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Conju didn't know how his Radiancy could go thirty or nine hundred years without once taking himself in hand under the eyes of his guards, then turn around as Fitzroy Angursell and start shaking their communal retirement house half-apart as soon as he finally took Kip in hand, but something had to be done. As the household expert on Standards, and as the man who used to be in charge of depilating every inch of his Radiancy's body, it was clear Conju was going to have to be the one to do it.
He began with an exquisite platter of fresh-cut fruit, timing his preparations to be complete just as Fitzroy returned from his self-appointed errand of fetching fresh flowers for the kitchen. (He took such joy in these little tasks, things it had once been Conju's sacred duty to ensure his Radiancy never had to lift a finger for.) As expected, he made an excited noise and descended upon the platter, flowers forgotten on the counter in favor of hovering over the glistening offering, fingers fluttering like he didn't know where to begin or if he was even allowed.
"Help yourself, my dear," Conju said, taking up the flowers and preparing them to go into a vase.
A pause, then a delicate crunch and a hum of pleasure. "I don't think I'll ever stop craving fresh fruit," Fitzroy sighed.
"Understandable," Conju murmured, fiddling with the flowers. Fitzroy had a good eye for colors but not for how many blossoms would fit in a vase at once. Arrangements of his spoils tended toward an overflowing look, bursting forth and tumbling down.
Another crunch, then: "Conju?"
"Yes?"
"I can't help but notice there are no bowls or plates on the table, nor any spoons or tongs."
"I could have just not set them out yet."
"You?"
"It could happen."
"You sliced the grapes. Anyone who wants to eat from this platter has to either get a hand terribly sticky or stay and eat one piece at a time."
Conju nudged a spray of tiny white flowers a millimeter to the left, then to the right.
"Is there something you want to discuss?"
"It's delicate," he managed. "And also indelicate."
"Ah. Tricky to approach."
"Indeed."
"Is it related to the fact that there were a considerable number of things blown over inside the house this morning?"
"It is." Conju turned around. Fitzroy looked at him steadily and ate a grape.
"Your magic, Fitzroy, is accustomed to being pushed to its limits on a regular basis. It is also enormously fond of Kip."
"As it should be."
"Mmm. Leaving it at loose ends while you express your own enormous fondness for Kip-" Fitzroy smirked - smirked! Conju was torn between exasperation, and exultation that his lord had things to smirk about at last, "-is becoming something of an issue. If I may make a suggestion?"
Fitzroy, his mouth full of melon, gestured for Conju to proceed. (He'd had to learn a small suite of signs to augment his speech back when it was unsafe for anyone to look at his face, and he’d kept them in his retirement, incorporated into the larger vocabulary of his now very expressive hands.)
"Give it a job. Bring it into the room on purpose. If you choose something for it to do during those happy moments when the penis is an internal organ-" Conju had a smirk of his own ready when Fitzroy started coughing, "-then perhaps it will be less inclined to start up sudden indoor windstorms that knock the art off the walls."
When Fitzroy had recovered from his coughing fit, Conju set a pair of tongs and a stack of bowls on the table. "I leave the details up to you in this. But please, for the sake of this poor venerable house if not my sense of decorum, do think of something."
Fitzroy gazed into the middle distance like someone thunderstruck with an idea. "Thank you, Conju, I will," he said absently, and then stood stock-still for almost two minutes before noticing that he could now carry away a supply of fruit.
Cliopher had not thought to wonder if he would write fewer letters once he was home, but if he had, he probably wouldn't have guessed he would find himself writing more. He'd left behind as many friends in Solaara and other places as he had family back when he'd first set out to sit at the feet of the Sun, and now there were all sorts of people writing to him as taná, correspondence he could not delegate to a secretary like when he'd been his lord's viceroy. At least he could justify keeping most of his letters much shorter, now. And it was such a pleasure to use the splendid writing desk Vinyë had gotten him, all the while smelling the air of home and hearing the cozy creaking of the house and the murmur of voices in other rooms.
At length Fitzroy wandered in. "Do you need something?" Cliopher asked, not looking up.
"Only to be here." At that Cliopher did look up, to enjoy the sight of his fanoa smiling soppily at him and then ambling for the daybed to the left of the desk.
The daybed had caused a minor misunderstanding until Cliopher had managed to explain that it was for Fitzroy to loiter on in comfort. After laying an enchantment on it: 'if Kip Mdang, and asleep, then portal directly to Fitzroy's bed', Fitzroy had warmed up to it, particularly the way it caught a large shaft of sunlight for much of the afternoon. He set a bowl of cut fruit on Cliopher's desk and laid down in that patch of sun now, stretching luxuriantly like a very long black cat, and then blinked slowly up at Cliopher. "I brought you fruit."
