blueprints_bloodstains | Death Stalking Abroad

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Death Stalking Abroad - The Masquerade

Dusk has barely arrived but the Upper City is alight with life and fervor. The glow of lanterns and candles, and the sparkle of dancing lights mingle with the shimmer of fine banners and hangings, all filling the square with color even as all but the natural light of the moon has begun to fade from the sky. All manner of coves and dark corners, alleyways, passages for the more adventurous and indulgent to sneak off and play in.

Tonight is about excess in a way only the especially wealthy could devise.

The guests, all dressed in opulent costumes and masks, each unique and many so intricate and many-layered as to completely obscure the identity of the wearers. Even those who might be easier to tell -- public figures and the like -- well unless they were conducting duties within the event themselves, the rule was that you don't TRULY know who they are until the unmasking. Workers from the lower city consider the yearly soiree a life-changer for one's business, positions here whether it is vending, serving, or performing, are highly coveted and sought-after, as well as sorely guarded. Falling out of favor one year meant being replaced the next.

At the start there is a murmur of excitement, discussions of the city's goings on of late, none so fervently and favorably mentioned as the unveiling of the first completed Steel Watchmen, designed by none other than tonight's Master of Ceremonies: Enver Gortash.

Truly an honor and a sign of one moving up in the world, celebrated here with greater zest owing to his more recent contributions to city security and a commendatory reputation among some of the elite -- rumors of why were known and kept track of with interest. However, there were still a few who only looked on the news with...polite acceptance. Blue bloods through and through, unsurprised at persisting whispers that a pretty face can get you far when you are useful.

Dressed in coppers and carnelians and a mask that obscures the top half of his face, he commands rapt attention as he declares the evening's festivities open, to thunderous applause. The rise in voices and the din of music overtakes the space as he descends to mingle.

Tonight is about establishing a calm. Things going right at a point that will elevate them before the more grisly aspects of the plot are to begin. Establishing trust. Comradery. Ownership.

And the people of the upper city play this game with ruthless precision. No one better to parry, really.

By the time he has made himself visible and available, he is settled into the evening, able to identify far more magisters and patriars by voice and body language than he is sure rules allow, but it allows him to know them, carve a place among them, and forget anything else he had been considering for the time being.

When he and the Dark Urge had more than just a meeting of the minds a couple weeks ago, he resolved that it need not have been more than that. It was deeply satisfying, sated a number of curiosities, and even if it said nothing of how a life of eventual rule might contain a few lively diversions? It was also fine as just a memory that would warm him on occasion.

He didn't expect the subject to suddenly come up again, or to leave it as angry as he was. Even if it concluded that it, apparently, WOULD be happening again.

Probably not for the better when it wound up not occurring at all. And Enver Gortash was not the sort to simply wait in the wings and pine.

Especially when the Dark Urge all but alluded he might as easily seek out the same ends with anyone else.

So perhaps the Black Hand's Chosen might follow suit. Already he's caught a few curious gazes. A few charming introductions. Even the offer of a drink of two (too early yet, at first). But why not? Everyone was here to have fun, after all.

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It happens so quickly, that the Dark Urge isn't even undressing him so much as just getting what little matters out of the way (without tearing anything, so there is that), with Enver bracing himself against the wall and planting his feet with shivering expectation. And only when he hears the bottle un-stopper does he realize he hadn't been thinking. He cannot do this unprepared, and he is very much not. He cannot have what he wants unprepared, not without serious injury and being seen later with said injuries.

In fairness, if they were going to find anything like that anywhere on the fly it would be here. But those massive hands return to him, and with them the heavier revelation that his companion had very much come here with this in mind. And with specific consideration for rules Gortash had already set.

All the more underscoring that he hadn't come here for anything or anyone else. Would he have even bothered with anyone else?

With a groan, he's torn between following the fingers teasing his fully awakened member and lifting his hips for the finger entering him. His trousers leave in effectively trapped, unable to widen his stance further, but the tensing in his thighs says he's trying. His forehead falls against the wall, but it only seems to intensify the sound of his own voice in his ears.

Someone is going to hear him.

The warm embrace of Enver's body around his invading digit is enough to drag a heavy breath out from him, the apex of his desire pressing impatiently against the inside of his own trousers. For as much as it is hemmed in - just as the man in front of him is - soon it will find its freedom to bury in that tight heat, too.

