Masquerade
by Shadowy Star
June 2006
Disclaimer: I don't own the Coldfire trilogy. It belongs to C.S. Friedman. I do own this story. Do not archive, translate or otherwise use it without permission.
Summary: 'Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.' James Arthur Baldwin.
A/N: I love first times. Here's another one. Posted as my Xmas fic for this year. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone!
Damien stared at the box.
To: Damien Kilcannon Vryce, Ferry Street 45, Jaggonath.
This was clearly his address if he didn't manage to somehow move house without knowing. The sender was a very 'in' –and thus very expensive– shop at the city center of Jaggonath.
He'd learned to love the loud, always crowded, always busy city. At some point, he had considered crossing the Dividers again but somehow it hadn't felt right back then. It still didn't. He had nothing left there, after all. With his faith shattered, rejoining the Church didn't feel right either. Besides, he highly doubted the Church would have taken him back.
It was better that way.
He was now free. It had taken some lonely months for him to understand that he was really, unquestionably free. To go where he wanted, to do what he wanted. To mourn and to remember, to laugh and to live. The bottomless despair at his loss had gradually dulled to a muted pain until one sunny morning he awoke and realized it was gone from his conscious mind. It still popped up from time to time –sharp and black and piercing–, especially when he saw some black-haired young man across the street but the fact that Gerald was somewhere out there had brought some kind of peace to Damien's soul.
The thing he regretted most was not having told Gerald what he'd really felt for the other man. Then again, he didn't think it could have changed the turn of events. And now, now he was here and Gerald was somewhere else and he'd come to terms with it, to a degree. On the whole, he managed. On the whole, he was alright. Just peachy, thank you very much. And if there were times when the pain was nearly impossible to bear, what of it? They'd lessened in frequency and Damien had tentatively allowed himself to hope someday they'd be gone entirely. A regular job with a regular income and a place to live and call his own were certainly contributing to it. He'd even gone as far as making acquaintances if not yet friends.
His gaze fell again on the box before him and he frowned in confusion. He didn't remember to have visited that shop much less having bought something. Not that it was likely. If he wasn't suffering of amnesia, that is.
Curious, he removed the brown postal wrapping and carefully opened the box.
Different shades of blackness filled it. Brocade, lace, velvet and what seemed to be feathers shaped to the form of a mask. Or rather, a half-mask. He brushed his fingers against the black, feathery luxury. Why would someone send him something like this? Who the vulk would send him something like this? The only one he could think of surely didn't care enough.
He remembered having read in the newspapers birds to be the theme of the Yuletide Carnival this year. Well, that would explain the feathers. He shook out a black cloak. There, too, were feathers all over it. He laid it aside and looked into the box again. A shirt of fine black silk, intricately embroidered in a deeper shade of black, with equally black lace lining cuffs and collar, pants of glove-soft, equally black leather –thankfully without feathers!– and an again black-in-black embroidered velvet and brocade vest as well as butter soft leather gloves completed the exquisite and very obviously custom-made costume. He ran his fingers over the night-black expanse of fabric, so soft beneath his callused fingertips. A black bird, sharp-beaked and dangerous if the mask was anything to go by... From somewhere, came a memory of a bird from the old Earth. A raven. How fitting, he thought. A bird of death. Death was all he managed to bring above those he loved.
Night black silk crumbled in his hands.
He stood in the crowd, holding a champagne flute and feeling slightly silly. He'd crossed the hall from one end to the other already, politely declining invitations for drinks, dance and other activities in the process. What the Hell was he doing here? he mused. You've been curious. Admit it.
The hall was brightly lit and decorated with flowers and greenery and even the obligatory nu-mistletoe. Many had come here today to enjoy the festivities and many more were yet to arrive as he'd been told by the man at the entrance.
