It may be nearly Spring, but the nights remain cool. The breeze portends the change, a blowing in of another season - almost the six-hundred and sixtieth. Such a large number, that. The years tick and roll by, some barely noticed. A year...such an artificial notion. Six-hundred and sixty Springs. That makes far more sense. Then Summer will come. The temperature rises here, but barely. Nothing like that of Spain, when the nights come and you are told that the day's heat was the same. The earth cools so little there, sometimes. Radiant beneath the feet, and rising.
     In the garden closest to the river stands Edward, looking off the stone ledge into the rushing stream that floods around Fleurlil. Despite the season's slight warming, the water remains winter-cold before it begins to dwindle and smooth with the year's advance. Eyes look left, into the dense copse of trees from whence the water floors, then right, downstream to the small castle, the water's thrashing of Fleurlil's stone firmament, then around to continue on its way in the darkness. The rushing din is loud, requiring a voice to raise in order to be heard.

     Then Summer will come...
     With soft steps at first, then in riotous dance, summer will come. Something like the six-hundred and fifty-ninth summer, yet different. Like they were distant cousins, strangely familiar, one coming and then going, only to be replaced by another of its kin the following year.
     With soft steps, still learning the territory, Valan Montague comes down from the house (for that is what it is, despite its size), his shoes padding down the grass, a mixture of green and yellow. Even as he is. His golden hair, gold-green eyes. He wears layers of thin t-shirts over jeans, a jacket (yours) over that. Still a bit couture for the country (country couture, indeed) -- but he is who he is.
     "I am amazed at the sky, still," he says, his voice popping up hopefully over the sound of the rushing stream. "I've brought beer," Valan continues in French, a smile to his tone. He holds forth two green bottles. A spring beer for the warming weather.

     It would have been just fine to see you - he certainly heard the arriving. But a beer? That was unexpected. Edward twists and smiles, brows arching at the surprise. "Good idea," he compliments, winking before he moves to a patch of grass to take a seat. Bend, crouch, settle. Edward exhales then, glancing to his right to see whether he'll be joined.
     "What's so amazing about the sky?" he wonders idly, going on with the conversation. Hand comes up and twists the top off, despite the fact that most mortals would need an opener.

     He hands the other bottle to you... si vous plais... his own coming out to take the one just opened. It's coordinated, this, and well-practiced. And all with a smile, as if you would do otherwise than to open the bottle for him. "That you can see it...without all the lights...almost as it was before any of us were here. It's one of the last pristine things left. The highest of the stars, and the depth of the oceans."
     He looks up at it. "But, maybe that is all just shite, as you say. Anyway," Valan says with a smile beside you, "I like it. And I am full of good ideas... it is my... special skill." That and bullshit. Gold-green eyes flicker to you, their color perhaps lost in the darkness but not their shine, as he reaches out for the green glass bottle. "What's so amazing about the stream?"

     Trade in progress, Edward looks to his hand as he replies, "This stream was here when I was born," he observes. "But then again," second bottle now open, "...so was the sky, I guess." But the water was far closer.
     That thread ended, Edward looks back to the water once more. "How are you - are you going out?" he wonders, glancing over from his seat. Knees are drawn up and the beer is dangled between them in clasped hands.

     "I will not tease you and act surprised that there was running water," he teases by not teasing it, smiling in his cant-wise way as he pauses to take a swallow of the golden liquid held in the green glass. "It is pretty, your land. There were more farms then, I suppose..."
     Valan takes a seat after you. "No, not tonight. Well, not out past coming outside with you to share a beer with my ami. I like being outside with you. There is ...something about it, I do not know what. It suits you, and I like you." He drinks again, his eyes on the countryside of your family, and then lastly upon the countryside of your face.
     "I am well. How are you?" he wonders quietly.

     Edward shrugs as he has for the last months here. He's alright. Somewhere in the middle of somewhere. Not unhappy, not inspired. Just existing. "It is pretty," he takes on, giving the land its due. He has never been so attached to it. "There were nothing but farms," he says, outside of Fleurlil itself. And even on my father's land, there was farming, yes. Some by our own staff, some by others to whom farm rights were allowed." But even as he speaks it, it is just the story of a place.
     Edward stops and takes a swallow of his beer, closing his eyes in it.
     When he exhales, his eyes open ahead to the river again. "Do you want to go back to London?" he asks gently.

