Alessio Malaspina (alessio) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2008-07-28 02:43:00 |
|
|||
Current mood: | loved |
Late Monday afternoon, 14 September 1942, mostly at a flat in Odd's Lane in Londinium...
WARNING: Explicit sexual content.
Alessio Zabini was generally pleased with the world, despite all omens of danger, for a number of reasons. One, he was walking. Two, it was his own two feet he was walking on. Three, he was walking with Yvon Malfoy. Four, Yvon was also walking and breathing and, for all that he was easily tired, nowhere near dying. And five, which was last but not least, Yvon had offered him his arm, and they were walking through the streets like a couple, not brothers or friends. And if Yvon actually needed to be steadied here and there, that was more than all right. Alessio would have preferred that Yvon had not required so much assistance, but since he did, Alessio would rather have been damned than let anyone else do it.
If conversation didn’t happen while they walked, because Yvon was still breathing a little hard, that was fine by Alessio. Words had never been his favourite method of expressing himself, anyway. The fact that Yvon’s fingers were laced through his and that it was his hand he gripped when he faltered said everything he needed to hear.
And now they were standing in front of the building where they had lived, except for their tours of duty, for three years: since Priscilla Chattox-Kyteler had evicted them from the journeymen’s dormitory in the summer of ‘35 (allegedly for fucking in the showers, but actually for numerous offences involving a number of other locations) until the day Alessio and Portia had left Yvon in the fall of ‘38.
“I’m glad I don’t live far from the hospital,” said Yvon, pushing open the door to the building and leaning against the banister, slightly winded.
“Me, too,” Alessio agreed. The muscles in his leg were new, and the weight of the memories—especially the memory of leaving—was a lot to ask them to bear.
“Are you ready to face the stairs?” Yvon teased him, leaning against the banister.
Alessio thought it was more a question of whether Yvon was ready. But pride was what Yvon liked to call his besetting sin, and Alessio loved it in him, too much to want to puncture it. “I think so, but the question is, once I get up them, am I ever going to want to climb back down?” There were two ways that could be taken, after all.
Yvon chuckled; he’d chosen to take it the pleasanter way. “Maybe not right away.”
“If you’re there with me, maybe not ever,” said Alessio, smiling.
Yvon grinned back at him. “It’s a mess, you know. I threw everything I thought I’d need for the trip back home into a field bag. I don’t think I’ve made the bed in the last week. I believe there’s a pile of old pictures of us on the kitchen table. I do hope there isn’t stale tea on it, too, but I can’t quite remember.”
Alessio paused, then laughed. “So it looks like…what my rooms usually look like?”
Yvon laughed. “It looks the way my rooms always look when I’m miserable,” he confessed with good humour.
“Well, the miserable part’s changed now,” Alessio said fondly. “At least, I hope so.”
Yvon nodded, and then they went up the stairs. When they got to the landing—Yvon’s rooms were on the second floor, far enough above the street for minimal quiet but not so far he couldn’t run down them in the middle of the night if he was wanted at work emergently—he frowned. “Someone’s been in here,” he said. It was like Yvon to be so orderly that he could see that, even though they hadn’t yet actually reached their front door. “These aren’t the wards I put here. They’re close, but…not the same.”
Alessio frowned. “Who would want to be in here?
Yvon gave him a look that was only slightly incredulous, then explained. “Someone who wanted to steal a bit of my hair, a photograph of us, my dirty sheets…”
“Oh, Gods.” Alessio sighed. Yvon always said he was just as smart as anyone else, but if it was true, why did he never work these things out? He started to tell Yvon not to go in, there was nothing inside worth the risk, but Yvon had already pushed open the door with the tip of his wand; it hung wrong on its hinges. “Should we go in? What if…?”
The parlour was nearly empty of everything except the furniture, which they had not owned. There was an empty box on the couch and a note on the table. “Someone’s packed it up,” said Yvon, and walked in ahead of Alessio, picking the note up. “Maman. Well, Keresek. And Santino, Keresek couldn’t have taken the door off the hinges like that. I could never touch them myself.” He sighed. “I wish she’d told us.”
Alessio made a face. “Why would she do that?”
Yvon laughed. “You have to ask? They don’t want us to live here, remember? They want us to live at home in the Manor, with them. Never mind I can’t get back to work at three in the morning from there, even without any curfew.” Yvon handed the note to Alessio. “I would have suspected your brother, but he doesn’t use so many flourishes.”
“But you’d think she’d tell us first, all things considered. I mean, Nico, that’s one thing, but…” Alessio sighed and rubbed his face.
“I was in bed all day yesterday. First thing this morning I took you to Mungo’s,” Yvon said with a shrug. “When do you suppose she had the chance? She had to lead that meeting this afternoon at the War Bureau. We’re lucky she had the presence of mind to send Keresek. Into Londinium, oh God. I hope there aren’t bodies.”
“At least she left a note,” Alessio said, shaking his head. He’d forgotten that as imperious as Nicodemo was and would always be, he could be even worse when he and Dracaena were presenting a united front. “It could be worse. She could have sent Keresek out among Muggles.”
