The hour was late, well past the midnight bell, by the time Basch managed to extricate himself from the crisis meetings that had devoured his entire day. The door to his quarters slid open silently, and he was glad that he’d always insisted on oiling all doors in the Castrum. Though he knew the sound wouldn’t wake Sartauvoir, who, it had to be said, slept like the dead, it still made him more comfortable when he could be quiet coming home when he’d worked late into the night.
He locked the door to his office, and stepped out of his armoured boots, setting them down against the wall next to Sartauvoir’s boots. He shrugged out of his greatcoat and hung that up too, then took a moment to remove his spectacles and pinch the bridge of his nose, rubbing forefinger and thumb against his eyes to dispel the difficulties of the day.
He was weary of meetings, and especially weary of war, but at least he could come home to his quarters and know that Sartauvoir awaited him. It’d been some moons now since he’d moved his things in, bit by bit, without really intending upon it, and Basch had never been gladder of the company to come home to.
The door to their bedroom opened equally silently, and he paused after locking it to take in the scene before him.
The lamp at their bedside burned dimly, without smoke or oil, and he knew that was Sartauvoir’s doing. Sartauvoir, who lay across Basch’s bed, head nestled into his pillow and hair spread out about him like a gently greying halo. He wasn’t wearing his eyepatch, and it lent a vulnerability to his face that he rarely let anyone see.
Basch’s heart thumped, and he remembered to breathe. By all the hells, he was beautiful, burn scar, early greys and all, no matter how much he would violently refute it.
His feet were silent as he crossed the cold floor, hands unlacing his trousers and shrugging out of his shirt before he really realised what he was doing. He knelt on the bed, ran a reverent whisper of a hand down Sartauvoir’s cheek to brush aside the fall of hair that hid his beautiful pale and paler eyes.
Sartauvoir didn’t make so much as a move, just the tiniest flicker of his eyelids, and Basch smiled down at him, eyes lidded as he raked his gaze over the sleeping body next to him. Sartauvoir was curled on his side, one hand tucked up underneath the pillow and the other loose at his chest. The covers had come dislodged as he slept, and they were rucked down around his waist and revealing his wiry, lithe chest down to one creamy expanse of thigh, all dusted with russet blonde hair like the icing on the most delectable cake.
Basch bent and nuzzled against that thigh, paused for a second, then nuzzled it again when there was nary a movement or sound from Sartauvoir. He mouthed kisses and murmured praise as he went, sliding the covers down to reveal Sartauvoir’s goodly arse.
His cock twitched, and Basch felt blood rushing ever downwards as Sartauvoir shifted, ever so slightly, one hint of tongue flickering out between his lips as he dreamt on.
“Hells…” he breathed, knowing that Sartauvoir would not wake, but not wanting to break this spell.
The lamplight limned Sartauvoir in gold. Basch crawled onto the bed below him and bent again, nuzzling his cleft with nose and tongue until he could bear it no longer. He put both hands on Sartauvoir, spreading his top leg out and pushing it enough that it turned him facedown, arse up and ripe for the taking.
As if in response, Sartauvoir turned his head to the side, nestling down into the pillow and murmuring some nonsense as he settled once more.
Basch barely dared to breathe as he pushed Sartauvoir’s thighs open, giving him room to kneel between them. He took a moment to palm his cock, hard as a rock by now, and leaking a little to boot. He smeared the liquid across the head of it and hissed with pleasure, before bringing the same hand to his mouth. He slid three fingers between his lips and his eyes fluttered shut as he tasted himself. A few moments and his fingers were wet with sticky saliva, enough that it left a damply shining patch on his bottom lip as he removed them, pressed the first of them into Sartauvoir’s arse then bent and added his tongue, slicking more saliva into his tight hole.
Sartauvoir moaned under his breath, hips raising from the bed as Basch pushed in another two wet fingers, curving them with the curl of his tongue to rub directly against Sartauvoir’s prostate.
Hips jerked, and he could almost imagine how Sartauvoir might be hard from his ministrations, how he might rut against the bed, unknowing, as he dreamt. The idea was too much to bear. Basch pulled out his fingers, stuffing them back in his mouth and then back down to his cock, smearing spit and pre-come. He leaned over Sartauvoir, one hand bracing on the bed beside him as the other guided his cock up against his arsehole, nudging and pushing until he slid just inside.
Basch’s head dropped forward, and he stifled a groan against Sartauvoir’s back, fist clenching in the bunched up covers as he steadied himself, caught his breath, adjusted to the tight laxness of the body beneath him.
Sartauvoir’s breath hitched, and his arse lifted again, rolling his hips against the bed and Basch knew he’d be hard as a rock, still in the trappings of sleep. He moaned as Basch pushed in deeper, his fingers clenching in his pillow, some more unintelligible words breathed into it.
