[ None of this should be a surprise, given the conversation leading up to when they'd all fallen into bed together. Declarations of feelings running deeper than simple attraction, of those that exist, and those that could.
Still. Because he is a sensible person, most times, it still surprises.
But it is all difficult to articulate. Marcus lets out a deep breath and slides his hand across the bedding to burrow it beneath where Julius's lays, to relax it there. ]
Properly together and exclusively, [ he says, picking up her wording that he had, in, fact, managed to catch in all the chaos. ] I can promise that, if—this is as we want it, tomorrow and the day after.
[His smile warms a bit, at that. For all they've already demonstrated his idea of being frank could likely use some work, he's doing his best. It's a relief, to find Marcus reaching back for him. It's a choice, to let some of that relief show.]
She was very definite on that point, yes. And, [a touch more arch] I don't think we've gotten off to a bad start. Considering.
There is likely more to say, maybe better said with all three of them regardless of Petrana's very convenient appointments, but perhaps there is more to be said between the two of them, even if it applies to all. ]
Tomorrow or the day after, [ he repeats, his focus on where their hands are joined ] or further on, if you decide differently—I would prefer you did decide differently if it'd preserve your happiness and hers. I think it's only fair I say so.
But I'll not belabour that point, and I don't mean it the way it may sound.
[He slides his thumb along Marcus's wrist, leisurely.] Under the circumstances, it sounds to me like you're careful of preserving our happiness not because you don't want to be here, but because you care about us being happy. I can hardly begrudge you that. But ... look, I can't speak to what you and she were like alone before now, I wasn't there. But speaking from what I've observed and what I've felt myself ... while acting on this may have been abrupt, the groundwork was there. We wouldn't have reached for you the way we did, if it hadn't been.
[The dream had illuminated the solidity of some footholds Julius had been wary of, and in that way it made a difference. But it didn't plant any new ideas, whole cloth. He's conscious of how much they still have to learn about one another, but he's always rather liked that part of a new lover. The sensation of gradually relaxing is a pleasant one.]
We haven't, for now, the option of making official promises, the way some people can. But she and I have kept choosing one another, every day, for more than two years now. And it is not hard for me to imagine the three of us doing the same.
[However long they have the option, for all he's disinclined to dwell on the fact. Two mages and a rifter, in the middle of a war; it's not as if it's ever far from his mind.]
[ Marcus does look back up at Julius' face when he begins to speak, as sharply observant as he normally is inclined to be, even here, inches from each other in bed—but more than that, receptive and unguarded. Accepting of what is being said.
Which is not a far cry from how Petrana might view what it is to be alone with him.
He doesn't say anything, but he does nod. At a certain point, he will have to adopt the language of gratitude and generousity, which will match better with their pair of them. Quieting wariness is different to banishing it entirely. ]
[Julius shifts onto his side, turning toward Marcus a little more. After a moment, with a self-effacing smile, he says,] I'm talking too much, aren't I?
[It isn't a retreat, the way it might have been in another context. While he is laughing at himself a bit, the question also has a genuine note to it. There are a variety of conversations where Julius might deploy that question as a strategic gambit; there are fewer when he'd ask because he wanted to know.]
[ That easy seriousness that tends to set Marcus' expression eases, and he makes the minor adjustments necessary to mirror some of Julius' body language. ]
No, [ he says. ] There are moments I talk too little.
[ They'll have to figure that out too. It had felt easy, in the dream, and it doesn't presently feel difficult now, but even so. ]
[He considers the offer, taking it in the spirit he thinks it's extended: a starting place. As such, he thinks a moment, but not much more than, before settling on one. It's a needle to thread, asking something genuine without weighing down what is, at heart, still a pleasant moment together on a sunny day when neither of them are required elsewhere. (He doesn't expect to have a lot of those, even in a best-case scenario. Their temperaments don't suit too much lazing, or at least his and Petrana's don't.)]
In situations without the extenuating circumstances of a magical dream or the person already being part of a couple, [aside from that], do you generally prefer to make the first move or wait until the other person does? Or has it varied for you?
