and some men’s hearts seem to circle forever: you catch sight of them on clear nights,

[apostasia]

WHO: Adelaide Leblanc + Martel
WHAT: The morning after the night before.
WHEN: The morning following Josephine and Vivienne's soiree.
WHERE: Martel's quarters.
NOTES: Contains nudity.

Adelaide is awake, he knows. He'd felt it when her breathing shifted from the slow, evenness of sleep; he had been less surprised than he might have been when she didn't move, upon her side away from him. The curve of her hip beneath the blanket and fur is not without its appeal, so there's that. His hand lingers a moment above her shoulder; her hair; falls to his side again as he rolls onto his back. Well, he can understand. His ceiling has never held such fascination to him - it might hold the great secrets of existence for the way he studies it. It would be easier, he supposes, if it had just been bad--

His laugh is abrupt in the early morning silence, the cool air and the light that knifes through the window, interrupting the careful, experimental way she shifts. Still rough with sleep, a low drawl, not unkind--

"All right, darling, just let me down gently."

He thinks they will survive this. She found it in her to live with his past; they can probably live with where he put his tongue when it was still dark. Even if she is, currently, quite possibly trying to work out if she can get out his window without his noticing.

Comments

[fleurdesel]

It had been a mistake. Easy enough to tell herself that now as she attempts to uncurl and untangle herself from this mess of blankets and furs and limbs. One would think a mage would be practiced in such things- but she'd never slept with anyone in the literal sense. The risks had been too high. Quick things in the dark, in alcoves and under desks, never a bed.

Never a friend quite like Martel is to her and she'd sworn that first time after she forgave him that she wouldn't be swayed by his jaw or his laugh or his anything.

A broken piece knows one when it sees it's like. They are both of them broken.

This is inappropriate.

Of course his laughter, his joking makes it more so rather than less even as it highlights the absurdity of the situation. If it had been awkward or fumbling or unsatisfying or wine drenched and awful this would be easy. Martel, in much the way he ever has and likely ever would, manages to make things more complicated simply by being himself. Adelaide shifts her weight to her elbows, peering across at him in the morning light. Somehow his finding humor gives her permission to do the same. "...We are literally from different worlds. It would not work."

[apostasia]

Adelaide can likely fill the brief silence that falls with whatever witticism he might've made about how it absolutely did, a few hours prior; he doesn't refrain because he doesn't think he's hilarious or fantastic in bed (he is both of those things), just that even in jest she has a point he doesn't mean to argue even for the sake of defending his prowess. He exhales, instead, his expression wry as he looks up at her.

She is beautiful, but she isn't for him.

"Getting rather above my station," he says, infusing mock regret over anything genuine that might linger. "Another of my bad habits for you to forgive."

[fleurdesel]

Can, does, and grimaces against it while offering her own silent commentary to counter said remark in the lift of her brows and tilt of her head. It hadn't been bad but it hadn't been enough for the mess it would be if they tried to make it something of a regular occurrence. He is too much and not enough for what she would want if she had it in her to want someone in more than what they'd stumbled into. And she doesn't.

There is no time in her to devote to such tender leanings. At least when she's come to that realization she's done it with a man that will not take such things personally. Nor would he take her reaching out to slap at his chest personally.

"You were a fair way below last night, if I recall. Happily so." Wry, dry, and even. A shade of herself she'd honestly though lost, this.

[apostasia]

The slap he has coming and he knows it, frankly, sparing a fleeting moment's gratitude for the fact that it doesn't seem to be accompanied by anything more than acknowledgment that he is a terrible person, perhaps the worst. (It only struck him after he'd said the words that it might've been a little too soon for that to be funny, still--)

And he laughs, low and with the faint air of smugness exemplified in a man remembering fondly his earlier triumphs. "I grant you. And you might call us even, now."

Speaking of things that aren't funny, but honestly, if this never happens again, they'll always have that moment she closed her thighs on his head.

[fleurdesel]

Somehow this makes it less absurd- or more absurd. It makes it less surreal. It happened and it has not changed them to one another, it has not changed this insufferable streak in him nor her inability to take him seriously- no matter where his mouth has been or what welts she put on his back.

