kissed. "That's one of the hottest things you've ever said to me," he groaned, his head dropping heavily into the crook of Aether's neck. Sharp fangs grazed roughly against Aether's throat; a deadly threat to anyone else, but to him a solemn vow that his soul ached to echo.
For a moment he hoped, he wanted this creature of Hell to bite down and claim. Lay to rest once and for all the illusion that Aether could ever belong anywhere else.
"Next time, I'm gonna make you ride me," Dew hissed against his throat. "Just fuckin' lie back and watch you bounce on it like the slut I've turned you into…"
"Holy shit," Aether swore, nearly biting his own tongue as Dew's momentum jostled him up the bed with every thrust. "Your slut, Dew. Yours."
Dew growled in appreciation. "That's fuckin' right." He lifted his head just enough to rest his forehead against Aether's, like moving too far away would kill them both. "Mine. All mine."
Dew tightened his grip, fist twisting in a way that made Aether nearly shout. He was close now. So close, it would have scared the man he was four months ago. "How do you… oh my God, how do you make me feel so good?"
"Think I was made to," Dew breathed. "Made for this. Made for you."
The tension in him snapped, and there was no way in Heaven or Hell he was going to keep the pleasure at bay now. "F-fuck, I'm gonna cum. Dew -"
Dew stroked him hard and fast, his own thrusts dissolving into a messy, overwhelmed rhythm. Aether felt himself harden in Dew's grip, his entire being shook with need, and all at once he succumbed to the pleasure Dew had filled him with.
"Oh shit, fuck, oh God, Dew -"
Suddenly there was nothing in the world except this. His ghoul, the love of his life, deep inside him as he came hard across both of their stomachs, the stone walls echoing with a matched pair of guttural keens of ecstasy. He felt Dew's hips slam into him, rough and erratic, felt his demon's body go tense and taut on top of him, swore he felt a sharp shock of the purest joy he'd ever known that was only half his own.
And then Dew's whole weight slumped down against him, that lean, slight body suddenly pinning him down with all the weight in the world. And he never wanted to be free of it as long as he lived. Dew's breath rushed against his neck, ragged and shaking and blazing-hot, Dew's hands clasped at his hair and shoulder like he'd float away if he let go, Dew's cock stretched him so perfectly it was a wonder he'd ever lived without it.
This was it, he realized. This is what he had been waiting for his whole life. Not the priesthood, not his parish, not the approval of anyone he'd ever met. To lie here, in love, in lust, with Dewdrop. Marked. Filled. Claimed. Defiled.
Whole.
For a long, perfect moment, everything in the world stopped. Even his heart, even his breath, even the sounds of the summer breeze in the branches outside the window. Nothing dared to puncture the perfect bubble they had made for themselves.
And then he felt Dew's chest moving against his own, and then he was laughing too, both of them almost giggling in perfect, irrepressible joy.
"Fuck…" Dew breathed against his neck.
"Eshtak," he agreed, and Dew groaned in something that would be hopeless exasperation in any other moment.
"Nooooo, fuck, don't pick up my accent," he complained, kissing the hiss of displeasure out of Aether's mouth as he carefully slipped out of him and collapsed to the bed at his side. "I'll never fuckin' hear the end of it all."
"Maybe I want your acccent," Aether shot back. He winced as he straightened his legs out for the first time in what felt like hours, wriggling onto his side and draping an arm over the dip of Dew's waist. Dew rolled his eyes and leaned in to steal a kiss, the kind that Aether already knew with all his soul. The kind that never intended to linger, but always ended up lasting until he felt like he'd choose this kiss over his last breath. How had he truly never realized just how in love he was? "I want everything you have to give me, Dewdrop."
Dew tensed for a second, pulled back to look up at Aether, and for a moment he worried he'd fucked up already, broken some arcane ghoulish rule of etiquette and Dew's heart along with it. But he knew that look on his ghoul's face. It wasn't hurt or sadness. It was… thoughtful. Considering.
He watched his own hand settle on that ash-gray cheek, watched his thumb brush arcs across the sharp cheekbone, watched a decision settle into place behind the flickering orange-blue fires of Dew's eyes.
"Then I'll give you the only thing you don't have yet."
Any reply Aether could have made was cut off as Dew surged forward to kiss him again, something almost frantic in the press of their lips, in the way Dew wrapped flame-hot hands around his cheeks. He knew this reaction, he could swear he could feel the anxiety in Dew's soul, and all he could do to soothe it was to kiss him back until the ghoul pulled away. Just far enough that his lips brushed against Aether's as he spoke, one single word that felt unknowably heavy with significance.
"Iikhegat."
Fuck, he hoped, with all his soul, that his confusion didn't show on his face. This was so clearly incredibly meaningful to Dew, and he didn't even -
Dew huffed out a soft laugh, leaning in for another kiss, slower, easier. "My name," he whispered into his priest's mouth, and something sparked with half-built understanding in Aether's mind. "You know my name, Aeth. There's nothing you can't make me do now. And I'll do it gladly."
"Dew…" Something close to panic started to burn in Aether's chest. He didn't know much about the specifics, but he knew that to hold a ghoul's name, their real name, was an impossible amount of power. "Dew, you can't just… We can undo it, we can ask Omega, he can take it out, I don't -"
"No, shut up. Shut up, Aeth." Aether's jaw snapped shut, staring wide-eyed at his ghoul, chest aching at the expression of stubborn insistence on his face. "I know better than you what this means, okay? I want you to have it. I want to give you this, there's no-one in the world I'd rather give it to, I couldn't say I adore you if I didn't, don't you fucking get it?!" He took Aether's face in his hands again, each fingertip a brand he'd wear with pride for the rest of his life. "Who else should have that kind of power? Who else could?"
Deep in his heart, under the fear and guilt, he knew it was right. And if Dew wanted to give this to him, who was he to refuse it? He was kissing his ghoul again before he really registered it, trading gentle, lazy touches with the demon he'd fallen in love with as if it was the most normal thing in the world, and Dew smiled against his lips.
"You always gonna be this easy to win over?"
Aether grined tiredly. The sun was risen now, the Abbey beginning to wake around them to a day that threatened to exhaust them all with joy. But right now, nothing appealed to him more than drifting back to sleep in Dew's arms, and waking up far later than they could get away with to clean up and get dressed in a gleefully guilty rush. "I'm not a ghoul, you don't need my name to make me do whatever you want," he murmured, leaning in to steal a kiss. "And I'm pretty sure you've known that for months."
He expected the sharp, faux-irritated click of the tongue that Dew made when he knew he'd lost and didn't care. Instead, Dew simply rested his forehead against Aether's again, and the sigh he let out was a noise of the purest contentment either of them had ever heard. "I adore you, Aeth."
"Te daluun kuu." The words slipped from his tongue as easily as if he'd been saying them his whole life, and in his arms Dew's breath hitched.
"Will you…" He trailed off, like he was embarrased just to want, and Aether held him tight. As if his arms could take away the years of pain that told Dew he even needed to ask this. "Will you say it again?"
"If you'll let me, I'll say it in both languages until you're sick of hearing it," he promised, and Dew let out a soft huff of a laugh.
"What if that never happens?"
"Then I'll never stop saying it." Aether smiled as his eyes drfited closed of their own accord. Terzo could wait. The coronation could wait. The whole fucking Abbey could wait. Nothing that wasn't in this bed mattered. "Te daluun kuu, Iikhegat."
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