[Genuine curiosity underpins the question, though it's not meant to be a prying one. He's not sure, yet, how much interest feels like encouragement and how much feels like pressing. Something else to learn.]
[ The very first fragment of Julius' question is funny for at least two reasons, that being the content and its absurdity, that being its delivery. Marcus does him the courtesy of only letting that he thinks so show through the usual configuration of subtle microexpression.
Otherwise, listening, and then turning inwards, thoughtful. ]
I suppose I wait for welcome, [ he says. He pauses, then decides to add; ] I've had very few relationships of that kind. A woman in the Circles. A man during the war.
[ ...that's it, that's the list, but also; ]
And occasional and momentary reprieves otherwise. I think each time, they've begun it. But after—it's different, after.
[It may not be evident yet that coaxing Marcus to smile is a victory for Julius, but it likely will eventually become so. For now, he takes the microexpression with good grace and listens.]
How so?
[He can think of a variety of ways it might be, but he's curious which ones Marcus, in particular, is thinking of. He's not as shocked as he might be that Marcus has let relatively few people near him in that way; of the two of them, he suspects Marcus's story is closer to the average for men of their background than his own.]
To want them, and then to act upon it. It becomes easier once a first move is made. Perhaps too much so.
[ At least he doesn't have to explain to Julius why that might be so, why there is difficulty to begin with, even if the man takes with him a different experience. Marcus hesitates over elaborating anyway, but shares a certain instinct—that is, not to overburden this pleasant morning, after it had started so fraught.
Afternoon? Whatever. ]
I remember [ he says, tone lifting a little ] in the dream, having waited for us to leave that coastal village proper before reaching for you. But I don't believe that was only for my sake.
[Whether or not they should be left behind permanently, or just saved against a day they're necessary again, is a different conversation. Instead, he says:]
There are people, I discovered later, who did not know of the attachment between us, Petrana and I, nearly a full year after we'd begun. Neither of us ever spoke of keeping it secret. There was no particular reason we needed to. But I, at least, never learned another way. We've both been ... it's been a process.
[He might have left it there, but after a short pause:] Anders threw it in my teeth, once. During the lead up to the election of the Divine. I think he couldn't imagine me taking a different position than his unless I cared less.
[ As Julius speaks, Marcus turns their hands so he can play at sliding his fingers in between the other man's. It feels odd, like a motion that part of him is sure he's done many times, but can only recall once or twice, and also a little like he is pretending at something. Not so much as whatever sentiment might dictate these little motions, but that it is a comfortable thing for them to share.
Odd, but not bad. ]
I'll endeavour not to make that mistake, myself, [ he says.
Because he had already, some, hadn't he? But that's hedging somewhere murkier and political, conversations that will likely still need some untangling. He also hasn't forgotten Julius' conviction of all that could remain real, of their dream, when it had begun to fall apart. ]
Do you seek to unlearn it?
[ It would make sense, to continue a pattern of comfort, so long as it had worked for them. Public pronouncements are not innately better, so long as avoiding it isn't steeped in fear. ]
[The first comment gets a warm, quiet laugh from him.]
Please do not imagine I expect you to stop disagreeing with me, [of that, first.] Petrana certainly lets me know when she thinks I'm wrong, and I hope you will too. It's only ... I would hope that when we do disagree, you respect me enough to imagine I've thought my position through. That I haven't simply landed on it out of carelessness.
[He's never truly felt himself in danger of that, with Marcus, but he does feel it's important to clarify.
He watches their hands, taken by the way they intertwine, but also thinking about the question. Eventually, he says,]
I think it is good for me, on the whole, to remain flexible. And I would never want my old habits to make a partner wonder if they resulted from shallowness of feeling. That matters to me much more than what anyone else thinks it looks like from the outside.
[ Marcus nods to this first part. He thinks there is likely room for error, for some hurt feelings. He can be frank. Given to frustration, when conversations go in circles. But there is faith enough that they will figure it out as it happens that he doesn't object or disclaim, now.
He thinks on the second then, and admits; ]
I don't know how I will be. The Circles required secrecy. I didn't enjoy that.
[ A beat, and then; ]
It could be advantageous to yourself and Petrana to pretend there's no connection with me, but I expect to have already drawn focus now.
