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Circa 1590; Kingdom of France
Scotland always feels raw after they’ve fucked, like some vital part of him has been flayed away, exposing everything within himself that he usually keeps secret and hidden.
It used to terrify him, as there’s little he guards as zealously as the privacy of his inner self, but the passage of time and its paradoxical disappointments have taught him that he has nothing to fear from France in that regard.
As soon as they have both found completion in their coupling, France moves away from him. Turns his back.
Tonight is no exception.
Whilst the added warmth of France’s body slowly fades from his skin, Scotland stares up at the bed’s dark canopy, unseeing. Silent and still despite the violence of his thoughts: his own desires engaged in their centuries’ old battle with his knowledge of France’s.
He wants to curl an arm around France’s waist and pull him close again. Perhaps even press a kiss to his temple, his jaw, the curve of his cheek. Every inch of exposed skin.
The yearning is stronger than ever, because Scotland has yet to shake that vertiginous sensation that had been birthed during France’s last visit to his home. The ground they have both stood upon, side by side, for the past three hundred years feels to be crumbling beneath Scotland’s feet, and he wants nothing more than to cling to France to prevent himself from falling along with it.
But this particular battle has only ever had one victor, no matter how many times it has been fought.
France hates to be held; calls it smothering. He claims to find many things smothering, though Scotland has long suspected that they all stem from the same root: that emotion of Scotland’s that has never been given voice between them.
Because he cannot have what he wants, Scotland allows himself the indulgence of quenching another need. One that France has never protested against.
He turns, too, onto his side and then lets his eyes drink their fill.
Shadows conceal most of the details of France’s body – huddling beneath the smooth curve of his shoulder blades and pooling in the small of his back – but his long, lean outline is lovely in its own way.
His hair is splayed in disarray across his pillow, baring the slim column of his neck, and it looks almost black in contrast to the pale fabric, except those few strands which catch the flickering candlelight and throw it back in brilliant gold.
The very first time he had seen France – dancing and laughing and so beautiful that Scotland had indeed felt like he had been physically struck upon seeing him – Scotland had wondered, dazedly, if the other kingdom’s hair would feel hot if he were to put a hand to it, given how brightly it shone.
Though Scotland’s curiosity had long been satisfied on that score, his fingers still ache with that same old urge to touch France’s hair, perhaps even comb out its tangles. But France has often told him he is too rough to attempt such a thing, so Scotland keeps his hands to himself and simply admires it.
With his attention thus caught and nothing to mark the passage of time but the culmination of France’s shallow breaths, it takes Scotland longer than it maybe should to realise that something is wrong.
On any other night, France would either have demanded to be taken again by now, if his spirit had risen once more upon resting, or else he would have ordered Scotland out of the bed so he can find his own.
“Shall I leave, France?” Scotland asks; tentative with anxiety, not hope.
He does not expect an invitation to stay, but France’s silence is troubling. Scotland wonders if his presence has been forgotten entirely. That would be worse than any dismissal.
After a long, dreadful pause that seems to confirm Scotland’s fears, France asks, “Do you want to?” His voice creaks dryly.
‘No,’ Scotland wants to say. ‘No, of course not.’ And, ‘I never do.’
The words have claws, though, and stay lodged at the back of his throat. He can’t help but think that the question is some kind of test, but as he does not know what France wants to hear, he cannot answer it.
France has been adamant for years that it was best that they sleep apart, because Scotland so seldom rested easily at night, but, then again, would France have given him a choice if he was not prepared to endure that outcome? Perhaps –
France’s low snarl suggests that his patience has run out. If there was a correct reply, Scotland had been too slow in giving it to make any odds now.
“Do whatever you like. Stay, go; they’re both the same to me,” France says, each word hard and pointed like the head of an arrow. “I do not care, Écosse.”
The way France draws out the sibilance at the end of that name – not his, not theirs; the one France hasn’t used for, god… for an age – sounds like a snake’s hiss. It sounds venomous.
The world entire seems to shift beneath Scotland, so violently that he thinks there’s little chance of being able to keep his footing now. He feels sick, his heart pounds, and a cold sweat breaks out on his brow.
But he stays besides France, nevertheless. Because France had given him the blessing to do so. Because he does not know how long it might be before he's offered such an honour again.
He does not sleep, though. He dreads finding out what the morrow may bring too much for that.