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Really truly it had been a terrible day. An absolutely miserable day. The Garlean Spring was nothing but fog and mud and a moisture that one could hardly call rain but was just enough to make sweat an absolutely useless effect. Enough to collect upon the bridge of his nose and form droplets down the wedge of a thing, dribbling down to lips formed into a frown.
Solus quo Galvus, or more importantly the most eminent Emet-Selch had gotten into the situation of a firefight. Pinned down within the ruins of a small hamlet via sniper fire and waiting upon the other men of his brigade had started to wear his patience thin, especially within the fact that he very much didn’t need to do something like this. Mortals hadn’t the choice to simply deal with their aggressors through the use of the ancient magicks the sorcerer of eld had handy and he attempted to withhold himself to that disability. But every minute that felt oh so much longer than a bell had him less and less willing to sit here within the broken walls of what once was a single room home. Decrepit walls were blooming with what little could grow in the cold surroundings, missing its roof that long collapsed and his boots stomped upon. Disgusting squalor, something that didn’t surprise the man at all - just exactly what these broken pieces could create. War and suffering and depression.
He hardly cared. He wanted to get back to someplace warm, someplace he didn’t have the needle of a sniper’s gun pointed right in his direction. Not that it was a worry for his life; No mortal’s weapon could kill him but it surely would make a mess of the body he had taken. Regathering himself was effort and time he didn’t have.
He readjusted his gloved hands upon the standard issue revolver, adjusted his shoulders and sore legs, stooping downwards and using one hand to brace against the wall as he nudged closer to the wall’s end. And just as he went about trying to take a peek, to see if that sniper was still at his perch a single shot ran out, loud enough to deafen his ears for a moment, the sudden pang of pain hitting his head like a splitting headache. Like a goddamn slap straight to his brain, sending him sprawling backwards with the trajectory of what seemed like hit him.
It was enough to take him out for a solid half minute, vision blurry, body ragdolling against the ground, the wall behind him and its splatter of reds and pink slowly dribbling downwards.
He wasn’t able to shift his eyeballs in their sockets until a solid half bell later, the hit taking the utter breath out of him figuratively and literally. And by the time his vision was unblurring he was being shaken, a set of foreign hands searching his thick coat. In reflex, the man with his braincase very much leaking tightened the digits upon his revolver, arms like half cooked spaghetti pointing it towards the dark, leering figure, and pulled the trigger.
It was as easy as that to kill these hardly living things. Mortals. The thick figure collapsed in the hit, its blood joining the slosh of striking colors upon the dilapidated home’s walls.
Fuck .
He craned upwards, having to force himself up by one palm as an anchor on the wet ground and reassess himself. Emet-Selch raised his palm, testing his cheek, his blurred eye sight, the gloved set of digits dragged along smooth skin until he found what he was looking for - the sunken bullet hole in his temple and the gush of blood that came with forcing his body to move again. The Ascian would need to fix this if he was to still use this face: a rather pleasant one, if he did say so himself, and one that had valuable connections to enable their plans. The Sorcerer of Eld could fix this given time, which he had very little of if backup was within the near distance.
In the most stiff of manners he looked about himself, cringing at the throbbing headache that was alight in what was left of his brain. Without much thought to it he crawled over to what was what he assumed was the sniper’s body, grabbing the man’s trapper hat, ignoring the grimace that was the Roe’s death mask. Tugging it on he fumbled with the locks of hair that ended up stuck in his face, blood wet digits smearing red about pale skin as he struggled to wrangle them behind whatever was left of an ear. Patting the back of his head and the hat, he groaned and hoped it wasn’t too obvious he was missing a good chunk of his skull and cerebrum.
“O-oh Solus– ”
He craned his neck around to stare at the soldier in the door frame, a wild look upon his face as if he had seen a ghost. Pale. Terrified. He had seen him and his wound. With a roll of his shoulders he lifted the revolver, pointed it at the man in shock, and pulled the trigger, resigning to this being the way out of dealing with it. It was, after all, the quickest and easiest way about it.
