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“I love you, darling, every day of my life, I love you so much. You’re so beautiful and so strong, and I love you . . .”Laurent wakes up to Damen murmuring next to him. He is on a very soft bed, tucked under the sheets, and can feel Damen dipping the bed next to him with his weight. He’s holding Laurent’s hand in both of his own. Laurent lets out a long breath.“Oh my god, you’re awake, thank god.” Damen drops his forehead onto their clasped hands, and then just as quick, picks it back up again. Laurent can feel every shift of movement, and blinks his eyes open. Damen’s staring at him with imploring eyes. “Are you alright? Do you feel okay?”“Yes,” says Laurent, but it comes out like a croak, the air catching on barbs as it makes its way out of his throat. He tries to clear it. “Yes.”“Let me –” says Damen, and then he’s leaning back, getting something from the bedside table. A glass of water appears in front of Laurent. “Do you need – right, wait a sec,” he says, almost to himself.Damen leans back to put down the water and then, with nearly unbelievable tenderness, presses his palms into the pillow to cup his hands around Laurent’s head. Laurent feels Damen’s fingertips unconsciously twist in his hair. He blinks again, and opens his mouth.A cough comes out. Damen almost winces at the rough sound. “How long was it.” Laurent’s voice is getting gradually better, he can feel the grunge dissipating from his body. Damen sighs, beleaguered and sad, like it always is after – when this happens.“Only a couple days. We – we had to wait for more yarrow root, otherwise it would’ve been sooner. I’m –” Damen hangs his head again, and Laurent would roll his eyes if he didn’t know that it would be the cruellest thing to do. When Damen speaks again it’s painfully quiet. “I’m sorry, Laurent, my love, I’m so sorry.”Laurent tries to cast his mind back to the last thing he can remember. They had been going after some Patrans involved in minor slave trading that turned out to be a bit less minor than they’d thought. Laurent vaguely remembers a cry of warning from Damen, and the slice of a sword. He blinks his eyes open again, forgetting when he’d closed them, and meets the dark brown of Damen’s gaze. Of course his husband looks like he’s about to cry; it doesn’t help the tightness lingering in Laurent’s chest.“Alright,” Laurent says, as gently as his recovering voice will allow, and brings his free hand up from the bed to hold the back of Damen’s head. He uses enough pressure that Damen understands, and lowers his head to Laurent’s chest, his hair tickling under Laurent’s chin. Laurent slowly closes his eyes when Damen lets out a low sob. “It’s okay,” he says, running his hand back and forth over Damen’s curls.#“Are you ready?” Laurent says with a sly grin. Damen makes as if to bring a hand up to touch the cloth over his eyes, until he remembers that his wrists are tied together behind his back. He nods. Laurent takes a step back, surveying his work. Damen’s on his knees, arms twisted behind him, a metal ring fastened around his cock in the Veretian style. He’s still a little soft, but that will soon change, if Laurent knows anything about how to get his husband perfect and hard. They’re in the private baths adjoining their room, and they had one made up before they started this, so that the steam of it fills the room. There’s a steady stream of hot water flowing through, ensuring that it stays warm for the duration of this, so no one has to do anything but crawl into the water when they’re finished. The only sad thing about Damen being blindfolded is that Laurent can’t let his eyes linger on his sweet eyelashes, or the crinkle between his brows when Damen’s too caught up in the pleasure. Ah, well.Careful not to touch him anywhere else, Laurent traces a finger down Damen’s jaw, up and down until he relaxes into it, and then stuffs two fingers of his other hand past Damen’s lips. He makes an aborted noise at the intrusion, but Laurent shushes him. Damen’s cheeks are already flushing, and Laurent can see his shoulders tensing with the urge to try to break his bonds, but he knows Damen won’t do anything. Damen trusts him.Laurent meanders his way down Damen’s body, thumbing around his nipples playfully. He knows Damen isn’t as sensitive there as Laurent is, so he wastes no time in soothing his fingers along other places: the slight dip of soft skin at Damen’s waist, just below his ribs; the hair just below his belly button; a particular patch on the inside of his thigh. Damen lets out soft sounds at each of these touches, and Laurent drinks them all up. He smiles openly, knowing that no one can see him do it, not even his husband. Damen’s cock is getting undeniably more interested by the time Laurent is crouched in front of Damen’s lower half. He lightly brushes the very tip, just to hear Damen’s short breath, and to see the wet end of it twitch at his touch. Laurent aims for the slit on another pass, and the moan Damen lets out is delectable; Laurent even feels himself stir slightly at the sound. The next time, Laurent grips Damen’s length firmly, and tugs on it suddenly, leaving him gasping at the dryness of the motion, the sudden stimulation. It really doesn’t take much to work him up, Laurent thinks. It’s only when Damen’s practically thrusting his hips up into his hand that Laurent stops, and he can tell from the whine on Damen’s lips that he’d been close to coming. “Hush, you know I wasn’t going to let you go that easily,” Laurent says, and then finds himself catching on his own words. Let Damen go? It should be let him come, into Laurent’s fist, yes, but also into his arms, into his heart. He shakes his head to rid the thought.It’s not long until Damen’s been edged to the brink a couple more times, and Laurent can feel that they’re both ready for this to come to a conclusion. He runs a couple fingers along Damen’s shoulder and neck as he comes around behind, to loosen the ties and free his hands. He carefully doesn’t look at Damen’s scars as the man rolls his shoulders like it’s a distant thought. Damen brings his palms around to lay on top of his thighs, conspicuously not touching anything that will help him get off. Laurent smiles again and walks back around to the front.