A woman with a mask of shiny white feathers and an even more white gown –a swan– hurried by, accompanied by a man masked as a peacock. He spotted pigeons and crows and parrots of various colors as well as hawks and eagles and other birds of prey. A young woman, clad in white and silvery gray, with the beaked mask of a snow owl, was dancing with another young woman, dressed in light brown and beige of a hawk.
"May I have this dance?" a smooth voice asked. That voice…
Damien whirled around.
A pair of eyes, black as True Night, looked up at him from behind a luxurious half-mask of golden, orange and scarlet feathers. He didn't recognize the bird but somehow it reminded him of flames. Flames... God, he thought. It's enough. Stop, Damien, he told himself. Just stop. With effort, he shoved memories of fire and death aside, focusing on the figure before him instead.
The night-black eyes belonged to a young man. Slender frame, shorter than his own. The mask revealed olive skin, the line of a smooth jaw and a perfect mouth.
Damien swallowed, hard, and his fingertips tingled with desire to take that mask away and see…
Of course, he did nothing of the sort. Instead, exercising all his self-control, he placed his still full glass onto the nearby table and offered a black-gloved hand to the young man, quite pleased it wasn't shaking. "Yes," he said with a short nod, thankful for the mask covering his face. A small part of his brain demanded to know if he knew what he was doing. He firmly told it to shut up.
"A raven and a phoenix," the young man said as they walked to the already crowded dance floor. "A bird of death and a bird of rebirth. The perfect opposites, don't you think?"
Damien said nothing. After all, what could he say without opening a very big can of worms?
The music caught them then. He did excel at dancing, he just usually didn't enjoy it enough to care. This time was different. Half he'd expected to be led –which would have been only appropriate since he was the one asked– but then it seemed he was given to do as he wished. He remembered all the steps easily though he hadn't danced for – how long now? Nor did he ever think of dancing like this, with this man.
He lost himself in the music, in its gentle flow, in the steps and twists and turns the melody dictated, in the burning heat of an arm around his neck. He'd danced –and done other, no less delightful things– with men before but nothing could ever compare to this body in his arms, to the perfect harmony of them moving together, to the sheer rightness of. The rhythm changed, music slowing, requiring a change and Damien gasped, surprised, as now two arms were around his neck and the other man was close, so close… He tried to back off a little, to bring a much needed distance between them but the other resisted, trying to draw Damien closer instead. The press of the man's slender body against his larger one again seemed so right it left him breathless. Damien gave in and let himself being pulled closer, putting his hands hesitantly on the other man's hips. The other gave a pleased 'mmmh' and pressed them together and suddenly Damien's pants felt too tight. Silently cursing his misbehaving body, he moved sidewards only to encounter an answering hardness.
Somehow, that gave him the strength he needed to step back. He wasn't sure what he wanted –or maybe he was–, but he was sure this wasn't it, this blind, burning lust. Thanks to his looks, lust he could have anywhere, anytime – from this young-old man he wanted something else entirely.
Sensing something wrong, the other man also stopped dancing.
Deciding he didn't want to have this particular conversation right there in the thick of the crowd, Damien caught the other man's hand, more sensing than hearing the tiny gasp his touch caused. He towed them into a corner partially shielded by a large indoor fern that would hopefully provide some privacy.
For a moment, they stood in silence – a silence that grew and demanded and pushed and pulled.
"What are you doing here?" he asked then because he needed to know, to break the anonymity, to try and reconnect if reconnection was possible.
"How about 'enjoying the moment'?" a prompt reply came, followed by a playful smile.
"Well then, may I suggest you go 'enjoy the moment' with someone else?" he retorted bitterly. Not what he'd wanted at all...
The man who was not Gerald Tarrant, smiled brilliantly.
"But then it would no longer be a moment to enjoy," he said, the lightest smirk to those full lips.
Damien's breath caught in his throat.
"What?" he made.
Black eyes met his hazel brown ones for an infinitesimally short second.
"I wasn't sure you would answer my invitation," the other man said evasively.
Damien smiled a tiny smile that gave nothing away.
