He has seen more of the city today than he has in ages. Each day his walks become longer. A look down a short canal here, a cranny there. Cesare has never had much need to explore Venice in detail, but now, why not? It occupies him for hours and hours, in between the stops for cafe or a gelati.
     It is a relief when the sun finally begins to fade and set. Down a dead end he walks, slowly fading with each step, until he suddenly appears walking across a bedroom within a house in Poitiers, France. It is an artform now, done so simply and easily. A transition from one place to another. He stops as the room manifests around him and turns about.
     The shared bed and the man upon it. Cesare's mood lifts slightly to know his Alire is fine. He closes his eyes and sighs to the ceiling, beginning the ritual of stepping out of his shoes and unbuttoning his shirt. It's not a labor, mind you, just an activity that transitions the mind to where he now needs to be, just as his walking did for him physically. Cesare stands by the bed and looks down at his lover there, then tosses his shirt aside to a chair.

     He does not move for many moments, but your presence is still somehow felt. Soon, perhaps sooner than it would have otherwise, his fingers begin to move. Something in him begins to animate. The soul has returned from a day of study to a night of study. But he does not yet have the power to speak.
     It is no emergency. It is you, returning from Venice. There is the smell of sea salt. There is the smell of sunlight (and it has a smell). Something citrus. A faint glimmer of coffee.
     Blue eyes open. When first they open fully, the are so fair a blue as to nearly be clear. But as seeing truly fills them, those fair blue eyes are surrounded by a darker blue, cobalt recognition bleeding into the otherwise skyclad look. He blinks. And then Alire smiles.
     He still wears that look that he went to sleep with. He was ... well loved, well tended, adored and it lingers with him. He turns a golden head upon the pillow, his body rolling slightly over to follow it, thinking nothing of the many scars upon his back that will be visible as the sheet pulls away. You've made him forget about those.
     "Good evening, tesoro," he says in Italian. "You smell of adventure," Alire continues quietly. He closes his eyes and he sighs, making a sound of delight as he does. "Coffee... limonata...sunlight...you passed by a garden... I will say in the old quarter of Cannaregio. Hmm... and a branch of lilac brushed your shirt...I can smell it from here..."

     Cesare shakes his head. "You are amazing, bello - why are you getting up?" he wonders. Already at the waistband of his trousers, he allows them to fall away from his slender hips. "I was going to join you....I am a few minutes late," he acknowledges. "Unless...you need to get up?" and go out to do work.

     He is not getting up. He is only rolling over. "Hmm... I am not going anywhere... if you are to come to me." Alire smiles, his face against the pillow. He watches you unclothe. He blushes at how much he enjoys it. "I am so obvious," he whispers. Alire shakes his head and then shifts upon the bed again, pulling back the sheets for you to come join him.
     "You are not late... is it late?" He wonders, but it does not trouble him. "No, I do not have anything on my agenda today. I checked with my secretary before I went to sleep." He is awake for hours, sometimes, after you have already drifted off. "I do have a performance to attend tomorrow night. I will be out late. I will apologize now in advance. But... maybe we can squeak out a few hours still..."

     Ah, Cesare murmurs with parted lips. He grins as you watch him. "My timing is perfect then, bello," he says as he crawls into bed next to you. Cesare comes to a rest on his side next to you, expecting conversation for a bit. "It is alright about tomorrow. I can visit with Albizzina if she is not so busy."
     "So tell me of this sense of smell of yours," Cesare teases, a finger tickling your stomach. "I had a limonata and coffee, it is true. This girl," Cesare beams, '...she was selling it. She was adorable, Alire. So sweet. And the gardens, yes, and certainly I was in Cannaregio," he confirms.

     You are close to him, and it comforts him. His hand reaches for your own. He must have some contact. "Hmmm...? Oh, well... my senses are very refined after so long a time on this earth. I can smell your day. It hovers around you like an aura. I am glad I did not have this gift in the Middle Ages," Alire chuckles quietly.
     He bites his bottom lip as you tickle his stomach. His skin is not as warm as yours, but your proximity will change that. "You had a good day, it seems. Sweet girls and lemonade. Summer in Italy...I am sure it is very nice. I can smell sunlight, too. It is my only real memory of it now. Apart from the occasional glance. But it smells like salt, where sweat has dried, and green grass, and some quality of warmth that can be tasted. When you are a vampire... you have to learn how to... enjoy such things in other ways. Not unlike the blind learning to see with their other senses."

     "I can always bring you sunlight," Cesare reminds, "...whenever you want it. The scents and the sun, without harm, bello." He doesn't want you to miss anything. "Or...I can work on a spell that...you could go outside in the sun, but it shields you from the sun's rays. I..." he nods, "I will work on that too."
     Fingers twine around yours, moving gently. "I talked to my friend about the thing I was telling you of. The one in the city."

     "It is the price I have to pay, tesoro. I am okay with it. I like to smell it. But... that you love me so to deliver the sun to my door and to shield me from it..." Alire pause and he leans forward, gently kissing you. "Thank you, my love."
     Alire settles back to listen to you, his hand clasping yours in kind. "Yes? This is the one with the unfaithful woman, yes? How did that go, tesoro?"

     Cesare nods, hand moving to your arm. "I don't think I have ever talked so much," he confesses. "I asked him whether it was true and we discussed whether or not the punishment being discussed was appropriate. And about pride," he nods. "No man wants to be cuckolded, bello. Maybe he listened. I hope so. But I said it," he shrugs sheepishly, unused to leaping to anyone's defense.
     "Part of me wanted to tell him to go ahead, be stupid," Cesare blushes, actually embarrassed that such a thought came to mind. "But I didn't. I should have just left him with his problem, I sometimes think. Not gotten involved."