The small hut of a house was more red than not by the end of it, Emet struggling to stand, legs unsteady like a newborn faun’s. His eyes rolled as he made off towards the door, putting extra effort into clearing the fallen bodies in his way, leaning against what was left of the door frame, grip loose upon his revolver held at his side.
“ Oh! Solus~?” At the very least this was a voice he recognized, one not alarmed, if anything relieved to see the man still alive. A man he had sent off to find the one that now lay behind him, dead or bleeding out, but at the very least one he could trust given the dedication the near right hand man gave him. Persi, a sundered man who had more reasons to dislike him than not, the one he had forcefully recruited into the Republic’s army. The wiry sort of man that stood only a few ilms taller than him.
He wanted to test the man’s loyalty, maybe have some entertainment at the same time.
From a tired wave over the redhead strode closer, giving a weary glance towards the little church’s bell tower that the sniper had used for cover. “Taken care of–” Green eyes traced Solus’s figure before looking beyond him and his face briefly draining of color. “Ah, taken care of. Fantastic ! A shame about Remus, however…”
“A shame.” Emet echoed, gold eyes catching Persi’s attention, those bright things all the focus for the man once merchant. The lack of sympathy in the man’s voice didn’t bother the redhead, who closed the gap between them, bowing his head with an odd stoop to ensure that his height wouldn’t loom over the higher officer.
His gaze upwards would be matched with the barrel of Solus’s gun lazily jutting against his chin line, metal still warm from the last time it was shot. Persi’s expression stayed calm and if anything curled into a smile, tilting head against the weapon. Surely he had long deciphered the centurio’s actions and yet he was calm to it all, solemn in his trust for a man missing a chunk of his skull beneath a soaked hat unbeknownst to him.
“It’s interesting that we found some privacy despite all odds.” Solus’s voice was smooth, eyes focused on Persi’s lips where he pressed the end of his gun to. The fact that the other Garlean man doesn’t hesitate or pull away, finding the situation in no way distasteful, piqued the ancient’s curiosity. How far would he have to go to have the mortal man pulling away?
The gun pressed forward, Persi’s lips parting to allow the metal slide into his mouth. Green eyes looked through half lidded lashes, upwards at the other, lips splaying in a broken kiss, tongue rolling along the bottom of the barrel. “We’ll have to take advantage of it.”
The weapon was tugged out of the other’s mouth, a line of saliva connecting it and Persi’s lips, only breaking once Emet shook the gun to and fro before wiping it off on the front of the other’s coat. A sigh of distaste and he holstered the weapon, the commanding officer waving the other to the wall with free hand.
Always the doting lower officer, the slobbering man did as he was bid to, exhaling a breath that was made into smoke with the chill of the air. He turned, stomach to the wall, gloved hand pawing at the back of his own slacks, pushing up his coat in order to do so messily, bare skin of his ass almost as pale as the snow not soaked in blood. “It’s cold.” Despite face directed towards a wall, his pout was obvious to Emet-selch, annoyed at first but quick to close the space between them.
Persi was slightly taller but with the way he leaned against the crumbling structure he was bowed ever so cautiously to the centurio’s height. A skinny man, easy enough for Solus’s build to encompass, to hug against and press further into the wall. “Of course it’s cold.” It’s Garlemald. It’s the last place on Eitherys that anyone would want to live and that was why the Garleans were here, wasn’t it? Poor, weak Garleans. Easy enough to manipulate, starting with the one in front of him.
A gloved hand pulled back, bent over Persi’s head, palming at Solus’s neck to tug him closer against the skinnier man’s back in a needy fashion. “Make me warm, Sosha.” The fumbling hand grasped at one of the flaps of his hat, tugging the wet thing off his head to pull to its own face, to breath in deep of the other man’s smell. Emet’s expression seemed to go amiss rather suddenly, the cold air hitting ears, or well, what was left of the set of ears and the remnants of the living body’s skull.
The taller man paused just as confused, the warm insides of the hat soaked with blood, the once white fluff of soft cotton that lined it a stark red. Persi tilted his head, staring at it, eyebrows knitting, much of his face stained with smears of blood from the intimate breath of air he took from his lover’s clothes. Emet’s attention was fully on him, sticky lengths of hair caught against his cheeks and each other, golden eyes flicking from the filthy hat and then Persi’s reaction.
