Dallas Shay & Loras Tyrell (hislittlerose) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-09-01 00:22:00 |
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The memory stood out clear as crystal. It had been a warm night. Likely one of the last for a long while. Winter winds were beginning to blow down from the North. And though the sun had long since set, a warm breeze whistled ceaselessly through the surrounding trees, piling loose leaves against the army of tents. The entirety of the encampment was just as restless, but rather than allowing the wind to carry them where it willed, the men set to work readying themselves for war. The sounds of swords being sharpened, of horses whickering - of a camp full of men grappling with the fact that this might well be their last night were muffled by the canvas of the king'stonight might well be their last - were muffled by the thick canvas of the king's pavilion, for which the king himself was thankful. His day had been eventful enough and his encounter with Stannis had only sapped him further. Speaking with Lady Stark about her son, about the time for words and the time for action, he had a headache. It was just as a chill began walking up his spine, slowly, that it happened. A cold unlike any he'd ever known flushed throughout his entire body, while, at the same time, he felt warm - cozy almost. Then, after a moment or two of lying with eyes glazing over, vaguely aware of the warm presence of Loras, Renly's world went dark. Renly hadn't known he was dying. Didn't know he had died. Nor did he understand what had brought him back or why. But here he was, far from his pavilion in the middle of an encampment, very much alive. He could hear the blood rushing throughout his body, could feel the soft leather of his jerkin rubbing his throat where it was clasped together. His breath was shallow and quick. The king stood, giddy with excitement, journal held tight in his trembling hand. Loras was coming. Perhaps Renly hadn't known he'd died, but he was keenly, acutely, painfully aware of the hole in his chest. It had been there from the moment he regained conciousness, finding himself in the back of someone else's head. It was a sensation easily identified. He missed his lover. Reconnecting with him had only sharpened the loss. It was thus that, when three knocks rang out on the heavy wooden door, Renly sprang instantly into action and, somewhat unceremoniously - in a way that didn't quite befit a king, wrenched the thing open. His heart leapt into his throat. - It wasn't Loras on the other side. It was a man - one of the men from Las Vegas, it was clear from his clothing - from the faded pattern of the wallpaper behind him. Renly knew this was the man who housed his Knight of Flowers. He was tall and dark-haired, handsome in a sweet kind of way - most unlike Loras. Curbing the desperation in his voice as best he could, the king smiled benignly and spoke. "You come wrapping on my door, but I know you not," he said airily, assuming a nonchalant expression. He was in a large, well-lit room, somewhere secluded in the heart of Highgarden. Fresh flowers decorated every surface. It was the room the Tyrells prepared for him on his visits to the keep. Most importantly, however, was that he was alone. Though Renly was still uncertain as to how the doorways to and from Westeros worked, he was glad he was alone. It was enough to deal with Loras' surprise at his lord's second coming. Anyone else would simply be too much. Dallas had a hard time tuning out the frantic words that Loras was shouting in his head, not to mention calming the fervor that the knight was feeling all over, leaving Dallas’ limbs shaking and desperate to lunge through the door. And then suddenly, he didn’t have to. The door opened and there stood Renly Baratheon, and Dallas had a long moment to marvel at how strange it was, to be suddenly faced with a person who was only familiar to him from watching television. Then he realized that he only had time to wonder because Loras had fallen silent within him, shocked that Renly was really within reach, afraid that he might disappear in an instant and then Loras would be left alone again. Finally, Dallas was able to rouse Loras enough that between the two of them they had enough will and courage to send Dallas Shay through the door, where Loras Tyrell emerged on the other side. At a glance Loras noticed that he was no longer dressed as he’d been in King’s Landing, the armour and cloak now replaced with a more casual tunic of soft green cotton over dark trousers, and a short brocade jacket with roses woven in golden silk. It was certainly a more fitting outfit for his presence in Highgarden, although he had only a moment’s thought to spare for his clothes when he could practically reach out and touch Renly. Renly. “And now, Your Grace?” Loras hardly dared to breathe the words, taking a single step forward and already able to feel the heat radiating between them, like a bolt of lightning through the air. “Do you know my face?” The man peered at Renly from across the threshold with dark eyes, while the king held his breath. He willed himself to be patient, to keep his feet firmly planted on the stone floor beneath his boots, knowing well that his experience - death, darkness, and emptiness - had been more merciful than whatever it was that had befallen his lover. Grief and loss were ugly creatures, he knew, feverish and all-consuming. Many a man - his future stretching ahead of him like the road that