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Jun. 25th, 2003 06:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
essayelWell, a day or two has gone past and I’m feeling a good bit more rational than I was last time I posted.
It’s funny how the demise of a literary character can affect one. I remember being shocked and bereft the very first time I read the Lord of the Rings when Boromir died. It affected me far more than any of the frequent deaths in the classics…the deaths of Little Nell and Cathy Earnshaw left me unperturbed…possibly because while you read the classics you live books like LotR and the HP series.
To save some space I’ll hide the next bit:
I am almost halfway through The Order of the Phoenix and I think I can begin to give a slightly less prejudiced account of it. GoF I read at a single sitting – apart from having to jump up periodically for comfort stops and to feed the family – this time I feel no such compulsion and our book looks very odd. Sticking out of the top of it are four little yellow post-it notes each with a name written on it so we don’t get muddled up. Mike is furthest into it at just over halfway, then there’s me and I am mightily annoyed that JKR has used a device (coins that get warm) that I had planned and will no longer be able to use without encountering charges of copying! Paul is about a third of the way through and Jenny is lagging far behind but that is because I am reading it aloud to her. She is on Chapter Seven and doesn’t seem to be enjoying the book nearly as much as she enjoyed the others.
From the outset the book is grim. There seems to be this peculiar dislocation in the time line of the books – the years long gap between the books release may account for this but it gave me a very funny feeling - OotP starts only weeks after GoF finishes but in that time so much seems to have happened and here have been so many changes.
Poor isolated Harry. JKRs depiction of his emergence from his long childhood to the moodiness and bloody-mindedness of teenagerhood is very good. The hormones have kicked in with a vengeance and Harry is now an Angry Young Man in classic style. Dudley is nice too…well, not nice but well drawn. He is typical of the type of suit-wearing thug that is acceptable almost everywhere while kids who are nicer characters but don’t conform to the dress code are written off as delinquents (sorry, but I have personal issues with this at present). Vernon and Petunia maintain their usual standards of awfulness – we do not expect comfort for Harry in the first few chapters of any HP book but in this one the deliberate policy of keeping the poor lad out of the loop seems unnecessarily cruel. Of course, I suppose it will all have a perfectly decent explanation later in the book. The excuse that Harry was being kept in the dark in order to protect him is patently ridiculous.
The Dementors in Little Whinging…oho, I thought, we’re getting into horror movie territory here. Look out Stephen King, JKR’s after your laurels now. Harry sulking on the swing apart, this was one of the first indications to me that the author had decided to aim the book at a different audience. Earlier books had had most of the eerie and scary things happening a long way from home. Sure, Sirius appeared close to Harry’s home (good job they hadn’t moved, eh?) but later proved to be benign. Harry’s horrible home was sacrosanct…he’d meet nothing worst in it than the Dursleys, vile though they are. Little children need to know that they are safe in their homes (even if, sadly, sometimes they are not it’s nice to maintain the fiction) but teens like to feel that they may be offed by an axe-wielding maniac on any routine trip between their bedroom and the refridgerator. I can’t think why. That bit was a hit with Michael.
Arabella Figg and Mundungus Fletcher – what an anti-climax. After all the fan fics where Arabella turns out to be a femme fatale in diguise she’s actually a batty old Squib in carpet slippers. While Mundungus appears to be Del Trotter but without the charm, style and savoir faire (sarcasm alert). However, I suppose he is the type of character than Sirius and James may have found entrancing in their late teens.
Sirius – now this is shocking. I suppose it does answer the question about whether or not Hogwarts is a fee paying school. If he jumped the fence at sixteen with no means of support either Hogwarts is state endowed or perhaps there is a scholarship scheme for students who find themselves in difficulties. Then Uncle Alphard provided him with enough of a nest egg to see him through the long summer breaks. What a bloody bleak existence, though, and so similar, in a way to Harry’s. Now, this is one of the aspects of the book that I found most baffling. Not a lot of time had passed since Dumbledore entrusted the vital task of contacting ‘the old crowd’ to Sirius. At that time he was clean, clipped, rational, responsible, very, very concerned for his god-son, and an asset, one presumes, to the Order. What on earth happened in those few weeks? When Harry arrives at Grimmauld Place (the Grim’s Old Place?) Sirius doesn’t even come to the door to meet him. What was he doing? Has he gone off the idea of being Harry’s god-father? Has being back under the family roof depressed him to the extent that he is no longer worth bothering with. Molly certainly seems to think so. As I read these arguments between Molly and Sirius – in front of the boy, for god’s sake – I found myself loathing the pair of them. Molly Weasley, hitherto, has been the universal mother figure…warm, cuddly, strict but loving, slightly dotty. Now she’s a shrieking menopausal harridan spreading fear and trepidation everywhere she goes – see, right back into teenage territory again. As Michael, to my utter chagrin, said - that’s what real parents are like. He hastily retracted that, making an exception in my case, but I think he has a point.
