Debut - For Laurent

[inveteratetroublemaker]

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.

Comments

[cast_iron_bitch]

For a time, Laurent had resented Aimeric's clinging to life when Nicaise, who had suffered as lengthily as any of them, was gone. This feeling had been shortlived, not because Laurent's feelings had changed, but because soon after, Aimeric was also gone.

It was a situation he wished had endured.

Still, Laurent came when summoned. He might have no country in this place, but he was still a King, and Aimeric apparently still his subject if Darrow's emergency contacts were to be believed. He didn't stop at Damen's along the way for fear of losing his already brittle nerve, but stopped instead at the train station to collect the customary packet. As soon as Aimeric could read - and stand - they would be done with this.

Laurent arrived at the hospital a short time later, remembering with visceral clarity when it had been Nicaise in a similar bed, near death from a similar wound. He waited for Aimeric's flat gaze to find him.

'I see we are of a mind.'

[inveteratetroublemaker]

He was expected, and yet Aimeric could not stop the expression that flickered across his face: fear, surprise, followed by hardened resentment. Part of him had expected to be left alone here, never retrieved. It was no less than what he deserved, after all.

'Your Highness.' There was a fragility to his voice that he hated, fought to tame. 'I had nothing to do with you being summoned. You are the last person I would have had these - these people call on. Whomever they are.' It was a relief to hear Veretian, after the strange language everyone here seemed to speak,but he kept that to himself.

[cast_iron_bitch]

'Majesty, in point of fact,' Laurent corrected, 'Of both Vere and Akielos, but you may forget titles here. There is no royalty in this land.' He stepped deeper into the room, nostrils flaring minutely for the assault of antiseptic and other chemicals.

'Your packet,' he said, placing it on the little table next to Aimeric's bed. 'All who come here receive one. It has information regarding where you are to stay, and some simple coinage. The rest I presume you would care to hear from someone who is not the last person you would have called on.'

[inveteratetroublemaker]

'What? What happened to the Regent?' Aimeric blurted before he could stop himself. Laurent might have won at Hellay, he might have held Ravenel, and Aimeric, but that could not have meant that he'd won everything. Yet Aimeric, who would have done anything for the Regent - had, in fact, done everything for the Regent, felt no distress at the idea of harm coming to him. It troubled him, not to be more upset by it. It troubled him even more that he considered it could be the right thing for the cast iron bitch who stood before him to have won.

He picked up the packet Laurent set down and peeked inside. Nothing of the contents looked familiar. 'These people, they tell me this is a - hospital, in a city called Darrow. They speak a strange language and yet I somehow understand them. I am given to understand I have been transferred somehow from one prison to another.'

Aimeric looked down at his hands, at the strange gown he had been put in, the large bandages covering his wrists. There was a stubborn set to his jaw. Then, quietly: 'I know no one else to ask.'

[cast_iron_bitch]

Laurent endured Aimeric's asking after his Uncle with a slight turn of his head, gaze resting on the thin medical sheets stretched over the bed until the roar between his ears subsided.

'Ask Orlant,' he answered. 'Or no, I've forgotten.' Laurent's eyes were hard. Orlant had been with him as long as Auguste had not. They had not been friends, but there was a loyalty there, and Laurent had trusted him. He'd deserved better than the sudden turn of Aimeric's sword. Certainly better than to be painted the traitor that Aimeric actually was.

'You murdered him to achieve the ends of a pedofile.'

[inveteratetroublemaker]

Aimeric felt his cheeks heat and knew he was flushed, anger and shame swelling within him in equal parts. Orlant had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Aimeric's reaction afterward had been real, and the comfort he'd drawn from Jord needed, but Jord had not known the whole of the cause.

He forced himself to meet Laurent's eyes, even though his own had become mortifyingly wet. He said, 'You're not going to hit me again? There seem to be no goblets within reach, but I'm sure you can manage to improvise.'

[cast_iron_bitch]

Laurent lifted a pale brow. He had not thought he could be more disgusted by Aimeric, but it seemed even his imagination had its limits.

'And all this time, I thought my Uncle chose you for convenience and a pretty face, but I see now that manipulation is in your blood. Shall I hit you again, for betraying me, killing my men, and abusing the far too decent heart of the Captain of my guard? If pity is to be your currency, you will find no handouts from me. Be wise enough not to look for them.'

[inveteratetroublemaker]

His eyes fell shut, tears of pain and anger trickling from beneath the lids before he opened them again. Aimeric had not forgotten that Laurent could be as cutting with words as he could with a sword. Orlant, dead by Aimeric's hand. Jord, the love he showed Aimeric thrown back in his face. Aimeric knew what he was. He knew the altar upon which he'd sacrificed his honor.

'I don't want your pity!' he spat. He refused to become the hysterical mess he'd been before, crying uncontrollably at the cruelty of Laurent's words. He didn't want anyone's pity. He wanted to be dead. 'I don't want anything from you, your Highness.' He chose the incorrect title deliberately, speaking with all the precision he could muster. 'I will find my own way.'

For all he knew, Laurent's was the only familiar face he would see in this strange city. In that moment, he preferred to be surrounded by strangers.

[cast_iron_bitch]

'There is a boy here,' said Laurent, weathering Aimeric's outburst with an expression of stone. In a long line of his Uncle's pawns, Aimeric was not even the youngest, and certainly not the most impressionable. 'Nicaise. If you approach him or contact him in any way you will wish I had ten goblets, I assure you.'

Laurent picked up the packet, this time depositing it a foot in the air from Aimeric's chest. 'Pray we do not have cause to meet again.'

[inveteratetroublemaker]

Aimeric winced, sucking in a breath, the pain not from the sudden weight on his chest but from the pulling of the stitches at his wrists as his hands lifted reflexively. So there was another Veretian here. 'If he is any ally of yours I will avoid him at all costs,' he promised, though it did not escape his notice that this Nicaise was referred to by Laurent as a boy and not a man. Hadn't the Regent's latest pet been called Nicaise?

It didn't matter. Aimeric would have wanted nothing to do with him, even without Laurent's threat.

He said, 'The better for both of us for it to be so.' He hoped this wretched city was large enough for them to avoid each other. The Prince was easily identifiable; it would be simple enough for Aimeric to head in the other direction upon spotting that golden head.