“Lean back a bit,” he instructs, and Damen does so, the muscles of his stomach working to hold himself in place. Laurent takes a breath before his next command; he reminds himself that they talked about this. “Make yourself come for me.”Damen’s hand goes to his cock at the same time Laurent’s goes to his own. He watches Damen stroke himself, not overly hurried, but certainly not leisurely either, just steady, sure motions. Laurent steps closer to Damen, and angles his mostly soft cock down at Damen’s chest, and closes his eyes to relax. Damen should know what’s coming, but Laurent thinks he surprises himself more than anyone when it happens, releasing a thin stream of piss on to Damen’s skin. He hears, distantly, the moans of Damen’s climax, and accidentally thinks about their different fluids mixing on Damen’s stomach; the thought makes his cock jerk a bit in his hold. Later, when Laurent’s sitting on Damen’s lap in the warm, swirling water of the bath, he remembers when Damen had been sitting by his bed the first time Laurent had been revived after they’d gotten married, the first time since he’d lost his uncle’s favour. Damen had had long-worn tear tracks down his cheeks, and couldn’t contain himself when Laurent had taken a breath, throwing himself on top of Laurent’s still aching body. It’s gotten better since then; Damen knows better what to expect, but Laurent can’t help but feel like it hurts both of them doubly each time it happens. He’d tried to explain it in as clear terms as possible, that he’d always come back as long as they had the right ingredients and the right routines, but he thinks maybe that made Damen worry even more. Worried that it would be all on his own broad shoulders to get it exactly right each time. He hadn’t wanted to reduce Damen to a tangled, anxious mess every time Laurent died but it seems like it would’ve happened anyways.Laurent shifts so that he can look at Damen’s face. His arms are relaxed around Laurent’s hips but his head is leaning far back to rest on the edge of the inset bath where it meets the tiled floor. Laurent pokes him lightly on the tip of his nose, and then on the middle of his upper and lower lips, then chin, in quick succession. Damen opens an eye.“Feeling good?” says Laurent, and once it leaves his mouth it instantly feels exactly like something Damen would ask. He must be rubbing off on him. Damen nods sleepily.“Do you ever,” Damen starts, and then he squeezes his arms around Laurent before he drags his head back upright. Laurent stares, keeping still. “Do you ever remember what it’s like? To – to die?” Damen barely gets the last word out, even after all these years. “No, not really,” he says. It’s the truth, more or less; he never really clearly remembers the exact circumstances, let alone the precise feeling of each death. Damen’s eyebrows are angled in obvious worry. Laurent slides a hand lightly up the side of his neck.“Do you know what would happen if we couldn’t get you back,” says Damen, and the sound of his voice going thick and quiet at the end of the sentence pulls on something high in the centre of Laurent’s chest. He moves his hand up so it’s resting against Damen’s cheek, his thumb brushing along the cheekbone.“You have nothing to worry about,” Laurent says, after a time. Damen looks like he’s going to argue more, but Laurent can’t talk about this now, they’re supposed to be relaxing in the water and steam, not miserably discussing Laurent’s resurrections. He moves his hand to cover Damen’s mouth and shakes his head.“I promise, Damen,” he says in a whisper, then kisses the back of his own thumb, where it rests over Damen’s lips.#Laurent doesn’t wake up to murmuring the next time. He’s alone, apparently, when he finally opens his eyes. The bedsheets are neatly tucked around him and there’s a pitcher and glass of water on the side table, but Damen isn’t here. Laurent lets his head drop back to the pillow and tries to breathe as normally as possible.It had been a true mistake, this time, he thinks. Although he knows he can come back he doesn’t let himself make a real habit of it, or depend on it whatsoever; there’s nothing truly lost when he dies and comes back, but there’s still a toll, one that they both have to work through anew each time, and Laurent would really rather avoid it. He thinks they’d been out on a ride, a regular afternoon activity, and they’d been teasing each other about – something, maybe to do with Nikandros. Yes, most certainly to do with Nikandros, they’d been talking recently about his upcoming wedding. Laurent remembers his horse getting spooked, rearing back, but he knows he’s a good enough rider after all these years to not fall, or if he did, not get trampled on. His mind can’t quite place what happened after. Laurent’s always fairly weak when he wakes up, so it takes him awhile just to turn over onto his side, readying himself to sit up. There’s a twinge in his stomach when he tries the first time, so he lies back down again, facing the bedside table, and fortunately, the doorway.Damen walks in not a moment later, his face sullen and miserable. Laurent closes his eyes and then thinks better of it; he should make himself see the effects of each of his deaths, what they do to people he loves, so he can remind himself why he avoids it. Damen lets out a shaky breath when he perches at the end of the bed, holding himself at a distance.