rhy maresh (goldenhelm) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2018-03-01 20:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, alucard emery, rhy maresh |
WHO: Rhy Maresh & Alucard Emery
WHAT: a reunion, of two different kinds
WHEN: Thursday, midday-ish, at the end of Rhy's quarantine
WHERE: med bay
WARNINGS: mentions of parental abuse/violence, homophobia, stuff from Alucard's canon, also some kissing at the end.
A few minutes were spent pacing, Esa’s concerned meows the only company to the thoughts that lingered - excitement and concern. Rhy was Rhy, and while plenty of people on the ship were pleasant company, Rhy’s brother was not particularly one of them. So Rhy, no matter what else that meant, was better than before. At the same time, Alucard remembered Rhy before he had left for The Going Waters. Ignorant, hurt. But Alucard had done it before, and no matter how many times he had to relive that night, for Rhy, he could. He would.
His feet stopped, and Alucard pulled his hair back and away from his face. His second hand hovered over the gold clasp before reaching for the brass one. Better that one, tonight. A conversation he had imagined nearly as many times as his death; only Alucard hadn’t expected to do either of those activities more than once. Exhaling and smiling at his cat, Alucard looked himself over once in the mirror - well put together, as always. No better time.
The ship felt something in common with the streets of London as he walked, full of people going about their lives, ignorant and unaware of what a tremendous moment it was for him. Their lives continued bright about him, and Alucard turned his thoughts inward. For a moment, he wished he had brought the liran. But it was him, just him, and that was all he had to offer.
Each step announced his presence, and with his usual noise, Alucard entered the medical bay and paused just long enough to sweep the room and snag his eyes on Rhy’s black curls. His heart lurched, and Alucard approached his lover’s bed and with self-restraint kept his hands to himself. “It’s good to see you again,” Alucard greeted him. Yet again, though Rhy hadn’t known it, hadn’t had the means to, they had been separated, Alucard far from London, far from Rhy. But it hadn’t been his choice. Again.
--
Rhy had asked Kell to let Alucard know he had arrived. He was exhausted, and grieving, and he hadn’t expected to have so much space to sit with everything that had just happened to him. There had been no time -- he’d barely processed the darkness, the dead, the silvers, before his mother had been killed, and his father had died facing Osaron, and Rhy had dealt with the Veskan plot alone, the sole survivor. There had barely been time to breathe before he’d faced off with Osaron himself, been encased in ice, and stabbed through with icicles, and nearly died from his brother’s loss of magic.
He wanted to be excited about this new world, wanted to get a chance to see it before he had to go back to his own world and be the king. The old Rhy would have jumped at the chance. Now Rhy was just tired.
Empty, Osaron’s words echoed in his head. Hollow. Dead.
He told himself that he was none of those things, but it didn’t particularly make him feel any better. And he wasn’t allowed to leave this medical bay before four hours are up, so he took the bed that was available to him and stretched out, closing his eyes. He didn’t fall asleep, but he didn’t open his eyes again until he heard familiar footsteps coming down the hall, and his heart twisted inside his chest.
“Give us a moment,” he murmured quietly to Kell, just before Alucard entered. He didn’t enjoy watching his brother walk away from him again, but he did not have the energy or patience to deal with the two of them bickering. And he had promised Alucard that he would get an audience, if he came back.
Rhy lifted himself up on his hands and sat up, his legs still stretched out along the bed. It wasn’t the most commanding position, which was what he might have liked, just to feel more in control. Alucard still had an effect on him, and he wanted Rhy, and Rhy wasn’t sure he had the willpower to resist right now. He wanted too badly not to feel empty and hollow, and he knew Alucard could make him feel alive. But the hollowness would come back, worse, if he woke up alone again.
“When did you see me last?” he asked, without preamble.
--
The question answered as much as it asked, its twin if it had come from Alucard’s lips. Not entirely, no. But the silver threads still bound themselves around Rhy, and the exhaustion weighed on him, a kind they had all been familiar with. A kind Alucard had felt night after night. So, before. How many times had Alucard tried to explain, to find the time and the space? He steeled himself again. One hand rubbed the other’s wrist.
“The day I came here,” Alucard replied. He had woken up with Rhy, kissed him once, then twice. Then it was someone’s fault they hadn’t left bed for some time after that. There had been court, meetings of state. They had spent most of the day in close proximity, even as Alucard stood outside closed doors and read. But it wasn’t quite fair, to either of them, to share all those details. Rhy had accepted him back, then. Not now. Not yet.
