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Faust is absolutely fine, even if Alec won’t hear of it.
“Your soldiers told me you could barely even get through drills yesterday because of cramps,” Alec says, pacing up and down the (very short) length of Faust’s tent, “and now your fever --”
“Is nothing I can’t handle,” Faust snaps at him. Years of friendship have only sharpened his tongue against Alec, and he is so close to knocking him over the head with his sword, just to be done with this argument. How sweet it would be to finally shut him up. He settles for striding out of his tent. His jacket is only wrapped a little tighter than strictly necessary. The autumn breeze is starting to chill. “I’m telling you, it’s fine .”
Alec chases after Faust like a dog, and normally, it’s cute how Alec doesn’t like to be left behind. “At least see Dr. Figaro about it.”
Even the mere mention of Figaro has Faust’s cheeks flushing, but at least he can pass off burying his face in his hands as annoyed instead of hiding something. “If I do, will you stop asking already?”
“If he says you’re fine, then you must be since he’s a doctor, right?”
He’s not exactly, but it was also the only way to convince the more skittish, wishy-washy men to accept a Northern wizard into their ranks (because a Central wizard like Faust was okay, but the North was where they just had to draw the line, apparently, and did Lord Faust know Oz was from the North, so they couldn’t trust any Northern wizards, of course).
(Never mind that Faust disabused them of this notion quickly in their next skirmish; Central wizards could do what needed to be done too, after all.)
“Fine, but you’ll see, I’m perfectly all right.”
---
“Oh, you’re not fine,” Figaro says without even examining him. Faust stares at him, and he knows he must look like an idiot, mouth hanging open in shock, but he’s felt perfectly normal, minus the little bit of a chill. But Figaro doesn’t even seem to notice. He just rustles through his stores of herbs humming . “Take these, rest, and it’ll clear up in a day, though.”
“You-- I’m not sick!” Faust sputters, even as Alec plucks the pouch of-- ugh --foul smelling herbs and drops them into Faust’s hands with the smuggest smile.
Figaro looks too amused by far. “I didn’t say that you were. But you should take it easy. Just for the rest of the day. No vigorous exercise. You could help me around medical, if you’d like.”
“Hah, I’ll have Lennox run drills today,” Alec crows. Not even the swift jab to his side deters him. It just leaves him wheezing out a laugh instead.
“I’ll take care of myself, thanks,” Faust says, stalking out of Figaro’s tent.
“Don’t steep those for too long, or they’ll be more bitter!” Figaro calls after him.
Faust thinks he’s being very polite already when he doesn’t make a rude gesture behind his back as he leaves.
---
“Sir Faust…” Lennox is very sweet and very gentle, and these are things Faust likes about him very much.
But not today.
“Hush, I’m not an invalid,” he says as he fetches his sword from the grass. His wrist smarts a little from Lennox's last hit, and his back and sides ache from all the rest of Lennox’s moves, and he’s sweating like a pig, but it’s still the best he’s felt all day. Not a cramp or fever in sight. “Again.”
“But Master Figaro--”
Faust groans loudly. “Not you too.”
“Just that maybe, it would be best--”
“I drank the disgusting tea,” Faust says, flicking the sweat away from his brow with a scowl, “and I drew up plans, and I rested. I believe I’ve earned this. Again.”
Lennox still looks uncertain, but Faust doesn’t give him the time to protest again, running forward with his sword and calling magic to his fingers.
---
“Dr. Figaro said you were supposed to be resting today.”
“And I did,” Faust says primly as he sharpens his blade. “All day.”
“Lennox told me you made him spar with you.” Alec drops down next to him instead of--oh, anywhere else in Faust’s tent. Just because he’s picked the warmest spot in the tent doesn’t mean Alec deserves to sit there with him when he’s being an intruding worrywart. “That’s not resting.”
“It wasn’t even that vigorous,” Faust says, scowling down at his whetstone as it glides across the metal. “Perfectly within Master Figaro’s guidelines.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“Lennox should stop running his mouth.”
