Some nights, he barely makes it this far...
     One would have to first leave the bed -- and why on earth would one want to do that? And even on those nights he makes it out of bed, it is a short walk from the bedroom to the Roman styled bath. How many nights this summer have you and he not been seen past the arch that leads to the spacious living area of the master suites. Despite the fact, mais oui, that it is one of the most comfortable rooms in the entire chateau. Despite that fact, he has made it that far tonight.
     And likely shall go no farther...
     Summer nights are short, one must make the most of time, the hour is already late by the time the sun sinks beneath the limestone plateau of the Loire. It is nearly eleven post meridiem by the time the sky is fully dark. It is midnight before either one of you emerge.
     But there is something of sunlight yet...
     What is it that makes the room shine so. What makes fills the air with warmth. It is not merely late June, not simply the state and the season of summer. Gold is everywhere, in the honeyed stone. In the olive of your lover's skin.
     The reason is he...
     Wherever he goes, there is something of sunlight and summer that follows him. What is it about him, about this castle, that makes it so. Resplendent. No better time for Guillaume than the cresting of June's midsummer into the frenzy of July.
     He is there, your sir, standing near one of the sitting areas crowded with comfortable chairs, a medieval hammock and a collection of fruit from the market and the unmarked bottles of your sir's homemade liqueur, two autumns hence. Barefooted, William stands clothed like the European prince that he is. A pin-stripe shirt that Paris would be proud of, and light, black linen trousers that would please almost anyone. Put together with care so well done that it seems to have been without care.
     A bottle in his hands, he pours a glass. A heady scent of apricots fills the air around him. Bits of fermented apricot flesh linger in the liqueur's potency. It would kill lesser men.

     "I cannot wait for my fearann," Ian smiles, a burst of energy in his words. He grins and puts his hands behind his head, closing his eyes. "Cool walls, wood. The smell of the grass and the musty moor."
     Apparently, this is appealing.
     "And Dunsinane," Ian grins, wandering the wood already. There's something wide open and confining about the plains: the sky unfettered, yet the land distinctly compartmentalized by fields, moor, and wood.
     "The smell of Dionnach's kitchen. Eamonn," he hasn't seen him in forever, "...the others. I do miss them."
     When Ian opens his eyes again, he's looking in your direction. He's dressed in black turtleneck and linen slacks again, causing him to appear invisible against the black of the chaise. The lightness of his face and features seem to float eerily against darkness.

     William looks up from his pour, turning his head to look at you lounging there. Your eyes are closed, but you don't miss the smile. You feel it on the air around him, the air around you. "I am looking forward to it, too," he, trying on his Gaelic for the first time in months. The cadence is smooth, the voice lending a languid resonance. How he speaks your language, as naturally as his own these nights, and yet with a flair that is all Angevin. All the time.
     When your eyes open, you come to see the vision of him standing there, a glass held out to you. "Try this," he murmurs. Indigo eyes are startling, unhindered. As startling as your face against the darkness of your clothes and the chaise. Before your eyes, a cordial glass, amber, containing something that smells like ambrosia must have smelled.
     You have the first taste, the unveiling of a new concoction...
     "The cool breezes that turn to full on winds," William picks up the thread of your own remembrances, weaving it in with his own. "The smell of the soil, the dampness. The comfort of old stone, old hounds, and old scotch."
     As he speaks he holds his glass. He waits for you. William feeds off of your exuberance. Your excitement shines in his eyes. The air is strummed by it.

     Ian takes the glass, careful to brush your hand as he does so. His grin turns into a slant of amusement and blushing delight. You are a sight, to be sure, and so near...it does wonders for Ian's disposition. "So, think you well of Scotland?" the layers left for you to address.
     "I have always thought well of Normandy," Ian says, cradling his drink before his lips. "So perhaps this is fair play." Only then is the glass turned up at his mouth and a taste taken.

     "I think well of Scotland," he says it with a smile, but he says it with meaning -- if Guillaume d'Angevin may smile and be thought to mean anything, "...as Normandy is wont to love, deepest when something was fought for and won." Such words, chased by a wink, punctuated with a bending kiss placed upon the crown of your forehead.
     For now, and through the drink, he is your sky. Smelling of cinnamon and clove, the air that moves around him in his motion. You know where the oil is placed. And why. "Normandy is happy," he murmurs and then straightens. Very, in fact.
     For the months of your stay here, he wears only one adornment, and that is the wedding ring you gave him. His father's cross, all other symbols have been removed. And he revels in the marriage that the ring symbolizes. Thoroughly content in it. And free to express it. Could it be doubted? Not now. All that could be doubted now is that there was ever a thought that he did not love...
     How things have changed. He seems happiest when tending to you, to the things that make a home between the two of you. The castles, the property, the staff. Content to be king nowhere but in his own castle.