The groan elicits the kind of reaction that's felt rather than heard, the way his finger twists and stretches deeper, crooks as he slides out as though he's refusing to remove it and won't run the risk of it slipping loose.

From beyond the doors the event continues, raucous laughter peppered with demands and even the odd moan as though they aren't the only ones who have truly stepped into the spirit of anonymous fornication. And yet that thought only serves as fuel to the fire, his own mind clear of a lot of desires that he could barely keep contained last time.

This time his full attention is on Enver in an almost purely - but never pure - sexual capacity. Violence isn't thick in his blood now because it was singing earlier, reigning supreme as he efficiently and ruthlessly shuffled a few more of their intended targets off the mortal coil.

"You sound even better this time," he murmurs, whatever grace period he had been giving the smaller man to adjust to the one finger is done and dusted. The second is pressed in with just as much fervour and lust for the things to come.

All of this is maddening.

The din of the party beyond, where even the rustle of a curtain casts light in the corridor just down the way from them but never reveals someone arriving, leaving, or just looking in. But it could. The wet, warm perfection of the Dark Urge's hands as they manipulate, setting his hips moving unbidden. The tantalizing, scandalous air against the crook of his hips and the fall of his stomach, the curve of his ass, all mixing with the terrible, constraining prison and protection of his clothes everywhere else. Even his mask that stops the coolness of the wall he's against from fully penetrating.

There is the ever-present demand of his mind to maintain appearances, to only be perceived certain ways, and it is coming up hard against a body embracing the fear of the opposite and a little too eager to be delivered there by the man taking him apart bit by bit. A purr of approval over the sound of him, acknowledgement to him that if their last time was any indication, his anonymity may very well be a lost cause by the end of this. Humiliation blooms into something at the pit of his gut that makes his mouth water.

"I shouldn't," he manages around a gulp of a breath. It doesn't have the weight of a command, any signal to slow. The words say preserve some of my dignity but the squirm of his hips, the repeated pull against the cloth keeping him in place, the headiness in his tone all counter with I can be talked into it.

"Then tell me to stop," comes a quick response hot on the heels of Enver's assertion that he shouldn't. 'Shouldn't' feels slightly redundant considering who and where they are. Beyond just their own names are the names of their gods. Temporary allies, for as long as it takes for Baldur's Gate, and Faerün after, to fall to its knees. Only then does the finale begin in earnest.

Usually the true totality of Bhaal's plan is the start of another episode of bloodlust. Of craving the sticky red adorning his blades or trickling down his fingers and forearms, as though trying to trace over his own network of veins. But beyond a stirring that feels paltry in comparison to usual, all he feels is sexual lust, aching to be satisfied.

"Tell me to stop and I will," he repeats himself, face turning into the side of Enver's hair as he keeps fucking him on his fingers, the fist he's got wrapped around his cock still not firm enough for him to get anywhere too far ahead of this liaison.

"Because if you don't tell me to stop, I will fuck you so hard - so roughly - into this wall they'll be cleaning your seed off it come first light and won't be finished until dusk."

A promise, not a threat. His plan laid as bare as Enver's arse. Could he stop now? He's stopped himself from killing the man more than once, not all too long ago. Does he have as much control over sex? He doesn't know what the answer is, but he's calling the other man's bluff regardless.

The permission to say "no" is there -- necessary for two people so accustomed to formulating their interactions through moves and countermoves that were not always completely straightforward. Caught up in a flurry of rushing sensations of lust that leave him weak at the knees but still determined to stay upright, shaking and channeling so much effort into containing himself however he can, it's all a losing battle, and telling the Dark Urge to "stop" might very well have been a lifeline.

He feels the press of that face against him, those lips in his hair, tendrils of that mask, the hot intake of air, of the man breathing him in and he gently leans into it, suppresses most of a sound, turns his head. He wants nothing more in the moment to taste him, not so simple a venture from this position.

And a promise of what is to come if this continues, a dull roar of a building fire, sound and thought sending electric shocks of sensation downward.

He won't beg. He wants to. Debase himself even more than he is already, lose himself in the ecstasy of it, and he will. But not beg. Not for him to go on.

If the demand is for him to command it all to stop, then he knows his answer: he won't.

"And what of yours, wolf?" There's too much of a moan for that to come out a seamless purr as he pushes back and tightens.

