The orangerie has come along well in the last month. Arranged around the greenhouse, the trees were replanted in large golden ceramic pots that will allow them to flourish over the next years. Near a copse of two (along with other tropicals), Ian stands, dressed in one of Dionnach's hand-knit sweaters, cream, and a pair of chocolate slacks. He folds his arms across his chest, shoulder leaning against the nearest sturdy orange. After a sigh, his white hair touches the tree as well, and he closes his eyes.
Above, the stars are visible within the spotless panes of glass. A breeze moves through the greenhouse, as some of the panels are tipped open, left so by their handcranks. Someone will come by later, to close the panels and the greenhouse for the morning.
A change of clothes was needed as home was reached, as guests (both sleeping and not) were shown (and in one case, moved) to their lodgings. Valan and Edward comfortably on the third floor. Davydd on the second floor. Like one of the family.
A shower did much to clear the mind's palate. He stood in the shower, he let the water move over him, and the events of the night ran with the water down the sink. And the last vestiges of blood...
Chocolate brown, cocoa upon cocoa, he appears, just the light sweater over like-colored trousers (the jacket left behind). It brings out the brown tones to his black hair, short and creatively disheveled.
"We may have oranges next spring," his voice is deep and quiet. As if you didn't know he was here. You can feel Your William a mile away. "You look good there," he notes, "...a gold thing among the green."
"I brought drinks," William notes. What a man. A bottle of the House Specialty and two glasses.
"You're a good man," Ian grins, turning around upon the tree-touching crown of his head. Only when he sees you does he separate himself, moving towards the bench in the copse. "A thousand droplets to you," Ian smiles, a vampire-greeting if there was one. "I never tire of your compliments," he grins, arranging himself as he sits down.
"How do you feel?" Ian wonders. "The shower gets rid of everything, eh?" affirming the shared sentiment. He feels better, for sure, but quiet holds him.
There's an easy smile, and your husband is reaching for his cigarettes. Everything is back to normal, mais oui? Ah, the blessing of routine. William chuckles a little at the vampire greeting, "May your cups runneth over, mon mari," he pours the drinks, burning cigarette between his lips in the next vampiric moment, a long look as he hands the glass to you. Neat. As you like it.
Smoke is exhaled and William looks at the ash falling to the greenhouse floor harmlessly (it's stone, it can be swept) and then to you. "It is okay, yes?" A little smile. "As long as he is sleeping. I have not had to argue with anyone yet. It went well," he nods. "It was done well. How I feel?" Since he didn't really answer the question and knows it. "A little relieved, I will say...the shower helped," he murmurs. "I am trying not to ... put expectations upon his waking, but to handle what he comes at me with when he does wake."
William takes a seat beside you, turning to look at you once another exhale of smoke (clove). "And what about you?" he wonders, regarding you. "How do you feel, amours?"
"I feel good," Ian evaluates, looking at his glass. It has his attention only a moment before he grins and reaches over for your cigarette. Apparently, he could use a smoke.
"I feel," Ian begins again, "...like I could go upstairs," he blushes, "...and shag until our heads fall off." He winces and looks over, taking another drag of the cigarette while holding it between his index and middle finger, in a 'v'. "Horrible, isn't it?" Ian says, rather blithely, swinging the cigarette around.
Noel Coward would be proud.
An exhale, and Ian offers the cigarette back, frowning. "Maybe I should get my own," he wonders, taking a drink from his glass.
You? Smoke? William stares in surprise as you take the cigarette from his hands, proceed to smoke it like a champion and give it back to him. He offers it back to you. "Keep it, amours... I'll light another..." And a corner of his mouth lifts, a hint of the smile that is to follow...
And there it is...