Yvon sighed. “Whoever she sent, they couldn’t have known where everything was. Fortunately she left us a box, maybe two.”
“Should we finish packing up now?” Alessio asked reluctantly. His plans for the afternoon had not involved packing to move, even little things.
“What do you want to do?” Yvon must have caught the tone in his voice, because he set the box down and turned to cup Alessio’s cheek in his hand.
Alessio leaned into his hand slightly. “I’m just tired, it’s nothing.” Being in the shabby little parlour—which had not seemed shabby at all when they had been younger—was making him think of the day he’d stormed out of it, Portia’s hand in his own. His things were already gone from this place. But he didn’t want Yvon to leave anything important behind.
“You’re not upset?” Yvon smiled. “I half expected you to insist on doing it for me, and I would have let you if I hadn’t changed most of the wards. Not because of you. Because of Helena.” He watched Alessio, anxious. “You’re not angry?”
“I’m not. I’m worried about you still, but…” Alessio quirked a little smile, just the one side of his mouth working properly. “This is your space. I’d make a mess, anyway, and you’re right about the wards, and…it hasn’t been mine for a very long time. Maybe I’m fine with them moving us out,” he said, glancing down at his feet. “It is a little miserable here. We hurt each other here.”
Yvon considered this. Alessio was relieved that he wasn’t offended. “We hurt each other here,” Yvon repeated after him. “And lots of other people, too.” He nodded. “Still dreary, this flat. But wherever we go from here, won’t be.” He swallowed. Alessio wondered what he was thinking of—the breakup? Portia? Helena? Verity? Corinne? Arianwen? Did it matter? It would be good to live someplace without those old memories.
“I want a place that’s just ours,” said Alessio, wincing a little.
“Yes,” said Yvon, with a fierceness that brought the crooked grin back to Alessio’s space. “Anyhow. Portia lived here the better part of a year, with us. Wards and locks I could change, but they know how the place is laid out.”
“I don’t want to be at the Manor,” Alessio rushed to assure him. “I mean, I like being with everyone, but I want to be with you, just you. Somewhere safe.”
“Solidarity,” Yvon said tenderly, stroking his cheek again. “I missed it.”
“After being with the Company and everything, being alone with you, it’s heaven,” Alessio told him.
“Come back to our room,” said Yvon. “I know, but just for a minute. It never really did stop being ours, no matter who I brought up here. You know the way.”
“I’m lost, I think I need a map,” Alessio teased him, moving in that direction as soon as he was told. He was fairly sure that Keresek would have got everything, but he knew Yvon needed to see for himself, and that was all right. As long as they didn’t end up going to bed here.
“Too bad for you, the view’s so distracting,” Yvon said, watching him walk down the hall for a minute before catching up.
Alessio glanced back at Yvon, laughing. “I’m beginning to think you love me only for my physical charms!”
“If that’s what it takes to make you admit that you have them!” Yvon caught up with him and glanced into the bedroom. “Oh, Maman. You do know me so well. Or possibly you just know what whoever else might come into this place would have wanted.” The bed had been stripped; the mattress was gone and was doubtlessly burning outdoors somewhere back of the Manor.
Alessio sighed softly. “It’s just to keep you safe.”
“I know.” Yvon shrugged, tugged him into the room, and pushed him up against the wall.
Alessio thought maybe some ghosts could be laid after all as Yvon’s mouth came down on his own, and wound his arms around Yvon’s neck, one hand toying with his hair. The soft noises that came from his mouth were surrender, or something like caution; he wasn’t sure. But he loved it when Yvon was forceful like that, because it meant he wanted it, wanted Alessio, desperately.
Yvon didn’t break the kiss cleanly; he slid his mouth away, just far enough to kiss the crooked corner of Alessio’s mouth before kissing along his jaw and his cheekbone back up to his temple. “I know I can’t have you here,” he whispered in Alessio’s ear, and Alessio felt a wave of relief along with the flare of disappointment, “but I had to do that. It’s been so long since we have really been alone.”
“We are, aren’t we?” Alessio whispered, his eyes half-closed to shut out the room, shut out the past, shut out everything but Yvon’s mouth and fingers and arms and the soft golden hair he was playing with. “We really are. I think I like it, how about you?”
“I love it,” Yvon murmured into his hair. “If it weren’t so dangerous right now I’d take you straight down to the Alley and rent us a cheap little room where they wouldn’t care if we broke the bed, so long as we paid.”
Alessio growled a little, suddenly aware of just how hard he was and just how low and guttural Yvon’s voice had begun to get. In another moment, another few kisses, he’d be speaking thug French and pulling Alessio’s hair. And Alessio wanted that. Maybe he even wanted it to hurt a little, after all the reminders of what he’d done wrong. But mostly he just wanted this.
And then, unbelievably, Yvon’s grip loosened, and his breathing slowed. “I miss being nobody special,” he confessed, right into Alessio’s ear, his voice soft and tender again. “I don’t understand why you wanted a Destiny, really I don’t. I just want to be alone with you, someplace nobody knows or cares who we are.”
