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It was all Lady Celestine’s fault. In the past year, she had risen to become one of Laurent’s most trusted subjects. She was intelligent, quick-witted, blessed with great foresight, and never completed a task without earning unanimous praise from the court. As a descendant of both Akielon and Veretian nobility, she leveraged her heritage to deftly appease the fiercest factions who opposed the two kingdoms’ unification. Now, throughout the Artesian empire, she was known as a key pillar of its burgeoning prosperity, and a good friend to both of its thrones.
Laurent did appreciate her dexterous balancing of honesty and contrivance, and her persuasive, diplomatic grace—but it was also for her capabilities that she feared neither of her kings. Knowing that the empire needed her skill as much as she needed the empire’s blessing, she allowed her playfulness to run free and unrestrained. She feared no punishment nor ire, and that compelled her to be excessively bold, in all senses of the word.
The afternoon started very innocuously—a conversation over tea in the gardens. In the budding summer, the palace of Delpha was blessed with the most luxuriant of foliage, late afternoon light melting like butter on the sun-heated stones. Lady Celestine was animatedly recounting her negotiations with Artes’ neighbouring kingdoms when she brought up the matter of trading cloth in Patras.
“Scarves have been increasingly popular in Patras, Your Exalted Majesties,” she said. “Silk ones, to be specific. Sold by merchants travelling what used to be Vere. It seems the revenue Artes has generated from the scarf industry alone has doubled over the past month.”
Laurent took a sip from the cup of tea before him. “Why so?”
“A new travelling troupe of Patran actors has recently made its name,” Lady Celestine said. “They are known for their performances of erotic and romantic plays. In one of their most renowned pieces, a Veretian scarf was used as a prop in bedsport. It took the kingdom by storm, and kickstarted a trend among the nobility.”
this was not the answer Laurent had expected. “Bedsport,” he repeated coolly, as he threw an oblique glance at Damen—who gave a bemused expression. “Are Patrans trying to tell me they can put a dent into the economy of Artes with their coital proclivities alone?”
“It appears so,” said Lady Celestine. She couldn’t be serious. “You seem surprised, Your Majesty. Haven’t you heard of lovers who use confining instruments during intercourse? Some consider it an enjoyable fantasy.”
“I assure you, I know of the practice.” Laurent allowed his lips to thin. Of course he had witnessed this—back when the pet system had been in place during his uncle’s reign, plenty of pets had solicited the attention of their lords only to be bent over with their hands tied behind their backs. That the habit extended beyond his kingdom’s borders was hardly a shock. “It is only difficult to imagine anything of the sort being enjoyable.”
“Really,” said Lady Celestine, unblinkingly. “I can vaguely see the appeal. The concept even extends beyond the tamer notion of scarves; chains and ropes exist for a reason. I believe it is about trusting your partner enough to grant them control. Lady Aurelie and I—”
Laurent resisted the urge to scrunch his nose in repugnance. It was not the first time Lady Celestine’s shameless friskiness had proven its existence, but he had no desire to know what his subjects did in their beds. He only found further dismay when Lady Aurelie’s cheeks unmistakably pinkened.
“What you like to do while you fuck is hardly my concern,” he said dismissively. “Unless you are masochistic enough to find humor in burning your own pride at the stake, my lady, I don't believe the ending to that sentence is necessary.”
“Of course.” Lady Celestine’s gaze flicked towards Damen, and then back towards Laurent. “But Your Majesty, I was merely taken aback that you seem so repulsed by the idea. I would’ve thought, since your relationship with King Damianos is so unconventional, that the idea of experimentation was not beyond your limits.”
To Laurent, she was utterly ridiculous. But to the outside, there was truth to her statement—it was unconventional that a Veretian prince would be found coupling with his brother’s killer, and almost inconceivable that their affections for each other sufficed to eclipse their grievances. Despite himself, his mind conjured the unbidden vision of being immobilized beneath Damen, wrists bound by a sash, perhaps attached to his golden cuff.
Perhaps it was instinct that made him recoil—the thought of transferring so much of his autonomy to someone filled him with trepidation. Laurent’s uncle had made sure he remembered capitulation as danger, and it was still difficult to accept Damen would not misuse Laurent’s surrender. Laurent made a show of examining his nails in cold insouciance and wondered why his belly coiled tight in a disturbing imitation of curiosity despite his own cautionary tales. He wondered if Damen would like Lady Celestine’s suggestion. If Damen would derive joy from fastening Laurent’s wrists to the headboard and pressing his spine into the spill of white bedsheets, punishing him for whatever carousel of ripostes he’d managed to push through that day, or for not living up to the irreproachable excellence required of a ruler.
“Do I look like the type to submit so willingly?” Laurent heard his mouth ask, mildly annoyed now, though he knew his disgust was reserved for himself. “That seems a distasteful act for a king.”
“Not so,” Lady Celestine said pointedly, egregiously composed for how transgressive she was being. Most would have bowed their heads in deference and begged for mercy upon catching a hint of Laurent’s derision. “I am Artes’ Second Lady, and still I believe there is an artful beauty to obeisance.”
“Then you must find artful beauty in anything,” Laurent commented. “Do you enjoy being brought to heel like a dog?”
Celestine seemed unbothered. She looked down at the cuff on Laurent’s wrist, now, and this time her attention was definitely targeted. “All I am suggesting is that to be willing to give up strength freely is evidence of strength itself. That is always a choice.” she continued, when it was evident Laurent was not going to reply, “Have you truly never considered it? I’m sure Damianos-Exalted would—”
“You take liberties, Lady Celestine,” said Laurent. He was no stranger to watching others place bets on his carnal preferences, and he’d long learned how to ignore the remarks as fallacies as they arrived, so he couldn’t understand why he was so bothered by Celestine’s assertions. He felt, inexplicably, as if his skin were transparent. “My tolerance is not without limit, and neither should you mistake my patience for mercy.”
Damen had yet to say anything of worth, content to let Laurent take the reins and steer the conversation back to where it had come from. But he was rubbing soothing circles in the back of Laurent’s hand, as if sensing his discomfort.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” said Celestine, airily. “Please accept my apologies for my overstep.”
I should have you stripped of your title for this, Laurent thought he would have said, had this occurred a year ago. “Then it would be prudent for you to assume your leave now,” he said instead. “You are dismissed.”
Lady Celestine stood up from her chair, her expression serene and communicative of no contrition. With a bow, she excused herself gracefully and pivoted on her heel before sweeping away in long, elegant strides. Lady Aurelie followed suit. It was a shame they had both made such vital contributions to the court—and experience substantiated that Celestine’s advice was never lacking in truth, no matter how ludicrous she seemed. Laurent was still mulling her words over with a frown on his face when Damen turned to him, and spoke.
“She does not have a filter over her words,” he muttered.
“You think she was right,” Laurent accused. “What she said. Am I wrong?”
“I would never make you do anything you felt discomfited by,” said Damen.
“That’s not the question I asked,” said Laurent. “You think—” He thought of Damen, who’d seen servility as a resplendent virtue, who’d enjoyed it when his past lovers had bent to his whims. “You would find it very amusing, wouldn’t you, if I’d been more inclined to be pliant. More interesting in bed. If I’d been anything like your past dalliances—”
“I don't need you to be anything but yourself,” Damen interrupted. His brow was furrowed, and he squeezed Laurent’s hand. “Forgive me. Have I made you feel inadequate in some way?”
“You didn’t stop her from speaking,” said Laurent. “I know what you are thinking. Do you want to tie me up, Damianos?”
Damen did not voice his assent, but his falter and the flush on his cheeks gave him away. “No,” he said firmly, anyway. “If you don’t want to—”
“I see,” Laurent said. His face was warm. “Your face does all the telling. It must please you to render me helpless, chained beneath you, because then I wouldn’t be able to talk back to you or be cruel in the way I normally would—”
He regretted it immediately. He had no right to be this worked up over something so inconsequential—Damen was a gentle, unconvoluted lover, and he’d never once disrespected Laurent’s wishes, even when Laurent was prickly and particular about where he could and could not be touched, even when he’d sometimes lose himself mid-fuck and start punching Damen’s chest like a sobbing child. Even when Damen had to watch Laurent scrub his skin raw post-coitus on the worst of days—which Laurent knew was an insult at which most men would scoff with unadulterated scorn.
