Sad Song, Warm Occasion [Closed]

[hearthebell]

Who: L and Myr
When: Before quests
Where: L's cottage
What: Soft talks after they got matching magical tattoos
Warnings: Soft stuff, maybe sad stuff



[There's something bittersweet about two people mutually deciding that pursuing any sort of romance would be ill-advised and unhealthy, and then opting to get matching tattoos. They serve a practical purpose, of course, as well as a symbolic one; prior to a dangerous mission, a spell to address one of L's particular blind spots isn't exactly unwise, and if it's a way to amplify the boons L receives by merit of being Bonded to a faun, all the better.

With limited options on a sparse and bony frame, L had chosen for the design to cap his shoulder: two bees and a honeycomb nestled against a bunch of plum blossoms. It'll take some time before he's used to seeing himself with it; he's certainly never worn anything so ornate or colorful. Any warmer and his skin would look grey against the hues, but the design's palette was well-chosen, soft, and harmonious.

Even if they weren't, he reasons, it's rare for him to expose much skin at all even when the weather is warm. Only a hypothetical lover would be in a position to see it, and such occasions aren't exactly routine for the withdrawn detective.

As they approach the cottage, L glances over his tattooed (and currently covered) right shoulder, back at his companion, who is still clad in mourning black since Everett's departure.

Typically, Myr jingles softly even when he's standing still. L's accustomed to the ambient sound of charms clinking against each other, but Myr's removed his antlers, as well.]

I hope you'll stay for tea.

[The words are more frequent in L's vocabulary since the dream with the True Fae. He knows that there's a line between a demand (stay so we can be together) and silent pining (go, so I can imagine that we are), and "I hope" seems to strike the gentlest balance. It's permission and reassurance, laying the decision in the lap of one who can be trusted with it.]

Comments

[hearthebell]

[The reason this isn't something L speaks of visits heavily, now, weighing down his shoulders and pressing the breath from the lower chambers of his lungs. Virtually everyone who arrives in Aefenglom through a mirror experiences a difficult adjustment period, but L's might have been brutal even by those standards. Meeting the SQUIP had marked a turning point in more ways than one; it had been L's first physical encounter, but their Bond and relationship had also been a prolonged and deeply flawed crash course on how to exist and function within a society.]

It's like an execution in a way. Knowing that when you care for someone enough, it's supposed to follow that you'll share physical pleasure as the manifestation of love. If it did turn out to be terrible... maybe it was never love, just... a nice walk to the guillotine.

[Because you were never adequate, never whole, never worthy.]

As much as I've wanted to share physical pleasure with you... I think I've dreaded it spelling the end of the best thing in my life.

[faithlikeaseed]

[Though much about their lives--and their earliest experiences in Aefenglom--had been very different, enough lines up that Myr hears his own pain reflected in his Witch's words. It had not been so long ago he'd faced the thought his own life had become, and would remain, a celibate one; it was not so long ago he'd felt irreparably broken and humiliated because he'd panicked at the mere thought of intimacy with a welcoming stranger.

If it did turn out to be terrible...

Carefully, heart in his throat, Myr gets up from his seat, following the table the short distance 'round to where L is sitting. Tucking up behind the chair and resting his hands on his Witch's shoulders feels more intimate, more protective than mere hand-holding--within easy distance of an embrace, if needful.

And, he thinks, he would very much like to hold his Bonded when they're done talking.]

When I was newly come to Aefenglom, [he starts, quietly,] I met Everett at a wedding and he took me home with him. I froze before we even got beyond kissing. [Their Bond adds context in broad strokes: Dim impressions of how Myr had gone from a favorite of his Circle to feeling a mutilated pariah; of hearing the horror and disgust in a former lover's voice in a most vulnerable moment with her. (Because he was no longer whole, nor adequate, nor worthy.)]

He held me until I stopped shaking, and was patient, and very kind--and didn't ask a thing of me I didn't want to do. When we Bonded, he pledged to me that we could wait, and relearn together what it was to be intimate. It was months before we slept together, and I do not doubt he would have waited years, and still cared for me the whole time.

[To have someone who both wanted him but loved him enough to wait, even if waiting meant never, in the end, had been critical to Myr's own healing. Everett had been a divinely intended gift.

