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Maybe walking around the park at night, alone, in search of a Gangrel to help track down Bigfoot wasn’t one of my best ideas…
Fabien continued his investigative stroll with only a minor sense of anxiety in the back of his mind. At this point, he was pretty sure it wasn’t so much a fear of being caught out in the park where a horde of Sabbat Unbirthed soldiers rose not even a full two months prior. Rather, he thought it was a more general concern that a group of rogue Anarchs might want to test his shiny new badge as the next appointed Sheriff.
A branch snapped somewhere to his right, in the shadowy parts of the trees untouched by the limpid streetlights lining the park walkway.
Aaand now I’m reaaaally regretting not taking Tolly’s advice, Fabien thought, a little hysterical. But… Phyre’s probably busy enough as it is. I can handle a meet-and-greet. Otherwise, what use is a Sheriff anyway?
Tolly had mentioned that there was a rumor of a couple Gangrel—potentially a small pack of surveyors interested in rejoining the Court—hanging out in the park. Most mortals gave the place a pretty wide berth after the “gas incident” explanation, so Fabien thought it would at least be a place free of potential Masquerade violations. Tolly had also recommended (more like insisted) that he bring Phyre along as well.
“Could be nothing, in fact it most likely is,” Tolly had said dismissively, “but there’s no reason you can’t take our dashing Prince on a moonlit stroll, all romantic like.” Tolly had wiggled his nonexistent eyebrows—likely because he noticed Fabien trying to discreetly adjust his suddenly-suffocating collar.
“The big lug hasn’t exactly seen the best our city has to offer since he got here,” Tolly had continued, sobering for a bit. “In fact, he’s probably seen the worst our neck of the woods had to give. But he still chose to stay.” Tolly had stared at Fabien with significance, face serious and drawn. “You ever ask him why?”
Fabien remembered being confused. Of course Phyre chose to stay, he—but Fabien had also remembered that they weren’t the same person. That as a Kindred Elder, Phyre had centuries to find a place of his own and yet he’d walked away from all of them, according to him. “The Nomad” was more than a title, it was an entire identity… up until Phyre chose to abandon it and become Prince of Seattle.
Why, indeed.
Tolly had taken his silence for a negative and huffed out an annoyed sigh. “Well, maybe you should, sweetness. You are a detective after all. Lord only knows how you kept that job of yours, but I know you’ve surprised me before.” Tolly waved away Fabien’s indignant sputtering (he worked hard to maintain a reasonable rate of cases solved, thank you very much!) but continued with a forced cheerfulness, “Just go on a nice walk in the park, got it? And make sure you take Phyre with you. I cannot stress enough how important it is for you to show him a good time, got it?”
Fabien had nodded absently and walked out the front door of the high-rise. He was caught up with a nagging thought brought upon by something Tolly had said.
He hasn’t exactly seen the best our city has to offer.
Phyre really got the shortest end of the stick possible when he woke up in Seattle: Sabbat blood magic, Unbirthed army, Camarilla conspiracies, Hunter invasion. The whole damn mess was enough to drive a man insane, and all it did to Phyre was make him mad. He was breathtaking: an avenging angel in a leather jacket, a force of nature in combat boots, a pretty smile that looked like it hardly ever saw the light of… well, not day, but streetlight he supposed.
Fabien sighed, dejected. Here Phyre is, in the city that put him through the wringer, and for what? Why would he stay here? Tolly was right, he’d never questioned why Phyre had changed his mind and stuck around to be Prince. Some partner I am…
It was already embarrassing enough that the Court probably thought Phyre only chose him as Sheriff because they all thought they were, well… “knocking boots” as it were. Obviously, Phyre could do better than him: the Elder once had a whole gaggle of Toreador flocking about asking him to be their muse for a new line of… something made out of lace and leather. Fashion wasn’t really Fabien’s strong suit (if the, uh, scraps of clothing could really be called fashion).
Show him a good time.
Fabien had been stumped, walking along the paved path, cleared of snow but still bitingly cold in late February. Losing their… close bond with the return of his body had done a number on their communication somewhat. In the comfort of his own mind, Fabien had to admit a dark little part of him—the voraciously lonely part—desperately missed being immersed in his partner’s mind.
