Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Cliopher had not realised that he had become such a stranger to physical touch. It had once come so easily to him. By people outside of the Wide Seas, Islanders were considered almost scandalous with their liberal displays of affection to friends, family and strangers all. Visitors used to giving and receiving the Astandalan style of greeting considered touching foreheads together in a public place to be intimate even for lovers, and were appalled if an enthusiastic guide attempted to give them an authentic experience.

In coming to the Palace, Cliopher had learnt early on that if he so much as brushed someone’s hand when he walked past them in a hallway he was expected to stop and offer an apology. And certainly he was never to reach out to tap someone’s arm or side to give direction if they were stuck in a stalemate of trying to get around each other. At the beginning he had thought that perhaps the carefully maintained distance was for respect of the Emperor, who could not touch or be touched. It did seem a little unjust, he supposed, if is courtiers went around hugging each other while he was sat upon his high throne, unable to do anything but watch. Yet when he had the time to visit the city outside the Palace, he noticed that he rarely saw even couples walking along the streets holding hands there, either.

So he had kept his hands to himself, and he had buried his instinct to reach for support, and shrunk to fit his new rules, to take up as little space as possible. The Palace was already full-to-bursting with the Presence, and it wasn’t fair from him, to want something that no one expected to give. Instead, he learnt to bring someone into his confidence with a smile, a kind word. He learnt to offer support with an understated gesture or a correct form of address. He learnt to show people he cared by working to make the world a better and easier place to live in.

And when he finally had the means and the time to visit home again, Cliopher found he had become entirely accustomed to the casual, professional space he had learnt to keep. He was not so changed as to shy away from the Islander greetings; the Vangavaye-ve was his home no matter where he now lived, and he would never forget how to say hello as once of them. But he rarely walked arm-in-arm with his friends, and he didn’t chase his nieces and nephews and little cousins around and scoop them up in his arms as the rest of his family did. He never turned any of them away if asked, but outside of a greeting, even his mother and his sister he hugged only in times of great emotion.

If the magical taboos that had bound him had left Fitzroy so covetous of physical contact that his whole body curled towards even a friendly handshake, then the social ones had had Cliopher deny that he had wanted anything of the sort for so long that he had quite forgotten how to desire something as simply given as a pat on the back for good work.

Yet there had been a time, between his father dying and his being sent to learn from Buru Tovo, that he and his sisters would huddle together under the covers well into the night, Cliopher cocooned safe and warm between them. And then when Navalia had fallen ill, Vinyë had left her husband’s bed so they could hold onto each other in their grief.

The memory of that shared heartbreak and love hits him quite suddenly from nowhere, the first time he tries to rest in a real bed with Fitzroy. He has to choke down a sob; what it meant to him and his sisters to create a place of safety and warmth together, what it means to himself and Fitzroy now, working to find that same security in their own relationship. But he’s not as quiet as he might have hoped because quite suddenly every light in the room flicks on and then off, and Fitzroy flies from the bed, nearly crashing into one of the windows before reforming into a man again; crouched as if in pain, his eyes wide and wild.

Cliopher lurches to his feet and stumbles his way towards him, legs moving faster than his brain until he crashes to his knees before Fitzroy, hands held out towards him, palms up and clutching, grasping at the air. The pain at the fall is sharp, but it’s lost in the confusion and panic of Fitzroy’s muttered “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed. I shouldn’t have made you.”

And Cliopher reaches out, a garbled mix of pleas and promises in reply: “You didn’t. You didn’t. Please come back to bed. I promise that I want to be there. I promise you didn’t make me. I promise I want this. Please. I promise.”

Eventually Fitzroy grasps back, his hands shaking but his eyes clearing of that terrifying, haunted fear. Cliopher rises and pulls him up with him, and he leads Fitzroy back to bed. They climb in under the covers, and Cliopher rolls over onto his stomach so they’re pressed bodily together; rests their clasped hands over Fitzroy’s heart, beating shallow and fast. It makes Cliopher think of a baby bird he once rescued from the middle of a busy hiking path back home, for fear of it being stepped on by a jogger or distracted naturalist. He remembers how it had squawked and awkwardly flapped it’s tiny, useless wings, trying to protect itself even against something that only wanted to help. He remembers how it felt, cupped in his hands: warm and soft and terribly fragile. He remembers how he could feel its heartbeat racing through its entire body, thrumming with its fear. But he’d set it down safe, and when he walked past the other way it was sitting with its mother and screaming for food.

He does his best to cradle Fitzroy the same way he did for that baby bird. He shuffles closer still, until his shoulder is up on Fitzroy’s chest along with his arm, and he can tuck his face in against the crook of his neck, lips slack against his skin. Fitzroy may not have hollow bones, at least not right at this moment, but Cliopher is suddenly sure he could crush him just as easily. They breath together, slowly falling in sync.

Eventually, Fitzroy finds his voice. “You were crying.” He says, barely even a whisper, cracked and brittle around the edges. “I thought– Kip, I thought–”

He can’t quite get the words out, but “I’m sorry” and “Made you” echo around in Cliopher’s head. He props himself up on his free arm so he can look down on Fitzroy’s face. Fitzroy’s eyes blink open, the lion eyes that once held the entire world in their gaze, now solely on Cliopher’s own.

Cliopher tries to smile in reassurance, but he can feel it wobble. Instead, he shifts his arm so the back of his hand is resting against Fitzroy’s neck, his fingers tucked under the string of his efanoa, his thumb ghosting back and forth over the bolt of his jaw. His shoulder twinges a little in protest at the angle. His heart twists harder at the idea of Fitzroy ever thinking such things about himself. “No, beloved.” He says. “No. I was thinking of my sisters, and how it was so easy for us to reach for each other to give comfort when we were young. And of how much you deserve this, to be able to ask for something and know that someone will be there to answer. Because I will not leave you. Not for as long as you want me.” Fitzroy’s fingers twist deliberately in Cliopher’s loose grip until he can rest two on the top of the signet ring that Cliopher hasn’t taken off since it was given to him.

Cliopher nods firmly. “You deserve deserve for it to be easy to reach out, and to be reached out to.”

Fitzroy wriggles his other arm free from where it is trapped between them and wraps it around Cliopher’s waist, pressing his hand gently on the small of Cliopher’s back until he settles back down with his shoulder on his chest and his face against his fanoa’s neck. “I have wanted for you my whole life, Kip.” Fitzroy’s voice is still hardly above a whisper, but the strength of his certainty rings through.

Entirely unsure what to say to that, Cliopher settles for squeezing his hand hard. Fitzroy tightens his hold in response, and then from deep in his chest starts to hum. Cliopher may not have the musical gifts of his sister and mother, but he has more than enough talent of his own to recognise styles and motifs and variations. This is not as song he knows, but it is undoubtedly a Fitzroy Angursell composition. One never heard before. Except for right here, rumbling pleasantly under Cliopher’s ear. He tries to press in even closer, as if he could put himself into the music; or have it written around him, around the shape of him. Fitzroy turns his head until his lips touch Cliopher’s hair.

And they rest like that; in love, and in a sort of grief at what has been denied to them, and at what they have denied themselves.

Chapter Text

Conju returns from his protracted wine and spa tour with his sister, and with Terec.

As promised, Terec is a big man; tall, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, sturdy. Perhaps a little rounded, in the way of someone who had spent a long time running, and had now found a safe place to rest. Standing as close as they are he towers over Conju, who never quite lost the slightness that most men shed involuntarily once they reached middle-age. But Terec carries himself like a man who wants none of that; who wants to pass by unnoticed, to be unremarkable. The Schooled magic that had bound the Empire had bought peace, of a sort. But it had also done untold damage to so many.

Nerisse, Cliopher would have recognised as Conju’s sister even if he hadn’t known. They have the same jawline, and the same laughter lines around the same eyes. He has seen some of the tattoos on her hands and arms on her brother. Cliopher has often wondered which are family markings, and which were chosen just because Conju liked them. His past wasn’t something his friend spoke of often, and Cliopher got the impression that it was rather rude to ask about them. Conju was one of the very few people in the Palace he felt safe to admit ignorance too, but this was family, not Court culture. Nerisse has swirls and shapes and lines Cliopher knows. She also has a rearing horse halfway up one arm, and a series of intricate knots and braids around one wrist that could pass as a bracelet.

And Cliopher notices that Conju has something new on his finger. A pattern of flames; not banked and safe like a campfire, but spiralling and roiling out from the centre like a star. It catches the light strangely, dancing and sparkling with the candles, clearly not made by the same hands that did those that mark him as a member of the Ten Thousand Families. Cliopher has no sense for magic, but he can see it when it’s clear in front of his face.

Terec has the matching tattoo; the mirror. Cliopher remembers what Fitzroy said: fayna, like fanoa. And he also remembers that some families on Ysthar had a tradition similar to Fitzroy’s, but with tattoos rather than with rings. He hopes that congratulations are in order, except that he rather suspects that Conju would never pass up the chance for a large wedding. But maybe he and Terec had already waited long enough for the personal; for the marriage.

Cliopher has been making plans for the…party he wants to throw Fitzroy. Perhaps they could compare notes. Conju would love to tell him everything he could do better.

The three of them arrive at the house in Gorjo City too late for proper gossip, and Cliopher tucks away his questions for later. He has a suspicion that that was quite the point. Conju tells him that Cliopher’s mother had insisted on them staying for dinner, after they accompanied her home to make sure she arrived safe. It’s a completely plausible explanation. Cliopher would be surprised if she hadn’t asked, if not for simple hospitality than because she adores Conju; from even before they went travelling together, from the first time that Cliopher bought Conju on holiday with him, and his mother had thought that Conju was his boyfriend that he was bringing home to meet his family, and that Cliopher was coming into his place the community at last.

But he suspects also that Conju, at least, agreed in order to make sure they would be back late enough that they would only have time for a polite chat before retiring to bed, and could avoid any awkward questions.

