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Cain Hargreaves, Earl of Cornwall, was by all accounts intelligent, suave, attractive, experienced, and possessed a confidence bordering on arrogance. However, he was also a teenager, and therefore prone to poor exercise of the independence a title and fortune gave him.
And so one Saturday morning Cain woke to this last point being pounded into his head with what felt like a sledge hammer, or perhaps a pick axe. Cain groaned, flopped unceremoniously onto his back, and deeply regretted his choices of the night before. Hopefully (and Cain groaned again at the thought) hopefully Riff wouldn't be too smug about the whole affair. The man was invariably right about sensible things like umbrellas and hydration and shoe laces and self restraint, and whenever Cain decided to be contrary and not allow Riff to attend him when he went out to a society party, it was Cain who suffered.
Life really wasn't fair, Cain decided, unwittingly echoing teenagers through decades past and future. Perhaps someone ought to fix that.
A knock on his door introduced the ice pick driving its way through his parietal lobe to a new rhythm. If he had not been so preoccupied with not vomiting, Cain would have managed a far more effective glare. As it was, Riff was entirely unfazed as he entered, set a breakfast tray on the side table, and (God bless) did not open the curtains first. Instead, he only cast a single raised eyebrow in Cain's direction. This was regally ignored in favor of not moving.
Riff retreated to the bathroom, and began to run a bath. Cain took the opportunity to struggle upright without continuing to endure Riff's silent "I told you so" look. He succeeded with only a mild increase in his nausea, but a drastic increase in the headache, so that it wasn't so much an "upright" position as a "yes, I put my head between my knees all the time, this is how I sit naturally" position.
It took a moment for him to realize a hand had settled at the nape of his neck, rubbing lightly at the tension there. "I've a glass of water and a remedy," Riff said softly. "Do you think you can drink them?"
"Yes," Cain rasped insistently. God above, anything to help, though he wished blearily that Riff didn't have to stop touching him.
"All right." A moment later, a cold glass of water was pressed into one hand. Riff had to steady him before he could drink it, but Cain managed mostly on his own. "You're going to eat something, too," Riff warned him. "I mean it, milord. You know the chemical effects of alcohol as well as I do; you need protein in your system after a night like that."
"You're unbearable, Riff," Cain groaned. "I'm not hungry." He wasn't entirely certain he could keep anything down.
"No, milord, you just don't want to eat," Riff corrected him, pressing a smaller glass into his hand. "Drink that—all of that," he added, and stood. "It'll help."
Cain eyed it unenthusiastically. "What's in it?"
"I am under a solemn vow of secrecy, milord, and thus cannot say," Riff informed him with a straight face. Cain scowled. "It's a friend's family recipe, and silence as to its ingredients was the condition for access." He nodded at the remedy again. "I have been reliably informed of its effectiveness. Drink."
This explained exactly nothing, but Cain sighed and drained the glass, trying not to taste it. Riff raised both eyebrows as he finished. "I should say it didn't help at all, just to spite you," Cain informed him, but straightened fully. "But it did. You'll have to thank your friend for me." The subtle demand for more information was ignored.
"Then I shall. Would you like to bathe, now?" Riff lay a pressed suit upon the bed. "Or will you have breakfast, first?"
Cain kicked the blankets off and stood, then swayed unsteadily. Instantly, Riff was at his back to steady him. "Come on, sir. I'll carry you if I must, but you tend to put up a fuss."
"You're insufferable when you're smug," Cain grumbled, but took a moment to relax against him. "I'll take a bath, though I may need your assistance…" He tilted his head back to smile at his valet, but the affection vanished the next instant.
There was a livid bruise just visible under the line of Riff's collar. If he hadn't been standing in this exact position, at this exact angle, Cain would never have seen it. His first wild thought was that he hoped someone had tried to strangle Riff, because the fact that his servant had a love bite decorating his throat would make less sense. But no, Cain had given (and occasionally received) enough bites and bruises to recognize a love bite when he saw one, so his second thought was disbelief that Riff (solid, steady, polite, proper) had had any sort of sexual encounter. It just seemed something far too messy for Riff. Too undignified.
The third thought was an angry, blind sort of jealousy, and it was this that Cain acted upon. "Who gave you that?!" he demanded. The words alone weren't nearly enough, and so Cain yanked away and ignored the continued pounding in his head. Anger was a surprisingly effective placebo.
Riff blinked. "Milord?"
"Don't 'milord' me, Riff. Unbutton your collar. Now!" If it wasn't entirely beneath his dignity, he may have stamped his foot. As it was, the young aristocrat settled for propping his hands on his hips and wishing he didn't sleep in the nude. Righteous anger, he noted for future reference, was not so effective when delivered without clothes.
"Milord," Riff repeated, in the reasonable sort of tone reserved for after he'd fully understood Cain's plan yet before he would consent to participate in it. Cain did not let him get any farther because his objections were usually moral and therefore of little interest.
"Collar!" Cain demanded again. "Or I shall do it myself!"
Finally, Riff relented, loosening his tie no more than necessary and unbuttoning only the top button of his collar. "Milord, before you say anything, you should be aware—" he started, and was ignored. Cain grabbed his tie so that Riff was forced to bend down to his level or stumble (or both, as the case may be) and inspected the offending bruise.
"I thought so! That's deliberate, Riff. Not just a love bite, but a mark," he accused, scowling into his valet's face from mere inches away. "Someone marked you, claimed you, that's deliberate! I won't stand for it, Riff, you're mine. No one else's, mine!" He went to pull on the tie again, but this time Riff fought back. It took less than five seconds for him to win and pin Cain's arms to his sides.
