He rose many hours before you, far more reminiscent of the William of Before than Now, the lord who is all too willing these nights to lay about in bed until you wake. For the past few years, he has slept soundfully, still and long, waking as you wake, usually stirring only when you roll over and throw an arm over him. But not this night.
     You can tell he has been awake for hours by the gentle disruption of the space around you. A bathroom that has seen him come and go, shave and dry, and quite nearly fold his towel. By the open door of his wardrobe, by the absence of his phone, his cigarettes and lighter. By the way the stones feel, the way the old chateau stirs as he stirs, moves as he moves, as if he were the head and it the body, the two of them making now one Being.
     But you also know he has not gone far...
     There is the smell of clove cigarettes and brandy. There is the sound of a page turning -- is he reading? There is the smell of breakfast, fruit and cheese and fresh bread, which he will pick at for hours (if he has not already). You would not be surprised at the sight of him sitting there, dressed as if he is going out (but you know better), a linen suit for the impending summer, a blue so dark it would fool everyone but you, the shirt a stark white, the tie loosely done (perhaps loosened).
     And you know the lie it is...
     You know that he is not reading...
     He is flipping the pages to a book, but he is not absorbing any of the words. His cigarette burns, his drink sits, and William is drawn inward, to the space of his own thoughts. The bond between you is lacking verbal cues but there is the quiet feeling of introspection.
     And of something realized...
     I have been unfair. And I have not recognized what was behind it... not fully... until just last night. Just last night, when I sat as a third party and watched myself do it.

     "Gwilym..." comes Ian's voice as he pads up behind you, pulling his robe behind him. He has not made it to his own dressing table. Instead, he's walked in directly from the bed. Something's woken him up, and he's come directly from his sleep to find out what it is.
     Ian sighs, hand running over his head. He stops and looks around the room, slightly disorientedly. "You're up," he takes in, seeing how well you're dressed. And up for a while, it seems. "Is it late?" he wonders, not wearing his watch yet.

     "I did not sleep well, so... it was better to just get up," he says, leaning back on the sofa, turning his head to you. One arm extends, book set aside, unread and unregarded, and his other reaching for you. "Not so late," he continues, "...I'm still on my first pack of cigarettes," the smile lazes out, though slight and still with that look that is here and Somewhere Else (some-when else) all at once.
     Your hand is led to his shoulder and there it is held. "I stopped paying attention to the hours sometime after four." Twisting in his seat, he turns to look past you and to the windows, the sky still indigo. Every night getting shorter and shorter by breaths and moments. "I would say it is just about eight or a little after." Your hand is squeezed again and released with a gentle rub, and he leans forward, taking his cigarettes off the table. He lights another, he breathes upon it for a moment and then he turns his attention to you, dark eyes full of colors blue and violet. "My brain was busy," that mouth of his holds a sudden smirk, a curl of his lips, a slight roll of his eyes at himself. "I have been thinking a lot about... what we said last night, what I did ... or did not do last night, amours... "

     "Mmm," Ian says softly, sliding into your embrace. He pulls the robe around himself and sits, crossing his legs. The robe, once adjusted, now opens to show his knee. "I am late," Ian whispers, leaning in. "What was wrong with last night?" All things seemed well when the bed was rejoined, after the moonlight riding. His head on your shoulder, Ian's eyes close.

     A slight turn of his head, and his mouth is at your forehead. William closes his eyes and stays there for a moment, smelling of cloves and cinnamon, a fine suit and brandy and the rest that is simply Him. A lean does not displace you, his arm holds you still as his other reaches out and sets the cigarette aside to burn as a stick of incense. "Nothing is wrong," he assures softly. "I... just saw something very clearly... something about myself that I had not really...thought of or... recognized. So," William exhales, both of his arms given to holding you, a more proper occupation than reading and smoking, "... I have been thinking, that is all. Remember what I used to say about my thinking," he teases himself as much as the Past.
     "I ... have just realized that so much of my second life has been rife with the same foolish energy as my first incarnation." William closes his eyes and he brushes another kiss at your forehead, another at your mouth -- that he cannot resist. "And I realized I owed you an apology." Look at me. William tips his chin just so, his eyes fixing upon your expression, your face, beautiful. "I have been unfair. I have not meant to, I know, but I have been unfair nonetheless. I have tried to make you my Henry," that comes very softly. "And I realize now that it has caused our suffering, it has been beneath so much. Even with Alexandra. The two of you... together... made a kind of Henry and Aelinor. And I... always... the disappointing son. It was not fair to any of us..."

     Ian's eyes, once closed, open. He frowns and looks rather confused.
     "Laird..." he stumbles, "...what...what are you talking about?" Ian sits up slightly, trying to focus. Sudden epiphany -- he was not expecting.
     "Are you alright?"

     "I am alright," Gaelic sounds there, a touch of Highland vernacular. He smiles at you, an eyebrow lifting more on one side than the other. "I have been up longer than you," the Occitan lilts and drags, burns and rolls. "It sounds better to me, I am sure. So... no... I am alright. Just amused at myself, mais oui. I am sorry for not seeing it before, Ian, and I am sorry for ever putting you in that ...unenviable position. I suppose..." shoulders roll a little, "...that it is natural for such things to happen, lovers as we are, I am still your childe. Perhaps it was not something we could have avoided completely, but I wish it had not taken me so long to see it..." His eyes now look from you to the room that is now his sitting room. This was once the great hall. We had our Christmases here, our battles here, he would stand at the fire there and not eat his dinner and never see me.
     "That is ...the reflex of it...that is what I was doing last night when... I was seeking your approval, demanding it actually," he murmurs. "... when it is not you, not really. And what I want, I can never have. So, I must try to learn ... not to want it. That... is....what has been keeping me up all day. I think I have been awake since noon..."

