[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]

Sagramore considers. He's so used to keeping the joys of his lovers to himself, but he's trusted Laertes with a thousand other things already and Laertes has never done anything that might damage that trust in any particular. As well he thinks Laertes is observant enough to have worked out the truth it already.

So he says, "Aye. Nearly as long as thee, though I knew him longer."

[timebethine]

"Hast thou others here?" Himself, Claudius, and Jasin makes three; when he'd arrived here, that would have seemed like a prodigious number of lovers.

[sagramore]

"Thou wilt tell no one, and none of them," he says, although he already knows what Laertes is going to say; it still bears saying.

[timebethine]

"My lips are sealed; thou hast the key of them."

[sagramore]

That promise made, a grin overtakes him, boyish in its delight. "Queen Janet."

[timebethine]

"Queen Janet!" he says, a whispered shout; his eyes are bright with glee. "Thou art a braver man than I."

[sagramore]

"She's incomparable." He sighs, a fond sigh. "I like frightening terrible women. I adore her."

[timebethine]

"She is incomparable," Laertes agrees. "She could end us with a flick of her smallest finger, and I almost want her to."

[sagramore]

"Thou understandst precisely! If I were to watch thee at thy sport I'd come undone entirely."

[timebethine]

"Thy taste is in all things excellent," Laertes laughs. "Are there others?"

[sagramore]

"Luo Binghe. Not regularly, he's in love with someone else but it's slow going."

[timebethine]

"I think I caught the other side of that," says Laertes. "When I reflect on all the evils men do one another in the name of preventing a love such as ours, I'm doubly grateful thou hast cured me of those notions."

[sagramore]

He lets out a breath. "Aye, I'm on the other side of it as well, and aye-- I worry for him. He's a good friend and I'd have him happy."

[timebethine]

"It's strange, how swiftly we forge deep bonds here," Laertes says. "Perhaps it's only that, like ships on a cloudy night, we look to each other's lights where we see no guiding stars."

[sagramore]

"Hast thou any others?"

[timebethine]

"Only Claudius, but him thou know'st," Laertes answers. "There are some I admire, but I dare not try it."

[sagramore]

"No? Thou shouldst dare much, thou'rt good for it. Who, an thou wouldst say?"

[timebethine]

Laertes looks away. The back of his neck heats. "Queen Janet," he admits, "and also a young man named Enjolras."

[sagramore]

"Enjolras is very handsome." He bumps his shoulder against Laertes' lightly, commiseration. "I only spoke with him once, and on his first day here -- I shouldn't wonder thou hadst better conversation of him later."

[timebethine]

"He hath a light in him--a shining beacon of purpose that makes me want to be more than what I am," says Laertes softly. "I know not whether I see in him a man that I could love, or only the path toward a man I could love to be."

[sagramore]

"Thou shouldst spend time with him, then."

[timebethine]

"Mm," says Laertes. He finishes his piece of baklava, then goes to wash his hands again. "Are any of thine--dost thou love them?"

[sagramore]

He laughs ruefully. "Ah, Christ-- Jasin, I think, or very near to it, but-- I do, generally. I fall in love too much."

[timebethine]

"I'm glad of it," says Laertes simply. "I love thy generous heart."

[sagramore]

"Tch," but there's no force behind it. "He's taken care of me, and been open with me-- the day I came here he played for me and watched over me while I was sleeping, and he remembered some song I had half-mentioned and found it in the library and learned it for me."