Damen was an impossibility that Laurent would spend a lifetime trying to decipher—it made no sense that he had such a liberal reservoir of kindness to draw from, when kindness was usually so expensive and so agonizing to deserve.
“No,” Damen repeated, and Laurent didn’t know whether to feel offended or embarrassed—or both, or relieved. He wondered if Damen would still be so gentle if he were allowed to do whatever he pleased with Laurent’s body. “Love-making is meant to be enjoyable for both of us. If it does not please you to be bound, why would I force it upon you?”
“I binded you when it did not please you,” the words tumbled out of Laurent’s mouth before he could stop them. He relished in the momentary lapse in Damen’s expression, and he knew it was because nothing could truly serve to erase remembrance; you could only push it aside and make it appear insignificant through the illusion of scale, enshrining it next to something as abundantly large as affection. But it felt only yesterday that Damen’s neck had been imprisoned by a collar, his dignity dangling on a leash.
“That was different,” Damen argued, because he had the obstinance of a bull, and because his clemency was so generous it understood no edges. “You weren’t exactly enjoying having me attend you either—”
“Please,” said Laurent. “We both know I enjoyed it perfectly when I forced you to kiss my boot. So don’t pretend you hadn’t ever fantasized of taking revenge on me for all the humiliation I had subjected you to. And it would be very presumptuous of you, if you thought I wouldn’t also want—”
Laurent cut himself off when he realized what he’d just said. Damen’s honesty was a contagious infection; he made Laurent breach the boundary of his carefully cultivated restraint and made the truth impossible to hide.
Damen fell silent for a moment. Then, he said, plainly, “Were you trying to imply—?”
The air assumed a different quality, sticky with tension. “Shut up,” said Laurent. His cheeks burned, like a hare cooked on timber. “I said nothing.”
“Do you want me to?”
Laurent didn’t know why it was so difficult to say yes. It seemed precarious. “No.”
Damen paused. There was an unreadable flicker in his eyes. His jaw was sharp and his stare unrelenting, seeming to flay the skin off Laurent’s cheeks, questioning. Here was the man who could inspire obedience in the insolent simply by breathing; the man who could stride into a room and command a crowd into prostration; who could gaze on an empire and immediately make its ego crumble. Laurent hated how crushable he felt—like a soft sack of feathers—and how he starved for the sensation. How his wanting had been discovered and was now ready for dissection.
“Well, if you ever change your mind,” Damen said, after a long moment of silence, “You could just ask.”
“I would not,” Laurent said vehemently. His face twisted up. He turned on his heel and stormed out of the gardens, without once turning back to observe Damen’s face, knowing he’d thoroughly despise what he would find there, whether it be teasing solicitation or a regretful apology. He sat on his throne for the rest of the day giving orders and listening to complaints, thought of hands on his wrists and his throat and crescent marks on his hips. He crossed one leg over the other in casual irreverence of the room in favour of the incomplete plea festering in his mind.
It was like the time Laurent had watched Damen wrestle naked in the sun for the first time, his desire cauterizing enough to corrode even its vessel. For days after that he had felt like a basement that fell all the way down to the core of the earth, wanting to drink all the water it could find, clawing at the sky with his grubby hands to eat the sunlight whole. He felt like the gaping bed of a wound, reopening its mouth every time it begged for whatever unceremonious thing it required to sate its hunger this time. Laurent did not know how much longer he could perform in the impervious cloak of a king, when he still felt so gracelessly naked as a man.
Damen did not speak a word of their afternoon exchange that night. They spoke about treaties and horses and argued over the impracticality of Veretian clothing for the thousandth time this month as Damen undid Laurent’s laces with methodical ease. They made love normally like how they always did, slow and sweet, a cartography of reverential touches.
Damen smelled of his citrusy bath oils and his hands were soft and giving, glorious in the way that sometimes made Laurent want to cry—because he knew better than to cling onto miracles, and he often wondered what he’d done to earn Damen’s immortal tenderness. It seemed implausible. Laurent had offered little aside from the relinquishment of his old cruelty. But Damen always seemed happy enough to soak Laurent in his unbridled munificence, ardently and without a tether to conditions.
Laurent didn’t know how he did it, even now. Even as Laurent was apologizing for snapping at him earlier today. Damen only smiled and said it was all right, offering a gaze so bright he could seize governance from the moon. He wrapped his arms around Laurent and twined their legs together, as if that was where natural law ordained they belonged. The warmth of his presence was so concentrated it felt like a fever. It was enough to make Laurent feel grounded, like his body was consubstantial with reality and not a cold, ghastly existence.
Laurent avoided Lady Celestine at court for the next few days, and that should have been the end of all this. Her suggestion was no more than a passing comment—and Laurent tried his best to sequester it to the back of his mind.
As it turned out, his efforts were futile. Even as he tucked into breakfast a week later, he could not emancipate himself from envisioning the sensation of a scarf around his hands. He imagined it would be similar to the time he’d tightened his laces so far he could hardly breathe. Like running through the palace barefoot until you were coaxed into a corner, nowhere left to hide your vulnerabilities and nowhere to run.
It wasn’t as if Laurent had not been subjected to physical restraints before; he still remembered the slimey touch of his uncle when he’d been swaddled in red fabric, pinned to the mattress like a raindrop on a window. And when he’d been taken to ios to stand trial for treason, his wrists, too, had been clad in iron chains, clinking with every step he took up towards the scarlet dais. His belly had effervesced with hysteria, and he’d felt like a child being punished for parading around in an adult’s body. It was humiliating to watch someone hammer his pride into wet lips and aching sobs. One thing was certain—under any normal circumstance, Laurent did not like being bridled.
Now, however, he replaced the bearded man in his lucid memories with a face carved from bronze, a thunderous brown gaze, arms laden with the labyrinthian evidence of war. Laurent would be malleable like clay under Damen’s hands, maneuvered into new topologies and reduced to quivering chaos. He would bare the unguarded curve of his spine and the canvas of his body to be painted over as Damen pleased. If there was anticipation in his throat to be distilled from that thought, he did not thrash nor reject its presence—he flirted with its edge, welcomed the trembling.
He’d always wanted to know everything about Damen. Now he wanted to know how often Damen had been rough with his previous partners. If he’d make Laurent beg for it. If he’d deny Laurent his climax or if he’d push him past the edge of it, fucking into his hole relentlessly until he ruined the pillow with his tears. The thrill it brought Laurent was worth the promise of terror, because the difference between Damen and everyone else was that Laurent could be sure Damen would stop anytime if he had asked. It would be a relief. With Damen, Laurent could finally select his abjection to comply with his exacting standards and made sure it only had one witness. He would lose control of his own accord, for the first time in his life, and that was a respite from the exhausting labour of keeping his skin taut at all times.
A part of Laurent’s head appended, helpfully, that even if Damen didn’t stop, Laurent would have to take it in grace, because that was what he’d asked for when he’d treated Damen with malice, just like how he’d asked for the stretch of his uncle’s cock when he’d screamed too loudly as a child or made a mess of grape juice on his fingers, and it was a matter of a snake coming back to engorge its own flesh after tainting the rest of the world with its teeth, nothing new or noteworthy. Perhaps that was the appeal.
Laurent frowned. Guilt gripped his chest. It was unfair to Damen that he had even considered this possibility. Damen was the most noble man Laurent had ever met and it felt wrong to attribute him to the same crime he had almost killed Laurent’s uncle for.
It was a long while before Laurent realized someone was calling his name. He pulled himself out of his reverie and snapped his head up.
“Laurent,” said Damen. “Are you all right?”
Laurent stared at the untouched roll of bread on his dish and the butter that he’d scooped up onto his knife. His knuckles, around the handle of the utensil, were a bony white.
“I'm as right as your sword hand, Damianos,” he said. He hoped the saturation he felt leaking through his cheeks was invisible to Damen’s perceptive gaze, but he likely wasn’t so lucky. “Why, is there a fly on my face?”
Damen’s brow scrunched up. “I was asking if you wanted to go riding today. But you appear flushed. Do you have a fever? Are you unwell anywhere?”