He wants so much more but he could fuck himself on his fingers all night listening to him.

Wolf. He's momentarily reminded that there's context outside of this moment they're sharing together. The whole reason he's donning a mask to begin with is so he can slip in as anonymously as everybody else not immediately outing themselves. That it's a wolf seemed incredibly fitting, and he'd been darkly amused by the symbolism. On the nose perhaps, but the inside joke he's sure hasn't been lost on his companion.

He is the wolf hunting lambs for the slaughter in this city.

"Deep inside you, where it belongs," is the growl of a response, and if Enver means to speed things up, it's certainly working.

As much as he'd like to keep the other man speared on his fingers and at his mercy, the thick interest pushing against the fabric of his own trousers won't allow it. Perhaps there's a mote of punishment in the fact that it isn't the digits that are inside Enver that return to tug his own trousers down.

Fingers pry trousers open and hook a thumb into the fabric just enough that eventually his cock springs free, tip catching against the round of Enver's delicious left buttock. All the while two fingers slide into the tightening channel towards the other man's core, and it soon becomes apparent that there's another game going on here. One that is intended to have a thrill of panic lance through the smaller man against the wall. The thick tip of his cock rubs up against the very space he has those duo of digits lodged, teasing as though maybe he intends to try fitting it all in one.

"Can you resist the urge?" He asks and it doesn't pass him by that the question is just as darkly amusing as the wolf comment. If the wolf is invited in, there has to be some expectation of savagery. Of brutality for the sake of sating a primal need. With the tip of his cock held at the already prepared - but not by this much - hole, he uses his free hand to slick the rest of his shaft up with the residual oil from earlier.

"Can you stop yourself from screaming when I stuff you this full?" His voice is an impossible mix of silky and rough, his hand now anchoring at the man's hip, grip easily firm enough to leave evidence.

That promise, and Enver knows it is one; he feels himself whetting his lips. His forehead falls against the wall again, breath ragged, biting back and resisting the urge to cover his mouth like he did before. He's still being manipulated from behind but the palm slowly keeping his cock awake but coaxing it no nearer to flagging vanishes and he feels a chill of the sudden neglect, enough to coax a whimper from his throat, even as he can hear why that hand has left him, and in a moment he feels that heat touch him, and it's everything he can do not to push into those fingers more insistently.

But then as much as he relishes fingers already and would be undone by any desire to test how many more he could take, would gladly and not-quietly take, he's not prepared for a different third to not take their place, but intimate joining them. As much as it feels like too much, he needs.

Can he resist? No, he doesn't believe he can.

Can be stop himself from screaming?

He tries to quiet his voice, even his sighs, be still. But his breaths are shallow with anticipation, his everything tense.

"I won't," he utters at last, his voice suggesting both assurance and challenge at once.

There isn't the time or will to seek out clarification in words as to whether the man means he won't resist or he won't scream. There's no such moment of hesitation in the hands that work to drag something from the man, to keep up the necessary pressure for the tip of his cock to have any chance whatsoever of sliding in alongside his digits. It was always going to be an effort and multiple attempts.

In the end, he files away the want and desire to continue like this and chooses to expedite their mutual pleasure so they aren't just fumbling in the dark for him to strike both perfect angle and force.

Though he almost succeeds, close to victory as the stretch of the man around him accommodates just the tip and both his fingers for a moment before he pulls them free. With the head of his cock notching into place far more easily now, he grips hard at Enver's hips and uses them to ram himself from tip to base in one fluid motion. Perhaps it's fortunate his hands pull those hips back towards him as he thrusts, saving the smaller man from an immediate reintroduction to the hardness of the wall.

There is a certain cry, when one is overtaken with a sensation, whether pain or pleasure, that is expected to be momentary, but rather than abating, it instead radiates and insists on being even more. As though you believed answering it would satisfy it, but you are left afloat in how utterly it takes over your reality. That is where Enver Gortash finds himself when his hips are grasped and he is impaled in a single motion. He's pulled into his toes, and one hand braces him against the wall while another vainly grasps at one of the Dark Urge's wrists. Desperate for something to ground and balance him when his connection with it is right now tenuous at best.

He doesn't muffle himself, but soon he is left shivering and reminding himself inwardly to breathe. Black Hand forbid that he's both heard but mistaken to be in some manner of peril. This isn't for anyone else. The only one he needs to give him relief is here already.

