Lazarus would be among the first to say that he was likely the least qualified individual to try and comfort another, the last one any might ever dare to think capable of being able to show any sign of human compassion. And it was true. Even as a child, the man had never been great at understanding that it was often something as simple as a tight embrace that could make all the difference in the world to someone. He was hardly ever in a situation when he might see another in such a state, both of his parents have always been strong. He could say with utter confidence that he had never seen Tal cry even when the man and the rest of the council has returned to the estate covered in wounds and blood both their own and belonging to the supernaturals that they'd fought and destroyed in order to protect the human village not far from where those wrought iron gates stood, dividing The Daray Estate from the rest of the world. His mother, while she had been the same kind spirit that Ellie embodied so well, had been strong and only ever given her husband a look of concern when he would come home in tattered clothes, cuts, and bruises. It was not often that there would be such an outbreak that would have him returning to the family in such a state, the man usually returning unscathed save for perhaps a mark or a tear, maybe a burn if it had been witches or warlocks that the council had been employed to reduce the populous of, but there was always that uncertainty on whether or not he would come home at all. It was just part of the job. And even in light of those risks, the stakes that could so easily stack against his father and the trusted men and women under him, Lazarus' mother had not once cried in fear it worry over the man that she loved. The one and only time he had seen his mother cry was when Ellie had been born, and they had been tears of endless joy as she cradled the newborn girl in her arms, close to her breast with gentle eyes looking down upon her daughter. Tal hadn't cried, instead offering that terribly rare smile of pride and love. And, where had Lazarus been? In the figurative corner, watching with little emotion to flicker across his dark forest gaze. It was clear that he had inherited his father's ways, the boy hardly ever laughing or smiling. But, it was truly brought to light in those moments where one might expect a child to yearn for comfort his his parents that it became apparent, this disconnect that he'd always had.

Perhaps it was because, when he'd been no more than a few years old, if ever he scraped his knees after falling off his bike or something and dared to shed those tears from the pain, while his mother would try and comfort the boy, it had been Tal that would tell Lazarus to stop feeling sorry for himself, dust his off his wounds, and get back up. It was his father, with his hardened gaze much the same hue as his son's, that told the boy crying never fixed anything, to show such was nothing more than a sign of weakness."No son of mine will be so soft", the fierce man had said in deep tenor tones one day. The next time such a thing had happened and his mother had come to help Lazarus, he'd told her that he could do it on his own. Back when he wanted nothing more than his father's pride and approval, to hear the man say something other than what Lazarus could never seem to do right, the boy had fought defiantly against the sting of those tears. Yet, even when he would fall off that bike, scrape his hands and knees only to defy that childish urge to cry, when he would look to his if his father was there to see his son showing no weakness, Tal only ever looked on coolly before turning and moving back to the doors which led into the man's study. Nothing the boy ever did was good enough for his father... It hadn't mattered how hard Lazarus would try, he would always come up short somehow, his father only ever pointing out what he could have done better rather than what the juvenile might have done right. Soon, it was that sense of endless failure despite his best efforts that were never good enough that sparked broke the chains which once held the beast in him he hadn't known was there before. This was when his biggest flaw really came to light in the form of his anger. It came with a fury when the animal first began to rattle the bars or the growing male's sense of control, and only ever had him scolded more so than ever before. Maybe, if the man who had been the one young Lazarus looked up to more than anything might have showed the man something, anything other than critical judgment and high expectation the growing son of his never seemed capable of rising to, then the dark hunter might not have turned into the uncaring and almost cruel being that he was today. Maybe he could have been capable of empathy or compassion. He might not have become the rebellious young man who took wicked pleasure destroying public property and tormenting other kids when they pissed him off or got in his way. But none of that mattered now.