Laurent cursed the translucence of his skin for betraying him so easily. “Yes, I woke up to you kicking me on the mattress, and then I was run over by a carriage this morning. Now I can't help but burst a blood vessel in my face for every man who has compared me to a sliver of cast iron in my life,” he said. “Damen, if I were ill, I think I would know it. Do you think I am so foolish I'd be incapable of assessing my own ailments?”
Damen lifted an eyebrow, saying nothing. He held a warm palm to Laurent’s forehead. Laurent almost jumped from the burning contact, and chided himself for it.
“Don’t touch me,” he snapped, before thinking. The words came out a fraction more harshly than he intended.
He regretted it immediately. Damen retracted his hand in a rapid movement. His eyes grew wider for a moment, laced with concern.
“Sorry.” Laurent looked away with a quiet mumble. “I'm not—” he blinked the daze out of his eyes. “I just meant, there might still be breadcrumbs on your hand.” he closed his eyes, knowing how ridiculous he sounded. “But I am not ill. We may still go riding after my meeting, if you like.” he gave a shy, pleading smile.
Damen only looked at him patiently and said it was fine, that he knew Laurent was sometimes eerie about touches unasked for. That of course, he understood, and that Laurent did not need to overthink his reactions. Laurent crossed his legs and felt his ears heat up further under the intensity of Damen’s stare.
He sighed. He stabbed his knife into his roll of bread with a rancour aimed at himself and allowed the rest of the meal to trickle by in thick silence.
Nighttime was never easy. Laurent was not granted convalescence even in sleep, whence the world leaked like sewage waste through the pinprick drains of the stars. He thought of his uncle, often, even in the absence of reminders or intervention.
Memory was a seductive disease. Laurent knew he was terrible at quarantining it, and it was easy to fall prey to its enchantments. So he stumbled back, into its knife-arms, like how a bird with its belly cleaved open and stuffed full of steel would eventually careen back to the earth from its buckling weight. He would feel a beard of sandpaper on his neck, a voice slick as cold oil, gluttonous fingers so fat they melted like pools of lard on his skin. He’d thrash, and whine in his sleep, and then he would have to wake up, sluice his face in ice water and tell himself—sometimes still with a wet mouth and sticky legs—you are king now. The last tether you have to your bloodline is dead, and you are no longer your family’s child.
Nowadays, the monster in his nightmares traded dominion with a lover. The torture was exquisite. He thought of Damen taking him over his desk, mouth hot as blood, pushing in without oil. It would hurt, but it was warranted, because Laurent was just so intolerable, sometimes, debasing the kyroi at court for something petty like looking at Damen the wrong way or casually insulting his honor. Laurent deserved the retribution. He even thought himself a pet in the old court of arles, dragged around by a chain at his collar, shattering his kneecaps to vy for a peek of Damen’s patchwork attentions, their roles reversed. At any moment he would be nipping crushed nuts from Damen’s hands.
It was awfully wrong, unjust to Damen in every sense, to persist in this slaughterhouse of a delusion. But when Laurent woke up this morning to find arousal between his legs—with Damen still soundly asleep in the tranquil blankets beside him—he slipped off to the bathroom, and stroked himself to completion. His head throbbed like a doll rattling inside a bottle. By the time he stumbled back out to their bedchamber, Damen was already awake. Laurent prayed the aftermath of shame did not manifest as weakness on his cheeks.
“How long have you been sitting at that desk for?”
It was evening, pale moonlight soaking through the curtains. The shadows were making a puppet show on the walls. Laurent’s spine was sore from being hunched over his paperwork like a shrimp for hours. His tailbone ached like he had been freshly bedded—even though Damen hadn’t touched him in days, as if he’d sensed Laurent’s stress accrued over the week he’d spent burying his nose in his work, and feared a brush of his finger would make Laurent implode. He whipped his head around at Damen’s voice. “What?”
“You have been working on those land reforms since noon,” said Damen.
Had Laurent been working for that long? “Your observation skills are sharper than mine are today,” he commented. “Why did you ask a question you knew the answer to?”
Strong hands came around to cradle Laurent’s shoulders. Before Laurent could protest, Damen was already massaging the knots out of his muscles. “You don’t even realize you are exhausted, do you,” he murmured. “Even kings need to rest.”
He applied force to a particular tense muscle. Laurent felt the tissue of it unravel, like a bow string that had not been granted the kindness of unwinding in years, and bit down the quiet groan in his mouth. “There is still much to be done,” he said. “I have received reports of uprisings in arles from the dismantling of our traditional pet system. The empire is still new, and—”
“The empire is not yours to shoulder alone,” said Damen, leaning in to plant a soft peck on Laurent’s earlobe. “There's me, remember?”
“And you would labour yourself with angry, blubbering Veretians in a place that did not treat you kindly? It’s tedious work.” you’re too good for that, he didn’t say. “You should be focusing on tying up the loose ends among your own kyroi instead of watching me stay up past midnight.”
But Damen only smiled and held Laurent’s chin in his fingers to tilt his face so that their eyes met. “I'd offer you every minute of my hours if it meant you would allow yourself a repose.”
Laurent didn’t know where he was supposed to set down the shake of his hands when Damen spoke with so much conviction. Like whatever shrapnel of kind-hearted goodness he saw in Laurent was worth the agony of his conniving mouth. There must be an obscure art to Damen’s faith, how he insisted on believing everyone he swore allegiance to must be deserving of it.
Laurent’s face scrunched up inelegantly. “You go very drastic lengths just to distract me from working, Damianos. I don’t know how you expect me to maintain my composure when you act like this.”
A radiant smile. “Like what?”
Laurent wasn’t sure how to answer that. Like I'm not the spoils of an old man’s battle, maybe. “Like you would do anything for me.”
“You tried to exchange my life for your death sentence, once,” said Damen, matter-of-factly. “I see no issue with what I am doing.”
Laurent’s face went warm. “Shut up,” he said, and cupped Damen’s cheeks in his tentative hands, the fuzzy lamplight curving at Damen’s sun-drunk freckles like a bird’s beating wing. Laurent kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him, and yet he still longed for Damen so devastatingly he felt like he was at war, like he was pressed to the battlements at Ravenel again, and it made no sense. Laurent could survive being eviscerated by his own family in front of his court, and he could lead thousands of men into battle—yet he could not survive the fondness of one man.
He thought about it again, the enticingness of surrender. He’d never been more certain than now that Damen wouldn’t hurt him even in helplessness. But he didn’t know how to make the request, too cowardly to ask for anything without sharpening his words into a demand. It seemed he’d ruin the moment, if he attempted now. With their lips interlocked, Damen’s gentleness was so great it was hard to find room for anything else.
They were not without conflict. Today, Laurent was scheduled for three meetings with the councillors and the kyroi, and he already had a bludgeoning headache. He was only midway through his first one that he was thrown his first insult of the day.
It wasn’t anything new. It happened when Laurent disparaged a kyros for scoffing at Damen’s new proposal to call for another peaceful exchange with Vask, deeming the lack of bloodthirst a signal of cowardice. It devolved into a string of back-and-forth jabs, and Laurent had torn into Kyros Chrysostomus with practiced flair, leaving him red-faced and shaking.
“If I may, Damianos-Exalted,” was what Chrysostomus said at the end, “You might need to teach His Majesty the required elegance of a king.”
Beside Laurent, Damen said, “That’s enough, Kyros.”
Laurent ignored him. “How, Kyros, may I ask?” he said pleasantly. The moment Damen heard the saccharine tone of his voice, he rested a palm atop Laurent’s hand, in some simulation of comfort.
“There are many ways to discipline a subject of the palace.”
“I am not his subject,” Laurent said, inordinately frustrated. The fact he had ascended a year later than Damen continued to corrode his power. “You speak in the presence of two thrones. Is your memory so frail? I was inaugurated over a year ago.”
This only angered Chrysostomus further. “Some lessons are necessary regardless.”
“Oh, I know,” said Laurent. “What would you like to see? Would you like to watch your king strip me before a flogging post?”
He regretted it before Damen even tensed up. Laurent realized there was, at least, some basis to the kyroi’s frequent diatribes—he did not know how to relinquish, and when he put his mind to it, he could say anything just to gain an extra edge. Even if it meant this: Damen, eyes turned to the side, a wrinkle in his brow, an unvarnished comma at his lips.