“You would wound him if he ever heard you say that. Besides, it’s for your own good, Faust,” Alec says grumpily. As though he is the one inconvenienced by this entire matter. He even slaps a hand against Faust’s forehead, nearly knocking him backwards, and it’s only by Faust’s own quick reflexes that he doesn’t go sprawling. “See, you’re still warm too.”
“Watch it!” Faust hisses. He is completely within his rights to push Alec over too, laughing as he really does go flying.
“I didn’t push you!” Alec squawks. They’re both growing too old too fast in this war of theirs. Alec’s already grown taller than Faust in what seems like the blink of an eye. His limbs are too long to be graceful as he scrambles to his feet. He’s like a puppy fumbling around for the first time, face flushed by the time he manages to jab Faust in the chest with a finger. “I was trying to help!”
“No, you’re trying to be an idiot,” Faust says. He sheathes his sword and stows it away carefully out of Alec’s way. Just in case he decides to get rough. “It was hardly an hour of sparring. I’ve come away with worse bruises tumbling around with you when we were kids.”
Alec concedes with a throw of his hands in the air, and Faust finally gets to play the smug one. “If you get worse, don’t come crying to me!”
“I won’t!” he shouts back as Alec, finally, leaves him alone. Peace and quiet at last.
---
“...up, there you go.”
A soft voice (warm, like cotton, like Faust wants to sink into it forever) croons in his ear. There’s a hot, heavy hand on his back, guiding him up, up, up. Even though his head is spinning and the world is swimming, he manages to sit up with a whimper. Something stinks: lavender and burnt sugar. The only place where it’s better is leaning up against the warm, warm body next to him, where the smell finally clears a little into something spicy, minty like a balm.
“There you are. Good, aren’t you being so wonderful, sweetheart?” The praise is sticky, candy sweet, and Faust preens under it. Basks, even. It’s all he wants to get closer, where his head feels a little clearer and he feels less like his body will burn itself up.
“What did you do to him?”
A hand trails down Faust’s back, tracing every knob of his spine on its way down before it runs back up, and Faust all but purrs in delight, slumping bonelessly against--Figaro, he thinks, squinting.
“If he’d just followed my advice, he’d have been fine. I’m quite innocent in all this.” Figaro’s fingers dip lower this time, and Faust keens, hips shifting to push him further.
“But he’s--!”
“It’s a perfectly natural heat. Happens to some wizards--up, come on, darling--every so often,” Figaro says, dragging Faust into his lap, arms wrapped loosely around his waist. Faust does wish he’d shut up and put his hands to better use instead of teasing him, fingers rubbing so, so close to where Faust feels slickness, feels--
-- empty .
“Not being human and all that. What I gave him would’ve taken care of it in a day, if he just rested like I told him to. Ah, but you never like listening, do you, Faust?” Figaro doesn’t let him answer, doesn’t expect him to, thank god, because he finally, finally lets his fingers catch on his rim and the only thought that enters Faust’s head is more .
“So either he can ride it out alone, or he can ride it out with me,” Figaro slips a finger in, and it’s all Faust can do not to wail as he finally gets something inside, “and I think I know what he’d rather. It’s shorter if I help too, so you’ll have your general back all tidy in one piece in a few days, okay?”
More words go over his head, but Faust doesn’t care. Not when he finally has something to rock his hips back on, gasping wetly, toes curling. Not when another finger pushes in easy, easy, easy and his knees lock around Figaro’s waist. Not when Figaro smells so fucking good Faust can’t help chasing the scent, moaning unbidden as he mouths at his neck.
He doesn’t care until he’s tipped over onto his back and Figaro’s fingers hit a different, better angle that has him keening and clenching as they push against his walls. Even though a third finger slips in and the stretch makes him dig his heels into his cot, Figaro is too far .
Beg . The thought comes unbidden, and the intensity of it sends a shiver up his spine. His gut twists - emptiness and anxiety meld into something awful that claws at his throat and threatens to shatter him to pieces. He can’t. He can’t, he can’t, Faust simply can’t—
“Please, Figaro, please .”
—endure. The feeling drags him under, and Faust sinks further into that heady, hazy place. Sounds spill easy from him now, little whines and quiet pleas as Figaro opens him with aching care.
