sterngaze | open post

[ The touch on Cardan's back surprises him into a shiver -- the scarred skin is always a little sensitive, a little more primed for touch both good and bad. It's almost as startling as the expression on Liem's face, because Cardan doesn't think he'd ever seen him look anything other than weary. Certainly not like this, not like he's having... fun.

It's strikingly attractive.

...but Liem's palm on his back also brings reality back into focus. Right-- he had a plan, before all this, before the pleasant ache of wanting and the intoxicating feeling of Liem against him pulled his attention astray. Even if the noise he makes pulses straight down to Cardan's cock. Even if there are so many things Cardan wants to do. He pulls back to press a lazy kiss to Liem's jaw, then lower, breath hot against his skin.

It would be so easy to just-- ]

Liem, [ he queries against a pale neck, his tone impressively calm for how heated he feels. ]

[Liem obviously hasn't gone the past few weeks without thinking about what it would be like to kiss Cardan again; what it would be like to surprise him during work (he still doesn't think of it as their work) by responding in kind when he so obviously assumed Liem would try his best to ignore him; what it would be like to cross the distance between them before sleep and offer to soothe his stung pride with his hands and his mouth. He's thought about it in fleeting, senseless fancies, entertained during quiet moments and discarded again.

But in those fancies Cardan did not shiver so intriguingly beneath his touch, and the scent of him was not so heady and immediate.

Liem's head tips gently at the lazy press of Cardan's lips against his jaw, another breath sighing out as those kisses travel down to his neck. He squirms his hips up again, seeking the length of Cardan's cock against him, and his fingers wander his back beneath his shirt, light and inquisitive and methodical, as the sound of his name makes Liem's eyes flutter open: curious; intent.]

Mm.

[He hums, fingers pausing their gentle exploration of Cardan's spine. The breath against his throat is very warm.]

Yes?

[ For a moment, he hovers on the knife's edge of decision. For a moment, he closes his eyes, breathing into the shivery, soft feeling -- a tenderness that feels strange in the space between them. It feels good. It feels nice. Liem's hands are careful; Cardan wonders if he's this gentle with all his lovers.

It's just a little distressing, right then.

The tail is the only real warning Liem gets: it lashes, just once, splashing water. But the tip is still twitching when Cardan pulls himself up, locks eyes with Liem, and says: ]

If you tarry any longer, you'll be late to your banquet.

[ ...It's technically true. By his estimation, he's fucked around long enough that Liem will be late to the banquet even if he doesn't tarry.

Speaking of drowning: he's going to move. More water splashes out as he pulls himself, slippery as a merrow, away from that unbearably gentle touch. And though he is still flushed, and still hard, Cardan's face is perfectly calm.

Except, maybe, for something flinty in his eyes. ]

Which is well, as I find myself in want of a bath.

[The tail's sudden motion is startling, but it's the expression on Cardan's face when he pulls back that makes Liem's eyes go wide. He stops halfway to sitting up himself, propped on one elbow as his eyes search Cardan's. What they find makes something low in his chest go chill and tight.

Ah. Right.

Realization strikes him like a slap to the face: He'd attributed Cardan's desire to toy with him to boredom, without accounting for his spite. But although his expression changes dramatically in the space of a few moments, it moves hardly at all. The attentive interest leeches from it, leaving his face still and brittle, pale but for the spots of colour settled high on his cheeks and the tips of his ears. His eyes are flat with unmistakable resentment.]

Excuse me.

[It comes out as a murmur with all the warmth and substance of deep space: the same tone he uses with his father when he's been humiliated beyond even his capacious ability to endure. He picks himself out of the bath, wrapping a towel around both his nakedness and his arousal. He does not look at Cardan, or speak again; he simply strides through the door, which opens well before he's reached it and slams behind him without so much as a gesture.

He is late for his banquet. There is the matter of his dampness and general disarray, which he insists on addressing to the best of his abilities before he is willing to call his attendants back. Liem departs looking harried and taut about the eyes; he is gone for most of the night and returns just an hour shy of dawn, but he does not return to his rooms. (Their rooms.)

He sequesters himself in his study instead, weary as ever—and he neither leaves nor admits any entry until long after the sun has passed its zenith and sunk back down, towards the horizon.]

