Reunion

Disclaimer: This story is based on an anime called \"The Heroic Legend of Arislan,\" to which I don\'t own the rights. Characters are the property of Yoshiki Tanaka.

Reunion

With the empty lamp in one hand, Daryoon raised a fist to rap lightly at the entrance to
Narsus’s rooms. Before his knock connected, the door swung open from the inside. Prince
Arislan, and not Lord Narsus, stood haloed in soft light.

Narsus, languidly ensconced in a favorite chair, was visible to Daryoon over the younger
man’s shoulder.

“Captain,” Arislan nodded. Clearly on his way out, the prince opened the door wider to
allow his friend entrance, pulled it shut behind him as he slipped into the hall. The latch clicked,
loudly in the silence, and Daryoon forgot all the words he’d practiced for this moment.

If Narsus was taken aback at all, he didn’t show it.

“My, My,” he said, as Arislan’s footsteps faded to silence. “My bedroom hasn’t seen this
much traffic in...oh, how long has it been, Captain? Three years?” He smiled his fixed, cynical
smile over the lip of his wine glass. “Ah, but you never were the sort to mark the days.”

The young officer knew he was being goaded and he ignored the temptation to respond in
kind. Instead, he thrust the lamp at Narsus. “It’s empty of oil. Elam is already abed and I saw
the light beneath your door.”

Narsus swirled the wine in his cup. “Elam,” he mused fondly. “In a household of lords
and princes only the servant sleeps. I would I had no cares to ruin my rest.” He looked up
pointedly at Daryoon, took the lamp and set it on the table next to the jug of wine. He made no
move to fill it. “Why not sit down, Captain?”

Daryoon fought the urge to snarl. “I’d rather not,” he said coldly. “And stop calling me
‘Captain’. I’m no more a soldier now than you are Chancellor, Narsus.”

Narsus frowned. “Yes,” he said, suddenly grave, “your young monarch told me. He told
me much on his little errand of persuasion. It seems that now we are both out of favor with the
king, if Andragoras is still king, and to be quite honest,” Narsus laughed, “I’d rather call the boy
sovereign than restore his father to the throne.”

“That’s treason.”

“Naturally. I’m a traitor. So are you Daryoon. You have been, strictly speaking, since
long before you lost your command. Three years ago, you aided me in defiance of your king.
Andragoras, that bastard.” Narsus tightened his grip on the stem of his glass until it threatened to
crack. “It wasn’t enough to see me exiled. He did send an assassin, just as you said he would. I
was barely beyond the gates of Ektabahana when he made his attempt, and without your
warning...”

Without my warning,” Daryoon finished, “you might have still escaped. No assassin’s any
match for a trained blade like you. I likely had little to do with it.”

Narsus shrugged. “As you wish. Still, you aided me. What’s more, you agreed with me.”

Daryoon sank into the empty chair with a sigh. “I agreed with your principle,” he began.

“Yes, yes, but not my timing.”

“You’re a strategist, Narsus,” Daryoon cried. “You know the value of patience, of
subtlety. It was in your mind to end slavery and you were not the only one, but did you think
Andragoras would concede to you if you challenged him before his barons and vassals?”

Narsus sipped idly at his wine, but he didn’t answer.

Daryoon persisted. “There hasn’t been a murmur in court about reform since you left.
They all have lands and families to lose and they fear to dissent. You accomplished nothing but
your own exile.”

Narsus looked dubiously at his empty glass, refilled it and passed another to Daryoon.
“You think like a soldier,” he said slowly, sitting back again. “You see the world in terms of
results, of action and consequence. But be patient. I know something too of what goes on at
Ektabahana. Praise is always spoken loudly but nobody shouts their schemes in the street. It
wasn’t for naught, as you say.”

Daryoon drained his glass. “You don’t regret it then?” he asked.

Narsus regarded him carefully, his face inscrutable. “Regret what I did? Or what it cost
me?”

Daryoon was disgusted. “You were born for politics,” he scoffed. “Always answer
questions with questions.” Rising, he replaced the glass on the serving tray and turned to go.

Narsus was on his feet so fast he nearly toppled backward. He clasped the lapels of
Daryoon’s uniform jacket to steady himself, but Daryoon retreated a step and shrugged out of his
grip, knowing that if Narsus got his arms around him, all of his resistance would evaporate like
fog in the sunshine.

He got as far as the door.

“Please, don’t go.”

Daryoon turned on Narsus. “Well isn’t this a familiar scene,” he sneered, crossing back a
pace to stare down into the brown eyes of his one-time love. “Only this time you can beg me to
stay. An aesthete like you must appreciate the irony.”

