cast_iron_bitch | (no subject)

He was too aware of his pulse.

It was foolish, as a good many things Laurent had decided to let transpire tonight were foolish. Still, he assembled several bottles of wine, a plate of cheeses, a small assortment of meats, loaves of bread, and grapes. It was too much, but so too was Damen's appetite. He had placed a large carafe of water in the cold box to chill. He had dressed himself in a long sleeved shirt, a tie, removed the tie, and put it on again.

He should not have demanded this.

Laurent could count on one hand the number of times he had given up control in the last seven years. That any had had a happy ending was an affront to plausibility, but it hadn't escaped Laurent that each favorable time had been with one man. Yet each time had been the result of circumstance, the both of them caught in an escalating chain of deadly events and each doing their best to survive it. Never by Laurent's own hand, save for that night in the fort, that evening in the inn.

A heavy knock came at the door, rendered by an overlarge Akielon hand, and Laurent waited in silence while his heart climbed down from its perch in his throat. He went to the door and opened it. Damen was on the other side.

'I hope you don't expect a spectacle.'

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From:

cast_iron_bitch

The glass was very full, and Damen very close. Laurent made an appraisal of himself and released the countertop so he could reach for it with both hands, taking a long sip before he lowered it again.

He said, 'You are always happy to help people. Any people.' His eyes slipped to halfmast. 'There had been no one like you in Vere since Auguste.'

From:

princekiller

The comparison to Auguste stopped him cold, his eyes caught on Laurent's. He waited, wondered how much of that statement was due to the wine and how much Laurent felt to be true.

It was a moment that stretched too long, felt too weighted, before Damen could finally manage a quiet, 'That is an honor I have not earned.' There could be no man to match Auguste in Laurent's eyes, a fact Damen could understand deeply. He'd felt similarly to Kastor at one time as misplaced as such devotion might have been. 'Helping you and your men was also in my own self interest,' he pointed out.

From:

cast_iron_bitch

'You have never been any good at discerning your own self interest,' Laurent countered, sounding, of all things, fond. He sighed and braced his hip against the counter, finding it easier to share his weight with a solid, unyielding surface.

'He would have liked you.' He smiled a little. In better circumstances, what a world it might have been.

From:

princekiller

Again, Damen fell quiet and still. Laurent was greatly loosened, that much was obvious, and the moment felt fragile, easily lost if handled too roughly.

'Why do you think so?' he asked, standing before Laurent, as close as he would allow himself for the moment, which wasn't very close at all. He let a slow, teasing smile grace his lips. 'Was he fond of barbarians?'

From:

cast_iron_bitch

'Not especially,' Laurent answered, lifting his water for another careful sip. 'But you are an honest man. Do you know,' he said, sounding far away for a moment, 'I can't recall the Court before Auguste died.'

He'd had no need to. Auguste would be king, and he'd watched over Laurent in every step. 'I do not know if it was always so venomous, or if my uncle made it so.'

From:

princekiller

'Well, I know what my father would say,' Damen replied, his smile still warm, still fond as he watched the way in which Laurent cradled his glass of water. There hadn't been a single moment Damen had considered Laurent small or helpless, not even when Laurent had been drugged and targeted for assassination.

But now he seemed... slight in a way. Still not small and certainly not helpless, but younger as he spoke of his brother. 'But it does seem as though your uncle has poisoned many things. I do wish we might have seen a Court under the rule of King Auguste if he was anything like the man you remember.'

From:

cast_iron_bitch

In the six years that Auguste had been gone, Laurent had committed him perfectly to memory. Every smile with which he had greeted him in the morning, every laugh when Laurent won at horses, every stern look he'd been given when Laurent's tongue was too sharp and the grin breaking on Auguste's face like sunshine when he agreed. The smell of his hair, the breadth of his shoulders where he had so often born Laurent aloft. All of it, carefully fixed in Laurent's mind and immune to the passage of time.

