## Preface

sweat and tears
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/12476000.

Rating:
  Explicit
Archive Warning:
  Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category:
  M/M
Fandom:
  The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Relationship:
  Asra/Julian Devorak
Characters:
  Julian Devorak, Asra (The Arcana)
Additional Tags:
  Pain Kink, Dom/sub, light bloodplay, Masochism, Sexual Tension, Edging, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Nonbinary Character, What have I done.., who have i Become....
Language:
  English
Stats:
  Published: 2017-10-23 Words: 2,941 Chapters: 1/1

# sweat and tears

by devoraq

Summary

> "You can do anything to me, whatever you want," he pants, then gasps as Asra pulls out the knife once more.

> "Anything?" Asra tilts his head to the side, twirling the ceremonial knife slowly over his fingers, and grinds up with his knee, reveling in the way Julian's breath escapes him.

> "Please."

> --

> (a reimagining/extension of the memory from Part 2 of Asra's section of VI: The Lovers)

Notes

> important note: for the purposes of this fic, asra is nonbinary (CANON) and dfab but still uses he/him pronouns

> anyway i..fucking love julian and asra? and just to make this explicitly clear i don't think asra is abusive or anything, they're both adults who made some bad choices etc etc and this wasn't written to place blame on either party i'm just gay and that's it

> ANYWAY sorry for the long note i'll spew the rest of my thoughts in the end notes, also catch me on tumblr @devoraq and be expecting more fic hopefully soon!!

See the end of the work for more notes

## sweat and tears

"I wonder... how much are you willing to give up, Ilya?"

Julian struggles to find words, flustered thoughts tripping over his eager tongue. "I- um, well, that is to say- you know-" and then, swallowing hard, biting his lip so the pain will clear his mind of anxiety long enough to reply, "I'll give you all of me, if that's what it takes."

His breathing is heavy, heart pounding in his chest, so loud that he forgets to listen to the words, wrapped up in the flow of Asra's voice until laughter like wind chimes snaps him back into attention.

"All of you? Oh, Ilya... For now, all I need is your hand."

He doesn't hesitate -- it doesn't even occur to him that he might -- before slinging his arm up to present to Asra. It knocks into something, he's not sure what but it's not important, nothing is, nothing but him -- and what little attention that thought had held in his mind fades the second Asra's fingers begin to trace the lines in the palm of his hand.

And then those fingers are replaced with a dagger -- when had Asra picked that up? Julian hadn't noticed -- a shudder runs through his body. To his own dismay, his clenched jaw falls slack when the blade stops its gentle tracing and Asra stabs into the palm of his hand. Julian hisses, choked but unmistakable, and flushes down to his shoulders.

The knife slides into its place at Asra's hip, and blood spills over his fingers, down to the rune circle on the table. It illuminates with a flicker that catches in Asra's eyes in the most curious way, Julian thinks.

"Is... is that it..?" Julian's tongue darts out to catch his lower lip in a way that's hardly innocent. Asra chuckles, a knowing look in his eyes as he glances over Julian's form.

"Did you want me to hurt you more?" The playful intensity in his tone sends a cold sweat through Julian's body, his arousal becoming less patient by the second. "That's all I need from you, Ilya."

Suddenly, a bit of the lust clouding his mind dispels, replaced by concern -- Julian furrows his brow. Whatever this magic is, it seems sinister. He doesn't trust it. "Now hold on, I- what kind of magic are you getting yourself into, Asra? What did that do?"

Asra ponders for a moment, lost in thought. "I'm not sure. I won't know until it happens. Perhaps nothing, perhaps..."

"Are you putting yourself in danger-" Julian's interruption is interrupted by Asra's tongue on his bleeding hand, playing at his red-stained fingers. Asra keeps eye contact the whole time, fixing him with a lustful stare and not letting go.

It's just to change the subject, Julian knows, but he doesn't care. Asra's not playing dumb anymore, and that's enough for him right now. The fog is back, and his breathing grows heavy again.

"You're talking too much, Ilya," Asra says, a drop of Julian's blood caught on his lip. He returns his attention to the wound, tracing the bleeding line with his tongue, and at once the oppressive heat and humidity of the room seems to cling to Julian. The lighting, he thinks, must not be doing his burning complexion any favors.

