#meurgerys | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

knifeshoeoreofight · 5 years

Photo

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

Please note: rating change

Many thanks to my coblogger @werebeary for the beta work, handholding, etc.

It’s raining, a heavy, warm soaking rain that’s making the leaves of the ivy growing around their bedroom window gleam impossibly green. The windows are flung open, and Sidney breathes in the scent of wet earth and growing things. He’s a little stronger now, and he’s able to sit upright, supported by what he considers an excess of pillows and Zhenya considers “not enough.”

Zhenya. He has his head resting on Sidney’s chest, an arm flung across Sidney’s body. He’d joined Sidney for what had been an afternoon nap before the rain began and woke Sidney, which in turn woke Zhenya.

Sidney dreamily watches silver light edge the thin rain clouds, and strokes a hand through his husband’s hair. He’s still weak but he thinks he’s never been so happy.

Koshka uncurls from her spot at the foot of the bed and clambers up his body to wedge herself in the gap between them. Sidney huffs a laugh at her, and she reminds him of something.

“My love?” He asks Zhenya. Zhenya makes a mumbled, sleepy sound in response. “How fares your horse?”

“I’m go see her yesterday,” he murmurs. “She’s already look so much better. Less ribs. Teddy say, she’s lay down to sleep now. He’s say horses only do when they feel safe.”

“That’s true,” Sidney replies, and he can feel Zhenya smile into Sidney’s chest. “I’ll wager you’ve fed her her weight in peppermints by now.”

Zhenya hums, and leans up to press a sleepy kiss to the hollow at the base of Sidney’s throat.

“Feed you peppermints,” he says nonsensically, then proceeds to kiss his way up Sidney’s neck until he’s at eye level with him. He smiles, and give two final kisses to Sidney’s mouth and the tip of his nose.

“You’re ridiculous,” Sidney tells him, and Zhenya grins.

“Yes, he says, sounding pleased with himself as he burrows further into Sid’s side and nuzzles into his neck. Koshka gives up on them in disgust, and relocates with a leap to the windowsill, where she curls her tail around herself and settles in to watch the ivy leaves quiver in the rain,

“I’m more than a little disgusting,” Sidney protests. He’s sure he stinks of dried fever-sweat. He can feel it on his skin.

“You fine,” Zhenya grumbles. He’s quiet for a moment, but then makes a considering noise. He slides from the bed. Sidney immediately misses the comforting warmth of him, but he’s rewarded with a chance to admire Zhenya as he stretches his arms over his head. Zhenya is a fine sight at any time, but at the moment he’s clad only in breeches and an untucked shirt, his hair standing up in sleepy tufts.

“Mm. You like,” Zhenya purrs when he notices Sid ogling him. He rolls his shoulders and then trails a hand down his own chest.

“Stop that,” Sidney says weakly, and Zhenya throws his head back and laughs, which is equally devastating. Sidney would dearly love to bite the strong, graceful column of his neck.

Before he can protest, Zhenya swoops down to buss Sid’s greasy hair, and then strides to the door.

“Get you bath,” he calls out over his shoulder.

A bath. That does sound good.

***

A pair of servants carry in the high-sided copper tub, then still more arrive with buckets of steaming water.

Zhenya supervises closely, fetching the sandalwood soap from the washstand and fussing with the armful of towels one of the housemaids brought in.

When the tub is full, he dismisses the servants and comes to Sid, extending a hand to help him upright. When Sid has swung his feet off the bed Zhenya just stands there for a moment between his legs, looking down at him, one hand holding his and one hand curved around Sidney’s cheek.

He says something low and complimentary in Russian, and it makes Sidney flush even if he cannot understand the words. He’s disheveled and weak from illness, and still Zhenya looks at him like this.

He’s overcome for a moment, and leans to rest his forehead against Zhenya’s middle and to wind his arms around Zhenya’s waist. He listens to Zhenya’s breathing and closes his eyes at the sensation of Zhenya’s fingers in his hair.

The litany of crooning sweetness continues, and Sidney tightens his arms, realizing how much Zhenya had been holding back all this time, if this is how he feels. Well. Sidney has been holding back too.

English, again. “Bath, Sid. Come on.”

Zhenya hoists him to his feet, and brings him to the tub, steadying him by his elbow as he steps into the blissfully warm water. As it laps around his calves, Zhenya takes hold of the hem of Sidney’s nightshirt and lifts it over his head.

Perhaps he’s been completely naked in front of his husband before, as he was cared for in his illness. But that hardly counts. Sidney keeps his hands loose and open at his sides as Zhenya regards him with a dark, hungry gaze.

“Zhenya,” Sidney says softly, and Zhenya shakes his head like a horse ridding itself of a fly.