But wait a minute…
Fabien had thought back on their time together and a shiny new idea had risen to the top of his mind. He knew Phyre would feel the thrill of excitement whenever he learned something new. Big things, small things, whether a person he once challenged to a duel was famous for writing him into a story, and—most relevant to right now—learning about new creatures.
Why, Fabien remembered Phyre had almost seemed paralyzed with confusion and awe the first time he’d seen a possum. Apparently, the “New World variety” as he’d called them were pretty far off from the Old World and Constantinople (don’t even get Fabien started on how he had watched from within their shared mind as Phyre sat down with Mrs. Thorn and requested she explain the numerous changes to modern-day Istanbul).
That brings us to now: Fabien walking through the spooky park, alone. Surely the Gangrel will have a lead on something far more spectacular than a possum to show Phyre!
That just might be enough to put a smile on his face, Fabien thought with a smile of his own.
“Well, well, well, looky what we have here: the Batshit Sheriff.”
Fabien blinked, woken from his internal musings by four people surrounding him. He looked around and realized he might have wandered further than he thought: he was under the walkway bridge and, apparently, in prime ambush territory.
“Oh, fiddlesticks, this is not a good look for proving I can handle a little walk in the park by myself,” Fabien sighed.
One of his ambushers laughed like a hyena behind her gas-mask. “Look, guys, he’s fucking talking to himself! Dude, you really are batshit.”
“Shoot, I mixed up my inside and outside voices again,” Fabien grumbled to himself. Straightening up, he tried to look stern and professional (a little like Phyre when he, annoyed, stared down Silky for claiming the drapes in the novel they were reading had more meaning than just being blue).
“Look, guys, I’m on official Court business. If you have a complaint you’d like me to hear out, I’d recommend the, uh, internet thing Tolly set up. You can ask about it at Hole in the Wall, just tell the barkeep that Fabien sent you.”
Another round of cackling laughter started up and Fabien felt the tingle in his brain that usually told him secrets start itching something fierce—from his left.
He quickly stepped to the side, dodging one of the grunts swinging a bat at his head. The cackling grew louder and more frenzied and he tuned his Network to his attacker’s frequency like one would a police scanner. “We kill this idiot and there’s no way the Gangrel won’t let us into their clan! One Malk for all the blood we can drink!”
“Well, that’s just hurtful,” Fabien said aloud, face pinched in annoyance (and a little bit of hurt, honestly) as he dodged a swing from the woman trying to sneak a knife stab in. “I know we Malkavians aren’t exactly popular, but I can’t remember doing anything specific to warrant this assault—on either my person or my character!”
One of the thugs was hanging back at the edge of the tunnel, likely keeping an eye out. But the third pulled out a handgun and fired off a shot into Fabien’s chest before he managed to evade the next two.
Fabien hissed in growing irritation. “I’ve had this shirt for thirty years and this is how I lose it? Fighting a bunch of goons in the park?!”
He could already feel the wound healing sluggishly. Probably should have had a sip before coming on a solo mission, Fabien sighed, internally this time. Would have been a good idea to top off before I go all in on a fight but needs must, or however it goes. Fabien waved a hand toward the man with the gun and—
“Dude, what the fuck?! You missed!”
“Huh?” The gunman blinked under his goggles and looked around for a second, dazed at the thought shoved into his head, before turning to the woman standing beside him with the knife and jumping back. “How’d he get over here?!” He shouted and then fired the remaining rounds into his accomplice. She screamed and went down, gurgling through the holes in her chest before going cold and silent. Ah, so that rules out Kindred.
The woman—the ghoul—with the bat shouted, “He’s fucking with you, dude! Damn Malk shit!” She pressed the attack, backing Fabien further down the tunnel while the gunman seemed to begin shaking off Fabien’s hold on his perception. Making someone hear or see what he needed them to was simple enough. Doing both during a fight? Definitely not something he’d hoped to try out himself.
Well, all that time watching Phyre fight is certainly paying off, Fabien thought, turning his attention to the woman with the bat. He pushed his mind forward and stretched his Auspex as far as it would go, a burning in his veins letting him know his vitae was running dangerously low already. “They’ll drop you like a bad habit once they get a taste of Kindred blood. It’s you or them and you know what you’d choose—have already chosen.”
