Archive of Our Own

Madrid, 1525

“No, my sweet, it’s not that I thought you could not handle yourself around them- it’s just that they're a very different sort to those you're used to-“

Roderich ignores his husband save for tossing his hair slightly. He's fussing over his own reflection in the segmented mirror, adjusting his collar and tugging at the creases around his hips.

Antonio's frowning face wavers over his shoulder, visible in the Venetian craftsmanship, brow creased and an irritation Roderich is starting to become familiar with marring his expression.

Stepping forward, his husband places a hand on his waist above his left hip, giving a squeeze which lay somewhere between comforting and patronising. “I did not mean to upset you, Rodri,” Antonio insists, his thumb sliding back and forth over the embroidery at Roderich's hip, “I know you to be a shrewd diplomat, such a clever mind behind those pretty eyes, but these are not the sort of men from our North that you are used to.”

Roderich fixes Antonio with a look in the mirror, his lips pursed and his eyes narrowed. It is frustrating to be spoken down to in this way, and he makes it known by taking a step closer to the mirror such that Antonio is forced to let go of him.

“Just because I have not met the man myself does not mean I do not know how to deal with his kind. You think of the Ottomans as menaces of the Mediterranean, but they are breathing down my neck too.” Roderich points out; he has become accustomed as of late to a politics oriented toward the East.

The Ottomans are turning their greedy eyes to Hungary, appetites not satiated by their victory in Persia. While Roderich is far more interested in the gold and the glamour of Spain than the seemingly-endless rain of the Balkans, he knows he should at least pay it some mind. Romisches would jump at any opportunity to label him distracted.

Distracted indeed, by those green eyes that watch him in the mirror, head tossed to the side like a dog who is trying to work out whether the noise it heard was food or foe.

Roderich, for his part, cares little for the indecisive Hungarian king. He does however harbour affections for the king's Austrian wife, a daughter of the great union which had born his own marriage with Antonio. She is level-headed, full of vigour, and in her he sees himself, a political tool married into a foreign land.

With Mary in mind, the outright Ottoman revulsion for the Habsburg union with the Hungarian royal family puts Roderich, mildly, rather on edge.

Antonio well knows all of this, but he suspects that is part of what drives his husband to be so resistant to his involvement in the political discussion tabled today. Antonio may see Roderich's place as being in Spain, as his focus being on their Southern Empire, but his husband knows well 2000 troops are not spared to Hungary trivially.

Indeed, Antonio's jaw clenches, the hand that had been curling around Roderich's hip instead fisting at his side. He is chewing the inside of his cheek, Roderich can tell, and he's drawn his shoulders back to emphasise the height he has on Roderich. It is not half as much height as his German cousins have, Roderich thinks fleetingly.

“He is a difficult man, Roderich, and he does not play by the rules we do in more civilised lands. You are fantastic at what you do,” Antonio says emphatically, layering on the compliments and spreading his hands imploringly, “But this is an entirely different game, a set of etiquettes and formalities that your central position on the map has not afforded you.”

Roderich tightens the collar of his shirt with more vigour than is entirely necessary. “I will not learn if I do not play.” He insists, turning instead to his perfume table, his hand waving over the top of the bottles as he hesitates over the scent.

Antonio is back in his personal space now, having closed the short distance. He reaches his tan hand out to clasp around Roderich's wrist, rubbing his thumb over the joint. “The bergamot one,” he urges, mouth close to Roderich's ear such that his hot breath tickles the hairs on the back of his neck and makes them stand up.

It should irk Roderich, the change in topic, but instead he finds his cheeks a little pink as his fingers clasp on Antonio's favourite of his scents. This, he will not argue over.

Sliding the bottle free from its compatriots, he turns in Antonio's hold to look up at him from beneath dark eyelashes.

Green eyes flicker over his face, searching and greedy, but for this Roderich is in no mood. Even as Antonio tugs on his wrist a little more insistently, Roderich shakes his head.

“Perhaps had you not lied to me to have me leave the palace while you received the guests, I might be more amenable.”

It isn't nerves that makes Roderich's body tense. Antonio has not and would never lay a hand on him in anger, but that way his husband's lip twitches is a sight that has often precluded wrath upon those Roderich does not pity. But still, for the few moments that Antonio holds his wrist a little tighter than is necessary, Roderich in turn squeezes the perfume bottle.

As though the moment had never happened, Antonio is quick to release him and step back with a boyish laugh. “Ah, my Rodri, you are dressed so lovely and still you deny me? You are a cruel thing indeed.”

Roderich smiles in response, the tension melting away and replaced by the warmth in his chest that always floods his system when Antonio praises him so. Being loved by a man as roughish and handsome as Antonio is never not a pleasure, and that easy smile and the way he holds his hands up in surrender tell of an enjoyable night to come. To be wanted by Antonio is an honour, Roderich thinks, as he applies the Bergamot perfume, the citrus notes flooding his senses.

Distracted for now with dressing himself too, Antonio gives Roderich the peace to finish making himself presentable. He is frustrated, of course, to have been sent away from the court like a woman who cannot be trusted, but Roderich suspects Antonio's excuses are at least partially true. His husband well knows his political abilities and it is more likely a spell of possessiveness that fuelled his easy lies, rather than underestimation.

No, there is no point arguing further. There is rarely any point in arguing with Antonio at all, but especially not tonight. There are guests to meet, food to consume, and dancing to be enjoyed. Roderich has made the mistake of arguing with Antonio before a party only once, and Antonio's biting remarks and furious looks had been enough to have him in bed before the night had grown even properly dark.

“You truly are such a treasure, my sweet, the most glittering jewel in my collection,” Antonio says, dressed now in complimentary colours and holding out a hand to Roderich. His husband's curls are untamed as usual, but it only adds to the boyish charm. Wide smiles, messy hair, and boundless enthusiasm. It is hard not to be swept up in the Spaniard.

Roderich allows his own hand to slip into Antonio’s, his husband's thumb idly tracing the three moles which dot the back of his hand. A three-count, soothing to Antonio but mildly distracting to Roderich. He smiles and presses a kiss to Antonio's cheek, smooth and tacky on account of his recent shave.

“Then I would suit you well, for your looks will turn the heads of every woman and man in the room tonight.” Roderich says affectionately, presenting his cheek in turn, the order implicit.

Antonio leans in obligingly, humming in agreement. “What a pair we are,” He agrees, pulling back to instead fold Roderich's arm over his own and to step out of their marital chambers.

There is a sense of anticipation in the air, Roderich thinks. Part of it is likely his own mind, preoccupied with Antonio's words on the Ottoman's character and the mystery that being sent away had created. But part of it is certainly real, as servants dart into attractively concealed hallways carrying armfuls of this and that. Before they have even reached the large hall the rumble of voices echoes down the stone hallways of the capital's palace, creating a sense of building expectation.

The closer they get, the more Roderich finds himself checking his own sleeves for loose threads, tucking the errant curl that springs free at the front of his hair back into place. Antonio, in turn, switches his hold on Roderich's arm three times before he settles with the Austrian as close as he can get him. Roderich would be lying if he said it wasn't comforting, the press of a broad shoulder against his own, a calloused hand toying with his knuckles, with the gleaming ring that sits astride his finger.

Certainly, they make a good match; a pretty sight. But their bond is new, Roderich knows, and the animosity between the Spanish and the Ottomans is far from it. Roderich is an interloper here.

Stepping through the large double doors feels at once an intense affair and a little underwhelming. More banners than usual are strung from the ceiling in the colours of the Spanish Hapsburgs, lowering the ceilings with rich, deep reds, giving the sense that the large room is more intimate than usual. A group of musicians are situated by the large open space for dancing, playing something idly over the pre-dinner chatter. Guests are seated in rows of tables, elbow to elbow, and servants weave between them as though they themselves are dancing tonight, balancing plates piled high with meats and jugs that threaten to spill at the slightest wobble.

But, Roderich thinks, this is all rather normal. Naturally, the guests are dressed in clothes and forms he doesn't recognise, in scarves wound around their heads and with beards that are dark and well groomed. Ultimately, however, a party is a party. The Ottoman group are high ranked enough to be of note but not so much to cause any real stir, and none of them look up at Antonio and Roderich.

Well, almost none. Roderich's eyes might have slid right over him in their surveillance of the hall had it not been for the way Antonio had squeezed his hand so hard he was concerned his thumb might pop out of its joint.

Any opportunity for eye contact or a polite smile was thusly dashed as he was distracted by his own surprised sound of pain and following attempts to give Antonio a reproving pinch.

This is enough for Antonio to steer them both away from the table at which the Ottoman lingers with his party and towards their own people. Roderich falls into it naturally, smiling and speaking in the right places, nodding his head and making prompting sounds where the humans like him to. They have nothing interesting to tell him, not this evening, and even if they did Antonio would probably put a stop to it.

So, in the end, they sit and eat, and are talked at ceaselessly. When Roderich tires of the conversation Antonio is there to step in for him, a hand on his thigh and a smile on his sunny face. The court here adores Antonio, that is for certain, and they are coming to feel the same for Roderich. At first, he had fumbled through, his ways of dancing more common and his Spanish fumbling, no match for the severity of the Spanish court. But it has been years now, and they tell him he speaks like a local, slang words in the right places, and Antonio has spent hours with him ceaselessly dancing until he knows that his own technique is better than Antonio's- though he would not say it aloud.

Still, as he sips his wine and enjoys the distraction provided by Antonio's description of a story he has heard more times than his own name, Roderich finds his eyes straying.

The other nation is already looking.

For all of his incursions onto Hungarian soil as of late, and the unsubtle way in which the raids stray closer and closer to Roderich's own territory, the Ottoman nation himself has remained a far-off figure. Not unlike Roderich himself, he thinks, spending his time (too much, far too much, if one asked any of his German allies) away from the fringes of his empire. Roderich empathises, he supposes. He will show face when the stage calls for it, when he is a main player and it is expected of him, but Roderich knows his time is better spent in comfort and security putting his mind and his tongue to work.

Antonio's hand is warm on his thigh. His tongue indeed.

The question of why he is here, of course, does bother Roderich. Antonio had been cagey when pushed about it weeks prior to their arrival when word had come that the nation would be in their company. But now, faced with him, Roderich can see the answer plain as day; curiosity.

Instead of looking away in embarrassment at being caught, the nation instead smiles warmly beneath a neat, dark beard, and raises a goblet in greeting. He bows his head slightly, and Roderich thinks that his eyes are as dark as his hair; deep and rich.

Roderich finds himself compelled to do the same, inclining his head in turn. It is rare to meet another nation whose face he does not already know, and the natural affinity between their kind cannot be denied. In a room of people who do not understand him, do not understand his marriage to Antonio or his role in this palace, let alone the harshness of his accented-Spanish, this other man looks at him through the crowd and knows him.

The hand that had been resting idle on his thigh clenches suddenly as his husband notices their exchange and Roderich is broken from the spell.

He turns to his husband with a smile, and Antonio leans a little closer. “What do you think?” He murmurs, voice edged with malcontent.

“Ah, you value my opinion now, do you?” Roderich asks, casting a final glance over at the foreign nation who has since turned back to his own compatriots.

Antonio's smile doesn't waver, but he half-blinks in what Roderich knows easily as a tell of mild irritation. “Tell me what is in your pretty head,” Antonio insists obligingly, his grip slackening to rub at Roderich's inner thigh. He can feel the way Antonio's thumb-ring catches at the seam there, and it makes his foot tap on the floor of the hall to distract from the sensation. Not a good time for that, indeed.

“I think he is somehow taller than I had imagined. I had thought he would be a stout man,” Roderich says blithely. He is not about to tell Antonio any of his thoughts about instinctive transcendent connections between nations. His husband probably isn't in the headspace to welcome that.

He isn't lying though. The image he had conjured of the Ottoman in his mind had been unflattering, probably fed by caricatures in the travelogues he reads. Indeed, maybe in part by the Prussian, and his tales of crusade and the men he had met there. The reality of the nation sat smiling and laughing in their residence challenges Roderich unexpectedly.

Antonio hums and leans closer, jostling their shoulders together slightly.

“The beard is new,” Antonio says, because if there is anything the pair of them can do, it is gossip, “I think it ages him.”

Roderich hides an amused smile by dabbing at the corner of his mouth with a napkin, “He certainly looks older than us,” he agrees, looking again from the corner of his eyes to the Ottoman's smile-crinkled eyes, to the many gold rings on his fingers not unlike Antonio’s.

