Leave your grit and your rain outside, the melting frost and forgotten holiday rush. London, with your noise and your energy, your color, your lights, you're tarted up, and now in the middle of the evening, your pomp and your circumstance shine brightly for very few. Most of England, most of your city's children are opening the first round of gifts, eating the first course of the evening turkey. Doing all of that Dickens shite, as my Edward would say...
     Foil and satin, gold leaf and tissue crackle beneath the joined weight, wherever scrambling hands land, they move ribbons and bows, discarded paper from minutes -- has it only been minutes? -- before. Or hours. Has it been hours? It is easy to forget when you are not obligated to remember...
     ...Things, tokens, gifts, thoughts, feelings. They lie all around you. The complete James Bond collection (the good, the bad, and in the case of the later Roger Moore editions, the ugly) strewn about from bed to floor to the couple of chairs here and there. Clothing. Wine. The traditional bottles of Welsh mead and Plantagenet plum brandy and liqueur. Other, quirky items. Little things.
      ...Like the glitter and sparkle of a new belly chain. He wears them both, your Valan. You feel them bend, curve against your fingers even as he dissolves beneath you. Like sugar on your tongue. Like fire against your skin.
     But you and he left one thing out. Didn't quite make it to the last gift. Something without a name on the exterior. Something wrapped roughly, antiqued paper -- done by hand, if you were to notice it. That's probably a dead giveaway. If you were paying attention that is...
     Loud comes the pull of your lover's voice, Edward, taking the Lord's name in vain on His Special Day. We are ...so going to hell, ami. But I smile, sharp of teeth bloodying my lips, I am sure of it. My fingers trail against your waist, as you rise. Hands go to the backboard. Knees pulled back, high, resting finally against the pillows. "Dieu... Joyeux Noel..." I hear myself groan it, and can't believe it. We will be going to hell in style, ami.
     But then... only the best will do...

     He was never one for Dickens. Paris always did Noel better...a grandiose feel as if you were in the middle of glinting Heaven. There is no modesty to the place, and for that, Edward will always have a soft spot to Paris. In Dickens, he would have been the adult Tiny Tim, come back to his parents' holiday table to bitch about the fact that his father should have beaten Mr. Scrooge down. Simple enough. When he told said father that he must work on the holiest (second, really, dammit, if you want to know) day of the year? That was when said father should have bitchslapped Mr. Scrooge, raided the till, and walked out happy and satisfied.
     But that's not Victorian England. None could have done such. Maybe that's also why Edward's had a secret soft spot for Paris. A likely number of Parisiens would have told Mr. Scrooge what he could do with his mill and his lack of a holiday.
     The bed rattles again, and sparkles from crackers glitter upon his skin. Those will never leave. It'll require two baths. Maria will cry to hear this story, the tale of Holy Christmas, the day of the Child's birth, forever remembered by her Favorite Son because of how much noise and mess he and his lover made in celebration of the Nativity. How shiny it was, rolled in sparkles stuck to glistening skin.
     But we won't see Hell for this. Not for love or lovemaking. No, Edward is not the type to think God is such.
     That is for Victorians.
     "...Dieu devrait pardonner combien je vous aime..." Edward blusters, words floating between his rough thrusts. With forehead touching your own, he lords as a man struggling at the coal ovens. Each motion seems filled with effort, despite the fluidity of his strokes. His mouth covers its twin, as if starved for the sweetness there. "Mais je ne m'inquite pas s'il jamais..."

     It started with the crackers. I am certain that is why they were invented. You grabbed one end, ami, I grabbed the other. Glitter exploded in a kiss. Another one exploded and hands trailing glitter and sparkles started exploring. And now I am dusted with it. Like ...what is her name... ah! like Tinkerbell...
     A hand braces against the headboard -- his connection with the universe -- bracing, yes, but also pushing him into you. Leverage used to meet you in the middle, where you join. His face is blushed high -- blood rushing to the surface at face, at groin and gut. You call it, it is easy to blush around you. And when the kiss comes, it's a savage-sweet tangle... interrupted with every thrust, and when he has to break it to cry out your name. All four of them. Summoning you. Faster. There. Yes. Now.
     ... Demanding little thing, isn't he...
     His other hand slides beneath and between, grasping his own length, tormenting the orgasm that can never follow now, but only get right up to the edge. He can stay there, in that torment. Likes the torment really. He shines in it. At your mercy. Wrapped in a tight knot. Knees at his ears. You, fucking the daylights out of him.
     "Qui ne pourrait pas me pardonner..." comes his voice, normally smooth, now bursting from him, "...pour vouloir... a mis mes chevilles derriere mes oreilles pour vous... Jesus..."
     Glitter and crackers. And with a sudden grin, Valan's hand leaves his length, scours the sheet around him, with his other hand bracing, hips lifting to meet you solidly. He grabs an unpopped cracker.
     Oh no...
     Oh ...yes...
     And with a shout loud enough for your neighbors to hear it, Valan pops another cracker, raining glitter on you both. "That... is for... the third orgasm I would have had by now..." English purred and his hands land on your hips, his position shifting slightly so that his fingers might dip in between...
     Trailing glitter as they go...

