Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandom:
Relationship:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Series:
Part 3 of Obligation, Duty, Honor
Stats:
Published:
2025-03-03
Updated:
2026-07-21
Words:
80,420
Chapters:
26/?
Comments:
2,153
Kudos:
1,310
Bookmarks:
153
Hits:
47,215

Honor of Men

Chapter 24

Chapter Text

“We must discuss the consummation,” Laurent said. It was the last thing Damen expected to hear from him upon his entering the room. He felt his brow crease with concern – an expression met with frank, stubborn determination.

As Laurent threw himself into a chair, Damen reflected that it was the first time Laurent had looked him in the eye in weeks.

“All right,” Damen said, slowly.

Laurent motioned him to a chair.

“You aren’t going to like it,” Laurent warned.

Laurent had been different since their reunion, and Damen could no more pinpoint how or why than he could now begin to pick apart how to go about fixing it. Distant? Laurent didn’t avoid him. He spoke to him freely and often, spent meal times at his side, went scouting with him as they crossed the countryside – but he was all business, his mind continually on the coming war and the plans he wove around it.

Damen missed his companionship in a way he didn’t possess the words to explain. His bright, brilliant little husband was right there, and yet Damen felt more separated from him than he had while they had been apart.

Laurent didn’t speak right away. For a moment, they simply sat, the silence between them mutual as they observed one another. If Laurent was at all uncomfortable with his intended subject of conversation, he did nothing to show it.

“Will you have trouble performing?” Laurent asked at last.

“What do you mean?” Damen was fool enough to ask. Laurent’s gaze was flat.

“Will you be capable of fucking me when the time comes?”

Of course that was the question – asked so neatly, with a surgeon’s sharp precision. Laurent wasn’t even blushing.

“It would hardly be the first time performance enhancing drugs were necessary to close a contract,” Laurent said, “But I would prefer we keep their application as discreet as possible. I will have Erasmus acquire them in advance.”

“No,” Damen said. It was hard to find his voice. He tried clearing his throat. “No,” he said again. “I won’t need them.”

“Your pride is speaking,” Laurent said after a moment, dismissive.

“You think so?”

“You are an Akielon being asked to perform in public,” Laurent said. “Even if I was not ugly, you’re far too shy to maintain an erection unaided.”

It was hard to decide what to protest first.

“Laurent, you aren’t ugly.”

Laurent waved that away without acknowledging it. He looked almost bored with the topic.

“I think it is best I make sure we have the herbs on hand, just in case,” he decided. “Silphium is not so easy to come by on the border.”

“Laurent,” Damen sighed.

“Has anyone spoken to you yet about how the consummation is to occur?”

“I know how to have sex, damn it!”

Laurent had been right; Damen did not like this conversation. Laurent’s expression clearly projected that he thought his husband was being childish.

“Sex!” Laurent scoffed. “I knew you’d embarrass me.”

“What does that mean?”

“You will try to be kind,” Laurent said. “You will try to be sweet. You will force yourself to make love to me, and in the end, I will look like a whore.”

Damen was almost too distracted by the concept that he would have to force himself to make love to Laurent to pay attention to the rest of his statement, but something about the vulgarity of hearing a word like whore come out of the perfect Cupid’s bow of Laurent’s lips brought him back. This entire conversation seemed to require a prioritization of obscenities. If he wasn’t careful, Laurent wouldn’t give him time to address them all.

“Laurent,” Damen said.

“Damen,” Laurent returned. His gaze was still flat, determined, and stubborn. He had set himself on a path that hurt him, and he would not be discouraged from it.

“This conversation cannot continue until you agree to stop making disparaging comments about my husband,” Damen said.

“I’m not - !”

“Like hells you aren’t. You’re ugly? I’ll have to force myself to touch you? Making love to you would be a kindness? I would kill any other man who spoke of you in such a way.”

The expression in Laurent’s eyes flickered; for a moment, he looked even more hurt. Just as quickly as Damen had seen it, it was gone, replaced by annoyance.

“Then you would be forced to murder your own brother – along with half the Veretian court.”

“I’ll start with your uncle and see how far I get,” Damen promised. “It would be my pleasure.”

They were at an impasse again, staring at one another. Laurent’s lips were thin with displeasure, Damen’s brow drawn down in anger.

“We must have this conversation,” Laurent said at last, biting out the words like a tough piece of meat. Damen, meeting his glare, graciously spread his hands.

“It’s not the conversation itself I have objection to.”

Laurent closed his eyes. Damen had the distinct impression that he was either counting to ten, or praying for patience.

“We will enter from separate rooms,” Laurent said at last. “I will get into position on the bed, and you will mount from behind me.”

“Directly to the point? Laurent, it doesn’t have to be like – “

“It does have to be like that,” Laurent interrupted. His eyes had snapped back open. His expression stopped Damen cold, more than his words. “By consummating our marriage, we are performing a noble, sacred rite. We cannot behave as Pets putting on a show.”

