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A/N: This fic is part of the Driving Circles Around Me arc, which you can find more about in my profile.

Takes place toward the end of the series, after Folken defects.

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As Long As We're Going Down

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Harsh breaths. Burning skin. Racing blood. Lips along the line of her neck. A hand along her thigh, angling her leg just so, and—

She bucked, back arching, fingers fisting in the sheets, teeth biting down hard on her lip in an attempt to muffle the scream that wanted to rip out of her throat. It didn't quite work, and a sound skittered out of her, like a stone skipping across water. Something that might have once been a laugh found her ear, short and satisfied, and she would have cursed the man on top of her had her mind been capable of actually forming words.

Folken Lacour de Fanel. Former prince of Fanelia. Current defector from Zaibach.

Oh, what would Millerna say if she were to see her now? With her head thrown back in passion, and her hair a chaotic mess behind her, and a traitor pressed between her legs. How would she ever hope to claim the moral high-ground again? Her sister barely paid attention to her lectures as it was, and if she were to somehow learn about this, she'd start ignoring them completely. That thought, alone, should have been enough to put a stop to such wanton behavior, but she simply couldn't, not yet, not when he…oh…

She was so used to seeing him as a member of Zaibach's military—his uniform that of an officer, modified to accommodate his artificial arm—that it was easy to forget he was really more of a scientist than a soldier, at heart. Accustomed to experimenting and extrapolating and adapting, until he reaped the results he wanted.

And what he wanted…

Ragged gasps; slick sweat; the scrape of teeth against her earlobe; a researched, practiced, perfected flick of his hips—and, oh gods, it was a good thing that arm of his was mechanical, because she probably would have broken skin and drawn blood, her hand clutched at his shoulder so hard.

An amused breath. The slightest smirk against her skin. Eries scowled.

"You're enjoying this," she accused, the unevenness of her tone belying the scorn in her words.

His breath was hot and heavy in her ear. His voice, dark and deep. "I won't deny it."

"I knew you had a cruel streak to you."

A twist of fingers, intimate and admonishing. She yelped immodestly. "Then what does that make you, to make such an allegation?"

He'd always been able to match her, tit for tat, ever since they'd first met as adults in the aftermath of Castelo. She hated it just as much as she loved it, because it was rare that she found someone she could verbally spar with, but it was infuriating that he could manage to keep his voice so level in the midst of such exertion.

Despite the accusation, she suspected it wasn't just sadism. Suspected the real reason behind his behavior in the bedroom was because it gave him some sense of control—in the face of being a pawn for so long, in the face of being a slave to destiny as he still was—to make her lose her carefully crafted composure. There was an urgency to his movements—a hunger that went beyond mere lust. A desperation in his hands, on his tongue. She caught him sometimes, with his eyes clamped shut and his brows knitted tightly together, as if he was trying to shut out the world, itself. Trying to shut out everything but the feel of her skin and the sound of her voice, high-pitched and breathless and unrecognizable to her own ears as it was.

And as for her own reasons behind their current activity… Well…

She was tired. So tired.

Of keeping up appearances. Of the responsibilities that came with her position. It helped, having Dryden officially in line for the throne, because at least she no longer had to play regent to a restless, reactive public—but her father was still ill, and her sister was still infatuated with a man she couldn't have, and the world was still crumbling down around her. She was tired, and worried, and wanted, just for a moment, to be able to drop her mask. Wanted to be weak and vulnerable and vital.

It wasn't love. They both knew that. But it was living. With an intensity the both of them had almost forgot existed.

