Story - All Nikery's Fault

[maderr]

I made an offhand comment to nikerymis that I was tempted to do this. She liked the idea, and made suggestions, and after that I was doomed. So, she is totally to blame for this. Any and all compliments, insults, or threats of bodily harm may be directed her way ^_~

The Perfect Son

Sabre was drunk.

Given it was his birthday, and he was completely and utterly alone, not one single person having remembered or cared – he rather thought he was entitled.

Since the entire debacle with Epee, followed closely on the heels of the debacle with Dagger, he had not really expected any of his vanished, so-called friends to express their happiness he was alive and well.
He had, stupidly, thought his thrice-damned father would remember.

As it was his father for whom he'd given up every bloody thing else, the least the man could do was wish him a happy birthday.

But, no.

The mighty and perfect and wonderful and estimable Lord Rapier had gone off to his club to have lunch with his friends, who had not abandoned him, as had Sabre's friends.

He looked at his empty glass and wondered if he was too drunk, or not drunk enough.

Twenty nine years of age and what did he have to show for it?

Sitting alone in a seedy tavern three hours away from his home so his stupid father wouldn't find him and make his birthday even more pathetic.

That about summed up his life.

What had he really expected?

First the fiasco with Dagger, and hadn't he tried to make father see reason—

Then Epee, which he'd botched from beginning to end.

Everything, so one man would be proud of him, tell him that making everyone else hate him would be worth it.

He called for more whiskey when he realized his was gone, tossing back half a glass as easily as water.

Someone sat down beside him, and Sabre scowled so the bastard would run off.

Except the bastard merely grinned at him. What the hell? Everyone ran from his glares; he'd perfected them. It was the only way to find some peace and quiet when he wanted it. "What?" he snarled, hoping that would be enough to do it.

"You are a veritable rose amongst weeds, my fine drinker," the man said.

Sabre glared at the description, attributing the heat in his cheeks to the alcohol, not embarrassment. A rose? Was the man an idiot? Obviously. "Take yourself away," he snapped. "Very far away."

"Oh, now that I cannot do," the stranger continued cheerfully, smiling as though Sabre had just gracefully accepted his compliment. "I have just come from very far away, I intend from this point forth to stay very close."

"Well, do not stay close to me," Sabre replied. "The only company I seek is that of my whiskey."

"Yes, I see," the stranger murmured. "Do you have a name, rose?"

Sabre jerked at the word, and slammed his glass down. "Cease with that stupid epithet. My name is none of your business. Go away or I will toss you out of here myself!"

"Temper, temper," the stranger said in that same murmuring tone. It might have been appealing, distracting, except that Sabre wanted only to wallow in self pity tonight. He had no desire for anything that could prove as complicated as a simple fuck tended to be. "More thorn than rose, perhaps, but still beautiful for all that."

That was it. He had to take being snubbed and ignored and neglected, he had to take being ostracized and hated. He had to take wanting the approval and love of a father who was probably never going to give it – he did not have to tolerate being mocked by an absolute stranger.

He was no rose. Most would call him the weed. His family was not full of ugly ducklings, but they were not swans either. He was too broad and tall to be elegant, his hair was simple brown unless excessive exposure to sunlight brought out the red. His eyes were hazel. If people remarked upon him, it was most certainly not to admire his passable looks.

Tossing back the last of his whiskey, he slammed the glass down again and stormed to his feet – catching himself just in time, holding his other hand to his head until the room stopped spinning.

He had been smart enough to book a room ahead of time, thankfully.

Walking slowly, so as not to make his night worse by taking a humiliating stumble, he made his way to the front room and the stairs there.

A hand stopped him as he reached the upstairs landing. "Get away," Sabre snapped. "What is the matter with you?"

"You looked sad," the stranger said abruptly.

Sabre blinked, working through the words three times, and deciding that no, they didn't make sense. "So?"

"So, no one should look that sad. I was trying to amuse you."

"I am not the type to be amused by anything," Sabre said, resenting the words came out resigned rather than haughty. This was why he always got drunk alone and well away from everyone he knew – they all liked to say he was a belligerent drunk.

That would be easy. But, no. He had to be a maudlin drunk.

"Get out of my face," he said again when the stranger made no move to leave. "I would like to celebrate my birthday alone, not with a lunatic stranger." Jerking away, holding fast to the railing that ran along the stair-side of the hallway, he willed the stranger to go off and bother someone else.

No such luck. The bastard got ahead of him and stopped in front of Sabre's door, hands on his hips.

He was, Sabre thought drunkenly, rather pretty himself. Not like Sabre – calling him a rose was a bit like calling a wet cat pleasant to be around. If he'd ever once displayed a chance he'd grow into a pretty man, his father would have taken care of that with all due haste.

