There is a smile that has become universal. It is, itself, an archetype of all smiles in all places of all times. It is captured in several paintings, this smile, though rarely on the lips that truly bore it (though you have purchased or stolen such examples in the past, have you not, his mouth found here and there). It is on his mouth again, living there, first and best. Blushed and full....
     The bed is still now, finally. In a few short hours it will be dawn and this neverending night will finally end, and the bed will be forced to quiet in a seeming, though we all know very temporary, permanence...
     His head turns on his pillow, dark, resonant color upon a crimson sheet, and his body turns slightly, that is all that is needed to close the space that had begun to form between you in the cessation of your bodies meeting one another in what some call lovemaking but what the two of you actually sometimes refer to as war.
     Or rutting like the roebucks in the field...
     Weasels in a cave...
     Indigo eyes look at you, and the smile deepens even though it does not spread wide into a grin. No, the smile is too satisfied to tease you now. That mouth, the one blushed from your kissing, your skin, the one held secreted on canvases, curves archaic for you. Mona Lisa has nothing on him. William's hand brushes against your golden hair, just a light touch that conveys much...

     The bed rustles only slightly as Ian shifts upon his back, still staring at the ceiling. His gaze has been there for some time, since he fell upon his side of the bed as marked conclusion. When the hand touches him, his eyes glance over and he grins and licks his bottom lip. Ian holds back a laugh, brows arching as he exhales. Still, it...and you...amaze him.
     He shifts, trying to make himself more comfortable. Another sigh follows, and Ian settles into a satisfied grin.
     "Better than in the book," Ian notes for the record, remembering one of the last bits he'd been reading. "I should stop reading those things," he thinks, then thinks better, "...ach, but I'm addicted, I confess," he admits, looking over to you. His own hand lifts to touch your stomach. "Oh, but," Ian quirks, "...we've had that conversation before too...we are repeating ourselves..."

     The stomach beneath your hand shifts in his quiet laughter, and his arms stretch above his head, folding beneath it. A good pose for such a duke. "We have much better dialog," he lazes in Gaelic, as much as Gaelic could ever be said to 'laze'. That mouth of mouths quirks a bit of a smirk. "Or at least you do," William chuckles. "I am not so sure mine is so ... literate..."
     That's a fine word...
     His arms unfold and he turns his head to look at you again, the smirk shifting again, this time to something far more intimate. "I like this conversation... and your hand where it is..." he notes. "It is okay to repeat conversations if they are worthy of being repeated. And you and I discussing sex and risque novels is something I never tire of, amours." Indigo, deep blue-violet color, sparkles in his wink to you. A person could fall into those eyes. The color of the Mediterranean at midnight...
     "I like it when you read them to me," William murmurs. "It reminds me, as if I needed such reminding, that there is very little reason, amours, that we should ever leave a bed this decadently comfortable, with company such as we make."

     "Well, this," Ian's hands extend, "...always happens when I read to you." And when he doesn't. "But," he nods, "...you're right. This is what we have become, laird. Useless to all," Ian grins, "...except for each other." Lamentations should begin, but instead, Ian smiles in the resignation of what's happened.
     Biting his lip, Ian's eyes wander upwards again. "I'm not really sure about the dialog," he goes on in Gaelic. He pauses, listening to the recording in his head once more. "Well, maybe we're better."

     "Le duc et le comte," William grins, indigo there for you, greeting you with that warmth and that depth, with that face, as you look up, "...se trouvent de nouveau dans le lit. Comment courent-ils un pays entre eux?" The grin tempers into a serious, tender look. "Je ne sais pas, mais ils sont heureux..."
     The Plantagenet hand lands upon your head again, fingers brushing against the gold. "We are better," he assures once more in Gaelic, that mouth slanting a smile again. "But... read a little and we shall prove it. I will try to contain myself when you hit something risque."
     His hand lifts, his arm lifting with it. With beckoning fingers, he asks you to come nearer and he makes room for you.
     Is that wise?

     "I'd rather hear," Ian murmurs, lifting himself onto his elbows and closing the last bit of space, "...what in the world, pray tell, were you saying?" He chuckles and snuggles, his white-blonde hair wisping at your shoulder. "Sometimes, I mean...well, when I am actually paying attention...I think, 'what did he just say'?" Ian smirks, he looks up, turning over half onto his stomach so he might see you better. His elbow comes to rest even with your head, and his hand cups his cheek as he hovers. "I'm not sure, laird, that you even really know."

     "I don't remember," William chuckles, lying. You can tell, because he's looking at your chin. That, and there is just a hint of red tones beneath the bronze and the olive, something roseate there. Like Olympian Humility. It doesn't show itself very often.
     "I was giving praise to your hips," he admits, turning his head on the pillow again. "Singing out their praises as I was grabbing them," he clarifies. "And your thighs. And of course the nice, tight grip...as always..." He comes by the name Guillaume honestly. His great-grandfather of Aquitaine would have appreciated such ... odes of praise. He once put the events of a threesome down in writing and called it a song. "...the rest, I do not remember, mais non..."
     "Okay," William grins, "...there was all that business about my coming...or going...somewhere. I think I said 'going' in Gaelic. I sometimes forget..."

