04: Lover's Meeting

I need to have my chains removed and hide here
While the spotlight's seeking me
Forget the world for now, my Love
And live these days with me
As if the world wasn't ending

-Sonata Arctica-

*The third night of the masque proceeded like the two nights past, the initiates got injected with the attomons and as the minuscule nanos were assimilated into their systems, they would surrender to the euphoria that was brought on.

But not everybody was swept away by the mindless ecstasy. Clad in blue, like the Chamber and its initiates, Steffan Kabala stood glancing about wondering how he belonged there, while knowing how he wanted to belong. In a corner of his heart he wanted to belong by his lover's side.

Oh, Anton, he thought as his eyes caught the familiar frame of the man he'd been so madly in love with for as long as he could remember. We could have been so happy, but it just wasn't ever enough for you, was it?

"Steffan, darling," a female voice on his left called for his attention. He did not turn around nor did he turn his head, he merely shifted his gaze to look at her from the corner of his eye. "Please, be patient. Anton may not show it, but he's hurt. He needs time, that's all."

Steffan turned to stare at the blue-skinned woman, saying nothing but his lips stretching out to a thin dry smile.

He needs time, huh? Steffan was in love with Anton, but that love had been tainted with bitterness – a bitterness born out of jealousy. Why, that makes up for everything he's put me through, the way he makes me feel.

Tell me this, oh please tell me, why you when he hurt me brush it aside simply stating that he does what he does and that's the way it is, not aware or not caring about how stupid the words sound. But as soon as Anton may, as you said he doesn't show, be hurt you immediately come to defend him.

He frowned as the meaning of it got just all too clear. It meant that no matter who got hurt, Bunchh would always side with her precious 'Prince'.

Furious, but not wanting to risk a outburst – like the one down on the beach – that sure would strip him of the little dignity of his that still remained, he turned away from her.

He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply to calm himself, and when he opened them again he was startled to see someone standing in front of him. The person, a young male about a head shorted than Steffan, was playfully fondling one of the feathers that were part of Steffan's costume. At the unexpected sight Steffan had taken a step back, and the feather had come loose from the rest of the costume to remain in the other's hand. The stranger looked between the feather and Steffan before he silently offered it back to him.

"You may keep it," Steffan said hiding his confusion while regaining his composure, and he was surprised to see the smile of delight he was given in return.

"My name is Lucian," the stranger said, creeping closer. "Come play with me."

Steffan gazed down at the handsome face, into the eyes that bore the dark blue color that was the match to the one of the feather which at the moment was caressing Lucian's jaw.

"I can't," Steffan said, though feeling while he spoke that the words weren't completely truthful.

"Are you saying that you can't because it is so," Lucian said his voice slightly lowered, challenging the hint of uncertainty he'd picked up in Steffan's reply, his expression dimming a bit. "Or is it because you don't want to?"

Green eyes stared into blue, locked in that manner, while Steffan tried to come up with an answer. As by itself his face turned toward Anton, standing across the Chamber in the company of Daryel.

Once he wouldn't have had to think about it, he would have known that the answer would be that he couldn't because all he wanted, and would ever want, was Anton. But since then the man had hurt him badly and with such nonchalance that Steffan wasn't sure anymore if that was the answer.

"Steffan."

He turned back to Lucian, a disturbing feeling of indecision that was only matched, in making him uncomfortable, by another more subtle feeling lurking in him that was still too far away to be defined.

"Instead of listen to what your mind tells you, listen to your heart."

My heart… My heart wants love and happiness, Steffan thought. Which I will never have with Anton… Unless…

No, that wouldn't happen. Anton would change and become the man Steffan wished he would be, just as much as Steffan could give up all feelings and be as emotionally detached as Anton to please him.

He sighed.

"What I want doesn't matter," Steffan said glancing at Anton again.

Lucian followed his gaze and shook his head.

"Of course it does," he said. He brought his hands up to Steffan's face and turned it back so that they were eye-to-eye. "So, what do you want?"

