Want Me To Prove It?

Eris doesn’t even look up at him, but he knows. Probably something to do with how the hairs on the back of his neck always stand up when Azriel is near.

“Can you blame me?”

Granted, Eris is sitting at his desk in his rooms, stark-naked besides the rings on his fingers, but that’s no excuse.

“You should be asleep,” he says, picking up his pencil and scratching out a few more notes on the margins of this draft of an edict. It’s local law, to do with the western provinces on the border of Summer, but it needs his attention just like everything else does. Seemingly, there aren't enough hours in the day for him to get everything done.

“You should be wearing clothes,” he replies.

And that makes Eris look, just to smirk.

Sprawled out on the bed, Azriel too is gloriously exposed. He never slept with anything on, not even in the early days, and it’s a habit Eris has enjoyed appreciating, then adopting. The expanse of his beautiful skin is rich under the low faelight, wisps of shadows barely visible winding through his fingertips and along the silk sheets of the bed, like living ink to add to the painted canvas of his chest. Ruffled from rest, his dark curls fall across his forehead and stick up at odd angles, memories of how Eris had raked his hand through it only hours ago. The covers pool deliciously at his hips, leaving most of his wings flared and on show for him to think about tasting in all the right places. How Azriel would keen for him just at the feel of his tongue…

He dips his head, a small smile of his own on his divinely pretty face. “Now who’s staring?”

Eris turns away, huffing a little sigh. “Go back to sleep,” he says. Starts reading.

The fixed rates on exported syrups and liqueurs must be reworked to adjust to the growing industry and to foster a closer relationship with our neighbours. It’s imperative for the survival of this traditional—

Sheets shift behind him.

—of this traditional—

Maybe he really has gone back to sleep.

—of this traditional craft—

He can’t hear him moving about anymore. Eris is a little relieved, gods know he needs the rest with all the shit Rhysand is pushing him to report on. Including, disturbingly, the exact nature of their relationship. Azriel had laughed at, but dismissed, his suggestion of telling him that they’ve fucked on every surface of the Forest House (not far off) and burn effigies of the Night Court’s leadership every evening to prove to the people he’s truly forsaken them. Diplomatically, and much more kindly than anyone gives him credit for, Azriel refuses to say much at all. Not out of embarrassment, or even to spare someone like Mor’s feelings, but because he intends to carve out privacy for them where he has to. Eris has done the same when the lords of his Court ask when he’s going to betroth himself to a female who can bear strong children. (Ask that again and I’ll have your son guarding nothing but barracks and latrines on the northern border, Lord Lantier. He’d stopped after that.)

—this traditional craft—Eris adds an note here to make this part less mind-numbingly wordy—which has, for generations, been a staple of our—

“You’re ignoring me for this?”

Eris doesn’t startle. Nonetheless, he drops his pencil with a click.

Az is leaning on the back of his chair, reading over his shoulder, his face too close to be ignorable. One of his shadows, curious little things that they are, snakes down Eris’ arm, leaving a trail of cold and goosebumps in its wake.

“Just because you don’t have my undivided attention doesn’t mean I’m ignoring you.”

He hums non-committally and shrugs. “That’s what it feels like.”

“That’s because,” Eris says, “you’re a very clingy male.” He straightens out the paper, crosses his ankles together, and continues.

—been a staple of our storied and beautiful homeland—

“You jumped on me as soon as I walked in the door earlier.”

Yes, well, it had been the right decision, considering Azriel had made Eris come so hard three times in such quick succession that he had to have a break because of it. “I hope you aren’t complaining.”

“I’m just pointing out your hypocrisy.” A kiss gets placed on his shoulder. Then at his neck, where Az nips and no doubt adds to the litany of other bruises blooming there. The words on the page suddenly seem like a different language. “Come back to bed,” he mumbles, the feel of his soft lips against his skin quite lovely.

But ultimately, not pressing enough.

Petulantly, he says, “I’m not clingy,” and picks his pencil back up.

The rumble of Azriel’s laughter is beginning to make this edict feel incredibly inconsequential. “You are—” he sweeps Eris’ hair from his back, a rough hand coming to the nape of his neck, his thumb drawing gentle circles over where the scar of a blade stops, “—but I don’t mind. You know I don’t.”

“Do I?”

That hand rises, fingers gripping the strands at his scalp, and tugs, tilts his head just how he wants it, so he has to look up at him. Initially, he wants to snarl—maybe that’s what Azriel wants—but he doesn’t. He just looks; amber meeting stormy hazel.