The stranger, though…a pity he was too drunk, or not drunk enough – he could never tell which way he suffered – to see how far the stranger would go to soothe away the sadness he was supposedly so worried about.

Gold hair – Sabre had always been a sucker for gold hair precisely that shade – like honey in sunlight, reminding him of the days when they still went to the country, and the housekeeper would feed him bread with butter and honey.

The eyes were the blue of the wildflowers growing in the little garden behind the house.

Perhaps all these stupid ramblings meant he was too drunk. Damn it. "Get out of my way, stranger."

"Lash," the man said. "My name is Lash." There was meaningful pause.

"My name is none of your concern," Sabre retorted.

"So it's your birthday, rose?" Lash asked. "Why no family to spend it with?"

"My father had a meeting at his club, my brothers are no longer speaking to me, and I have no friends," Sabre snarled. "So if you don't mind, stranger, I would like to be left alone." Ugh, why had he just admitted all of that?

Well, at least he would never see the bastard again, once this wretched excuse of a day was over.

He'd expected more aggravation, more blather about sadness and roses, all of which would have given him a perfectly reasonable excuse to pitch the man over the railing and watch him land awkwardly at the bottom of the stairs.

Instead, he abruptly found himself with his arms full of Lash, and a hand in his hair, tugging his head back – and the annoying idiot would be taller than him – and then he was being kissed, and even drunk and dizzy from being moved about so fast, he could tell it was a hell of a kiss.

Honey, again, though likely that was still the whiskey talking.

"What in the hell?" he managed some indeterminate amount of time later, and when in the hell had he wound up pressed against the railing?

Lash smirked. "Pretty and prickly, but definitely worth the trouble, I would think."

"If you make one more rose crack, I am going to—"

Sabre found himself being kissed again, and swore the next time he came out here to get drunk, he was going to make doubly certain there were no aggravating, infuriating, golden haired beauties skulking about to ruin his sulk.

"Why do you keep doing that!" he demanded, pushing futilely to get Lash off him, growing all the angrier that he couldn't. He was not used to being towered over and outmatched in strength.

It just made him all the angrier.

Lash only smirked and kissed him again. "Well, I did it the first time just to push. You're like a kitten, hissing and spitting and clawing but not really angry."

A rose, and now a kitten?

Sabre was going to bloody kill the man. "Unhand me at once, sir."

"No, I don't think so." Lash kissed him, harder and deeper and longer than the previous three, making him dizzier than ever, hot and heavy.

When he was finally released, he could not remember what he'd wanted to say.

"So what is your name?" Lash asked, easing up slightly, but not so much Sabre would be able to get away without a great deal of fuss.

Sabre shook his head. Lash might find him amusing at the moment, but Sabre didn't doubt his name was well enough known that Lash would probably remember a sudden appointment and take his leave. As vexing as Lash was, Sabre realized even that was better than continuing to be alone. He really did hate that no one had sent so much as a note around wishing him well on his birthday.

"Mysterious," Lash murmured, and Sabre really hated hearing that low, rumbling voice this quiet and close. He so did not need to be controlled by the wrong part of his anatomy right now. "Well, never mind. I'll coax it from you before the night is out. What would you like for your birthday, my pretty rose."

"For you to stop calling me that," Sabre said through his teeth. "I am not pretty; I do not appreciate being mocked."

Lash kissed him in that way that Sabre already realized was seriously bad for his focus. "No mockery, sweet."

"You are the most confounding—" Sabre resorted to desperate measures and brought his fists down on Lash's chest. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because you looked sad, and pretty, and I'm afraid it's always been a deadly combination for me," Lash said.

Sabre blinked, because he realized suddenly that Lash meant what he said. He didn't know how he knew that…but he did. Lash was not lying.

Not that it made this entire situation any less confusing. He frowned. "So you molest anyone who looks sad and pretty?"

"No," Lash said, his expression somewhere between a smirk and rueful amusement. "I'm afraid the thorns did that for me. I like a man with a temper." His eyes gleamed. "So much energy that can be put to so much better use."

Sabre blinked at him, refusing to admit his hot cheeks were anything but anger and whiskey. No one had spoken to him like this since—

Never.

He'd always been scary, mean, ill-tempered, just-like-Rapier Sabre.

Not pretty. Not a rose. Certainly not a damned kitten. Had anyone ever noticed when he was feeling down?

That also was a no.

In fact, this was all too… He swallowed against the sudden fit of disappointment, furious that he would let himself get so entrenched in this moment of stupidity that he could feel disappointment that it was all some sick farce.

It was all too good to be true, and he was tired of playing games.

