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Jurand leaned in to scrape the last of the stubble from Leo's neck, the edges of his beard. "There," he said, wiping off Leo's face with a damp towel. It wasn't that Leo couldn't shave himself--he still had one hand that worked--but Jurand had offered to do it for special occasions before, and Leo found it easier to let his friend do it than to look at himself in the mirror and face his gray hairs, his scars, his gauntness, his past.
"I still don't like it," Leo said. "He's--"
Jurand raised his eyebrows and Leo stopped himself from calling King Jappo a degenerate, but he wouldn't have meant it like that. Jurand didn't flout it, didn't lounge around oiled and half-naked and talking about the men he fucked, didn't smoke husk in brothels, didn't shove it--or the trail of hair down his belly and the shadow of his cock--in your face. Jurand was a man's man. Jappo was not.
"He's aggravating," said Leo. "He deliberately set out to provoke me."
"And he succeeded," said Jurand, bringing Leo his shirt.
Leo scowled and let Jurand help him into it. He'd learned to do everything one-handed during the Great Change, when there were no more servants, no more masters. He could have had servants now, but he didn't want someone dressing him because it was their job Jurand gave his help freely because he was Leo's oldest friend, and it felt good to have this time with him, just with him, after Closed Council meetings and before events. It was Jurand, knowing what Leo needed sometimes before Leo himself did.
Leo held his breath as Jurand helped him button the shirt. "Well, he won't succeed this time."
Jurand nodded and smoothed the shirt over Leo's shoulders. Leo's eyes shut, not quite willing to open even as Jurand returned with the jacket. "All you have to do is be in the same room with him. Savine says she'll send her mother in if King Jappo looks to be annoying you too much."
"I thought we weren't trying to provoke war with Styria." Monza Murcatto had arranged the state visit with a series of letters bearing thinly veiled and sometimes quite open threats about what would happen if anyone touched a hair on her sybaritic son's head. Leo would have rather had her come to Adua on this visit. She was a warrior, after all, while Jappo was--
"Do you want the old cane or the new one?" Jurand asked, jolting Leo from unpleasant memories.
Leo frowned. His left arm had recovered enough that he could reliably bend it and keep it straight by his own will. His left hand was still useless, but Curnsbrick had constructed a crutch that clamped around his left forearm and left his right hand free. The leather cuff of it rubbed something fierce if he wore it too long, but Jurand helped him apply salve to the wounds afterwards, so Leo didn't mind.
And it left his right hand free. It helped him feel at least half a man.
"The new cane," Leo said, clearing his throat. "I won't have to be there long."
"No," said Jurand, doing up Leo's jacket, the corner of his mouth twisting upwards. "Not if your arm is bothering you."
Leo'd not used his helpless arm, his stump of a leg like that before. He'd always prided himself on being able to do everything with half the limbs and twice the pain. But Jappo's visit had been Savine's idea; she was the charmer, she was the diplomat, she could handle it, and Leo could leave early, so as not to start a war. That would be his contribution to the peace talks.
Jurand latched the cuff around Leo's arm. "Too tight?"
"No," said Leo. He couldn't really feel it. He tested his weight against the cane and it held steady. He drew in a deep breath, as if he were preparing for battle, and, in a way, he was. He clutched his jaw grimly. "Let's get this over with."
Jurand dipped his head, and he opened the door for Leo, smiling, and they were on their way.
There had been so many, too many, state functions since the Burners had been defeated and Harod named king, and Leo had hated them all to various degrees.
This one was the worst of them all, starting with the way Jappo clutched his hand and said, "The Young Lion again," and smirked. He had the sort of face that Leo might have thought not made for smirking, if it had not been attached to King Jappo of Styria. It should have been an honest man's face, with a broad chin and strong cheekbones, a manly, almost Northern face. "There's something different about you since we last met. Have you changed your hair?"
Leo ground his teeth. "There's more gray in it," he said. "It's called the passage of time. It happens to all of us."
