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Tarquin is tired. He is so fucking tired. With every passing day he can feel the blight spreading through him, filling his body like poisonous sludge. Continuing on through day after day of darkspawn that refuse to shut up has left him drained and exhausted, a shadow of his former self. He is cantankerous enough to try and work through it; ignoring personal discomfort is a long practiced skill. But as one day blurs into the next, the façade becomes harder and harder to maintain.
Tarquin tries not to look too closely at himself in mirrors now. It has been years since he avoided his own reflection so assiduously, years since his appearance diverged so far from what he felt it should be. But now black corruption spills from his skin, leaking out to stain his body with horror. And it shatters his image of himself as surely as any previous changes he has gone through.
He does his hair by feel, but his careful braids have begun to fall apart as all else in his life has. And he cannot muster the energy to care. He sleepwalks through his duties, more ghost than man now that he knows his death is an inevitability. The only question is when.
But until that inevitable day, there is still Shadow Dragon work to be done. And he will do it for as long as he is able. Yet sometimes his will is stronger than his physical form, much as he is loath to admit it. Some days it is so hard to concentrate. His head swims with the insidious chatter of the blight, and his eyes can barely focus on the papers before him.
Tarquin does not notice as Ashur walks up to him. A hand on his shoulder jolts him from his reverie, and he nearly jumps from his skin. A good thing he doesn’t, he thinks with an almost manic edge as he turns to face Ashur, because what a mess of blight that would leave strewn across the ground. Some poor sod would have to spend all day cleaning him out of the flagstones.
“How are you?” Ashur asks, his voice gentle, and that’s almost enough for Tarquin to want to punch him. Ashur has been treating Tarquin as if he’s made of glass, solicitous and delicate in a way he can hardly stand.
“Stop fussing,” Tarquin bites out. “I’m dying, but I’m not dead yet, all right? One of these days I’ll curl up to die in some miserable corner, and I suppose you can start fretting over me then, when I’m too weak to stop you.”
“I just—” Ashur’s brows draw together, the look in his eyes rather like that of a kicked puppy. “I just wanted to say hello.”
Tarquin sighs, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. He’s been more of a bastard than usual, he knows. Perhaps it isn’t fair to take it out on Ashur. But with the blight crawling through him, he can already taste his future demise all too clearly. And that is his own burden to deal with it. The rest of them will continue on with their lives once he’s gone. Maybe when all this is done, if anyone remains of the Shadow Dragons, they’ll remember to keep a spot on the Wall of Light illuminated for him for a couple of years. But he has no illusions that he’s anything but disposable in the grand scheme of things.
“Well, stop it. Stop treating me like I’ll fall apart or fuck off.” Tarquin does feel as if he is falling apart with every breath, his body dissolving into tiny pieces that can never be pieced back together. No matter how many concoctions Mae and Dorian and Ashur give him, how many spells they offer to try and pause the blight’s advance, there is no escaping his fate. He tries to accept that. Some days he almost thinks he’s succeeding.
There’s something about watching his own life drift away from him like the guttering remnants of wax from a nearly burnt down candle that brings out the worst in Tarquin. Something about watching everyone continue on with healthy bodies and unblighted faces that puts his own fate in stark relief, leaving him seething with anger against facts he has no hope of changing. Tarquin is no stranger to impotent rage at forces beyond his control. But before there was always a light at the end of the tunnel, a path through no matter how thorny. Now there is nothing but impending death.
He never expected to live as long as he has, but now that he’s here, he can’t help the bitterness that bubbles up within him at the unfairness of losing it all. Finally he’s found somewhere he enjoys working. Somewhere he can do real good rather than throwing himself into the Imperium’s machine to be used up and discarded. Somewhere he belongs and people he belongs with. And rather than having the dignity to go out with a fast death in battle, he wastes away in the pooling agony of a drawn out death while with every passing minute he becomes more and more a creature he detests.
(He has seen enough death during his time in the army to know that no battle borne death is truly clean. With his luck he’d get stabbed in the gut and waste away miserably to infection and fever. But that does not stop the idealized image of a quick death by sword that haunts his waking hours as his body fails him.)
“So.” Tarquin can see the wheels turning in Ashur’s head as he tries to find something less fraught to say. “What are you working on?” Unfortunately for Ashur, with what a miserable bastard Tarquin’s become, he can find fault with any words spoken to him.