     Ian looks skeptical. "It's hard to believe your memory is so poor, but somehow, you can remember what you painted at a hovel in Florence," he tosses out there. Ian smiles, shaking his head. "I don't know why you like my hips so much," Ian grumbles, looking down himself. "They are nothing special, laird. I think," Ian half-rolls backwards, "...well, my thighs are not so terrible, though." He smirks at himself, falling into a thought of when he was living and how much running he did...

     The grin is immediate and wide. Not to be trusted or believed, surely. Of course he remembers more than he is saying. When you half roll backwards to look at your own thighs, William gets a much better view of them himself. "Your hips are perfect for my hands. Your thighs are strong, the legs of a ... young, Scottish gamesman in training," after a fashion. "Your back, as your stomach, is absolute perfection. I can scarcely believe that there have been no men before me who have used it as a table, eating every meal from its surface simply to avoid being parted from it..."
     William clears his throat at that long, winding, semi-poetic ode, in Gaelic no less and smirks at himself. "See what you make me do," he murmurs, then that mouth of his, the archetypal mouth, spreads, smoothening its way into a slow slant. He leans in, arms surrounding you, his mouth at your ear, just beneath it. "A young man, in the prime of his life, the pinnacle of Youth, and I get to have him in my bed forever. So, I sing praises to him. I could not help it. It is not possible to make love to you and not say such things..."

     Ian, grabbed, laughs brightly. He smolders when whispers tickle his ear, but looks askance with some skepticism. "I don't know about prime," he murmurs, aware of his mixed feelings on his apparent youth. "A little too young, maybe," Ian says softly, believing you generously kind to his fragility on this topic. He shrugs a little and peers at you for confirmation.
     "It would be different if...I were older-looking, yes?" Ian wonders.

     "Hmm... prime," he assures again. "A man is said to be at his sexual prime when he is... eighteen, not twenty-five. I, personally, do not think it is fair to peak so soon." Now it is William's turn to hover over you. He lies upon his side, an arm thrown over your side, his other now propping up his head. "You would look a little different, I suppose. I like you the way you look now. I would not want you to look like anyone else. Not even an older you," he says against your mouth, leaning in, his hand cupping your face as he does so.
     Wrapping you back up in his hold, William smiles against your ear, breathing there, simply, for a few moments. "You look like the pinnacle, the artist's ideal of the passing of Youth into Adulthood. I could carve a statue of you and stand it beside 'David' and you, amours, would beat him..."

     Ian seems comforted, smiling a little. A blush, a delicate embarrassment. "I don't think so, Gui," the epithet that perhaps is the most intimate for him. "But your point is...well-taken," the businessman agrees, seeking some distance for his ever-churning emotions -- especially so when the topics are those closest to himself.
     Another look. A smirk and twisting of his nose. "David? Really?" Ian chuckles softly. "He has better hips," he observes.

     "You will not let me capture it on film, so you are just going to have to take my word for it," William grins, you held to him, there is space enough for you to see distance and refuge all in the sanctuary of William's embrace. He is settling for the night, you can feel it. The shift to hold you, to get into a comfortable position. When he finds it, he stills.
     "He does have nice shoulders, but you have much better hips. Legs. Your back is finer. You are most assuredly better endowed," the languid baritone pulls in warm humor. David was not so blessed, as they say. "Which, of course, pleases me immensely. Your vigor, your.... enthusiasm, all this I praise, and am thankful that all of these elements may be found in one person, and that the person is you..."

     Ian's grey eyes narrow. "What did you do?" He wonders, half-smiling afterwards. "Go on, tell me, Gui..." All the lavish praise! Something must have happened.

     "Ah.... what did I do," he murmurs, eyes closing and mouth forming a smirk. "I fell in love with you." An indigo eye opens and a black eyebrow quirks upward as if he is waiting to see the reaction to that.
     William closes his eyes again, grinning. "I am innocent until proven guilty. I have no comment. You can call my lawyers, mais oui. They make all my statements..."

     "You know," Ian drawls, thinking again, "...lawyers. Tall, broad shouldered, taking off their suits."
     "Can I borrow one?"

     His laughter is quiet, held mostly in his chest. "I will put on more cologne, get a new suit, and you can close your eyes and pretend. How about that..." No lawyers. And no pilots. His hand lifts, settling beneath your chin, and William lifts it, tilting your mouth to his own.
     "You can be in your office," William murmurs, mouth to your chin, "... I can come in with some of your papers... you can have me on your desk..." It wouldn't be the first time.

     Ian's eyes travel from your eyes to your lips. He exhales softly, and then his smile pulls to the right. "You'd be a terrible attorney, but..." Ian grins brighter, "...I don't think it matters so much. I like it. I will.." he taps his lip, "...make sure I am in my office for a while tomorrow evening."

     There is no argument from William on being a poor barrister. He prefers to be the judge and jury anyway. But he can dress the part, and then some. "I will send one of my lawyers by then," he grins at your chin, then your mouth.
     It will be the last kiss of the night. He makes it count. Wide and warm, it is reminiscent of hours ago, that same heat called to the surface so easily, expressing itself so fully, his hand resting on your hip, fingers curling there.
     It will be there when you wake...
     William opens his eyes, getting his last look until next evening. "I love you," he says. Always it is the first thing and the last thing said these nights.

     Ian nods, then closes his eyes as he puts his nose to yours. I love you... he thinks, leaving your words as the last.

Posted by rowan at May 20, 2004 02:32 PM