"And why would you invite a virtual stranger to tonight's festivities?" he asked lightly. Two could play at that game.
The other man looked at him with an expression in his eyes far too old for his youthful shape. "Why would you think yourself a stranger?" he asked then, something Damien couldn't read burning in those black depths.
"But I am," he replied, softly. "And so are you."
"Can't we try to get to know each other?"
And just like that, it was all that it took. And all of it was back – the hurt, the anger, the guilt and the bitterness. So Gerald thought he could waltz back into Damien's life like the past six months never happened? So he thought a few clever exercises in semantics would bridge an abyss of pain between them? Well then, Gerald Tarrant thought wrong.
"'We wear the mask that grins and lies'," Damien quoted softly. "Tell me if you can – how to do that? How can we know each other if all we see are pretty masks?"
Shock and hurt in the bottomless black depths and Damien deciphered both easily. Then, determination he knew so well entered those eyes.
And then a slender hand rose and swiftly, steadily, and firmly discarded the fire-colored mask from the familiar/unfamiliar face.
It looked the same it had back then on the Black Ridge Pass, except for the hair that was now cut shorter, to the shoulders, the ridiculous braid gone – and Damien distantly wondered if he'd ever be able to look at this face and not see the other one. Pale hair, pale eyes... One God, did the pain never stop? His eyes burned.
The black eyes widened.
"May I?" Gerald asked, voice strained and tight with intense emotion.
Damien nodded mutely, not trusting his own voice.
The other man reached out very slowly as if giving Damien every chance to stop him if he wanted, black meeting hazel brown, and again that slender hand rose, ungloved and trembling now, and carefully took his feathery shield away.
A gasp escaped those full lips at the sight of Damien's tears and the mask slipped from the slender fingers, forgotten, joining its counterpart on the gray and white nu-marble.
"I'm sorry, Damien." Warm fingers gently brushed his tears away. "I'm so sorry," the other continued. "If I could rip this face away along with my mask, believe me, I would. But they also say that eyes are windows to one's soul, don't they?"
For the briefest of moments there was fear in the other's eyes. Wait, fear? The Gerald Tarrant he knew had only been afraid of one thing and one thing only. Yet, there was fear in those beautiful black depths, quickly hidden again behind impermeable layers he recognized so well. True, Damien could kill him with one single two-syllable word, still... The youth looked at him steadily yet there was a tension in the slender body as if he'd braced himself for rejection. Rejection? Could that be what the other was so afraid of?
"Look into my eyes, Damien. See," the young man said. "See me."
And Damien looked. And he saw.
Hope blossomed somewhere deep in his heart.
He saw the familiar personality and the familiar soul behind those unfamiliar eyes, only that the soul wasn't dark anymore – incomplete in some vital way, yes, but no, not dark... He saw Gerald's own pain and guilt and shame and a longing so deep, a longing for the other half of his heart, soul, of his very being...
And those slender fingers trembled slightly as they traced Damien's jaw, the gesture full of tenderness, of yearning that so matched his own. The fingers swept up to his brow, touched his lashes gently, moved down the bridge of his nose. Such thin, fragile fingers – as fragile as the hope in his other's eyes. A wave of intense tenderness swept over him and he raised his hand to Gerald's face, following the line of a fine cheekbone, gently stroking the incredibly soft olive skin beneath his hands. The younger man turned his head into his touch, and something inside Damien gave in and all the pain and anger melted away like snow under the first rays of warm spring sun.
Damien smiled, and together they made that tiny step that still separated them. Thin arms wrapped themselves around Damien's neck with tangible, desperate ferocity. His own hands found their way around the other man's waist, bringing them as close as possible.
"You should smile more often," Gerald said, the echo of an unvoiced promise in his words. "You are so very beautiful when you smile."
Damien shook his head slightly. He knew he was good-looking and had no qualms to use said looks when needed but had never thought himself beautiful.