[ It's not a pleasant sight, exactly: he can see tension replace warmth, distrust slam into places where they had gained some ground. But what does he want to gain ground for, when the sting of that first night still festers, unsoothed?

And anyway, Liem's anger is interesting. Some part of Cardan will always like this, will always feed on cruelty, as much as the vampires feed on blood.

Now they are merely closer to even.

Left alone, he peels off his wet clothes and finishes his bath (and his wank) without much hurry. He doesn't think of anything when he does it; he certainly doesn't think of his name on Liem's tongue or the strength of his arm around Cardan's waist.

When he slides between the sheets at the end of the night, he has not one shred of clothing on him.

Four hours later, he's still naked, and still awake. Though he'd like to tell himself that he doesn't care, Liem's absence disturbs him; in his focus on petty vengeance, Cardan has momentarily forgotten how fragile his station here -- or anywhere -- is. This is Liem's home much more than his; the servants like him; even Iago cannot possibly favour Cardan over his only son. There are too many ways in which his life could become difficult if Liem chose to make it so.

The thought is disquieting enough to chase him out of bed and into his clothes. It's early afternoon, and though a manor this size is never deserted, the rooms with windows feel eerily still. A smarter man would perhaps endeavour to find a solution to his problem, but what solution is there to his own nature?

The only thing left to him is distraction. Cardan ignores the servants as he wanders, finding his way to the wine cellar first. There, he doesn't bother flirting with moderation; when he leaves, it is with a full crate of bottles under his arm.

He's going down to the stables.

Cardan has arrived at the estate with some dowry; the two beautiful yet oddly-proportioned Faerie horses are part of that. They are not what he's come for, however -- it's the giant, well-furred moth that dozes in the shadowiest stall. Its feathery antennae twitch when he approaches. He'll set down the crate, uncork the first bottle, and pour it into the moth's trough.

This mollifies it enough to let him approach. He steps into the stall and lets himself sink down onto the hay, breathing in its familiar scent. It's not comforting, exactly -- he had never liked sleeping in the stables -- but it feels a little bit like home. The moth, as it turns out, is a decently agreeable drinking partner, and by the time they are out of wine, Cardan feels something closer to normal -- closer to not caring, anyway, as the familiar pleasant heaviness settles in his limbs.

He'll still be there once the moon rises: his head pillowed on the moth's furry throax as he sleeps, hair and shoulders lightly seasoned with the dust that coats its wings. ]

[Initially, as Liem shuts himself in his study in an effort to avoid his husband’s company, he tries to fill the pale morning hours with work. There is always something to be reviewed, plotted, tracked down, signed. He has enough of a backlog at hand that he could easily spend half a night in this manner; during the day, under present circumstances, he imagines he could keep himself busy until sundown.

But, perhaps unsurprisingly, concentration eludes him. Although he can keep Cardan out of his sight, he cannot keep him out of his thoughts, and he spends much of his time at his desk stewing in his own frustration. The wound to his pride will recover easily enough; for his kind, all wounds do. But he does not know how he’s meant to survive a marriage to someone he cannot trust with anything at all, and who makes him feel hopelessly foolish for even wanting that luxury. The thought of bringing politics and intrigue into his private life exhausts him, has always exhausted him, and he resents having what feels like the last of his peace robbed from him for the sake of his father’s interests. He certainly resents his father, and today he finds himself quite capable of resenting Cardan too.

It’s somehow worse that he still wants him, and that he knows that he’s probably not going to stop. Perhaps a different vampire might salvage some shred of self-respect by plotting his vengeance, by using his position to make Cardan miserable as a thank-you for his treatment, but Liem doesn’t want to make Cardan miserable; he wants Cardan to fuck him. He wants Cardan to fuck him, and the obvious fact that Cardan holds no regard for him at all isn’t making him want it any less.

But there is a limit to how long Liem can spend just feeling sorry for himself. For one thing, there are only so many hours in the day, and for another, he’s not going to solve any of his problems by brooding alone in the dark, vampire-appropriate an activity though that may be. He emerges sometime before dusk—far too late to catch any appreciable amount of sleep, but early enough at least get a head-start on the night. He cancels his earliest meetings, shuffling them all to after midnight (to Gusairne’s marked displeasure). And, having bought himself the freedom of the next several hours, he heads back to his rooms to make nice with his husband.