Chrysanthos opened his mouth. “Maybe—”
“No?” Laurent interrupted. His shame did not dissuade him—it provoked. A sunk cost fallacy. “Then perhaps you would love to watch him give me a long tirade as he plucked my crown off my head.”
Chrysostomus met this accusation like touching a brand, which meant it must have harboured some truth. “When my partner misbehaves, I take them over my lap and wait for them to realize some manners.”
He must have blurted that out before rationality had caught up to him. Laurent had heard worse. “Oh, I see. You are part of the group of people who are eager to see how long it takes for me to break under touch.”
“Chrysostomus,” said Damen, an edge to his voice now. He must have been speaking for some time now, Laurent realized; it was Laurent who had been drowning his voice out. “I must ask you to take your leave.”
“No, he may stay. Why grumble?” Laurent turned to Damen. “They want to watch us fuck. Why don’t we help sate their curiosity? I am a Veretian. To me, this is no cause for surprise.”
“No,” Damen said again, more firmly this time. He stood up from his throne, fingers iron-tight around Laurent’s wrist. “This is Artes. And you know you don’t truly want that.” He addressed the guards at the door, “Escort the kyros to the pavilion and await further orders.”
The guards obeyed; it took the strength of three men to haul a snarling Chrysostomus out of the room.
Damen turned to Laurent, his jaw taut, shoulders stiff like mountaintops. He opened his mouth, the beginning of a sentence coalesced at his tongue.
Laurent found this inexplicably unpleasant. He said, immediately, “Stop. I apologize for weaponizing the matter of the whip.” his face twisted up. He meant it, truly, but his voice was tight and he knew he struggled to sound contrite. He eyed the door deliberately. “What are you going to do to him?”
“What do you say?”
Laurent shrugged. “The same as what he said you’d like to do to me, I’m sure. A little discipline wouldn’t hurt.”
Damen's breath hitched, momentarily. His gaze had calcified into something more severe. “Don’t take Chrysostomus’ words to heart. I wouldn’t—why would you say that?”
“It’s a little too late for regrets, isn’t it? He said what he said. And we both know it isn’t entirely unwarranted. Everyone wants to knock the stubbornness out of me.”
“Well—”
“Hold back all you like. It feeds your self-esteem to be different. To separate yourself from a man who isn’t too much of a coward to spare me from punishment. Do you just want me to be beholden to you forever? To thank you for your magnanimous capabilities?”
“Now you are making vile remarks on purpose.”
“Is it working? I know I am persuasive.” Laurent was being unfair.
Damen frowned. “Why don’t you go use that persuasion elsewhere?”
“And manipulate another senseless brute into being nice to me?”
He was terrible for it, but his indignation forbade him from retracting his words. Damen’s face slammed shut, like a retreating door. “You have two more meetings to convince the council of our empire’s proposals,” he said. He pivoted on his heel, turning the imperious canvas of his back to Laurent.
“So you are leaving?” Laurent snapped.
“Only for a moment,” Damen said. Even with his fists clenched, he spoke with impossible restraint. “I don’t want to speak with you when you are like this. Will I see you at dinner?”
“What?” Laurent said. A bubble of distress swept up in his throat. He was not good at setting things right between them. It was always Damen who stepped back first, who took measures to repair any yawning bridges between them, who allowed Laurent’s anger the time to cook off like expired milk until he was soft again, which was awfully unfair.
“Don’t go.” Laurent’s voice cracked. He fought the urge to grab Damen’s arm.
Damen turned back, and it hurt Laurent that the earlier irritation on Damen’s face had fizzled out, and he just looked tired. “I’ll talk to you tonight.”
As Damen expected, Laurent’s annoyance had boiled down to a diminutive simmer by evening.
“Good evening,” Laurent said, when Damen brought dinner into their chambers. He must have realized Laurent’s absence from the dining hall meant he was wallowing in the pallet of cushions in their rooms. It was so horribly endearing that Laurent felt the shrapnel of guilt in him, which had been planted there by Damen’s infectious softness, claw its way up to the surface of his skin.
“Hi,” said Damen. He set down the tray onto the low table.
Laurent drew his hands together. He had scratched the skin raw. “What I said, earlier,” he said carefully, treading on the ice-thin sheen on the lake of his uncertainty, “I did not mean it.”
“I know.”
“I spoke harshly.” Laurent swallowed. “Thank you for… not encouraging my anger.”
Damen only nodded again and brushed his knuckles against the dark circles under Laurent’s eyes. His smile was hesitant, but a comfort. He did not say, you were not harsh, or that Laurent was pardoned by virtue of being his lover, but he said, “I understand.”
A tide of gratitude overwhelmed Laurent’s awareness. He wondered how Damen made the bequeathing of affection so effortless. It cost Laurent the wealth of a kingdom to even admit to himself, without the varnish of artificiality or bitter humour, that he was choking on his admiration for all Damen’s glory. This was him: his mountainous self-belief, unshakeable even as he condensed it to fit in the divot of Laurent’s palm; his indelible, subterranean honour, which ran heavy as stone beneath his every decision; his ever-persistent loyalty and kindness which flowed inexorably from his hands as river mouths. Even that confession was so violent it felt like a sob in his throat.
“No,” Laurent rushed to say, before his senses could fall back into him and make him backtrack in cowardice. “I wanted to apologize, because I have never known anyone more tolerant of my accursed irrationalities. You deserve my acknowledgement of that, at least. I do appreciate your kindness.” there, he said it, whilst pulling teeth. It was the most candor he had offered in weeks, and the most defenceless. “It was not right for me to mock it.”
Damen blinked. “Laurent.”
“Don’t.” Laurent looked away. “Say something else.”
“You are,” said Damen, just as Laurent held his breath, “the most precious man I have met.”
A minute passed. Laurent’s cheeks, abruptly, turned warm.
“If I had a horse for every time you have rendered me thoughtless,” he said eventually. He passed a hand over his face. “I would have had enough to provide for an army.”
“We would need a hundred stables for that.”
“You are ridiculous,” Laurent muttered. “Stop letting my mouth talk.”
“But I enjoy it.”
“And that is why you enable nonsense. Now I cannot trust my own mouth. What a travesty.”
Damen laughed, the soft sound reverberating through his chest. Laurent felt the troublesome urge to press his palm to it and count the number of tremors. If Damen were a sculpture, he wanted to revere every blot of ink and every sliver of stone it took to make him. He must have had every birthmark in his skin mapped by a designer, each scar breathed into life by the legendary hands of an inventor, each curl of his hair beholden to the meticulous craft of a deity. Laurent wanted to grab Damen’s hand and squeeze it the way his throat would squeeze around a gasp. He wanted to tell him how much he needed every part of Damen like a man needed air, but he couldn’t, and didn’t. He thought, deliriously, that one of these days he would shake so fiercely with his longing that he would implode, but he did not allow the idea to linger any further.
The week wore on. At one of the palace’s tri-monthly dances, Damen held the back of Laurent’s hand and kissed it in a magnificent bow. They breathed in the wet midnight air on the balcony afterward, overlooking the rolling skyline of twinkling Delpha, the swathes of starlight strewn in free-fall. With a hand around the back of Laurent’s head, Damen kissed him. Unlaced the frayed boundaries of his restraint and then brought them together again.
The day after that, they went riding, and when they reached a luscious meadow, Damen plucked a flower from the grass and tucked it in Laurent’s hair.
It was strange—but not unpleasant—that outside of their kingly duties, Damen kept acting as though he were courting Laurent for the first time. They had been ruling together for over a year, but Damen sometimes still pretended he was living some adjacent fantasy where he were no more than a stable boy who fell in love with a horse-rider, where the glory was found in the mundane and not in the aggression of battle. Where survival had been a guarantee and not a fortune they had to fight tooth and nail for.
Laurent knew what the reality was: what was the possibility that he had spared Damen’s life under the whip, and in how many worlds would Damen have stayed his hand when Laurent had forced him into a deadly spar? What they had endured, and overcome, must have rivalled the chances of a needle breaching the boiling ocean. But Laurent had learned, selfishly, to cherish small splendours, and he didn’t have the cruelty in him to complain.