“Damen,” Laurent whispers, holding out a hand. Damen doesn’t take it.“What do you remember,” Damen says. Laurent can tell how hard it is for Damen to keep his voice this stony, this emotionless. He starts to worry.“What’s wrong?” Laurent asks. “What is it?”Damen shakes his head, and his chest jumps, like he’s straining so hard to keep back the wracking sobs that Laurent is – god, he’s used to them by now. Isn’t that wretched. “Was it how I died?” Laurent ventures. Damen nods. He’s been steadfastly looking at the floor, and Laurent wishes he had the strength to sit up and hold him, but he doesn’t, so he can’t. “I remember horses.”This gets Damen to look at him, and it’s truly awful, seeing his face contorted with grief, his mouth trembling but clamped shut, to keep everything at bay. Laurent does close his eyes, now, and sinks further into the pillow. After a while, he hears Damen shift up the bed.“I’m so sorry, Laurent. It was – it was all my –” Quiet tears are making their way down his face when Laurent opens his eyes again. “It was me, I couldn’t stop my own horse from – and then you were –”Laurent realises Damen is close enough to grab now, so he does just that, taking hold of his hand and solid forearm. The memory starts to come back in pieces. Him falling from his horse, Damen’s horse too close behind to stop in time, gasping shouts, whinnying, the top of his back hitting a sharp rock – “It wasn’t your fault,” Laurent says. Damen shakes his head in protest, but Laurent has a better grasp of his voice. “It wasn’t your fault. There was a rock that I struck, when I fell, Damen. It wasn’t you.”Damen has dissolved too far into tears for Laurent’s words to break through. Something becomes suddenly apparent to Laurent regardless; even if he did die when he hit the rock, Damen had still crushed his body with his horse’s steps. He must have been horrific to see, practically in pieces, and this strikes Laurent as something impossibly worse than dying, because what could be worse than constantly seeing the man you love in gruesome, otherwise irreparable conditions? Laurent pulls on Damen’s forearm to get him to move, to get him to fold into his arms like always. Maybe he hasn’t gotten good enough at real comfort but he knows that giving Damen his embrace, his physical assurances that he’s still alive work better than words. Damen follows Laurent’s tugging and buries his face in Laurent’s chest. “Are you lying?” Damen’s words are muffled and distorted from crying, but still – Laurent’s heart seizes impossibly further.The truth is, Laurent can’t remember whether it was the rock or the hooves of Damen’s horse that killed him, but even if he hadn’t been trod upon, the impact on the rock would have still debilitated him beyond measure. Laurent shakes his head, but this might be the closest he’s come to crying after his deaths in a very long time.“No,” he finally manages. “Never.”#The first time Laurent had died, he’d been seven years old, and hadn’t really understood the full story of what had happened to him. It was his mother’s magic that had kept him alive that time, and then for every time after. She’d left detailed notes on the procedures, so that no matter what happened to her, Laurent could still come back. His father had stayed out of it for the most part, but Auguste had always been there for him. He’d always tried to keep Laurent away from danger in the first place, but also reassured him that if anything happened, he could trust Auguste to bring him back. Then it had been his uncle who had made these promises, and kept them, too, but he’d used Hennike’s magic for his own twisted, gnarled purposes. It had kept Laurent continuously dependent and grateful, and later, cautious and truly afraid. He’s glad he can trust Damen, now, completely.Only a couple months after the horse riding incident, Laurent dies again. It was some stupid amateur assassin who had loosed a quick, whipping, crossbow bolt into Laurent’s chest on their way to Acquitart. It had missed his heart completely and stuck into his side, and it had taken just simply too long to stop the bleeding. Damen had been anguished and furious, Laurent learned later, riding in a rage after the attacker and beheading them in a berserk whirlwind. Laurent had been revived as soon as they’d reached their rooms, most of the preparations having been done for the rest of the short ride to the castle. He doesn’t fully understand how much Damen is hiding from him until that night. They’re in bed, settling down for sleep, and Laurent turns around in Damen’s arms to rub his hardening cock into Damen’s hip. Damen jolts, unsurprisingly, and tightens his hold around Laurent infinitesimally. Laurent lets out a short breath onto Damen’s neck, and then nips at his Adam’s apple, keeping up the rolling of his hips all the while. Laurent eventually snakes a hand down to Damen’s crotch, only to find that he’s mostly soft, legs clamped tight together. Laurent lets out a huff. “Damen,” he says quietly, in as sultry of a tone as he can produce, rubbing his palm over Damen’s cock. He peers up at Damen’s face, but it’s just too dark to tell what kind of expression is there. Damen’s arm shifts from his hold around Laurent and curls onto his forearm, the one above the hand trying to make him hard.“Laurent,” says Damen. A warning. Laurent scowls, even though Damen won’t see it, and uses his strength to shift them both, Laurent’s leg coming up so he can straddle his husband.