Now he has a chance to pay that gift forward--and begin to make something new and bright and beautiful from the ashes of loss.]

There is no rule in this realm or any other that says our love is meaningless without sex to consummate it--whatever we've heard or read or seen about what's supposed to follow. And as much as I've wanted that myself, when the moment's right, I will wait forever at your side and not consider a moment of it wasted if we only ever spend it chastely.

[He leans down to kiss the top of his Witch's head, greatly daring.]

And if, on that day we do decide to try each other, we don't enjoy it as much as we thought--it will change nothing of how I feel for you, because love does not reside in that act, it's in everything else we do to serve and lift and console each other--in every step we walk together.

[And I love you, L Lawliet, without a shade of doubt or wavering.]

[hearthebell]

[L shoulders curl beneath Myr's gentle and sturdy hands. Lots of sharp, unpadded bones; such a stark contrast between them, and a constant reminder that however real their affection toward each other, much about them will never fit together naturally or easily, and bitter notes will always cut and temper the sweet ones.

Myr paints further contrasts when he tells of Everett, along with some surprising parallels. L hadn't known, or even really guessed that Myr had ever needed to relearn or heal in this regard. It sounds like Everett took a particular place in Myr's life, around the same time as the SQUIP had taken up that posting in L's, and this is how he contextualizes the story.

How might the story have read, if their positions had been reversed, if their mentors in physical affection with such different attitudes and approaches had been switched?

His eyes raise at the press of lips against his shaggy, dark hair. One of his hands, unusually warm for having been cradling a teacup so recently, goes to his shoulder to rest atop Myr's knuckles.]

I'm glad to know...

[The relief in his voice is apparent, a tense, heaving weight finally cut loose.]

It's the difference between the date being pushed back, and learning that the execution is off, entirely.

[His hand travels along Myr's wrist, searching for a way to condense their contact and pull him closer.]

[faithlikeaseed]

Good; one death sentence hanging over you was already one too many. [It does feel like a stay of execution, enough to draw out the sudden bite of a Circle mage's unexpected black humor. There are relief and laughter and tears alike in Myr's tone; he could only wish L had had someone like Everett in his own life before now, but he is beyond glad to step into that role himself.

He lets himself be drawn down gladly, leaning in to wrap arms around his Witch's bony shoulders and pressing his face against L's cheek. This--feels good, feels right, feels the way it should with those weeks and months of tension that had always been a fraught undertone between them finally excised. There's an unutterable sweetness in holding his Bonded without that worry of an end lurking somewhere in the embrace.

(It will end someday, his grief reminds him. But it will not end in the bitter way they both and separately had feared.)]

Mm. [...The back of the chair's pressing into his breastbone, though.] Somewhere more comfortable, maybe?

[hearthebell]

[L's returning laughter is startled and strange. Sharing any sort of pleasure with others, including mere laughter, can be a bizarre experience for him, to the point where he can't always tell what's lovely and what's panic-inducing. He squeezes Myr's forearm to communicate appreciation for the kind of humorous darkness that only makes the light stand out more clearly.

The Light, after all, really is the death sentence hanging over him. Maybe not here... maybe not like this.]

Of course... you'd said that you wanted to lie down.

[Assumed, with grace, as though it weren't just the kind of excuse for distance that L himself would use.]

Should I look for the future in my own teacup and see if I stay the night?

[faithlikeaseed]

That I did, [Myr murmurs, a shimmer of appreciation in the Bond. It is a kind recasting.] It would be much more comfortable.

[He gives a huffing little laugh of his own at the question. I think I'd be a poor guest, if you didn't, he almost teases--then reconsiders.

L had, after all, offered his divination as a gift. It seems fitting to finish the reading.]

Hmm--I've got my own prediction that one. Let's find out if they line up.

[Not that there's any need to guess about the answer he's expecting.]

[hearthebell]

[Gamely, L takes up his teacup, rotates it, behaves as though he's giving it a great deal of thought and consternation. In truth, he's not even looking at the contents of the half-full teacup.]

Usually.... these are hard to make out clearly, but there's no mistaking it. Not only am I staying here, tonight... you're rather stuck with me as your Bonded, long after that point.