     There is a jolt of surprise. Ian looks at the glass, considering it. Hmph.
     "So, sit and tell me," Ian spins up to let you sit, "...of how and why you love Scotland? Can a man of France love as you say? Or is it because there is delight and affection in conquering?"
     Of course, he needs a place to put his head.
     "I doubt it's that, Guillaume," Ian's Gaelic tongue as florid as ever. "I would think you have found much to love of Scotland for Scotland's sake."

     Potent. A shock to the tongue. Sweet but not cloying. Potent. Very, very potent. And it is only two years in storage. What would another year do to it?
     William sits, lifting his arm to the back of the lounge, opening his lap to be your cushion. "I do love Scotland for Scotland's sake. I love the taste of the water and the air. The green that overlies a hardiness of the earth. I love its people," he looks to you. "Long of memory," he smiles, "... sharp witted, quick, and without surrender. I love the coastline, how it seems remote and unapproachable, and yet there are eddies of such calm, one would think oneself in St. Tropez. But, more than this, I love the life I have had there. The snow, the rain, Edinburgh and Beauly. I wouldn't change a moment of it."
     Or of this. This was hard won, Dunross...
     "And more than this, I love a Scottish king, who makes me forget for a while that I am an evil Frenchman, debased and terrible," William chuckles. "So terrible. Scotland has made me a better man. Has made me a man period. What is not to love. How could I not give it my heart's full loyalty?"

     It was far more than he expected. Ian lies upon your lap, his eyes open wide. The last is what has stung him the most: Scotland has made me a better man. Can such be true?
     The glass settles on his stomach.
     Really? The bond murmurs. "A man?" Ian asks softly. He blinks, thinking on it. "And what has Normandy made me?"

     "I don't think that is for Normandy to answer," its duke quietly replies. The corners of his mouth are upturned, and William sips at his own drink, finally taking a taste of it. Eyebrows lift. This might even make me drunk. "A man," William confirms. "I was twenty-five when I stepped on her soil. I thought I knew it all. I discovered I knew nothing. I learned it there. I learned about love, about true rulership. I learned about alliance there." Indigo looks to you. "I hope that you ... have gained something from Normandy..."
     There were times when I seriously doubted it. But was it my own doubt or were those seeds planted and germinated from Someone Else...
     "Maybe Normandy, though intoxicating," a little smile at that thought, and at that term, "...has provided more than simple entertainment."

     "Companionship, love," Ian smiles. "Challenge. A love I wished, so hard-fought. My heart's desire," Ian whispers, "...made real. I remembered how to feel again and to trust from Normandy. How to enjoy my existence, not just drive through it. Normandy reminds me that...I am...someone who feels."
     He shrugs a little, looking away from you and down his body to the glass sitting on his stomach. Despite the beauty of the amber, Ian is less interested in it now. But he focuses on it, the gleaming color that catches his eye.

     A hand comes to golden hair, fingers running through it. It is one of his treasured things. This, having your head on his lap, his hand in your hair. It is simple and it is right. And it is at laast unburdened by the weight Others put upon it. The weight that we had put upon it.
     "You can always trust me," he says. The unspeakable words from Plantagenet lips. Trust William. How few have been able to trust that face, those words from that mouth. "I will always be here," he notes. "Your companion," the word spoken in Gaelic, all meanings archaic and modern meant. He doesn't want to talk about the hard work. He mentions it periodically and the two of you end up groaning over it. He does not wish to be melancholic, for it is something to rejoice. "You have made me happy, content," William murmurs. "You put your faith in me, and I, showing myself worthy of it, have coined it into joy."

     Ian's gaze returns upwards, and a thin smile grows across his face. He sits up suddenly, blonde-white hair spooling upwards to his shoulders.
     "I call this...making up for lost time," Ian explains. His fingers slide into yours and he stands, pulling to bring you with him.
     "It's...just hit me. That's what it is."

     William comes up easy, surprising for that amount of weight that it takes so little to get him moving. He uncoils from his resting place with grace, the apricot liqueuer largely untasted, the glass lightly held in his other hand. His mouth, that mouth, is pulled in a slant, half humored, half curious. "Is it..." he wonders.
     And he grins all the same.
     "I suppose there's no time like the Present..." to carry on a metaphor. Twisting a moment, he sets his glass aside.

     "No time like the present," Ian repeats, bringing his glass with him. Hand folded around yours, he walks towards the doors of the bedroom proper, to the confines within.

