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The night they spend in the Lloy house is tense like a bowstring drawn.
Julien paces like a caged animal. Aranessa's orders were to rest, but rest is a laughable suggestion at a time like this. The Lloy woman ordered him stripped of all armaments: rapier, pauldron, gauntlet, gambeson — even his cloak and boots could not escape her avarice, depriving Julien of even such paltry comforts as a familiar garment to wrap himself in or the gratifying thud of hard leather on wood. His stockings slid too readily against the smooth-worn floor, so Julien walks barefoot. The jar of his heels with each heavy step is a poor substitute for his boots, but there is one meagre comfort he can claim.
They've shut him in with the Tachonis boy.
They're far from alone in the house, but the boy requested privacy, and, credulous fucking fools, they gave him that. The guest quarters he's claimed are far removed from the main rooms, where the Lloy woman, Lady Aranessa, and the rest are gathered to make plans and keep each other's company. Not one of them tried to stay the Tachonis boy when he begged off to be alone, leaving his little piecemeal creature curled up in the elf's arms. Not one of them batted an eye when Julien stalked off in the other direction, unarmed and unarmoured. Not even the Lloy woman, with all her mothering, who knows the house they rest in and tracks Julien's every move with animal intensity — not even she, who should know best of all what the sprawl of such a house permits, objected to his exit. The Tachonis boy is alone, and Julien is free to follow.
His bare feet are silent when he needs them to be. In his tunic and breeches, lacking even so much as a single metal buckle to give him away with its clinking, Julien moves like a shadow. He creeps past the main hall, where the figures murmur with each other; ducks inside a shadowed doorway to avoid the groundskeeper; and when his ears catch the sound of running water, he follows it.
The room he finds is shut, a private bath nestled beyond an unused bedroom; dim golden lamplight spills out beneath the smooth-grown wood and iron of the door. Julien approaches from the side, puts the wall at his back and listens as the bubble of enchanted pipes goes quiet and the splash of water fades. He hears the rustle of clothing, the clink of a buckle, the hushed slide of linen over skin, the quiet whump as each piece is carelessly discarded: boots, gloves, borrowed shirt, bloodied trousers. He hears a book set aside, the muffled settling of tools against each other. He hears a silence. He hears a long, heavy sigh.
The light brightens as the boy turns up the lamp. Julien hears the tack of half-dried blood peeling away from skin, the slap of wet stockings falling to the floor. He hears bare feet cross the room. He hears the bright slosh of still water disturbed, the musical cascade of a wet cloth wrung out. He hears the rasp of wet terry across skin.
Julien listens, silent and intent like a predator in wait, as the boy sponges blood off his skin. He hears the wet cloth smack against the bottom of the wash-basin. He hears a gravid pause, then another, shorter sigh.
"Well, it's not ideal," the boy mutters to himself, as clear and musical as the sound of the water, "but it's something."
The light under the door dims to nothing as the boy turns down the lamp. Julien hears those bare feet shuffle back across the floor, then stop. He hears the water disturbed once more as the boy steps into the bath. He hears a sound of pain, then of relief. The water sloshes as the boy settles into the tub. He hears a bone-deep sigh. He hears quiet.
The bedroom is dark. Moonlight seeps in through the cracks in the shutters, stained red like blood through the scarlet ginkgo leaves that hang still in the breathless night air. Julien waits. He sets his fingers on the latch of the door, tests it gingerly. The latch lifts, smooth as silk and deathly quiet. Julien holds. Julien waits. A moment will come, he's sure of that, and so he waits.
The boy shifts. The water sloshes. Julien hears him take a breath, hears the water close around him. He hears silence.
The door swings open with the quietest creak of hinges, and Julien slips through. The latch clicks dully as it falls in empty air. The lamp is dark, the shutters thrown wide. Moonlight bathes the room in silver. A pile of bloodied clothing lies at the foot of the washstand. The claw-foot iron bathtub radiates warmth; at one end, a pair of slender, olive-skinned legs hang over the edge, glistening wetly. Julien crosses the room in an instant, tensing for a fight, and peers into the tub.