wound from Storm's End to King's Landing - had fallen before their dull blades, hopes snuffed out like the lives they mourned. He had to remember that. Renly had to remember. The change was sudden. The stranger's dark eyes were replaced by Loras', the color of shining, beaten gold, framed so perfectly by long lashes. The king's heart climbed higher in his throat, his breath caught on it. The garden greens of the tunic covered the slight frame, the slender lines of the young man's body Renly's eyes drew up until they found his face. The face he did know. The face that brought bright tears to the king's eyes, even as he smiled - the lofty expression replaced by a genuine, unabashed smile of joy. There were no words. None sprang to mind. The king's normally quick tongue wasn't tied, so much as there was simply nothing to say. Renly opened his arms wide, the tears spilling over and streaming down his cheeks in two sparkling lines. He laughed, still unable to articulate any one of the well of emotions that reached from his fingertips to his feet, pushing his heart higher and higher in his throat. One word finally managed to pass his lips, coming out ragged and breathless. "Loras." And that was all it took. One word, his name, uttered on a shuddering breath into the empty air that hung between them. Only his name from those familiar lips, and Loras - normally so graceful with a sword or a morningstar in his hand - was practically tripping over his own boots as he fell rather than stepped forward to close the space between himself and his love’s outstretched arms. He barely had time to register the glint of light on Renly’s cheeks that signified tears, and the fact that it had been a very long time indeed since he had seen the man cry, before he crashed into Renly’s arms. His breath escaped him in a strangled sound, something painful and twisted-up that came from his chest and made him clench his eyes shut tight while he pressed his face against Renly’s neck and held him close. It took several seconds of this, of Loras pressing close so that he could feel every inch of Renly’s frame against his own, so that he could smell his clothes and his hair and his skin, to convince himself that all of this was real. It was not some beautiful dream that he would surely wake from soon enough, and neither was it a cruel, horrible jest that someone had played on him, perhaps having slipped him a poison that caused vivid, painful hallucinations. Could it all be real? His king, his lord, his everything standing before him as if he’d never died. More than that, actually touching Loras and holding him and shining like a radiant star for all to see. “Renly,” he gasped out after what felt like a century of clutching at the man and trying to find his breath. Loras’ hands found their way to the back of Renly’s head and here he marveled at the feel of soft hair against his fingers, laying a row of desperate kisses up the column of his neck before pressing their cheeks together. It was real. He was real. Renly didn't know how long the darkness had had him in its grasp. There was no timekeeper in the afterlife, no maester to tick off the days from a roll of parchment. However many months (or years, perhaps?) it had been, it felt like an eternity. It felt like it had been a lifetime ago (and, indeed, it had been) since the king had held his former squire in his arms. It had been far too long. Loras all but stumbled into the embrace. Had the moment not been so heady, Renly might have laughed. After all, the Knight of Flowers was renowned for his grace, for the fluidity of his movements, the perfect curl of his smile. But this was no tourney, no battlefield. It was a most desired reunion. Certainly, if there was ever a time he was allowed to trip over himself, this was it. In truth, the moment was surreal. Renly was thankful he was not the one rushing forward as he was no longer convinced his legs were capable of properly propelling him. His knees felt weak. No words passed between the men as they held one another tight. The king's arms wound themselves around Loras' slender shoulders and pulled him as close as they were able. His eyes were still wet. Hands gripped him, felt him, as if attempting to assure themselves that the body they felt was real. Renly leaned his head contentedly against his lovers. At once his nose was filled with the wonderful, familiar scents of his lover's hair - roses, leather, and polish. The smile that pulled at the corners of his mouth was insistent. Had he wanted to, the man would've been unable to frown. The happiness he felt manifested there - on his lips - and there was naught he could do about it. The kisses planted on Renly's throat were eager, but earnest. Though the want was there, lustful deeds were currently far from Renly's mind. All that he wanted and needed was here, in his arms. After Loras spoke his name, the king pulled back a few inches, the annoying smile still stretching across his face. He pressed his forehead to the other man's and closed his eyes. There was another short silence. Renly opened his eyes to look at Loras. "I missed you." With the taste of Renly’s smooth neck on his lips (vague whispers of sweat and copper desire and cold metal against a hot tongue), Loras could barely hold himself upright in the arms of the man who loved him more than anyone else in the world. His mother and father had loved him, of course, but he had also been raised him as their pawn in the game of thrones, the shining rose of Highgarden with a