In a moment, he's gasping to pull air back into his lungs, shifting around the wolf at the door and adjusting to this new equilibrium, letting himself feel the fullness, embracing it, welcoming it home after too long. Determined to only let it undo him in the ways that he wants.

He hears nothing out in the world beyond now.

Echoing the sentiment becomes something on the verge of uncontrollable, something that he skirts close to time and time again without actually ceding his control. This had been something of a risk when he'd settled on his plan to attend this evening's festivities, reasoning with himself that the whole point of it was to remain anonymous. He'd plan to leave well before the masks slid off and revealed rosy-cheeked partygoers, all too far off centre with alcohol and the rest to mind or notice.

Collaring Enver and removing him far enough from the crowd had been something he'd been prepared to bide his time with. An acceptance that while this is a risk, he doesn't leave it entirely to Enver to shoulder the responsibility of mitigating it.

And yet here they are, just out of sight and reach of the rest of the soiree and yet so totally wrapped up in each other that he struggles to hold back his own sound of enjoyment. The sudden soft heat of the man's guts squeezing the hard length of his cock is almost too much to keep a firm grasp of his control and the other man. But he succeeds, fingers tightening a fraction more and bound to leave marks long after just today.

Mere seconds trickle by as his hips strain to keep him deep, his pulse climbing as he exhales heavily and only when he can't bear to remain still any longer does he move again. Establishing a rhythm at the expense of feeling the tight heat grip at him is a worthy next step, one that he drives forward for the both of them, almost mindless of how close the other man is to being ground into the wall ahead of him.

Whatever rumors like to fly regarding the rising star Military Advisor's path to power, especially in circles such as this, the situation that Enver is currently in is fairly new. Whatever dalliances he has been part of over the years have generally been in more intimately secluded places. The bedroom of an heiress or heir. Fairly innocuous in scope, secret, the sort of thing that did not lead to a lot of rumors flying, if not for his sake then for theirs. A stark contrast to the environment he grew up in, to be sure, and for a long time it was why he preferred it, if it was to be the sort of thing he engaged in at all.

Fitting that this be so different in so many ways. To come from a fairly equal meeting of the minds, where he found himself being pursued rather ardently, when before it was very much an advantage that he himself was chasing.

It is probably why for all his caution, for all his insistence at propriety versus overindulgence, this does not invite in his mind thoughts of anything threatening or beneath his notice. Not that in the moment there is much room for anything in the abstract as far as thinking goes.

There is only this bottomless well of desire meeting an equally brilliant flame and expediently climbing to that apex of pleasure with desperation and fervor. His free hand claws at the stone beneath his touch, the fingers of the other ready to close and tighten against the pain the hold on his hip could far too easily spring, but stroking encouragingly, presently against the backs of rough, tense knuckles. Each full slam inward threatening to rock his head back, pushing another choked moan from his lips.

He bites his lip. He'll be close soon.

Edited 2024-08-06 18:57 (UTC)

Had he the wherewithal to think outside of the sparks of pleasure with every thrust, he might laugh at how this started. The other man had been so irritated to see him, and it's not that he doesn't understand why. But he feels Enver's deep and complete surrender to the invasion, the way his body welcomes every slam of his hips. The sight of nails scratching down stone tell a story all of their own.

He allows himself to fall into the moment bodily, no such urge otherwise to distract him or competing with his arousal and desire to climax. But he isn't so lost that he's forgotten Enver's desire, his palm now dry of oil but distantly he's assuming the other man's cock is still slick.

He doesn't wait around to guess for long. His left hand releases Enver's hip, fingers snaking around the bare strip of his waist before wrapping around the evidence of his desire. There's no need for him to stroke, the force of his hips slamming against Enver's behind and forcing his hips forward into his grip.

It seems as though he's getting closer too, and whether that's because he can feel the other man's desire against his palm now remains to be seen. His hips continue their incessant back and forth, breath still hot in Enver's hair as he wrestles them both towards their conclusion.

It's hard not to just fully lie back into him, but the position they are doing this from requires some degree of separation to keep those thrusts deep and impactful, and Enver's hips roll into them, with greater relish when the Dark Urge's moves a hand, and he feels utterly engulfed from every direction by his warmth. His moans are the beginnings of words he cannot fully form.