“Who hurt you?” A blink. Not a question of if he were okay, no, but the immediate need to find justice for the centurio was in the redhead’s mind.
“They’re dead.” Solus, no - Emet-selch responded, opting to take the man’s response as a lackluster worry and return the sentiment. After all, it was a mortal wound and he was no mortal.
“And you are not.” Persi cooly replied, his eyes half lidded whilst cast back, his smile stained red, fist grasping the hat whilst bracing against the wall.
“Of course not. Shall I prove the vigor of life in me?” As if to punctuate that question the ascian pressed into the mortal’s tight walls, a grunt following as surely the heat of the redhead was enough to make it all worthwhile.
“Prove it.” Persi’s legs went pigeon foot, thighs slightly apart, bare skin warm to the touch as hips met ass and made the younger man gasp, further leaning upon the dilapidated wall, pressing weight into yawning wood. “Ah..ha.a…prove it.” His voice repeated, a stumbling mess of a man already, Emet-selch hardly behind with how blood trickled into his sight, down his fine jawline, onto the back of the other’s coat. Each thrust forward had more raining down upon the redhead, staining white flesh, gray uniform, the nape of his neck.
The older leaned in further, pressing his light headed chin against the shoulder of the other, hot breath hitting the back of the other Garlean’s ear. Chill chapped lips pressed into Persi’s neck, bared there but not biting.
They both tensed, the centurio being the one to verbalize that height with the sweetness that only came from him at these times for the mortal man. “Persi. Persi. My daffodil. Little pretty thing.”
Such praises made the redhead sink his head down, cheeks dawning with color, eyes flitting downwards as thighs strained to keep still between his gasps.
It was only scarce minutes but the two men parted afterwards, Emet tilting back and wiping his face down with a gloved palm whilst he lazily returned his belt to its proper place. Persi in turn hardly moved from his position, catching his breath, appreciating the gift of warmth in his belly spilling down his thighs before tossing back the trapper hat stained in blood to the centurio.
Emet-selch tugged it back on, straightening it out before casting his gaze back to the redhead who hadn’t moved from the position before. With some reluctance he approached and tugged up Persi’s pants, hands rolling around his hips so that he could button them properly. Those shakes had finally hit the sundered man, head still bowed and unable to look the commanding officer in the face. Speckled with blood that wasn’t his, the redhead seemed to finally react properly to the gun in his face and the man missing half his skull.
“Scared, are you?” It was only natural. It wasn’t the first mortal to have found him in a condition that should have killed anyone else but the ancient. Any mortal would think him a monster, now was the time for the ascian to deal with the repercussions, whether it be killing the man or wiping what he would remember.
“What would I have done without you, Solus?”
True that the man was only in the republic army because of him. True that his fate lay in the hands of the scheming ancient he hardly knew anything of, let alone what he truly was. But it still took Emet-selch by surprise.
“What would I have done? Solus?”
“You would have gone back to wherever you came from.” He didn’t even remember anymore where the other claimed to be from and he hardly cared. Though the redhead’s weakness was that connection with him whether he meant to or not, that dependency that pulled at him with some interest. At first it was out of curiosity but now he was certain the taller man was trustworthy. He may as well milk it for all it was worth.
Strong hands turned the lithe man around, Solus pushing him against the wall again this time face to face. Persi did not avoid eye contact even in those wet greens of his, staring at Solus’s gold with a seriousness that finally tugged at the ancient’s pity. Pitiful creatures, absolutely willing to aid in their own demise.
“No, you wouldn’t have, would you?” Gold eyes thinned, somehow looking down his nose despite the height difference. “If you find me like this again, my daffodil, you will say nothing. You will simply wait for my dramatic reappearance. Understand?” He grasped for curls, tugging Persi closer, forehead to forehead, the cold jewels adorning their foreheads pressing against each other. For now, the ancient found the mortal useful.
“Of course.” Shaky words were the reply, and lips against the third eye would be his reward, pulling Persi down so that he could kiss him there. “ Of course .”