At which point, he finds that his husband is not there.

It is some time later when Liem comes looking for Cardan in the stables. He has un-rumpled somewhat; he’s wearing clean clothes, and he both looks and smells freshly shaven. But he is wearing last night’s hair and last night’s face, and when he stops at the entrance of Cardan’s stall, weariness lives in the look he gives to the crate’s worth of empty bottles sharing the space with his lightly-dusted spouse.

Like this, he looks a little less alien. He looks like a man who has pitted his cares against a prodigious amount of alcohol, and who has likely been felled in the crossfire.]

Cardan. [He doesn’t speak loudly just yet; he hasn’t known Cardan to be a particularly heavy sleeper.] Is our bed so inhospitable, that you’d rather sleep in the stables?

[ There is no immediate response; not from Cardan, anyway. But the moth stirs -- perhaps it's wary of the intruder, or simply restless. No stable groom has seen fit to disturb the prince's slumber, and so it has remained trapped in its stall for longer than usual.

The shifting of its wings disturbs Cardan in turn. He frowns and reaches up to wipe some of the dust from his face; it shimmers in the half-light. ]

Wretched creature, [ he'll sigh, without much bite-- a half-breath before realizing he's not alone. For a moment, his face is taken by unguarded surprise, and then his usual haughtiness shutters his eyes.

He hadn't expected Liem to come looking for him.

Despite his excesses, Cardan does not appear to be particularly inhibited -- whatever alcohol remains in him only takes the edge off of the discomfort of dealing with this now. A discomfort wholly of his own making, granted, but the problem with assigning guilt is that it doesn't make pain any easier.

Liem looks well, considering. Cardan cannot read his face. If he's still angry, Cardan wouldn't have any idea what to expect from it.

He supposes he should rise. ]

I imagine you spent your day in better company than I.

[ Hardly a stretch to assume Liem went out and fucked someone. Cardan would have, in his circumstance, and he well knows that vampire banquets are almost as randy as Faerie ones. ]

[Even after weeks of sharing a bed, it is still unusual for Liem to see Cardan wear his thoughts so honestly, at any hour of the day. He watches him stir and then recall himself. Notes the precise moment when Cardan realizes he is not alone.

It occurs to Liem that his is not the only peace that has been stolen for the sake of their union.]

Whoever you're imagining, I hope they have a good, wicked smile. [He remarks almost to himself, raising his eyebrows as if in surprise.] The kind that promises I'll wake up the evening after to discover it's next week. I'd hate to learn I was sleeping around for anything less.

[Technically, neither he nor Cardan promised not to fuck other people. He doubts his spouse would be offended if he had slept with someone after the banquet, and frankly he doesn't expect any more restraint from Cardan, at least not for personal reasons. He's just not especially keen on broadcasting their marital discord by seeking out other lovers less than a month after their wedding.

It would be better all around, he thinks, if he just spent his time trying to fix his marriage instead.]

Would you like to get out of the house? [he says, with no preamble at all. And also:] I cancelled our appointments.

[ Cardan is mid-stretch when Liem starts talking about wicked smiles and... Faerie trickery? It takes him a moment to process the sentiment; he blinks, thrown off guard for the second time in as many minutes, this time not bothering to hide his surprise.

It gets worse, somehow.

When Liem suggests they get out of the house, suspicion starts fomenting in the back of his head. By the time he tells Cardan he's cleared his (their?) calendar, he is absolutely certain this is a trap. Perhaps Liem and Gusairne have finally found common ground in their mutual hatred of Cardan, and the stodgy vampire is waiting around the corner with a clubbing stick -- by this point, nothing seems particularly unlikely to him.

But.

He's curious. ]

What did you have in mind, exactly?

[Liem almost smiles at the naked surprise his sentiment seems to have evoked in Cardan; clearly whatever he was expected to say in response to his assumption, it wasn't anything like that. He wonders if it's the sentiment that his husband finds surprising, or just hearing it come from Liem's mouth.

He'd rather not seem too flip, though. He didn't tramp down to the stables on no sleep just to amuse himself at his husband's expense, whatever Cardan might be expecting.

And, it occurs to him, he might be expecting just that. Best to be up front, then.]

