Fic: Burden of Proof
Title: Burden of Proof
Author: gileonnen
Play: Richard II
Characters: Richard II/Henry Bolingbroke
Warnings: Dodgy sexual ethics; one line that sounds very vaguely like dubious consent; academic AU that may or may not verge on crackfic
Rating: PG-13; language and references to sexuality
Summary: The meeting could only be conducted on neutral territory.
Notes: Subsequent to Absolution and Pausa Caffè.
They meet like covert operatives in an Oliver Stone film. Richard is sitting on a park bench, pretending to read a newspaper, and Henry drops casually onto the other end of the bench without making eye contact. For a long moment he only watches the yuppies jogging with their dogs and the children shrieking down the paths; he appears to be waiting for Richard to utter some sort of code phrase. The swan sings mournfully at evening, or The rich man begins his journey through the needle's eye--
"You did call me here," says Richard, and that appears to be it, because Henry looks up sharply and meets his eyes almost by accident.
"Richard," he says, with admirable neutrality.
"Thank God you've got the right bench," Richard answers. He shakes his newspaper out and then folds it closed and tucks it in his bag. "What is it you want, exactly? My signature on a restraining order? A repeat performance?"
"What was it you meant to prove?" Answering a question with another question, very neat evasion; Henry's hands are folded in his lap, and he holds Richard's gaze now that he's caught it. Whatever he's trying to prove, he'll have to do a damn sight more than win a staring contest.
Richard hooks his arms around the back of the bench and doesn't care that it's petty and grandiose to claim space in such a way. "I believe that I was trying to prove that you wanted me; fortunately, you bore the burden of proof in that instance."
"And that's all it was. Wanting."
"If you're waiting for me to confess to decades of unrequited love, you may be here a very long time," says Richard, and it comes out too clearly, consonants too sharp. He crosses his legs, ankle over knee, dark jeans hiking up over his sock. His ankles are too thin; when did he let himself get so thin?
Either Henry doesn't catch the sharpness in Richard's voice, or he tactfully ignores it. This being Henry Bolingbroke, probably the latter. After a moment, he leans back against the bench and curls one elbow over the top slat of the backrest. "I'm not really interested in love, unrequited or otherwise," he says. "Are you?"
"No, although I'm a bit surprised to hear it from you. Decades of devotion to one woman and one woman alone--"
"We had eleven years, Mary and I," answers Bolingbroke, and his voice is steady. "A bit more than you and Anne had." The implications are readily apparent; there is an invitation to comparison, of their marriages or their methods of mourning or the depths of their affection.
Richard's eyes narrow a fraction behind his thick glasses. "If you're trying to ask me to fuck you, you could be clearer about it."
"I'm trying to have a damned conversation with you," snaps Henry. "You can take that or leave it."
"We don't have anything to say to one another. We have nothing in common but dear old England."
"You are supervising my son."
"Advising, as well," says Richard. "Just signed the papers yesterday. Apparently no one else in the department works with kingship, and no one else can piss you off with anything approaching reliability."
"I trust he was expecting you to pass on that information."
"You know your son well."
"I know him well enough that it surprises me that the university gave him a fellowship."
"He had a hell of a good writing sample--admissions privileges that kind of thing." Edward had been on the admissions committee that had accepted Henry Monmouth's application, and Richard still remembers the other man's glee at someone who 'really got hierarchy in city-states.' "He does good work, when he can be arsed to do any work at all; I haven't discounted the possibility that it's because he wants to bend me over a desk."
Richard is gratified to discover that he can still turn Bolingbroke that rather fascinating shade of crimson.
"I won't hear you talk about my son that way," says Henry, when he has gathered his composure enough to speak at all. His right hand is still folded neatly in his lap, but his fingers are denting the leg of his trousers with the effort of keeping calm. "I don't have to stand for it. I'll simply get up and walk away."
"I should hate to lose the privilege of your company," says Richard. He is surprised to find that it is something like truth.
They stare at each other for a moment, neither willing to lose face by looking away; Richard notices that there is a small shaving cut on Henry's jaw, and faint indentations down his nose where his glasses slide down. Then Henry's hand closes over Richard's, and the visceral shock of the contact breaks the stalemate.
"We're a bit beyond holding hands, don't you think?" asks Richard; "I'll hold your hand if I damn well please," answers Henry simply.
They haven't moved from their camps on either side of the bench. This makes their little excursion to the first year of secondary school unspeakably awkward.
Finally, Richard sighs and scoots an arm's length closer. It's not quite proximity, but at least they can rest their hands on the bench between them; Henry's hand is warm and feels as though he has been marinating it in chalk dust. It's not entirely unpleasant, although Richard would have thought that Mathematics had the budget for dry erase boards if not PowerPoint.
"Just a casual thing, then," says Richard eventually.
"Something like that."
"I'll still fuck whomever I like--your son excepted, of course."
"If I ever have reason to think--"
"For God's sake, shut up," says Richard, seizing Henry by the chin and kissing him hard. For a moment, they don't quite fit; there are hands squashed tightly between them and an unpleasant clack of glasses striking one another--then they find a decent angle, and it's positively glorious. There's a faint hiss as Richard's fingernail catches in that little shaving cut; there are teeth closing on his lip--and then the kiss breaks.
It rather irks Richard that Henry finds his composure first.
"I see you've made your peace with being outed," he says, and yet it fails to erase the nascent smirk from Bolingbroke's face.
He cannot escape the sense that Bolingbroke has been attempting to prove that Richard is as much desirous as desirable--nor the sinking certainty that he has succeeded.
