Title: Strange Beasts
Pairing: Falcar/Ungolim
Why: Because I chose Falcar for the challenge and WingedFerret assigned me Ungolim to sex him up with. xD And because I can rarely resist a challenge.

Falcar sighed and watched from the shadows of an overhanging building as the crazed new Mages' Guild associate prodded the corpse of the Bosmer she'd just killed. His crazed new associate, he was chagrined to remember. If there was anyone better left without magic in a cavern full of ogres, it was her. Unfortunately, there simply wasn't any real quality control in the guild these days and he'd already gotten the proverbial slap on the wrist from that idiot Traven from turning potential recruits away. We need all the fresh, young minds we can find now in our dark hour.

Had the man's utter stupidity not been so nauseating, Falcar would have laughed.

He missed the old days, when they'd had a proper mage in charge of the guild. Ocato certainly hadn't been perfect—very few people besides him were—but at least he'd known how to levitate. The idiot children running the guild these days could hardly string a sentence together, let alone cast so much as a passable spell.

Falcar leaned back and cast his chameleon spell again, watching as the associate found something in the Bosmer's pockets that made her face go white. Probably, he thought bitterly, as another man in black appeared and dragged her off into the underbrush, she'd found something with writing and had made the brave, yet stupid attempt to read.

And the worst thing was—it was the fresh, young minds like her that would end up in charge of the guild. To hell with anyone who'd survived a Telvanni argument or could cure corpus with three fourths of a ghoul heart, week old scrib jelly and a leaky alembic. No, it was the barely literate, unintelligible savages who would inherit Tamriel and if there was one thing Falcar could not tolerate, it was an idiot.

He sighed again and sized up the corpse half propped to sitting against the base of the Lucky Old Lady. Lucky Old Lady indeed. It was pure luck that found him here with a fresh, as-of-yet unnoticed corpse lying like a present at his feet. The crazed new associate still rampaging around nearby was something of a problem, of course, but nothing he couldn't handle. He wouldn't even need to foul up the well—there was a river within throwing distance.

A Bosmer though… Bosmers were notoriously strange beasts. Especially after reanimation. He'd had a female once—when the workshop in Quickwater had still been up and running—and he'd spent more time prying her down from the ceiling than he ever had getting actual work done. Still, this Bosmer was in exceptional condition. The one stab wound Falcar could see from here could be stitched up in less than a minute and heads were remarkably easy to reattach. And, what with corpses so sparse these days and places to reanimate them without Traven's idiot spies lingering about just waiting to slur out all the wrong questions, beggars, so the saying went, couldn't be choosers.

*

Ungolim woke with a splitting headache and the distinct sensation that if he were to turn his head at all, it'd likely fall off. Odd, seeing as how he hadn't had mazte since the Gray Prince had won the championship and he'd somehow ended up in bed with Lucien after a stunningly bad series of judgments led to a worse bet on a mudcrab race. But so far as he could tell, he was staring up at the basement rafters of Silver-Home-On-The-Water and while he may have been the sort to drink on occasion, the entire goddamned guild was falling down around his ears and who knew where Lucien's idiot Silencer would strike ne—

Oh. Well. There were worse things.

It certainly wouldn't be the first time he'd woken up in bed with a Necromancer. Although it was the first time the Necromancer was an Altmer…

And male.

Glowering, Ungolim pushed himself up on one elbow and growled with all the freezing hatred of the void, "Just what do you hope to accomplish resurrecting me?"

Unfortunately, said elbow was still very broken and his vocal cords, having been recently severed, were not all in working order. And so, rather than striking fear into the heart of the man who had dared wrench him from his rightful place at Sithis' side, Ungolim sat up, flopped over and bellowed a cave troll in heat.

No doubt, had he actually been a cave troll in heat, it would have been terrifying.

"Do try to keep from further damaging yourself," the Altmer drawled, turning to regard him with an arched, graying brow. "I'm sure it shouldn't prove too difficult. Even for someone of your no doubt stunning mental capacity."

