Cold Embrace.

It was a sense of irony that drew him to the idea of the two of them together. At least, that's what he told Lord Beastmaster. Admittedly she hadn't seemed particularly impressed. Which was odd because it was sort of just delicious. Filia, the repressed dragon priestess. Him, the hated historic slayer of her race. Drawn together despite everything that should keep them apart. It was almost too good, really.

And he'd got what he wanted—with surprisingly little persistence. And it… was magical. The way she'd sighed, the way she clung to him, her blonde head buried in his chest. It was everything he'd hoped for and more.

That first time, at least.

.

Now…

Filia's hands pressed down on his chest. It would have hurt anyone else. But she was unable to hurt him.

Of course. Of course she was.

She was a heavy weight on him. She'd slapped his hands away from her waist so her toned legs were doing all the work—and work was exactly what she made it look like. Sweat beaded her forehead and her eyes were screwed shut. She hadn't let him see her eyes since that one time.

He looked away, making patient eye contact with the popcorn ceiling, listening to her breathing until it started to hitch.

She collapsed onto one elbow, shuddering. Her bangs shrouded her downcast head. He still couldn't see her eyes.

"Filia?"

He lifted her chin and briefly saw blown pupils before she looked away.

She got up, gingerly, as though she'd unthinkingly sat on a park bench after a rainstorm. Her back turned almost instantly, shrouding most of her body in blonde hair. Without a word she stepped into the bathroom, the door falling closed with a heavy thud.

Alone, he sat up in her bed, her warmth still on him, but fleeing nearly as fast as the dragon herself.

It was funny. Filia didn't call him "garbage" very much anymore, but she still found a way to make him feel dirty.

Well, it was probably funny to someone at least.

.

"She's ashamed of me," he said.

His weight was concentrated forward as he slouched in his chair, his forehead nearly touching the staff he gripped between both hands.

The rest of the table was quiet for a moment. Only the buzz of other tavern guests blissfully going about their business answered him as his companions stopped eating and chatting.

It felt like an eternity before they all spoke at once.

"Of course she is," from Zelgadis.

"I mean…" began Amelia uncertainly.

"That's rough, buddy," from Gourry, food still in his mouth.

And "Duh," from Lina.

Xellos grimaced. This wasn't really the sympathetic response he'd been hoping for, but he was somewhat limited in the people he could turn to in this situation. There was still Wizer, but he really did not want to be invited out clubbing right now.

Lina was fixing him with a piercing look. "So what, though?" she asked, pointing at him with her fork. "Isn't that kind of your thing?"

"Yeah," Amelia said, as though this was just occurring to her. "Monsters feed off all kinds of negativity. The worse everyone else feels, the better they feel."

"This conversation is making me feel bad," Zelgadis grumbled.

Xellos frowned. "It's not as though we're always hungry," he said testily. Though perhaps that was a concept that needed to be explained to Lina and Gourry. "And anyway, it's… insulting."

"But Miss Filia's always insulting you," Amelia pointed out.

"True," Xellos admitted, "but this is… different."

"Different how?"

"She's," Xellos began, barely knowing what he would say next, "she's using me."

"Aren't you using her?" Zelgadis asked dryly.

"Yeah, but he's s'pose to," Lina concluded, understanding clouding her face grimly. "He didn't think she would."

"It's inconceivable," Xellos muttered, more to himself than the group at large. "Who does she think I am? That she can just have sex with me and then pretend nothing happened?"

When Zelgadis spoke his voice was higher than normal. "Do we have to talk about this?"

Xellos wanted someone to tell him to grow up, but unfortunately he was surrounded by children. "I should've talked to Lord Beastmaster about this instead."

"Yeah? And what would she have told you?" Lina asked, less flustered than Zelgadis but still getting increasingly heated. "You got what you wanted, but now you're pissed off about it. Good work!"

"Miss Lina's right, you know," Amelia said lowly. "You got Miss Filia into this situation and she's probably got too much on her mind dealing with her own feelings to worry too much about yours."

"He doesn't have feelings," Zelgadis said, shaking his head.

"But if Mister Xellos didn't have feelings then he wouldn't mind being treated like an object," Amelia pointed out.

"I dunno," Gourry chimed in around a chicken wing. "There are some guys that like that."

Xellos grimaced. So it had really come to this. He downed some tea as though it were something stronger.

"Not if they're really in love," Amelia replied.

Xellos choked on his tea.