After being denied it for so long and then having someone posing the question, suddenly the answer wasn't so hard anymore.

"Right now?..." Steffan said, staring back down at him.

Throwing all doubts and troubling thoughts aside he leant in and captured Lucian's lips with his own, before the startled eyes of Bunchh who obviously thought that Steffan despite the temptation would turn the admirer down. It wasn't what his heart would have responded to, but he didn't listen to his heart. He'd done that and it had broken and wouldn't have a voice till it was whole again, so the part of him Steffan would heed now was his body and its needs.

"Steffan!" her voice just barely cut through the oblivious mist that was filling his mind. He ignored her, hands moving to caress a bare back. Then suddenly he felt another set of hands, that didn't belong to either him or Lucian, pushing them apart.

"Steffan, think this through," Bunchh said, giving him a pleading look.

"No, don't think," was whispered in his ear. "Don't think at all."

Next soft kisses was pressed against the skin of his neck, which in their distracting nature made him unaware of the third party that had come over to join them.

Anton watched the couple, his lover - he still thought of Steffan as such – affectionately holding another man who was shamelessly lavishing him with kisses. He cleared his throat, and while Lucian looked up from what he was doing Steffan barely turned his head.

"Steffan," he said. "May I have a word with you?"

"Later," came the silent reply. Steffan looked about the Chamber and then his eyes landed on Anton who was giving him a look that betrayed, although the rest of the face was a mask of indifference, the anger that was forming within him at the rejection. His attention went back to the admirer. "Awfully crowded here," he said, his lips almost brushing against the other's soft ones. "Let's go somewhere else."

Lucian didn't object. He eagerly followed as Steffan, without a second glance at the other three, turned and walked toward the Chambers entrance.

Eyes narrowing, Anton looked after them. He knew that it was hypocrisy, a trait that he had always despised in others, but he didn't like seeing his, HIS, lover with someone else. Even if it's only for a night.

As they entered the atrium, an indoors garden illuminated by the stars shining in through a ceiling and an entire wall of glass, it was quiet but for the soft murmur of a fountain somewhere out of sight.

Steffan smiled, watching the other stride ahead of him through thick green, in the light of the stars silver, grass. He looked after the young man soon out of sight, disappearing among the lush vegetation of trees and bushes, and he frowned as thoughts broke through the haze in his mind.

Two wrongs didn't make a right. Would this be a second wrong for him, the first being having stolen the formula, which he would later regret? But, he thought, this most likely would not end up in a disaster that had struck the world like the corrupt attomons. The plague and this, more or less, random meeting was not comparable, he decided as he walked slowly feeling the soft grass under his bare feet.

Steffan looked about as he went, searching, to find his companion standing by one of the various columns on which pots was placed all about the atrium and from which multi-colored flowers were cascading. Standing by the column, Lucian was tenderly stroking the petals of a big purple flower his head slightly tilted and an absentminded look on his face.

From the crown of his head light brown hair fell down to grace the pale skin of the shoulders, and overall Steffan thought that the body looked frail, but he had enough experience to know that just because someone looked fragile it wasn't necessarily the truth. In most cases those persons were much stronger and durable than they looked.

Lucian slid his finger over the smooth petal of the purple flower, seemingly engrossed in what he was doing – though his attention was elsewhere.

In truth, and as had been told, his senses had heightened after he'd been injected with the attomons. Now he could practically sense the other man's approach and in his mind Lucian could feel his touch. He closed his eyes imagining exploring hands roaming his body – caressing his skin as they went – and a shudder of warm pleasure went through him.

His eyes opened slightly when being pulled out of reverie by sensation. The tentative touch on his shoulder blade was not the make of his imagination, it was real. The teasing touch moved down his spine to the small of his back, and his back arched slightly at the touch to a moment later lean into the warmth of another body as the hand found its way around him to rest on his belly.