The bat stopped just a hair from his nose before reversing toward the gunman’s head. A sharp crack echoed in the tunnel as the gunman flew back against the wall and slid down, blood trailing after his slumped form. “Abandon me, huh?! After all the work I did to get us here?!”
“Yo, what the fuck, guys?!” The lookout shouted, terrified, backing away from the dead and his berserk leader.
“She’s just on a little revenge trip right now. Remember: crime doesn’t pay,” Fabien said blandly. He held out his hand toward her and focused on her rampaging mind, smoothing the cracks out with a layer of mental cement. “Just hold it there, you’ll forget all this and take a nice nap.”
The batter looked around confused. “Why am I in the park?” She dropped the bat and dazedly walked toward the lookout outside the tunnel, who stumbled back from her in fear.
Fabien was about to tell him that she wouldn’t even remember them for a good while when a leather-clad figure dropped down on her and smashed her head into the pavement. Fabien winced slightly at the familiar move, having been on the receiving end of it just once.
“So that’s what that looks like from outside his head,” Fabien remarked with a low whistle.
At his voice, the tall figure stood and whipped his glowing green glare at the final ghoul who shrieked and started running. ‘Started’ being the operative word, since he didn’t get very far. Tendrils of black shadow snatched up the ghoul and held him aloft, turning him back towards Fabien and his bloody rescuer.
Phyre stalked over to the ghoul, a low rolling snarl heard even from Fabien’s spot a couple feet into the tunnel. “You dare to wound my Sheriff in my city.” Phyre’s deceivingly calm sentence must have been the final straw for the already panicking ghoul as the scent of urine quickly filled the tunnel, his heaving gasps echoing out.
“That any should know the scent of his blood is a sin I cannot abide.” The shadows constricted, causing the ghoul to scream again as Phyre raised his bloody hand toward the ghoul’s face.
“Whoa there, Partner!” Phyre froze when Fabien put a hand on his shoulder, grip tight enough to ground him and soothe with absent patterns rubbed into the tense muscle. “Seeing as how we only have one suspect left, I should question him before he’s, uh, indisposed, as it were.”
Phyre’s unblinking eyes staring into his own seemed more serpent than cat at this moment, sending a small shiver down Fabien’s spine. Not fear, never fear, but something like anticipation started flooding his body. Ignoring his suddenly very dry mouth, Fabien examined the shaking ghoul still held in the ‘Arms of Ahriman’, as Phyre had once told him they were called.
Waving a hand toward him, Fabien peeled back the surface level thoughts of “HOLY FUCKING SHIT, HE’S GONNA KILL ME” to find “Why the FUCK did I say yes to this stupid fucking crackhead plan” and followed that thread further down beneath the turbulent waters of his fearful mind. He found a thought that seemed useful: “Like any Gangrel pack would want a couple Anarch ghouls anyway, she just wants beef with the fucking Prince” which led him to “She hasn’t been the same since Butch got axed, but fucker took on a goddamn Elder bloodsucker with knife hands, what are ya gonna do”.
Blinking back out of the ghoul’s choppy and erratic mind, Fabien turned to find Phyre’s stare burning a hole in him. Something achingly hungry was looking at him from inside those slitted pupils. It made Fabien suddenly very aware of the blood covering Phyre’s arms, ghoul by the smell, and his throat burned.
Fabien licked his lips and managed to sound cheerful. “Well, the good news is that him and his buddies here didn’t actually meet any Gangrel to plan this party. Looks like they just thought the ‘Batshit Sheriff’ would be a great welcoming gift—“
The ghoul in front of him shrieked out, the tendrils squeezing harder. Fabien blinked and was caught once more in those unmoving predatory eyes. He felt Phyre’s hands come up to his waist and suddenly he was being pulled forward and turned, his back pressed to Phyre’s front and facing the restrained ghoul. He shivered at hot breath over his neck and warm lips at his ear.
“You hunger, Fabien.”
“Huh?” Fabien jolted at the feel of a hot tongue swiping up his neck to his ear. Something was growling.
“You taste… divine… but your essence is weaker than I wish it to be.”
“Wait, what?” Fabien was struck dizzy as his vitae seemed to struggle between flooding his head or his cock. He kind of felt like he was sitting between the paws of a starving lion. Which really shouldn’t be getting me going as much as it is, he thought hysterically. The growling returned.