"Oh, yes," said Jappo, squeezing Leo's hand, "that must be it."
And he was off. Savine, who wore a simple white gown that had almost certainly cost ten times what a soldier in the Royal Army earned in a year and had diamonds in her ears and around her throat, caught his eye and smiled, as if to show her approval, and Leo ducked his head, scowling. She wasn't his mother. He didn't need her approval.
At previous parties, Leo had hated feeling like no one wanted to speak to him, look at him, pay attention to him, but at this party, he wished Jappo's eyes would stop ceaselessly cutting back to him.
"Ah, Queen Regent Savine," he was saying now, "I had the honor of meeting your half-brother once, and found him a man who knew how to enjoy the finer things in life. My condolences for your loss."
Any man who knew Savine less would not have seen the pure murder in her face then, but Jappo wouldn't get the satisfaction from her. "Alas," she said, "the people clamored against the old regime. It was an unavoidable sacrifice."
"Nothing is unavoidable," said Jappo, as though Orso had not been a threat to his own throne. He had no politics, no cunning, none at all. But he'd also been fool enough to not back Leo against Orso the first time.
Leo followed his wife and their honored guest at a safe distance, with Jurand half a step behind him. Society swirled towards Savine and Jappo. Isher, the Heugens, Bazerin. You'd hardly have known there'd been a great change by who was still in attendance at palace functions, although the ladies were now all dressed, like Savine, with ostentatious simplicity.
"You wouldn't know we've been at war with Styria for the last twenty years, the way they fawn over him."
"Perhaps they think that by fawning over him, they can end the war with Styria," said Jurand. "But it'll take more than words. Murcatto doesn't care for flattery."
The crowd was bringing the giant figure of Glaward towards them; he stood head and shoulders about the rest. Leo glanced at Jurand, who didn't seem especially affected.
Good. Glaward and Jurand spent time together--all three of them did, the remnants of their band of friends--but Leo hoped they weren't spending time together like they had in Sipani. He didn't like to think about it--he liked to think about it too much--
"Leo," Glaward said, embracing him almost as carelessly, as roughly, as he had when Leo was still whole. Leo felt a little unsteady, a little winded, but he'd rather that than Glaward treat him like he was made of glass and as easily shattered. "I mean. Your Grace." He turned to Savine. "Your Grace. Your Majesty."
"This is Glaward, our Lord Marshall," Savine told Jappo. "And--I'm sorry, I don't know your friend's name."
"Oh," said Glaward. There was a man beside him, not as tall or broad as Glaward was, though few were. He had reddish hair. "This is Georden dan Acker; he's my partner."
"I have the honor of working in your new bank, Your Grace," said Georden, bowing in Savine's direction.
"So," said Leo, knowing it was foolish even as he said it, "not your business partner."
"No," said Glaward quietly. "We're--living together."
Leo wanted to glance back at Jurand, to ask if he'd known about this, but Savine swooped in. "He is rather handsome," she said, "and one of my bankers, so he must be clever. I am so happy for you, Glaward."
Jappo seemed as much at a loss for words as Leo was, for one moment. And he said, slowly, "It has been a great change."
Leo's good hand clutched Jurand's arm. Glaward had this--man--with him, he'd brought him to a state function and introduced him as if Georden were his wife, and--well of course Savine didn't care, but everyone else was acting like it wasn't shameful, like it was something normal, or at least they were trying very hard to give that impression, some succeeding better than others. Isher looked a bit green, but Selest dan Heugen smiled widely and kissed both men on their cheeks. "Did you know?" he hissed.
"No," said Jurand, "it took a special stupid courage to have done this, and I would have told him it might go wrong--"
"No," said Leo, "about--Georden. And Glaward."
Jurand blinked at him. "Oh. Glaward and I--we weren't like that, not like--the way he and Georden--"
"In love?"
Jurand looked away. "Of course not. But--doing this, here--I knew he'd met someone, I knew they were living together. But now no one can say anything without offending the King of Styria, so they're all giving him their blessing instead of demanding his immediate resignation and return to Angland. He was a fool to take the risk, but it worked."