     The noise startles Edward, and where the trains were running on time, faster and faster, the raging superliner comes to a sudden halt.
      "What?" he breathes, eyes opening. A dream falling into reality. Arms and hands are pillars, formed columns carved by a sculptor. Where once he was drifting in pleasure with unmeetable desire, Edward now slows to awareness. Where he couldn't express how good you feel, he now has a thought of what you aren't feeling.
     He lifts his head to see you, his motions coming to a halt. "...I would have had..." he repeats, arms bending so that Edward comes to rest on his elbows and forearms. The leg that had been over his shoulder -- yours -- falls away comfortably to the bed.
     Was I so caught up? A popping cracker has to remind me...
     "I am sorry, ami," Edward sighs, now panting needlessly. Breath taken as he stretches, head falling backwards. Closed eyes turn to the ceiling as he regains himself.
     Wash away thoughts of the unparallelled joy, the consuming need for him. Wait a moment, Edward. There is something here...
     A smile returns for you as he looks to you again. "I am selfish, ami," he confesses, a blush there. "I..." am tireless for you. I could be inside you forever, taking and taking, trying to expend myself when I know, in some ways, I cannot. "I...do not think sometimes..." of your need and present inability to find some relief...

     There is a look of confusion. But then it breaks into that ... smile. That smile. Why do the men of the Loire, and particularly of Touraine, smile so? What is it that God gave these male creatures? "Ah no," Valan leans up, his legs lowering and surrounding you, hugging you. "Eduard, I was not serious, ami..." And I was not. "Do you think that matters? It does not matter," Valan says at your mouth, breaths taken only to speak. "This," comes an aching voice, thighs pulling you to him, burying you there, "... this... matters. This..." The connection. "It was a teasing..." his English is improving at least, more or less. "What I said with the cracker. Do you... not know that what we do... and when you free me... how much greater it is than anything...hmm? ...that I have ever experienced... it is so," Valan confirms, reassuring. Suddenly.
     His hands smoothen against your back and with eyes open and joke done, with smile receding into an aching look, he pulls you into him again. "Ceci... ceci, Eduard. Je n'ai pas besoin de plus..."
     Valan dissolves beneath you again, pressing into the bedding and pretty wrapping, pulling you with him. "Do not free me yet," comes the whispered purr of French with a sidelong, smoothening smile. "I do not want to be free. I want to be here. Beneath you. Full of you. No more crackers," he promises.

     Edward grins. No sentence should end with the word cracker. His grin warms amusedly, and he bends to kiss you again. "I have no plans on letting you go," he informs. "But..." his hips move again, this time generously slow, "...maybe I should be here with you for a while." In your reality.
     Edward ends his point with a kiss, his lips parted widely at first, but closing with a pull at your bottom lip.
     "Tell me," he whispers, voice serious, "...explain to me..." he begins anew, "...how you have come," his length unslackened, "...to have changed everything? Everything...."
     "Was it...only three Christmases ago," Edward pauses, moved by the thought, "...we first were together?" He closes his eyes, remembering. "You made my heart ache, ami. I had never wanted anything so much..."