His lips found hers. His hand found her hip. And his fingers… She writhed helplessly beneath him, her moans swallowed by his mouth, her own hands scrabbling madly for some purchase on his arms, shoulders, back. Somehow, her fingers found the nape of his neck, and she held him there, willing him to not break away just yet. He was so close, so real, and she needed… She needed…

Sometimes, when his tongue was against hers like this, like they were genuine lovers, with all the romantic context the word implied, she thought about how he had once been intended to be Marlene's husband, as if that might shake some sense into her and give her the strength to walk away from all of this. But those memories seemed so far away, so disconnected from her current state of being. Like they belonged to another person entirely. That Eries Aston had had an elder sister, and a mother, and duty had been a distant, nebulous thing—something reserved for kings and knights and noblemen, not little girls of eleven, princesses though they may have been. And she couldn't… She simply couldn't…

Perhaps it was fate, as well, that had brought them to this. That had broken down her painfully perfect barriers and allowed him access. Ever since meeting again as adults, there had been an electricity between their every interaction—even when he'd still been working for Zaibach, all aloof and intimidating—and she would have been lying if she said she hadn't been drawn to him, just a little. She'd seen something of herself in him, and it had both frightened and fascinated her. Had seen her ghost reflected in his, and had wondered if, maybe together, they might resurrect a part of themselves.

What was it the girl from the Mystic Moon had called Van, upon learning of his Draconian heritage? An 'angel.' Harbingers of light and glory, she had explained.

Saviors.

A pressure was building in her, ebbing and flowing, growing stronger with each wave, and she couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe— She wrenched her mouth away from his, gasping wildly, and it was too hot, and too much, and not enough, not nearly enough—and she grabbed for his hips, and his breathing faltered, and her nails dug into his skin, and his left hand tangled itself in her hair, and she bit down on his shoulder, hard, and—

With a violent shudder, her legs clamped around him, and not more than a moment later—

There was a swift, demanding thrust, and a great flurry of sound and air, and—

His wings erupted, and he collapsed on top of her.

His head was buried in her neck, and he was panting heavily, their hearts pounding against one another. Eries blinked her eyes open, her lashes damp with sweat, to see his wings spread out above them. Like some big, black canopy. She swallowed, still trying to catch her breath.

Maybe half a minute later, he had the self-possession to retract them, and with a tired shift of his body, rolled off of her. His left arm went around her, bringing her with him, and she settled against his good shoulder, her own arm draped across his stomach. For more than a few moments, they just laid like that, in silence.

Eventually, he moved. With a soft clink of metal joints, he made to pick up one of the feathers he'd molted. Lifting it up in his claw, he twirled it around slowly in the dim glow of the candles. The edges caught the light like ink. Like oil.

"How much longer?" she asked.

"I don't know," he answered. "Not long. My mother's started to turn after my father died, and by the time I left for the succession rite, they'd gone completely grey." He paused. Let the feather fall back to the bed. And then: "I should get back to my lab."

She nodded against his shoulder. "I should get some sleep, if I can. I have an early audience with the assembly." An early audience that she should drag Millerna to, willingly or not.

Neither of them moved.

A moment later, she shifted her arm, gently taking his mechanical hand in hers and lacing her fingers through it.

A bemused breath pushed out of him. "I thought that this frightened you."

"Perhaps once," she admitted. She ran her thumb along the hard, steel plates that made up the palm. "But I've grown fond of it. It's solid."

There was that breath again—the closest he ever seemed to get to a laugh, these days—and the slightest of smiles twitched at the corners of his mouth. But then he sobered, and softly, sincerely, an echo of the boy he'd once been, confessed, "I would have liked to have known you longer, Princess."

She lifted herself up on her elbow, smiled down at him softly, sincerely, an echo of the girl she'd once been, and then rose.

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A/N: Welp, I guess I can image these two being down with the romancin' (or at least the sexytimes), after all. Oops. (I should really know better by now. Thinking shit like that inevitably sets up a challenge in my brain, a la, "YOU CAN'T IMAGINE THEM HAVING SEX? FAMOUS LAST WORDS, MOTHERFUCKER. NOW START WRITING." Ah, well. Whatcha gonna do? ^^')

In other news, Eries gives me all these feels, you guys. Like, all of them. Every single one. Send help, ASAP.

Anyway, thanks for reading!