Note: The original request from liesygirl: Have you done one where Alek gets jealous?
I have now! Let's see… I'm pretty sure this is in the same future!verse as "traditions" and "oh brother". But it doesn't really matter. :D
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On his first morning in Glasgow, Alek is awakened by someone hammering on his hotel room door and shouting, "Oi! Let's go, Clanker!"
He therefore begins his day with a smile – and by hastily throwing on enough clothes in which to decently answer the door. He retreats to the washroom and dresses more carefully while Deryn takes full advantage of the room service menu.
"I can't believe Ma won't let you stay with us," she says as they eat breakfast. "It's daft for you to pay so much for this place when Jaspert's room is sitting empty."
"It's all right," he says quickly. "I don't want to impose."
The thought of living – however temporarily – under the same roof as Deryn is both far too terrifying and too attractive. He supposes it's terrifying because it's attractive.
She finishes her coffee and leans back in her chair, grinning at him across the table. She's wearing a dress (which in itself is much too attractive), but is otherwise unchanged. "Well, I'll keep at it. Meanwhile, we're going to be proper tourists today."
"That sounds very nice," he says. He says it to be polite. In reality, he would rather sit here and talk with her for a while longer. Perhaps two or three years. "How were you able to get away?"
"Left a note on my bed and climbed out the window. Blisters, I'm only winding you up!" she says, laughing at the look on his face. "I told Ma Volger would be here, that's how. Where is he, anyway?"
"Still in Vienna," Alek says, grimacing at the thought of that viper's nest, "trying to sort out what I can and cannot be. It's all politics now. He did successfully petition the emperor to make my mother's title hereditary."
"Having fun, then. Good for him." She lifts her teacup in a mocking salute to the absent wildcount. "Your ma was a duchess, so you're a duke now?"
"Yes. And I shall have to go back and continue to be a duke," he says. He will never be Emperor, but he is too important to fade away into peaceful obscurity. How he managed even this small escape continues to amaze him.
"But not for a while yet," Deryn says, and while she covers it by stealing a bite of his breakfast, there's an anxious note to her voice that makes him look at her somewhat more closely.
"No," he says after a moment. "Not for a while."
"You'd better not," she declares. "Let's go, then, your dukeness."
He finds his coat and gloves and hat – which she laughs at, even after he tells her the style is fashionable in Vienna just now – and together they descend to the lobby.
She doesn't appear to notice the disapproving glances cast their way as they exit the hotel, but he certainly does. It worries him and makes him angry all at once. God's wounds; can they not even be friends without scandal?
Outdoors, it's a frigid day in late spring. The sun makes a brief, half-hearted attempt to break through the clouds, then seems to give up until summer.
"You're lucky it's so nice out today," Deryn says, grinning at him, breath wreathing her face. "We've had rain all week."
He wonders at the ability of her smiles to stop his heart. He would like to pull her to him and kiss her soundly; he would like to take her arm as they walk; he would like to confess that he cares absolutely nothing for sightseeing – that just being around her is enough.
Instead he raises an eyebrow. "This is nice weather?"
She shrugs, mischief dancing in her eyes, but her response is lost to a man's voice calling, "Deryn! Aye, hullo, Deryn Sharp! Wait a moment!"
Alek turns to see a young man half-jogging towards them, hand raised in greeting, smiling. The stranger is tall, only a few years older than the two of them, respectably outfitted in a suit and hat, and the smile is all for Deryn.
Alek doesn't like him.
"Jamie!" she exclaims with a wide grin as the man reaches them. "How're you, then?"
"Very well, very well," Jamie says. He bends down to put a quick and ceremonial kiss on either side of Deryn's face, making her laugh.
Alek likes him even less, now.
"And you?" Jamie asks her. He has black hair and is, Alek supposes (begrudgingly), rather handsome. "Look at you! Prettier than half the girls in Scotland in that dress. What're you up to today? Something daft, as usual?"
"Just showing Alek around. Alek, this is Jamie Duncan," she says. "He's one of Jaspert's friends. Jamie, this is Prince Aleksandar."
"Prince?" Jamie echoes, chuckling, obviously thinking it's a fine joke. "Prince of what?"
Alek begins to suspect that he might hate this man.
"The duchy of Hohenberg," he says to Jamie, voice cool. "Though I'm a duke now, actually."
"Oh, aye, that's right," Deryn says. Chagrined. "Blisters, Alek, you just told me and I forgot already – I'm used to you being a prince in public, I guess."
"It's all right," he says – or he would have said, if Jamie Duncan hadn't chosen that moment to nudge her shoulder and say, "What is he in private, then?"
Deryn blushes. Actually blushes. Jamie laughs.
Alek doesn't scowl, but it's a near thing. He says – using the deadly polite tone he's perfected during five months of subtle war in Vienna – "I'm afraid we're delaying you, Mr. Duncan. I suppose you are on your way to work? We shouldn't want to make you late."
It's a bit of a royal "we", but damn if Alek cares. Anything to get the man away.
Unfortunately Jamie makes a dismissive noise. "It's bankers' hours I'm keeping now. I've ages yet."
"Banking!" Deryn says. Alek is immensely relieved to see that the blushing girl is gone and his midshipman is back. She sounds properly scornful: "Who's cracked enough to let you hold their money, Jamie Duncan?"
Jamie laughs again… though now it seems a bit forced. "Aye, well, that was true enough, once. But I'm a respectable sort these days."
"Hanging about with me will change that fast," she says, with a wink and grin to Alek that takes away some of his ire with the situation.
But only some. And Jamie doesn't miss the aside.
"And you're walking out with her?" he says to Alek. "Have a care, lad – you'll not have a reputation left by day's end."