“Sit,” he says, voice as rough as if he’d been shouting. He presses gently down on Sidney’s shoulders until Sidney sinks to his knees, then slides his feet forward to lay himself back in the impossibly wonderful embrace of the bathwater.

He can’t stifle a groan of pleasure, and Zhenya makes a strangled sound in response.

“Trouble,” he rasps and kneels by the tub, fussing with the soap and the towels.

The air is warm with steam and the smell of sandalwood as Zhenya makes Sidney duck his head underwater to wet his hair. Zhenya works suds through Sidney’s curls and Sidney can only lie back with a sigh, boneless.

Another ducking to rinse his hair, then Zhenya turns his attentions to Sidney’s body, running a sudsy cloth along one arm, then the other. His back, his shoulders and chest, then his legs, one at a time. Zhenya cradles each of his ankles like a precious thing as he slides the cloth down Sidney’s calf to his thigh.

Sidney has to bite his lip and take in a hitching gasp of breath as Zhenya takes the cloth lower, into the water, down his thigh and over his hip, staring all the while into Sidney’s eyes.

“Zhenya,” Sidney sighs, and shifts in the water as his body flares with heat, deciding it isn’t too weary to be affected by his husband’s touch after all.

Carefully, deliberately, Zhenya hangs the cloth over the side of the tub, and slides his hand down into the water once again, to stroke a soothing circle over Sidney’s hip, brushing so close but not quite where Sidney wants him.

“Please,” Sidney breathes, and Zhenya leans forward over the lip of the tub to cover Sidney’s mouth with a deep, warm kiss. A tilt of his head and he’s sliding his tongue into Sidney’s mouth, plundering it, making soft, desperate sounds as if he’s starving. Starving for Sidney’s touch.

“Want me?” he asks, pulling back.

“Please,” Sidney says again. He doesn’t even recognize his own voice, all yearning and breathlessness.

Zhenya groans into Sidney’s neck, and moves the final few inches to take Sidney into his hand, sliding his fingers up Sidney’s cock in a long, delicious caress.

Sidney shudders and arches off the side of the tub. It’s good, so good-- Zhenya’s hand is huge, and callused, and his voice is broken as he babbles nonsensical praise and encouragement into Sidney’s skin, one language blending into the other.

“Sidney, Люби́мая, mine, so beautiful-,” Zhenya gasps, and Sidney cries out, both from the glorious friction of Zhenya’s hand on his cock, and the fire that his praise sends through Sid’s blood.

Zhenya raises his head with a hiss, the rhythm of his hand falters as he sits up and the hand he’d been bracing on the edge of the tub disappears

He’s taken hold of himself, Sidney realizes, and through a honey-thick haze of pleasure he feels irrationally jealous. He wants to be the one with his hand on Zhenya’s cock. Or his mouth.

“Zhenya-- Zhenya when I’m well-- ah! When I’m well, I’m going to fu--” He cries out as Zhenya does something wicked with his thumb.

“Yes,” Zhenya moans. “Want you so much. Want you do anything to me, Люби́мая.”

And with that Sidney is lost, body bowed in pleasure, sobbing out Zhenya’s name as he shakes apart and spends himself into the water.

He thinks Zhenya follows him soon after, but he is drifting in a warm, golden fog of contentment, a heavy lassitude weighing down his limbs.

He barely registers Zhenya hauling him to his feet and rinsing the soap from him with a pitcher of clean water. Or when Zhenya sets him in a chair to towel him dry.

Sidney hums as Zhenya scrubs a towel through his hair.

“I love you.”

The last thing he recalls as Zhenya eases him back down into bed is Zhenya’s voice, the smug smile audible in it.

“Love you most.”

***

Sidney awakens in the night. He’s not sure why, everything seems calm and still. The moon is full, the pale light of it silvering the counterpane, Zhenya’s sleeping face, and Koshka, curled up into a ball at their feet.

Zhenya snores a little, and it makes Sid smile, warmed to the center of himself with the knowledge. Such an ordinary, everyday thing to know. His spouse snores.

He is wonderful and beautiful and desirous. He is afraid of large dogs and loves blackcurrant jam and adores gaudy embroidery. And he snores.

He is here in Sidney’s bed, because he has chosen to be there, and because he loves him. When he half-wakes in the night having moved away from Sidney, Zhenya will make soft displeased sounds until his arms find Sidney again.

Sidney lies awake for a while, too happy to sleep.

#Meurgerys #sidgeno #sidney crosby/evgeni malkin #hockey rpf #sid/geno #dana writes a thing

144 notes · View notes

knifeshoeoreofight · 5 years

Photo

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

Sidney sleeps poorly, and he awakens before Zhenya does. They have shifted in the night, and Sidney is now lying on his back, Zhenya’s face tucked into his neck, and his arm flung across Sidney’s chest. Sidney slides his arm out from under him and pulls Zhenya in a little closer, settling a hand into his hair.

