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“Mon lapin?”
It takes Damen a second to realize that the words being spoken to him are in a language that he understands. A second longer to realize that they’re being spoken with the intent of garnering his attention. They fall so prettily from Laurent’s lips, all fluid and soft consonants, said with the kind of affection that could bring Damen to his knees. It distracts him enough that it takes him another few seconds to comprehend exactly what’s being said to him.
“Lapin?” Damen repeats, a renewed shortness of breath when all Laurent does is shrug. “Are you—Did you just call me your rabbit?”
Laurent focuses his eyes on the wall behind Damen’s head, seemingly incredibly interested in the painted shield put on display. It’s Damen’s shield from his victory at Charcy, the battle where he’d cut through hundreds of men (according to Nikandros, but surely it couldn’t have been that many) to reach nothing but a decoy, only painted to cover up the stains of blood that couldn’t be wiped clean. It was not Damen’s decision to hang it on the wall. It would be a good reminder of Damianos’s proficiency on the battlefield, according to Laurent. Laurent’s lips twitch at the corners. Damen narrows his eyes.
That warm, interested gaze returns to him. “Join me in the garrison?” He asks. The shock of the question almost knocks Damen off of his feet.
“In the garrison?”
“Are you repeating everything I say? The garrison, Damen. Yes or no?” Laurent says, but he’s smiling now, his eyes lighting up and his lips spreading thin around his teeth.
Damen splutters. “Y-yes, alright.” And then, once he’s fallen into step at Laurent’s side, “Why are we going to the garrison?”
“I’m teaching Lazar to speak your language.”
Though it should be enough to stop Damen in his tracks, Laurent’s arm links through his own, light and poised, as if they’re young men enthralled in their courting and embarking on a less-than-innocent walk through the twisting maze of alcoves and hiding spots that make up the gardens of Marlas, an imitation of the coupling gardens in Arles. Laurent walks them out of the council room casually as if he’s walking them towards a shaded bench to rest for a while, and Damen—the King of Akielos with a warrior’s physique crafted by the gods, an unbeaten swordsman, finely honed agility and reflexes and everything else that comes with those skills—trips over his own feet.
Laurent laughs so hard that he snorts. And promptly tries to stifle the noise with a hand clasped over his mouth. Damen has learned that Laurent’s laugh, when it escapes him truly unhindered, is possibly the least elegant part about him, and it’s one of the parts that Damen loves the most. He feels like a fool falling at Laurent’s feet half of the time, and to reduce Laurent to his own sincerity, to see the evidence before him that Laurent feels some sort of safety at his side, to know that he is the only person who gets to see Laurent like this sends Damen’s heart beating wildly in its confines.
Laughter is still a recent development, especially the kind of unencumbered laughter that leaves Laurent breathless, clinging to Damen’s arm with his nose scrunching up and his eyes closing. Eventually, Damen will convince Laurent that his face need not be covered, that he lights up with joy when he laughs and becomes something so beautiful that Damen fears he might not even be real, like a mythical tale or a dangerous superstition. As it is now, Damen just stares at him and only stumbles a little bit over the raised corner of a loose floor tile.
“Would I not be a better tutor? It’s my language.” Still staring, Damen finds Laurent’s hand, draped politely in the crook of his elbow, and wiggles his own around it so that he may tangle their fingers together.
Laurent snorts again and then drops his hand to pat the back of Damen’s palm, consoling him before the insult has even been levied. “Damen, you would be a terrible tutor.”
“I would not!”
A sigh graces Laurent’s lips, part shaky recovery and part fond, affectionate exhale of air. “You’ve spoken your own language for as long as you can remember, mon cœur. There’s a difference between speaking a language and learning it. You don’t catch the subtleties and nuances because you’re already used to them.”
Mon cœur. Damen’s own heart flutters wildly in his chest, the beating of it like birds wings against his ribs, choking him from the inside out, breathless devotion curling through his body. Laurent’s mouth curved around those words and made them sound so mundane. How could a declaration like that ever be mundane?
Damen huffs against the feeling rising in his veins. “So you’re saying I’d be a better tutor of your language? Say, if Pallas were to ask?”
“He would never ask you that. And I would still be the better choice,” Laurent says without hesitation, a teasing trace of a finger down a vein in Damen’s bicep. “You are not so inclined to scholarly pursuits.”
“If I were your tutor, sweetheart, I would have you over my knee for that kind of insolence.”
It isn’t a threat by any means. Damen would never actually do such a thing without being asked to, and Laurent knows, evidenced by the amusement that takes over his face, the curl of his lip and the twitch of his brow.
