Chapter Text
It was a flash of light that finally drew Damen’s eyes away from the ledger book spread across his lap. His neck felt stiff and his eyes were heavy; he’d likely been sorting through the documents for hours now, folded into the window seat at the far end of his chambers. Damen found this spot in the palace particularly useful when he needed to remove himself from all distractions. It was secluded, and quiet, and the open window brought in a fresh breeze that kept his attentions focused. At night, when the sky was black and endless as it was now, there was nothing to draw his eye away from the work he needed to complete.
From the edge of his vision, the light came again. Forcefully blinking away the haze of numbers, written in a cramped, unreadable scrawl between narrow lines, Damen turned to the window. It took a long moment for his eyes and his concentration to refocus.
On the other side the glass, the night was still and starless. The Kings Chambers faced west, overlooking a vast swathe of the ocean by day, from the white waves crashing against the cliffs below, across the Gulf of Atros, to the far reaches of Isthima on the clearest afternoons. The sky and sea were now seamless in the dark, indistinguishable from one another.
Until the horizon was illuminated once more. Across the Ellosean Sea, sudden and stark, a bolt of lightning threaded its way down to earth. Tall, billowing storm clouds surrounded it, cast deep purple and sinister by the light of the strike. Below it, the ocean face reflected the storm like a polished mirror.
Damen smiled to himself. As quickly as the scene had revealed itself to him, the light was gone again, and the world returned to blackness. It felt as familiar as the cool stone of the palace floor beneath his feet, the clothing against his back. He’d grown up with those raging ocean storms, dazzling, dangerous, distant. Resting his chin on a fist against the ledge, he peered under the window frame to watch the world light up again, two twin fingers of lightning reaching down to touch the water.
The ledger books could wait. The numbers they contained weren’t going to change any time soon.
It had been a long, unforgiving week of work, following countless other weeks of work, without respite. Damen had never been bold nor naive enough to think of kingship as easy, nor that governing would not require work on his part. But the unrelenting demands of both Akielos and Vere were beginning to take their toll. Not only on Damen, but on his advisors, his councilors, and, depending on the day, all those who worked in the palace. It was not himself Damen was most concerned about.
Laurent’s presence had also been scarce over the past several days, caught up in his own share of the affairs. Staring morosely out across the ocean, Damen could not accurately recall the last time they had truly been with one another, or had a real conversation. One of them was often asleep by the time the other returned to their chambers, and gone in the morning before the other was awake. Meals were spent with foreign dignitaries, not with each other. They had not had the opportunity to escape the palace walls together in days.
At least, Damen thought, though without much cheer, they had each other to divide the work. To share both the burdens and the privileges of their kingdom, united, together.
It wasn't late, but the longer he watched, the more Damen found his attention slipping away from the storm, his eyelids drooping so low he decided there would be no harm in resting them for a moment. He would return to the ledger books shortly. He just needed to give his eyes a break from the auditor’s miserable penmanship. Gaios was growing older, Damen reminded himself. He needed to have talks with the papermaker about larger lines...
He awoke with a start when the door to his chambers fell shut, his head jerking up from where it rested on the window ledge. He could feel where the lines of the stones had pressed creases into his face. Quickly blinking himself back to a startled consciousness, Damen watched, slightly befuddled by sleep, as Laurent entered the room.
“Laurent,” he said.
Laurent’s eyes found Damen across the room. “Hello,” he said. “Did I disturb you?”
“No, I was just…” Damen looked from the ledger book still open in his lap to the window he’d been sleeping against. “Reading.”
Laurent nodded. From his seat at the window, Damen watched Laurent round the bed and, with an uncharacteristic lack of grace, sit heavily down upon it. His elbows went to his knees, followed by his head into his hands. He pressed the heels of his palms against his closed eyes.
“Laurent,” Damen said again. His voice wavered with concern. “Are you all right?”
After a long moment, slowly, blearily, Laurent returned his gaze to him. Even from a distance, Damen could see that his blue eyes were reddened around the edges, glassy and unfocused.
Laurent took a deep, steadying breath and released it. He laughed quietly. “I’m so tired,” he said, the honesty heavy on his tongue.
Relief stirred in Damen’s chest at the words. Laurent, who he’d watched rule two kingdoms, run across rooftops and scheme his way out of certain disaster, ride with perfect form, and fight for his very life while maintaining implacable self control for days without sleep, and without complaint, was admitting defeat.
Damen would always respect and defend the walls Laurent guarded himself with until Laurent himself chose to lower them. And like every gift Damen received from across the boundaries of those walls - Laurent’s honesty, his memories, his hesitancies - Damen treated this admittance with the care it deserved.