     Nor should most sentences begin with cracker. But to an English neonate, such nuances are lost upon the non-native tongue. It's one of those words that is as it sounds, cracker...
     ...I forget about the cracker and the glitter as I hear the paper and the foil and the tissue crackle in the slow motion of the thrust. It pushes a breath from me. A breath I did not even know I was holding. And now that the universe has slowed, the ache only increases, the sweetness. I will plead with you to pound into me again -- I know this. I will pull my legs up and over my head and plead with you to throttle me, but... this is so...
     Us. It is Us...
     His hands slide against you as slowly, trembling and pressing into you as your thrust anchors into him, you can go no further, and his mouth parted at yours, widening as yours, suckling, widening in reply. Melting. Fast, it is ... incroyable, as he would say. Slow, like this? It shakes the soul, Eduard.
     "Dieu," Valan whispers, smiling, "... It ... has been three Christmases." He is shocked by that, you see it. Time moves so quickly. Where has it gone, Eduard? And this is how a man may live to be 600...
     Valan's fingers trail up your spine, his thighs lifting and lowering, like a second pair of hands stroking. He looks at you, even as you close your eyes. His eyes... always wide open, it seems. Into the world. Into eternity. From sunlight to darkness without so much as a blink. "Eduard... will you believe me... when I say I do not know," he would be blinking tears if he could, he wishes now that he could cry, you only see it in the expression -- or you would if you were looking. And he smiles again, coupled with that aching look, it is the face of love. And longing. "But that ... I found... everything in you. That I did not know was missing. I went..." Valan pauses a moment. "I...went to the club that night, thinking... that I knew...who I was, what I wanted. And then I was with you, and I saw... how little I knew of the world, to have not known there was something like this. And I do not mean... what we are..." he dismisses the notion of vampire being anything important, "... I mean... loving, like this. A man, like you. And that he... loves me. As soon as I sat down with you, I did not want to leave your side. I was... supposed to be there. And suddenly... that's all I needed to know..."

     "That is how you tell it," Edward stilling even as you move. That will come naturally, as naturally as you speak so honestly to each other. Vulnerability shared. Humanity, the Dignitary called it. At some level, he still cannot believe how the last three years have been.
     He watches you for a long moment in silence, smiling for the garnets you wear. Your eyes, the golden hair, the dampness at your skin. Your mouth. "Sometimes," Edward confesses, looking down between you both, "...it still feels as if we have only just met. If we have an eternity, I guess," his head quirks, "...we have. My feelings," his sable eyes to yours, "...I would like to say...they have not changed. But..." Edward shakes his head negatively, "...that is not true," brows arching in incredulity. "I love you more. And I...desperately ache..." and eyes close tightly, "...to make love to you, all the time. I would never leave this bed," Edward whispers, a prayer to God, "...if it were possible."
     He is bearing his heart again, but in words now.
     "You...are all I can think of, ami," the eyes opening to see you again, an entreaty to see if you understand. "Moving.." no, not right, "...exploding..." much better, "...inside you..." Edward looks around, trying to find the words, "...is the only time I feel...relief..." from this world. From that thing that drives me, compels me. From everything. "When...we are like this..." Edward adds, as if he's lain out the argument, "...I feel...like I've done something right and so...free..."
     Strange ending. Edward frowns, "I...finished something. And it makes us...satisfied..."

     This is a solemn thing passing between you. To have started with a cracker, and explosion, a burst of glitter and wild copulation. How Meurelle and Montague. How ...very... You...
     Valan is looking at you, his gold-green eyes sparkling bright, brighter than human, their earthy brown all but gone -- remaining only as slivers in the gold, where once his eyes were hazel. He has eyes of topaz or citrine, your Montague. Peridot, maybe. And in them, you not only see an understanding of what you say, but that it is shared. His eyes burn, he has to narrow them. When he blinks there is a drop of blood. "Ami..." he whispers. That word may stand alone, and so alone he leaves it. And still Montague does not close his eyes, but locked upon you. There is a little smile. "When I wake, I want you inside me. When we sleep, I want you inside me. If I could be ... in your skin... If I could...wear you, fitted in me..." And now he can't be still. He undulates, he whispers your names. All four of them. And something else from a poem he read. Blois. "I cannot get close enough to you," Valan admits, golden head tilting against the pillow. "I want to share your skin. I cannot... imagine... being anywhere but with you. Under you. Around you. I love you. And... yes... we... have done something right. We... have found what is right, oui? And... we are free..."
     Especially here...
     Valan leans up, mouth suckling at your own, and with a roll, he moves you onto your back, but not dislodging you. No, if anything else, you are held deeper as he sits up on you. Hands spread against your chest, fingers teasing, squeezing nipples. "Satisfied...in my heart and in my soul... but... being with you... only makes me want you more. I am..." He lifts his hips, sliding your length slowly out of him. Nearly completely, but with a squeeze, he rolls the crown of you within, before sending you sinking deeply into him again. "Every night... is a new night... we wake up, and it is the Beginning," speaks the Brujah you have created, in Brujah style.
     And he begins to ride you...

