Title: Mourner's Dawn

Author: Kytten

Pairing: Lucien Lachance/OMC

Rating: PG13

Disclaimer: Don't own.

Author's Note: Wheeee!

Halfway down the hallway between stairwells, Lucien stopped, his detect life spell catching on a familiar, shivering glow. Grinning, he paused, one hand curved around the wine bottle in his cloak, the other pressed flat against the door.

Inside, Sam shifted, face down in the bed and motioning for what looked like a call to arms. Couldn't be more perfect.

Sidling close to the door, Lucien pulled out his skeleton key and set to work on the lock. A few seconds later, it eased open without a sound and he slipped inside, shutting it behind himself with a gentle click.

Vicente found himself staring at the door, wondering how in the world anyone could move that fast, that often. Even vampires would, at length, get tired. But May… she'd managed to steal every item of clothing he had, attach it all to the ceiling while climbing on said ceiling, escape and out maneuver him twice, and now, after having fallen from the ceiling, she'd stolen his necklace and sprinted off.

He still wasn't sure how she'd even managed to get it off. The catch was notoriously cantankerous, and as it took him ages to move it in either direction, he usually simply let it alone. And yet she, clever little imp that she was, had managed not only to beat the clasp, but his own reflexes.

He also rather suspected she was wearing a pair of his pants, but as she never stopped moving…

A slow grin sprawled over his face and he rose. She could have the necklace. He had his own trick to play.

Sam woke up pressed as far into the borrowed bed as possible without knowing what it was that had woken him. Assuming it'd be yet another nightmarish battle, he ignored it and spent a few happy moments seeing if sprawled eagle in the center of the bed, he could reach a side.

"You're awake," Lucien said from his seat at the table, smirking slightly, a glass of wine in one hand. "Good. Wine?"

Sam sat up rather abruptly, and finding himself without paper or anything to throw, glared and pointed at the door. Lucien only smiled. He'd taken great pleasure in burning every scrap of parchment he couldn't fit into the pocket of his robes.

"I've locked the door, yes."

He would need Sam to reinstate him in writing, of course. A random nod just wasn't going to cut it. But at the moment, it wouldn't do to have the boy demand he leave. It'd ruin the ambiance he'd worked so hard to create.

Sam glared, crossed his arms and squeaked something that was very likely a hoard of Bosmeri insults. Lucien put on his best smile and with a slight tilt of the head, offered Sam a glass.

"Stupid Imperial git," Sam said, as he took the glass, eyes narrowed. He knew exactly what Lucien was after.

The Dark Brotherhood was his life. He had no marketable skills that Sam had noticed. Other than killing and making poisons, but with the emperor dead, so was the economy for such things. He'd need his position back. Sam wagered he'd do anything to get it.

And that included sleeping with the Listener.

Sam's plan had been decidedly simpler. He intended to refuse. Everything. Only problem being, he hadn't taken into consideration the man he'd be refusing. Their impromptu bond flared at the mere thought of him. To have him in the room, to see him without touching, taking, claiming, was enough to drive him mad.

Lucien had banked on that fact. In fact, he was exploiting it, coming close enough to touch, fingers brushing together at the trading of a glass of wine before sitting at the very edge of the bed. So far away…

Sam closed his eyes, heaving a deep breath.

"You know what he wants," Eldamil whispered, probably to keep from waking Martin, his new voice of reason. "And you know how to trick him. What's the problem?"

Yes, he did, Sam realized with a jolt. Lucien was probably just as focused on the sex as he was at being reinstated. He'd want to get his position back before fulfilling his end of the bargain, so to speak, but if he were distracted… well, he wouldn't think to check the exact wording, would he?

And Sithis knew he'd watched Lucien long enough to know what it took to make the man lose his control.

Sam smirked, smug in his own success, bringing the wine to his mouth, pretending to drink. Because he knew Lucien would have tainted his glass with something— an aphrodisiac probably, something to kill his control.

Lucien, he noticed, was carefully tracking his every movement over the brim of his own glass.

Oh yes. His wine had been tampered with.

So Sam pretended to swallow and set the wine aside, looking pointedly at Lucien.

"Hmm?" Lucien smiled, arching a brow.

He gestured towards the wine with a question in his eyes.

"My apology," Lucien said, still with that pure sex smile. "I promised you, didn't I?"

Rolling his eyes, Sam looked away.

"Lachance's move," Eldamil whispered, a smile in his voice.

"Voyeur," Sam replied, faking his disgust to fool Lucien into thinking the squeak had been meant for him.

Inside his head, Eldamil laughed as outside, Lucien leaned forward a strange, hitherto unseen look on his face.

"Sam, please," there was a deep-seated pain in his voice. It was possible a fraction of it was even real. "Don't be angry with me."