     He looks at you, a swallow paused. "Would you believe I am ambivalent?" Valan smiles a little. "If you are ready to return to London, Eduard, we can return." Valan turns his body more toward you, the bottle held loosely in his hands. "I am content either way. I have not lacked for things to do." He smiles.
     No, in fact he has gone to Tours. He has gone shopping. He has had friends seek him out by phone. He has occasionally indulged them. He has even gone to Paris.
     "There is no need to rush on my account. But if you are ready, oui, we may return..." Now he drinks, a tilt of the bottle and the light, golden liquid is tasted, swallowed. It is just the thing on an early spring night.

     "What would we do," Edward's voice lowers, requiring the skills of a vampire, "...if we didn't." He looks to the river again, the noise filling the space. "What would we do here?"

     "Well, I do not know. I have inherited land in Bordeaux. There is certainly reason enough to stay. For my part, I could return to my former passion of wine-making and writing. When I need the dance clubs, I will go to Tours or Paris. I hear Richelieu has a club or two."
     "If you wish it, there is a way to make it whatever it is you want," Valan continues. He takes a swig and he resettles, stretching out to lie back on the soft grass, an arm behind his head for a pillow and knees pulled up. A hand reaches, fingers skimming the surface of you. "What would make you happy?"

     He's listened quietly, the river running through his head. At the question, Edward's attention becomes visible, and he looks over. "I don't know," he says softly, drinking again from his bottle. Brows arch and he shrugs, as he's done on other nights. "I don't know, ami."

     "Then we could be anywhere, here as much as the next place," Valan counters. He turns his head against his arm, looking up at you. "Ami... is there anything I can do? Hmm? You keep it all in, where I cannot get to it. Which... it is your right to do, but I cannot help you if you do not tell me what the matter is..."
     "It is perfectly acceptable to not know, too," Valan adds with the trace of a smile. "Ami, we do not always know what will make us happy. Or where we want to be. I ... am happy with my life, happy with my man, therefore... I could be anywhere..."

     Brown eyes sidle to see you, though a smile does not follow. "I am glad you are happy, ami," Edward murmurs softly. "That...makes me happy to know it. That..." he looks ahead blankly, "...is something I need to hear. That makes me happy inside."
     He does not say anything to the question posed to him firstly.

     "Good.... I'm glad," Valan quietly murmurs. He watches you still. He does not press for answers. If you wish to speak, you will. If not, there's nothing he could do to make you. He is a wise man, Valan Montague, to know when and when not to speak.
     For a time there is silence, the stars and the stream. And that is all.
     Valan curls upward, enough to finish off his beer without spilling it all over him, swallowing it as he lies back upon the grass once more. "I love you, Eduard. And yes... I am happy..."

     "Good," Edward whispers in turn, falling back onto his elbows with the beer carefully held. From there, he sighs as he turns onto his facing side. Toward castle and companion. "I am a man with nothing, ami. Nothing but you."

     "If you have me, then you are a man with a great something, not nothing. And what of you? Hmm? Of your strengths? And what of your friends," he murmurs, his hand reaching and skimming your hair. How he loves your hair, he is forever playing with it. Desire always at his fingertips when he touches it. Always, he can think of the first night with you, and the night you had amber around your throat for the first time...
     "Why do you think you have nothing, Eduard?" Valan wonders, seriously. "To want nothing is one thing," your philosophy of living light, as it were. "But to have a life...and to think you have nothing...is another..."

     "I guess I want nothing," Edward corrects. No ties, no attachments. Not even to where he first and last existed. His brow tightens slightly. "Well," he grins, "I want you. That...is the extent of my list."

     "It is a modest list," a warm but soft tease, "...but quality over quantity, I always say. The rest, Eduard, is window dressing, isn't it? The set, that is all." Valan shrugs a little. "Whether it is Fleurlil or Paris or London or even America doesn't much matter. Apart from convenience. So what sort of window-dressing do you prefer? I think that is the question then..."

     "Window-dressing?" his brow quirks. "I do not understand, ami."

     "If I am what matters, and there are no other attachments, then the location is just... scenery. This is what I mean about window-dressing. You have no attachment to London? If not, why return? Unless you like the scenery...." Valan's other arm folds behind his head, and he turns his face to the stars.

