marlowemuses | This will be happily ever after...

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."

Damen let his hand drop away. "I seem to be out of practice." Laurent didn't look upset, at least, and the way he said 'both of us' was reassuring. (Just...no kiss. How disappointing.) "Very well, I shall stand the reigning champion of awful Akielon love poetry."

He adjusted his embrace as Laurent burrowed deeper into his chest; the crook of his arm wrapped Laurent's shoulders, and the other arm he carefully wound around Laurent's waist to encircle him completely. The question was considered for a few moments before he spoke, trying to do justice to his home.

"I envy you your first glimpse of Ios. Better poets than I call it the place between cliff and sky, marble and stone gleaming bright as a beacon. I have seen it all my life - but each time I return, the White City seems more beautiful than I remember it." Damen could see it in his mind, and the words rose to his lips in those treasured pictures. "Clean and perfumed by the salt of sea breezes, green and blue among the white - it's as if the marble halls sprang from the limestone and rose toward the skies..."

He glanced at Laurent, suddenly self-conscious. "I'm no better at this than I am at poetry. You will simply have to see it for yourself."

Laurent smiled as Damen spoke, charmed by his passion. He trailed his fingers along Damen's arm, enjoying being held like this, like he was important to Damen.

Pleased by Damen's self-consciousness, Laurent shifted in his embrace, winding his arms around Damen's shoulders and pressing his forehead against the side of Damen's head. "For the first time, I think I'm actually looking forward to it. It sounds lovely. And you aren't such a bad poet after all."

"I hope you are." Embarrassed but pleased, Damen gave Laurent a cuddling squeeze where he'd settled in Damen's arms. Now that it had been brought to his attention, he realized he was used to taking physical gestures as something to react to and escalate. This time, he tried just returning the gesture, a soft nuzzle of his head against Laurent's.

"It's different than Vere," he said, trying not to think of it as a warning. "Warm, of course. You may have to adjust your wardrobe in order not to pass out from the heat." Damen let out an amused breath, although there was some truth to it too. There was a reason Damen dressed the way he did. He wondered to himself if Laurent's style would change at all in his new kingdom.

"Perhaps we can vacation in the north during midsummer. Winters in Akielos are very mild. I can still take a morning swim on most days." The water was a little chilly, yes (most would say freezing), but Damen had been classically trained in all sports, which were done in all weather.

Laurent grinned a little, finding it much easier to be infatuated with this gentle, playful Damen. "Are you a little less... massive... when you swim on those days?" he teased, kissing Damen's cheek and then turning Damen's head to steal a kiss, and then another.

"Do you want," Laurent murmured against Damen's lips, but then he was interrupted by a growl from his stomach, which made him laugh. "Ah. Breakfast?"

Flushing in spite of himself, Damen tipped his head in Laurent's direction. "Never," he muttered, the softest of smiles against Laurent's cheek, his lips, the impish corner of his mouth. He was captivated by just how demonstrative Laurent could be, an affectionate and very private version of that witty, flirtatious young man he'd fallen for.

Did he want--? Yes he wanted, so much, he didn't even know where to begin. But taking care of Laurent came first. Damen opened his mouth, only to be interrupted by a knock on their bedroom door. "I have miraculous timing," he said with an arch of a brow at Laurent. "That's breakfast."

He called permission to enter, and two servants came in, eyes humbly downcast. One bore a tray loaded with pastries, breads, little bowls of honey and cream, fruits, and nuts, the other a full service of tea.

Damen nodded in approval. "We will breakfast in bed this morning - you may set it there - " He indicated the table beside Laurent for the tea tray, and the broad space of bed in front of them for the food.

"Thank you," Laurent said, starting to reach for the bedside table, where he usually kept a little coin purse to tip the servants, but he wasn't in his own bedroom. Flushing with embarrassment, because showing appreciation to his servants was important to him, Laurent sat back again, trying to remember their faces so that he could arrange for something small later.

Thanking them again as one of the servants poured him a cup of tea, with cream and sugar the way he liked it, Laurent accepted his cup and settled back against Damen's side, happily nibbling at an indulgent fruit pastry in between sips of tea.

Damen noticed the gesture and wondered at its intent. In Akielon tradition, to even serve members of the royal household was held a great honor and mark of distinction. But Laurent's kindness was something he respected about his husband, and he certainly wouldn't stop him in his efforts to reward those who served them.

"Is there anything else you'd like?" he inquired of Laurent. "Today, or in the future?" He took note of how Laurent liked his tea, as he accepted the mug of steaming coffee for himself. Damen didn't often indulge - he was wary of relying on stimulants to get his body to function - but this morning seemed like a good exception to the rule. He took it black, of course.

"For breakfast? No." Laurent smiled, feeling at peace with his life and hopeful about his future for the first time he could remember. "Just that kiss."

He let his head rest on Damen's shoulder, basking in the domesticity of their morning. "Do you like to read? Or is it mostly the swordplay, wrestling, swimming, and... I don't know, I'm envisioning you mostly naked on clifftops, oiled and flexing, roaring into the wind. Is that the sort of thing you do in Akielos?"

His eyes glinted, lips tilting playfully as he glanced over at Damen.

Damen's face lit from within. "There will never be a shortage of those," he promised, and the hand around Laurent's shoulder traced the curve of his arm tenderly like he was touching Laurent's hand.

Now that they were alone again, he settled back into the comfortable snugness they'd achieved between them. Laurent's head on his shoulder felt indescribably right. It was as if the space there had been perfectly carved for his husband to lean against.

Damen couldn't hold back a grin. "Is that how you like to imagine me? I'd hate to destroy your fantasy." There was a glittering look in his eyes, as though it pleased him very much that Laurent might be thinking of him in such a primal state. "When I'm not beating my chest atop the cliffs of Atros, I like to ride out into the city, and farther when I can manage it; to be amongst my people, see how they live and what I might do to help. That was until...several months ago."

When his father was murdered, when he became King suddenly.

"Now, I'm afraid most of my reading is of the official sort. Legal documents, treaties, trade agreements, endless papers to sign." Damen stroked the inside of Laurent's elbow, thoughtful. "That, too, I would welcome a well-read husband's aid in handling."

Laurent nodded, licking crumbs and fruit jam from his fingertips. "I shall. With endless opinions upon such official documents, no doubt. I'd like very much to ride out among the people from time to time. I think it's important for a monarch to do so. And, likewise, occasionally I shall try to lure you into sneaking out with me, cloaked, to see the hidden sides of your cities."

Lulled by the touches, Laurent tilted his head and studied Damen from up close, content--for the moment--to just cuddle with his husband.

Polishing off a biscuit with honey, Damen looked well satisfied with Laurent's plans. The final suggestion drew a crook of his lips. "I should like to see you try. I suspect you will succeed very easily." How appealing it seemed, leaving behind the pomp and circumstance of royalty and simply being Damen and Laurent for a while.

He felt Laurent's eyes on him before he quite saw how focused that perusal was. Damen raised a brow at him. "What are you thinking, husband? I know there must be something in that tireless mind of yours." He said it fondly, but with an edge of curiosity. He wondered if Laurent's perception of him had changed at all in the past hours.

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