In some two hours, the Cher will go a bronze pink and Chenonceau will take on the orange glow of morning. Bare trees and gardens, moss and evergreen growth will seem all the brighter for the overcast of winter...
... But that's neither here nor there. Now, it's pitch-black. The lights on the exterior providing the only light, with an occasional spotlight here and there within. Most of the house is in bed -- some are in bed recovering, unable to sleep on their backsides but lying curled in the bedding, comforted and cradled by silk and brocade.
But you are as you always are in the darkest part of night, after a night of gift-giving and christening a new bedchamber in your sweat and blood. Roaming...
And Chenonceau is at peace. Tranquil, seemingly floating on the Cher. And all are at rest ... except...
There's a prickling of energy at your neck -- the back of the neck, hairs may stand on end at a sudden wall of Plantagenet static. No, not a summons. Not even the barest whisper of a suggestion. He is merely... around...
There is no similar feeling that might be called Dunross. He, as your Montague, may be taking a very well-earned rest...
The gallery stretches across the river itself, a bridge going nowhere. Its blue and white marble flooring is cool, quite cool, for the presence of high-flowing water beneath it. And there is no lighting within. The long stretch of it is dark. The only light that comes in is from the moon itself.
William has changed, dressed in what was handy at the time. A black turtleneck, some earlier selection not chosen at the time but worn now. This over black trousers. His hair cut away from his eyes, quite short. He stands with his arms folded against his chest, head resting back on marble, indigo eyes given to the night past the window at his side. Looking at a clear starry sky, a stretch of illuminated grey clouds approaching. The visible promise of rain.
His expression is, truly, no expression. Maybe Thought Itself. Maybe nothing at all. It is late. And Plantagenet is loitering to watch the sun rise...
Edward has already been outside. After leaving the castle, he took a few laps around the expanse of gardens, letting the chilling night air fill his lungs. It's a clearing thing, his roaming; it empties his mind and sears his heart with the thing he wishes to focus on most. In this case, Valan.
Returning within, he'd decided to take a bit of time to walk the castle's halls. A nice place, he recalled, approving of the latest changes and improvements, including the restorations to the gallery.
"It's late," Edward voice easily travels down the gallery. No need to boom, as the empty corridor and marble carries his voice easily. Dressed in comfortable sweats, his top is tied around his hips. Warm sweat has becoming cooled droplets. "What are you doing up?" he asks, approaching in the same gait he had before noticing you.
He is slowly becoming acquainted with sounds and smells from other rooms. Just the first... extension of his awareness. Maybe in all his time with Dunross, some things just...rub off on him. Maybe it was a gift of now constant bloodshed between them. Maybe it is simply the culmination of so many years. He heard your feet down the way. Well... he heard feet, he didn't know they'd be bringing a Meurelle in-tow. Or toe, as the case may be.
A broad shoulder given to the wall, William turns, indigo eyes leaving starlight and moonlight, and like a spectre his bemusement dissolves. "I normally travel with the sun at my heels. I thought I'd watch it rise today," his voice is that elongated baritone, the French dropping into the familiar, and by that meaning Medieval, remaining Occitan accenting syllables with bladed precision. The sugar and the fire of that language that so suits him. The smile that follows is an easy one, though tempered.
"I couldn't sleep," not even after being rolled in silk and brocade sheets, and then the tempered smile pulls into a slanting grin. "Taking your usual post-coitus stroll?" He chuckles a moment, then it falls away into a simple look, open curiosity, familiar and, dare he say, affectionate wonder. "And did Montague enjoy his legacy? Did he faint?"
"You shouldn't know that shit," Edward says drolly of his post-coital habits. "And, no, he didn't faint," he says, taking a seat on a nearby bench. "In fact," his shoulders rolling as Edward runs hands through his hair, "...we've decided...that maybe we should stick to Fleurlil." A sigh, and Edward leans left and then right. "If you don't mind." You can hold him to his agreement, if you wished. "He loved it, but..." a shrug, "...maybe it's not for us."
"We'd just as soon be guests," Edward adds, leaning back against the white-painted stone. He looks the athlete, to be sure, out of place in the resort of royalty. "I should have known," he smiles, shrugging it off. Ah well.