Mostly I thought we might get away from everyone at the house, and enjoy some parts of the estate you haven't seen yet.

[He frowns, briefly, unhappily aware of the implications his suggestion might carry coming from somebody who is potentially very angry. But… no, surely Cardan isn't actually suspicious of him in that way. It would be catastrophically stupid to embarrass Liem the way he did if he thought there was a chance he might be dangerous, and whatever might be true of Cardan, he doesn't think him a stupid man.]

We could take a ride, or just walk the grounds if you prefer.

[He spreads his hands a little, fleetingly.]

You were right: we don't spend much time together outside of work. So—would you like to?

[ Every word Liem speaks is more unfathomable than the next. Cardan would have been less astounded if his husband had asked him to run away to a circus together. But if it's a trick, it is the clumsiest, most brazen trick in existence, and Cardan has not come to associate either of those terms with Liem. And besides--

It has been some time since Cardan's been outdoors -- properly, truly outdoors, not just going from building to ride and vice versa. His recent schedule of politicking-ledgers-harassment has hardly allowed for it; what little free time he has is spent sleeping or leering at Liem from his study's couch. And the part of Cardan that's nature, that's magic, is a little parched for the wild part of a forest: for looming trees and feathery ferns, for bird song and the din of insects labouring in the dark.

Yes.

Yes, he would like to.

The moth bumps against his hip, insistently, its wings attempting to spread in the confined space. Cardan looks down -- having forgotten where he was, for the novelty of being asked out on a walk -- and huffs out a soft chuckle. ]

...how would you like flying?

[ He'll look up at Liem; the half-smile that tugs at his mouth is oddly cautious. ]

My ornery pet would like to stretch its wings, I imagine.

[When Liem had suggested the idea of a ride, he had not been imagining that it would be on the back of a giant moth. As he glances at the furry creature looming restlessly behind Cardan, he trades some of the weariness in his expression for surprise, like he hadn’t realized the beast might be anything other than his husband’s drinking buddy and temporary pillow. Somehow it had not occurred to him that a trip on moth-back was an option, and now that the idea has been floated, he is… not at all sure how he would like it, actually.

He has never flown before, on anything.]

That would be… novel.

[Possibly exciting; possibly terrifying. He suspects he won’t know which until they’re in the air, which is a prospect that makes him a little nervous. But he had meant to leave the particulars up to Cardan’s preference, and he has just enough optimism left in him to hope that accompanying him on an outing like this might actually make his husband happy.

He smiles with a faint, playful wariness.]

Should I be concerned about its temper?

[ He thinks flying is one way to mitigate unexpected surprises, anyway. Not being on land means there are fewer land-based traps that anyone can spring, though more and more he's convinced that this isn't, in fact, what's on his husband's mind.

But more than that, more than protection--

To his own mild surprise, Cardan thinks he might enjoy showing Liem a little bit of Faerie. A little glimpse of magic, of something wild and strange and unconstrained. Maybe he's just being nostalgic for a home he was never really that happy in, but so be it. ]

Not nearly as much as about mine.

[ The moth doesn't have teeth, for one. And though it is large, it's also rather plush; even the white-and-grey wings look a little fuzzy.

Usually, he has to bribe it to do anything at all, but it seems like the day's excesses have mollified the creature. Cardan brushes past Liem to push open the stall gate -- carefully not thinking about the closeness of their bodies -- and the moth moves after him, somewhat impatiently. Once it has maneuvered its body out, it takes a moment to stretch its large wings.

If Liem was hoping to come out of this untouched by its glittery dust, he will find himself disappointed.

There are no reins, nor saddle. The elf merely climbs on the creature's back, and then holds out his hand, apparently intending to help Liem up. ]

[Liem's smile grows a little more wry, a little more careful as Cardan crosses the stall to unlatch the gate next to him. No, it isn't just the moth's temper he's concerned about, for all that he imagines being thrown from one midair would be far more inconvenient than being bucked from a testy horse. His eyes follow his husband out of the stall and into the night air.]

Well. That's only natural.

[Despite an absolutely outrageous abundance of plush fur, the soft looking creature manages to look majestic as it unfolds its broad, pale wings. Liem waits outside the span of its wings as Cardan turns to it and, without relying on any silliness like a saddle or even reins, simply climbs atop its back.

