marlowemuses | This will be happily ever after...

Laurent nestled more comfortably against Damen, very much enjoying their morning plans of cuddling and talking. "I know I'll have to do quite a bit of work. More than I've ever done before. I have a lot of learning to do--I need to perfect my Akielon language, and quickly. I'll need to secure alliances in the court, find out who can be trusted, find out the stated motives and hidden motives of your courtiers and nobles. I'll need to understand current Akielon policies and the reasons for them, so I can understand how best to advise you and where there's opportunity to improve funding and resources to education and orphanages, and to improve the rights and protections of slaves, laborers, and the poor."

Nervous about laying all that out and hoping that Damen wouldn't dig his heels in too much, Laurent wound their fingers together, trying to act unconcerned while he watched Damen from the side of his eye.

Happy that the serenity of the night before had been restored and perhaps even deepening, Damen let himself ease at Laurent's side. His skin felt warm against the Prince's. Contentment seeped out of him, rumbling silently in the steady thump of his heartbeat. There was something quietly intimate about being chest to bare chest, sharing plans, telling secret hopes, something he wasn't sure he'd felt before in this way. It wasn't sexual, but he'd be lying if he said the thoughts weren't there, lying dormant for now.

Yes, the latter part of Laurent's plan was quite as Damen thought it might be. He dipped his head in half-nod, half-brush of lips to his husband's fair hair. "I will give you every help I can to help our people." Ours. It was a strangely comforting feeling. It made him feel as if he...wasn't quite so alone anymore.

"Who can be trusted." Damen looked at him thoughtfully. "Is this because of Kastor? He's been banished for months. But I fear there are still some loyal to him at my court." He traced the pad of his finger over the soft flesh curve of Laurent's thumb. Wondering how much to trust him. Deciding that if Laurent was planning all this to destroy him, there were easier ways.

"I am a commander of men, Laurent. I do not have the skill to find out traitors. It was not a skill I thought I needed in Akielos." And he did not even have to say it for them to both know the truth. But you do.

"I find that loyalty or disloyalty is not a black and white matter," Laurent said, by way of response. He turned his head, brushing his nose lightly against the line of Damen's jaw. "People are driven by an array of loyalties, and those loyalties often come into conflict with each other. Perhaps you have an advisor who has been loyal to you for years. And yet, this advisor has a son who has become involved with a dangerous, violent faction. Anarchists or cultists. And, imagine, your loyal advisor has to choose between having his wayward son arrested and imprisoned or even killed, or protecting him and trying to decrease the damage of his crimes. It isn't the advisor's loyalty that's the problem, you see?"

Contented with cuddling and talking as Laurent taught what he knew and tried to open Damen's eyes to a court full of more nuanced loyalties, Laurent brought Damen's hand to his lips, gently kissing the knuckles. "Imagine a noble whose mother is Vaskian, and that mother has been embittered for years with the opinion that your policies do not adequately favor Vaskian interests. When that noble, then, sees Vaskian scouts too far inland on Akielon territory, will he report them?"

Laurent shifted in Damen's arms so that he could watch Damen's face, and hooked his long legs over Damen's thighs. "It's not just about Kastor, though banishment, especially such recent banishment, means that Kastor is still a very real threat to us. Any unhappiness that your people have, any disenfranchisement of any group, will leave a weakness for Kastor to exploit. If we increase the legal protections over slaves, then the slave owners and slave traders will chafe against it, and all Kastor will have to do is promise them that if he were the king, he would bring them prosperity. It wouldn't matter if he was lying. What you need isn't the skill or assistance to simply find out traitors. You need assistance in finding out the varying motivations of those in power, and shifting those motivations so that they benefit you."

Edited 2017-02-22 00:31 (UTC)

Careful, Laurent. Damen was easily distracted by all of...that, that stuff he was going, all of it. His senses were hyperaware of Laurent's nearness, of how close to kissing range he was, of the softness of lips over his hardened knuckles. He was listening, but it took all his effort not to think about the length of limbs currently filling his lap.

As they had before, Laurent's words found a ready mark in Damen's imagination. He thought of the kyroi he had trusted, the advisors and delegates who kept him abreast of his kingdom's matters. Each of them had a story. Did he know them? Did he make their lives better or worse by his kingship?

His features rippled with this realization, and the deeper one that Laurent could help him so much mesore than he had ever dreamed. Damen had been prepared to lead in battle, but with Theomedes in the best of health before Kastor's betrayal, none had thought Damianos would ascend the throne so soon. He had not needed to know these things...but now he did, he must know them.

He let his arms settle around Laurent's waist, hands spanning his back. "You are right, of course. I am used to thinking as I might in war, where enemies are clear and loyalties are a simple matter. That's why I - need you to help me see these things as they really are."