Daryoon glared at Narsus, arms crossed, jaw set.

Narsus met his gaze easily. “Are you still so angry?”

“Angry?” Daryoon smiled. “No. You’d be surprised how quickly anger fades away.”
Daryoon reached up and cradled the young lord’s face in his hands. “Do you know what comes
in place of the anger?” he asked. He drew Narsus closer and leaned his mouth near his ear,
lingered long enough for Narsus to feel the warmth of his breath, his skin. “Nothing,” he
whispered. “Absolute indifference.” He gave Narsus a mocking kiss on the cheek. “I have
forgotten you.”

“If you’re so free of me as that,” Narsus whispered back, “why are you still here?”

“I’m still here,” Daryoon growled, “because you haven’t filled my cursed lamp.”

Reaching around behind Narsus, he grabbed for the lamp where it sat on the table. Narsus
snatched it first and held it away.

“I love you, Daryoon,” he said defiantly.

The warrior’s blue eyes narrowed to slits. “I wonder, did you use that lie to seduce Lord
Karlan. Did he believe it as I did?”

For the first time, the smile Narsus used to hide his feelings faltered. He’d been caught off
guard, and when Daryoon reached for the lamp he surrendered it. He looked up, his face
completely open, all pretense gone. “I never slept with Karlan,” he said.

“Yes, and I’m the king of Palse.”

Daryoon started for the exit.

Narsus interposed between him and the door and braced his hands on Daryoon’s chest.
“Maybe I went to bed with Karlan as I told you all those years ago,” he said quickly. “But think
If I hadn’t. You’d have come with me, wouldn’t you, and left everything behind?”

Daryoon stared at his lover, at Narsus the way he was without any masks. Without the
foppish exterior he wore like armor, he was bright, fierce, emotional.

“You’d have come with me?” Narsus urged him.

“In a second and without regret.”

“Without regret?” Narsus asked. “Do you think you could’ve been content here in exile,
cut off from your beloved city, a disgrace to your family, dishonored and purposeless?”

Daryoon didn’t answer and Narsus watched him sort it all out, putting bits of that night,
years ago, back together in his head. They’d been drunk when Narsus had confessed his affair,
on the night before his infamous appeal to the court of Andragoras. He knew Narsus was clever
enough to have foreseen his exile; it was possible he’d been clever enough to drive Daryoon away
from him and the scandal he created.

“You never slept with Karlan,” Daryoon repeated.

Narsus shook his head.

“You let me suffer that lie all this time.”

“Do you think it was easy for me to let you go?”

“It was by your own design!”

“I knew it would ruin you, exile,” he exclaimed. “I couldn’t have born it, that you’d come
to resent me.”

“And if I’ve learned to hate you? Did you plan for that?”

Narsus spoke with absolute certainty. “You love me.”

Daryoon scoffed and tried for the door. Narsus blocked his passage. Daryoon
succeeded only in closing the space between them as the hands that held him back slid up around
his shoulders. Then, Narsus kissed him.

Daryoon was so startled he dropped the lamp and it shattered.

Neither of them noticed.

“You must be mad,” he cried. Furious, he clasped the arms locked around his neck and
freed himself of the embrace. Narsus fought him, but his strength was no match for Daryoon.
The young soldier pushed him back against the door and held him there.

Narsus glared at him, breathless and flushed. His brown eyes flashed. His long hair was
loose and disarranged, and he’d never looked so beautiful to Daryoon. “Damn you,” he was
saying, “Must I tell you what you want and make you take it, you–”

Daryoon silenced him with a kiss. He covered Narsus’ mouth with his and gave in at last.
Pressing closer, he ground his one-time lover’s shoulders against the coarse wood of the door,
threw all of his frustration into that kiss, as if he could somehow hurt him with his passion.

When Daryoon released him, Narsus laughed. “Oh, you’re still transparent as water.”

Daryoon held the other man’s face between his hands and made him look up. “Mock me
if you like. I’ll make you regret it.”

Narsus raised one eyebrow at the prospect.

Daryoon nodded and leaned in for a kiss. Narsus closed his eyes, craned his neck to meet
it. At the last instant, the warrior smirked and pulled away. Narsus let go a plaintive whine as
Daryoon released him and turned his back to extinguish the candles.

For the first time all night, Daryoon had the upper hand. “Strip,” he commanded.

Narsus wanted Daryoon, his mouth, his hands, the nearness of his body, anything the
young soldier would give him and Daryoon knew it. He denied him everything instead, even the
little gratification there was in his attention. He ignored Narsus entirely as he undressed.
Crossing the room, he put out all of the lights but one and when he turned again, Narsus stood by
the door, gloriously naked, expectation written in his face.