His head tilted as he considered what was worth saying, what invited Rhy further rather than coercing him with his own future. “In London, after we freed it, after it started picking up the pieces,” Alucard clarified. In Rhy’s future, yes. Still in London. He hadn’t fled, and as had been true each time he had left Rhy, it hadn’t been his choice. Even if the sea didn’t seem done with him yet.
--
“So,” Rhy said slowly, “You did come back.”
He hadn’t realized how worried he was that he’d sent Alucard to his death until it was confirmed that he hadn’t. The weight was there, and then it wasn’t, and an ache took its place. He swallowed hard, and then took a deep breath, then made himself meet Alucard’s eyes. “Thank you for helping me save my city.”
--
Alucard looked Rhy in the eye, refusing to shy away. It stole his breath away. He wanted to kiss the hurt away. He knew it wouldn’t, not right then. His head inclined slightly. It was Alucard’s city too. His country. His world. They had saved the world, the country, the city. Even though Alucard had failed so many of the people he loved. He hadn’t failed Rhy. Not that time.
“I came back for you,” Alucard said. Rhy had been the only one left in London to return to. And he had been enough to return for. To get the truth between them. It was the only way to do anything, to be anything. Stolen kisses and soft moments, sitting at each other’s sides as death threatened to claim them. That wasn’t enough.
“To make sure you understood what happened,” he continued. Memories, of that night, of Orason stealing his father’s voice, of holding a mirror for Rhy to see for himself, to see what truly happened, no wording, not charm to win him over. If Rhy would hear it, then. If Rhy would hear it, now.
--
Rhy’s breath hitched, and he wished he was more composed. The last time they’d seen each other, he’d managed it somehow, even though every fiber of his being had tried to rebel against it. It was harder now that he knew Alucard had done what he asked, now that Alucard was alluding to a picking up of pieces that Rhy did not think were entirely to do with the city, with politics. Alucard had been glad to see him when he walked in, and then it had shifted as soon as Rhy spoke.
As if there was something in the future he didn’t know. As if whatever Alucard had to say would actually give Rhy a reason to forgive him for leaving, to believe he wouldn’t be left again if he gave in. He didn’t know what that explanation could possibly be, but the flicker of hope in his chest was almost more unbearable than everything else.
You haven’t asked, he remembered Alucard saying. Rhy’s throat was tight, but he managed to say, “Why did you leave?”
--
Finally, after so much time, after all the times he imagined Rhy asking, after all the answers he had composed over and over in his head, the question came. It felt heavy, a weight on his chest, pressing his shoulders down. His father’s cane striking with a loud crack from behind. His ribs breaking. But Alucard had remembered it so many times, had watched it in the liran so that he knew what happened, not just his memories, not only his heart breaking.
“Berras followed me to the palace that night,” Alucard said, the name bitter ash in his mouth. Berras had done his worst. Berras had destroyed his life, his love life, his rising star as a magician, as best he could. He had tried to - and nearly had - killed him since. “He saw where I went, and he told my father.” Reson Emery, the dignified proud noble. Maxim Maresh’s old friend. Not the most pleasant of men but respected. That thought made Alucard’s head spin. But the man was dead. He could not hurt Alucard anymore either.
“He beat me until I could not stand, until I could not stay conscious,” he continued. The simple words didn’t communicate the wooziness in his head that lingered after he woke. It did not express that his ribs had still been healing when Alucard had been brought back to London, arrested. Not all of those injuries had been at sea, had been from the guards. “He had old fashioned notions. Ones he enforced strictly. Ones I had flaunted for months. So he took them further. I woke in the hold of a ship on the sea, chained and held on my father’s coin. The pay to keep me away from London until they set me straight.”
He had escaped. He hadn’t come back as soon as he had. Alucard would own up to that. But he hadn’t known how Rhy felt, and he didn’t lay that on Rhy just yet. He wasn’t proud of his cowardice, that his uncertainty of Rhy’s feelings had permitted him to convince himself to find another path, to avoid his father and what would have doubled, tripled, had he marched straight back.
--
Rhy’s fingers curled into the sheets of the hospital bed as he listened. He had expected Alucard to give Rhy a reason to forgive him, and it was, indeed, acceptable. Beaten and sent away out of his own control was not something Rhy could hold against him, but that didn’t make it an easy story to hear. His heart ached for Alucard’s pain, his insides twisted with the knowledge that it had happened because of him. Not that he’d had any hand in it, but it sickened him anyway.