The Advance Guard – cannon fodder, anyone? Lovely to see Lupin again so soon and I hope that he plays a rather larger part in the book than as everybodies’ emotional sheet anchor but I couldn’t help counting up that little party and wondering to myself how many would survive through to page seven hundred and eighty whatever. Can anyone else see Kingsley Shacklebolt being played by Samuel Jackson? And Tonks – what a screaming pain! Jenny adores her but I think she ought to go back to the computer game she evidently came from. Nymphadora Tonks! The fan ficcers will have a field day with her…just change a few letters and you’ve got Nymphomania Bonks! Does anyone feel that we are being got at?
I’ve written far too much and will save my reactions to that Umbrage female for another time.
So there you go!
Now I’m going to do something quite unforgivable that will get me cursed in certain quarters except they’ll probably never find out about it!! I’m going to use another cut thingy so I can post a fic and nobody need be bothered by it. You see, I really want to use these two characters in The Mattress and as far as I know nobody has ever written any fan fiction for this fandom – apart from a few vastly respectful little pieces in the official magazine. Certainly nobody will have ever written any slash, even though in this case its canon and some of the characters are just begging for it! Just to ease my conscience therefore, I have written my own, rather overblown, slash fic and can induct the two young men involved into the Fan Fiction Factory whether they like it or not.
If anyone does read this perhaps I ought to set the scene. Will Scott, 18, a young man of good birth, has left the family home after a dust up with his Dad and has joined an outlaw band led by the charismatic Francis Crawford, Master of Lymond, who has already had a very adventurous past indeed though currently only about 22. They have gone to an inn, unbeknownst to Scott, to meet someone and when Francis invites him to go upstairs Will gets the wrong end of the stick – this is in the book folks, I’m just expanding on it a little. Umm…to a certain extent I’m aping the author’s style so excuse the rather purple passages. (Can one say that about a slash fic?)
Suivi Francois
When Will Scott got to his feet, his heartbeats were behaving oddly, but he was not slow in following the Master …… (Game of Kings, Penguin pb, p161)
It was excitement. He was prepared to admit to that. Since the day they met the Master had been teasing him while, at the same time, maintaining the aloof air of the untouchable. Will, always at arms length, always a pace or two behind, always just out of his depth, had followed and floundered, grinding his teeth with baffled frustration at the casual endearments and mocking caresses. But tonight with his cheeks flushed with heat and wine, Lymond had taken a key from Molly and had turned to Will, his lips curving in a smile as old as sin. “Are we ready to fulfil our glad destiny?” he had asked and Will had gasped as desire smote him, a whiplash of fire urging him to his feet and across the room, stumbling at his Master’s heels.
Not that he was – like that, of course, not really, but, hell, a man was entitled to his amusements. He was used to taking those where he found them and a casual mount of whatever persuasion could be got anywhere – but this, this now was the unicorn.
There had been other nights when Lymond had made festival, when he and his compatriots had descended like wolves upon some welcoming house. There in the smoky darkness Will had taken his pleasure, one amongst many, but on each occasion he had had at least a part of his mind on the leader of their band. Once he had forgotten himself completely, transfixed by the sight of the Master, laughing like a maniac and half smothered in the bountiful embrace of their hostess, until his own girl, jealous, had slapped him. Lymond, seeing, had laughed even harder and had made a suggestion so wittily obscene that Will, too, had shouted with glee.
“I can’t do that,” he had admitted, scandalised.
“You, Willieken, may not be able to,” came the slurred and hilarious reply, “but I assure you that I can. Want to see?”
