~*~   ~*~

     "These nights," he murmurs, closing his eyes, "I want to be in the hand, in the mouth, and on my knees. To feel your hands on my hips." Yes, that would mean what you think it would mean. "I am... voracious, these nights. With painting too... every night. Filled with love and lust and life and creativity." He smiles, opening his eyes to a crack. "Hmm... we should call a few of the Favorites," William murmurs. "You can have me in each and every place, and where I cannot be, there will be someone there, holding my place until I can be."
     But art hovers everywhere around him. William folds his arms, up and over his head, hands becoming pillows for his own head. "Every night... of late... I have come to you," that night in your office on your desk, that night in your office on your sofa, that night in the grand hall, the night in the grotto, the catacombs, et al. "... every night I have completed no less than one painting. It is... pouring out of me...so... I am feeling..."
     A vipered smile...
      "Prolific..."

     You have and Ian has noticed. "I am happy that you are so...prolific," he grins in the word's use. "You seem quite happy with things," Ian nods, hands still moving back and forth across the bath. "I'd ask what's gotten into you of late, but then I'm afraid, the answer would be...me..." Ian laughs at that, not because it's particularly new, but well, because it's the thing to do. Almost immediately, he coughs and becomes somber again.
     "So, why are you so prolific and if so, why are you not more prolific with your favorites?" Spreading the wealth, as it were. "I understand...you...me..." his hand waves. "But, the beauty of being prolix, is that you share it with others." Be it books or other things.

     He laughs, quiet but rich. The sound bounces off of the surrounding stone walls as he sits and steams. This sort of steaming is more his style. "You are my favorite," singular. "But... as for art, I suppose that is why... when Jezebel asked me if I would show, I said yes." What has gotten into me? Nothing. That is the beauty of it.
     "But... it makes me a little nervous, I should admit. Sharing. The art. You. I do not like to think of you with others if I am not there to enjoy it. Shame on me, but it is true. Nor do I want to be with others, when you are not there to enjoy it. For it is you I love. Painting...well... you know how personal it is."
      It is like being naked in public...
     "It is different when I think of my feelings and my passions hanging on the walls," William grins, eyes opening, indigo settling on you. "Other peoples' feelings and passions I can paint and display without issue. But this... this will be different." A pause. "That is... if you agree to it..."
     You feel his foot beneath the water, a brush against your leg. "Jezebel called about that article," the one where he talked about painting you. "The gallery has been swamped, but hers was the only one I returned."

      The conversation takes a turn and Ian looks blankly at you for a moment. Oh, art again. He meant prolix about other topics. "Well, it is good that you're considering a show. For Jezebel." Another approving nod. Ian closes his eyes and lets his head tilt back. "You will get used to showing paintings again," Ian suggests. "You have to start somewhere. So, I think this will be good for you."
     Ian's face tightens suddenly. "Why would I not agree to your showing?" He's never been a part of your artistic decisions. "I know we talk of things much, Will, but you will do as you need with your artwork."

     "The paintings they wish to see are the ones I have of you..."
     He lets that settle for a time. And he knew what you meant. "You are my favorite," and the art underscores this. "I do not wish to enjoy others if you are not there to enjoy it. To what end? How could it possibly compare to when I am with you, of what it means to sweat between us, when I call out your name, when I pulse in your hand. What makes it important to me... is that it is your hand, your mouth, your touch, your kiss."
     The water sounds as he lowers his hands, his arms into the water and moves toward you, closing the distance in the roomy and heated bath. "I could not... would not... show the subject of my life's work without his blessing." A pause. "And his involvement."
     William is before you now. The look is serious, as much as it is earnest. "Do you know... I have a vault in Chinon dedicated to You," he breathes. "When you and I were parted, it is you I painted. When you and I were together, it was you who inspired me. You are, and have always been, my only muse, Ian Dunross. And ... when the offer was posed to me... I thought... oui, it is time that you knew that. That the rest of them knew that." All those who ridiculed you in the past. All those who came to you and told you of my fucking them, as if suddenly they had supplanted you. "But," William notes, "... if we cannot come to an arrangement or a way of doing this that pleases you, then it... will not be done."

     He is quiet now, hair damp and droplets of hot water rolling down his face. Ian narrows his gaze at you, then releases it as an expressive sigh. His actual inhale and exhale are loud, and instead of looking at you, he looks at the water in the bath. "I hate when conversations meld, William, for it mean that a response to one is also set in the context of the other. It is not particularly fair to either question or honest response to either."
     "But, as you've put it all out there," Ian says, "I don't have much to say right now, I think." He seems slightly irritated. The fun of discussing and thinking of being with you soon has just been wrapped around the serious topic of displaying him in public. And he hates exposure.
     Ian sighs and bends, dipping his face below the water's surface. Coming up, hands wipe at his face, followed by a long exhale. "I think I'm done," he whispers. Too distracted to think of lovemaking, too not interested in having anyone touch him at the moment, and having to ponder his own exposure, Ian begins to rise from the water.