He drifts as he listens to the rattle of carts on cobblestones and the voices of tradesmen hailing each other on the street outside. After a time, Zhenya stirs, mumbling a little and nuzzling into Sidney’s neck.

He must fully awaken then, because he goes still and his breathing quiets.

“Good morning,” Sidney says, heart aching. He cards his fingers through Zhenya’s hair again, watching how the morning sun catches it and brings out glints of auburn from the wood-brown strands. He presses a kiss to his forehead. Zhenya’s eyes flutter shut. Sidney gives in to the impulse to reverently trace his long lashes with a finger, letting it glide along Zhenya’s brows and down along his dear, funny nose. He stops himself just before the pretty arch of Zhenya’s cupid’s bow, and pulls his hand away.

Zhenya makes a noise, pulling away from Sidney. He curls into himself with his back to Sidney and Sidney’s heart sinks.

“My apologies,” he says to the back of Zhenya’s head. Zhenya’s ear and neck are flushed crimson.

“It’s nothing,” Zhenya says, muffled. “Need moment.”

Oh.

Sidney’s own face floods with embarrassed heat. “Think nothing of it, it’s a natural--”

“Sid,” Zhenya groans. “Stop talking.”

Sidney does so, but now that he knows what is happening he can’t stop thinking about it. Zhenya’s body responding like that. He knows it’s a natural thing, in the morning. It doesn’t mean anything. He’d probably have awakened in a similar state if his sleep hadn’t been so troubled and he didn’t feel so exhausted.

He closes his eyes. They feel gritty and hot, and there’s a dull throbbing in his temples that doesn’t bode well. And his husband is so uncomfortable waking up in his bed aroused that he cannot look at Sidney. Marvelous.

Sidney remembers the confidences of last night and feels ashamed. What, truly, does he have to whinge about? He’s certainly never gone hungry as a child or faced more then a tutor’s verbal chiding.

Zhenya’s voice interrupts his thoughts.

“Tired, Sid?”

Sid opens his eyes. Zhenya is leaning over him, gazing down with concern.

“Eyes all dark.” He touches under his own eye. “Not sleep good?”

“Not so much,” Sidney admits. “But it is no matter.”

“Bed here not so good as at home,” Zhenya says ruefully. “Sorry, is my fault we stay.”

“No, no,” Sidney protests. “Don’t be sorry, the bed is fine. In fact it was--”

He cuts himself off, his cheeks flushing. After all, Zhenya may have needed the comfort of Sidney’s touch last night, but he hardly seems willing in the cold light of day.

“Thank you,” Sidney says. “For your confidences and your trust, last night.”

Zhenya gazes at him, dark eyes inscrutable. Then he smiles, shaking his head with that rueful, airless laugh of his. Sidney is not quite sure what’s so funny.

Zhenya leans down, and kisses Sidney’s forehead. Sidney closes his eyes and tilts his head up into the gesture.

“Oh, Sidney,” Zhenya says with a sigh. “What I’m going to do with you?”

Sidney feels a flush of warmth headed straight for his groin at the images that phrase conjures in his head.

But Zhenya doesn’t elaborate, just gets up and begins to get dressed.

***

They visit the horse after breakfast, and she already looks a little better. She has the energy to raise her head at their approach and roll her eyes a little nervously. Zhenya goes to her immediately, crooning at her and holding out his hand for her to sniff. She makes gentle, hesitant snuffles at his waistcoat, and Sidney’s heart twists.

“Someone was once kind to her,” he tells his husband. “She’s looking for peppermints.”

Zhenya looks devastated. “I don’t have.”

Sidney smiles at him. “Well then, we’ll just have to go to the shops, haven’t we?”

Zhenya beams. Aching head be damned, Sidney is going to take him out and absolutely spoil him.

***

First off is the sweets shop, with its rows of tempting glass jars. Zhenya chooses his peppermints, and then slyly eyes Sidney, before indicating to the shopkeeper that he would like a measure of boiled sweets as well.

Once outside the shop, Zhenya riffles through the waxed paper bag, before selecting a candy.

“Lemon,” he says triumphantly, then, to Sidney’s astonishment, holds it to Sidney’s lips.

Sidney goes scarlet at the display they must make, but takes the candy in his mouth, unable to deny Zhenya, even in flouting every rule of public decorum. His lips brush Zhenya’s fingers and the candy floods his mouth with tartness.

Zhenya is staring at him, his own mouth hanging open a little. And that is not a look one levels at someone one does not want, desperately.