“I just want to matter,” Alessio told him softly. “I don’t know, when you put it that way, it sounds stupid, but I always just want to matter, to know what I’m supposed to do and for that to matter, and all of it…”
Yvon pulled back, and Alessio seized his shoulders, not wanting to let him go, but instead he took Alessio’s face in his hands—those hands, the ones that could fly across the strings of a violin or sew torn flesh back together with threads of white light—and looked into Alessio’s eyes, his own eyes burning blue like the heart of a flame. “You matter more than anyone else in the world. I couldn’t give my life to God, or Corinne or Ari or anyone else, because it belongs to you.”
Alessio pulled himself up to the tips of his toes and covered Yvon’s mouth with his own and kissed him, kissed him like it was the only thing in the world worth doing. Yvon let him do it until he was gasping and then, when he’d got back his breath, he continued, in that soft, confessional voice: “I was lost without you. I went down a thousand wrong turns and they all led me here and I would have been here three years ago, I would have been there the very day that she called it off, if I’d only thought you still wanted me. Ask Arianwen, I told her I’ve never loved anyone else, right there, on that bed, I still can’t believe I said that to her but it was the truth and she told me to do what I had to do.”
“I never stopped,” Alessio told him, and wondered what he had finally done, to get everything that he’d ever wanted in life put into his hands at one time. Yvon. The Destiny. The powers, which were confounding and terrifying. This confession, this truth. Four days ago he hadn’t known his place in the world; he’d been clinging to Valeria because she had the certainty he craved. Except she hadn’t; it had been all adolescent bravado. And this was real.
“You chose,” said Yvon. “It was a narrow thing, but you chose. You were the one who kissed me. At the party, before Marco’s wedding which would have been yours as well. You came to me. And when I told you to choose, you chose me. It’s all I ever wanted, just a single act of Will.” He sighed. “Because of the way I possess you, take you and make you my own…if you leave, I can’t come after you. Because that really would be force. And I need to know that it never is.”
“It never was,” said Alessio. “You’ve never forced me to do anything. I was the one who claimed you. In the streets. In Roma. My brother had his princess, then…and then I finally had my prince.” He swallowed. “They always said we were nothing. Puppies at play under Ercole’s table, yapping for scraps.”
“I know,” Yvon whispered. “I know and I never meant you to think that’s all you deserved from me. I never wanted to treat you like that. I’m not going to do it again. And you’re never going to let me again.”
Alessio nodded, his chin set. “I’m not.”
Yvon nodded slowly. “You think Mrs Parkinson knows where your brother’s place is? Because I’d lay good odds that you’ve still got the key, and that he hasn’t changed the wards. Nicodemo is so predictable.”
Alessio flushed at the thought of his brother’s flat, his brother’s bed, but he nodded. He’d done things he regretted there as well, but none of them had hurt Yvon. At least not as far as he knew. “I have it. I doubt she knows, it’s out of the way.”
“Will that be too strange for you? With everything that happened there, I mean?” Yvon’s expression was careful, solicitous, shy; he meant it. And it would be a little strange, but not as strange as this.
Alessio didn’t mind the strangeness. Not when he knew how well Nicodemo warded his haunts, and how dangerous everything was, right now. “I just want to be with you, I don’t care where.”
“All right then,” said Yvon, and let him go, walking into the closet. Alessio followed, curious, when he didn’t come out right away. Surely Keresek wouldn’t have left any clothes? But Yvon was opening up that hidey-hole on the slanted side of the ceiling. Alessio was amused—and surprised—that Keresek hadn’t got past Yvon’s glamour. Keresek was better at being a faerie than Yvon was, after all.
“Good God, they got even the cobwebs, but this is still here.” Yvon grinned and pulled down a dark, cherry-wood box with silver fittings, a little larger than a shoe box. Alessio knew it well. It was lined in velvet and he’d brought it with him from France. He kept small mementoes inside it, intensely personal things. Of course he wouldn’t leave it there. Not even if the city were burning. There were things in there that could be used to curse them, too. The lovelocks they’d worn their first year at school, a strand of the other’s hair bound into their own; they’d cut them off once all the Gryffindors and Slytherins had learnt that to touch either one was to draw them both down. And there were other things. Alessio quirked his head, looking at it curiously.
“What? I had it hidden.” Yvon laughed softly. “I’ve always been odd about that, you know. I’d never leave it out in easy reach. Not after Martius Snape tried to steal it when we were in school and he thought he could just go through it and figure out whose by-blow I was.”
“I’m just surprised they didn’t find it, whoever came here,” Alessio said with a shrug. It was achingly familiar, that box, and he wanted to run his fingers over the wood.
“Maybe they knew it wasn’t for anyone else to touch,” Yvon said, but he handed it to Alessio.
Alessio took it carefully. It was a little like holding Yvon’s heart in his hands, which, of course, he did all the time these days. “Maybe,” he agreed, looking at the dark, glossy finish and just like he’d wanted to, he smoothed his fingers out across the top of it. They left a little stain, and he wiped at it hurriedly with a clean handkerchief.