Conju has never liked emotional conversations even at the best of times, and Cliopher knows how tiring it can be to get home from a long journey. And Fitzroy has his moments of being an insatiable chatterer, particularly when there is a story to be told. Instead, Nerisse yawns when she walks through the door, and Fitzroy rushes to make everyone tea. Conju endures it with hardly a wince, and accepts it with a bare “thank you”. Fitzroy beams.

They sit at the low table Rhodin had purchased at some market or another on the other side of the city, and then had to run back to the house to enlist Ludvic to help him carry it back. He had been so thrilled by how apparently perfect it was for arranging food sampling trays that he had bought it without considering any of the logistics of moving it across a fair distance and a great number of floating platforms. For himself, Cliopher has mostly used the table to sit at and eat cakes while he does the household accounting; plus the accounts for his sister and a few of his cousins who had managed to smuggle him their paperwork after Fitzroy had protested that Cliopher was retired and shouldn’t have to do maths in his own house. Cliopher fears it would hurt him on some instinctual level, to know that his fanoa finds ledgers meditative.

He and Conju make polite conversation about the various wine regions of Zunidh as they sip tea. Cliopher has never been a more than occasional drinker himself, and even more rarely to excess. Quite apart from the state secrets he had to keep, he’s never particularly liked the experience of being drunk; unsure of what he was doing, and unsure of what he had done the next day. He always got the impression that that had disappointed his mother somewhat. Maybe it was simply that she had wanted to invite to him on her own wine tour one day, and it was just another thing she had wanted for him that he didn’t want for himself. Possibly he is becoming maudlin with the late hour. But regardless, he does have an interest in the areas where wine is produced. He had done extensive research into what climate was ideal for growing grapes when Fitzroy was still working on stabilising the weather of the former Empire, and he had been on one or two state visits to each to see for himself how they were faring. Fitzroy has a few pointed questions of his own about annual rainfall and soil composition, which Conju answers dutifully. Cliopher can’t imagine that information is a usual part of the tour, but he took the time between spa treatments to ask, anyway.

Nerisse looks down into her cup, eyelids heavy. Terec doesn’t speak, just watches them over the table.

Between his interjections, Fitzroy watches him back. It’s not anything hostile, or even cautious. It’s– Fitzroy watches Terec’s hand, the one with the star on its finger. He hasn’t moved it from its place on Conju’s thigh since they sat down. He’s not doing anything with it; just resting it there, like he’s afraid that if they aren’t touching at all times, Conju will disappear. Like he can’t quite believe that they’re here, together. Cliopher understands the impulse. He darts a glance at Fitzroy, and their eyes catch. Fitzroy bumps their shoulders together with a smile. Nerisse yawns again.

“Right.” Conju says, putting down his cup. “If you’re both going to be like that–” He looks between them, pointedly. Cliopher has to tear his eyes away from Fitzroy’s face to see him purse his lips at them. “It’s very good be with you again Cliopher, Fitzroy” He continues, marching straight through any potential awkwardness around names or titles. Sometimes the confidence of the aristocracy isn’t entirely unwelcome. “But I’m afraid we must continue the conversation tomorrow.” He puts a hand on Nerisse’s arm and holds on very tight. “Is there anywhere that can be set aside for Nerisse?”

“I can sleep in the solarium?” Fitzroy offeres. Cliopher can see that that is something Conju is prepared to be scandalised about, and he steps in with his own offer.

“I also own the house across the courtyard, if she would prefer that.” He says, and then decides that Conju is going to find out about him and Fitzroy sharing a bed anyway, so it’s probably best to bring it up when he’s already declared it’s not the time to gossip about it. “Or– Or there is my suite.” Conju shoots him a look, eyebrows raised and baffled and possibly a little bit angry. And Cliopher suddenly remembers that Conju is the older brother, and also exactly how, say, Vinyë might misconstrue that offer it is was made to him. “Because I will be in the solarium, too.” The words tumble out of him in his haste to clarify.

Conju’s eyes narrow, his iris’ that bright point of light just before the sun dips below the horizon; barely there but sharp, impossible to escape their focus. Cliopher blushes, but he does not break their gaze. Beside him, Fitzroy practically vibrates for a moment before bouncing to his feet. “Well, those are your options.” He declares brightly. “Good night.” He waits for a few beats more, and when Cliopher doesn’t stand to follow him, reaches down to grab his hand and pull him to his feet.

Cliopher goes easily, and when he’s up he looks at Fitzroy, standing so close, holding his hand. His face is the very picture of delight, and Cliopher can’t look away. If Conju’s look was sharp as the sunset, then Fitzroy is the bright, beaming light of midday in a cloudless sky.

And Cliopher allows himself to be lead upstairs; Nerisse and Terec’s good nights, and Conju’s suspicion, trailing up behind them.

********************

From the comfortable arrangement of pillows and cushions on the floor of the tower, Cliopher can see the stars filling the skies above Gorjo City. His own star, the star he put in the sky through a lifetime of dedication and honing his skills, twinkles low near the horizon.

The glass floats hanging from the beam around the ceiling catch the starlight, and when they spin and twirl they put their light inside the room as well, pinpricks of silvery-white dancing over the floors and the makeshift bed and themselves on it. Cliopher wonders whether the spell that controls it is one of Fitzroy’s, a memory of Sky Ocean perhaps, or something that Saya Dorn left behind. It’s a particularly lovely piece of magic, no matter who cast it.

Fitzroy lays beside him, pressed in tight, turned on his side so he can look at Cliopher’s face and chase the stars with his fingertips as they swirl across it. His touch is light but not unsure, just on the edge of being ticklish. The feeling of them lingers, phantom warmth, where they brush over Cliopher’s cheeks, nose, eyelids. In the Palace, with the Emperor, Cliopher never could quite admit even to himself what it was that he wanted. Of course, he had wanted to reform the government and eliminate poverty and build a world where every single person, from the peasant to his Radiancy, was free to follow their heart’s desire. But what Cliopher had wanted for himself, his own heart’s desire– well, it was this.

Oh, not the nest of pillows and blankets, and not the fingers on his face, the solid shape of Fitzroy against him, over him. That was treason and blasphemy and a literal impossibility besides. If anyone had known he held that in his heart, anyone at all, the Ouranatha would have had him executed and even his Radiancy might not have been able to stop them. And he would have tried. It might have killed them both. So Cliopher himself had not known it.

But what he had wanted, what it was still impossible to have but perhaps allowed to want, very quietly, very secretly, was for himself and his Radiancy to just talk. Or to just be quiet, together. For there to be no pressing work, no imminent meetings, no proclamations to be drafted. Just for them to be alone. Just himself and his Lord, his Fitzroy, his fanoa. Together, for no other reason than because they wanted to be.

Cliopher sighs and smiles and lets his full weight fall against Fitzroy, heavy and relaxed.

Fitzroy’s fingers stutter, withdraw, and then the back of his hand comes to rest against and under Cliopher’s jaw, his thumb touching the edge of his smile. Cliopher finds his head turning towards it, quite without his conscious thought. The expression Fitzroy’s face looking back at him is wondrous, his answering grin beatific. Cliopher had never thought of him as a god, but he would have him feel that holy bliss always. He wriggles his arm blindly in its place wedged between them and takes Fitzroy’s free hand where it’s lying almost underneath him. He smiles wider, Fitzroy’s thumb sliding to touch his mouth proper. And from there he looks out, out over Fitzroy’s shoulder to see his own star, with their island underneath.

“This one.” Fitzroy had said, when Cliopher had asked him for his island. This one. Fitzroy may have been born on another world, but where he was from, the place where his soul would always call him back to, it was here.

And then, quite abruptly, Fitzroy pushes himself up and away before he flops down onto his back.

Cliopher’s awareness jerks back into the room. His head is still tilted towards Fitzroy, so he can clearly see that his eyes are squeezed shut even as the rest of his face is very carefully blank. His grip on Cliopher‘s hand is almost punishingly tight, and–

–And Cliopher thinks of Fitzroy watching Terec’s hand on Conju’s thigh. He thinks of Conju’s suspicious look, and of his aside about fucking the icon. He thinks about Fitzroy suddenly putting the two of them apart.

And the thought finally sprouts.

********************

This is the moment it was planted:

They’re on Navaona. Vou’a and Ani had danced it to life but even Cliopher, in his admitted ignorance of all things botany and forestry, can see that there is much here not native to anywhere the Wide Seas. The trees grow wide and wild, not so close that they twine together like the figs and ferns he had seen in his youth. And they know Fitzroy’s magic. Cliopher can see it, in the way they sway towards him as he walks past, in the way that they bend over the two of them sitting at the edge of the beach, giving shade from the hot sun.

“When I discovered your name, I wasn’t sure where I fit with you anymore.” Cliopher says. “I could see it almost immediately, how you could be both Fitzroy Angursell and Artorin Damara. How you could be it all; the poet, rebel, mage, lawmaker, reformer, revolutionary. The Bard and the Emperor both. Because of course you were. But I was– I was so completely a part of one. I did not see how I could be with the other.” His Buru Tovo made sure that he knew there was no shame in crying or showing emotion. But there are times when it makes saying what needs to be said difficult. “I didn’t know where I fit.” It’s only the passing of time since then that stops him from sobbing the last word.

Fitzroy puts an arm around his shoulders, pulls him in so Cliopher has to tilt his whole body and almost falls into his lap. He presses his head up under Fitzroy’s chin. “Here.” Fitzroy says, voice rumbling through Cliopher’s skull, and he says it in language. Not the Shaian of his birth, but the Islander he learnt so he could speak with Cliopher in his own tongue, so he could know Cliopher’s story in the words he could best tell it. He had couched it in idle curiosity, but he had wanted to know Cliopher. “You fit right here. With me.”

And the thought is planted, soft and sure. With gentle, reverent hands.

