Mhavos closes his eyes, a gentle smile crossing his face. Love and reverence and nostalgia cross his heart; he feels very warm at the thought of sharing this memory, far more treasured than any daliance.
"Yes," he says. "It was in Trade, a language I was still learning, and I obsessed over it for the better part of a year, trying to decode it and learn its secrets. Terribly long, like everything by Emery Blackmane. It's a poem about... poetry, complaining mostly about so-called friends who wouldn't heed his advice on writing. It loved its wit."
Mhavos tips his head back and recites. "I sit with sad civility, I read / With honest anguish, and an aching head; / And drop at last, but in unwilling ears, / This saving counsel, “Keep your piece nine years."
His eyebrows twitch up, and it pulls an amused laugh out of him. The memory is obviously of great value to Mhavos, and he does love that, but the content itself —
"Nine years, really?" He grins. "His friends' writing couldn't have been so bad it needed nine years of thinking over, surely. I really must conclude he was an arrogant prick."
Mhavos grins and laughs, running his knuckle lightly over Vanadi's jaw. "You think this cruel? take it for a rule, / No creature smarts so little as a fool."
Mhavos' grin only spreads wider, and he reaches out to pull Vanadi closer. "Oh let me live my own! and die so too! / To live and die is all I have to do."
That's about as far as he gets, because Vanadi is more than happy to replace complaining with kissing. He's pulled into it and goes willingly, head tipped and lips eager for Mhavos's. He's laughing quietly to himself when he pulls back, face flushed with the pleasure of the moment.
Mhavos nods. "I memorize most of the poetry I enjoy. One never knows what books will be before them. But Blackmane is terrible for bed."
He kisses Vanadi again, short and sweet, before taking his hand and whispering over it. "Are you shaken, are you stirred / By a whisper of love, / Spellbound to a word?"
"Ah, yes, much better," he says, in an attempt to cover how really very well that's worked on him. He's never been immune to whispered sweet words, and it seems they work even better when they rhyme. His smile is pleased, if a touch embarrassed.
"Much more of that and you'll have me swooning like a maiden, I'm afraid."
Mhavos just pulls Vanadi closer, whispering now into his hair, his hands working quickly at buttons and clasps. He's no great lover, not really; this will mark the eighth time he's ever been with another person. But he loves words, and saying them, reading them and using repeating them back to those who will listen. That, he can give.
"Whatever happens with us, your body / will haunt mine -- tender, delicate / your touch on me, firm, protective, searching / me out where I had been waiting years for you."
He makes some low hum of appreciation — for the words and their lovely cadence, for Mhavos's hands on him. His head tips back and it occurs to him that maybe he really is swooning.
"Ah — keep going." With both the touches and the words both, he supposes he means. He lifts a hand to curl gently into the hair at the back of Mhavos's head, encouraging.
Several buttons opened, Mhavos runs a finger down Vanadi's sternum. "I am unable to understand the forms of my vanity," a pause, a play on Vanadi's name, a slow and biting kiss to his neck.
"Or I am hard alee with my rudder in my hand," Mhavos reaches down deeper, hand gently squeezing Vanadi's groin, "To you I offer the tattered cordage of my will."
It's so much easier to be daring-- Mhavos' vision of it, anyway-- when using someone else's words.
Oh, gods, but this is a wonderful side of Mhavos to uncover. Poetry has never been quite so sexy. Vanadi is all but melting in his hands, making some low and wordless moan of pleasure into that biting kiss, rolling his hips into that squeeze. His stiffened cock speaks for itself in his pants, and the press of Mhavos's hand is intoxicating.
He should, he thinks, roll off of his back and contribute, he's never been one to take sex from a recline. But, truly, he wants to see where Mhavos takes this, and watches him with half lidded eyes and the sharp curve of a delighted smile.
It's certainly a head trip for Mhavos, flushed with pride at his efforts. He's never really done this sort of thing before, but he's always wanted to, and the fact that it's working is beyond gratifying. The fact that it's working on a man as experienced as Vanadi is a wordless feeling Mhavos cannot begin to describe.
He kisses down Vanadi's chest. He whispers a poem against Vanadi's skin, one in the style he prefers-- "To enter in these bonds, is to be free;" A kiss to Vanadi's hip, and Mhavos begins working at the buttons on Vanadi's trousers. "Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be."
Mhavos gropes him through his trousers again. "All joys are due to thee," He pulls Vanadi's trousers down, "As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth’d must be." And he takes Vanadi in his mouth.