“I wouldn’t have wanted to have to explain it to anyone,” Yvon said, ducking his head a little as he led Alessio back out into the parlour. “There’s nothing else left here, except maybe whatever they left in the kitchen, and there can’t have been much of that. They wouldn’t have left the plate or the silver.”
“We should check anyway, just in case,” Alessio agreed, still keeping the box under one arm.
“I’m rather dreading the tea I left out,” said Yvon, but of course when they got there it was all gone.
“Seems like your dreading was cut off at the pass,” said Alessio with a teasing little smile. “Does this all feel strange to you? Feels strange to me. I don’t know. But then the whole last week’s been rather strange. I’d say it feels like I was taken away by the faeries, except that I have.”
Yvon snorted. “It feels like Maman and your brother were being ‘pro-active’, as Nico would say, and if I hadn’t just spent two days flat on my back doing nothing but trying not to die, I’d be rightly and truly annoyed.”
“It’s just less work for you to even think about trying to do and I can’t be too irritated on that point,” said Alessio, shaking his head. “Less for me to do for you, too.”
Yvon nodded. “Let’s go. If they sent an owl it would have reached us here, so we can presume that it isn’t time to come back. And curfew’s not for several hours.”
Alessio smiled at him. “Yes, let’s go. I know it’s not enough, a few hours, but it’s something, right?”
“It’s everything,” Yvon reminded him. When he got out into the hallway he paused for a moment and stared at the door, then tucked his key under the mat. “I’ll write to the landlady. A note of apology for having my mother’s men come tear the door off the hinges. I’m glad I’m leaving here with you. We moved in together, and we’re leaving together.”
Alessio kissed his cheek. “It fits, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Yvon, and hugged him close with one arm for a moment. “We had some horrible times in that flat. But it was also the first place we were ever really alone, and I’m glad Priscilla made us move out of the dorms.”
“Best thing she could’ve done for us,” Alessio agreed.
Yvon slid back a little, took his arm and headed down the stairs. “We’ll have another home of our own,” he promised Alessio. “I just don’t know where, yet.”
“I believe you. I know we will. It’ll be nice, quiet, we’ll be happy,” said Alessio, a little more careful going downstairs than up.
Yvon slowed his pace to match Alessio’s, and at the bottom of the stairs he squeezed his hand. “Are you all right?”
Alessio nodded. Yvon was the one who was still tired. “I’m okay. Promise.”
“It will get easier,” Yvon promised him. “Where is your brother’s place? Do we need to get a carriage? I only know that there is such a place, because Maman was staying there when you were at Mungo’s, she told me about it.”
“It’s not far, but you should be taking it easy,” Alessio told him gently. His arousal wasn’t as urgent as it had been; in fact his mind was rather clear. But after Yvon’s clear profession of utter devotion, he wanted to get him in bed even more than he had when his cock had been leading the way. And he wanted him well enough to enjoy it.
Yvon laughed. “I can manage if you can. I just don’t know what would be faster, waiting to flag down a hansom or walking?”
Alessio laughed along with him. “You’re not going to let me fuss over you, are you? We can walk, it’s over this way, Odd’s Lane and Diagon.”
“I’ll let you fuss over me as much as you like once we’re alone,” Yvon promised him as they took each other’s arms again. “If I don’t just bend you right over the nearest flat surface of appropriate height.”
Alessio shivered. That sounded damned good. Yvon smiled at him, an expression that would have been sheer menace, except for the tenderness in his eyes. Alessio picked up his pace, since Yvon was matching him easily. He wanted to get indoors and undressed as quickly as possible.
Yvon slid his hand down Alessio’s back briefly, then wrapped half his cloak around them both, pulling him close as they walked. “Think it’ll rain again?”
The air smelled of ozone, and there was a thread of chill in the wind. “Maybe, smells like rain,” Alessio said, glancing up at the sky.
“As long as it’s just rain,” said Yvon in a soft, nervous voice, and then he sighed. “As strange as this must seem, you’re leading. I don’t actually know where we’re going.” He kissed Alessio’s cheek.
Alessio paused and laughed. “Oh, I am, aren’t I? I didn’t even realise.”
Yvon chuckled. “Just till we get through that door. And not one heartbeat longer.”
“Can’t wait,” Alessio told him, his expression entirely eager. The thought of Yvon taking control, putting him on his knees—both of them—had him fumbling for the key and stammering out the key phrases as he opened first the front door and then the door to Nico’s small flat.
Yvon leaned back against the banister and watched him lazily, smiling.
Alessio’s cheeks flushed, and triumphantly, he managed to fish out the right key. “There! I knew I had it,” he said, laughing a little, and he opened the door, carefully taking down the wards he knew Nico had left in place.
“I knew you had it too,” said Yvon, standing up and leaning over him as he worked.
Alessio finally got everything down and he looked up at Yvon over his shoulder with a beaming smile. “Come on in, then.”
“I will,” said Yvon, in a voice that was almost curt and at the same time low and intimate. He flicked a strand of Alessio’s hair away from his face and smiled again. “You sure you want to invite me in? You’ll have no power over me if you do.”
Alessio laughed. “You’re not a vampire!” But Yvon just stood there, and Alessio looked up at him, finally, with rapt attention, and nodded. “I’m sure. Please come in?”