Leo looked back at Glaward and Georden and thought Glaward was a fool for settling for Georden when he'd once had Jurand. But he was glad for Glaward, suddenly.
"It's very advanced of you," said King Jappo. "You know, one of the Grand Duke Orso's generals that my mother defeated was from the Union originally, but expelled for his proclivities. He was quite a good general, too. I sometimes wonder, between General Ganmark and my mother, if there's a connection between liking cocks and being a brilliant general."
Leo didn't feel Jappo's mocking gaze on him, but he felt that the remark was somehow pointed at him all the same.
Savine recovered first. "Your mother has a singular military genius, Your Majesty. It feels rather reductive to credit her many victories to something as common as cocks."
Jappo laughed. "True enough, I suppose. I'm no strategic genius, and I dare say I like cocks more than most."
Leo grimaced through the polite titters, glad for his missing leg making it impossible for him to barrel through and grab Jappo and tell him to stop talking about it. He felt hot, and like his collar was too tight, and Jappo's gaze kept circling back to him, he was sure of it, and Glaward and Georden were arm-in-arm--
He couldn't stop thinking about it, what Jappo had said about great generals and liking cock. It wasn't as though Glaward were some great military mind, after all, and as for Monza Murcatto--she might have been the greatest military mind of her age, even if she were a Styrian, but Leo would have said that as far as he'd heard, Monza Murcatto didn't like much of anything.
Rikke--the thought of her, of what he'd thought of as her betrayal, even if she'd given him a good enough reason, stabbed at him again--was a good general, he supposed, although that had more to do with seeing the future than liking cocks. Leo didn't think that enough to support Jappo's assertion, but he also couldn't stop trying to argue with it, even if only in his own mind. And Jappo kept looking back like he knew, knew that Leo couldn't stop thinking about what he'd said. Couldn't stop thinking about Sipani, either. The red robe, fallen open. Jurand's trousers down. Glaward half-naked, kneeling on the floor. Leo took a hard step onto the floor on purpose, his metal leg jolting into his stump, and the pain should have helped, only Jurand came to his right side and took his arm.
"Are you alright?" he asked quietly, and though no one could have heard, when Leo finally tore his gaze away from Jurand's long, fine eyelashes, he could see that Savine and Jappo had stopped as well, and they were turning back.
"Left arm," he said, through gritted teeth. "The cuff." It wasn't bothering him worse than usual, and if it weren't for King bloody Jappo, he could have held out another hour at least.
Jurand nodded, and led Leo away.
Leo could hear Savine explaining something to Jappo, tugging him away as Leo finally escaped.
Even back in his own rooms, though, Leo felt haunted by Jappo's mockery, by the memory of that night in Sipani.
Jurand, without being asked, leaned in to unwrap the cane. Leo could smell him, his hair, the skin of his neck. The warmth of his body far too hot against Leo's, far too--
Jurand straightened up from leaning the cane against Leo's bedside table, and Leo kissed him.
His lips were so soft. Leo wouldn't have thought they'd be so soft.
Jurand kissed him back, first tentatively, then hard. Somehow, suddenly, Jurand's fingers were in Leo's hair, and he was being held and Leo wanted to sob with how much he wanted it, how much he'd never known how much he wanted it, needed it, but Jurand knew what he needed. Jurand always knew what he needed. Leo put his good hand on Jurand's back, trying to pull him closer, and Jurand gasped and said, "Leo--"
"I'm sorry," Leo said, "about Sipani; I'm sorry, I--"
"Leo, I don't want to talk about Sipani--"
"I saw it and I thought about--I wanted, I wanted you to do that to me," Leo confessed; all the shameful nights he'd slipped his good hand beneath his nightshirt and tried very hard not to think about it but it always snuck in toward the end, when he was stroking himself too fast to tell himself he cared. He was almost that hard now, almost ready to spend any sudden, shameful moment against Jurand's hip. Jurand's own hardness was against Leo's bad leg, the best feeling Leo'd had in the stump ever, and that was why it hit him like a blow when Jurand said, "No."
