has been too long <3
Aug. 14th, 2021 11:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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last_herald_mageUm. 9+ years ago I started a series in the vein I think of as Scorched-Earth Fix-It, in which Van didn't die but a whole lot of other terrible stuff happened and keeps happening. However I am secretly all about the comfort and had always been trying to expand on that aspect, so I finally did add two more chapters to the part where Van & Stef are getting their shit together and banging again.
I went through a lot of iterations trying to get these two chapters to work, so here is a little reel of deleted scenes and conversations. let's start with Van blowing Stef for no particular reason:
Stef climbed over Vanyel's body, hard cock brushing tantalisingly over Van's stomach, and settled down alongside him.
He didn't say anything, and the kiss he claimed was a brief one. But Van knew that Stef wanted more, and wouldn't ask for it, and Vanyel felt unsure of offering in words, even though they were so close now and it felt so right and real to be touching again. Stef had done as he had asked and more. He'd proven that no physical stain could ever matter like their lifebond and their promises did. And Van wanted to give back now, he needed to.
He shuffled down Stef's body, laying his face above his hip. He could feel his lover smiling, watching intently as Vanyel drew the tip of his penis into his mouth. He'd missed this; the warmth and the smoothness of flesh against his lips, perhaps especially the intimacy of it, of having a man so happily vulnerable between his teeth - of having his own mouth silenced with what he now knew, through cruelty, could be a crude and poisonous weapon. Trust sanctified this - he couldn't have done it with anyone else even if he'd wanted to. He shifted onto his knees, needing the easier angle, and wrapped his lips tight around the shaft of Stefen's cock, lowering them slowly.
Stef's drawn-out gasp was one of the more rewarding things he'd ever heard. You did so much for me. Every word you wrote, everything you did last night - everything you didn't do. Did you know that your words kept me alive? You're treating me like I'm a fragile treasure, like I'm worth everything to you, and I owe you as much joy and favour as you've shown me. I need you to feel this. He pulled back, lapping with his tongue as he moved, manipulating Stef's foreskin with his lips as he reached the head again. Stef moaned appreciatively as he worked, and he found himself drifting into that trancelike daze of sexual instinct, worshipfully focused only on the sounds and feelings of Stefen's pleasure, seeking the right contact, the right rhythm, basking in the feel and scent of him and in the thrum of their lifebond as the heat built in Stefen's blood.
"Van -" A hand touched his hair, thankful and warning. "Stars, I've missed this." He was a little too engrossed to say 'me too' but he trusted that he was making Stef fully aware of that. "Forgot how good you were..." Now that was a lie, and he punished it with merciless pressure and a tight squeeze of his hand around the base. Though, for all there was rarely anything he'd sooner do than suck Stef off, he had in that dark wintertime come close to forgetting how much he enjoyed this. He'd lost sight of the tenderness of it. Does he know what it means, what it took me, to let someone touch me again without fearing hurt or coercion? He felt Stef gently card his hair with a shaking hand, heard a meaningless whisper of passion, and thought that maybe he did.
Stef's hands tightened, tugging at his scalp, and instantly dropped in apology, and he reached up with his left to catch Stefen's right, lacing fingers and stroking Stef's palm with his thumb, keeping the pace his tongue set on the underside of the cock in his mouth, cheeks drawn in tight, wanting every kind of touch and connection, wanting to feel as much as Stefen could offer him as - with a long shudder and a warm cry escaping his lips - Stef came at the back of his mouth. He let their warmth hang there for seconds, until Stef had stopped moving and was staring down at him with wide, liquid eyes.
So, there's a bit in the new 3rd chapter where Stef suggests they take a break from having sex. Originally, they did, but it killed the pace so I went back and let them keep at it instead. But here is a bit of what they would have done with that break. (Text doesn't quite line up because [insert much version-weaving]. Also they were in Stef's room in this iteration, not Van's.)
"I'm not that fragile," he interjected, then realised how defensive that sounded. "Oh, ashke. I - I know. I miss what we had, too. I miss not living with this." Stefen squeezed Van's hand tight, and threw his other arm around him, offering him solace.