It felt like Basch himself was dreaming, like they were suspended in unreality, painted with golden lamplight as Sartauvoir slept on beneath him, his hips jerking unconsciously as Basch’s blunt, thick cock rubbed against his prostate.
“Basch…” Sartauvoir mumbled into his pillow. “L-leg’tus, mm…”
He couldn’t hold back. Basch rocked his hips, setting a rolling, swaying pace that would keep him lasting as long as he could, to savour every moment. He ran his free hand up the length of Sartauvoir’s side, pushing aside that glorious mane of hair so he could mouth kisses into his neck, behind his ears and to the very edge of the sensitive burn up the right side of his eye and face, where it disappeared into his hairline.
Sartauvoir turned his face to the side, baring that scar and arching into the kisses as he never would while awake and tethered by the bounds of propriety, mixed with that strange shyness he was still unable to shake.
Basch nuzzled against it, breathing nonsense words of love and devotion as he fucked Sartauvoir’s sleeping body; words he’d not yet said aloud by light of day, but they felt right here and now, in this suspended moment of the night.
“I love you,” he murmured, “all of you, oh Sartauvoir, my inferno, I could do this forever, you beneath me and so sweet and open, oh hells but I do love you I love you I love you ah-”
He felt Sartauvoir come beneath him, arse clenching tight and his hips rocking into the bed as the friction and pleasure took him unwilling. His eyelids fluttered, eyes beneath flickering as a long, low exhalation of pleasure fell from his lips. “Basch…”
The tight squeeze of him would have been enough, but that roll of his name like a prayer sent sparks to Basch’s cock, and he rocked into his orgasm, inexorable as the tide, his whole body tensing like a bow before sagging back down again, draped over Sartauvoir’s lax back.
His heart thundered in his chest as he caught his breath, and it was many moments until Basch was able to move. His softened cock slipped out of Sartauvoir’s arse, bringing with it a delicious drip of seed that dribbled down his inner thigh.
Sartauvoir shifted, a smile curling on his lips. “Heavy…” he mumbled, words blurry with sleep. “Mmm, Basch…”
Basch slid his hand into Sartauvoir’s hair, rubbing calloused fingers against his scalp as he pressed a whiskery kiss to the corner of those lips. “Sleep, my love. I’ve got you.”
He moved back down Sartauvoir’s body, employing his tongue once more to clean every onze of come from his arse, even the escaping dribs and drabs. He’d not leave his love soiled, knowing full well how fastidious Sartauvoir could be, and besides, there was something intimate about this small act that he enjoyed; the feel of Sartauvoir’s sensitive hole, shivering as he lapped at it, the salt-sourness of his own seed, the satisfaction of knowing he’d done this, that he was allowed to see this side of the Inferno himself, so closed off to all others as he usually was.
Basch licked his lips, savouring the musky taste, then he pressed a gentle kiss to Sartauvoir’s arse cheek as he rose. “Roll over, my love. You’re laying in a wet patch.” His voice was pitched low, and he pushed gently on Sartauvoir’s hip, rolling him onto his usual side of the bed. Forgoing a towel or anything else, Basch slid under the covers and tugged them up and about them both, pressing his back up against Sartauvoir’s chest and smiling at the damp press of cock against the underside of his thigh.
Sartauvoir wrapped one arm around his waist, pulling him in ever closer, and buried his face into Basch’s sweat-dampened hair with a pleased mumble.
Basch smiled to himself and settled back against him, twining his fingers with those splayed at his stomach, and drifted off into sleep.
- - -
The sun poured in through their high window, and Sartauvoir groaned, squinting his eyes against it before burying his face deeper into Basch’s hair. “Too bright by far,” he grumbled, and then became aware of a pleasant, somnolent ache down his thighs and lower back.
He shifted his hips, then grimaced as his cock peeled away from Basch’s thigh. “Basch?”
The warning tone woke Basch and he turned in Sartauvoir’s arms, looking up at him blearily. “Mm?”
“What happened last night, pray tell?”
“Last night? Last night… hm. Oh.” Basch ducked his head, cheeks scarlet.
“I had the most delightful dream, and now I wake to find it was no dream at all. Is that it?”
Basch squirmed, but he looked up and caught Sartauvoir’s gaze, holding it with that familiar, beloved intensity. “You looked so beautiful,” he murmured, voice and cheeks warm. “How could I resist?”
Sartauvoir huffed out a laugh. “And yet, I am not as sticky as I would have expected. Cleaned up after yourself, did you?”
“Of course! I know how much you despise being sticky.”
“Well, you missed a spot.” Sartauvoir’s hips moved, pointedly, and it was Basch’s turn to laugh, hearty and surprised, his whole body shaking with it.
“I’ll be more thorough,” he managed, between laughs, “next time.”
“Mm, you’d better. And there’d better be a next time, do you hear me, Legatus?” Sartauvoir’s voice dropped low, oozing with lust.
“Now that I can do.”