Fingers clasp the lintel of the doorway, leverage tested with the bowing of a fencer's form. For a moment, he says not one blessed word. Not in French. Not in English. Not in Spanish. He looks down at his barefeet, his cotton trousers, his own shadow.
     And he tries to put the universe together like a Rubic's Cube.
     He is a child of the 80s afterall.
     "So, what the fuck?" Valan finally says, fuck becoming fook, oddly canting, wobbling in pronunciation from Tours to Trafalgar. "I saw it... I don't know what I saw. I heard it, I don't know what I heard." Fingers scrape against the lintel as he sighs his way to the bed and plops down. "I'm hallucinating sober. That was the weirdest fucking thing -- next to dying and waking up again," he tacks on.
     Valan exhales again, smiling a little. "But, I am glad you are okay. For a moment there, even I was worried, ami."
     But Davydd swooped in here and saved the day. Like fucking... who? What?
     Hocus Pocus...

     The water rushes forth, slamming hot against the glass and warming the stones that form the floor. Steam rises immediately, filling the glass box with a barely-penetrable cloud.
     Edward's favorite, especially when someone else is hiding in the steam within.
     He exhales, back given to the broader bathroom. "Let me put it this way," Edward now in recognizable French, "....Davydd's not all he seems. That's all I know." Said clearly, cleanly.
     Christ, Edward Meurelle is sober.
     Strange thing. He walks like a normal guy, sounds like a run-of-the-mill Frenchman, stands flat-footed, and his body seems rather relaxed along with his energy.
     Normal save the dead part.
     "He, um...well, it's probably best," Edward turns about and looks at the doorway, "...that neither of us really know, ami," his brows arching and chin dipping. Really. Don't ask. I don't.
      "Suffice to say, my friend of...a long time..just isn't so simple. And he's got some...magic...I guess. Fuck if I didn't know who to call." Edward raises his arms and looks down his body. At this...sobered machine. Unfamiliar, to be sure.
     Then, there's laughter.
     "Hi, I'm Edward," he says to his groin, staring at it, "...and you are..."

     "Are you talking to your penis again, Eduard?"
     His voice is closer now, your Ami's. He is leaning against the sinks, watching you amid the steam -- lava heat turned to gaseous form. Valan is smiling, staring, shirtless. But he doesn't bound in after you.
     Not yet.
     "Do you want me to leave the two of you alone?" Valan actually laughs at that, nearly a giggle, almost a cackle. He exhales, hands behind him bearing his weight, allowing him to stretch yoga-like in an arch. He tips his golden head back to look at his own reflection. "I wasn't sure what he could do, other than maybe," he straightens, legs crossing at the ankles, "...call someone else." He shakes his head. "I wasn't sure. I didn't know he knew... magic." Or that magic really existed in that vein. Or in any vein. "Well, I am glad he was able to come."
     Hands come off the counter and pull the drawstring of his pants. He lets them fall. Stepping out of them, he reaches for the shower door...
      Tick...
     And eases into the steam and water...
     Tock...
     "Such complicated men," Valan breathes. He smiles. He looks at your groin then to your face.
     "Are you going to introduce us?"

     "Absolutely," Edward grins as he's passed by at the open shower door. "Dick, this is Valan. Valan, my dick. It's thrilled to know you. I swear. And it'd like to know you better."
     He snickers to himself, Edward does, and then steps into the column of billowing white. It should burn skin, that water, but the current occupants of the shower are rather hardy.
     Rolling his eyes, Edward wiggles his brows. "I'm not sure how I feel," Edward contemplates a moment, looking to a glass wall. "It's like...I think I need a drink." A hit. Something.

     Valan laughs, that warm summer laughter that Death could not destroy nor Unlife dampen. His arms come around your shoulders, his body flush for a moment. Heat and heat and heat, he gives his face to it.
     "If only you could drink gak, then all your problems would be solved. You should cut it on me," he says at your mouth. "I think we both deserve a hit after tonight." He teases a kiss that never comes. He suckles at your chin.
     And then he is on his knees, mouth at your stomach. He looks up despite the falling water. "I think Dick and I are going to be the best of friends." He laughs again, it bounces like sunlight off the shower stall walls.
     This is turning out to be a banner evening, Meurelle...
     Apart from getting stabbed and having a jacket ruined, you've had your fanny saved by your best friend and now your boyfriend is sucking your cock in the shower. And all you have to do is stand here and be You. What could be better than that?

     It's like melting, it is. Edward groans as he bites his bottom lip and leans back against the stone wall. His feet are rooted to the roughened shower floor, made of the same stone at his back. His eyes close and he smiles ever so sweetly, though his teeth threaten to break the skin of his lip. From him, a loud exhale rushes forth, audible even through the din of the shower.
     Hands in dampening hair, Edward looks down at his gently moving hips. "You didn't ask about the Prince..." he says at the worst time, knowing it's the worst time. Edward pushes forward, then falls back once more at the wall.