Around them, the guests at the tables start to grow restless, their hunger satiated by rich food but their palettes wetted for merrymaking by the rich wine. Roderich still cannot drink much of it without losing his wits, so different from what he had spent many of his earlier decades drinking.

“Ah, but I am older than you and my face does not show it,” Antonio points out, smiling at him in such a way that makes it clear he's angling for a compliment.

Roderich contorts his face into an expression of innocence and raises his eyebrows, knowing the effect is to makes him look even younger than he is. It certainly works on the noble ladies to convince them to share their secrets if they think him a simple-minded Northerner.

“Doesn’t it? The first portrait I received of you I thought I was to be married to an old man.”

For that, Roderich receives a pinch to his inner thigh that makes him squeak and promptly stifle further laughter into his napkin.

Antonio is trying to frown but managing only to pout. “I asked them to send another. You know how I feel about that painting.”

“I did still marry you, even in spite of it,” Roderich points out, and he bumps his shoulder into Antonio’s affectionately. Truly, it had worried him quite a lot as part of their early courting communications. He has a distinct memory of rather losing his rag in front of Romisches, and making all sorts of threats involving short walks off of tall balconies if Karl would force him to go to bed with a man like that.

Thankfully, a second portrait had been sent and Roderich had shut his mouth rather quickly.

Antonio smiles at him genuinely, the one dimple he possesses in his left cheek on display. Roderich is possessed by the urge to lean in and kiss it as he has a hundred times, but though the mortal men at their table might condone to union, that might test their patience.

“And how lucky I am,” Antonio agrees, his bright eyes flickering over Roderich's face to drink him in. He squeezes Roderich's thigh again, this time with no overt meaning. “Shall we move to dance a little before we are expected to entertain anyone?”

Indeed, Roderich knows if not the Ottomans then any lady of marriageable age will be thrust upon the two of them. Largely they are treated with wariness and respect by the court, but it is understood the political sway the affections of a nation man can have. A dance with Roderich or Antonio could lift a girl’s favour in the parlour rooms, and Roderich himself was no stranger to helping orchestrate.

Which meant for now, while they could, they would dance together.

It is easy, dancing with Antonio. Songs Roderich has long become familiar with fill the air, and it is with practiced ease that they move with the other couples. He no longer has to concentrate on counting beats or desperately trying to read Antonio for cues. It is easy to respond to the slight turns of Antonio's head, of the pressure through his hand or against his waist which urge him to adjust a step there, turn here.

Instead, they are free to comment on the other guests, exchange information and gossip, in the privacy that the whirling of bodies affords them. Roderich listens as Antonio tells him the names of the important people in the Ottoman party he needs to remember, plays memory games with himself to associate the unfamiliar pronunciations with the colours of certain robes or sizes of emissaries feast-fed stomachs.

Like this, it is easy to be self-satisfied. They have this game down to a craft, they know how to divide and conquer factions at court, how to advance the agendas of those they support and how to show their disapproval for those who step out of line. They do not miss a single beat, not with Antonio leading the dance, not with Roderich's clever eyes watching the other dancers react.

That is what makes the arrival of the Ottoman as the song comes to an end all the more startling.

Roderich is slightly pink-cheeked with the exertion of the dance. It is early spring, so the halls of the palace are not particularly warm, but even so he is wearing many layers and sweat prickles at the nape of his neck. They come to a gentle halt, Antonio smiling down at Roderich, shifting to press the barest of a kiss to his temple before social cues dictate they step back.

It is there that the Ottoman inserts himself. Up close, Roderich is truly aware of how much he had underestimated the size of the man. Roderich would not consider himself a particularly short man, average among the humans who flock the hall. Among nation men, perhaps, who with their immortality are often blessed with exaggerated features; extra inches in height or an unnaturally attractive quality about their appearance. Roderich always feels slightly resentful that God had given him no real gift in any such department.

Still, the Ottoman is taller than Roderich by near a head, such that Roderich has to lift his chin to look fully up into those dark eyes. It should be intimidating, but there is no threat sparkling there, none of the greediness Roderich too often sees in the eyes of powerful men. Curiosity, again, is all he observes.

“Ispanya,” the Ottoman says, and Roderich can't help but think his voice is warm and rich, deeper than either his own or Antonio's, “your hospitality has been as you said. So welcoming.”

He's smiling, his upper lip half-hidden in a thick moustache, and there's something of a glittering teasing quality in his expression.

“It is my pleasure to host you as always,” Antonio replies, and though his smile is as boyish and charming as always it does not meet his eyes. It is almost resentfully that he introduces Roderich. “My husband, as I mentioned earlier.”

Given permission by Antonio, the Ottoman's eyes turn to Roderich fully now. Roderich is sure he feels them slide over himself, and for once it is his own grip that tightens on Antonio's arm imperceptibly. The Ottoman is not his enemy, not yet, but their troops are engaged, 500 leagues away. It feels unreal in the moment, stood here in the noise-filled ballroom.

Determined to speak first, Roderich breaks the silence. “I apologise for being unable to great you upon your arrival, I was otherwise caught up. I am glad you've found good comfort here, after your travels.” He bows slightly, signalling respect for the rival empire.

The Turk smiles wider, and bows in turn, no deeper nor any lesser than Roderich's own. “Nemçe,” the Ottoman says, and Roderich finds he does not mind the appellative, “might I invite you to dance and we should consider your indiscretion forgiven?”

Beside him Antonio reacts in some capacity. Roderich can't bring himself to acknowledge it, too caught up in the tan hand being offered to him, large-palmed and well-worn. For a moment, blood pounds in his ears, before a voice not unlike his tutor's rings in his ears to focus, Roderich.

He smiles, coy, and allows himself to look up at the Turk without tilting his chin so much. The effect is to look up through his dark lashes, and for a moment he thinks he sees the other man's eyes widen in surprise. “I'll accept the dance, but not the implication that my preoccupation was a crime?” He frames it like a question, and almost holds his breath as he waits to see the response.

The Turk's tongue darts out for a moment, wetting his lips, hand unwavering in its offer. He huffs a laugh from his nose and glances for a moment to Antonio. “Very well. A dance, then, with no apologies.”

Roderich finds himself, against perhaps his better judgement and the will of his own husband, reaching out and letting his hand slide into the Turk's. It is warm and dry to the touch, where Roderich’s is a little clammy from the heat that still lingers under his collar.

The Ottoman does not seem to mind, closing his hand around Roderich's and leading him away into the fold of other dancers. Another song is picking up, and though Roderich tries to jerk his head to spot where Antonio might have moved to, the crowd closes in around them. The privacy the dance had just afforded their marriage now feels startlingly vulnerable with this stranger.

The Turk, however, seems totally at ease. He cuts a striking figure now that he is not folded within his own group. Amongst the Spanish dancers his turban bobs bright and confident, the large sleeves of his kaftan even more heavily embroidered than Roderich's own coat. He often feels like a peacock, dressed in finery by a doting husband, but with Sadik's firm hand settling against his waist he almost feels underdressed.

As they begin to move, Roderich is immediately struck by the sensation that he does not quite grasp the style of dance the Turk is leading him into, and the panic shutters on his face clear as day.

This close, he's sure he can feel the rumble of the laugh the larger man lets out. “Press your palm against my own, Nemçe, and feel for which way I push.”

“I know how to follow,” Roderich retorts despite himself, as if he is not looking down toward their feet to watch the way the Turk's feet move. It feels childish, his retort in Spanish. Roderich doesn't ask whether his dance partner speaks German, for he in turn certainly does not speak Turkish, or any other Eastern language for that matter.

“Then trust me to lead,” Comes the easy answer, and Roderich has the consciously force himself to lift his chin and relax the tension in his shoulders.

Indeed, the Ottoman leads with ease. He spoon feeds his movements to Roderich, not expecting him to keep up with complexities that Antonio had hurled at him unforgivingly in the first months of their union. The man is obvious is the way he pushes and pulls Roderich's hand, uses his fingers to dig just slightly into his waist to indicate a turn, and corrects so as not to embarrass Roderich when he makes a mistake.

The dance is a faster pace than what he is used to, and Roderich soon finds himself smiling despite himself.

The Turk looks down at him, a smile to match his own. Up this close his eyes are just as dark, deep-set and hooded with strong brows above them. Wracking his mind he can think of no other nation with eyes like that. He is used to looking into greens, blues, hazels, even startling red where the very blood vessels of Gilbert's eyes shine through his iris.

“I thought you might have been avoiding me,” his dance partner confesses abruptly, though he has looked away from Roderich's face now to ensure he does not steer them into someone.

There is no accusation in the words, so Roderich does not respond defensively. “I was genuinely otherwise caught up,” he insists.

The Turk makes a sound that suggests he does not entirely believe Roderich, but doesn't push the point.

“Your husband and I can come to conflict even in idle conversation. I had hoped you might break the tension,” He says instead, effortlessly navigating them around a couple who have clearly had more to drink than is appropriate for so early in the night. They move rather quite quickly, the song fast and unfamiliar to Roderich, perhaps chosen to appeal to their guests tonight. Certainly, he is glad for his years spent running errands far above sea level so his lungs can keep up.

Roderich huffs a fond laugh, “I think you overestimate my sway over Anto- over Hispania.” He replies, but before he can go on he is suddenly fixed with a sharp look from the Turk.

“You wear your mortal name like a coat here, don’t you?” Sadik says, voice low as their hands meet again. “Call me by mine, and I’ll return the favour.”

Roderich finds himself unable to smother his surprise, squeezing the Ottoman's hand in shock. In turn, he feels well-groomed oval nails dig gently into the back of his hand, and the Turk continues. “They call me Sadik, Roderich, if it pleases you.”

If he had been pink with exertion before, Roderich knows the horrible, unattractive blotchiness of a true blush is climbing his neck now, staining his cheeks with a mottled effect. “It pleases me.” He agrees, voice strained.

For his acceptance his is rewarded with the sensation of the Turk's – of Sadik's – hand adjusting its place from low on his hip to a little higher on his waist, further around his back. Closer now, he can make out the woody notes of oud on Sadik's clothes, rosewater on his skin. He'd clearly reapplied his perfumes before coming down for dinner.

“Still, Sadik,” Roderich manages when he has managed to find his wits scattered as they were across the dancefloor, “my sway over Antonio is not as great as you presume.”

Sadik chuckles, and based on his facial expression, the way his eyes track slightly into the distance, Roderich imagines he is looking straight at Antonio. He only shudders to think of the thunderous expression his husband must be wearing.

“I think it is you who is mistaken. His affection for you guides him in many things.” Sadik muses, but his tone is not one of flattery. There seems to be a hint of concern there. “I have known your husband a long time, and heard tell of him even longer. There is only one thing that overshadows his devotion to you and it is his ambition.”

Roderich gives Sadik's hand another gentle squeeze, trying to tear his attention away from wherever he is looking. “Expert that you are on ambition as a motivation,” Roderich retorts, feeling a little defensive about this stranger weighing in on his marriage.

Sadik does look back down at him, and he smiles again, a teasing wink that makes Roderich feel like he has missed something. “Indeed,” he agrees, whirling them now at great pace around the room. Sadik's kaftan billows as does Roderich's coat, but he does not feel he is being left behind. “And I see that same ambition in you. But your devotion supersedes it in a way his does not.”

The claim makes Roderich feel angry and defensive, warmth bubbling in his stomach. How dare this man challenge their relationship? How dare he tell Roderich how to balance his priorities.

“What is it to you? Better that I am weak, no?” He says, without thinking, upset before anything more logical can take precedence.

Sadik frowns a little and adjusts his grip on Roderich's waist, almost steadying. “I do not have political motives, Roderich,” He says carefully, and Roderich suddenly feels incredibly young beside this nation, as if he is being swept up and carried rather than danced as an equal. “Your heart is in Ispanya, anyone with a pair of eyes can see that. But if your mind is here too, what is left in Nemçe, hm?”

He is here, dancing beneath Spanish arches in Ottoman arms, but his bones ache for the Danube. His skin remembers Vienna in springtime, the bite of mountain winds and the slow throb of industry rising from riverbanks. What Sadik does not seem to understand—or pretends not to—is that Roderich does not leave Austria behind. He carries it with him like a second skin, every decision weighed with ghosts pressing at his collar.

Roderich jerks his chin angrily, defiant, and tries to fix his gaze elsewhere. It isn't easy when his direct line of sight is broad shoulders and broad chest obscuring what is essentially the rest of the room.