     With a glass of amber in one hand and your fingers in the other, Ian leads deeper into the bedroom, around the central fountain. He takes another drink as he approaches the foot of the large bed, careful to leave himself a last taste for later.
     "I've lied," Ian says, confidence in him. He turns to face you. "I cannot say what Normandy has made me, for it would take knowing what I was before, to understand what I have become. In truth," Ian says softly, shaking his head, "I have only now come to some familiarity with that person."
     "But I understand, I think," Ian's head tilting, his demeanor of old, "...that I will be different, with Normandy. I hoped it then, and I see it coming now..."
     "I don't know...what I will Become," Ian confesses. "I just need you there, is it."

     There have been several intersections (more than several) along this particular stretch of road. How he and you used to get lost, so lost, when those occasions rose. But there is understanding in his eyes. Not a sympathetic understanding, an empathetic comprehension extrapolated from human (and inhuman) experience, but Understanding. Knowing what you are saying, comprehending it in its entirety.
     "I will be there... here..." he says it and he says it simply. William remains at the foot of the bed with you, his hand still in yours, turning it in his, fingertips to fingertips for a moment making a cojoined temple. "It is where I want to be. Who I want to be, and who I hope I continue to become, is the man who loves you. Your mate," choosing that word over husband for a moment, a deeper and older meaning conveyed, and broader. Something that covers both friend ('mate') and husband ('mate'). "My work, to better our lives where and whenever possible, to tend the things that need tending, to be here for you. My employment is not for political gain, or even personal gain. It is for us. Us. It is that simple. This is the life I choose, this is who I want to be. Where I want to be is with you, whomever you Become."
     William lifts your hand, he brings it to his mouth and he kisses the center of your palm. "Normandy doesn't want to ... make you anything," he whispers there. "He only wants to love you."

     Ian smiles, glancing to the templed fingers. His cheeks have gone roseate, a sure sign of pending emotion. Fingertips gently press yours. "I make no such claims. Just one requirement: I need you with me, Guillaume." Ian stares into pools of indigo. "That's all." Something will come. "You..." Ian murmurs, "...are supposed to be with me..."
     With that, Ian blinks. He turns his head faintly, as if he's hearing something, or clearing his head.

     That seems to have been destined. Sometimes, destiny was pushed a bit, but even so...
     Those indigo eyes stare back, fixed upon you as they are. "I will be there," William says quietly in return. "And soon we will be in Scotland, up to our chins in furs," he smiles, leaning in again, casting his shadow being the taller one, bending for a kiss. This one... not on your forhead, nor the crown of your head. This one at your mouth.
     It is like the first kiss placed there, not tentative or hesitating, but like a taste. Just a taste of you, like the first taste of a season's wine.
     And then a second follows it...
     Longer than the first. If your lips were a glass of wine, this would be a swallow versus a sip. It warms him. It moves through him, from a hum at the house of the Third Eye, to the swirl of energy at the heart and in the gut.
     And you taste of the apricots. And William is as affected as if he were to have had the entire bottle. You can see it in his eyes as he straightens, in the blink as he tries to clear his own head. You occupy the spaces of every synapse firing.

     The kiss parts, and as you straighten, Ian does the same. It is heady, a certain rush. Ian lifts his glass and quickly swallows the last of the liqueur, closing his eyes as his arm lowers and the glass drops harmlessly to the rug beneath his feet.
     I am me. I am still here. You cannot get rid of me. We both loved him, you and I. In fact, there is no you and I. There is but Me. There is not two of us. Just one. I know what happened to us: why are you so greedy with him? You've always shared him with me. Why can't you see that? I see it so clearly now...
     Ian's arms encircle the shoulders before him. Grey eyes wander over the lips so recently felt, and he leans in to resume the kiss once more.

     There is plenty of William to go around, n'est-ce pas?
     When he kisses you, he does not merely kiss the eighteen year old boy, or just the thousand year old vampire. He kisses You. There is nothing given to one that would not be given to the other. There is no separation. There should be no separation.
      The third kiss...
     Like all trilogies, it has something of the first two iterations in it. But it lingers. It does not part so much as it transforms, it junctures for breaths however unnecessary.
     And it wonders... where will it end...
     Where will it land next...
     The mouth suckles as it decides -- it, more than the brain, for the synaps of the mind only snap with your name, with your face, with this feeling, and nothing more is thought.
     You feel the arms go around you, the grasp of a crusader, heavy and experienced, and you are lifted slightly, slightly scooped until there is no space for anything else.
     That is when the kiss transforms. It becomes Existence.

Posted by rowan at September 20, 2003 12:32 PM