It's hard to reconcile, looking at him perched there, that five minutes ago he was sleeping off the day's excess in a stable stall. There is an otherworldly air about him that is not at all diminished by the glitter in his hair or the informal state of his attire, and when he offers a hand down to help him, Liem is not at all convinced he's actually going to be back in time for his late-night meetings if he joins him on this ride.

But it is far too late now to change his mind. Liem draws closer and, placing his hand in Cardan's and another on the moth's furry back, he climbs up behind him.]

[ Cardan's only response to the assertion is a huffed laugh.

Liem's ascent should be relatively easy, at least: despite his own slim frame, Cardan doesn't seem to struggle with pulling up his weight. Once his husband is perched behind him, Cardan will place that same hand on his own waist. ]

Hold on to me.

[ And he will, in fact, carefully wait for Liem to secure himself before he taps the moth's side and commands: ] Up.

[ Up it goes.

It is not a sedate endeavour: first it shivers, warming up dormant muscles for the task ahead. The giant wings tremble, then move, and air ripples over the fuzzy surface as the moth begins to flap them. They move something like sails, and the noise they make isn't dissimilar. Cardan's warning about holding on becomes pertinent almost immediately: in getting off the ground, the moth's head tilts up until they are on a precarious incline. Fortunately, it doesn't last -- as they rise further, climbing above the roof of the estate, above the line of treetops, the moth's body will even out to horizontal.

The night is moonlit. Though the landscape would be difficult for mortal eyes to make out, neither darkness nor distance present much of a barrier to Cardan, and he suspects similar might be true for Liem. He looks out over the grounds, to the dark line separating manicured space from the forest surrounding, and feels a flutter in his chest. ]

Where to? [ He has to raise his voice a little above the moth's wings, turning his head back to glance at his husband. ]

[Cardan doesn’t need to ask twice for Liem to hold on to him; Liem is far too uncertain about what is about to happen to deny himself something to hold as they take off. The furry back beneath him doesn’t have quite enough grip for his liking, and he isn’t certain what kind of motion he should expect from it. Despite the way his husband’s scent reminds Liem of things he’d rather not recall just now, he slides his arms around his waist and leans forward until his chest is almost flush with the slim lines of his back.

Though by the light touch of his grip, he seems to have come under the impression that the man he’s holding has skin made of glass.

This lasts for about as long as it takes for the moth to get warmed up and launch itself into the air. The moment their mount tips its face up to ascend into the night sky, Liem’s grip snaps elastic-tight; his stomach drops straight down and stays there as they clear the trees, leaving him to wonder if they’ll need to collect it on their return. If his heart could ever be bothered to beat, Cardan would be able to feel it juddering against his back.

Once they’ve levelled out, it is with great dignity that he peels his cheek off of Cardan’s dust-coated shoulder to survey the stretch of trees below them. The landscape from this vantage looks startlingly alien, and when he looks down at it for too long his chest starts to feel squeezed tight, so he opts to look at the moon instead.

It’s a moment before he can summon an answer for Cardan’s question.]

For now? East. [He tips his face towards his husband’s ear. Dawn is a distant promise at the moment; there is nothing in that direction now but the silvery expanse of the forest.]

[ It is not Cardan's first time with a passenger. He used to smuggle Balekin's servants out this way, unglamouring them and then taking them to the mainland, out of Elfhame. They would cling, too, terrified by the return of their senses, by the height, by the horrors of their time in service. He hated them touching him, though it was necessary.

He doesn't hate it now. Though Liem's grip on him feels like a vice, and though for a little while he feels like he cannot draw a full breath, there is something satisfying about it. He's pretty sure that in Liem's thoughts, he features as an insubstantial, slippery menace at best. Certainly no one dependable, not the person he'd expect to anchor him.

By the time he notices he's grinning, Liem's terror appears to be receding.

Cardan relays his instruction to the moth, and it changes direction accordingly, its large body oddly graceful in the air. For a few moments, the rhythmic flap of his wings will be their only accompaniment. Then Cardan will speak again. ]

If you weren't seducing a wicked stranger, what did you do?

[ It is, perhaps, an indelicate question to ask, but it's not like Liem can get off the moth. Or strangle Cardan without consequence.