He may have even believed the act, had their bond responded to it at all. But there was no tightening, no pull, no strange glow from under his shirt where the magic would never settle properly.

Sam tilted his head back, keeping his eyes dead, his face emotionless. And Lucien spun up and away from him, back turned, head down. There was a slight tremor in his shoulders, but Sam was oddly unaffected.

Fake. Like everything else— another mask, another charade, another game. A very profitable game. Because he'd risked his life, and gotten it back. Never mind the consequences others felt, it'd never bother him at all. And as long as he could keep playing, keep dancing… As long as he could keep every mask in place, he could win the lot.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," he said, back still turned, voice thick. "I'd never hurt you. You should know that."

He spun back around, striding close, and Sam was surprised how easily he faked the pain in his eyes.

"I died for you, you know," he whispered, crouching down next to the bed. "To keep the others away from you. As long as I made them nervous, as long as they couldn't pin me down, you were safe."

Sam glared.

"They weren't after me, you conceited ass."

"He's good at it, isn't he?" He knew Eldamil was grinning. "Lets play a game. What color do you think his eyes really are?"

"I know you don't believe me." He stood, turned away from the bed and back to the bottle. "I didn't think you would."

There was a silence as Lucien refilled his glass.

"I couldn't kill you," he whispered at length, staring down into the depths of the glass. "You killed Ungolim and I couldn't lift a hand to stop you. Anyone but you and I'd have cut them down where they stood. But not you…"

Sam snorted, almost reaching back for the wine, but checking himself in time as he watched Lucien turn, face hidden in shadow save for his sad little half smile.

"I couldn't kill you, Sam," his voice cracked. Would have been a neat trick had Sam's not been missing. "When you died…"

He trailed off then and left it at that. Sam frowned, pressing a hand to his stomach as it twinged painfully. It appeared they'd hit their first true emotion all night. Intrigued now, Sam picked up his wine again, pretending to drink.

"You know," Lucien said at length, looking up suddenly with a too-sharp grin. "I never had the chance to thank you properly for saving my life."

Sam looked away, pretending at disinterest that didn't last long at the sound of Lucien's accompanying growl.

"You can't pretend you feel nothing, Sam," Lucien cast his voice low, that rumbling purr that got him every time, striding across the room. "I can feel you."

And then he reached forward, assassin's reflexes slipping that hand up and under his shirt before he could blink, stroking across the unsettled magic.

Sam's eyes unfocused, the world spun. Suddenly, he was very glad his voice had gone. He'd kill Lucien himself if the man heard him beg.

"Ooh, dirty trick," whispered Eldamil. And then there was another voice, Martin's, the scamp, someone pulling it away and Sam couldn't be bothered. Not when that wretched, clever hand was pressed against the link, callused thumb stroking patterns on his skin.

"Let me take care of you, Sam," Lucien whispered, breath a hot caress over Sam's lips. "Let me thank you."

Sam grinned and turned the tables, flipping Lucien into the bed with a quick snap of the hips, using momentum to force the heavier man down. The paralysis spell came in handy, as he rifled through Lucien's pockets, finding blank bits of paper, money and the random sliver of candy.

Also, a very small, very empty little vial. Sam flipped it open, letting the smell come to him.

Sweet, vaguely sour. Like… grapes. Strangely like carrots. He held it up, smirking, just as the spell wore off, leaving Lucien a boneless pile slumped against the pillows.

Lucien grinned up at him, pillowing his head with his arms.

"Nothing wrong with helping it along." Reaching over, he leisurely plucked Sam's glass from the bedside table and downed it. "A pity this must be both the first and last time."

So that was his game. They were both after the same thing, apparently. And there was no way in hell Sam could fool himself into thinking didn't want this man more than anything in Cyrodill at the moment. To bed Lucien Lachance... Sam worked hard to keep the smile from his face. If he let Lucien think he'd won... Pretending at disappointment, confusion, Sam cocked his head.

"Champion of Cyrodill, Listener of the Dark Brotherhood…" Lucien smiled, oddly seductive in his pretended sadness. "Obviously a man with such power has no time for those… not of his own ilk."

Another questioning look.

"You expelled me, Sam. I don't expect either of us will have time for the other now."

Sam leaned over and fished in the bedside table for his ink, trying hard to ignore just exactly where Lucien's long clever fingers were roaming and scrawled something across his newly reclaimed paper.

Lucien Lachance to rejoin guild. Even though he is an arrogant bugger.

Lucien grinned, arrogant bugger that he was, just before that potion of his really set in. And at that point, Sam's last coherant thought fled, giving way to mine all mine never let go never let them take you belong to me oh Sithis love you I love you mine always.

Which would have been a bit frightening had his attention not been focused elsewhere. Namely on the grinning devil of a man above him