Sidney feels a thrill of happiness course through him, bright as the taste of lemon on his tongue. He reaches out to tuck Zhenya’s hand in the crook of his elbow.

“Come, my dear, shall we walk to the jeweler’s?”

Zhenya looks away, shifty as Koshka when she’s deciding if she wants affection or not. But his ears are pink and Sidney can see just by the set of his jaw that he’s smiling.

***

The jeweler’s feels stifling inside, but Sidney smiles gamely and encourages Zhenya to pick, wide-eyed, over the available wares.

He lingers a little over a heavy pendant of gold filigree and amber, and Sidney motions to the jeweler to wrap it up for them. Then he realizes that Zhenya will need a chain for the pendant to hang from, and has the jeweler show them what he has to hand.

They choose a substantial chain that the ornate pendant will not overwhelm, and Sidney’s breath catches as he imagines gold pooling in the hollows of Zhenya’s collarbone as he lies sprawled out in Sidney’s bed.

He points to a second chain, a little more delicate then the first. “That one, too,” he says, and Zhenya makes a soft protesting noise.

“Sid,” he says quietly, and Sidney leans into him a little and looks up at him.

“You will look so fine in them,” he says to Zhenya, and Zhenya ducks his head again, and somehow manages to peer at Sidney through his lashes despite being considerably taller.

“Yes?”

“Very,” Sidney reassures. Zhenya is blushing like a maiden and Sidney supposes they are now even for the lemon candy.

He is anxious to leave the shop after the jeweler has wrapped their purchases and they are tucked safely in the pocket of Zhenya’s greatcoat.

He still feels overheated in the open air, however, even though it’s not a particularly sunny day. They were supposed to make a visit to Sidney’s solicitor but Sidney’s head aches at the idea of sitting in a stuffy office. What he really wants is to be home at Ydhyn Dhu, but he does not want to cut short Zhenya’s enjoyment of town.

“Sid!”

It’s clear that Zhenya has been speaking to him for some moments.

“I beg your pardon, I was wool-gathering.” He smiles at Zhenya.”Let’s leave off visiting my solicitor. What would you like to do?”

Zhenya considers him, and lays his big hands on either side of Sidney’s face. “Feel well, Sid? Face is pale.”

“I have a headache,” Sidney admits. “I didn’t sleep well.”

Zhenya frowns and takes his arm. “We go back, now. Inn, let you rest?”

“I just...perhaps I would just like to go home,” Sidney confesses. He swallows. His throat feels dry and scratchy.

Zhenya positively scowls. “Long carriage ride, will you be alright?”

Sidney leans into his husband’s side. “I’ll be fine. I feel as if I could almost sleep the entire way.”

“We go,” Zhenya says decisively, and escorts Sidney back to the inn with a protective hand at the small of Sidney’s back.

When they arrive, Zhenya takes charge, calling for their footman and driver, and making arrangements for the inn to care for the mare. Sidney leans against the innyard wall and enjoys it. Zhenya usually defers to Sid, leaving Sid to speak to tenants, tradespeople, or servants he doesn’t know well. It’s rather wonderful to watch him firmly order people about. He manages it without being rude or overbearing, but his serious tone and imposing voice and stature make people jump to do his bidding.

Sidney is smiling probably a little foolishly at nothing by the time Zhenya returns to collect him.

“How are you, Люби́мая?” Zhenya says, worry creasing his brow.

“What does that mean?” Sidney asks, but as usual, Zhenya does not answer him.

“Things are packed, carriage almost ready,” Zhenya says. “You need go inside and sit?”

“No, the air’s cooler out here,” Sidney says. It comes out rough, his throat has begun to feel as if it is on fire. He might, he is forced to admit, be a little more than tired from a sleepless night.

“I’m get you water,” Zhenya pronounces, and manhandles Sidney to a bench and makes him sit. Sidney leans back and closes his eyes.

Zhenya rematerializes in what seems like no time at all, with a tin cup of water he fusses at Sid to drink in its entirely.

Sid drinks it, and smiles reassuringly at Zhenya.

“Let’s go home,” he tells him.

***

In the carriage, he cannot stop himself from leaning into Zhenya and resting his head upon Zhenya’s shoulder. He’s so tired.

Zhenya twines their hands together. “Sid. You alright?”

“Just a bit weary,” he lies, and closes his eyes in order to doze fitfully the rest of the way home.

***

When Zhenya shakes him awake, the light is fading and the blessedly familiar façade of their house is before them.

Sid’s head spins when he steps down from the carriage, and he has to grab Zhenya’s shoulder to steady himself.