"Take your games elsewhere, sir, and tell whoever paid you to torment me that he can take himself to the devil, and if I ever learn his identity then I shall see him on the dueling square and draw blood." Sabre shoved, taking Lash just enough by surprise that he was able to slip free and stalk the remaining three steps to his room.

Instead he was grabbed, turned, and shoved back against the door, then kissed hard enough his lips were sore and bruised when Lash finally pulled away. "I do not play such games," Lash said, voice hard, all trace of his amusement and playfulness gone. "I was the victim of such, once. I would not do it to another. You have caught my eye, and caught it well. I only seek to see how much I might get away with, this night."

Sabre looked at him, searching the pretty blue eyes, then gave a mental shrug.

He'd come here to drink and be stupid, to be anything but the despised and feared Lord Sabre. If this stranger wanted him – a sad and pathetic, heavily drunk fool – then who was he to keep complaining? It was his birthday; wasn't he entitled to something?

"Then come and find out," he said at last, and initiated the next kiss himself, pausing only to get his door open and drag the infuriating but intriguing Lash inside.

*~*~*

He'd fully expected to wake to an empty room.

That was, after all, how it worked.

If someone had told him he would wake up to see Lash in nothing but breeches, humming cheerfully as he read the morning rag and ate breakfast, Sabre would have sneered in contempt and told the speaker to bugger off.

He started to demand what in the hell Lash was still doing in his room, then decided it was not worth adding to his headache, which he sensed was all his question would get him.

Instead, he simply fell back down on the bed and closed his eyes, more than content to doze a bit longer. What did he have waiting for him, after all? A three hour journey back to the city, then his father to contend with for vanishing the better part of two days.

"Not much of a morning person, are you?" Lash asked cheerfully. "Then again, maybe you're just not much of a whiskey person."

"Oh, I'm a whiskey person," Sabre replied, surprised that he did so. He cracked one eye open to look at Lash, who was looking at him as if he actually cared about what Sabre was saying. "Mornings and I had a falling out many years ago. We avoid one another as much as polite society dictates we may."

Lash threw his head back and laughed, and Sabre could not tear his eyes away.

Morning sunlight streamed in through one dusty window, flecking against Lash's hair and skin, warming both, making them almost glow. This was a far cry better than waking up alone, even if Lash likely would be departing any moment.

Finally dragging his eyes from delicious temptation, reminding himself that he was sober now, and sober people did not do the stupid things that made perfect sense to drunk people, he settled the covers more comfortably and returned to his dozing.

If he dallied around, found lunch here, and made the three hour trip home more like four hours, he would not get home until father had gone off to his club for supper with his yacht club cronies. That would give him a couple of hours alone in the house, to prepare and brace for the hell he would catch for his prolonged, unexplained absence.

He jerked as the covers were yanked away, turning just in time to be covered by Lash's body and treated to a kiss that was just as devastating and distracting as the night before – but far more potent, now that he was sober and had more than a fuzzy, dizzy moment to commit to memory.

"I guess you're not too hung over," Lash said as he drew back, licking his lips.

Sabre sneered. "I know how to drink."

"You know how to do a great deal," Lash said. "Would you like breakfast?"

"Ugh, no." Sabre hated eating breakfast. He did it only when his father required, which was entirely too frequently for Sabre's tastes. "I don't suppose there's tea, however?"

Lash smiled. "There is, as it happens. I didn't know what you liked, so I ordered a bit of everything. Going to drag yourself to the table? Not that I'm in a hurry to see you leave the bed, you look so good in it."

Sabre stared at him, utterly confused. "Have I mentioned you make no sense?"

"Several times," Lash said, grinning. "I promise you're not the only one who finds me so; I am frequently called everything from 'somewhat eccentric' to 'stark raving mad'. Come, before the tea cools."

Yawning, Sabre dragged himself to a sitting position and scratched at his jaw, wondering if he had the energy to seek out his shaving kit. He could not remember a time when he had sat down to any table less than completely dressed and ready for the day.

It was only one of Rapier's many rules.

What was the point? He had come here to forget his father, and the morning was already by far the strangest he'd ever had. What was one more broken habit at this point? Finding his breeches took a moment, but then he was sliding into the chair opposite Lash at the little table. He was disheveled, unkempt, and still at least one third asleep. His father would be spitting nails to know his eldest son and heir was acting in such base fashion.

Sabre smirked as he took a sip of tea, and hoped his father felt a cold chill down his spine.

"I have a confession," Lash said, looking up at Sabre through his lashes, playful but with a slight hesitancy to it.

"Oh?" Sabre asked, keeping his tone uncaring, but disappointed that he had relaxed only for everything to now come crashing down upon him.