Spreading, smoothly, backed with warmth, with fire to be truthful, he looks to you as fire seems to leap from his fingertips, the Zippo taken, lit and set down on the bench again all in fractions of moments. Eyebrows lift and the smile becomes a knowing (and agreeing) grin. "A little terrible," he says, the grin sliding sideways, "...but... we are only men, amours," he chuckles softly. "It is comforting, in its way," he notes seriously. "When we are together, it puts the universe back in place and everything is as it should be. There are times, many times, that I long for nothing else. And... after a night like tonight and last night," the cigarette moves in his mouth, dangling, dancing up and down as he speaks, "I should say it would be a dalliance deserved..."
"Well-deserved," Ian harrumphs, twisting to clink his glass to yours. He smiles and takes another smoke. He inhales and lets the smoke drift from his lips around his head. "Put that on the list," he remarks, smiling and follow with more from his glass.
"Oddly enough," Ian goes on, "I am better than I expected. I think I am more concerned as to why that is," he smiles. "Nothing has changed for us, laird. Between us," he half-asks, looking to you.
William considers that for a moment. He wasn't sure what to expect. What it would mean. That uncertainty was certainly counted in the risk column. Along with catatonia and death. But here the two of you sit. As if tonight had not occurred in some ways. The comfort, the intimacy, the easiness with which the two of you exist together -- these are not altered. But there is a strength in you that has been pulled to the fore. A... strange sort of confidence.
William considers you for a moment. You with you cigarette and scotch, golden. He with his cigarette and scotch, dark. Night and Day. "I do not know. I would say... maybe it is because I am already here," he smiles a little. "You do not need to find your duke, your knight, your Almost King," he qualifies. "So, when you embraced him... you have a different relationship. It is not the same. He is not me, or vice versa. I do not know what the relationship will be, or what he will want. He may, in fact, want nothing to do with either of us." He smirks a little at that. "But... if I know Davy," and he fancied that he did, "... he's nothing if not loyal to family and friends. I think... it will... be different. But I do not know how."
William cuts a sudden grin, "It helps, perhaps, that he isn't 'into men' as you say..." He chuckles, tilting his head, taking a swallow of scotch (finally), and then looking to you again.
"But...you were saying... about you... did you expect something... else? That I would look at you differently, as a man other than the man I love before and above all things?" He leans in toward you, voice lowering a notch.
"I don't care so much about Davydd," Ian says coolly, honestly. "My concerns were not for his feelings or mine about him. In fact, I expected my disinterest, forgive laird, in him to continue, and," Ian nods, "...and that is how it is. Nothing has happened," he smokes, frowning. That's amazing.
"And yes, I thought you might...see me differently. Or that I had done something to us..." Ian explains. "That is where my heart lies, Guillaume. Always. And," he smiles, "I am glad that...it feels the same between us..." he bobs his head.
"Nothing to forgive," William notes, a nod of his own. He takes a pull from the cigarette, another swallow of the scotch. Sometimes it mellows him. He looks to you, smile lingering, hovering over his expression. "It is as it should be," he observes. "Nothing has changed." For anyone. On any level.
Well, apart from Davydd...
"It is the same between us, certainement. I love you, you love me. I think you are God's own gift, you think I am incredibly sexy, hot even may I say," he rolls out. "And we want to be in bed. It seems, amours, as if it is in the end like every other night." He chuckles a little.
Even if it isn't...
"For ... in truth... we must put it out of our minds that this occurred at all. So it is good that it has not changed anything, mais oui? I did not, in asking for it to be done, did any damage to you, to us... and you, in doing it... find the same. We ... are fortunate. Now... for Davydd," he shrugs. "I have to hold out hope there, amours..."
"I will be sorry," Ian says, finishing up the cigarette, "...if things change between you and your friend, laird. Though, he had already done such himself. I guess, then, it could not have gone worse."
Ian sits up, and down the rest of his scotch. The cigarette is tossed onto the stone and crushed under foot as the last smoke wafts around Ian's hair, almost invisibly sometimes, against his lighter strands.
"I think I'm ready for another," Ian's brow waggles, and he winks.
"Though never truer words were spoken, Prince William. I find you utterly irresistible. And...hot." As much as a Scottish lad can say such things.
