Time warped around him. Meals were periodically brought to him by faceless guards who never strayed far enough into the room for Azrael to hurt them. Their eyes stayed glued to the ground, avoiding his searing gaze, timid in his presence despite the restraints. It seemed they knew, or suspected, what he was capable of.
9 meals.
3 days, he could assume, he had spent trapped down here. Du Rand hadn't returned even once and there had been no whispers of when Pavel would be brought back to him. Hope was beginning to fade from his heart.
No matter how hard Azrael strained his sensitive ears, he couldn't hear anything other than the groaning of the pipes in the walls and the settling of the old concrete foundations. Azrael couldn't begin to guess how far underground he was from whatever building was probably above him but he was far enough away that it felt like he might as well be in another universe. He was so desperately alone.
Pavel was out of his sight and out of his reach.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
That's the saying, isn't it?
Pavel's absence felt like a crater. A chunk of him had been ripped out and left to fester. Absence makes the heart grow fonder was what humans said, but the fear that comes with that absence is often forgotten. It warps and it ruins with no regard for anything at all.
Absence makes the heart grow mad.
Please, be safe. I love you. I love you. I love you.
I should have told you.
I love you.
I love you, Pavel, you're everything to me.
Azrael had long since thrown away his pretence of calm as he kept watch over the door across the room. Much like an animal in a zoo, he paced back and forth, round and round the section of the room he had access to. His hair had grown greasy and wild and, despite the lack of a mirror or water basin, he knew that the dark circles beneath his eyes had deepened. Every time the door swung open, Azrael could feel the madness that was brewing surge forward, a threatening glint in his stare that made his captors flinch.
In an attempt to settle himself down somewhat, Azrael pressed his forehead to the frigid concrete wall. It was rough against his skin but it brought some relief from the white-hot rage that was spurring him onwards. His eyelids slid closed and he bit back the tears that had been threatening to spill for several days. Voice quivering, Azrael let out a sigh and resigned himself to go to sleep when a sharp sound echoed through the basement.
The click of a hard-soled shoe.
Then another and another until they came closer and closer, the tapping of solid footsteps descending down from those stairs bathed in darkness on the other side of the door.
As it echoed, Azrael knew this was different than when the guards came down to feed him. Their footsteps were heavy, clunky, and clumsy from the steel-toed boots that were part of their uniforms. The person coming now was purposeful and disciplined. Footsteps that belonged to the man who had caught Pavel and him.
Behind the curt steps, something else followed, much fainter. So quiet that anyone else probably wouldn't have heard it – bare feet on the solid, wooden steps, timid and weak. More of a dragging sound, though, than actual, individual footsteps.
Azrael's head shot up at the sound, his eyes trained back on the door as he squatted on his haunches. It was a pose that meant he could spring into action if anything were to go amiss. He didn't want to bring himself to hope.
Hope was the mind-killer.
It could be Pavel being brought back to him, but this could be a trick. There was a non-zero chance that Etienne would play any dirty trick to break him – it seemed he would like Azrael to shatter. Though, then again, Du Rand didn't seem to actively care about him so he could just be keeping him around for trivial entertainment or as something to hold over Pavel's head. Azrael had only been taken as an extra asset. An object of deep-seated affection to keep Pavel in line.
Du Rand definitely would have been able to figure out Pavel's feelings for him quite quickly. If he knows that, he certainly knows that he reciprocates those feelings, ten-fold. This was all part of a game, undoubtedly, but Azrael didn't know him intimately enough to figure out how to win it. The rules were still hidden. The endgame was a mystery.
Those footsteps were at the bottom of the stairs now and he could hear an almost silent whimper, a hitching breath taken through gritted teeth. Azrael's heart sank at the thought of what Pavel had gone through while he was missing. It must be him, that sound was so familiar.
Hope was the mind-killer, but he couldn't help it.
A screeching creak and the door swung open on its ancient hinges. Cold eyes and greying temples were the first things Azrael saw as the older man emerged from the darkness. Azrael had been right in his assumption of who was coming.
Azrael was too numb to really muster up a glare or a snarl so all he did was stare past him as if the man was nothing, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man that he hoped was behind him. The stranger gave him a quick glance, as completely disinterested in his existence as Azrael was in his before he looked over his shoulder and reached behind him. It seemed he was grabbing on to whoever was still hidden in the shadows – god, please, let it be him, let him come back to me – and addressing them.
The words meant nothing to Azrael, the whispers were Russian and it was not a language he knew in any capacity. Still, he strained his ears and listened, hoping that something would slip in a tongue he was familiar with.
His breath hitched in his throat when Azrael heard what he thought could be the diminutive name 'Pasha'. He stared hard at the black nothing, hoping to catch even a glimpse of a strand of his golden hair. Aching, Azrael's ribs felt too big under his skin, his heart thundered against his lungs and, unable to catch his breath, he all but shallowly panted in anticipation as he waited to see Pavel's face. Talons dug into the concrete, Azrael leaving shallow scratch marks on the floor around him.