Pleas. Praises. Vain warnings that he will arrive too soon. Meaning conveyed more by tone than language, which is gone from him.

His own hands are more firmly anchored where they are as he puts more into his efforts, determined not to let the pace falter because he was off balance. A fool's errand; he can feel it coming, the fluttering clench of his inner walls around his member. Demanding, releasing and demanding yet again with no controlled tempo as his own member begins to release.

For a moment he is still, his entire body drawing taut, and he falls silent.

Eventually he drives himself towards his climax like waves dashed against a shoreline, bodily and without a single intervening moment to stop him. Had anybody deigned to join them in this particular moment, there would be nothing for it. A complete lack of ability to stop the flood of his seed into a masked Enver Gortash.

His breath is halting against the man's ear, mask slipping upwards only fractionally as he grunts into his dark tresses. Whatever tension he's kept residing in his body starts to loosen, though his large frame also leans forward until he's almost draped over the smaller man's back.

For a few moments he has nothing at all to say, the satisfaction of this newly discovered method of fucking - sans the maiming and murdering - sating him completely. A quiet moment of purity amidst the unholy noise of his blood.

But eventually sound starts to filter back into his awareness, the titter of those soft, wretched patriar and their infantile jibbering to suck at the teat of something alcoholic. The thought that he'll be glad to bring his blade to their innards comes unbidden, but it's far more fleeting than usual.

Without a sound he releases Enver's cock from his grasp, pulling his own from the confines of his flooded guts. Seemingly in the same move he's plucking at the sides of the man's trousers, pulling them up until he's decent no matter the mess likely gathering on the inside of that fabric. Only once that's done does he drag up his own, his still semi-hard but wilting cock an impressive outline in his own trousers despite his release.

Finally he turns the man, both hands taking a position at his shoulders and revolving until he's got his attention, icy eyes seeking out umber irises even in the low light of this pocket of semi-privacy.

"Hospitable as ever. Though I believe it's time I take my leave" he says, quiet but not quiet enough that the hoarseness isn't apparent. A signal to the other man that while this had been a risk showing up at all, he's not foolish enough to remain now that he's got what he wanted.

The haze of exhausted afterglow is finally pierced when the Dark Urge withdraws from him. There is something akin to a sound of objection mixed with relief -- he doesn't think more than one round in this position is feasible. And then he's being put back together, and comfort courses through his joints as he is finally able to fall into a more relaxed stance (and good luck that he did not simply collapse altogether). It's an odd sensation, to feel himself gently tucked away, his clothing pulled back on him and some decency restored.

At last he's turned away from the wall and steadied (he would definitely have lost his footing otherwise), and the bhaalspawn's eyes pierce through the dim light of the corridor.

He lets out a sigh less tremulous than before. "Only too happy to."

But he doesn't step away, instead taking a moment to straighten the Dark Urge's robes, smooth away wrinkles, reach up and adjust his mask so that it sits perfectly straight on his face. A handkerchief dots away a spot of sweat at his brow, and then with the backs of his knuckles brushing his chin, he presses forward, not too insistently, coming up again on his toes.

The kiss is a chaste goodbye rather than an insistence that he stay.

"Should you require further...attending to later. I will be back in my office in a few hours."

It all happens in quick succession, and in a way that he's wholly unused to. It isn't the first time he's had somebody fixing his clothes but there's far less deeply religious undertones. A cult member serving him on the back of a kill is a long way from what this seems to be. It's not business-like and yet it's also not subservient. He doesn't recognise it for what it might resemble more because he doesn't have any experience of a connection anything like this.

In the end it's the kiss that strikes him as the most strange, his expression half concealed in the darkness. But he looks confused, as though he's not entirely sure what is happening, but not disliking it either.

His lips tingle even as he reaches up, fingertips brushing over them. He looks like somebody who has just had their first kiss, and perhaps this is his first kiss that hasn't been driven by a carnal desire of some kind.

"Until then," he eventually says, corners of his lips ticking up briefly before he's turning and walking away.

Should his exit from the grand hall be monitored at all, it's clear he sweeps out without paying a single pawing patriar a shred of attention. The ripples of gossip after that only last for as long as the well-to-do can be bothered to be offended by such a slight. But soon enough their attention has shifted to something else.

