thecapitol | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who| Dorian and Maxwell, Tabris
What| Dorian is in a bit of a downward spiral and who needs self respect anyway
Where| Maxwell's room
When| a few days before the arena
Warnings/Notes| lots of sexual innuendo, and really terrible life decisions. Alcohol abuse ( a bit ). Probably a really ill-thought-out attempt at seduction.

At the very least, he wasn't drunk.

The drinking had gotten worse. Even he could acknowledge that to himself - dimly - as if from a great distance, and about someone else. He'd always enjoyed a good drink but he was using it more and more as an escape, lately, and he was caring less and less about keeping to his tolerances. It was beginning to be a Problem, but one that he couldn't quite help himself with.

Tonight, however, he was not drunk. That was a relief. He would not be doing what he was doing if he had been - he legitimately did care about Maxwell enough that he wouldn't make the man endure that - but he was tired, he was depressed, and he was lonely. The Sinful places in the city had enticed him for a little while but hadn't actually made the depression or the loneliness any better. Whores made good friends but there were only so many male ones in the city and while engaging in carnal passion was indeed a) a satisfying type of rebellion, and b) distracting, it was in absolutely no way fulfilling. Quite the opposite. He felt emptier with each passing day.

He'd been avoiding his friends. He at least had it in him to be ashamed of himself, even if he saw no other particular way of getting on with his life. Back home, perhaps, he could have found another avenue. He could have thrown himself into his studies, into his magic. Into killing random strangers in the countryside. But here...

But here.

It was enough to almost make one wish that one was Tranquil. At least then he wouldn't care.

He had a bottle of brandy in his hand and two glasses, when he knocked on Maxwell's door in the middle of the night. He was dressed, but in the kind of leisurely sexual way that many in the sinful class of this city seemed to. Not as flashy as the peacock modes, but a late night demure outfit - a shoulder bare - the neckline high and strewn through with glinting silken threads, but still soft. It folded to the touch, lay his adam's apple bare. He wore a carefully tailored, if comfortably loose shirt under it. His trousers were fairly snug, with whisps of embroidered blue fire up the outside of the calf. He looked, in a word, fantastic. But there were bags under his eyes that hadn't been there before, and his coif was not quite as well placed as it usually was, and his smile, when he gave it as the door opened, didn't quite manage to reach his eyes.

"Good evening, Maxwell," He said quickly, before the man could make any sound of surprise or even of acknowledgement, before carefully side stepping past him and into the room. "I thought you could use some company, and I had the perfect bottle in mind."

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Dorian was all too happy to let himself be guided, to indulge himself despite the fact that if he thought it through he knew this was only likely to make things worse, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Not here, not in this moment. Knees hit the bed and he pushed Maxwell down onto it, kissing him firmly as he slid onto the bed, straddling him.

He released the man's lips to straighten up, pulling his own shirt off and throwing it to the floor. There, much better.

Maxwell might have agreed with the sentiment, if he hadn't already been sitting up to put his lips to better use. Hot, open-mouth kisses dotting across the freshly bared skin. Tasting, teasing, just as hungry for the next inch as the one before.

Teeth grazing over the man's hip, his hands glided flattened against Dorian's muscled thighs, squeezing once - enjoying the flex beneath his palms - before moving on. His fingers hooked in the waistband and pulled.

He let out a small grunt, his hands going to his trousers as was evidently required, and made short work of them, shifting his weight to slip them off. He still had his small clothes, of course - but otherwise, there was nothing but skin. And wasn't Maxwell's teeth making that all too apparent.

He reached down, threading his fingers through Maxwell's hair, massaging his scalp, before pulling him back just far enough for Dorian to slide down his body and take another heated kiss, pressed up close against him, skin to skin.

It wasn't anything conscious. Wasn't even very big.

But there was a shift, for a just a moment.

Maxwell's arms slipped around Dorian, closing the embrace, holding him close. And for just a heartbeat there was something besides the hunger in his hands. Something stronger than desperation in his grip, something warmer than desire in his kiss.

He didn't think about it. Couldn't have stopped it even if he had.

It was instinct. It was much a part of him as his flesh and bones.

As the heart, thundering away in his chest.

It was such a small thing, but the world tilted and Dorian tilted with it, though he wasn't conscious of it. The desperate kiss slipping into something slower, lingering.

It was so incredibly familiar that it ached through every bone.

He let out a soft moan - wistful and nostalgic, his eyes closed as he slowly moved himself against Maxwell's body, skin against skin.

Maker, but he m--"issed you so much--"

Dorian whispered to him, a small string of words that Maxwell tasted before he even heard them, the man's lips rubbing against his own with every syllable. They burned against his mouth and there was an answering surge in him.

Unbidden, unstoppable (so, so unwise).

A wave of feeling - of things he'd been trying so hard to push away, to ignore, to forget - buoyed his heart, bounding it against his ribs. His hands splayed on Dorian's back and skimmed along his spine, callused fingertips kneading into muscle. Holding him as close, as tight as he could while still a separate person.

That Dorian couldn't have meant him, that the murmured confession was for a man a world and a life away, didn't sink in until after his mouth was catching the mage's again, firm and full. Not until he'd already pressed his forehead against Dorian's and dragged at rough breath.

"I've missed you."

It was the voice, that broke it. He'd forgotten himself, and the wrong voice had replied, and with it came a wave of both mortification and guilt. He was suddenly completely aware of where he was, what he was doing, and who he was doing it with - and the blood drained from his face slightly.