“Sid?” Zhenya asks him. He sounds worried. “Are you sick? Should we get doctor?” Zhenya swears as Sid sways on his feet. “So stupid, should have stayed in Truro for doctor.”

“No, I wanted to go home,” Sidney replies. He’s cold now, so cold. His throat burns. “If Mr. Stewart has time, perhaps just a tincture for my throat. But I need to sleep.”

Zhenya grumbles at him, then puts an arm around Sidney’s waist to support him as they walk inside. Sidney wants to protest, but it’s nice, being cared for and pressed up against Zhenya’s side.

Zhenya is talking to Mrs. Bullano about fetching Mr. Stewart, but Sidney is having trouble paying attention. The entry hall won’t stay still. He feels like he’s on the deck of a ship, the word tilting at strange angles.

Zhenya is shaking him, saying something, sounding upset. That’s bad, Zhenya should not ever be unhappy.

The voices around him are growing blurred and fuzzy, and there are dark spots in the corners of his vision, growing and coagulating together until he feels like he’s standing in a long, dark tunnel.

The light at the end of it grows fainter and fainter. Until, finally, it winks out.

***

He’s in bed, he thinks. It’s dark in the room, and it’s stifling. He’s burning underneath his skin, sweat making his bedclothes stick to him. He claws them away from his body.

Everything hurts, his throat, his stomach, his joints. He must make a sound, because someone is there, or more than one someone, and they lift water to his lips but he can barely swallow.

“Please,” someone begs him, so he tries his best.

***

He’s alone, lost in the heaving dark. He can’t make anything stay solid—everything swims away like demented fish or dissolves in his hands like smoke.

He feels a great, yawning terror that threatens, leviathan-like, to swallow him whole.

Zhenya. Where is Zhenya?

Zhenya—has he left him? Because Sidney forced him into marriage, didn’t try hard enough to find another way to keep him safe? Did Zhenya realize how Sidney feels? Is he horrified? Has something happened to him?

Where. Where is he.

***

Sidney is aware of fragmented bits of sensation: firelight, the bitter taste of willowbark and herbs. Hands on his body, voices. Cloth wet with tepid water and someone singing, rasping and low, in a language he does not understand. He’s not certain if any of it is real.

***

He wakes up to darkness. The window is open a crack, he can feel the cool night air and he can hear the distant sound of the sea.

The furnaces of his body have cooled, and the easing of them is the sweetest relief.

He closes his eyes again, and sleeps.

***

When he awakens once more, the room is blue with pre-dawn light. He looks around him, at the washbasin and stoppered bottles on the table by his bedside. He’s been ill, very ill. But for how long?

He rolls his head on the pillow to examine the other side of the room, and his heart stops.

Zhenya is there, folded into an armchair that’s been pulled up next to the head of Sidney’s bed. His head is buried in his folded arms, which in turn rest on his pulled-up knees. It’s the way a child would sit, before being scolded for putting their feet on the furniture. How does his enormous frame even fit? He’s snoring a little, rough and fitful. A sailor, Sidney remembers. Most likely he can sleep anywhere and in any position.

Zhenya. He’s here. He’s right here.

Sidney struggles to make his lips, throat, and tongue cooperate. His first attempt at Zhenya’s name is nothing more than a harsh breath of air.

But he tries again, and Zhenya startles, jolting upright and looking wildly about the room, terror etched on his face.

His eyes meet Sidney’s and Sidney can see that he looks awful. He has the beginnings of a rough, patchy beard, and his eyes are red-rimmed and heavy with purple shadows.

“Sid—” The word is wrenched from him. Then he’s cupping Sidney’s face in his hands, an agonized flow of Russian falling from his lips. Then just, “Sidney, Sidney,” as his thumbs caress Sidney’s face.

“You’re here,” Sidney says. “I’m glad.” And Zhenya’s face crumples. He crawls up onto the bed, buries his face in Sidney’s neck, and shakes with great, gasping sobs.

***

Sidney has been delirious with fever for nearly a fortnight. He is so weak that he needs help raising his head to drink from a cup, and he sleeps for hours on end. But it’s a healing sleep.

Mr. Stewart, Mrs. Bullano, and a host of others make their entrances and exits of his sickroom. But Zhenya stays. He keeps his vigil and has to be goaded into taking time to eat or wash or shave.

He sits up on the bed with Sidney, pulling him into his arms and letting Sidney rest his head on Zhenya’s chest and listen to him tell stories about his travels, about the village he grew up in, about everything and nothing, until his voice goes hoarse.

“Can’t read to you,” he explains. “But tell you every story I know.”

Tales of fools and firebirds and frog princesses. Houses on chicken legs and snow maidens and flying ships.

