Gioco d'attesa

[ranuccio]

It wasn't as if Alec has asked him anything. No explanation, no excuses. None asked, and none given. Ranuccio had turned up one morning at dawn, and the door was open for him. He knew the way to his room. There were clothes laid out for him when he woke up, food for him on the table when he wanted to eat. He wandered down to the imposing library,

Comments

[janus_tm]

Alec's eyes turned back to the page, but William of Baskerville's chances of holding his attention were slim now. He just stared at the words, checking through the corner of his eye what was Ran doing and as soon as Ran's blond head was lowered on the pack of cards he was shuffling through, he turned to fully look at him.

He had asked no questions, there had been none of the anger he'd felt before when Ran had gone away. This calm was eerie, but the warmth inside him felt good. He studied Ran's face, as he had done that morning while he was sleeping, registering the exhaustion etched on it.

Wherever Ran had been, whatever it was that he'd been doing, it had not been kind to him.. he thought, lowering his head on the book again only a millisecond before Ran raised his head and caught him staring.

[ranuccio]

Reading. The bastard was reading. Ranuccio shuffled the deck of cards with insolent force, the cards crackling in the quiet of the library. The solitaire he was playing required to set the cards in rows, which Ranuccio proceeded doing, taking care of slamming the slim rectangles color-printed on the carpet.

He had expected questions. Anger, maybe. Coldness, which was Trevelyan's forte. Reproach, requests, and so on. There was nothing of the sort, instead. This silent, almost indifferent acceptance irked him to no end.

He sneezed, loudly, drying his nose on his sleeve.

[janus_tm]

"There's a box of tissues in the desk drawer.." Alec's words floated quietly across the space between him and Ranuccio.

His green eyes were now fixed on Ranuccio, a hint of amusement in them, mixed with something else.

"I would suggest a drink, if you caught cold.." he offers blandly, lifting his own goblet of Port.

[ranuccio]

Jaws' muscles tensing, Ranuccio stood up, almost glaring at Alec's cool composure. A few quick strides brought him behind the massive desk. He used a tissue, then another, then simply let the crumpled, used tissues fall on the floor.

Gods, the sheer....bloody attitude of the man. Eyes sparkling, back near the sofa, Ranuccio grabbed the proffered goblet and emptied it in one go, then using the back of his hand to dry his mouth before giving it back to Trevelyan.

"Enjoying yourself?" the question was growled through clenched teeth. "Wouldn't want to disturb your Lordship too much."

[janus_tm]

Alec's eyebrow arches as his eyes follow with secret amusement the trip the balled tissues make down to the polished hardwood floor before returning to Ran's belligerant face and to his sparkling green eyes.

"Enjoying myself? Yes, I would say the day's been pretty good so far.."

How could it be anything less than good when the day started with Ranuccio being back and Alec being able to watch him sleep, sprawled all across the bed as if he wanted to claim every inch of it? How could it be anything less with Ranuccio glaring at him and making him feel alive again?

[ranuccio]

"Umphf.." a snort was all that Ranuccio could muster faced with Alec's cool debonair attitude.

He saved his empasse by going to get the Port bottle from the French liquors cabinet and refilling Alec's goblet, and then taking a plate of biscuits for himself, settling on the Persian rug near the sofa, so that he could seat on the rug and lean his back on the sofa itself. Close enough that Alec could touch him, his head, hair, or shoulders. Just by chance, of course.

Cards in hand, he shuffled them noisily, and started another solitaire, again with as much ruckus as possible. "Been up to anything interesting?" The question was carefully careless, leaving unspoken the rest of the sentence, while I was away.

He glanced around, to see if the jar of balm was in sight, wondering if Alec had had need of it. If someone else has helped him with spreading and massaging it into his skin, and then getting angry at the thought, swearing and mutering under his breath that he was no 'nanny'.

[janus_tm]

"Been looking at a new business venture I might be interested in.." Alec replies with a shrug, his fingers going absent-mindedly to his cheek, stroking the scar and remembering how astonished Merrick had been when he had declined his suggestion to have it removed, then dropping his hand down to rest on the rich velvet of the couch near the back of Ranuccio's head, close enough to feel the brush of the unkempt blond hair against them.

"Been painting a bit.." he adds, thinking of the hundred sketches of Ranuccio he's done and of the night he put them in the fireplace, right in this room, doused them with vodka and burned them all because none felt right, none had Ranuccio in it, none showed the turmoil of life that Alec could feel in Ranuccio.

[ranuccio]

"Umphf. Business.." suddenly, Ranuccio has a tensed muscle in his neck and only rolling his shoulders will ease it. It just so happens that the motion brings his head closer to Alec's fingers.

