Progress has been s-l-o-w on this story. I won't leave it unfinished though, I promise. And while you're waiting for the next chapter, you can go look at my newest story Anathema... (/shamelessplug)

And also a warning: latter half of this chapter could be seen as a little disturbing by some. I'd like to know your verdict on it, though.

Chapter Twenty-Six

"Lucien," Caelan spoke, and again when he received no reply: "Lucien. Lucien."

There was at last an impatient huff; "What?"

"Can we stop for a moment?"

"No," was the curt answer, followed by a moment's pause, "Why?"

"I'm tired. I want to rest."

"How can you be tired? Shadowmere has been carrying us both all day," at which the mare whinnied, as if in a grumpy form of agreement, "There there, he isn't that heavy. I'll give you an apple later."

Lucien was really the only person who could get away with talking to his horse without sounding like an idiot. The fact that she understood every word he said – and it was fact, not speculation – was both awe-inspiring and somehow alarming at the same time. Clearly Shadowmere wasn't an ordinary horse; even without the red eyes, there was something...otherworldly about her.

She did, however, move like an ordinary horse. In a swaying trot that most would have found soothing, but Caelan was just getting motion sickness, on top of already feeling a little off-colour.

"Lucien, can we please stop?"

"I told you, no. We need to find this Olyn person as quickly as possible...in fact, we'd have reached him by now if someone hadn't shrieked at me to slow Shadowmere down."

"I did not shriek," Caelan mumbled, hiding his face in the material swathe of Lucien's back, "Can we just stop for five minutes? I don't feel so good."

Lucien did not respond to this. Shadowmere's continued movement, however, made the answer clear.

"I mean I really don't feel so good," he tried again, however fruitless his efforts.

Lucien made a show of glancing into the sky for any approaching storms. As the sky was perfectly cloudless, however, Caelan took this to mean he was being purposefully ignored.

"I mean I really really don't feel so good."

Lucien idly brushed a stray leaf from Shadowmere's mane. She had still not come to a halt.

"I mean I really really really-"

"For Sithis' sake," the assassin snapped at last – and as Caelan was behind him, he missed the mer's smug little grin, "Fine, we'll stop for a break. But I don't know why you feel sick when you haven't done anything."

"I just don't mix well with horses, that's all," and proving his point perfectly, he tried to disembark Shadowmere, caught his foot on the stirrup, and just ended up falling off the saddle, "Ow...you see? You see what I mean?"

"Oblivion," Lachance muttered, dismounting in one smooth, fluid motion, "You have to be the most ungraceful Altmer I've ever come across."

"Half Altmer!"

"Yes, yes," he waved a hand carelessly, watching the elf on the ground and making no move to help him up, "So what do you want to do, now that we've stopped?"

Rather than sitting up, Caelan rolled onto his side, and curled up where he lay, "Sleep."

"Sleep? How can you want to sleep, at this time? The sun hasn't even set yet."

"M'tired," Caelan responded, eyes closed even as he spoke, "Lucien, go find a bandit camp for me."

The Speaker arched one eyebrow; "And since when do I take orders from you?"

He waited for a reply, but didn't get one; puzzled, he nudged the mer with his foot, only to find he had already fallen asleep. A frown crossed his brow, and he half-considered leaving to Caelan to sleep in the dirt – at least, until he remembered he would have to hear the complaints of aches and pains when the elf woke up. Given that Caelan could and would whinge all day, he decided that finding a camp would be the smarter idea.

It did not take long to locate one, nor clear it of its inhabitants; outnumbered three to one as he was, they were ill-prepared and clumsy with their blades. Not bothering to shift the corpses, he went back to Caelan, who was still curled up on the floor, and overlooked by a disdainful Shadowmere.

"Up," he said, nudging the mage again, "Get up. I thought you wanted a camp to stay in?"

He got a pitiful groan as his response, "I don't want to move anymore. Too sleepy."

"I didn't go to all that trouble for you to be lazy. Up-" he hauled Caelan to his feet, and did not miss the unsteady wobble as the other clung to him for support, "What's wrong with you? Did you hit your head when you fell off the saddle?"

"No, I just – don't feel so good," and yet when Lucien gripped along the mer's jaw to tilt his head back, he could see no signs of illness – his eyes were sleepy but not glazed, and his skin was normal in both colour and temperature. Caelan looked, by all definitions, perfectly healthy, but then why was he so exhausted when his day had been uneventful – when his day hadn't even ended yet?

"Hn. Maybe you just need to rest." Stress, perhaps. Caelan didn't seem the type to get stressed – nervous, panicky and flustered, yes, but for the most part he just went with the flow instead of worrying about things. Consequence was trivial to him, after all. Still, going from invincible to suddenly very vulnerable was enough to give anyone grey hairs, "Come with me. It isn't too far."

When nightfall came, however, Caelan was still curled up beneath the crude shelter of his tent, tangled with the coarse blankets, and evidently feeling no better.

Lucien spared him a glance before turning back to the campfire, illuminated by its flickering orange glow. The Brotherhood did not demand a complete lack of emotion from its members; still, there was an unspoken rule that an assassin should live without sentiment. It was this coldness that all Brothers and Sisters came to embrace, and he among them: his eyes betrayed no emotion, no concern. But even he could not deny the worry worming through his gut.