"This is the not easy part," mused Stefen.
"Seems so," he sighed.
"Dinner, then?" Stef let go of him, and leaned up on one elbow.
"Before or after you fuck me?"
His lifebonded seemed taken aback. Vanyel had not, in the past, been reliably so direct; non-negotiable demands for satisfaction had been mostly Stefen's preserve, with Van being ever obliging. Surprise made Stef easier to read - lust and doubt and a little exasperation warred their way through their bond, and Stefen lay back down slowly, folding his hands together above his own crotch to make his pronouncement. "Before, naturally. I can hardly offer you the best of my stamina when I'm halfway starved, can I?
"Your stamina," Van teased. "Remember the time I brought you off three times in a candlemark -"
"I enjoy not being old," answered Stefen with satisfaction. "Really, though, I'd sooner take our time tonight. If you don't mind," he added.
"No," Van replied, suddenly serious, and rather touched. "That - sounds right."
Stef smiled, and took his hand again, and tugged him toward the edge of the bed. He watched as Stefen busied himself with handkerchieves and a comb, shook out his clothes, sauntered out into his anteroom looking almost respectable. Van gathered himself more slowly, and as he listened to Stefen graciously apologising to some juvenile representative of the Palace staff for calling for dinner so late, he recalled his earlier impulse to rummage in Stefen's wardrobe. Through the half-open door, he heard Stef tuning up his lute, and he smiled.
A few minutes and a few failed experiments later, he slipped through the door wearing his own breeches and one of the tunics he'd purchased Stef as an enforced gift almost a year ago now - it was dark blue and cut to flow gracefully over his lover's slight figure, which meant the tailor had spared enough room to accommodate a thinned-out, worn-down Vanyel. Stef's eyes narrowed at the sight of it. "I'm going to make you eat until you can't steal my clothes any more."
"So there is a limit to your hospitality."
Stef sniffed. "Would I eat in your best clothes?"
"I have manners," scoffed Vanyel. "And surely somewhere, you have napkins -"
"Damned if I know where," Stefen replied cheerfully, indicating the clutter. "Somewhere in the sideboard, probably." Van sighed at him. "I've been a little too distracted for tidiness," Stef added defensively.
"I can imagine." That was a cue to ask Stefen to tell him more of the both the compositions and the crises he'd missed, and when their repast arrived it found them enmeshed in platonic conversation. Vanyel somehow doubted that their servants would be fooled. He found he was very hungry; he had sorely missed the comfort of sharing Palace food and Stefen's company with it, reliably plenty and at vaguely predictable hours. That was more than he'd had in a long time, and hunger gained a bitter edge when it was bourne of dwindling rations and fear of future starvation. Stef would know, he realised. No wonder his lover had threatened to feed him up.
And another bit of dialogue that got cut:
"What if I decided I, I needed us to just be good friends."
Stef's hand fell, and he rocked back on his heels. "Then so we'd be." A tremour crossed his face, emotion slipping from his tight control. "It wouldn't change what you mean to me."
"Would you s - sleep with other men?" he stuttered, shaken by Stef's hurt, by his own sick response to it - like he could sink his teeth into his beloved's pain to take succor.
"Would it change what I mean to you?" Stef asked, as if he hadn't asked the question at all.
Finally, I originally played out the scene where Van tells Stef what happened - I then decided that was a waste of time bc people would have read what happened in the previous fic if they wanted to go through all the trauma. I also thought it might be best leaving it to the reader's imagination, to think of what Van might have said and how Stef might have responded - when I put it in text it seemed way too smooth. But here's how it could have gone:
"He wanted me alive," Van said slowly. "I realised that after I was ambushed - he was out to wear me down and capture me, not to kill me. And by the time he found me, I didn't have it in me to kill him - so I thought I had to agree to go with him and hope for another chance to take him down." And in the end I didn't even do that. But the chain of events that he'd started with a word might be what had, not merely once but for always. "When we first spoke, he made me promises. Offered me stupid, unbelievable things if I'd join him - and he was pretty clear on what I was agreeing to give him in return." Stef's eyebrows rose, conveying contempt for that agreement that surpassed even Vanyel's. But - "One of his promises was that he'd bring Tylendel back to me."