About picking redcurrants from a hedgerow as a child, about the time at sea he saw a whale longer than the ship he was working on. Of towns in Greece where every building is dazzling white, of bustling, canal-webbed cities full of traders and merchants in the Low Countries.

One evening, after telling Sidney a story about the porpoises that leap in a ship’s bow wave as it approaches land, he pauses a little longer than usual.

Sid is lying, as he often does now, in Zhenya’s arms, his head pillowed on Zhenya’s chest. When he is well, he wouldn’t mind sometimes holding Zhenya like this in turn, but he is still very weak. Besides, he can tell that this is something Zhenya needs.

Zhenya is stroking Sidney’s hair. When Sidney tilts his head to look at him, he’s staring pensively into the fire.

“Sid, need to tell you something, or I’m...feel bad forever. What’s word for that, Sid?”

“Regret, probably.”

“Regret. Regret forever.”

He is still then, once more. A night bird cries out beyond the window and the small fire in the grate crackles. Sidney waits, boneless and liquid from the comforting solidity of Zhenya’s body and the smooth, gentle stroking of his hand.

“I’m think you die. Think I’m lose you.”

Zhenya’s arms tighten around him and he buries his face in Sid’s hair, breathing hard.

When he speaks again he sounds like he is trying not to weep. “Keep thinking, he’s never know. Never know how much—“

Another pause. Sidney waits, but his heart quickens, hope waking up and stretching itself painfully behind his ribs.

“Ah, Sid. Моя дорогая, я люблю тебя.” His voice is rough, and achingly sweet. “I love you. So much, I love you.”

He loves him.

Zhenya loves him.

Sidney draws in a shaking breath, and tilts his head back so he can look at Zhenya’s face.

“I—I do as well. Love you. Utterly and profoundly.”

Zhenya makes a wild, choked noise and slides out from under Sid to lean over him, forearms braced on either side of Sidney’s head.

Zhenya’s eyes glitter with unshed tears. “Love you, Sid, want you. Like husband wants. Want all of you. Do you want me too?”

“Zhenya. Zhenya, I do. I’ve wanted you for so long.”

“Then why—“ Zhenya shakes his head sharply. “Not important.”

He leans down, and starts to press slow, reverent kisses to Sidney’s cheeks, his forehead, his eyelids.

“You call for me,” he murmurs, between kisses. “When fever take you. You call for me, beg me never to leave you.”

He pauses, looking deeply, fiercely into Sidney’s eyes. “And so I don’t.”

Sidney is lost in the tide of feeling taking him under. Zhenya had stayed, taking up his long vigil at Sidney’s bedside, refusing to stir. Because he loved him, and because Sidney had asked him to.

“Keep staying,” Sidney begs. “Share everything with me. My life, my bed. Because you want to, not because you have to.”

“I want,” Zhenya says. “Always, I’m want.”

“I tried,” Sidney says, with a hitch in his voice. “I tried to do right by you. Not to force you, like so many men of rank might have done. I didn’t want you to know how much I desired you.”

Zhenya groans, but smiles into the kiss he lays on the underside of Sidney’s jaw. He talks to Sidney a while in Russian, sounding deeply fond and a little chiding.

“Wish maybe you little less honor,” he finally says in English. “But… it’s one of things that’s make me love you.”

His body is stretched out over Sidney’s, his weight pressing him into the bed. He takes Sidney’s face in his hands again.

“Sidney,” he says, staring into his eyes. “I want to fuck you.”

Sidney gasps for air. Zhenya’s heavy-lidded gaze goes to his mouth. He hums, and slides a thumb to rest on the center of Sidney’s lower lip, watching as Sidney’s mouth drops open, just a little.

“Want you to fuck me, too” Zhenya adds. One more deep, burning kiss, and he gets up off of Sidney. “When you better.”

“You…” Sidney doesn’t have the words. “You fiend.”

“Shhhh,” Zhenya says, and, eyes laughing, goes to pour Sidney a glass of water.

Part 11

#Meurgerys #sidgeno #sidney crosby/evgeni malkin #hockey rpf #sid/geno #dana writes a thing

154 notes · View notes

knifeshoeoreofight · 5 years

Photo

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

TW: Discussion of animal/human abuse, death, and slavery as it applies to the Russian serf/feudal system

Sidney’s memories of the ride home from the ball are hazy the next day, but he remembers enough to blush at the speculative look Zhenya gives him across the breakfast table the following day. Well, luncheon table, perhaps, as they both sleep until noon after such a late night.

Sidney has never really been the type for liaisons. He’d had a few brief affairs with close friends at Oxford, but that was all it had been. Mutually agreeable, and a comfortable assurance at the time that come his wedding night, he would have at least some idea of what to do.

He’s never really felt the urge for more than that. He’d admire a beautiful person without much desire to act upon that admiration in any way. No one sets fire to his blood like Zhenya does.