Damen's eyes slid down to Laurent's chest, unexpectedly abashed that he had admitted as much out loud. Yet he absolutely did need all of those skills that Laurent had in abundance. His gaze lingered on the soft pink of nipples.

(Distracting.)

Laurent swatted at Damen's wandering hands, giving him a stern look for it. "If you had the first idea how to be deceptive, I might suspect that you were just flattering me to get my attention onto other topics."

Extricating himself, Laurent scooted back so that they were no longer touching. He crossed his legs under himself, watching Damen's face and thinking. "Don't just start pawing at me if you want intimacy, Damen. If you want something, ask for it and negotiate for it."

"You know me too well for that." Caught, Damen leaned back and tried not to look as stung as he felt. He'd just told Laurent his deepest vulnerability as King, and all Laurent could do was assume he was trying to get in his tightly-laced pants.

He sighed, eyes rolling eloquently. "Because you explicitly asked to climb in my lap and put your hands on me, of course. All right then, Laurent. Let's negotiate. Must I ask for every touch when you are clinging to me like a barnacle?"

The retreat had pricked at his pride more pointedly than he'd like to acknowledge. Laurent had been warming up to him, and he'd responded in kind. Every other partner he'd ever had would be under him by now, and he'd barely laid a hand on his husband. His husband.

Laurent's glare turned icy. He scooted back further. "Clearly not," he said, tone utterly scathing. "If any physical affection or intimacy that I offer is going to make you assume it's an invitation for sex, then I'll be careful not to touch you unless I have sex in mind."

He bit back the further barbs that sprang to his tongue, tensing his muscles in an effort to resist storming from the room.

"If that's what you think of me, I wonder that you can bring yourself to touch me at all. I won't hold my breath."

Damen had never been so coldly, consistently rejected. His body ached for the closeness Laurent's body had tempted him with. He thought of how easy it would be to call Erasmus in, how delighted the young man would be to devote all his attention to the one person he'd been raised to serve. it wasn't Erasmus that he truly wanted. It was that kind of attention from Laurent, that same affection and trust in his motives.

"Going to run away again? Why don't you try telling me what I did to make you look at me so?"

Laurent snarled, throwing the pillow he'd been holding earlier at Damen's face. He got up, pacing as he tried to contain his temper. "You're an entitled, spoiled, selfish person, Damen. All your honor and honesty won't counteract that, because you think you're entitled to have me sweet and simpering in your bed."

Overturning a table in his fit of temper, Laurent wheeled on Damen again. He wouldn't let himself flee the situation again, which meant he had to fight it out, which had yet to work well for him. He was increasingly aware that whenever he lashed out verbally at Damen, Damen lashed back.

"Why do you keep saying that?" he demanded, seemingly out of nowhere.

Damen batted the pillow away by sheer reflex, even though it was clearly no threat. Much more targeted were Laurent's words. Damen's face hardened into its stoic set. "Entitled. Spoiled. Says the Prince who's never worked a day in his life."

He watched the destruction of his room with an increasingly tightening jaw. A muscle began to tick there. He just couldn't bring himself not to rise to the bait. He even knew it was bait now, and yet...

"Saying what?" Damen gritted out.

"'Is that what you think of me'," Laurent repeated. His brow furrowed, studying Damen's face as he tried to make sense of that fact. "Like you think I'm bound to hate you. Can you really not comprehend that I can criticize you and also like you?"

Shaking his head, Laurent sighed, turning away and deflating as his temper cooled into unhappiness. "This is exhausting. It's exhausting being honest with you, because you do something unacceptable, I snap at you, you say something harsh enough to make me not want to be in the same room as you, and then later you cool down enough that you're willing to listen, and you realize that my anger was justified. You still hold all the power in this relationship, Damianos. All of it. And every single time I'm honest with you, instead of telling you some soothing lie, I wonder whether this is the time that you call my words treasonous and have me locked away for it. The only thing in the world that protects me from you is your sense of honor and your desire to please me, and you must see how tenuous that is."

Laurent shivered once, realizing as he said it just how true it was, and just how much of a fool he was for letting his pride and his temper lead him into this situation time and again. Dropping his eyes away, he sat down on the edge of the bed. "Never mind. Forget it. Forget everything I said."

Put that way, Damen had to admit he hadn't thought of it quite in those terms. It had seemed to him that Laurent veered wildly from almost-liking him to outright hating him in a semi-regular pattern, like a wagon with a broken wheel that kept weaving from one side to the other. That the two emotions could simply coexist in Laurent, approval and disapproval both, came as a revelation.

The hard expression dissolved, even before Laurent's icy fury did. He didn't want them to be constantly at war. He would far rather have things as they were during those peaceful, blissful moments between them. Laurent was right. It was exhausting, and Damen didn't know how to break the cycle.