Stef cursed. "Is that possible?"
"Of course not." Not like that. And he hated himself for the omission, but that was another conversation entirely, one he didn't know he'd ever even be able to state the principles of. "I knew he was lying and he knew I was lying when I said I'd join him. So he took me back to his keep and gave me a place to fall asleep, and a while afterwards he - climbed into bed with me. He'd cast a seeming, an illusory physical double over his body and his voice. Like a perfect disguise. And he was Tylendel."
Stef's mouth fell open in shock. "And this was right after what his filthy gang did to you?"
"Two nights after, maybe. I'm not sure." Time had left him, then. "But, Stef -" Vanyel's voice was shaky from conflict, and he forced himself to go on. "I wasn't that far out of my wits, I knew damn well he wasn't really 'Lendel, I could tell he was just toying with me. But I didn't fight him. I can't even explain why, but - I let him, I truly did, I never tried to stop him touching me." He shuddered, disgust creeping over him, seeking to claim his mind again. He wouldn't let it. "I couldn't feel anything, I was just angry and - I didn't know what in hells he was doing it for. So I - I kissed him. I hated him so much," and it seemed impossible to remember now, the searing heat of his own thoughts, eating him up from the inside. "I knew he wasn't Lendel, he didn't taste or feel right or even human, but I kept on doing it when I knew it was wrong - Stef, I swear I didn't want it to happen but I still did everything he wanted me to do. I touched him back. I let him - put his hands on me. I let him inside me." He breathed too fast, too painfully, eyes stinging, looking away so he didn't have to see Stef's reaction. "He made me come." That had been the worst of it, searing proof of his betrayal of Stefen and himself and everything they shared, everything faithful partners should share.
"That's the cruellest thing I ever heard of. Using Tylendel against you like that...that's torture, just straight-up torture. Could he have done anything more hurtful and violating?"
Stef was angry - clearly, deeply furious - and not at him. "But I -"
"He raped you. He wanted to hurt you and he did. Van," and he knew that Stef was as close to raw tears as he was. "He knew it would make you ashamed and angry with yourself - that's what he wanted you to feel, and you know it. Feeling pleasure - it's no more a choice than feeling pain, and someone coercing you to feel it...I think that's worse than torture."
And it worked, as Stef needn't add. Van bowed his head against Stefen's shoulder, forcing himself to breathe slowly again, and said, "That's not so far off what Grathis told me. But I did need to hear it from you."
Stef nodded, and curled an arm loosely around him. "Wanted forgiven, did you? There's nothing to forgive."
He sighed. Stef wasn't feigning it, or exaggerating how he felt. He truly felt no reproach toward Vanyel for the coerced infidelity - but to Van, it was still a hurtful knot of what-ifs. "I just wish I'd fought him. I did, the second time it happened." Stef eyed him sharply at the words second time, and he felt that prickling anger again - protective, a little territorial, above all loving and empathetic. He's hurting because I'm hurting - and gods, I'm sorry for that, but it was a cleansing sort of hurt, one that made Stef feel trusted and Van feel absolved. It made it easier to explain what came next. "The second time, he caught me in a trance - I was trying to tap his node. He choked me while he was - touching me. And he - said things to me, then and after. Told me that I'd agreed to it all, that he was 'warming my bed' as a favour to me. That he knew I liked it." Stef pressed his lips together. In the past they'd done that much and stranger in bed together, and he had liked it, and he could see the guilt of it writ plain on Stefen's face. "Please, no. Everything you ever did with me was mutual and caring. Yes, he choked me near unconscious and said I liked it. He also penetrated me and said I liked it, and it's not like you'd ever feel bad about that."
"But do you?" Stef shifted a little in discomfort. "I'm not going to let this be harder on you just for my sake. I'm fine with...not doing things that would upset you, you know that?"
Vanyel threw his head back lazily, and put on a bedroom voice. "Oh come on. Even if you really were, I'm not. You know what I wanted that night."