And he was unpleasantly reminded of Alucard going back to his family’s home for Anisa, trying to protect her from the darkness, nearly dying for her. Alucard had tried to stop Rhy from dying too. He had gone out to sea with three Antari and risked his life because Rhy had asked him. Looking at it that way, it seemed horribly unfair of Rhy to fault him for anything, to hold him at a distance. But he hadn’t known. He’d only had the memory of waking up alone.
Before he’d thought about it, he had swung his legs over the side of the bed and gotten to his feet. (He expected his body to be stiff, to ache in all the places he’d been stabbed recently, but it didn’t, and the movement came with relative ease. He wasn’t sure if he would ever get used to that.) His mind kicked in once he was on his feet, reminding him that this would be complicated at home, now that he was king, but right in this moment he didn’t care. There were people around, but Rhy wasn’t their king. He was just human, and he had been through hell, and this was the first good thing that had happened to him in what felt like ages.
He didn’t have far to move to stand in front of Alucard. He reached out, curled the fingers of one hand in the front of Alucard’s shirt. He wanted to kiss him, but he didn’t, not yet; even if Alucard had not meant to leave him, that didn’t entirely erase his insecurities. At seventeen, Rhy had fallen stupidly, overwhelmingly in love, and now he was a king, the stakes were even higher. He could not afford another broken heart, at least not too soon on the heels of everything else.
“Tell me how you feel now,” he whispered. He wasn’t particularly proud of how quiet and strained his voice sounded, or even of the fact that he needed the reassurance.
--
His body stood still, held carefully in check. His fingers tightened on his wrist, but Alucard resisted the urge to lean into Rhy, the way he had so many nights in memory both recent and distant. Until he knew what Rhy wanted, until Rhy chose... It did not matter that the mechanical assistants were in the room, that other people sat or lay in other beds. Only the man before him, standing so close now there was hardly any room between them. Alucard’s heart beat wildly in his chest, somewhere between anticipation and terror.
His breathing hitched, and his heart beat faster. The space between them prickled, and the pull of fabric on his shoulder made him acutely aware of how Rhy nearly pulled on him. But the tension in his body held him a touch closer than before while holding them, still, apart. Alucard didn’t kiss him but felt Rhy’s breath against his skin. The terror transmuted to anticipation, the moment electric and welcome.
“I love you, Rhy,” Alucard said softly. “I have never stopped loving you. I never want to stop loving you.” He had come to court the king, his king, his love. He had years planning to come to London again, of winning Rhy back, of returning and not leaving again. His smile grew, and his hand released the other arm to slip between them, to lift Rhy’s chin to look at him right in the eye, again.
“I’m not leaving you,” Alucard promised.
--
The words electrified Rhy, easing his fears and terrifying him anew. Because as Alucard said, I never want to stop loving you, Rhy realized for the first time that he might have to be the one to walk away. To put his duties as a king, to have an heir, above the love he actually wanted.
But wasn’t this the kind of love a king needed, too? Someone who would come back for him even after a horrible setback, who could put aside everything else to help him save his city? Surely if Alucard had gone through all of that for Rhy, Rhy could in turn find a way to make this work. Which meant not being scared of what people thought, what people would expect from him.
His fingers tightened in Alucard’s shirt and then released, until his palm was pressing against Alucard’s chest, feeling the wild beat of his heart, an echo of Rhy’s own. Rhy stepped in even closer, until there was barely a gap between them. He didn’t quite know whether he was going to kiss Alucard or bury his face in Alucard’s chest until he got close enough to do either one, and then he was leaning in, pressing his lips against Alucard’s.
It was a hesitant kiss at first, but then he deepened it almost immediately. Heat spread through him, making his fingers curl again, not into a fist, just his fingertips pressing into Alucard’s ribs.
--
Alucard met Rhy, kissing him back. His hand slid from Rhy’s chin to his cheek, cupping it gently. His other arm wrapped around Rhy’s back, as though that were enough to hold them together. It pressed them closer and held them together. Yes, together. Again. Just a beginning, it was only just beginning, it had only been beginning too. Alucard didn’t know the rest of the story, the rest of their lives.
He didn’t have an answer for that. He doubted Rhy did either. But Alucard knew his heart, knew his intentions and dreams, and he would pursue them to the end of any and every world they were in together. Alucard would convince Rhy it was possible, it was theirs. Privately. Publicly. The Emerys were wrong. The world was wrong.