That, of course, is the notion that prods Compassion back to the moment- or at least has the spirit attempting to check. Adelaide had been thorough in her not now the night before- and is more gentle about the same in the morning. Not just yet.

They are both still naked and, awkward. "That- that is not my fault. Your back, now...Let me see it?"

How deeply she'd dug- she can't remember. She was rather preoccupied at the time with other pressing sensations and concerns.

[apostasia]

"If you're going to heal it, absolutely not," he says, complacently, without moving an inch. He remembers how hard she'd dragged her nails over (into) his skin, though really, that his first thought is healing speaks for itself as to the depth of the marks she'd left in him.

After a beat, "And I will gladly take full credit, but the point remains that I might've died, Adelaide--"

He absolutely was not going to die. And he's no quitter, it's not as if he'd stopped.

[fleurdesel]

"Do not tell me you are feeling sentimental, Telquet." But, as he likes, she will leave them be. Even if she thinks it foolish- it'd been an uncharacteristic moment of urgency. HE shouldn't keep them.

He shouldn't tease quite so much easier and what had been a slap to the chest is swiftly followed by a halfhearted swipe at him with a pillow. "You could have tapped out if you had that much trouble breathing."

[apostasia]

"I am always sentimental," in the same tone, relaxed - and it isn't as much an exaggeration as it sounds, but Martel has always been willing to cannibalise himself for even a moment's humour. Himself, and everything around him.

It isn't that nothing is sacred. It's just -

Sacred and untouchable aren't the same.

"And I always finish what I start."

[fleurdesel]

"Clearly." She turns to swing her legs over the side of the bed, working through the motions of at least attempting to be presentable for the walk out. Rebraiding her hair takes her attention, skin fair and burn scar a smudged shadow in the morning light, softened. "You are nothing if not thorough."

And she had, thoroughly, enjoyed herself. If it weren't for the sudden swath of strangeness now- a mistaking what they had for something that could be more-

It isn't. Wasn't. Won't be. Realizing she likes him more when they aren't in bed together is strange enough. "Is it often this strange? I- every other time has been in the Circle and things are different, there."

There's an art to this she does not yet know.

[apostasia]

He raises himself slowly to sit against the headboard in her wake, the sting of scratches on his back pressed to cold wood a not-unpleasant way of being prodded to further alertness. His observation of her is fond without being particularly licentious; this is just what it is, and that's ...

Fine. It's quite genuinely fine, and he could laugh at himself. The first woman in his life to look at him with true affection for so long and of course he confuses the matter - but they're going to be all right, and they can laugh about it, and that means more to him than he thinks he can express to her. At least, more than he could right now, in this moment. Maybe one day, when she isn't so flustered, he'll try to articulate it.

"The last time I shared a bed with a woman," he says, dryly, "we made a very civil arrangement and I paid her handsomely for her time. Before that -"

A quiet laugh, not without rueful warmth.

"I may be the wrong man to ask."

[fleurdesel]

There is an idle thought, drifting and distant and ignored immediately, that perhaps if they can be this and have last night as well, have it more often, it might do them both some manner of good. People need contact, need grounding, she is a great deal less stressed than she was the night before or even the week before-

It only takes peering back over her shoulder at him when he says as much that proves she likes him better with his clothes on. Or rather she likes him better, at least, when she is dressed. "...We are both terrible at this."

Whatever this is.

That's something of a comfort at least, one that wrings out a faint snort of laughter.

[apostasia]

Most people like dealing with Martel better when they're wearing clothes.

Funny, that.

He's still smiling, faintly, when she looks at him, one knee bent and an elbow resting there, easy, relaxed. If this is as bad as it gets--

"I think we are quite good," he says, kindly, "at the disentanglement of two people who know better."

And there are worse things in the world.

[fleurdesel]

"I suppose if it had to be someone..." To remind her that she can, that she might, that it could be safe to want and have such things when she is not buried in work or politics or being anything and everything under the sun other than herself. "I am glad that it was you."

She says with her usual exasperated affection reaching out to pat his hand before slipping from the bed properly and seeking out her smalls. They must be here somewhere.