With that memory in mind, he climbed the stairs a little unsteadily, wincing at the growing pressure in his groin. The view didn’t help, either. He studied the back of the gilded head, for once briefly level with his own, then indulged himself in the luxury of allowing his gaze to roam. From the sweet curl of pale hair at the nape to straight shoulders, the suave lines of back and buttocks and the sweeping curve of high booted thighs, his eyes travelled hungrily over this, his lodestone in vice. Then back to the golden caput of the honour where he met a mocking glance that made the breath catch in his throat.
Lymond had risen from the table and had made his teasing comment with little thought – all his mind was bent upon his forthcoming meeting with John Maxwell and it’s possible consequences. But as he climbed Molly’s steep and ragged staircase he felt eyes upon him and looked back over his shoulder. Most of the customers were either well gone in drink or too busy with one or another of Molly’s little kitties to be paying attention to him, then he noticed Will’s pink cheeks and furrowed brow and his roving, appreciative eyes. Francis slowed his pace a little and sighed. With a tricky political situation ahead he really had no time to spare for dealing with young Scott’s hormonal turmoil but, on the other hand, he had no desire to put another dent in the child’s amour proper with an outright rejection. Maxwell had not been waiting long, he could wait a little longer. He continued to climb but glanced back again in time to catch the boy’s eye and saw his cheeks burn a deeper red. “What, my Pyrrha?” he murmured. “Why so intense a gaze?”
Will stopped for an instant as his chief’s head turned away again, then he moved on, catching up.
“Merely studying my glad destiny,” he replied in as steady and off hand a voice as he could manage.
Lymond’s laugh was a bare breath of sound and he stopped on the top step and turned to face Will, barring his way with one hand on each of the banister rails. Will, his heart in his throat, advanced until he was standing on the step below yet looking down, their faces no more than inches apart, their eyes not quite level.
“And are you a quick study, felix Scotia?” the Master enquired affably. “Or do you consider your education to be complete?”
“I do not consider my education to be lacking in any important respect,” Will replied, “however, it would be unspeakably arrogant for anyone to assume that there was nothing left to learn.”
Lymond’s lips parted in a silent ‘Oh’ and he raised fair brows challengingly. It had been an unusually spirited response. Will took everything seriously but it hadn’t hitherto occurred to Lymond that he might be just as serious about the pursuit of pleasure. The eyes fixed upon his own, the lips parted and the young face was so earnest in its admiration and desire that he had to stifle a laugh. Aware that it was possibly a bad decision even as he made it, but quite unable to resist, he moistened his lips and tilted his head, raising his chin in plain and obvious invitation.
Will swallowed, all his consciousness engulfed in the lapidary sparkle of those cyanine eyes, and carefully set one of his large freckled hands over each of the pale ones on the rails. He stooped to meet the moth-wing brush of lips more practiced than his own, and leaned forward to return the kiss. The teasing flicker of a tongue against his lips both shocked and excited him, and he closed his hands, gripping the fine bones beneath them urgently. With his eyes closed, his whole awareness contracted to the mouth against his own, he was unprepared when lips and hands were sharply withdrawn. He stumbled to one knee, barking his shin painfully and looked up, bewildered, to see his pedagogue poised on the landing.
Some things were acceptable - a sharing, a camaraderie, a laughing dalliance of little moment - but the Master would not be held. The grip of Will’s hands had been insupportable. The instinctive flinch had carried him back two paces. He was a little shocked at his own reaction, he must have drunk more than he thought, and he was bringing his breathing back into control when Scott looked up at him like a kicked dog. That was insupportable as well.
“Oh, Marigold,” the Master’s voice grated a little, “le plus belle de la ville, c’est moy, I know, but please restrain yourself. The stairs of a public tavern are the place for neither hornbook nor pen. We have business to conduct, a gentleman to see… just a short wait, my Pyrrha, to sharpen the wits and increase the appetite then I’ll gladly give you all the education you can take.”
On his knees, still burning from the touch of that mouth, Will caught his breath. It wasn’t so much the cool blue gaze or the insouciant pose but the insulting curl of his lips as the Master began to turn away…that hateful smirk did it for Will and he lunged forward, catching the smaller man about the ribs and slamming him back against the roughly panelled wall. A swift grab had caught the long narrow hands and pressed them back too.