Occtis Tachonis lies like a corpse at the bottom of the tub, eyes shut, face serene. His dark hair fans out around his pretty face like a halo of unspun silk. Air drips from his slender nose in a slow, steady stream like water from a leaky faucet and bubbles upward to disturb the water's stillness: blup. Blup. Blup. Something hideous writhes in Julien's stomach, crawls up his throat. The moonlight filters through the water, limning that pretty face in purest silver. His skin is sallow in the cool light. The bath is blood-warm, radiating heat like a living body. Julien's stomach roils, rage and other, uglier things all snarled together into one horrible knot. He sneers down at the body in the tub. Loathing pulses through him like blood. He feels sick with it.
He slips his hand under the water and wraps it around the boy's throat.
The boy's eyes fly open, a violent shock of green in the dark. His hand flies to Julien's forearm, and he clutches it, claws at it. He tries to shout, but the water silences him. A fount of bubbles bursts up. The boy's chest heaves, sucking in water; his throat spasms, and Julien tightens his grip, not to choke, but to hurt. The boy kicks desperately, pulls at Julien's arm. The water is slow to soak his woolen sleeve, the sodden fabric weighing heavy and heavier as Julien holds it under. The boy writhes. Water sloshes over the edge, drenching Julien from chest to knees. The boy's knuckles ring against the iron tub. He reaches up, tries to claw Julien's face, but it's Julien with the longer reach, and his claws fall short. His throat is spasming as he chokes. Every cough forces out more air, drags in more water. He kicks again, writhes again, thrashes like an animal in the cage of Julien's hand, and almost manages to shake him for a moment, but Julien leans over the tub, leans his weight on the boy's windpipe, and the boy's face wrenches with pain. He tries to cry out; Julien feels it buzz against his palm. One last pathetic burst of air bubbles up from his lungs, and no more.
Julien has watched men drown before. He knows the way a living man struggles, the way a living body turns weak as the lack of air sets in. The boy has no air to speak of, but still he convulses, still he struggles. More water slops out of the tub, splashes across the floor. The boy's lungs move like a current, still pulling frantically for air they can't even use. His flailing heels thump against the wall, the edge of the tub. One knobby knee catches the back of Julien's shoulder, but it barely registers. The boy's eyes are wild and bright through the roiling water, his silky hair whipping around him as his head tosses desperately. His hands claw at Julien's arm, Julien's wrist, Julien's naked hand. One catches in his sleeve, pulls until the stitching creaks. The boy's nails bite into him like teeth, scoring long, stinging lines across Julien's knuckles. Julien's stomach roils like the water. He holds the boy down, lets him fight, keeps him helpless. Makes him writhe, makes him struggle. Makes him hurt.
Suddenly, sickeningly, the boy goes still. His legs sag against the tub; his arms go limp. His chest still heaves on instinct, that current pulling water past Julien's wrist, but his body goes still, trembling in Julien's grip. As the water stills, the boy looks up. His bright green eyes meet Julien's.
Julien lets go.
The boy surges out of the water with all the desperation of a living body, nails screeching against iron. Julien lurches back, lands hard against the floor and scrambles up to sitting, and he watches as the naked body of Occtis Tachonis claws its way out of the tub and spills across the floor. The boy chokes, retches, vomits. Water floods from his nose and mouth, each wet, visceral heave pouring more across the wood, soaking Julien's breeches and lapping at his heels. The water is cool. Julien's limbs feel cold, then hot, then cold again. Thaisha is going to kill him. Julien sits there, poised to try and run, half-dressed and drenched to his collar, and feels his stomach roil again, feels regret worm its way up under his tongue and claw at his teeth. The boy will be fine, Julien knows that, he knows that, but Thaisha Lloy will have his fucking head for this, if Lady Aranessa doesn't beat her to it. Perhaps he's going to be sick. Occtis is still retching, coughing up great, awful gouts of water tinged with bile. Julien is tempted to join him.
The retching slows. Julien watches one last heave wrack that skinny body, watches one last mouthful of water splatter across the floor. Occtis looks up. His mouth hangs wet and open. His eyes are luminous behind the clinging black curtain of his hair; he's braced against the floor, cocked to one side like the watchful eye of some carrion bird. His limbs are long and coltish, wet and trembling from head to heels.