“Drink, Fabien.” The ghoul was limp when he was brought closer, most likely passed out from fear. Phyre ran the tip of his nose up Fabien’s jaw and huffed out another concerningly (arousingly?) hot breath across his cheek. “Drink and be warmed… as I have.” The growling grew louder.
“I, uh, I prefer phlegmatic blood, um, usually, which you know, of course, I just—“
“I doubt you could be… gentle with your preferred prey as you are now, my dear,” Phyre purred. He was a solid line of muscle at Fabien’s back, urging him forward. Fabien shivered at the feel of Phyre’s large hands sliding lower to his hips, his claws digging into the fabric of his coat. “I feel your Thirst roaring within you, my heart. It would please me greatly to see you feed.”
One of Phyre’s hands at his hips ran up to his chest, pressing Fabien further back against him. Fabien swallowed dryly as he felt Phyre’s unusually warm form along the line of his back. Be warmed, he had said. Flush with the heat of stolen blood, Phyre’s body felt almost mortal in temperature. Positively burning for a Kindred. And Fabien—dark, little, lonely Fabien—wanted to crawl inside that heat himself.
The growling was coming from Fabien.
Panting, Fabien leaned forward with his fangs primed and lanced into his prey’s waiting neck.
The blood burst scalding hot into his mouth, rivulets streaking down the sides of both his throat and his prey’s. He couldn’t remember a time he’d fed so messily, but he couldn’t get enough, spurred on by the man behind him. He felt Phyre moan into his neck from his chest pressed against the line of his back. Oh, lord, that’s—Fabien groaned low in his chest and reached back a hand to claw at Phyre’s firm thigh behind him. More, so hot, more, please, more—
Phyre arched his hips forward, grinding his hard cock into Fabien’s ass. Ah, fuck—Fabien sucked desperately at the neck in front of him and ground back against Phyre’s length. More, please—Had he the braincells to spare, he would have short-circuited at the sight of the two of them rutting in the shadowed tunnel while he fed. Want you, need you—Phyre’s grip was firm and possessive on his hip and chest, keeping him pressed tight to his body and away from touching his prey.
He was hazy and hot. He couldn’t tell how many of the hungry thoughts in his head were his own or Phyre’s. Every pull of blood sung in his veins and flooded him with a stolen warmth that spurred on his growing arousal. But there was something wrong. He didn’t want this. He wanted more.
His Beast was clawing at the inside of his head, irritated and unsatisfied. Blood to fuel him wasn’t enough, he was hungry for more than a lackluster ghoul’s vitae, he wanted more, he needed—
“Take what you need from me, my heart.”
Phyre.
With a snarl, Fabien tore his fangs from his drained prey and turned in Phyre’s arms to latch onto his partner’s waiting throat. His fangs sunk deep and, before the still-sane part of his mind could worry about how violently he struck, Phyre moaned deep and low. Fabien would die his Final Death (again) before he admitted to the squeak he let out when Phyre lifted him into his arms, crushing them together from stem to stern.
Fabien wrapped his legs around Phyre’s trim waist and growled as he rolled his hips against his toned stomach. Unseen by Fabien, Phyre’s shadow arms dragged the drained corpse deep into the void they came from—clearing the way for Phyre to step forward and press Fabien against the wall of the tunnel. His large hands travelled across Fabien’s body, with one hand digging his claws up his back under his coat and the other moving outside of the coat to grab at his ass.
He was in bliss: so hot, powerful essence flooding his mouth and filling him with dark, sweet heatthroughout his body. He can’t even remember the last time he felt any hotter than room temperature and now he swore his blood was boiling in his skin.
Finally, he managed to pull his fangs from Phyre’s throat and gasped out, “Fuuuck, you’re so good to me, doll.”
Phyre’s eyes widened slightly at the use of the petname and Fabien was tempted to take it back for all of a second—until he felt Phyre tremble in his grip and drop his forehead to Fabien’s as his second hand also found its way to Fabien’s ass and squeezed.
“Babydoll,” Fabien purred. He pressed back as close as he could, breathing the same useless air to catch all of his partner’s sweet and smokey scent before sealing his lips over the legendary Nomad’s.