“You talk too damned much,” Will spat, exerting all his considerable strength to still the squirming body, then stooped again to cover the sneering mouth with his own. Subordination did not come easily to a Scott under any circumstances but was unthinkable in the bedroom. This he realised was what he wanted. Off balance, his feet barely touching the ground, the Master was no longer in control of the situation. For once it was Will who had the upper hand and it felt glorious. He threw his weight forward and felt the lips part involuntarily under his own as breath left Lymond’s lungs. With a growl of satisfaction Will deepened the kiss, feeling the other man relaxing in his grasp until he could release the sinewy wrists and move his hands where he really wanted them to be.
It was the sudden utter stillness of the body in his arms that made him draw back. He had expected resistance. If he was totally honest, he had expected to be thrown the length of the hallway then beaten to a pulp but would have counted it worthwhile to have silenced that carping voice just for once. He had not expected this. If his grip had not been so good the Master would have fallen. Will looked into his face but his head rolled to one side, the brilliant blue eyes wide and unseeing. His bruised mouth was slightly open but his voice was silenced.
This silence acted upon Will’s ardour much as might a bucketful of snow-melt. He changed his grip from one of exploration to one of support, and thought back to one gaudy drunken night when he had awoken in a strange bed and under new and novel circumstances. He had, he remembered, been offered the choice to remain or depart, had remained and had not regretted it and that, he realised was the difference. He had looked into Lymond’s eyes, for one moment before they emptied, and there, sickened, he had seen the ghost of another youth, scarcely more than a child, who had been abandoned to flounder far beyond his depth in a situation where his trained swordsman’s body and agile scholar’s tongue were abased and abused and survival might only be attained by complete surrender. No choice had been offered to the young Francis when chained to the oar of a French galley, no denial had been possible when his fellow slaves, despairing, had desired for a short space to touch his youth and beauty. Should it then be a surprise that, grown to full strength and prodigal ability, that scarred child should insist upon absolute sovereignty? That control of his mind and body and of all those around him should be his overwhelming need?
Will cupped his companion’s cheek in one hand and stared into the void of his eyes.
“Francis?” he whispered, saying the name for the first time.
The breakdown, the absence, the withdrawal from threat of pain and humiliation did not last long. The eyes slowly blinked and focussed, the hands moved on Will’s shoulders, the lips twisted into a grimace of confusion, then Lymond tensed and drew himself up, his face closed and wary.
Will removed his hands from him and he took a step away.
“You – you fell,” Will said carefully. “I think – you struck your head?”
There was an awful silence, filled for Will only by the heavy beating of his heart, before The Master looked away, his pose easing and his lips curving into something approaching a smile.
“I – struck my head,” he agreed, then he turned and met Will’s eyes fully.
Chilled by the pain and self loathing in his face Will involuntarily extended his hand and Lymond flinched away. Obviously, sympathy was not an option but words, Lymond’s shield and buckler, might do the trick.
“As much as you’ve drunk it’s a wonder you’re standing at all,” Will grumbled, his heart aching. “Did we come up here for some purpose or are we going to stand here all night?”
For one moment more there was stillness then the pale brows twitched into a haughty frown.
“Manners, Marigold,” Lymond chided, his eyes still wary but the aggression easing from his stance. Will lowered his eyes submissively, knowing that something more was needed.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, “that was – crude even by my standards. Of course, you are the Master. You lead and I’ll follow.”
“Apology accepted,” the Master said slowly. “Come on then, my Pyrrha, suivi Francois.”
**
Ok, that’s done. Now, on to The Mattress – Recovered (possibly in rubber).
It’s funny how the demise of a literary character can affect one. I remember being shocked and bereft the very first time I read the Lord of the Rings when Boromir died. It affected me far more than any of the frequent deaths in the classics…the deaths of Little Nell and Cathy Earnshaw left me unperturbed…possibly because while you read the classics you live books like LotR and the HP series.
To save some space I’ll hide the next bit:
I am almost halfway through The Order of the Phoenix and I think I can begin to give a slightly less prejudiced account of it. GoF I read at a single sitting – apart from having to jump up periodically for comfort stops and to feed the family – this time I feel no such compulsion and our book looks very odd. Sticking out of the top of it are four little yellow post-it notes each with a name written on it so we don’t get muddled up. Mike is furthest into it at just over halfway, then there’s me and I am mightily annoyed that JKR has used a device (coins that get warm) that I had planned and will no longer be able to use without encountering charges of copying! Paul is about a third of the way through and Jenny is lagging far behind but that is because I am reading it aloud to her. She is on Chapter Seven and doesn’t seem to be enjoying the book nearly as much as she enjoyed the others.
