Every castle and keep has them. While some may not have catacombs, and others may not have crypts, it is hard to find a castle of any worth that doesn't have a series of underground vaults. They are perfect for storing casks, wine, ale ... and sometimes inhabitants should the need arise. Chinon has a set of vaults as well as an undground passage. Strathfayr is no different.
     Out of the way of the wind and the seasons, the vaults create a constant and quite livable climate. There are not the drafts prevalent on the upper floors, where the Scottish wind simply can't be denied. The cellars are shielded from such, and from a good deal of the moisture. Here below, there isn't even condensation. The earth swallows it fast and the stone is thick.
     The stairs are narrow, ancient and even treacherous. Though he knows them like the back of his hands, William is careful. An oil lamp lights his way. It provides just the right amount of lighting -- a flashlight would be too harsh for his senses. Too much light is just as bad as too little. The lamplight has an ambered hue that reaches further, slipping against the dust, illuminating a cobweb or two, and covering him in a warm incandescence.
     He is dressed warmly -- for though there is little in the way of draft, it is still not the warmest section on the planet -- long sleeved shirt in a vibrant blue that fits close to him, trousers of a darker, more matte blue. When the light moves against him, it turns him the color of the Scottish sea. Magical breath warmer than the air hits the surrounding atmosphere with a mist, and he holds up the lamp sending the light ahead of him like scouting hounds and men, he as commander remaining back until they send word to his eyes that he has, indeed, come where he has intended.
     There are rows of slats, wood, cylindrical containers. "I think this is it..." he says, a slight echo to his voice. The room of the missing art, forgotten until just recently. What will we find...

      "Should be..." Ian calls, two steps behind you. He'd almost forgotten that he'd acquired a few things of yours, items from sales or discovered in collections. Nothing important, he'd thought, as most are sketches, small things. A forgery he saw at a gallery that Ian figured -had- to be yours. A sculpture seen at a house in Tuscany once, that he asked to buy from the owners. Some may not be you. He'd made educated, emotional guesses.
     At your sides, hands caress in the dark. "You know, these aren't going anywhere," Ian's voice purrs, smile on his face in the dim light. His fingers are strong, massaging the skin known beneath the shirt. "Whatever happened to the days when we used to grope in dark, filthy places?"
     He must mean a 'generic' we.
     "Now, don't laugh at what you might find. I mean...some things, I will say that I hoped it was you..." because he missed you then. Because you may have been apart. "And my judgement was clouded..."

     Amber light presses against the darkness like the sun stretching as it rises from a nap. Some shadows scatter, others gather and the lamp is now a beacon, like your lighthouse, where it sits upon a landing of stone. The floor has been swept clean in the past few years. There is not the dust of centuries upon it, but neither is it tended every day, every month, or even annually.
     William is smiling when he turns to look at you, eyes indigo where the rest of him is royal and midnight blue, still radiant even with the darkness. Your fingers feel solid earth of his form, and the warmth of the fire that is always beneath it. "I should hope not," he says, "..unless in moving them elsewhere you were to massage lower..." The flash of a smile take a sepia hue with the light nearby. "And I will not laugh. Who knows, you may have stolen something far more priceless..." A large hand lands upon your own, a signal that he is about to move. Come with me.
     He stands in place for a moment, making a slight pivoting turn, wondering which way to go first. William heads to a stack of cylindrical tubes and wrappings. "...we were groping in the dark only this evening, what do you mean by such nostalgia?" His quiet and deep laughter echoes off the stones, ending in a kind of purr at his throat, leonine.
     ... Have you noticed too how he wakes now with you? How you do not always find him up and ready to go when you open your eyes. How now you open your eyes and feel that he is still in your arms, or you in his. You may shower together, shake off the dust together, become living together. And it is not that he is waking, tending to himself and returning to his bed. He goes with you now these nights...
     Your hands feel each sinew in motion as he bends slightly, taking up one of the larger tubes, his hands brushing the dust. What he thought was tubing is just thick paper, outer protection (of a sorts) around a much older picture, painting or sketch. He unrolls it slowly, partially in his curiosity and study -- and partially so that if a spider jumps out he can kill it in a hurry...
      It is a painting. There follows a scent of oils and age...

     Ah, fine. A turndown from William Plantagenet. Maybe I'm losing my touch...
     Ian follows behind, following the lead of your hand. He stands at your side when you pick up the tube. "Want me to hold the light?" he asks softly. He's not really sure how things are organized down here now himself. It's been ages since he sat among these items. These are different than his regular stores that are catalogued and valued. Those are investments. These items are personal.
     "We groped in the dark," Ian says flatly, "...but it wasn't dark and filthy. I guess I should be glad that hygiene came into being." The past wasn't that grand.
      "What's that one?" he asks, peering to see around you.

     "We can go roll on the moors afterward," he offers easily. A turndown? It was not that at all. A request for delay, perhaps. Perhaps. Your hand is on him still, and he unwraps the painting slowly. No spiders, thankfully. He looks up from it, turning to look to you, the amber light sitting on an outcropping of stone. "Maybe that would be good, but you would have to take your hand out of my shirt. I hate making those kinds of decisions, mais oui..." In other words, it is up to you...
     His voice drifts off, falling in a warm hush as he sees more of what is shown there. It is mine. "It is a picture of Genoa," William murmurs. Uncurling more of it -- it is a large painting -- he can see the columns, the shadows, the gathering of water in a fountain. Moonlight on the water. A magnificent villa. It is not a portrait of you. But do not think you are not in it. For there is your form, your face rippled in the water of the fountain, as if you had been standing at its side and looking down into it. "I was on my way home to you," William whispers. "When I did this, I was a night from getting into the boat that carried me as far as Cornwall, Medici got me that far." Of course that was Girault.