Not an advantage I'd care to pursue, and I'd be surprised if her answer is any different.
[Here, at least, there's no hesitation. It was a point he'd thought through long before their current configuration was something he'd even faintly imagined; if he'd wanted distance, he'd have needed to talk it through with Petrana months ago, as her friendship with Marcus grew. It's not that Marcus is wrong that there's a calculation to be done. It's just been finished long before.
He lifts their hands to press a kiss to the back of Marcus's, still charmed that he's allowed. It feels somehow daring in its intimacy, which he can recognize is a bit funny after how their morning began.
He adds:]
Petrana is the first time I haven't had to be lying about something, with a lover. Inside the Circles, obviously, it was hiding the affair itself. But outside them I was lying about parts of myself. I don't think I realized how much a relief it would be, not.
[ It's a sweet gesture, one that would have been a strange leap to take hardly a day ago, and might not have stirred the same amount of fondness that it does now. Which is, in its newness, a little disarming. Assuring, too. Marcus was already relaxed
on account of the rigorous sex
but there is a different kind of relaxing to be done here, and he does so, bit by bit. ]
[Even after a few years, the topic warms him.] She's a little mercenary. She set out to acquire me for professional use early on. When I started, I was with the Research division and, at the time, she was the head of Diplomacy, so you see how that's gone.
[It wasn't as direct a line as that, but on the other hand: she hadn't been wrong about him.]
I certainly didn't fail to notice her many charms right away, but given how formal she is, at first I assumed she hadn't any interest in me that direction. But she's so clever, I found her very easy to talk to. Even about serious things, and I've not been a man with many confidantes. It's quite a thing, to feel understood by someone. Especially, for me, someone who hasn't known me all my life, when I spent so long with the same handful of people.
[He even may miss one or two of them. When he'd set off into the wider world, he'd never really considered the prospect that someone could get to know him properly again. That someone would so obviously want to.
With a small laugh, he adds:] Saying it out loud, I suppose it makes me sound very egotistical. But the truth was, I wanted to know her, too. To give her the gift of someone to confide in, in return.
She made me want to take care of her, [he says a bit softer, watching Marcus resettle.] Not because I don't think her capable, but because I feel like she never expects it and I'd like her to be pleasantly surprised.
[He's still surer she loves him than that she relies on him, even after all this time. But it's inclined to make him try harder, not give up.]
I don't suppose you're alone in that impulse, [ he says, a little dry. It's a joke because he is here too, but also not a joke, because—consider, that he's right. ] Unique in having been selected. For acting on it, for staying.
[ The inevitable question. In another context, it might be an uncomfortable one. But as long as Julius doesn't press him for some form of apology, for having developed such feelings towards her when he did, Marcus doesn't feel compelled to offer one. ]
I had been curious, first, [ he says, after a time of thinking back. ] Attracted in an ordinary sort of way, but because she is a compelling person. And presence. None of that might have mattered, if not for the things we turned to talking about.
And in those conversations, I saw her courage, and her conviction. Those things that hadn't diminished her hope, but bolstered it. She is, [ he adds, ] easy to talk to. About things that are hard to talk about.
We should note our praise to share with her later. She'd be delighted.
[It's warm, affectionate despite a touch of wryness.]
You could enjoy even more of her conversation, you know, if you rearranged your housing assignment.
[It's light, but the invitation is genuine. He feels confident enough to extend it, even with Petrana absent; he knows her well enough to suspect that it was of a piece with her expressed intention to have Marcus in their bed again. That said, Marcus may want to keep a bit more independence at first, and perhaps it will be easier for him to say no to one of them than it would be to turn down a united front.]
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Still. Because he is a sensible person, most times, it still surprises.
But it is all difficult to articulate. Marcus lets out a deep breath and slides his hand across the bedding to burrow it beneath where Julius's lays, to relax it there. ]
Properly together and exclusively, [ he says, picking up her wording that he had, in, fact, managed to catch in all the chaos. ] I can promise that, if—this is as we want it, tomorrow and the day after.
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She was very definite on that point, yes. And, [a touch more arch] I don't think we've gotten off to a bad start. Considering.