Sweet mother of Sithis, had all of Cheydinhal decided to swarm Bravil? Hell, the only reason he stayed here at all was because it wasn't Cheydinhal. Even the stinking swamp was better than tolerating those stuck-up, ale-swilling idiots with their indecipherable accents. But now, not only did Lucien and his damn Silencer come rampaging down after him, even the fetching corpse-licker from the Mages' Guild was here.

Night Mother dancing naked, why did this sort of thing always happen to him?

"Coming from a man who spends his time fishing his own guild out of the well?" Ungolim growled—pleasingly threatening this time—and pushed himself up with his good arm. He had, until a moment ago, been prepared to let the Necromancer leave unscathed.

Falcar only laughed in a low, infuriating way Ungolim knew he spent hours in front of a mirror perfecting and set down whatever it was he'd been working on, turning to fix the Bosmer with his smug, undivided attention.

"I'm surprised. You almost managed to string an intelligent sentence together. Truly, the gods must be smiling down on us today."

Frustrated, nauseous and pretty damn certain his head hadn't been sewn on right, Ungolim grit his teeth and scanned the room for weaponry. His own were nowhere to be found, his magicka was so low as to be useless (even had a harried, stitched up Bosmer limping out of the basement after a loud boom not been cause enough for suspicion), and the only weapon he had readily at hand was a letter opener.

Brilliant. Already his day was looking brighter. As if meeting Lucien's Silencer hadn't been enough of a treat.

Ungolim smiled, showing too many teeth—a few of which had been filed into points—and slipped the letter opener from the table.

"Why don't you ask them?" he purred and started across the room. "Here, I'll help."

Falcar only arched an eyebrow, flicked a lazy spell in his direction and watched as the Bosmer hit the floor.

Fuck, Ungolim thought, finding himself staring up at the ceiling again. That could have gone better.

And then, rather unfortunately, passed out.

*

Ungolim woke again, hours later with a feeling akin to swimming through sand and the distinct impression Falcar had not expected this. Slowly, he opened his eyes, scanned the room and found it empty. No sign of life, no flicker of a chameleoned watcher in the corner—not even the sound of breathing. So far as he knew, the door above was locked. Probably trapped—fetching corpse-licker—and even if he'd had a lockpick on him, he had a far better end for their… association in mind.

Smirking, Ungolim rose and crossed the room, lifting his weaponry from the pile of blood soaked clothes in the corner. He armed himself first, strapping on his hidden weapons—most of them blessedly unnoticed still in the folds of his cloak and clothing—before he dressed. His arrows were gone, probably still sticking out of Lucien's idiot, but if it worst came to worst, he could garrote that slimy, fetching, smirking bastard with his bow string.

First though, he had potions to make.

*

In hindsight, Falcar realized he probably should have made sure the Bosmer was thoroughly drugged before slipping off for more bloodgrass. He'd known damn well the Bravil chapter of the Mages' Guild was almost as bad as Bruma and that it'd be years before the idiots there could scrounge up what he wanted. Apparently it'd taken just long enough for his pet project to get up and mix a few potions of his own.

The Bosmer was staring at him with a positively feral grin, looking as hale and whole as Bosmers ever did, (there was something inherently wrong with most of them, in his opinion) a long knife and a spell sitting pretty in the palm of his hand.

Slowly, Falcar smiled, readying a spell of his own behind his back.

"I applaud your tenacity," he said, easing around the mer in a wide circle until his back was to the open room. "Perhaps you're not as stupid as I thought."

Ungolim laughed, muscles loose and easy at the promise of a fight. It'd been far too long since he'd spilled blood.

"You think?" he asked. "I'm surprised. I would have believed anyone capable of thought would have stopped short of dragging home a member of the Dark Brotherhood. That sort of stupidity tends to be unfortunately… terminal."

Falcar grinned.

"What can I say?" he drawled. "I enjoy the challenge."

And with that, he loosed a whirlwind through the room.

*

A perpetual whirlwind howled through the room, shaking Silver-Home-on-the-Water on its foundation as fire and ice and poisoned bolts of things better left unnamed seared into the walls, each mer working steadily through his repertoire of spells. Dremora and Orgim had fallen at the hands of Falcar's Xilivai, torn apart in turn by a series of incredibly Bosmeri, expletive-laced explosions. Lightning split the room again and again, a beam above them catching fire the second before a wayward spell of Ungolim's somehow turned it into a tree.

