He hated to do it...
To leave behind the treasure so recently given. That was a symbol of love between you. But then, if you had seen it, so was this. Perhaps one had to be sacrificed so that the other could be saved.
Fucking waxing poetic aren't you, Plantagenet...
Ice tinkles in the glass as the scotch (another) is finished, and one of the many guest beds in Kensington shifts with the joined weight of another man.
You missed the fight, the death, the escape, the car ride, the carrying over the threshold, the cleaning, the bloodletting and the first two glasses of scotch. The guest room is comfortable, not overly lavish, and the bed is amazing. There is only one light on in the room, and that is at the other bedside, creating a dim halo of the bed itself and around William who sits there on the edge, ice-filled glass in hand and indigo eyes on his friend.
What a mess tonight has been...
You great ass...
I'd be furious with you if I didn't love you so much. And understand you as well as I do...even when I don't understand you at all, ami...
William exhales, leaning to put the glass aside on the nightstand. Gathered there are Edward's things. The Browning. Cell phone. Silver case of gak. There is a glass, brandy snifter, quarter-filled with blood (his own). A bit of fresh...
Well, fresher than most of what he's had...
The knock at the door is cursory, for it's already opening, albeit slowly. No servant would presume such, so it must be another. Ian's head peers in and he looks left, then right, towards the bed. He smiles a little to see you, hearing a bit ago that you had arrived.
"How is he?" Ian wonders, stepping into the room and pushing the door slightly closed behind him. "Better than that," Ian asks again, "How are you, laird?"
Oh you know the look. Even as he says the words, "I'm fine, amours," and even as he rises, putting some distance between himself, the empty glass that once held scotch, and his own blood, that he is troubled.
It has been a bad night...
Ergo the scotch...
William takes a seat in the bedroom's sitting area, modest though it is, plopping down and stretching out, his eyes go to the ceiling. "Let me see... tonight," he glances to you then back to the ceiling, "...I find out that Davydd.... well, it's a long story, but... suffice to say I do not know much that I should know... then... there is a fight... a flight... he goes to one of the worst dens I've perhaps ever seen, including the Mission District," a pointed look, "... I kill a girl, break the Law of Domain and abandoned the present I just gave him, because I could not hold him and drive the Centurion... I guess... if I had to put a word to it, my love, I am tired..."
Ian smiles and walks over, nodding. "I know you are, laird." A glance to his watch isn't necessary, but happens regardless. "It is late, too," Ian sighs, sliding his hand at your shoulder. "There's nothing more you can do tonight for them," Ian offers. "So, maybe you will let me spoil you for a bit before the sun rises?"
"You can tell me the horrible details in the evening..."
A large hand comes over your own, takes it and leads it to his mouth. "Yes... I could do with your touch right about now," William murmurs. Yes, you are what he needs. The only thing that soothes him, the only thing that calms him.
The great form beneath your hand shifts, and suddenly he is rising. There is a look for Edward again. The preverbal watched pot not boiling. William exhales at himself, smirking. I fret, non?
"Oui," he says, hands moving to your sides, guiding you to the door. "... you have free rein," he smiles a little, thought-full though it is. There is a parted kiss, warm and clasping as the two of you reach the door.
He smiles a little yet again, that archaic smile hidden in several canvases around the world. And he changes positions with you, so that you can back him out of the room. And to wherever you like.
"Did you call Valan?" Ian asks, making sure all things are finished. "After that, I think you are a free man," Ian smiles, "...well," he shrugs, "...until we fall asleep." It'll come sooner than you think. "And...do we need to send anyone to do...cleanup?" After the fact, in Hockley. "I can arrange that quickly, laird, before your shirt manages to float to the floor..."
"I don't know, amours, you've seen me undress..." he trails off. "Mmm... oui... I called Valan from the car. It has been a long night, I told him, and we had more business to tend to. I ...did not want to worry him..." So he lied. "I told him he would be staying here. I will call him again in the morning. May Montague forgive me. It was.... all I could think of to say..."
