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For the first time in a month, they eat dinner together, Timachus and he. The new slave, Jaril, is serving them, carrying cooked fish, brought in from the North State in buckets of ice, an expensive enterprise, considering the travelling distance, from one end of the dining table to the other. They’re quiet. Timachus is watching him discreetly while drinking from his cup, the wine going down as quickly as it always does, if not slightly faster. Sarica, meanwhile, is irritably stabbing his fish with his fork, pulling out pieces of meat from the bones, but eating none of it. The fact that Timachus doesn’t even attempt a provocation to distract him provokes him even more. Slowly, he looks up at him, watching his tall frame, his broad shoulders, the gentleness of his features. No games, no ambitions. The last month has changed nothing of notice.
He says his name.
Timachus puts down his cup and meets his eyes obediently.
“Emaan won’t be coming to our gathering tonight,” Sarica comments, pursing his lips slightly before reaching for his own wine and drinking half of it in one go, it’s a new vintage from the vineyards in the east and deliciously dry. It makes the line of his lips tighten – or something else does, what difference does it make? Timachus, at his end, doesn’t lift as much as an eyebrow, his face carefully impassive.
“Is something keeping him?”
Sarica huffs out a breath, almost a laugh, almost something darker, heavier, angrier. “You could say that,” he replies.
~*~
The windows in Emaan’s villa looked different from those in Sarica’s, they weren’t a part of a building erected in the honour of a noble woman from the East State whose home aesthetic had to be met. They were just plain rectangular windows, panels low and blinds drawn, letting in only slivers of light that crawled over the sheets on the bed in a staircase of morning sun. Sarica followed the progression of the stripes with his eyes, laying on his side, facing Emaan’s back. The light painted his skin a softer colour than it really was.
He liked that.
“I’m not like the others you fuck, Sarica,” Emaan said suddenly, speaking to the empty air in front of him and Sarica wanted nothing more than to lay in his arms and claim every word as his own. He rose up onto an elbow and looked down upon the other man. His profile was stunning, sliced.
“How so,” Sarica asked, not truly curious, but if they weren’t going to pleasure each other with their mouths one way, then he’d take what he could get from this angle. Carefully, he placed his open palm against the other man’s hip. Emaan wasn’t drawing away.
“My funds don’t leave the same way my semen does,” he answered, rolling onto his back and letting Sarica loom over him, fully.
So Sarica leaned down, making himself as much of a blur as possible, until their lips collided.
~*~
The meeting in Irestes’ villa was limited to Sarica and him – and their various investors. He’d invited Emaan the previous day and the man had accepted, halfway out the door to attend to personal business that didn’t concern Sarica, if he please. Sarica pleased, so he’d sent one of his slaves after the other man, getting reports back of him visiting the Uqal family home where he had nothing to do, Emaan’s family was newcomers from the south, Uqal an inherently Capital family and furthermore critical of the southern parts of the country.
When Sarica left for his meeting in the morning, no reports had yet arrived about Emaan leaving Uqal’s house.
Still, he waited for him to live up to his word, now, at the meeting where Sarica was counting on his financial and moral aid against any attempts at wrapping up the efforts at the Reecian borders.
Two hours in, he had to face that Emaan wasn’t going to show up, let alone back Sarica’s plans for the continued borderland offense.
My funds don’t leave the same way my semen does.
~*~
“Can I ask what it is,” Timachus wants to know. He pours himself another cup of wine and sprinkles it with thyme and lemon zest. Sarica watches his hands, they’re big and broad, long, full fingers. Emaan has slender hands, thin fingers, he plays the flute at festivals, Sarica has seen.
No, he wants to say, gut reaction, it doesn’t concern you, but he needs Timachus’ cooperation to get this wagon back on track and with the other man, full disclosure always worked best. Let him think the truth is a two-dimensional thing between his hands. Let him think the shadows on the wall are the whole world. Sarica straightens up and puts down his cup, pushing it aside slightly, like a symbol. You’re my focus now, it means. Timachus swallows heavily in response. Sarica could take him right now and he’d like it.
“Emaan is getting married to the Uqal oldest,” giving not only his own inheritance over to her, but inheriting everything her family owns in turn, inheritance laws Sarica himself has put into effect, “they’re tying the knot next weekend.”
Whatever funds may or may not leave Emaan through his dick, they’re now directed elsewhere, wholly out of reach. Timachus frowns slightly, biting his lower lip. “A hasty wedding,” he comments.
“Desperate,” Sarica agrees, not certain whether he’s referring to Emaan or himself.
