[Closed Post: Baklava]

[timebethine]

Laertes delights in the many spices of the Mansion's kitchens--he lost several hours one evening just opening every bottle and smelling it, acquainting himself with the differences between cardamom and allspice, sage and bay. Today, he is intent upon celebrating those spices with a baklava recipe he's found, and so he's roped Sagramore into serving as his sous-chef. While Laertes prepares the dough to laminate, he sets Sagramore to chopping nuts up finely. "This recipe saith walnuts," he says, "but another hath pistachios, and a third one walnuts and almonds mixed."

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[sagramore]

He should let Laertes know he doesn't care about reading in theory and he isn't offended by hearing him say it-- but Laertes is already gone, so he just finds something to lounge against and wait.

[timebethine]

When Laertes returns, his hands are folded around a strip of leather. When he reaches Sagramore, he unfurls it into a collar--soft brown leather with a dull brass buckle, neat and unobtrusive, the kind that a man might wear as easily as a dog. "Thou needst not keep it, an thou dost not want it," he says, low. "I only thought it might please thee to wear it, when thou art my dog."

[sagramore]

Sagramore flushes, his unstudied ease evaporating, and takes it. "Didst thou make this thyself?" softly.

[timebethine]

"No," Laertes admits. "Thou knowest how the kitchens at times anticipate our needs--so, though never before has anyone here eaten a pistachio, though my recipe asked for walnuts, still we had pistachios enough for baklava, because we wished it. So it was, the morning after our game, when I opened my closet and found this waiting for me. As though this place knew that I would want it."

[sagramore]

"I see." His mouth is very dry, and what he suddenly most would like is a drink, but of course there's none to hand. "You know, I-- I once asked Mordred to be my master, and he-- looked at me as though I'd asked him to run me through instead." A slight smile. "He told me I was perverse."

[timebethine]

Laertes's face falls. He reaches for Sagramore's hands (and the leather strap is caught between them on one side, but let that pass, let that pass) and pulls him close. "My heart," he says, "how is this any more perverse than sodomy? And that, already more sacrament than sin to me."

[sagramore]

"He was afraid, I think I know that now -- he was afraid to let me be beneath him, but I took it to heart. I only say it because I hadn't thought, you understand, to ask anyone ever again, and then thou-- thou hast taken me as I am a thousand times."

[timebethine]

"I love thee as thou art," says Laertes. He leans up to press his cheek to Sagramore's, to keep him closer than kissing can bring them. "If he could not, then he deserved thee not."

[sagramore]

He lifts his hand to stroke Laertes' hair. "I know I haven't been as forthcoming as thou deservest. I will try harder."

[timebethine]

"I'll try to be more careful." Laertes lets the collar fall and wraps his arms around Sagramore, enjoying the warmth of him and the gentleness of his hand in Laertes's hair.

[sagramore]

"Thou'rt careful enough. It's not on thee that I have old hurts," as he settles his free arm around Laertes' waist.

[timebethine]

"Wouldst have me set that game aside?" says Laertes. "I'd not hurt thee again."

[sagramore]

"No, I'd rather rest at thy feet for three quarters of an hour and listen to poetry."

[timebethine]

"My sweet man, thou wilt soon repent thy wish," Laertes says, grinning. "My poetry's worse than doggerel verse. Let me find someone else's." He lets go and begins to go through the books he's spirited away from the library.

[sagramore]

Sagramore, meanwhile, rescues the leather collar from the floor and after a moment of turning it over in his hands buckles it around his neck. The leather is soft and pliant, and it fits well, neither too loose nor too tight, a present pressure. It feels good, and better to be reminded that he's Laertes'. He'd expected some immediate quickening of desire, and there's a little, a thrill of heat in his belly, but mostly he feels content. It's like the token he had wished for before. It's a physical proof of what they are to one another.

"Thou wilt have all the library in thy rooms within a fortnight," he says.

[timebethine]

"I put them back!" Laertes protests, still perusing the shelf. "These two have only been here some two nights or more." He conveniently elides the other twenty or so books that have definitely been here much longer.

He plucks out a bound volume of World's Best-Loved Love Poems and thumbs through to a bookmark. "Sit," he says--then he glances up, and sees the collar at Sagramore's throat, and his grip slackens on the book. He feels breathless and dizzy, speared through with a bolt of love and gratitude so keen that the pain of it approaches the physical.

He recovers himself. Sagramore didn't want to make a fuss of this, and neither will he. He only settles himself in the armchair in the corner of room, and waits.

[sagramore]

He crosses the room, all ease, and drops lightly to the floor at Laertes' feet, settling with his back against the chair, so that if Laertes wants to touch his head or his shoulder it's an easy reach.

[timebethine]

He does, immediately, burying his hand in Sagramore's hair and combing it back and forth. "'Let me not to the marriage of true minds / admit impediments,'" Laertes begins, letting the warmth of his joy bleed through in his voice.

[sagramore]

To be honest, he drifts a little. It's easy to listen to the cadence of Laertes' voice and let the actual content fade. He feels settled, anchored, as if the hand in his hair is as inexorable as gravity, and he has no need to move or think or do anything but listen and wait to be bidden.

[timebethine]

Laertes drifts, too, working his way slowly through the book as he smooths down Sagramore's hair. He reads him You are the beautiful half / Of a golden hurt; he reads him I am yours as the summer air at evening is / Possessed by the scent of linden blossoms.

It is a long time before he startles as though waking from a doze. "Christ, the baklava!"

[sagramore]

Sagramore starts in turn, and then begins to laugh. "Ah, Christ-- come on, let's see if it can be saved."

[timebethine]

Laughing, as well, Laertes dashes back down to the kitchen with every expectation that Sagramore will follow.

The kitchen doesn't smell of smoke, for a mercy, although the scent of caramelized dough is sharper than Laertes would like. He sweeps the oven open, revealing the only slightly scorched surface of the baklava. "The syrup might still save it," he says hopefully.

[sagramore]

Which he does. He doesn't think to undo the collar; it feels as comfortable as his own clothes, and anyway he doubts they'll run into anyone in a place this big inhabited by so few people, and anyway he doesn't entirely care at the moment.

"The syrup will save it," confidently, leaning over to look. "It's worse for it to be too soft."

[timebethine]

Grinning, "Ah, thou wouldst know." Laertes picks off the only large, obviously burnt bit, then cuts through the (satisfyingly flaky) dough and pours the rest of the syrup over the pan. "Thou canst have the first taste. Spare me not--if it's a burnt say it to me plain."

[sagramore]

"If it's burnt I'll ruin thy spirits," he agrees cheerfully. "Just absolutely crush thee." He snags a piece and takes a bite, which causes the pastry to crunch and get little bits everywhere, including in his beard.