“Let me do this,” he says, a plaintive tone seeping into his voice. “Let me –” Laurent grinds his cock down into Damens, “ – have this.”The motion elicits a groan from Damen, but his hands quickly find Laurent’s hips to still them. Laurent revels in the tightness of the grip, the big span of Damen’s hands, and tries to shift their cocks together again.“Laurent!” Damen hisses, and Laurent finally stops. He leans down on his forearms so they’re touching chest to chest when Damen speaks in anguish. “You died this morning, Laurent. Let me – can’t we just –”Laurent shifts his weight onto one arm and clamps a hand on Damen’s face. “Exactly,” he says, as unmoving in temper as he can instil in the single word. He missed, slightly, in the dark, so his hand is practically pinching around Damen’s mouth and chin, but he thinks maybe that helps get his point across. He wants this because he died this morning, and can’t Damen think of that? One of Damen’s hands shifts from Laurent’s hip to Laurent’s cock, and the sudden pressure makes his hips jump again, a small noise escaping from his mouth. He releases his grip on Damen’s face, and falls forward to messily kiss him. He’s met with a firm line of a mouth, and so Laurent gives up there, moving down to his jaw, his neck, the centre of his throat, where he can imagine Damen’s mind matches with his hand on Laurent, eager and quick. Laurent rolls his hips as sensually into Damen’s as he can muster, and internally praises himself for getting him hard despite his earlier resistance. Eventually, Damen’s other hand moves from Laurent’s hip to run along his back, and Laurent’s losing himself in the motion of everything, but still finds some coherency to think about all the scars on Damen’s body that should be mirrored on his own. He barely has memories of where they should be, scars invisible to everyone except for the niggling feeling of their expected existence. He doesn’t question the magic that keeps him whole, though. Laurent gasps out a breathless ‘yes’ when Damen comes under him, and mindlessly scrunches his eyes closed in the pursuit of his own orgasm. Damen works him through it, wringing out every last drop, never stopping the hand smoothing over Laurent’s back. He collapses slightly on top of Damen, until he can regain his breath. It never takes long for him to compose himself, after, and he removes himself from Damen’s lap to dampen some hand cloths and bring them back to the bed. Damen takes one wordlessly, and cleans up perfunctorily. Laurent thinks maybe his transgressions will come back to bite him now, but Damen holds the quilt open for Laurent to crawl under, insinuating himself back against Damen’s chest. Laurent breathes out slowly through his nose.Damen’s arm wraps around Laurent’s waist from behind, and he can feel Damen’s nose at the back of his neck. Laurent almost misses it when Damen whispers: “Are you happy?”Laurent clamps his mouth shut at the ice cold sound of Damen’s question. It reverberates through him. Are you happy? Are you lying? Are you alright?They both know he can’t answer this right now, and it’s not the right question anyways. Instead, Laurent takes hold of Damen’s hand and moves it up, palm open in front of Laurent’s face. He places a tender kiss in the very centre, and folds Damen’s fingers into a fist around it, tucking the hand between Laurent’s chin and the pillow. He can’t do anything else.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Damen’s face feels splotchy and tight, but he makes no movement towards rearranging his current state when he hears Nikandros quietly come into the bedroom chamber. He sees Nik’s mouth clench in response to Damen lying like a plank on top of the bedsheets next to his temporarily dead husband, and only takes a wavering, long breath through his nose.“I suppose I don’t need to remind you –” Nik starts, but Damen’s already gathering his fraying ends to heave himself somewhat upright. “About how the kingdom continues even when he’s dead, I know,” says Damen with a sigh. He rubs both hands roughly up and down his face. “I just needed to rest. I don’t need to remind you, either,” he says, giving Nik a tired eyebrow that gives all endings to the sentence. That it takes a lot out of me to do this every time. That I might love him first, before the kingdom. That it’s been happening more frequently and taking longer for him to wake up, and I don’t know what to do. Nik hums solemnly and nods. There’s an awkward silence between them, then, and Damen feels guilty and embarrassed and also unnervingly helpless. He wishes Nikandros would get over his ideas of loyalty and come give him a hug already. Damen shifts to stand up.“Nik,” he says, attempting to put as much sincere emotion in his voice as he can, holding out his arms. Nikandros takes a single step forward, and then all is interrupted by the sudden exhale of breath from behind Damen. It sounds slightly pained, and Damen is unbearably reminded of what put Laurent into this state in the first place. He pushes it to the back of his mind, to sift over later, and moves around the bed to Laurent’s side, belatedly waving a hand at Nikandros to come forward too.Laurent’s eyes flicker open, little glimpses of blue like the Ellosean Sea back in Ios, and Damen slides a warm hand gently under Laurent’s own. He musters up a soft smile.“Damianos,” Laurent murmurs, lips barely moving, and Damen finds himself nodding like an idiot; who else would be here. He clamps down on all the questions bubbling up, because most of them are whether Laurent is alright, if he remembers anything, if he needs anything right now, and those are usually useless in the immediate minutes after he wakes. Laurent refuses to admit it, but Damen can tell that it’s a disorienting process for him, to come back from the darkness where the magic takes him. Nik shifts his weight stiffly at the end of the bed, and Damen watches Laurent’s slitted, sleepy eyes creep over to look at him. Laurent swallows thickly around a lump in his throat and his hand twitches, too weak to move up to touch his own neck. Damen’s eyebrows bunch together against his will and his semblance of calmness falls a little.