Wine at Dinner
In the face of my absolutely OVERWHELMING (2 reviews when I expected none – thanks guys!) support, I defy the laws of logic that basically intelligent lifeforms are supposed to have to write this.
It's now during EM, and I'm debunking the myth that the relationship ended the moment Numair left Carthak because as long as there is bitchslapping, there can be angsty crazy boy-love. (I'm going to get killed for this, one of these days…)
Sarra21 (That's what your name was, right? I'm really really sorry if I got it wrong, I'm not at my reviews page now. ): Numair isn't gay. He sleeps with god-knows-how-many women. And he loves Daine. He couldn't be gay (for all the he seems so meterosexual?) but I do believe he might be bi, or he could have experimented when he was in the university. And I don't think changing the names would work… I seriously couldn't see Daine doing any of the things that were done in the fic. She's not that kind of person – Daine is morally upright, for starters.
Isabel Dickstin: Um, I got your email, but unfortunately I only got the first five words. Is there more? I'd love to hear it. Or maybe you realised you were writing about the wrong fic and needed to backtrack? XDDD
Aw, dang, it's not waffy, and my writing DEPROVED like mad for this fic. But it's very there-but-not-there, and Daine appears more. I hope that evens things out.
It's difficult, Numair thinks, to try and say something embarrassing during a party, especially when your student is glaring daggers at you while the rest of the people at attendance seem to suddenly be so much closer, their eyes so much more sharp. He wishes that it's just the wine talking, but even sober he can swear that some of the delegates are leaning forward, their bodies just teetering on the edges of their glided chairs, craning to hear what new scandal he will spit. The lady in question is right next to him, after all, her hand on his arm and her eyes all question, and he just can't find the words.
He rifles, briefly, though suitable responses, though what he is going to say will be as rote and textbook as any phrase in his long lovemaking career – he owes her that much, at least. But these days he feels a bit put out with the ages-worn game, like a little boy whose toys have lost their shine, and so the library that he searches through is more a device to buy time against his distaste than a clichéd motion of care. Her eyes are beautiful, but it is her body that leads the interrogation with its subtle movements and veiled-silk sleeves, and his time is up.
"Oh yes," he laughs vapidly. "A man would not need wine to be drunk with a beauty like you at his side."
Everyone expresses approval, the lords settle back in their seats, and the more outspoken Carthaki ladies even go so far as to sigh. Varice places her hand on his knee, and her body radiates eager happiness, thrusting itself at him almost brutally as the swells and dips of it push and undulate against her garments.
She is all light and floaty, and the only thing about her that he can be sure of is that she is too insubstantial to care – about this, them, either of them both. Looking at her – frivolity personified – he suddenly feels like a man drugged, as though he walks through mist and shadows, and she, too, is fading. The whole party is an excess of falsehood, and when he blinks the councillors all seem have the heads of birds of prey.
He stifles a gasp as it hits him, and with the sharp air shakes the moment of truth from his head. Just drink, he recites a proverb from his university days. Even if the party is full of asses, the wine's still good.
He's partway through the litany and to the glass when another hand reaches out and takes it, long, assured fingers twining around the stem. The grip is strangely delicate, the thumb and index just barely touching the glass, leaving the other limbs to coil in a sort of languid carelessness. The goblet is half-filled with wine, and the dark red looks exotic against bony flesh as the emperor lifts it to his lips.
"Wait, hey, that's – "
He reaches out. And he doesn't think and can't curse when his hand closes, gently but completely, over the other's, committing a breach of a hundred personal rules and throwing public decency to the four winds. Even he can tell the grip – soft and caressing, fingernails biting in a sort of twisted arousal into the soft flesh – is nowhere near platonic. It lasts a second, and then amber eyes meet his, and he bites his lip when he sees the droplets of wine already staining Ozorne's mouth.
The eyes shrink to half their size in anger, but what catches and holds him is the colour of wine spread against those high cheekbones, and the way his fingers seem to instinctively tangle in long, auburn hair. They both look – seem – different for a moment, because they're remembering, but it only lasts for as long as it takes a bird to fly. Ozorne wants to glare, but he can't find words that would go with the expression and still be suitable for a public dinner – there's a proverb that fits the situation, and Numair's face expresses it rather well.
Oh yeah, drinking from the same glass…
The wine spills on the ground when the goblet shatters, and slaves run in to clean up the mess.
It's considered an indirect kiss.
There is wine on his hand and dripping onto his sleeve, but Varice is immediately there with a handkerchief and more instructions to the servants. She presses the cloth into his hand, at the same time forcing him backwards and preventing him from trying to help, then gathers her skirts and pushes her chair back to rise from her seat. Around the table, people have started to get up, but can't move – there are napkins to fold and creases to smooth – so they just stare where they are, watching the slaves clean.
Surprisingly, the red-brown head also dips down, and silk-soft hands manage to gather a glass shard or two before the lady intrudes, politely asking the emperor to leave it to the slaves. Ozorne nods and moves back, pressing a hand newly-cut to his mouth reflexively.
His lip presses against the edge as though he is drinking something, closing over the blood seeping from the cut. It is on the inner side of the index finger, and parallels between blood and wine are most apt as red liquid slides from between his lips despite the gentle sucking. It puckers the flesh oh-so-slightly, then draws it out again, and the thinness of his limbs makes the veins stand out and the blood throbs under the skin in faded blue lines.
Black eyes grow even darker, now, and the closed look on Numair's face is not all anger, as it registers that Ozorne is licking the wound to clean it.
"Nobility? If this unworthy one could get you a new glass?"
His tongue can barely be seen, but Numair can nearly feel it rasp across taut flesh, the way it tortured his so long before.
"No, that was the emperor's glass. Could you pour him a new one?"
The slave is horrified, and scuttles to His Imperial Majesty's side, apologies spilling from her lips. She places a new goblet on the table, and quickly fills it. In shame, her face hides itself, until she is nearly doubled up forwards, looking truly pitiful. Across the table, Daine glares at him – she has seen the whole exchange, and he made the slave suffer. And she can't understand, and will never understand, what difference two identical glasses of wine could make. He wants to smile at her and love her, but now is not the time.
Numair is looking at the girl again, and Ozorne wants to do something – commend him, shout at him, kill him. He wants to reach out and rip the blood from him with his own teeth, feel it splatter against the ice of his heart. But the glass of wine sits next to him. It is exactly the same glass, with the same wine, and has not been touched.
He takes a sip, and is gratified and pleasured to see Numair blush.
A man would not need wine to be drunk with a beauty like you at his side.
Yahoo! Another fic down! Lemme get up my courage (or something else) and write a NumairDaine fic so I can get more reviews and not feel grandly stupid. XD Plotbunnies, come to mama… no, I don't need any more slashy ones, really…
Hope you enjoyed it, anyway!