[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 thinks again of the list, where both their names were circled. As a private notation, it might’ve marked them as centers of the web … but as provocation, it would make those names stand out, make someone more likely to stoop over and look closer, as they recognized the name of a friend.

There’s still too many ifs. Claudius corrals his speculation, and says, “During our tête-à-tête, she came up with quite a cunning plan to theoretically oust the mansion spirits by exploiting their attachment to us. It’s not beyond her. But if that’s the case, the poison is also the antidote, in its way. Our loved ones are our weakness, but the more care and attention we pay each other, the more likely we are to notice when something’s awry. Even an ordinarily private pain, like a nightmare.”

[timebethine]

"Pay heed to me," says Laertes quietly. "I may lack the perspective to see my pains as they are."

[wickedwit]

“I promise thee I will.” He curls his fingers against Laertes’s cheek. “How dost thou fare? How is thy head, and how is thy heart?”

[timebethine]

"My head is well, though my heart is ill at ease," he answers, and turns to kiss Claudius's knuckles. "And thine?"

[wickedwit]

"Miserable," Claudius admits, even as he smiles through it. "But even so thou art like a shelter to me. I want to stay in thy arms until the storm passes."

[timebethine]

"Here, then." And he draws Claudius's head down against his chest, gathering him in as though he's no more than a shivering kitten.

[wickedwit]

He curls there like a cat would, stealing heat and holding it in, drawing comfort from the solid body under him. It's too many thoughts, as always, and a bright streak of self-awareness that's too blinding in the dark to chart a clear path by. To thine own self be true is the maxim, but Claudius never found it useful. He doesn't know what the truth of himself is, whether he's come closer to it or farther away. But he closes his eyes, and comes to a conclusion. "Whenever thou dost need to speak on something," he says, "know that thou canst speak to me. I will try always to understand thee, even when thou know'st not thyself what thou art feeling. And thou canst chide me for condescension, as thou need'st."

[timebethine]

"I will," says Laertes. "Thou knowest as well as I that I was not raised to confide my hurts in others--they were matters to be locked within the safe sphere of the family, and managed by that family's head. It was worse for thee; even the sphere of the family was not a safe place for thy hurts, so they had no compass but within thine unquiet breast. But perhaps we can learn another way together."

[wickedwit]

"I often wonder what a family is for," he says, making a soft confidence. "It's so essential to understanding people. Not only the way it's used in Elsinore, where knowing someone's family lets you know their status and connections ... it's the way people think about their families, about the roles family members play. By the time I was born into the royal family, everyone's role as a mother or father or son had become so eclipsed by roles that were impersonal and political. When I heard other mothers speak of the way a mother cares for her children, or other older brothers speak of a protective instinct, I perceived the differences. But at times I look to Lan Wangji, and imagine he could easily be such a brother to me. I also look to him as a confidante."

[timebethine]

"Couldst make a family here," says Laertes. "A brother, a husband--it's a start."

[wickedwit]

"Ay, well, Tress is my niece." He says it lightly, with the light flicker of a smile, hidden against Laertes's chest. "Magnus and I are bamboo shoots growing from the same rhizome. And thou? Canst thou be family to me?"

[timebethine]

"What wouldst thou have me be?"

[wickedwit]

"Of all the things to ask," Claudius laughs, though it's the most natural question in the world. It's only Claudius's first thought that's unnatural -- he's beginning to understand why it felt like a fantasy he had to shield from judgement. It was on the verge of admitting something painful and personal. "All my family's roles were eclipsed by political ones, but it's not as though we fulfilled those roles any better. A king is more a symbol than a man, but symbols can be inspirations or corruptions. Sometimes, in my private moments, I imagine thou wouldst be a king to inspire. In truth, it's not because thou art the ideal leader, but because thou art the ideal citizen of some society where people inspire and aid another freely without being organized by status. Unusual, I know. But thou dost it every day thou suppliest a dinner, or works't to make something someone else might use or like ... or even when thou hast planned through many conversations to address a threat uncertain to us. Thou dost it in working with others. In imagination, I can keep dreaming of my just and handsome king, but in reality thou art still my compatriot. Perhaps thou art a better version of home to me."

[timebethine]

"It's a kind of game," Laertes ventures. "Just a thou wouldst not have Lan Wangji as thy brother in blood--thou wouldst not have him the son of the same mother, the brother of thy brother. Neither wouldst thou have me pass laws, or sit in judgement over petitioners, or make treaties and wars with foreign lands. But thou wouldst imagine me as king, because thou wouldst imagine a king who has not hurt thee, as thou wouldst imagine a brother who has not hurt thee. That thou mayest permit thyself to believe in kings, and brothers."

[wickedwit]

“As thou say’st. E’en now, thou didst speak of the charge to make a cruel world kind. Sometimes the refuge from a cruel world is fantasy. Sometimes fantasies shelter tender truths, like the unborn chick beneath the shelter of an egg. The game lets me escape to a kinder world, for a time, and envision what kindness is possible.” Wryly, he says, “But do not mistake me. It is also for my own gratification. Dost thou have thine own fantasies that gratify thee?”

[timebethine]

"Ay, but never to be king," Laertes laughs. "To be master of one unruly dog is nearly too much for me. I ..." He reaches up to touch Claudius's hair, to find all those soft silver roots that he loves so well. "I dream of knowing what's expected, as clearly as though it were written in black ink, and then being able to do it. No conditions or exceptions; just a task and its completion. And perhaps praise, if I do well."

It is not hard to hear how, just as Claudius has never known good kings or good brothers, Laertes has never known what it was to have expectations made plain.

[wickedwit]

And it's as easy to trace back to a household that blurred the personal and political. There was little separation, Claudius knew, before Polonius the father and Polonius the spymaster, for whom clarity was a liability, and whose methods of control were indirect. His tests were unexpected, his evaluations mixed. It's too much for a child who only wants to hear he's good.

"That's a fantasy I'm too happy to fulfill for thee," Claudius says fondly. "I love to tell thee exactly what to do."

[timebethine]

"And it would do me no harm, to have thee sit at my feet while I negotiate a treaty with the Prince of Hungary," says Laertes, just as fondly. "I would not be a king in truth, but neither would I be the strict master that Sagramore craves--I spoil my daughter too much."

[wickedwit]

Claudius shudders at the thought, something Laertes can feel wherever they touch. "Wouldst thou keep me at thy feet as an ornament to thee? Or wouldst thou have me serve thee, and please thee with my mouth?"

[timebethine]

"We would not want distraction from important matters of state," muses Laertes, a little teasing now. His fingers tighten in Claudius's hair. "And yet the display of thy service might itself prove fine distraction for lascivious Hungary."

[wickedwit]

"How gracious thou art to give entertainment to thy guests." And it's a pleasant thought, being the entertainment offered.

[timebethine]

"Not only entertainment--thou art our most cunning advisor, our best judge of men. And none will ever suspect thee of scheming, while thou art groaning and writhing upon the organ of state."

[wickedwit]

Our strikes something in him, like flint striking up fire, and he bites back a groan in the moment. "Thy hidden advantage," he says, the rasp coloring his voice. "I would be that for thee."

[timebethine]

"Presumptuous, to speak so to thy king," says Laertes, and he is fully teasing now.

[wickedwit]

"For you," Claudius corrects, shifting a little and smiling. "Yours. Is that what your majesty would have of me?"