Cleanup...in Hockley? "I'm not sure anyone's going to notice it in Hockley," William drolls. "You... would not believe where he was," and that is sadness and worry. "I do not think the Domain issue will be a big issue. If it is...what... so I don't come to London... I will try to live somehow without it..."
William frowns. He does not frown often. When he does, it is as palpable, as sensuous as his smile in its way. "I did not want to leave the Centurion, but it was that or the Jaguar... and the Jaguar is traceable here. So... I expect it'll be gone. He'll be pissed but... there was nothing to be done about it..."
Ian nods, leading down the hallway, to the back half-stair to the off-level floor between two and three where your rooms reside. "Do you want to talk about it, laird? I mean, all of it? Well, what you can tell me. I am," Ian squeezes your fingers, "...more worried about you." That is his job, first and foremost. "You are worried for them, but especially for Edward?" He knows he cannot get away from it.
The stairs creak with the joined weight. The lights are down already, this part of the palace closed for the morning's arrival. Although things must go on as usual in other parts of Kensington, the select staff that walks these corridors will take their first naps of the day now.
"I will send someone to check on the Centurion, but...only if you tell me about you," Ian smirks.
"I'm worried for Davydd, too," he murmurs. "In different ways. But... oui, Edward was in a ... bad place where I found him. Physically, I can only imagine emotionally. I called him after speaking with Davydd... he didn't answer but someone else did, they were passing his phone around. I thought... well..." indigo eyes widen a touch before returning to normal, "... he is either in an orgy or he's lying dead in an alley somewhere..."
He sighs, "So...that's how I ended up in a drug den in Hockley. He needed to blow off steam, I guess. Hurt, likely. He worships the ground that Davy walks on. It goes both ways, so ...when it goes bad," like tonight, "... it is just very bad." The expression is worried and sad again.
"He's an addict, Ian... I guess we all are. He has his substance, I have mine. But his... he lost control of it tonight. He was... unable to take care of himself. I believe that... if I had not shown up tonight, he would have been diablerized by morning. There were three ... unknowns ... feeding off of him when I got there. Looked like a fucking hyena congregation..."
Ian slows his steps, looking up to see you. That is of concern. "I'm sorry, laird," Ian goes on, picking up his steps again. He's quiet a long moment, as the door approaches. "We seem to end up in talks about addiction a lot lately," he muses, surprised that it's on the table once more.
Ian's hand reaches out and he opens the door. "Let's make an agreement," he offers, turning to see you at the entrance to the room. "From here on, we don't talk about tonight. We have only a little darkness left, I'd rather it be ours."
There is a nod of agreement. A moment later there is another nod, a slant of a smile (you know him too well -- it always takes more than one show of agreement for him to really let it sink in). The second one he actually means.
The first stage will be turning off his brain. There is only one guaranteed way to do this. Right now, it is still moving, still processing everything he's seen, heard, smelled, done. But William stands by his agreement...
There won't be another word about it tonight...
Blue-violet eyes turn toward you in the doorway. There is nothing said, just the ticking moments of a kiss at the door's threshold. You can feel them there, the partially distended vipers. A lingering tension from earlier...
Or a new, and different tension beginning...
The kiss is greeted warmly, with a smile. Ian's arms extend and encircle, and his foot bends to push at the door.
"Now, isn't that better?" Ian says softly, moving the pair of you into the room further. "So, what are we going to talk about?" he asks, moving his hands to the suit coat so well-worn this evening. Fingers easily release the buttons and encourage the linen to fall away. "Stephen's birthday is coming up," Ian notes, brows arching. "He will be...twenty-eight?" He shrugs a little, admitting how quickly time passes in the motion. Ian exhales. Tall and blonde, at some stage, Stephen grew up, while your lover did not.
Twenty-eight? That's not possible...