Magic reserves drained away, taking with them the last fragments of control. Xilivai gave way to bonewalkers, hungers, half forgotten spells learned in Morrowind. Ungolim abandoned summoning altogether, tearing the head from a zombie with his bare hands before hefting the corpse like a club.

Falcar slammed into the far wall at the force of the blow, grunting in pain. Chest heaving, he summoned a dagger—tried to summon the whole damn armor but ended up with only the knife—and launched himself with half a spell across the room. Ungolim met him halfway, an Ayleidic blade of his own spinning through his fingers and together they careened through the room—spitting curses and threats, tearing at anything they laid their hands to. And somehow, through the furious, seething mass of burning hate and magic, their lips crashed together.

It wasn't a kiss, as such. But it was tongues and teeth and furious, damning passion. And Ungolim had a letter opener pressed to Falcar's throat, but the mer had his wrist and a knife at his crotch and somehow the bed was quite a bit closer than it had been the moment before. Falcar was only dimly away of the sound of fabric ripping—so much of it had ripped already—but he could feel clever fingers wrenching at the ties of his breeches and fuck if whatever the hell this was wasn't going too damn slow. He threw the smaller mer off and onto the bed—missed the bed entirely and found the floor instead, a fist in his face and a black eye for his trouble. Ungolim straddled him, hate and lust and need burning like a beacon in his eyes. Somehow their lips met again—kissing-not-kissing, teeth battering together and someone was bleeding but neither was sure who, both of them too caught up in winning the kiss, the fight, the fuck—in avoiding the broken pottery scattered along the floor and the knives still very close at hand.

Falcar groaned, his head colliding with the floor, Ungolim looming over him, one hand tucked neatly down his breeches, stroking with no small threat, grinning with those too-sharp teeth like he'd fetching won. And it was perfect and violent and deadly and wrong—so blessedly, horribly wrong—and Falcar grit his teeth against a cry, arched up and into the Bosmer above him, vision going white, an ocean roaring in his ears. Ungolim chuckled darkly above him, spat blood into the detritus on the floor and opened his mouth to speak.

Falcar slammed an elbow into his jaw before he could, momentum reversing their positions and Ungolim's jaw out of place.

"Damnit," the Altmer muttered darkly. "I just fixed that."

Ungolim growled, wrenching his jaw right with a snarl and something like a muffled threat, a knife appearing in his hand. Falcar sprung away before he could act, forcing his whirlwind into action again with the last remnants of his magic. He spun then, caught Ungolim from behind and pressed the mer's own knife against the flesh of his neck. Ungolim half turned in his grip, managed somehow to land a stinging blow to the kidneys even despite his position and Falcar grinned through the pain, catching sight of the erection still straining at the ties to the Bosmer's pants.

"Not as impassive as you'd like to think, eh?" he gasped and launched forward, slamming the man back and into the wall and suddenly there were lips on his own, one muscled arm locked around his neck, pulling him down and Falcar sliced through the leather ties and dropped the knife without meaning too, eager to return the favor, pain and pleasure winding through the spells dancing like light on his skin.

Ungolim groaned muffled into his mouth—something that might have been a curse, might have been his name—and came, back like a board against the wall, but shaking. Falcar pulled away from him, from the kiss and the fight and the fire now licking at the other mer's hands, and grinned, opened his mouth to say, "You mean to tell me you represent the Dark Brotherhood?" and got a fist in the jaw instead. He hit the ground with a resounding thud, conscious enough to recognize the feel of a really good paralysis spell working through his veins and despite it all, couldn't help but find himself impressed.

Above him, Ungolim chuckled, obviously winded and tucked himself away.

"Fetching corpse-licker," he growled, but there was something close to laughter in his voice. "I'll let you live this time. But only because I've actual business to attend to. See that you don't make a nuisance of yourself again."

Falcar smirked, managed somehow to make his paralysis look comfortable, and watched as the very important Dark Brotherhood assassin collected his things—and a few that weren't—and stormed from the room, a handprint charred onto the seat of his pants.

That, if nothing else, made the whole night worth it.