"Then-" Julian's voice catches when Asra bites at his middle finger- "Then why don't you tell me what to do instead?"

Asra hums, amused. His lips separate from Julian's fingers with a vulgar wet sound. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Julian feels Asra's palm fall square against the center of his chest. Asra doesn't even need to try -- Julian lets himself be pushed back effortlessly, only a quiet, sharp inhale as his back meets the wall. His knees want to lock, to stand him bolt upright, and for a second in his flustered state, Julian gives in and lets his head hit the ceiling before righting himself.

"Y-you- oh my god, yes, I'll do anything you want--"

"You know I can't give you everything you want, Ilya," Asra says, and Julian knows it's a lie because all he wants is Asra, any way Asra wants, any way he can have him, but he doesn't say that.

Instead, his lips curl into a weak grin. "I'll take what I can get."

Asra pushes Julian's shoulder back against the wall so hard that he could swear the resulting thud reverberates for a second. And then Asra's knee is between his legs, and Julian is swallowing hard, fighting the voice in the back of his head urging him to push down.

"You can do anything to me, whatever you want," he pants, then gasps as Asra pulls out the knife once more.

"Anything?" Asra tilts his head to the side, twirling the knife slowly over his fingers, and grinds up with his knee, reveling in the way Julian's breath escapes him.

"Please."

And just like that, Asra pulls his knee back, no longer leaning into Julian’s chest. A firm tug at Julian’s wrist sends him to his knees, and a gesture with Asra’s head sends Julian scrambling to the middle of the table, on top of the rune circle.

“Get on your back,” Asra commands, and unquestioningly, Julian does it. Asra settles down above him, one leg on either side of Julian’s midsection, and grinds back. The hand holding the knife sets to unbuttoning Julian’s shirt, the blade coming close enough to his neck to leave him shuddering. “Can’t have this getting in the way, can we?”

Julian finds himself at a loss -- he simply shakes his head. Asra finishes unbuttoning and opens his mouth to order Julian to take it off, but Julian is already propping himself up and tossing it to the side, forgotten the second the white fabric leaves his still bloody fingertips.

“Ah, a bit eager there, Ilya. Lie back, there you go. Now put your arms above your head.” Julian obliges, fingers dangling idly over the edge of the table, when Asra bolts forward and pins Julian’s wrists to the ground with his free hand. “You just listen now,” he says, leaning back enough to press his lips against Julian’s ear. “And tell me what you feel.”

Swallowing hard, Julian nods, just as Asra’s mouth fixes onto his throat -- and he bites. Julian moans, almost pleading, and his hips rut forward against Asra’s unfairly clothed ass.

“Ah ah ah, none of that.” Asra leans back, holding himself up on his knees so as not to touch, and pushes down on Julian’s hip with the hand holding the knife. “Be patient, Ilya. We have no need to rush.” With a whine, Julian nods, and Asra stops holding down his hips. Instead, he twirls the knife in his palm and drags it lightly across Julian’s stomach.

“You want this, don’t you?” The blade swirls over Julian’s skin and presses down at his side below the ribs, just hard enough for the cold, pristine metal to draw blood. “You like this.”

“Shit, yes,” he hisses. It’s true -- the sting of the wound bites into Julian’s side and he wants more of it. Asra grins dryly, dragging the point up the center of Julian’s stomach again, just above his navel and up to his sternum, clearly visible with the way his ribs poke out when he’s on his back like this. It’s like an autopsy almost, like Julian’s shown him in diagrams, except the cut is so shallow it’s barely even there, only a few small beads of blood bubbling forth.

Asra’s tongue grazes over the cut, collecting the blood, and continues up to Julian’s neck, his chin, his lips, already open and moaning softly. Asra silences Julian with his own tongue, unsure whether Julian’s muffled sighs are from the pain or from the metallic twisting of their tongues together. He pulls back entirely too soon -- at least, probably in Julian’s opinion -- and stands upright on the cushioned stool next to the table to observe his work.

“Don’t move,” he mutters absently as Julian starts to sit upright, and then immediately lowers himself again when Asra tells him. The stomach cut is barely more than a scrape, likely to scab over before they’ve even finished their encounter. Julian’s side is bleeding perhaps a bit more heavily than he’d intended, but it doesn’t matter -- he watches Julian’s face, glistening with sweat, contort as his body writhes on the table from pleasure and pain, and pleasure derived from the pain -- he loves this. The red from Julian’s wound is slowly oozing onto the table beneath him, lighting up the runes once more, enough that the once dark room is now bathed in dim blue light.