Thus it was very unreasonable that Laurent still thought about what would happen if Damen had done what Kyros Chrysostomus had suggested. Even if it were under pretense, because Damen would not resent Laurent for real, or sincerely desire to inflict injury on him. Still, it was a deafening thought—and it frightened him.
Before Damen, coupling had always been a matter of meaningless physicality, a task to be completed. There was never that much of a difference between fucking and dying—something was always being taken from you, continually, whether you liked it or not. There was the same urge to scream, the same urge to sob until you felt your body scoop itself empty like a flute. It was not meant to be anything pleasant. For a long time Laurent thought men must be fools to seek euphoria in mortification.
He hadn’t understood how wrong he’d been.
Damen was always an anomaly. He could turn an untouchable thing into something plausible. When Laurent had first touched him in ravenel, he’d expected Damen to respond with the sort of cathartic violence one would expect from a ruthless killer, and finish in a five-minute collision of teeth and sweat and slick body heat. But for all that Laurent had anticipated Damen to flip him over and take him like an animal, a hunter, or an unforgiving god, he had not prepared himself for the prospect Damen would behave with the softness of a lover.
But what if it hadn’t been so?
To be willing to give up strength freely is evidence of strength itself. Laurent hated how Celestine had made this sound more profound than it truly was. And then Laurent thought of how Damen had promised subservience in exchange for the freedom of his homeland’s slaves so many months ago. How he had kissed Laurent’s boot and knelt for his authority despite owning the physical power to do otherwise. How he could have easily eroded Laurent’s influence with his army after he’d reclaimed his birthright as Damianos, and yet he’d consciously elected to grant Laurent the clemency of an alliance. He made conceding look easy.
Laurent pulled himself out of his thoughts. He tried to remind himself there was still a good chance Damen would feel repulsed by the idea that Laurent sometimes craved pain. Perhaps Damen would scrunch his nose if he ever caught a glimpse of what ran unbridled in Laurent’s head. He almost felt guilty for having a vivid imagination. He continued to archive the thought away with the weeds and the garbage. He thought he was proceeding rather successfully. He’d even forgotten about Lady Celestine at one point.
That was, until he saw Damen tackle one of his friends to the ground in a wrestling match. He held their wrists to the sand, and tied them in a knot with a pristine white cloth in the light of some juvenile Akielon game. It was far from the first time Laurent had witnessed this—he should be well-accustomed to it—and still, as he walked back to his chambers, he could not stop thinking about how he wished it were him instead. His dreams, as they came that night, were intolerable.
It was another week before the string in his chest snapped.
Laurent couldn’t ask for any of it, because he owned every bit of the recalcitrant stupidity his uncle had claimed him to own, and he was reluctant to submit to the red-faced shame of speaking his wanting into existence. He wouldn't humiliate himself twice, first by asking and then by acting.
It was, at once, easier and harder to simply jump headfirst into a decision. Laurent had debated finding Damen in the main palace halls earlier today, and he would have simply allowed Damen to take him over his throne, gold laurels still in his hair and wearing a magnificent chiton tailored for court. It would have made for a brilliant spectacle, and Laurent had always harboured a proclivity for games and theatrics, because it meant he got to act in the script of characters who weren’t strictly himself. It meant liberation from his skin. It also meant Laurent would later sit on his own throne every day for the rest of his life as a ruler—right beside Damen’s—and recall nothing but the sensation of Damen inside him even as he received heralds and envoys and lords who would come storming in with new land disputes. He would become insatiable. The thought made his skin burn.
In the end, after a long moment of deliberation, Laurent chose to sit on the bed in their chambers, wearing a simple dress shirt and nothing underneath. Next to him was a phial of oil and a knife; he couldn’t make himself more obvious. He spent even longer trying to loop the piece of silk around his wrists, and only managed the feat when he employed his teeth in the process. His heart hammered painfully in his chest, and his ribs felt like glass struck on a boot. He bit his inner cheek to keep his mouth from trembling.
He imagined the look that would be on Damen’s face if he were to walk in this second—would he merely be surprised, or would he be angry Laurent hadn’t consulted him for permission beforehand? It was difficult to predict whether he would smile, and if his dimple would appear to prove the genuinity of it, or if it would resemble more of an impish smirk. He might test the tightness of the binds and decide they weren’t secure enough. He might twist Laurent’s arms meanly and maneuver them overhead. He might, with a sadistic urge to make Laurent crack into shrapnels of porcelain, stalk over to sit on his chair with the documents for their new tax reforms and leave Laurent hanging. That seemed daunting. Laurent hoped Damen wouldn’t simply laugh and walk out.
Time trickled by like water seeping through a crack in the ceiling. With each passing second Laurent began to doubt his resolve, but he had already constructed his coffin this far and he had no incentive to turn back now. All he could do was lie in it, patiently. Damen deserved at least that much.
He didn’t know how long he had waited before the door finally swung open to a set of strong footsteps. Warm eyes dragged over Laurent’s form as if anatomizing his details, and he felt inordinately exposed.
Damen opened his mouth. Closed it. He looked confused, hair mussed like a lost pigeon, and Laurent realized he had been very wrong to assume Damen would even want this at all. He said, slowly and quietly, “Laurent.”
He had not shifted from where he still stood by the doorway, Laurent didn’t know how he was expected to react to Damen’s total indifference towards his efforts. He would rather face Damen’s anger or at least a disparaging remark—that, he had experience dealing with. Now he could only say, carefully and trying not to seem pathetic while doing so, “That is my name, yes.”
Damen flicked his stare over Laurent’s body again, without bothering to linger on any particular spot, not even his bare thighs. He only seemed mildly intrigued by the knife Laurent had laid out on the covers. “What,” he started, then switched lines of thought. The rising flush at the tips of his ears betrayed his otherwise inscrutable stare—the only mercy. He said, lowly, “Why are you doing this?”
It was Laurent’s turn to feel his jaw slacken. “I,” he said. He took a deep breath and swallowed the lump of pride caught in his throat. “For you, obviously. Why, do I seem like the type to bind myself in isolation, for no reason other than my whimsical instincts?”
“I can see that,” Damen finally arched an eyebrow and crossed the scant space between the door and the bed. He looked down, face morphing into the sort of severe expression that always came before he made a grave judgement. Like if he were deciding on the fate of a disobedient soldier. Laurent felt small, pinned under his gaze, like a butterfly on a cutting board. “I am not without eyes. That doesn’t explain why—”
“If you don’t prefer it,” interrupted Laurent, trying his best to sound icy, but he could not keep the nascent tension from seeping through his voice. His eyes throbbed. He hadn’t thought about how he would justify the convoluted urges behind his wanting. “Just spare us both and say it explicitly. First time struggling to be honest about your dislikes, Damianos?”
“Stop putting words in my mouth. I didn’t say anything to imply that.”
“No, you didn’t,” said Laurent, slightly hysterical now, “but I know what you must be thinking. It’s disgusting, isn’t it?”
“I would never associate that word with you, Laurent,” said Damen. “But you should know that already.”
“Oh, forgive me. I have insulted you. I should have taken into account your generous, overly-delicate Akielon sensibilities. Of course you do not immediately derive joy from the prospect of having a helpless whore in your bed.” Laurent paused. He didn’t know why he was saying all this—it was cruel—but the words just kept tumbling. It was easy to hide beneath sharpness before he could lose any more grace. “But don’t deny yourself the fact you have dreamt of claiming me like an object in front of your kyroi—”
He was not allowed the liberty of finishing that sentence, voice dying at the sensation of two fingers shoved past his lips. Laurent made a choked, jagged sound. It was only then when he realized Damen’s cheeks, too, were more coloured than usual. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed that before he’d fallen back on his elaborate spiel.
“Dramatic, aren’t you.” Damen pressed the pads of his fingers down on Laurent’s tongue. “Finished exercising your expertise in evisceration?”
Laurent tried to speak around his knuckles, but it came out muffled. No, he tried to say, because being contrary for the sake of being contrary was familiar to him. He thought of wrenching Damen’s hand away so he would sound more like himself than a whiny, languageless child—only to remember he’d rendered his arms immobile with the scarf, and he was familiar with that abjection too, for he had always been the creator of his own problems.