Lash took a sip from his own cup; coffee, from the smell of it. Their stepmother had been fond of it, Sabre recalled. After she died, Rapier refused to continue to tolerate its presence in his home.

"I spent much of the remaining night and some of this morning attempting to puzzle you out," Lash said slowly. "My memories are poor, of course. I have not lived here since I was about ten, but I do remember much of what was drilled into me. Please forgive me if I am wrong, but to judge from your sword, as well as your pretty face, I am guessing you are either Lord Sabre or Lord Epee. Unless I am mistaken, Lord Epee is a trifle younger, so I am guessing you are Lord Sabre."

"You are very astute," Sabre said, setting his teacup down slowly only because he did not have the energy to throw it. "Guilty, as charged."

Lash sipped at his own coffee again. "Well, you are much prettier than the Lord Rapier I vaguely remember, and even with that temper, much more pleasant of disposition. Though, as I said, I was only ten. Plenty of people seemed mean and scary to me at that time."

Sabre laughed bitterly and stood up. "I assure you, I am every bit as unpleasant as my father. Ask anyone. Why do you think—" He cut himself off before he could sound pathetic, and started to retrieve the rest of his clothing.

What had he been thinking? He should get home before his father got mad enough to give him the sort of beating he'd not had since coming home from school one summer with marks that were not quite as perfect as Rapier wanted.

He let out a bellow of surprise and outrage as his ankle was grabbed and yanked out from under him, sending him crashing to the floor, nose first. Rubbing it, red with fury, he managed to get himself propped on one elbow, enough to turn around and glare. "What in the bloody hell are you doing?"

"Stopping you," Lash said with a grin. "I can already see you have a bad habit of dealing with your problems by growling and stomping off. Cute, but aggravating when one is trying to hold a conversation."

"Bugger off," Sabre snapped. "You know who I am, so I would prefer to take my leave before that starts to haunt me."

"Temper, temper, rose," Lash replied.

Sabre wanted to kill him. "Stop calling me that," he hissed. "What the devil is the matter with you?"

Lash grinned – bloody grinned. "Depends on who you ask. It's a long list. Now, are you going to keep up with this stomping about in a snit or shall we finish breakfast and then decide what to do the rest of the day?"

What? The rest of the day?

"Of course, if you're going to keep sulking, I could just take you back to bed. That seems to mellow you out well enough."

"You are the most infuriating—" His words were cut off by a kiss, and really he should have seen that coming, but he wasn't used to being attacked with affection – well, with kisses. They didn't necessarily have anything to do with affection; it was stupid to think these kisses were different from any other in his life.

Of course, by the time Lash let up, he had forgotten what he wanted to shout about.

He scowled.

Lash snickered and finally stood up, holding out a hand to help Sabre to his feet, stealing another brief kiss before resuming his seat at the table. "Now, my dear Sabre, I wanted to know if you would like to linger here with me for a few days."

Sabre's brow furrowed in confusion. "Here?"

"Here," Lash repeated, pouring more coffee. "As I said, I have lived abroad nearly all my life. My parents were travelers; the moment I was old enough to go with them, they resumed those travels. A wildly exotic jungle illness took them about a year ago."

"I'm sorry," Sabre murmured, meaning it. The pain on Lash's face was genuine enough, and he had always wondered what it would be like to have parents like that. Parents who cared.

Lash nodded. "Thank you. Anyway, I have finally managed to return, to tend to those matters which could not be dealt with abroad. That, and I feel I'm finally ready to settle in one place. But, there are still things about home I hope to avoid for a few more days. I was thinking of lingering here a day or two, adjust to my new, permanent life, in my own way while I can. Would you like to stay with me, see what trouble we might get into?" He waggled his eyebrows comically, but the leer on his face said plainly enough what he hoped some of that 'trouble' might be.

His father would kill him, Sabre thought, if he went missing for three or four whole days.

No one else, however, would even notice. If they did notice, they would not care.

Despite the abject stupidity of it, he was enjoying Lash's company. The man knew he was Sabre, but didn't know enough to hold that against him. Sabre would likely never encounter such again, so why not enjoy it while it lasted?

He took a sip of his tea, which had cooled, but he found he didn't care. Pouring more, he settled back in his chair and looked at Lash. "So what are we doing first?"

Lash looked him slowly up and down, making Sabre's skin prickle. "Well, I was going to suggest we go for a ride…but I think I have a different sort of ride in mind now."

Sabre choked on his tea, and set it down hastily, glaring. "You!"

"I think you're blushing, kitten," Lash replied, then dove away from the table as Sabre roared in outrage and lunged for him.

Eventually, they made it to the bed.