“You’d have to catch me first,” Laurent taunts, and then he’s darting down the hall, the clack of his heeled boots against the stone-tiled floor and the tittering of laughter ringing in Damen’s ears.
The distant shape of him, the joy in his eyes when he occasionally turns his head to make sure that Damen is still following close behind, is almost adolescent. He is still a young man, still only 21, such young shoulders to bear infinite responsibilities that have existed since long before he was even born. The thought crosses Damen’s mind, this is how he’s supposed to be. Happy, playful, a timid but relaxed bend to his spine once Damen catches him and crowds him through the opening of a terrace.
The architecture of Marlas has been only partially restored to its Veretian glory, with all of the ornamental spandrels added back to every archway but none of the brightly-coloured fabric drapings, decorative friezes that are adorned with intricate sculpture and left as-is instead of covered with bright paints and golden foils. It’s an echo of what the keep would have looked like before the battle that made Damen a prince killer, interwoven, with surprising success, with the simpler, peeled-back aesthetics of Akielon reign.
“Laurent,” Damen crows, pressing him into the balustrade. A long stretch of neck is exposed to him as Laurent tips his head back and laughs, and Damen latches onto it with his lips. “I’ve caught you, my love.”
A soft noise, something between a sigh and a moan, ruffles Damen’s hair. “So you have.” He doesn’t make any effort to wiggle out of Damen’s grasp. If anything, he sinks into it, leaning back into the hand at the small of his back, arms trailing up Damen’s back until he can drape his wrists lazily over Damen’s shoulders and rise onto his toes, tugging Damen down to meet him halfway. “You should kiss me properly.”
“Should I?” Damen grins and dodges Laurent’s searching lips, grasping his waist and hoisting him onto the wide, stone ledge of the bannister. Laurent squeals, his arms wrapping tight around Damen’s shoulders, his legs around Damen’s waist. “I’m meant to punish you now, aren't I?”
“You did say that.” Laurent says around heavy breaths, looking down at Damen with so much delight and desire in his eyes that Damen almost feels like he shouldn’t be seeing this. “Would the teasing I earn from showing up late not be punishment enough?”
He does get a teasing, a brutal one at Lazar’s hands, when Damen presents him to the garrison with kiss-swollen lips and pinkened bite marks along his jaw, tousled strands of hair falling out of the braid he’d had done that morning. Five minutes late. They’re not the only ones sitting in the dining hall, and as soon as Lazar gets started—Lose track of time, Your Majesty? No worries, if my lover was here instead of patrolling the battlements, I would’ve been late for the same reason—Huet and Rochert join in from across the room. Laurent allows it until his cheeks match the burning redness at the tips of his ears. The dismissal comes in the form of a wave, the movement stuttered, jaunty, a ghost of the kind of confidence that he usually has. Lazar schools his expression with a final laugh disguised as a grunt to clear his throat.
The kiss that Damen lays on Laurent’s forehead springs a betrayed grunt from Laurent’s throat, a gratified grin spreading across Damen’s own face as the rest of Laurent’s turns red to match his cheeks and his ears.
“I’ll leave you to it. I’ll find you after my meeting with Enguerran,” Damen says, lips still clinging to Laurent’s skin as if he intends to contradict his words. Laurent is hot to the touch, flushed with the coy air of a newly-introduced lover as Damen drags his nose across Laurent’s cheekbone and whispers in his ear, “Mon cœur.”
Lazar is defenceless against the laughter that shakes its way out of his chest as Laurent glowers at Damen’s retreating back.
♡♡♡
Water dripping onto his face is the first thing that Damen notices. Laurent, the second.
“Good morning,” Damen says, swiping at the droplets on his cheek. He wraps his arms around what he guesses is Laurent’s waist, tugging Laurent down onto the mattress and tucking him into his side. “Coming back to bed?”
It’s late summer in Delpha, which means that the naturally-lit rooms of the King’s chambers turn into sun-baked furnaces by mid-day. Laurent is wearing entirely too many clothes for how stifling the air in their bedchamber is, the trailing laces of his linen shirt tickling Damen’s chest and the soft silk of his trousers sticking to Damen’s sweaty skin.
Laurent huffs but follows the shoving and tugging gently like the fluttering of their bedsheets rearranging around him. “You’ve slept the entire day away.” He doesn’t point out that he likely hasn’t been awake for longer than an hour. Damen can still hear the traces of sleep in his voice, the way that it deepens and roughens, masculine in a way that has Damen’s toes curling with desire when he is still partially lost in his dreams.
