Such a casual, suicide king...
Couture dripping from his fingers like blood from the corner of a casual mouth, the Usual Suspects have returned to the scene of the crime against nature, the supplanting of mortality with immortality with a thief's sleight-of-hand. He didn't mind all that. He only wanted to be with this man.
I barely know that man at all, the man who made his choices with such a casual hand. I've found that, in truth, I'm not casual at all, I'm not reckless, or thoughtless, or so laissez-faire. I only wanted to be with this man. I want to be with him.
We fumble in the darkness with our casual hands, we grope in the twilight to the midnight, such a casual air. I don't really need you, I don't need you at all, I don't want to need you, but I need you more. We buy and sell our own bullshit like stocks and bonds.
I only want to be with this man, I have figured out. But how do I show him without showing him, how will he know it without knowing it...
This is who I am...
This is what I want...
Is it okay... no, I can't tell him that...
God no...
I can't tell him that...
Two nights have passed since the lights flipped on for the first time and he threw himself on the bed that was once the last altar of his mortality, he sacrificed it for you. Gold-green eyes turned to you and he smiled. I'd give it all over again, he whispered it when he thought no one was listening. He went to Orleans to get a fresh wardrobe, the man goes through clothes like the moon goes through phases. Summer and buttery colors, he's all golds and cinnamons and reds.
He wanders barefoot through your castle, he wears your chain around his waist, a badge of belonging he never parts with, red stripped trousers (two hues of red), and fine barefeet and an undone butter and white striped shirt. He moves through your castle like a spouse trailing fingers along the beloved's shirt. He wears it and he wears you and he moves in a romanticism that can only truly be expressed inside French castles. Alone with you, he begins to promise himself, I am going to hide nothing...
Montague moves, and the way he moves, he belongs here and belongs with you and belongs both in and out of those clothes. Garnets at his throat... gold chain beneath bare navel, he walks through the chambers, takes a book and plops down, waiting for you to find him, sitting on the sofa, listening to you shower, breakfast waiting, covered, in a tray nearby. Crepes and oranges and honey and brown sugar, Anjou beef seasoned with herbs and mushrooms that only this region can grow.
I cannot tell him, but maybe I can show him. Maybe if I show him...
"Something smells good," Edward says delightedly. Appearing from the bath with towel around his waist, Edward makes a beeline for the tray. He smiles at you upon the sofa, then wiggles his brows and claps his hands as he comes to a halt between bed and service. "I'm starving," he notes, then looks at you. "Did you eat already?" he wonders, lifting the lid from one of the plates and setting it aside. Hands adjust the amber at his throat before fisting at either side of his waist.
Edward stills a moment. You've been shopping.
"You look great," he admires, smiling as his cheeks redden a little. "You always look..." beautiful. Edward shrugs at you with a smirk.
"Merci, ami," Valan smiles, accepting the compliment, closing his book with the snap of pages. He delights in seeing you smile. How does one keep a man but to keep a man fed and interested. "Anjou beef for you and orange marmalade crepes with the marzipan, I thought you might like this..." There are two covered plates, one for you, one for him -- in answer to your question. "I will put the kitchen to use," he smiles and sits forward, lifting the other lid. "Oh, you want a little whiskey to go with the beef?" There is wine already, but he knows how you like the smoother, more potent potables.
He is rising, and you will see everything you could want or need is at hand: the food, by his hand, the linen napkins, a glass full of wine, utensils, and the vision of him rising, sparkling as he moves to fetch a bottle for you if you like. "I did do a little," Valan remarks off-handedly, as if it were all nothing. Thousands of dollars worth of nothing. "You like it? I thought I would do something a little different. I am trying, though, not to dress like French wallpaper," he pauses, hand to your arm, feeling the warmth of your shower, and for you there is a kiss. He does not say 'Good Evening' or 'I love you'. Valan merely kisses you and smiles, then softly murmurs: "Sit and eat, I will get it..."
For a moment, thoughts of food dissipated. Edward's eyes followed, transfixed. Staring.
"It's nice..." Edward nods, smiling again as he blinks before looking down at the food once more. "It's all great," he whispers, not sure what else to say. It's true, his observation and comment.
Taking the suggestion, Edward pulls at the towel around him, pulling it up to give his knees room to bend and part as he sits. "They may like having you direct the kitchen," Edward smiles. Then, a frown, "What are their names again, ami?"
Gold-green eyes lift to the ceiling in recollection. "Jean-Rene... he is head of the kitchen... there is also Alix Reynard, she is in the kitchen but she is mostly in the house, sometimes in the kitchen. Jean-Rene showed me around, he seemed happy to let me have my way in there..." Valan smiles. "So, I am sure I will make it a second home. It is enormous, that kitchen..." Bigger, at least, than the townhouse -- which is by no means tiny.