~*~   ~*~

     February stretches long...
     All of Scotland is held in one long shadow that merely deepens with the passing of the day into night. Grey blends easily into black. And the rain that greeted the mortals on their way to work or market after daybreak is the same rain that greeted you both upon your waking.
     Long season, and the winter stretches to interminable. Here, spring will be sudden, not the gradual, languid ease of Chinon, but with a fingersnap to the senses. But spring's still a ways off. Mortals dream of it, immortals anticipate it, but that doesn't help speed it up any...
     He was not with you when you woke, but there were telltale signs of his earlier presence. Evidence of his waking. The imprint of the form that lingers in the sheets, the folded coverlets. The empty glass that once held brandy, and yet holds a little of its fragrance. The absence of the loungewear he had occupied so well the previous night. The scent of honey (soap) and cinnamon (ritual) that hint and linger.
     And there is the light, from the crack in the door...
     The Studio...
     The smell of paint is fresh. Can you detect even the sound of a brush, or a finger, moving the liquid? The twirl of a brush in solution to clean it, the tapping of its wood against the glass jar. Mortal and pestle, the sound of paint mixing. He mixes everything from scratch still, even though he may order anything he likes. He clings to that tradition...
     If any or all of this brings you sooner or later to the studio, you will find him there. Wearing only a pair of black cotton leggings, lounging trousers. What some might use for exercise or for sleep, he uses to cover himself. But the rest is bare. Chest, arms, waist. Feet. Despite, or perhaps even for the cold. The velvet sleeper sofa, which has traveled far from San Francisco and New Port, is unfolded. And joining the scent of cinnamon and honey, a further layer of plum. Ah, from the opened bottle of that deadly liqueur.
     William stands, arms folded against his chest. His eyes tending downward to his feet. To an enormous stretch of canvas. The colors at his feet are lavendar, aquamarine, something of marigold. Strange, washed colors, like a spectral fog. But there is one thing absolutely clear. And occupying the center of the great painting: You.
     A hand lifts, finger idly brushing his chin. He scries the surface like a wizard running his hands across a pool of still, still water...

     He's been standing there a while, in truth, leaning against the bedroom side of the doorframe. Hands press against the stone and wood, providing enough support so Ian does not need to open the studio door further. Truthfully, he's decided not to bother you, but instead wishes to simply watch you move around and contemplate your work. It is not that cares so much about the artistic process. Ian peers through the partially cracked door at you, a picture itself, to refocus his attention and gather his thoughts.
     It's not so often that he can stare you and listen to his heart beat and feel the blood coursing through his veins. Sometimes, he closes his eyes and thinks about you, letting thoughts fly. Each is a memory relived, recalled in order to give the present the fondness it deserves. We can get caught up in the minutiae, Ian knows, and these nights, he is happy to sit and remember, to remind himself of things and to be grateful.

     He has not heard you. So tuned into what he is doing, all the little noises you have taught him to hear have been tuned out. Turned off. He knows you are near. But then, so is the bedroom. There is a smile. To something he sees. Maybe to something...most certainly to something... he remembers. William crouches, balancing easily on the balls of his feet, arms resting across his legs. He reaches for a strange little brush, it looks like a fan, very thin bristles. He uses it dry. And when he moves it near your mouth, it makes your smile come to life. Texture, that gives living breath to the image captured.
     That image...
     You sitting in the bedchamber of Chinon. There is the pinkened stone, catching some moment. There is the ease of shadow and light. There is your attention drawn upward, past an arched window, past your own reflection held there.
     Some thought of you...
     Many thoughts of you...
     William draws his hand away and openly stares at it. His fingers brush against the paint -- his hands are colored from his little touches. He stands again, and as he goes to move around it, to see it from another angle, indigo eyes glance upward. And then lock on you. A flicker of surprise.
     "Good morning," he says. And for a moment tne near thousand years of minutiae are scattered on the floor, and his gaze is uncluttered. There is happiness, and there is stillness.

     "Good evening," Ian replies, standing in a pair of black and green flannel pajama bottoms. How many times has he said that over eight centuries? It never ceases to bring a smile to his lips. Much fills the words good evening, now meaning unfathomable lifetimes of devotion. "I didn't mean to disturb you." Ian presses against the doorframe, elbows out to his left and right. He smiles in return. And how not?
     He makes no move to enter, content to stand outside and continue to see you from afar. It is admiration in the oldest sense of the word. A wondering at. "I like when you create things," Ian says for the record. "You look so happy, thinking about things. How to show something..." like in your present painting. "And the paintings look like mirrors of moments from the past. So we don't forget..."

     There is a glance between you and the work. William shakes his head, you are not disturbing him, he moves around the painting to a cloth on the small table near the sofa, where there is also a collection of jars of colors and one of the cabinets has been pulled over, its drawers opened to reveal all sorts of media, powders, oils, glasses. The raw elements of colors.
     And he is surrounded. Paintings and pictures lean against the wall, in some places they are three or four deep. Still life and images, places and You. Good evening. It makes him smile, thoughtful and warm. Contemplative. He sits on the sofa sleeper's arm, hands slowly becoming clean.
     William glances between the captured you and the living You. And a grin starts in the dark eyes. "I suppose that is what they are. They go from sunsets in Arsuf to full evenings in Strathfayr and Chinon." And you are in all of them. Even in the ones of the fruit. He looks from you to the large painting resting in its cradle canvas on the floor. He inclines his head. "It is easy to be happy when one loves one's work. And I am a fortunate artist," indigo settles on you. "The love I have for my subject is returned. Poor Caravaggio did not know such peace."