[faithlikeaseed]

Aha! Exactly as I thought.

[The exuberance behind the exclamation isn't all Myr playing at the over-invested scholar--or even mostly. It is good to hear L say that in so many words, however backhand they may be.]

Your dedication to divination must be rubbing off on me, amatus. Next I'll be predicting tomorrow's breakfast.

[Also an easy one, when he intends to make it for both of them. Enough of the gloom's dispersed that little tasks like that feel possible again; he can resume this much participation in the web of care knitting them together.

A little reluctantly, he unfolds himself from draping over his Witch, lingering long enough to press a chaste kiss to the detective's temple.]

Shall we?

[hearthebell]

[It's a playful and light game on the surface, a veneer over the deeper heart of the matter. Those who spend a lot of time around L find that he's actually and oddly a deeply honest man, so long as one can read the intentions behind these exercises, understand what his prism does to scatter that pure light into something he can accept others perceiving.]

In matters of breakfast I have firsthand knowledge that you do have a gift... I'd say there's a 99% chance that prophecy holds water.

[Prophecy, plan, prayer. They're all not so different, really, when no one's using magic at this precise moment.

He nods, standing to follow the faun to bed. Pausing for a second thought, he links an arm through Myr's to remain close every step of the way, there.]

[faithlikeaseed]

[That aspect of L's relationship to the truth was both frustrating and thrilling by turns. In this moment there is a quiet delight in Myr to know he's earned that trust.]

Mm--so long as that's where it begins and ends for me and prophecy. [Said laughingly, but for an Andrastian, the notion of a prophet carries with her the idea of an early pyre.

(Though hadn't Myr already chosen one for himself in this, if it came to that?)

He links arms gladly with his Witch for the short walk to the bedroom, always and ever a glutton for contact. Now that he has private spaces to share with his loved ones, now that they're at no risk should anyone see, he's no reason not to indulge if they will indulge him in turn.

Though as they reach the door of the bedroom he stops, and pulls just enough away that he can turn toward his Witch like he'd meet L's eyes.]

Linden? [L?]

[hearthebell]

L can be shy and trepidatious about physical indulgence; so much red tape from attitudes imposed over years stand in the way of easy, gentle, flowing affection that is not carefully planned and choreographed before it's executed beat-for-beat. Even in spaces where he has every assurance that reaching out won't be rejected and rebuffed, a part of him considers it, foremost and automatically.

There's just a small pause before he reaches for Myr's blindfold, fingertips brushing it as an indication that his attention is on the faun's face.]

Yes?

[faithlikeaseed]

[The intimacy of the gesture--from the first person in Aefenglom he'd trusted with the history of his blindness--makes Myr's breath catch briefly in his throat. (A year ago it would have startled him, made him cringe away; how much difference time and trust make.)]

Thank you. For today--and all you've done. I needed this.

[It is hard for him still to lay his burdens down in someone else's care.

How blessed he's been to have a Witch who's learned to help him with it.]

[hearthebell]

[There's a beat of silence and stillness as L freezes in his gentle caressing motion, fingertips coming to rest lightly against Myr's cheekbone.]

It makes me glad, when you have a problem that I can help solve. I don't know that anything actually makes me more glad.

[A pause, because L doesn't feel as though he was strictly the benefactor, and Myr strictly the beneficiary. Had they simply gone to sleep without a word after rising from the table, in fact, L would have interpreted the very opposite.]

...Thank you, as well. For...

[Staying, without judgment or the kind of overt, disgusted pity that would kill him, from one he wants to hold.]

Thank you for carrying something heavy, for me. For long enough to matter.

[faithlikeaseed]

[It's always wondrous strange for Myr to hear something he knew with his head--but not his heart--put so clearly into words.

He reaches to reciprocate his Witch's gesture, palm to line of L's jaw by simple physical memory. There aren't words in him--yet--for the notion that L's eagerness to help invokes; it is something like then I should bring you more, and I've been remiss in not letting you help and I'm glad to see you grow, an idea that he should shake off his own shameful pride more often.

There aren't words yet, but let touch and the warm swell of their Bond suffice for now.]

It has been a joy for me too, amatus, [he says softly, to his Witch's thanks. And it is, for all that it has been won through suffering.] You are always welcome.