“Boring shit,” Tarquin replies. Ashur cants his hip against the table that has been commandeered as a makeshift desk, looking over the papers laid out before Tarquin. It’s one tedious page after another of accounts and ledgers and receipts. But no matter how underground their organization is, someone has to do it. And for all he detests his years wasted in the templar archives, Tarquin has a mind for the fine details needed to keep things running while the Viper swoops around with his dramatic flair. And it isn’t as if he’s much good in the field now, not when blight drips down his face and stains his skin.
“Can I help?” Ashur asks.
Tarquin grunts. “No. Just leave me here in peace and,” he waves a hand in the general direction of the door, “go off into the night to do your Viper stuff."
A furrow forms between Ashur’s brows. “Are you sure?” he asks, voice too carefully gentle. “If there’s anything at all, please let me know…”
And suddenly Tarquin can take it no more. The solicitude is cloying, as much a cage as the exhaustion that plagues him. He wants – needs – Ashur to shut up now. Tarquin stands, then wraps one hand around the back of Ashur’s head and pulls it to him with a vicious jerk. With his other hand he lifts the mask that covers Ashur’s face, then presses their lips together. Ashur freezes in surprise, his lips still against Tarquin’s. But then he responds, arms wrapping around Tarquin as he pulls their bodies together.
“Is this what you want?” Tarquin hisses as he pulls away. “My blighted body on yours?”
“Yes,” Ashur says, disarmingly simple and direct. His hand raises to cup Tarquin’s cheek, thumb running along the curve of bone. Tarquin shudders at the gentleness. “A thousand times yes. I want you, no matter what you become.”
Tarquin lets out a noise, half sob half groan, and drops his face into Ashur’s neck. Ashur is too kind, too genuine, to deserve the anger that festers within Tarquin. But it is an anger that Tarquin cannot shake, its tendrils buried deep in his bones. It is not a new anger; it is fury that has built up through a lifetime. But the blight burrows itself deep within and pulls all these long buried dregs to the surface, the substrate upon which his world is founded forced into black tinged light.
Tarquin draws back from Ashur, though he immediately mourns the loss of warm arms about him. Carefully he stacks his papers together and lays them neatly aside, safe from harm. Then he turns, grabs Ashur by the biceps, and pushes him back against the table. It wobbles at the sudden jolt, but the legs hold firm under Ashur’s body. Good enough.
Tarquin steps forward until he is bracketed between Ashur’s thighs, heat spreading through him. Ashur leans back with his weight on his arms. His eyes are intent and hungry on Tarquin’s face, even as his mask remains in place, hiding the rest of his expression from view.
With deft fingers, Tarquin unlaces Ashur’s trousers, pulling away fabric and leather until his skin is stripped bare. Ashur whimpers as his skin is revealed to warm hands and cool air, his cock already hardening, incontrovertible physical evidence of his arousal. So perhaps he spoke true. Perhaps he really does want Tarquin, even blighted, his body withering. Tarquin supposes he can take that small consolation with him to the grave, for all the good it will do him.
Tarquin’s hands tremble as he unfastens his own trousers, undoing them just enough to reveal his cock. It unfurls before him, lengthening as desire spills through his body, arousal twining through blighted flesh. Under the blight’s influence it has grown longer, a poisonous tendril of dark red threaded with black in a nest of warp flesh. Not precisely the cock he dreamed of, perhaps. But there’s a thrill to it all the same, his own body growing and changing to whims he cannot control, yet still, in this one respect, finds he enjoys.
His cock is already slick as it surges forward. Blight drips from its length, dark and viscous. Yet still Ashur draws Tarquin to him, bodies pressing together regardless of the horror.
“Are you sure?” Tarquin gasps, giving Ashur one final chance to back away from the monster that he has become.
But instead of withdrawing, Ashur wraps his legs around Tarquin’s waist, drawing him near until no space remains between them. “Yes,” Ashur says, his breath already coming fast, his pupils dilated. “Please. I want everything from you.”
There is a part of Tarquin that fears Ashur will become blighted in turn if they continue on this path. Yet deeper still there is a part of him that whispers of the romance of it, their minds linked with the darkspawn but also with each other, going to their final ends hand in blight soaked hand. He cannot wish that for Ashur, not truly. But neither can he bring himself to stop.