Several hours later, Sabre opted against riding a horse.

Lash's poorly-muffled snickers earned him a shove into a copse of bushes as they walked along a trail in the woods near the tavern.

"You are incorrigible," he groused, but he was hard pressed to keep the amusement out of his voice that Lash seemed bound and determined to draw out. "How the devil did you get to be so…"

"Eccentric?" Lash asked, still snickering. "My parents were the very definition of eccentric. It was inevitable I turned out the same."

"Inevitable, eh?" Sabre said. He wished he could say the same. Once, he vaguely recalled, he had tried the defiance that seemed to come so easily to Epee. It had gotten him a broken arm. He'd never tried it again. Turning out precisely like his father hadn't been inevitable as much as key to staying alive. They weren't quite the same thing.

His thoughts scattered as he was abruptly pushed into a bush himself, and scowled as he barely caught himself on a sapling to keep from tumbling completely over. "What the devil was that for?" he demanded.

"Do not look gloomy in my presence," Lash said with an offended sniff. "People will think you do not like my company."

Sabre rolled his eyes. "I should think it clear that while I find your company confounding and frustrating, I do not dislike it."

Lash beamed. "So you do admit you like me. Excellent. We make progress."

"Shut up," Sabre said with a groan, looking away in embarrassment that he had so easily fallen into that one. "You are hardly giving me any choice, sir, but to learn to endure your quirky company."

"Well, it's patently obvious that with you, persistence is crucial. I bet that temper, cute as it can be, gets you in a lot of trouble."

Sabre grimaced, and did not bother to voice the obvious reply. Of course it did; he'd had a nasty temper since his school years. One strain on top of another, and only the beginning of realizing how much he'd have to give up to win the approval of his father. To be the perfect son, the perfect heir…

"If you do not stop looking gloomy, I am going to shove you into the pond," Lash said. "What the devil has you so downcast again?"

"Nothing," Sabre said. "Old problems, I should learn to accept them. So where is this home you are avoiding?"

"A few hours away," Lash said vaguely. "I confess I'm so used to living in huts and tents and such that I scarcely know what to do with an entire house that belongs only to me." He shrugged. "At that, I apparently own three of them, along with a great deal of other things. Barely, though. My father was a great scholar, but a poor businessman. I have been reworking the finances as best I can, but…" He shrugged. "I, too, make a better scholar."

Sabre snorted. If Lash was only a scholar, he was a simpleton. He was not small, but Lash outsized him, and the strength he'd so far displayed was not gained by pouring over books. His few comments about his travels suggested that Lash worked as hard as he studied.

He shrugged. "If you are looking for places to invest your money, I can make plenty of recommendations. Do you need a solicitor? A business consultant?"

"Oh, let's not ruin my last days of real freedom with boring business discussions," Lash said with a grin. "I will harangue you plenty about that at a later date." He looped his arm loosely with Sabre's, forcing Sabre to increase his pace. "So do you fence much?"

"No," Sabre said. No one ever wanted to fight him anymore, and he could not blame them. He fenced his own shadow, in his own home – and always when his father was about, on the stupid, foolish hope…

He jerked as his arm was given a hard pinch.

"Stop looking gloomy," Lash said, making a face. "Fess it up. What has you so downcast?"

"My father," Sabre said irritably. "I do not feel like discussing it."

Lash sniffed. "Anyone who makes you look like a wet kitten cannot be worth thinking upon. So what do you do besides fencing?"

"Nothing," Sabre said. "I tend to my finances, and take care of those problems my father bid me."

"Oh, pah!" Lash said, jostling him. "Everyone has guilty pleasures. Mine might be flowers." He batted his lashes. "I'm particularly fond of roses."

Sabre glared at him. "Someone will be shoved into the pond in a moment, and it will not be me."

Lash sniggered. After a moment of silence, he gave Sabre a gentle nudge. "So. Guilty pleasure."

He hesitated, but what difference did it really make? Lash already had gotten more out of him than even his family or friends had ever bothered to ask. If this was going to be used against him someday, did he not deserve it? "Theatre," he said, shrugging to appear uncaring, looking anywhere but at Lash.

Something else which his father absolutely hated – theatre was frivolous, pointless, a way for trollops and tarts to tout their wares. Sabre went as often as he possibly could on the excuse of indulging a friend, or meeting some social requirement – any excuse he could come up with, that his father could not investigate and discover to be a lie.

Ever since being completely and utterly abandoned, he had run out of excuses. Particularly devastating, as his favorite play had just gone up and unless a miracle occurred, he would not get to see it – and the casting was utterly perfect; he had been ecstatic upon examining a program discarded by a club patron.