Their eyes met again, and Stefen's were as wild as they were wary. "I got what I wanted."
"Which was?"
"You, in my bed, happy. I could deal with not being there at the time."
Vanyel laughed, and found his throat was dry. "That was enough for you? Not likely."
Stef pulled away and buried his head in his hands. "I've been going mad, Van. I didn't know if you even...well, that was more than I'd dared hope for. A lot more."
"Then I'm glad to say you underestimated the both of us." He tugged Stefen's hand away from where it tangled in his hair, marshalling his boldness. "Did I ever tell you that the Tayledras give the same meaning to flowers as they do to feathers? Or did you think I was just here to talk?"
"I am going mad," he replied, and he laid his other hand atop Vanyel's, that wildness creeping back into his face. "You trust me, then?"
"I do," Vanyel replied tentatively. "I felt very safe in your bed, you know?" In truth, trusting Stefen had never been such a hurdle. It had been himself he'd had to learn to trust again - trust to discern real, wanted love from manipulation, trust to feel pleasure without fearing shame.
"I'd hoped you might." Stef squeezed Vanyel's hand gently between his. "What else do you need me to know?"
He forced himself to think on it, gingerly considering each event among those they'd not yet discussed. He'd confessed to in a distraught letter to his killing spree and the butchery of those two innocents, and Stef's reply to it had been simply "If you were the monster you fear you are, you wouldn't be feeling so sick and sorry." Stef hadn't asked him about the beating and rape he'd endured before that, but Vanyel knew that he knew - Hyrryl had seen every half-Healed sign of it, and told him. He had enough distance from the wound that this was no time to bare it, to share the rage and pain and helplessness - not now. Stories about knives could wait. Stories about dreams could wait a long time. What else was important?
"That I love you." Stef's eyes shone. It wasn't something Van said often - there'd been so many times when he couldn't, when the words had been too much or not enough, and he'd tried to show it and known that he wasn't even much good at that. For so long he hadn't wanted to admit to himself that what he and Stef had - it built on everything he'd felt for 'Lendel, was more than what he'd had with 'Lendel, and their bond had been as tested and held true where the other had been immolated. "More than I've ever loved anyone," he added in a whisper.
I went through a lot of iterations trying to get these two chapters to work, so here is a little reel of deleted scenes and conversations. let's start with Van blowing Stef for no particular reason:
Stef climbed over Vanyel's body, hard cock brushing tantalisingly over Van's stomach, and settled down alongside him.
He didn't say anything, and the kiss he claimed was a brief one. But Van knew that Stef wanted more, and wouldn't ask for it, and Vanyel felt unsure of offering in words, even though they were so close now and it felt so right and real to be touching again. Stef had done as he had asked and more. He'd proven that no physical stain could ever matter like their lifebond and their promises did. And Van wanted to give back now, he needed to.
He shuffled down Stef's body, laying his face above his hip. He could feel his lover smiling, watching intently as Vanyel drew the tip of his penis into his mouth. He'd missed this; the warmth and the smoothness of flesh against his lips, perhaps especially the intimacy of it, of having a man so happily vulnerable between his teeth - of having his own mouth silenced with what he now knew, through cruelty, could be a crude and poisonous weapon. Trust sanctified this - he couldn't have done it with anyone else even if he'd wanted to. He shifted onto his knees, needing the easier angle, and wrapped his lips tight around the shaft of Stefen's cock, lowering them slowly.
Stef's drawn-out gasp was one of the more rewarding things he'd ever heard. You did so much for me. Every word you wrote, everything you did last night - everything you didn't do. Did you know that your words kept me alive? You're treating me like I'm a fragile treasure, like I'm worth everything to you, and I owe you as much joy and favour as you've shown me. I need you to feel this. He pulled back, lapping with his tongue as he moved, manipulating Stef's foreskin with his lips as he reached the head again. Stef moaned appreciatively as he worked, and he found himself drifting into that trancelike daze of sexual instinct, worshipfully focused only on the sounds and feelings of Stefen's pleasure, seeking the right contact, the right rhythm, basking in the feel and scent of him and in the thrum of their lifebond as the heat built in Stefen's blood.