“You've not gleaned this from meeting me for a handful of minutes, have you?” Roderich challenges, sensing that there is more at play here.

Sadik seems to relax a little when Roderich continues to indulge him in the conversation. It is against Roderich's own better judgement, as he remembers Antonio’s warnings prior about the different set of rules the Ottoman plays by.

“Everyone who knows you speaks of you, Roderich,” Sadik says, teasing, “Your influence in the Balkans is not to be underestimated, and in my, ah, negotiations with Hungary she does not play her cards close to her chest.”

That information has Roderich making a rather unattractive noise through his nose, “And that is what they say, is it? That I grow complacent in my marriage.”

Sadik immediately frowns and fixes Roderich with a reproving look, shaking his head. “No, Roderich,” he says firmly, and Roderich feels himself flushing as if he's been scolded as a misbehaving child. “They speak of your competence and your political shrewdness. Of your way with words.”

It is hard to imagine the people he would not even dare to consider allies, let alone friends, would speak of him that way. The idea alone makes Roderich’s head spin a little, and he finds himself pressing in closer to Sadik in order to steady himself. The man accommodates him with little effort, shifting fingers against a seam on his jacket.

“Which is why as the balance of power wavers in Hungary, I was surprised to hear that you were still at the Spanish court with no interest in the affairs at home.”

“The Empire-“

“The Empire is not Ispanya.”

Roderich again feels the need to argue, to defend himself and his decisions, but when he looks up he does not see condescension painted in Sadik's face but the edges of concern, barely masked. Roderich huffs, but forces himself to reply levelly, “If I am here, where Charles spends his time, where his court spends its time, I can argue for my people.”

Sadik doesn't grace this with an answer. They both know that in the eyes of the Empire, the Ottoman arm is not so long as to be considered a threat to Austria. The Empire is mistaken.

Refused a response, Roderich compulsively finds himself filling the silence. Sadik’s voice is smooth and rich, his accent deeply Eastern and yet somehow not dissimilar to French to Roderich's ears. He wants to hear the nation speak, to continue to share his thoughts, and Roderich finds himself seeking Sadik's approval in a way he has not sought it from anyone but Romisches in a long time.

“So why did you come all the way here? I hear just as much tell of you, and I know you don't stray easily from the centre of action, and disputes over pirates is certainly not the kind of action that would call you.”

Sadik's smile is approving, and Roderich feels his chest warm involuntarily. He's done well.

The grip Sadik has on him is adjusted, and despite the intimacy already afforded to them by the dance, Sadik lowers his head to be closer to Roderich's level.

“When one has a life as long as ours, there are certain impulses we must satisfy to keep our minds, hm?” Sadik breathes against his ear, and Roderich feels almost dizzy with how quickly they move, whirling in contrasting shades of red. “Sometimes those impulses are depraved, violent. And sometimes they are fits of curiosity that keep us up at night. I needed a face to a name.”

“And what do you make of the face?” Roderich asks before his grip on his own spine can weaken.

Sadik huffs a puff of air in amusement, and though they move too quickly for it to be true Roderich swears he can feel the heat of it jostle his hair.

“I think you are striking,” Sadik says with disarming honesty, “So fair in complexion and so dark in your hair. And colour comes to your cheeks so easily.”

Roderich finds himself responding, played like a fiddle, the blotchiness he loathes burning hot and uncomfortable across his face.

Sadik squeezes Roderich's waist in a broad hand, approbatory. “You are unlike many of the others,” he continues, unrelenting, “I can see why it is that Antonio prostrated himself in Rome for the dispensation. You are as lovely as a fresh spring flower and just as delicate.”

Unable to work out a response to any of the compliments, Roderich latches onto the one part of the description that might be spun as an insult. “Delicate?” He asks.

Sadik squeezes his waist again, as if to emphasise the way in which Roderich fits into his grip. It makes Roderich swallow on instinct.

“You know you are not a warrior, like your husband or the German barbarians you keep for company, Roderich,” Sadik says pointedly, “but that is not to say you are weak. A diamond can be delicate in its cut and yet never suffer a crack.”

Roderich sniffs, flattered. His husband is effusive in praise, consistently, but it has to be said that the novelty wears off. To hear it from someone new is exciting, illicit almost, and for a moment Roderich thinks he understands the compulsion of mortals to be unfaithful in their vows. At least their kind are far above such things.

“What do you seek to gain by praising me?” Roderich asks with little preamble. Sadik is upfront and intentional, so Roderich skips the usual careful probing he would apply to others.

Sadik smiles easily, but this time bright teeth flash against the darkness of his beard, and he seems genuinely pleased with either himself or Roderich. “Whatever I can. A smile from someone who is lovely, in this case, since you are so devoted to your husband.”

If Roderich had it left in him, the implication would be enough to have him burning. But as it is, the sustained pinkness in his cheeks simply maintains itself. To be desired by Antonio had been a difficult thing to come to terms with, even within the spiritual safety of their papal dispensation. But this? So bold-faced and open? He knows of the proclivities of the Turks, but this is-

“You catch more eyes than you think,” Sadik interrupts his reverie, and the music is slowing now, coming to a close. Roderich knows he should be grateful and yet some hysterical part of him is disappointed. “People like us, and also those who live short lives. Being aware of it, Roderich, of what it can do for you is important. Especially given your comparative lack of war-making ability.”

The words settle heavily over them as Sadik leads him now by the elbow away from the dancers. Though he has let go, the brand of his hand on Roderich's slim waist lingers. He can almost imagine indulging with Sadik in the sort of dancing that the Spanish court has drilled out of him, with lifts and merrymaking that the austere Spaniards reprove. Surely, Sadik could easily lift him feet from the ground.

“That was quite enjoyable, Nemçe,” Sadik says, as though he had not been imparting on Roderich advice which he is sure will keep him awake in his marital bed for nights to come.

Roderich forces his mind to catch up, and smiles flatteringly, nodding his head. His curls do not bounce as they had twenty minutes ago, now damp and curling around the backs of his ears. He would guess the effect is not particularly attractive, but as he spots Antonio coming to retrieve him Sadik's grip tightens for a moment on his arm and he finds himself feeling coveted. Not for the first time that night, he swallows down a lump in his throat.

“Quite.” Roderich agrees, finding he has far fewer wits than he thought he did.

He is passed over to Antonio, he thinks, rather like a cat that isn't amendable to being picked up but is tolerating it this once. As though they both believe that he'll jump down from their arms at any moment and as such must not jostle him too much.

There is a sense of relief as Antonio's hand curls around his lower back and the other intertwining their fingers. This is familiar and comfortable, and Roderich no longer feels quite as if he's aboard one of the Spanish ships he loathes. His stomach settles and its easy to tuck their conversation away into his pocket, unreal.

He looks up at the Turk, so foreign in his dress and his visage, who in turn regards them with a curious expression. “Thank you both for indulging me, that was very pleasant. I won't monopolise anymore of your time.”

He's addressing them both, but looking only at Roderich. Antonio is the one to reply on behalf of them.

“Somehow I doubt that.”

Sadik smiles winningly, and turns away, returning to his own party. Roderich squeezes Antonio's hand.

But there is a weight in his chest that Antonio’s familiar grip does not dislodge. Something unfinished coils in his stomach—no, not lust exactly, though Sadik’s touch lingers on his skin like scent. It is something else: the draw of recognition, of being known without translation.

With Antonio, everything is sharp angles softened by time and compromise. With Sadik, it is jagged but familiar, as though their histories were stitched from the same cloth, only dyed in different blood. He tells himself it was only a dance. But as he leans into Antonio’s warmth, part of him is still measuring the distance between his own throat and Sadik’s teeth.

--

But you are wrapped in white

Curled up in fright

So I took you to the city for night

To dance under dizzying silver lights

And for a moment you were wild

With abandon like a child

Just a moment

July, 1683

For the time of year, it was cold. The rain pelted down upon their scouting party unrelentingly, and Roderich found himself wishing he were anywhere but here.

It had seemed the just and noble thing to do at the time, both to remain in Vienna and to agree to the reconnaissance. The Emperor and his court had fled, and the cowardly Duke of Lorraine and his force too. A part of Roderich had considered it too, to allow himself to be urged up and onto a horse, away to Passau to safety and to comfort. But there would be no retaking Vienna, there would be no reclamation if it fell. The Danube was his lifeblood, tumorous trade routes flowing into central Europe, and Vienna his thumping heart. He could not leave.

So he'd stayed, made and remade plans, turned his eye to the Saxon engineer's defensive plans, and shared advice that only someone with a lifespan as unnaturally long as his own could give.

It was in his recollection of the previous siege however that Roderich had found the urge to step outside the relative security of the city walls. At least one part of the Ottoman army was already massing, and his mind swum with the devastation he knew would be being wrought upon the countryside. He remembered the countless of his own people lost to slavery, who would never again see home. He could not merely sit in the city and wait.

Driven as he was by the itching in his palms for action, when scouts had been called for, Roderich's hand had been first up. It had made sense, after all, as he was far less likely to suffer death than many of the men, and his skillset was not best made use of in constructing earthen fortifications.

After all, was it not Roderich who had been capable of slipping into enemy camps to steal documents from under their noses? Was it not Roderich who had poured more poison glasses than he had genuine? Roderich might not have had the brawn of Prussia or the swordsmanship of Spain, but there were other assets in war, to be sure.

This, however, didn't make Roderich feel like an asset.

The rain had soaked him through. At first it had only been the back of his neck and his hands that had suffered. They were travelling light on horseback, swift and quiet down country lanes used by the locals. The rain had frozen his hands into claws around the reins and he'd felt the ever growing trickle of water at his nape begin to run down the divot of his spine.

He sniffs and raises his hand not for the first time to wipe his nose on the back of his sleeve. It is streaming, but the action makes little difference. The horses churn the road into bog, his boots and the end of his coat spattered with thick mud.

He does not know where his own sweat ends and the rainwater begins, sitting in a puddle of unknown origin in his saddle. Anything that had been water proof has long since soaked through, the oilcloth unable to stand up to the task.

Into the darkness, a voice barks out in German and the troop slows to a halt. It is a relief to his ears, that they're no longer being filled with the ceaseless pounding of hooves and snorting, and to his back as Roderich straightens out from his unflattering hunch against the weather. Every part of his body groans in protest, and he wipes at his nose again.

Urging the horses together, the leader of the troop speaks over the sound of wind and water on thick canopy.

“Even if we reach the Turkish camp now, we will glean nothing in these conditions. It is my better judgement that we return to the city and make another attempt when the conditions are fairer.”

There is a general rumble from the men of agreement, and despite the cold in his bones Roderich feels an indignant burning in his stomach. “And what if there are no fairer conditions?” He asks the group.

His presence is enough to put the mortal men on edge, he knows, and their horses shuffle their feet in the mud, as if sensing their riders' discomfort. The rain continues to beat down, and Roderich's eyelashes feel heavy with it. They prefer him to be an aloof and distant figurehead. He is good at rousing large crowds, not small groups, not out here.

Sniffing, he wipes his nose again. “No?” And his voice is clearer now, cutting and disapproving.

“My lord-“ Comes a conciliatory response and Roderich finds himself urging his horse back away from the group.

“Return to the city and aid in the preparations,” He tells them, as if he is telling them to curl up in warmth and comfort. Distantly, he knows he is being unfair, that the circumstances are out of their control and there will be little to see of the Turks in the dark and the rain. Still, he feels spiteful and resentful of these men, the good few who stay loyal to defend Vienna. Where are the rest? Where are the rest of the Viennese, yes, and where are his neighbours, his allies? What good is months of warning if by the time the Turks arrive the only promise he has of help are from the wretched Pole and his pagan lover, leagues away and promising relief in months.

Roderich draws himself up in his saddle, and though his dark curls are plastered to his forehead and his body trembles slightly with cold, he knows he must cut a figure. “Go,” he repeats, when it looks as though they may implore him. “I will return by the sunset tomorrow with news.”

It is clear that at least a few of the men are torn. Roderich knows the effect he has on men, especially mortals, their desire to protect him is an asset in most things. They see him as soft and delicate, unaware they are inviting a fox into the hen house. And yet, in conditions as miserable as these their own survival instincts drive them to leave him.

“Sunset tomorrow, my lord. A party will be sent out if not.”