“You tired me out. How are your thighs, my love? Sore? It’s been a while since you’ve ridden anything for that long.” Damen grins. Laurent’s teeth, sharp and punitive, meet the edge of Damen’s jaw. Damen needs to shave. He’ll scratch Laurent’s lovely, blushing cheeks and warm, sensitive skin if he doesn’t. Wet hair slaps against his cheek. “Why is your hair wet?”
“I bathed.”
Damen pouts, exaggerated and playful, in a way that Nikandros would balk at if he were present. Laurent only rolls his eyes. “Without me?”
“Yes, I’ve betrayed your trust and broken your heart by bathing on my own. What’s next, Damianos,” Laurent turns onto his side to curl around Damen’s abdomen, shoving the tip of his nose into the dimple in Damen’s cheek before squirming down the mattress to rest his head on Damen’s chest. “Do you intend to hold my cock while I piss?”
Huffing, Damen draws his arms tighter around Laurent’s waist. “Maybe,” he says. And then, injecting as much optimism into his voice as he can muster, “Would you let me?”
“Damen.”
He doesn’t answer, he simply whines and holds Laurent tighter, a hand finding the space between Laurent’s shoulder blades, resting there.
“Damen,” Laurent says again with laughter dancing on his lips. “You are really something, mon loup.”
Mon loup. “I haven’t heard that one before,” Damen says. He doesn’t know that that’s supposed to be a good thing. He’s never seen a wolf up close, but he has heard that they can be ruthless and territorial, protective and dangerous. He wouldn’t call Laurent a wolf, not with the same kind of breathless sigh and fond tone. Laurent reminds him more of a feisty kitten.
“I would hope not,” Laurent says. His cheeks are bright red. A stream of sunlight breaks through a ruffled curtain and catches the drier strands of Laurent’s hair until he appears to have a halo of light surrounding his head. “As far as I’m aware, you haven’t had any other Veretian lovers.”
A wave of understanding comes over him. The names from yesterday, whispers of mon cœur and mon lapin, echoing in the back of his mind.
“Ah,” Damen says, taking a lock of hair between his fingers. It’s gotten longer in the months since Laurent’s ascension, and Laurent has still made no effort to cut it shorter. Instead, he spends a few more minutes every morning twisting the top half of it into a braid that stops just shy of the nape of his neck and ties together with a strip of red-dyed cotton that always stands stark against his usual blue and black wardrobe. “Do you wish to be romanced, sweetheart?”
“No,” Laurent grumbles. Damen looks down at him and he’s flushed so beautifully, embarrassed, not in a way that puts Damen at fault and makes him feel guilty, but in a way that makes him feel awed, as if Laurent is purposely letting him see this instead of hiding it away. “Your Veretian is lacking. That’s all.”
Damen laughs. “Is it, now? Because I don’t call you mon trésor in front of the entire court?”
“I am just—” A choked sound of distress. “—Trying something new. You are so open with your affections, and I’m—”
“A cold-hearted, unfuckable prude whom no one could ever love?”
“Well, you’re the one who said it. Though, I’m not sure unfuckable is actually a word,” Laurent grumbles. Damen sighs and digs his fingers into a tight muscle in Laurent’s back, awaiting the ease of tension and the moan of relief, and relishing in it when it comes. “I don’t want you to think that I don’t feel the same way you do.”
Damen speaks, and the words are heavy on his tongue. “You tried to sacrifice everything you have ever fought for for the meagre exchange of my life,” he says. “And you think that I don’t feel it, with every fiber of my being, that you love me as I love you? Laurent, do you doubt me?”
Laurent sits up in a snap. Wide, blue eyes stare down at Damen, panic swimming in his irises, framed by long, blond lashes that Damen resists the urge to reach up and pet. “No, never. That’s not—I don’t have anything that is my own. I am not the only person in the whole country, not even just this palace, who would willingly exchange my life for yours, but I am selfish, Damianos. I want to have you in a way that no one else does.”
You do have me, he wants to say, but he knows that isn’t the point. He says instead, “Let’s hear them, then.”
“Mon amour,” Laurent coos, leaning in to nip at Damen’s nose. Damen can feel it against his skin when Laurent’s lips stretch into a smile.
Damen grins, his heart flipping in his chest. He’s learned throughout the months that Laurent takes joy in romantic endeavours when he doesn’t have anything holding him back, that Laurent will bring him flowers unprompted or a sweet orange from the garden, and then blush and grin from ear to ear when Damen thanks him with a peck on the cheek.
He does so now, taking the edge of Laurent’s jaw in his palm to turn his face. “I call you that very often,” he says with his lips parting against Laurent’s cheek and then once more against the corner of his mouth. He tugs at Laurent’s jaw until he has the space to latch his lips onto the side of Laurent’s neck, suckling and nibbling until he’s sure that the mark he’s making will last at least a few days. “If you want something original, you might want to try a different one.”