“That’s not the worst thing I’ve been called,” Yvon said, and followed Alessio in. “Close the door. Lock it. Put wards up. I don’t want to be interrupted.”
Alessio nodded and did as he was told, putting his own wards in place carefully. He didn’t say anything, but when he was finished, he turned and looked up at Yvon, waiting to be given instructions.
Yvon said nothing, just pushed him up against the wall, inside the door, in the same position they’d been in back in their old room, and kissed him, just as hard, his hand tangling in Alessio’s hair, pulling a little to bring him closer. Alessio moaned into the kiss and clung to him, not caring if he was off-balance because he knew Yvon wouldn’t let him fall. This was better. Safer. They’d never fought here, never hurt each other here. They hadn’t brought women here. And the place was clean and fully appointed.
Yvon kept him pinned there for a while, alternating between deep, rough, demanding kisses and tender little ones all over his face as the whim took him. He took Alessio’s balance, manoeuvred him into a tight embrace, almost completely off his feet, and Alessio just relaxed in his arms. This was safe; no, this was what safety was. Maybe they’d seldom spent a night alone without the thought of some war at the edge of their minds, but they were shelter for each other in the deepest trench. “Tell me how much you want it,” Yvon choked out, his voice hoarse and soft, still speaking Italian. “Tell me.”
Sometimes this was a sort of test, because Alessio knew Yvon knew how hard he found words sometimes, especially when he was hard and off balance and sweating and wanted Yvon to just take him, already; but maybe not this time. It was beginning to sink in just how much Yvon cared that he wanted this, loved it and needed it, and that a part of him had no idea how close to the very centre of Alessio’s personal universe he was.
“Gods, so much,” Alessio whispered, fighting for breath and words and conscious thought. “Want you, want anything you’ll give me, you feel so good and you’re so beautiful…”
Yvon smiled sweetly. “I’m going to fuck you in your brother’s bed.” There was a gleeful undertone in his voice; he hadn’t made this suggestion solely on account of the building security.
“God,” Alessio breathed, shivering, his eyes wide and round with the suggestion. “Yes. Please.”
“This is where it happened, isn’t it?” There was no recrimination in Yvon’s voice. Just curiosity.
Alessio’s cheeks flushed. He nodded, wordlessly. Yvon kissed him. “Mine,” he whispered, pushing Alessio’s fringe back out of his eyes.
“Yes,” Alessio breathed. “Yes, all yours.”
Yvon gestured with his chin toward the narrow hallway. “Show me the way. Gaslight or candles, whatever you want, but I want to be able to see you. I want to see your face.”
Alessio nodded, leaning in to kiss him once more, then led the way down the corridor, into the bedroom. It was dark, but a whispered word from Alessio brought the gaslight up low, just enough to see. The bed was made though a corner was turned down, as if waiting for them.
“Oh God,” said Yvon, who was unable to keep from laughing, “he keeps it like a hotel room.”
“That’s what it is, sort of,” Alessio said, shrugging awkwardly. It was just a little embarrassing, because if he’d spent that last night with Yvon, instead of here, he wouldn’t have gone to the front in the first place.
Yvon must’ve heard the catch in his voice, because he stopped in his tracks. “You’re all right?”
Alessio licked his lips. “I’m fine, it’s just…a little strange, that’s all. Also, you know he’s going to kill me if he finds out.”
Yvon snorted. “Over my dead body.”
“You know what I mean,” Alessio protested.
Yvon frowned. “You know what I mean.”
Alessio nodded. “I do. I’m just…thinking too much,” he admitted.
“Can’t have that,” said Yvon, and without any warning, pushed him down onto the bed.
Alessio rolled onto his back and smiled up at him. “Better things to do.”
“Get out of your clothes,” said Yvon, leaning back against the wall. “Make it pretty.”
Alessio obeyed, fully conscious of that pale blue gaze as he stripped himself, stretching and turning as he removed his clothing, letting it fall carelessly to the floor.
“You’re beautiful,” Yvon breathed out, looking down at him, naked.
Alessio wondered what he was meant to do next, lie back or kneel or roll over; but Yvon seemed content just to look at him. And maybe he did need to rest. Alessio thought he probably did when he threw back his head, closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “Are you all right?”
Yvon nodded, then opened his eyes and looked back down at him, eyes still wide, flicking a glance toward the nightstand. “Is that going to bite me if I look inside? When we left the Manor this morning, I was more concerned with saving your leg than with whether or not I was carrying lubricants.”
“It shouldn’t,” said Alessio. Nicodemo kept what amounted to a personal arsenal of potions and toys there; he’d seen it.
Yvon grinned. “I suppose this is where I find out if it’s warded.”
Alessio watched him. It was a little strange, using someone else’s things—his brother’s things—but then van Rensselaer had sent Yvon to do house-breaking now and again, and this was strangely personal. Yvon opened the drawer and bit his tongue, as though there were something he wanted to say, but he just shook his head. “This,” he said, “it’s not been opened yet.”
Alessio laughed. That was important.
Yvon took off his boots and socks and cloak, then lay down on the bed beside him, breathing heavily, the bottle clasped in his hand.