     "I remember this..." Ian thinks. "Um...I think I got it in England," he tries to recall. Hmph. Since he doesn't have to hold the light, Ian steps in closer, chin at your shoulder. "That is a good one," he nods, looking over to see the unfurling. "I'm one-oh," he smiles.
     He hasn't decided. Both hands return to your hips, and he twists around to see what other pieces might be easily accessible on the floor. "What about that..." he points at, Ian's arm extending beneath yours and across the view of the fountain. "Over there..."

     That time returning from Italy. It was every bit as fraught as Seattle had been, though not in the same manner. But there was delay. Delay in travel. You in torpor with Alexandra, he having to remain in Florence when he would have come to you. He would have come to you. And then, when it was safe for him to travel, he did come. He left the warmth of the Italian nights to return to Scotland. This painting didn't make it off the ship with him. It was taken by the captain, who lost it to the merchant for whom he worked, who then gave it to his daughter, who married Sussex, from whom you took it...
     "I thought it was in my trunk of things. I was going to give it to you. But when I got back here... I couldn't find it." He looks at you. Surreal. Strange. And then he shakes his head and shakes it off. William lets the painting roll onto itself again and he turns to where you point. He reaches up, a hand folding your hands against his waist again. You touch him, he never wants to be without that touch. There is another roll. There is also a flat object -- more precisely, a framed painting. William moves, and he moves with you -- you having the benefit of feeling his body in motion. It makes a dance of every step...
     The framed painting is a forgery. One he had forgotten. Probably a good thing. Even in the low light he can tell it's a fake. "I think that was supposed to be a Rubens..." comes the languid baritone, smooth and even. And dry. "At least... that is what the frame is trying to tell me. The paiting... I am not so convinced," and his laughter softly echoes again. The roll of painting or sketches grabs his attention. That is where the real treasures will be...

     Ian smiles, glad to see that you at least enjoy the artifacts and memories. "I thought it might be, but was not so sure." Ian chuckles softly behind you, shrugging his shoulders. "I was obsessed," he over-emphasizes, laughing at himself. "I would have mistaken anything for yours, laird." Sometimes, I was so confused. His hands cling as Ian remembers, then loosen when you move.
     "I think the frame may be worth more than what's inside?" he teases, fingers slipping along the edges of your waistband. "Just kidding," he whispers.

     You feel him laugh even before you hear it. He does not bristle. He finds it as funny as you do. "Mais oui, we must take this frame up and clean it. We must burn what it contains. But first, we cut the painting out and make sure I did not hide a treasure map or something more illicit behind it." There is no jest made at the obsession, nothing light made of the sickness that at times held you both in a hard grasp. Choking. There is the placement of his hand, that large Plantagenet lion's paw of a hand, no matter how refined it has become. A light touch, but strong. We do not have to worry now.
     William bends, picking up the roll. It is not as large as the last. He unrolls it. And he smiles. Slowly spreading, first appearing in his eyes and dawning over the whole of his expression, he smiles. For it is you. More sketches. Your face, the indication of what the painting was one day going to be. You in a kaftan, kneeling like the golden avatar of Islam...

     "Three-oh," Ian whispers softly, a respectful response to the vision you began. How you saw him. "You wonder where I found this? Don't ask. I don't remember," he murmurs. Arms slip around your waist full, and Ian's nose presses at the nape of your neck. "Maybe I knew your work better than I realized..."

     "This is... really old," he murmurs. "I may have even done this here. Well... upstairs..." Your voice, your breath, your skin is at the nape of his neck. William turns his head as you are flush to him, as you hold him fully. "This is the first sketch I have seen that I actually wanted to finish. I will finish this one." He sets the roll free, the sketch curls upon itself. "I am not surprised at your talent," his hand touches the side of your face. "There is so much of you and of me in them, left behind like footprints. I am not surprised that you recognized them, and followed to where they led."
     This place has a musty smell but through it is the cinnamon that cuts through the air to you in his lean and in his kiss, and the oil of the nearby lamp trying to purify and burn it away. The amber light turns the kiss that follows into something spectral. This is one of the few times you have had to be truly alone. Not alone and wondering about Victoria. Or intimate and preoccupied. Or on the phone. Or tending to guests and to the business that has to be done. This, this is just for him and it is just for you this moment. Musty smell of dust and paint or no.
     "I am becoming sentimental." A pause. "And reminiscent." William smiles just shy of your mouth. "I need a scotch. Maybe... we can hide in the grotto," he whispers and the room whispers back in echo. "... we can grope there. I can tell you how much I love you. You can tell me ... anything..." He chuckles. Anything would do. You find in the interval of the kiss that one of his arms has worked its way around you.

     Ian accepted the kiss with closed eyes and parted mouth. A grin follows and he replies, "Nothing wrong with sentimental. Or reminiscent. And scotch makes you weepy. Or is that me?" Ian is loathe to let you go, and he looks ahead to the piles. "There's more to see here, before we run off. How about this..." Ian suggests, "...we have a scotch brought to us. And we go through these and remember together? Maybe we'll need a blanket to sit on in the mess..."

     "It makes me weepy and prone to sing bad songs from the war era," he confirms and half-corrects, laughter edging his words. Your suggestion, though not Suggestion, is taken with a nod, a pat of his hand. "A good idea. A blanket would be good, and scotch, but only the really old. The less refined the scotch, the more apt I am to sing," William cautions.
     He will let you do the honors of 'Calling'. He has done his fair share. You have seen him, Ventrue abilities unleashed for the past three nights solid. Such things you were not sure he had learned you saw him move to do, taking the load off of you. He more able to share the work these nights, and you have seen him lead through it.
     He does not move from your touch, though his arm draws away. He turns to survey what the lamp reveals. Slats and slats more. A few sculptures, though these do not interest him as much at the moment. The rolled secrets, like hidden scrolls, capture him firstly. William takes up another one, heavier than the last. It must be a painting, heavy with the weight of oils...