It, along with dozens upon dozens of others, was carefully stowed away in a chest in his room.

"Now you look lost in quite a pleasant, if maybe a little sad, thought." Lash squeezed his arm. "So you like plays? What is your favorite? We used to read plays together when we traveled; I was always fondest of The Golden Tower."

Sabre shrugged. "Not his best work, though it's certainly acceptable. If you are going the route of Tomlinson, The Affair of the Maze is a much better display of his skills with intermingling humor and tragedy. I prefer Steele, myself. His plays contain far more wit. The Royal Playhouse is currently putting on a production of his play Upon the Shore. Miss Strike was cast in the leading role, and she will perform it magnificently. If you get the chance, you should go see it."

"Well, I hardly know my way around a theatre," Lash said, smiling in a way that made Sabre want to smile back, even as it made him a little sad, as well. It was the sort of smile exchanged between real lovers. Like the Prince and Dagger, or his brother and Sharp. Other people. Not him. "You'll have to go with me." He winked. "Obviously you know your way around."

Sabre shrugged, looking away in embarrassment. "I don't really go anymore."

"Easily fixed," Lash said with his indefatigable good cheer. "Now, it is late enough I think we should meander our way back and catch an early supper."

"If you like," Sabre said, still bemused that Lash was holding to his arm and treating him like he was not the most despicable person in existence.

He liked it far too much, this daydream-like day. What would it be like to attend a play with Lash? To visit a mutual club and debate all aspects of it until the clock chimed it was long past time to seek their bed?

Such a thing would never happen. Lash had not explicitly said so, but if he was as wealthy and noble as he implied – and Sabre had no desire to pry, for he'd probably only learn something he did not want to hear – then he was moving to the city, and would probably make quite the splash upon society.

In less than a day, he would no longer want anything to do with Sabre. Very likely he'd get along splendidly with Epee; they both had that mad ability to smile and laugh no matter what the circumstance.

The idea of being snubbed by yet another friend – and one who had so briefly been a lover – was a deep, twisting ache in his chest, but there was no help for it. He had been a bastard for as long as he could remember; at some point he was bound to reap what he had sown.

Once more, Lash yanked him from his thoughts. Not with a push or pinch this time, but with another of those horribly distracting kisses.

"Early supper," Lash said again. "So we can spend the rest of the night doing other things."

"I don't see how," Sabre groused, resisting an urge to smile. "You wore me out in that corner this morning."

Lash motioned impatiently. "You're still walking."

"You!" Sabre sputtered, and took off after him when Lash bolted.

*~*~*

He looked toward the table upon waking, summoning up a bleary smile – but there was no one there. Frowning, not awake enough to think of the obvious reason Lash was not at his usual place, Sabre rolled over to see if he was still in bed.

No.

Maybe he'd gone to get breakfast, or whatnot.

Sitting up, he immediately realized that it was much simpler than that.

Lash was gone.

Not a single trace of him remained.

Feeling sick and stupid, Sabre nevertheless looked for some note – anything that said Lash was not gone forever.

He did not see one.

Sabre sat in bed for a long time, staring at nothing, feeling nothing.

He stirred only when someone appeared to ask if he would be leaving soon, or would he be staying on another day?

Snarling for a bath and tea, he threw back the covers and began to pack his things.

Fool. That's all he was, and all the more for not trusting his instincts. That someone might have—

Banishing all thoughts of Lash from his mind, he focused instead on seeing his father again. That required all his energy, for if he did not play his cards correctly, he would be lucky if he was able to walk away from the interview without assistance.

By the time he actually made it home, the hour was much later than he had intended.

Despite all his mental preparations, the strategies and words he had planned out, he simply could not bear to face his father right now. He'd been gone the better part of four days – Rapier would all but kill him.

Taking the coward's route, he headed for his favorite club. His reception there was stale at best, but everyone from the staff to his fellow members were too intimidated to do anything but ignore him.

Fine by him.

A steward brought his usual to him, a fine whiskey that usually helped to soothe whatever was troubling him, even if he could not get drunk off it.

Today, however, it only made raw wounds hurt all the more. Would whiskey always remind him of Lash, now? Was even this one small, simple pleasure now ruined for him?

He tightened his hold on the glass, reminding himself for the thousandth time that it was what he deserved. Everyone he knew, and more besides, would tell him precisely that. If he had thought he'd found some magical exception in Lash, well that was his own stupid bloody fault.

Sabre tossed the whiskey back and called for another.

A cold voice negated the order, and Sabre felt his stomach knot. He slowly dragged his eyes up as Rapier sat down across from him. "Father."

"You have certainly been vastly annoying these past four days. Do you mind telling me why you took off without seeing fit to inform me?"

