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“I trusted you, Bal.”
“Ah, ah, I-I’m sorry-“
“I loved you, I still love you.”
“Ambrosius-“
“And you betrayed me.” he drove the point home with a harsh thrust, sheathing himself to the hilt in Ballister’s body, feeling powerful legs squeeze tightly around his waist, hands grasping desperately at the sheets as Ambrosius drove into him again and again and again. He didn’t know where they were, what surface they were draped across, but it didn’t seem to matter. Nothing mattered except Ballister beneath him, bare and gorgeous and parting like a flower for the sun, pretty eyes and sweat-slick skin and beautiful lilting moans of pure intoxicating need.
“I-I’m sorry.” Ballister’s eyes were big and dark, watery with desperation, like obsidian glass glinting in the low light, “I didn’t mean to. I was wrong, I was wrong-“
“You left me.” Ambrosius nipped at the dark skin of his shoulder, mouthing messily at the marked up flesh, unable to decide between kissing or sinking his teeth in, “You left me, Bal.”
“I’m sorry!” Ballister twined his arms around Ambrosius’ shoulders, holding him tight, wrapped around Ambrosius where he should always be, where he belonged, “Forgive me, please Ambrosius, I never meant to hurt you, forgive me…”
“You’ll have plenty of time to earn my forgiveness back home.” Ambrosius growled, burying his face in his shoulder as he rocked his hips mindlessly, drinking in Ballister’s moans, “And you are coming home with me, Bal. You’re not getting away from me again.”
“What? But… But I… ah…” his metal hand dug painfully into Ambrosius’ shoulder, and he relished the ache, “I’m- oh fuck -a wanted criminal-“
“I won’t let them throw you in prison.” he vowed, pulling back to look him in the eyes, willing Ballister to see how deathly serious he was, “I’ll keep you. They’ll let me keep you, I’ll leave if they don’t, and they won’t risk losing me.”
“K- Keep me?” Ballister asked incredulously, pretty eyes going wide, breaths coming in unsteady pants as Ambrosius pressed their foreheads together, his thrusts slowing to something rhythmic and deep, and he greedily drank in the hazy pleasure on Ballister’s face, “What do you mean, ‘keep’ me?”
“If you’re mine, you won’t be harmed, no one will dare harm you.” he said lowly, drawing himself out just to push back in achingly slow, enough that Ballister let out an embarrassing mewl that went straight to Ambrosius’ cock, “The war prize of a knight is untouchable, and if I claim you as my war prize, no one will so much as look at you wrong.”
“War prize?” Ballister asked incredulously, but the telling way he tightened around him made Ambrosius’ weak heart quiver with fondness.
“I’ve captured you fair and square.” he smirked down at him, pressing a kiss to parted lips, relishing the familiar tickle of his mustache, “That makes you mine.”
“I’ve-mn-literally never heard of knights having war prizes.” he spoke against his lips, “That seems barbaric as- ah!”
“Mn, it’s an outdated old tradition, but no one has thought to formally abolish it.” Ambrosius’ smirk widened as he struck that spot deep within Ballister, making him cry out, “I’m not above abusing it to get what I want. Just think about it, Bal. No more running, no more hiding, no more living in that run-down dump. Oh Bal, I’ll keep you safe and cared for and hidden from the public eye, you’ll never want for anything and we’ll be together, like we should have always been.”
“The Director won’t stand for it.” Ballister whispered, and Ambrosius’ smirk fell, “You know how she is, she’ll-“
“She will have no say!” he snarled, reaching up to grab Ballister’s soft hair, yanking his head back to bare his exquisite throat, teeth aching with the urge to bite down as Ballister gasped, “Do you hear me Ballister? No one will tell me that I cannot have you, I am tired of everyone else dictating my life for me!” He felt wild, unmoored, clinging to Ballister like a life jacket in a storm, and it must have shown on his face because Ballister’s dark eyes peered into his, brow furrowed with concern.
“You’re acting strange.” he murmured, trembling beneath him, blunt nails digging into Ambrosius’ shoulders as if to anchor himself, clenching reflexively around him in a way that made them both groan, “You’re not usually like this, what’s gotten into you?”
“What’s gotten into me?” he couldn’t quite withhold a slightly hysterical laugh, dipping to drag his tongue along the seam where metal met flesh, guilt twisting in his chest like a hot poker, “You made me this way.” It came out far more plaintive than he’d meant it to, more pained, and Ballister shivered sweetly beneath him.
“What do you mean?” he asked, so lovely in his ignorance, so blissfully unaware of how thoroughly he’d ruined Ambrosius. It would be infuriating if it weren’t so uniquely Ballister.
“I was fine before you.” he said helplessly, pulling back to look him in the eyes, “I was normal and well-adjusted and right in the head, and then you came along and… and ruined me. I was never like this, Bal! I was never the type to… to obsess over someone like this, I didn’t even know sexual desire was a real thing until I realized I loved you! But over the years it’s like you’ve consumed my thoughts, taken over my mind, you became my whole world... and then you were gone, after killing the fucking Queen, and still I obsessed over you! Everyone wants you locked away, and apparently so do I! Just… not the same way everyone else does.”
“I’m… not sure I follow.”
“I have these thoughts about dragging you home and locking you up in my room.” he confessed, dragging a hand up Ballister’s body to wrap it loosely around his throat, head spinning at the shaky inhale it earned him, “Or secretly buying that cottage we always dreamed of and just… just running away with you. Setting up traps all over the property so no one can come hurt you… and so you can’t leave. Is it normal to love someone so much that you’d become their captor to keep them safe, keep them close? Is that still love?”