“Mon chaton,” Laurent says, less of a flirtatious drawl this time and more of a petulant air to him. Damen has to turn away so that he doesn’t cover Laurent’s face in spit when a laugh splutters out of him. “I think that one’s perfect.”
The lines of Laurent’s body move under Damen’s hand on his back, wriggling until he’s fully atop Damen’s body, draped over him like a blanket with his forearms propped up on Damen’s chest. He relaxes so casually, his face so soft and free of tension, that Damen wishes he could immortalize the image in some way.
Damen sighs before he speaks again. “You know, I was just thinking that you remind me of a kitten,” he says, combing a hand through Laurent’s damp hair.
Laurent ignores him.
Or maybe he doesn’t. The next one comes out pinched, slightly punishing in the way that Laurent can get when he knows he’s being teased. “Mon petit chou.”
“Chou,” Damen says, joyfully incredulous. “Is that real? Laurent, that can’t be real.”
Laurent places a finger on the underside of Damen’s chin, running it over the scratchy patches of stubble. He pecks Damen on the lips just once. “I told you, your Veretian is lacking, mon canard. It’s a pastry.”
“A pastry? You’re lying. I’ve never heard of such a pastry in my entire life. You’re calling me a cabbage.”
“Why would I lie to you, ma petite puce? I’ll find a chef who can make some for our wedding.” Laurent leans in again, this time catching Damen’s jaw with his lips.
Damen grunts, biting his tongue to chase away his laughter. “You just called me a flea. You’re making these up.”
“Mon ciel étoilé,” Laurent all but purrs. He slides his arms down towards the mattress until he can hoist himself up onto his hands, knocking Damen’s arm from his waist. “L’amour de ma vie.”
A kiss removes all traces of absolute protest from Damen’s lips. “Laurent,” Damen warns as Laurent makes his way down Damen’s body, aimless kisses laid errantly across his bare skin.
The atmosphere in the room thickens, the stifling air of late summer impossible to breathe in especially now that Laurent is stoking the desire inside of him like a well-tended fire. They don’t have the time for this. If it really is as late as Laurent says, Damen has less than an hour to bathe and eat and dress himself before they’re both required to sit through a Veretian Council meeting about the political implications of their forthcoming nuptials. And then another meeting, for the same reason, with the majority of his kyroi.
“Is that romantic enough for you?” Laurent’s lips are hovering above Damen’s navel, the words tickling Damen’s skin, his lovely, blue eyes visible through the curtain of his lashes. Damen’s stomach clenches and his breath hitches in his throat. The path that Laurent’s lips seem to be taking continues downwards. “Mon rêve. Ma raison d’être. Mon roi.”
A single kiss is laid to the half-hard shaft of Damen’s arousal. The heat of Laurent’s body disappears from him entirely. Damen opens his eyes to find Laurent standing beside the bed, lacing the collar of his shirt.
“Mon petit allumeur,” Damen mutters with a groan, dragging a hand over his face and peeling the bed silks from his body.
“As long as I am yours—” Laurent leans over the mattress to take Damen’s lips between his. Damen sighs, and Laurent pulls back enough to continue speaking. “—You can call me whatever you like.”
“Mon mari,” Damen says. He reaches up to take Laurent into his arms again, but Laurent slips away from him before he’s able. Following him requires that Damen sits up in bed, and then he’s away from the bed entirely and being led out of his bedchamber by the hand. Damen pouts, and laces their fingers together in spite of himself. “Laurent.”
“We have half an hour, Damianos,” Laurent says, handing Damen a silk dressing gown and tugging him entirely out of their rooms. “The baths. Now. I’ll even wash your back for you.”
You’ll take too long otherwise, Laurent doesn’t say, though Damen knows he wants to. Laurent has never seen the appeal of soaking in the hot water, of letting the heat and the steam unwind his muscles. Not that he needs it. Not when Damen is willing to unwind Laurent’s muscles for him.
“It doesn’t need to take me half an hour to please you, sweetheart,” Damen says, yanking on Laurent’s arm until he tumbles back into Damen’s chest. Laurent yelps. “I can be quick about it.”
“Why would I want you to please me quickly when you can please me slowly and leisurely,” Laurent says, turning his head to nose at Damen’s chin. “For hours and hours. Over and over again.”
To Damen’s ears, it almost sounds like he’s begging when he says, “Laurent.”
“After our meetings.” He extracts himself from Damen’s hold. Damen groans. “Mon amour.”