Sabre stared at his empty glass. "Do you know what day it was, four days ago?"

Rapier frowned at him. "Thursday," he said dismissively. "We are not discussing what days you were gone, we were discussing why you were gone. It is humiliating in the extreme when I assure people my son will be certain places at certain times, only for me to be unable to find him. Not even a note. You did not have my permission to leave."

"I'm a grown man," Sabre replied, tamping down on his anger, because the minute he showed it his father would start in with the violence and he did not want to be struck in his own damned club. "If I want to take off for a few days, I am entitled. I am sorry I neglected to leave you a note. I was more than a little out of sorts, four days ago."

"That is no excuse," Rapier said, slamming a hand down. "You have humiliated me these past four days. I endured enough of that from those damnable nuisances. I will not tolerate this behavior from you, Sabre. I expect better, much better. Do not start to prove a disappointment to me now."

Sabre bristled. "Disappointment?"

"Yes," Rapier said, eyes sparking a warning at Sabre's change in tone. "You have been quite disappointing these past four days, and this on top of the fact that you barely move in society anymore, as I demand. Of late, you have been a great disappointment."

He could not take it anymore. I'm proud of you. How hard was it to speak those four short words? He'd lost almost thirty years of his life attempting to earn them. And why? What did it matter?

Nothing mattered anymore. Even Lash had not wanted him past a few days' amusement, had not even thought him worth a goodbye.

It didn't matter what he did, nothing was ever right. His father was never going to be pleased.

Sabre did what he'd wanted to do all his life. He lost his temper with his father. Snatching up his empty whiskey glass, he threw it toward Rapier, who barely dodged in time. Rapier rose to his feet, bellowing in anger.

"A disappointment?" Sabre demanded, not bothering to watch how loud his voice got. He snatched a full glass of brandy from the tray of a steward who did not get out of the way fast enough. "I have done nothing," he snarled, tossing the brandy glass, enjoying the sound of it shattering, "but obey your every wish and command. I support you, I stand by you! I've hated those you told me to hate, I've hurt those you told me to hurt. I mistreated my stepbrother at your command, and alienated myself from my own little brother because you asked it of me. I've lost every friend, I've given up every pleasure, all to make you happy."

He shoved hard when Rapier attempted to approach him, refusing to be interrupted in the too-long bottled tirade. "I've done everything you ever asked of me. I did it without flaw, without fail. Still I am not good enough. A disappointment, am I? So be it!"

With angry, jerking motions he undid the sword belt wrapped around his waist, and threw the sword to his father. It had been handed down father to son for six generations, and he'd been so damned happy when his father had given it to him – but Rapier had said nothing but 'tradition dictates you get this now, but you had better not lose it'.

"There," he said. "If you are so disappointed with me, then I will cease to be a problem for you. All my life I've done what you wanted, and you could not even remember that four days ago I turned twenty nine. Go find yourself a son that meets all your bloody requirements. This one is through."

Turning sharply on his heel, ignoring the ringing silence, the startled, fearful looks, he stalked from the club and back into the street, barking for his horse. When he was mounted, Sabre rode through the streets as quickly as he dared, and broke into a full gallop once clear of the city gates.

He rode and rode, not stopping until he reached the seedy tavern he had left only that morning. Where his whole bloody life had finally started to come apart only four days ago, and all because he'd dared to let some damnable stranger convince him he could and should be happy.

The worst part was that he had been happy for those few, precious days.

Ordering his usual whiskey, ignoring the startled looks of the owners that he would return so soon, he slunk off to his preferred table and started to drink.

No one would miss him, if he never went back. Now that he'd told his father to more or less go to hell, there was nothing to which he could go back. Even his beautiful stranger, stupid fucking Lash, had already had enough of him.

Sabre called for more whiskey, determined to drink himself to death.

*~*~*

Sabre ignored everyone who dared to get even remotely too close to his corner of the ballroom.

He was very likely a great laughingstock right now, but he still was intimidating enough no one would dare laugh while he was in the general vicinity. Those few idiots brave enough to approach him and start to speak were quickly driven off by his glares.

A laughingstock, but a frightening one.

He did not want to be here. This stupid ball had not appealed three months ago when he'd first refused the invitation – without telling his father – and it most certainly did not appeal now. Why the devil should he come and dance attendance upon some recently returned Duke or whatever whose family was near and dear to the royal family. He had nothing to do with the royal family anymore, and any friend of theirs would be instructed to snub Sabre.

There was no way, however, to refuse a direct order that he put in an appearance, and be visible, and remain the length of the ball.

The ball formally ended at one am. It was half past nine.

It was, to say the least, going to be a long night.