"You are," Gerald insisted as if reading Damien's disbelief. "All of you is: your body, your heart, your soul." So unlike Gerald to make compliments but those now almost familiar eyes held no lie.
They simply stood there for a moment, holding each other.
He felt the tension leave Gerald's body and exhaled a relieved breath of his own. Holding Gerald was so familiar – like they were supposed to be this way, here, anywhere, always. Like they were complete only together. And he understood then that he, too, hadn't been whole all his life, right until now.
And Damien leaned in and placed a gentle kiss onto those full, pink lips. Gerald melted into him with the softest of sighs that he couldn't help but return. Hot breath caressed his face when Gerald retraced all the ways his fingers had taken with his soft, warm lips.
Damien kissed those lips, the tip of Gerald's nose, then his lips again. He ran his hands up and down the slender back, exploring gently. Warm human flesh beneath his palms, separated by only a layer of scarlet, gold-embroidered silk, a heart beating fast, rapidly increasing arousal against his thigh... He longed to explore further and tugged at the other's belt, freeing the flame-colored tunic, slipping his hands underneath. His other moaned as Damien ran his fingertips up all the way to a flat chest, and moaned again as he circled a nipple.
"Oh," Gerald breathed, and then slender yet strong hands were tugging at Damien's own shirt and something within him shattered as those hands left trails of liquid fire on his overheated skin. We need to stop, Damien thought. We need to stop or... Rather a stupid idea to contemplate the 'or' because he so much wanted to do the 'or' despite all the dancing and music and people around. Gerald seemed to have sensed that and removed his hands in a series of tender caresses as if to reassure him. Damien leaned down to press a feathery kiss to the full lips to show that he understood. With a last whisper of skin on skin he withdrew, running a hand down the length of his other's arm and intertwining their fingers. Gerald looked at him and then at their joined hands. And then, a smile that rivaled the sun and the Core combined lit up his features, right along with Damien's slowly healing heart.
Gerald raised their joined hands to his lips and kissed Damien's knuckles, then rubbed his face against the back of Damien's hand, much like a uncat would. Damien tightened his grip on the other man's fingers in a gentle warning. Were Gerald to continue, they'd be back to all those tempting 'ors' very, very quickly.
"You have me at a slight disadvantage," Damien said, trying to disperse the almost unbearable tension, willing his body into obedience but unable and unwilling to control his ragged voice. "I still don't know your name."
A gasp of –wonder?–escaped those full lips and the black depths stared back at him in surprise.
"I apologize for that. My name is Gerald da Silva." Gerald's voice was back to its usual controlled state – that beautiful voice, no longer a light, cultivated tenor but deeper, halfway to baritone – unfamiliar yet unmistakably the same.
And oh, it felt so good to hear that name, to know he still could call the other Gerald, to have that small part of the past, that part of them. Damien smiled again, in profound relief and did nothing to hide it. Let him see, he thought. Let him understand.
And Gerald did. Damien saw realization creep into those night black jewels, and a decision made, and warmth and something more than that.
"I loved a man once ago –how long exactly doesn't matter–," the black-haired man started solemnly, black eyes sincere, full of trust and brutal honesty. "In my defense, let it be said that I didn't realize my feelings first – and once I did, I was too afraid to admit them even to myself. So I ran away, hurting him badly. And now, I'm trying to find out if there's a chance to start again. Because I love him still."
Damien stood still. "Perhaps that man didn't know about your feelings. Perhaps he would understand if he knew."
"Would he forgive?"
"I think so," he answered, relief and pleasure and love filling his heart until he felt it would surely burst.
Somewhere, a clock struck midnight.
They parted hesitantly but with tender smiles as if to reassure the other it would be only for a short time. Damien picked up their masks and secured Gerald's first, trailing his hand up the curve of his other's neck. A throaty chuckle was his answer. When his own mask was back in place, he put on his gloves and extended his hand to Gerald, intertwining their fingers once more. Then, they stepped out of their shielded corner.