     Edward stops a moment, thinking on this. Eyes focus on the castle ahead, then look down to you facing the sky. "I...want to do something, somewhere," he adds, rather confused it seems. Edward rubs his eyes, then tries to narrow on the castle. "I guess I should do something." Useful? Purposeful? But he has no great desire to, or so says his expression. "I could do as I have done," he mumbles half-to himself.

     "Should. That is my father's favorite word. You should do this, Valan, you should do that. If you were smart, my son, you would do ...should do...anything but what you are in fact doing. It is a horrible word. Want is better. If you want something... something to do, employment or enjoyment, political position, then that is meaningful. And I would support you, of course. But should belies an obligation." Which is in diametric position to your own philosophic alignment of being obligated to no one thing. Apart from himself. Now.
     "You want to do something, that I will believe," Valan continues quietly. "Have you given that something any thought?"

     Edward grins, eyes and nose turning downward. "You are smart," Edward smirks. And indeed, you are finely educated in ways he can only imagine. "Is that what they teach in schools?"
     "We'll back to London," Edward says with relative ease, sitting up slightly. His lips angle to the side, and there's a sudden burst of confidence. "I have given it thought, but...I dismissed it. Did not understand it. And now I do..."

     "Some of it," Valan grins in turn. "I learned a great many unplanned lessons. But, that is the school of life, is it not? The unexpected." And you were unexpected. And he has learned from that, too. "Back to London it is, then. I like our brownstone. I'd hate to leave it," he sounds suddenly fond of London, his smile curling.
     Valan curls upward and turns, twisting to hover over you, then to straddle your lap, knees to the sod. Slowly he settles upon you, exhaling, quite pleased. It is his favorite spot of all, your lap. "Good, then the vacation is over. We go back home. To the city of cities, regardless of what Paris may say..."

     "Have I bored you out here?" Edward wonders, his view changed. Bottle to the side, he brings his hands behind his head. "Too long away? Me...not saying anything? Just...thinking?"

     "No," Valan answers it easily and truthfully. "I am a man fully capable of finding my own amusements. It has been lovely, being here. A nice change, really, from all of the hectic socializing in London. I enjoyed it. Am enjoying it. What's not to love? You, the bed we first shared, exquisite wine, the forays into Blois, which I have come to like quite a bit, and Tours..."
     Gold-green eyes look at you between the golden curtains of lashes as he leans in for a kiss. A kiss he takes. A kiss he gives. "Not bored," he assures. "And I knew that you needed to think... and that when the time was right, you would speak about it. So... I was happy to let you be, and to be here, Eduard. I'm your friend as much as your lover, ami..."

     The last comment brings a blushing smile. Perhaps no one has ever said these things to him. His expressions seem to bear that out. He appreciates it, in his silence.
     "Maybe one more trip to Blois, hmm? I will show you...well, it looks nothing like I recall it. But there are a few nooks that still hold true. I will them to you?" he offers politely. You may wish to decline.

     "I would love to see them..." he says. Decline such an invitation? Never. "One more trip to Blois. I should like that. I will buy myself a shirt with a porcupine on it." The grin blossoms not simply on his mouth but in his eyes, beneath his skin.
     "Just think, ami, how much worse the battles would have been if you had had a Starbucks then as Blois does now. All of those knights hopped up on espresso. It would have been a terrible sight," Valan winks, and with a brush of his lips to yours he sits up. "Are you ready to go inside now? I only brought one round of beer... "
     The rest is inside...

     "Actually," one brow rises thoughtfully, "I like outside, ami." Edward's hands come to rest on fencer's thighs. London doesn't afford such time outdoors in quiet, beneath the stars, on grass.

~*~          ~*~

     I like outside, too...
     Mon Dieu...
     A hand comes up, lazing across his face in a brushing rub and then against the broad chest of his man. His man. And there is nothing like this man, he thinks. Or his land.
     There is a cool breeze that would make him reach for his shirts and jacket if he were mortal, but he barely feels it, more than the motion of it. The smell of the sweet grass, the water. You.
     Many a woman has ruined a moment like this by asking myriad questions: what are you thinking, what are you feeling, what do you think of me, how do you feel about me. Peppering the air with their quiet insistence. But men... at least these men... know a good thing when they see it.
     There is simplicity in this, Valan thinks to himself. Of not thinking. Of feeling everything but communicating it in this closeness. It is enough. Gold-green eyes lift to the sky, the swirling stars overhead. "A part of me, ami," he murmurs, "...will miss this peace." Peace? Well, relatively. His phone still rang, just not as much. He ignored it here. It is easy to do here. It is hard to ignore London when she is all around you. "But I look forward to the sounds and colors of the city again..."