Roderich feels slightly hysterical as he watches them leave. It is barely a handful of minutes before he cannot see nor hear any trace of them, swallowed up into the night. Undoubtedly their mortal bodies had been closer to the brink than his own, to have them turning tail so easily. He is used to being offered the last rations, the warm bed, a chance to sleep while watched over. Men trip over themselves to do so.

Roderich rolls his shoulders and shakes his head to spray some of the rain from his hair. The image for a moment makes him think of Antonio, dog-like, emerging from the sea in the sunshine and laughing as he soaks Roderich in tiny droplets. He shudders against the cold.

Beneath him, he urges his horse onwards. He can almost feel the other nation on his soil like a prickle down his back, making his ears burn and his gums ache. France and England claim such an ability to feel one another, lifelong enemies as they are, but Roderich suspects he's actually suffering with the symptoms of mild hypothermia. Some July this is.

Another two miles or so are eaten up by the hooves of his horse, and unburdened by the mortals Roderich rides hard and brutal. Distantly, he knows why he is so ruthless. Where the other men had been conserving their energy for a return journey, Roderich has no such concern.

And so perhaps he's a little sloppy about it. The Ottoman army is massing to the East, and from a glance alone Roderich knows immediately this will not even be half of the force. The camp is a mass of energy, springing out of the countryside illuminated by many fires, alive and buzzing like a hive. There is a low rumble over the rain, breaking up the monotonous sound of Roderich's own breathing; it is the sound of men speaking and laughing, of orders being barked, even music played. Tents and banners flutter too, protecting those who are not engaged in building more shelter from the downpour.

Roderich slips from the saddle of his horse, his legs screaming in protest at suddenly being straight and underneath him again, joints frozen as they are. He cannot fathom how other men do this for months at time, when he cringes at the sensation of his own soaked groin; he shudders to think what Prussia's privates must be like, mercenary that he is. Gangrenous, surely.

He tacks the horse as best he can with his icy hands, fingers curled into hooks that fumble and drop the line several times over. He is no real horseman, and flinches at least once when the creature noses at the side of his head.

Satisfied that the beast is covered as best he can be by the canopy above, and will likely go nowhere unless seriously spooked, Roderich turns his mind and his body to the Ottoman camp.

What begins is a slow and careful manoeuvring around the outskirts of the camp. He's quiet in a way that only their kind, and even then not all of them, can be. He avoids detection, scoping the size of the force. 40,000 at least by his count, structured like a city with the richest men at the centre and the poorest hugging the fringes for warmth and safety.

There are hangers-on, too. An army of this size needs maintenance, from the washing of clothes to the satisfying of sexual needs, and these groups latch themselves at the outskirts like greedy parasites. Many of them are Austrian or Hungarian, caring for the coin more than from whom it comes. Roderich does not resent them, as he makes his way into their encampment, for the longer he stays here the more he feels kinship with them.

He attracts little attention, perhaps because these people do not want trouble, or perhaps because they do not know the Austrian uniform well enough to recognise it. Either way Roderich is spattered with mud and soaked through, so he doesn't cut the dazzling figure they might have recognised in the right context.

Under this cover he's able to make an inroad into the camp, sidling between tents and trying to ignore the feeling of his boots sinking deep into the mud. The camp has barely been here a day and already the landscape and torn and scarred from the comings and goings of people.

This is where, upon reflection, Roderich will admit he may not have made the best decision. He'd rounded a corner and come face to face with two men emerging from a tent and trying to both cover their dignity as well as themselves more generally from the rain. It was never a good idea to upset any man with his pants down, least of all one in whose enemy camp you were presently spying upon.

The sensible thing to do here would have been to flee, to melt into the shadows. And disappear.

But Roderich is angry, and cold, and miserable, and when he sees the flicker of recognition at his uniform quickly turn to violent anger, he can’t help himself. It often felt unfair to engage mortal men one on one. He was no Russia, no Sweden, but he could certainly dispatch one or two in close quarters combat.

And dispatch he does.

The yell that goes up has soldiers swarming from their tents into the mud and the rain, but not before the balding man who had first spotted him lies face down in the mud, neck broken, his fly still not fastened. He takes down another with a knife, clean and slick, but when the curved blade of a Yatagan presses against his neck from behind he drops the delicate weapon down into the filth. He is no berserker, and the narrow alleys of tents have swiftly been flooded by Ottomans interrupted from their pleasure-making.

It would be nice to say that the following period of time is a blur, and that by the time he ends up on his knees in the warmth of a high-ranking noble's tent he has little memory of how he had gotten there.

Unfortunately for Roderich, none of that is true.

He remembers with absolute clarity being hauled spitting and biting between two men, backwards, between the winding networks of tents, dragged such that the backs of his boots filled with mud. He too remembers the way he had been interrogated beneath the rain, how he hadn't even been able to show off his newly acquired Arabic tongue because they would not stop their ceaseless beating of his jaw, nor the kicks to his stomach and ribs when he cannot kneel upright quick enough.

Indeed, he remembers it so well that he could see the moment it had clicked on the face of the highest ranked individual there that Roderich was taking far more of a beating than a man of his stature should reasonably be able to take without at the least passing out, and had began making rapid demands for someone of even greater rank to be involved.

Another time, perhaps, he'd ask Sadik what sort of arrangement he has with the mortals in his own country. How much they know, or suspect, and how much is hidden from their view to prevent the average solider from questioning his faith in God.

But right now, as he stares down at Sadik's boots on the rugged floor of the tent, that's not the thing in the forefront of his mind.

What is in the forefront is that he wants a handkerchief. That which had been irritating mucus while he had been riding is now a sluggish and unflattering ooze of scarlet blood from his nose, stringy as it slides over his lips and down his chin, stretching in long strands onto the floor. He breathes raggedly from his mouth to catch his breath, wet and rattling, hands restrained behind his back so that he can do nothing to rectify the sorry state of his visage.

Already, the surface aches and pains are fading. The bruising to his ribs and jaw had been relatively minor in the context of his overall economic health, so they melt away and leave him only with a similar sensation to the muscle soreness after exercise.

His face, however, burns fierce, and the blood shows no signs of stopping. He's no longer cold, at least, the adrenaline having dealt with that. He is however sopping wet and caked in mud from having been thrown down over and over, and the sensation is utterly grim.

Sadik's boots shuffle in his vision, and Roderich blinks away the spots dancing in his eyes to try and keep some focus on them, watching as they plant themselves more firmly. He realises belatedly that Sadik is crouching down when a hand twists into his hair. They are hardly shining curls now, a matted mess of muddied strands.

Sadik’s hand is warm, he notes vaguely, but it still smarts when the Turk uses the leverage to lift his face and force eye-contact.

He looks good. Roderich would swallow the sensation in his throat, but he doesn't want to ingest whatever cocktail of blood and filth his saliva is pooling in his mouth. Sadik looks well-groomed and well-maintained, a fullness to his face and body that speaks of a nation eating well, and a strength about him that belies the political success one must presently have to feel confident enough to threaten the golden apple of Vienna.

“Honestly, Roderich,” Sadik mutters, and drops his head again.

Roderich's neck protests sharply at the jerking motion as he fails to steady himself properly, and he hisses through his teeth. With no other alternative, he spits the mouthful of blood onto the rug upon which he kneels. It isn't the boyish spitting of a soldier, more a sickly sort of dribble as he tries to clear his throat.

“Yes, well,” Roderich mutters in response, not quite looking up.

Sadik bends one knee slowly and comes to crouch in front of him. His head is cocked to the side, and Roderich cannot help but look up through his lashes again. The man is a sight for sore eyes, even more so as he reaches to cradle Roderich's aching jaw.

“You’re lucky my men have already seen to you, or I’d have to have done it with my own hands,” Sadik says affectionately, stroking his thumb over Roderich’s cheek, smearing blood and gore.

Roderich huffs out of his nose, turning away from Sadik’s hand reproachfully. “You would not.” He insists, more to play than because he believes it.

Sadik chuckles warmly and gives Roderich’s face a firm pat. “I would have indeed. You cannot turn up at my door and be rewarded for it, Roderich. I will not be accused of encouraging this behaviour.”

Scoffing, Roderich rocks on his knees to stop his legs from going numb, feeling pins and needles beginning to set in at his calves. “You would accuse me of being willingly caught?” He asks, and Sadik merely pats his cheek again and straightens up, bracing his hands on his knees.

“Well,” he says after a moment’s pause, considering Roderich like an unfortunate stray cat who has turned up begging for food but refusing to allow himself to be collared. “I cannot beat send you back to your men in this state, can I? It would be terrible for their morale.”

Roderich feigns surprise, “You will return me to Vienna?”

“Made an example of, of course,” Sadik says firmly, turning away from Roderich to wash the Austrian’s filth from his hands at a low sink, “perhaps returned in my colours?”

Sadik laughs at his own joke, hands now clean and rubbing his beard in thought, the scratching noise oddly pleasing to Roderich.

“But yes, returned all the same. When I take Vienna and only when I take Vienna, will I take you too.”

It’s an open threat, but no more than marching an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men up top the very gates of Vienna is. As such, all it succeeds in doing is making Roderich blush. No matter how much time passes, Sadik's ability to make Roderich feel younger than his years persists.

“I'd make a scathing retort,” Roderich begins to say, cutting himself off for a moment to cough wetly around an unpleasant blood clot in his throat from his slowing nose bleed.

“But the effect would be dampened by your state.” Sadik agrees, grinning at him sharply. Its almost predatory, a cat who has seen the cream be packed away into the fridge and knows it will be getting ahold of it momentarily.

Roderich nods, continuing to cough wetly once or twice before he manages to get himself under control enough not to actively choke the thing up onto the carpet too. Sadik regards him for a moment and sighs.

“Speaking of damp,” he implores when he's managed to get his throat to behave itself. None of this is particularly dignified. If he allowed himself to admit in any capacity that this had been his plan all along, then these specific circumstances certainly hadn't featured in that scheme.

In fact, this feels more like a child's tantrum than any sort of political rendezvous. He'd been in situations like this before, meeting a nation illicitly on the eve of battle. But usually he was the one with the upper hand, watching smugly as Prussia or some other war-dog came to show him their neck.

Now, as Sadik circles him slowly, he thinks on all the ways this could have gone wrong for him, and Sadik is clearly thinking the same.

“Yes, yes, we'll get you out of these damp clothes,” Comes the warm voice from behind him, amused and making Roderich's arms raise in gooseflesh.

Firm, unyielding hands grasp his wrists and he thinks he might be hauled up again, but instead they merely begin steadily unwinding the hastily-tied bindings which had laced him from wrist to elbow.

“Are you embarrassed, Roderich?” Sadik asks, and Roderich is pleased the man is behind him for the way his face shutters openly in shock.

“Embarrassed?” He repeats when he manages to get the pitch of his voice low enough to be passable.

For his attempt at ignorance, he earns a squeeze of rough, warm hands around his forearms, just a little too tight, causing strange pins and needles in his fingers. Like having a tourniquet fastened around an injured limb.

The grip slackens, though, and shifts to gentle rubbing, callouses catching on the fabric of Roderich’s undershirt slightly, massaging the blood flow back into his fingertips. He doesn’t dare to move his arms from behind him.

“I asked you a question,” Sadik says, and there’s a weight to his tone that tells Roderich not to push his luck again.

“I do not embarrass around you as badly as in front of others.” He admits carefully, feeling as though he’s showing his pale fleshy belly to a beast.

Sadik hums, mulling the answer over and now finally adjusting his grip to beneath Roderich’s armpits. It really is hard not to feel like a child then, as he’s hoisted upright.

Sadik places a firm hand on his lower back now, the sensation ruined only by the saturated nature of his clothes that he can’t enjoy the warmth of the touch. “Is that because you don’t respect me so much as your Christian neighbours?” Sadik asks smoothly, applying a gentle pleasure to lead him through a heavy flap in the tent, and then another, deeper into the network.

Roderich fights the instinct to bite his bottom lip as he is wont to do, knowing he will find fluids he’d rather not return to his mouth smeared there. Instead, he taps his fingers against the top of his thigh, a measured beat, musical.

“Not at all,” He admits, and it’s a compliment of sorts. “Than a lot of them, I respect you more. Its just that, I think, you do not expect the same things from me as they might.”

Sadik steers him now into a room where a hot bath has been drawn. It is no Hamman, but the steam peels off the top is swirling layers and the scent of oils hang heavy in the air.

Roderich cannot suppress a groan, bringing his free arm up to wipe his dirty face against the back of his forearm. If only those other Christian nations could see him now.

