Daniel cupped his face, held it still so he could pepper it with kisses as Alexander slowly started to move his hips. He caressed a trembling thigh. "Talk to me." Daniel pleaded, breath hot against his ear.

Hm?" He tried not to be distracted from mouthing Daniel's neck, licked a stripe up to his chin.

"Talk to me. Say anything. I like- I like your voice."

"Oh, Daniel." He felt the boy tighten around him and purred, and what the boy's body did at that was exquisite.

"You feel so lovely Daniel. So tight around me. I never imagined we would end up like this. That I'd be so weak." He braced himself over Daniel with one hand, hooked one of the boy's legs over his arm so he could deepen the angle. "Thank the gods I am that weak."

"You find me- You think me handsome?"

"I think you ravishing. Your face is the only thing that saved you when you came to my doors. I wanted to look at it for as long as possible before-" He growled. Cursed himself for saying too much. Daniel could still remember some of this on waking, maybe not fully, but enough to color his perceptions of the baron and his deeds.

"I wanted this. I wanted you to do this to me the moment you spoke."

"You love my voice that much? It's positively a fetish with you!"

Daniel shook his head, hair sticking to his sweaty cheek. "It was also what you said. You're brilliant. You leave me in," He keened as Alexander rubbed against something that sent off sparks within his body. "awe. You awe me. Your mind brings me to my knees."

Alexander chuckled, halted, pulled out. "Now that is a lovely image. You on your knees before me." He traced the boy's lips.

"Maybe when we do this in your dream." Daniel curled his fingers in the baron's hair, as Alexander laughed and pulled him close.

Alexander couldn't remember laughing so much in one evening, not even in the long ago times when he was at home among his people. "You amazing creature." His voice turning husky as Daniel wrapped those lovely legs around him. He kissed Daniel as he lowered himself down and Alexander rose up. Kissing, another thing he didn't remember doing often or liking, but he couldn't seem to get enough of it. Each roll of their hips, each soft sigh from those lips begged for another and another, until he gave up and let them fall to the pillows and tried to steal Daniel's very breath.

When he finally let them part, Daniel was gasping for air, tears making green eyes shimmer, hair a dark spill across white fabric. Mine mine mine, the word blazed brighter with each beat of his heart and he leaned down to claim him again.

Their lips barely grazed before Daniel fisted his hands in his hair and pulled him back. He growled, actually bared his teeth at being denied, but Daniel just laughed, knowing well he was safe between the paws of this particular monster. "Do you find me to you liking, my lord?"

"I would think it obvious that I do."

"Even with my being so appalling dull and human?"

"There is nothing appalling or dull about you, Daniel. Let me go. Let me kiss you again."

"I'm still human though."

"You're a puzzle. I have no love for your species. In fact I abhor them. But when you first came to my castle, opened your mouth and started chirping your endless questions and whatever asinine observations flitted through your pretty head at me, I was charmed." He thrust harder, rhythm lost. "Your guilelessness, that flawless face and that lovely, lovely sorrow you carry in your heart."

"You're hurting me."

"You love it."

"I do. If it's you, I do."

Alexander tried once again to kiss him and again was denied. "But I still tell you I am nothing special. You seem to put me apart from my own race."

Alexander slowed. "I do. You charmed a being from a race that isn't easily bewitched. You are, truly, something marvelous."

"And I say again, still human Alexander." The boy began to fidget, to try to break free from Alexander's arms, to crawl out from under him.

"No, don't pull away. Stay. This is lovely. You are lovely. I..." His voice trailed off and Daniel stopped trying to escape, put a hand on a wrinkled cheek.

"You what, Alexander?"

"I didn't realize how much I wanted this, wanted you, needed you. Don't wake up."

Daniel's eyes were sad, but he lay back down, let Alexander bury his face in his hair. "I should though. This is has gone on too far already. This isn't a mere dream. I know that. I think we are well beyond satisfying mere physical needs and I can't hide that this means something to me. If we go on, I'm going to get hurt. This can't end happily, Alexander."

"What are you talking about?" His words warm breath against Daniel's neck, and he shuddered.