      Ian lets you go, his hands voluntarily dropping to his side. As you take another painting, he twists and looks up the staircase. There. Someone will come in a moment.
     Ian moves to the bottom step, brushing it off with his hand before he sits upon it. He exhales loudly, looking around the space. Hand comes to touch his chest and the crucifix beneath it.
      "Will..." he whispers, question forming in the sing-song of your name, "...I...have a question. Well, several," Ian grins, looking up to see you.

     "Something else that was missing from that trunk... I did not pack too well in those days..." he murmurs to himself, looking at the painting he unrolls. An eyebrow is already lifting upward when you speak his name, when you mention questions. Half a moment later William is looking up at you. "Oui, amours," he breathes, even breaths are captured here and reflected back.
     William rolls the painting back up, he sets it aside with the sketch of you as the sultan or the shiek, however you prefer it. Those are keepers. "Ask away..." and he gives you his attention, too, taking a pause from the treasure hunting.

     "You're going..." Ian chortles nervously, "...to think me weird," his head angling in disbelief. "But..." he looks up, his blonde-white hair shorter these nights, "...can you tell me...how you felt...the first time you and I..." you know. "I mean, the first time...you wanted to...with me?"

     There is an immediate flood of blood to his face, and likely elsewhere, when you ask. He wasn't expecting that question. You can feel the blood in motion. You can feel the connection between you shiver with it. You can feel the warmth in the room rise, and right behind it a waft of that cinnamon, triggered by it. "Oui, I can tell you this," William says. "I remember it vividly."
     It was the moment that the entire course of his life changed. It was not at his embrace, as one might easily surmise that it would be, but after that. William looks around for a place to sit, there isn't one really, so he takes up a portion of wall nearby you. The amber light holds you both in gold and warmth. "I was embraced in September of that year, we were able to make it back by the spring, after the winter storm season in the Irish Sea. I remember that we were having to work here every night, trying to get first a roof and..." he waves it away. You know the details. "I remember sleeping with you and first wanting to be nearer," his hands gesticulate, the way they always do when he is passionate about his topic, or when it means a lot to him -- so much so that his hands must help him convey it...
     "Closer...I wanted to be closer to you." Indigo lifts and makes a cursory survey of this room. The room we slept in was a lot like this vault. "We were in this life together, we were trying to survive together, and then I looked over and I ... wanted to be with you. I wanted to please you. It was... I think a month or two after we came to Strathfayr and were sleeping in the rain. I just... " A hand reaches up, knuckle rubbing at the top of one of his high cheekbones and he looks to you. "I wanted to make you happy, and realized that making you happy would ... make me happy. Maybe it was more like the fourth month. It is hard to remember timing, all the nights seemed like forever to me then..."

     Ian's face remains calm, but at the talk of wanting to be closer, the color comes to his skin as well. A blushing smile. You remember it sweetly. He grins and looks down. "And...when you did?" he asks, not sure himself of his sudden interest. "It must have been...difficult?" To experience new touching a man. The sensations, the simple feel of it.

     Above you both, the scurry of feet loud upon an inner staircase hall. It sounds like a rush of a pack, the echoes making one seem like many. The door at the top of these stairs opens suddenly, sending a bit of light around the stairs' curve. "Sir?" comes a voice. Eric, who tends to kitchen valet services. He exhales, feeling the demands of the summons yield, and makes his way down the steps, so that he's visible.

     "It was ...new..." he admits quietly. "I was more ...uncertain than anything. Well," he snorts, "...and some things I expected to work did not work at the time... so then, I had to ...figure new things out. It was new, more than difficult. Difficult, amours, was working until nearly moonset, trying to keep warm and dry and trying to learn Gaelic. Finding food, wondering... how we would continue to live or if someone was going to come, or how I would be able to defend us if they did. That ...was difficult. Learning how to be with a man was, to that, more interesting. New." New. That is more it.
     William does not ask you why you want to know. He knows you will tell him or the conversation will lead him to your reason and your reasoning. He is curious, but he is patient these nights to receive the answers when the answers come. William does, however, come to join you, his eyes lifting quickly at the sound of the steps -- he heard it a while back, but you know...it is hard to tell humans from rats when they're far away, non? "Aye, here... Could you bring us a bottle of the finest," that could only mean Scotch, "...and a serviceable blanket. We're going to be here for a while." A pause. "Oh, and another lamp, please..."
     Indigo eyes look to you as he finishes. Anything else, love?

     "And a couple of pillows. Several blankets," Ian corrects, twisting to look up the staircase.

     Eric nods, "Will there be anything else, Sirs?"

     "Non," William says, forgetting his Gaelic. But...well... no is no, is it not?

     Eric nods, taking one reply as the consensus of both. Such is the way around here. "Certainly, Sirs," he says, bobbing as he turns to head up again. After a few seconds, the door is closed once more.

     And indigo eyes resettle upon you. Energy hums from the disruption, and the discussion. Soon the echo of the door closing is silent, but the air is still full with the two old beings left behind...

     Ian's gaze had returned to the floor once his additions were clear. Hands clasp between his parted legs, elbows on his knees. "I remember," Ian begins, "...the first time. I didn't know what to do. I wanted...to make him happy. To know what it was like to be with someone like that. At least I didn't have the knowledge...of knowing something other than men," he smiles sheepishly. "So...touching muscles, someone...not soft...wasn't surprising."

     There is a little laughter at that. "Men are soft, too," William murmurs. "Just not in the same areas, not in the same way. But... when I open up to you," he turns his head, he looks to you as he crouches down, "... or when you open up to me, be it mouth or fingers or however... there is softness. So," he reddens again, "... at first... yes... it was a matter of ... figuring that out. And, too, what I could do to please you. My cock was not cooperative. I had to find another way. That was difficult, if anything of it was difficult. But...you showed me the way. And... even though you may not have considered yourself much of a teacher then, you still knew more than I did."
      Amber lamplight shows the knowledgable grin. He doesn't mind talking about it. Not at all. In fact, he's rather enjoying it. "I think that if I had not been embraced and already forced into looking at the world in a new way, with new eyes and understanding that I did not know everything, I would have gone on for the rest of my mortal life not knowing that I really... enjoyed men. Really enjoyed them," he murrs afterwards.
     William clears his throat. "I listened to Richard, you know. I... was his ... guard when he would meet with the spoiled brat," Phillippe. "He and Auguste... well, let me just say that when you came to me, it was not a totally foreign concept, being with a man. I just had never experienced it ...first hand..."