Phyre snarled and thrust up against Fabien’s clothed cock. The rough rhythm got Fabien harder than he thought he could even get, flush as he was with the heat of Phyre’s intoxicating vitae—and it didn’t hurt that Phyre felt huge against him.
“Mm, my big scary babydoll,” Fabien moaned into Phyre’s mouth, biting his lip. Phyre seemed hypnotized, almost frantic, at every sugary sweet endearment. Well, if talking is what you want, talking is what you’ll get, beautiful, Fabien thought with an evil smirk. He pulled back with a wet pop. “Aren’t you so sweet for me? Big, strong sweetheart that you are.”
Shadows seemed to dance and crawl along the tunnel, cloaking them both from prying eyes, but Phyre’s bright green eyes kept burning Fabien from the inside out. He was practically panting, mouth open and fangs glinting in the slowly decreasing light.
“I wanna be so good for you, doll,” Fabien rasped out, his voice rough and low in the scant space between them.
Reaching a hand to Phyre’s face, Fabien stroked down the scar on his cheek and nuzzled his forehead against him. Moaning desperately, Phyre squeezed Fabien’s round ass and sucked on his detective’s curious tongue. Hoisting him higher, Phyre pressed his cock to Fabien’s taint through his slacks and roughly rocked up into him, jolting several gasping moans out of the slimmer Kindred.
“You are everything to me,” Phyre gasped out against Fabien’s lips. Licking into his detective’s swollen mouth once more, he reached up and brought Fabien’s hand down to his own cock straining his leather pants and ground up into his eager grip. Groaning, Phyre rolled his hips against Fabien’s palm and buried his face in his intended’s neck, breathing deep of his coffee and ink scent.
“You are my heart, my very reason for being.” Phyre scraped his fangs teasingly along Fabien’s throat, continuing his powerful thrusts. “I need you. And I am so terrified you will one day wish for me to leave.”
Fabien jolted at Phyre’s sob. He pulled back to look at his partner’s face and held tight with his legs around his waist when it seemed like Phyre might put him down. He brought both hands up to Phyre’s jaw and looked into haunted eyes. “What are you talking about, sweetheart?”
For perhaps the first time he could remember, Phyre looked away from him. Those sharp green eyes seemed… ashamed. And truly terrified. It was the fear of an animal that knew it would have to chew through its own arm to survive. And that it would.
“You did not ask to be tied to me.” Phyre huffed out a broken facsimile of a laugh. “None have wanted to be in my presence for long, with my temper, my paranoia.” Phyre finally glance back at Fabien’s worried face. “And that was before I was broken. Pieces barely put together, many of them wrong or missing or out of place… I am not a thing to love, Fabien.”
And that just broke Fabien’s immortal little heart.
“You don’t get to decide if you’re worth loving, Phyre,” Fabien said gently. “Kinda comes with the territory.” He smiled and clarified, “You know: it being ‘unconditional’ and all that jazz.”
Sobering, Fabien leaned in to press a slow searching kiss to Phyre’s mouth, his taller partner’s frowning lips seemingly unable to resist softening and molding to his own. Pulling back again to see Phyre calmer filled Fabien with that sweet, syrupy fondness again and he quickly realized he might have cracked a case he didn’t know he was solving: “I already love you, sweetheart.”
Phyre went still as stone for a single second. Then he smashed his moaning mouth into Fabien’s and anywhere he could reach.
Trailing kisses down Fabien’s jaw, he murmured in English and what Fabien assumed must be Turkish. “My dear heart, my darling, my sweet love.”
Good lord, he’s perfect, so good for me, Fabien though, dropping a hand to stroke Phyre’s cock through his painfully tight pants. He undid Phyre’s fly, understanding that Phyre wouldn’t push forward for fear of smothering Fabien—but Fabien was a betting man, and he was betting they were both more than a little unhealthily obsessed with each other. But who said Kindred romance was ‘safe’ or ‘sane’?
“I wanna make you come, sweetheart,” Fabien panted out. He tightened his grip around Phyre’s leaking cock, rocking his own hips and pressing his cock against his own. “Do you want that, baby?”
“Yes, my sweet,” Phyre whined, “anything you’ll give me. Anything you wish, it shall be yours.” He promised darkly, the edge of a growl back in his sweet moan.