      Caravaggio. Ian nods at that, having sudden sympathy for him. He looks down and around the room, leaving you for a moment.
      "What is that like?" he asks. "Being in love with your favorite subject? To love a canvas and the person?" A not so simple question, though simply asked.

     "Sometimes, it has been very difficult," William murmurs, as much to himself as to you. As you take a moment, so does he. His eyes stray to the paintings around him, the pouring out of Himself. You. And You. And You. Lastly, to this newest one. "Sometimes, I think I was a better painter than I was a lover. I loved you better there some years than I was able to give to you. But it is ..." William pauses, setting the rag aside, his hands clean, they rest upon cottoned thighs, thighs whose strength is apparent even behind the thick warm fabric. "I painted him and I painted him," William remarks softly. "Not to egrandize him but to understand him, to get to know him. If I know how his elbow bends, or the way light lingers on him and how he holds it when he is thinking, how much better I will know him than if I ... just glanced or just made love to him. Or merely lived with him." He catches himself speaking of you in the third person and smiles. "You. To love the canvas and the person," he continues, a glance to the work and then to you again, "... I love you two-fold. And... they feed one another, these loves. My... love of painting you, and my love of You Yourself."
     William knits his brows together, wondering if he answered you. His eyes as much ask it after, with a slight but warm smile. "I think I said a lot, but I may not have said enough..." William chuckles and moves a hand through his short hair. Styled mussed, thick black tresses stand up after such treatment.

     One of Ian's hands leaves the wall, wavering left and right in a so-so fashion. But he grins anyway. "I have learned to see how you feel in these," he indicates the room at large, but does not belabor the point of how long it's taken. "Whenever I see them...I feel..." Ian starts, pausing before finishing, "...glorified? No, that is not the word. Loved. I see how a man loves me." It is very strange that. "Sometimes, I see it better in these than any place else. Well, now I do," he grins. "In fact, I see...too much, how much." And it makes him ache. "I'm made happy by them; I am fearful of them, a little, of staring at them...me...; and I love you only more now that I do look at them."
     That said, Ian purses his lips. "If you...want to have the show, then do so," he whispers, looking down. "I love you." He snorts and looks up, having to face a room of evidence of someone else's love and devotion, more solidly put into the physical world. Ian gaze comes to his own hands, which he then lowers to his sides.

     If you think this is something, you should see the vault. Well, maybe you will in the end. I will need someone to help me. I cannot do it alone...
     There is a smile. There is not a jubilant grin, a rushing about, a lifting you up in celebration. It is more simple, and more complex. "I know how...it is. I have a hard time looking at the ones I have done of me." You have only ever seen two of these. So far as you knew, those were the only two. "I have to remind myself that the canvas is not purely a mirror. It can be a mirror, but even when it is, it is a mirror to the artist as much as the subject." I understand. William rises from the sofa at length, and he at last moves to you. He takes your hands, and he holds them for a time in quiet. His hands go there as well, to see how the fingers meet, how well the hands are suited for one another. How well they look coupled. A microcosm, for how well we look when coupled.
     "I love you, too," he murmurs. "And... I would ... no, I need your help... with it. I need someone to help me with ... the selection. I was thinking it would be invite only, vampire only. One night only. So the... paintings... I think we should choose them together. Would you help me with that?" His thumbs circle the center of your palms and he tilts his head, indigo eyes locking on the mercury...

     Ian avoids your gaze, looking into the space between you. He is hesitant, head tilted to the side. "You should choose," he whispers, unsure of it all, really. "It is...your show and your vision." Of you...and me. "I will sit with you though," Ian adds, exhaling deeply as he tries to remain in the conversation. Part him so wishes to sink back behind the curtains of the bed, shielded from the world.

     "Non," he says, softly, a hand leaving yours to place a finger beneath your chin. "It is Our show... or there is no show." Part of you wishes to shrink. And a part of him reaches forward, to keep you with him. How well you compliment one another after so long. How well you have learned. He has learned. It is gentle, there is tenderness there, but there is also insistence.
     "You are not a ...subject or object of this love, or this art, but ...an equal participant. I need you with me. And I need your help." Has he ever said this before? Has he ever expressed such a need? Such a desire?
     William smiles, his finger beneath your chin. A kiss. He closes his eyes, he bends his head to rest his forehead on your own, his other hand clasping yours. "We are partners. And I cannot do this without you." William inclines his head, his hand moving out from beneath your chin to brush over your golden hair. White-gold. He has said enough. The rest... will come later.
     "How were you thinking of spending your evening tonight?"

     Understanding and blessing is one thing. Ours is something else. Ian sighs, slightly frustrated that you keep him so close in this. "No plans, really. I might lie and read. Or, you could come back to bed." But, he is a bit wound now in having to be a participant of the show at the level you wish. So, even as he suggests bed, Ian's eyes show his fading enthusiasm for that particular idea.
     "I might write a few letters," he thinks better. An effort that will focus him elseplace. "Will you stay in the studio this evening? You have much to do." You. Not him.
     Did that work?