Even in a thrall, he hears you. He has to blink at that information. No, it is simply not possible that he could see more mortal years than you and I. Isn't he still twenty and scared to look at me? Non? "Twenty-eight?" Sung to the tune of: are you sure?
"We should do something for him. Something amazing for him," William notes. "Find out where he wants to go, some dream of his, and we will make it come true for him." It is like watching a child grow, something I was never really able to do. "Whatever he wants..."
There is sudden emotion. Family, always such a thing with him, for good and for ill. "We will talk to him... then I will help with...whatever is needed, amours. He is a good boy." Pause. And then William smiles. "Man..." And then a short laugh.
That is what they are now. No more boys in the house. There are men there instead.
"I need to talk about something else," William notes softly, stepping out of his shoes, stepping out of his coat. What remains is signs of William being armed. A gift from you, that 9mm.
Bags of opium and brand new guns...
Ian looks a little surprised, as if it's something serious. "What's wrong?" he asks. Maybe you only meant a topic shift. In the quiet, Ian steps out of his own shoes and unbuttons his own shirt, slipping out of it one shoulder at a time.
"Nothing," he murmurs. Only a topic shift. William smiles. "Just... something else," the smile winds, "... like... I don't know... how you are going to spoil me," he finally suggests, chuckling a little as he disarms himself at the bedside. An indigoed look fastens on you in that kingly way that says: You may continue...
That done, the shirt is the first thing to go.
We need new servants... ours are growing old... see? I need something else to think about. Or nothing. Nothing... but you... Those eyes focus there, on you, on skin, on falling clothes. Just you...
It is not the first, nor the last time, tonight that the power will have risen in him, full, glorious, without question. Thoughts are filed away, and stirred emotion, stirred by uncertainty and concern, is given something else on which to focus. The two of you moved through the room in your conversation, space folding so easily, like nothing, and the bed is there, and the room is already crowded with what it will contain.
Oh. Ian grins and shakes his head. "Actually, I'm not sure," he admits, allowing his belt to fall open and his slacks to pool at his feet. "I just said that..." Ian grins, waving his hand in the air. "Just to get your attention." Ian pads over to your side of the bed, where the disarming scene finishes.
"Do I have it yet?"
"Oui," he chuckles at it. "Mais oui," William then chuckles at himself. I am so easy, amours. Do you like it that way? You must, for it has always been so. Even in my wildest days of misspent youth, as they say. His eyebrows quirk upward slightly and he shakes his head at himself, a grin claiming that mouth of his as he leans in and downward.
A large hand lands on either side of you, lightly but firmly at your hips, the first sign, the first indication of possession. Mine, each finger pads there. William smiles at your mouth, his playing there. "Were you making false promises to me?" Languid baritone, sound and cadence elongated with the sudden tug of Occitan, and teasing.
That mouth, that anyone could bear it on their skin, slides along your jaw and to your ear and neck. "You like having my attention? Now that you have it, what are you going to do about it?"
"Celui que vous desiriez, mon Duc Guillaume," Ian replies softly. He has your attention, he knows the rest, in truth, will come naturally. There's little left for him to do. He couldn't change this course if he desired, and he doesn't.
Ian takes a step backward, and meets the edge of the bed. He looks between you, to the hands at his hips, and smiles as he descends to the mattress and lies upon it. "Celui que vous desiriez..."
A Duc... a Vicomte... a King...
These are the pieces that have been in play tonight. Pulled together in a moment of political gravity, the beginnings of which occurred long ago. Even this...
All of it foretold...
Your duke comes with you, as you expect. In the confines of this bed to forget the gravity of this night for the remainder of it. There is no thought for tomorrow or what it will bring him. The world is altered...
There is one thing in all that remains unchanged. One glimmer, one burnished thing left in a new Creationless Void. It is Love.
The rest remains unwritten...
Posted by rowan at April 30, 2004 11:58 PM