“There’s my sweet babydoll,” Fabien purred. “So sweet for me, you wanna come, baby? All bloody for me, feeding me—“
“Yes, always, whenever you wish.”
“—saving me, holding me—“
“Because you are mine, none may touch you.”
“—all yours, Phyre, now and forever.“
“Fabien, I—“
“But you’re mine, too. You brought me back, you chose me.”
Phyre whimpered, gripping tightly to his dearest heart’s ass and fucking into his hand, he was so close—
“God, I bet you’ll look so pretty when you let me fuck you, babydoll.”
Hearing the words aloud and in his mind set Phyre off first, curling over Fabien and grinding him against the wall with a guttural moan, spurting thick and hot over Fabien’s hand and shirt. Still in the pulsing throws of his release, Phyre bit down on Fabien’s shoulder and groaned into his skin. The sharp jolt of hot pleasure-pain went straight to Fabien’s cock and he was right on the edge. Shuddering, he lunged up and sank his fangs back into the already-healed bitemark on Phyre’s own throat, dislodging Phyre with a hiss that quickly turned to an overwhelmed whine.
The powerful essence of Phyre—calm and dependable and angry and longing and hungry for him only him—flooded Fabien’s mouth and mind until he caught a thought. “Were we not in a public park, I would ride you until the break of dawn.”
Fabien grunted as he spilled over Phyre’s abdomen. Phyre held him heartbreakingly close as he recovered, as if afraid he’d leave after everything they’d said. Fabien finally pulled back from Phyre’s throat and lowered his feet to the ground, though he stayed pressed tight to Phyre’s front. He licked his lips clean and his cock gave another weak pulse at Phyre’s hot narrowed look. God, he wanted to kiss him—oh, right!
Phyre blinked when Fabien pulled him into his arms and kissed him again, but he quickly got with the program and kissed back fiercely. For a while, the world narrowed to just the two of them, and they were enough.
But even the afterglow couldn’t fully distract the Prince of Seattle from a mystery.
So Phyre purred into Fabien’s mouth, “Now, my dear Fabien, would you mind telling me what exactly you were searching for in this deserted park?”
Fabien blinked, still dazed from the rather thorough tongue-fucking Phyre had been giving him. Damn, I probably should have expected an interrogation. Phyre is definitely the most thorough boss I’ve ever had—in more ways than one, heh.
“I thought I could handle a little classic gumshoe work on my own,” Fabien finally said, shivering at the feel of Phyre’s rough palm slipping his cock back into his slacks and zipping them closed.
“And so you did,” Phyre affirmed with no small measure of pride, putting himself away. “You quite capably handled the situation before my arrival. I doubt I was necessary but I am pleased you were not harmed.”
“Suuuure,” Fabien snickered, rolling his eyes. “And just how many ne’er-do-wells did you take out on your way over here, doll?”
“No more than twenty. They were clearly without their leader and were not terribly skilled to begin with. It was no trouble.”
“My hero,” Fabien leaned in and purred. He watched Phyre’s eyelids droop as if intoxicated by the closeness. How he could have missed this obvious enjoyment of his presence was a case Fabien knew would have to go cold. He raised a hand to Phyre’s hip (he could do that now, that was allowed!) and reeled his tall form closer to better watch his narrow pupils widen. The newly familiar hum of a purr echoed in his partner’s chest, soothing him further from the hot flush of their earlier excitement.
And then Phyre’s cell rang.
Fabien jolted at the shrill tone of some kind of pop band ringing out in the tunnel. Phyre just heaved a (wholly unnecessary) put-upon sigh and removed the phone from a pocket within the inner lining of his leather jacket. Squinting at the screen, he blinked and affected his usual stoic scowl and swiped to accept the call. The (apparently) video call.
“Tolly.”
“You got that right, honeybuns. Just checking in to see if you handled that little gathering down at the park. I’m hearing it wasn’t Gangrel at all, but that’s all I’m hearing and no news is definitely not good news.”
Fabien, hidden behind the phone, started putting himself back into presentable form. He lamented the loss of a good collared shirt—blood and bullet hole aside, he really didn’t think he had the skills to sew up the claw marks Phyre had made along the sides. The shirt was no better than rags at this point, but his trench coat was another matter. Might be I just need some good old lemon juice and soda to get these out, he thought, glaring at the bloody smears across the front and sides. He looked like he lost a fight with a particularly melted gummy bear, what with the hand-shaped ruby splotches.