     Grass rustles as Edward shifts his arm beneath his head. His strengthening, curling arm is pale against so much spring green, and his hand disappears under his hair. One foot comes flat against the cool grass, knee to the sky as his thigh tightens. Like his lover's, Edward's hand comes across his own chest, as if missing the recent touches there. But his hand is not yours, and he smiles slightly when other fingers touch him.
     "I'd agree, ami," Edward finally exhales afterward, "...but I don't know what I expect. I do like the grass. The stars. I had not noticed them so much in a while," he admits.
     Not since I was living, when I was here. When this was home and it was mine. When I still breathed, breathed it all in. Maybe it was more real then than now. And it's certainly the first time I've been outside...with anyone. Not anyone else.
     Edward suddenly looks over, his last words still on the air. He narrows his eyes to see you, and as quickly, they open wide again as he looks to the sky, a breath of air sharply taken.

     Valan moves, rolling slowly over, his arm gently slung across your chest, his head at your shoulder. "I think it is a good thing," comes the murmur of his voice at your skin, the feel of the breath taken, useful only in speaking, "... to take a moment to look at things you have not noticed for a while, to be in a space you had forgotten. It is a good way to clean the palate of life, I think."
     "It was good, coming here, Eduard," Valan continues. "Now, we can return to London with faces turned to the future. Clean palates," he murmurs again. A clean slate. It was needed for him, too.
     Valan closes his eyes, he inhales you, he kisses you, his mouth parting at your skin.

     "Clean palates," Edward murmurs. He sounds unconvinced. "There's no future there," he whispers, "I don't think. Our future," he murmurs, eyes to the sky, "...is not about that city, ami. I am glad we are here, together, upon the grass, in the breeze," Edward smiles, face to you. "But our future is out there," Edward's head rolls to the sky again, "...somewhere. Sometime." It's not here yet. He doesn't know what it is, but it does not lie with London.
     And that's alright too, it seems. Not with El-Adar, not in the power struggles of London.
     "I am glad you like it here too. You are too French," Edward says in his best Spanish. He laughs a little, hearing the sound of his own voice.

     "Oui? Et vous, Eduard..." he chuckles. "I refuse to speak Spanish," his French is warm and proud, coiling and sensual. "I should rather speak Italian." He is quiet for a time, his hand on your chest moving idly, wandering in thought across the landscape of your form. It's like ...brushing his hand across this earth that is around you both.
     But he would never say this to you. You would scoff at the Romanticism. Not take credit for the similarities.
     "So, if our future is not there, why do we bother with it?" he wonders softly, his mouth at your shoulder parting, kissing.

     Edward grins, eyes slanting and chin dipping to see the hand on this chest. "Because we have lifetimes. And we can be so easily bored until...sometime comes. I don't know what awaits for us, ami," Edward in a rare, future-forward moment, "...I do not. But London is not it. It will come for us," Edward says, giving a soft kiss. "Whatever it is."
     He sighs, shifting against the cool grass again. "I do not have so many answers - I am not as smart as you," he teases, biting his bottom lip. There must be something else for us.

     "I forget," the young vampire remarks, his mouth pulling in a slant. "I do not know how to do a decade even, hmm? Barely," he chuckles. "I almost had three," decades, "....so... maybe I am not so smart. You are kind to humor me," gold glimmers in the wink.
     "So, there are no answers," Valan murmurs, lifting his head. His eyebrows arch upward. "Well, that certainly makes things exciting..." His mouth holds a curling smile, a leopard in sunlight that smile. "I am looking forward to it. Whatever it is..."
     He leans over you, his mouth tugging at yours. Tease for a tease. "I don't want to know what it is," Valan whispers. "I am content simply to be there when it arrives..."

     "I want to know," Edward grins, making sure his lips move across yours as he speaks. "I am almost eager to know," Edward confesses. There must be something else.
     "Until then," he smiles, "...I think I'll make someone's life miserable." And he seems to have an idea on whose life that will be.

Posted by rowan at March 07, 2005 10:28 PM