“Bed,” Daryoon ordered.

Narsus obeyed, sitting down on the end of the bed. He watched Daryoon shed his clothes
and loose his long hair from the strap that bound it back. His cock, at half-mast since Daryoon’s
kiss, hardened at the sight of the younger man’s body: tall and strong, perfected by training.

Daryoon, stretched languidly and came around to stand before Narsus. He moved with
none of the urgency suggested by his all too evident arousal. Placing a finger beneath Narsus’
chin, he tilted his head up.

“How many have there been since me?”

Narsus looked up at him in disbelief. “Why do you ask questions like that?”

Daryoon said nothing, rather he turned all the force of his pale-eyed gaze on his lover,
reading his expression as only he could. When it became clear that he would proceed no farther
without an answer, Narsus sighed in disgust. “You were the last if you must know,” he said
impatiently. “That famous night before it all came apart.”

Daryoon weighed that answer against what he knew of the other man’s notorious self-
indulgence.

“Very well,” he conceded. “Keep your secret then. I’d very likely regret knowing
anyway.”

Before Narsus could insist upon his earnestness, Daryoon bent and kissed him deeply,
forcing him back up the bed as he crawled forward onto it and over him. Narsus parted his lips,
accepting the kiss, and Daryoon relentlessly fucked his mouth with his tongue in a way so like the
act’s coarser aspects that Narsus had to banish the association from his thoughts lest it send him
over the edge too soon.

Instead he slid a hand between their bodies, down the fine hairs of Daryoon’s stomach to
his shaft, an intimate caress that Daryoon halted by taking his arms and guiding them up around
his shoulders. Narsus smiled to himself. Daryoon wouldn’t let him touch for fear of spending
himself before he’d had what he wanted. And despite his pretense, Daryoon wanted him
desperately.

Pulling him down against his chest, Narsus nipped his ear, traced with his tongue the
hollow of his throat. He moaned aloud as Daryoon reached between them and took hold of his
sensitive cock, rubbing dry circles around the head with the tip of his thumb. The sensation, so
intense after his long deprivation, fell somewhere between pleasure and pain. Burying his face in
Daryoon’s neck, he scraped with his teeth the soft skin, deliberately marking him in defiance of
the exquisite torment inflicted on his penis. Before long the element of pain gave way, the sense
of sandpaper on sunburn diminished. A few drops of pre-cum eased the friction and in it’s place,
pleasure. It built slowly under Daryoon’s hands, like the sun, golden at first and then blinding.

“Stop,” Narsus begged, gasping, desperate. He opened his eyes, looked up into the stern,
handsome face his lover.

A creeping smile spread across Daryoon’s mouth as he shook his head. He clasped the
organ and fisted it slowly, deliberately.

“No, stop,” Narsus pleaded. “Not yet. I want you inside me.”

“I’d never deny you.” Daryoon’s grin widened. “But when is up to me.”

Narsus cried softly, despairing. He knew if he came now, Daryoon could have him later at
leisure, taking his pleasure in the aftermath of Narsus’ orgasm. He was torn. He knew he could
not outlast the persistent, driving sensation for long, while Daryoon could indefinitely provide it.
He might’ve forced the younger man so close to climax that he yielded, but each time he tried,
Daryoon prevented him, pinned him down or pushed his hands away.

Narsus closed his eyes and gave up, knowing he would regret his surrender when it was
Daryoon’s turn, but submitting all the same.

Stepping up his relentless caress, Daryoon bent and closed his mouth over one pink,
pebbled nipple, then the other, pausing over each to let the coolness of his breath replace the
warmth, before traveling on up his chest.

Narsus moaned and turned his head into the pillow, arching his back. Daryoon felt the
head of his cock swell in his hand and he released him. Resting a hot hand on Narsus’ stomach,
he backed him down from the edge of orgasm. “You still hold your breath when you’re close,”
he said amusedly. While Narsus lay panting, he resumed his ministrations, concentrating on the
underside of his cock, he brought him close quickly, again and again, stopping before he could
cum. He built the climax until every nerve in Narsus body was drawn and taut, before reaching
his free hand up under him and between his ass cheeks.

Daryoon placed his mouth against his ear as he found the opening, and his fingers teased
Narsus with the possibility of penetration.

“Gods you’re even more beautiful than I remember,” he whispered. His breath ruffled
Narsus’ hair. “I’d not have believed it was possible.”

Narsus cried deep in his throat, an inarticulate groan. In broken sentences, barely
comprehensible, he begged Daryoon to finish it.

Daryoon obliged. No longer playful, he was all objective.