Chapter Text

“It occurs to me” Cliopher starts so carefully, because he had tried to have this conversation once before and it went so, so badly it almost drowned them, “that you might wish for something else from this relationship.”

Fitzroy gives him a look over their lunch table. His gaze is curious, but Cliopher can see a hint of wariness in the way that the hands that he loves so well twist together. “Kip.” Fitzroy replies. “I have you. I have a home, and a family. Your niece and nephews call me Uncle. I am blissfully happy.”

Cliopher accepts his assurances easily. Because he knows it’s the truth. Because he is, too; blissfully, deliriously happy. He has everything he had ever wanted. And Fitzroy is the other half of his heart. He wouldn’t feel it if Fitzroy didn’t also. But they did not have to stop here. Who knew what other happiness might wait just over the horizon, like the ancient Wayfinders searching for a new island.

“I mean,” Cliopher says. “Something more physical.” He doesn’t say more intimate. Not this time. That was never how it worked, for him. Sex had never made him feel closer to someone. The intimacy had always come from seeing how they responded to his attention, to his touch. The sex, that was just one of the many ways to get there. He could do it just as easily sitting across from someone for a meal and having a conversation, or joining them on a hike. There was nothing he could learn from sex with someone that he couldn’t elsewhere, except perhaps what they looked like when they came, how ecstasy made his name sound from their lips. That was satisfying, in its own way. But it was hardly something he needed to adore them.

It was why he had always found it so easy to fall into bed with those who had asked. Because it had never changed anything about who they were to each other. But with Fitzroy, he knows quite instinctively that it would not be so inconsequential. It scares him a little, and he hates being afraid. Because sometimes when he touches Fitzroy, not casually as his friend or his partner, but deliberately as his fanoa, his beloved, his own, he feels– Not complete, exactly. Not complete, because he has always known who he is. He knows his answers to the three questions. He knows the things that he will stand for, and the things he will not let bother him. But he feels– Full.

“Kip.” Fitzroy says again. “I don’t need–“

“We should have sex.”

“What?“ Normally when Fitzroy is surprised he goes blank. Court serene. Afraid that he would show something in his shock that would be taken as a request, or as condemnation. But his face now shows everything - happiness and despair, satisfaction and desire, a brilliant hope and a deep, desperate want And oh, oh why had Cliopher let fear and stubbornness rule his actions, that day on the vaha? (It had not been fear or stubbornness. It had been grief, for what he had thought the death of a dream). “I thought we already discussed this.” They had, after a fashion. Or; they had discussed it by not, by abandoning it as something they did not need. And that Fitzroy had not pushed, had agreed and celebrated that agreement, it was– Well-

But Cliopher could never leave well enough alone. He had never been able to simply shore up his dignity and accept things the way that they were, when he knew they could be better. Good enough was not perfect. Simply working was not necessarily fixed. Half-done was easily undone, as Fitzroy had reminded him in that first truly personal letter. That letter had convinced his younger self that did not even know the years between them that Cliopher should pass along his fire and chase after his viau, after his fanoa.

It had convinced him, who did know how much he had put into what he would be leaving behind. A life’s work. And on the other side; love. Hardly even a question, in the end.

And Cliopher has often been counselled to cut himself some slack. It can be a a bad habit of his, to push himself too hard. It had changed the world and bought him to the very depths of his heart, too. But the way back out of those depths, back to Fitzroy, had been the easy way. And this is not diving for flame pearls. It won’t kill him if he has misjudged.

He can feel Fitzroy’s foot tapping a nervous beat against his. Probably, it won’t kill him.

He looks at Fitzroy’s face, so open. His heart aches. Maybe.

But Fitzroy had celebrated their understanding, had called it something rather fine, so Cliopher could offer something else in return. That day, the sun starting to set on their time in the Divine Lands, Cliopher had said that his meaning of fanoa was archaic. But it wasn’t. It isn’t. Fanoa is alive. It is alive in them. And he did not want it to mean trading partners, and he did not want it to mean simply lovers. He wanted it to mean them.

And he would not lose what he had wanted all his life if he were to let it change now, just a little. That was the way of loving the living.

“No.” He says. “You said that you wanted enthusiasm, and I wasn’t in a place or a mind to push or explain. And it was unfair of me, to leave it there.”

“You were upset.” Fitzroy’s voice is soft.

“So were you. And my hurt did not make yours any less important, even if it was put aside and redirected at the time.” Cliopher takes a breath, and quite unexpectedly it is nowhere near as hard or deep as diving for even the shallowest pearl. This is something he wants to tell. “It’s only that, well– When we were at the Bee, Basil was being so unsubtle that even I noticed what he was implying. And Conju wrote me this surprisingly explicit letter, so I–“

“Conju did?” Fitzroy interrupts, sparklingly scandalised.

“About you.”

“Conju wrote explicit things about me?” There is a slightly hysterical giggle rising in his voice.

“About what I should do with you. To you.” Fitzroy’s composure breaks, ringing around the room. “Stop laughing at me.”

“I am sorry, my love.” He snickers. “I’m not laughing at you, really. I just don’t think I’ve ever seen you this flustered. Not even when you are scribing what is quite frankly the most excellent erotic poetry of my life. It’s delightful.”

“Well, this is not a conversation I have had often.” He catches himself just on the edge of snapping it. Because Fitzroy is clearly charmed and not mocking, but he has been laughed at so many times for far more unkind reasons, and it is work for him to hear the difference.

“I have seen you argue for far more uncommon and unprecedented things before.” Fitzroy says, his voice levelling out and the look his face very soft. Mooning, Masseo Umrit had called that look. And if he had half the romance in his heart that his son did, he would know.

“This is not-” Cliopher tries. “You’re not my opponent, Fitzroy. I’m not trying to argue with you.” This is why he always just follows along with what his partners ask from him. He never can just say what it wants, and say it simply. “We are fanoa. Two halves of the same heart. I don’t want there to be any walls between us. There should not be anything that you think you cannot ask for. And I know, I know I shut you down, sometimes. I’m trying to be better. I want to be better at talking about things that are fundamental to me, about you. I want you to know that I will listen to anything you have to say. And I want to have sex with you, if that’s what you want. I want to do that for you.”

And Cliopher knows instantly that somehow in all his flailing, he has steered them straight onto a reef. Fitzroy’s face goes blank. Not even Serene, which always had an undercurrent of benevolence, but completely devoid of any emotion except for the way that Cliopher knows him, and he knows it means devastation. “You shouldn’t do things just because I want them. I’m not the Emperor anymore.” The change is so sudden and unexpected that Cliopher isn’t sure how to breathe. His stomach lurches to the floor without the rest of him.

“I didn’t mean–” He stammers, and if he was standing he would have fallen to his knees with his gut. “I’m not–.” His hands are shaking.

They freeze for a moment, and to Cliopher it feels like that moment just as your boat lurches in an unexpected swell, and you know you are about to go overboard. It feels like sailing towards a shipwreck, and knowing with absolute certainty that whatever sunk it is coming for you next.

“I’m not angry with you, Kip.” Fitzroy says finally, his voice terribly neutral; it’s not even on the same spectrum as anger, but it’s beyond what he can find it in himself to express. Cliopher knows it. He is too wrung out himself to even cry. “I’m just–.” He makes a helpless sort of gesture like he’s trying to brush the last few minutes away. “I just need a minute.”

Fitzroy walks over to the window, stride even and steady. He throws it open, but before he steps through and out, he turns back to look into the room. Cliopher looks into his eyes he sees there the tears that he can’t quite find for himself, the same loss and heartbreak that he’s feeling. He wants to go over and pull him into his arms, hold tight and not let go until Fitzroy understands exactly what it is he’s trying to say. Except that Cliopher isn’t sure himself, exactly, of how to explain it. How to make Fitzroy understand. If he opens his mouth now, he doesn’t think he’ll do anything but throw up.

And; part of being the tanà is knowing when to step away and take a breath. He does not need to be the tanà for Fitzroy, but maybe he does for himself, sometimes. He nods, jerky, like one of his Cousin Faila’s puppets.

“I’m not leaving.” Fitzroy promises. “I will be back.” Cliopher had never feared he would leave. Fitzroy had never run away from anything hard. And with that, Fitzroy is suddenly a crow flying out the window. As he circles higher and away, Cliopher can hear him caw and scream. It doesn’t sound like a crow at all.

Cliopher stays there, staring without seeing at his hands shaking on the table. His heart stutters in his chest. If he put his hand over his ear to listen to the ocean inside of him, it would be roaring as loud as any typhoon he was caught in during his failed journey home after the Fall. He thinks, absently, that perhaps the reason he had not had to take such a deep breath before was because the reef was far closer to the surface than he had thought. Missed in his carelessness. He has always been a little too proud.

And the seas are often tricky and full of hidden danger, like that.

Chapter Text

Cliopher gathers the cups and plates from their lunch together on a serving tray to take out of the room. He moves Fitzroy’s harp from the floor by his seat to the top of the low bookshelf. He puts his pens and papers and the beautiful rock-crystal inkwell he makes certain to use as often as possible away in their places in his desk. He does a quick lap of the room to see if there’s anything he’s missed, and then realises that he’s quite run out of things to distract himself with, and also that at some point he started crying and didn’t realise.

He finds himself standing next to the old, comfortable couch that one of his cousins gifted to him. Mostly Fitzroy uses it as a place to doze or to play his harp or practice small pieces of magic while Cliopher writes letters. Now Cliopher takes it as his own place to lay down; his feet up on the cushion, his head on one curled arm as he watches the window Fitzroy left from. He feels his eyes glaze over a little as he settles in to wait.

Through much practice he learnt to be patient, but he has never much liked waiting for something to happen. If Fitzroy transforming him into a bird on Piripiki so they could fly to the depths of the ocean together had left him with any ability to do so again, Cliopher would chase after him, following the sounds of the crow crying like a man. But now he has no way to follow, no speck of magic within him. And no way, he’s suddenly certain, of standing up from the couch at all.