"Van -" A hand touched his hair, thankful and warning. "Stars, I've missed this." He was a little too engrossed to say 'me too' but he trusted that he was making Stef fully aware of that. "Forgot how good you were..." Now that was a lie, and he punished it with merciless pressure and a tight squeeze of his hand around the base. Though, for all there was rarely anything he'd sooner do than suck Stef off, he had in that dark wintertime come close to forgetting how much he enjoyed this. He'd lost sight of the tenderness of it. Does he know what it means, what it took me, to let someone touch me again without fearing hurt or coercion? He felt Stef gently card his hair with a shaking hand, heard a meaningless whisper of passion, and thought that maybe he did.
Stef's hands tightened, tugging at his scalp, and instantly dropped in apology, and he reached up with his left to catch Stefen's right, lacing fingers and stroking Stef's palm with his thumb, keeping the pace his tongue set on the underside of the cock in his mouth, cheeks drawn in tight, wanting every kind of touch and connection, wanting to feel as much as Stefen could offer him as - with a long shudder and a warm cry escaping his lips - Stef came at the back of his mouth. He let their warmth hang there for seconds, until Stef had stopped moving and was staring down at him with wide, liquid eyes.
So, there's a bit in the new 3rd chapter where Stef suggests they take a break from having sex. Originally, they did, but it killed the pace so I went back and let them keep at it instead. But here is a bit of what they would have done with that break. (Text doesn't quite line up because [insert much version-weaving]. Also they were in Stef's room in this iteration, not Van's.)
"I'm not that fragile," he interjected, then realised how defensive that sounded. "Oh, ashke. I - I know. I miss what we had, too. I miss not living with this." Stefen squeezed Van's hand tight, and threw his other arm around him, offering him solace.
"This is the not easy part," mused Stefen.
"Seems so," he sighed.
"Dinner, then?" Stef let go of him, and leaned up on one elbow.
"Before or after you fuck me?"
His lifebonded seemed taken aback. Vanyel had not, in the past, been reliably so direct; non-negotiable demands for satisfaction had been mostly Stefen's preserve, with Van being ever obliging. Surprise made Stef easier to read - lust and doubt and a little exasperation warred their way through their bond, and Stefen lay back down slowly, folding his hands together above his own crotch to make his pronouncement. "Before, naturally. I can hardly offer you the best of my stamina when I'm halfway starved, can I?
"Your stamina," Van teased. "Remember the time I brought you off three times in a candlemark -"
"I enjoy not being old," answered Stefen with satisfaction. "Really, though, I'd sooner take our time tonight. If you don't mind," he added.
"No," Van replied, suddenly serious, and rather touched. "That - sounds right."
Stef smiled, and took his hand again, and tugged him toward the edge of the bed. He watched as Stefen busied himself with handkerchieves and a comb, shook out his clothes, sauntered out into his anteroom looking almost respectable. Van gathered himself more slowly, and as he listened to Stefen graciously apologising to some juvenile representative of the Palace staff for calling for dinner so late, he recalled his earlier impulse to rummage in Stefen's wardrobe. Through the half-open door, he heard Stef tuning up his lute, and he smiled.
A few minutes and a few failed experiments later, he slipped through the door wearing his own breeches and one of the tunics he'd purchased Stef as an enforced gift almost a year ago now - it was dark blue and cut to flow gracefully over his lover's slight figure, which meant the tailor had spared enough room to accommodate a thinned-out, worn-down Vanyel. Stef's eyes narrowed at the sight of it. "I'm going to make you eat until you can't steal my clothes any more."
"So there is a limit to your hospitality."
Stef sniffed. "Would I eat in your best clothes?"
"I have manners," scoffed Vanyel. "And surely somewhere, you have napkins -"
"Damned if I know where," Stefen replied cheerfully, indicating the clutter. "Somewhere in the sideboard, probably." Van sighed at him. "I've been a little too distracted for tidiness," Stef added defensively.