He was attached to Caelan. Betraying the unspoken rule in the process, but really, how could he have known it would come to this? He could not have predicted the situation he was in now, trekking across Cyrodil to save the very person he had been trying to kill for months. And now that Caelan seemed to grow ever more unstable...yes, he was anxious. He could admit that. He could also comfort himself with the fact that his concern was as much for his well-being as Caelan's, because selflessness simply did not exist in his life. If Caelan died permanently, then Lucien would...

Would...

Well, he didn't know.

Glancing at the Altmer for roughly the eighteenth time this hour, Lachance shook his head, and at last went over the flimsy tent where the other lay: "Caelan, are you awake?" an unintelligible mumble was his answer, "Come and sit by the fire. It's too cold over here."

Despite a half-hearted protest, the High Elf allowed himself to be dragged to a warmer spot. His first move was to try and lay his head in Lucien's lap as he sat; the assassin raised a brow at the sentiment, and shuffled slightly to the right so the mer collided with the ground instead.

"...You know," Caelan said after a pause, not lifting his head, "You're really unromantic."

A smirk curled at the edges of Lucien's mouth, "I can be romantic when I want to be."

"Feh. I don't believe you."

"Oh?" he leaned over and lightly stroked the outer shell of Caelan's ear, smirk widening at the shudder it enticed, "Perhaps you'd like me to prove it?"

Caelan sat up at that. With a lingering weariness to his movements, Lucien noticed, but his eyes were far more bright and alert than they had been minutes before. A certain sense of victory washed over him as he realised he'd found the cure to Caelan's lethargy.

"Go on then," the Necromancer challenged, grinning, "Romance me. I want a kiss," he puckered his lips pointedly.

Lachance laughed, like liquid velvet, "On the mouth? So unsubtle, my dear boy. No, I do believe we should start more like...this," he raised one slender golden hand, dwarfed in his own, and placed a light kiss on each of the fingertips. And then the knuckles. Then on the back of his hand, turning it over carefully and placing his lips against the palm. Then wrist to elbow...elbow to shoulder...across his collarbone and up the junction of his neck, stubble lightly scratching the mer's throat. When he did finally reach his lips, Caelan was wide-eyed and breathing hard – but not squirming with frustrated rapture, not unable to see or think or form any words beyond begging for release. And given Lucien had never before had trouble brining Caelan to this state, seeing his lover's relative calmness was, in the very least, quite disappointing.

"What?" he asked, pulling his hands away and frowning when this did not warrant a frantic protest, "Aren't you enjoying yourself?"

"Well – yes of course, but – it's not – I'm not-" the elf shuffled on the spot, sheepish and awkward, "It's not...really the same without the blood, is it?"

"You want something more violent?" and that, he had to confess, surprised him. He'd always thought Caelan didn't mind the violence, but merely went along with it because Lucien wanted to, and because he was never given much choice in the matter. Now, though, Caelan was actively seeking it out. It awakened a heated longing in his veins, but for once, he would have to refuse the prospect of bloodshed: "I can't. After we've restored you to your normal state, maybe, but for the time being I'd rather not risk you dying permanently."

"You can't...not even a few shallow cuts?"

"No. Besides, you'll end up covered in scars," and while he did love to make an art of such things, Caelan's main attraction was that he was a re-usable canvas – he could be cleared of his cuts and bruises, and marked anew.

"I just..." Caelan looked decidedly crestfallen, "Wanted to be covered in red again. You said it made me look regal."

"It does, but-" and suddenly, Lucien paused, an idea springing to mind, "Actually..."

"Actually?" the other inquired hopefully.

"What if it wasn't your blood you were decorated with?" the assassin mused, suppressing his amusement at Caelan's wide-eyed reaction, "We could use, perhaps, those dead bandits over there," he nodded towards the pile of earlier-dispatched men.

Caelan also looked over at the three bodies, carelessly tangled together, "Can we do that?"

"Why not? They won't be needing their blood anymore," Lucien shrugged casually, callously, "Or if you're asking about the morality of the act...well, you and I are hardly saints. I certainly have no issues with it."

"Then I suppose...I don't either," Caelan concluded, "Bring one over, then."

He did so, selecting the mostly-undamaged carcass of what was once a Dunmer. Kneeling before the body, cutting with surgical precision, Caelan was reminded of watching Lucien at his poisons, though it seemed so long ago. And yet here he was again – a man of science, as intimately familiar with anatomy as he was with Alchemy. The blood did not well up as it would have with a living being, but it still flowed from the too-pale skin. And then, as soon as Lucien had wetted his gloved hand with the stuff and turned to Caelan, he was no longer a scientist but an artist, his paints at the ready.

"That's- ah," the Altmer shivered as red was smeared across his cheek, "That's cold."

"He's been dead for a while," Lucien murmured, fingers trailing across golden skin, his nose and lips and neck, "You would prefer it warm?"

"It would feel a bit more...realistic, I guess. Like it was mine."

"Hm. I'll find fresher bait next time."

Caelan blinked, not quite sure he'd heard right; "Fresher...bait?"

Lucien's eyes glittered dark and sadistic, "Much fresher. Someone killed, shall we say, a few minutes before I start painting you."

"You would..." contrary to looking horrified, a small, shy smile tugged at the Altmer's lips, "You would do that? For me?"

He smiled back, cupping the rounded cheek. The blood there was cold and dead – next time, that would be amended, "For you."

A giddy noise tickling his throat, Caelan leaned forwards to press their lips together. When he pulled back, his voice was light and teasing, no longer wearied: "You know, I think you are romantic after all."