"I know what fate waits for me. I may be able to lie to myself in the waking world, but here, inside myself, I know."

Alexander looked down at Daniel.

"I can't out run it. I can't hide from it. I've just been delaying the inevitable. You never had any intentions of saving me, I realize that and I don't think you could even to it if you had wanted to."

"Why are you only this damn observant when you're asleep?"

Daniel laughed, but it was a watery laugh, thick with unshed tears.

"Stop that. No crying, Daniel. That isn't fair." He pressed a kiss to each eyelid.

Thin fingers dug into Alexander's shoulders, pulling him tight against the warm body beneath him. "Can we do this out there? In the waking world?" He murmured into Alexander's ear. "Where I can lie to myself that happy endings do exist?"

"We'll see, but probably no. You would run so far from me if I so much as glanced at you with an ounce of what I want to do to you showing in my eyes."

He could feel the curve of Daniel's smile against his neck. "I wouldn't."

"You won't even remember this come morning."

Daniel pulled back so he could see Alexander's face. "Part of me will. Part of me always remembers that you come here at night." His hand slid over Alexander's back. "Promise me. Promise me we'll do this in the waking world before-" his voice caught. "before the end."

"Oh, Daniel." He kissed him hard and bruising, hoping Daniel couldn't sense the regret in it. He broke the kiss to bite his collarbone, hard. Daniel gasped, tightened around him deliciously. I am going to mourn you, he realized and shuddered. It was never suppose to turn out like this.

"Shh, enough. I know. Whatever you're thinking, I can guess and I thank you for it." Daniel cradled Alexander's gaunt cheeks and smiled the sweetest smile he had ever seen in his long, long life. "And I do understand."

"No, you don't." Alexander whispered. Theoretically there might be a way to save Daniel, but he would have to delay the opening of the portal by weeks. Too long, too dangerous. It was doubtful that he could keep the Shadow at bay for that long and besides, home was nearly in his grasp after all this time, weeks might as well be more centuries. "I don't need or seek your absolvement of my sins."

Daniel shook his head. "It doesn't matter, you have it regardless. Now let's finish this. Make love to me. Make me remember this when I wake up." Alexander could feel Daniel surrender to him, could feel the body in his arms become undeniably his in that instant. His control slipped away.

He held Daniel down, used him ruthlessly, trying to release every scrap of attachment to the young man, every hint of affection that might make him...foolish. Let it end with this, let it end tonight, whatever is between us. "Lovely." He growled out as Daniel held him tighter.

"You too. You feel lovely too." Alexander's hands skittered over sweat-slicked ribs, stomach, clenched at hips and pulled them towards him with each thrust.

Daniel was making the most adorable sounds. "What? What do I feel like, my love?"

"Like...home. Like coming home."

And he was undone, rhythm lost. He could feel the loneliness in the boy, how similar it was to his own, and he knew-though his absence from his world would like to make him forget it ever had faults- that it had been present in his former life as well. Such a strange, strange place to finally find kinship. Such a tragedy that it had come too late.

He was close. So very very close and Daniel looked so beautiful sprawled over the bed, one hand furiously attending to his own need. One night, one night unremembered for one of them and closely held to the heart of the other. As it should be. I'll always remember you little one, I'll always be thankful for this gift, for the time we had though it was brief. Daniel hid his face in Alexander's hair, his body shuddering, clenching on Alexander inside of him. "Please. Hurry."

Alexander's only response was a bite on the boy's neck, holding him still. Soon soon soon...

A tendril of shadow-wrought nightmare wrapped around Daniel and snatched him from Alexander's embrace. "Wait! No!" He screamed, lust thwarted, enraged. The bed dissolved, snow numbing his hands and knees, a woods in deep winter starting to come into being around him where he knelt, hand outstretched toward where his Daniel had been pulled away.

The woods solidified. It was the pond scene from Daniel's first dream of the evening. He looked around, frantic, then he spotted Daniel, fully clothed now, walking away from him and into the gloom of the trees. He was walking hand in hand with his sister Hazel. The little girl turned and looked back at Alexander over her shoulder. And smiled at him with the Shadow's eyes.