Tarquin presses the tip of his cock to Ashur’s entrance. Ashur gasps, flinching at the contact, but he does not draw away. Instead he pulls at Tarquin, urging him on. And with a careful shift of his hips, Tarquin pushes in.
Even though it is only possible because he is blight cursed, still the feel of finally pushing himself into Ashur, his body grown able to penetrate, is incredible. He can feel Ashur’s tight heat around every inch of him – and he has inches now to feel with. His cock swells as he moves forward, slender yet still more than enough for his purposes.
And Ashur responds, muscles quivering as Tarquin fills him. A soft whimper falls from Ashur’s lips as Tarquin presses all the way in, his cock as deep within as he can go. Tarquin grits his teeth at the feeling, his breaths coming in ragged pants. It’s almost overwhelming, too much sensation centered around his cock in new and unfamiliar ways. It is like touching himself after too long without, aching drought suddenly satiated with a torrent of rain that floods instead of nourishes. Yet it is all the more intense for being inside Ashur, his body set ablaze.
Then Tarquin draws out, friction running along his cock in heady waves. Already he feels on the edge of release, pleasure coursing through him like he has never experienced it before. Tarquin leans forward, hands resting to either side of Ashur’s body, trying to control himself.
Now Tarquin regrets not removing more of their clothing. There is far too much armor and leather and fabric between them, blocking all his access to Ashur’s skin. Perhaps it is best this way, with how overwhelmed he already feels. There is less of a chance that his blight marred skin will corrupt Ashur’s. Already blight drips on beads of sweat from Tarquin’s face, leaving black stains that spread over Ashur’s remaining clothing.
Yet Ashur does not seem to care. He pulls Ashur back towards him, and Tarquin thrusts back in, heat shuddering over him. It’s too much and not enough all at once. The blight that sings through him is finally silenced in the rushing of blood in his ears, with nothing but the pounding of his heart and Ashur’s soft sighs and whimpers for accompaniment.
He thrusts again and again into Ashur, need overtaking them both as they move together. Dripping black blight flows over Tarquin’s eyes, so he closes them to focus on only the feel of Ashur beneath him, all light and dark cut away. Only arousal remains, hot and pulsing in the core of him.
And then it overtakes him in a wave of euphoria, his muscles clenching tight as his release washes over him. It is overpowering, all the more intense for how long it has been and the way his body has changed. He can almost imagine now that his body is capable of coming inside Ashur, leaving him marked with Tarquin’s seed. But there is only blight spilling between them, dark and forbidding.
It is only moments later that Ashur follows, his cock jerking beneath Tarquin’s fingers as he comes as well. The streaks he leaves on his own clothing mesh with that of the blight Tarquin has left upon him, white and black melding inextricably.
Slowly Tarquin pulls out, oversensitized flesh now protesting the motion. Yet it’s a pleasant ache, one of deep satisfaction. Gradually their breaths slow, and cool air flutters between them, breaking the spell that had settled upon them.
“There. You’ve helped. Happy now?” Tarquin says, but his tone is fond and gentle despite the words. But truly Ashur has. Tarquin can feel the anger and despair still lurking at the edges of his mind, but for now, for however long this afterglow lasts, he feels if not precisely happy, then at least more content than he has in a very long time.
Ashur only grunts in reply, apparently not yet recovered enough for words.
“Now go home,” Tarquin continues. “Get washed up before anyone else sees you like this.”
Finally Ashur sits up, legs still bare and dangling over the table’s edge. “I’m glad to help,” he says, and Tarquin can hear the smile even as his mask remains on.
Then Ashur lifts the mask and leans forward until his lips meet Tarquin’s. The kiss is sweet, their passion already spent, but still longing for each other permeates it.
Perhaps this is the last time they shall ever kiss. There is no way of knowing how much longer either of them has in this uncertain world – Tarquin’s fate is inevitable, but with one battle after another, Ashur’s too is uncertain. But for now they have this, the soft brush of lips against each other.
As Tarquin pulls away, black marks remain upon Ashur’s lips, staining him with this corruption that fills Tarquin. But it is a claiming as well. This marks Ashur as Tarquin’s, for however long he may yet last. And he is selfish enough to take pleasure in that.