"If you're in love with someone and they don't love you back, that's incredibly painful," Amelia said, ignoring Xellos's coughing fit. "Going through the motions has got to make it even worse."

"I think you're putting too much thought into this," Zelgadis replied.

"Being in love and wanting to be loved aren't the same thing," Gourry said.

Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing to look Gourry's way.

Lina let out a low whistle. "Damn, Jellyfish Brain, where did that come from?"

Gourry shrugged. "Just something I heard once."

"So which is it, Mister Xellos," Amelia prodded, turning her big blue eyes on him, "do you love Miss Filia or just want her to love you?"

"I would love not to have started this conversation," he answered. He tapped his staff irritably on the ground. He'd been hoping to avoid the awkwardness of talking about this with Lord Beastmaster, but his present company wasn't getting the job done at all. Lord Beastmaster always had good advice.

She'd tell him what he needed to do.

.

"You should break up with her," Lord Beastmaster said, her tone off-handed, as though she'd barely been listening to him.

Xellos cringed. Somehow this was not the guidance he'd been hoping for.

"I mean, this was a silly little game you were playing all along, Xellos, you must realize that," she said, taking a drag off her pipe, "but I can at least see where you might've found some fun in the chase. And now that's done, right? Game over. You won. Now that it's stopped being fun you can move on to something else."

Xellos paused to digest this. "It doesn't feel like I won," he said in a low voice.

"Why? Because she made you feel like a cheap slut?"

"Ah… there's really no possible way for me to answer that, Lord Beastmaster," he said, scratching at his cheek awkwardly.

She studied him for a good long while. Whenever she pinned him with that gaze he always felt fortunate that he didn't need to sweat.

Beastmaster sighed and rolled her eyes at him. "Just tell your girlfriend you want to cuddle and be done with it, alright? Stop wasting my time with this."

.

Filia lay, tensed in bed, her arms folded like a mask over her face. Quiet murmurs dripped from her mouth amounting to no words.

Xellos lifted his head. "What was that, Filia?"

"Shut uppppp!" she whispered sharply, letting one hand free to raked it through his hair.

Xellos lifted her leg over his shoulder. At least he could still antagonize her a little. Even amidst all her recent coldness, habit still took over and that was encouraging.

The hand pushing his head was a different kind of encouraging.

"Don't you dare stop," she warned him.

For once, he listened.

If anyone told him that Filia would be domineering in bed he would've believed them 100%, but somehow this wasn't the way he'd expected it to go. Always full of surprises, that one.

She lowered the hand that had been covering her eyes and bit down on her knuckle. Shutting her eyes was easier than shutting her mouth at this point.

He could feel her knotted up muscles strain and then relax. She felt practically boneless. It must've taken a lot of willpower in her state to unhook her legs and roll to the side, but she did it all the same.

"Wait."

Xellos scrambled forward, caging her head between the arms holding his weight up on the bed. She didn't move, but she didn't turn to look at him either.

"I want you to stay, uh… here. In bed. Close," he struggled to express the sentiment without resorting to the cuddle-word.

She finally looked at him. Suspicious. As though waiting for the trick.

"And I think we should kiss more," he burbled, rushed, "…while I'm making demands."

All at once, eye-contact was no longer a problem. She looked like she was waiting for there to be more.

"It's just," he said, now the one to look away, "too sad otherwise, don't you think?"

She stared.

She stared some more.

She stared again for good measure.

She burst out laughing.

"I don't think it's funny at all," Xellos cut in, sorely.

"No, I just—" she struggled to catch her breath. "I—yes. Yes, of course. I've… I've wanted to but I thought you didn't want… I thought…" She let out one more bright peal of laughter and her smile was tender, if a little smug. "I guess even demons can want affection sometimes."

He frowned in the face of her all-together inappropriate-seeming amusement. "You thought I didn't want to?" he asked, mystified.

"Well, yes…" she replied as though it was obvious. "I mean, that first time you made fun of me for being clingy and all. I thought it maybe it's grating to, well, you know…"

"I did?" He didn't remember doing so, but it admittedly sounded like him. "Ah, well, I didn't mean anything by it." After a moment's thought he added, "And I can't guarantee I won't make fun of you for it again." It was kind of just what he did.

Her grin was impossibly wide, and this was coming from him. "Oh no you won't," she said, throwing her arms around him, "you're a monster who got upset because you weren't getting enough hugs and kisses. You're literally never going to live this down, Xellos."

As she lifted her head to kiss the corner of his mouth, he realized begrudgingly that she was right.

Ah well.

Worth it.