“You’re not all right…?” Alessio frowned.
“Just need to catch my breath.” Yvon smiled wickedly. “Maddie warned me about this. She did not say it meant I shouldn’t fuck you and she knows me well enough to have said that if that was the case. The domination will commence again presently. In the meantime, beautiful, you can undress me.”
Alessio laughed softly, and pulled himself up to lean over him. Yvon had a sense of humour about the games they played, and that was one of the reasons he liked it. Undressing him was like unwrapping a gift, undressing Yvon, and Alessio did it far more carefully than he’d undressed himself, pressing small kisses to the flesh he exposed.
Yvon closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in deeply, then looked up at Alessio. “You really are beautiful, you know,” he said as he sat up to help Alessio help him out of his shirt.
Alessio smiled at him. “So long as you think so, that’s all I need,” he said, folding Yvon’s shirt neatly and setting it aside.
“Oh hell yes.” Yvon lay back down and lifted his hips so that Alessio could get his breeches and drawers off him. Alessio folded them rather more loosely and set them aside; Yvon sat up and pulled him down beside him on the bed. “Better,” he said, wrapping one leg and both of his arms around him.
“Mmm, yes, definitely,” Alessio agreed, settling into his arms. He wasn’t even annoyed at the way Yvon would start out rough and have to rest, unable to deliver on the promise in his current state; he didn’t stop, or give up, and that was what mattered. Even lying flat on his back, Yvon was still his prince, and Alessio still mattered.
“I don’t need to make you tell me how much you want this,” Yvon whispered into his ear. “I can feel it. Not just there, but in every inch of your skin, in the way your body moves, in the way you surrender.”
Alessio made a wordless little noise, another shiver running down his spine. “I do, so much, so so much.”
Yvon rolled him onto his back and pinned him, carefully, under his body. “I meant it when I said I didn’t care if you were missing bits, but I’m glad for you that you’re whole again and it’s good to feel all of you there.”
“It’s good to be back to normal, I don’t feel so off-balance anymore. I have you back, and my leg. The world is looking up,” Alessio told him.
“I only want you to be off balance when I put you there,” said Yvon, pressing their bodies together, feeling Alessio’s chest, belly, cock against his. “You understand?”
“Yes,” Alessio whispered. “You’re the only one who’s allowed to put me there.”
Yvon kissed him, hard and tender. “So sweet,” he whispered, and kissed him again. “Need you.”
“All yours,” Alessio murmured in reply, stroking his hand along Yvon’s spine, over the smooth skin. “All yours, anything.”
“Where’d you put my box?” Yvon asked suddenly, frowning. “There was something in it I wanted to give you before we made love, but I got distracted…” He slid down and rested his head on Alessio’s chest, listening to the heartbeat or something.
Alessio blinked. “It’s out in the front room, let me up, I’ll fetch it.”
Yvon thought about it—but then he finally did let Alessio up. “Be quick,” he said, and sat up to pull the bedclothes free.
Alessio kissed him, and got it, and knelt on the floor beside the bed, presenting the box to Yvon with a pleased smile.
Yvon took it and opened it. “Get up here and give me your wrist,” he said softly.
Silently, Alessio held it out for him. Yvon took a familiar silver chain, a liquid, serpentine thing, heavy and cool, from within the box and draped it over Alessio’s wrist. “You kept it…” Alessio breathed, his eyes going wide. He’d thrown it at Yvon on the day he’d left with Portia.
“Do you want it back?” Yvon asked shyly. “Of course I kept it. Do you want it back or is it another bad memory?” His voice broke a little, and he brushed his fingertips unconsciously across his cheekbone, where the bracelet had hit him before it had fallen to the floor.
Alessio kissed Yvon’s fingers and cheekbone, and he swallowed, hard. “Please.”
Yvon fastened the clasp, then took his wand, which he must have got out of his clothes, and touched the tip of it to the clasp. He slid one of his fingers under the chain to make sure that it wasn’t too tight, and then he whispered a word Alessio couldn’t quite hear. The clasp went briefly hot, but the heat was against his finger, not Alessio’s wrist, and then it was cool again, never more to be undone.
Quietly, Alessio watched all of this, then looked up questioningly at Yvon from the sealed clasp.
“If you ever want it off again,” Yvon said quietly, “then I’ll deserve to have it broken, but…”
“I don’t,” Alessio told him. “I don’t want it off!” He stared at it. “It really is permanent, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Yvon, and swallowed. “I want…I mean I’m going to… It was all I wanted to say, at the party. All I wanted to say. But I couldn’t. It had to be your choice. ‘Don’t marry her, marry me.’ I couldn’t say it, then, but I am saying it now: will you marry me? I know you think you should wait, for propriety’s sake. But we’ve waited so long. Been such idiots, really.”
Alessio quirked his head, his hair falling into his eyes. He was speechless for a moment, his free hand coming up to touch Yvon’s face in wonder. “But…I thought…?” It wasn’t possible in Yvon’s religion. He was sure of that. It was barely possible in his own, not that he cared what the Gods thought of anything.