"What, buying more useless stuff that you don't know how to dispose with?" Not as provocative as the words are, his voice. Another card is viciously slapped on the rug.

[janus_tm]

"I've never bought useless stuff, and I can't remember having ever wanted to dispose of stuff I bought. What I have, I keep..." Alec remarks with deliberate casualness as he stares at the card Ranuccio just slapped down.

The King of Spades seems to wink knowingly at him and to follow with raised eyebrows the way Alec's fingers thread through blond hair and make their way down to Ran's neck, to wrap possessively across the scar.

[ranuccio]

A sharp inhaling of air is the only sound Ranuccio allows himself, though his eyes close for a second, the sheer bliss that Alec's touch suddenly brings to him washing through his whole being.

Not that he will say so. Though he won't move away from the touch either, on the contrary.

"Been keeping company?" Someone came to visit, Ranuccio asked one of the servants. The cards are shuffled again, as he tries not to purr under the possessive touch. At least, not too loudly, or obviously.

[janus_tm]

Good thing that Ranuccio is not looking at him.. Alec can allow the hair-thin creases in the mask that is his face to gap open and let through the pleasure it gives him to feel the column of Ranuccio's neck under his palm, the thin line of the scar, the slow thrum of his heartbeat. For a moment he can even believe that the steady beat is becoming slightly erratic, but he knows he's deluding himself, he must be.. Still the hand presses a fraction more, seeking that imagined rush of blood, the shared emotion..

"Company? I had a visitor, your friend Jason.."

[ranuccio]

It's like being hit by a ton of ice, low in the stomach. Ranuccio freezes, hand holding a card still in mid-air, then the card falls down, and he slowly, deliberately, moves inches away, under the pretence of collecting it.

Enough of a distance to dislodge Alec's touch. "Jason's not my friend. What the fuck did he want? Why did you see him?" He doesn't manage that well to conceive the tone of the question. Why was he here? With you? And in the heat of the moment, his game suffers, because he misses the one move that would make him his solitary.

[janus_tm]

Alec frowns as he follows the slow fall of the card to the floor. He's been watching Ranuccio play that card game long enough to know he's just screwed the one move he needed to make to win the game.

He knew Ranuccio would move away from him, had been steeling himself for it, soaking up as long as he could the sweet feel of him under his hand, hoarding it away inside him.

"He didn't want anything, just someone to talk to. We chanced into each other, he came over.." Alec's tone is even. He's offering more answers than he really wants to.. answers, when what he really wants is to ask questions of his own.. What it's it to you if Jason was here? Where were you, why weren't you here? Why did you leave?.. And why did you come back?

[ranuccio]

"Yeah. Chanced. Sure." The deck of cards is collected and ruthlessly shuffled by long fingers and bruised knuckles.

"Jason's good at that. Playing the needy, weak part. His Eddie disappeared, did he tell you that? The newspapers were all about that some time ago. So now he's on the look again, like a hungry wolf."

Eyes fixed on the cards layed out on the rug in front of him, Ranuccio starts playing again. "You should be more careful about who you let in your house...he killed him. Eddie. So precious and so dead now. Oh, there's no traces left, sure. Jason knows his stuff, you have to give him that, but hear me out, he killed Eddie. You don't want him around you, believe me."

That actually was mentally spelled as I don't want him around you, but Ranuccio wasn't that far gone to say it out loud. "You seeing him again?" He didn't realise he was practically interrogating Alec.

[janus_tm]

"You sound very bitter about him, and passionate... You must still care for him much..." Alec replies evenly, his deliberately flat tone masking the undercurrent of anger, the anger that makes him want to grab Ranuccio, give him a good shake and mark him all over with the word mine..

"But there's no need for you to worry about me, I know everything that there is to know about men like Jason and I can take care of myself... As to Eddie, he said that he is lost to him. I should have guessed that, from some of the things he said.."

[ranuccio]

As much as Alec's tone is flat, Ranuccio's is passionate. "I don't care shit for him. It's done. Burned. Bloody ashes. You get that?" The cards are thrown on the rug in disarray, Ranuccio's fingers laced as he preps his elbows on his knees, lest he...did something. Lost control.

"No one else I fucking care but-" But you. And yet the words die in his throat, strangled by the thin scar around his neck. A quick change of topic, more words falling on top of each other.

"I know you can take care of yourself. But you didn't say. You going to see him again?" It just comes natural, then to shift on his side somewhat, and rest the side of his head on Trevelyan's thigh, that just happened to be there.