Little sparks of fire...
     Burning ash and particles aflame lift from the logs of the great hearth's fire, prodded into sudden life. A black iron poker, the edge of which looks like half of a fleur de lys, inspires renewed life in the burning logs, and the fire feasts in renaissance.
     I am not fooled, Alire... I do not buy the argument of innocence...
     The black iron poker pierces the heart of a burning log, breaking it apart, sending sparks and sparkles lifting like the birth of stars, and the one called Rigel stares into the fire, as if it were born of his gaze. Intense, fixed. After another moment, William rises, poker yet in his hands and gate yet pulled away from the flames. He tends it now and again from where he stands. Illuminated in his emotion.
     The fire burns. The air would burn with it. And he, turned golden wherever the light touches him, is dark even in his brightness. It has been twenty minutes. He felt the passing of each one...
     And like scrying flames, the flickering fire holds images, images that are burned on his blood. Passing from him to you, you see them flit and fly perhaps, even as he does. Of two golden men in a golden bed. His bed. Any bed.
     Hands upon back. Bodies moving against and within one another. Tenderness. Always there is tenderness. For he now knows the face of Your Every Wish. Is it coincidence that he shows up whenever you express longing?
     ... I am beginning to think not...

     "Gui," comes the voice after the clicking heaviness of an opening old door. Ian appears in the doorway, a smile at his lips. "You are still here," he smiles, "...I thought you might have gone for a short walk." Like I just did. Ian has to turn to push the door closed, the edges scraping at the stone floor beneath it.
     A sigh and smile proceeds his words. "I had Fleur arrange for a room for Alire for the night. He will be heading on...to..." Ian frowns, "...hm. I never asked. But he is off to some other stop before heading home. She may have put him in the other tower," hands waving in lack of knowledge, pale fingers stark against black turtleneck. "I do not know."
     Grey eyes spy the previously poured brandy.
     "Oh, laird, you won't believe what I have to tell you..." Ian grins, ready to share a rather heartwarming story as he approaches you.

     I thought about it. I did not go far. I did not want to happen upon him and you. I didn't want to seem out of my mind with jealousy, even though I clearly am. "I do not think I want to guess," comes the Occitan murmur, in its precise syllables. The poker is set in its stand, rattling iron to iron and he stares at the fire another half moment.
     You know all the signs...
     The pronunciation of each syllable as if it were savored...
     The stiff posture...
     The set of his jaw...
     The crisped air around him...
     "If he has come to profess anything but a devotion to God," the Plantagenet rides heavily on his voice, his accent decidedly Langue d'Oc, "...then he will find my courtesy curiously lacking." And finally he turns. William's expression is too placid. The more calm he appears, the more upset he is. Arms fold against his chest, pulling chocolate brown sweater tight at shoulders, arms and chest.
     "So..." he begins, not yet moving back to his chair, nearby. You'll notice that your glass is still waiting on you, but he's had more than one. The bottle of pear brandy is empty. "I find it strange. He whisks you off as soon as he gets here. And I am not so naive as to believe the... pretense of him wanting to catch Us, before We left for Scotland. He did not come here to see Us."
     He came for you.
     "His eyes tell the truth that he is afraid to speak, and with good reason..."

     Ian would be shocked, save he knew it was coming.
     Yet, the power of the imagination never ceases.
     "He's found a lover, Will, and he's embarrassed." You who has been his longtime friend and superior. Ian grins and picks up the snifter you poured earlier, peering over it before he drinks.
     Now don't you feel silly?
     "Look at you...you feel like a powderkeg, Will." Ian hides a half-grin behind the glass. He is not in the mood for humor, nor does he wish it, but it comes anyway. He sighs then, trying to get it all to dissipate.
     "Will," he offers, eyes narrowing. "He came to talk." He has no friends. You know this. Why do you think ill of him?

     A little...
     But you know him, and you surely expected this, he's not about to admit it. There is too much energy for it to just.... stop. Too hot, that blood runs. You know it better than most. It is the kind of energy that made gods out of kings, kings out of counts and shattered Commandments. Arms remain folded at his chest. And he looks as if he doesn't quite believe you.
     Was he not the one desired? Last year ... not far off in time from this, just after Yule I think. You were longing, bored. Even as you are now. And he arrived like golden fucking dawn, with all his Goodness. And you wanted it.
     And I cannot provide that. That tenderness. That gentleness. It is just not me. I try, and it comes out wrong -- worse than had I not even made the attempt. Knowing... knowing it like I know darkness and blood... that he would not have hurt you like I have hurt you.
     "Embarrassed," he says, an incredulous murmur, and he moves, your powderkeg, returning to his chair. "He can tell you these things easily enough," the gesticulation ends with the taking of a glass. An irritated look at its emptiness, the emptiness of the bottle, and there's a flicker of blue-violet.
     A servant called in a hurry...
     But then you catch him... not softening -- no it'll be hours before he's mollified, maybe even nights as wound up as he is -- but giving you a glance, a look. In love. Alire. And not with you?
     "I am a powderkeg," he murmurs leonine, "...and in need of brandy," his voice lifted Henry-esque as a servant appears, ahs and nods, and turns back to fetch what the master requested. "Who's the lucky man...?" If it be not you...