“We’ll go to the registry,” said Yvon firmly. “We can do that tomorrow, if you want. And Amadeo can figure the rest of it out. We can wait for that, too…if you want.” He looked into Alessio’s eyes, his expression slightly terrified.
“He’s willing to do that?” Alessio blinked in shock.
Yvon nodded. “They can’t excommunicate either of us twice, can they?” He was moving swiftly from terror into outright panic, and Alessio realised then that he hadn’t said ‘yes’ yet.
Alessio kissed Yvon soundly. “Yes. Let’s get married, then.”
Yvon kissed him back, laughing with sheer relief, and took the other bracelet out of the box. “I took it off because I thought I didn’t have the right to it any more,” he said, and bowed his head. “Put it on me. The way you did when we bought them.”
Alessio took it and gently draped it over Yvon’s wrist, fumbling a little with the clasp. “I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you too,” Yvon said all in one breath.
Alessio just beamed at him, then lifted his wrist and kissed it, right over the clasp of the bracelet.
“Amadeo was at Mungo’s this morning. We had a long talk, I was losing my mind while they worked on you.” Yvon shrugged. “We talked about you. And Priscilla.”
Alessio made a soft sound at that. “He’s all right, then, I take it?”
“I suppose he’s decided to live by his vows,” said Yvon. “I can’t fault that. I feel like I’m doing the same thing, really, with you. That’s who he is…and this is who we are.”
Alessio nodded. “I can’t imagine a vow of celibacy. Well, I mean, I can imagine it, but I can’t imagine living by one.” Alessio was glad he didn’t have to think about it.
“I considered it,” said Yvon, still staring at the bracelet as though he thought it might disappear. “But never for very long.” He smiled. “That’s your fault, Alessio.”
Alessio laughed. “I’m glad of it.”
Yvon grinned at him. “Sit back, I’m going to fuse the clasp. And then I’m going to ravish you, just so you know.” He did the same spell, wincing at the brief moment of heat, and then shrugged. “Well, not really. I’m not going to throw you around, because I can’t, and you certainly aren’t going to pretend to put up a fuss. We’re not as strong as we think we are. Or rather I’m not.”
Alessio laughed, though he was relieved Yvon was aware of his own limitations, not that he’d ever admit them where anyone else could hear. “I’m too happy to even try to pretend not to want you.”
Yvon sighed. “I don’t think I’ll want that game for a while,” he said, very quietly. “Not until I’m done with having to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming when you say that you never stopped.”
“Never, ever,” Alessio told him, and resolved to make sure he knew it, every minute of every hour of every day.
Yvon set his treasure box down on the bedside table, then pushed him down on the bed, kissing him soundly, stroking his hair and his spine and pressing their bodies together. Alessio clung to him, returning the caresses; as exciting as he found Yvon’s delicious threats and postures, this was what he really wanted now. This was better. He always liked it best this way, he thought; but then whatever they did, he always thought he liked it best this way while they were doing it.
They were lying together, a tangle of limbs, Alessio thrusting into the hollow of Yvon’s hipbone and Yvon’s mouth on the side of his neck, hard sucking kisses that were going to leave marks he was going to want to show off like a fourteen-year-old, and Yvon slid oiled fingers into him. “There,” he whispered, speaking into the marks he’d left.
Alessio moaned and thrust against his hip. He wanted Yvon inside him, but he didn’t want to pull away. He wanted…more. Usually he felt something more when they made love: ghosts of the sensations he’d be feeling if he had been doing to Yvon what Yvon was doing to him, but there was none of that, now.
“There, that’s what you like,” Yvon murmured into his ear, and slid a hand between them to wrap around his cock. “And this.”
Alessio gasped; the sensations were much more distinct when they were just his, but so sharp, so immediate. “Want…” he began, but then he ran out of words.
“Me too,” said Yvon, and pulled him up into his lap, sitting up. Alessio straddled him, whimpering at the brief break in contact, and Yvon laughed. “I see there is absolutely no reason I should deny myself another minute. Is there?”
“Anything you want,” Alessio said, opening his eyes. “Anything.”
Yvon grinned and took him, watching his face, just as he’d said he was going to.
“Oh, Gods…” Alessio breathed, his eyes closing again, he rocked his hips, shallowly, unable to keep still. His voice caught in his throat and he buried his face in the curve of Yvon’s long neck, and he wondered why he wasn’t hearing Yvon’s thoughts the way he’d heard Endymion’s before. If you had to have a gift like that, now was the time, not in the middle of a crisis with a room full of angry people.
Yvon kept stroking him. “Beautiful,” he said. “Feeling you…so tight, drawn out so fine…so close to the edge…the way your hair sticks to your forehead, the way your mouth moves…”
“It’s perfect,” Alessio managed to choke out, moving with him, “but why can’t I feel you?”
Yvon’s mouth curled up in a smile. “I blocked your power. You want it back now?”
Alessio nodded. “I don’t see how it could hurt. There’s no one else in the world but you…”
Yvon shrugged and whispered a little nonsense phrase into his ear, and Alessio sank into the dual consciousness like a warm bath, blurring their pleasure and building it…
“Share,” Yvon whispered. “Endymion can. He talked in my head all morning. It was damned unsettling, too.”