Gasping for a quick breath when his head began to swim, his lungs trembling, Alucard kissed Rhy in return, again. The bed was right there, he thought, pushing them half a step back. But Alucard caught himself and laughed against Rhy’s lips as it forced him to breath again. Another gasp for air.
His forehead leaned against Rhy’s. “I am sorry we lost years,” he apologized, “I’m sorry I didn’t return sooner. I am sorry I hurt you.” That Rhy ever doubted how much he was loved.
--
It felt incredibly good to be kissed, even better to be held. Rhy’s heart swelled, stuttered, and came back to life, beating hot blood through his veins, and he finally felt free of the ice’s chill. He finally felt something other than heartbroken, angry, scared, heavy, and hollow. Still exhausted, but warm, alive, and full. He slid both of his arms around Alucard’s waist and held onto him hard. He would have pressed Alucard against the wall, or into the bed, but they were not alone, and so he managed to restrain himself from doing either of those things. Nevertheless, he was sure that his body’s interest was obvious.
And then Alucard was laughing, and Rhy’s lips quirked up in response. He kissed the laugh, swallowed it, delighted in it. Laughter felt like a novelty, a sign that there was still good in the world, that all was not bleak and lost.
He leaned into Alucard, partially out of sheer exhaustion, but he still found the energy to shake his head. “Stop,” he said. “I don’t want your apologies.”
There was no reason Alucard should apologize for something that was not his fault. Rhy would not have minded an apology from Alucard’s father, preferably a groveling, sniveling, begging one. But Reson Emery was dead, and the world was probably better for it, or at least his son’s life was - and by extension, so was Rhy’s.
He let his head drop lower, his forehead against Alucard’s cheek, and then Alucard’s neck. He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask sooner. I thought I already knew the answer.”
--
So close together, they shielded each other’s body from the room around them. It felt a long time coming before they would be able to pull apart. Fine by Alucard, just then. He wasn’t letting go. His heart felt weak. But Rhy hadn’t rejected him, only the apologies. It had only taken a moment, two, three of weakness to have been gone for so long. And years for his plans to return to take shape and be executed.
But he accepted it. His father’s ploys hadn’t changed Alucard’s heart, his inclinations, or his direction in life. It had cost them time, more time than Rhy knew just then. For Alucard had paid for the chance they now made the most of.
They had both of them thought they knew how the other felt. Alucard had heard the continued gossip about the prince’s exploits. He had interpreted that to mean the wrong thing. But love took many shapes, and so did wounds. “We both did,” Alucard admitted. He hadn’t had the chance to speak privately with Rhy on his arrest and banishment. They had barely seen each other, barely been in the same room.
“No one knew, no one who would tell you,” Alucard said gently. Before, the question had burned inside him, never asked. He smiled at the man in his arms. “How about we ask each other, from now on?” Instead of assuming. Whether it was about what they wanted, what they planned, whatever came with them. Stop needing apologies. Make the future they wanted.
--
At first, Rhy wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. Then he remembered how he’d played the role of rake, to try to make himself happy after Alucard had left, and maybe - a little - to prove that he wasn’t hurt. He wasn’t sure if he’d meant for that reputation to get back around to Alucard; certainly he hadn’t cared if it did. Now, it seemed childish and stupid.
“Yes,” he answered. “I need to be able to trust you. Now more than ever.”
Rhy couldn’t die - not directly, at least - but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be betrayed. He had learned that the hard way already, but that betrayal had come from people he had never entirely trusted. It would cut deeper, hurt more than a literal sword through his chest if it came from someone he trusted. Someone he loved. Thankfully, he still had people he loved and trusted, people who had saved his life, the lives of his people, his country. He had people who still treated him like Rhy, even though he was their king.
A king, for instance, would not have been caught showing this kind of weakness in public. But Rhy did not lift his head from where it was tucked against Alucard’s neck.
He paused, and then added, “You haven’t asked me. How I feel.”
--
The words cut sharply against him. Not that Alucard blamed Rhy for the divide that lingered between them, less a chasm than before but still substantial. Whatever the reason, whoever was to blame, Rhy had lost faith in Alucard. Everything he had done only set the groundwork. The wounds were still healing. Rhy looked as fine as he had announcing the tournament, but appearances were deceptive. Alucard had seen just how much. No matter what trauma Rhy suffered, he would look as fine, as well. Another reason they needed more than love and good intentions.