~*~
Bonds formed over the most insignificant things, Sarica knew.
Emaan had been attending his gatherings and parties with a few other, select youngsters for months, when one day Sarica strolled through his gardens in the middle of the night, clearly drunk and clearly thirsty, meeting Emaan at the well, since he had both the same urges and the same idea. They drank straight out of the bucket, passing it back and forth between them, fingertips gracing and the crystal night air heavy.
“This bucket is favour,” Sarica told the other man, passing it over to his hands, letting him hold the half-full wooden bowl by himself. “It’s something we drink with our greedy mouths to live.”
“And will we ever be satisfied,” Emaan asked, his brown eyes deep and golden and full of stars falling down. Sarica stepped closer, gripping his chin between thumb and index finger. He cocked his head, smiling slightly, softly, sharply. Would they ever be satisfied?
“You’ll be satisfied,” he said, leaning down to kiss the younger man, pushing his tongue in between his lips and tasting him. He tasted fresh, like water, and faintly like the spirit of wine. Residual intoxication. “Only at the risk of death.”
~*~
The next morning, he arrived at the Senate to great commotion, great excitement. Always wary of other people’s happiness, Sarica took some time to just walk among his colleagues and pick up gossip, tidbits of information. They were talking about various things, the attempts at warmongering that had been squashed throughout the night, the proposals coming up today about taxing weaponry and finally, finally, the news of the Uqal family’s oldest daughter who was getting married to Emaan, bridging an old distrust between the Uqal family and the South State as a whole.
Sarica stared at Irestes and his fellow Senator who were discussing this matter, looking pleased and somewhat relieved, because the Uqal family’s attitude towards the south had severely soured the relations to Reece over time.
Yes, Sarica had counted on that.
He had counted wrong.
At his sides, his fingers curled and uncurled into fists, fingertips scraping over the thin fabric of his tunic, like a way to remind himself where he was, to keep his composure, to make new plans.
There was always someone new to fuck, to own, to be owed. But Emaan hadn’t been like anyone else and Sarica had planned way too far ahead of himself this time. Ah, but as things come tumbling down, it’s a matter of intervention, isn’t it? Who goes down with the wreckage.
~*~
“You will go to Emaan’s villa tonight while I host my gathering,” Sarica tells Timachus with an edge to his voice that begs no contradiction. Timachus remains seated, upright, hands on the tabletop, fingers trembling a bit as if yearning to grab at something. His wine, no doubt. “I’ve bought two bottles of ceremonial water as an engagement present for him, present them to him, then stay while he drinks. When he’s drunk, seduce him. I know you’re more than capable, after all.”
He has seen Timachus sleep with almost every one of his friends, every single one who swings that way have had him and taken him and he’s taken them in turn. If anyone will be able to draw Emaan’s semen from him, it’s Sarica’s heir, the man who will inherit everything like Emaan has now ensured his future wife will inherit all of his.
Timachus, at his end, looks nauseous. Still, he takes a few minutes to object.
“I can’t, Sarica,” he says. His eyes look wet. Sarica feels a deep-sated contempt for him, for this soft man, big and strong enough to take the world, but remaining passive and letting himself be taken, time and again. Sarica wants nothing more for him than glory and success, but Timachus doesn’t seem to feel much gratitude for his offerings. He never has. Why do you think Sarica seeks out other men, men who do want and who yearn and hunger?
Is it not because Sarica was born to sate?
“Yes, you can,” Sarica dismisses him.
The other man’s blue eyes narrow, then harden. He gets to his feet and leaves the table, deftly avoiding crashing headfirst into Jaril who comes running at the first sign of movement. Suddenly, his strength, his size and the combination of the two become obvious. Sarica feels quite hungry, himself. Timachus feels it too, reacting almost instinctually. Although his tunic hides the evidence, Sarica can tell he’s hardening.
Well.
“I won’t,” he elaborates, quietly and needlessly.
Sarica smiles, gets up as well, making Jaril run all around the table to get to his chair, his plate, his side. Like a good slave. “That’s fine.” He walks around the table towards the door, passing by Timachus on the way. Timachus follows his every step, looking cold and alone. Oh, but who made him like that? He doesn’t want Sarica’s hand in this, he can’t have his arms or his cock either. They come attached. “Don’t bother coming to bed, you can sleep in here.”
The blinds are drawn halfway and throw the room in stripes of orange-gold. In the boundary between light and dark, Timachus is reduced to half a person.
That’s how Sarica always leaves them.