From the outset the book is grim. There seems to be this peculiar dislocation in the time line of the books – the years long gap between the books release may account for this but it gave me a very funny feeling - OotP starts only weeks after GoF finishes but in that time so much seems to have happened and here have been so many changes.
Poor isolated Harry. JKRs depiction of his emergence from his long childhood to the moodiness and bloody-mindedness of teenagerhood is very good. The hormones have kicked in with a vengeance and Harry is now an Angry Young Man in classic style. Dudley is nice too…well, not nice but well drawn. He is typical of the type of suit-wearing thug that is acceptable almost everywhere while kids who are nicer characters but don’t conform to the dress code are written off as delinquents (sorry, but I have personal issues with this at present). Vernon and Petunia maintain their usual standards of awfulness – we do not expect comfort for Harry in the first few chapters of any HP book but in this one the deliberate policy of keeping the poor lad out of the loop seems unnecessarily cruel. Of course, I suppose it will all have a perfectly decent explanation later in the book. The excuse that Harry was being kept in the dark in order to protect him is patently ridiculous.
The Dementors in Little Whinging…oho, I thought, we’re getting into horror movie territory here. Look out Stephen King, JKR’s after your laurels now. Harry sulking on the swing apart, this was one of the first indications to me that the author had decided to aim the book at a different audience. Earlier books had had most of the eerie and scary things happening a long way from home. Sure, Sirius appeared close to Harry’s home (good job they hadn’t moved, eh?) but later proved to be benign. Harry’s horrible home was sacrosanct…he’d meet nothing worst in it than the Dursleys, vile though they are. Little children need to know that they are safe in their homes (even if, sadly, sometimes they are not it’s nice to maintain the fiction) but teens like to feel that they may be offed by an axe-wielding maniac on any routine trip between their bedroom and the refridgerator. I can’t think why. That bit was a hit with Michael.
Arabella Figg and Mundungus Fletcher – what an anti-climax. After all the fan fics where Arabella turns out to be a femme fatale in diguise she’s actually a batty old Squib in carpet slippers. While Mundungus appears to be Del Trotter but without the charm, style and savoir faire (sarcasm alert). However, I suppose he is the type of character than Sirius and James may have found entrancing in their late teens.
Sirius – now this is shocking. I suppose it does answer the question about whether or not Hogwarts is a fee paying school. If he jumped the fence at sixteen with no means of support either Hogwarts is state endowed or perhaps there is a scholarship scheme for students who find themselves in difficulties. Then Uncle Alphard provided him with enough of a nest egg to see him through the long summer breaks. What a bloody bleak existence, though, and so similar, in a way to Harry’s. Now, this is one of the aspects of the book that I found most baffling. Not a lot of time had passed since Dumbledore entrusted the vital task of contacting ‘the old crowd’ to Sirius. At that time he was clean, clipped, rational, responsible, very, very concerned for his god-son, and an asset, one presumes, to the Order. What on earth happened in those few weeks? When Harry arrives at Grimmauld Place (the Grim’s Old Place?) Sirius doesn’t even come to the door to meet him. What was he doing? Has he gone off the idea of being Harry’s god-father? Has being back under the family roof depressed him to the extent that he is no longer worth bothering with. Molly certainly seems to think so. As I read these arguments between Molly and Sirius – in front of the boy, for god’s sake – I found myself loathing the pair of them. Molly Weasley, hitherto, has been the universal mother figure…warm, cuddly, strict but loving, slightly dotty. Now she’s a shrieking menopausal harridan spreading fear and trepidation everywhere she goes – see, right back into teenage territory again. As Michael, to my utter chagrin, said - that’s what real parents are like. He hastily retracted that, making an exception in my case, but I think he has a point.