     There is an exhale, of the clearing sort. He is not frustrated by it. It is simply a matter of not giving in. Not on this. It is that important. "I had no plans one way or another. If you want to handle your work, maybe we can share a drink later." Young man or otherwise. "I think I need to... do something else for a bit, while the paint dries," obviously it is not an oil.
     It worked...
     For now...

~*~   ~*~

     Eyes closed, mouths opened, serpents of blue smoke trailed upward from curling blue tongues. And colors exploded spectral -- colors God hadn't yet had the time to invent, but they were born here. When green liquid moved along blue tongues to infuse red blood in Nirvana...
     ...It had begun on the sofa. Perhaps your mind will recall it when the flowers and clouds of the exploding astral have parted for the cool rain of remembered consciousness. The young men smoked the hooka on the furs, undressing themselves as you and William swallowed the absinthe. He called them to him, beckoned invisible, and they came to him, hooka and all. Like children. Little mortal children. And as he smoked and shared the remainders of the bowl with you, they undressed him...
     And so the spectacle began...
     On the sofa. Mouths made expert by conditioning, teaching. When... did you wonder when? Does it matter...
     But there was too much smoked, there would be no peace of orgasm. No grateful release. And so the three of them made a knot beside you, indigo eyes on you. Constantly. Even as they became one writhing beast. On the sofa you all shared. Then the floor. Then fucked across to the furs.
     When he tired of them -- or they started to give out beneath him -- he left them to one another. They continued on the furs, unable to stop themselves, unable to climax. Unable to do anything else but copulate ecstatically. William came to you....
     Two bowls in the middle of all that disappeared...
     The room was filled with pungent smoke and the constant sounds of men fucking. The sound echoed. Bounced off of the walls and off of the interiors of the joined minds that drifted unattended in the joining of bodies. Coupling and buckling happened automatically, while spirits and minds wondered on the lights and shadows on the wall...

      ...At some point, however, that noise quieted. Mortals lay sprawled, passed out on one another and the furs, curled up in sleep angelic. Their bodies numb and aching, still twitching, still entwined, making nearly imperceptible movements. Thrusts still happen on a molecular level. But they float in opium dreams... where they copulate on pillows and come in feathers...
     And you and your lover have moved to your bed. The drapes thrown open for now, even though the sound has dwindled. William's mouth is painted with the evidence of his evening. The stain of opium smoke, rarified blue. The red of blood. An odd indigo. He, too, is floating. But he is not asleep. It is a few hours yet until the sun peeks over the horizon, as you and he started early with The Festivities. How heavily he will sleep. How will he remember to wake...?
     His hands still surround you, fingers idly circle your skin. He thinks he hears himself speak and he smiles. Moments later, he can hear the echoes. "I... think they have finally given up..." He has not yet totally surrendered -- it is against his nature -- yet... his own motions stopped at least thirty minutes ago.
     Am I touching you, or touching myself...?
     William lifts his head slowly, looking down the joined creature you and he make. He smiles. His head bends, and closing his eyes his mouth finds your skin. It doesn't matter...

     Vast but comfortable, the massive internal room stretches in length north to south over half of the space of the grand hall, two floors down. Swept clean, the stone floor is softened by rich, woven rugs, treasures of the East, and mixed with these, dark ermine and red fox furs. The room is divided up into several seating areas, gathered by the south wall and the fireplace, the chamber's center and again near the bed, at the north head of the chamber. Before the hearth rest piles of furs and cushions. Two wide-bodied and antique chairs rest near them. The center of the chamber is dominated by a gathering of similar chairs and small tables, which surround a brazier. The seating arrangement nearest the bed is only slightly more modern, with a large sofa, girded by cushions and draped in furs.
     At the head, or north end, of the chamber rests the large bed. Four-cornered and canopied, most often what it contains is hidden from view. Flanking it on either side are short antique bureaus, and ermine and fox soften and warm the floor on both sides of the bed. There are at least two closets, and the chamber is lit by both candle light, fire light and by the light of the three lamps placed in various corners of the vast space.

     The world is a reeling place, when Ian, in his state, can be considered the least affected in the room. He curls with you, having lost the flannel pajamas ages ago. Somehow, he held off on the need to join you all. True, he could not resist touching himself or any of you during the evening. Nor could he avoid the wandering mouth that found him languishing upon the sofa. Only then did Ian allow himself to slip into some of the haze about the night, resting his hand upon Connor or Munro's nape for a few moments here and there.
     Somehow, that was it.
     Instead, he watched you all with fervent intensity, his grey eyes sliding between the soft grey hues of desire and the aluminum sharpness of hunger. It is a ritual for him, perhaps, Ian choosing to practice the self-control that has driven him for ages. But why? Why not delve into the smog of drink, smoke, and sex? There is no morality compelling the vampire. No reticence or fear. The metal bonds of convention and the stifling chains of finitesimal existence know no hold over him. Yet Ian takes no part, content to feast upon the scene that was lain before him.
     And now, that you are done, his moment arrives.
      Ian's hands move firmly at your back, and he smiles towards the canopy. "They have," he whispers, voice even. Heavy thighs open, finding another restful position. "And you? Have you given up?" he asks teasingly.