     Ian exhales. "I am glad...that you know this, laird, if it is how you feel," he half-asks. Ian is quiet, staring at your face a moment before he chimes in again. "I..well, I am in no position to evaluate this. I believe what you say. If...you wished something from me, I am sorry too. I have never wanted you to need my approval. You do not, that is for certain. Look at our life," he smirks. "Nor did I expect you to see me as some...authority. Not for you, laird, not ever."
     "It is funny," Ian laughs. "I was...accused...of having made a mistake of siring you. That I should have," Ian pauses, considering, "...let someone else do it. So that there would not be some inherent status difference," Ian waves a hand, not sure of the word here, "...between us. I argued against it," Ian smiles, looking at the fireplace. "I said..." he laughs slightly at himself, "...that to bring someone to this life makes no obligation, no status. It is only...an act. Like an infection," he smirks. 'That my doing it only meant I loved you -- as I did and do -- and wanted you with me. I wanted you with me so much that I would...risk us both...to have it happen."
     Grey eyes return to the space between you. "I said you were no childe of mine. I cannot have them. I only kept you from death through a power that I had. Nothing more. I have never seen you as nothing but my friend, my equal. There was nothing inherent to separate us in...what I did. In fact, we should, in my mind, be family. Lovers. Brothers."
     "Maybe they were right," Ian shrugs. "I was wrong. Maybe...a person who is embraced will always be a childe. Perhaps I never felt it, for I never felt I was any childe of anyone else's either. I am...from the head of Zeus, fully-formed," Ian chuckles.

     "You were spared my familie," William says, his words drawling upon already elongated vowels. "It would not have mattered," he grins now, a look on his face of helpless knowledge. "I would still have sought a Henry. I have been chasing him all my life. Setting people up to disappoint me, because it was familiar, mais oui? I know... I do not need your approval or your validation. I know that it is pointless to seek it from anyone, and it is both a habit and a longing. It is nothing you imposed but something ... I tried to create because it is what I understood. She was not right about that." For it was Alexandra who said those things. "Though, it does gall me that ... maybe she was right about me. So... I will deal with that another night. Not tonight. It is bad enough I want my papa. I will suffer only that indignity tonight."
     William closes the space between you. He looks at you, he smiles, and then there is another kiss, a brush of his mouth, affection, love, simply. "We are friends, lovers, you are my husband. And I know...you are not Henry, and you never could be that for me. It... has only caused us pain. It is what drove me to Italy the first time, I think. My need to prove to you, to impress, to ... I don't know... to make a fool of myself?" He smirks at that. "I suppose some night in the future, I will have to apologize also to Alexandra," he speaks her name? "That... was not fair of me. It...does not mean that she did not have her part, for she did. She was only too happy to step into Eleanor's place for me. But ... perhaps it is not what she wanted either."
     William laughs as you mention Zeus. Eyebrows arching, he inclines his head and peers down at you, that Olympian face well-suited to beauteous Jupiter. "Pallas Ian? Better from the head of Zeus than from the ...frothy sea like Aphrodite." He wrinkles his nose, all too aware of the metaphor. "I like that. Pallas Ian," William chuckles, shaking his head as he leans back against the sofa, his head resting on the cushion, rolling upon it to turn toward you. "I just want you to love me, to look at me and want me," the mouth pulls in a smile, "... to be my friend as you have been and my companion in this life. Now that... I see it," this thing with him and Henry, "...I will try not to put it on you."

     Ian grins, shrugging. Childe has never had much meaning to him. No one's ever called him one, at least not to his face. And then again, childe of whom? A boy who was not much older than he? No, for all he knows, he is the first of a line of two.
     He leans in and closes his eyes, Ian does, murmuring softly, "Don't think about apologizing to her," Ian waves off. He laughs. "She wasn't right...and she doesn't deserve anything from either of us."
     "Well, except a sharp whack across the head," Ian smiles.

     The guttural sound of a pleased Plantagenet. It moves against you as he pulls you in, arms around you. You do not have to see the grin to know it is there, and to know what it looks like. The sound is all you need. "Now that would be something worth visiting Barcelona to see," he chuckles. "We do have a ship..." the voice drawls in its humor. The rest is unspoken. Just his arms around you and a matter closed for now.
     Maybe in knowing such a thing, one may be freed from it. Maybe he will finally be able to give his father ...and himself...and you... a deserved, long-awaited peace. His hand brushes against the gold of your hair and his hands slip beneath the open folds of the robe. He doesn't know three men who deserve it more.
     "I don't think we should go far tonight," he says against your ear. You know that sound for what it is, and the meaning of such a suggestion. "Maybe... not even off this sofa," the lips brush a grin against your ear and his hands slide, curling beneath you and cupping you to him.
     We...
     We are a family of two. The second childe is already forgotten, the twice-brother not thought on as such. No... there is only the two of you. That is the way it has always been.
     That is the way that I like it...

Posted by rowan at August 17, 2004 03:09 PM