Valentine's Day. The only day of the year I can upload something this fluffy...
So yes, major fluff ahead. This pairing needs more of that. Hope you enjoy!
Scapegrace wakes to a low, keening whimper.
He is immediately angry. He likes to sleep, damn it. Years of merciful slumber had been stolen from him in the Dark Years, and he doesn't want any interruptions keeping him from it now.
Vaurien pulls a pillow over his flame red hair, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to pretend he doesn't know exactly where the quiet crying was coming from. It's soft and muffled, a familiar sound coming vaguely from the side of the bed. The Dark Years- that time he was cursed to be the living undead- was filled with the noise, even though there were no tears to accompany it, then. That had to do with the lack of tear ducts.
The mage sighs loudly underneath the pillow, and resurfaces from the blankets like a kraken, raising himself into a sitting position. His blankets fall around his bony knees, clothed in striped pajama pants. He rubs at his eyes, pushing his hand back through his thinning hair, which spikes up. Once he is half way awake, he leans to the side of the bed that the crying came from.
"S'wrong, idiot," he mutters, glancing at the man resting against the bed's side with half lidded eyes.
But the other man doesn't reply, sitting with his knees together and arms wrapped tightly around them. Thrasher just shakes like a drowned dog. Like he always does when he's scared.
Vaurien Scapegrace peers around their shabby apartment, looking for a hidden monster, whatever spooked him. He even tries to distinct if there's even any thunder in the distance.
Nothing.
Mystified and curious, Scapegrace lightly kicks the other man in the head to get his attention, now that he knows words won't work. (He has to be a bit more… gentle, now that he can actually feel pain again.) Thrasher starts, turning to face him.
He has tears in his eyes, and they widen as he looks at the several hundred-year-old sorcerer on the bed, now wrapped in blankets. One is over his head like a strange robe, and he crosses his legs, looking very cross.
"I didn't know you were awake," Thrasher says quietly, looking up with his forehead crumpled.
"Course I am. I can never sleep when you're crying like that." He wipes the sleep from his eyes and squints, trying to see him more clearly.
Thrasher wipes at his own eyes and says nothing.
"Speak," Scapegrace says.
He says nothing. Thrasher just stares, an empty look on his face, straight ahead, at their thin, cracked wall.
Over the next fifteen minutes, Scapegrace tries intimidation, threats, pokes, bribes, but the former zombie remains unusually silent. It's funny, how he gets scared so easily, seeing as he was a bit of a monster himself just a few years ago.
He gives up and settles next to him, sliding off the bed with no elegance. Actually, he gets his leg caught in a blanket and nearly smashes into Thrasher, but manages to catch himself just in time, breathing deeply. Thrasher doesn't stir, which is extremely unusual for him. Scapegrace can't sleep now, of course, because now he is- god damn it- scared now, because he's scared.
His infection's been replaced by one that's much more dangerous. And infuriating. He hates caring this much, he really does.
"Was it a nightmare?" He asks softly, finally safely on the threadbare carpet.
The light haired brunette shakes his head softly. "Not… exactly."
He is too damn tired to figure out what that means. He guesses again. "A memory?"
Thrasher nods.
For a man who only saw scares in horror movies before they met, he could understand it haunting him. Things from the War never left Vaurien, after all.
And Thrasher seemed the type to cower at horror movies.
"Well," Scapegrace sighs. "You're here now, in this dirt cheap apartment with thin walls and no air conditioning and loud neighbors and..."
"And you."
"And me, which is the only good part. So you better damn appreciate it." His partner gives a small nod, and then sighs once himself.
Thrasher nuzzles into his shoulder, breaths warm and safe against his skin. Scapegreace turns, kisses his imperfect- but alive, so alive- cheek once, softly.
"I love you," Thrashers whispers.
"…Love you too," Scapegrace mutters quietly, going red in the dark. Damn, damn, damn, what has he done to him?
He falls asleep with his back against the bed, Thrasher sleeping beside him. His night's sleep is ruined and his back aches the next day, but he supposes it's worth it, in the end. It was his job, after all, to keep his minion safe.