     What would normally be a sound of thought, a thoughtful pause, there is instead the vibration of thought, a thoughtful pause of his mouth around your girth. He drags his mouth back, suction tightening until only the head is left. He lingers there for a moment, almost 'chewing on that a moment' literally, then lets you go.
     "You are right. Ah... I guess I am a little... nervous?" Valan leans in, nose and mouth nuzzling. He tilts his head up and looks up at you through the falling water and mist. "Is it about... what happened the other night?" Or is it just a coincidence?
     The timing is not lost on him...

     "What do you mean?" Edward asks, confused. "What happened?"

     "The fact that I left two men for dead outside the Odeon, you know.... that night. The rumble, as you say..."
     He knows there are princes. You and he never talked of actually meeting one. He has a fight and suddenly he is off to meet a prince.
     Valan leans back, staring your groin in the face... so to speak. Gold-green eyes lift to you, his lips curling into a smile. "Am I in trouble?"

     There comes another smile, this one looking rather eager. "Oh, you're in trouble," Edward says with a nod. "But, not the kind you're thinking of at the moment..." regarding princes.
     "Come here," Edward grunts, arms leaving the wet curl of golden hair. "Up here," he says softly. A talk.

     "Oui, ami?"
     Compressed time...
     A moment ago, he was on his knees. Just a minute ago, sucking you into a state of bliss. Now, he is standing, arms settling around your shoulders again.

     "You're not in trouble," Edward says with a friendly face. "It's...just time. And, well, I was reminded," he rolls his eyes, the type of reminder probably stern, "...that it's been...a while." That brings a grin, "Three years," Edward says proudly, arms snaking around the body against him. "So, um," since I did it and didn't ask anyone and brought the results back to London, "...pushing the time on an introduction, well, let's just say it needs to happen before we go on holiday." So we can come back home, capice?
     "And no one died, right?" At least not as he knows. "The rule is," Edward squeezes, "...if no one dies, nothing happened."
     Oh, yeah. There's some safe advice.
     "I doubt Thierry -- Thierry Tattinger du Niemes, don't forget, Your Excellence to you -- heard about some bar fight, ami. Okay?"

     "I thought there were no rules in Fight Club," he drolls. But he looks relieved. Not that he was really worried -- much. "That is good to know," he murmurs. "Has it really been three years, Eduard?" Valan blinks at that. "It feels like I have ... always been here with you. I do not even know that other life anymore. Just three?" It feels longer.
     "I will look forward to meeting him, then. He ... really is called Your Excellence?" Do people really do that? I suppose if he were a judge, we would give him the deference due an officer of the court. "Your Excellence," Valan Montague repeats. "I will be my usual, charming self, I promise."
     That summer smile winds across his lips and lights his features, warms them like the water heats his skin. "I think you should take me in the other room and measure a few lines on my stomach." He brushes your cheek with a hand and makes ready to leave. "Then I want to get acquainted with my new friend again..."

     "After," Edward replies, arms unwilling to disengage. "I think I should know what you are like...just like this. Au natural, hmm?" Himself, that is. "Who knows, you might find out something new about me." Unadulterated.
     But the arms are still the same. The height. The straining muscles demanding to be free of mortal constraints. Edward tightens his body, eliminating any remaining distance. To leave his embrace would be difficult, to say the least.
     "Maybe," Edward whispers, giving a soft kiss, "...I will see something new in the man -- the vampire -- that you have become..."

     Valan Montague smiles. A clear-headed night? And, with clarity, perhaps an even greater delight? The senses neither dulled nor augmented. Strength and beauty in what one is, and in the true beauty of the partner.
     Simple...
     Unadulterated...
      Pure?
     He looks at you as he remains in your arms, as he leans in for a kiss. His eyes remain open to experience you as his parted mouth brushes. The kiss is sweet, nearly as sweet as a mortal's. The kiss of those who have no extra knowledge of the world. Adam and Eve before the apple.
      "I love you," he says, and his weight comes to bear against you, so that you may feel him solid in your arms.

     The next kiss starts slowly, Edward giving the combined weight of you both to the wall. But, as with all things involving you, it quickly grows first as parted lips, then an open mouth, eager and exploring. How else to say I love you, I am yours, and I need all in one moment?
     But if anyone came into 156/157 Dannerly Court, made his way upstairs to the master bedroom, then walked into the bathroom, he'd miss his opportunity. All there would be was a shower filling loudly, billowing with steam, left running by the residents.

Posted by rowan at October 15, 2003 09:17 PM