Vanadi watches all this with great fascination, culminating in a low inhaled gasp as Mhavos takes him into his mouth. There is a low, squirming discomfort tucked under all of the pleasure and delight, something part guilt and part unnamed anxiety for handing over the reins. He should be — ah. He can't think of what he should be doing, Mhavos's mouth is far too distracting.
The discomfort swims in and out, but it's a quiet thing and largely drowned out entirely by the heat of the moment. Those last lines still echo in his head, replaying in Mhavos's voice almost to the point of senselessness.
His hand has tangled into Mhavos's hair again. He'd never dream of pushing him, nor even of guiding him, but it's a silent encouragement, and the occasional helpless flex of his fingers speaks to Mhavos's good work.
Mhavos is no expert in this art, but he's certainly passionate in action. All the pretty words, and Vanadi's reaction to them, have left Mhavos just as romanced; he's dedicated to this, now, and not thinking on potential failings. His greatest goal is to drive Vanadi to distraction, moaning or sighing, or until he tells him to get off.
He cannot read bodies as Vanadi can; he notices only the sounds of pleasure, the feeling of fingers in his hair, the taste and the smell of Vanadi around him.
He's driven to very thorough distraction, chest heaving to something just short of a pant between the hitches of breath and breath-holding. It's embarrassing, somehow, to be so focused on, but -- it's not as if he can turn it away. He leans his head back and closes his eyes, lip bitten around the soft gasps and moans, free hand splayed across forehead and eyes.
He can feel the inexperience in Mhavos's touch, but really, the enthusiasm makes up for it. The enthusiasm and, well, how very touching this all is. It pulls him to the brink, sees him through to making small, eager thrusts with his hips, and just when he's sure he can't take anymore his hand in Mhavos's hair shifts, tapping gentle at a shoulder.
"Ah, I'm going to -- " Finish, he doesn't say, as another gasp as interrupted him. It's rude not to give a little warning, let Mhavos lean away or decide to see it through.
It only emboldens Mhavos further, delighted as he is by the idea that he's managed to do this for Vanadi. He had doubts, but they were before now: lying awake and wondering when he'd be found inadequate. Not today, apparently, and that's its own sort of joy.
Suffice to say, Mhavos is committed to seeing this through. He's relatively inexperienced, yes, but he knows what to do now. Afterward, he kisses his way back up Vanadi's thigh, his hip, his chest, eventually nuzzling into the soft hair and skin just under one of Vanadi's ears.
He whispers Orlesian nonsense against his skin and resists the urge to press himself bodily against Vanadi. He doesn't want to ruin the moment, sweet and close, with his own need. That can be ignored, or put off, indefinitely; of that art, Mhavos is a master. He'd much rather pour praise on the object of his affection. Finally managing Trade, he murmurs, "I've never met any like you before," and "you're wonderful."
He comes with a gasp and Mhavos's name on his lips, low and reverent and desperate all in one. He's lost in a golden haze for a good few seconds after, only slowly becoming aware of the soft kisses up his body. It takes him a few seconds longer to respond, as his breathing and heart slowly begin to calm, but finally he wraps an arm around Mhavos to pull him closer in against him. His need doesn't go unnoticed, and will be addressed -- in a moment. He couldn't shake himself out of this bask just yet if he had to.
The Orlesian filters in like sunlight through the warm and languid waters of his satisfied attentions, and he can pick out only a few words in his pleasantly buzzing brain. Then it's Trade, which is considerably easier, and he shifts to press a kiss into Mhavos's temple with a smile.
"That was -- " He interrupts himself with an exhale of a laugh, and presses another kiss to Mhavos's skin while he collects himself. "That was a first. I can't say I've ever been seduced with poetry before. You are an amazement, Mhavos."
Mhavos is glad no one's looking him in the face, so they can't see the smug gleam in his eye, the ugly smile to himself. He'll never be of superlative importance to anyone, but being able to be first is still something of a delight, especially with regards to Vanadi, who has gone out of his way to show such care when Mhavos can offer nothing in return.
He controls himself. The moment is still there, waiting; Vanadi is still there, gentle and calming and wonderful. He searches for something to say that isn't self-deprecating.
"I ought to keep going," he admits, joking, "I'm all out of words," a kiss to Vanadi's cheek, "you have them all."
How pointless, vapid romantics. He kisses Vanadi longer, now; anything to stop his mouth.
He kisses back slowly, finally coming back into himself from the miles-high float Mhavos had left him in, and when they part he shifts himself to resettle the both of them, Mhavos onto his back with a gentle push and Vanadi in a drape atop him. He's careful, of course, of the wound.
"I do, and I plan to keep each one of them," he says with a little smile, which turns into a short laugh. "I'm terribly afraid you may have ruined me, and I may no longer be able to read poetry in public."