He said, 'He was everything I remember.' Laurent drank again and regarded Damen, so physically unlike Auguste in everything but size, so very much like him in heart and mind. 'The kingdoms might have united far sooner.'

From:

princekiller

'Do you really believe so?' Damen asked, chancing a half a step closer and lifting his hand to brush a stray lock of blond hair from Laurent's forehead. He lets his touch linger, fingers skimming down the side of Laurent's face, along the curve of his jaw before falling away again. 'And do you think he still might have liked me even when I started courting his little brother?'

It was a strange thing to imagine. If there was a universe like this one, a universe so unlike his home where he and Laurent were both dropped unexpectedly, could there also be another where Auguste had lived, where Damen hadn't run him through, where Vere had prospered and the Regent wasn't a regent at all. Could Akielos and Vere have united without bloodshed?

From:

cast_iron_bitch

Damen stepped closer, and Laurent felt it as if a wave bearing down on him, his presence nearly a physical touch until it was one. The pads of Damen's fingers against his cheek were so exquisitely delicate that he felt his eyes close, a small tremor passing through him until the touch fell away.

'With two good men on the throne,' he said, 'Why not?' Theomedes must have been one, to raise a man like Damen. 'Perhaps it would not have been me you wished to court at all,' Laurent noted, opening his eyes. 'I am half the man that Auguste was.'

From:

princekiller

'You suggest I might have wished to court your brother?' he said with a quick laugh of surprise. 'He was very different from you, was he not? Likely more agreeable and quicker to smile. Born to rule as I was, trained for it.'

He said it all with no small amount of fondness and the end in a softer tone as he shook his head. 'After knowing you as I have, I feel like I'd find anyone else very boring, even your brother though I mean no offense.'

From:

cast_iron_bitch

Laurent could not help a smile of his own, though he had to wonder if he would ever have been noticed behind Auguste at all. But it did not matter. The world was as it was, and they had to live in it.

He placed his water on the counter, lifting his hand to stifle a sudden yawn. It was not very late - he could only blame the wine for it. He said, 'You find me entertaining?'

From:

princekiller

'I find you infuriating,' Damen replied bluntly with a hint of a grin. 'And captivating.'

He paused for a moment, certain he was saying too much but unable to stop the words when he added, 'I think you're the most beautiful man I've ever seen.'

As soon the words were past his lips, Damen let out a quiet, overwhelmed laugh and shook his head. The moment now, was too weighted indeed. 'You're tired,' he said, taking a step back, his smile more cautious now. 'I should leave you, and the wine.'

From:

cast_iron_bitch

Laurent had been called beautiful more times than he cared to number, the most beautiful nearly again as much. It was not the words or even the sentiment, but the way that Damen said it that caught his breath. When Damen laughed, Laurent's eyes widened, but it was pleasure that thrummed through him to see all that he was feeling there in the curl of Damen's own overwhelmed smile.

'Take the wine,' he said, reaching between them to capture Damen's hand. He lifted it, hesitating for only a moment before he pressed his lips to the center of Damen's palm in a single closemouthed kiss. 'I have enjoyed it but drink will not become a habit.'

From:

princekiller

Laurent's blue eyes were wide then, surprised either by Damen's admission itself or the timing of it. Apparently, it was an evening for revelations.

But it could not have been a secret, Damen thought. If everything was as Laurent had said, and Damen believed it in a way he couldn't describe, then there wasn't any possible way Laurent was unaware of how attractive Damen found him.

And he was absolutely certain Laurent had been made aware of his desirability in far greater detail and from a far greater number of people in his life.

His breath caught as Laurent then took his hand, gently twisting his wrist to bend and press a kiss to his palm. Light a touch as it was, Damen felt a flush of heat all through him, his heart pounding as, for a moment, he was struck utterly dumb. 'I'll take the opened bottle,' he said when he could again find his voice, rough as it suddenly was. He curled his fingers lightly as though to capture the kiss in his fist and fought every urge in his body to take another with his lips.

'Keep the others,' he decided. 'I do hope we will have occasion to share another soon.'