Like some vengeful water spirit, that skinny, sodden corpse lunges forward, and Julien lets it come. He lets Occtis bowl him over, feels his head crack like a whip against the floor. Julien's stomach still roils — with rage, and grief, and other things, worse things, shame and guilt and something he doesn't want to name. Occtis climbs astride him, and Julien's body trembles. The boy is snarling, wordless and feral with so much rage his skinny body can't contain it. His hands sink into Julien's hair, wet and clinging; he wrenches Julien's head to one side, wrenches a half-swallowed cry from Julien's throat, and sinks his furious teeth into the meat of Julien's neck.
Julien grits his teeth around a rising cry. The boy's teeth are blunt, human, but the fury drives them deep, deeper, in and through. Julien feels his skin break, feels muscle tear, feels blood gush. His fingernails gouge furrows into the wet floor. Every tooth in his mouth aches from biting down. The pain is brutal. He's taken worse, but not like this. The cry rises to a scream, still trapped behind his teeth. He feels Occtis' teeth meet.
The boy tightens his grip in Julien's hair and rips. Something wrenches free. The boy's head snaps back. For a fleeting moment, Julien sees it — a scrap of flesh, like a chunk of raw meat between the boy's teeth. Then the boy swallows, and it's gone.
Julien's stomach heaves. He lurches sideways, retches, but nothing comes up. His tongue lolls, drooling as his throat spasms once, twice, then stops. His spittle patters against the flooded floor like rain. Occtis has fallen back, away from Julien, back across the floor. Julien looks up.
For a moment, they stare at each other — soaked to the bone, sprawled on the bathroom floor, panting raggedly. Occtis is naked and glistening, legs open as he leans back on his hands, olive skin a pallid, sickly greyish-green in the spill of moonlight. The ribbon holding him shut is black against his body. His face is bloody. Trails of it run down his throat. Julien's neck burns. He can feel blood oozing from it, soaking his tunic, but it's not vital. Occtis wasn't looking to kill him. As the blood flows from the hole in his neck, Julien feels his rage bleed away with it, leaving something far uglier behind. It feels like a hangover: that cold, empty feeling in the pit of his stomach when he wakes up and sees the mess he's made. He felt it in his home, not three hours ago, watching his father fall, and he feels it here, now, looking at Occtis. With rage filling him, Julien could pretend he didn't, but the rage has bled out, and drowning didn't kill what's left. That awful, aching emptiness inside him — it feels like longing. Somewhere, deep down, nauseatingly, when he looks at Occtis, Julien wants.
Occtis wipes his mouth. Blood smears. He looks faintly ill. Julien's flesh is inside him, now; Julien feels an irrational surge of envy. Occtis' skinny legs rest where they fell, baring his naked body to Julien's eyes, but he doesn't seem to notice. He's breathtaking. Julien moves toward him.
Occtis jerks back, throwing his hands up to cast. Julien freezes. The boy's face is still wild — the panic hasn't quite left him, but Julien can hardly blame him. Slowly, Julien raises a hand, palm out placatingly. He'd raise both, but the pain in his neck leaves him a little too far off-balance. Occtis' body shakes with strain; he puts a hand of his own down for support. The other stays up, but he doesn't cast as Julien eases forward with his own hand still raised. His knees swish through the shallow water as he creeps closer, into the gap between Occtis' splayed legs. Slowly, carefully, with a hand still held out to placate him and his eyes fixed on Occtis', Julien leans down and presses his open mouth to the inside of Occtis' raised knee.
"What are you doing," Occtis demands. His pretty voice is ragged and raw from all Julien's abuse. His skin is wet and cold against Julien's mouth.