“I want you to know,” Damen continued, “that you would have saved much of our time if you had simply asked like a normal person.” he curled his fingers once before pulling them out of Laurent’s mouth. “You may speak, Your Highness.”
It was the wrong title. Laurent’s voice was hoarse in his throat, like dried leaves. “I see you have caught on the idea," he said. "Would you have agreed from the moment Lady Celestine had brought it up?”
“Don’t mention anyone else when you are about to be beneath me.” Laurent often forgot how imperious Damen could sound when he put his mind to it—he’d been spoiled by kindness longer than he’d been speared on the receiving end of Damen’s ineluctable authority. He didn’t want to think about what it meant that his stomach coiled tighter, desire crawling up the chasm between his legs. “And yes, I would have agreed from the moment we’d first laid together.”
“I thought you hated over-complicating the simplistic act of bedding a lover.”
“And I thought it was evident you were an exception to everything I had known.” Damen seemed unperturbed. “You underestimate me,” he said firmly, “If you think I wouldn’t want to have you in every way possible.”
Laurent exhaled, deflating swiftly. The confirmation was immensely relieving. Whether he enjoyed admitting it was a different question. “Sorry,” he forced himself to say, turning his face to the side. “I don’t—I shouldn’t have said those things, about you. I don’t know what came over me. I just—”
“I don’t need your attempts at wordplay.” Damen was still standing in front of Laurent at the side of the bed, a thunderous silhouette in the fading light. He tugged at the knot around Laurent’s hands, as if inspecting its stability. Deeming it adequate, he said, “I only need you to prove your penitence.” he tapped Laurent’s shoulder. “Sit up properly.”
Laurent did. He bit his lip and suppressed a shiver. He looked down, kept his eyes fixed on his hands, folded like limp fish on his lap. “What will you have me do?”
Damen traced a proprietary finger down Laurent’s throat, stopping at his exposed collarbones. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Laurent felt his gut plummet. He did not like uncertainty, being dangled from the precipice with no indicator to show him where he would fall. It reminded him of the time his uncle had promised to fuck him only if he displayed acceptable behaviour, which turned out to be a farce because Laurent could never meet his uncle’s stringent demands regardless of how hard he tried to be quiet and docile and good, and he’d be left bereft and wanting on the nest of soiled sheets more often than not. When his voice broke and he was replaced by a younger boy of thirteen, he realized he’d simply need to learn to stomach surprises, and that it did him no good to cling onto fraudulent promises of security, nor the idea that sycophancy always produced a definite reward.
Damen seemed to notice Laurent’s distress almost immediately. “I didn’t say I would not fuck you. It’s only that I might make you wait.” He held Laurent’s hips in a punishing grip so he would not squirm. “You are not to interrupt me, nor rush me unprompted. I know you can be very patient when you try to be. Can’t you, sweetheart?”
Laurent nodded, embarrassment licking up the curves of his cheeks. They both knew the truth behind that statement. It wasn’t as though anyone could survive waiting six years to take revenge on their brother’s killer, only to expend another two months pretending they hadn’t known of his identity when the opportunity emerged.
“Words,” Damen said unwaveringly. His fingers went to undo the remaining laces on Laurent’s shirt, so the fabric hung like an open curtain on the easel of his body. “Don’t pretend you have already forgotten years of tutelage in the eloquence of language when I haven’t even touched you yet.”
“Yes,” Laurent managed. “I’m sorry,” he added, either because it was instinct or because he didn’t want to seem inadequate. “You may use the knife, as well.”
Damen appeared to consider this. He flicked a gaze askance towards the blade—still on the bed—before returning to study Laurent’s expression. “It appears you enjoy giving me more power than you let on.”
“Well.” If Laurent’s hands had been free, he would have waved them around awkwardly. “It says a lot more about you than me that you’re willing to entertain me in my sordid delusions.”
“Does it.”
Laurent winced. “Don’t make fun of me.”
“No, I am grateful you trust me,” said Damen, a momentary fracture in his character. Laurent wanted to kiss him senseless and ask him how it cost him no currency to be so honest with his emotions, both to himself and to others, and why he even bothered to see Laurent’s faith as a treasure so sacred. “Choose a word.”
Laurent raised his head, peered up through his lashes. “What?”
“To ask me to stop,” Damen clarified. “Promise me you’ll use it if you need to.”
Laurent froze at this. It was still unfathomable, sometimes, why Damen would grant him the charity of a door, a mode of escaping. “Or what?”
“I’ll leave you here to fend for yourself.”
“Why?”
“There is a time and place to be stubborn, Laurent,” said Damen, with impossible patience, the edge in his voice disappearing, “This isn’t one of them. Tell me.”
Laurent’s head felt like a sticky cobweb. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say, how to extricate his feet from the mess. “Charcy,” he said the first thing that came to mind, and felt ashamed for relenting. His memory throbbed, but he was fairly certain his uncle hadn’t spared the time for vocabulary hunts.
It must have been a stupid choice, because Damen looked at him funny, but he didn’t reprimand Laurent either. “Fine.” He scooped up the hilt of the knife from the side and used its tip to peel away the rest of Laurent’s shirt, the fabric pooling like shallow sea waves at his elbows.
“Stand up,” Damen said.
Laurent did. His legs felt light, his chest coiling taut. Damen took a step back and observed him.
“Good,” he said. He gave a scything smile, and his dimple did not show. “Kneel for me.”
Laurent knew it divulged more information about himself than it concealed when his eyes widened. “Why?”
“I like to watch you struggle. And the floor misses you as much as I do.” Damen sounded nonchalant. “But you could also use your chosen word, if you need.”
Laurent didn’t want to contemplate why the latter suggestion annoyed him. Perhaps Damen was only offering him a choice because he liked to watch Laurent reduce himself to deference of his own accord. He looked away—hating how that idea enticed him—and, slowly, dropped to his knees. The tiles were cold under his skin, biting. His skin was prickly, like there were a thousand eyes on him. His arousal throbbed.
Damen walked around him once like a vulture, a circle of slow, steady footsteps. He stopped when he was facing Laurent again, and raised the daunting spine of his knife to Laurent’s chin, tilting it up.
“Compliant,” he observed.
"I'm not—"
“Did I ask you to defend yourself? No, it pleases me to have you like this. The truth is you can be very soft.”
It did not sound like a compliment. “Am I?”
The free hand on Laurent’s face followed the curve of his cheekbones, as if admiring a war prize. The other pressed the flat of the blade tauntingly against the strip of skin before his ears. “Your Royal Majesty, you could fool everyone with your bloodless act, but not me. Do you agree?”
Laurent had to crane his neck painfully to keep his eyes on Damen’s impermeable form. One tremble and he’d impale himself on the knife. “No,” he managed. Hoping it did not sound like the afterthought it was, “Exalted.”
“You were wrong, earlier. I would not like to have you in front of my kyroi.” The blade had gone to his throat. "The idea of another eye seeing you like this, stripped of thought, makes me sick.”
Laurent’s cheeks burned. “But you cannot deny that half of the court wants to see me bend and yield for their king. You know it is an enticing form of retribution.”
“Then it is especially important for them not to be granted that permission,” Damen said, surprising him. “They need to see you as the self-assured ruler you are, with your ability to bring men to heel with a calculated remark. If anyone else were to debase you, I would burn their pedigree.” He paused. “I prefer to reserve for myself anything that could potentially spoil your authority.”
Laurent felt like a wound blooming inside the crease of another wound, a doll within a doll. Now he was peeled back, shell by shell. He could not rationalize why he liked it. Damen took his hand, finally—and pulled him back into standing. As if sensing Laurent was beginning to feel his body crumble, not from physicality but from the heavy weight of shame. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and maneuvered Laurent onto his lap, so that his knees were on either side of Damen’s waist and they were facing each other.
With leisurely flair, Damen raised the knife to the unlacquered expanse of Laurent’s chest. The cool temperature of it was erroneously soothing—there was something heady about being spared from injury when you were so close to it.