      No, he didn't know about Richard. Well, he did know, he simply hadn't thought of it in the way you just explained it. Brows arch in surprise, then lower as the light goes on. "I had forgotten that," Ian murmurs, golden light burnishing his hair. "Nothing though," Ian adds, you only a glance away now, "...can prepare you for..." well. Ian's brows lighten and he gives a shudder of his shoulders. That sodomizing part. "I was fourteen though," as opposed to you. "Fourteen and...didn't expect that." But the gameskeeper did, apparently. Ian smirks and shakes his head, hand coming up to massage his brow. "It's traumatic when you're fourteen," he laughs, "well, when you realize that it's more than kissing and touching someone. Maybe that was the real trauma..." he finishes.

     "I can well imagine that," William murmurs. "At fourteen, I do not know how well I would have handled such. It is not the same when you are eleven and some milk maid shows you what her older cousin showed her by stroking you off or sitting on you. It's not the same thing. It's confusing," he notes, he lost his virginity three years your junior, "...but it's not as traumatic. When you...first made love to me like that, you... did warn me." Well, yes and no. He doesn't and never did remember when you first took him, on the field of Arsuf while he was coughing up blood.
     "So I was prepared for it." He laughs a little, then clears his throat. "I was not ready for it, but I was prepared. And I was twenty-five. There is two worlds of difference between twenty-five and fourteen." You feel his hand on your thigh, a squeeze and then it is on your back, idly rubbing. "You must have felt that jolt all over again when I returned from Italy. I hadn't thought of it that way. It had been centuries by then," William murmurs. He stops talking for a moment. The real trauma, you said. There is something in that.
     "The real trauma," he repeats, his hand stops moving, so that it just rests squarely upon you. William stares at your hair and your face -- it is almost impossible for him not to. "I cannot imagine what it would have been like then. To not expect it, to be confused, to be unable to say anything about it." His hand is in motion again as he speaks. "Stop me if I go into territory you do not wish to tour, amours..." He understands that well enough.

      "No," Ian inhales, exhaling to say, "I'm alright." He breathes in and exhales again, as if to make his point. See? "It wasn't so horrible," Ian smiles. "He was very...aware that I didn't really know what to expect. Once I turned over," he snorts, realizing he should have thought better of it then, "...it started to dawn on me." A laugh. "And he was...slow. Polite. But," Ian winks, "...he knew what he wanted." It was that simple. "I don't think I could have changed his mind."
      "We didn't speak of it," he confirms. "What was there to say? That was...the arrangement made between him and my mother. He always told me I was beautiful...and kissed me...and then we were off again to deal with the birds," Ian grins. "Simple, really. And he cared for me. Loved me...as best he knew of the word. Of such a relationship. I could not have asked for more," Ian says softly in finishing. "And I loved him for his kindness." It could have all been so different. Eventually, it would be with someone else.
      "I just," he sighs, looking at you, "...hope...you are alright with...your own story." And my part in it.

     The feet sound again, becoming louder and louder. Two sets this time, moving quickly. The sounds increases exponentially as the distance shortens. At the top of the stairs, there is a knock, and the door opens again.

     This is an historic moment and William is acutely aware of it. The most frank, no pun intended, discussion of what has happened to you and to him, how it began for you, how it began for him that has ever taken place. In eight hundred years. More. William is quiet for the significance of it, but it is not a stilted silence. It is accepting. Understanding.
     "You are beautiful," William concurs softly. It moves straight through me, your beauty. "And I am happy with my story. The night we were first together, when you taught me what that was like, you ... were more than polite." William smiles. "In fact, I think you were apologeticly gentle. But it was... " the smile deepens and again the blood lifts to the surface of his skin, everywhere visible -- and every where that it isn't visible. "...once you were inside, Ian, that is where I wanted you to be." His hands motion. There. That is it in a nutshell.
     The redness deepens at the knock on the door. He didn't hear that. And it's not for embarrassment. He's not ashamed of this or of any of the acts that have been herein described. He was, however, surprised by the sound.

     Eric returns with an assistant. He arrives with a tray with glasses and a bottle, while the second, Milla, holds a pile of blankets with two pillows safely on top. "Excuse us, Sirs, where would you like these?"

     "The stairs are a bit tricky," William calls up, standing. "I'll come help with the breakables. Blankets and all should come down here..." And so he does rise and so he does make a motion to head upstairs and help. He knows the stairs better than they do. He could run up and down them and not fall. Well, not fall often. But Medieval stairs are not for the uninitiated...

     "Sir!" Eric protests, showing confusion. You all aren't supposed to do that. "Um..." he begins, taking a tentative few steps down.

     Ian moves aside to let you pass up the steps. He stands once you go, brushing his rear to remove the dust.

      "Aye, well I know it flies in the face of protocol," William rolls quietly, "...but sometimes, lad, protocol will get your legs broken..." The young man is soon faced with an eyeful of Plantagenet, who promptly takes the bottle -- it is the most important object du soir, no? -- flashes him a smile, and then navigates his way back down. "Watch the fifth one down, it's really narrow..." he murmurs, his voice carrying in this small space even when quiet.
     Indigo flickers in a wink when he returns to you after a moment, the two servants following behind him.