“Your Council are the ones insisting on watching - !”

“You will mount,” Laurent insisted. “You will penetrate me. You will continue until you reach completion, after which a physician will verify that you finished. Our guests will receive refreshments while we retreat to our rooms to clean up.”

“And you call us barbarians,” Damen scoffed.

“There will be no foreplay. I will prepare myself beforehand. You must merely concern yourself with – with performing.”

It sounded cold and joyless, robbed of all passion or pleasure of any kind. Damen had not allowed himself time to contemplate what it would be like to take his little husband to bed, but he had never imagined the first time being like –

“I told you that you would not like it,” Laurent said, and some of the ice had left his voice.

“It sounds more like rape than union.”

Laurent looked compassionate – unfair, considering the role he was to play in this scenario. “If I wasn’t willing to continue this marriage with you, I would have found a way out of it long before now.”

“I won’t hurt you,” Damen said next.

“I’ll make sure I’m ready for you. A friend has sent me some training tools.”

Laurent didn’t understand. He had never done it before, and Damen was not a small man. He was already shaking his head. It surprised him when Laurent reached out and caught his hand.

“You won’t hurt me,” Laurent promised.

“I don’t want this for you.”

“This is how it was always going to be.”

With a sick lurch, Damen remembered their Akielon wedding, and the bed that Laurent’s uncle had ordered set out for them. He remembered how small Laurent had been back then, how frightened.

“Come to bed with me,” Damen said.

It startled a laugh out of Laurent. Laurent said, “Don’t tell me our discussion has suddenly turned your amorous!”

Damen felt anything but. He could not shake the memory of Laurent at fourteen, all eyes and elbows. He gripped his husband’s hand tighter.

“It will be your first time,” he tried to explain. “I can’t have it go that way for you.”

“You’re kind,” Laurent said.

“Laurent…”

Laurent pulled his hand away. “I will not violate our contract.”

Damen wanted to throw something. “Those are my choices?” he demanded. “Hurt you or lose you? Unacceptable!”

“You won’t hurt me,” Laurent repeated, and he sounded so sure of himself until he added, “And if you do, it will hardly matter. I will know it wasn’t your intent.”

Damen wanted to throttle him.

“This was always going to be what marriage meant for me,” Laurent said again.

It was in the contract, Damen well knew. Not only that they had to seal their union in the Veretian way, but that Laurent, being the younger, was to be on the receiving end of the deal. This was seen as proper to Akielon sensibilities as well as Veretian. Damen had never even questioned the idea that he was to be the one on top when the time eventually came for them to couple.

Auguste had known what it meant to sign that contract. Auguste had known, and he had given Laurent to Damen anyway.

Damen had the sudden urge to find Hugo and beat him senseless.

“You cannot embarrass me, Damen,” Laurent said, as if that was all that mattered. Before Damen could respond, there was a knock on the door.

“Message from Ios,” the servant said.

“This isn’t over,” Damen told his husband, but when he took the offered letter, the ground seemed to fall away beneath him. He remembered, a moment too late, what word he had been waiting for.

The servant retreated, but the atmosphere in the room had changed. Damen could feel Laurent’s eyes from where he yet sat. Whatever tension, whatever distance had grown up between them, it now dissipated. Damen was alone with his husband – his friend – and the letter that held his brother’s fate.

“Do you want me to open it?” Laurent asked. His voice was the only thing that existed in the sudden, all-encroaching quiet.

Damen was already certain of what it would say. There was only one response to crimes like Kastor’s. He licked his lips.

“They will make him do it to himself,” he said. “He will have a choice – to drink hemlock or fall upon his own sword. He’ll choose the latter.” Damen could see it as if he was there to witness it. The brother he had always admired, so strong and competent and skilled, unsheathing his sword and placing it against his own breast. “It will be the only honor he has left. He would shame himself beyond all forgiveness if he refused.”

“Damen…”

Damen’s thumb cracked the wax on the letter, but he couldn’t make himself open it. He hadn’t let himself think about what it would mean when he sent his brother to Ios. Perhaps he had thought their father would think of some other fate. At the time, he had only been grateful that it was his father’s place, not Damen’s, to pass judgement. Now he felt the responsibility as if he himself had named the punishment.

“He raised his sword to you,” Laurent said.

“Yes,” Damen agreed, and it throbbed a little, that old scar where Kastor had once run him through. Damen had been a child at the time. He had been proud of it. “He would have killed me,” Damen acknowledged. Another beat, and he lifted his eyes to Laurent’s. “He would have hurt you.”

“Yes,” Laurent agreed, and he left it at that.

Damen opened the letter. His eyes found the words he expected.

Laurent didn’t try to stop him when he left.