"I can imagine." That was a cue to ask Stefen to tell him more of the both the compositions and the crises he'd missed, and when their repast arrived it found them enmeshed in platonic conversation. Vanyel somehow doubted that their servants would be fooled. He found he was very hungry; he had sorely missed the comfort of sharing Palace food and Stefen's company with it, reliably plenty and at vaguely predictable hours. That was more than he'd had in a long time, and hunger gained a bitter edge when it was bourne of dwindling rations and fear of future starvation. Stef would know, he realised. No wonder his lover had threatened to feed him up.
And another bit of dialogue that got cut:
"What if I decided I, I needed us to just be good friends."
Stef's hand fell, and he rocked back on his heels. "Then so we'd be." A tremour crossed his face, emotion slipping from his tight control. "It wouldn't change what you mean to me."
"Would you s - sleep with other men?" he stuttered, shaken by Stef's hurt, by his own sick response to it - like he could sink his teeth into his beloved's pain to take succor.
"Would it change what I mean to you?" Stef asked, as if he hadn't asked the question at all.
Finally, I originally played out the scene where Van tells Stef what happened - I then decided that was a waste of time bc people would have read what happened in the previous fic if they wanted to go through all the trauma. I also thought it might be best leaving it to the reader's imagination, to think of what Van might have said and how Stef might have responded - when I put it in text it seemed way too smooth. But here's how it could have gone:
"He wanted me alive," Van said slowly. "I realised that after I was ambushed - he was out to wear me down and capture me, not to kill me. And by the time he found me, I didn't have it in me to kill him - so I thought I had to agree to go with him and hope for another chance to take him down." And in the end I didn't even do that. But the chain of events that he'd started with a word might be what had, not merely once but for always. "When we first spoke, he made me promises. Offered me stupid, unbelievable things if I'd join him - and he was pretty clear on what I was agreeing to give him in return." Stef's eyebrows rose, conveying contempt for that agreement that surpassed even Vanyel's. But - "One of his promises was that he'd bring Tylendel back to me."
Stef cursed. "Is that possible?"
"Of course not." Not like that. And he hated himself for the omission, but that was another conversation entirely, one he didn't know he'd ever even be able to state the principles of. "I knew he was lying and he knew I was lying when I said I'd join him. So he took me back to his keep and gave me a place to fall asleep, and a while afterwards he - climbed into bed with me. He'd cast a seeming, an illusory physical double over his body and his voice. Like a perfect disguise. And he was Tylendel."
Stef's mouth fell open in shock. "And this was right after what his filthy gang did to you?"
"Two nights after, maybe. I'm not sure." Time had left him, then. "But, Stef -" Vanyel's voice was shaky from conflict, and he forced himself to go on. "I wasn't that far out of my wits, I knew damn well he wasn't really 'Lendel, I could tell he was just toying with me. But I didn't fight him. I can't even explain why, but - I let him, I truly did, I never tried to stop him touching me." He shuddered, disgust creeping over him, seeking to claim his mind again. He wouldn't let it. "I couldn't feel anything, I was just angry and - I didn't know what in hells he was doing it for. So I - I kissed him. I hated him so much," and it seemed impossible to remember now, the searing heat of his own thoughts, eating him up from the inside. "I knew he wasn't Lendel, he didn't taste or feel right or even human, but I kept on doing it when I knew it was wrong - Stef, I swear I didn't want it to happen but I still did everything he wanted me to do. I touched him back. I let him - put his hands on me. I let him inside me." He breathed too fast, too painfully, eyes stinging, looking away so he didn't have to see Stef's reaction. "He made me come." That had been the worst of it, searing proof of his betrayal of Stefen and himself and everything they shared, everything faithful partners should share.
"That's the cruellest thing I ever heard of. Using Tylendel against you like that...that's torture, just straight-up torture. Could he have done anything more hurtful and violating?"
Stef was angry - clearly, deeply furious - and not at him. "But I -"
"He raped you. He wanted to hurt you and he did. Van," and he knew that Stef was as close to raw tears as he was. "He knew it would make you ashamed and angry with yourself - that's what he wanted you to feel, and you know it. Feeling pleasure - it's no more a choice than feeling pain, and someone coercing you to feel it...I think that's worse than torture."