     Those eyes...
     When those eyes, set upon that face, look up at you, he is your resplendent Duke. As no other has. Yours. Though others have been with him, even tonight, they have never seen this look, this openness. This living light. This splendor that slides against you now. Morning glories pocked with fiery indigo stars, those eyes. And he is over you, lifting. His smile moving against your smile as he murmurs: "Never..."
     You knew that was coming...
      For him, flesh melts and spreads like butter and honey in the sun. The kiss is not started so much as it is renewed midstream to where it quit once before, plucked from the universe and from your mouth.
     Never...
     His Plantagenet soul knows no quarter. His Angevin spirit knows no bounds. His Poitevin body is on fire, a slow burn now that has smoldered for hours. But with you. With you, he will explode. He will know what Joy is. He will know what completeness is.
     And it washes over him in an ocean. The feeling of you. Your mouth. His emotion. His love. That look on your face. That feeling as his body melds with yours, even though part of it has to be a hallucination... he sinks into you... that... is very, very real.
     "I do not tell you enough," William whispers. "I do not say it enough, still... how much I need you. How much I need you with me." Like this. And every other way. The tear that leaves his left eye... is it purple to you?... it is crystaline with magics cast earlier in the day. "I paint you... because I need you...and I love you..."

      "I know," Ian murmurs, emotion heavy in the words. He kisses you, as if to acknowledge your confession. It's a confession he's already made. "And I want it to go on," Ian whispers. "I wish...I were an artist, like you." In order to capture you when his memory fades. "I can't keep you to myself," he laughs, "...to keep you close." If there comes a time when you are parted.
     "I'll help you with the show," Ian says softly after a moment or two of quiet. He does not explain the change of heart. He simply grows quiet as his hand caresses your shoulder.

     You do not explain. He does not ask. The acceptance is pure. There is no insistence for a promise. Why should there be? Your word is all. And it is all he needs.
     Time ticks off in the quiet, in the sound of the linen and silk, the furs, the sound of your skin and his sliding. There is no response to your words in voice, but he wears it. He needs your help with it. He wanted your help with it. And you give it. And he smiles.
     William bends, mouth glancing at yours. A kiss teased. A kiss promised. A lifetime given. Tonight he has taken his fill. He has had two young men and your watchful attention all night. He soaked it in. Now... it is your turn...
     Though he is over you, though his hands sink into the bedding, you do not feel the press of aching length. No. You get an eyeful of it, certainly, as his thighs readjust, settling on the outside of your own, knees sinking into the bedding, red and ivory. "I am not going anywhere," William says, his mouth straying to your cheek, your ear. "Keep me close," he asks. "It is where I want to be..."
     No more straying. No more journeys without you. No need now to ever be parted. Not like before. Not like when he was in Italy and you were in other parts of Europe. Or when you and he were parted in Seattle and San Francisco. Not like that. It will not be.
     William says nothing more. His heartbeat is in his ear and it is real. He is real. Living. Alive. Both of you seem to be. Maybe... maybe you are. You feel his weight, though it is well distributed. He feels you beneath him. There is a groaning for it, the sound of your name. And William closes his eyes, and lifts his head, his throat moving across your lips. I need you.

     Tempting him demands no work on your part. An easy process, that. Instinctively, Ian's mouth parts, and he is reminded of his own hunger. It has been a night or two, slightly exacerbated by tonight's events. Where he had been so languid before, he now comes on more eagerly. His left arm slides around your waist and Ian's right hand slips into dark hair it knows so well. His fingertips press, guiding firmly, and Ian tilts his head to kiss his favorite part of your neck. The bed creaks as Ian lifts from it, carrying you with him.
     You are indeed light, William. Lighter than air.
     Would you have ever thought it possible?
     In my arms, sometimes, you are but a man I know. A man whose body and blood I cannot live without. I must have, in order to continue. Like tonight. It is nothing personal, I do not think, but then again, it is of the most intimate and personal nature.
     No one is like you, William. No one.
     You are pliant. Does the world shift when I turn us like this? Where I become the expanse of the firmament above? I could look at you forever, William. To feel you beneath me, held ensnared in my embrace. Though my mouth rests open and poised, massaging your throat, it is your eyes I want to see and the depths of you I want to feel tightly. The rest is but incidental. I want to know that we are joined not simply by touch, but through the breath rushing from your chest and the sounds that you cannot help but make. That is how I know, that I have done something real...
     With him above, Ian's thighs part your own. He is deliberate, having all the time in the world. There is no need to rush. He lifts from your throat long enough to see your face, to tilt his head left and right to see your expression. You may not hear him, but he says your name softly, Ian does, in your tongue, not his own.