"So you did." Cliopher rubbed the springy grey lambswool twists at the top of Fitzroy's head - making Fitzroy’s eyelids flutter - and then took his hand back, snagging a chunk of pineapple on the way before returning to his current letter.
He ate his way through a few bites before he finished writing and noticed that the fruit was very fresh and his fingers were covered in juice. He was about to lick them when Fitzroy made a noise and caught his wrist. "Let me?"
"Alright," he said, puzzled, and watched as Fitzroy licked the juice off his fingers with every evidence of enjoyment. His tongue flickered over the webbing between them and swirled up the length of each one, drawing it into his mouth and then releasing the tip with a sucking pop. His eyes were half-shut, lambent gold through his eyelashes.
The slow, deliberate sensuality of it was clear even to Cliopher. "Is this innuendo? Do you wish you were doing that to my cock?" He rushed the last words, proud to finish the question without stumbling. He had some practice being affectionately crude - 'talking dirty' - but only after being asked, and that after being told he and his partner were doing sexual things now. He'd never had time and repetition to learn one partner like this, make such a guess about what they were feeling.
Fitzroy whimpered around the finger currently in his mouth and then let it go to say, "Well, now I do, a bit, but I also simply adore your hands." He cradled the one he was currently lavishing attention on. "My Hands, for such a very long time, and such glory you wrought with them, beloved."
"I'll wreak some glory on you if you want," Cliopher responded, intonation and eyebrow-waggle copied directly from Fitzroy.
"Hnnnngh! Buh." Fitzroy took a deep breath and tried again to speak. "You're getting far too good at that. It's devastating." He was now kneading Cliopher's left hand in both of his, rhythmically and with increasing pressure.
Truthfully, Cliopher felt both forward and a bit ridiculous saying such things in broad daylight, but Fitzroy's joy mirrored how Cliopher felt when his fanoa lavished similar ridiculous attention on him, so it was worth it.
"I would like to do something, but not anything that interrupts your correspondence." Fitzroy looked at the hollow under Cliopher's desk. "I bet I could fit in there."
"And do what?"
"Enjoy the ambiance." Cliopher raised an eyebrow, and Fitzroy added, "I used to watch you work, sometimes, when it was a task you were thriving on, and I wanted nothing more than to crawl into your space and lay my head in your lap. Maybe offer you my mouth, if it pleased you, but the important thing was being there."
Cliopher swallowed hard and glanced under his desk. "Would it not be uncomfortable?"
"I fold up surprisingly well." Fitzroy clambered down and in to demonstrate, and sure enough he tucked into a tidy bundle like an exceptionally clever piece of carpentry. Cliopher supposed Fitzroy did have the shape for it, long and narrow, not overly musclebound. Cliopher would not have fit neatly or comfortably into such a space, especially not when he also had to share it with someone's legs, but here Fitzroy was, dovetailing with Cliopher's lower half, laying his head on Cliopher's thighs and then beaming up at him. "By all means, please continue."
Cliopher obeyed, picking up his pen again and moving on to reply to the next letter in his stack. It was slow going at first, hard to focus on reading and writing with Fitzroy a distracting warmth against his legs, but Fitzroy didn't speak, and his breathing and what Cliopher could feel of his posture seemed relaxed enough, and gradually Cliopher's attention was drawn back to his task.
Three letters later he licked his lips and remembered the fruit Fitzroy had brought him. There was still a bit left in the bowl. When he fished out the last piece he remembered how Fitzroy had enjoyed cleaning his fingers. He dropped his hand into his lap and offered the last bite to Fitzroy, who took it with a hum of pleasure, and then hummed a little more emphatically when Cliopher kept his fingers at his lips. He swallowed and then opened his mouth, and his noise when Cliopher slid a finger inside was definitely more of a moan.
It was a singular challenge for Cliopher to focus on the paper before his eyes and the words flowing from his right hand when the fingers of his left were engulfed in warm, wet, silky, mobile heat. He stroked Fitzroy's tongue and the hard ridges of his teeth, feeling the vibrations of his soft, intermittent moans. He finished another letter and noticed he was growing hard.
Fitzroy noticed it too, of course. When Cliopher pulled his fingers out of his mouth Fitzroy said huskily, "Would you like me to suck you?"
Cliopher discovered that he would. This was already one of the most depraved things he had ever done; why not take it farther? "Slowly," he said, and found his own voice hoarse as well. He dried his damp fingers on his sarong and shuffled his knees apart.