     Now Ian rolls his eyes. "Will...I just spent time with the man. Have you noticed anything yet?"
     There was nothing.
     Politeness.
     Slight amusement.
     And much of nothing.
     No? Ian quirks his head answering the question. No? Hmm. Maybe I'll lay it out for you. Maybe not.
     "Have a drink," Ian says softly, taking up one of the large seats. He sighs and sips at his drink, reaching over to pick up a book he'd started earlier.
     "So...where were we?" he wonders aloud. "Ah. Right. Talking of leaving in a week or so?"

     "He came all this way... to tell you," emphasis still placed there, "... that he was in love?" Maybe the magnitude is starting to sink in. Or maybe he is following the thread of your own emotion, seeing where it led and leads. "Alire d'Avignon." Yes, that's the man's name. And he looks to the fire.
     Fine. Laugh at me.
     He fills the space of his chair, even though it is rather large, his long legs sprawling out, uncoiling energy given to the fire. Arms fold against his chest again and he waves off the drink. Brandy's coming. I can wait. "A week is fine," he murmurs. "I'll start packing. I'm going to leave most of the dogs, apart from Macsen. The horses. They need a break from travelling." That was almost civil.
     "You ... are certain... you are not ...bored," he gets out, a look aslant to you -- from the gold of the fire to the gold of your hair. He is worried. Hmm, perhaps that's not such a bad thing about jealousy. Even if his eyes have gone a bit greenish -- Alire has him thinking. "Bored with me, with what we are doing..."
     And the brandy arrives. William looks to the fire as the servant taps it, pours it, and then sets it upon the table, taking the empty away.

     "I have not bored of you..." Ian looks over, "....in eight-hundred and forty years." And he doesn't care if a servant hears.
     "You won't remember that," Ian says off-handedly to the servant.
     He smiles at you, closing the book at his lap. "Why would I suddenly bore now, William?" My whole existence has been around you. "And I am just now starting to...enjoy what we have." Instead of working. Instead of fretting. Instead of lashing out. Instead of not being able to love you as I have wished. "Why would I ever be bored now..."

     I don't know. I just remember that walk in the hallway. Our melancholy stroll. I remember that feeling of longing, as if searching for something. I remember apologizing for locking myself away with that damn boy and his basket of fruit. And then he came, delivering news of an upset city, a city later turned over to his care. And then I learned of an attraction. You would have gone off with him, perhaps, if I had not seemed so...
     So like I am now...
     And again tonight, the sort of ...seaping dissatisfaction. Maybe it's just homesickness. Maybe. But I felt it again tonight, and I thought of last winter. I thought of you and he locked up in a Swiss chalet.
     And I wanted to kill him. I killed a pine log instead.
     Maybe there is something else to learn here. William exhales, a mighty exhalation and still the blood is hot, not letting loose of what has grabbed it -- not yet. His mouth, that mouth that makes a copulation out of every smile, has not spread as it is usually wont to do. As the servant turns, William takes up the brandy. He looks at the color of it for a while. "I don't know," he admits in a murmur, and blue-violet eyes shift toward you. "I hear words like doldrums and I get a bit worried." Well, that's Alire-like, isn't it? "Does he think I'm an ungrateful, unmannerly asshole?" he rumbles at last. And at last, the very hint ...just a hint... of a smirk.

     Ian's gaze wanders to a wall. Head tilts left. Right. Eh. "Well, he was worried. But he was embarrassed Will. He met ... someone named..." Ian grins at you, "...Giancarlo..."
     Now isn't that a name.
     "You and he...have been more like servant and lord," now that you have right humor to really talk about it, "...and I...am not. I doubt he knows or trusts others. So, we cannot tell anyone. He is...learning." Ian shrugs and smiles, rather pleased with the idea.