The Advance Guard – cannon fodder, anyone? Lovely to see Lupin again so soon and I hope that he plays a rather larger part in the book than as everybodies’ emotional sheet anchor but I couldn’t help counting up that little party and wondering to myself how many would survive through to page seven hundred and eighty whatever. Can anyone else see Kingsley Shacklebolt being played by Samuel Jackson? And Tonks – what a screaming pain! Jenny adores her but I think she ought to go back to the computer game she evidently came from. Nymphadora Tonks! The fan ficcers will have a field day with her…just change a few letters and you’ve got Nymphomania Bonks! Does anyone feel that we are being got at?
I’ve written far too much and will save my reactions to that Umbrage female for another time.
So there you go!
Now I’m going to do something quite unforgivable that will get me cursed in certain quarters except they’ll probably never find out about it!! I’m going to use another cut thingy so I can post a fic and nobody need be bothered by it. You see, I really want to use these two characters in The Mattress and as far as I know nobody has ever written any fan fiction for this fandom – apart from a few vastly respectful little pieces in the official magazine. Certainly nobody will have ever written any slash, even though in this case its canon and some of the characters are just begging for it! Just to ease my conscience therefore, I have written my own, rather overblown, slash fic and can induct the two young men involved into the Fan Fiction Factory whether they like it or not.
If anyone does read this perhaps I ought to set the scene. Will Scott, 18, a young man of good birth, has left the family home after a dust up with his Dad and has joined an outlaw band led by the charismatic Francis Crawford, Master of Lymond, who has already had a very adventurous past indeed though currently only about 22. They have gone to an inn, unbeknownst to Scott, to meet someone and when Francis invites him to go upstairs Will gets the wrong end of the stick – this is in the book folks, I’m just expanding on it a little. Umm…to a certain extent I’m aping the author’s style so excuse the rather purple passages. (Can one say that about a slash fic?)
Suivi Francois
When Will Scott got to his feet, his heartbeats were behaving oddly, but he was not slow in following the Master …… (Game of Kings, Penguin pb, p161)
It was excitement. He was prepared to admit to that. Since the day they met the Master had been teasing him while, at the same time, maintaining the aloof air of the untouchable. Will, always at arms length, always a pace or two behind, always just out of his depth, had followed and floundered, grinding his teeth with baffled frustration at the casual endearments and mocking caresses. But tonight with his cheeks flushed with heat and wine, Lymond had taken a key from Molly and had turned to Will, his lips curving in a smile as old as sin. “Are we ready to fulfil our glad destiny?” he had asked and Will had gasped as desire smote him, a whiplash of fire urging him to his feet and across the room, stumbling at his Master’s heels.
Not that he was – like that, of course, not really, but, hell, a man was entitled to his amusements. He was used to taking those where he found them and a casual mount of whatever persuasion could be got anywhere – but this, this now was the unicorn.
There had been other nights when Lymond had made festival, when he and his compatriots had descended like wolves upon some welcoming house. There in the smoky darkness Will had taken his pleasure, one amongst many, but on each occasion he had had at least a part of his mind on the leader of their band. Once he had forgotten himself completely, transfixed by the sight of the Master, laughing like a maniac and half smothered in the bountiful embrace of their hostess, until his own girl, jealous, had slapped him. Lymond, seeing, had laughed even harder and had made a suggestion so wittily obscene that Will, too, had shouted with glee.
“I can’t do that,” he had admitted, scandalised.
“You, Willieken, may not be able to,” came the slurred and hilarious reply, “but I assure you that I can. Want to see?”
With that memory in mind, he climbed the stairs a little unsteadily, wincing at the growing pressure in his groin. The view didn’t help, either. He studied the back of the gilded head, for once briefly level with his own, then indulged himself in the luxury of allowing his gaze to roam. From the sweet curl of pale hair at the nape to straight shoulders, the suave lines of back and buttocks and the sweeping curve of high booted thighs, his eyes travelled hungrily over this, his lodestone in vice. Then back to the golden caput of the honour where he met a mocking glance that made the breath catch in his throat.