It was a whole new level of distracting for Fitzroy to nuzzle his way under the sarong. Cliopher gasped aloud when Fitzroy’s mouth reached his penis, and braced himself for the headlong devouring he was already coming to think of as Fitzroy’s style; but Fitzroy had listened. He went slowly, licking and kissing him all over with dreamy gentleness before settling in to not so much suck as suckle his cockhead and about half of his shaft, cradling the base and his balls in one hand and kneading his thigh with the other. Fitzroy’s usual starved pace, while pleasurable, was also intense to the point of overstimulation. This soft-mouthed, leisurely exploration, this nursing, was more like sinking into a warm bath. Cliopher adjusted his grip on his pen and, astonished at himself, moved on to the next letter.
He managed two more while heat pooled lazily in the pit of his abdomen, and might have given up the challenge then if he hadn’t noticed that the next one was the last one. With his left hand buried in Fitzroy’s hair, rubbing his scalp with splayed fingers, leg muscles a bizarre combination of completely slack and twitching with the urge to thrust, he managed a reply that he could only hope was both legible and coherent. He would have to read over that one later before he sent it. For now, he pushed it away from himself and set down his pen, then bent over and cradled the back of Fitzroy’s neck in his trembling right hand.
"I'm close," he whispered, "in you or on you?"
Fitzroy released the base of his cock to twine his arms behind Cliopher's lower back, reeling himself in until his nose brushed Cliopher's belly and Cliopher hit the back of his throat and he swallowed. That would be an emphatic vote for 'in', then, Cliopher thought muzzily, the tight clutch of that swallow ricocheting through him as a bolt of heat. Oh yes, he was very close.
He couldn't really thrust, not with Fitzroy clasping him so tightly flush, but his hips needed to move anyway. He tried to soften it, smooth it into a rocking, but then his left hand slipped out of Fitzroy's hair. He felt Fitzroy's cheek, his jaw, the stretch there, all the complicated machinery of skin and bone and muscle working hard to make their two bodies one for a moment. Fitzroy swallowed again and Cliopher's hips snapped forward as his orgasm seized him. He emptied himself into Fitzroy's eager throat, crying out as quietly as he could manage.
He slumped in his chair afterwards, trying to recover his breathing while he petted Fitzroy with clumsy fingers. Fitzroy nuzzled his belly with his nose once more and then slowly released his cock. He made his mouth as soft and slack as possible, but Cliopher still twitched when they separated. Fitzroy laid his head on Cliopher's thighs and gazed up at him. His breathing was fast too, and his mouth was wet.
"I'm so happy," he said, glowing with it. "Kip, I'm so happy."
Cliopher stroked his hair again as a lump rose in his throat. He didn't think he'd ever been wanted quite like this, pleased a partner this much while having hardly done anything. "I'm glad," he managed. "Do you want to come now?"
Fitzroy shook his head minutely and pressed a kiss to Cliopher's thigh. "Later. I want to simmer for the moment. It's helping me with an idea."
"Should I be worried?"
"No, I think you'll like it. Conju took me to task for leaving my magic to its own devices while we make love. It's been blowing things down."
"Ah. I had noticed some little rearrangements." He'd noticed, but not been curious enough to investigate, head and heart full with knowing his fanoa in this new way.
"He suggested I - bring it into the room. I've been pondering how."
"Don't you already? I can usually feel it around. I think." Cliopher was aware of Fitzroy's magic like he was aware of his scent: familiar background information, telling him mainly that Fitzroy was here and so all was well.
"Don't I already… oh, that's it! My word, I need to talk to Ludvic!" Gently but quickly, Fitzroy rearranged Cliopher's sarong to cover him up again, and then scrambled out from under the desk. He straightened up with several bony creaks and an outraged groan. "Ugh, I fold up well, but unfolding again is where I pay the price of age." He pressed a smacking kiss to Cliopher's mouth. "I must away!" And he blew out of the room.
Cliopher rubbed his lips, a helpless smile growing on his face, and then decided to review that final letter.
Fitzroy was waiting when Cliopher retired that night, meditating cross-legged in the centre of the bed. The sense of power about him was stronger than usual, like the itch of ozone when a storm has arrived compared to the feeling in the air when one is merely approaching (which seemed to be Fitzroy's baseline). His face was oddly still, not the affected smooth serenity of his Radiancy, more like how it was in sleep but less slack.