     His blood is high, lifted to his skin. He is drunk on the opiate-drenched blood of two Scots, absinthe and opium smoked of his own mouth. Deep olive, his complexion shows the progression of this night. Full. Heady. He is a poisonous flower to all but you. A grape full of Bordeaux to be plucked, pierced, punctured.
     You move him and he spreads beneath you, his large thighs moving easily to part for you. His arms, his mouth, his soul are opened, laid open to you. You see it so clearly in the eyes, that which joins you... an electric current of love, lust, emotion, desire... come as it may with the sparkle of intoxication. But his mind, though steeped in opium resin and wormwood, is focused. Hyperfocused. On you.
     Indigo is deep, two oceans for you to swim in, but the emotion is on the surface, like the reflection of moonlight. His breath, the night air. His heart, the sound of the sea. You and he, primal and archetypical.
     He is for you. He is here for you. He wants to be here for you. He needs you to need him. To take him. It is no different than the need in Arsuf. No less. In fact, he needs you more. You speak his name, and you receive an Occitan answer...
     I am yours... take me with you...
     William could swear that he can smell the sea. That there is wind moving just now through the drapes of this bed, like sails on a ship. When you and he huddled in darkness. Whispered. You soothed his fear. A few years later... you and he were huddled downstairs. And in the darkness you began to couple on the straw. There is that same depth...that same longing... that same intense need to be close to you... that same love... as when he came to your blanket that one night... not long after his embrace... and he sought you. He opened himself up to you. It is still there. Still there in the indigo. Reverberating in that look. That shine. That fire from dark eyes.

     Will you remember this? Shall I? I believe that I will, though it is becoming more and more difficult to separate the nights like these. The first instance is the one that comes to mind first. Was it in Arsuf that I held you like this for the first time? Perhaps. But I would not know it again for some time later. That I do recall.
     One before the other, William. One at a time.
     Ian's nose touches yours. His breath is warm, falling over slightly parted lips. Ever so minutely, Ian's chin lifts, a signal.
     Can you see it? The motions he makes, telling you what is coming next? On any other night, you would know his moves before they were done. This night, though, is not like too many others.
     He is not you, certainly, but that's perhaps only small consolation. He enters slowly, letting his head slip languidly to the left. Ian inhales as he pushes forward, gliding deeper. He inhales again, a faint twitch betraying his seeming calm. He must wait, has to wait, before he may let his body revel inside of you.
     The sea is not so far away. White linen, flowing beneath the pinpricked sky. When the blonde says that he loves you, Prince William, he does so in your own tongue. Guillaume, he breathes, a smile upon his lips and joy in his heart. He comes to you, not heavy with ache and loneliness, but instead with hand extended, expecting you to join him in wherever he is to go.

     Now, I am home...
     This is what it means to me. Location? Sometimes it is good to be in Scotland, sometimes France, sometimes Spain. Mostly, however, geographical location is irrelevent. It is here. Where we are joined, in the blood that binds us, in the skin that separates us into two distinct beings. This is what makes the walls and structure, the architecture of my Home.
     The sweetness of it...
     The intensity of it...
     In my gut...
      And you are there...
     I take the hand with a smile, somewhere I know I am smiling. If it is only in my blood, I do not know, or in my mind only. I hear you. I feel you. You must see my smile.
     It does spread upon his lips, and a long, luxurious moan as you -- who are not him, but not so much unlike him for all that -- fill him, and he lifts, opening as you do. Answering your love with lidded eyes, opium stained lips, blood, beauty -- devastating in its power and in its glory, only more so with every passing year. And he loves you, he says. In your tongue. Gaelic for your Occitan. And water leaves his eyes.
      Tomorrow ...
     Something will have been freed. Comforted. Soothed. Understood. Realized. And he will paint it. And he will remember it...

     At your cheek, Prince William, the man with you groans, pushing deeper. The root of him insists on finding further purchase, but feeling softer curves, Ian stills. His thighs support you both as he curls your joined bodies back towards the headboard, and the hand that was at your back instead opens widely at your hip.
      Go on, Guillaume. You do not have to stay with me. I am not far behind you.
     The figure laughs and lets your hand go, sending you forward. The blonde in white looks up at the sultan's sky, then looks ahead where you walk, catching up...
     His cheek is heavy at yours, Prince William. The man labors in his breathing, even as he repeatedly pumps himself inside you, creating a vacuum and at once filling it. He tells you how you feel to him, how he needs you, needs this, even as he pushes your left thigh wider.
     Maybe you will remember some of what I am saying, Will. I hope you do...it is not so often that I have to tell you. To show you this part of me that enjoys this part of you. So often...it is the other way around, laird. Remember this, if you can, William. Remember, that in another world, I grew older and stronger, and understood what I needed from a man like you...
     He has left the blood lingering in the air between you. Content with his thrusting, Ian closes his eyes and finds a rhythm that doesn't demand his attention. The rise and fall of the ocean, a steady pulse that elicits groans from crest to crest to crest.