Author: gileonnen
Play: Richard II
Characters: Richard II/Henry Bolingbroke
Warnings: Dodgy sexual ethics; one line that sounds very vaguely like dubious consent; academic AU that may or may not verge on crackfic
Rating: PG-13; language and references to sexuality
Summary: The meeting could only be conducted on neutral territory.
Notes: Subsequent to Absolution and Pausa Caffè.
They meet like covert operatives in an Oliver Stone film. Richard is sitting on a park bench, pretending to read a newspaper, and Henry drops casually onto the other end of the bench without making eye contact. For a long moment he only watches the yuppies jogging with their dogs and the children shrieking down the paths; he appears to be waiting for Richard to utter some sort of code phrase. The swan sings mournfully at evening, or The rich man begins his journey through the needle's eye--
"You did call me here," says Richard, and that appears to be it, because Henry looks up sharply and meets his eyes almost by accident.
"Richard," he says, with admirable neutrality.
"Thank God you've got the right bench," Richard answers. He shakes his newspaper out and then folds it closed and tucks it in his bag. "What is it you want, exactly? My signature on a restraining order? A repeat performance?"
"What was it you meant to prove?" Answering a question with another question, very neat evasion; Henry's hands are folded in his lap, and he holds Richard's gaze now that he's caught it. Whatever he's trying to prove, he'll have to do a damn sight more than win a staring contest.
Richard hooks his arms around the back of the bench and doesn't care that it's petty and grandiose to claim space in such a way. "I believe that I was trying to prove that you wanted me; fortunately, you bore the burden of proof in that instance."
"And that's all it was. Wanting."
"If you're waiting for me to confess to decades of unrequited love, you may be here a very long time," says Richard, and it comes out too clearly, consonants too sharp. He crosses his legs, ankle over knee, dark jeans hiking up over his sock. His ankles are too thin; when did he let himself get so thin?
Either Henry doesn't catch the sharpness in Richard's voice, or he tactfully ignores it. This being Henry Bolingbroke, probably the latter. After a moment, he leans back against the bench and curls one elbow over the top slat of the backrest. "I'm not really interested in love, unrequited or otherwise," he says. "Are you?"
"No, although I'm a bit surprised to hear it from you. Decades of devotion to one woman and one woman alone--"
"We had eleven years, Mary and I," answers Bolingbroke, and his voice is steady. "A bit more than you and Anne had." The implications are readily apparent; there is an invitation to comparison, of their marriages or their methods of mourning or the depths of their affection.
Richard's eyes narrow a fraction behind his thick glasses. "If you're trying to ask me to fuck you, you could be clearer about it."
"I'm trying to have a damned conversation with you," snaps Henry. "You can take that or leave it."
"We don't have anything to say to one another. We have nothing in common but dear old England."
"You are supervising my son."
"Advising, as well," says Richard. "Just signed the papers yesterday. Apparently no one else in the department works with kingship, and no one else can piss you off with anything approaching reliability."
"I trust he was expecting you to pass on that information."
"You know your son well."
"I know him well enough that it surprises me that the university gave him a fellowship."
"He had a hell of a good writing sample--admissions privileges that kind of thing." Edward had been on the admissions committee that had accepted Henry Monmouth's application, and Richard still remembers the other man's glee at someone who 'really got hierarchy in city-states.' "He does good work, when he can be arsed to do any work at all; I haven't discounted the possibility that it's because he wants to bend me over a desk."
Richard is gratified to discover that he can still turn Bolingbroke that rather fascinating shade of crimson.
"I won't hear you talk about my son that way," says Henry, when he has gathered his composure enough to speak at all. His right hand is still folded neatly in his lap, but his fingers are denting the leg of his trousers with the effort of keeping calm. "I don't have to stand for it. I'll simply get up and walk away."
"I should hate to lose the privilege of your company," says Richard. He is surprised to find that it is something like truth.
They stare at each other for a moment, neither willing to lose face by looking away; Richard notices that there is a small shaving cut on Henry's jaw, and faint indentations down his nose where his glasses slide down. Then Henry's hand closes over Richard's, and the visceral shock of the contact breaks the stalemate.
"We're a bit beyond holding hands, don't you think?" asks Richard; "I'll hold your hand if I damn well please," answers Henry simply.
They haven't moved from their camps on either side of the bench. This makes their little excursion to the first year of secondary school unspeakably awkward.
Finally, Richard sighs and scoots an arm's length closer. It's not quite proximity, but at least they can rest their hands on the bench between them; Henry's hand is warm and feels as though he has been marinating it in chalk dust. It's not entirely unpleasant, although Richard would have thought that Mathematics had the budget for dry erase boards if not PowerPoint.
"Just a casual thing, then," says Richard eventually.
"Something like that."
"I'll still fuck whomever I like--your son excepted, of course."
"If I ever have reason to think--"
"For God's sake, shut up," says Richard, seizing Henry by the chin and kissing him hard. For a moment, they don't quite fit; there are hands squashed tightly between them and an unpleasant clack of glasses striking one another--then they find a decent angle, and it's positively glorious. There's a faint hiss as Richard's fingernail catches in that little shaving cut; there are teeth closing on his lip--and then the kiss breaks.
It rather irks Richard that Henry finds his composure first.
"I see you've made your peace with being outed," he says, and yet it fails to erase the nascent smirk from Bolingbroke's face.
He cannot escape the sense that Bolingbroke has been attempting to prove that Richard is as much desirous as desirable--nor the sinking certainty that he has succeeded.