He leans his weight into Julian once more, one knee rising to rest between his thighs on the table, and pushes forward with just the right amount of force to leave him wanting. Julian cries out, bites down on the side of his hand -- it’s too hard, too much, just right. He presses into it as far as he can go, too far but still not enough at the same time. Dissatisfied, Asra leans back again.

“Ah, just a moment.” He steps back onto the stool again and leans over, deftly undoing Julian’s belt and fixing it around his wrists. Then he steps back and deftly removes Julian’s pants.

“So much for all that talk of patience--” Julian chokes on his smirk, his sentence cut off by the faint touch of Asra’s warm hand on his cock, so gentle it’s cruel. The way Julian's eyes flutter shut, how he drags his teeth over his lower lip, doing nothing to stifle the sounds of his pleasure -- it makes Asra grin despite himself. Julian has always been too expressive for his own good. Asra brushes his hand slowly down to the base, barely touching Julian's skin. Julian's back arches as he lets out an unsteady hiss.

“Asra, I won’t break if you just touch me harder, you know.” His voice, though colored with annoyance, rings with hunger.

“Perhaps I want you broken,” Asra says, his tone halfway between amused and detached. Julian’s silence is response enough. Asra continues stroking the shaft of Julian’s erection slowly, drinking in each shiver that runs down the man’s spine, every rasping breath and every spasm of his graceful fingers against the silky cloth beneath him. Finally, almost coyly, Asra lets the palm of his hand twist over Julian’s head, and jumps back as if startled as Julian arches his back with an eager moan.

“Are you alright, Ilya? Is something wrong?” His voice is innocent, though the look he fixes Julian with is anything but.

“You know perfectly well what’s wrong, you devil,” Julian whines. His hips thrust into the open air instinctively, desperate for contact. Asra leans over and puts his lips to Julian’s ear, voice almost a whisper.

“Tell me what you want from me.”

“Just touch me,” Julian moans, blushing in spite of his shamelessness.

“Of course.”

Asra ducks out of Julian’s line of sight, falling to his knees on the cushioned stool, and runs his tongue along the underside of Julian’s cock.

“Oh god, yes, Asra,” he sighs, vision white with pleasure as Asra’s tongue meets the head of his erection and circles once, twice, before enveloping the tip in his mouth. Painstakingly slowly, Asra welcomes more of Julian’s length, digging his nails into Julian’s hips and making bright red trails down to his thighs.

Asra bobs carefully, fingertips roaming and biting into Julian’s thighs still. He reaches the base and puts his tongue to work, swirling freely while he swallows around Julian’s length. The man jolts, crying out at the overwhelming warmth of Asra’s touch.

“Asra, I’m- I need--” Julian’s muscles tense as he squirms under Asra’s handiwork. As if on cue, Asra pulls away, leaving Julian nearly in tears at the loss of sensation once more.

"Please--" he whines, but at the sound of Asra's pants hitting the floor, Julian snaps to attention, neck craning to catch a glimpse. Asra's blouse, still draped over his shoulders and leaving his chest half-exposed, falls just far enough down the front of his thigh to obscure the fingers clumsily circling his clit, much to Julian's dismay -- though that dismay is replaced with a heavy thrumming in his chest as Asra climbs back up to straddle him once more.

"If you move," Asra murmurs, grinding forward on Julian's stomach, both sighing at the slick sensation, "this all ends. Understand, Ilya?"

Julian swallows over the lump in his throat and nods. Immediately, Asra's hand, which had been tracing Julian's jaw and brushing away locks of hair clinging to his sweaty forehead, finds its way to his throat. Asra takes the sigh he's met with as a sign to tighten his grip -- clearly the correct interpretation, as Julian's closed eyes squeeze more tightly shut and his face reddens again.

Asra grinds down twice more, slowly, against Julian's stomach before lifting himself up and positioning Julian at his entrance, taking care to dig his spare hand's fingers into the cut on Julian's side while he supports himself -- the sharp breath Julian takes lights Asra's face with a pleased smile. With only a slight shift, Asra takes in Julian's head, lust tempered by caution and the irresistible face Julian makes when Asra makes him wait.