"It's midnight," a woman standing to their right said. "You have to remove your masks."
"We did," Damien said, smiling. "We did."
Later on, Damien wouldn't be able to tell how they finally got to Gerald's hotel room since it was much closer to the city hall than his own place.
For a little eternity all Damien could do was stare at the other, doubting the reality of him here.
"Damien," Gerald said softly, taking his hands and placing them on his own chest. "I'm here. I'm real. I'm me."
"God, you're so beautiful," he sighed.
Clothes were swiftly taken off, night and sun bleeding into each other on the thick, colorful carpet and a few moments after that they were on the giant bed, Damien's strength gaining him upper hand.
Damien took the mask off the other's face, desperate to touch those youthful features again. Dark lashes brushed feather-like against his fingertips, hiding burning desire in those black eyes as they fell shut. Damien wound his hand into Gerald's fine black hair, drawing him closer, and crushed their lips together. This kiss was nothing like their first – it was desperate and burning, that thing full of teeth and hunger and desire. He ran his hands down the willowy body, each caress a memory, each kiss a truth, each bite an connection. Gerald arched up into his hands, nipples hard and erect and Damien couldn't resist – he bit down on one sensitive nub and a low, keening moan escaped the pink lips. He swirled his tongue around it, soothing, licking. Then he drew back just a little and blew against it, his breath cold against the warm wetness left by his tongue. Gerald gave again that mindless moan that went straight into his blood, setting him aflame. For revenge, he reached out with his less occupied hand and tweaked the neglected nipple into hardness.
"Oh God, Damien..." came a breathless whisper and hot hands flew across his skin, caressing desperately, gently tracing his scars. "You're beautiful, perfect..."
He kissed it right off those tempting lips and Gerald arched completely off the bed and into him and hunger overtook them. Slender arms around his chest, hands caressing his back... Nails biting into skin, drawing lines of fire... His own hands, touching, alternating between firm grip and feathery caress... Velvet and steel under his palm, flushed with desire... Those long fingers guiding him to his destination and then there was tight heat around him and they were moving together, closer, higher...
Afterwards, when the burning white pleasure waned, leaving them sticky and close, Damien finally asked.
"What happens now?"
"Now," Gerald said with a wicked smile, "we will watch each other dress and trade items of clothing for kisses, and then we'll have dinner, and then I very much hope for a repeat of this, of course."
Damien felt something cold and heavy settle in his stomach. "That's not what I mean and you know it." He averted his eyes, hiding his fear and insecurity. What if it had been only lust for Gerald and he'd let himself to be manipulated by the other's words for the umpteenth time? And even his confession of love had been hypothetical, easily applying to any unknown man out there. How was he so stupid to have believed it in the first place?
Gerald reached out and turned his face back to him. Then, shock crested in those black eyes.
"Oh Damien," Gerald said and leaned in, slender arms settling around his waist. "I love you, don't you know?"
Damien shook his head slightly, yet feeling the coldness start do disappear.
"I love you," Gerald repeated, black depths open and expressive, sincerity and conviction glowing within. "And I'm going to tell you until you believe me and beyond, until you're sick of hearing it and then some. Damien Kilcannon Vryce, I love you and would be endlessly honored if you'd agree to stay with me in sickness and in health till death do us part?"
And Damien grinned then, recognizing the vows of old Earth, vows created long before first starships were build, before humanity knew the blackness and chill of space, and the light of new suns and unfamiliar horizons.
"Yes," he said.
Time for masks was past.
FIN
Extra Notes:
1) Damien quotes Paul Laurence Dunbar. First, I intended to use the larger part of the first stanza but thought it a bit too much in the end, no matter how fitting those beautiful lines seem. 'We wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes; this debt we pay to human guile – with torn and bleeding hearts we smile'. And yes, I realize the poem's context (historical and otherwise) is quite different.