Julien doesn't answer. He lets his gaze drop as he moves his mouth higher, presses slow, wet kisses up the smooth, slick line of Occtis' thigh. What is he doing? Julien doesn't want to think about it. He's only ever been good at three things: killing, fucking, and not thinking about it. The first has failed him, and the third is failing; may as well try them all. Occtis is deathly cold, but his thigh trembles — not enough to see, but enough to feel against his lips and tongue as Julien creeps higher. His hand hangs forgotten in the air, even as Julien's falls to the floor, but Occtis doesn't stop him. His skin tastes like water and the faintest tang of metal. Julien buries his mouth in the crook of Occtis' hip and inhales. He smells like nothing, like clean skin and that's all, but it prickles uncannily in Julien's nose like magic, like the chill on a frosty morning. He can feel the boy's cock and balls against his cheek, cold and limp and velvet-soft. The boy gasps, hips jerking up towards Julien's warmth. Julien feels muscle and tendon quiver under his lips. He takes one more breath of that unsettling arcane nothing-smell, feels it flood his sinuses; then he turns and sucks that soft cock into his mouth.
Occtis gasps again, raw and guttural. His hand falls into Julien's hair, wet skin catching and tugging as he curls his fingers in as if clinging for dear life. Julien braces for the pull, for Occtis to tear him away, but Occtis' hips are moving towards Julien's mouth, and that hand isn't pulling him away, but closer. Occtis' body falls to the floor, and his other hand burrows into Julien's hair, drags him in as desperately as his dead lungs dragged in water. It hurts. Julien feels it hum down his spine. It feels right, being hurt for this. It should hurt. Occtis holds him the same way he did with his teeth in Julien's neck, and Julien's neck throbs where the flesh was torn away. Julien's mouth is warm, and he can feel Occtis' body (corpse) warming everywhere it touches him — cock in his mouth, balls against his chin, skinny spellcaster's fingers curling against his scalp. He's not getting hard, but that doesn't matter. Occtis is gasping like he needs air, hips lifting off the floor as he tries fruitlessly to fuck Julien's mouth with a cock that won't rise, and Julien — Julien feels dizzy like he's been smoking up, feels every tug in his mess of hair like that tingle of arcana in his airways. Occtis' gasps are rising, voice creeping in around the edges as he humps Julien's face. Julien's tongue is swirling around him, easy and fluent from too many years of practice, and there's nothing, not even a twitch, but there are other ways to get what Julien is after. He's only ever been good at three things, and the first two he tried have failed him, but the third will serve him just fine. He slides his tongue under Occtis' useless cock, lets his mouth hang open for a moment; spit drools from his lip, and Julien catches it on two fingers, slides those fingers down. Occtis' skin is still cold, still wet; Julien swallows around his cock and pushes one ruthless finger into him.
Occtis jerks, and his hole spasms at the violent intrusion. His hands tighten in Julien's hair. His feet paw at Julien's sides. His gasps are starting to melt together into longer, louder moans. Julien should be concerned about being heard (Thaisha will skin him alive if she finds them like this) but he can't make himself care. He feels Occtis' hole spasm again, then relax, and Julien presses in his second finger. Occtis' thighs shake where they bracket Julien's head. He's cold inside. Julien's fingers aren't wet enough to really thrust without hurting the boy, but he doesn't need to thrust. He buries his fingers to the hilt, then curls them forward, seeking.
Occtis cries out and convulses against the floor. His hands tear at Julien's hair, trying fruitlessly to pull him closer, and his legs curl like a dead spider's. If his mouth was empty, Julien would grin. Found it. He attacks it again, mercilessly: both fingertips, angled upwards, pressing hard against Occtis' prostate. Occtis spasms again. The noise he makes this time could only be called a sob — short, ragged, percussive like a sucker punch and desperate like a gasp for air. Julien doesn't let up. He puts his thumb against Occtis' perineum and presses, assaulting his prostate from both sides, and salt blooms suddenly across Julien's tongue as a drop of pre-ejaculate oozes from Occtis' cock. Julien's eyes roll back in his head. He swallows it eagerly, swallows the worst of his wanton moan along with it. Fuck, he's hard, so hard it turns his stomach. He kicks that aside, drags his focus back to Occtis. Occtis' flailing heels thump against Julien's ribs. One knobby knee catches the side of Julien's head, but it barely registers. His hands claw at Julien's hair, Julien's scalp, Julien's clothed back. One grabs hold of his collar, pulls until the stitching creaks. Blood runs down Julien's neck, soaking him halfway to his waist. It doesn't matter. He chases down Occtis' pleasure with all the single-minded focus of a predator on the hunt, like a falcon plummeting towards the water, and with every stroke of Julien's fingers, Occtis draws tighter. He's close, Julien knows it. His cock is dead in Julien's mouth, but Occtis is sobbing with every raw, wet breath he needn't take. He's shaking with tension, spine curling and hips twitching against Julien's face, and Julien doesn't let up. He ignores the ache starting up in his hand, the ache of his own throbbing arousal, the ache in his bleeding neck; he keeps going, mouth still working Occtis' lifeless cock as his fingers abuse Occtis' prostate, inching him closer and closer to the edge until finally, for one terrible, ruinous moment, Occtis' voice coalesces into words, and Julien hears him sob, "Oh fuck Julien please—"
Horror pours down Julien's spine like icy water, his stomach turns, but Occtis is coming, and when the taste hits Julien's tongue, the roar of hunger that tears through him drowns out everything else. It tastes wrong on Julien's tongue, stale and bitter and dead, but Julien swallows and swallows and swallows, and Occtis howls like it's killing him.