He feels cold. If he could see the fire at the heart of him, it would be squirrelled away inside a firepot; shut tight and safe but not giving off any light, any hope. Because he had tried. He had tried so hard and he can never get it right, never find the words to talk about this. He always does it wrong. He lets others take the lead and arrange matters because he doesn’t know how to ask for himself, just for himself. And he doesn’t want that, with Fitzroy. He wants– It was easy for them, to be vassal and lord. That devoted service, it was playing the parts that life and tradition had given them. But Cliopher doesn’t want that. He can’t go back to it. He wants the life they chose for themselves. And he isn’t the Chief or the Paramount Chief, but he is the taná. He stands beside them and not below them, he stands beside Fitzroy, and they listen. Fitzroy has always listened to him.

It isn’t enough for Cliopher anymore, for he and Fitzroy to be anything other than equals. They had worked together to sail across the Wide Seas. Fitzroy had been there with him, and Cliopher had finally been able to finish his journey after the Fall. He had finally come home, with his fanoa.

But it was hard. And every time he thinks he has managed to explain it to Fitzroy, how much he loves him, how much he wants to be there for him and with him, they still manage to stumble over each other. All his much-vaunted skills as a negotiator and diplomat with a lifetime of honing those talents, and he can never speak the truth of his heart. He could never explain to his family what his job was or what he was doing with his life or what he had achieved, and he can never explain his regard, his loyalty, his love, to Fitzroy. Too much and not enough and also just wrong. Always wrong. He always felt wrong, wanted wrong, loved wrong. Explained it wrong. Always–

He’s not sure, exactly, when Fitzroy comes back. Cliopher sees him enter, feels Fitzroy lift his legs and sit beside him, placing them on his lap. He knows it happens, but it feels like a free dive; eerie and muted, his limbs heavy and slow, lungs squeezed still under the pressure. And then Fitzroy touches him with careful purpose, the gentle comfort of his finger tracing over the burn scars on Cliopher’s feet. As a child he had been terribly ticklish there, but over time the blistering and the coals had dulled his sensitivity so that instead of kicking out instinctively he only squirms a little. Fitzroy’s hand tightens around his foot, and Cliopher follows that grip to ground himself.

“Explain it to me.” Fitzroy says quietly. “Explain it, because it’s cruel to give me hope for something I can’t have. And you’re never cruel even when it would be easy for you to be, so you must be sure that you mean it. Explain how you can want something that doesn’t come to your mind, that you only consider because I want it and not because you do. Please, Kip. I couldn’t bear the thought–”

And Cliopher can see, now, where he went wrong. How “I want to do this for you” could be seen as curtailing and submitting and truckling to authority. How “I don’t mind” could be heard as I will endure. How a man who’s idle words had resulted in four suicides might be so, so wary of someone changing their mind just because they thought he might like it. How much it would hurt that man, if he thought that the love offered to him was not freely given, was the result of some unavoidable obligation or social expectation. Cliopher gently tugs his legs free and sits up, angles his body towards Fitzroy sitting straight and tall beside him.

“You’re–” He swallows. “You’re tripping over the wrong part.” He says, taking care to keep his voice kind. “I want it because you want it, yes. But when I say I want it, what I mean is that I want it. For myself. I’m not– I can only consent for myself. That you want it too, that only matters so far as it should always matter that your partner wants it.”

“But you only want it because I want it.” Fitzroy says again, perhaps a little stuck. He sounds slightly miserable, but strangely Cliopher finds he does prefer that to the careful and deliberate blankness. At least when he’s upset, it’s real.

“No.” He says, his voice and his fire firming. “I only considered it because you want it. That is always the way it is for me. I never think about sex until it’s bought up as a possibility and then–”

“And then you think about it.” Fitzroy doesn’t relax, but he shuffles on the couch so they’re both looking at each other, knees together. He sounds, Cliopher rather fancies, marginally more curious.

“And then I think about it.” Cliopher confirms. “I think about it, and then I decide if it’s something I might enjoy.”

“And– And is it?” Fitzroy asks, his eyes wide and yes, there is so much hopeful wonder in those beautiful golden depths, eyes that Cliopher spent all those years looking into when no one else dared to, that he feels his own prickle with tears. “Would you?”

“Yes.” Cliopher has never felt so steady in this before, so sure. He can’t even be frustrated by the repetition. He knows so well how often you can need to hear a thing before you believe it. How it is to want something so completely and for so long that the wanting of it it becomes a part of your very being, and you can’t quite believe that someone would give it to you. That you aren’t doomed to forever be a person that wants it. That you can be a person that has it.

And the idea that someone would want him like that? Well. He almost doesn’t believe it himself. “Yes, Fitzroy. I do. Because I love you. I’m in love with you. And because I long to be close to you, in as many ways as would make us both happy.”

“It would make you happy?” Fitzroy’s voice is a whisper, but Cliopher can feel the life coming back to it. He is fire, like Cliopher, and his own flame is building. Cliopher can sense it like smoke filling the air. “My dear, are you sure? Because I promise you, truly, that all I have ever really wanted is for you and I to be equals. Fanoa. To build a fire together, and to sit and talk around it as two people do.” It is such a small thing to ask, to be treated as a human and not a god. So small, and yet for so long, seemingly utterly impossible. Cliopher will have to write to Aioru to get that put in as a right of citizenship - the right to be treated as nothing more or less than a human being. The Ouranatha and the Imperial Cult have already lost one god. Who knows who they would might try to apotheosise next, in their grim determination to hold onto power. Because if separating a wizard from their magic was torture, then separating a man from his personhood could be no less. And no one deserved to feel the way Fitzroy had felt; locked away under enchantment and taboo and custom. Alone and incapable of even expressing dissatisfaction. No one to even look at you, to acknowledge that you were there, and not just a symbol, a vessel of Imperial authority.

But Cliopher had looked. And he has never looked away.

“I am–“ Fitzroy continues, forging ahead now, finding his stride. “I enjoy sex. And I do think you’re beautiful and singularly wonderful and I am attracted to you, I can hardly deny it. I could write such poetry to your shoulders, your legs; to that look in your eye when you’re solving a problem. I used to ask you for such extraordinary things just so I could see what you would accomplish, see you satisfied and proud in your work. And your hands– My Hands. For almost a thousand years you were the only way I could touch anyone. Working with you, it was the only way I could be human at all. You made me real, to all the people of the world. You made me real to myself. I think you’re astonishing, Cliopher Mdang. Just as you are.” Fitzroy smiles, and his shoulders relax into his comfortable slouch. Cliopher’s heart sings.

“Of course, those poems will have to wait until I finish the one about your postal reforms. But that is a secret, so forget I mentioned it. Jullanar will despair that I’ve given it away, but truly I have never been much good at keeping secrets. It’s just that the ones that I do have are so surprising that no one but you ever believes me when I tell them. It is coming along well though, if I do say so myself. The poem that is–”

Cliopher reaches across to take Fitzroy’s hands in his, and his fanoa stops to take a breath. “Fitzroy. You’re rambling.” He says, unbelievably fond of this remarkable and remarkably kind man that chose him, when all the Nine Worlds fell in love with his smile alone. “Please believe that I mean everything I say. I want to have sex with you. It would make me very happy.”

“I was afraid you only asked because you thought you owed me.” He runs a thumb over Cliopher’s knuckles. “You did say that sex wasn’t one of your great concerns.”

“It isn’t. But you know that I have taken lovers before.” Cliopher reminds him. “Surely you cannot believe that every one was only because I felt I owed them.”

“They were all women.” Fitzroy returns, quite reasonably.

Cliopher hums. “That is not where the complication lies for me, exactly.” Though it is true that he had never considered any man before he heard Fitzroy playing Aurora on the vaha and realised what he had refused. “Truthfully, I never know if I might want anyone unless they ask.”

“And no man has ever asked?” Fitzroy sounds genuinely incredulous. “I cannot believe that, Kip.”

“Not in so many words, no. And I am not good at inferring.” He shrugs. “You would do better to ask Conju or Rhodin. I believe they have kept a tally of the flirtations I have missed. They hardly ever bother to even tease me, anymore.”

“Oh, no.” Fitzroy says, sly. “I fear how many times my own would appear on it.” Cliopher doesn’t say that they wouldn’t have dared. In part because he knows that Fitzroy enjoys the thought of his former household teasing him amongst themselves. But also because there are a number of plays and operas he himself has seen over the years that he’s starting to suspect may not have sprung entirely unprompted into the minds of their authors. And how many of them Ludvic in particular, who had always known who Fitzroy was and thought of him as a beloved Uncle, had bought to his attention.

“If you would prefer a partner who is more desirous of the act itself, I would understand.” He says instead. “But I swear to you that I love you, and I wish for your closeness no less than any of them would.”

“It seems we have both misunderstood each other, a little” Fitzroy gives a wry smile. “I only meant that I prefer not to have to convince.” Fitzroy Angursell had written any number of songs about his seductions, and the joys he took in them. But convincing as different from seduction, was–

Cliopher matches with his own half-grimace. “I think that you and I have become so used to knowing each other’s wants that we cannot conceive that we may have gotten it wrong somewhere.” He squeezes Fitzroy’s hands.

Fitzroy raises them in turn, presses a kiss to Cliopher’s fingers. “A consequence of trusting each other’s judgement for so long I’m afraid, my dear Kip.”

“There are worse things.” Cliopher agrees. “But you have said you’re not a mind reader, and we know that I can’t possibly be. So perhaps we may just have to ask.”

“But you said you don’t dream about kissing me.” Fitzroy grumbles. “I distinctly remember that embarrassment.”

