[Closed Post: A Shared Meal]

[timebethine]

Laertes has spent all day bent over a cookbook, preparing a meal that he hopes a prince will have no cause to criticize. He's made flaky little apple and brie pastries with their crusts twisted in whorls, roast carrots swimming in honey sauce and garnished with walnuts; for the main course, he's been stewing a pot roast for hours. The entire kitchen smells of beef and and onions, celery and parsley and rosemary.

Now, as he arranges his bounty on the table in his rooms, there is just enough space for anxiety to score a touch. He knows full well that, if this night goes as he expects, he'll be taking Claudius to bed--and that will be a choice that he can never take back, if this long dream ends and he finds himself in Elsinore again. He knows that if there is a way that Claudius can use this tryst to his advantage, he will, even here in what might as well be Arcadia.

He shakes his head as he works free the cork of a wine bottle--sweet and red, of no vintage he can recognize. What will come, will come. He has no reputation here to protect, and that's perhaps the most freeing thought he can imagine.

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[timebethine]

"An archer will soon undo a fencer, be he ever so light on his feet," says Laertes over another sip of wine. "Wouldst thou undo me, sir?"

[wickedwit]

That casual sir shivers through him, more than he thought it could. The plainest of titles, one that could be spoken from one fellow-student to another -- only given because Laertes chooses to give it to him, not because of an accident of birth. (It's better than my lord right now. My lord would make him think of Galahad pale and naked, flinching away without even the blankets to cover him, and the uncrossable distance between them -- Claudius isn't thinking about that.)

He stands, slowly, carefully -- it wouldn't do to let Laertes imagine he's standing to escape -- and leans across the table to touch Laertes, not his smile yet, but his cheek. "Wouldst thou be undone by me?"

[timebethine]

And Laertes turns his head to graze his lips over Claudius's palm, tracing kisses down the deep groove of his lifeline--and yet his eyes never leave Claudius's. "I would."

[wickedwit]

Claudius claims a kiss, then -- it's slow, careful. If Laertes preferred to pull away, to reject this last impropriety, he could. But Claudius imagines he won't, so the kiss still has that surging hope in it, that expectation this won't last so he should take whatever he can from it.

[timebethine]

Laertes, though, does not permit the kiss to be slow or careful. He catches Claudius's face in both hands and surges up against him, licking into his mouth, testing how he likes it when Laertes rolls Claudius's lip between his teeth.

[wickedwit]

The suddenness draws a sigh from him, lost between their lips -- half surrender, half acceptance (and another, inexplicable half, a wild, unreasoning hunger that won't fit into categories, that will only surge and seize and want). His mouths opens for Laertes, and it's a foregone conclusion, all defenses dropped.

[timebethine]

"Hast sated thy hunger?" Laertes asks. He shifts his chair back and urges Claudius into his lap, the better to stroke his ribs and back.

[wickedwit]

"Far from it." Claudius flows into Laertes's lap like mercury, sharp intelligence in his eyes -- but it's intelligence waiting to be whetted, not turned towards any purpose. "I'm still ravenous for thee."

[timebethine]

"Come to bed," says Laertes, even as he sways up to nip and kiss beneath Claudius's jaw. "Let me taste thee."

[wickedwit]

Claudius laughs, low, and it's an agony to pull away when he could stay here and grind against Laertes's lap, arching his neck for more of Laertes's kisses. "Then lead me, sir," he says, breath short.

[timebethine]

Then Laertes rises, gathering Claudius up like a bride to carry him into the inner chamber. His bedroom is narrow--the two rooms he occupies are together no larger than most of the bedrooms in the Mansion--but almost all of it is taken up with a large, comfortable bed. He gently sets Claudius down on the edge of it, then swarms over him to cover his throat with kisses.

[wickedwit]

It's a gentleness Claudius doesn't deserve, he thinks, but dearly needed when he feels this fragile in himself. Later, he might like Laertes to be rougher with him, to throw him back against the bed and bite at him until he bleeds, or to be such a brat Claudius will have to push him back and hold him in place, or tie him to the bedframe. Right now, he leans back and lets Laertes kiss him like a cherished thing, hands already undoing his own tie and collar, baring more of himself to kiss.