Slide Rule: Part 3 [NSFW]
3.
Some nights I can't stay asleep due to nightmares. Some night's it's simple insomnia. Some nights it's Khaavren. I don't mind those nights at all.
We've snuck into some troll ruins in the highlands of Arathi, not far from the little farm we invade from time to time. It's not too cold this time of year, and it's remote, and when we make love our voices ring off the cliffs.
A mere eighty years old and he's a beast. Insatiable, indefatigable, and damned if he doesn't have me addicted to his body. It was twilight when he first laid me down on the palette of our little camp and the sun is rising now. I've lost count of how many times we've gone - if he was climbing my back or if I rode him or if he knelt for me, all of our ecstatic clashing blurs together in the haze of afterglow. I've lit a cigar; he watches me smoke.
Had I a say in the matter I would not recall a certain song right now. I'm making a new life with Khaavren, so why should the words and tune of a dawn-paean I wrote for Thaldarian come bubbling up my throat? He notices my reaction, of course. "Something wrong, love?"
It takes me a moment to respond. His hand runs across my chest, and I can't help but smile. The scars racing up that hand and arm are beautiful. "Where d-do you see yourself in five years?"
"With you." He answers without hesitation. There goes my heart again, flutter flutter.
"Of course, but doing what?"
His smile is positively impish. "Keeping you up all night."
"Naughty!" I roll over to sit astride his hips. Despite hours upon hours of the finest exercise in the world my spine tingles when our bare loins touch. "I mean w-what do you see yourself doing with your life. Your place in the world, and the state of it."
It's Khaavren's turn to pause in thought. "Best-case scenario, overseeing the final construction on our house in Nagrand. Starting fields. Perhaps I'll teach a squire or two. Realistically?" He sighs. "Fighting off demons and Scourge for the queen."
The cigar in my fingers crackles as smoke fills my lungs. "Let's go back to the best-case scenario."
My lover nods and shifts a little, hands light on my waist. "We'll have gone over the house plans a hundred times with half a dozen architects to make sure it's perfect, and worked our butts off to afford it, but we spare no expense. We'll even spring for a gatehouse on the ground and permanent portals - Shattrath, Dalaran, Undercity."
I nod. It can't be helped: I squirm a little atop him. "Light knows that w-would be nice. Will we have adopted yet?"
"More cats," Khaavren quips, and we both laugh. "But children? We'll still be doing paperwork."
"I can believe that."
He tips me forward a little and pushes his hips up, grinning. His readiness makes me tremble. "You can't be serious," I grin.
The little devil winks at me and asks, "Does this feel serious enough to you?"
The next thing I know our voices are ringing off the cliffs yet again.
Like I said, he's a beast.
III.
Not too long ago I thought we'd be able to find an architect far sooner, as we had someone else helping us look. I'd thought there would be a third set of tastes to accomodate in the design. When we speak of making love in every room of the house to inaugurate it, I'd thought it would be a series of threesomes instead of us two.
But Khaavren doesn't remember.
I know this because I'm the reason he doesn't. Grief-wracked, he begged me to help him forget, and I could not deny him. Last night I became the hunter he needed and tracked down every last memory of that cur. I ripped each one free in the jaws of the dream-form I'd taken, tasted it, and devoured it into the void. It was not the first time I've become a monster for the sake of another, nor will it be the last. Having eaten months worth of memories at his behest is a burden I will bear to my grave.
And yet....
This morning I watched Khaavren sleep untroubled for the first time in weeks. When he awoke it was with a ready smile and a hearty appetite. We had breakfast on the northern shores of Lordamere Lake; when he was done with his share he took half of mine as well. The day before he would have eaten less than I do. We washed the mats from his hair and then, finding ourselves famished for each other, whetted another appetite that had reawoken in him.
The depths to which I've sunk are the very source of my nightmares but this time, more than any other - this time was worth it.