"I would prefer to remember them," Damen said quietly. All the anger was gone from his voice. He still took issue with the way his husband seemingly found half his actions unacceptable , but for now, he knew he had to show Laurent he'd listened to the rest of what he'd had to say. "I do desire to please you. But even more, I desire to know you. For you to know me and - be at peace and not fear about your situation here."

He held out his hand. palm up. "What would it take, Laurent?"

Edited 2017-02-22 15:03 (UTC)

Wary but yearning for Damen's approval and affection, Laurent took his hand. "I liked resting against you and talking with you. But then your eyes and your hands started wandering, and even though you did nothing to cross a line, I could feel the way that you'd started looking at me, like you already knew where things were going because you knew what came next when you had a appealing body in your bed."

Lightly pulling his hand away, Laurent scooted back to sit against the head of the bed. "And when I suggested that you ask for whatever you have in mind, you lost your temper with me and spoke harshly. After the last time we lay together, I feel wary to be naked with you, because I don't know what it will involve. Now I feel wary even touching you or offering affection, if I can't simply offer affection. If it must always be sex."

He shook his head, looking at the rumpled bedcovers instead of Damen. "I have no objection whatsoever to sex. I'd like to be having sex. It's simply that every time we edge toward that, I feel like I'm on a narrow ledge in a vast, dark cave, and I have no way of knowing if the floor beneath me is inches or fathoms away. Ask me, Damen. Tell me what you're thinking, what you want, what you're offering that you think might tempt me. When you touch me like that, you're thinking that this will lead to pleasure for us both, and I'm thinking that I don't know what you want, I don't know what you're planning, and I don't know if the pleasure for me will be able to outweigh the vulnerability and nerves of it."

This was all far more convoluted than Damen's usual bedroom philosophy, which he had always assumed to be a mutually agreeable exchange of pleasure, hardly even worth calling a philosophy, it came so simple and natural to him. Laurent's baffled him. He couldn't fathom why lovemaking needed to be negotiated, planned out, each touch carefully plotted like it was some court dance. It seemed a cold way to treat a lover.

He stared at his now-empty hand. "I don't - assume that we're going to make love, just because you touch me. I don't even know what to ask for." Damen felt restless just sitting there in the bed afraid to make a move around Laurent. He longed to get up and pace, his usual strategy for thinking problems through. "I wasn't planning, hard as it may be for you to believe. You touched me. I touched you back. This is how I've always done things, Laurent. I'm not...not like you."

His hands curled into the bedcovers, tugging them smooth over his lap, over the space between them. "I am willing to try, for your sake." How much worse could it get, after all? Damen exhaled on a long breath. "What I want is to hold you without fear. To kiss you when you come close to me, as you did this morning. To touch you when you touch me. I don't know what will tempt you. If I did, I would do it."

He'd tried. He had kept their conversation chaste, not even attempting to touch Laurent, merely listening to him. Asking before disrobing him. Laurent was right at least that he had misinterpreted the physical gestures as more than they were intended. Damen cast a look at him that was frustrated without any of the anger from earlier behind it. The more he learned of the man he'd married, the less he felt that he really knew Laurent.

Edited (what is words) 2017-02-22 16:32 (UTC)

"Say 'would you like'," Laurent suggested. "So that everything is an invitation. Would you like to kiss me, would you like it if I pleasured you with my hand. I'll try to do the same. There's great pleasure in saying 'yes', I think."

Setting aside his comfort pillow, Laurent watched Damen's eyes, willing to trust if they could try asking and suggesting and negotiating rather than simply fumbling until one of them hit a boundary. "Would you like to cuddle and talk, as we were doing before?"

This was what he got, Damen supposed, for wanting to marry a Veretian. He really should have thought this whole plan through more carefully.

He stared at Laurent for a minute, wondering if he was serious. But of course he was. A complicated series of invitations and acknowledgments and maneuvering in bed was exactly the sort of thing a Veretian lover would find pleasing.

On the other hand...things were looking up for him if Laurent was serious in his offer. Damen had the unsettling feeling that he was being tamed as he said, carefully, "I would like that, yes." As if Laurent didn't know that ten different ways already. Look, how my Akielon lover comes crawling to me, begging for favors, as tame as any pet. He swallowed his pride. "If you would, as well."

Without the barrier of the pillow between them, Damen was presented yet again with the... distracting view. He gestured at Laurent. "You mentioned your - pajamas?" The Veretian word was strange to him. He'd assumed they were some sort of bed clothes. He, of course, slept in the nude as a habit. "Would you be more comfortable in them? I ask - " he put up a hand. "- not because I'm planning anything. The exact opposite, in fact." If his wandering gaze upset Laurent, better to have the temptation removed altogether.

Laurent smiled and relaxed, pleased by Damen's effort and able to trust that Damen would continue to ask and suggest so that neither of them would jump to the wrong conclusions.