     An Italian. Hmm... well... I suppose no one could begrudge him that. Or anything really. He wouldn't be so easily enviable if he weren't so personally wonderful. Not that his life is an enviable one. Far from it. But he, well... if I had to describe the ideal man for you, it would be Alire d'Avignon.
     And part of you was at least curious about that, non?
     "I will not speak of it," he softly confirms, a little malleability creeping in. "Besides... he has not told me. I cannot speak of what I do not know." So he says. But sometimes he can speak an infinite deal of nothing about things of which he does not know. If one gets him on a Plantagenet roll. But in his way, perhaps there is something... lovable about it. You are the only one to say for sure.
     "And are you going to gloat a while on the fact that I thought there was something illicit going on?" William mutters, lifting his glass for a sip at last. He slumps down in his chair, legs extending more so, sprawl that it is, and elbow propped up on the arm of his chair. "I am happy for him. A big step for Alire. Prince and in love in the same year..."
     See, unlike his brothers and father, he can at least half-way admit that he was an ass or acted foolishly. Alire's not the only one who can learn new tricks in seven hundred years...

     "No," Ian shakes his head in all seriousness. "Why would I make fun of something you take seriously?" He asks, picking up his book again and opening it across his lap. He is one of great sympathy these days. "My issues with Alire," he says again, "...were about myself, William..." he looks at you, "...that was my entire conversation on him, yes?" When he visited last.

     Indigo eyes lift again, settling attention on you for a long while before lowering to some... space in between you. Another swallow of brandy, and then it is simply held. Golden liquid pooling against the glass, held balanced upon a wool-covered thigh. A different look for him tonight. Something worn for your preferences. "I have to admit," William says, "...that the idea of Alire made me... nervous. But... it is not his fault."
     Oh my. Such a revelation. Such a confession. Such a change in him as well.
     "As your... issues with him were about you.... mine... are about me. Or what I felt I had done, or not done. Said, or not said. I ... suppose I will offer him an apology later. Tomorrow," he adds. William settles in his chair, setting the glass on top of his book, which is resting on the table.
     "As long as you are happy... with things as they are. And you would tell me if you were not," he confirms.

     "I would, now," Ian smiles, sighing as he decides the book really isn't going to happen. The pages rustle as he closes the book a second time, this one for good. It's set upon the table next to him. "Let's go on a walk," he offers, pushing up from his chair as he's done a million times. A hand opens, the drink set next to the book. We can read later.
     He knew it was about you as much as it was about him once. Nothing real. Just echoes of the past. He still has them too, but now, with a bit of work and recollection, they can be dispelled so easy. Just remnants of old feelings that hopefully will die soon.
     "I will be packed in two nights. Then...we can go hibernate in the snow," Ian whispers. He walks over to your seat, and curls your fingers in his own.

     "I'll be ready..."
     Sometimes, you just have to change locations. It is something he learned from his father. When dissatisfaction begins to set in, you pick up and move. Move a castle, move a country, pack up all the belongings and move it out. A change of location sometimes does a world of good. Such a cure it is. A salve is motion.
     His hand is large, and there are the echoes of calluses there as ever. Softened by time, or changed by the change in occupation, warrior to artist. It fits to your own easily, knowing the ways. Knowing the grasp as well as his own. He looks at the connection for a moment, thinks about Tenderness, and he lifts your hand and leaves behind a kiss.
     So tall, he casts a shadow and you're in it, and another kiss is left at your mouth. He holds there, a murmured apology, and then he starts to move. "Care to stroll the parapets," as I once did, and then we once did. "We can end our stroll at the Roman bath, perhaps..." The wonder of the Tour du Boissey, the tower next door to the Logis Royeaux. The most private of areas, only visited by you and your chosen spouse, and the servants who attend it and you.
     William exhales again, much of the energy passing through and out of him, and a heavy, knightly arm lies across your shoulders, drawing you in. "You are to be commended," he murmurs, "... to live with such a ... high maintenance man..."
     But you knew that going into it, didn't you...

     "The baths are ideal," Ian grins. Like a conductor, he has learned when it is time to go to the next movement or to simply change key. He grins and turns towards the door, you in tow. "That's the thing I shall miss most," he thinks aloud, "...the large baths..." the real thing.

     He comes along easily, quietly. Soft conversation coming between you now as it had before the...outburst. He will think of it later and feel ... as you said... silly. Later. He will remark on it, perhaps tonight as he holds you in heated water.
     Maybe he will just let you comfort him and take comfort in it...
     Maybe he will just let you show him that there is no one, not even the kind and gentle templar, who rival him...
     And he will take comfort in it and you...
     To have you show him this, that would alleviate his worry truly. But you know that. He doesn't have to vocalize it, think it or feel it. You know it, as surely as you know the touch of his own hand.
     Worry will be lost in sparkling water, blue-green like the Aegean, given color by mosaics. Heated, steam will rise from the surface, and the arches of stone that surround the great bath will contain but one servant. Not even shadows will spy on you tonight.
     And he will whisper then what he is thinking now...
     I want you to myself...
     I want you to myself again...

Posted by rowan at May 30, 2003 09:41 PM