Only one had ever seen the man attempt to comfort another; Ellie. The girl's birth had left him uncertain of how to feel, almost entirely ignored by their father and even though his mother did what Lazarus only ever assumed was her best to be there for her son, she also knew what it was that Tal expected of the heir to the Daray Estate. Lazsrus had never envied his little sister as their parents doted heavily upon her, smiling whenever she laughed and always encouraging her where they never had with him. At seven years old, Lazarus was already fast approaching that point in his life where things would only become harder for him. And yet... when he'd first set eyes on his little sister, there had been a shift in him. It had been small and mostly unnoticed, but when she'd grasped at his hand and wrapped his thumb in her much smaller hand, it was as though a warmth took root within his heart that had yet to close to the entire world. From then on, he would watch her as she learned how to walk, how to speak... He hadn't even cared how their mother and father showed her the affection he'd never been given. When she would stumble, Lazarus would catch her and help the little girl regain her balance. And when she'd fallen off her own bike and neither of their parents had been around to comfort the girl, it had been Lazarus that came to her side and helped her up, dusting off her dress and her knees as she tried to wipe away the tears that fell so freely from her eyes, sniffling all the while as Lazarus simply looked down to her."You'll be okay", the boy had said to the crying honey-blonde girl then, not knowing what else to do or say to try and stop her crying. Then, unexpectedly, little three-year-old Ellie had thrown her arms around ten-year-old Lazarus' neck and hugged him, crying into his shirt. Suddenly and without thinking, he wraps that girl up in his arms and hugs her tightly back in the first act of compassion that bonded brother and sister together so closely. He'd held her there until finally her sobs had ebbed away and the last of her tears had fallen, hardly caring as she wiped her wet face and running nose on his shirt. She pulls away from him, looks up to him with those innocent yet teary icy blue eyes in that moment."Thank you, Lazlo", the girl said in her young soprano voice. From that moment on, there hadn't been a time in Lazarus' life that he hadn't been there to watch over his little sister.

Ellie had been the reason his trips to the principal's office only increased, the hot-headed boy quick to start a fight with anyone who would even make a move to bully the honey-blonde girl. He couldn't count the number of black eyes and broken noses he'd given other boys, how many girls he'd shoved onto the ground all because they'd come far too close to making Ellie cry. And when she did... he was there. Just as he had been the night that their parents were murdered. Jaded by the years of fighting for his father's pride only to always fail and in the end defiantly decided he didn't give a fuck what the man thought, by the loss of their parents and thrust even further into the responsibility of keeping the honey-blonde woman safe from the world lest he lose the only light able to touch the darkest and most guarded parts of the man's otherwise stone-cold heart, it was easy for the dark hunter to forget those moments in his past. And yet, as he refuses to leave Vhalla there in that alleyway only to pull her into him in the only way he knew how to try and comfort another. It comes from those deeply buried memories, that part of the dark hunter that he fought to bury six feet under with his childhood years. He can feel the heat spike around them, hear her groaned words, and still he holds her against him, dark forest eyed closed when suddenly those flames are let lose in a devastating display of power. He can feel the flames lick at his skin, smell the scent of burning fabric and fire, eyes closed against the blinding brightness as he waits. But, when he expects to feel excruciating pain beyond anything he could imagine... it doesn't come. Maybe he was dead before he even knew it. Wouldn't that make sense to some degree? The heat dissipates suddenly, and still he keeps her close, unmoving as if he isn't quite sure he was alive or not. Reluctantly, he opens dark forest eyes, shifting ever so slightly to see that his skin was not burned, though his clothes were not nearly as lucky as the dark hunter. What the hell? It is then that the white-haired witch looks up from the place where her head had rested against his chest, brilliant blue eyes meeting baffled dark forest before she takes in a sharp breath. Before he can pull away from her, she lunges forward and locks her lips fiercely with his own. A surprised grunt is coerced from the man with the force of her sudden movement, and before he can steady them both, they are falling and his arms remain around her in another reflexively protective reaction as his back hits the damp ground and she lands there on top of him, pulling another grunt as the wind is nearly knocked from his lungs. Goddammit! Why did she always have to do this!?

The frustration hardly lingers there in the back of his mind for a second though, the man forgetting all else as the hunger in him surges forth as she remains there on top of him, his left hand unknowingly having moved to rest on her hip while the right slides up her back to rest between her shoulderblades as Lazarus returns each kiss feverishly. Gods, how he loved the taste of her... He can hear her mumbling through the sobs and the tears, before finally she pulls her lips from his own, the man tempted to pull her back to him and yet he simply lays there beneath her as she speaks again. Truthfully, he was just as confused about the whole thing as she was, and as she shifted on top of him to rest her head on his chest, he simply holds her there to him - still - without offering any words, until the ones that find him are the last even he would have expected "Are you okay?", tenor tones ask lowly, looking over her as best as he could from this angle. Why he even concerned himself with such a thing as her well-being when she essentially combusted, he doesn't even bother to consider. She looks up to him then, rasped voice reaching him as she slowly moves off of him."Yeah, that sounds like a good plan", he states simply as his hands fall from her and he pushes himself onto his elbows only to see that he hardly had jeans or his shirt left, everything covered in soot and ash. She offers him her hand, and before, he would have rejected the help and yet he finds himself taking her hand in his, standing up as she trails her eyes over his sparse clothing."It's like you're... immune". He looks himself over in his own uncertainty, honestly expecting to see scorched flesh or something, simply to find that his clothes were thr only casualty of what had happened."Looks that way", he remarks, though he hardly had time to say anything else before she is moving on to say that she would rather not test the theory while pointing out the lack of clothes. It hardly bothers him, though. When she frowns and mentions his job, the dark hunter shrugs."Not that I care", he says nonchalantly then, not even daring to say that the only thing he'd concerned himself with was Vhal. It wasn't like he wouldn't be able to find another job if she really did fire him, and the man can't help thinking that it was hardly the last time he would be seeing the fae woman. His attention doesn't waver from the witch as she seems to focus back on him, this time asking him to come with her to the warehouse."Uh, sure", he answers, when in reality he knew that he should have told her no.