“They expect a lot from you,” Sadik tells him, hand moving from his lower back to clasp his nape like a petulant kitten and steer him to the corner to remove his boots. “They say if you fall to me, the rest of Christendom will be swept up in a wave. That you are the last line of defence against our barbarism. And yet they expect you to hold out against me all on your own; such a big ask.”

Sadik’s hand continues to rest on Roderich’s nape even as he bends over to unlace his boots, removing them with unpleasant squelching sounds. His socks follow, his pale feet grubby and wrinkled from prolonged soaking. His coat follows, crumpling in a pile.

“It is.” Roderich manages after a moment, feeling oddly breathless. It’s so much easier to focus on working his buttons open, on unlacing his britches and rolling off his undershirt, than trying to reply.

Sadik keeps a firm hand on him under the pretext of steadying him when he bends over or steps out of his ruined trousers. The back of his neck, beneath his elbow, clasping his shoulder. Broad, warm, steady. Roderich’s heart feels as though it might jackhammer from his chest.

“So much expectation, the safety of Christendom, the reputation of your fanciful Empire, the lives of your people. Will a relief force come in a month, Roderich, in two? Or will they merely watch with bated breath.”

This goading is perhaps a step too far, and as Roderich stands in little but his wet undergarments he opens his mouth to snap back, to tell Sadik of treaties with the Poles and the Lithuanians, of promises and ink to paper, before his jaw clicks shut.

“You almost had me.” He says wryly, and Sadik grins down at him with teeth, giving him a gentle push to the bath.

“I almost have you,” Sadik corrects him, taking a step back to appraise him. “Naked, now, Roderich.”

Roderich looks back at him from the corner of his eye. He’s not ashamed, has not been for many years. When only his husband had seen his body it had been a much more serious matter, but now the novelty is long worn off. If there was political gain to have been had, then his body has been seen, by mortal eyes or otherwise.

Still, it’s not his best look. As he kicks himself free of his under-things and stands naked in front of Sadik, he knows that his filthy hair and hands and face don’t make a pretty sight. His skin is generally grubby, and though the bruises no longer smart his ribs and thighs are mottled with blues and purples.

He doesn't cover himself, but he does clasp one wrist with the opposite hand. The action is tracked by Sadik's dark eyes, which roam over him with a lust he does not bother to conceal.

“I am filthy, Sadik,” Roderich points out, as if this will make the Turk suddenly come to his senses and realise he doesn't actually have any interest in Roderich's lithe form.

Sadik's eyes finally rise up to meet Roderich's but there is no hurry as they drag easily over the contours of his chest and his slim neck. Swan-like, Antonio had described it as, as he'd wrapped greedy fingers around it.

He tilts his head, immaculate and neat compared to Roderich, in the simplest layers of his military wear and his hair concealed behind a tightly wound turban. Fleetingly, Roderich wonders if it is just as thick as Sadik's beard, just as well-kept and oiled.

“You will be half-starved, bloodied and filthy, and undoubtedly exhausted when I next see you, Roderich.” And I will have you all the same, hangs unspoken in the air. It makes Roderich's hair stand on end at the back of his neck.

He has never been spoils of war, always a beautiful gift or a willing sacrifice laid out upon velvet and satin. He cannot, will not, dwell on what it would be to be conquered.

Instead, Roderich half shrugs a shoulder and turns himself towards the bath. He can no longer see the Turk, but he knows the view of his own arse must be pleasant enough, for Sadik hisses between his teeth. “Would I be drawn a bath then as well?” Roderich asks innocently.

Sadik takes a moment longer to reply than usual, and it is pleasing to Roderich to know that he is not the only one struggling with his words. Its gratifying that the older, charismatic nation can be reduced to hesitation by Roderich's naked body, when he undoubtedly has seen many in his long life.

When he does reply, it is with an edge to his voice that has Roderich curling his toes into the floor. “That depends altogether on how long I am made to wait.”

Roderich is relieved for the edge of the large bath that he can brace himself on as his stomach bottoms out. The threat feels heavy and real, and Roderich has to remind him that they are not playing at being enemies, that despite Sadik's blatant affection and patience for him, when the Ottoman had last laid siege to his city he had taken twenty thousand Austrians as slaves.

The cool metal of the tub is enough to give Roderich the grounding he needs to lift one protesting leg and then the other into the tub. The surface of the water, disturbed, shimmers and glistens with perfumed oils, and as Roderich sinks his way in the steam that rises from it makes him feel heady.

He groans, his aching ribs appreciating the warmth as it soothes away the assault those men had subjected him to. If Sadik had been the one to inflict the injuries he certainly wouldn't have been recovering so quickly.

Situated now in the bathtub, the water lapping around his chest, Roderich looks up at Sadik. He will not be acknowledging the previous comment, that is for sure.

“A wash cloth?” He prompts and Sadik obligingly reaches for one propped on a low stool.

As Roderich reaches to receive it, Sadik agrees, “A washcloth indeed. Filthy thing.”

There is affection in the words, but Roderich doesn't have time to wallow in it when his own dignity is smothered as is his face. Sadik had plunged his hand into the warmth of the water, and then lifted the dripping rag to scrub at Roderich blood-and-other-substance crusted face.

The effect is like a rather inefficient waterboarding, and it catches Roderich off guard enough that its all he can do to screw his eyes shut against the water and yelp his surprise. Sadik pays him no mind, rubbing circles around his nose and mouth. It burns, his bruised nose being jostled making his eyes water, but those too are quickly wetted by the dripping cloth.

Roderich grips the edge of the bath, and as quickly as the cloth had come it had gone, squeezed into the water and turning it a slightly murky pink before dissipating. He glares up from beneath his damp, clumped lashes at Sadik who merely regards him with an amused but critical eye.

“Duck your hair under the water,” Sadik insists, taking a more permanent residence on a stool beside the bath. The sleeves of his long undershirt are rolled all the way to his elbows, and it is only then that Roderich’s eyes catch on marks he has never seen before. Ink, intricate and deep, mar the upper portion of Sadik's forearm. It is unlike anything Roderich has ever seen on a nation man before, and he wonders how many times Sadik would have to have had it cut into his skin in order for the ink to stain an immortal body.

Sadik's mouth twists into a slight frown, as Roderich both fails to follow his command and gapes at him as though he were an exotic novelty.

“Honestly, boy,” he says with a little less patience, and Roderich finds to his surprise a warm, damp hand clasping his chin and forcing his head back.

He yelps, again, thinking for a moment that Sadik meant to force his head under. A cold, sickly feeling grasps his chest, mind full of the barbed-wire embrace of drowning, one that he has come to learn too many times over a nation could survive.

He grips the edge of the bath tighter, a bare, pale leg shooting from the water and sloshing it over the edges of the tub. Not again. Not this.

Just as his head is forced lower, as water laps at the insides of his ear canal and his mouth opens in a panicked gasp for air before it would be ripped from him, he instead finds the back of his head cradled by Sadik's other hand.

“Hush,” Sadik assures him softly, the hands unrelenting in their support of his head. Without them he knows he would simply splash backwards into the water, suspended as he is at the awkward angle. The fingers at the back of his scalp shift, probing and beginning to release dirt and gore from his dark curls and into the water.

Still teetering on the edge of panic, Roderich's breathing is ragged, his eyes wide and searching Sadik’s face. In turn, the Turk makes a soft humming sound, his fingers beginning to work more insistently and pleasingly into his matted hair.

“You're quite alright, Roderich. Quite alright.” Sadik assures him, taking advantage both of Roderich's distraction by the blunt nails in his scalp and of his panicked open-mouthed breathing to shift the grip on Roderich's face.

Now, Sadik's spare hand shifts across his jaw to cradle his chin, angling his thumb to swipe over the wetness on the inside of Roderich's lower lip. He feels something burn in his stomach, and the water in the bath ripples with the way Roderich's thighs press together.

Smiling to himself, Sadik continues his gentle exploration, pulling Roderich's lower lip down slightly before instead hooking it over the bottom row of teeth. He tugs Roderich's mouth open a little wider.

Roderich feels as though he can't breathe, the water lapping at his ears loud and crashing, his own heart pounding in his chest. His back is arched with the effort of keeping his head above water and his feet struggle to get purchase on the bottom of the bath, half-floating.

He makes an aborted sound in the back of his throat, somewhere between ragged fear and indignation.

Sadik merely hums in reply, and the worn pad of his thumb presses in further until the weight drives his tongue into the bottom of his mouth. It tastes of nothing much besides bath water, but the pressure causes Roderich's mouth to water and he is only glad that his head is tilted backwards so he does not drool.

He feels in a trance, his focus narrowed down to the two points of contact, his body seeming to hang suspended in the water.

“You are greedy for attention,” Sadik says evenly, his voice low and smooth like honey and Roderich finds it does not break the spell but lure him deeper. Unable to reply, he takes in Sadik's words with upturned eyes and open mouth, prayer-like.

“Do you come to me for reassurance? I think you know in your heart you will not stand against me, that your city will fall to me. You have come here, Roderich, so that when you lie in bed listening to the army marching to your gates, you will be able to sleep well knowing I will take good care of you.”

The words are stark, and even if Roderich does not believe them to be true, they rankle. His mouth moves slightly, the muscle of his tongue squirming beneath Sadik's thumb, and it makes the Turk press down harder so that Roderich chokes on his inability to swallow saliva.

“Eyes open, Roderich,” Sadik interrupts his fussing. “If you choose to come to me, you will hear every word I say.”

Sadik lowers Roderich's head by an inch into the water. The effect is such that water laps now at the corners of his eyes, forcing them to squint, his ears submerged fully. Sadik's voice now sounds far off, but it cuts through the perfumed water, “I do not fail twice.”

Sadik releases Roderich, not by dropping him into the water, nor by abruptly jolting him up. He simply guides him to sit up fully and reaches now for a wash cloth with which to clean Roderich's body.

For a moment, there is only the sound of sloshing water as Sadik smoothes the cloth over his skin, washing away the filth leaving behind only the bruising that mottles his skin, and his other blemishes, “Your skin is like a sky at night, hm? I have not seen so many marks on a man so fair.”

Distantly, Roderich remembers the first time Antonio had commented on them, the way he had stretched him out on his front and kissed each of Roderich's beauty marks, moles, one by one until he remembered them all. The Spaniard's mind was like a metal trap, and Roderich knew his husband would know his constellations as well as the back of his own hand.

A pit of guilt opens in his stomach, and Roderich moves to rest his head against the lip at the back of the bathtub as he reclines, trying to swallow the unpleasant churning that has smothered what had been thrill and excitement.

“We have had peace for twenty years, and it has been another hundred since you came to my gates. You must be confident now.” Roderich observes quietly. His eyes are shut, but he tracks the movements of Sadik's hand across his body, washing at his belly and down the outside of his hip.

Sadik's replying hum is contemplative, “Certainly the odds are in my favour,” he agrees, giving, Roderich's hip a passing squeeze before moving to slide between his legs, dragging the cloth across the sensitive skin of his inner thigh. It makes Roderich flinch slightly, almost ticklish.

“I did wonder,” Roderich says, and for a moment he affects something a little more innocent to his tone, “To hear that the Slovakian had turned his allegiance to that so-called king did not awfully surprise me, but Erzsebet too...”

He trails off, trailing his fingers through the water slowly.

Sadik huffs out of his nose, amused and smug. He loves having the upper hand over Roderich, to smile paternally and reassure him he'll understand next time, that he's doing so well for his circumstances. That's why, when Sadik replies, Roderich has to physically suppress his smile, “Oh no, Roderich. I have no allegiance from the woman. I have no need for it.”

There it is, the slip of information that would really have Roderich's head resting on his pillow peacefully. Now, he is no saint; to claim that the only reason he has come here is to confirm the Hungarian's allegiance would be a total fallacy. But he has not come to Sadik's door like a street-cat hiding from the rain without the intention to also steal food. He knows well that Jan the Slovakian is a traitor, has never respected him nor his authority, but it is good to know even in these time that the begrudging acknowledgement of his lordship is respected by Erzsebet. He will have to remember to thank her, when this is over.

Roderich remembers himself, slanting his mouth downwards, and it is then that Sadik's hand sweeps lower and begins to openly rub at his privates He's gentle and insistent, and Roderich has to physically fight the urge to clamp his legs shut around the hand. He forces himself to tolerate the violation. Sadik will not breach him, not until the very gates of Vienna are forced open, that much he trusts.