He tries to read his correspondence but fails miserably. Zhenya is sitting right there, worrying that voluptuous lower lip of his between his teeth as he muddles through the book he’s currently reading.

Sidney is getting a little lost pretending he isn’t watching Zhenyas’s big hands carefully turn the pages of his book, when McCann practically skids into the room.

“Forgive me, your lordships, but Mr. Heinze said to alert you with all haste, we have an unexpected visitor, she--”

“Sidney Patrick Forbes-Crosby!” rings out a clear, familiar voice from the hall.

“Oh no,” is all Sidney has time to say before, with an indignant rustle of silk skirts, his sister sweeps into the room.

***

Sidney was prepared for Taylor perhaps to be angry with him, but he is not prepared for the brittleness to her voice when, after she cordially greets Zhenya and lets him bow over her hand, she draws Sidney aside to speak to him.

“Sid,” she says, and just looks at him, eye swimming with tears. “Why--”

“Oh, Tay,” he says softly. “I’m sorry.” She lets him embrace her, but removes her gloves and whacks him with them when he releases her.

“So. What is your excuse for marrying with only a letter to me after the fact?” she says. “Tristen and I were traveling and that delayed our receiving the letter even longer. What was so urgent, Sidney, that you--” She pauses again, to compose herself.

“Evgeni’s life,” Sidney says simply, and she shakes her head.

“How very like you, Sid,” she tells him. “Tell me everything?”

“I’ll tell it with Evgeni,” he says, and they do.

***

After they’re through recounting the entire affair, Taylor looks at the both of them for a long time, evaluating. Her eyes linger on Zhenya, who fidgets a little under her gaze but meets it all the same.

Taylor sighs. “Magistrate Bettman is a blackguard.If the both of you are happy, I’m happy as well.” It’s an olive branch, and Sidney is grateful for it.

Zhenya looks a little shocked to have his well-being included, and Sidney reaches over to squeeze his hand where it lies on the arm of his chair. That’s just how his sister is. Her kindness runs deep.

“Now that that’s all been explained, I have some news of my own,” Taylor says, sitting up very straight in her chair. “You are to be an uncle. Well, both of you, I suppose.”

“Taylor!” Sidney starts out of his chair. “Oh, Tay, truly?” When she nods, a brilliant smile taking over her face, Sidney sinks back down, and has to pass his hand over his tear-filled eyes. Zhenya settles a heavy hand on the back of his neck, squeezing gently. When Sid looks over at him, Zhenya smiles.

“So good, Sid,” Zhenya says, and Sidney can only nod.

Taylor regards the two of them with an odd little smile, but something else occurs to Sidney before he has time to try and parse what is going through that head of hers.

“Where the devil is Tristan? He left you to travel alone?”

Taylor waves her hand. “Don’t be difficult, Sidney. It’s very early days. And Tristan should be here tomorrow or thereabouts. He had some business to take care of and I insisted he do so. I’m not a porcelain doll. Tristan trusted me when I told him I was fine.”

Sidney grumbles a bit, and Zhenya gives him a fond look.

“Let lady decide own life always,” he says, and Taylor laughs.

“Exactly, I think I like you,” she declares, and Zhenya beams.

“Now who is this?” she asks, and rises to lift Koshka from where she’d been sprawling luxuriously on the rug.

“Sid’s baby,” Zhenya says with a grin, and Taylor snorts.

“Seems I’m an auntie as well,” she teases, and although Sidney senses that his future is likely to contain a lot of Taylor and Zhenya joining forces to tease him, he cannot help but be ridiculously pleased about it.

***

They have a dinner party of their close friends in honor of Taylor and Tristan’s felicitous news. Zhenya seems more comfortable with everyone now. He compliments Catherine on her gown which results in an enthusiastic conversation about brocade that Sidney cannot quite follow.

Zhenya overhears Julie mention potentially investing in a particular shipping endeavor and stops her. He knows the waters and ships she speaks of, and knows the scheme is a swindle through and through, according to him.

As she thanks him for the information Sidney help but smile proudly and perhaps too fondly across the table at his husband.

Taylor elbows him and he turns to her.

“I was really worried, you know,” she says softly, so they are not overhead. “I thought you had made the greatest mistake of your life. I’m so glad I was wrong. Anyone could see how much you love each other.”

Sidney tries to reveal nothing, but there must be a flicker of what he feels in his eyes. Taylor could always read him better than anyone.

“Sid?”

Sidney looks at his hands. He’s twisting a linen napkin into a shapeless wad.

“You’re half right, Tay. I love him.”