"Please, Asra, I need--"

"Do you?" Asra quirks a brow at him, sliding down another centimeter. It's not enough, a fact that makes it feel like almost too much. Asra's spare hand traces patterns on the back of Julian's too-slender thigh, driving him mad.

"If I didn't -- hah -- know any better," Julian says, voice too shaky for his quips to come across as convincingly cocksure as usual, "I'd guess that ritual of yours replaced you with a demon."

"Is that so?" He bends over, freeing what little of Julian he had already taken in, to caress the line of his cheekbone with the knife's blade.

"Particularly one whose sole purpose is to torture me," groans Julian, tongue darting out to catch at his dry, chapped lips. Asra makes a mental note to test the utility of that tongue at a later date.

"Ah, but Ilya," says Asra, guiding Julian to his entrance once more, a devious gleam in his eye, "I thought you would enjoy that. Was I mistaken?" Asra's poker face is impeccable -- it's hardly fair, Julian thinks as he feels the familiar warmth spreading in his cheeks and to his ears, that his own should be so lacking.

"How should you- I mean- shall I lay here and go insane while you puzzle that one out for yourself?" He almost manages that one without spluttering like an idiot, but that's never been something he could avoid with Asra around.

"Hm, perhaps not," Asra says, pretending to ponder Julian's words like a philosophical question as he lets himself fall completely, taking in the rest of Julian's cock in a split second without even batting an eye. It's all Julian can do not to cry with the sheer pleasure of it -- as it is, he lets out a scream that leaves his throat aching and his blood running hot. "Was that to your liking?"

"Asra, god, yes, I- you, I-" Asra shushes him with a finger to the lips, resuming the slow rise and fall of his hips. Julian's vision clouds at the edges as Asra's grip on his throat tightens again, mind emptying of any coherent thought in favor of sensation. Asra leans down to meet Julian's flushed, quivering lips with his own and slowly begins to quicken his pace as the kiss deepens -- too soon, it feels as though Julian is devouring him, as though he wants as much of Asra as he can possibly take. Still, with as much willpower as Julian can manage to wield in his chaotic state, he's resisted the urge to buck his hips and thrust into Asra like a mindless beast, like he so desires.

The second Asra pulls back from the kiss, Julian gasps for air and begins to spew all of the barely intelligible words pouring through his mind: obscenities, pleas, Asra's name. His head falls back and slams against the solid surface of the table, earning only another heavy moan. Asra can't help but think it's a wonder that Julian hasn't suffocated himself like this -- then again, the day anything shuts Julian up is the day Vesuvia freezes over.

Asra moves to a surprisingly steady rhythm for such a fast pace, head tilted to the side and jaw hanging open as he sighs with each roll of his hips. His own face finally goes flush, though more from exertion than bashfulness, Julian suspects. Release crashes down on Asra first, and his fingers tangle themselves in Julian's hair and pull as he struggles to steady himself. All of his senses fade, save for the feeling of Julian buried inside him as Asra's body convulses around him.

The first thing that returns to him is the sound of Julian's voice, crying out nonsense, begging and pleading. His chest heaves drastically with every breath, Asra's face pressed against it and sticky with sweat and stale blood. He feels Julian's hips quaking beneath him, yet still held in place through sheer determination to obey.

"Asra, please, please I need you, you feel so good, I'm almost- can I-"

Asra pulls off, knife clattering to the floor next to the unsteady legs of the table, fingers deep inside himself to ride out his orgasm. When Julian comes, pouting and writhing on top of the glowing runes, Asra isn't touching him at all.

## Afterword

End Notes

> GOD this is my first fic for the arcana and i made a whole new ao3 account just to post this bc i'm a shame of god ALSO i know i took some creative liberties with this but also like whatever i was too gay not to u know??

> i'm super into the game so far, i played all of what's available so far in the space of one afternoon and i'm actually spending money on it? what?? anyway i'm VERY excitable, please feel free to let me know your thoughts about this or talk to me about the game or your apprentice or WHATEVER in the comments or on tumblr (i'm @devoraq)!!! i don't really do requests but i'm thinking of doing some like drabble prompts or something along those lines in the not too distant future so hmu!!

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