And it worked, as Stef needn't add. Van bowed his head against Stefen's shoulder, forcing himself to breathe slowly again, and said, "That's not so far off what Grathis told me. But I did need to hear it from you."
Stef nodded, and curled an arm loosely around him. "Wanted forgiven, did you? There's nothing to forgive."
He sighed. Stef wasn't feigning it, or exaggerating how he felt. He truly felt no reproach toward Vanyel for the coerced infidelity - but to Van, it was still a hurtful knot of what-ifs. "I just wish I'd fought him. I did, the second time it happened." Stef eyed him sharply at the words second time, and he felt that prickling anger again - protective, a little territorial, above all loving and empathetic. He's hurting because I'm hurting - and gods, I'm sorry for that, but it was a cleansing sort of hurt, one that made Stef feel trusted and Van feel absolved. It made it easier to explain what came next. "The second time, he caught me in a trance - I was trying to tap his node. He choked me while he was - touching me. And he - said things to me, then and after. Told me that I'd agreed to it all, that he was 'warming my bed' as a favour to me. That he knew I liked it." Stef pressed his lips together. In the past they'd done that much and stranger in bed together, and he had liked it, and he could see the guilt of it writ plain on Stefen's face. "Please, no. Everything you ever did with me was mutual and caring. Yes, he choked me near unconscious and said I liked it. He also penetrated me and said I liked it, and it's not like you'd ever feel bad about that."
"But do you?" Stef shifted a little in discomfort. "I'm not going to let this be harder on you just for my sake. I'm fine with...not doing things that would upset you, you know that?"
Vanyel threw his head back lazily, and put on a bedroom voice. "Oh come on. Even if you really were, I'm not. You know what I wanted that night."
Their eyes met again, and Stefen's were as wild as they were wary. "I got what I wanted."
"Which was?"
"You, in my bed, happy. I could deal with not being there at the time."
Vanyel laughed, and found his throat was dry. "That was enough for you? Not likely."
Stef pulled away and buried his head in his hands. "I've been going mad, Van. I didn't know if you even...well, that was more than I'd dared hope for. A lot more."
"Then I'm glad to say you underestimated the both of us." He tugged Stefen's hand away from where it tangled in his hair, marshalling his boldness. "Did I ever tell you that the Tayledras give the same meaning to flowers as they do to feathers? Or did you think I was just here to talk?"
"I am going mad," he replied, and he laid his other hand atop Vanyel's, that wildness creeping back into his face. "You trust me, then?"
"I do," Vanyel replied tentatively. "I felt very safe in your bed, you know?" In truth, trusting Stefen had never been such a hurdle. It had been himself he'd had to learn to trust again - trust to discern real, wanted love from manipulation, trust to feel pleasure without fearing shame.
"I'd hoped you might." Stef squeezed Vanyel's hand gently between his. "What else do you need me to know?"
He forced himself to think on it, gingerly considering each event among those they'd not yet discussed. He'd confessed to in a distraught letter to his killing spree and the butchery of those two innocents, and Stef's reply to it had been simply "If you were the monster you fear you are, you wouldn't be feeling so sick and sorry." Stef hadn't asked him about the beating and rape he'd endured before that, but Vanyel knew that he knew - Hyrryl had seen every half-Healed sign of it, and told him. He had enough distance from the wound that this was no time to bare it, to share the rage and pain and helplessness - not now. Stories about knives could wait. Stories about dreams could wait a long time. What else was important?
"That I love you." Stef's eyes shone. It wasn't something Van said often - there'd been so many times when he couldn't, when the words had been too much or not enough, and he'd tried to show it and known that he wasn't even much good at that. For so long he hadn't wanted to admit to himself that what he and Stef had - it built on everything he'd felt for 'Lendel, was more than what he'd had with 'Lendel, and their bond had been as tested and held true where the other had been immolated. "More than I've ever loved anyone," he added in a whisper.