He does his best to only sound curious, anyway. ]

[As long as he keeps his gaze trained on the sky, the horizon, or on Cardan, Liem finds that their ride is not too harrowing. Now that the creature beneath them has reached a height it seems comfortable with, it makes for a decently steady seat; even when it turns to face the eastern stars, it banks with an artful grace that belies its impressive size, carrying its passengers gently with it. He convinces the muscles of his arms to relax his death grip on his husband, approaching something that could more believably be called a lover’s embrace—an irony, as his husband could not in any honesty be called his lover.

He is still not in any danger of letting go.

Elder vampires of lineages such as his often gain mastery of certain hereditary magics: the power to ride the breeze as a ghostly mist, or flap through the darkness in the form of a bat. Perhaps if he were more experienced, and had nurtured his power in that way, the view from the moth’s back wouldn’t trouble him in the slightest. As things stand, he is almost glad of the chance to answer Cardan’s question. Awkward though it is, it does at least give him something else to think about.]

Work.

[This is technically not a lie. Liem did get some paltry amount of work done toward the beginning of the several hours he spent holed up in his study. But even after last night, he is not so ungracious as to simply give Cardan a one-word answer.]

I came home, and I spent most of the day in my study. But… as you may expect, I didn’t actually get much done.

[His lingering dissatisfaction with how their last interaction went cannot be anything but obvious, but Liem tries to sound neutral about the whole thing. Cardan saw his true feelings on the matter plainly enough that night; he has no desire to revisit them.]

That is not what I expected, [ is all Cardan says.

For once, he finds he has no desire to poke further at Liem's answer, unsatisfying as it is. But then, would he have been happier to find Liem had done something dramatic? Whatever want Cardan had for a reaction was sated by the scene in the bath, by seeing the colour high on Liem's face as Cardan's joke dawned on him.

It doesn't feel quite as triumphant as he'd thought it would.

Which means he doesn't wish to dwell on it, either. Instead, he surveys the land that stretches out beneath them; unlike his husband, he doesn't mind the thrill of being up high, of the wind tearing through his hair on this clear, beautiful night. Still, he does not wish to spend all their time up here, and when he spots a clearing large enough for the moth to land, he will direct it down.

It dives at his direction, though its landing is a little more gentle than the takeoff. ]

Edited 2022-11-22 04:04 (UTC)

[Whatever satisfaction Cardan gleans from indulging his curiosity about Liem's own day, he keeps it to himself. It's not the most thrilling answer he could have given, but if his husband wanted to sting his pride enough to leave a mark, even a temporary one, he has done so.

Though the more that mark fades, the harder it is to forget the thrill that preceded the sting; particularly with Cardan's body pressed so very close.

The trip down to the ground is only marginally less alarming than their journey up, for all that Liem can see it coming. It takes a few moments for him to be willing to release his riding partner even once they've landed, loath as he is to relinquish the comfort of a warm body to hold while his nerves continue to jitter beneath his skin. But he would still like to be on the ground, and after a moment Liem slides his arms free to lean back with a short sigh.]

Well, that was refreshing.

[The little jolt of evening terror has done wonders to wake him up at least, which will surely stand him in good stead for at least the time until they have to get back on the moth and fly back. Liem dismounts carefully, attempting not to bother their mount with his descent, and glances around the clearing in which they now find themselves. Their landing seems to have disturbed a blanket of fireflies, which now float excitedly amongst the ferns carpeting the space.

Oh, good; he does in fact know where they are. He glances back at Cardan, looking windblown and tentatively pleased.]

You've whisked us quite a distance from the house. It would take half the night to get back, if we had to walk.

[Hopefully the moth remains in good spirits.]

[ It seems strange for a vampire to be afraid. He’s been to enough of their revels now to know they are creatures of deadly strength and swiftness and menace, and though Cardan knows power is no cure for fear, the press of Liem’s body against his still feels like discovering a secret.

Refreshing gets Liem a short chuckle.

He slides off the moth’s back himself, boots landing among green fronds. For the moment, at least, the animal seems content not to move, aside from the slow moving of its antennae.

Liem’s assertion that they’re far away is pleasing. Cardan grins back – having, for once, abandoned his refuge of sly smiles and cool glares. Bathed in moonlight and glitter dust alike, surrounded by twinkling lights, Liem looks exceedingly charming. Cardan has to repress the urge to reach out and mess with his hair even more, his fingers twitchy at his side.

