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Oberstein reaches for the door to the sitting room. The ring on his finger catches his attention for a fraction of a second, stark in the corner of his artificial eye – a fraction of a second less than it usually does. His expression does not change as he makes note of that, nor as he makes note of how the anticipation fluttering in his chest is duller than usual. He suggests to himself that he must be getting used to life as a married man, and very nearly scoffs at the half-hearted joke.
It hadn’t been his idea to get married. If it were up to him, he would have remained an ineligible bachelor for the rest of his days, contenting himself not with matters of the heart, but matters of the state. He supposes that this marriage blends the two, in a way – after all, he had never expected to be wedded to the princess of the Goldenlöwe Dynasty.
He opens the door. Annerose is in the same spot she always is. Her eyes flit up to him as he enters the room and Oberstein wonders, as he often does, why she had chosen him. Why she had wanted to marry at all – he does not intend to carry on his bloodline, and Annerose herself had told him she does not wish to bear children of her own. A commonality between them, perhaps, and convenient, but convenience and alignment on one matter alone is not enough to justify a marriage.
Yet still, they had married. The wedding had been modest, private, not at all suited to someone who had shone so brightly in the public eye, nor to one so infamous and loathed as Oberstein. Perhaps that’s why, he muses – he certainly had not wanted to tarnish her image, but she had told him, when she had suggested the arrangement to begin with, that she had no intention of ever being looked at again.
He had taken that to heart. On their wedding night, Oberstein had shown Annerose to her bedroom, separated from his own by the width and length of a hallway. She had taken his hand, slid her fingers under the cuff of his uniform, stepped in closer. Her eyes had shone under heavy-lidded eyes.
He bade her goodnight, and bowed before he left her at the door.
Annerose has only ever touched him fleetingly since, with fingertips brushing against his arm or the occasional stroke of his hair as she would tuck it behind his ear. Once, recently, she had dared to leave a kiss on his cheek, but never since. Oberstein has no qualms with that – she is simply doing her duties as wife, and he has no need for the kind of intimacy she had been forced to offer another so long ago. He thinks that must be a part of the reason why she had chosen him.
He thinks now, not for the first time, of how many times she must have been touched. How many eyes had tried to undress her. When he remembers that, a rage that had long since faded within him rekindles a little, and he thinks to himself that that could be yet another reason why she had chosen him: to avoid any other would-be suitors, who must have come crawling to her feet like maggots to a corpse once she had returned briefly to the public eye.
Or perhaps she hadn’t chosen him at all. Perhaps she is simply being pragmatic, and does not want to see her brother's legacy go to waste. Reinhard had chosen Oberstein, and so Oberstein must stay, even if there are those who would rather see him ousted. He can't blame those who despise him, not really, and nor can he argue against them when he himself had come to believe his time had passed. The shrapnel in his side and the phantom burns of his scars are enough to speak to that. The scars on Annerose's psyche must burn just as hot, even if they aren't visible.
He closes the door. Annerose smiles at him from across the sitting room. The dog's head is in her lap, and her hand is on his old, greying head. He's surprised it's lasted as long as it has, but that, too, is a welcome miscalculation.
"Welcome home," Annerose says. Now is the time she would rise from her seat to take his cloak, but she does not move. The dog yawns; she strokes his head. Oberstein nods in her direction and removes his cape and jacket himself. That's when the dog finally moves: his ears perk up and he opens his drooping eyes, shambling to his feet before slumping off the couch. He pads his way over, looking for another hand to scratch beneath his chin, and Oberstein obliges him just as he does every day.
Annerose giggles. Oberstein looks up at her, curious. Her sugar-sweet smile is still in place, halfway hidden by her hand. Strangely, it doesn't feel like an affect.
He almost asks her what it is she finds so funny, but she lowers her hand before he gets the chance, and it silences him. His own hand drops away from the dog, and it hobbles back to curl up at Annerose's feet. "Won't you join me?" she asks. "I asked Rabenard to bring some tea."
He nods, one slow motion, and silently comes round to the sofa. He drapes his clothing on the back of it and sits on the end opposite from Annerose, and she watches him for a moment, gazing at him with still, unreadable eyes. A part of him is impressed every time she does that – her eyes aren’t even artificial.
But she smiles again, impassivity vanishing, and leans forward to pour him some tea. “Your timing is good,” she says, “he only just set it down. It’ll be a little weak, but that’s how you like your tea, isn’t it?”
The aroma of the tea wafts up toward Oberstein, tendrils of steam rising from its surface as if reaching out for him. He watches as the cup fills and notices the colour is still light – as she said, just the way he likes it.
“Thank you,” he says. Months ago – weeks ago – he wouldn’t have even said that much, and a wry smile threatens to twist his expression for a brief flash of a moment.
Annerose smiles at him. She waits a moment longer before pouring her own tea and adds a single sugar cube to it. “Will you take milk today?”
“No, I think not,” he says. Annerose’s eyes flit down to his waist – to one side of his waist.
“Is it bothering you?”
“Not today.”
“Mm.” She moves in closer. The dog shakes his head and snorts, unhappy at being disturbed. His head must have been resting on her feet. Oberstein glances down at him, just long enough that he doesn’t catch the movement of Annerose’s hand as it settles over his own.
“Paul,” she says, looking up at him with shining, pleading eyes. “You would tell me if you were in pain, wouldn’t you?”
He hesitates. Not because he doesn’t want to tell her – although he doesn’t, really – but because no one has ever really asked him that before.
She frowns. Something about that doesn’t sit well with him. Her hand curls around his, and she reaches up with the other to caress the curve of his jaw. They watch each other for a moment, completely silent. Annerose’s gaze flicks between Paul’s eyes, and he wonders if she can see anything in them. He certainly can’t see anything in hers – or rather, he chooses not to look.