“Ah.” Cliopher blushes. “That was more a general observation. I don’t much dream about kissing anyone, or of kissing at all. Basil used to despair of me when we were young and wondering about our futures.” He chuckles. It was never a hard memory, if Basil was there. “I always thought he was a little silly, for wanting to leave to find his heart’s desire. Or; not silly, because it is always a good thing to chase your dream. And it was recorded in the Lays, that the second son of Vonou’a followed his heart’s desire, so there was a pattern there. But when he saw Sara and he told me he knew straight away that it was love– I didn’t know what to say, because I had never dreamed of romance the way that he did.”

“I fell half in love with you the moment you walked into my study.” Fitzroy shifts to tuck one leg up underneath him, and faces Cliopher more fully, knee pressed to his thigh. He keeps their joint hands close to his chest. “Even before I saw you, when I had Vou’a’s vision. I didn’t know those two people in that boat. I didn’t even hope it was you and me, because it would have been an impossible thing to dream. And because until that day I had quite given up on hoping for much of anything. Even for a competent secretary.” Fitzroy smiles, and he pulls their hands closer, close enough Cliopher can feel his heart beating steady. “But it didn’t matter who they were. It was the first hint of an adventure that I had had since I became Emperor. And I loved it.”

“And then– I’m not sure I had ever offered someone coffee before, as the Emperor or as Saavelor. Certainly not so soon after meeting them. But I was so impressed with you, right from the beginning. I couldn’t resist seeing what you were made of. And when you joked with me, I fell the rest of the way so quickly that it wasn’t until the shock of you looking into my eyes that I realised how alive I felt. How real.”

“You were always real to me.” Cliopher’s tone is firm, as if his fierceness could drive away all those years Fitzroy had been made to feel more object than man. “And– I only stayed for you. Once you left, it all seemed so pointless.” He confesses. “Yes, I had these high-minded ideals, my plans for reforming the government. I wanted to change the world, and to nurture the first fire that I lit in the Palace after the Fall. The Mdang’s Hold the Fire, but the role of the tanà is to pass it along and share it with the community.” He thinks of that other Kip, of who he could have been without Fitzroy, who he could have been if he had made a different choice. “If you were not yourself, not my fanoa, then I could have left that fire to others to maintain and built for myself elsewhere.” He would not have been happy. That other Kip hadn’t been happy. But he could have been satisfied.

Cliopher much preferred happiness. “But you were you. You thought you were lost, but I saw you. And we built a world together that will protect its people even without us. Because I knew, from that very first day, that you were the one I had come to stay for. And even though I thought I might die for daring to look in your eyes I didn’t run, because I knew I was where I needed to be.”

It has been perhaps 30 or maybe hundreds of years since that one and only time Cliopher had been afraid of looking into Fitzroy’s eyes, and he certainly feels none of it now. They are quite brilliant with unshed tears. “And there I was at the time, only remembering to fear that you might have been blinded.” Fitzroy’s smile is rueful. “So many times I could have lost you, Kip, and not known until it was too late. You were always edging along the line of treason. I treasured each transgression so dearly. But any one of them could have killed you.”

Cliopher moves to copy Fitzroy’s posture, pulls their hands back towards him so he can mimic Fitzroy’s kiss to his fingers and hold them against his own chest, let Fitzroy feel his heat beating and alive. “But they didn’t.” He says. “You didn’t lose me, and you never will. We will have adventures together for the rest of our lives, and when the time comes we will sail with the Ancestors together.”

Fitzroy blinks back his tears and nods sharply. He takes a few of his careful, steadying breaths and then gently tugs his hands free and sets them on his lap. One final challenge, then. For the truth. “When we agreed that fanoa doesn’t have to be sexual or a marriage, I got the impression that that was a requirement for you. That it had to not be, and that it upset you to talk about it. And I accepted that. Truely, I have. It is more than enough. Any way that you love is enough. And I love the way that you touch me, but I figured that anything else I would, well, handle myself.” He chuckles at that, and Cliopher very deliberately doesn’t roll his eyes.

“For a long time, it seemed like no one really understood me.” Cliopher starts, and he settles back against the arm of the couch, untucks his foot and puts it on the cushion, toes wriggled under Fitzroy’s calf. “My family never understood why I wanted to leave, and the Court never understood who I was or what I wanted to achieve. But that was okay, because I did. I knew what I wanted, and I knew what I was working towards. And then we met El and Auri and I suddenly had to consider, well, what if I didn’t? I had spent my entire life wanting a fanoa like I thought they had, following the pattern they had made, and it wasn’t even real.”

“It can be real.” Fitzroy tells him, heartbreakingly earnest about being exactly what Cliopher wants him to be. Cliopher has the uncharitable thought that this is an echo of why the Red Company had found it so hard to adjust to the new Fitzroy who simply wants to be himself, the Fitzroy who is not Fitzroy Angursell who had been always so eager to please, always ready to be exactly what the story needed.“We can make it real.”

“I know. I know you would do that for me. And we are. Having you as my fanoa, we are making it real together. But you should be able to ask for what you want as well. Relationships are about give and take.” Fitzroy doesn’t have the complexion to blush, but his eyes take on that bright sheen that Cliopher knows means that he’s about to pass on a piece of gossip from Conju that he finds both particularly amusing and scandalous. When he doesn’t elaborate, Cliopher continues.

“I think it always mattered to me that Elonoa’a and Aurelius Magnus weren’t lovers because, I believe I told Rhodin this although I’m not sure he really understood, but in the Vangavaye-ve we we don’t organise our communities by rank or title. What matters is your status; your job, but also your marriage, your family, your children. My job was outside of the Ring and too velioi to count, and because I had never dreamed of romance or kissing it seemed that I would never be able to become a full person in the community. Whenever I came home I wasn’t the Hands of the Emperor or the Secretary in Chief of the Private Offices of the Lords of State or the head of the government. I was just Cousin Kip, the youngest son at home with his mother. It didn’t matter that I had fixed the post or created the stipend or made healthcare available for anyone who needed it. I wasn’t married, I had no children, and I had left. I had nothing that belonged to here, except for what I had had as a child. So that was how they saw me. I wasn’t even allowed to sit with the uncles during important dinners until I became the Viceroy of Zunidh and that was a position they couldn’t miss.” Cliopher leans his head back and barks a laugh, a little bitter. Fitzroy puts a steadying hand on his ankle.

“When I came back from Loaloa the first time I was so loud and so obnoxious and I told everyone that I was going to have a great friend. Someone to love like Elonoa’a loved Aurelius Magnus, enough to follow them into Sky Ocean. And for the rest of my life, everyone told me that that was your lover. But I knew it wasn’t, because I knew the Lays and it was never said that they were anything other than the greatest of friends. So it was important to me that El and Auri were legends together, their friendship was legendary, without them being lovers. Because that was a viau I could chase, a ke’ea I could follow. It didn’t matter that I was different, or that I never dreamed of kissing or lovers. I could be like Elonoa’a and Aurelius Magnus. I could have a fanoa. Someone who would choose me despite all of that.”

Fitzroy makes a distressed little noise. “I do, Kip.” He says very quietly, and Cliopher opens his arms instinctively so Fitzroy can climb into them. He settles with his back against Cliopher’s chest, and Cliopher closes his arms around his stomach. Fitzroy puts one hand on his wrist and the other on the side of his knee, and Cliopher moves his head a little so he doesn’t end up with a face full of hair stopping him from finally telling this properly.

“I know you do, my fanoa.” He reassures “And so does Basil. And Rhodin and Ludvic and Conju all chose to retire in my house with me. And Toucan made sure to tell me that he and Ghilly and Bertie love me as I am. But you are my fanoa. You are the one I chose, too. You are the one that I would sail out of the world for. On purpose, this time. And that has always meant so much to me. So when El and Auri were– when it wasn’t exactly what I thought it was I was a little mad and very upset, and maybe I made out that I am more against the idea of fanoa involving sex than I actually am. It is not about sex, not for me. But I don’t actually dislike sex. I don’t find it uncomfortable or hateful. I just don’t really think about it.” He shrugs and he feels Fitzroy’s breath hitch. “It is fun, though. I know I would have fun, with you. Because I am me and you are you, and I enjoy everything we do together.”

After he finishes, they sit in silence for a long minute. Fitzroy releases Cliopher’s wrist, and strokes from his pulse point to the inside of his elbow and back again; a steady, rhythmic caress. Cliopher’s fingers find Fitzroy’s hip and press in.

Eventually, Fitzroy speaks. “Thank you for telling me.” He murmurs, his voice wet, fervent like a secret prayer. “I think, maybe, it’s my turn to think about it now.”

Cliopher ducks his head to touch his lips to Fitzroy’s shoulder. “Take all the time you need.” He says there.

Fitzroy sighs, and he wriggles closer and down, so Cliopher’s arms slip to his chest. One of his own arms hooks around Cliopher’s thigh and hugs it in close. “Now my Lord Mdang,” he laughs, only a little forced. “I’m quite sure that’s the most I’ve heard of you talk about anything that’s not tax reforms.”

Cliopher falls easily into the joke. “Surely that’s not true, my lord.” He squeezes Fitzroy in his arms, an absurd counterpoint to the formalities. “I believe you complained that I once spent seven hours talking about the stipend.”

“Not complained, my love. Never about you.” Fitzroy says, indignant. “Although the Council of Princes did ask the same bafflingly stupid questions a truly dizzying number of times.” Cliopher hums in agreement. He would never have said it himself, but there was more than one time during that particular session where he had been tempted to simply throw his hands up and leave. “Yours was a remarkable piece of oration. I love listening to you speak”.

“And how about the census?” Cliopher teases. “I am certain that you complained about that.”

“Bah! Numbers.”

Chapter Text

Fitzroy doesn’t mention their conversation again for two weeks, and Cliopher doesn’t let himself dwell on it. Instead, he sits with Ludvic and tries to absorb his friend’s steady acceptance of the way of the world through sheer proximity. They sip their coffee in companionable silence, until Cliopher catches himself thinking that perhaps he should sail out to see Aya and ask exactly which of the many innuendos and stories she had traded with Fitzroy that his fanoa had found most inspiring for his epic about El and Auri.