“I know,” he says, pressing an incongruously tender kiss to Faust’s forehead, “but you’ll be upset with me if I don’t go slow.”
“No - ” Faust gasps out, hips rocking down frantically where Figaro’s fingers aren’t enough . Why isn’t he giving Faust what he needs? Is it him? Is he not good enough? “No, no, no, I can - I can take it, please.”
Figaro growls. The sound reverberates through his chest, rattles Faust to his core. It reaches into that warm place, and it’s so nice . Knowing that he’s wanted. Knowing that Figaro will protect him. Faust whines in kind, and the tenuous veneer of humanity between them snaps.
Figaro moves with an animalistic certainty, dragging his fingers out and shoving Faust’s legs apart, bearing down and gripping his thighs hard enough it tips straight past pain into pleasure. He’ll bruise in the morning, in an hour, marks that Faust will be able to savor, that something in him purrs will show that he belongs somewhere.
“I’m never going to let you leave this bed,” Figaro growls, and god. God, the heat floods through him as Figaro presses against his entrance as a fresh trickle of slick leaks out. Faust wants that so bad, he can almost taste it, that spicy, minty scent wrapping around him forever with nothing to worry about ever again.
“Want it, I want it, please, wanna be yours” Faust whines, and it’s the right thing to say because Figaro crushes him to the bed and fucks in with a single, brutal, glorious stroke.
It’s agony. It’s rapturous. It is so close to everything he wants, everything he needs , it overwhelms him in an instant. The breath steals from Faust’s lungs, unable to make a single sound as he tips his head back in blinding pleasure, spilling between them as rivulets of slick run down his thighs.
“Fuck, Faust .” Figaro says his name with reverence and raw desire that has Faust shivering, arousal unabated. “Let me have you, let me—”
“Anything.” Anything . The full force of that should scare him.
He wants it to swallow him alive.
Figaro bares his teeth in a feral and twisted facsimile of a smile. The diamonds in his eyes are huge and dark with lust, with promise. Faust doesn’t know who makes the first move between them, but maybe that doesn’t matter, the way they collapse on each other in magnetic, animalistic attraction. Faust kisses him until he can taste iron on his tongue. Figaro bites into the meat of his shoulder until it aches and he sees stars.
There’s nothing gentle in the way Figaro moves, fucking into him with wild abandon, chasing a high he’ll take from Faust’s body, which Faust will let him .
“ Mine .” Every scrape against his walls, the drag of skin against skin, sends him higher, until he might burst, teetering just on a terrible, brilliant knife’s edge as Figaro’s thrusts grow frenetic and the stretch grows until it aches.
“Yours.” Figaro’s teeth clamp down somewhere between the tender skin of his neck and shoulder, already bitten raw and red, but this—
This is bliss.
—
The first thing Faust registers is the soreness. Everywhere. Everything aches in the best and worst way, and maybe getting out of bed is a terrible idea, actually. Maybe he’ll just stay here, bury his face into the minty, spicy smell he can’t get out of his nose, and never leave.
The second is that someone else is in bed with him.
The last few days of their wild, impromptu fuck vacation filter back in hazy pieces that make Faust’s face burn and shrink deeper under the covers.
“A little late to be embarrassed, don’t you think?”
“Why didn’t you warn me?!” Faust hisses, but the anger is short-lived as Figaro cards his fingers indulgently through his hair. The movements are rhythmic, methodical. Soothing. He bites back a quiet whine as he turns his head to give better access.
Figaro sighs. “Would you have listened?”
“I always listen to you.”
“Lying isn’t very nice, Faust.”
“I do!” Faust pouts, and he gets an indulgent kiss to the crown of his head.
“I wasn’t too rough, was I?” Figaro says. Just like every other time Faust tries to change his mind about something, he sidesteps the conversation instead.
“No,” Faust says. “It was what I needed.”
When he kisses Figaro, he tastes like mint and spice and bad ideas. He tastes like day-old regrets that neither of them have the ability to walk away from anymore. For better or worse, he belongs to Faust, just as much as Faust is his.
(One day, Faust will chase a thought to its end and make Figaro answer him until he’s satisfied, but he’ll have the time for that.)
(Won’t he?)