     Ian is quiet as he stands near a side wall. He is preoccupied, as far as the servants know. "The bedding can go here," he points near his feet at the side of the stairs. Hands slip into his pockets and he waits to continue the conversation.
     Eric and Milla do descend nervously, trying to see as well as feel the short steps. Once at the bottom, Eric sets the tray aside, then twists to take the blankets and pillows from Milla, setting them where Ian indicated. "Thank you, Sirs," Eric says politely, motioning Milla to head back up.

     "Good night and thank you," William murmurs to them both, afterwards protocol slips back in place easily. William turns from them. While bedding is situated, two glasses are poured. He does this himsef. The conversation on 'pause' until the departure of the servants is complete, he fills the intervening moments with mundane motions...

     The steps ache beneath their pair's weight, but soon enough, with hand on the walls to guide, they work their way back up and disappear. The door closes behind them.

      Stepping over, Ian picks up a blanket, beginning the process of setting up a space on the floor, near the cubbyholes and hiding places. "You weren't bothered then," Ian murmurs, picking up where you left off. "I mean...it was...you enjoyed it? Not as...some act of love, but it...the simple physical part. That was exciting too?" He bends and splays the first blanket upon the stone floor.

     Eyes lift from the pooling of golden liquid, made more golden by the hue of amber light from the lamp, and look at you as you set up the place for them. "I wasn't bothered non. I enjoyed it... after I relaxed into it. But... you did not force me, oui? So... it was... easier for me to get into the simple act of it. I found pleasure in it. It was... totally new... and it allowed me to be as close to you as I possibly could be. And that... that I wanted very much. I needed it. I wanted love. I wanted pleasure. And it was pleasurable."
     He caps the bottle and tucks it beneath an arm. His hands cradle the glasses, bringing them to the makeshift bed. "Did you enjoy it. What... did it feel like for you? Before then you... were always the one who was receiving, yes? With that other Norman knight too..." The one before me. "But this was new, with me... the way we were together first."

     He nods, having folded the blankets a bit so that the stone floor is minimized. Ian sets the pillows out, then immediately takes up some of the space as he sits down. "It was different," Ian says softly, taking off his shoes. "I didn't know if I knew what to do. I thought...well...that it would have been the other way around..." even in your newness.

     There is the lifting of his eyebrows as he sips at his scotch. He holds your glass out to you. You may take it when you're ready. Likewise, the bottle is still secure, tucked beneath the knight's arm. "It took a while for that," he murmurs. "But... it is not because of what happened between us," William murmurs. "I do not know why it... took me so long. Maybe it was fear, maybe it was that once a thing happens, there is so much pressure and worry that it cannot happen, which only leads to more worry." He shrugs. "Eventually, I learned."
     "Did it bother you," he wonders. "I know that it bothered me. I ... wanted to be able to give that to you. Eventually, you know.. I left because I could not... well, I have told this story already," in those confessions.

     "I know," Ian smiles, though he did not feel similarly. He takes the glass, touching your fingers in the process. "But we learned," he whispers, lifting his glass to you. "Slainte," he murmurs, taking a swallow while keeping his eyes upon you. "And it didn't bother me," he notes for the record, glass coming to rest in his lap, socked feet akimbo.
     "Where were we?" Ian thinks, looking to the paintings, "... when ... we ... reversed?" He thinks. "You came back from Italy," he tries to recall.
     Ian breaks out into sudden laughter. "I don't know why I'm embarrassed," he confesses. "Reversed? Okay, you were on top. How about that," he tries again, smiling at you. "I just remember...how good it felt," the smile falling into a piercing stare. "I had never wanted something so much in so long..."

     This is the first he has heard it confirmed for him, and you can see that it lightens an old kernel of hidden worry, an old grain of sand finally blown from the oyster shell, as it were. The two of you have created hundreds and hundreds of pearls because of such grains. This one was old, yes, and he had not even realized that he still worried about it. But perhaps that was the grain that created the pearl of his befuddling level of jealousy...
     William joins you on the pallet, sipping at the scotch again. He sets his glass aside for a moment, long enough to remove his shoes. He nods as you mention Italy and then as you laugh and put it in the vernacular, so to speak, William laughs with you, laughter ending in the slant of a grin. "When I came home, I brought some treasures from Girault. I brought a longing heart. And a very hard lance. This I do remember. And I liked being on top. I still do," he murrs, as well you know it to be true. Shoes off, but all else still on, William reclines back and he takes his scotch with him. His eyes rest on you, a hand reaches out for you. His eyes, seemingly the same color as his clothing just now, fix upon your face. "I had wanted it so long. To be able to give you what you wanted and what I wanted. To take you, to hear you say my name that way you say it." He visibly shudders. The way you still say it. "It was so difficult to be without you," he murmurs, he looks away for a moment, into his glass, he sips. "I wanted to turn around and return, but... I thought if I did that I would have failed us both. And then all the trouble started and I couldn't get back to you. And She was with you, and I couldn't be. It ...was a hard time."

     "It was," Ian smiles, fingers lacing around yours. "I didn't want you to go. I didn't understand...why Italy?" He grins, understanding why now. "I thought...a lot of things." That he had failed. You knew what he thought he had done to Catherine. You knew the politics. Arsuf. You hated Scotland. You hated him for bringing you there. Or...you didn't enjoy him or being with him. You had your preferences, yes?
     He shrugs, chasing those memories away. "I didn't mean...to get too much into it. I am glad...that you came back...as you did." A catlike grimace follows. "What did Girault have to do with it?" he asks mischievously.