sword placed in his hand as soon as he was old enough to hold a stick. It was strictly to Loras’ benefit that he happened to be entirely handy with a weapon, and able to fight and charm his way into the Baratheon strength of Storm’s End. “You missed me?” He repeated, choking the words out against the warm and still air of the private room that was buried beneath the walls of Loras’ familial home. They tasted almost amusing on his tongue, in a sour sort of way, for how inadequate they were in the context of the six black months he had spent since Renly’s end. No words could begin to describe the void that had ripped him in two, and he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to find them. Better to be brave, always brave. His hands slipped under the material at Renly’s waist and there his hands explored, fingers plying at the beautiful man’s flesh and gripping tight, skin searing as he could hardly believe they touched Renly’s hips or stomach or chest. “I had to learn to live without you, Renly,” he groaned softly, the words twisting their way out of his mouth with a pained grimace. “Thank the Seven that you have returned.” Though he would have been content to stand and hold Loras through the night, Renly wished to have the door to the hotel and the strange world beyond closed. He knew already that their time together was limited, and felt the seconds slip by as if the sands of time were falling, grain by grain, on his head - he needed no reminders. Gently, the older man took his lover’s hands from beneath his jerkin and tunic, though he was loathe to do so, and led him away from the room’s entrance, stopping only to latch the door on their way to the large canopied bed that dominated the space. It wasn’t until he was seated on the edge of the bed, boots still planted on the floor (though only just; the bed was tall), that he spoke. "The Seven.. Have you been praying without me?" He asked, giving the younger man an amused look. While he did so, Renly noted the geometry of his lover's face - how beautiful it was, how much he had ached for the sight of it again - and his wry facade dropped. There was no hesitation behind the reach of his hands, nor the stretch of his arms, as he drew Loras near once again. Rather than simply embrace him, however, the king kissed the other man with a passion he hadn’t felt since - since before he’d died. The blood that was only newly flowing through him surged and rushed raucously through his veins. It was all rather exhilarating. It was a long moment before he pulled back, removing his lips from Loras’. When he did, he inhaled deeply. "I did,” he affirmed, “I missed you.” The trip between the hotel’s doorway and the bed hardly even registered in Loras’ awareness, so fixated was he on the minute details of Renly’s presence. It occurred to him that perhaps there were, somehow, little things that had slipped his mind when it was so preoccupied with the bleakness of life without his lover: the way that Renly’s hair curled softly against the nape of his neck, the way that tears made his eyes shine like stars in the night, or how his mouth grew soft when he smiled just for Loras. Suddenly he found himself seated on the bed, his longer legs finding a bit more purchase against the stone floor than Renly’s, newly grateful for this position because he’d realized how very weak they felt beneath him and doubted that they would have supported his weight for much longer. He couldn’t bring himself to answer Renly’s question even if it had been asked in jest, because it reminded him of the night that they had spent together, ‘praying’, just before Renly had been torn away from him. He would not think of it. The kiss, however, he answered in kind. His slender hands grasped at Renly’s strong shoulders and arms, and he sank into the kiss as if he was a lump of wax left out in the sun, soft and warm and ready to be molded back into shape by gentle hands. When Renly finally pulled away Loras had ceased his trembling, returned to the sanctuary of his lover’s grasp. “Then you must swear that you will never leave me again,” he said, finding Renly’s hand and squeezing it hard in his own as he looked up at the man through lowered lashes. There was a quiet determination evident in his voice that would assure Renly’s how deadly serious he was about the matter. He would not allow Renly to be taken from him again, nor himself from Renly. Woe to the fool who dared to threaten either of them. After a moment he cast his gaze downward, running the fingers of his free hand over the pale skin of the man’s wrist, tracing the faint blue lines that carried life throughout him. Precious blood, warming his love to Loras’ touch, to be protected always. He let his mind wander for a bit, turning over the idea that a man could be gone one moment and there again the next. “Do you feel any different?” he wondered aloud, cocking his head slightly as he examined Renly from head to toe, searching for a noticeable change, if indeed there was one to be found. To say there was heat behind their lips as they pressed together, as their hands found familiar holds on each other's bodies, as pulses quickened and hearts beat in time, would be grossly understated. There was a need there that one kiss could never sate. Loss, after all, even if temporary, is loss. - As Loras began tracing figures on Renly's wrist, the older man closed his eyes for half a second. He focused on the sensation of his lover's fingertips brushing at the thin skin, on the way his lips