Hours later, when he invariably comes looking, he finds Enver's office empty, though small signs that the man has at least been here are dotted around. When the man himself returns it'll be to the sight of a half-drow fully reclined across the table he likes to use as a desk. Bhaal's Chosen, in an entirely different set of clothes, occupies himself with a blade he's been throwing up and down in the air over himself. Nothing like a pointy game of don't drop to keep him entertained while he waits.

Enver's bath is attached to the chamber but mostly cut off. He drew some water almost as soon as he came in, not yet ready to sleep but in no mind to see to any business while there was so much of the evening to wash off of himself. Masks came off at midnight, with some surprises and delights as the energy wound down. But from there, the evening's business had closed and it was not long before he had been able to make his own exit, leaving the rest for the planners and workers to wind down, with some tasks for cleanup left for the following morning.

He emerges now, clad in a silken bathrobe of black and gold, and little else. Hair slightly damp and drying against his scalp, feathers of it once freed from the weight of water already beginning to take shape. He had tendered an invitation, but there was no expectation that it would be answered, given the late hour and the fact that there had been no set time for these kinds of encounters yet.

He stops short, the candleabra he has in hand casting a soft orange glow across the shadows, curves and lines of an only partially-concealed body. There are a few other sources in the room, candles, torches, the fireplace, enough that if he had intended to read until he tired enough to sleep at last, it would have been achievable.

It was enough to see that he was not alone, and while there was the immediate impulse to lecture about being careful with his papers, or to launch right into why that little detour at the party had been a dangerous gamble? The beginnings of a fond smile begin to form, as well as a greater awareness of how little stood between his skin and the cool night air.

"Having fun, are we?"

"It's been a fun evening," comes the reply from the low light, the light of the fire catching in the blade every time he throws it up and it takes a tumble back down. He throws a few more just for the fun of challenging himself to remaining sharper than his blade, and then sits up. Whatever order Enver had his papers in before, they're mostly still preserved close enough to their original configuration. But he does have to pull a sheaf from his back as he throws his legs over the side of the table and stands.

He's not unaware that it would be slightly inflammatory to the other man that he was stretched out across his business, but there's something he relishes about the fact that he can hear the smile in the other man's voice. A voice that he belatedly realises leaves him with a strange warmth in his chest.

"Did you enjoy your night, Enver?"

As though he isn't painfully aware that he knows Enver's enjoyment is likely still on the wall from earlier. Now he's grinning himself, his blade left neatly on the table and he only just avoids the urge to stab it into the wood with a violent thunk because he can. It's certainly not lost on him that the other man is wearing a robe and nothing else, something that's easy enough for him to see even in this low light. He doesn't need a lightsource to see very effectively in here thanks to the half-drow his father made him resemble.

Because Gortash is Gortash he is making a mental inventory of every written missive and map he sees and where they are meant to be. A task he can see to later. Much later. The ink is all dry, and nothing appears to be missing or damaged, so that is all that matters about that.

But he can imagine the Dark Urge smugly stretching out over his work as he's attending to business matters, languid as a cat while still demanding attention. Just a breath away from a kiss all while the man insists on finishing the last of his notes before any indulgence will be allowed.

Never liked that mental image, a different flavor from what was also likely: that once the half-drow decided he tired of waiting, they would both wind up on that tabletop anyhow.

And he would do that if he let him, damn the mess. The thought is dizzying on its own, and Gortash sets the candelabra on the mantle to give himself a little more balance.

"Yes, I believe I did. A moment or two worth the price of admission alone."

Unlike his usual attire when he's visited the man in the past - and in contrast to his party outfit - he's wearing something casual, soft and comfortable. As much as he has to look the part when he's enacting worship to Bhaal, there's no need here and now. The dark coloured tunic and equally dark coloured trousers are simple cotton, pleasant enough to the touch to indicate quality.

He joins the smaller man at the fireplace, an elbow propped on the mantle as he fully embraces the heat from the fireplace warming him immediately. The orangey-glow plays across his features and catches in the metal of his piercings as he casts his gaze upon Enver, as though he hasn't seen him for some time.

It's impossible not to allow his eyes to drop further, the open neck of the robe the man is wearing certainly leaving enough on show for him to feel the stir of want again. A heat far surpassing that of the flames that crackle and dance to his side.