     William looks to you. "It was none of those things," he murmurs. "And it was not your fault. At the time, it was... all I knew to do, mais oui." Your fingers are lifted to his mouth, a glance of warmth moves against them and then he holds them as he sips at the scotch.
     And then you ask of Girault-Antonio di Medici. He has never once talked about it in specifics, has he. He mentioned that is when and where and how he met Girault, but it has never been a topic of conversation in all these years.
     "When I met Girault, I was struggling and he saw me struggling. I did not really know too many people in Florence. Next to none. But my name carried me a ways, carried me to Medici, in fact. From the Ventrue there, I can't even remember who it was...ah... oh oui... it was Paulus," William chuckles. A very Polonius-like person, that Paulus. "Girault took me in, he let me live in his palazzo. He put me in touch with painters, sculptors. He put me in touch with Andreas," Leonardo's teacher, "... and then Leonardo and Michelangiolo. Mostly Girault orchestrated. Listened. We would walk in his garden and he would sing. And he... would send young mortals to my room. I never have been able to... determine if he was trying to seduce me. Being Girault, I can only assume the answer to that is 'of course he was, William'. But it did not seem like it. And well... one night after a few years... I don't remember, maybe ten or more, I was eating dinner and.. well... there I was, as I remember."
     William looks at you again. "I only stayed away as long as I did because I could not get back to you. The inquisition...everyone stopped moving. But I am... glad you were glad," he grins. "Even though you make much about regretting it," he chuckles.

     "What?" Ian blinks, on one track about Girault. Now, he switches gears. "What did I regret?"

     "A joke, amours," William murmurs, grinning slantwise. Get it? Raven eyebrows lift, glance down his form to his groin and then lift back to your face.

     He missed the joke, but not the look. Regardless, a grin smooths his worried features. "That was...interesting...of Girault. Were you surprised when you found yourself upon a young mortal?" Literally. "It's amazing..." Ian thinks as he looks to his scotch, "...how suddenly you can want something. Someone." Instead of looking, he finally picks it up and takes a taste. "How you can ache for them."

     "I think that... it was more one of those... zen moments. I was missing you, the blood was in my mouth, I was feeling better about my position in the world, perhaps, and ... voila, all ten inches of Plantagenet influence made themselves available. So, I fucked the poor mortal to death. First a woman, for in that universe they were expendable, then one of Girault's boys." The glass is lifted, the scotch swallowed, and William looks to you. There is no worry on his features, nothing but the easiness of being with you and the importance of telling you the truth. "You know... when I said I had not been with other men, I meant... I had not let another man fuck me. No other but you have ever been with me thus. No other man in all of time has felt me beneath him, has filled me. That ... that is for you alone. That... the ultimate to me... the ultimate gift, when it comes to sexuality. And you have had that... in singularity," William mumurs. "I fucked Girault's little boys, however. The courtiers. I guess that is where the Toreador Whore nickname came in from you know who," his tone goes wry. Not as bitter as in previous years and conversations. "I was afraid, amours, that if I did not keep doing it I would forget how, at first. I felt very guilty. And for the rest of my life this plagued me." He shrugs, but it was upsetting, and is somewhat. Or maybe that is the scotch.
     "Anyway," William rolls out, sitting up and pouring another glass, "...I wanted to come home, it took me a long time to get here, but I have never wanted to be anywhere else, Ian. I have wanted to be with you. Making love. Holding you. Hearing you. Spending time with you. Being made love to. I look at you and I want you and that has not changed, amours, since we huddled down here the first time and fumbled around in the darkness..."

     Color splotches at his cheeks. A dappling of red and cream that seems to have spread beneath the lapels of Ian's shirt. He takes the last swallow of his scotch, then thrusts his arm forth to hold the empty old-fashioned to you. "I don't care anymore, Will," Ian blurts out, "...about them." None of them. "I was never so happy to see you than after Italy. More happy even than in New Port." At least then, you knew what could be between you.
      "Do you think...it's that way again? Here? It seems like...we're back to the beginning. Just us..." Ian looks around. "But, there is a difference," he smiles, "...we have nothing to fear. And Time's passed..." It's lucky, really. To return to a place in an existence where things are simple again, but with the knowledge that came with painful experience.
     "I guess now," Ian says softly, his eyes never grayer, "...it would be different...between us."

     He pours again for you and he smiles. The rest is let go. "It's better than the beginning," he softly notes, glass offered back to you. And his gaze. And his smile. And the truth of it all. "Because now we know."
     We know what love means. We know there is nothing to fear. We know how we feel. We know why we did what we did, and what we didn't do. Because if you could go back in time, if you could rewind to the beginning but keep all the knowledge gained, you would. And you have, in a way.
     "I love you," William says, "...though it's blatantly obvious, I'm going to continue to say it." And he chimes his glass against your own. Another swallow, and he sets it aside. His hands lift his blue shirt up and off, a pullover but no sweater. He drapes strong arms over his knees, his glass now held pendulous and he looks to you. "It would be, oui," he whispers. "But I ... cannot conceive of ever traveling without you again. One day apart and you may as well cut me in half. I am useless," he chuckles.

     "I can make it a few hours, as long as I have work to do," Ian confesses with a grin. "But...I can't rest...unless you are beside me." That said more seriously. "The sleep will come...I cannot help it. But, I feel lonely and restless. Empty inside." Ian wiggles his brow, "And strangely unsettled because I haven't had my ten inches of Plantagenet." Of course. "Once a day..." and doctors aren't necessary. But then again, they aren't really necessary anyway.
     Ian sets his own glass down between his feet. Where you removed a sweater, he sits upright and begins unbuttoning his shirt in silence.

     "It is better than an apple, yes," he grins, turning his head to watch you undress. Such a look he gives you. Studying. Sampling. Memorizing. Even though he has watched you undress for short of a thousand years, each time is better than the last. William tilts the glass, breath fogging the glass as he exhales and then sips the scotch, eyeing you over the crystalline rim.
     "Every night I watch you do this. Every night I want you. My night is not complete without it, my life is not complete without you." William finishes his scotch. "It is not enough that I paint you, draw you, sculpt you, it is not enough. The only thing that stills the desire for you is when you come to me."
     He half-reclines back, weight borne upon his elbows. He may still watch you this way. And you know how much he likes to watch you. William smiles smoothly, slowly. Sensuality born in it and lit in his eyes. "Every night," he whispers. "That time we did not make love for a month, I was coming out of my skin. Remember? We fucked in the fox-fur sleeping bags, dieu what a night that was. Hmm... we should have told the servants to bring them...what was I thinking."

