Somebody Else
By Kat Kire
Disclaimer
I do not own PotO.
Claimer
I do own the plot and prose to this fic.
Summary
Erik asks why Nadir hasn't married again, Nadir says he's in love with someone disallowed. Erik says the same. Subtle slash.
Author's Note
E/N! E/N! It's my vendetta, don'tcha know. I love this one. It's very funny to my strange mind.
†
Nadir was smiling. It wasn't the easy grin he had stashed away somewhere in his broad repartee of expressions, but a vague smile just behind the mouth, hidden there. His eyes were not smiling, and they held only deep grief and exhaustion.
All of this unsettled Erik highly. The skeleton man, unmasked in the palace according to the khanum's orders, was half lying on a divan in an extremely rare moment of leisure, his eyes veiled more than usual in a dull ironical state. He gazed steadily at the daroga, who was paying less attention to Erik than he usually did to a beetle. Nadir was off in his own world, leaning comfortably on the wall. Every so often he would turn his head as if to clear it, and laugh a tiny, irrepresible laugh, and those amazing jade eyes would shine like a child's eyes.
Erik rolled over lazily, eyes hooded over, to look pointedly at Darius, who was arranging flowers on a small table nearby. Darius looked furtively at him through the blue orchids, and Erik mouthed silently, what's wrong with him?
Woman, Darius mouthed back, with a sigh, unflinching at the monster face. If you could be used to that face, which even Erik might not have been, Nadir and Darius were used to it.
Erik glared impatiently at him. Darius made a sign universally recognized to mean, "I think I'll find something to do elsewhere, sir," and did so.
Darius having left, Erik glared resolutely at the wall. He glanced disconsolately at Nadir, who still did not acknowledge him, and flipped over on his back to turn his look of death at the ceiling.
Nadir gave such an annoyingly smitten sigh that Erik lost his patience, sat up rigidly and said sharply, "Just who, daroga, is the woman you are currently blessing with your sighs and enamored stares into nothing at all?"
The congenial ordinary grin Erik knew obstinately refused to cross the daroga's face. He merely closed his eyes contentedly for a moment, then laughed aloud and said softly, "Rookheeya."
An enormous effort was made not to sneer. Erik lowered himself onto the back of the divan and yawned deeply. His robe fell and wrinkled on his far too thin body, and one pale hand flickered over it like a spider.
"I don't see why you don't marry again," he said, being brilliantly blunt.
Determined to stay passive, Nadir matched Erik for casualness. He slumped down a chair across the room and yawned as well, perhaps even deeper.
"Because I'm already in love with someone the khanum won't let me marry."
No one could have seen the way the skeleton face tightened for a moment there, before Erik said mockingly, "Don't be idealistic. Three wives, remember? It's not as if you're celibate, my friend," he added bitterly, making friend almost sound insulting, as he sat up halfway and hung there comfortably.
"It's not as if you're celibate," Nadir parried easily, scratching himself behind one ear. "You could always take the khanum up on her…numerous offers."
"If you were anyone else," Erik muttered languidly, "you'd die for that." They were both wonderfully aware that it was a wholly empty threat. A strange feeling descended over the conversation, as if they were merely dancing predetermined steps, as if they were only the actors playing Erik and Nadir. Nothing seemed real.
"Consider, perhaps I'm in love as well."
The daroga watched the sun float down, lazy tonight, like everything seemed to be. He reached for a lamp, and lit it, allowing a little oil to spill down into its bowl. As he poured, a bit of hot oil splashed infuriatingly onto his thumb. He cursed most impolitely.
"Oh, damn -"
"What?" asked a silky voice with a slight French accent in his right ear. Nadir felt someone grab his thumb in practiced doctor's hands, and observed, almost amused, as the tall man unbent his long reed of a body, and, looking and feeling secretly sheepish for his immediate reaction to Nadir's cry of pain - Nadir could tell he was distressed, Erik's Farsi was only ever accented when he was distressed - jeered and was about to walk away.
Only he didn't. The living skull stayed in disconcertingly close proximity to Nadir's weathered face. And those wolf, cat, snake eyes had lost their dull cast. On the contrary, they were brighter and sharper than Nadir had ever seen them.
Beautiful eyes he's got, thought one of them, or maybe both of them.
"So who's this forbidden…one…of yours?" Nadir raised one inky brow.
"No one of your concern," Erik snapped shortly.
"My goodness, so very terse about it all," remarked the Persian airily, though he was privately thinking, Never mind if I were anyone else, what if looks could kill? "At least tell me what she looks like." Bang, went off the gun of glares. Dead, the Persian, felled to the figurative earth.
"Black hair. Dark skin."
There was a short and somewhat infuriating silence. "Erik…"
"Hmm?"
"We're in Persia. All the women look like that. All the men look like that. Everyone looks like that, except the shah's French doctor, and I didn't think you were in love with him, somehow."
Erik batted Nadir lightly with his fountain pen, but he was smiling. "She has blue green sort of eyes."
"That's rather out of the ordinary for a Persian girl," Nadir granted to the mystery girl, blinking.
"What of yours?" Erik demanded hastily. "I'm not doing all the talking, or rather, gushing."
"So defensive. Oh well. She's tall and thin, very thin. And her face is…pretty unforgettable." Nadir gave a crooked sort of rendition of his usual grin.
"My friend, if you were being any dryer, you'd be a white wine."
"I shall henceforth be known as Dom Perignon."
"God help us."
They walked quietly out onto the balcony, where the sun was setting in a blaze of flame. Below, Erik's maze of mirrors shimmered in the bloody light. But they did not look below. The two men were concerned only with the sky and the sun, and stealing glances at the ones they loved.