“It was dinner,” Laurent says, and Damen hears Nik leave the room, steps falling softly away. Damen’s chest clenches, and his other hand mirrors it, clutching onto the bed quilt; he might as well get out with the truth straight away.“They couldn’t find any poison,” he says, practically a whisper, tendrils of shame in his voice. It had been a private dinner in the smaller dining hall, thankfully, but even so, it had caused a stir in the palace. “Paschal couldn’t tell the cause of it, you didn’t even choke on anything. You just –” Damen stops himself, and looks back at Laurent’s impassive eyes. Laurent tilts his head on the pillow as if to say, go on. “You just stopped, suddenly, in the middle of whatever you were talking about and held your throat, like you couldn’t breath,” says Damen, his voice slowly dissolving into something strained and miserable. “You looked at me like you were drowning, and I – it was like –”“It happened before, yes,” says Laurent pensively. He grips Damen’s hand a little more firmly, and Damen is grateful in the most macabre of ways to see the sad confusion on Laurent’s face, like a confirmation that it isn’t just Damen who feels terribly about everything, that it feels more to Laurent than just a grim routine. He lowers his head wearily down to lay on Laurent’s chest, cushioned by the bedclothes between them. A hand starts stroking his hair.#Laurent has been straddling Damen’s lap for almost an hour already, and Damen is barely even hard inside him anymore. Every so often, Laurent’s hips will roll, excruciatingly slowly, in response to Damen’s mouth and hands on his chest, and Damen will think maybe, finally, this is when they’ll get going, but it never is. He can acknowledge that he likes it like this too, though, after the stifling buildup of Laurent’s hands on him and in him and then around him, just to be under his husband and filling him up. Damen’s nearly entirely focussed on coaxing sounds out of Laurent by teasing his nipples, a loving payback for each time Laurent tightens around his cock.Damen’s pleased to hear a sharp and breathy gasp when he pinches one nipple at the same time that he bites the other, and Laurent’s fingers dig into his shoulders. He rocks up on his knees slightly, shifting Damen inside him before falling back down, a half-movement with little reward, but Damen is still supremely satisfied. Laurent lets out a couple muted noises at the next couple bites, a harder twist of one nipple, and the cool of Damen’s breath on the saliva-coated skin of the other. Laurent leans down after the switching of Damen’s mouth to his other nipple.“Make me come like this and I’ll give you something good,” he breathes into Damen’s ear, and it’s Damen’s turn to moan around the muscle in his mouth. He bites down on the pectoral just to make Laurent jump and lightens his touch around the other, circling the thin hair around the areola with just the tip of his finger. He tongues the hard bud, tapping casually and delicately against it until he feels Laurent squirm in his lap, and then pulls away. Damen knows the line between tender and teasing now, and he reads Laurent like another language in his repertoire. A hand making its way into Damen’s curls means he must be getting close, and the crease between Laurent’s eyebrows means he’s even further. Damen sends a gust of warm air through his open mouth, over his tongueing of a stiff nipple and Laurent scrabbles to clutch at Damen’s free hand, slotting their fingers together. It only takes a second longer with both his tongue and a sudden, sharp tug on the nipple pinched between his fingers for Laurent to tense in his arms, wracked with his release. His back curves exquisitely under Damen’s hand, and he hears gasping breaths match with each pulse of his cock against both their stomachs. After a quick minute, Laurent carefully extracts his hand from Damen’s hair and reaches down to press a hand to his own spent cock, biting his lip at the first touch he’s had in a while. Damen groans and delivers a smattering of kisses to Laurent’s sternum, smiling into each of them even though it wasn’t his orgasm. Damen’s next thought is that he’s about to be rewarded, so he furrows his brow but doesn’t complain when Laurent swipes his hand through his own come on Damen’s belly and reaches behind himself to where they’re still joined. Damen’s cock jumps a little at the renewed sensation, and Laurent lifts up halfway on his still shaking legs to pump his fingers around the base. He sits down again but instead of staying still, like earlier, he starts grinding his ass into Damen’s pelvis, building up a rhythm Laurent surely has perfected over the years. Damen closes his eyes at the marvelous feeling, only to open them again in shock when Laurent’s come-slick hand delves further down, stroking and massaging his balls. Damen grips a hand on Laurent’s free forearm, tensing his arm so that Laurent doesn’t have to use all his abdominal strength just to keep from falling backwards. Damen sees the smirk this creates, and laughs into a groan at the feeling of a finger pressing firmly onto his hole, but not quite pushing inside. Laurent tightens around Damen’s cock too, and he can’t help but become engulfed by the incredible pressure surrounding him. He’s so attuned to each sensation now, so different from just before when all his focus had been on pleasing Laurent, forgetting about his own dick, but now it’s all he can do to hang on to Laurent’s forearm and grip his hip, not guiding the motion but supporting