Lazarus had never been great with change in his world. Even before everything went to shit, he and his little sister essentially becoming orphans the night their mother and father were murdered, the man struggled to accept any sort of his in his day to day life. Not that much ever really changed before that night. And perhaps it was because their parents knew that Lazarus would not handle it well. There was no explaining why it was that he would always spurn at the ever so slightest shift in that world of his, and he hardly ever cared to sit and explore those parts of himself enough to bother himself with trying to understand, so when someone might ask him why it was he didn't view change in a more positive light, his usual reaction was either silence as he would turn his back and walk away as he refused to give them an answer or he would shrug and make a hardly satisfactory answer like "I just don't" or "never have, never will". Unless of course he was already in his usual bad moon where any such... patience would be far from home and he would narrow dark forest eyes upon the speaker of this question and snap at them with a "mind your own fucking business" - which admittedly was the more likely of the possible reactions that such attempts at understanding the dark hunter would result in. When it came right down to it,the man simply refused himself any true sorce of happiness. He couldn't remember a time when he'd simply smiled. He couldn't remember a day where the anger that burned like fire in his veins wasn't crackling just beneath the surface, waiting for someone or something to bring it roaring forth out of him until he either drowned it in alcohol or, when he used to live in Fairfield with his family, he would beat the shit out of whomever it was that pissed him off in the first place. However, he had yet to take such violent routes here in Sacrosanct, the only change that he himself had decided was a necessity for Ellie. It was only a matter of time, of that he could almost be entirely sure.

Even when Isabelle danced into his life that night at the party, he'd refused to succumb to the shifting in himself that change had been trying to bring. She could have been good for the dark hunter. Maybe she might have even helped to quell that ever-seething rage that igniting those dark forest depths, made Lazarus into a better man... And perhaps that was why things caught on fire so quickly. Then again, the man blamed her almost entirely for why it was that their relationship - his first and last - ended as bitterly as it did. He'd accused her of fooling around on him with some cocky and arrogant jock from the football team, having seen them together one night and hardly having stopped to ask questions. The beast locked behind those brittle bars had shattered its only constraints that night, refusing to do the smart thing and ask questions first before lashing out. Needless to say, it was the real beginning of the living hell that Lazarus would be forced to walk through. It wasn't long after that when the burglary happened and everything only got worse for the dark hunter. And so, perhaps if there was ever an insightful individual that would ever come to know all the demons that haunted him, they might find the real reason that Lazarus fought tooth and nail to keep his life of misery and shallow pleasures as it was. It would be a near impossible feat though, considering the man was about as closed of a book to the world as they come. No one needed to know about the nightmares. No one needed to know about the past that knawed at him almost constantly, like a slow-growing disease promising only self-destruction in the end. But just maybe the world would be better off without him in it anyway. No one would miss him. Other than Ellie, of course. And, just maybe, while he would never admit it to even the radiant honey-blonde woman, she was the only thing that kept him from descending even further down that special of inevitable oblivion also known as death. Without her, he was nothing. Hell, even with her, he was hardly anything as it was.

The rise of these feelings ignited by the white-haired woman that he wanted so badly to just rip into his own ribcage and pull out of himself marked the beginning of that very thing he rebelled against. He hated how she made him feel. It made him want to find someone to agitate into a senseless brawl over absolutely nothing. It made him want to drink until he couldn't even remember his own name or the past he couldn't escape. Yet, no matter how hard he fought each and every day against those infuriating thoughts that would always lead him right to Vhalla, it was starting to look like Lazarus would have no choice in the matter. The sex, the alcohol, none of it seemed to work anymore like they used to. And to make matters even worse for the dark hunter, he found his willpower - that furiously stubborn willpower that was even able to rattle his patient little sister on some occasions - beginning to cave in. He was growing tired. Tired of trying to hang onto that hate and fury he so easily wielded for her. Tired of trying to slaughter the feelings that the witch plagued him with. Incredibly, he was nearly to the point of not even caring anymore about fighting viciously against his lust for her. Her very nearness had a way of stirring the beast locked behind those brittle bars as it would pace back and forth, waiting with hunger in those blackened eyes for her to break down that ever-fraying control the dark hunter stubbornly hung onto. It was that sudden string of tenor words speaking the undeniable truth that she would hardly try and stop Lazarus if he got handsy with her that had him making his exist without another word. They were just as true for him as they were for her. He knew she wouldn't have stopped him... and he wouldn't have tried to stop himself either. So, he'd thrown his clothes in the dryer, started it, and thrown himself on to the couch try one more time to convince himself that the sudden and unexplained shift that happened between himself and the witch was all just in his mind and that everything would return to how they'd been before he found her with Ivan, before they'd tangled themselves up in one that night between the sheets.