This seemed familiar. Laurent remembered the sensation of a similar knife pointed towards his stomach, marking his vulnerability like a compass, his palm pressed to the back of Damen’s hand as he goaded and flirted with the boundary of Damen’s vexation. Back then, he had wondered how he’d emerged from that tiny tent alive. He remembered being disappointed that Damen’s righteousness had claimed victory over his urge to drive the blade clean through the viscera—and humiliated that the only proof to Laurent’s mercy at the time had been so adamantly rejected.
“Experienced with using instruments of war in this context?” Laurent tried to sound casual. “You seem consummate at it. What will you do next, carve your name into me?”
“No,” said Damen shortly. He sounded more annoyed, somehow, but spoke nothing more to substantiate it. Instead he took one of Laurent’s confined hands and unravelled his fingers so they curled around the knife’s handle, and gave Laurent something to do other than dig his nails into his palms. “I think I will make you hold this while I work you open. Do not drop it.”
Oh, Laurent thought. It was uncharacteristically pathetic, but that was what Damen seemed to do as of recent months, rob his mind of rationality and clever machinations, reducing him to a bundle of instincts. And then he realized he must have said that aloud, when he registered the gleam of amusement in Damen’s eyes. He clutched the knife tightly and felt sweat accrue on his skin, warmth meandering all the way down the unprotected arc of his neck. He knew if he dropped it, he ran the risk of letting the blade cut his skin, or Damen’s, or both of theirs, and in any case Damen wouldn’t let him live that mistake down.
“Good,” Damen said, and kissed him, all teeth, licking into his mouth. Laurent blushed so furiously he felt like he could ignite a candle. He felt ridiculous. It was difficult not to squeeze his eyes shut when Damen pulled back to uncap the glass vial, and lather his fingers in oil.
His head fell forward, smothering into Damen’s shoulder when he felt the first prod of warmth at his entrance, teasing. His breath tapered around the shape of a whimper.
“Why didn’t it occur to you that you could just ask me from the very beginning?” One finger, two. Damen’s knuckles made their way past the tight ring of muscle, the intrusion rougher than it would’ve been on a normal day. “Is it so difficult to accept the fact you want something?”
“You don’t understand,” Laurent muttered. Damen had no trouble getting whatever he desired when the magnitude of his existence, alone, could pull anything into orbit. The terrifying thing about having him stand by Laurent’s side during the skirmish against his uncle was that Damen behaved like he knew they would win. His carriage was one that said victory was his birthright. He was not like Laurent, who had to scrape his face raw for a taste of forbearance. “Since—” The word caught in his throat when Damen found his prostate with infuriating ease. “Since when have you needed to expose your weaknesses to another?”
Damen looked at him like he had said the most idiotic thing in the world, but he didn’t bruise Laurent’s ego further than that. “Well, next time, I want you to express yourself directly when you discover there is something you need. Instead of stretching yourself taut and waiting until you can neither stand me nor the anticipation between us.” He inserted a third finger without warning, making heat flare up in Laurent’s spine. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice how you stared at me like you wanted me to fuck you hard and rough every time we made love, or how you seemed disappointed when I had you the usual way?”
“I was only—”
“You even let your gaze linger on my hands the other day when I tied a bow on a parcel I was sending to Ios. You have a poor perception of how easy you are to read.”
This was mortifying to hear. Laurent should have known. “I clearly still did something correctly,” he tried anyway, “Since we are here now.”
Damen crooked all three fingers. Laurent could not swallow the gasp leaking out of his throat. The handle of the knife felt like an impossible weight in his grip, and he was scared it would slip from how clammy his palms were becoming. “You take advantage of my usual clemenies."
“Only using every card I had available in my hand.”
"What if I had walked out?”
“Trust me, that idea was not out of my calculations.” His back arched at the insertion of a fourth finger. Damen’s death-grip was strong as a vice at his hips. It cost Laurent all his concentration to keep his quivering hands from loosening around the knife. “I would have—stopped you.”
“No, you wouldn’t have.” Damen set an unforgiving pace. “I would have strode out as if nothing had happened, and you would be left here to touch yourself on your own, though I wonder how it would have been possible with a pair of immovable hands. Maybe then you would finally deign to beg me through the shut door, and ask me to put my hands on you. Is that what you would have wanted?”
“You wouldn’t do that,” Laurent gasped. It was too much. His cock remained untouched, and it ached, its tip red and leaking. “Not to me. You wouldn’t leave me defenseless in a room all alone.” he wondered how he’d made that assumption. “What if an assassin arrived in the middle of the night?”
“Then they’d have to get through me first, barricaded outside the door,” Damen said. “And you wouldn’t truly be defenseless. You could untie yourself with your teeth if you wanted to. It’s only that something tells me you would have been self-punishing enough to try to spend an entire night bound if it meant you could watch my face strain in guilt the next morning, so you’d have the last word.” Laurent didn’t know if he was supposed to take this as admonishment, because there was no bite to Damen’s tone; he spoke as if he were reiterating an ostensible fact. “You’d think you’d have the self control for it. But we both know desire is more fickle than that. And you know the only avenue through which you could release it from your system is through me.”
“I’m not sure,” said Laurent, screwing his eyes shut, “That your inconceivably accurate predictions about me are appreciated at the moment.”
“Thank you,” Damen said, mildly, as if he’d chosen to ignore the latter half of the sentence entirely. “Your extensive efforts to produce a reaction in me were admirable. But my point is that you could have avoided the agony of wondering what I would or would not have done if you’d been honest with yourself from the beginning that you wanted me to turn you into a quivering mess.” he said, sweetly, “You are doing well if you’re halfway there already.”
“Where,” Laurent said, shuddering. His lips felt damp where they were pressed into the fabric of Damen’s chiton, and he could barely speak. “Where did you learn to talk like that,” he gritted out, because it was the only counterpoint he could think of. He felt the tide in his body mounting, leaching onto the brink. “How could you be so—conceited—”
“I see that even now, you refuse to say you wanted this.” To Laurent’s chagrin, Damen’s ministrations were slowing down; he was too accustomed to reading Laurent’s desire like a book. “But how many times did you fantasize about this? Enough to justify the offering of a nice question without deferring to your sardonic habits, I’m sure. Say it, Laurent.”
“Your ego is insatiable.” Laurent’s hands trembled violently. He tried to focus on the ornate engravings on the knife. He relented, “Fuck me.”
It was not going to suffice. “I am fucking you.”
“Not with your fingers.” every word felt like treacle in his throat. He could feel Damen’s hardness beneath his chiton but he couldn’t even reach out and touch. “I need—you. Your cock,” he appended.
“Would you put a little more effort into it? I know you’re adept at dramatics.”
“Are you so desperate for a performance?”
Damen frowned. He removed his fingers in a wet, hot glide, leaving Laurent to clench down around nothing. He almost wailed.
“Deflect all you like. I am still waiting,” Damen said. “Maybe you need me to guide you through it. In which case you could start by explaining why you thought it’d be a good idea to make me walk into you half-undressed with a scarf around your hands. Or, if you needed a reminder, your word is still available to you.” The last part was uttered surprisingly tenderly.
There was no chance Laurent could concede like that. He was so close. And he’d come all this way to manipulate Damen into wanting this just as much as he did. He peeled off the remaining bits of his dignity, and he was terrible at it. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Take your time.”
“I don’t know,” Laurent said. His voice was frail. “It’s hard to think.”
“Don’t think,” Damen advised. “I only want to know what your first instinct tells you.” As if he saw through Laurent’s tendency to run around in circles in his mind until he managed to invite knots and tangles into even the simplest fiber of thought.
There was no winning. Laurent unglued his face from Damen’s chest and looked up through a sweep of his lashes, which were wet. He didn’t know how to explain that to Damen either. “Because I wanted you in every way possible, too,” he tried. “Carves, chains, over your throne. You name it, I have thought of it.” He wanted to hide his face in his hands. “I have not stopped thinking about it.”
“Now we are on the same page.”
“Yes. How should I put it?” How was he going to survive this? “I could have kept my terrible ideas to myself, of course, but I knew even my vivid imagination could pale in the face of your true faculties. In person, you are always more overwhelming. I wanted to stop thinking,” he said. He felt like an idiot, for it was now so relieving to hear the truth pour out of him. “I wanted you to show me what it was like to give in without the act being surmounted by pain. But asking meant I exposed myself to the possibility of being driven away.”