"Good idea," Laurent said, sitting forward and watching Damen's eyes with warm affection. Asking made everything easier, while they were still getting to know each other. "I'll go change and return to you promptly. May I have a kiss, before I go?"

Well, he certainly couldn't argue with results. The change in Laurent was remarkable. Damen tucked that observation away for future reference. It might be...useful.

The question was so unexpected, Damen blinked for a second. And then. Smiled.

"Of course, husband."

He sat forward too, the deep olive-brown of his eyes warmed by the look in Laurent's. It was, perhaps, one of the more tender looks he could remember sharing between them.

Feeling vastly better now that they had some agreement and negotiation between them, Laurent gave him a sweet, tender kiss, lingering for only a moment before he drew away. "I'll be as swift as I can."

Glancing once back over his shoulder with a hopeful smile as he left the room, Laurent returned to his chambers to put on pajamas. He returned within minutes, wearing a loose ivory shirt with laces at the wrists and throat, and a matching set of pants with laces on either side of his hips. The lacings were simple, and the whole thing looked comfortable and elegant.

Laurent returned to the bed with Damen, tucking himself against Damen's side, since they'd already agreed on that. "Do you want to talk more, or kiss?" Laurent asked, watching Damen's face with easy acceptance. He liked knowing where he stood with Damen, and being comfortable asking made that easy.

Damen let his eyes close as he leaned into the touch of Laurent's lips on his own. Every time they kissed still drew a furtive thrill from his body. Very gently, he touched Laurent's cheek, the touch lingering past the kiss for a moment or two. "I'll be waiting."

While Laurent was in the adjoining suite, Damen slid out of bed to stretch his legs and repin his chiton over one shoulder. He paced into the antechamber, deciding impulsively to send word via the guard outside their door down to the kitchens. It wouldn't be ready before Laurent slipped back into bed (unless those laces took more time than either of them thought), but it would mean they wouldn't have to get out of bed for a while.

Damen was back by the time Laurent returned, and he settled Laurent against him with a contented sigh and an arm around his shoulder. "Let's start with talking," he said easily, throwing Laurent a wry look. "If that goes well, perhaps we might try kissing again." Incentive, hopefully, to keep their conversation civil. "We can practice your Akielon," and here Damen switched back to his native tongue without a second's pause, "and you can try to outdo my terrible poetry from yesterday." His lips curved in a restrained grin.

Laurent smiled at that, nestling contentedly against Damen's shoulder and enjoying the warm intimacy of being held. "Ah, but I don't know any of the Akielon poetic forms," he argued playfully, tipping his head back and grinning up at the ceiling, "I couldn't possibly be expected to manage dactylic hexameter on a moment's notice."

Reaching up, Laurent toyed idly with one of Damen's curls, tugging it down and then watching how it bounced back up when he let go.

"That's part of what makes it so terrible," Damen pointed out, smiling more openly, "as my heroic form is so free, it has more feet than a monster from the sea."

Instinctively, his head lolled sideways towards the source of the playful gesture and the sensation it brought. The dark curls made very easy playthings, and the liberty was one he allowed very few, but Laurent's soft fingers had a delicacy to them that felt unexpectedly soothing.

Damen let his eyes slide halfway closed, something he only did when he was in a relaxed and trusting mood. "You could," he suggested in a light rumble of pleasure, "expound in very free verse about your favorite attribute of your new husband. Your audience will forgive any dactylic stumbles for the sake of your subject."

Laurent laughed with delight, tilting his head back and tugging Damen's head down and to the side to meet his lips. "My favorite?" he murmured, tracing a fingertip down the line of Damen's nose. "I haven't decided yet. There are quite a few traits that I like about my new husband. His noble heart, his tempting lips, his willingness to be persuaded by sound logic and civil rights. His terrible poetry." Grinning a little, Laurent flicked Damen's chest. "The intimidating mass of him."

Damen felt the brush of Laurent's mouth, the warmth of his breath, the softness of his cheeks; allowed himself to lean into it all, yielding to the touches as if it was Laurent courting him. It was a new feeling for him.

"Pick one," he suggested, inordinately pleased by the praise. (The flick earned Laurent a muttered grunt and a grin.) "And you shall choose your own reward for your efforts. Even a terrible poet is worthy of some laurels." Damen raised a hand to the side of Laurent's face; with the greatest of delicacy, he spanned forehead to jaw with the breadth of his touch. "Not to influence your choice, but a kiss might be a fair prize."

"Aren't prizes meant to be something that I can't normally get freely?" Laurent said, warm and happy at their flirtation. "We're doing terribly at this talking thing. It seems both of us have our mind on other things. One other thing in particular."

Shifting against Damen, Laurent closed his eyes and let his mind and body rest. "Tell me about the capitol and your palace."

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