Mhavos looks at Vanadi as though he hung the stars in the sky. He lets him move however he likes, his only request nonverbal, a hand with fingers carded through Vanadi's hair remains firmly in place. He heeds to touch him somehow, or he'll lose his will entirely.
"Then I have done you a terrible disservice," he murmurs, but it's all in good humor. "I don't regret it."
He laughs again, more softly. "Neither do I," he says, and nuzzles a kiss into Mhavos's neck. His fingers work at the first button of his shirt, moving just as slow and languidly as the rest of him.
His kiss moves higher, lips brushing softly along one long and pointed ear. He hesitates there, with words he'd like to say but not necessarily face. It's better, maybe, whispered into an ear, his face all but hidden in Mhavos's hair.
"I'm grateful to you," he murmurs there, low and quiet. "To your patience, your kindness. I've needed this more than I can say. I don't know how to ever show you how grateful I am, but I can aim to try."
Mhavos lies back, letting Vanadi do as he likes. Now that Mhavos has done enough, his pride no longer interferes with sitting still. And, truth be told, it's less a strain on his gut than all previous positions. So he's healing slow. No one's noticed, yet, and he doesn't intend to let that change.
His hand stays at Vanadi's brow, tracing an invisible line. "I'm glad I can give you anything," he says. He can't imagine Vanadi really needing anything from anyone, much less an awkward dabbler such as Mhavos himself. "You don't owe me anything in return. You being here is... quite a lot. I mean that."
He pulls back slightly to hover there, taking in the angles of Mhavos's face, looking as if he wants to say something. And he does. He wants to crack open his tightly-locked chest and explain how very important this is to him, how he's been starved for touch and affection, how he'd thought he would never see any of it again. How cold he's been, and how lonely, and how Mhavos has chased away both of those feelings. Not with a blowjob, but with his very presence, with everything from that shared romantic moment in the library to now.
But it's too much. He casts his eyes away with a faint color to his cheeks and says only, "It's quite a lot to me that you would have me."
It's a fraction of the words inside of him, and unsatisfying, but it will have to do. He lowers his head, fingers back to work with the buttons and lips following shortly after.
Mhavos lets out a helpless laugh. "In what world would I ever refuse you?"
It's kind and fond and meant mostly as a compliment, but he truly cannot envision any world where he'd turn Vanadi down. The man is perfect, endlessly patient with Mhavos' failings, and extravagantly giving. And now he's kissing down Mhavos' chest, and Mhavos loses the fight to keep himself from bucking his hips into nothing. He turns his face half into the pillow, blushing deeply and trying not to care. His hand circles Vanadi's ear, his jaw, swerving to distract.
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"Yes," he says. "It was in Trade, a language I was still learning, and I obsessed over it for the better part of a year, trying to decode it and learn its secrets. Terribly long, like everything by Emery Blackmane. It's a poem about... poetry, complaining mostly about so-called friends who wouldn't heed his advice on writing. It loved its wit."
Mhavos tips his head back and recites. "I sit with sad civility, I read / With honest anguish, and an aching head; / And drop at last, but in unwilling ears, / This saving counsel, “Keep your piece nine years."
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"Nine years, really?" He grins. "His friends' writing couldn't have been so bad it needed nine years of thinking over, surely. I really must conclude he was an arrogant prick."
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"Oh, come! I'll not be insulted by some human writer from beyond the — " He pauses. "Wait, is he dead yet?"
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And then, a kiss.
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That's about as far as he gets, because Vanadi is more than happy to replace complaining with kissing. He's pulled into it and goes willingly, head tipped and lips eager for Mhavos's. He's laughing quietly to himself when he pulls back, face flushed with the pleasure of the moment.
"Do you have the entire thing memorized?"
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He kisses Vanadi again, short and sweet, before taking his hand and whispering over it. "Are you shaken, are you stirred / By a whisper of love, / Spellbound to a word?"
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"Much more of that and you'll have me swooning like a maiden, I'm afraid."
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"Whatever happens with us, your body / will haunt mine -- tender, delicate / your touch on me, firm, protective, searching / me out where I had been waiting years for you."
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"Ah — keep going." With both the touches and the words both, he supposes he means. He lifts a hand to curl gently into the hair at the back of Mhavos's head, encouraging.
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"Or I am hard alee with my rudder in my hand," Mhavos reaches down deeper, hand gently squeezing Vanadi's groin, "To you I offer the tattered cordage of my will."
It's so much easier to be daring-- Mhavos' vision of it, anyway-- when using someone else's words.
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He should, he thinks, roll off of his back and contribute, he's never been one to take sex from a recline. But, truly, he wants to see where Mhavos takes this, and watches him with half lidded eyes and the sharp curve of a delighted smile.