"Dragon. Monsieur has seen it fit to reunite you two." The nameless man finally addressed Azrael and he yanked his arm forward, pulling the obscured figure behind him into the dim light of the basement. In a blur of gold, Pavel crumpled to the floor, unmoving. "He intends to see you both when he is next free. Behave."
The door slammed shut and it was just them two in the silence of the concrete room. Only the pipes spoke and they mumbled nothing but mockery at their plight.
"Pavel," Azrael called out to him, a whisper, a prayer, quiet and desperate. Pavel's shoulders shook in what seemed to be silent tears. Unable to move, Azrael found that he was stuck in place. "Pavel, are you alright?"
Nothing but his breathing.
A sudden hitch and Pavel's crying became a wail.
"Is that you?" Pavel choked out his question, his face still pressed to the floor. Arms wrapped tightly around his head as if he was protecting himself. Protecting himself from what? "Is it?"
Azrael's brows furrowed. "What do you mean? Pavel, please, are you okay? Did they hurt you?" Tentatively, he shuffled forward, low to the ground, as if he were trying to tame a wild cat. Pavel was shaken and Azrael didn't know how he would react to his presence coming closer. He lay out of reach of the section of the room Azrael had access to, even if he stretched out with his talons.
Just as Azrael reached the closest point he could to Pavel's body, he suddenly shot up and pushed himself all the way to the door. His back was flush with it as he shouted, "Get away from me! Don't fucking touch me! Who are you?"
Purple bruises patterned his face and blood streamed from gashes across so much of Pavel's body that the colour of his skin was obscured. Only one eye could see anything. His white shirt was tattered, stained brown with old blood, only torn boxers on his bottom half, and he wrapped his arm around his left side as if he was trying to hold himself together. Every muscle in Pavel's body was wound tighter than a spring, waiting to erupt.
"Pavel, what happened? It's me, please." Azrael was lost. He didn't know how to fix this as Pavel stared at him with such unmasked vitriol. Even when Azrael first brought him home, Pavel hadn't stared at him with that much hate. Azrael's heart, the heart that had grown anew because of him, was being wrenched from his chest all over again. "It's me. Let me help."
Azrael tried to be gentle but he knew the maddening fear that had been growing these past days was leaking out in his words. His hands yearned to reach out for him, to break these chains and hold Pavel, but he pressed them to the floor and waited for the man to speak again. All but kowtowing to Pavel, Azrael flattened himself against the ground so he knew that he wasn't a threat. Azrael could never be a threat to him.
"Prove it." Pavel's voice was hoarse with blood. A streak cut through the crimson on his face, a tear falling as he stared at Azrael. Ragged breathing became shallower and shallower. Now, at this distance, he seemed less afraid but the tense way he held his shoulders didn't relax. "Prove that you are the real Azrael. I- just- fucking tell me something only he would know."
Du Rand had done something to him. He had managed to, somehow, make Pavel associate Azrael's face with violence. While the man knew the real Azrael would never hurt him, how could he know how the real one was if he looked the same as whoever it was that hurt him? That must be the case, even if it didn't make total sense.
It seemed his face wasn't his anymore.
In thought, Azrael went silent. He knew many things about Pavel, but many of the things he knew that would be secret to most were things that Du Rand would also know. It had to be something from after he had been abandoned in this country. Something innocuous his adoptive 'father' had no need to know. Something from his time with Azrael.
"You like to drink coffee that's so weak that it's almost milk. Your flat was covered in posters of bands you don't know just for the colours. Your favourite genres are science fiction and historical romance." Azrael was desperate for Pavel to believe him. "You drool in your sleep and you hum if you're having a good dream." Please, please believe me. "The first time you stayed overnight, you told me you don't trust empty beds."
Azrael hadn't run out of things that he knew about Pavel but he trailed into silence when he noticed the man had bowed his head down, no longer looking. His breathing was still fine and he couldn't believe that Pavel would have fallen asleep so Azrael waited and waited and waited. Just as he was about to call out, Pavel spoke;
"It's really you this time? Azrael, it's you?"
Pavel's head shot up again and Azrael couldn't breathe. The blood that had caked his face was washing away under the flow of his tears. Rivers cut through the drying blood until red water ran down his chin and dripped onto his clothes. The one honey eye that hadn't swollen shut looked at Azrael with an indescribable shine in it.
"I promise that it's me, Pavel."
If his bruised body could move any quicker than a snail's pace, Azrael was sure Pavel would have run at him. However, with the state his body was in, the agonised crawl he approached with was all Azrael needed to know about how relieved he was to see him.
"Oh, god, it's you. It's you." Pavel muttered mindlessly as he half-limped, half-crawled into the part of the room Azrael could reach. "It's you. You- are you alright?"
As soon as he could catch him in his hands, Azrael pulled Pavel to his body as gently as he could. No matter how much he wanted to crush him in his arms, he knew that wasn't fair and all that would do was hurt Pavel. At Azrael's touch, he flinched slightly, but he couldn't blame him – Azrael didn't know what had been done to him. He couldn't know how much Pavel hurt.