and shoulder still tingled from where they'd been touched and gripped. The king opened his eyes as Loras spoke. “I promise I'm not going anywhere,” came his reply as he shook his head. He heard a familiar stubbornness in the other man's voice that helped remind him just what it must have been like to be the one left behind. As his stomach clenched out of a strange sense of guilt, Renly inched closer to his love and slid an arm around the man's slender shoulders protectively. While there was nothing to be done for the time Loras had spent in mourning, the least Renly could do now was make certain he'd not have to do it a second time. Startled from his thoughts, the king blinked and looked at the younger man blankly for a moment before smiling and peering down at himself. He considered the question. “Warmer.” There was no denying that Loras felt that same heat, as it filtered through the palms of his hands and his lips and into the very core of his chest where it warmed up his heart like the tongues of an open flame. Renly’s presence filled his soul up to the brim with a sensation that felt like gentle waves lapping at a shore, and Loras’ eyes threatened to spill over when Renly promised him the only thing that Loras needed to hear. Renly would not leave him again, no matter what happened in Westeros or on the other side of the mysterious door. And there it was: that smile. It pierced through him like a beam of invisible light and left him dizzy, with twin tears leaving wet paths down his flushed cheeks and making him turn away at the waist so that he could wipe his face with one sleeve. Quite undignified, but then he’d never had to worry about Renly thinking less of him for showing weakness. In fact, his lord’s chambers were one of the few places that he’d ever really felt safe, able to be unguarded and free of judgement. So he let the tears come, remembering the first moment he had seen Renly smile like that on the day that Loras had arrived as the young man’s new squire. The smile, and all that came with it, had returned to him by some miracle and he knew that ne’er a smile would go by unappreciated. Despite the tears, Loras laughed. It was something bright and full of disbelief, that he should be laughing now in the iron grip of those arms. “And would you say that this warmth is the product of your resurrection?” Loras managed to raise a single eyebrow, leaning back as if to regard Renly in his entirety. “Or your current state of... happiness?” The sudden light that glinted off his love's face caused a small crease of concern to grow between Renly's brows. The king's grip around the younger man's shoulders loosened as Loras turned away to hide his tears. Thoughts of dignity and weakness ought to have been far from the young knight's mind, Renly would've told him. They had no use for such things here in Highgarden. All the older man asked for was honesty - and if that meant weeping, if it meant bellowing, that was fine, so long as it was sincere. After all, the rest of the world was their stage upon which to act as pretenders. When Loras laughed - a lovely sound Renly had greatly missed - the king mirrored the arch of his lover's brow. Even as the younger man leaned back, he drew in close, until he nearly had the Knight of Flowers on his back on the great bed, Renly's hands on either side of him - though one was briefly lifted to allow a thumb to dab at the wetness beneath Loras' eyes. He smiled after doing so, then sat back to straddle the other man. A playful smile on his lips, Renly slipped his hands beneath the light material of his love's tunic and, palms flat, ran his nails ever so gently down the other man's impossibly smooth chest. He relished at the feeling of his skin on Loras', at the beat of the heart beneath his hand. "It could certainly be called a form of resurrection," he replied in a low tone as he dipped in to lay a kiss on Loras' lips. Even as his tears were daubed away with the gentle, smooth pad of Renly’s thumb (so unmarred by the horrors of battle and war), Loras could only focus on the touch. Renly was here, and he was real, and there was nothing that anyone could do to take him away. And then real was lifted to an entirely new level as the older man was suddenly straddling Loras, his weight a solid comfort against Loras’ hips that pressed him into the bed beneath them. With a breath caught in his throat, Loras barely had a moment to recover from the pleasant surprise that flushed in his neck before there were hands against his bare skin, and oh - how he’d longed for this moment, for this touch all over again, and in this moment it was truly happening. Loras was not dreaming. He was not asleep. Miraculously, he felt every inch of the slight burn that Renly’s nails left on his chest. He felt the same heartbeat that Renly marveled at, speeding up under his lover’s ministrations. And somehow, this kiss was different. It signaled something new, perhaps an end to their old life together and the beginning of a new era. The new reign of the rightful king, with Loras Tyrell at his side. “Then we best not let it go to waste, my lord,” he mumbled against Renly’s tender mouth, sliding one arm around the man’s waist and pulling him closer until their bodies were flush together. Loras dipped deeper into the kiss and made a soft sound of contentment as he warmed and melted, reduced to mewls and desperate hands clutching at every inch of skin he could find. He knew that he would not let go, as long as there was breath in his lungs. |