     "It's not too late," Ian says, letting his shirt fall over his shoulders and down to the pallet's edge. Indeed, color has moved to his shoulders and arms. Luckily, you know, his paleness washes crimson everywhere else as well, when encouraged to do so. "Besides, there are paintings still you should look at..."

     Oh. Right. And William laughs. Again there is an explosion of red, mostly at those high cheekbones, but it travels. With an exhale, he hops up. "See what you do to me... I forget what I was doing..." But he does not go so far. No, he has a plan, Plantagenet does. In fact, he puts the 'plan' in Plantagenet.
     He takes the bundles of rolled up paintings and sketches out of their cubbies and moves them to the pallet's edge. And meanwhile, upstairs another servant is called. Eric again. "Very well, we will have it all. Fox fur sleeping bags, paintings, scotch and one another," William murmurs.

     "Alright," Ian purrs, deciding to recline along the pallet. He stretches out, watching you as you move items. "I was hoping you might forget, but then again, time is running out." For preparations. Arm crooks and Ian takes a drink. A bit of scotch dribbles, and a finger lifts to touch his bottom lip.

     "There is that...I have to make final decisions by next week," he murmurs. "Well, for most of it. I can always change my mind. But you are right... it is not so far off." Where did the time go? You can see that question move over his face as he nudges a few more things pallet-ward. Three days lost to opium -- though he does not consider them 'lost', he still shudders in the wake of that orgasm -- and then another half week to Victoria. Time lost in painting as well. But, no matter. He will have more than enough.
     Boxes have been arriving from Chinon for the past several nights. He is more than half-way there...
     "There," he murmurs, "...that is better." Around the pallet now there are several groups of rolls to review. You and he can do that. Among other things. And above there is the pitter-patter of little feet. William looks up, expectant.
     "We need to finish the invitee list too." William looks to you, a brow lifting. "Have you started?" For I have not. Mon Dieu.
     William settles next to you as the sound of the approaching servant grows louder and louder. He is stretching out on the pallet even as the door overhead opens...

     "I have," Ian says softly, hand in his hair and elbow on the pallet. "I can give it to you when we go back upstairs. My list is...not so long." Everyone in the Edinburgh court. Some of the London court. Glasgow. Ireland and Wales. Oldest associates in France. A couple in Spain. Much like a wedding, these things can get out of hand.
     The arriving servant means another pause. Ian rolls onto his back and lifts his leg to remove a sock.

     There were nights when you would not let an entire household of servants interrupt you. Times on a sofa in America where boys would be called to handle something on the periphery while William handled you in the middle. But professional distance is beginning to creep back in. There are a few exceptions. Of course. By and large, however, things are... as they should be.
     William glances up as the door opens, and even before Eric gets a chance to inquire, his voice is lifting. "Fox sleepers please, thank you." Thank you, that is all...
     The door closes again without further inquiry...
     William turns his head toward you as he settles back against the pillows. A glance to his feet and like you he begins removing the socks. The fox fur will suffice. "I have a short list going in my mind. Edward, Davydd, Girault, the usual suspects," he murmurs and he extends a knightly arm. An opening offer for you to join him. To close the distance. You are too far, amours.
     "... but nothing finalized. I will get it done by...night after next," random deadline pulled from the aether. And he smiles. "I am glad we are doing this," he whispers, and you may think he is talking about the art show. He very well could be, in truth, but it's this camp out that he's truly meaning.

     "Me too," Ian smiles, tossing black socks at his shoes. With nothing left but his slacks, Ian rolls over and onto his knees, giving them a quick unbutton and zip downwards.
     Did you hear that?
     "It will be fine. On time," he reassures, crawling over to take a seat on your lap, of all places. One pant leg over, the other an anchor.
     "I've come to you," Ian reprises your words from earlier. "What should I say to you, William? What can I say...that would make you want to be safely ensconced within me? I wonder sometimes...how do we continue to make each other..." well, what's the phrase, "...I don't know. Everything sounds so crass." Maybe it is.

     He did hear it. The sound of it caused a dark eyebrow to quirk upward, a smile to part. And as you straddle him, as you ask him the $64,000 question, the smile smoothens to a grin. "Ian, all you have to say to me for me to want to be inside you is... hello." And the grin breaks open, wide. "Go ahead," he says, sitting upward, mouth near your own. "Even if it is crass. Perhaps... especially because it is crass..."
     His mouth began to move at your own, tugging. Coaxing it to surrender to him. Savoring it like the fruit he loves so well, when a knock came upon the door above, a cautionary 'Sirs?' was uttered and the announcement that the fox was here and should he bring it down.
     William's hands had come to your hips to hold you, to brace him in his sitting up and though he frees your mouth, his lips line your jaw, his voice whispers to you: tell him to bring it down. I want you in the furs. We will cocoon ourselves in there...

     "Yes, Eric," Ian replies casually, though his body shows him anything but. "Just put them at the bottom of the stairs here," he adds, eyes fixed upon you, voice projecting.
     "Maybe," Ian's voice lower, "...I am not as crass as I would like to be." A grin follows with a look down. He wishes.

     "I think I have forgotten how," William says just beneath your ear. You feel the smile, pressing at the surface of your skin from the inside, where first the smile comes against your blood, and you feel the echo of it where his mouth meets your skin. His eyes do not stray to the servant or what the servant will see, or even what the servant brings. "Maybe, we should practice," William offers along your neck. "You say something, I say something in reply, until ... crass become easy..."