Instead of doing that, he wanders off into the city to join Conju and Terec on their exploration of Gorjo City’s markets and shops; quite possibly, Cliopher hopes, looking for the perfect unused storefront. He hasn’t actually asked Conju what he plans to do, now that he has retired. Conju doesn’t keep secrets, exactly, but he also don’t respond well to prying. But Cliopher remembers his interested musing when he had told him about ‘An Vilius’ in that other world, and he hopes that his friend will be able to pursue it, should he want to. He wants all his friends to feel at home, here.

That other Kip’s Esa’a still burns bright in his mind’s eye. He dreams of it, sometimes. Of how splendid it had been, of how completely they had not just embraced but lived their culture. His own Gorjo City would never be that. They have adopted Shaian convenience and connection and the things that were beautiful, and they have built that into who they are. Cliopher had thought that the people he had met in that other world were true Islanders, but–

But his friends would never be at home there. He very much doubts that they would have been allowed to stay, even if they had proclaimed themselves ready to give up their own cultures. That was not what Cliopher wanted. That was not how Cliopher wanted his Vangavaye-ve to be. Here, through his work, and yes some amount of luck, they have a Paramount Chief again. Because of his stipend they have the time to create art and music and spend the entire day out fishing, should they so choose. They have books to record their histories so that anyone who left and could not return would not forget the stories of their land, and could gift it to their children and their grandchildren until perhaps one day someone from their line could finally come back home and see it for themselves. They have food and trade so they would not starve after disaster, and they have access to medicine and knowledge from the five worlds of the former Empire if disease was to come to them again.

And Cliopher is the rising tana-tai. He shows the Islands who they can be. And he is traditional, yes. He knows the Lays and the dances and he has lived among their legends, found an Emperor to stay for just as Elonoa’a did, claimed his fanoa who had raised an island for him. But he has also lived much of his life in Solaara. He is also tea and cheese and the cello, and the poetry of the One and Only Fitzroy Angursell. His people are still Islanders in truth, even with all that. It was the Islands as every citizen of the Vangavaye-ve had chosen for them to be. Together.

Although perhaps, Cliopher finds himself musing as he waves at someone who could just as easily be a distant cousin as they could be a friendly well-wisher who had heard gossip that he had returned home at last, perhaps he could commission some holulenui for his own houses. They would not be Erwin’s beautiful facades that called so strongly to the past. But there are still carvers here. Cliopher knows one very well.

********************

He doesn’t forget about his conversation with Fitzroy exactly, but he has hardly ever thought on the question of sex unless he is being actively propositioned. And then there is his sister’s concert, and Clio comes through the portal from Alinor to spend a few days learning how to sail the seas rather than a lake. And then Sardeet and Rhodin manage to start a small but very enthusiastic magical fire in the oven of the second house, where they have been conducting some unsurprisingly successful and unsurprisingly dangerous baking experiments; soft little cakes that never went cold. A fruit flan that hovered just off the plate so it would not sit in it’s own glaze and end up with a soggy base, but which had the unfortunate side-effect of launching itself upwards when one leaned over to admire it. It had still tasted wonderful after being scraped off the unfortunate victim’s face, but Conju had banished Sardeet and Rhodin and their experimentation from the house. Fitzroy, predictably, had found the incident delightful and had put his own enchantments on the oven across the courtyard. Which was presumably why, after the accident with the fire, Cliopher spends the next few hours being followed around by a tiny lick of flame that seems very intent about hiding away in his pocket.

At that point the whole business does slip his mind somewhat, so he doesn’t realise exactly what Fitzroy is implying when he leads him up to the solarium. He arranges them so Cliopher is on his back looking up through the skylight, and he is curled up at his side, finger mapping out the constellation of the Great Whale on Cliopher’s cheek. “So.” Fitzroy says, firm and so clearly full of something significant that Cliopher stumbles over his reply when he doesn’t get it right away.

“S–So?” He stutters and he turns his head to look at Fitzroy’s face; incredibly close to his own, smile beatific, his eyes slightly manic. He puzzles over it as Fitzroy’s fingers dance over his face, touching on every wrinkle. And then Cliopher remembers the spinning stars, Fitzroy’s embarrassed reaction, the thought taking root. “Do you want to have sex?” He blurts out, quite undignified.

Fitzroy’s eyes dart to his lips and back. “Actually,” he says very carefully. “I think that, maybe, that’s a little too much for me right now.”

“Okay.” Cliopher agrees. “Another time?” Fitzroy swallows, nods. Cliopher turns his hips so he’s laying on his side in mirror, their bodies curled towards each other, lower legs pressed together. Fitzroy’s fingers move from his cheek to tangle in his hair, and Cliopher lets one of his own hands land on Fitzroy’s waist. “Do you ever dream about kissing?” He asks, from low in his chest.

“Yes.” Fitzroy breathes; reverent, hot and sweet on his face. “Constantly.” Cliopher can feel his fingers trembling. “And you? Do you dream about kissing me?”

Oh, yes. A much better question. “I have been thinking about it with increasing regularity.” Maybe not a dream, exactly. But certainly something he could hope for. Wish for.

“And do you have an action plan, my lord Mdang?” Fitzroy asks with a sudden teasing grin. “Should I read it over for you? I warn you, if it is over 100 pages I may skim it just a little to get to the more interesting parts.“

“I don’t believe you have ever skimmed anything I’ve given you.” Cliopher furrows his brows in mock seriousness, only half talking about his government proposals.

Fitzroy’s gaze goes impossibly soft and warm, like liquid gold. “No. I cherish everything you’ve ever given me.” Definitely not talking about them at all. He wiggles a little closer.

Cliopher’s eyes slip shut as Fitzroy’s nose nudges against his own and pauses just there, just pressed together. It’s not quite a kiss, but Cliopher could swear that he feels the phantom shape of his fanoa’s smile against his lips. Fitzroy’s fingers slip from his hair to glide along the strings of his efela; the starlight and shadows spun by his own hand, the chord Cliopher had braided with his, and the others given to him by gods and family.

After a long moment Cliopher pulls back to see Fitzroy’s face, as open as he ever is; lips gently parted, crows feet deep with pleasure. He’s glowing, just faintly, with the gold of his magic and the silvery starlight of his efanoa and from the deep red and white of the clamshell at his throat. And Cliopher watches his eyes flutter open, hot and dark and very alive.

Cliopher swallows hard around the sudden nerves high in his chest. He blushes. “All those years and I never even considered that you might want– That you might be attracted to me.” He smiles wryly, embarrassed now with the clear evidence written all over Fitzroy’s face, clear now that he knows to look for it. He’s reasonably certain that no one has ever looked at him quite so dazzlingly before.

Fitzroy shakes his head fondly, and rolls onto his back. “I’m not sure I was very subtle.” He laughs. “Féonie used to get such a look on her face if she knew I was seeing you in an outfit for the first time. And when she consulted with me on what you would wear for the Viceroyship ceremony– Oh, she was so sly that I was quite sure that everyone knew and was just politely ignoring it.” He puts a hand over his eyes in embarrassment.

“Féonie is braver than most.” Cliopher acknowledges, immensely proud of his young former costumer. Over the years in his household he had never once seen her fail to step forward and meet any challenge put before her. “And Ludvic heard me call you beloved, the first time we landed in Gorjo City. He told me that he knew I’d loved you for a long time, but he said nothing of your feelings. So you may have been better at hiding it than you thought.” He reaches across to pry Fitzroy’s hand from his face and squeeze it in his own. “Although Rhodin was very convinced that you and I were using the secret passages between our suites in the Palace for…” A pause for dramatic effect, and then he says very delicately. “Assignations”

Fitzroy groans, and Cliopher delights in seeing the look of fascinated horror pass over his face before he releases Fitzroy’s hand to collapse onto his own back. He takes a minute to watch the stars float above them. “I know you thought Pali beautiful, when she came to the Palace. I recognised that. I just never thought about it for myself. I’m not–” He casts about, unsure exactly of what it is that he isn’t; but knowing that whatever it is Bertie has it, and Rhodin has it, and for himself, he has only been propositioned by a handful of people.

“Kip.” Fitzroy breathes, and this time he’s the one to shift onto his side to see the other’s face. “You’re–” He reaches over Cliopher’s body to grasp his hand, and tugs on it until they’re looking at each other again. His eyes are very bright. Cliopher is surprised to find his own a little teary. It’s never mattered to him before, what people thought of his appearance. It confused everyone at Court to no end. It drove Féonie to distraction, that he always refused makeup. But it’s different, with Fitzroy. Everything is different with Fitzroy. “When you bought me home with you that first time, when I woke up to myself again, I remember thinking that of course Cliopher is from here. Because there is nowhere else in all the Nine Worlds beautiful enough.”

Cliopher makes an odd, helpless sort of whiny purring noise that he was not at all aware he had in him, and he turns to hide his face half in the cushions, and half against Fitzroy’s chest. Fitzroy chuckles and puts a steadying hand on his back. “This was, of course, after I got over being quite so terribly seasick.”

“You should have warned me.” Cliopher says, muffled.

“I didn’t know there would be sailing.”

Cliopher squirms his head a little to level Fitzroy with an accusing eye. “I’m very sure that I told you that I saw Navikiani from Bertie’s yacht.”

Fitzroy runs his palm from between Cliopher’s shoulder-blades to the dip at the base of his spine and back up again. The harp callouses on his long fingers rasp very pleasantly against his skin, and Cliopher shudders. Fitzroy presses his hand firmly against him. “I’m afraid I was rather too busy thinking that I wished I could go with you, to notice the specifics.”

Cliopher pushes back into Fitzroy’s touch, until he can free his face and speak clearly. “And then I asked.” He still wonders a little at his own daring that day. He didn’t know the guards half so well, then. Any one of them could have reported him to the Ouranatha.