     In many ways, William is already gone. Floating on opium. Moving with you, against you, in rhythm and out of it. Converted into a nerve of pleasure. He feels you Everywhere. In. Out. Above. Below. Everywhere...
     But he also Sees beyond seeing. Hears, beyond hearing. He whispers your name. And his need strums the cells of your blood and echoes in the room and in his own mind. Beneath the sparkles on the blood, sparkles that spread, blossoming like shards of glass in glaze when put to the heat of the kiln, he is Aware.
     ... Of how you feel...
     ...Of what you say...
      ...Of what you need of him...
     You open yourself to him, you reveal yourself to him. But he was never fooled by the Youth of your appearance. He knew the man within. He has seen him. Many times. And you meet here again tonight, equals. You, He... who taught him how to love, who taught him whata man could give, what a man could feel. How much a man could desire a man such as you.
     I need you like this...
     I need to feel this... to show you that I need you. That I ... want to be cared for, attended to, how some nights I wait for you to come to me, to call me to you. To take me within the secreted confines of a canopied bed. What it means to me... for you to choose me. To make me Yours...
     William becomes aware, suddenly, of the bed's sounding, and of your groans. And his. He wakes to find you moving within him, his arms surround you, hands to your back. They slide downward, pressing. His eyes flash open, dark violet, they glimmer with the tripped nerve of Nirvana.
     And the body beneath you both hardens and dissolves, his skin seeming to become your skin, and yet his every muscle, so prominantly displayed, is on edge. And you feel the pounding of his heart against you, where his length is squeezed, trapped.

     The sheets pull tighter and tighter, bunching up at your sides and shoulders. Ian's hands are twisted in the red and ivory bedding, pulling the linens around you both. He struggles against you, within you, the strain felt in the tension across his back. Ian's mouth trails downward from where your cheeks once touched, then drags over to cover your mouth, where he grunts and sighs.
     Suddenly, the twitching from earlier returns. Engaged in the velvety warmth of your mouth, Ian inhales a quick stream of cooling air between you. His eyes, once closed, open, and his thrusting becomes irregular, out of his control. It shocks him enough for him to break the kiss and for his brow to twist in surprise. From nowhere, deep within you, Ian shudders and grasps frantically at the sheets. He groans loudly, the sound falling off, trapped in his throat, as he's trapped inside you.
     Blonde hair falls at your nose, William, and the man above you inexplicably finds himself in the throes of orgasm. Shoulders and hips rounded forward.
      Without the vampire...
      Without breaking your skin...
      And without a drop of blood spilled...

     The blood does not spill. The poisonous grape is not pierced. The deadly Bordeaux does not flow. The skin, his flesh expected it. Even with the magic, blood flows, oui? But not so tonight...
      It is sudden for you...
     Not so for him. Not at all for him. The dragon is merciless, and it coils within him, stronger than he is now, steeped in the blood of the young men, who lie in a heap at the fire, that which was smoked by his own mouth, and the wormwood...
     And he can feel your orgasm, rocked by it, rippling senses conveying a height reached, the pinnacle held trapped within him, and he squeezes around you. You are trapped and held. Each involuntary convulsion of your length felt. William squeezes his eyes shut, fingers clasping and curling tightly against your skin, marking you.
     You go ahead...it is you who are moving ahead...
      Tightly held between you, engorged and beating out a frenzied rhythm, his own length, heavy, thick. Helpless to be otherwise. The dragon will have to relinquish him, first...
      Or blood will need to spill... and you... do not...
     Indigo eyes open, deepen as they go unfocused, quickening with blue as awareness suddenly focuses. He watches you. He arches beneath you, fingers spreading against your back. His thighs widening beneath you. His complexion still dark. Tempting. God... if you would only...

     If I would only...
     If I would only...
     I am grasping for air suddenly.
     What is happening...I know what is happening...
     The blonde hair dangling above you serves as a curtain. Pull it back, William, and you will hear whispered questions tumbling from murmuring lips on a body touseled and torn.
     But how is it happening? It can't be. I can't...
     Not without...
     Ian exhales, collapsing upon you. His hand leaves the sheets, once more sinking into the dark folds of your hair. His lips part at your throat, and without ceremony, Ian sinks deeply there, seeking a full rush of blood to his open mouth.

     There is a twist and a cry, full throaty and male. Eyes close and the world spins. Flesh parts and blood is freed. And in his twisting, hands grasping, thighs pressing at the bedding, William lifts his hips, curling and uncurling rapidly, sending you deep within him again. And again. Between you, he lurges and spills. Again and again. Opium liquified. And the orgasm seems to last forever...
     ...Intoxication rarified. Opium fortified on Plantagenet blood, Charlemagne in concentrate. William's blood spills into your mouth. Shocking. Pungent. Electric. And he clings around you, trembling, writhing. Your name is constant, murmured, mumbled, whispered, groaned. For he is strummed. His body, his soul one burning nerve.
     How...
      That word, so soft, to his senses hyperaware, heard. How. I can't...you can't...
     William swallows, twisting. It is so intense. Too much. Soft cry of your name. Too much. It does not end. William lifts his hips, shoulders digging into the bedding, and his thrusting quickens.
     Release comes with a vengence...

     Only occasionally does he stir above you. Your heart beats within his mouth, and Ian swallows quickly to keep pace with the lusty, rich sweetness that flows across his tongue.
     Tick...tock...
     Tick.
     The blood flows and Ian's mouth tenses with each pulse.
     Tick...tock...
     Fingers curl gently in your hair. A splash at the back of his throat makes Ian moan, but that too is stifled at your skin.
     Tick...tock...
      Tick.