"May I finish a sentence, sir?" he asked. Cain almost felt ashamed of himself (almost, he was still angry-not jealous, angry), and chose to sulk rather than answer. "Thank you. First of all, sir, you should know I have no romantic attachment and have not since I came to this household. Second, your reaction is completely misplaced and out of line, especially—" he continued quickly, speaking over Cain as he began to protest, "—especially as you 'marked' me, as you call it, while I was carrying you to bed after you returned near three in the morning, completely unable to stand without assistance."
Cain shut his mouth with an audible click of his teeth. After a few seconds of silence, Riff released him, standing and rearranging his own collar and tie. "Now that you are appeased, milord," he said, expression still dry and (very, very faintly) amused, "Perhaps you might bathe?" Cain nodded, effectively chastised.
This morning Riff attended him silently, which, while not entirely unusual, meant Cain did not have even mundane administrative matters to distract himself from what he had apparently done the night before. Riff was telling the truth, of course. That wasn't even in question.
But Cain didn't remember it. Or he did, but only vaguely, in unsettlingly blurred snatches of moments. Stumbling as he came through the front door. Being supported against a strong chest, smelling soap, or talcum powder. Feeling rather smug as he finally went to sleep. Riff had was carried him up the stairs, he could just vaguely remember being cradled in his arms, like a child, or like a bride over a threshold, asa particularly imaginative and vocal part of his mind commented. Cain flushed and sunk deeper into the bath water and blamed the scalding heat for his red cheeks.
Cain was almost dressed when he asked abruptly, "Do I do that often?"
Riff glanced up to meet his eyes briefly, before returning his attention to Cain's tie and finishing the neat Windsor knot. "Do what often, sir?"
He had to explain? Cain fidgeted with one of his shirt buttons until Riff gently pushed his hand away. "Ah, bite you…"
"I recall you drawing blood upon one occasion, milord," Riff observed, as he fetched to the hitherto ignored breakfast tray. "When your uncle had come to visit and you had decided to hide in the greenhouse. However, if you're referring to the sort of biting done last night, no, sir. This was something of a first."
"Oh," Cain decided, not sure if he was relieved or displeased. "I see." He sat down to his breakfast (tea, toast, butter, jam, and a few slices of bacon Cain had no intention of eating), and stared into his tea, wishing he could read an answer somewhere in its depths. What a mess.
"Milord?" Riff asked. "Are you all right?"
"Of course I am," he protested immediately, without looking up. "I'm hungover and trying to think, that's all." He paused for several awkward seconds, took a cautious sip of tea, and continued. "I mean, if I've bitten—that's not exactly proper behavior, and I can't imagine why you're so calm, or why you'd clearly decided not to tell me. Unless I'd done something similar, except obviously I haven't or you'd have said something, surely."
"You have attempted to kiss me, before," Riff said.
Cain dropped his tea.
And then, as this resulted in a lapful of scalding water, shot to his feet swearing. Riff grabbed the napkin and set about cleaning him up, untucking his shit and pressing a cool hand to pink skin. "Are you all right?!"
Of course, this was the last thing Cain was thinking about. "Kissed?!" he squeaked. And then, more indignantly, "Attempted?!" As in, hadn't succeeded?!
"Only when you were drunk, sir," Riff told him, in a tone that was clearly meant to be taken as reassuring. "I say attempted because I would not kiss you back." He was still going about cleaning up. Riff paused, and frowned slightly at him. "I'd hope you wouldn't think I would take advantage of you. It's not as if you knew what you were doing."
Cain stared. Of course Riff wouldn't take advantage of him, because the man would never hurt him, but that was most definitely not the difficulty here. The difficulty was that Riff had decided any attempt to kiss him was an act of poor judgment rather than an act of desire. Any other time, Cain might have stood back, thought about this, possibly actually said something to the effect of Don't be ridiculous, of course I trust you and love you and want you except, of course, far more eloquently, or maybe something like You're a fool, I always know what I'm doing even though that definitely wasn't the case, or if he was feeling particularly daring and scandalous, But what if I want you to take advantage of me?
Right now, though, Riff was unknotting Cain's tie so he might swap the stained shirt with another, and it struck Cain as singularly, monstrously unfair that he could undress him and talk about kissing at the same time without being remotely flustered. In fact, this whole morning was unfair. He'd woken up with the worst hangover he could remember, had been blindingly jealous, had learned he was jealous of himself in a twisted, backwards sort of way, had felt humiliated and awkward for far too long, and now learned that he had apparently only attempted to kiss Riff before.
Riff, in contrast, had been nothing but calm and collected all morning.
Well, it was his turn to be unsettled. Without little further thought and less warning, Cain grabbed Riff's collar and pulled him down into a messy, angry kiss.
It was still unfair, as Riff recovered far more quickly, and was far less flustered than Cain would have expected, but by the time this occurred to him, he was hardly in a position to complain about it any longer.
A/N: Hello, have a one shot as I hurtle towards graduation far more quickly than is comfortable.
Let me tell you this, Riff was waaaay more problematic in this than he EVER is for me. Usually it's Cain who's the diva and won't shut up and keeps causing trouble, but apparently Riff has those moments too and he insisted upon being difficult. Particularly the last, oh, quarter of this feels weird and somewhat out of character, though I think I've since fixed it. (Honestly, I've been sitting on this for two months because I couldn't get it to feel right).
I hope you liked it! (And if you agree/disagree about Riff being a bit out of character in this, please tell me how/why/how to fix it because I am honestly and genuinely not sure.)