“Your informants are ill advised if they think her so easily swayed. She is like a dog, I swear it Roderich. Truly if any woman is a bitch, it is her. I do not know where you find these mutts to surround yourself with.”

Roderich's mouth twitches and his eyes open, meeting Sadik's straight on. The Turk merely looks amused, slowly drawing his hand back from beneath the now cooling water, filthy as it is where Roderich is now clean. “Will you slander my husband, too, for your amusement?”

Sadik gestures around the room with his now empty hands, midway through drying them on a towel. “I do not think it is necessary.”

It is a fair enough analysis.

Clambered from the bath naked as the day he was born, dripping but clean, Roderich is wrapped in a large towel. It is warm against the slight chill in the air as the water cools on his always-cold skin, and Sadik takes great care in squeezing his curls dry before they drip down his neck.

“You'll feed me, before you send me back then?” Roderich asks, knowing that he is being perhaps smarter than Sadik will approve of.

However, the invader simply gentles the towel over his bruised ribs with a focused frown on his face. “Of course. I do not truly wish to find you starved when I come for you.” He assures him, matter-of-fact.

Roderich shakes his head slightly, unable to keep up the passivity longer.

Sadik's grip tightens, then, squeezing him in the embrace of the towel by his shoulders and leaning down a little lower. “I half think to keep you here. Perhaps I'll ransom you for the meagre supplies the city has, for your weight in gold. Or merely hold you indefinitely.”

He doesn't give into the fear that being threatened by a man like Sadik causes. Instead, Roderich smiles slightly and tilts his head, jutting out what he knows is something close to a pout. Men are so easy. It has been a lesson hard learned, but 120 years of marriage will teach such things.

“And where would be the fun in that? All of this work and preparation just to keep me dishonourably. You want to see it in my eyes that I have lost.”

Sadik's grip slackens, a greedy, perverse sort of expression clear as day on his face as he's caught up in the image of Roderich bloodied and begging for mercy for his people at his feet.

Distantly, Roderich wonders why it is always these sort of men.

When he is clean and dry, dressed in one of Sadik's shirts and with his bare legs sticking out in front of him against the fire, it is harder to feel so bitter.

“Are you still hungry, Roderich, or would you rather another drink?”

Sadik is sat in a low chair piled high with cushions, though Roderich merely sits at his feet to be nearer to the fire. It is the sort of behaviour he could never get away with in polite company. Good thing then that Sadik is not polite.

He twists half onto his belly, extending a grasping hand toward Sadik, “A drink.” He agrees, and his hand is swiftly filled with a heavy goblet. Sadik looks amused, and affectionate, rolling a fat plum between his palms. Indulgent.

“Do not drink too much or you will be in no state to ride your horse.” Sadik chides, and Roderich has half a mind to make a dirty joke, though he suppresses it by sipping on the overly sweet wine, so different to that which he drinks at his own court.

“I can handle my alcohol quite fine,” He retorts, and he means it. Drinking is the pastime of most nations, and Roderich is absolutely no exception.

It’s warm, and Roderich closes his eyes for a moment against the heat from the fire, feeling a satisfied shiver trace down his spine. His belly is full and his hair has dried into soft ringlets down his back, and the rain and the chill feel so far away.

Sadik hums, nudging Roderich's hip slightly with the barefoot poking out from beneath his trouser, to keep his attention. “You are achingly lovely, Nemçe.” Sadik says.

Roderich opens an eye and smiles up at him, shrugging the shoulder on which he's propped. “So they tell me.”

-

Wasn’t it you who said I was not free?

And wasn’t it you who said I needed peace?

And now it’s you who is floored by a fear of it all

And it’s alright

Take it out on me

Serbia, 1718

Roderich's boots are loud to his own ears as he walks down the corridor of the administrative building. It is July, late afternoon, and the setting sun casts long shadows and orange light through each window Roderich passes. The air is humid, and Roderich will be glad to remove his military coat just as soon as he returns to his own bedroom.

It has been a long day of negotiations and the drawing up of treaties. In this, Roderich is heavily involved where he is not so much in the fighting. His people tend to take his advice in this, shrewd as he is, but more than anything he has an uncanny ability to convince the rival party that they should agree to terms which favour the Austrians.

Those nations more adept to dealing with him long had learned to sacrifice their own place at the negotiation table if it meant Roderich could be barred from the room, but today the only two nation-men lingering in the city are not those he would usually spend a great deal of time with.

Dragan, the Serb, is content to sit in a corner draped over a chair, one ankle resting on a knee and his arms crossed defensively. He looks rather like a sulking child. In turn, Roderich indulges him in this, treating him like a wayward ward, as does the opposing power Roderich is really in negotiations with. Sadik, for his part, sits listening with rapt attention, his elbows braced on the table and his brow twisted into a frown. He rarely speaks other than to mutter in soft Arabic to his own people, and if he looks at Roderich he is only look at Roderich-the-diplomat, not Roderich himself.

Its almost amusing, and Roderich allows himself a private smile as he turns left away from the large windows down a quieter corridor to his quarters. Sadik had written to him beforehand. Not a flowering letter of affection nor one of anger, merely an inquiry. Would he, Roderich, be coming to Serbia?

It was like inviting a fox in amongst the hens, quite frankly, to invite Roderich to sign a treaty.

Roderich had, had half a mind not to. The war over the Spanish Succession had ended only three years ago and Roderich had rather had his attentions focused on central Europe an its fallout as a result. Even the great war in the North with those Scandinavians in which he was not even involved had been of more interest to him than the Ottomans and Venetians bickering, even if Feliciano was also his ward.

Still, the Austrians had waded in and won a decisive victory, and when the letter from Sadik had arrived on his desk he'd been unable to shake the curiosity. Too often, it had been Roderich seeking Sadik out, vying for his attention or his approval, wanting this rival empire to validate his successes with an approving nod.

A servant passes Roderich in the opposite direction and he acknowledges the young man with a polite nod, receiving one in turn. His room is only at the end of this corridor now, he remembers, next to the slightly poor quality portrait of a local official with voluminous eyebrows.

Sadik is not lingering outside the door, though Roderich had not expected him too. Its the sort of behaviour Gilbert has taken on of late, pacing outside his door with his hands shoved into his pockets and his shoulder bunched up to his ears. The image would be a loyal hound guarding the entrance to the warren, were it not for the bloodied kit sagging from his maw.

Banish the thought. Roderich swipes a hand over his face to mop the slight perspiration at his brow and to reset himself, grasping the cool handle of the door and twisting to open. Indeed, no one awaits inside either. The temperature is a little cooler, the room getting little light during the day and protecting it from the worst of the Serbian sun.

Shrugging his stiff jacket off, he drapes it over the edge of a chair and moves to loosen his cravat. The relief is palpable, and Roderich finds himself glancing over at the mirror to see how he would be perceived by an onlooker. His hands stray to remove the waistcoat too, and then to the back of his neck where his long dark curls are restrained at his nape.

After a moment, he removes the bow on impulse, letting his hair fall to his shoulders. It’s a little awkward Roderich muses as he runs his fingers through it to encourage some volume into the roots, on account of having it tied back all day, but it frames his face better this way.

Roderich isn't playing coy with himself as to why he's fussing in this way, especially not as he hunts for his perfume and rinses his face in the basin. This is not an innocent routine before his nightly meal.

What little sunlight spills into this room at this hour casts a high shadow near the ceiling of orange, and it bathes the room in golden light. It is a simple space, compared to what he is used to, but it is functional and well maintained with a basin, a short table and chairs, and a large bed beside which his things spill from an open bag. That, he is not insecure enough to tidy up.

The knock comes a little earlier than expected, but Roderich does not jump. He crosses the room in languid strides, forcing himself not to hurry, and pulls the large door wide.

For the first time since he had arrived in this painfully boring city, Sadik looks directly at him, truly seeing him. The intensity, compared to his disinterested gaze throughout negotiations, almost makes Roderich lose his composure.

The slight hesitation allows Sadik to get the first word in.

“I knew you would come,” He says evenly, bracing one hand on the doorframe in such a way that if Roderich wanted to slam it shut he would trap the Turk's fingers in the gap.

Roderich allows himself a scoff of disbelief, but notes that Sadik does not push or barge his way in. He's presumptuous, imposing, expectant, but he does not force.

“I'm getting predictable, am I?” Roderich asks as he steps backwards and gestures for Sadik to step inside. The larger man glances backwards down the corridor once, to see if they are being watched, before closing it with a snap behind him.

“Afraid of being seen slinking around here?” Roderich adds, amused, heading to the low table to pour them both a drink. It is hardly good liquor, but liquor nonetheless.

Sadik rumbles a laugh, crossing his arms over his chest, his biceps straining slightly against the material of his shirt. He's dressed in more Western fashions for the first time since they have met. In the meeting room it had been a distinctly coat-waistcoat-breeches style of military uniform that he'd worn, even if it was still foreign looking by far. Now, he's in only his waistcoat and shirt, though his turban is still atop his head.

“You've always been predictable, Rodri, but my ability to use that information against you has more or less been about my own willingness to accept reality.” Sadik intones, shrugging his shoulders slightly, his stance wide and easy as he takes in Roderich’s room with a cursory glance. “If I was afraid, I would not be knocking on your door in broad daylight. Are you? Have you been told not to fraternise with the enemy?”

Roderich’s lip curls a little at the implication there is anyone who could stop him from going where he wishes.

“I have no husband to breathe down my neck on such matters anymore,” Roderich says, approaching Sadik with a glass in either hand. It’s cut crystal, and squeezing against it takes the edge out of the sting of saying those words.

Sadik reaches for the glass, and their fingers touch gently. No sparks fly, but Roderich would wager it was deliberate.

“I would commiserate, but you know my feelings on the matter.” Sadik replies, bringing the drink to his mouth and grimacing.

Roderich copies the movement and pulls a similar face. “That really is foul,” he agrees to Sadik’s non-verbal reaction. Still, he finds himself taking another sip on impulse and the burn is slightly more tolerable. “Your feelings as the Ottoman nation, or as Sadik?” He added prompting.

Sadik rolls his head backwards in thought, cracking his neck lazily as he looks towards the ceiling.

“Hm. You know it is not so easy to keep those delineations clean cut,” Sadik says, and there’s a layer of something almost reproachful in his tone. “I would say that both ways I am pleased to see you out of bondage. Yes, you are weakened politically, and for that as an empire I am encouraged by, but equally I know it will mean you will fight all the harder with your mind refocused.”

Sadik gestures vaguely with his glass, his eyes lowering back towards Roderich now, a thoughtful sort of greed. “There are many who would have considered you out of reach, however, that will now see an opportunity.”

And isn’t that true? To think he’d been so obsessed with trying to gain Antonio’s attention in the twilight of his marriage with fetishistic games and women’s clothing. And all he’d had to do to have men climbing in through his window was write a single slightly affectionate letter to Konigsberg.

“And there are those who seemed to enjoy the challenge, rather than be put off by my sacred union.” Roderich says pointedly.

Those words make Sadik laugh and his eyes crease at the corners with mirth, unabashedly stepping towards Roderich. “Sacred indeed,” he teases, letting Roderich know in tone more than words exactly how much worth he considers a papal dispensation.

But actually, as he takes enough step closer, Roderich can see something else in Sadik's eye. “You're pitying me,” he accuses, taking a half-step backwards so that Sadik’s out-stretched hand misses his arm by a fraction.

The look that simmers across Sadik's face is halfway between sheepishness and frustration, and a muscle ticks in his jaw. He turns his face slightly, exhaling through his nose and bringing the drink to his lips to knock the last of it back. The glass is sat down with a heavy clunk, to draw Roderich's attention.

“I am not getting into this with you right now, Roderich. Of course I pass judgement, but I don't presume to understand what a century and a half bound to another of our sort would be like.” He says evenly, setting Roderich with a firm look. The corner of his mouth slants down, frowning to suppress any further irritation.

But Roderich is like a dog with a bone now that he's seen it, and his lip curls. “Judgement?” He repeats, feeling a cold indignation clawing its way up his throat. “Judgement of my loyalty and affection? Of my dogged devotion to my other half even as he-“

Sadik's hand connects now, tightening around Roderich's wrist firmly but not painfully. It’s a steadying presence, and Roderich is reminded this meeting was supposed to be on his own terms.