He was a fool.

A selfish, inconsiderate, and cruel, fool.

He groaned again, but it was not out of pleasure this time - but a low sound as he pressed his hands against the sheets and pushed himself up, his brows furrowing as he looked down at Maxwell. Really looked at him.

He couldn't deny that there wasn't something there, but he was taking advantage of the man, and he knew it.

"... Is this actually what you want?" He finally said, quietly, too aware of the naked flesh, of the desire and need that was still thumping hotly through his veins - tempered only by that twisting guilt.

Unwise, he had said. He was probably right.

Maxwell wasn't the only one who wasn't the man actually missed.

His embrace had tightened reflexively as Dorian had shifted, sensing even before their eyes met that something had changed, and wanting to believe - hoping - for just a moment that if he just held him, it wouldn't matter. But then he could see the truth in Dorian's face.

The regret, and the shame.

Even if Maxwell could have pretended that it didn't hurt, he'd never be able to forgive himself then if he ignored the way Dorian looked at him. For putting Dorian through it; for using him that way.

"...'Unwise' might have been insufficient," he replied lowly, forcing his arms to relax and slip slowly down.

Dorian, for his part, didn't move. Barely even breathed. His body screamed at him, desperately trying to get him to turn his brain off, to continue. Something that felt so good could hardly be wrong! But the regret and the shame was so clear on Maxwell's face that he knew he had been right, to interrupt. He wouldn't have been able to live with himself, otherwise.

"I've never been known to be particularly wise," he admitted wryly, giving what he hoped was a smile. "Maxwell--" he hesitated, the word hanging in the air. Their bodies were still connected from the hips down - his weight still pressed down against Maxwell beneath him, the shameful proof of his arousal hidden from sight, but not from touch.

It took him a few hesitant seconds to gather his thoughts.

"I-- I don't want to... To ruin the mood, as it were, but I feel it would be remiss of me to remind you that you had asked me to leave only a few moments ago," he said finally, carefully. It wasn't anywhere near what he wanted to say, but those words were trapped in his throat, and would not come out. So he bypassed them. "As much as I- obviously-" he was still quite aroused, "would be perfectly happy to continue, if it were at the risk of losing your friendship..." He trailed off.

It was tempting, more so than Maxwell wanted to admit, to just pull the man down again. To roll his hips against the hard heat he could still feel pressed against his thigh and to kiss him until they couldn't even remember their own names, much less anyone else's.

But he knew, even more, that Dorian was right. So instead, his hands fisted in the sheets, swallowing thickly as a different sort of heat crawled up along his body at his words.

Guilt. And embarrassment.

He was such a fool.

"No. No, I understand," he said after a moment, clearing his throat in an attempt to make it sound normal. Less rough, less thick. Like he wasn't lying naked and aroused beneath a half-naked man.

Like he was alright.

"And I - feel the same. I shouldn't have pushed. I apologize."

"Do I need to remind you that I was the one who came to your door in the middle of the night?" Dorian asked, arching an eyebrow slightly, sliding back into his usual mask of casual humour. A fiction, of course, an easy way to hide the roiling uncertainty in his chest.

But a fiction he was all too used to employing.

Slowly, he slid himself off - regretfully - but also almost relieved.

Relieved, that he hadn't slipped into a horrible mistake and hurt someone he'd come to care about very much.

Because he would have hurt him. It was too close - he was too close. He even smelled like Gavin, if Dorian closed his eyes. And Maxwell deserved quite a bit more than left overs of a memory.

Even if it hurt so deeply that he couldn't think too closely about it.

He stood, taking in a deep and steadying breath, and started to look for his clothes. "... I would suggest a drink, instead, but..." he trailed off, the obvious unspoken. In their current state, any extra time spent together was going to end up exactly where they'd already been going - and any excuse he made to stay in Maxwell's presence would be a flimsy one.

Maxwell gave himself a moment, lying still and flat where Dorian left him on the bed. Then he sat up and took another, shifting to the edge of the bed where his eyes closed and walked himself through a deep breath as Dorian moved and rustled behind him.

Talking. Dressing. Leaving.

For the best.

He forced himself to move again, picking up his own clothes. Hiding away at least part of his shame.

"...It's already late, and I'm sure Jason will have a few words if you're caught. Even more if he finds out you were with me." He turned, pulling something that felt vaguely like a smile. "We've probably flirted with enough trouble for one evening."

He paused - his carefully placed facade slipping - the guilt, and the worry, reading all too clearly on his face. The apology was there, on his tongue, and the desperate plea to forget what he had said, to forget everything, but neither of them left his lips.

He forced a mirrored, sad smile to his lips, not quick enough to cover his slip.

"Jason always has a few words for me, regardless," He said, as if keeping on the safer part of the topic would suddenly make everything okay. "And don't tempt me - I'll stay out all night just to annoy him, if I can. But yes. I--" Again, there was the apology, there was the plea, but both were left unsaid. He pulled his robe tightly around himself.

"... Goodnight, Maxwell."

Their eyes met and held for a long, strained moment. Maxwell wanted to apologize again: for letting it go as far as it had, for even bringing it up in the first place. He wanted to reach out and hold him again, to run his fingertips over the ends of his mustache and tease out the droop.

But he didn't.

None of those things would actually help. They needed time now. And space.

And Maker so help him, he would get that right.

"Goodnight, Dorian."

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