Enough of that. He's said what he wanted on that topic. "I'm actually tired," he confesses, looking left and right, as if the cause rests in front of him somewhere. "Maybe I should just go to bed...."
"I am a chronicler of habits." What else is an artist, afterall? "Particularly the bad ones. It's what I do." William listens to the rest with the same easy expression. Placid. Then, as you come to the end of it, he smiles. Not that he didn't expect it, in truth. He is more surprised it even went as far as it did. "I don't mind. You and Montague are welcome to come and stay as often as you like. Keep your keys," William murmurs after a moment, hand lifting and motioning. No amount of protest to the contrary will be entertained.
"We'd love to have you as guests wherever. Chinon, Strathfayr or here. Location isn't the issue. I can understand. I had a moment myself where I wondered why I did it." And then the grin, the trademark Plantagenet spread. Smooth, sensuous without forethought. "Fuck the lease," William says lowly. "When have we ever needed a piece of paper, Edward?"
William pushes off the wall slightly, arms still folded. "For us it's more of a ...glorified stable. I'm out of land in Chinon for horses, and the winters are too sharp in Strathfayr for my Spaniards," the Andalusians. The only horses he deals in. Does that say something for the breed or for the man? "We're likely going to be here a week or so, then head back up north. Ian's neck-deep in business these nights. In the spring, I'll be up to my eyeballs in a restoration, so it is unlikely that we'll be haunting Chenonceau much until the summer..."
Arms unfold and a hand comes out, a pat given to your arm. Think nothing of it, Edward. "How have you been otherwise? I've been bad about callling, worse about writing..." And he's happy to walk with you, if you'd rather...
William stops and grins in a slant, cocking up an eyebrow. "What does Davy-bach call it again? The French disease?" He smirks at that. He should call on Llewelyn too...
Edward's face angles at the thought of the disease, nodding in affirmation as he grunts a sigh. "That's it. Thanks for letting us visit though," he adds, going quiet for a few seconds.
"I got...an interesting present," he notes idly, his gaze not really settling on you. It's more as if he's talking to himself. Train of consciousness. Edward watches the black and white squares upon the floor, perhaps imagining a chess match. "Photographs," he blinks, head leaning askance, "...from the war." The pictures seem to cause Edward to dream. A smile forms at his lips. "We had some good times then," he whispers, still watching the dancing tiles. The smile blooms, and Edward looks up at you, through squinting eyes.
You and he walk the chessboard gallery, two knights, no kings in sight. But as you so adroitly put it: Fuck 'em. Who needs 'em. Hands slide into his pockets as he watches the tiles moving slowly by.
By the time you squint up at him, he's already looking at you. The smile hits somewhere in his eyes, backing that blue-violet with a shimmer before moving to the mouth. "We did," eyebrows open upward and eyes widen a touch. "Despite all the Germans." And the smile is winning, immediate. "I'm glad you liked them," and the smile tempers again. Serious, for some reason. "I stumbled across them a few months back... it reminded me of brothers I had not seen in a while." Indigo eyes flicker toward you. "I'm surprised they survived, the film, that is." He chuckles. "Not the men. Though," he lifts an eyebrow, "...sometimes I wonder about that too. Particularly that tall, French git with the posh accent and the bad writing habits." Speaking of bad habits. William grins.
"Sometimes, I admit... I miss the wars. I am growing fat and soft, frere...."
He gets up as you move, leaving his comfortable bench. The sweatshirt dangles at his hips, hands coming to rest on well-formed side abdominals. Edward snorts at the idea, but doesn't dispute it. "Too much to lose now," Edward says to no one in particular, looking down at the floor again. "It was easier, when there wasn't anything worth losing. But now..." he shrugs. It's different. And risks are deemed necessary or unnecessary. There's assessment, because now, there's a reason to stay around. There's a reason to gain: financial or otherwise.
"I've learned to like...my life." Last word getting a smile. A reason to live, as it were.
As soon as he starts moving, you stop him with that. And that face of his, striking as it is, erupts in warmth, in the smile the spreads. "I am happy for you, even though you do not like to talk about it," the Loire rides high on the syllables and vowels, not so unlike your Montague in some ways. Denser. "As if it shall jinx it," William whispers and the marble catches it. "But, I am brave, sometimes too..." the whisper continues. "And so I shall say it. He is a good young man. And I am grateful to him for ...giving you a reason not to fight."