     When he has lost enough blood. When the dragon slips, coiling around your lips and your tongue, leaving his body for yours, his body begins to still. The bed sounds loudly with the great Angevin collapse. His breathing quick, shallow. William rests a heavy hand upon your head, the lion's paw you know and love. His fingers curl lightly in your hair and he floats again.
     Drifting...
       Drifting...
     ...In another world, the Sleeping World, the world that keeps his mortal shade when he is resting, where he has conversations that he never remembers, where there is a river that clearly -- so clear it is silver -- runs through vibrant green landscape, the Crusader opens his eyes. And all the trees beside the river are blooming white and gold. And his energy, where has it gone? He wonders at it, tilting his head against the soft grass, turning it to look at the canopy of flowering trees above him and the orange-pink hue of a rising sun. Unable to look away...
     William lies still, he cannot move. His eyes have closed, and there is a last breath falling, with the aspiration of your name upon it. His fingers slide against your skin, form heavy, falling into The Sleep.
     You moved upon me. And I heard you speaking. All night. And your body buckled so naturally. Surprisingly. What has happened...
     Is it the drugs?
      ... the Crusader narrows his eyes at the sunrise of the Sleeping World. Here, he may watch it rise without fear. It cannot burn his immortal soul. Only his body may be burned for that curse. Suddenly a wind blows, a blossom falls upon his cheek and the Crusader sits up...
     And with a gasp, William opens his eyes. Forced consciousness. He turns his head against the pillow. Trying to see you. His hand twitches. He is alive again.

     Tick...tock...
     Oh, how long has it been? My eyes...they are so heavy. And this...he is indescribable.
      Ian jolts when you do, mouth closing bright red. His face is smeared in crimson color. Ian's tongue moves across the wound he made, but the damage is done. He is covered in you.
     Ian shudders as he leans upon an elbow, pushing himself to one side. He is drowsy and moves slowly. His head bends, sending blonde hair forward once more, and he looks down between you to see that you remain joined. Hand reaches at his face -- something's there -- and lowers as red as his mouth and cheeks.
     "No more absinthe," Ian grunts, the syllables awkward and forced. He falls onto his forearm, though he was trying to push up to his hands, and decides to stay there in the half-lean, until he can get his bearings once more.

     You are a mess. William is worse. You and he are covered and smeared in blood and other liquid, warm, colored, sticky and sweaty. But there is a Pollock-esque beauty to it. Horrible, alluring. Messy...
     ...Twice as much as before. You realize the level of his own intoxication when it becomes Yours. Opiate-wormwood, inhaled and swallowed, now moving, spiraling through your own system. The Bordeaux grape has been rended of all its juice, the pulp of the fruit lies spread beneath you. His broad chest and strong lifts and lowers with the breath, quick. He swallows again, paling, soft olive now, the ruddiness all gone. Apart from the blood that stains his skin. And some of the sheets.
     William cannot move. He looks at you, his eyes narrowed in ... intensity... the echoes of orgasm rippling through him still. You can feel the tiny trembles where you and he are joined still. His own length lying slack once more. William is a decadent disaster.
      "Hmm..." he croaks out, more moan than word. "You... " Tick... tock... "...incredible...I can't move," his lips, savaged in all that has passed between you, blushed from kissing, blue from smoking, "...too.. too much...You.." A dark eyebrow twitches upward. "... I felt you... " Orgasm without spilling blood. I felt you. William closes his eyes. He is going to sleep where he lies...
     In no condition to send the boys away. They will be found by the early morning staff. What a shocking scene that will be...

     He was going to move, but it is much too difficult. Ian had forgotten what he would run into, drinking so much of you. But the more he drank, the more he drank. A cycle really. And now, he sees the world the same way you do.
     Disoriented, Ian swallows, tongue running around his lips haphazardly. When he sinks this time, he wobbles, the fall ending only when he lands on your chest.
     In another night or two, he might be able to see this one. Remembering, just as he asked of you.
     Robert or Stephen will find the mess, and flush horrified. But they will do as they have done for ten years. Connor and Munro will be carted off and the room around the bed cleaned, as if nothing ever happened.
     But within the drapes of the canopy, the evidence will rest soundly.

     I can't move...
     I can't...
     Fingers curl and uncurl against your scalp and then still. The breathing softens until his chest does not rise. There is no sound. The awareness dissolves again. Into that Deep Sleep.
     ...The Crusader blinks his eyes, sunlight gleaming between the trees as it crests the horizon. Blinks his eyes as gold and white tree blossoms fall and land upon his face. One. Two. Three. He sighs and turns his head against the grass again. His body is so heavy, too heavy to move, and he will be sore. But he is looking for you.
     The sound of the river nearby. The sound of wind in the trees. He listens for your voice. Sometimes, he visits his brother here. Richard. The others do not come. Once, Henry was here but he didn't have anything to say. Eleanor and his sisters, his other brothers and half brothers have not come. Most often, there is you. Smiling. Clothed in your kaftan and robes, white, gleaming. He visits with you. He shares pears and apricots with you, delights of dates wrapped in strips of fried ham with sweet honeyed ale. But today, there are flowers. White and gold. Your colors.
     They are blooming. Living. Everywhere...

Posted by rowan at June 23, 2003 05:56 PM