“You did. Gods, you did.” A tear, quite unexpected, rolls down Cliopher’s cheek at the naked awe in his voice. Fitzroy moves to wipe it away with his thumb. “You truly are a marvel, Kip”. He beams, brilliant and true. “My marvel.”

“Oh.” The sound falls out of Cliopher, perhaps a little stupid with love and happiness. He hadn’t even done anything special. Just looked at a trapped man, and done everything in his power to get him out. It was only what anyone should have done. “I love you so much, I don’t quite know what to do with it.”

“Give it to me.” It’s not exactly an order, but Cliopher could do great things with it if he felt so inclined. “All of it. It’s not too much. Not for me.”

“Is that an innuendo?” He tries.

Fitzroy snorts. “No. I like to think my innuendos are cleverer than that.”

“Don’t make them too clever.” Cliopher warns him. “I know you think me terribly competent, but if you ask Conju and Rhodin they will tell you that I am comically oblivious to flirting. Hopeless, even. I’m certain I have never begun a courtship in my life.”

“You asked me on vacation.”

“That wasn’t what I meant, then.” He says, mulish. It could have been. It should have been. But he had been nowhere near being able to even think about that, at the time. And this, his life with Fitzroy, it wasn’t something to fall into by happy accident. It was very deliberately meant and chosen. “And be that as it may, I really do mean it. If you want me, you must be entirely explicit in your meaning.” Fitzroy snorts again. “Not like that.”

“I know.”

“I only mean that if you dream about anything, you need to tell me in as many words.”

“I know.” Fitzroy’s good humour is infectious, and Cliopher finds himself chuckling too.

“Though I expect it will be helpful, in the future.” He muses.

That gets Fitzroy to stop laughing. “I could court you.” He says, very seriously.

Cliopher sobers up to meet him. He thinks of the shy way that Fitzroy holds his hand, of the way he brings him tea in the morning. He thinks of Fitzroy’s dazzling smile whenever he whisks him away from whatever he’s doing to recite poetry to him; different to their dictation sessions, with his head in Cliopher’s lap and his hands waving through the air, sketching out the scenes in lines of fiery gold magic.

He remembers the feral look in Fitzroy’s eyes when Cliopher had sailed them out to the closet reef from Gorjo City and they had gone snorkelling together. Fitzroy had spent the entire swim hanging off his arm and tugging him around to look at beautiful things, fish and coral and a moray eel with viciously sharp looking teeth and skin speckled in yellow and white and black. Cliopher dove down and brought them up a lobster for dinner, floating back toward the small sandy islet where they had beached the boat with his arm outstretched to stop Fitzroy sticking his fingers between its claws just to see what would happen. They had cooked it sitting around a fire with some taro and breadfruit and finished the meal with one of Sardeet’s pastries. Cliopher had been entirely distracted watching Fitzroy lick his fingers clean and ambled off slowly to the ocean’s edge to wash his own and to give himself a few moments to clear his head. It hadn’t helped. When he had come back up the beach Fitzroy had been watching him with hooded eyes, and Cliopher had flopped down onto the sand so close that he hardly had to lean to rest his head on Fitzroy’s shoulder. Fitzroy had startled just a little and then his arm came around Cliopher’s waist, holding him tight to his side.

They had passed a few minutes without words, only the crackling of the fire and the quiet wash of the waves to break the silence; and then a lone bird cry, a gull that had crept up behind them looking for dropped food scraps. After shooing it away with his foot, Fitzroy had told a story about visiting Kaphyrn, home-world of the Sisters Avramapul, and watching a falconer put her birds through their paces. Contrary to what the name implied, any bird of prey could be used in falconry. The woman had trained great eagles, standing as tall as her own waist, with sharp yellow eyes that could spot prey from where they had been hardly specks circling high in the sky. As he spoke Fitzroy’s eyes had taken on the bright sheen of his spell-casting, and Cliopher had watched as shapes had formed from the cooking fire, blazing eagles with wickedly curved beaks and talons that had flown away from the greater flame, up and up, swooping and circling around each other, until he had lost sight of them against the matching orange of the clouds at sunset.

Later still when the night had fallen and the moon was bright in the sky, Fitzroy had offered to sail them back home. He had kept the wind in their sail pointing them straight back to Tahivoa and his eyes scanning the water for sudden danger, falling on Cliopher in their roaming far more often than would perhaps be considered safe for a navigator at night. Cliopher had wondered what Fitzroy was looking for in those stolen glances. Instruction? Approval? Appreciation? Perhaps he was simply looking for a beloved place to rest his gaze. Cliopher hoped so. He hoped his fanoa felt the same was he did, every time he looked at him. And after all, it had been a date by anyone’s estimation. The first Cliopher had been on since university, and he hadn’t even been worried about it. It had felt very right.

“I thought you already were.” Cliopher says, his smile soft.

“Ah.” Fitzroy’s mood rises again quickly. “But I could do so much better.”

Strangely, Cliopher finds himself only half incredulous. “Better than raising an island from the sea?”

“Perhaps not as grand.” Fitzroy allows. “But I have a wonderful imagination. And I do love you. And I love surprising you, so I am quite motivated to outdoing myself.”

Cliopher blushes. “You don’t need to be Fitzroy Angursell from your poems with me.” He reminds him. “You don’t need to be anything other than what you are.”

Fitzroy smiles that charming, breathtaking Fitzroy Angursell smile. “Oh. But I would like to be.”

Cliopher chokes on air suddenly made hot by Fitzroy’s magic. This is what people meant when they spoke about seduction. They meant Fitzroy’s inviting grin, like a hand outstretched to guide you into every sort of mischief. The meant the spark in Fitzroy’s golden eyes looking at Cliopher from under his lashes, promising to light them both up like bone-dry tinder. They meant the teasing touch of his fingers trailing over Cliopher’s arm, the lingering tingling warmth of it. Entirely bewitching. And they haven’t even–

“Can I kiss you now?” Fitzroy interrupts his mild panic. “It’s only that, I think that you and I could forever be sidetracked by wonderfully sparkling conversation about what we may one day like to do to each other and never actually do it, if I don’t just ask.”

“Oh. Undoubtedly.” Cliopher struggles manfully to sound calm.

“Undoubtedly we could talk forever, or undoubtedly I can kiss you?” Fitzroy teases, obviously not fooled in the slightest. He damn near twinkles in smug satisfaction.

“Umm.” As if ‘do not umm and ah’ was not the very first lesson one learns about rhetoric. “Both?”

Fitzroy laughs in delight, and curls his hand tight around Cliopher’s bicep. He uses the other to push himself onto his knees, and pulls Cliopher up to face him. They stare at each other for a few moments, golden eyes and brown equal in bubbling happiness, before Fitzroy curls over a little to bring their foreheads together. “Hello, Kip.” He whispers.

“Hello, my fanoa.” Cliopher whispers back. “Hello, Fitzroy.”

Fitzroy takes a few of his deep, steadying breaths, and Cliopher is gratified to know that he is more affected than he’s letting on. That they are matched in nerves and in trembling anticipation as in everything else. Fitzroy tilts his head is their noses slide together, and then finally their lips, a barely-there brush to contrast how hard Fitzroy is holding onto his arm, how fast Cliopher’s heart is beating. Fitzroy sways in place and Cliopher puts both hands on his waist to steady him.

And Fitzroy surges into it, throws himself forward so Cliopher catches him on his chest, his muscles straining to keep them upright as Fitzroy kisses him, no longer soft and gentle; messy and intent and just on the edge of demanding. No self-consciousness, no hesitation in asking for what he wants, confident in himself and his body in a way that he so rarely lets himself be. As heady as the kiss is, it means far more to Cliopher that Fitzroy is trusting him with his desire, that he took him at his word when he said that he wanted what Fitzroy had to give.

There’s no artistry to it, no song. But Cliopher has always recognised a challenge when one is put to him. And he has never backed down from answering. He tightens his grip, fingers digging in to Fitzroy’s sides, and kisses back as good as he gets.

Chapter Text

It is one of the great joys of Cliopher’s life, to wake up with Fitzroy in their house. To join his fanoa in the rituals of greeting the day; the snuffling and squirming, the languid stretching, occasionally mashing your face into a pillow in the hopes you go back to sleep. Sometimes he will wake with the sun, an unfortunate habit he has so far been unable to completely break himself of, and see Fitzroy blearily blinking himself into consciousness opposite him. On those mornings Fitzroy reaches for him with grasping hands and arms and Cliopher allows himself to be pulled into him, until their legs tangle and he’s tucked up under Fitzroy’s chin, nose pressed into the dip of his collarbone, and he closes his eyes and floats somewhere between asleep and awake until he can hear noises from downstairs.

Once, Cliopher had woken in the middle of the night to a tugging at his scalp and he opened his eyes to find Fitzroy as a crow, apparently quite earnestly trying to make something like a nest in his hair. Fitzroy had hardly been gentle with nothing but claws and a beak to work with, and Cliopher didn’t have enough hair besides for anything like real progress to be made. Instead, Cliopher had rucked up the blankets so they sat level with his ear and nose when he lay on his side, and there was plenty of blanket to spare that he gathered into a pile and then worked a hollow into, in the place where his shoulder pointing towards the ceiling curved down to meet his cheek. He’d fallen back asleep just as Fitzroy was hopping over to inspect the space made for him, and he’d woken again hours later to find his toes freezing where they were poking out the bottom of the shortened blanket, and with Fitzroy’s soft little crow body nestled in against his neck. It has proved a particularly convenient sleeping arrangement when visiting places with only a single bed available, but Cliopher is always sure to curl his knees up closer to his chest before he drifts off so he isn’t woken early by the chill on his feet.