     He would have gone further, in explaining the ache that's settled inside him since he met you. But you above him? It is impossible. The look of you is enough to send him raging. But, to see you, in the colors of desire, moving above him? Drawing his need to lift into you directly from his loins? You might as well have a flute. And he? Rising at your magical call.
     "Dieu, Valan..." Edward laments, hands clasping fiercely at your hips. Don't do this to me. Not after I managed to calm myself, to have this talk with you. To remember that you were with me...
     Edward's eyes close as his head is tossed backwards against the bedding. The groan comes with the widening of his thighs. More leverage. More strength to rise and fall faster and faster, the hands roughly grasping your skin.
     You insist on forcing this demon to burst from within. I can't control it sometimes, ami...you must know this. And it aches so much to be driven into you, to know that it will not end until the last turn of the screw causes me to convulse in true agony...
     They say Teresa knew this. To be so touched by the Divine. Possessed by the Darkest of things. The black snake of Shiva. I have seen it in pictures. The thing that is feared. I know it is inside me, and in its need, I sometimes wonder if it should kill you, if it had the chance. Not my hands...not ever...but the thrust pinned passion, given freedom through the length of my cock. That frightens me. And if I forget myself, who would help you?
     I can feel my mouth parting, as if to say something. But words do not come. Just the lust and horror and pleasure wrapped into an continuous groan, a wracked expression. The flicker at my lip and nose. The droplets that roll off my skin. The lightening flash of my hips upwards, over and over again...
     You can't want this. We can't want this.
     But I need it to make me feel better...to make the demands of the demon go away until tomorrow night...

     And is your demon not his demon, Edward Meurelle? Did he not inherit it from you? He, as powerless against it as you. He, as much at its mercy as you. This compelling need to ride you or to be ridden, to be buckled to the bed, or bucked on it. To walk in on you as you're practicing in that room of mirrors and lower to his knees. Naturally passionate, now supernaturally ...obligated...to open himself to you. He must. He loves you. And It demands it.
     Valan arches back, lower body quivering, unable to hold onto his erection at the onslaught. Split in two, that is what it feels like. He will not be able to walk for the rest of the night. Or lie on his back. He calls out your name. Whining it, he falls forward, hands grasping for an anchor, one on the headboard -- creating a colossal racket -- the other sinking in a glitter covered pillow. He gasps. He doesn't move except to quiver. And his body is wracked in orgasm. True, there is no spill of anything... oceanic of nature, no semen, no wet warmth. But you can feel the tremors around your length. Can't you?
     He experienced it once before, remember? When he was still mortal and you fucked him into oblivion in a Swiss steam room. Valan cries out, pleasure-pain, successively orgasmic. And caught it it, wouldn't change it for all the world.
     Gathering himself after a few moments, that dazed-beautiful face looks down to you, eyes squinted. So much pleasure. So much. And he falls forward, pressed against you, lifted by you, his mouth parting at your neck. "I love you," falls against your neck, and then his mouth clamps.
     He gasps at the explosion of you in his mouth. Of you in his gut. And there is no orgasm like this. Nothing like this. He will be bruised. And he won't care. Valan's mouth tightens and he closes his eyes.

     A sound escapes Edward's lips, a low groan coinciding with the sudden falling of his knees, and a thrust that arches his back. His upper body peels from the bed, and hands that held your hips now pull and dig into the rise of your rear. Edward's delved into as no other can, and it gives him that moment of glorious release, where nothing matters.
     Thank you, Jesu, for this instant. I have needed this emptying all night...
      "Ah...Valan..." he whispers, a 'thank you' in his sigh. Fingers massage near where he is held, lifting and pulling even as Edward's movements slow. The blood rushes from him, which finally cause him to close his eyes. Upon his lips, a smile pulls...

     A few more moments. A few more. His mouth suckles at your skin, pulling You from it. Filling him. A few more moments and then his tongue swipes, his blood electric closing the wound he made -- or maybe you simply heal that fast -- and his mouth is at your ear. "I am complete," he whispers there. and he settles on top of you, head resting on your shoulder.
     You are going to be the end of me. One night, you are going to fuck me and I'm going to fall to pieces. But I will be happy pieces. "Hmm..." Valan groans after a moment. "...I am...throbbing all over..." And you can feel it, around your length, strongly. Body crying out: stop moving!
     Valan lifts his head, tongue flicking at your smile. He cannot help it, and he moans that at your mouth as the flick turns to a sweet, suckling kiss. "You... have the most wonderful mouth... the best in the world," Valan whispers, a last kiss given before he settles again. And turning his head, he notices there is one gift left.
     "We missed one," he says after moments and moments, how many? A handful or more. And his arms slide around you, his legs splaying lewdly.