Deryn scoffs and says, "Get stuffed," which is encouraging, except she's smiling at him again. And she's not done with the conversation, either: "Are you still going round with Nan?"
Jamie sighs and puts a melodramatic hand to his heart. "No, she took up with some fancy lad from Edinburgh. They're to be married this summer. Invited me to the wedding – how's that for bloody nerve?"
"Oh, well, congratulations to them," Deryn says. "I suppose. And Ian McAlister? What's that bum-rag up to? I haven't seen him anywhere."
They begin talking about people Alek's never heard of, nor cares to, and he feels suddenly alone in the middle of Britain's second-largest city. Ridiculous, he tells himself, but he cannot shake the sensation that's he's perilously close to being abandoned in favor of an old friendship with Jamie Duncan.
He wants to take Deryn's arm. He wants to say, firmly, that she is with him and Jamie should move along. He wants her to laugh with him the way she's laughing with the other young man.
Most of all, he wants Jamie to go away. Preferably over a cliff of some sort.
Alek says nothing, but his fingers twitch, looking for a saber that isn't there.
Slight as it is, the movement must catch Deryn's eye, because she glances at him, and her face creases into a frown. "Alek?" she asks, interrupting Jamie's story about someone or the other who's gotten into trouble with someone else's cousin. "Are you all right?"
For a moment he contemplates telling her the truth, but it seems so petty – and besides, eight hundred years of Hapsburg pride won't let him admit that he looks at a peasant Glaswegian and sees a rival.
"Yes, of course," he tells her in German. "Merely anxious to begin our tour."
"Only another minute, I promise, and then we'll be done," she says in the same, smiling at him, nudging his side with one elbow.
Jamie laughs uneasily. "You sound like a proper sodding Clanker, Deryn!"
"Aye, I'd hope so," she says. She looks at Alek and smiles again. "I had a proper Clanker teacher."
There are many things unsaid in that smile – many things that Jamie Duncan couldn't possibly understand, because he was never part of their adventures – and Alek feels a sense of victory.
He would very much like to kiss her.
Jamie Duncan clears his throat. "Staying in a hotel, then, Your Highness?"
"For the moment," Alek says immediately. "Mrs. Sharp has graciously offered me the use of her home."
Jamie doesn't like that; his eyes narrow. Alek meets his gaze and holds it. Daring him. Saying, in effect, She's mine and you cannot have her, and I shall fight to keep her (though Deryn would kill him if he ever professed such a thing out loud).
Preoccupied with the stand-off, he doesn't at first notice the man hurrying towards them – but he does notice when Deryn gives his sleeve a sharp tug and hauls him a half-step to one side.
"Christ Jesus, Duncan, there you are," the man says, out of breath, one hand clapped to his hat, holding it to his head. He glances at Alek and Deryn, but doesn't acknowledge them beyond a curt bob of his head. "Move your feet, lad, or we'll miss the train!"
"Aye, coming," Jamie says; the other man huffs and starts jogging, presumably for the train station, calling backwards, "I'm not making excuses for you this time, Duncan, I don't care who your da is!"
Jamie, not visibly upset by this rather public shaming, looks to Deryn again. "Well, I'm off, but I'll catch you up later, aye? And give Jaspert my hellos if you see him first."
"He's halfway around the world right now," Deryn says. Disgruntled about it. "Lucky sod."
"Well, then," Jamie says. He glances at Alek and politely touches the brim of his hat. "Enjoy Glasgow, Your Highness."
"I intend to," Alek says stiffly. "It was nice to have met you, Mr. Duncan."
"Likewise." Jamie leans forward and kisses Deryn's cheek again. "Goodbye, love," he says, making her blush and Alek scowl. Then he's off.
They watch him run to catch up with the other man. When he does, Jamie Duncan will turn around and wave, Alek knows. Then Deryn will wave back, and Alek will have to wonder about it for the rest of the day, if not longer.
"Deryn," he says, laying his hand on her arm, just above the elbow.
"Aye?" she says, surprised. She looks at him.
He kisses her.
Not on the cheek; full on the mouth. He means it to only last a moment – only enough to distract – but it's wonderful and shocking and terribly, terribly exciting to kiss her on a public street, in full view of everyone walking past. He finds his fingers curling of their own accord around her arms, drawing her closer even as the kiss deepens.
Her lips are cold and she tastes rather like coffee, and she makes a pleased little mm into his mouth that entirely erases the memory of these past five months of separation and convinces him, more than ever, that they should not be sleeping under the same roof.
He half-turns them, so that her back is to Jamie, and spares a moment to glance at the man.
Jamie Duncan has turned around, as predicted. He looks startled, then disappointed, then finally resigned. He shakes his head, stuffs his hands into his coat pockets, and moves on.
Alek breaks off the kiss - and steps back slightly, lest he be overcome by the urge to repeat the performance.
Deryn stares at him with luminous eyes: a blue more amazing than anything the sky might produce, in spring or otherwise.
"What was that for?" she asks softly. Then adds, grinning, "Not that I'm complaining, mind."
He glances at the spot where Jamie Duncan stood, and back at her. Somehow he knows Because I am impossibly jealous will not work.
"I missed you," he says, settling for another truth.
Deryn gives him a hard, searching look, then presses a much briefer kiss to his lips and says firmly, "Good, Clanker, because I missed you too. Now stop being so barking jealous and let's get back to sightseeing, aye?"
"Yes," he says, pretending not to be embarrassed. He would much rather think about the day ahead: no court, no Volger, nothing but his best friend's undivided attention.
And perhaps a few more kisses.
He smiles at her. "I believe I would like that very much."
She grins, and takes his arm as they walk.
