Debut - For Laurent

Aimeric’s imprisonment was not unpleasant, the rooms he was kept in well-furnished and comfortable, but he could not find any gratitude within him for such niceties. The Prince’s words echoed in his head, cruel and viciously accurate. Loves you? You paltry little upstart. I doubt he even preferred you. How long did you hold his attention? A few fucks while he was bored in the country? It was a truth Aimeric didn’t want to examine, not when it was the destruction of everything he had believed to be real. And yet all that he had known the past few weeks – it made him question that which he’d thought was unshakeable, and he felt himself tearing apart from the inside. He felt flayed open, laid bare, and there was nothing that seemed real enough to grasp, to anchor himself to the world. Nothing made sense anymore.

He paced his rooms, unsettled and utterly alone. He’d bathed, dressed himself in clothing more suitable for his station. A dull ache throbbed in his cheek where the Prince had hit him with the goblet, and he knew there was a bruise, his eye slightly swollen. He didn’t want to close his eyes and rest, but even avoiding that could not prevent the image in his head – Jord’s face, his devastated expression. The one Aimeric had pretended to ignore as he rigidly sat his horse beside his father and betrayed them all - the Prince, and Aimeric’s fellow soldiers, the Prince’s Guard. He didn’t want to remember, but his thoughts could not be contained, flowing like water through soft memories tainted with deception: their first kiss, standing by the map; afterward in Jord’s tent, sweet passion interrupted by the Prince’s Akielon dog; their night at Acquitart, Aimeric insisting on being fucked in a proper bed. Every kiss Jord had so freely given, more tenderness than Aimeric had ever known in his life, was imprinted on his lips. He didn’t deserve the loyalty Jord had shown, not after what he’d done. He didn’t deserve the way Jord had defended him against the viciousness of Laurent’s attack, not when the Prince was merely revealing the truth. Even now, Aimeric searched for cracks, trying to find a way he could still be right, that the Regent could still love him. He’d wanted so badly to make him proud, to make his father proud, to stand out from under the shadow of three older brothers for once in his life. After all, the Regent had chosen him despite being the youngest, hadn’t he? No, Aimeric supposed. Because he was the youngest. Because he had been only thirteen.

For six years he had held on to those three weeks like a lifeline: The Regent loved him and one day, they would be together again. He only needed to infiltrate the Prince’s Guard and seduce a soldier to acquire intelligence, be the eyes on the inside. And yet now, when he tried to think of what he knew of love, the visions that were called up in his mind’s eye were of Jord, kissing Aimeric without reservation, giving more than he received, unhurried in his passion. It was nothing like what he had experienced of love before. It was beautiful and unconditional, and Aimeric couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t reconcile it with what the Regent had taught him, and worst of all, he couldn’t face the agony of knowing that if he had to make a choice now, his sense of loyalty would steer him toward the Regent even as his heart cried out for Jord.

It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense anymore. He was broken beyond repair.

Aimeric sat at the table, intending to write a note, but the words would not come. What words could possibly be sufficient to convey what he was feeling? He could barely sort out the emotions that assailed him. He raked a hand through his hair, damp curls in disarray, clenching his jaw against the tears that threatened to overwhelm him. There was no explanation that would suffice.

He stood abruptly, going to the window. It wasn’t difficult to break one of the panes in the corner, and he carefully removed a large enough shard of glass to fulfill his purpose. Sitting back at the table, he wondered if the Regent would mourn, or if he would even spare a passing thought. He wrote, then, three simple words: I’m sorry, Jord. He placed the note carefully aside, to be found later. Then Aimeric took up the piece of glass from the window, and with careful precision, sliced down the inside of his wrist, biting back the whimper of pain as he made certain the cut would be deep enough.

It wouldn’t be long now. The second wrist proved markedly more difficult, the fingers of his hand unable to grasp, the cut shallow. One would be enough. He was too weak. He’d always been too weak, even though he’d tried so hard to prove otherwise. He’d been so proud to hear that Jord had noticed his hard work, in spite of his determination to not care what the Captain of the traitor Prince’s Guard thought. He’d grown to crave the taste of Jord’s kiss, in spite of his purpose in seducing him in the first place. He couldn’t muster the energy to laugh as his mind summoned that familiar face, a final memory as consciousness left him.

I’m sorry, Jord.

He was found bleeding and unconscious in an alley, a passing witness whose identity Aimeric would never know calling for emergency services. At the hospital, saved by the doctors, he was placed in a recovery room and spoken to in a strange language he had never heard and yet somehow knew, flickers of calm voices during bouts of consciousness saying things he couldn't comprehend - a place called Darrow, they had called his emergency contact, who would be there soon. Laurent would be coming soon, they told him, horribly butchering the pronunciation of the Prince's name, but Aimeric was too confused and hazy to care. He was supposed to be dead. All he could do was lie uncomprehending in this strange bed, hooked to strange machines that beeped, and wait for the arrival of the last person he wanted to see.