it, just being witness to it like he’s outside of his own body. Laurent cups his sac and presses a deft finger to his hole again, and Damen can’t even produce a noise when Laurent increases the pace of his hips, just opens his mouth in ecstacy, barely keeping his eyes open but knowing he doesn’t want to miss any of this, doesn’t want to –A strained noise manages to make its way through Damen’s throat when he comes, very hard, practically pulling Laurent impossibly further onto him, into him, closer in any way possible. He feels his own hips writhe distantly, as if they are not his own, stuttering with each quake of his release. Laurent’s teasing hand regrettably falls away when Damen pulls him into his arms, but it’s astonishing and perfect to be able to hold him, fill his heart with this man he loves more than anything. He breathes raggedly into Laurent’s hair as he recovers, stroking down Laurent’s smooth back with a heavy hand. Damen feels Laurent let out a laugh into his chest, tickling the hair there, and thinks abruptly of every acute feeling of loss that comes with each of Laurent’s deaths. It seems to hit him freshly every time, how much he wants him back, how much he’s willing to give for the return of the one man – the only man – who could make him feel precisely this way. Laurent sits up on his knees to slowly slide off of Damen with a short, stifled breath, but turns quickly back to press his lips to Damen’s, his pale, sword-callused hands scratching through the stubble on either side of Damen’s face. #Damen must have done something wrong this time. He hates himself for even daring to think it, like it’ll come true if he accidentally believes it, but it’s really never taken this long for Laurent to wake up before. The last time he died had only been ten days ago – too soon for comfort – and the spell ingredients are being restocked every three weeks instead of every three months. Everything is unraveling, in a desperate, chaotic way, and Damen is reminded heartlessly by everyone that he of all people has to be the one to stay calm, to respin the wool to the spindle. It had been another mystery death; he and Laurent had gone for a ride along the rolling fields – gently, slowly, ever after the riding incident – and hopped down from their mounts to cool off in the shade of the tree line. Damen had found a brook, the water clear like crystal and running so prettily, but when he’d looked up from his cupped hands filled with the pristine water, Laurent had been standing utterly still, with an agonisingly candid look of shock on his face. Laurent had started undoing his jacket laces with hurried hands, and as soon as he could pull apart the two front panels to reveal the bloom of red dampening his shirt, Damen had panicked as well, forgetting the beauty of the day and the refreshment of the stream in order to hold Laurent in his arms as he crumpled to the ground. Damen can’t remember what he’d hysterically babbled to Laurent in those terrible moments before the sight went out of his husband’s eyes, but he does remember what Laurent had said to him before, in a forcibly steady voice: ‘Don’t worry, Damianos. You always bring me back. I’ll be with you again soon.’Laurent had sounded so sure when he’d said it that Damen had believed him enough to stop crying over his body and bring him back to the palace. But it doesn’t seem so sure, now that Laurent has been dead for two days after the application of the revival spell. The only hold-ups they’ve had before have been due to missing spell ingredients, and it usually only takes hours after the spell for Laurent to wake up. Damen’s taken to pacing in the study of Nikandros’ rooms, at his kyros’ insistence that hovering will do no help. Nik’s stolid presence does little to deter Damen’s mind from flinging itself onto every worry imaginable. Paschal had tried to assure him that they’d done everything the same, that all Laurent needs is a little time, but it’s too close to every promise Damen’s heard before. There’s a knock at the door; a young page steps through, forgets to bow, and says in a hoarse voice, “The King has awakened.” In a rush, Damen stands up from the settee he’d collapsed on and Nikandros grips onto his elbow to steady him. Laurent looks thin and weak under the mountain of bedclothes when Damen and Nik arrive in the room. Damen doesn’t realise he’s been holding Nik’s hand all through the hallways on the way here, and squeezes it in silent thanks before sitting carefully on the empty side of the bed. Laurent’s eyelids flicker over at him and it wrenches something awful in Damen’s heart; he can’t live like this. It’s not a surprising revelation but it comes to him all the same, and it only takes a shift of Laurent’s head on the pillow and the faintest curve of his pale lips to make the dam burst in Damen’s chest. A soft hand soothes over Damen’s shoulder when he buries his face in the blankets to let out a sob, but it must be Nikandros, Laurent is too far away to touch him and so fragile right now, it feels the opposite of way it should be. Laurent has always been the one with determination and will power and divine strength; Damen has been stubborn and persistent but not nearly to the same degree, and he feels like he can’t do anything anymore, other than worry and wring his hands and tear his hair out and cling to any thread of hope that passes by that today won’t be another day when he sees his husband die. That today won’t be the day that he never wakes up.