It didn’t take long for Narsus. The need in his groin and the unsubtle touch, the gentle
pressure of Daryoon’s fingers at his hole, a kiss at just the perfect instant, they overloaded his
senses and he came Daryoon’s hand and onto his stomach with an animal cry of release.

Then, exhausted and breathless, he lay spent.

Daryoon smiled wickedly and rubbed a final line down the underside of his cock. Narsus
gasped and jerked his hips back, overstimulated. Daryoon kissed his cheek and began playing
with his ass. “Don’t think I’m finished because you are,” he whispered. Sliding one wet finger
inside him, then a second, he coated Narsus’s hole with his own cum.

Narsus moaned, eyes closed, and bent his knees up around the young soldier’s waist.
Daryoon slid his arms beneath them, lifted them up over his shoulders. He folded his lovers thighs
back against his chest, raising his hips. Narsus felt the pressure of Daryoon’s cock at his opening
and he thrust his hips forward trying to take it inside him. Daryoon pulled away just enough to
prevent it and pinned Narsus’s arms to the bed.

Narsus looked up at him, eyes wide, suddenly apprehensive. It had been a long time since
he’d been with anyone, and he knew too well the size of his lover’s body.

He realized too late that he wasn’t ready. He opened his mouth to protest, to make
Daryoon understand that he had to go slowly. The appeal died on his lips in a whimper as
Daryoon entered him with a single driving thrust and a slow groan of pleasure. Narsus had
expected to hurt, but he wasn’t prepared for the shiver of pain that raced through him. His
muscles cramped around Daryoon’s cock, his whole body tensed and his eyes stung with tears.
“Slowly,” he gasped. “Please.” Even as he managed to plead, he braced himself. Daryoon had
said he’d take his pleasure; he had delayed the moment for this long and the moment was his.

Narsus lay burning with sensation–pleasure, pain–so intense he barely noticed that
Daryoon had stopped, waiting.

Slowly, Narsus relaxed. His body adjusted and the pain diminished. He waited, opened
his eyes, looked up to find Daryoon regarding him strangely. There was an apology in the
younger man’s voice. “It really has been a while for you.”

“Three years,” Narsus whispered. “No one since you.”

Daryoon smiled, a real smile without bitterness or irony and Narsus smiled back.

“I never wanted anyone else.”

Daryoon answered by leaning down to kiss him–a slow, tender kiss–and by inching his
hips back and sliding home again with a sigh.

Narsus caught his breath.

Maybe it was the long deprivation, but the creeping heat that began with Daryoon’s kiss
spread subtle fire through his whole body until, despite his recent climax, Narsus felt himself
harden again. He tangled a hand into his lover’s mane and pulled him closer. He kissed his
neck, tasting the salt of his skin as Daryoon established a rhythm inside him, played him like an
instrument, with tiny notes of pleasure at every stroke.

“Gods, I want you,” he breathed.

Daryoon’s reply was incomprehensible as he stepped up the pitch of his thrusting. His
breath came in ragged gasps, his brown skin flushed darker and his shoulders strained with the
effort. The effect on Narsus was a relentless barrage of stimulation. He writhed beneath the
onslaught. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t think. The whole world melted away til there was only
the two of them. There was only the strength of Daryoon’s arms, the warmth of his mouth, a
paradise of ecstacy as he filled him again and again.

Daryoon labored over him, hard muscles taut, eyes half closed. A sheen of sweat slicked
his skin, and a kind of smile played at his mouth. All at once he threw his head back and groaned
deep in his throat.

Narsus felt his need and echoed his cry.

The two of them came at once. Daryoon’s ceased his frantic rhythm and froze deep
inside Narsus. Stickiness covered their chests, as Narsus fired in tandem. Slowly, their cries
resolved into ragged panting as Narsus slipped his legs from Daryoon’s shoulders and Daryoon
collapsed on top of him, exhausted.

Then, there was only the sound of their breathing as they rested, tangled up in each other.
Gradually, even that subsided and silence came in on delicate feet and settled around them like a
blanket.

Daryoon rolled onto his side and wordlessly gathered Narsus against his chest. Their
bodies fit together perfectly, like puzzle pieces as Narsus bowed his head and Daryoon put his
face down in his hair. For a long time, Narsus lay awake, pleasantly weary and contented beyond
all reason. The disaster of the world beyond his little cabin seemed so far away. He slid a hand
down Daryoon’s side and around his waist.

“I love you,” he whispered at last.

Daryoon hugged Narsus closer, breathed the scent of him, woods and wine and perfume.

He said nothing, and he didn’t have to.

Narsus already knew.

Created: 7/29/2003.
Finished, for all practical purposes: 7/7/2004.