Lymond had risen from the table and had made his teasing comment with little thought – all his mind was bent upon his forthcoming meeting with John Maxwell and it’s possible consequences. But as he climbed Molly’s steep and ragged staircase he felt eyes upon him and looked back over his shoulder. Most of the customers were either well gone in drink or too busy with one or another of Molly’s little kitties to be paying attention to him, then he noticed Will’s pink cheeks and furrowed brow and his roving, appreciative eyes. Francis slowed his pace a little and sighed. With a tricky political situation ahead he really had no time to spare for dealing with young Scott’s hormonal turmoil but, on the other hand, he had no desire to put another dent in the child’s amour proper with an outright rejection. Maxwell had not been waiting long, he could wait a little longer. He continued to climb but glanced back again in time to catch the boy’s eye and saw his cheeks burn a deeper red. “What, my Pyrrha?” he murmured. “Why so intense a gaze?”
Will stopped for an instant as his chief’s head turned away again, then he moved on, catching up.
“Merely studying my glad destiny,” he replied in as steady and off hand a voice as he could manage.
Lymond’s laugh was a bare breath of sound and he stopped on the top step and turned to face Will, barring his way with one hand on each of the banister rails. Will, his heart in his throat, advanced until he was standing on the step below yet looking down, their faces no more than inches apart, their eyes not quite level.
“And are you a quick study, felix Scotia?” the Master enquired affably. “Or do you consider your education to be complete?”
“I do not consider my education to be lacking in any important respect,” Will replied, “however, it would be unspeakably arrogant for anyone to assume that there was nothing left to learn.”
Lymond’s lips parted in a silent ‘Oh’ and he raised fair brows challengingly. It had been an unusually spirited response. Will took everything seriously but it hadn’t hitherto occurred to Lymond that he might be just as serious about the pursuit of pleasure. The eyes fixed upon his own, the lips parted and the young face was so earnest in its admiration and desire that he had to stifle a laugh. Aware that it was possibly a bad decision even as he made it, but quite unable to resist, he moistened his lips and tilted his head, raising his chin in plain and obvious invitation.
Will swallowed, all his consciousness engulfed in the lapidary sparkle of those cyanine eyes, and carefully set one of his large freckled hands over each of the pale ones on the rails. He stooped to meet the moth-wing brush of lips more practiced than his own, and leaned forward to return the kiss. The teasing flicker of a tongue against his lips both shocked and excited him, and he closed his hands, gripping the fine bones beneath them urgently. With his eyes closed, his whole awareness contracted to the mouth against his own, he was unprepared when lips and hands were sharply withdrawn. He stumbled to one knee, barking his shin painfully and looked up, bewildered, to see his pedagogue poised on the landing.
Some things were acceptable - a sharing, a camaraderie, a laughing dalliance of little moment - but the Master would not be held. The grip of Will’s hands had been insupportable. The instinctive flinch had carried him back two paces. He was a little shocked at his own reaction, he must have drunk more than he thought, and he was bringing his breathing back into control when Scott looked up at him like a kicked dog. That was insupportable as well.
“Oh, Marigold,” the Master’s voice grated a little, “le plus belle de la ville, c’est moy, I know, but please restrain yourself. The stairs of a public tavern are the place for neither hornbook nor pen. We have business to conduct, a gentleman to see… just a short wait, my Pyrrha, to sharpen the wits and increase the appetite then I’ll gladly give you all the education you can take.”
On his knees, still burning from the touch of that mouth, Will caught his breath. It wasn’t so much the cool blue gaze or the insouciant pose but the insulting curl of his lips as the Master began to turn away…that hateful smirk did it for Will and he lunged forward, catching the smaller man about the ribs and slamming him back against the roughly panelled wall. A swift grab had caught the long narrow hands and pressed them back too.
“You talk too damned much,” Will spat, exerting all his considerable strength to still the squirming body, then stooped again to cover the sneering mouth with his own. Subordination did not come easily to a Scott under any circumstances but was unthinkable in the bedroom. This he realised was what he wanted. Off balance, his feet barely touching the ground, the Master was no longer in control of the situation. For once it was Will who had the upper hand and it felt glorious. He threw his weight forward and felt the lips part involuntarily under his own as breath left Lymond’s lungs. With a growl of satisfaction Will deepened the kiss, feeling the other man relaxing in his grasp until he could release the sinewy wrists and move his hands where he really wanted them to be.
It was the sudden utter stillness of the body in his arms that made him draw back. He had expected resistance. If he was totally honest, he had expected to be thrown the length of the hallway then beaten to a pulp but would have counted it worthwhile to have silenced that carping voice just for once. He had not expected this. If his grip had not been so good the Master would have fallen. Will looked into his face but his head rolled to one side, the brilliant blue eyes wide and unseeing. His bruised mouth was slightly open but his voice was silenced.