[apostasia]

"And I am damned with faint praise," but he doesn't mean it, the smile that softens the words audible even as she turns away to find her garments. (Scattered, as he recollects it.)

He closes his eyes and tilts his head back, breathing in some of that easiness and exhaling again to clear his head.

After a moment, he says, "You know, a woman once thought my body worth immortalising on canvas," very mildly.

(This is both a joke at his own expense and true.)

[fleurdesel]

"Really." Her voice is rich with fond indulgence- this is her, being indulgent as she dresses. Smalls, chemise- she skips the corset for the moment and frowns at the white froth of her gown.

Perhaps she could borrow something of his to wear to her room. It'd be less mortifying. One of his shirts is a dress on her as it was.

"And you in your infinite vanity allowed such a thing with great enjoyment I am sure."

[apostasia]

He laughs - not at Adelaide, but at the memory she prompts to the surface. A shake of his head, brushing his hair out of his eyes loose with one hand -

"I was a boy much concerned with my dignity. She nearly forgot she was going to give me grief for my 'withering expression' when she showed me the first one, when I told her it was a damned good thing I'd already spoken with her father about our marriage. She was not impressed with a proposal she'd never, she said, be able to discuss in polite company."

She always went a little pink when asked about the engagement; he'd rather considered that a feature, not a flaw.

"It took her a great deal of work to persuade me to do it in the first place. In the end, I agreed on the condition the artist wear as much as her subject."

[fleurdesel]

"...if ever there was a question of you being a terrible person." She snorts, opting for one of his shirts. He won't mind. Or he will, but she does not much care at the moment. They've exchanged skin and orgasms, what is a shirt between friends? Precious little.

"Of course you did." Because, again, Martel is just that sort. Part of it is charming when held at the distance of not being quite so deeply entangled. She wonders, then, if this Lady grieves for him. Wonders if she blamed herself for whatever happened to twist Martel so- though she sets that aside. Any woman involved with Martel had to be practical enough to know the man dug his own grave figuratively often enough. That he'd done so literally should come as no surprise.

[apostasia]

He doesn't. Mind the shirt or the entirely reasonable assessment of his character - he is still smiling, lingering a little, and very decisively does not dwell on thoughts of how his relationship with Petrana ended. What he did to her, in his negligence; what she did after. After all this time and with the home in which she'd promised to be his wife ashes--

"Believe me," he says, arch, "she left me under no illusions I was to be married for my charm. Granted, it was an open secret Petra's mother would have had me go whistle for a wife if my knighthood didn't come attached to a margravial title and personal wealth in sinful excess, but I have it from the lady herself that even in buying myself a wife, she'd no rivals prepared to martyr themselves to my intolerable ego, dictatorial ways and mistaken apprehension that I'm amusing."

Upon consideration; "I think the two of you would like each other very much."

[fleurdesel]

"That would depend upon the price, one would think. With sufficient coin even you might perhaps find some woman desperate enough." A beat where she considers this before shaking her head. "Actually- no. Not even then."

Martel is a great many things, but an ideal husband for any price? Hardly. A fair lover, well. More than fair. But a problem, a headache, and a distinct burden upon the patience of anyone that would linger in his company.

"We might swap stories of how exasperating we find you and commiserate over glasses of wine." Though this lady likely had more grievances than Adelaide can dare to imagine.

[apostasia]

"She adored me," he informs her, and there's a shadow of regret in it - but at this distance and after all these years, it's a shadow, only, when there are so many he hurt and so few he's inclined to remember fondly at all. He'd rather remember her fondly, when she'd been his friend first and foremost; he owes her an apology that he never gave, that she was to tease out had been intended by doing her the courtesy of their last meeting.

Allowing her that moment to say what she would to him, the life she'd planned to lead unraveling under his hands. (He remembers the fistful of hair she pulled out of his head more than anything she said, but he'd been near to dead on his feet, in fairness.)

"And," he says, lips twisting in a wry smile, "rather disproved the theory love is blind." A little shrug of his hands - "She married well, in the end, but you needn't worry I've any notions of doing the same."