I’ll try. And there it was. Alessio laughed at Yvon’s surprised expression; maybe he should just go on speaking out loud. “There’s no-one in my world right now but you.” It was awkward, a little, being under that gaze. It was just a little embarrassing, seeing himself reflected in those silver-blue eyes, being seen as something perfect and worth the care, something worth keeping. The bracelet on his wrist was a reminder of those promises.
“I wish you could see yourself,” Yvon breathed. “Mine, so beautiful, all mine. Forever.”
Alessio whimpered, his hands clenching as he moved with Yvon. He didn’t want it to be over too soon but he didn’t think he could hold it all back much longer.
“Whenever you want,” Yvon told him softly. Sometimes he liked to draw things out, to make Alessio wait, to build up the energy; but right now it didn’t matter so much.
“Can’t—” Alessio whispered, then that was it, he was on the edge and over it with a sharp gasp; all he’d really needed was permission to fall apart, knowing that Yvon would always be there to put him back together again.
Yvon watched him, stilling so that he could concentrate on the sight and scent and feel of him. “Whose are you?” he whispered.
“Yours,” Alessio breathed, opening his eyes. “Yours.”
“Yes.” Yvon glanced down at him, at their bodies conjoined. “Whose am I?” he said in an even quieter voice than before.
“Mine,” Alessio told him without hesitation. “Always.”
“Yes,” said Yvon. “I’m going to take my pleasure of you now; I’m not holding anything back any more, I want what I want, but if I hurt you at all you must tell me.” He licked at his fingers a little.
Alessio nodded. “I promise.”
Yvon grasped Alessio’s hips with both hands, holding him just where he wanted him, and proceeded to fuck him, hard but not roughly, eyes closed, given up to sensation. Alessio let him have it, caressing and clinging, and now he could feel it too, Yvon’s need and striving to get that release, buried inside him body and mind in a perfect circle of layers of self and soul.
“Is this okay?” Yvon breathed. “Because…”
Alessio nodded. He could almost hear the half-formed thoughts now—how tight it was, how glorious it felt when they moved together and he surrendered and gave himself up to Yvon and the trust they shared. That it mattered, that he mattered, that in the end there was and always would be someone who cared more than anyone else, someone who really belonged to him. That they were one, somehow, and that they were safe together, and that they belonged to each other, and no-one else they’d been with, woman or man, had ever mattered as much as this.
“Glorious,” Alessio whispered, plucking the word right from Yvon’s thoughts, his eyes open and bright. “I’m yours, always yours, you’ll always have me, I promise, I swear, love, I swear.”
Yvon looked straight into his eyes. “I’ll hold you to that,” he said, in a voice too ragged and awed and adoring to hold much threat. “That thing you do with your hips sometimes,” he said, and his hands loosened a little. “Do it. So close. Oh God.”
Alessio wanted to laugh, just overjoyed and delighted, but he knew exactly what Yvon wanted and he did it, trying to draw him deeper. He felt it almost as soon as he did it, the rush of pleasure and need, and he gasped in surprise, not even sure which way his feelings were flowing, as if they were scattered water trying to get to the sea and all he could do was flow along with the current.
“Yes,” Yvon gasped, and his face went slack and he slumped.
Alessio laughed with delight. He had never been so utterly pleased with the world and his place in it. “Oh, oh Yvon, oh mine, yes…”
“Alessio?” Yvon opened one eye first, and then the other. “I am,” he whispered. “Yours, absolutely. But can we lie back down?”
“Always,” Alessio said, kissing whatever bit of skin he could reach.
Yvon yawned a little as they slid back down under the covers, he couldn’t quite keep his eyes open. “We should go back to the Manor, nobody’s sent for us, but maybe they forgot in all the fuss…” His voice trailed off. “Feels like rain in the air.”
Alessio sighed. It felt safe, being close like this. As though nothing could ever hurt them again. Yvon felt safe: felt safer than he had in years, for all the danger of the war, and Alessio could feel how heavy his eyelids were, how worn down he was by Valeria’s miracle and the night without sleep and the day of worry and wonder. “Go ahead and sleep,” he murmured. “A few minutes won’t hurt. You are safe, perfectly safe, I promise. The train’s made of iron, if there is really trouble, I don’t want to get caught in a storm on the train…”
“I’m comfortable,” Yvon whispered plaintively, thinking that it was really a very stupid thing to say, that they ought to get moving.
“Not stupid, never stupid,” Alessio said soothingly.
Yvon chuckled softly. “Silly, then,” he whispered. “Your family sees only the way you cater to me, and the way I lead you. Only Maman sees how much I need you.” He nestled closer, half awake and half asleep, drowsing. Funny how different it was when they were really, truly alone together.
Alessio smiled, stroking his hair. “We need each other. I think maybe we always have. Sleep. A few minutes…you need it, you didn’t get any sleep last night or even in the hospital…”
Yvon tried to nod, but he was already gone. Alessio watched him for a little while, and then fell asleep right beside him.
artisson and alessio