He was told that it has been long since Karthus was mortal and blood beat through his veins to provide him life. He takes to Vladimir's wrists, holding them in skeletal hands that feel for the pulse.
Vladimir does not know if he is truly alive in his state upon the isles, skin pallid and greying to something decrepit in the memory of sunlight. The sky does not split in bright light come the hours Vladimir's body feels it to be day, yet he knows that should the Shadow Isles be exhumed from their timeless stasis between existence and endless night, daylight would come upon him again. The blood inside of him does not feel as it should, and it does not come out of him in deep crimson when he draws upon his magic - but thin like claret and dark black like the rot he sees in the bones that never rose.
But - Karthus believes him alive. Perhaps, beyond everything else, he would know what marks one as alive in the land of the dead.
He holds his wrist in hands of thinning skin and cold, cold bone, dragging down to follow the pulse. It is a distant thing, and not even as Vladimir knows it - only in its absence does he realize he had it memorized, now replaced with a dull thump in slow, out-of-rhythm seconds. Karthus traces where his veins lay like they're routes along a map. Nail to skin, Karthus presses his thumb against him when he finds the curve of his elbow. He touches him like he's exploring. Finding where veins reach. Where the body remains warm.
Vladimir opens his arms a little wider, further from tucking into his body, and he's drawn in.
Karthus' own body is lithe - there is little to him, skin over bone like a corpse that won't rot away yet lacking all remaining muscle - touching through the tattered fabric feels like sinew. But there's enough form to hold on to, reaching forward to stay with him. His pauldrons have been removed - he looks smaller.
"What are you looking for?" he sighs into the crook of his neck, finding the space between them - intimate. Searching. When Karthus finds how he wants his arm around the small of Vladimir's back, Vladimir leans himself in. Hands over shoulders, roaming to the throat.
He is silent, but looks at Vladimir with a questioning look, reaching deep into him. He is mist, and there is a light beyond it - Karthus longs for it to take shape. In the space between them where only one breath is passed, the hand that drags up Vladimir's arm reaches the back of his head. His fingers are sharp, and the bone no longer feels human, but there it twists into his hair.
They lock. The only sign Vladimir receives that Karthus is still there is the way his head tilts to look at him. The hand in his hair grazes his scalp. Vladimir's eyes slip closed for just a moment.
"I..." he sounds hesitant for just a moment. Not apprehensive - merely careful, testing cold, dead water. "... wish to kiss you. Guide me."
Vladimir's fingers curl. He responds to Karthus' head tilt with one of his own, in the opposite direction. And then, he leans forward.
Kissing him is - like kissing something cold, something made with the memory of what was once human. His hands find their way around a thin neck, over spine and hair, and pull him in. There's a stiffness to how Karthus presses against him, mouth rigid and body still, with his hands holding Vladimir in place, all while Vladimir finds how he wants to rest against him. His mouth, his hands, his shoulders - all sway in, where he wants to be.
Karthus snakes his long arms around Vladimir, further drawing him in, taking the last remaining warmth from him. He needs no breath, lungs left to rot inside of him long ago, so he presses himself closer, into him, against his whole body so close that Karthus -
draws the shortest whimper from his lover.
He gives Vladimir space, arms loosening around his consuming embrace and retracting his body back. Yet - not a single word passes him before Vladimir pulls him back in, mouth and hands harsh and tight as if to tell him to put his hands back. A flare of ferocity, like an agitated flame in the dead of winter; like a touch starved spirit spoiled on one kiss.
Vladimir pulls on him, drawing Karthus into him with such a furious spark of need that he tips himself back, just for a moment - those hands find his body again and rest around him, and he doesn't need to breathe but he's dizzy anyway, and he doesn't think Karthus is getting the message because those hands don't roam, don't drag up his spine and dig their nails in to make Vladimir shudder. He might be apprehensive to wring Vladimir like that again, alike to being concerned for him.
It's kind of sweet, a lich showing concern for someone.
The hand clutching the base of Karthus' throat roam down his thin and brittle body, pressing the thin fabric of his robes into the dips of his ribcage and over the curve of their final bone. With a bit of twisting, Vladimir reaches for Karthus' long arms and pulls down on them, keeping them held against his body but further down his back, to his waist, to his hips, and then holds him there.
Roam. Touch.
No breath between them, swallowed by the death of the Isles.
There's a curve to Vladimir's cheek that Karthus tends to, adoring him with the dryness of his searching, tentative mouth. The hand over his hip is guided to press against his bone, and Vladimir exhales into Karthus' hair. Brittle. Devotion in every motion, even with death long set inside Karthus.
His hands roam down, over, around, and Vladimir smiles something hazy when he draws his own hand away from Karthus' wrist and he still feels him drag his hand over the course of his back. With his hands free, Vladimir runs them up the thin arms of his lover, grabbing his shoulders, then draping arms over them. Touch-starved and overwarm, even in the cold of the mist that clings to Karthus' body like Vladimir does to him.
Karthus curls his fingers against a particular part of Vladimir's hip. The sound that comes out of him less a whimper, more a drag of his voice. It only strengthens when Karthus doesn't relent as he did before, pressing the heel of his palm in and curling Vladimir against him.
Vladimir grabs his hand again. He doesn't give him the time to pull away and inquire what he is doing, keeping Karthus pulled close and moving that hand, thin fingers and clawed nails and all, against his front.
"Just -" he tries to say, and has to pull his head back a little to speak, "Just… keep touching here. Keep your hand here."
He kisses him, and sways into Karthus, exhaling slowly when the pressure is found right where he wants it to be. Like a beating heart, he blooms against him, drawing him in, heat coiling inside of him. Vladimir opens his eyes, leans back his head and watches how Karthus looks at him. He wonders - in between the beats of his breath, the way he's touched - if it does anything for him. He doubts it. The blood in him stagnates, time spent dead rolling over Karthus for so long that his connection to human urge and desire has waned.
But he watches him with an interest. A fascination. A drive to satisfy. Vladimir wants to be pressed up against something and taken like that. In his arms, it is enough. Vladimir unravels under his gaze, eyes lolling back when he curls against him through his clothing. It's been far too long since he's been run through - just touching pulls him apart, like strips taken from him.
Vladimir curls his fingers and drags them down the tattering fabric of Karthus' robes, and draws in a breath sharply when there's a roll of his hand against the crux of his legs. Pressing in, rolling up, coaxing breath that needs not to be passed out of him until the slip of black over Vladimir's eyes is a shocking white, a heat that presses in the back of his head and rolling through him. He's quiet, he breathes something thin, and he leans into his lover - knees bent and shaking, like he doesn't want to be standing.
He presses his face into his shoulder. A half-smile, half purse of lips against his neck. The chill of the air rolls back into him, and Karthus' arm snakes around Vladimir's waist. The lull inside of him feels like a receding tide, and Vladimir hums something short against Karthus. He'd rather be lain down against something - a wall, the ground, a bed - but he stays steady against his beloved, arms tight around his neck. Maybe he'll ask more of him later.
Vladimir kisses him again.