He turned to gather up his hat from the ground and heard a choked sound behind him. Straightening up and tapping the dirt from his trilby, he tuned back into the conversation to hear Tolly go, “Oooo, what’s got you looking so flustered?”
“Nothing,” Phyre said rather curt. “We have handled them. They will not trouble us again.” If his voice sounded strangled, it was probably only his imagination.
“Mmhmmmm,” came Tolly’s disbelieving hum. “And by ‘handled’ you mean—“
“They are dead, Tolly.”
“Alright, alright, no need to get your panties in a twist. I’ll mark this one down as ‘a couple rowdy casualties’ and leave it at that. Enjoy your walk with the Sheriff, Phyre!” Tolly’s smug smile could be heard as he hung up even if Fabien wasn’t looking right at him to see it. Oh, he definitely knows…, Fabien sighed internally.
Placing the phone back into its pocket, Phyre looked over at Fabien and frowned. “You are alright?”
Fabien was gonna sound like a broken record at this point, but he really was so in love with him. He smiled fondly. “I should be the one asking you that, doll. I was hanging off your neck for a good long while.”
Phyre let a small smile peak through his worried face. “I have more than enough vitae to spare, courtesy of our unwelcome guests. Have you fully healed?”
Fabien nodded and licked his lips just to see Phyre’s eyes lock on to his mouth with a hungry laser focus. “Sure did! You’re a better pick-me-up than all the coffee my mortal self could drink.” Feeling daring, Fabien sidled up close to the larger Kindred and brought his hand up to his own mouth to press down lightly on his lower lip. “You’re sweet, too, Partner,” He lower his eyelids to look up through his lashes for the final blow. “Or do you prefer ‘babydoll’?”
He was against the wall again in an instant, Phyre’s speed unseen to both mortal and Kindred eyes. Fabien wrapped his arms around Phyre’s neck again as his partner attacked his mouth with singular focus, tongue sliding against his own and his fangs as if mapping out his new territory. “Mm, you spoil me, sweetheart,” Fabien gasped (like he even needed the air!), “but we should take this home before that big fireball puts a permanent damper on our fun.”
Phyre dragged him back into another kiss, and then another, his hands stroking up and down Fabien’s back before settling back on his ass through his coat and squeezing. Fabien groaned at the tease and Phyre backed off just far enough to whisper between them, “You will need to remove your coat, my sweet.”
Fabien chuckled. “And why’s that, doll?”
“You have my handprints on your ass.”
Fabien froze. Then he gaped at Phyre, whose mouth curved into an evil smirk.
“I’m gonna be the first Sheriff to apply for divorce from his Prince,” Fabien said blankly. “This is a tragedy. A goddamn tragedy.” He could feel the tremors of Phyre trying to hold back laughter. “This is my favorite coat, Phyre, I really can’t exaggerate how devastated I am. This coat is older than me!”
Phyre finally lost the battle and started heaving with laughter. Fabien stared fondly with a smile on his face. “Guess I didn’t need to come out here to find something you’d laugh at after all.”
The laughter died out when Phyre locked eyes with Fabien, something like awe in his face. “You came looking here,” he started, falteringly, “to make me laugh?”
Fabien was once again glad his vitae had cooled enough to no longer let him blush. “Well, it sounds a little crazy when you say it like that, doll.” At Phyre’s continued stare, Fabien fidgeted in his arms and finally looked down at his throat where he’d made his bite. Bolstered, he forged on. “I just love to see you smile. You deserve it. And you’re so beautiful when you’re smiling.”
Phyre’s awe melted into bone-deep love and affection as Fabien stumbled over his words. “Well, uh, that’s not to say, of course, that you’re ugly when you don’t smile—which you’re not! You’re always beautiful, and funny, and you listen to me, and you make that cute face when you learn something new, and—“
Fabien was glad Phyre shut him up with another harsh kiss, tongue lapping up the blood he drew with fully distended fangs with a purr. Honestly, if this is how Phyre wanted to keep him quiet, he certainly wasn’t complaining.