When did things change so fucking much between them that they were actually taunting one another instead of their once familiar sneering and bitter words? It wasn't like he could forget what happened just a couple days ago when he'd thought things were going back to how they'd been before as he sneered and pushed the witch into a fury that had her hurtling a fireball at him in the townhouse. Of course, she'd given him plenty of silent threats as he continued to press on that fire he knew she had. Still he couldn't even guess at what had pissed her off that day. After all, it was only her damn fault for more or less breaking and entering into his and Ellie's home. She'd thrown those words at him and all he'd seen in them was a challenge. And the dark hunter never refused a challenge. Sure, it had resulted in that bottlenose whiskey bursting in his hand and awakening his own far too dormant anger, but things hardly had a chance to escalate further when Ellie appeared from upstairs and the two women left the house. And the mess for Lazarus to clean up, with Donovan wearing that stumped yet amused look he'd wanted to punch right off the were's face. Now, as he found himself chuckling and teasing her, Vhal following suit as they fell into some sense of... whatever this was, it was like none of that had even happened. She curls into his side and he stiffens, groaning against the feel of her against him - after all, the man never even hugs his own sister so why he would welcome such a thing with Vhalla was unthinkable - and successfully having him once again stuck in the last place he wanted to be. He doubts her words she mumbles half-coherently to him then, and he was right to as he feels her breathing and her heart slow to the rhythm that bespoke of one's mind and body falling into that state of sleeping. Great. But in a matter of moments, those damn feelings rise again and he feels himself giving in as he wraps his arm around her and follows the white-haired woman into the darkness. Unwillingly and yet he hardly had it in him anymore to fight it - for now.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept so heavily. He hadn't even been aware of those nocturnal shifts that brought them to that position where she was fast asleep on his chest. Not even the weak sunlight filtering through the large window awakens him. He groans quietly when his subconscious feels the woman remove herself from him, shifting to his side yet remaining lost in that stilled state even as she moves throughout the apartment. Then, those bright and... beautiful notes fill the room and finally reach the man. Groggily blinking dark forest eyes open, the first thing that he sees is her. The way that the early morning light touched her pale skin and stark hair, silhouetted her in liquid gold as a small smile dances over her lips in genuine happiness... He hadn't seen anything quite so... Wait, is that my shirt? Stretching as he pulls himself into full awareness, he props his upper body up on an elbow, sinew muscle flexing in his arm as he regards her for a moment and runs the other hand through messy caramel hair."That's definitely new to wake up to", he says then, tenor tones growling tiredly in his throat although there was hardly any animosity - or even taunting - in their syllables. It was almost like an actual... compliment, although he'd refuse to say it was more than a nonchalant and purely factual remark. Instead, dark forest eyes move over her womanly features, again realizing that she was nearly naked beneath his shirt that nearly swallowed her and those spandex boxer breifs."I don't remember letting you borrow my shirt, though", he says in those deep baritones taking on a lower tone as that wolfish grin finds his chiseled features once again while he feels that lust starting to stir as his less than gentlemanly thoughts dare to picture her in something a little more... scandalous.