He thought he saw Damen’s cheeks go dark, but it was difficult to discern details past the thin film of tears in his eyes. “I assure you, there is nothing you could do to drive me away from you.”
“I didn’t know,” Laurent whispered wetly. His longing tipped its pitchers back in his throat and filled it with a flood. The backs of his eyes pulsed with a horrible ache. “I wanted… please. I don’t want you to deny me.” Damen liked it when Laurent said his name. “Damianos, Damen—please. I want to feel you inside me. Now, please.”
For a moment, Laurent thought he said something wrong. He opened his mouth to apologize when Damen’s face crumpled, but then Damen said, in his own language, “You are so—” He seemed to struggle with words for once. His clothed hardness pressed into Laurent’s skin, which was relieving. “You will be the death of me, Laurent.”
“Sorry.” Laurent tried in Akielon, as Damen had done, “Please. Please, Damen.” he was shaking so much he finally dropped the knife in his hands. Damen caught it before it breached either of their skins. “I dropped it,” he said, and felt his eyes well up with fat, hot tears. “I’m sorry.”
“Shh.” A warm hand cradled the side of his cheek, wiping the wetness away from his eyes. “You did nothing wrong. There is very little I’d truly deny you.” He acknowledged the cuff on Laurent’s wrist for the first time that night and pressed his lips to the part where it was engraved with his initials. “And thank you for telling me.”
“Will you still fuck me?” Laurent knew desperation made him stupid. “Damen—” he hoped his surrender didn’t sound so much like the sob he heard in his ears. “I—”
Damen swiveled Laurent around and pushed his spine into the bed gently, pulled his arms overhead. He unpinned his chiton with frantic hands, the fabric falling apart to emancipate his body, the burnished planes of his chest and his scars, the proof his forgiveness triumphed the vices of remembrance, and his giving, giving arms. He was the most beautiful man Laurent had ever met. With an audible shake in his breath, he slicked himself with the remaining oil and then climbed over Laurent’s body to hook his legs over his shoulders.
The initial breach was overwhelming, as it usually was, but Damen had the clemency to pause midway before pulling their hips flush. “All right?”
Laurent nodded. “Good.” he flushed. “You are—unbelievable.”
Damen made a surprised sound. It was not logical. It wasn’t as if he didn’t already possess a sky-dividing confidence on his own. It hardly made a difference if Laurent thought highly of him, and decided he was suddenly worthy of praise.
“But you’ve had me plenty of times before this,” said Damen.
“I know,” said Laurent. It was nothing like all the times Laurent had been tied to the four poster bed in arles, consumed by regency-red draperies and ostentatious gold paint. “You—” his face turned to the side. “Stop talking.”
Damen did. He pulled out and slammed back in roughly, adhering to his promises when he chose a relentless pace. He leaned down for a kiss, feverish and bright. Laurent rarely allowed anyone to see him so freely. Especially not the small and disgraceful fractions of himself, which could rupture on contact and weep on command, and which Laurent could not afford to relent. To let it bubble up to the surface, all at once, was a naivety he would have called reckless—had he not also known the horizons to Damen’s admiration were boundless, and that in these arms he’d never be unprotected.
He was floating in a sea of white. Somehow he managed to make a connection coalesce between the evanescent foams in his mind and the blubbering tremble of his lips, and his tongue folded around the syllables of another thank you. Then he repeated it in a cracked voice, and deferred to a litany of shuddering breaths that grew lighter with every replenished word, a catharsis he hadn’t known could be possible.
He couldn’t even ascertain what monumental gift he was grateful for. For how Damen made sure Laurent’s ignominy did not go wasted, maybe. For his unparalleled knowledge of what exactly Laurent needed to feel whole. They could share the same skin, and it felt like for every bruise on Laurent’s left arm, Damen would have one on his right. He was grateful for Damen’s promise to stop if asked, too, a feat Laurent thought must exhaust an insurmountable amount of self-control. For Damen’s endurance of the endless collateral damage Laurent flung into his periphery, without derision or ulterior motives. For all the times Damen had denied himself comfort to save Laurent’s life when he had no reason to. Whatever he was trying to convey through his broken Akielon pronunciation, it lifted a crushing weight from his chest, and when he shivered against his binds or poured a plaintive whine into Damen’s mouth, Damen reassured him he was doing well, that he was fine just the way he was, that he deserved to want and have that wanting discovered.
It felt nice to lie there and know he needn’t do anything but just—take the affection. It overflowed from those auric fingers above him, half-fractured maudlin nonsense that would’ve been ridiculous from anyone else, but he allowed it to soak through his body, the you take me beautifully and the you have no idea what a relief it was that I stuck with you long enough to believe you weren’t stone and the yes yes yes you’ll have me for a lifetime, for as long as it is allowed, because I was created for you, see? We fit so well together and oh, I can’t hold on, Laurent—
It was incomprehensible. But who else could weather Laurent’s destructive peculiarities with such devastating grace? Who else could stand the thought of loving a cursed existence for eternity? Laurent hadn’t felt like anything more than a container since his brother’s death, oblivious to mundane glories, impalpable as air. His awareness was only ever sharp when his body was aching. But now he felt so alive under Damen’s touch he was perennially being reborn, and when he came, he could finally feel fulfilled rather than empty.
Damen didn’t take advantage of his pried-open mind. He only undid Laurent’s scarf slowly and kissed both wrists reverently. He waited until the pieces of the world sank back into Laurent’s skin slowly, pooling like nostalgia inside his joints until he felt he could speak again.
Laurent pushed up to sitting. “Don’t,” was the first thing he said. He gathered his knees to his chest. “Don’t laugh at me.”
Damen blinked. He sat up, too, and rested his spine against the headboard. “I don’t laugh at you.”
“Shut up,” said Laurent. There was no bite to it. “I would welcome the chance to regather my dignity. Just—shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You said a lot.” Laurent lifted an eyebrow. “A lot of commands. What was it, I wonder? I recall being told rather compellingly to hold a knife still while being speared apart on three fingers—”
Damen, unbelievingly, looked away. He pressed a hand to his face, the way he would if he were to accidentally break a glass in his fist, or if he tried to squeeze through a door too narrow for his frame.
Laurent peered at him. Warmth bubbled in his chest, and a little bit of amusement. “What, Damianos, are you embarrassed? By what you said yourself?”
Damen whipped his head around. His silence, and his twisted expression, provided all the confirmation Laurent needed.
“But I was the one on the receiving end of it!” Laurent said, disbelievingly, with an impish smile. “You plastered on a straight face whilst ordering me to demean myself for a lick of your attentions,” his hand came up to ruffle Damen’s curls, “But you can’t even recall your own words afterward without flushing.”
“Stop.” A groan, then, “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Your innate kingly tendencies, if you were to ask me.”
Times like this, Damen resembled a giant puppy, his irrefutable sovereignty—which at times evoked apprehension—fizzling out. “Was it—too much?”
It was Laurent’s turn to blink owlishly. “What?” Then he registered. “No, it was good.” He brushed his knuckles against Damen’s cheek.
“You liked it.”
“I thought that much was abundantly clear.”
Damen smiled widely. “You liked it.”
“What is wrong with you? Do you delight in making me repeat myself?” said Laurent, with playful annoyance. It felt nice, somehow, to be acknowledged–but not have his hunger pinned beneath scrutiny. Then, quietly, "Did you?"
"Did you think I wouldn't have been selfish enough to enjoy it?" Damen said. "But I am."
"You—" Laurent flushed. "I have to ride a horse tomorrow," he said. "I should banish you to tariff paperwork for a week, just for that.”
“Now you are back.”
“I was always here.”
“You know,” Damen said. He hesitated, as if he wasn’t sure if he should finish his line of thought. “You’re allowed to want things without ruining them first.”
Laurent allowed a pause to hang. The air thrummed between them, like simmered liquid.
“I know,” he said, finally, into the warm silence. “It’s not easy.”
Damen nodded. He did not say yes, it is, or that Laurent was stupid for thinking otherwise. His smile was serene. The dim candlelight soaked through the air, a sliver of gold bridging the gap between their fingertips like a lucid memory. Damen took Laurent’s hand and interlaced their thumbs together, transmuting that into a reality.
Damen said, “Let’s draw you a bath.”