“Judgement of him,” Sadik corrects firmly, giving a gentle squeeze of emphasis as he reels Roderich in slowly. As though speed might make him bolt. “What the two of you had is unnatural for people like us, who know only to dominate or to submit.” Roderich opens his mouth unpack that statement but Sadik does not pause for breath. “The only time we can look one another in the eye as equals is away from political influence; even the very night of your wedding was under the watchful eye of the court.”

Sadik’s thumb presses slightly into his pulse point, “And yet I judge him, I do, even though I do not doubt I would have behaved just as badly in so synthetic and... freakish a circumstance.”

Roderich breathes out, setting his own glass down, and it is a measure of his mood that he does not jerk his hand free of Sadik's grasp for he knows the other nation would let him.

“Do you claim then that your ill-fated attempts to impose yourself upon my lands and people were a means to right the natural order?” Roderich asks, his voice condescending and mocking, “force me into a submission that would more become me?”

Sadik opens his mouth to reply, but Roderich has had enough of being spoken down to, of being treated as a child. He steps closer, pressing his own form a hair's breadth from Sadik's and tilting his head back, looking up at him through his glasses, not coyly through his lashes.

“You must ask yourself, Sadik, if you are so correct that there is a divine rightness in your motives, why it is that the Habsburg empire has risen like the glittering sun of God's light for one hundred and fifty years, and your attempts on my city have merely been footnotes in our success.”

Sadik's lip curls slightly, white teeth flashing amongst the darkness of his beard, before he manages to school his expression, “Such a betrayal and you would still sing his praises.”

“I am singing my own praises!” Roderich snaps, and his hand free of the glass comes up to poke a slim, pointy finger directly into Sadik's sternum. “What is Spain without Austria? Ambitious, isolated, self-congratulatory. What good is all of that new world riches if he does not have a country to return to? And by God, did I ensure such a thing.”

He knows he's breathing heavily now, his voice a little strained. The accusing fingers flattens to an entire palm on Sadik's chest. Swiftly, a broad hand comes in turn to cover over it, forcing Roderich to press into the meat of his chest, to feel the hum of the heart beneath.

Sadik chooses his next words slowly, and fidgets the thumb of his other hand on Roderich's pulse point, still holding his wrist. “For all that you would have resented my conquest, I would have appreciated you as he did not.”

Roderich laughs dryly at that, his eyes dropping to stare at the large, tan hand covering his own pale one. The paler-still line on Roderich’s own ring finger marks a band only recently cast aside for good.

“You would not have loved me as he did,” Roderich says quietly, and there is resignation in his voice. For what did any of the love count for, in the end?

Sadik’s hand shifts from his wrist to his elbow, and then his chin, and guides Roderich up to look at him fully in the facade. “No, I would not. But perhaps that would have been for the better.”

Sadik is shameless, his eyes flickering to Roderich’s lips, and Roderich finds that he, too, is tired of shame.

It is easy then, for Roderich to press himself up and to kiss Sadik, still simmering with anger at the Turk, and the Spaniard, and most of Christendom if he is truly honest with himself.

The shock of it makes his stomach drop despite his own righteousness, the sensation that he is doing something that he shouldn't exciting in of itself. If Sadik is surprised it doesn't show, his hand cupping Roderich's face more insistently, the other coming to grasp him firmly by the hip.

Sadik's mouth is warm and responds to Roderich's firmness and eagerness easily, forcing him to slow down. The sensation of a beard is queer at first, but easy to get over when a hot tongue probes at his bottom lip.

For his part, Roderich’s hands find them winding around Sadik's shoulders, pushing himself up onto the balls of his feet to meet him on a more even level. He longs to tug at the hair he knows is wrapped away, and he makes this clear when he probes cold fingers into the nape of Sadik’s neck.

Into the kiss, Sadik hums, and Roderich feels the smile so clearly, he can see it in his own mind's eye. In a moment, another hand slips to his hip and he is half-lifted, half-tipped onto the table by the window.

Pulling away for a moment, Roderich catches his breath, his muscle memory telling him to kiss at his partner's jawline but blocked inevitably by the beard. Sadik must see the flicker of confusion on Roderich’s face, for he turns his own head and buries it into the sensitive skin at Roderich's neck and ear, kissing.

The sensation is pleasurable, the coarse facial hair rubbing at his throat and hot air tickling gently. Roderich allows himself a breathy sigh, spreading his legs to better accommodate thick thighs. “You may remove it,” Sadik rumbles against Roderich’s skin, punctuating the action with a soft bite, not meant to mark, only to encourage.

That is all the agreement Roderich needs to dig eager, clever fingers into the folds of fabric binding Sadik's hair. It takes two, three tries to find the movement which will loosen it wholly, and as the ruby-red fabric falls away in Roderich’s hands what is revealed is long, coiled hair.

Instinctively, Roderich seeks to run fingers through it, but the curls are too tight. They're soft and smooth, lightly-oiled, and unlike anything Roderich has touched in a bed partner before. Instead, he settles for digging his fingers in, pressing almond-nails into Sadik's scalp, scratching and encouraging as the Turk mouths at his neck with increasing enthusiasm.

It seems to be the right thing to do, for Sadik groans approvingly and moves a hand to knead and squeeze at Roderich's thigh.

“Roderich,” Sadik hums lowly, hoarse, though he barely takes a breath from worrying at Roderich's skin, “you know how much I-“

Roderich tugs at Sadik's hair, forcing the man to lift his head and meet his eye. Sadik's pupils are blown wide, darker and inkier even than usual, and he is breathing with his mouth slightly open.

“I know, I know,” Roderich coos, and it’s almost condescending.

A man does not besiege a city over and over without cause.

Sadik hesitates for a moment, and in it Roderich sees that this is not what Sadik had wanted. This is not how he had imagined it going, not the conquest he'd been attempting for a hundred twenty years.

But he's still a man.

Sadik's hesitance flickers and dissipates, replaced with a wicked grin.

“Good,” he grunts, and then large hands are scooping under Roderich’s thighs, cupping under his arse and lifting him from the table. Roderich's thighs tighten on instinct, winding around the trunk of Sadik's hips for the short distance to the bed.

He expects to be thrown down onto the bed, but instead Sadik lowers himself to sit on the edge, as if the movement is no bother at all even with another man in his arms.

Roderich arranges himself accordingly, knees denting into the mattress on either side of the Turk's legs and – God, already? – down against the evidence of Sadik's arousal.

Here, their eyes are level, and Roderich soon winds himself around Sadik's neck again like a viper, fingers into his hair and nails scraping along at his jawline, feeling about the shape of his facial hair. He kisses at Sadik’s mouth, hot and breathy, before taking his own turn in his partner's neck.

Sadik’s skin tastes the same as Roderich imagines his own must, slightly salty with sweat from the day. But perfume clings to him, musk and oud, and the freshness of rosewater to the hair that Roderich is tugging insistently.

Sadik allows his head to fall back, welcoming the touches, and wraps his large hands around the tops of Roderich's hips. He’s not forceful, more guiding, as he begins to shift Roderich's hips back and forth, chasing friction.

“There you are, there you are,” Sadik insists, confident and sure of himself despite the barely leashed restraint in his movements.

The pressure is good, for both of them, drawing breathy sounds into the stillness of the secluded room. But all too quickly it is not enough; decades of cat and mouse and yet neither of them seem able to wait any longer.

One calloused hand begins to untuck the back of Roderich's shirt, tracing up the divot of his spine, before dragging back down with blunt nails.

The effect is to make Roderich's back arch, and he pulls away momentarily to gasp softly for air.

It brings enough clarity that when Sadik leans in to kiss him again he grunts in protest.

“Glasses,” he prompts, demands, before thinking of something else, “And your shirt, while we're on the topic.”

It is begrudgingly that Sadik peels a hand from his hip to pluck his glasses from his nose and deposit them on the bedside table, but with far more glee that he begins to work away the buttons of Roderich's shirt. “I have remembered this flesh many times,” he says, gluttonous.

Each new inch of fair skin seems to please him, and when he discovers pale pink nipples, he brushes the pad of his thumb over one curiously. Roderich makes a huffing sound through his nose, gooseflesh raising on his skin, and that is enough to encourage the Turk. Sadik bends his neck down, a little awkwardly, and flicks his hot tongue over the rapidly-hardening nub. And then again.

“Come off it,” Roderich whines, verging on petulant, tugging at Sadik's hair. All he gets for his trouble is a sharp nip which makes him keen and thrash slightly, jerking his knees against the bed.

Sadik laughs, low and rough, and lifts his gaze to smirk up at Roderich. “For now,” he promises, leaving the skin alone in favour of removing Roderich's shirt wholly.

It pools at his elbows, and though it’s a little restrictive Roderich is far more interested in setting to work on Sadik's shirt buttons instead.

Equal parts vain and adoring, Sadik sits up straighter to allow Roderich to undress him. All the while trailing reverent greedy hands over Roderich's waist and chest, scraping nails and guiding him once again to rock gently against him.

Roderich, meanwhile, lets out an audible groan as Sadik's shirt falls open. He's a large man, that much has always been clear. He's sturdy and well-built as a military man, and well-fed as a noble. Thick, dark hair curls over his chest and down his stomach, and Roderich is conjured up the image for a moment of the bears that leer down from the ceilings of the courts of his northern allies.

“Don't make such sounds yet, Roderich,” Sadik chides, bringing one hand up to push at the side of Roderich's face, a thumb over his chapped lower lip, smearing spit. Roderich bites the tip, flicking his tongue against the digit.

Sadik’s other hand claws at his back once again, making him shiver, and Roderich smiles against the thumb, releasing it in favour of chasing another kiss.

Their kisses become less and less coordinated, sloppy, Roderich's chin wet and the skin around his mouth prickling slightly from chafing on the beard.

Sadik rocks against him, and Roderich hooks one leg around his back, driving the heel of his foot into Sadik's lower back, the other leg bent and braced against the bed for leverage. It’s a coordinated movement, and Roderich feels for a moment as he did when they first had met, that he is not being left behind but instead brought along with him.

Roderich allows himself to be greedy, drawing his hands across the expanse of Sadik's back which ripples and shifts where he grasps at Roderich.

Eventually he draws back, panting slightly, and looks down at Sadik. He is pretty as a picture, Roderich thinks distantly, open-mouthed and panting softly, waiting on Roderich's whim.

“You kiss me like a starving man,” Roderich says, and he swipes the pad of his thumb over Sadik's cheekbone, mapping the shape to the shell of his ear. The action makes Sadik shudder, grinding up against him again.

Sadik jerks upwards slightly, an attempt to gain another kiss, but Roderich expects it and leans backwards just enough that their breaths still mingle.

Sadik grunts in frustration, and when his second attempt is also thwarted his eyes flicker over Roderich's face, searching, before it hardens with resolve. In a swift movement Roderich is on his front, and just as quickly his britches are jerked from his hips and onto the floor. He makes an attempt at rolling back over, but the shirt that Sadik had left around his elbows tangles slightly. The Turk is quick to make use of this, winding a fist into the excess fabric to draw Roderich's elbows together behind him.

“Be still, Roderich,” He insists, positioning himself between Roderich's legs, kneeling, such that Roderich's hips are lifted slightly up onto his lap and the effect is to pitch Roderich forward onto his face without his arms to brace him.

Roderich kicks out slightly with his foot, irritated at the new position. “I cannot breathe,” he protests, and for his efforts receives a sharp pinch to his inner thigh which draws a gasp from kissed-pink lips.

“And yet you can bitch. I think you will live.” Sadik commiserates, grasping at Roderich’s upturned arse with his free hand, the other still fisted tightly into the shirt to keep him still.

He kneads the flesh there for a moment, pulling a little too hard so as to make Roderich hiss. But there is no cruel chuckle, no slap, Sadik merely softens his grip and makes an apologetic sound. He shifts instead to grasp Roderich's hip and force him forward, higher, so that he's kneeling properly now. Face down, arse up.

Roderich feels a moment of disappointment; he's not come all the way to Serbia of all the godforsaken places on the planet for something as cheap as this.

His knees shift on the bed and he turns his face against the sheets, letting out a sound that he hopes conveys his disappointment. Sadik gentles him, a hand on his thigh, but no matter how much Roderich cranes his neck he can't quite get a view of him.

Exactly why that is becomes immediately obvious.

What he'd expected was the blunt head of a cock eagerly rutting against him. What he instead feels, shocking him enough to make him gasp, is a hot, warm tongue licking a broad stripe across every inch of his swollen folds.