William meanders. A step or two at the most. It is a slow way he is making. You know him. He cannot be still when he is emotional. He can hardly be still in general.
He doesn't like to speak such things, and Edward only looks down at the chess board floor. He smiles a little at the idea of having reasons not to fight. "The only problem with it...is when the night comes...when I must, I hope I'm still there." At the top of his form. His game. "And if not..." a shrug. His night would quickly be over.
"But," Edward adds, "I'm not bored." If he were, there wouldn't be this conversation. He'd be out all the time. "Wierd." Oh well.
There's a grunt of understanding. "The only problem with being ...civilized is that that... Civilization isn't always ...civilized. And then, you're stuck with your knife and fork and good manners, your literacy... yes, I've been ...thinking about the same thing. I hope it's like riding a horse or walking. That the body will remember when it has to. I have been so isolated since America..."
"I imagine Le Brat Prince," a chuckle given to that as he looks to you, "...is the same as ever. A gun in your hand, and it will be alright. I have no doubt..." Of himself, he is not so certain. It has been... years. Years since he has lived in a city. Years since he has had to deal with politics of any kind. It is part of his... evolution? The one that makes everyone so damned uncomfortable. It goes with the face. "You're not bored?" William suddenly quips, voice lifted and the grin follows, "All of London and Paris must be relieved..."
"They must be," Edward says softly again, the smile barely registering upon his features. He's tiring, to be sure. "Nah, they know I'm not so far away. I'm still out most nights." Just not causing brawls every time he steps on the streets.
Edward pauses, as if staving off a yawn. His blink is languid. "Thanks for the present," he smiles, nodding. It was good, you know, his expression says. "They were some good lads," those guys in the pictures...
"They still are," William counters, even if it is egotistical. Like he cares. An arm thrown over your shoulder, and he gives a seemingly half-hearted tussle. A pat on the back and then hands are back in his pockets. Time for bed.
"You're welcome," he says softly. "And thank you." For ...well...centuries of friendship. That's what all of that was, you know. Simple recognition of the ones he loves above all. Friends, brothers, family all. "I still owe you a drink. Tomorrow, let's have a game of billiards over the best brandy in France..."
Edward nods, giving a characteristic Why the fuck not slanted grin. "Maybe we'll send the wives out for horseback riding." Oh, devil. Edward said it disdainfully, as if he expected Valan to overhear. "Oh, well," he chirps, meaning the self-deprecation mostly for his own situation, "Err, not that Dunross is...you know...well..." a wife, "...like that." His hand waves. Can't take that back. Whatever.
"He... is...sometimes a wife," William admits with a slantwise grin. Are you amused, Dunross? "When I leave my clothes on the floor." Which is nightly. "If we didn't have servants, I don't think he could live with me," comes the quipping tease. As if.
And you realize, do you not, that he is as every bit lost as you are...
"...Now...Montague..." And his laughter trails, holding in throat, reverberating in his broad chest. That's a different story. William doesn't bother finishing the statement. Rather, he lets it hover for maximum effect. A moment before he tips back his head. "Edward," Edoowahrd, "...you are in such trouble. That one, such a handful. A Loire wife. What were you thinking..."
He doesn't know either, shaking his head and shrugging.
"He was a great fuck at the time?" Edward suggests, arriving back at the gallery's living side. Their rooms are to the right.
The smile returns and the shrug this time is cleansing. "He is..." Edward begins, looking at the wall before him. His voice trails off and he just shakes his head.
"Ah well... you know, I am sure Ian's friends have said the same thing about me, and look how I turned out." And he grins, a flash of it, beautiful to the point of being terrible, fangs and all. And, for some reason, that really tickles him.
Tickles all the way to a bedroom not far away. A great fuck at the time? What about tonight?
Here is where he goes left, his and Ian's quarters on the opposite side from yours. You are both thankful for that, no doubt. William pauses here a moment, indigo eyes settling on you. Expression warm. Fond. "I am glad we did this," it is yours, regardless of whether your name is on the papers. "Good night, Edward..."
His grin grows as you say goodnight. "Good night, Will," Edward says softly, hand at his cheek as he turns away, still smiling.
Posted by rowan at June 18, 2003 07:37 PM
