Week 35 - Lagrain - 9.2 - 1153 words
He continued to stroke his fingers through Oisean’s hair, untangling any knots by rubbing the fibers together. His employer (his mark) nuzzled further into his chest with each moment that passed between them. There was much that they could share. His own experiences of pining after something that wasn’t available might even be helpful to Oisean. It was just that simple matter of translating his thousands of years of alien existence into something a distraught statesman could take on without questioning his world view.
If only Oisean could know just how much Lagrain understood that feeling without the toils of translation. What this man had suffered through in the past five years could just barely begin to stack up to the pain that he had known. Those last few minutes of life, when he and Haller were wrapped together in a tapestry they had ripped off the wall of the temple…that was not nearly enough comfort to prepare him for what would happen next.
The feeling of waking up alone in what he initially thought was the warrior’s afterlife turned out to be the first of many disappointments. He had never held the same faith in the other side that he witnessed in his partner. Haller was of a different generation than himself. Their age difference, even adjusted to their equivalent human ages, had been scandalous in and out of their society.
In the time before their relationship had begun, Lagrain found himself often feeling that he was the schoolboy crushing on the teacher that would never have him. He had never thought it appropriate to tell this comparison to Haller lest the man decide to break off their careful relations. It was bad enough that their relationship literally took on the cliche of adult materials wherein a secretary begs for pleasure over the desk of their employer.
The federation (particularly) had not taken lightly to the idea of two liaisons exchanging information in a manner that was outside of the agreed treaty. No where in a liaison’s job description does it say that you should lay with or laze on the bed of your associates. Besides, they rarely had the occasion to discuss state secrets when they were in bed. The pair had always been far more concerned with seeing who could last the longest or any other number of arbitrary games that devoted lovers might play.
Love being the key root of the term lovers. All that they’d had in that world had been each other. For Lagrain, solitude had come largely by choice. He was of the time when it had been perfectly acceptable for people to show emotion with others. It was just that he had never been one to show much enjoyment until he had begun to do things with Haller. All of the simple things, things that his peers may have scoffed at, instantly became more interesting when Haller took an interest in them.
The more he reflected on it, it was no great exaggeration to say that he and his husband only had each other to show for their efforts in the world. Haller had no family to speak of and Lagrain had very few of his own. Most of his had died before or just at the time of his birth. And the ones that were still alive, his parents included, hadn’t been anyone that he had ever wanted to know.
The events of the last great war of their planet that led to the Federation takeover and Lagrain being trained to be the soldier from the beginning of his life. Maybe that was why he was still on this pathway of completing the most emotional tasks in a purely logical, cold manner.
Haller had been a born soldier too. Or more a prophesied soldier. One man from a long line of planet protectors who had been allowed to stay on in diplomatic fashions when the Federation treaty was finalized. That had been the official reason for why the man might need a secretary. Not that the Federation had wanted Lagrain to watch each of their movements and determine if the man had the power to start another revolution.
It took less than an hour of observation to determine that they did. Haller, if they had been willing to do so or had a care for it, could have convinced the entire planet to rid itself of the parasitic Federation. They could have likely led the planet to a victory in this action and still had enough daylight left to go fishing after taking their tea.
For a long time, a very long time, he had been confident in his knowledge that Haller had found no one else. It wasn’t hard to look at the other reaper, well known for leaving behind a string of broken hearts, and remember the days when he thought he would just be another mark in Haller’s record. Never could he have imagined the tenderness that had allowed his husband to take him to the ancient tea shops of their home city. Nor propose to him beneath the skeletons of trees that had long since died but represented the world that Haller had emerged from.
It was so easy to get lost in the memory of the first time that Haller had accepted his offer of something more. The first time his head had hit one of the stuffed pillows on Haller’s bed and his skin came alive for the first time in his life. They were both adults. They had both clearly experienced the pleasures of the flesh before that meeting in their bed. But it was magical for the both of them. It had been all that they needed to create an unbreakable bond between them. One so strong that Lagrain could not give up on his hopes of reigniting his undying love for the only man that he could ever love.
He must have drifted off, for quite some time, in those comfortable thoughts for when he awoke the moon was shining through his window and there was an uncomfortable pressure on his bladder. Oisean had barely moved from his position on his chest. The only difference was how the man now shuddered slightly in the cool breeze coming through Lagrain’s open window.
Perhaps he was becoming soft, he thought to himself for just a moment. Because he felt a need to do something at the sight of seeing Oisean curled beside him, fingers grasping at his tunic, and shivering induced goose pimples rising from his skin.
He felt perhaps that it was his duty as a protector to rise from their bed. To fasten the window so that it might not blow open again. To wrap Oisean in one of the country made quilts that laid at the bottom of the bed and take care of the man until he returned to his normal temperature.
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