Notes: Okay, so, this is the 'Competent San'layn Consort Lor'themar AU', which started because I really wanted a Vampire AU, and lo, the San'layn are actual canon-compliant vampires. The idea that I started with was 'Rommath is the Blood Queen and Lor'themar is the Blood Consort who hangs out on a chaise lounge in a sheer nighty and destroys all of Rommath's plans with logic and a superior knowledge of tactical logistics while examining his nails as Rommath screams in the background', as usual it went downhill from there. This ended up way dark.
He knew when he saw Kael'thas fall that they were lost. Rommath fought on out of form, trying to salvage as many of their forces as possible, but he knew. Watching Vashj drag Illidan Stormrage's fallen form through a portal with no regard to any of her allies only twisted the blade. He had known.
That they should fight so hard and struggle through the Outland and against the Burning Legion only to lose themselves and their Prince here, at the feet of the very author of their plight, was too much to bear.
When the rage came to him, he let it sweep him away.
Waking was like being drawn up from the bottom of a well. He felt cold, and as though everything around him was echoing with some strange distortion.
The first thing he was truly aware of was the presence, the thread linking him to something else, something greater. Gently Rommath traced the thread, something was wrong with him, he couldn't focus, but he knew the thread was important.
He opened his eyes and his worst fears seemed like a fine mist fading into something even more awful than he could have fathomed. Arthas looked down at him with a kind of proprietary satisfaction, Kel'thuzad hovering behind his master. Rommath looked onto Arthas' dimly glowing eyes and knew what the thread was.
Arthas smiled, if it could be called that.
His life within the Scourge is strange. The force that his King had seen fit to bless with undeath is small, only the most powerful of Kael'thas' former lieutenants, and Rommath had been given charge of it. The are the San'layn now, the Darkfallen, the first and foremost of their King's servants, riding out with him in his conquest.
They call him the Blood Lord now, his temper known throughout the ranks of the Scourge. He can distantly remember a time when it hadn't been so bad, when he had possessed a greater spectrum of emotions than being either dead calm or in a screaming rage.
The thread smothers everything though, his King binding him ever closer to his will. Sometimes, when he has a few moments he likes to marvel at it, that he can be left capable of independent thought and action in his King's service while having his will be so thoroughly warped.
Spies from the Cult of the Damned had reported failing morale in Quel'Thalas. The death of Prince Kael'thas eroding the last hopes of the people that they would find a way out of their plight. Their Regent had worked miracles keeping the state together, but slowly even his abilities were outpaced by the growing despair.
Rommath rode in at his King's side, deep within him he could feel grief at seeing a place he had once loved so dearly so destroyed, but the deep apathy he had fallen into as he settled into his unlife overwhelmed it.
From the first time he had held a struggling human close as he drained them of their blood to maintain his own mockery of an existence he had known he was lost so far in the darkness he would never find his way out. He wasn't sure if he even wanted to anymore.
The Scourge's second march through Quel'Thalas was even shorter and more brutal than the first.
The Regent knew his people stood no chance and used guerrilla tactics to stall them in hopes of evacuating the city. His King seemed to admire what Rommath could only think of as death throes, and when the Regent was dragged before him, his King paused to consider him.
Rommath could vaguely remember Lor'themar Theron. Kael'thas had spoken well of him, he recalled. And he had a certain presence, solid and warm, the ranger was touched with a unique lightness.
Rommath saw him on his knees in the bloody ruins of Silvermoon and he wanted. Desire as he hadn't felt in an age flooded his veins. His King must have felt it because he spared him a glance before returning to his consideration of Lor'themar, who remained dignified even now.
The world seemed to snap back into color, the listlessness of his former unlife sliding away, the apathy parting like curtains to reveal vitality and drive once more.
Rommath had one thought to beseech his King with.
I want him
Lor'themar's turning was ungainly, even with Rommath nursing him through personally. He was delirious at first, death destroying what bound him to the world and his King's gift drawing him back slowly, but he soon improved. It was difficult for Rommath to try and understand what it was that had drawn him so strongly to Lor'themar, sitting at his bedside and coaxing him into drinking Rommath's own blood as he slowly muddled his way back to awareness.
He conceded that Lor'themar was attractive, physically and spiritually, his ice-white hair and rugged bearing complimented so well by the calm aura that even undeath had so far been unable to deprive him of. But beyond that Rommath was at a loss to why he reacted so strongly to the other man.
Everything was distant, Lor'themar carefully stretched out his awareness, searching for the trees and earth of Quel'Thalas, only to find a void where they should be. If he didn't know better he would say it was cold where he was, but it felt as though the world was behind a silk screen, soft and intangible.
He truly roused to wakefulness when he realized he couldn't hear his heartbeat, the sudden panic it brought pushing him from whatever merciful twilight he had been floating in. He opened his eyes and tried to move, but his body seemed to not want to respond.
"Stay still," a voice commanded, but Lor'themar couldn't help but try and move, his memories were hazy, but he knew something had happened, something awful. He finally managed to focus on the owner of the voice, and all the horror rushed back, a glass was held to his lips, "Drink."
He was helpless to resist the command in that tone and parted his lips, choking on the blood that poured down his throat.
At first, Rommath almost regretted taking Lor'themar for himself. If he'd thought the other's transition into undeath had been difficult it was only because he hadn't experienced his adjustment to it. He could attribute Lor'themar's weakened state to his unique circumstances—unlike Rommath who had died and then risen—he had been brought from life into undeath by Romamth's power and his King's blessing.
