Disclaimer: Rated M for non-consensual sexual themes. Please don't use this story as an excuse to hate Dezerose or "proof" that it's repulsive. This is the work of my own extremely twisted imagination and has zero basis in canon. This is also completely and totally unaffiliated with any of my other works and was intended as an exercise to explore an alternate take on the pairing. I do not own the cover art or Tales of Zestiria… and given the nature of this story, that's probably for the best.

kinda i want to
maybe just for tonight
we can pretend it's all right
what's the price i pay
i don't care what they say
i want to
(nine inch nails)

It's his turn.

Years later, and he's so tired of hearing her every breath and sigh and moan and oh, he aches for her and she'll never know. It's not an emptiness, because he's overfull. Not a desire to consume, but a desire to be consumed. He deserves her more than anyone. He alone has sworn to stay. He wants her, needs her, and living inside her isn't enough, not the way he needs in—

Her room, the wind tells him, and she's finally alone, asleep already, atop the covers and already undressed for his summer winds to caress. Dreaming, her eyes flickering beneath heavy lids. She's never been more beautiful. He's waited for her long enough, and how much longer before someone else will always be in her bed? He can leave, he can leave, he can always find another form of vengeance, he can be…

Careful not to wake her, whisper the tatters of his conscience, as he does not listen to his second thoughts. He unclothes himself, and they're not even really his clothes, they're his friend's, so he has no right to wear them anyway. It won't matter, it doesn't matter, nothing matters except her and him and closing the distance between them at last. It'll be over soon, just once, just once. She'll never even see him.

His feet carry him over to her side as she sleeps with her back to him, and he brushes her smooth and sacred skin with his breeze. Lightly. Slowly. Like his inaudible footsteps. Not enough to wake her, but enough that she shivers slightly, and he senses the telltale signs of arousal. Stiffening, shivering, fast asleep.

Again, and again. He brings his fingers to her shoulder, trails them down her arm, lays his hand on the side of her bare hip, trembling slightly in anticipation. She is his holy vessel, and still she does not wake. She will not wake, must not wake, or she'll stop him even without seeing. He can't disturb her, she needs her rest, he wants to know what she feels like, just once…

He crawls onto her bed, ignores the usual quiet creak. Leans over her, takes her shoulder, pushes her gradually down so she'll lie on her back beneath him. She only lets out a long breath, adjusting herself the rest of the way. Her sleep seems deeper than usual, then. Good. He moves her legs apart. Gently. No sense in rushing things.

His hands move along with the wind, from neck to nipple, from navel to there. She shifts, but does not surface. Slick on his fingers already, and he wants to know what she tastes like, but there's no time for something so one-sided. His vessel is ready for him even if she doesn't know it. He can't keep her waiting longer than he already has. Or maybe he's just being selfish.

Inhale. Exhale. Ready? One, two, three inches in. Even that is a kind of release in and of itself. His breath catches in surprise. Maybe at the heat. Maybe at the moisture. Maybe because it's so easy. She doesn't notice. She's done this so often before. Another inch or so, and another, and another, and finally he's as inside her as he can be from the outside.

…Out. Slowly. Their breaths synchronize, hers deep in sleep, his deep because ah, this is what she must feel when she makes those sounds, and it's all he can do to keep quiet as he moves, to maintain a gradual speed. She won't hear a thing he says, but she might feel his panting, she might…

The pace quickens before long. He can't help it till she finally stirs, and he freezes, because what if she wakes? But her fingers are clutching the sheet next to her. She rolls her hips against his and he dares to start again. His vessel, she wants him, he knows her better than she does and she wants him, he can tell, it's not just him anymore—

More, more, more. A breeze across his bare back, damp from perspiration. Exhalations hotter and heavier, more halting. Hers too, sleepily. Maybe she'll see him in her dreams. Know it's him. Know who he is, how he's been watching her and wishing, how he was there before her first and during and after, forever after, and she's his now too, like he's been hers.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

…No, no, not yet. It's easy enough for him to complete himself, it's her he needs to find out how to finish, he can't leave her like this. But he's underestimated the strength of his desire. Can't stop, can't stop, she took his self-control in the fist holding the sheet, and he can't stop, can't stop himself from falling—just like that, he's gone, he's lost himself in her, his voice a pant and growl and strangled cry she cannot hear. And she does not react.

Asleep, still, as he catches his breath. And then vanishes into her, dissolves and recollects. He can't feel how far he got her, but she knows herself. He guides her fingers, starts her off, and she continues on her own, still in her dream. His work is done, he thinks, and lets himself be satisfied. His work is done. His work is…

Done. She lets out a soft vocalization and curls up with the force of something he can't feel alongside her, and her eyes flutter open, but he forces them shut again from the inside, along with her mouth. That's enough. The name she breathes can never be his, so he doesn't want to hear it. She slips back into unconsciousness as if nothing happened, and as far as she knows, that's true.

As it should be. Just once, he told himself not too long ago, and he drifts away into a different dream. Just once. Not anymore.