#Laurent doesn’t tell Damen that he’d been researching the resurrection spell until he tells announces a trip up to Kempt. Damen’s worried about the travel; Nikandros’ constant reminders echo around in his head when he thinks about how they’d both have to leave Marlas, how someone needs to stay and keep the country running, how they all know that Damen will have to be the one to do so. Damen excuses himself after the council meeting and barely makes it to his rooms before he has to take deep breaths, hold his hands up to his head like his skull is fractured, if only he could keep all the pieces in place. By the time Laurent comes in, Damen’s already in bed, curled up and facing away from the door, pretending to be asleep.Damen is sure he’s going sick with grief when Laurent dies on the second day of travel and Damen blacks out. He can only remember turning to ask Laurent about a geologic feature of the mountains in the distance and finding Laurent stone-faced and still, barely keeping balance on the back of his horse, a thin line of blood trailing down from his nose and over his lip. Naturally, the consistent and steadfast Paschal has already begun the process of waking Laurent up by the time Damen comes to, on a pallet in the same tent as his husband. It’s a quiet moment for once, and Damen thinks about just going back to sleep. He eyes the spirits and tinctures Paschal had left out and wonders how Laurent’s mother could do this to her own son, and the people surrounding him by extension. What a cruel and unmotherly action, to burden a child with resurrection instead of merely keeping them safe. Damen briefly thinks about drinking everything in the tent but knows that he shouldn’t be looking for that kind of answer. Instead, he takes a deep breath and gets up to kneel next to Laurent.“Tell me what you’re thinking, Laurent,” Damen whispers into Laurent’s brow. “Tell me where you go.” Laurent’s eyelashes flicker against his chin, and Damen scrunches his eyes shut. He can’t keep his mouth from contorting into the well-worn lines of pain and he stifles a sob. “Tell me everything, my love.”He sits like that for another hour, intermittently wiping away errant tears with the back of his hand, and murmuring alternating encouragements and pleas into Laurent’s skin. After Paschal checks in and leaves again once more, Damen hears Laurent take a shallow breath. Not ten minutes later, he feels a dry kiss against his cheekbone. This is the fastest recovery Laurent has made in what feels like ages and Damen kisses him back, pecking lightly across Laurent’s forehead and the bridge of his nose in utter gratitude. Something deep in Damen’s heart shifts at Laurent’s weak hums of laughter.# Laurent’s research and communication with Kemptian academics brings them to an old woman a few miles outside the capital, and her dilapidated cabin in the forest. The ambassador escorting them from the city assures Damen and their entourage that this part of the forest is quite safe to travel through, but there’s still something eerie in the chill air of the shade under the evergreens, and the dark soil under their feet. A cairn at a fork in the rough path they’ve been following guides them to the walk up to the cabin, laid with flat sheets of rock and the occasional sparkle of a geode. Laurent strides with conviction up to the woman sitting in a rocking chair under the eave of her porch. Damen eyes the knife in her hand as she patiently carves a piece of wood.“Your mother’s spell is waning,” she says when they get inside, over her kitchen table to Laurent in stilted Veretian. Damen watches his husband’s knuckles whiten with his grip around the teacup and resists laying his own hand over Laurent’s. He’s thankful for the woman’s bluntness; they came all this way to get answers.At Laurent’s request, she takes her time describing the subtleties of this kind of magic, picking her words carefully in Veretian. Damen can’t seem to focus for long enough and eventually parks his gaze out the window, the warping of the old glass making the green of the trees outside swirl when they’re blown by the wind. He closes his eyes and breathes in the woody smell of the cabin, the herbs hanging from the ceiling mixed with the calming scent of the tea the woman made for them. If he focuses hard enough, he can hear the shuffling of their men’s feet outside, shifting on the dirt and through the bracken.Damen opens his eyes when Laurent says his name quietly. “She says you must listen to this part,” he says, and Damen nods, leaning forward on the flat of the table.“I am unable to renew the spell,” the woman says, and Damen’s lungs feel brittle. He gropes for Laurent’s hand. “You may already have the necessary power between you, however.” Damen looks at Laurent for explanation.“Her theories corroborate the things I’ve been able to read,” says Laurent, and Damen’s brows pinch together. He squeezes Damen’s fingers with his own. “But I’d wrongly thought we’d need another person like my mother to help. She means that we can renew it by ourselves – the two of us,” he elaborates. The woman excuses herself to another room in the cabin to retrieve a book she thinks will be of use. Laurent seems so unbelievably calm now, and it feels strange to Damen, in an ominous way, that this could be fixed so easily. The terror of Laurent’s increasingly frequent and bloody deaths has been following them like a storm this whole time, hurting everyone in its path and it’s as if suddenly the eye is here, in this witch’s hut in Kempt. Damen ignores the look Laurent throws at him and bends over in his chair to rest his forehead on their joined hands. There’s a constriction around his ribcage that loosens, somehow, with this knowledge that the key to helping Laurent is so tangibly close. Damen shifts to kiss Laurent’s knuckles. Laurent inhales, about to speak, when the woman reenters, and Damen straightens. She hands Laurent a slim volume that looks like sheafs of rough paper bound in hide and string, and with a gentle inclination of his head, Laurent receives them. Damen pauses as they exit the cabin, watching Laurent make his way back along the stone path to their horses. The woman touches a careful hand to his elbow.