Despite his weakness, however, it seemed Lor'themar was intent on being as difficult as possible. Rommath understood his anger—in a detached way—but it was still frustrating, to have Lor'themar turn his face away from him, to refuse to acknowledge his presence; small rebellions he was capable of while confined to what Rommath thought of as his 'death bed'.
What made it truly sting though were the fleeting moments when he saw a glimpse of what might be. When Lor'themar slept peacefully, hair spread over the pillows of the bed Rommath only kept out of unshaken habit. When Rommath caught him unguarded with some small comment and Lor'themar replied. When Rommath forced Lor'themar into feeding—biting his wrist and offering up his own blood, holding Lor'themar's jaw—until the taste of blood and the hunger took him and he sealed his mouth over Rommath's wound and teased at it with his tongue, drawing out as much blood as he could before Rommath drew away. And after, when Lor'themar lay there, stunned, hunger sated, his lips painted red by the blood. My blood, Rommath thought, savoring every scrap of a second he had of the time before disgust—at Rommath and at himself—crept back into his eye and he turned away again.
It was pathetic that he should pine like this, and when he went to regain the blood he had given he tore the hapless mortal to pieces.
Slowly Lor'themar regained his strength, and even more slowly he warmed to Rommath. As soon as he was able to walk, even if Rommath needed to support him, the first thing he did was get Lor'themar to a bath. Icecrown may have been cold, but weeks of convalescence had taken their toll on his hygene. They had a tenuous peace now, Rommath's temper and Lor'themar's stubbornness having sparked what was perhaps the most terrible shouting match the world had ever seen, but it was still tense between them.
The bath was a trial of its own, Lor'themar's energy slowly waning as he attempted to scour himself clean, the long minutes he sat there, glaring daggers at his own hands before he had swallowed his pride and anger and asked Rommath for help washing his hair. It was a victory for Rommath, his hands careful in that mass of pale hair, then combing it and braiding it and helping Lor'themar out of the bath and back to bed. The whole ordeal was a test of Rommath's restraint, even in the darkest days of his turning, when he had looked like death warmed over, Lor'themar had been attractive, but fresh from the bath and exhausted he was nearly impossible to resist.
All of his patience was rewarded when instead of turning way Lor'themar looked at him quietly for a long while before finally saying, "Thank you."
It was like a tipping point, and after that things slowly came to a head. Rommath worked as he always had, but now Lor'themar was awake to observe him, first sprawled in the bed and then moving to the low couch that Rommath assumed some well-meaning idiot of a decorator had put there and that he had always meant to have removed. Lor'themar had claimed it, however, and would spend days there with him as he worked; idly reading whatever books Rommath could procure for him or propping a hand under his chin and watching whatever he did in silence. It wasn't the resentful silence of before, however, merely curious and reserved. To Rommath it was like a balm, after months of struggles and being ignored and shouted at by turns, depending on how tired Lor'themar was.
At times Lor'themar's new-found docility irritated him, he had expected more fighting, he had expected conquest, but catching the other man staring down at one of his hands—claws grown to talons from lack of trimming, calluses faded from lack of use—with such resignation that Rommath couldn't fault him for wanting peace.
So they carried on: Rommath sent his underlings for new clothes and other things that it occurred to him Lor'themar might like, Lor'themar slowly accepted and began to wear them; Rommath muttered under his breath and worked constantly, Lor'themar quietly chimed in now and again with such brilliant solutions to his problems that Rommath was reminded of what he had once been, before. Quiet solutions became conversations, resignation and possessiveness slowly became genuine affection.
Theirs was a nightmare courtship gone horribly right.
Final possession was this: Rommath caught a pitifully low-ranking cultist sneaking around his wing in the Halls of Blood—the poor stupid creature still living—and dragged them back to his rooms to kill, or eat, or torment. Whichever seemed the most appealing when his temper wore down. Maybe they were a spy sent by whatever group of plate-wearing light-bulbs had come up in opposition of his King, maybe they were just unlucky, but by the time he got back to his rooms he had decided on feeding.
Pushing them so forcefully through the door that they stumbled, Rommath caught the cultist by the hair, wrenching their head back and attaching himself to their jugular. The reverie of hunger was interrupted by a soft intake of breath, and Rommath looked up to see Lor'themar; mouth slightly parted and dainty fangs bared, gaze fixed on the shaking cultist. It occurred to Rommath that in all this time, Lor'themar had only known his blood. He felt a sense of pride in that, but knew that past his own ego it was time for Lor'themar to taste fresh blood.
He dragged the cultist over to him, Lor'themar sitting up slowly, hunger and the last flickers of denial warring in his face. When the cultist was on their knees before him and Rommath had twisted their head back, baring the throat easily and offering it to Lor'themar, hunger won. It shouldn't have been so satisfying to watch as Lor'themar gingerly bent his head, lightly running his mouth over the soft flesh and easily found veins before savagely sinking his fangs in, but Rommath savored the moment; reaching out to run a hand through Lor'themar's hair as he drank.
Afterwards, when the cultist had taken a last few gasping breaths on the floor, Lor'themar turned to him; sloe-eyed and lips red with blood, the hunger sated for now. They spent a time staring at each other, things passing unspoken but understood between them, before finally, finally, Rommath slid his hand from Lor'themar's hair to his chin, and tilted his head just so, and leaned in and kissed him.
Their first kiss tasted of blood; Rommath thought it was fitting, and if Lor'themar minded he didn't say.