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There is likely more to say, maybe better said with all three of them regardless of Petrana's very convenient appointments, but perhaps there is more to be said between the two of them, even if it applies to all. ]
Tomorrow or the day after, [ he repeats, his focus on where their hands are joined ] or further on, if you decide differently—I would prefer you did decide differently if it'd preserve your happiness and hers. I think it's only fair I say so.
But I'll not belabour that point, and I don't mean it the way it may sound.
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[The dream had illuminated the solidity of some footholds Julius had been wary of, and in that way it made a difference. But it didn't plant any new ideas, whole cloth. He's conscious of how much they still have to learn about one another, but he's always rather liked that part of a new lover. The sensation of gradually relaxing is a pleasant one.]
We haven't, for now, the option of making official promises, the way some people can. But she and I have kept choosing one another, every day, for more than two years now. And it is not hard for me to imagine the three of us doing the same.
[However long they have the option, for all he's disinclined to dwell on the fact. Two mages and a rifter, in the middle of a war; it's not as if it's ever far from his mind.]
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Which is not a far cry from how Petrana might view what it is to be alone with him.
He doesn't say anything, but he does nod. At a certain point, he will have to adopt the language of gratitude and generousity, which will match better with their pair of them. Quieting wariness is different to banishing it entirely. ]
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[It isn't a retreat, the way it might have been in another context. While he is laughing at himself a bit, the question also has a genuine note to it. There are a variety of conversations where Julius might deploy that question as a strategic gambit; there are fewer when he'd ask because he wanted to know.]
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No, [ he says. ] There are moments I talk too little.
[ They'll have to figure that out too. It had felt easy, in the dream, and it doesn't presently feel difficult now, but even so. ]
Ask me something, [ he suggests. ]
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In situations without the extenuating circumstances of a magical dream or the person already being part of a couple, [aside from that], do you generally prefer to make the first move or wait until the other person does? Or has it varied for you?
[Genuine curiosity underpins the question, though it's not meant to be a prying one. He's not sure, yet, how much interest feels like encouragement and how much feels like pressing. Something else to learn.]
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Otherwise, listening, and then turning inwards, thoughtful. ]
I suppose I wait for welcome, [ he says. He pauses, then decides to add; ] I've had very few relationships of that kind. A woman in the Circles. A man during the war.
[ ...that's it, that's the list, but also; ]
And occasional and momentary reprieves otherwise. I think each time, they've begun it. But after—it's different, after.
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How so?
[He can think of a variety of ways it might be, but he's curious which ones Marcus, in particular, is thinking of. He's not as shocked as he might be that Marcus has let relatively few people near him in that way; of the two of them, he suspects Marcus's story is closer to the average for men of their background than his own.]
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[ At least he doesn't have to explain to Julius why that might be so, why there is difficulty to begin with, even if the man takes with him a different experience. Marcus hesitates over elaborating anyway, but shares a certain instinct—that is, not to overburden this pleasant morning, after it had started so fraught.
Afternoon? Whatever. ]
I remember [ he says, tone lifting a little ] in the dream, having waited for us to leave that coastal village proper before reaching for you. But I don't believe that was only for my sake.
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[Whether or not they should be left behind permanently, or just saved against a day they're necessary again, is a different conversation. Instead, he says:]
There are people, I discovered later, who did not know of the attachment between us, Petrana and I, nearly a full year after we'd begun. Neither of us ever spoke of keeping it secret. There was no particular reason we needed to. But I, at least, never learned another way. We've both been ... it's been a process.
[He might have left it there, but after a short pause:] Anders threw it in my teeth, once. During the lead up to the election of the Divine. I think he couldn't imagine me taking a different position than his unless I cared less.
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Odd, but not bad. ]
I'll endeavour not to make that mistake, myself, [ he says.
Because he had already, some, hadn't he? But that's hedging somewhere murkier and political, conversations that will likely still need some untangling. He also hasn't forgotten Julius' conviction of all that could remain real, of their dream, when it had begun to fall apart. ]
Do you seek to unlearn it?