Valan wanders to the room's bar, a selection of drinks, he makes one for you and one for him. Not scotch, but bourbon, a ruddy bourbon. The smell of it fills the room, and then again when he sets it before you and then sits nearby, setting the cover of the second plate aside and beginning on the crepe. "It is not far to Orleans. i bought some of what I got in Blois. I woke early, I think it was still daylight. I tiptoed out in the pink," he smiles, to you pausing to eat and not to talk at the same time. "And had some coffee. We will have to explore Blois a little. I want you to show me around your old city. I would like that," Valan softly adds, he looks to you. He smiles.
Edward smiles too, unable to contain grins when you do. "Show you around?" Edward grins, nodding and reaching over with his fork to the delicious-looking crepe. "In the pink?" he grins, amused that you would venture forth. "A beautiful man who lives on the edge," Edward teases, somehow knowing otherwise.
"But yes, ami, we can go into town," Edward nods, not letting his humor stop his reply to the suggestion. "I would be honored to show you..." my city, no, "...what I know of Blois." A shrug and winsome smile. "I...cannot say it is my city, ami," though I wish I could, perhaps. "I am long for Blois. It is another place now."
The bourbon is picked up as Edward swallows the crepe. "To you," he whispers, leaning in, "...and how..." he has so few words, "...perfect you are."
He takes his own glass, he touches it to yours and he smiles, a lean in toward you. "And to you," Valan says quietly in return, "... the man who deserves it." He lets the glass tinkle, the one against the other, he thinks of how differently the two of you meet, not in such quiet sounds as that. But sex is not on his mind tonight (though, it is never so far from his mind). He is enjoying this, a meal and conversation between you.
The simple act of Being...
There is crepe-interrupted laughter. He sits back, he savors the taste of it with the bourbon (it does wonderful things to the orange, or the orange does to it, he is not quite certain which it is), and the sight of you with him and the two of you in this place. "It must be strange to have known it as it was and to see it as it is," he says easily, it is an easy curiosity. "But I could have no better guide, whatever sort of place it is," Valan notes. "We will see it together. Maybe it will be new for both of us, even though you have seen it before. Now, you see it with me and it becomes Ours." Now, for a little taste of the beef and mushrooms.
We have been together for a few years now. It is time, I think, that we have Our places and Our things and Our hopes and wants and needs. I am not going to be afraid anymore. "I grew up in Bordeaux, schooled in Paris and lived in Tours, I have not seen much of Orleans, really either. Just passing by. Some night, we will go there too..."
Edward feigns mock-horror at the theft of his meal. But his expression goes still as talk comes of him being a guide. "They are well enough," he whispers of Blois and Orleans. "They are much like other cities of France, yes, ami? In their pasts and presents, I guess. "Bordeaux is nicer," Edward smiles. "Even Tours, though," he admits softly, "...the palace and church of Blois are quite nice." An allowance.
"But we will go wherever you like, ami. I promise," Edward smiles, finishing his aperitif. "Together."
The expression warms, "I am looking forward to being a tourist again. I do not know so much, I have to remind myself," a moment of self-effacing honesty. Valan grins, making sport of your mock-horror by teasing another bit of the Anjou, ah...no, but not for himself. He offers it up to you. "I am looking forward to seeing new things, but mostly I am just glad I am here with you, wherever that is," a soft allowance of his own.
Unafraid of sentiment, as much as he is unafraid of making other, more random commentary, or even of bullets these nights, Valan Montague looks at you, he smiles at you, he openly loves you and he offers you dinner and a view into the room of his soul, seen through those amber-green eyes.
See it there, Edward, that cozy small room of a young soul, furnished throughout with the solid, Blois furniture and draped with the fineries of France scattered in the controlled chaos of revolutions. You are there, ami, in that little room of mine.
"After dinner... let's go for a drive... then a walk through town... that sounds like a good evening..."
"Mm," Edward grins, closing his lips around the proffered fork. "Alright," he smiles, brightening a little. "A drive. First tour from the car," he smirks, setting down his fork.
"You're in a good mood tonight," Edward observes, reaching for the bottle of wine. No need for a glass -- he turns it up right then and there. "Tell me," he smiles, figuring there must be some story behind your happy demeanor.
One shoulder lifts a little, the face colors, but Montague does not turn away. He tilts his head, he grins, he proffers another bite to you. "It would be hard to be in a bad mood. Here I am, where I started, with the man I love, about to get in a car and drive fast enough to make my ears scream, what is not to love about this life? What is there not to be pleased about? It's..." he thinks a moment, turning to get a little of the crepe for himself. "It's the way I like it. You and me against the world. I have your back, you have mine. We are ... a couple... a team... sometimes I think in London... I think I got distracted from that, Edward. And I am sorry..."
Valan grins as he turns back to you. "I like it here with you," he admits quietly.
Edward watches you, his own face turning downcast to see you whisper.
"I...like it here with you too," he says, brow tightening.
He lets the quiet fill the space again, leaving the click of his fork on the plate as the only sound.
Posted by rowan at July 19, 2004 05:25 PM