Smiling affectionately Lucian turned his head to find the handsome face of the male behind him, pale green eyes staring into his. A hand, his own he noted in passing, rose to cup a golden cheek. Obeying the light urging of the hand, Steffan leant down on the other and caught willing lips with his own.*

The sound of voices pulled him out of the memory, there where he was sitting by the pond staring up at the face of the statue displaying a perfect replica of his, for two nights, lover.

He looked across the pond, listening intently. There was a female voice which he did not recognize, and seconds after it had faltered and been replaced by silence another voice spoke up, this time a very familiar one.

An unexplainable sense of urgency gripped him and he got to his feet in a heartbeat, looking around for a place to hide but found none.

The two persons showed up in the opening cutting the white wall in two and the conversation stopped abruptly as Steffan fell dead silent at seeing Lucian standing on the other side of the pond facing the statue. He saw light pink spreading across Lucian's cheeks.

Feeling awkward Lucian turned away. Twice, two nights in a row, he had sought Steffan's attention and succeeded, but both these times he'd been influenced by the attomons. Would Steffan see that or did he think that that's what he was like? And miss the love Lucian held for him.

He slowly rounded the pond to walk by it and then to leave it behind, all while keeping his gaze ahead of him. Feeling a hand softly seizing his wrist, he stopped and turned to stare into Steffan's eyes, feeling his heart beat faster.

*Lucian gasped as the hardness was pushed inside him, pain mingling with pleasure erupting in him as it filled him more and more. Having him on his back in the grass, his beautiful lover thrust into him and withdrew in an increasingly steady rhythm.

Behind his closed eyes, his senses was made up by on one hand the background sound of the falling water in the fountain just a few meters away and on the other by the surge of sensations claiming his body and mind and had him moaning for more.

His back arched and eyes that had been shut opened, staring up at a darkening sky where stars were shining brightly. The eyes then moved to behold the lover, the blonde – the center of his awareness – turned his gaze to look back down into his eyes and in their depths exhibiting what Lucian was feeling as well…*

Lucian blinked, a low groan rising in his throat, and he wondered if Steffan could see in his eyes the images that had crossed his mind as their eyes met. He wanted to say something, but his mind had gone empty and he suddenly seemed unable to form words.

Steffan glanced toward his female friend and then back to Lucian.

"I need to talk to you," he said. "Later."

Still unable to speak Lucian nodded and the hand's soft grasp around his wrist loosen and his arm fell limply to his side.

Steffan held his gaze for a little while longer, after which he went to join the female Islander who was standing a bit away, giving them some privacy, staring up at the starry sky.

One last glace toward the departing blonde, and then Lucian left in the opposite direction.

*Stirring, he opened his eyes blinking, to behold smooth golden skin that rose and fell as his lover breathed. He became aware of a smile that had crept onto his lips, showing all the blissful joy within him.

But the bliss abruptly changed into anxiety as his mind caught up with him, and he started to remember. Foremost of those memories was the look on Prosper's face as Steffan, Prosper's lover, had walked away with Lucian; he hadn't looked happy about it. Lucian hadn't given it much thought then, but now all he could think of was whether this would have consequences.

He couldn't make it undone – he didn't want to make it undone – but he could leave before it got any further. Removing, though reluctantly, the arm that was wound around him, Lucian silently rose and looked around to find his abandoned trousers, they were lying by the tumbled over column nearby the costume Steffan had been wearing.

Lucian put the trousers back on, after which he collected the blue robe and returned to drape it over the sleeping beauty. Giving the still form, the rising sun illuminating the body with its soft glow, a last longing look he leant down to press a light kiss against soft, although in sleep, responsive lips.

Turning from the sleeping lover, he made to leave but remained still as his eyes caught a lone blue black feather lying in the grass silently calling for his attention. He stepped over to it and picked it up, tenderly stroking his fingers down its smooth length.*

He'd left, but it was far from over there, Lucian would come back for more. He would pursuit Steffan's attention again, driven both by the attomons and his own feelings, and once more he would have his wish granted.

Masks removed we hide here
While the spotlight's seeking me
Forget the world for now, my Love
And live these days with me
As if the world wasn't ending

-Sonata Arctica-