He smells like the earth after rain, and her hands in his hair are lost in some tumbling dark cloud of silk and gossamer. She ignores the fact that he nibbles her until she bleeds—it's been ages since she's felt anything real—anything she couldn't attribute to the disturbed machinations of the dead. His armor digs and pokes, blossoming little constellations of pain all over her body as he moves his whole form against hers.

This is animal, she thinks. They are nothing more than vessels seeking to be filled, vaults unsure of their own size and volume. If she can hold on to him, take everything he gives her, perhaps she will finally know where the walls of her own heart are. And perhaps by his light, find a trace of the one she lost. The one that would never make her bleed or beg his name from her lips like a withheld prayer.

She is convinced he must be blind for how much time he spends on her angles and curves, and the whispers and bruises he leaves behind are the flares and chalk marks to define the space in her he stakes out as his own. He possesses her the same way the place they lie does, anchoring to her by the darkest corners of her heart.

The evening watch wasn't always like this, he thinks almost idly. Never before has he seen desire like this, enough to shame every bleeding angel sunset, clashing against the night rather than blending in. There is nothing gentle about them—she is Hera seducing Zeus back to her bed for the first time in millennium, calling on a power even goddesses keep close in check.

She'll tell him it doesn't mean anything, because nothing has meant anything for a long time. But when they are finished and holding each other she will tell him about loneliness and fear and all of those things that aren't what they just did. And to his credit, he will say nothing, only nod and shift his grip, masking the wrongness of it with some tangible, physical discomfort.