     "But that would not be the act of a friend. A friend should speak if another friend is about to make a mistake, hmm? Especially if that mistake has repercussions for others. I think you did the right thing. And, if he heard you, you may have prevented a great wrong. Is it so bad to care?"
     Alire smiles a little. "It is also okay to have an inner voice who says such things. I have a good friend, William. I think I mentioned him to you? He is a ... very passionate man. Sometimes his passions can get ahead of him. Sometimes in my mind I used to say things to him I would never dare actually tell him. Especially when he was not being a good mate to his partner. I had to bite my tongue more than once."
     As your hand moves to his arm, he leans into your hold, giving his body to you. He smells faintly of last night, having not yet made it to the shower. "A man's pride. Pride goeth before the fall for a reason. There is little else that will bring a man down more than his own pride. I can imagine he was wounded. It is not something that you wish to have happen to you..."

     "I would suffer in silence if you cuckolded me," Cesare grins, winking. "I would take it as a badge of honor that you were mine and someone else wanted you badly enough." That's a prideful knight talking, perhaps. "Then I'd injure him badly," he smiles.
     He isn't really too worried on it. You lean in, and his hand massages your shoulder now, nose to your own. He nuzzles slightly, then barely touches his lips to their mate. "This inner voice," he says low, "...it is...harsh. But then sometimes, I say things that seem harsh, and then I wish to retract them and be kind."
     "Will it always be this way for me, bello?" An instinct that now speaks loudly, sometimes forcefully. A confusion on which thing to say: the nice thing or the not-so-nice one.

     He blushes to even think of cuckolding you. "Firstly, there is no one else who is interested in me, and secondly I would never cuckold you. But... I appreciate you beating my non-existent lover and your phantom rival," Alire laughs a little. "I would no doubt be pleased and impressed if you did that, showing me your worth by seriously damaging a pretender to the throne, as it were. But...you know that would never happen. There has only been one for me. Only one, and he is with me now."
     The gentle brush is returned. He could stay here all night. Perhaps he shall. In your arms, so close to you. "Mmm... I love this," Alire whispers. "I think it is... somewhat like that for everyone. Each of us has an inner dialog. Sometimes there are harsh words that must be made more tactful. Sometimes we regret the things we say. I'm no different from you there. You should speak the truth, as much as it is possible..."

     The nod follows. It is the code, is it not? Defend the innocent, speak the truth. "I'll remember," Cesare whispers, kissing again. He lets his lips touch your nose. "Grazie, bello...for suggesting I talk to him."
     "Have you thought more about what we discussed before?" Your resignation. "And our mission, whatever it is we will do?"

     "Mmm, of course, tesoro. I am your friend, hmm? As much as I am your lover, if not more. What sort of friend would I have been to not suggest it." Alire kisses you again, and there is more behind it, though it is still gentle. It is merely.... awake. Not so drowsy as before.
     "Yes... I have given it thought. I think at this time, ami, we have much before us. We may be required to travel, we may wish to travel. Speaking for me... alone... I feel that I am off my path with this assignment. I have made for a smooth transition after the departure of the previous prince, but I am not the man to carry it in the future. I feel this very clearly. And though I step away from this particular assignment at this time, it does not mean that I will never be prince again. Far from it. I expect to have to serve again in the future."

     Another nod follows, and Cesare has his answer. A knight understands what he will and will not do. He'll not belabor the point. "When do we leave? Where will we go?" he wonders, a little lost on what the future holds. The world is so much bigger than he understood it once.

     "We do not have to worry on this now. Though, I think perhaps Prague first. I must attend my yearly confession. But this will not happen immediately, tesoro. We have time to plan. I will want to plan, to have an idea of where we would like to go before I make any overtures to my own....commanders..."
     Alire smiles, his hand lifting and brushing against your hair. "You and I will be together. And we will begin our future..."

     "Our future," Cesare murmurs. Catch him quick, before he falls asleep! A small smile follows at the thought of going off together, to plan something, to have thoughts of a future. The smile grows in just thinking on it. "I will love Prague," he whispers, fingers still caressing, though floating downwards to where the sheet lands at your waist. "It will be like...going to the past and our future, hmm, d'Avignon?"

     Alire smiles. It is a gentle look. But also a heated one as your hand moves its way downward. "It is where it began. What better place to start anew." His arms move against the bedding and your skin, drawing you to him. "We will also go to Switzerland," he speaks quietly between you. "Perhaps it is time to buy that house we talked of..."
     Alire grins, his body lifting but pausing before covering you. "And the geese... it was geese, wasn't it? A view of the lake..." The rest is allowed to fade into a sound held in his throat as he kisses you.
     It is not the kiss of a priest...

     The smile beams radiantly. A wish from centuries ago may find it's realization. "Chateau du lac with our own geese." You remembered, Cesare's look says. The kiss does not dispel his drowsiness, now in exchange for your waking. Instead, he allows himself to relax into both, arms wrapping around you.
     "Who would have thought that Switzerland should see us both again...together..." he whispers, letting himself transport there. Green grass, hills leading into mountains. Such quiet there, shared by two whose lives were nothing but clamor. A wish for then, hopefully still with meaning now.
     The sheet twines around the two of you, disheveled in the motions.

     "Come on, daddy! You promised to take us to the lake!"
     Giancarlo's hands are pulled by two, a boy and a girl, as they drag him across the fields.
     "I know, I'm coming, but we should wait for Alire," he laughs. "Wait for Alire..."
     The girl lets go as she runs back towards the farmhouse. "Alire, Alire!" she calls, "Hurry!"

     Cesare's eyes flash open in the kiss, and he realizes his legs have climbed upwards, wrapping around you. He smiles and embraces stronger, as if he could make the dream a reality.

Posted by rowan at May 15, 2005 10:17 PM