It had been in that very warehouse, in the apartment he knew rested within those vandalized walls that things had happened which he never would have considered possible. He's slept with her twice, when before he had been so certain he would have never even touched her with a ten foot pole. It was where that first prick of fierce protectiveness he once only held for Ellie somehow included the white-haired woman made its presence known to him. It marked the moment he felt everything he thought was long since severed from him. And yet, every damn time he ended up there... something happened between them that only left the dark hunter that much more incapable of defying the very thing he refused to acknowledge. No sooner than that agreement left his lips did the witch reach out and take his hand, the man who would have readily balked at such a gesture allowing her to pull him through those alleyways, attempting to shove away the snarls of the animal that paced anxiously against weakened bars that withheld it, clearly aware of just where it was that she was taking him. They reach the warehouse, the white-haired woman pushing through that first door, the sound of it slamming closed behind them from its own weight hardly registering in the dark hunter's mind as he follows her past the training area and up those steps that awaken those memories, specifically from the morning after he'd brought her bleeding body back from the club when she'd ruined his night intended to be woman free. There is no resistance in him as he moves into the apartment, inwardly relieved that she releases his hand, her scent thick here naturally and yet it hits him hard, fueling the flames that he's managed to keep choked down in the time she'd been gone. It is then that he discards what remained of his destroyed shirt, chiseled muscle covered in soot and gleaming from the sweat induced by the heat of her fire. He turns to watch as the witch slumps down onto the floor with her back against the door, lowering her face into ashen hands. He furrows his brow then, dark forest eyes puzzled and almost unsure of how to handle the woman as she almost seemed to be... grieving? Regretting? He didn't even know what to call it.

Her words are low as she speaks just what it was that has her in such a state that was far from what he was used to seeing. Yes, it was yet another unsettling moment for the man defiantly fighting those urges that only Ellie ever brought forth from the nearly forgotten part Lazarus. And yet, he hardly stops himself as he moves to lower himself onto the floor beside her, his own strong back leaning against the doorframe as he shrugs broad shoulders, pulling his knees up and resting his elbows over them as though absolutely nothing had happened moments ago, like some near-death experience or something when that had been exactly what did occur minutes ago."Well, I'm not. Although I'm flattered that you would have missed me", he says then, tenor tones low and nonchalant at first as the last sentence is spoken with a crooked smirk. He finds then that he couldn't stand to see her like this, and he tries to shove this absurd impulse to assure her everything was okay. After all, she did almost burn him alive for fuck sake. But he wasn't hurt, and neither was she. So why was she upset about it? It was... outside the parameters of what he was used to dealing with. It reminded him too much of that they'd spent together in a drunken haze only leading to the dark hunter sleeping with her when he'd sworn he never would. It reminded him of when he found her in the park and she'd nearly frozen to death because of ending up in the water and needing his help to get back to the warehouse before it became a medical emergency. It made him feel every damn one of those same feelings he almost desperately tried to tell himself he hated, loathed with a fierce defiance... and yet, no matter how much he denied them, no matter what he did to convince himself that this was... well, something - anything, really - other than what that nagging little voice deep, deep down was attempting to tell him it was, he just could not seem control stop them. Gods knew that he wanted to, but it seems that whenever she was around, he was just as incapable of controlling them as he was at controlling his own anger, just as she had been unable to control hers in the alleyway. Life was just... one fucked up and confusing mess for the dark hunter, but whether it not he despised it or liked it, he had yet to decide. At least, that was what he told himself, anyway.