Alucard trusted Rhy. But Rhy was also a king, and kings didn’t get to decide everything selfishly. The puzzle sat before him. But given enough time, Alucard was sure he could solve it. He had gotten this far; he wasn’t leaving it to fate, a fickle friend.
Humming softly at the question, Alucard considered how to answer. Reading Rhy’s reactions and tones, his choices and the changes in his behavior in parallel to his responsibilities. It wasn’t magic, wasn’t splayed out so easily to read right before his eyes. But Alucard paid attention. He listened. He had a fair idea, he thought, of how Rhy felt.
“How do you feel,” Alucard asked, “about me? About being courted?” He had said as much, in softer words, before. But he reiterated his intentions again. It had been public, again, but the company of strangers. It hadn’t been the court. Wherever they were, his intentions were the same.
--
Rhy had an answer ready for the first question, but he hadn’t been prepared for the second. He laughed into Alucard’s shoulder, a genuinely free sound. “Is that what you’re doing? Courting me?”
It was an odd courtship, he thought, although when he thought about it a second time, it wasn’t really. To return for the Essen Tasch and emerge the victor, to gain entry to the palace, to help Rhy save his kingdom -- Rhy could see what Alucard meant. It was a courtship fit for a king, even though Rhy hadn’t recognized it as such. But if it had been anyone else, a stranger, Rhy would have very likely interpreted it that way.
The thought made him feel incredibly warm. Alucard understood not only who Rhy was but who he had to be, and what it meant to be a part of his life. Rhy had, somehow, not expected that. He had too deeply internalized the idea of them as a fling.
“I love you,” he answered, meaning it. “I missed you. And I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, now that I know it was for me.”
--
“Mmm,” Alucard hummed. “I returned to win your heart” - something Alucard hadn’t been certain he had a chance for when he had first slipped into Rhy’s chambers before the games began, but had felt sure of even before Rhy said the words. But the words, aloud, warmed his heart where they stood. “And your hand.” Love was well and good, but Alucard would have been shocked had no one shown any interest in courting Rhy before. After? He was the most eligible bachelor in three kingdoms.
The court hadn’t been part of Alucard’s life, not like it was Rhy’s. That had only just started to change. It hadn’t interested Alucard when he was younger, when those older, stuffier, and and more traditional than him decided what it was and how its members could act. But that wasn’t the court any longer. They could make it what they wanted, what they thought was right. Which was them, somehow. That sort of court could be his place.
Rhy’s words didn’t promise that they would. But Alucard had not expected them to. It was something more than they had had, more than they had committed to just yet. No one was courted overnight. Alucard was so glad to be alive, to have a worthy challenge ahead of him. “And it’s just beginning,” Alucard whispered into Rhy’s ear. As if saving London was a mere prelude. There would be more, more, more.
--
Rhy smiled softly into Alucard’s shoulder. The words made him feel like a silly, carefree prince again, but not in a bad way. They just made him cautiously optimistic about his future. If both he and Alucard willed it, surely they could find a way to make this work, even with the complications of the throne. Rhy had always strongly preferred the idea of a marriage of love and trust rather than political, strategic arrangement. His parents had always made it sound like that marriage would be to a woman, but sometimes they had just said mate. Maybe they had known, even though Rhy hadn’t told them, where his heart lay.
The last words, whispered in his ear, sent a shiver down his spine. Made him want more, in multiple senses of the word. Alucard knew him, that was for damned sure, for better or for worse. Rhy was hopeful that it was for the better.
“I’ll prepare myself to be swept off my feet,” he said, summoning a light and joking tone. Then he let out a long breath, and finally raised his head to look at Alucard. “But first, I desperately need a nap. And I have another hour before they’ll let me leave.” He brushed his fingertips against the back of Alucard’s hips, just the subtlest hint of a gesture to pull him towards the bed. “Stay with me?”
--
Had it already been so long that Rhy had been aboard the ship? Alucard had expected him to remain in the public welcome longer. His eyes nearly looked for Kell’s, the antari - Rhy’s brother - not likely having wandered far during this conversation. But the surprise passed. It fit, that it had taken so long for Alucard to have heard.
Alucard kissed Rhy lightly, short. Punctuation and promise. He shifted them back closer to the bed, so Rhy could return to it, so Alucard could join him. He pushed a curl back off the side of Rhy’s face. “Nowhere I would rather be,” he replied. It was a simple manner to join Rhy in the bed, pressed close together. Sleep was not quickly coming for Alucard, but he held Rhy and lay there, daydreaming of the future, scheming for it. It was his. It was theirs.