Cliopher had seen him in trance before, when they rode with the Red Company, but there were always pressing matters of some urgency going on around them at the same time. There were no dangers or distractions here. He could watch his fanoa work in peace. He smiled, remembering again how Fitzroy had come seeking him this afternoon simply for the pleasure of his company. It was all so much better now that they lived in a house instead of a palace, the dream of ease glimpsed at Navikiani flowered into reality. Carefully so as not to jostle Fitzroy, he climbed onto the bed and mirrored his pose, but kept his eyes open. Just admiring; he was free to do that now.
Fitzroy didn't spend long in the trance, no more than ten minutes. He shifted his weight and blinked, eyes unfocused. Cliopher remembered Fitzroy telling him that coming out of that state felt like returning from Sky Ocean, the sublime and transcendent resolving back into the real. When he caught sight of Cliopher, animation filtered back into his expression, a dawning delight that shone into Cliopher's own heart.
"Welcome back," he said, grinning like a fool.
"Do you know," Fitzroy drawled, "every time I see you, it feels like coming home."
"Oh." His pulse pounded and his eyes grew hot.
"Do you know that, Kip?"
"It, ah, it bears repeating," he said, and only just cut off a my lord from the end. That was often a sign he was retreating into demurely not saying things, so he pushed himself to add, "I left my home seeking you. I never let myself think about how much I wanted my home to be yours. I didn't dare."
"You dared enough to give me a taste of it, and so woke me to seek my freedom." Fitzroy cupped Cliopher's face in both his hands. "My fanoa." He leaned in and took Cliopher's mouth in a kiss. It was soft, almost chaste, and yet Cliopher melted into it, wanting to pour himself out for Fitzroy. He rose up onto his knees as Fitzroy did the same, and hugged Fitzroy to him - or sagged against him - with his hands between Fitzroy's shoulder blades.
When at last they parted for breath and Cliopher opened his eyes, he saw that Fitzroy's were closed too, and glowing so brightly they were lighting up his eyelids: bright orange, shot through with darker red blood vessels. Cliopher had seen it before, but it was always a little unnerving, and also reminded him of when he and his childhood friends would play Frog Eats Firefly, sticking mage-lights in their mouths to illuminate their puffed-out cheeks the same way.
"How's your magic?"
Fitzroy opened his eyes. There was a time when looking directly at them while they were this bright would have put Cliopher flat on his back with a migraine. Now they were simply dazzling. "Jumping around like an excited puppy at some of the thoughts I had today. At one point I considered sending it out into the harbor but I didn't want to risk a waterspout dumping sharks in town."
"Jiano wouldn't crown a Shark Queen."
Fitzroy snorted a laugh. "He might if the Council of Princes annoyed him enough." They grinned at each other. Fitzroy's shining gaze roamed over Cliopher's face. His voice dropped into a deeper register. "My word, the things I want to do to you."
"Oh?" A shiver went through Cliopher, and his cock (already at half-mast from that ardent kiss) came fully to attention. He felt bare and vulnerable in Fitzroy's regard, and also entirely safe.
"Oh indeed. My magic and Zunidh's magic were interwoven long and long, and both of them adore you almost as much as I do. Even now with the new Lady Magus installed, there remains a - a resonance, from Zunidh's magic, which vibrates through my magic, which vibrates through me. A triple chorus of agreement.”
“Agreement on what?”
Fitzroy licked his neck, from his collarbone all the way up to his ear, which he nipped, and then hissed, “I want to know every part of you inside and out, and experience every possible pleasure with you at once. I want to consume you. It should frighten me, Kip.”
Cliopher had to close his eyes and take several deep breaths to have any response to this other than begging for it to happen immediately. “You can trust me. We’ve been over this.”
“Not involving my magic we haven’t. An excited puppy may not mean to hurt anyone, but if it’s big enough that doesn’t matter.” He gripped the nape of Cliopher’s neck. “I have to be so careful. Your strength is breathtaking, but in this one thing you are utterly defenseless.”
“Not just in this one thing,” Cliopher pointed out. “You already hold my heart.”
“Kip.” Cliopher paused, but Fitzroy didn’t seem to have anything to add to that, only holding him close and pressing his face into Cliopher’s hair.
Cliopher went on, “And your magic has protected me many times, with far less planning than you've clearly been doing today. I trust it. I trust you.”
Fitzroy squeezed him tightly, and when he finally responded his voice was thick. “Planning is an over-generous term. More like attempting to choose a plan. I want them all so much.”
Cliopher bit back a moan. “Well, what do you need from me, this first time?”
“Hmm.” He stroked Cliopher’s back, long strokes up and down, like he was grounding himself. “I suppose a good start would be for you to simply… relax in my hold.”