He closed the ledger book and set it aside. Slowly, he stood and approached the bed where Laurent sat, watching him. Not warily, or with any nameable feeling apart from consideration in his eyes. He simply observed him, as Damen often found Laurent doing.
Damen lowered himself to his knees in front of him and reached forward to carefully untie the first of the laces at the base of Laurent’s throat. Sitting still, eyes not shifting from Damen’s face, Laurent allowed it to happen. When the outer portion of the garment finally came loose, the elaborate laces left undone, he raised his arms to help Damen peel it off and away.
Damen felt the weight of Laurent’s gaze upon him and returned it briefly with a small smile. His hands moved to the laces at the front of Laurent’s trousers.
When Laurent’s hands followed, grasping lightly at his wrists, Damen stopped. He let Laurent maneuver his hands a safer distance away, placing them on his knees, and looked up again.
“Damen,” Laurent said, fingers loose around the delicate skin of one wrist, the warm gold cuff of the other. “No.”
Damen kept his hands where Laurent wanted them. Realizing his actions had been misinterpreted, he explained. “You’re exhausted. I thought I would help you into your bedclothes. You'd be more comfortable.” Their eyes caught. “Nothing more than that.”
Laurent held himself still for a heartbeat longer, weighing the offer in his mind. Then he released Damen’s wrists with a nod. He placed his hands on the bed. Carefully, Damen began to thread the simple ties of his trousers back through their eyelets.
“I’m tired too,” Damen said as he focused on the task at hand. Lower, with a breath of laughter, “I fell asleep reading tax records.” He nodded over his shoulder to the window seat, the stacks of ledger books at the base of it.
Laurent laughed too. “Well,” he said. “We won't hold that against you.”
Trousers now loosened around his hips, Laurent lifted himself and helped Damen pull them from each of his legs. Their hands tangled among the trailing laces and fabric folds until finally, Laurent sat in his plain, loose shirt. It shifted on his shoulder, revealing the dip of his collarbone, the familiar scar against his skin. Close to him, still on his knees, Damen could see the creases where the thin white cotton had folded into itself beneath Laurent’s tight clothing. He smoothed his palms down the shirt, down both of Laurent’s sides, then stood.
Before he could step away from him, however, Laurent reached for Damen’s hand. He took it in his own, drawing Damen forward to hold it against his chest.
They gazed at one another. “Thank you,” Laurent said softly. The moment was quiet, interrupted only by the beat of Laurent’s heart against Damen’s fingers.
Damen smiled. In return, he lifted their joined hands and brushed a simple kiss against the back of Laurent’s palm.
Though it was evening, the room was still warm, heavy with humidity lingering in the air, the restlessness of the summer night stirring up storms across the sea. Quietly moving about their chambers, Damen tended to the fire, separating the burning cinders, and closed the grates of the braziers, dimming the light until their surroundings were shrouded in a low amber glow.
He stepped out of his own clothes and made his way to the bed. Laurent had already curled up on the opposite side of it, the single sheet pulled across his body rising and falling with each breath he took. His eyes were closed, his hands loose, folded near his face. He appeared to be asleep. Damen lowered himself gingerly onto the bed, careful not to disturb Laurent, and laid down to face him.
With the Akielon summer still at odds with Laurent’s more temperate northern preferences, Damen had intended to keep an arm’s length away from him; the added body heat would only serve to make both of them uncomfortable on a night like tonight, he reasoned. But as he settled deeper into the bed and finally stilled, it was Laurent who reached out to curl his arm around Damen’s. He grasped his forearm with lax, tired fingers, his thumb gently stroking over the knob of Damen’s wrist for a moment before stopping altogether.
Damen blinked his eyes open, catching a glimpse of blue before Laurent’s eyelids fluttered shut once more. Damen shuffled closer to him, just enough so that he could hold their hands together against his own chest, as Laurent had.
Laurent bowed his head, his forehead coming to rest against Damen’s shoulder. “Will the storm wake us?” Laurent asked, the words clumsy and sleep-heavy.
“No,” Damen murmured in reply. He hadn’t realized Laurent could see the storm from wherever he’d been working in the palace, but of course he had. Nothing would escape the King’s notice.
Turning his head, Damen nosed at the softness of Laurent’s hair, pressing a kiss to it. “It’s too far out on the ocean. It’ll fade before it ever reaches land.”
Laurent’s only acknowledgement was a soft, belated hum in response. Opening his eyes one last time, Damen found Laurent’s lips slack, his breaths lengthening with sleep. Damen smiled helplessly.
“Sleep well, Laurent,” he said.
Distantly, the waves crashed far below the window, the vastness of the ocean almost in time with Laurent’s breathing. Slowly, all sound faded from awareness. Damen drifted.