His hand looked so nice against the dark skin of Ballister’s throat, like it belonged there. It felt heady, the trust Ballister was displaying in allowing the touch, Ambrosius’ thumb resting against the hollow of his throat, feeling the jump of his pulse and the tantalizing movement of every swallow. He felt powerful, in control, like he could keep Ballister here with willpower alone, like he could keep Ballister still and compliant safe underneath him.
Like he could keep Ballister.
“I don’t know anymore, Bal.” he murmured, “All I know is that watching you run from me that day shattered something in me, made me crazy, made me want nothing more than to find you and hold you and take you back even if it meant tracking you down and fucking some damn sense into you. I’ve never felt so wild, and it’s all your fault, I was never the type to even think things like that until you.”
“Ambrosius…” Ballister looked at him with his damnable doe eyes, and Ambrosius couldn’t stand it. He draped his free hand over those big dark eyes, shielding himself from their endless depths as he snapped his hips roughly, earning a sharp cry from the man beneath him.
“I hear people whisper to each other about me.” he hissed into Ballister’s ear, feeling him tight and warm around him, his body yielding for Ambrosius’ like it was made for him, arching into the hand around his throat like a pup yearning for a collar, “‘Oh poor Ambrosius, still so hung up on the Queen Killer, still heartbroken by his betrayal, look at him pine and moon like a wilting maiden, isn’t it just so sad’. I’ve never hated people so much, treating us like some tragic fairy tale, a fucking cautionary tale. Just another way you’ve ruined me.”
“A-Ambrosius-“ Ballister’s voice was a whisper, a sigh between bitten off little noises, “I never wanted to hurt you.”
“But you did.” he growled, leaning in to claim Ballister’s lips in a gentle kiss, a sharp contrast to the rough movement of his hips, “You did.”
“I’m sorry.” he murmured against his lips, and Ambrosius drew him closer, removing his hand to look into those eyes again, twining his fingers with Ballister’s metal ones securely above their heads.
“It’s okay.” he said softly, giving his hand a squeeze, “You’ll fix it. You’re coming home with me, say you’ll come home with me, Bal.”
“Ambrosius, I… I can’t-“ But that just wouldn’t do. He reluctantly released his throat to seize one of his legs, drawing it over his shoulder and deepening the angle of his thrusts, pressing a fervent kiss to his knee before starting up a rough rhythm that struck that spot inside Ballister every single time.
“Say you’ll come back to me.” he watched as Ballister writhed underneath him, moans spilling from his lips as he tried and failed to collect himself, barely able to form words under Ambrosius’ intense attention.
“Am-ah-Ambrosius, fuck, fuck, you’re so-“
“Say it!”
“You’ll be ruined!”
“I already am.” he said darkly, leaning forward and wrapping his arms tight around Ballister, pressing him into the mattress as his hips pumped, his eyes flashed, his teeth sank into Ballister’s gorgeous throat, “Just… Just say it, Bal. Say you’ll come with me, just fucking come home.” He bit down hard enough to draw blood, thrusting as deep as he could, and Ballister finally, finally surrendered to him.
“I-I’ll come, I’ll come home with you, I’ll stay with you!” he cried, grasping desperately at Ambrosius, as if someone would be so foolish as to try and separate them, “Just don’t stop, don’t stop, I’ll come with you, I love you, I promise!”
“Yes.” Ambrosius hissed, renewing his merciless thrusts as he clutched the man he loved tight enough to drive the breath from his lungs, listening to Ballister’s wheezing pants and breathless moans like he’d never hear them again, “You’re mine, Ballister, all mine, only mine.”
“Yours, yours, no one else’s” he breathed plaintively, clinging to Ambrosius, “Don’t let me go, Ambrosius, don’t let me get away.”
“Never again.” And with that one promise, Ballister came around him with a shuddering cry, tightening around his cock like a soft velvet vice, his pleasure like a blinding light of bliss and beauty, so achingly gorgeous. He was perfect, so tight and and warm and perfect, perfect, how could he ever have let Ballister go-
The sound of his alarm cut through the haze of wild pleasure, and Ambrosius snapped awake with a start, lurching upwards with flailing arms, grasping uselessly at the empty space before him, bereft now of anything but air. He looked wildly around the room, finding only a bright morning in the city, sun shining and sky blue, the people going about their day like every other.
No Ballister in sight.
Ambrosius buried his face in his hands, flopping back against the bed with an utterly defeated groan as the remnants of the dream played across his mind. His cock throbbed mockingly, hard and straining against his pants, a humiliating reminder of a humiliating dream, a ridiculous fantasy that he couldn’t believe his mind had conjured up. ‘Fucking some sense into him’, as if such a stupid idea would actually work. Ballister would be more likely to knock his lights out than react the way he did in the idealized self-indulgent fantasy, or he’d just bolt in the opposite direction the moment Ambrosius started ranting about locking him up because he’d clearly gone insane in the few months Ballister had been gone, because when Ballister fled the castle that day he took everything bright and warm with him, hiding the sun away under his cloak and leaving Ambrosius’ world dark and cold and senseless and… and…
Oh Ballister.
“I was never like this, Bal.” he echoed the words from his dream, weak and pleading and he resignedly slipped his hand into his pants, grasping his aching cock and conjuring Ballister’s handsome face in his mind, “I was never… What did you do to me?”
The echoing emptiness of his room was his only answer.