The other of Cliopher’s great morning joys is to have the time to sit up in his dressing gown and read a good book. Sadly, a pile of pillows and blankets does not a solid foundation for propping oneself up make, and on the days when he wakes up and Fitzroy is still snoring and drooling strangely charmingly, Cliopher likes to wander down from the tower and sit out on the balcony to read; the sound of the sea, the birds, the people telling him that he is home, and he is whole, and he has achieved the great dreams of his heart. Usually Ludvic joins him, and Rhodin if he’s not off with Sardeet or Enya. Or Sardeet and Enya. Conju has turned out to be a rather devoted practitioner of the art of sleeping in, but he does manage to wander out with his embroidery on occasion. It has become a much-loved time for the four of them to simply exist as the friends that they have been for so many years

But it is raining heavily and cold besides when Cliopher wakes to Fitzroy snoring rather merrily away, one arm flung over his eyes with his instinctive dramatic poise. So instead Cliopher goes downstairs to the suite that he and Fitzroy have chosen as their own, and he settles into the bed that they share when the sky is cloudy and they will not be able to see the stars through the windows of the solarium. He has Aya’s latest in his hands, which Fitzroy had already raced through the day it was released, but Cliopher is enjoying taking his time to enjoy her easy writing style and her intricately plotted mysteries.

He reads silently for a little over a half-hour before Fitzroy makes his own way into the bedroom to join him, his harp in one hand, and two mugs of coffee in the other. He passes Cliopher his own cup, full of some mysterious dark and delicious roast that Enya had sourced for him and makes Fitzroy scrunch up his nose at the lack of sweetness, and he sits down in turn on one of the two stiff-backed chairs that they use for practicing their instruments.

Fitzroy puts his coffee on the ground and his harp on his lap, and he plucks his way through some very embellished scales. Cliopher wriggles a little deeper into the pillows propped up against the headboard and marvels at how he ended up here; retired, in love, in his own home with a good book and good music and a good man.

He reaches the last quarter of Aya’s book, where the mystery is finally beginning to be unravelled and the villain backed into a corner, just as Fitzroy glides smoothly from his warm-up into his current composition. The music is sweet and bright and full of an easy joy, quite incompatible with the tale of murder and quiet malevolence on the page, so Cliopher lets it fade into the background. He doesn’t notice right away when it stops, and Fitzroy lets out a little sigh.

Cliopher manages a few more pages before he becomes aware of the sudden quiet, and he looks up. Fitzroy is slumped back in his chair, and is flying Au’aua around the room. The little stuffed whale usually sits on top of the old Voonran wooden chest against the far wall, where she can guard over his efela inside and watch over the room with her one golden eye. But floating her through the air seems to help Fitzroy think, and Cliopher is glad to see her bring joy. Her tail flicks like she is going to dive deep in the ocean, and instead of sea spray, sparks like fireworks scatter in her wake. Cliopher smiles wistfully at the beautiful piece of magic, and Fitzroy starts to hum something new.

Or; it was new, when Cliopher heard it two days ago. Now Fitzroy seems stuck on the same few bars. He has Au’aua make a breaching movement, and more lights scatter around her; gold and red and blue stars. Fitzroy hums the notes again. Cliopher places his bookmark and sets the novel aside.

“You know,” he says, clear if a little cautious. “I have been told that I can be very encouraging of a muse.” The stuffed whale stops in its flight, shudders, and does a little flip.

“Really?” Fitzroy asks, his voice strained. He floats Au’aua back to his hands, and sets her carefully on the spare chair with a pat on the top of her head. “By who?”

“Saya Vho Suzen.” Cliopher tells him. “The portraitist.”

Fitzroy huffs a delightfully scandalised laugh. “Cliopher.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “You must tell me everything.

“You would want that?”

“I really would. I want to know everything that brings you happiness and pleasure.”

“Me too.” Cliopher says, a little shy. “I want that too.” He knows that he can be a little jealous over the people he loves. Of all his youthful enthusiasms that was the one he had most hoped to leave behind, but such was the way of things that you were often left to reckon with what you least liked about yourself. Strangely, though, considering the assumed intimacy of the act, this is not an area where Cliopher feels threatened. Oh he would be very upset if someone presumed that they could have Fitzroy now, when they have danced together before friends and family with tiarë flowers tucked behind their right ears, and when Cliopher wears Fitzroy’s ring as a symbol for the rest of the world to see and understand. But hearing of Fitzroy’s past exploits is really no different to sitting at the feet and learning a new skill from someone who has far more practice at it than himself. And Cliopher would very much like to learn.

Fitzroy brings his hands together, grip on his fingers tight. “I’m afraid it will be a much longer telling for me.” He sounds, Cliopher fancies, perhaps a little defensive.

“I know.” He smiles fondly. “I have read your poetry.”

“And it doesn’t bother you.” Definitely defensive. Maybe even plaintive.

“Why should it?”

Fitzroy shrugs, feigning nonchalance. “It upsets some people.”

Unfortunately, Cliopher doesn’t quite catch his short bark of laughter in time. “Forgive me.” He says. “I don’t mean to make light of your concerns. But I can assure you that you’re hardly the only one who has had more experience than me.”

“But you have had experience.” It’s not a question, so much as a reach for reassurance.

“Here and there.” Cliopher replies.

“Then you should tell me about it.” Declares Fitzroy. “You should tell me about what you like.”

Cliopher agrees. “Okay.”

Fitzroy leans even further. Cliopher can see his arms and his thighs straining, like he is trying to stop himself from hoping too hard and from leaping to his feet. “Are you sure?” He asks.

Rather than respond with words and catch them both in another cycle of conversation and revelation, Cliopher opens his arms and parts his knees and makes a space in front of him. Left to his own devices, Cliopher really could speak on the subject forever and not do anything about it. He has never felt inspired to act on it for himself. But for Fitzroy– Well Fitzroy, to borrow from Conju’s wonderfully direct parlance, deserves to be done.

Fitzroy takes the movement as the invitation that it is, and he practically tumbles from his chair to the bed in his haste to crawl up to reach Cliopher. It should look faintly ridiculous. Fitzroy is all long limbs and sharp angles. He cuts an impressive figure when pacing, but everything about his build suggests he would look awkward with this movement, or ungainly. Instead, Cliopher feels quite struck by the image of Fitzroy coming towards him like something out of the kind of dream he’s hasn’t ever had often, and he doubts that any he does have from now on will be about anything else. Fitzroy reaches him and stops, kneeling between his legs. He beams at what Cliopher is sure is a very stunned and stupid look on his face, takes it between his palms and leans down.

And Fitzroy kisses him, the fingers cradling his head tilting it back, his thumbs stroking over Cliopher’s cheeks, the bolt of his jaw, encouraging him to open his mouth so he can lick into it, his lips moving slow and certain and unrelenting as a deep, dark swell. Cliopher’s hands scramble for any purchase and land on Fitzroy’s shoulders and then the back of his neck, and he can do little more than hold on tight as Fitzroy slides a hand into his hair and pulls him closer, forward until his back leaves the pillows and there’s nothing holding him up but the strength in Fitzroy’s arms, his own spine liquid. Cliopher feels his nose mashed against Fitzroy’s cheek, his lips bruised, his lungs straining empty and bursting full all at once. His heart thumps wildly in his chest and his eyes are squeezed shut, and the only things that Cliopher knows exist for sure in this world are Fitzroy’s hands on him, and Fitzroy’s tongue in his mouth, and the heat of Fitzroy’s body tucked up between his legs and in his arms.

Eventually, slowly, Fitzroy pulls back with a sigh. Cliopher lets his hands fall down to Fitzroy’s shoulders, his palms tingling, his body falling onto his pillows again, and his chest heaves once, twice, breath trembles, and he feels–

It’s been a long time since Cliopher had been kissed like that, if he ever has. Suzen certainly didn’t. Their affair was always fun and light, no great urgency to it. The spy hadn’t kissed him much at all, which probably should have been a warning to her true purpose. It likely would have been, for someone who wasn’t like him. And out of respect for his friends, Cliopher has done his best to forget how it felt when Ghilly kissed him. So he has no frame of reference for how breathless he feels, how overwhelmed, except for that day out off the reef near Loaloa. Not the way he had felt when he had nearly drowned, struggling and straining and lost. The way he had felt when Buru Tovo had pulled him from the ocean and back into his boat, and he had taken that first glorious gasp of air and known that he was safe. Overwhelmed with life.

Fitzroy grins, wide and easy. “Are you still sure?”

Cliopher nods, helpless. “You‘ll tell me if I do something you don’t like?” He checks. Fitzroy still struggles, sometimes, with saying he’s unhappy about things.

“Of course.”

“And you’ll tell me if I do anything…wrong?”

“Oh, Kip.” Fitzroy croons. He puts both hands back on Cliopher’s face, rubs small circles on his cheeks with his thumbs. “Oh, my dear. There is no way that you could ever love me wrong. Not so long as it comes from you.”

“Okay.” Cliopher sniffs.

Fitzroy replies “okay.” And he leans down again to press his lips to Cliopher’s forehead. They hold there for a moment. Cliopher slides one hand down to Fitzroy’s thigh, and his fanoa leans back onto his heels again. They smile at each other, a little watery, and then Fitzroy takes his hands back to wipe his eyes. “Okay.” He says again, firm, and lifts Cliopher’s hands off him so he can turn around and snuggle in, back to chest. Cliopher’s arms come around him automatically, low on his hips.

Fitzroy tips his head back onto Cliopher’s shoulder so he can see his face. “Tell me your action plan then, my lord Mdang, and I will review it.” He waggles his eyebrows extravagantly.

Cliopher buries his hiccupy laugh in Fitzroy’s neck and squeezes him tight. Fitzroy slumps in his hold, tilts his head so his nose brushes up against Cliopher’s temple. Cliopher kisses his shoulder and sits up straight, raises his chin like he’s about to deliver a report.

And then he does he does.

********************

It is one of his more enthusiastically received proposals, if he does say so himself.