“You’ve done so well by yourself, Damianos,” and her voice is husky and halting on his Akielon name. “But it’s time to work together, now.”#To everyone’s immense relief, there are no deaths on the way back to Marlas, almost as if just the act of finding more information has already halted the frenzied process of the spell’s decay. Laurent and Damen elect to ride back in a coach rather than on their horses, so that the hidebound notes can be pored over in earnest. Damen holds one of Laurent’s hands in his lap and closes his eyes while he listens to his husband read aloud on the journey, letting the words sink deeply into his mind. He spends most nights thinking about what the old woman had said, and how each death has torn them each a little further away from one another. Damen thinks about how this kingdom is theirs together, a partnership, a dual command whose dysfunctions must be weathered as a team. It becomes clear through their reading that the renewal is just another ritual process, and doesn’t even require much preparation, simply building off of Hennike’s magic with something close to their own. When they get to their palace quarters, Laurent picks up an orange from the arrangement on the table and starts peeling it, brows furrowed on the work his fingers are doing. Damen hovers by the chaise, unsuccessfully attempting nonchalance and eager to fix things as soon as possible.“Laurent,” he starts, and then falls silent. Laurent tears his eyes away from the orange and gives him a smirk.“We should do that spell,” Laurent says. “And I have an idea for it.” Damen shuts his mouth. Laurent coaxes Damen over to him with a piece of orange, pushing it past his lips and smiling at the juice running onto his own hand. Damen catches Laurent’s wrist to bring the offending fingers to his mouth, licking them clean and tonguing in between them, only to muffle a laugh in Laurent’s lips when he leans forward. The orange juice is still sweet and sticky on both of their lips and tongues, even teeth when Laurent bites down on the fullness of Damen’s lower lip. Laurent shifts away and wraps his arms around Damen’s shoulders, and graciously allows Damen to keep laving his tongue down the column of his throat, untying the jacket laces swiftly.“Shared fruit,” Laurent gasps into the air above Damen’s head as he works his mouth along, but the words are in an older Veretian dialect, closer to the kind of language used in the witch’s journal. Damen doesn’t question it, only sucks a light red mark onto the skin he’s bared near Laurent’s collar bone. Laurent twists his fingers into Damen’s curls and pulls him back up to his face, wrapping him up in a kiss that leaves them both breathless. They shuffle over to the bed, less than mindful of the fold in the carpet that makes Damen trip over his own feet, and Laurent collapses onto the bed to leave Damen standing, and starts deftly unlacing and shedding the rest of his clothes. He raises an eyebrow at Damen until he undoes his chiton and sandals, cock heavy and bobbing between his legs. They end up fully on the bed eventually, Damen rubbing three fingers inside of Laurent and nuzzling his mouth onto a nipple, until Laurent grips on Damen’s shoulder and bends his legs up along the bedsheet. He has a flush in his cheeks that splotches down to his chest, and after Damen enters him with a low groan, he can’t help but put his hands there, as if he could feel the blood vessels under the skin of Laurent’s breast. A couple slow rolls of Damen’s hips make Laurent still under him, caught on a breath like the way it does when he’s dying, but then his short nails dig into Damen’s flank. A sharp pinch to Damen’s side makes him jerk, wrenching a short moan out of Laurent, followed by a heavy breath as he hikes his leg further up around Damen’s back.“Bite me,” Laurent breathes, and Damen’s so caught up in the moment that he just follows the order, finding the mark from earlier and nipping harshly. Laurent murmurs “Shared blood,” into his hair, but when Damen pulls back in worry, there isn’t any to find, only the same mark deepening in colour. Damen loses himself in their roughening rhythm, thrusting his hips in tandem with the presses of Laurent’s foot on the small of his back, until his thighs start to ache and he’s left a galaxy of bites along Laurent’s pectoral and the muscles of his shoulder. One of Laurent’s hands is twining through Damen’s hair while the other is thrown back on the pillow, scrabbling for a brace against each push of Damen’s cock inside him. Damen digs his thumb into the crease of skin between Laurent’s pelvis and thigh, a tight, firm grip. Laurent keens at a slight change in angle, and Damen pounds into him there, feels his own sweat gathering on the insides of his elbows, shoves his nose into the hair at Laurent’s armpit, reminding himself of his visceral vitality, his life and soul.Laurent could die the next day and everything would still be terribly and entirely fine, and Damen can feel the thorny truth of this deep in his gut, the talons of magic piercing his stomach and lungs, burrowing its way past his ribcage and into his heart. He comes like that, mouth open in a silent gasp against Laurent’s skin, his hips twitching in aborted movements, one of his hands desperately reaching past Laurent’s hip to his stiff, leaking cock to push him over the edge too. Damen feels the pulses of Laurent’s orgasm under his hand just as he descends from his own, and he kisses the trembling hand that Laurent languidly uses to cup Damen’s cheek. “Shared love,” Laurent whispers, completing the spell, his breath returning.