     "Hmm?" Edward's brow arches. He was drifting peacefully, relief now washing over him like spilled milk. Creamy and comforting. Fingers and hips do settle, only squirming to empty the last drops of the glass. A smile grew for the compliment of his lips, but missing something brings the almost-grunt.
     "Another one?" he grumbles, not all that interested in the act of opening. But he does wonder on the contents. "From?" he asks dreamily, letting you do all the work as he basks contentedly.

     All of the presents were piled onto the bed at one time. This one is still on the sizable mattress, amazingly enough, but he'd have to stretch for it. "Hmm... I can see no name, ami..." He can't help it, his hips give a roll and he murmurs your name. What is this want? What is it that wants to make me ride you until I pass out? Valan decides to save himself, to lift off of you. Thighs still spread, he raises his hips. Beyond lewd. Slowly you slip from him and he groans for it.
     His eyes must close. The groan becomes a gasp. Valan opens his eyes slowly, and even more slowly begins to move. The bed rattles and shifts as he settles beside you, his skin still flushed. And he trembles when he reaches for it, fingertips glancing against it, after a moment or two he scoots it over within grasping reach.
     "No name," he confirms, and he looks past his shoulder to you, eyelashes lowered. The men of Touraine and their bedroom eyes, their come-hither looks, even though you've already come and conquered. Valan looks back to the package and starts to unwrap it. "Maybe Girault...? Though, he already got us bedding, he is so kind. To buy us the one thing we will use..." And he means use. Big time.
     The box is more wide than deep. Odd-sized. Plain. Lidded. Valan pulls off the lid and then rises to his elbow to peek within.
     A book. Leatherbound at that. "Another tome, it looks like. Maybe it is from our mystery poet."

     Really? Edward looks over, already drawing the sheet upwards, to toss it over his presently-sizable lap. "A book?" he wonders. "William?" he half-suggests. "Alfonso or Davydd?" They are possible senders of books. "No post, or is it a direct delivery?"

     No post. No, this one was delivered during the day. Was waiting on the doorstoop. Valan made sure it wasn't ticking, of course, remembering all you taught him. The paper is hand-dyed, aged, marbled. That's an Italian technique. One might think Girault, but he would never leave a package unmarked. He wants you to know it is from him.
     Valan settles back, the tome in hand, roughly 11x14 in size. The leather looks weathered. Brown. Scratched in places, perhaps purposely. The coloration varying here and there. Golden haired -- hair decidedly mussed -- your blushed lover glances to you again, and then lies back in your arms. To be surrounded by you again. Always, he has to be touched by you. It drives him to madness if he is not.
     His own thighs spread and he tilts up the tome, opening it.
     There is no card. No note. No letter. There is a picture, sepia toned, 8x10. Of a smoky bar, the sparkle of pints, the shine of steins. And three very familiar faces in unfamiliar garb. A moment in time. Frozen. The men are not looking at the camera but at one another Davydd wearing his flight suit, pilot jacket and a wild-ass grin, probably mid-fucking-sentence (as usual), and looking rather wretchedly dashing, clean-shaven even and short-haired. A beautiful Edward, fresh from the Alps, also smoking, smirking, listening to Davydd, probably just short of making a retort -- maybe -- looking not at the camera but somewhere between Davydd and William, also pictured, dressed in pilot-officer's garb, long leather coat, short hair styled in the fashion of the day. And, of course, he's smoking too. And looking at Edward, with the start of a smile.
     The caption reads: Berlin, 1945
     Valan just...sits. His face goes blank, softening. The picture is so.... alive. Those men. Not just that he knows them but there's such vitality there. Such a shared love between them. It is ... obvious. Pictured here. And it's a moment of living history. That is My Edward... before I was even born. "Dieu," is all he can think to say, and then he looks to you. That look in his face again. If I could only cry, Edward...

     Edward was not in so much of a rush to try and see the contents, still enjoying the washing relief. But as you quiet and stare, he lifts his head your direction. "What is it?' he asks. "Something wrong?"

