Work Text:
Roland wakes, and observes himself in a large, deep feather bed. His round cheeks and faint smile speak of a life that has never known hardship.
He has, of course, known some. Being Frani’s brother has never been easy, but at least Roland doesn’t bear the burden of being the next king. He watches himself reach beneath the silken sheets to fondle his morning cock, before he stretches out under the sanctuary of the covers to seek full relief.
Roland, watching, finds himself beautiful. Finds the way his lips part irresistible, finds the subtle motions of his hips responding to his own attention delicious and true. He’s always imagined doing something like this with Serenoa, but Serenoa—Serenoa’s always loved him, but not like this. Surely nothing like this.
Roland wakes, and observes himself in a cramped, square cell. His shoulders are slumped, his hair is tatty, and his eyes are bruised purple around the lids. This was his choice, so he has no regrets. He chose it to protect Serenoa. He chose it because it’s just what he deserves. He’d always thought he’d known, foolish little brother that he is—now he’s seen true suffering first hand. Now he knows what Frani’s burden was. Now he knows he’s the only thing that stands between Cordelia and this same overbearing struggle.
Now’s not the time to find himself attractive, not when he’s so pathetic and miserable. But Roland still takes himself in hand as he watches himself shiver in the cold, and still works and works and works himself until he leaves spatters of white on the floor of the cell. His sitting self jerks, looks up—and sees nothing, because although Roland is there, he is not there, and Roland leaves Roland alone to contemplate the imminent end.
Roland wakes, and observes himself curled tightly on his side. He shivers on a thin bedroll beneath the open, star-dazzled sky.
He’s a dead man. He’s a masked secret and he has abandoned the burden to Cordelia’s tiny shoulders, and he hates himself for it. He hates Serenoa for making him. He hates everything about this efflorescent, salt-crusted reality. He hates that Hughette looks at him with pity in her eyes and that Erador is always one protective step behind him so he can never get a moment to himself.
He hates that he’s still beautiful.
It’s the cut of his jawline, the hard stubbornn glint in his eyes, the delicate curl of blond at his temple. It’s the way any soft plumpness has melted from his frame, giving way instead to a lean composition that begs for a mouth upon it. No one else has touched him—he remains unspoiled, the way an unmarried royal is supposed to be.
But Roland isn’t royal anymore, because Roland is dead. And Roland jerks himself off over a corpse that doesn’t know he’s there.
Roland wakes, and observes himself again in a deep feather bed. It’s not so large as the one he used to claim, back in Whiteholm Castle, but it is warm, and comfortable, and it is shared. On one side of him sleeps Serenoa, his brow furrowed even deep in sleep; on the other side of him rests Frederica, more delicate unconscious than she ever dares to be awake. They are precious to his watching gaze.
And between them, Roland is still most beautiful to his own eyes. He is more beautiful than he’s been in a long time. Roland sees the smile on his face, limpid and dumb, and the eased tension in the muscles of his body. Roland sees the marks left on his body by his two lovers and takes himself in hand, because he cannot but mark himself with his own wet ejaculate, and that’s all he wants to do in this gorgeous stolen moment before everything continues to go wrong.