Annerose leans in. Slowly, carefully, she presses a kiss to Paul’s cheek. He turns his head, just slightly, in her direction as she pulls back, and she looks up at him again from beneath her golden lashes – long, thick, inhumanly beautiful. There’s another pause, another moment of stillness and silence, and then she leans in again – closer, this time, to lay the ghost of a kiss at the corner of his mouth.
He does not resist. He does not move to kiss her, either – but perhaps she misunderstands the curious tilt of his head as permission to continue, because she does not stop there. Annerose kisses him, closing her eyes as their lips meet.
She sighs against Paul’s mouth. The feeling is foreign, unfelt since the day they had married, but he cannot say it is unpleasant. He reasons with himself, despite the strange emotion rising in his chest, that he can be allowed to like the feel of her lips on his, the fragrance of her light perfume floating into his senses. He even likes the softness of her hair when it grazes his cheek. It is okay, he tells himself. He is her husband – he should like these things, so long as he doesn't take it too far. So long as he does not upset her.
She shifts in front of him. Paul can feel her hand against him, the backs of her knuckles just barely grazing the flat plane of his clothed chest. He opens his eyes and looks down, trying to see her hand. It's half-obscured by long waves of golden hair, but…
The first button comes open, and Paul draws back.
"What are you doing?"
"We have been married for months now, my husband," Annerose says. "And we have yet to…"
His expression remains still. She watches his eyes. "There is no need," Paul tells her, and adds: "Not if you don't want to."
For a moment, she looks taken aback. Then, as if steeling herself, Annerose takes a breath – and suddenly, she moves. She claps her hands to Pauls’ cheeks, taking his face in both hands, and looks him directly in the eye. It unnerves him – but the suddenness of the impact startles him far less than the intensity of her gaze.
"Paul,” Annerose says, “I want you to make love to me."
The room goes still. Her gaze is firm on him, fixed and unblinking, and Paul wonders if time itself has stopped in that moment, freezing them both in place. He isn’t certain he can breathe – this feeling is so strange, so foreign to him. She wants him to – the very notion is absurd. Why would she possibly want that? How could she possibly desire him? To what end could she possibly want to seduce him, when he has so little to offer her?
Her lips twitch in slow-motion, inching ever closer to a frown. It is that movement, as subtle as it is, that finally kicks the flow of time into resuming, and once more the absurdity of the situation falls upon Paul. He very nearly laughs. He manages a wry smile instead, and pulls out of his wife’s hold to turn towards the tea that is, miraculously, still hot on the table.
"You'd have been better off asking Rabenard for wine than tea," he says, picking up his cup and saucer.
"I'm not trying to get you drunk." Annerose doesn't miss a beat. Her hand finds his wrist, defying all reason; he is holding something, but she does not seem to care. He thinks of how strong her grasp is, despite how small and delicate her hand. "I don’t want to seduce you,” she says. “I want… I want you to want this."
Paul looks down into his tea. The steam nearly obscures his vision, blurring the even reflection of his face on the surface. For a moment, he considers a sip; instead, he sets the cup back down.
“Is it because I am your husband?” he asks. He turns to her, and she almost recoils – he can see tiny pinpricks of red light reflected in her eyes – but Annerose holds herself steady. “You know you aren’t beholden to me just because we are married.”
Annerose sighs. She runs her thumb over the back of his hand, closing her eyes for a moment. When they reopen, she smiles softly.
"Is it so strange to think that I love you?"
Once again, time comes to a stop, and Paul doesn't answer. It is strange, he thinks, for what reason could she possibly have to love him? He's older than her; he's involved in the rule of the Galactic Empire; there are dozens, hundreds more men better suited to her, who can provide for her in any way she likes. He can only supply her money she does not want, and chain her to the periphery of a life she had never asked for but had been forced to endure. In the back of his mind, he knows, rationally, that love itself is irrational. Still, what reason could she possibly have? He cannot grant her the companionship that she deserves, the heart that she must quietly desire.
Annerose's gaze falls. Her chin angles down, hiding the sad curve of her smile. Her hand slides off his, back to her own lap, and she smooths down the skirt of her dress before she stands.
"I'm sorry," she says. "I suppose I'm still selfish, after all."
Paul looks up. He watches her move away from the couch, rounding its side and walking around the back. He doesn't turn to see her at the door; instead he restrains his gaze, fixing it resolutely forward. For some reason, he cannot bring himself to look at her longer than that – cannot quell the furious beating of his heart.
"Wait."
She turns around, or so Paul thinks. He isn't sure – of anything, really. Of her, of himself. He can only ground himself in the sound of shuffling skirt fabric and in the gentle cease of her quiet footsteps. He still doesn't turn to look at her. He thinks, perhaps, he doesn't need to.
If she smiles, he doesn't see it. But he does see her glide back into his vision, retracing her steps and coming back around the couch. Annerose lowers herself to it, sitting close enough that her knees graze the outer edge of Paul’s thigh.
"Are you sure?" she asks, leaning forward. She has one hand at her breast, imploring. He closes his eyes and inclines his head – not quite nodding, but giving his assent all the same.
Annerose shuffles forward. Their legs press together. She reaches for him, her delicate fingers ghosting warm and soft against the sharp angle of Paul’s cheekbones, and he realizes, with almost dull detachment, that there are calluses on the tips of her fingers from when she does her needlework. He reopens his eyes, struck by those connecting thoughts, just in time for Annerose to lean in close enough he has to close them again.
"You always look for too much," she whispers. "It's time you learned to see."
Annerose kisses the lids of each of his eyes, one after the other. She pulls away, and Paul reopens them: he meets her gaze, and then his own flits down, unbidden, to her lips.
Annerose kisses him, and he lets her slide into his lap.