[ It would make sense, to continue a pattern of comfort, so long as it had worked for them. Public pronouncements are not innately better, so long as avoiding it isn't steeped in fear. ]
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Please do not imagine I expect you to stop disagreeing with me, [of that, first.] Petrana certainly lets me know when she thinks I'm wrong, and I hope you will too. It's only ... I would hope that when we do disagree, you respect me enough to imagine I've thought my position through. That I haven't simply landed on it out of carelessness.
[He's never truly felt himself in danger of that, with Marcus, but he does feel it's important to clarify.
He watches their hands, taken by the way they intertwine, but also thinking about the question. Eventually, he says,]
I think it is good for me, on the whole, to remain flexible. And I would never want my old habits to make a partner wonder if they resulted from shallowness of feeling. That matters to me much more than what anyone else thinks it looks like from the outside.
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He thinks on the second then, and admits; ]
I don't know how I will be. The Circles required secrecy. I didn't enjoy that.
[ A beat, and then; ]
It could be advantageous to yourself and Petrana to pretend there's no connection with me, but I expect to have already drawn focus now.
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[Here, at least, there's no hesitation. It was a point he'd thought through long before their current configuration was something he'd even faintly imagined; if he'd wanted distance, he'd have needed to talk it through with Petrana months ago, as her friendship with Marcus grew. It's not that Marcus is wrong that there's a calculation to be done. It's just been finished long before.
He lifts their hands to press a kiss to the back of Marcus's, still charmed that he's allowed. It feels somehow daring in its intimacy, which he can recognize is a bit funny after how their morning began.
He adds:]
Petrana is the first time I haven't had to be lying about something, with a lover. Inside the Circles, obviously, it was hiding the affair itself. But outside them I was lying about parts of myself. I don't think I realized how much a relief it would be, not.
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on account of the rigorous sex
but there is a different kind of relaxing to be done here, and he does so, bit by bit. ]
Why her?
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[It wasn't as direct a line as that, but on the other hand: she hadn't been wrong about him.]
I certainly didn't fail to notice her many charms right away, but given how formal she is, at first I assumed she hadn't any interest in me that direction. But she's so clever, I found her very easy to talk to. Even about serious things, and I've not been a man with many confidantes. It's quite a thing, to feel understood by someone. Especially, for me, someone who hasn't known me all my life, when I spent so long with the same handful of people.
[He even may miss one or two of them. When he'd set off into the wider world, he'd never really considered the prospect that someone could get to know him properly again. That someone would so obviously want to.
With a small laugh, he adds:] Saying it out loud, I suppose it makes me sound very egotistical. But the truth was, I wanted to know her, too. To give her the gift of someone to confide in, in return.
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I'm familiar with some of her charms, [ he says. ] It isn't a matter of ego, knowing how you feel.
[ He will have to turn the question on her, in turn, the kind of lazy mental notation that will surely surface in similar moments. ]
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[He's still surer she loves him than that she relies on him, even after all this time. But it's inclined to make him try harder, not give up.]
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She's very different to anyone I've known.
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[The, after a moment, because turnabout is fair play:]
Why her, for you?
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I had been curious, first, [ he says, after a time of thinking back. ] Attracted in an ordinary sort of way, but because she is a compelling person. And presence. None of that might have mattered, if not for the things we turned to talking about.
And in those conversations, I saw her courage, and her conviction. Those things that hadn't diminished her hope, but bolstered it. She is, [ he adds, ] easy to talk to. About things that are hard to talk about.
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[It's warm, affectionate despite a touch of wryness.]
You could enjoy even more of her conversation, you know, if you rearranged your housing assignment.
[It's light, but the invitation is genuine. He feels confident enough to extend it, even with Petrana absent; he knows her well enough to suspect that it was of a piece with her expressed intention to have Marcus in their bed again. That said, Marcus may want to keep a bit more independence at first, and perhaps it will be easier for him to say no to one of them than it would be to turn down a united front.]
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I see how you both might have similarities.
[ —which, of course they do, but it stands being said.
It isn't a no or a yes, but maybe a deferral for later answering. The fact that he rolls in closer to Julius to bully him into a kiss definitely is. ]
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