[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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[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?"

[timebethine]

And at that, Laertes has to laugh and haul Claudius up to kiss. "One day," he says. "Only let me know when thou art in a mood to play that game."

[wickedwit]

Claudius smiles even wider at that, a smile contented but not completely sated. "Wouldst thou play a little now?" he asks, asking familiarly first. "Play with practicing thy sovereignty over me?"

[timebethine]

Laertes hesitates. A part of him--the part that longs to please, to impress, to be accounted worthy of love--wants to say yes. But he's just been speaking with Claudius about the importance of setting boundaries, and he's more than usually aware of his own discomfort. "Not today," he says at last. "Once this business is over, I will. I swear it."

[wickedwit]

"Thou need'st not swear," Claudius says with a laugh. "It's only play. Swear, and thou wilt make it sound like some solemn duty thou must pay or else prove thyself forsworn. Thou dost not owe me anything we do in bed -- thou knowest that?"

[timebethine]

"I do. But I know that I forget more often than I should, and I would not have thee believe that my forgetting is a refusal. It's only that, when I remember after midnight how I'd longed to fence for thee, it seems churlish of me to drag thee out of Galahad's bed."

[wickedwit]

“Oh, I’ve given up any hope of that.” He sighs and shakes his head. “If there were anyone else who watched thee fence, I might feel some chagrin, and wonder how thou couldst remember them and not me. Otherwise I assume whenever thee and Sagramore decide to fence, thou art thinking only of each other, which is romantic. It’s a private exercise for the two of you. If it’s been so for these many months, it’s not likely to change. Thou needst not force thyself.”

[timebethine]

Quietly, "I wish thou wouldst not think of it thus. I want it. Forgetting doesn't mean I want it less--it doesn't mean I want thee less. Every time I remember too late, shame goes through me like a blade, and I recriminate myself for forgetting. I want to remember. If I could, would I not spare myself the pain of that shame?"

[wickedwit]

“I did not mean that.” He lets his head rest on Laertes’s chest. “I am sorry I made it sound so. But if thou canst not remember, and can only feel shame for it, then I would rather I accept it and thou feel’st no shame at all. What else is there for me to do?”

[timebethine]

"Because what thou wantest is not the fencing, but to be thought of," says Laertes. "And I can't prove to thee how often I think on thee. I can't show thee how often I'll be in the bath, or making a sauce for supper, or beginning to fall asleep, and my heart will burn with the thought of thee."

[wickedwit]

“Thou canst. Thou art, by telling me. Thy words are enough to content me. Dost thou think I need more?”

[timebethine]

Laertes closes his eyes. "I would I were better for thee."