Before Leo could stagger back, shame coming, his face hot and his eyes stinging, Jurand tightened the grip in the back of Leo's hair said said, "No, I have to see your face, Leo, to know it's you, it's finally you--"
Leo crashed back into him. Somehow they managed to get undressed without Leo shooting off--he did tear one of the ornamental braids off Jurand's jacket in his haste, and his iron leg toppled over with an almighty clatter once he undid the straps--and Leo was under Jurand, his thighs spread so Jurand could rest between them, not that there was anything restful about it, and Leo wanted--he wanted so many things, but he wanted to keep kissing Jurand most of all. Leo brushed his fingers across Jurand's face. He didn't have any words for what he wanted except, "Please."
Jurand swallowed, "I," he said, his gaze shifting. "I don't want to hurt you."
"You couldn't," Leo said, although of course Jurand could; Leo had been hurt by seeing Jurand with someone else, been hurt by the estrangement he'd instigated, by Jurand's absence. But as long as Jurand was here, there was nothing he could do that wouldn't make Leo feel good. He recalled how excited it had made him when Savine slapped him, and how that paled in comparison to the gentlest brush of Jurand's fingers, the press of his lips.
Jurand stared down at Leo, his expression softening, his eyes--his eyes looked at Leo the way they always had. Back before Stoffenbeck, before Sipani, before Savine, the war. Leo'd been a fool not to see it in all that time.
At least he saw it now, he thought, reaching up to pull Jurand back down onto him, to kiss him. Jurand's hand skimmed over Leo's chest, his stomach, his cock, and Leo groaned and bucked. "Please, please, I want you--"
"Leo," Jurand said, and kissed him, "I don't--I'm going to get the salve, to--"
Leo understood, but it still was agony when Jurand rolled off him and left the bed, and when Jurand came back in reach, Leo ran his hand all over him, down his spine, surprising himself by finding the dip of Jurand's arse and Jurand fumbled and dropped the tin of salve onto the bedclothes.
"Sorry, sorry," Leo murmured into Jurand's neck, and Jurand made a sort of incredulous laugh of a sound, and said, "Are you ready," and opened the tin and Leo swore and Jurand slid the tip of one finger into him.
Leo panted and whined and tried very very hard to not come untouched, like a boy in a brothel for the first time.
"Am I," Jurand said, and Leo squeezed his thighs together before Jurand could try to retreat.
"No," said Leo, trying to tell Jurand with whatever words he could find that he needed more, and now, and soon, and Jurand stared down at him for a second and then said, "You'll need to spread your legs," and Leo did, and oh, and Jurand was kissing him as he worked him open and Leo couldn't even care about the noises he was making when Jurand was making him feel this way, and then Jurand withdrew his fingers and Leo whined at the loss, feeling too open and empty and flushed but before he could embarrass himself, Jurand leaned forward and kissed Leo on the bridge of his nose. "Ready?" he asked, dazed, breathless.
"Fucking--get on--already--" Leo said, and Jurand grinned that smile that always lit Leo up, and pushed in.
It only took a few strokes before Leo was coming, and Jurand slowed, but Leo dragged him back with his good hand and slurred, "Keep going," and it was both too much and not enough until Jurand stilled and then his hips jerked into Leo's a few more times and he slumped obver Leo and Leo curled his arm around Jurand's head.
"Next time I'll last longer," he told Jurand and Jurand huffed out something and Leo kissed him again. He wished that he'd realized that this was what he wanted, what he needed, years ago, that they could have been doing this--gods, forever. When Leo'd still had all his limbs, at least. But with Jurand's skin against his, and Jurand's dark hair soft against his face, it didn't really matter how clumsy Leo's left arm was, or where his left leg ended, because right then and there, Leo had never felt so whole.