     Eric slowly and carefully brings the bundles downstairs, his eyes downcast and watching where he goes, he misses most of the view and more than half of what is said -- in fact, he does not know what is being said at all, he can only at times hear the voice. The two sleeping bags, soft gortex on the outside with even softer fox fur on the inside, are laid down at the stairs. He lifts his eyes briefly, to ask if there will be anything else.
     And then he sees that you seem to have what you want in hand...
     Red-faced he bows, he turns upon his heels, he takes his leave. You can stop him if you wish. He'd rather you didn't...

     William smiles again, lifting his finger and pressing it to your lips. I love you, he murmurs, and William lies back, reaching to take the bundle. "I may have to move you from your perch," he murmurs, "...but only for a moment..." He unrolls the fox-fur bags -- already hooked together, fancy that, and he unzips a corner, folding it back...

     "You go first," Ian teases, giving up his seat for the moment. Pushing up, he comes to a stand, running hands through his hair. "I think I need to have an example. I cannot believe you've forgotten," Ian grins, bending to assist with the bags. He takes an end and makes sure the fox rests along the pallet. More padding, the better.

     As you stood, he rolled himself up, a fluid motion from recline to his feet. Balancing on the balls of his feet, he gives the multi-thousand dollar sleeping bags -- whose worth should be measured by the gold standard as far as he's concerned -- a tug, helping to pile them onto the others. He flips open the bags so that you and he may slip between the folds and rest directly on the furs, and then he straightens.
     He unfastens the trousers, dark blue, quite nice on him. Very modern, and now... very gone. "I like your hair, have I told you that," he murmurs. Not crass, but one cannot simply leap in and say 'spread your legs and prepare for the second coming'. One needs a build-up....

     Ian nods, "Indeed you did. I have nice hair." Once the bags are sorted, he opens the folds of his own slacks - black - and allows them to hang low around his hips. "I think you have beautiful eyes and a great mouth." There. That done well. Ian smiles, proud of himself. A hand runs through his blonde-white hair before he begins to push his slacks towards his ankles.

     "Do you prefer it open or closed?" An old joke, but it comes with a beautiful smile. See how easy this is? Soft, his feet move upon the fox fur. You can hear the whisper of it. And then the sound of his hands at your sides, you waist, your pants at your ankles. "Very nice," William whispers. And that mouth of his is at your ear again.
     "I love to hear you speak to me when you're riding me. To tell me what you want, how I make you feel. To hear that freedom in your voice. It makes me wish that I never had to leave you, that we could just... be attached," final word is given to your mouth. William parts the verbal kiss, he steps from his pants, he kneels upon the fur, his mouth opens at your stomach.
     It is a worship more than a kiss. Mouth parting, he breathes warmly there. "Like the other night, watching you move on me, hearing you say it. Fuck me, laird. I lost it..." And he smiles there.

     Really? Actually, in order to say what he did, he must have lost it before you...
     "Well, at least we like the same thing," Ian murmurs, his hand gently on the top of your head. He steps from his slacks, kicking them aside. "Oh," he adds, "I also like your arms, legs...and these," his fingers tripping along your muscular shoulder. "Your hands," he adds, "...your stomach..."
     "I also like when you grunt unintelligibly," while I'm face down in the pillows. That part Ian leaves out. "I'm not sure what language it is, or what you're groaning, but you're talking to yourself," even as you push in and pull out. "I'm not even sure," Ian grimaces at the ceiling, "...if it's Occitan. It's something," he laughs, hand still brushing dark hair.

     "Your fingers, your mouth, your stomach, Christ... Ian... your stomach," and he has to stop speaking for a moment. His mouth parts, trailing as he continues, "Your thighs. The arch of your feet. The small of your back and the rise of your rear end. If I start naming parts of the body, we'll be speaking all night... speaking and not doing." Indigo eyes flicker as he lifts them, even as his mouth begins to brush between your thighs.
     An eyebrow lifts. Unintelligible grunting. You mean that poetry? William grins. "Occitan," he confirms. And his arms unwind, he straightens in his kneeling, he holds his hand out to you. Come down here with me. "I am... probably telling you how good you feel, or," he laughs, "... telling you to take it...mais oui. All of it. Such things I grunt to you, such things you make me say, Ian. Lay back on these furs," he murmurs, "...I want to put my mouth to another use..."

     "It was?" Hmm. "Slurred," Ian guesses. He takes your hand and kneels first before beginning a slow recline. "So," he rather curious now, "...you don't know what you're saying necessarily? Not that I do all the time, but I'm not trying to say much of anything. If something comes out..." his head back now upon a pillow - even Zeus couldn't resist him - and legs bent gently on the fur, "...it's by sheer luck that it forms anything."
     At his head, a rustle of rolled sheets. Ian's eyes glance upwards, trying to avoid injury to any of the works.

     Neither Zeus nor Plantagenet have much in the way of restraint, it is true. And it is true he could not resist you. It is also true that he would not try, no matter how in vain the attempt may be. When you lie back, color explodes in his eyes and they widen. You can see the current move through him, from eyes and ears to groin, to each and every muscle that now bears him in a hover over you. He thickens before your eyes, slowly as if out of some unspoken consideration.
     "I speak whatever comes to me... I do not think about it. I feel it. I emote it. Sometimes it is brutal, sometimes it is crass, sometimes it is poetry. Always, it is for you." His mouth descends, not directly to your stomach as you might have expected -- he has a very difficult time resisting it once it's offered up to him on a golden platter -- but to your mouth. The kiss is wide and warm and sudden.
     He slips with you against the fox, he lifts a hand, he reaches over, he pulls a part of the fox sleeping bags over him, over you and him. You feel his hand against your thigh, opening it, his fingers sliding against you, cups you, strokes you once, twice. "I love you," he murmurs, the sound caught at his throat, resonating in his chest. You feel it against you as his hand moves away from you, replaced by his mouth. The words hum around you. Aha, there's a long gutteral moan. Unintelligible... but you know what it means...

Posted by rowan at July 05, 2003 01:50 PM