"I assume the additional, private invitation implies a continuation of the conversation we started earlier." Conversation very much engaged in using their bodies rather than their words. A mere starting point is what he's been contemplating for the past few hours, something that perhaps the other man could also assume has been something the bhaalspawn has been revisiting regularly in his mind.

"It would have been rude of me to leave matters unfinished," Gortash answers smoothly. Because he had asked specifically about attending to him, yes. And of course he inwardly hoped he would take him up on it, even if there was no longer the same finery to unwrap from his body. (It felt nice to be free from it himself; he wasn't weighed down by nearly as many layers as some, but it all feels like a lot, even to him.)

Right now, this feels lighter. Comforting even.

The Dark Urge is radiant in the dim light, pinpricks of illunination caught by his piercings, his eyes, the glow illuminating his pale skin in all is perfections. Even though they are both standing near the fire, Enver feels suddenly chilled.

"I hope you're of a similar mind."

Of similar mind and still deeply curious about more than just what Enver's version of 'attending' means. The kiss is even more memorable than the climax that had spilled over and that's something he's unused to. Big, intense sensations are what he usually takes away from experiences that get his pulse racing. And yet the tingle is still barely a moment's recollection away.

A hand reaches between them, fingers brushing over the knot of the tie keeping the robe together before stroking down the length of it. Eventually he takes a hold, but he doesn't yet choose to tug. His eyes lift back to Enver's face, drift around his features slowly before back to his eyes, question inbound. Yet he doesn't ask it with words, his brows pulling together in such a way to ask 'may I?'

It is only when the Dark Urge reaches for the wash at his waist to untie it that it dawns on Gortash that he knows he's marked from earlier in the evening. He's always been easy to bruise, not that he is sure that could have been avoided either way. He felt them rising and dull through the night, even itching on occasion but by the time he had gotten out of his clothes and into the tub there they were: near-purple marks that perfectly matched the grasp of his lover in the throes of passion.

Not as egregious as the first time, where the Dark Urge had left deeper and larger marks in similar places.

But in the moment, he had to ask himself for several reasons whether it was safe to reveal that. Would it induce the bhaalspawn's bloodlust to override any other and seek deeper marks? The kind that leave scars? The kind that kill? Does it make him appear weaker, perhaps too frail to handle?

Are they ugly?

There's hesitation, and a blush forms in his cheeks as his eyes cast themselves toward the fire.

But the pause there pulls his eyes back to his companion's. That he was waiting. That he was asking, if wordlessly.

Enver takes a steadying breath, and finally a short, assenting nod.

He watches as Enver's eyes move fluidly to the fire, catches the flames dance in the reflection before they're back on him. The hesitation is confusing, the lack of understanding at why the other man seems to need a moment to consider. As though there's a reason to not want the fabric slipped from his frame as a precursor to something that feels good. Chasing that has become his favourite want and, in a reality where he's governed by his need, it makes it all the more attractive.

Enver's pause gives him pause too, a moment where a pinch of that confusion tugs at his features and he waits a beat more as though unspooling extra rope to create some slack. A space in which Enver can decide if he really means that nod.

Without protest, he satisfies that thought to wait just a breath longer, eyes not leaving the other man's face as he starts to pull. The fabric starts to slide almost immediately, the folds of the robe getting looser as the tension evaporates. He's still watching Enver's expression as each side falls away, creating a strip of nakedness right down the middle.

"Is there something you wish to tell me?"

Finally a question, a query as to what the hesitation had been about. It prevents him from going much further as he dips his head as though trying to keep the man's eye contact if he thinks about letting it drop away again.

At this juncture, it is not as though he has not been naked in front of this man. So it's strange that a few simple things can change the atmosphere so much as to leave him feeling a little rudderless. The moody darkness. The feeling of newness on your skin after a fresh bath. The brush of silk over bare, sensitive bands of flesh. The contrast of one of them being far more cloaked than the other.

Even the way the Dark Urge fills the full tract of his senses and won't let him avoid his gaze in a way that leaves him blinking more.

"No. Just...treading unfamiliar water, I suppose."

And that's more than once tonight that he's caught himself not thinking of important possible consequences until the moment it is really too late to do anything about it. That's a failing on his part that he can't afford to take lightly.

"You didn't remain long enough to have seen last time." And he only loses his eyes because he's using them for direction. A hand traces near one of his hips and the larger finger marks there.

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