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He kisses down Vanadi's chest. He whispers a poem against Vanadi's skin, one in the style he prefers-- "To enter in these bonds, is to be free;" A kiss to Vanadi's hip, and Mhavos begins working at the buttons on Vanadi's trousers. "Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be."
Mhavos gropes him through his trousers again. "All joys are due to thee," He pulls Vanadi's trousers down, "As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth’d must be." And he takes Vanadi in his mouth.
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The discomfort swims in and out, but it's a quiet thing and largely drowned out entirely by the heat of the moment. Those last lines still echo in his head, replaying in Mhavos's voice almost to the point of senselessness.
His hand has tangled into Mhavos's hair again. He'd never dream of pushing him, nor even of guiding him, but it's a silent encouragement, and the occasional helpless flex of his fingers speaks to Mhavos's good work.
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He cannot read bodies as Vanadi can; he notices only the sounds of pleasure, the feeling of fingers in his hair, the taste and the smell of Vanadi around him.
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He can feel the inexperience in Mhavos's touch, but really, the enthusiasm makes up for it. The enthusiasm and, well, how very touching this all is. It pulls him to the brink, sees him through to making small, eager thrusts with his hips, and just when he's sure he can't take anymore his hand in Mhavos's hair shifts, tapping gentle at a shoulder.
"Ah, I'm going to -- " Finish, he doesn't say, as another gasp as interrupted him. It's rude not to give a little warning, let Mhavos lean away or decide to see it through.
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Suffice to say, Mhavos is committed to seeing this through. He's relatively inexperienced, yes, but he knows what to do now. Afterward, he kisses his way back up Vanadi's thigh, his hip, his chest, eventually nuzzling into the soft hair and skin just under one of Vanadi's ears.
He whispers Orlesian nonsense against his skin and resists the urge to press himself bodily against Vanadi. He doesn't want to ruin the moment, sweet and close, with his own need. That can be ignored, or put off, indefinitely; of that art, Mhavos is a master. He'd much rather pour praise on the object of his affection. Finally managing Trade, he murmurs, "I've never met any like you before," and "you're wonderful."
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The Orlesian filters in like sunlight through the warm and languid waters of his satisfied attentions, and he can pick out only a few words in his pleasantly buzzing brain. Then it's Trade, which is considerably easier, and he shifts to press a kiss into Mhavos's temple with a smile.
"That was -- " He interrupts himself with an exhale of a laugh, and presses another kiss to Mhavos's skin while he collects himself. "That was a first. I can't say I've ever been seduced with poetry before. You are an amazement, Mhavos."
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He controls himself. The moment is still there, waiting; Vanadi is still there, gentle and calming and wonderful. He searches for something to say that isn't self-deprecating.
"I ought to keep going," he admits, joking, "I'm all out of words," a kiss to Vanadi's cheek, "you have them all."
How pointless, vapid romantics. He kisses Vanadi longer, now; anything to stop his mouth.
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"I do, and I plan to keep each one of them," he says with a little smile, which turns into a short laugh. "I'm terribly afraid you may have ruined me, and I may no longer be able to read poetry in public."
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"Then I have done you a terrible disservice," he murmurs, but it's all in good humor. "I don't regret it."
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His kiss moves higher, lips brushing softly along one long and pointed ear. He hesitates there, with words he'd like to say but not necessarily face. It's better, maybe, whispered into an ear, his face all but hidden in Mhavos's hair.
"I'm grateful to you," he murmurs there, low and quiet. "To your patience, your kindness. I've needed this more than I can say. I don't know how to ever show you how grateful I am, but I can aim to try."
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His hand stays at Vanadi's brow, tracing an invisible line. "I'm glad I can give you anything," he says. He can't imagine Vanadi really needing anything from anyone, much less an awkward dabbler such as Mhavos himself. "You don't owe me anything in return. You being here is... quite a lot. I mean that."
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But it's too much. He casts his eyes away with a faint color to his cheeks and says only, "It's quite a lot to me that you would have me."
It's a fraction of the words inside of him, and unsatisfying, but it will have to do. He lowers his head, fingers back to work with the buttons and lips following shortly after.
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It's kind and fond and meant mostly as a compliment, but he truly cannot envision any world where he'd turn Vanadi down. The man is perfect, endlessly patient with Mhavos' failings, and extravagantly giving. And now he's kissing down Mhavos' chest, and Mhavos loses the fight to keep himself from bucking his hips into nothing. He turns his face half into the pillow, blushing deeply and trying not to care. His hand circles Vanadi's ear, his jaw, swerving to distract.
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