This silence acted upon Will’s ardour much as might a bucketful of snow-melt. He changed his grip from one of exploration to one of support, and thought back to one gaudy drunken night when he had awoken in a strange bed and under new and novel circumstances. He had, he remembered, been offered the choice to remain or depart, had remained and had not regretted it and that, he realised was the difference. He had looked into Lymond’s eyes, for one moment before they emptied, and there, sickened, he had seen the ghost of another youth, scarcely more than a child, who had been abandoned to flounder far beyond his depth in a situation where his trained swordsman’s body and agile scholar’s tongue were abased and abused and survival might only be attained by complete surrender. No choice had been offered to the young Francis when chained to the oar of a French galley, no denial had been possible when his fellow slaves, despairing, had desired for a short space to touch his youth and beauty. Should it then be a surprise that, grown to full strength and prodigal ability, that scarred child should insist upon absolute sovereignty? That control of his mind and body and of all those around him should be his overwhelming need?
Will cupped his companion’s cheek in one hand and stared into the void of his eyes.
“Francis?” he whispered, saying the name for the first time.
The breakdown, the absence, the withdrawal from threat of pain and humiliation did not last long. The eyes slowly blinked and focussed, the hands moved on Will’s shoulders, the lips twisted into a grimace of confusion, then Lymond tensed and drew himself up, his face closed and wary.
Will removed his hands from him and he took a step away.
“You – you fell,” Will said carefully. “I think – you struck your head?”
There was an awful silence, filled for Will only by the heavy beating of his heart, before The Master looked away, his pose easing and his lips curving into something approaching a smile.
“I – struck my head,” he agreed, then he turned and met Will’s eyes fully.
Chilled by the pain and self loathing in his face Will involuntarily extended his hand and Lymond flinched away. Obviously, sympathy was not an option but words, Lymond’s shield and buckler, might do the trick.
“As much as you’ve drunk it’s a wonder you’re standing at all,” Will grumbled, his heart aching. “Did we come up here for some purpose or are we going to stand here all night?”
For one moment more there was stillness then the pale brows twitched into a haughty frown.
“Manners, Marigold,” Lymond chided, his eyes still wary but the aggression easing from his stance. Will lowered his eyes submissively, knowing that something more was needed.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, “that was – crude even by my standards. Of course, you are the Master. You lead and I’ll follow.”
“Apology accepted,” the Master said slowly. “Come on then, my Pyrrha, suivi Francois.”
**
Ok, that’s done. Now, on to The Mattress – Recovered (possibly in rubber).
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Date: 2006-01-20 10:15 pm (UTC)Still waiting for the power of speech to come back to me.
OK so backstory: I'm just reading Game of Kings for the first time, haven't even finished it, already searching for Lymond/Will fic because their love is so Thwarted and so Obvious ... anyway, I hadn't expected to find anything so fabulous as this. Perfect character voice throughout and I'm so smitten by the power dynamics between them I almost fell off my chair. The plot conceit, Will's misunderstanding, is perfectly natural and you've worked it seamlessly into the existing scene.
Lymond's astonishing breakdown is not at all how I would have thought to write the dynamic between them, but when you write it, it's completely credible. You link it in so cleverly to what we know of his character. And Will's attempts to reach across the gap he's put between them is heartbreaking - I love the simple moment of his reaching out and Lymond's flinching.
The writing's so good throughout I wouldn't dare pick favourite lines, but this one made me laugh in the sly nod it gives to the unlikeliness of this whole scenario, and in its shrewd assessment of the usual relationship between them:
It was the sudden utter stillness of the body in his arms that made him draw back. He had expected resistance. If he was totally honest, he had expected to be thrown the length of the hallway then beaten to a pulp
But if that gives the impression that I found this piece humorous, that's wrong. It actually left me with a knot of anguish in my stomach, sorry that such a potentially tender moment between them had been ruined.
I didn't mean to write an essay, but I'm so thirsty for Lymondverse fic at the moment I fear it makes me talk too much. I hope you're still reading comments two years after writing this story, because I really want you to know how fabulous I think it is.
And I should add - the lovely