"He had done so," William notes. "And it could have gone much worse. I was worried that I would have to kill him. I have not killed anyone in so long... and someone who mattered? That would have been a bad scene..." He crushes his own underfoot and takes up the pack again, offering it first to you. No opium in these. He has no time to be sedate.
By 'another', he assumed you meant the cigarette...
He chuckles. A Scottish lad can say it. And says it well. Eyebrows waggle-dance at it. "When this is all over and everyone is where they should be, you and I won't be leaving the bed for a few nights. I am of a mind to wallow..." indigo eyes widen a little. "We can make love, have conversations if you like, have dinner in bed, we will have Augustino play the guitar for us ... from another room...it will be like a vacation..."
His eyes brighten. What a marvelous idea!
"And they can sing, and feed us," in all ways possible, "...and we can talk. Mm," Ian thinks, "...and play chess, yes?"
"I thought you hated chess," William chuckles. "Though, you do have the best chess set in all Europe. I dare anyone to top it," he grandly notes. Of course, he means the ones he carved himself.
Yes, his eyes seem to say, you understand what I am getting to. We are, again, of one mind....
"Mais oui... Augustino and Felipe, entertainment, food, you... me..." We no longer have to go to Cadiz -- we already have some of the best of its treasures here. "Would you like to play cards instead? I will let you beat me at cribbage," let you beat him. You mean, like every other time you play?
"...And when I get tired of losing," William says, leaning in toward you again, voice lowering near your year, "...I will take the cards from your hand and give you something else to hold..."
His head tilts and his lips pull into a smile. "Plenty of cards," Ian murmurs, "...and I think I will hold whatever you would like. And then some."
"I think we need a holiday," Ian sighs, looking around the greenhouse. "Not like Venice, but a real holiday, hmm?"
William is rising as you look around the greenhouse, look at the evidence of Girault's appreciation and your treasure. He drops the second cigarette to the ground, he crushes it with his foot, stamping the fire out. In one swallow, he finishes his scotch, and it is an empty glass he holds as he turns to look at you.
"Anywhere you wish to go," he says, "...or nowhere... we can vacation in Moray or from the comfort of our own home." A pause and he smiles. "One of them." You do have three castles from which to choose...
"Anywhere, amours," William murmurs. "Wherever you are, I shall be too..."
Moray. A place unvisited for a while. "Moray," Ian agrees, tapping as your cigarettes are replaced. "And a house full of...delights. I like this," he states, rather happy at the planning. Much like old times.
"Ah," Ian lifts a finger, "...but...that is a few nights off." Dreaming, though there are things left here to do. 'And guests."
"Mais oui... we will ... see what happens, yes?" With the guests, and in particular one. "But... as soon as this matter is done, or done for now," William notes with a slight smile, "...we will go to Moray with Augustino and Felipe, food, music and our lighthouse..." And no one else. No one else for miles.
William leans in, his mouth (that mouth) pressed against your lifted finger. He closes his eyes. How he adores you. There are overwhelming moments. Moments when it moves through him, and moves him. Soon, the kiss upon your finger is not enough.
His mouth is soon at yours and the kiss, while sudden, savors itself and savors you. William touches his hand to your face as the kiss is parted. He smiles to see the color lift there.
"I don't know about you," he murmurs, "...but I could do with a little supper..."
"I wonder where they all are..." Ian smiles, meaning the boys. "I guess then, for you, it's good that I have recently had a rather filling indulgence already." He could spare you, and then some.
"I hear that I am somewhat delightful," in the tasting, let alone the knowing, "...hopefully I will suffice," Ian stands, sauntering towards the keep's antechamber, but looking over his shoulder to make sure the guest of honor follows.
You need never wonder...
That is at its most evident this night. He is with you. He will be with you. He will always be with you. William follows you a few moments after, his pace languid, slower, but covering distance in that stride.
Left behind, the evidence of your joined presence. Two empty glasses and a bottle of scotch...
Posted by rowan at May 14, 2004 02:18 PM
