Small scene, set between chapters 3 and 4, book 1. Angsty.

1.

Given the steam that rose up through the cloying bath house air, the water was not quite as hot as it looked. It was still hot though, almost too hot to bear. That was good. Laurent slipped in slowly, forcing himself not to feel the heat. It would not touch him, melt him, even hurt him. It was not even there. Not feeling it was an effort of will; He was good at efforts of will, would even have enjoyed it if he was not otherwise so discomposed.

He was not sure quite what it was that was making him feel so strange. It was not even that he had been left standing naked and covered in soap, alone in the bath house with the slaves' uninvited touch still burning at his wrist. Something to do with that, maybe, but not only. He watched the way the water moved against his skin dispassionately, not for the first time seeing himself as though he was far away, flying over his own body looking down on it in curiosity. He had somehow perfected the art of detachment from himself long ago, but it never hurt to practice further. Somehow. He knew damn well when he had started to perfect it.

He felt like a stranger to himself and for once it seemed to matter; a jarring feeling like walking into a room and not remembering what you had come in for in the first place. Just so it was strange to see his own skin through the water and imagine it was really his.

He was brokenly aware that he was beautiful; beautiful to a horrible degree he thought, not caring, never caring. He was so pale, so perfect, so breakable – his hands clenched; no, not that. Clothing felt more of a recognisable skin than skin did. And then it did not. Then it was armour and that was better yet. He rested his head on the tile and took a deep breath out, unclenched, just to feel the water do some good. Just a little. Not enough to relax, that would never do; enough to rub pleasantly at the muscles though, yes, that. He lazily looked down the length of his arm, permitting the water to soften the limb, following a path down his skin with his eyes that he barely really knew. He watched his hand push at the water, swim beneath it like a fish, fingers slaying, curling. It made him squirm and he stopped doing it, stared at his wrist again. His skin was almost translucent ; he watched the vein beneath as though it were a river surging, a dangerous thing that might break at any moment. The skin was red and would probably bruise from the slave's foul, stupid touch.

He closed his eyes and was surprised to feel a damp that was not water or steam, sticky on his face and traced the tracks with his fingers all the way to his eyes. It was only when he reached the source that he realised he had been crying. He was as indifferent to the knowledge as anything else; a little irritated perhaps. Vaguely, absently disgusted.

Laurent took a deep breath and slipped under the water, the better to wash away what was not there anyway, make it all go away. He stayed under until long after he ran out of breath. He wondered if he could have stayed longer but no – he came up taking a gasping swallow of air. It was good, he could do this. He could do anything, deal with anything. His hands half consciously balled back into fists – he always had done, after all.

It would do. He was not prepared to stay in the water long enough to thaw out any of the ice at his core. Yes, he knew the things everyone said about him and was not entirely sure he did not like it. He stood up, water cascading from his hair, dripping from his fingers with a sensuality that would not work on him.

The imbecile had left his clothes on the not quite dry tile beside the pool. The sense of irritation this brought was almost pleasing. He dressed himself in that feeling as well as his slightly damp attire, taking near pleasure in getting more and more righteously annoyed by the minute.

He found himself smiling quietly at the thought of the punishment he was about to mete out. Nobody touched him without permission, nobody. Nobody confused him like this or dared to make him feel. His lip curled and he almost hissed into the steam, slender fingers working deftly at the laces.

Because he had felt something. Just for a minute there when their eyes had clashed so long and so hard. Something that made his chest tight and his heart sharp. The stupid, disgusting slave had made him feel something – and he was doing to thrash him to within an inch of his life for it.

_x_

Ugh, please be kind, this is my first toe in the water in this fandom! Also I haven't finished book 2 yet so apologies if I've made any assumptions that are inaccurate or terrible! Idek if this is in character or not so yeah, please be kind. Also I didn't mean to go quite so angsty, the initial idea in my head was kinda crack like a "Laurent is a secret Targaryen" thing – but in the end the only aspect of that that stayed was the really hot water. Probably a good thing. *Hides and takes shelter* :-)

If this isn't awful I will definitely make this into a whole collection of snippets. :-)