“Isn’t that what I’m doing?” Fitzroy was taking quite a bit of Cliopher’s weight already, Cliopher having leaned in more and more as they spoke. Fitzroy needed to discuss these things for reassurance, but Cliopher was finding them arousing in the extreme.
Fitzroy pulled back enough to look at Cliopher. A more mischievous smile flickered across his face. “Not that kind of hold.” The glow of his eyes flared a little brighter, and then they were weightless, floating off the bed.
“Fitzroy!” There was Cliopher’s tension coming back. He clung to Fitzroy.
“Shhh. I have you.”
“It feels like being in free-fall.” He remembered the moment their vaha left Sky Ocean and they fell out of the sky. He remembered his awareness of Fitzroy’s magic then, that great hand held over him in protection. This was only letting that same hand hold him up, really. He drew a deep breath and unclenched his muscles as he let it out.
“I was going to suggest you compare it to swimming instead, but clearly I don’t need to.” Fitzroy’s voice was rich with amusement. “Vague instructions triumph once again.” He untied both their sarongs and let them fall away. “Look at you.”
Cliopher looked down at himself. His body looked much the same as always, aside from the hovering in midair. And the flushed jut of his erection. He bit his lip at the urge to cover himself. All these things Fitzroy had seen and touched before, he reminded himself; this was only a new position. He relaxed again. It came easier the second time, even under Fitzroy’s glittering, frankly lustful gaze, and the hot sweep of his hands over Cliopher's skin - mindful, he realized with a jolt of further tenderness, that he had said he didn't like to be looked at without being touched.
“You weren’t wrong, Kip.” Fitzroy tugged himself and Cliopher around - this was like swimming - until Fitzroy was slotted up against Cliopher's back, cock nudging up behind his balls. They had done this before; Cliopher automatically pressed his thighs tightly together, and Fitzroy rocked between them with a grateful hum. His hands still roamed over all of Cliopher's skin that he could touch, except his cock, something Cliopher was beginning to feel uncharacteristically frantic about. “My magic loves to enfold you. It feels less like doing and more like no longer holding myself back from doing."
"Mmhm." It came out as nearly a squeak. Fitzroy, chattering happily about magic while handling Cliopher, cradling Cliopher's entire body in familiar power and wonderful hot skin, was taking Cliopher's melting arousal and setting it aflame.
"Look at yourself, dearest," Fitzroy urged, nipping his earlobe again. "Look at my hands on you. You like my hands, don't you? Look."
Cliopher looked down and made a noise like a teakettle. Fitzroy's black, elegant, much-beloved hands stood out in sharp contrast to Cliopher's own skin. He splayed his long fingers over Cliopher's abdomen and then slid one down to his cock and the other up to his chest, to play with his nipples, which were drawn so tight they looked as hard and dark as coffee beans, nearly the same shade as Fitzroy's fingers. Pleasure radiated from them and from Fitzroy's firm grip on his cock, meeting in the middle to add to his growing crisis.
Fitzroy continued to chatter, but his tone was wavering, breaking down into something else. "The next thing I want to try isn't ready yet, because it's tricky and because I want it so much I almost can't look right at it in my mind. I want to fill my hands with light and mark you." He was growling now, his thrusts between Cliopher's thighs fast and hard and perfectly synchronized with his hand jerking Cliopher's cock. "I want to put it in your hands too and have you mark me."
Cliopher shouted as he came, full-throated and wordless, bucking in Fitzroy's grip, surrounded and, yes, consumed entire, the fire holding him this time. He was dimly aware of Fitzroy biting the nape of his neck and reaching his own climax between Cliopher's thighs, his groan more felt at Cliopher's back than heard over Cliopher's own racket.
When Cliopher could once again resolve sensation into sense, Fitzroy was kissing his neck, over and over, soft as a rain of rose petals. "I'm sorry, I should have asked before I did that. Does it hurt?"
"Did what? No." Cliopher felt wrung-out, body and mind both, scarcely a drop of energy for thought or speech left in him.
"You're going to have a distinctive bruise here. Your hair will cover it, but still."
"I don't mind," he offered, but that phrase was no good. Too vague. It had failed him before. With effort - he was so sleepy! - he elaborated, "I like it. Your marks."
Fitzroy chuckled. "That I can believe." He leaned over Cliopher's shoulder and jerked his chin down and forward. "Look."
Cliopher looked. His spend was floating. It had taken the shape of a number of spheres. He wrinkled his nose. "Weird."
"I think you mean interesting! Evidently the magic considers that still part of your body. And," his voice deepened with smug pleasure -
"No."
"I think they make the finest, ahem,"
"No."
"Pearls in all of the Vangavaye-ve."
"Ugh."