"Don't worry about me. They just put me here and left me alone." Azrael pressed his lips to Pavel's hair and inhaled his smell, even though it was faint beneath the blood and the foreign perfume that clung to him like poison. Sick to his stomach, Azrael's petrified imagination flew through all of the possibilities of what Pavel had been through. "Let me check you over. I'll heal your wounds, I- I can't stand to see you in this state."
Pavel thumbed against Azrael's chest, giving him permission to do what needed to be done. Removing his arms from around him, Azrael settled Pavel back on the ground. As they stared at each other from where they say, Azrael brought his hand up to his mouth and bit into it, breaking flesh until his skin was soaked with his own blood. Before Pavel could speak, he rubbed his palm against his face, mapping out the gouges on his skin.
Wincing, Pavel hissed at the contact and the way Azrael's calloused skin rubbed at his exposed flesh, but a hint of relief quickly flooded his brightening eyes as the wounds on his face stitched themselves back together in moments. His blood dripped down Pavel's face but Azreal let it sit for a moment until he was sure the injuries were healed.
"Let me see you now." Azrael went to rip a square of fabric from his shirt when he was suddenly hit by the realisation that he had been sitting in nothing other than his boxers for days. Since he had sprung into action straight from sleep at his house, Azrael had never had the opportunity to dress. The chill of the basement hit him all at once. "I'll be gentle."
Using his clean hand, Azrael rubbed at Pavel's face until it was only stained with leftover blood, though he couldn't tell what were smudges and what were bruises. His face, like it always seemed to be, was a patchwork of red, purple and blue – these were injuries Azrael's blood couldn't so easily heal. No matter how much he wished Pavel wouldn't hurt, Azrael knew he would ache for days.
"It hurts…" Mumbling weakly, Pavel pressed his face into Azrael's hand. His uninjured eye slid shut and his breath was hot and teary against his wrist. "Help me."
Azrael's voice was barely a whisper. "Where does it hurt? I'll make it go away; I promise." He pressed his lips to Pavel's forehead, peppering his skin with barely-there kisses. He didn't know what else to do. Azrael could do nothing else, useless as he always was. "Tell me, Pavel. I'll make it go away."
"Everywhere."
Trying not to cry, Azrael asked, "Everywhere?"
"Please. Just drown me, in your blood, in your saliva, anything. Just make it stop." Pavel's eyes were closed tightly shut, but he wiggled out of Azrael's touch and tore away the last of the ragged cloth that draped across his torso. "Help me."
Displaying, his body, in this fragile, beaten state, Azrael cursed himself for not being strong enough to get out of this damned prison. If only he was more determined, if only he knew how to fight against Du Rand.
If only, if only, if only…
To subside his broiling rage, his tempestuous agony, Azrael bit back down in the spot where his skin had just healed and squeezed so that his blood could flow freely. His eyes trained to the spot Pavel had been holding tightly on his side and Azrael let out a high whimper, caught at the back of his throat, at the damage.
Defined shoe sole-shaped bruises were stamped onto the left side of Pavel's ribs so tight and numerous that the centre of them had turned black with blood. A gaping wound wept, so deep Azrael was sure that he could see a flash of bloody bone when Pavel dragged in a shaky breath. Unable to stop himself, Azrael pressed his scarlet-weeping hand to the wound and held it there.
Pavel was crying, the agony of the injury dulled by the wrenching pain of his body rebuilding itself in moments all being too deeply overpowering. After a minute or so, Azrael retracted his hand and wiped away as much of the blood as he could. He was satisfied to see that the muscle was not covered by a safe blanket of scar tissue, the majority of the blood leaking from his body stopped.
Azrael bit into his palm again. After a moment, he tore his bloodied fangs into the other one too. "This will be quicker."
As Pavel sobbed to himself, Azrael rubbed across every inch of his exposed flesh until he wasn't sure what was his blood and what was his. What was his skin and what was Azrael's. Pavel was painted such a vibrant, rich crimson that it looked like he had been flayed. His flesh was hidden but Azrael knew the wounds were healing.
Breathing evening out, Pavel leaned forward again to press himself to Azrael's torso. His shoulders dropped but he still rasped every time he shifted closer. Their bodies entwined around each other, Azrael's arms about Pavel's waist, hands on his back and their legs tangled together but Pavel's breath hissed even now.
With every inhale, he shook.
"Where else are you hurting?" Azrael rubbed his back in a motion of comfort, the blood on his palms and the blood on Pavel's back smearing together more and more until his scales stained red too. "I'll bleed myself dry to stop it."
Hushed against the bare skin of Azrael's chest. "You can't stop it hurting." Fingers dug into the soft flesh of Azrael's hips. Ever since he'd grown used to touching Azrael, Pavel had always pressed his hands into the same spot, almost bruising the skin where his fingertips prodded. "Nobody can."
Azrael focused on the way Pavel's lips brushed against his skin. He focused on the scent of bloody hair. He focused on the warmth of Pavel's skin. Azrael's fingers danced across the fur of his exposed tail as he held him.
"What did they do?"
Pavel didn't speak, not for a long time.