Roderich keens, eyes widening, as Sadik does it again. The roughness of his beard catches at the folds where his inner thighs meets his groin, and the heat of his tongue slides again over the expanse, touching everything but none of it enough.

Sadik does chuckle now, but it is warm and affectionate, and he digs thick fingers into the meat of Roderich's thigh, squeezing and holding him in place.

“You are so sweet,” Sadik croons, and Roderich wants to tell him not to flatter, that he has been sat in summer heat all day and it cannot be sweet in the slightest, but he is otherwise indisposed. Sadik's tongue presses more insistently now, lips meeting his own, curious and exploratory.

It makes Roderich shudder as he realises why Sadik's tongue seems not to be going for those places that would please Roderich the most, and that is because Sadik is wholly indulging himself. He is lapping, shifting his elbows on the bed for better leverage, probing and sucking gently and doing little more than simply turning Roderich into a soaked mess.

Roderich curls his toes into the bed, settled now in an angle where his shoulder and neck take the brunt of the weight. Just as he's about to open his mouth, to speak over the increasingly sloppy sounds and his own heavy breathing to encourage Sadik to get on with it, the Turk seems to read his mind (or his body language) and finally, finally, starts to lick with purpose.

The effect is immediate. What had been simple soft breathy sounds and the occasional pointed whine turned into a serious of soft, sweet sounds spilling from Roderich's lips. It feels good, hot and wet and warm, pressure back and forth over his clit until his thighs are tense with the pleasure.

He signs himself away on the flat of Sadik’s tongue, an accord written not in ink, but breath and salt and ache.

Roderich fists his hands into the shirt restraining his arms, though Sadik no longer holds it in place – when had that happened? – seeking the grounding sensation as he rocks his hips slightly.

In that, Sadik indulges him, letting Roderich grind against his mouth, his face, chasing the sensation as the tightness builds in his core. Mouth to his cunt, however, Sadik makes Roderich almost growl in frustration when for a moment his tongue plunges inside. The muscles is hot and slick and, most importantly, not enough. Not even close to enough to be anything but frustrating.

He makes his frustration clear, kicking his feet against the duvet, and letting out a cry of “Christ!”. In the end all it does is indicate to Roderich that his heavy breathing has moistened the duvet beneath his cheek.

For that, Sadik sucks on his clit for just long enough to make Roderich whine, before resuming his eager licks, punctuated by broad stripes which make Roderich arch his back prettily. One of Sadik's broad hands is still steadying his thigh, and Roderich thinks deliriously that the Turk might be able to get his fingers all the way around for how weak Roderich feels beneath him. When in truth Sadik's fingers were buried in plush softness.

The whereabouts of Sadik's other hand become incredibly important however, when two fingers slip deep into his cunt. Roderich cries out, shocked, the intrusion burning for a moment, but the obscene wetness making it easy to bear. The fingers crook, and thrust shallowly, and Sadik pulls back for a moment to pant heavily.

It pleases Roderich, that when Sadik speaks his breathing is laboured and his voice was thick as though he'd just woken from a long slumber. “He will not help you here.” He chuckles, beginning to work a firm rhythm into Roderich.

The fingers are deep, perhaps even a little too deep at moments, but they fill Roderich in the way he has been needing. As he gasps against the duvets, half smothered into the mattress, he looks back to see Sadik with his beard slick-soaked and his eyes focused intently on what must have been the obscene image of tan fingers dragging in and out of pink, aching folds.

“You are a vision, Roderich, I cannot believe-“ That he is so lucky? That Antonio would be such a fool to leave? That he this wet, desperate for undivided attention?

Roderich whines sweetly as Sadik inserts the third finger, and though Sadik's free hand gentles his hip, and his busy hand twists to rub gently at his clit to keep him relaxed and sweet, the Turk would occasionally grasp at the front of his own britches, or swipe a hand over his face in disbelief.

Three fingers would be all he was getting, clearly.

“Take my shirt off-“ Roderich gasps, frustrated and demanding, when he could find enough breath to force the words out, when Sadik was working to stretch him rather than to coax whiny, needy noises from his lips. “Sadik, just- Sadik-“

The fingers pull out of him with a sound Roderich would take to his grave, and he is pushed gently onto his side, warm, if damp, hands working his arms free of the shirt. “That's alright, Roderich, that's alright,” Sadik's voice says, rough and easy on Roderich's ears, washing away the humiliation of how wet his thighs felt now that they were touching again, “I won't make you beg for it, lovely thing, just get me wet-“

Roderich was roused enough from his slightly delirious state to prop himself up on an elbow. “Beg?” He seethes, and perhaps Sadik's laugh wouldn't have seemed so smug had he not unlaced his britches and knelt stroking his aching cock a handful of inches from Roderich's face. “If you want begging, you’ll have to work harder for it,” Roderich hissed, breath ragged.

“Don't be cross now, Roderich,” Sadik coos, and his other hand comes to settle in the back of Roderich's hair, urging him forward.

For a moment, he thinks that Sadik has just covered his hair in his own slick, only to realise that, no, Sadik is easing his own strokes with Roderich's wetness.

Roderich snaps his teeth as he's urged closer, his legs stretched out behind him across the rumpled sheets and his upper body propped on both of his elbows to meet the height of Sadik's leaking tip, which slides in and out of its foreskin with each languid stroke. Had it not twitched when Roderich's teeth had clicked together within dangerous range, Roderich might not have known how truly desperate the Turk was.

His priority is getting Sadik inside of him, and he will swallow both pride and cock to see it done.

“Don’t mistake this for defeat,” he says, sharp as snapped thread.

Sadik’s hand rests in his hair—not forcing, not demanding, just present. “Never,” he says. “You surrender like a sovereign, Roderich. Not a supplicant. Even now, you look like you’re drafting the terms.”

Roderich is efficient and practiced. He knows what men like, and he knows how to best speed the process along. He goes in with confidence, working his saliva around the head, sucking and tracing his tongue underneath the glans before pushing the length down his throat a little deeper on each bob of his head.

The outcome is exactly what he had desired; immediate, guttural groans which stir something warm and greedy in Roderich, followed shortly by slightly panicked tugs at his hair.

He pulls off, grinning, and cannot bring himself to mind the salty taste when Sadik's chest is heaving like that, his grip on Roderich’s hair rougher than any action he has done so far.

“Already?” Roderich asks with an innocence long-perfected, looking up through his lashes and wiping his mouth with a pale hand, “Was I no good?”

“You know what you are,” Sadik grunts, a muscle ticking in his jaw as he tries to keep his composure.

That makes Roderich laugh softly, and when the hand in his hair slackens, he takes pity on Sadik and shifts backwards up the bed.

“Which way?” He asks, so sure that he does not have a preference.

And yet, when Sadik crawls over him, keeps him on his back, he finds that this had been the right answer after all.

“It would be a waste to hide your face,” Sadik says, and the rawness of it flays Roderich for a moment, open and vulnerable. His mouth opens and then closes again, and a softer smile creases Sadik's lips for a second.

What follows is a careful arrangement of limbs, Roderich's legs hitched over Sadik's hips and Sadik shuffling his own knees on the bedspread until he can get the purchase he needs.

He drags the head of his cock between Roderich's folds several times, catching on his entrance and making Roderich's eyelashes flutter. He can't bring himself to watch Sadik, the way he is knelt up over him, brows furrowed as he guides his cock into Roderich's waiting warmth.

The initial stretch is enough to make him gasp and stare up at the ceiling open-eyed and open-mouthed, and though Sadik waits patiently to give him a moment he can feel that the Turk is almost trembling with it.

“You are being so lovely for me, Rodri, so lovely for me. Do you know that? Can you take me?”

He manages a nod, a soft ‘mhm' of approval to urge Sadik on, and it only then that for the first time that evening that Sadik does exactly what Roderich had expected him to.

He plows into Roderich with firm, vigorous thrusts. Each slap of hips on thighs rings out in the room, punctured by a soft cry from Roderich and Sadik's answering grunt. It is sweet relief, to have what for so many years he has denied himself in order to protect his marriage, or his people, or his dignity. Here, on foreign soil, with Sadik's diplomats signing a treaty accepting Roderich's supremacy in this skirmish, he can give enough of himself to allow this.

If it were not already, the space between them is soon sweat-slicked and hot. The clean, punctuated upright thrusts from Sadik rapidly deteriorate until he is hunched over Roderich’s form, braced on his elbows and their faces inches apart. Like this, Roderich cannot escape his piercing gaze save when he turns his head aside, and all this does is allow Sadik to bite at his neck.

Roderich feels like a wild thing, clawing at his back, tugging at his hair, crushed under the sheer weight of the man bearing down upon him. He is aware of words, of Arabic tongue and clumsy German, but the meaning is unimportant.

He digs his heels into Sadik's back, feels the slap of balls against his arse, whines and sobs and moans because he has not been fucked so thoroughly in years.

Sadik does not draw it out. He clearly considers his dues paid by his tongue, though he does not leave Roderich unsatisfied. Without breaking his rhythm, he pushes one hand between their slick bodies and finds at once Roderich's swollen clit.

It is a little clumsy, but Roderich's body is open and eager and ready such that he doesn't need much more than firm friction before he is yowling, scratching deep wounds into the flesh of Sadik's tan pack, grasping for something steadying. Slightly hysterically, in the throes of the passion, Roderich finds himself imagining that this had gone differently, that he were little more than a ward under Sadik's protection spoiled and catered to. Somehow, it drives him over the edge even more wretchedly.

Sadik follows eagerly, grunting a few distracted words of approval before his motions became jerky and hurried, face buried into Roderich's hair and heaving groans into his ear. “That's it, Rodri, so lovely, so lovely for me, that's it-“

The words wash over Roderich like warm water, soothing his convulsions and his nonsensical whining.

The pulsing, twitching inside Roderich marks Sadik's release, and as Sadik rides the rest of it out, Roderich is quick to come down from his high.

Roderich breathes heavily, his breaths slightly shaky and staggered, aware almost immediately of cooling sweat and the knowledge that he's supposed to sleep in this bed tonight.

He makes a move to prop himself up slightly, and this irritates Sadik enough that he gives another thrust of his hips. Roderich groans in response, overstimulation making the drag feel a hundred times more intense. He locks his thighs tight, trying to stop the movement.

“Have a little patience,” Sadik grumbles irritably, and he's panting with exertion still, the effort of supporting his own body and Roderich's slightly elevated hips on one elbow.

Roderich swallows to find his own tongue, blinking up at the ceiling. It is still light, just, the golden glow long ebbed away leaving the cool light of dusk filtering in through the high windows.

They stay like that for a time, until Roderich's little whines and squirms become enough that Sadik kneels back up fully and guides himself out.

The sensation has both of them groaning again, fumbling for nearby towels.

When the mess is a little more tolerable and breaths are caught, Sadik settles himself against the headboard, and Roderich stretches himself out more languidly with his head on Sadik’s dark-haired thigh. Still nude, his flaccid cock rests in a whorl of dark hair a few inches from Roderich's face, but he cannot bring himself to care.

Idly, Sadik's fingers card through what is left of the mess of Roderich's dark curls, separating clumps and working out knots if only for something to do with his hands.

At length, it is uncharacteristically Sadik who breaks the silence.

“I'll leave soon,” He says, and Roderich knows he is not fishing for an invite to stay.

“Alright,” he replies mildly, shifting up the bed slightly to press his face against the softness of Sadik's belly. “Do not come back tomorrow.”

The comment makes Sadik laugh warmly, rich and gentle, “Oh? Was it not to your satisfaction, or too satisfying by far?”

The question makes Roderich huff out a puff of soft air against Sadik's skin. “I am satisfied quite appropriately,” he assures his bed partner, “only that it’s best not to make a habit of these things.”

Sadik's hand presses against the curve of his skull, gentle and cupping for a moment. “One would not want to overindulge.” He agrees, though he sounds from Roderich's position as if he might be frowning. He does not lift his head to check.

“You should write. Again. If you are so inclined.” Roderich says, and though he hedges it, there is an undercurrent of insistence there. Rarely does he ask anything of Sadik, does he control the nature of their relationship. But things are different now.

Sadik hums, shifting as he begins to sit up fully now, cradling Roderich's head so as not to disturb him too much. “I shall bear that in mind.”

-

When you feel the world

Wrapping around your neck

Feel my hand wrapped in yours

And when you feel the world

Wrapping around your neck

Don’t succumb