He couldn't fathom why the crown prince himself would pen a letter ordering Sabre to appear – or else.

Maybe some suitable punishment had finally been arranged, after all this time. Dagger would finally have the last laugh.

So far as Sabre was concerned, he was welcome to it. He would not particularly care if they decided to strip him bare, and then go with the old tar and feather treatment. There was not a drop left in him capable of caring about anything anymore. What good did it do to care about anything?

All that mattered to him was that he'd had no proper clothes for the affair, and his already strained finances had not been pleased by clothes shopping. He had private investments enough – including a certain new wine business, though he'd rather die than ever admit he was Epee's mystery backer – but it still was nothing compared to the fortune from which his father had ruthlessly cut him.

Bloody hell, could the night not be over yet?

He sipped at his wine, wanting a whiskey but knowing better than to start getting drunk again until he figured out what the hell they were going to do to him. Hell, he didn't even know how they'd known where to find him.

Stifling a sigh, he glared off another curious would-be inquisitor, and took another sip of wine.

A quarter or so past ten, just as he was beginning to think prison would in fact be the better option, a hesitant cough drew him from his thoughts. He scowled at the quaking footman standing nearby with a folded bit of paper on a silver salver. "What?" he snapped.

"A n-note, m-my lord. From h-his Grace, the Duke of Lashton."

"What?" Sabre shook his head, confused. "The Duke? The one we're here for?"

The footman bobbed an eager nod. "Yes, my lord."

Sabre frowned, confused, and reluctantly accepted the note, dropping a coin on the salver.

"Thank you, my lord," the footman said, suddenly looking much less scared, and almost surprised.

Nodding, motioning for him to depart, Sabre opened the folded bit of paper.

I love you, so you can't kill me.

What?

The first three words caught his breath, made his heart speed up, though he knew they were complete nonsense. It wasn't signed, but the tone – the audacity – could only be Lash. But Lash had left him…

And the footman had said the note came from the stupid Duk…

Suddenly a whole lot of little things made a lot more sense.

He started to crush the note in his fist, but his eyes caught those three, stupid little words written in a neat, tidy hand. He could not bring himself to destroy the note. A pathetic dog clinging to scraps, but no one need know it but him.

Lash…Duke of Lashton.

The bastard was going to die. Why had he not simply said something?

Loved him? Sabre refused to believe those words were real. No one fell in love in four days. Especially not with the despicable Lord Sabre.

He should leave, but as he turned to do precisely that, the gong sounded to announce the arrival of the royal family.

His eyes flew immediately to the man standing with the King and crown prince, as they announced the joyous return of the seventeenth Duke of Lashton, dear Lord Whip.

Sabre was moving before he even thought, weaving his way through the crowd, barely noting the way people scrambled to get out of his way.

When the royal family and assorted companions reached the bottom of the stairs, he blocked their way, eyes only for the bastard who was smiling.

"My note said you weren't allowed to kill me," Lash – Whip – said, holding his hands up to ward Sabre off.

Sabre just glared.

When Dagger would have stepped forward, Whip motioned him back.

"I'm sorry," Whip said, stepping forward. "I panicked at the end, and fled."

"You could have left a note," Sabre said bitterly, wondering why his most humiliating moments of late must be in front of audiences.

Whip frowned. "I did. On the bed."

"There was no note," Sabre replied. "I looked. If you only wanted to play games—" He broke off as he saw the look in Whip's eyes, stepping back in panic. "Don't you dare, not here, you bast—"

But Whip dared, and kissed him as thoroughly in the middle of the ballroom as he did in privacy.

"I’m going to kill you," Sabre hissed when he was permitted to speak again. "This is neither the time nor the place, you infuriating—"

"Be quiet or I'll do it again," Whip said, so bloody cheerful that Sabre wanted to tear his own hair out.

Sabre attempted to shove him back, restore some sort of respectability – the royal ballroom, for god's sake! – but Whip was having none of that. "Why didn't you tell me?" Sabre demanded.

"I felt stupid," Whip said. "Like, really stupid. I didn't know I was the heir to a dukedom until my father died. I didn't know we had close ties to the royal family until about two hours after I learned I was a Duke. I thought I could bluster through it, but I panicked at the last moment. I’m sorry. Don't kill me?"

"You are the most maddening—" Sabre broke off, and heaved a sigh. "No, I'm sorry. I'm going to have to kill you. Bastard."

Whip snickered. "Why Sabre, my rose, I think you just made a joke."

"Dead!" Sabre bellowed, face hot that Whip had said that where everyone could hear. He started to speak again, but his tirade was lost as Whip kissed him again, and the entirety of the ballroom stared in shocked, stunned silence.