[Semi-Closed Post: Aornis Is a Real Headache]

[timebethine]

Somewhere around midnight, a migraine descended on Laertes like a thunderhead, and he still hasn't come out from beneath its anvil. He's spent most of the day hiding in bed with the curtains drawn, feeling as though he's about to be sick--and that feeling's only grown worse as the sun has drifted sluggishly to a low apex in the sky.

It isn't until mid-afternoon that he feels well enough to make progress on all his plans. He needs to speak to SecUnit about its drones, to Dionysus about whether Avernus (that is her name, isn't it?) is a goddess, and to Nightingale about whether he can offer magical support in case their confrontation goes sour. He needs to talk with Claudius about what to say when he does speak to her.

So it is that he starts making his rounds through the mansion and its grounds, seeking out friends old and new, clinging grimly to the thermos of coffee that smells sickeningly strong but also helps drive back the pain. His face is wan, his eyes shadowed. He would rather be doing anything but this.

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[wickedwit]

Claudius cannot promise it will never happen. He could, could say it soothingly, with honey-sweet words to hide bitter medicine. There are times when one must tell a kind lie to deliver a truth. No perfect advice will protect him, so better to say trust to thy love than thou canst do naught but trust, and trust is no guarantee. Love is no guarantee. Love and self-hatred are unhappy bedfellows — Claudius believed himself poison to all that he loved, believed he could no longer keep serving his dear ones poison. Perhaps this bout of self-harm, the one that left Sagramore seizing in the sheets when he had too much to drink, will wake something, the way Claudius woke from the exquisite self-sabotage of loosening his tongue with laudanum. Or perhaps they’re both too set in their ways — perhaps even Claudius’s reprieve won’t last, and when it comes to the point he won’t go through with the folly of binding Galahad to him with dicer’s oaths.

“He may,” he says instead. He folds his hand over Laertes’s heart. “An he does, come to me. Do not bear it by thyself, or destroy thyself in turn. I will help thee decide thy next course.”

[timebethine]

"Is there aught else I should do?" Laertes asks. "Aught else I should say, when I speak to him?"

[wickedwit]

"What else hast thou feared? Has he heard thy fears from thee?"

[timebethine]

Laertes shakes his head. "He already fears that I'll be disappointed at every turn--how much greater would be his fear, if I gave this dread voice? When I know in my heart that he would always choose me?"

[wickedwit]

"Thou art a saint, if thou canst have perfect faith without evidence or reassurance, and he is not thy husband, but thy idol." He sighs, steadying himself by the rise and fall of Laertes's chest. "Forgive me my grim oracle, but this is what I foresee. He will fear so much to disappoint thee, he will look for any sign of wavering in thee, whether thou voicest it or nay. Thou wilt cloak thy doubts to spare him agony, and he will take thy silence to mean my husband will not tell me when I have offended him most. He will invent offenses on his own, and they will take the shape of his self-hatred, what he already knows and regrets in himself. What he cannot change, he will hide from thee. The more he hides, the more thou wilt see him pull from thee, the greater thy doubts will grow. If I am wrong, then tell me. Perhaps thou art that very saint, to bear all his doubts while resisting thine own, and like Job thou wilt be rewarded sevenfold. But even Job had questions."

[timebethine]

"--no," Laertes admits. "Thou art right. With anyone else, I would advise them to speak plainly, for just the same reasons thou hast laid out so clearly. And he has asked me to set boundaries for him, and punish him when he fails--he's asked for discipline. To have it proven that if he does me disservice, I will not permit it."

[wickedwit]

For a slow moment, Claudius circles his thumb on Laertes's chest, soothing himself by the repetition, the bunching-and-unbunching of shirt fabric. "Think on what would be a disservice to thee. Decide what boundary thou wouldst not have crossed. Is it clear to thee? Dost thou know thine own desert?"

[timebethine]

"No," Laertes answers. The great tide of his pain is rolling back over the shores of his head again; bile rises in his throat. He closes his eyes and tucks his head a little further between Claudius and the pillow. "I know that I would not have him hurt himself. But it seems a cruel thing, to punish him for his pain."

[wickedwit]

“Speak to him on that,” Claudius murmurs, and kisses his temple. "Say what thou wouldst have. Ask what he believes thou deservest of him, and what he deserves of thee. And then decide together. None else can.”

[timebethine]

"My wise man," says Laertes. "May I stay a little while, and rest my head?"

[wickedwit]

"I would've insisted, if thou hadst not asked."

[timebethine]

"There's more I would speak on--but I cannot put three words together without feeling iron clashing in my brain."

[wickedwit]

“Then put them down. They will wait for thee, and I will wait to listen.”

[timebethine]

At that, Laertes subsides. The pain shifts and moves, ebbs and swells, but does not go; it is a squall grinding a rocky shore, and he can do nothing but shelter in the lee of Claudius until it has blown itself out.

[wickedwit]

Claudius guards Laertes while he sleeps, guards his peace if not his life, breathing slowly in Laertes’s arms. It lets Claudius rest, too, losing some of the brisk tension he first approached Laertes with. He just focuses on their breath.

[timebethine]

When at last Laertes stirs again, the storm has broken. He nestles a little closer--not for comfort, but out of gratitude and affection; his lips find Claudius's temple, his cheek, his lips.

[wickedwit]

Claudius hums a little against Laertes’s lips, returning a lazy, contented kiss.

[timebethine]

"My thanks," says Laertes, low, still half-drowsing. "I fear I spoke some dire nonsense to thee earlier."

[wickedwit]

“And I made some dreadful prognostications to thee as well,” Claudius says, but he smiles as he says it. “Wilt thou forgive me?”

[timebethine]

"I will. And I will speak to Sagramore."

[wickedwit]

"Good. I've befriended too many divorced women to watch you two become strangers to each other. Thou hast married thy first love, for which I admire thee, but there will be new trials and changes for every year thou art together." Reluctantly, Claudius rolls off of Laertes, looking up at the ceiling. "It's why I believe Sagramore is at times short-sighted. Thou livest and lovest for the moment, I know, and think not on a future so distant as to be untouchable. But when thou dost wed someone, thou wed'st thy futures and thy fortunes. Were he in perfect health, it would still decline as he grew older ... as will thine, in ways the young never anticipate. By learning to bear your ills together now, thou wilt be better prepared for what's to come."

[timebethine]

Laertes is quiet for a moment. He knows that Claudius means well--that he feels his own years, and that he seeks to grant Laertes the wisdom that he's earned by them and spare Laertes the suffering of earning it himself. But there is a trace of unintended condescension in his words, and it rankles. "Thinkest thou that I never think on that future?" he asks. "Thinkest thou I have not already carried my husband when he's drunken, cleaned him when he's been sick, tended him when he's been melancholy? I have had a hundred chances to consider whether I can bear this for the rest of my life--and I choose it, Claudius. His ailments are not new to me. I knew them when I wed him, and I chose him. I have chosen to bear them."

[wickedwit]

"I know that. Does he?"

[timebethine]

"I think he wishes it were otherwise. He knows I've chosen him, and wishes I had not, for he hates the burden it places on me." He rolls his eyes. "He does not see how he eases mine own melancholy, and tends mine own aches, and charms me every day with some new scheme for my delight. It's a partnership--an equal partnership. But he sees only my charity toward some poor, undeserving wight."

[wickedwit]

"Then perhaps 'short-sighted' isn't the word for it. He sees the future well enough, but not the ways mutual care will be a balm to you both in old age. He thinks it will forever be one-sided, which only seems short-sighted to me because I see how many ways that could change. But even now, it isn't one-sided, and something else prevents him from seeing it."