Finally, Occtis' voice cracks apart, back into those broken, ugly sobs. There's nothing left to swallow, but Julien swallows again regardless, and Occtis thrashes and tears him away by the hair. Julien freezes. Occtis extricates his fingers from Julien's hair with undeserved care; Julien removes his own from Occtis' body with an undeserved lack thereof. If he felt awful before, he's not sure what to call what he feels now. He feels grotesque. He can't stand to look up, to see the boy's face, so he drags himself forward and drops his head. His brow finds rest against the base of Occtis' breastbone. His nose brushes the ribbon. He smells the tang of old blood and living viscera. The ribbon is dry, but the wound around it is wet and red as though bleeding. Julien wonders what it tastes like. He buries the question deep below his awareness and doesn't think it again.
Eventually, Occtis says, "I don't hate you."
It feels like a slap across the face. Julien pulls away. "I don't want to hear it."
He's hard — nauseatingly — but he can't handle that here, not in front of Occtis. He pulls himself to his feet, ignores the throbbing pain in his neck and the stiffness in his knees and the way his sodden clothing chafes everywhere it touches. He steps around the dead boy sprawled across the floor and goes to leave. He almost makes it, even, before the boy speaks.
"Julien."
He stops. Against his will, he turns. Occtis has turned and sat up to look at him, and Julien watches as Occtis folds both skinny, shaking hands around the edge of the washstand and drags himself to his feet, as slowly and painfully as anything he's yet done. Julien stands there, helpless, with his two wet fingers smearing spit across his palm and his jaw clenched mercilessly around a pathetic need to help the boy up. He watches as Occtis pulls himself up onto shaky legs like a newborn fawn, and draws himself up with all the regal bearing of Julien's betters. He regards Julien with academic neutrality. His bright emerald eyes pin Julien in place like a specimen under a knife. He'd flee if he could, but he doesn't know how.
Occtis speaks again. "I know why you hate me."
Julien wants to scoff. Bullshit. Even he doesn't know. He bites his tongue. It tastes like a dead boy's semen. They're even now: a piece of Julien in Occtis' stomach, and a piece of Occtis in Julien, just like he wanted. He wishes he felt better about it. He wishes he felt worse. He wishes he never wanted it in the first place.
"I hope soon enough we can put that behind us," says Occtis, slow and measured. "There are more important things at stake, and your ire would be put to better use elsewhere." He sounds older when he stops stammering, and his tone is cool and imperious as if scolding an unruly child. Julien burns all the way to his stomach. The boy can't be more than twenty — Julien is older than him, by half for fuck's sake — and yet Occtis makes him feel childish in the worst kind of way, petty and vindictive and violent. There's still blood on Occtis' face, a faint wet smear of red like a backhanded slap across the mouth. Julien wants to bite him back.
The silence is wretched. Julien wallows in it like the hangover it is, and says nothing.
"I am sorry for the loss of your father," says Occtis. His tone is clipped and formal, but Julien gets the sinking, awful feeling that he means every word. "I hope you will realize I feel no such sorrow for losing mine."
Julien flees.