For a moment, he wonders if it could have been just like this. If, perhaps, without the shadow of the manor and their places in it looming indelibly over them, it would have been easier to take off just a bit more of his armor. There might have been fewer misunderstandings; they might not be still sleeping in the same bed like strangers.

Or not sleeping, he supposes, if Liem decides to make his absence a habit.

He reaches out anyway, though only to brush a bit of moth dust off of Liem’s cheek. ]

Then I will entrust myself to you.

[Liem does not trust that chuckle, and he does not trust that grin, despite his stated preference for menacing and unpredictable lovers. Or perhaps it’s because of his predilections that he still feels so hesitant. He does not want to let himself be charmed by Cardan, not when he’s so certain that it can only end badly for him. And, despite the aforementioned menace and unpredictability, there is much to be charmed by.

Vampire or Faerie, falling head-over-heels for someone you met at a party is always a bad idea. Doing the same for someone you met on the occasion of your wedding is unquestionably worse.

For a moment, the brush of fingers against his cheek bewilders him completely. He blinks at Cardan, who is iridescing rather more than normal, and lifts a hand belatedly to brush at his own cheek. When his fingers come away shimmering faintly, he thinks first of the glittery coating on Cardan’s shoulders after his snooze in the stall. Then he sees that much of his clothing has received the same treatment, and he realizes that he must now look every bit as glimmery as his husband.

Ah; he must look amusing indeed.]

Well then.

[He reaches out to lightly catch his husband’s hand, and lifts it so he can brush a kiss over his knuckles.]

As your escort, let me welcome you to my family’s part of the forest. I like to wander it sometimes, when Gusairne is being especially insufferable.

[ He’s a little surprised at the brush of cool lips against his fingers; the touch seems to linger on his skin. It’s odd to be courted when he’s so often played the role of the dashing prince, himself. What’s more is that it works, though the thoughts that cross Cardan’s mind regarding Liem’s mouth – and where he would prefer it – cannot be described as particularly princely. His fingers curl slightly against Liem’s hand, tightening just a touch.

Gusairne’s name prompts a soft snort from him. ]

He is capable of being more insufferable than this? Surely that isn’t possible. Flowers would wilt, birds would cease singing. The moon would rather cloak itself than show its face to such unpleasant sights.

He is a peril to beauty itself.

[ He is a peril to romance, too, Cardan imagines. At the same time, there is catharsis in shittalking their mutual irritant behind his back, for once. Usually Cardan only gets to do it to Gusairne’s face. ]

How either of us yet retain ours, I am not certain.

[The small, secretive smile that twitches at the corners of Liem’s mouth suggests that he is trying not to grin too openly at the thorough tenor of Cardan’s trash-talking. Even as an adult, now that his father’s seneschal is his subordinate, it’s still not a prudent habit to relax into—regardless of how apt his husband’s remarks may be.]

He does have a certain withering aura about him, [he agrees.] Though he has been in rare form of late.

[It’s not hard to pin down the source of Gusairne’s sour moods; he’s been especially unpleasant ever since he started having to report to Liem’s husband on top of reporting to Liem himself. He suspects Cardan is not unaware of this, given his apparent disdain for the man.]

But if Gusairne were capable of robbing fair folk of their beauty, my father surely wouldn’t waste his talents by insisting he work for me.

[Then, after a moment’s thought, he amends his statement.]

Actually, he’d still probably insist on it. He would just expect me to leash him and take him to more interesting places.

If he gave you leave to also muzzle the man, I may just be tempted to make it so.

[ If he notices Liem's suppressed mirth (he does), he makes no issue of it. They have many secrets between them; this one, at least, Cardan understands.

The more puzzling issue relates to Liem's mention of his father. It has not escaped Cardan's notice that Iago's decisions have a tendency to make his son's life challenging. At first, he'd thought it a mere by-blow of Iago's self-interest. Now, he's sometimes unsure if that's the whole of it.

Maybe one day he will ask Liem about it.

Today, tonight, he only threads his fingers through Liem's, and says, ]

Let us think of more pleasant things, before my lustre fades entirely. Where shall we go?

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