     Valan tilts the book in your direction, and though his eyes still are narrowed, he begins to smile. "This... is what I saw in L'Empereur that night," he whispers, the moment requiring reverence. "The clothes were different ... but ... the faces were the same. This..." he gestures to your face, ".. this is the face I saw... looking almost the same way with the same emotion... how could I have denied him?" he says to you, voice pulling at his throat. "How could I have not gone over to speak with him. You... are so handsome. And... look at you ... the three of you together. You are... something else..." He shakes his head a little. And then he smiles. He smiles and he cries all at once.
     "Oh, ami...and this is only the first page," he nearly croons that. Such a gift. "This... is my Edward before he was My Edward," Valan whispers. "You were... in the Alps corps," he remembers you mentioning this. "This... is after the defeat of Germany, oui?"

     Dear God. Edward sits up, seeing the photograph. Hand reaches over to hold the edge of the book, as if trying to keep it still. He is quiet while you talk, and only after a long look at the men in the photograph does Edward exhale, tears welling in his own eyes. "Yeah...I think so..." he whispers, looking down to the caption. A small laugh. "Oh..." a stifling a cry, "...I remember them..." Good guys, those. The best of friends.
     There's more? Edward glances to the box, then lets go of the page so you can turn. He smiles wistfully. "One of those two had to send it...I can't believe there are photographs still around." There aren't many of him, of that he's sure. "Alps Corps. Wow..." he nods at your question and marvels.

     Trembles from earlier... earth-shattering sex morph into slight tremors of another kind. This, pure emotion. "Davydd looks good without the beard. He looks younger." And he was truly younger than he knew, having never aged since 33, though he was embraced at 36. "I wonder who took it? The picture. One of your other fellows?" William had a brownie camera. Had it since WWI, actually. And maybe you recall that Niall was there as well. Hell, it's been years now since you've seen Niall.
     Valan turns the page. The backside of the first photo is a preserved letter (a carbon copy), written on RAF letterhead. William's handwriting. French, naturally. Dated 1942. Talking about the bombs near Chinon. And the fact that he owes Edward 1,000FR from that disasterous round of poker, 1935. That short letter is placed with another picture. Another shot from Berlin, maybe Davydd took this one. Same night, 1945, Berlin. William holding out a wad of money with a very animated expression and Edward... roaring with laughter. But poised to grab it all the same.
     On the facing page is the last photo. The same night, 1945, Berlin. All three men with Berlin lassies on their laps and decidedly inebriated. But William's not looking at the woman on his lap. He's looking at Edward. Edward is, again, looking between William and Davydd. And Davydd, as usual, is wearing an animated expression and is mid-sentence, gesturing with his cigarette.
     Valan looks to you, hand lying gently on the protective covering that shelters the pictures from dust and the like and he kisses you, softly, blood staining his cheeks. "We should call him and thank him..."

     Edward's eyes are fixed upon the photos. Why is he looking at me? He'd never noticed it before. "We should," Edward agrees, nodding as he rests perched upon his side. Edward touches the letter, smirking at the debt. "But tomorrow. It's Yule for them," Ian being such the paganesque. "We'll call on Boxing Day tomorrow." The official first day towards the end of the season.
     Edward smiles again at the photographs. "It's good to be reminded sometimes..." he whispers softly. "Good on ya, lads," he grins at the trio again, giving the men a nod of confidence.

     The story that began at Alhambra did not end in Berlin so much as it altered. Only one other escapade that century, when Davydd and a few others, yourself included, cleared out the Pyrenees, finding stockpiles of guns. And the carcass of a once fine white stallion. William was so wounded, he hadn't even had time to attempt some sort of burial. He was too busy being on fire.
     There are so many stories. So much you've been through. And he's always looked out for you, he has since he met you. And he looks at you. Always. And now you have proof.
     Valan closes the book, leaning to set it upon his night table and he curls up against you, beneath the sheets and covers. "A wonderful gift," he murmurs. "Overwhelming," he admits. "And it makes me remember... the trio I saw that night. I cannot get it out of my mind now. The bond between you all. How brazen was I," Valan suddenly smiles, "..to think that I could insert myself into something like that then..."
     He is careful to qualify it...
      Closing his eyes, Montague rolls over, body beginning to couple with yours again, slipping a thigh between your own, head resting in the crook of your neck, shoulder and chest. "Tomorrow, oui...."
     And then... Chenonceau....

Posted by rowan at June 17, 2003 10:58 AM