Taylor looks stricken, then glances across the table. Zhenya is watching them, frowning a little. He tilts his head inquiringly, as if to ask if everything is alright. Sidney shakes his head, and smiles at him. Zhenya, partially mollified, turns back to Letang, with whom he’s comparing cuff styles. He keeps glancing across the table though, still a little concerned for Sidney’s wellbeing. It makes Sidney smile helplessly again, down at his plate so that no one sees.

“Are you quite sure, brother?” Taylor asks him. “The way he--”

“Please, Tay,” Sid begs her, and she mercifully keeps her peace.

***

Spring, along with visitors, brings the annual horse fair to Truro. The horse fair is more apt to boast farm and cart horses- more finely bred animals are typically found by inquiring with wealthy gentlemen. Sidney has a feeling, though, that some hot-blooded, nervous Thoroughbred is not what would set Zhenya at ease. For, like it or not, he needs a horse of his own.

“You like Cole well enough,” Sidney cajoles, as Zhenya leans away from the inquiring nose of a massive Clydesdale.

“Only him,” Zhenya retorts.

He cannot be coaxed into more then cautiously patting a few promising animals on their flanks, staying far back as Sidney tries a few of them under saddle. There’s a nice chesnut gelding, but his action is jolting and he makes an unpleasant mount. Sid finds another draft cross like Cole, sturdy enough to carry a man of Zhenya’s height, but he lays his ears back and makes as if to bite Zhenya in the arm, and that is nearly enough to make Zhenya leave the premises altogether.

Sidney has almost given up when Zhenya stops head in his tracks, staring. Sidney follows his gaze and his heart sinks.

There is almost nothing that makes Sidney angrier than a basely used horse, and the poor animal before them has seen the roughest of handling. It’s a big grey mare, with an ugly, course head and a ratty mane and tail all filthy knots. Her ribs stand out like a washboard and her hip bones jut cruelly. She has raw sores from ill-fitting tack and she stands with her head hanging, as if her spirit has been completely crushed.

“That is a travesty,” Sidney says, and starts a little when he looks at his husband to see how deep the fury is that burns in his eyes.

“I-” he looks as if he is struggling to gather his words. When he does, he spits them through clenched teeth “I’m know how that feels.”

He gestures at the emaciated animal, and Sid feels his blood run cold.

“We take her,” Zhenya says, and there’s iron in how he says it. Sidney shakes his head a little. It’s unwise in the extreme, but he can deny Zhenya nothing. And perhaps the poor thing can pass away in comfort at least, safe in their stables.

They approach, and the disreputable scum at the other end of the mare’s lead tries to obsequiously engage them in conversation but Sidney holds up his hand.

“Do not speak to me,” he says, and watches as Zhenya holds out his hand for the horse to sniff.She barely moves. This close, Sidney can see the lines of healed whip marks criss-crossing her back.

Zhenya is murmuring to her in Russian, one hand supporting her head and the other gently stroking her from forehead to muzzle. She takes one tottering step forward and presses her forehead to Zhenya’s chest, then closes her eyes with a sigh. Zhenya presses a kiss to her forelock and looks up at Sidney with watery but flinty eyes.

Sidney nods, and turns to the owner. “You should be in the stocks for this.” He hands him a few coins, and glares when the man makes as if to dispute the amount. “Out of my sight.”

He turns back to Zhenya and says, gentle as he can, “She may not live, my dear.”

Zhenya raises his chin stubbornly. “I did.”

“Zhenya,” Sidney says, sick with the idea of his being, at any point in his life, so ill-used. He cannot help himself, he lays his hand along Zhenya’s beloved face. Zhenya looks solemnly back at him.

“We shall give her the best chance possible,” is all he can promise, and he lets a single stroke of his thumb along Zhenya’s cheek suffice for the gentle kiss he wants to press to Evgeni’s tremulous mouth.

***

The mare is too weak to travel that day. Sidney proposes they take her to the stable of an inn he trusts, to get some good food and clean water inside her and to let her rest for the trip to Ydhyn Dhu.

The ostler at the stables gapes at the scarecrow of an animal they deliver to him. Sidney hands him a generous handful of coins and explains.

“We visited the fair today, and my husband would not leave her to the tender mercies of the reprobate trying to sell her.”

“Oh aye,” the man says, nodding. “My eldest is just like that. Always takin’ in stray mongrels and hurt birds and wee squirrels what have fallen out o’ the nest. A lassie with a soft heart, she is.”

Sidney watches Zhenya coax the mare into lipping at some wisps of hay, murmuring to her in Russian and running his free hand along her bony neck.

“His heart, too. A good man,” he says. “The best.”

“You’re a fortunate one, then, milord, if I may be so bold.”

“I am,” Sidney tells the ostler. “I am.”

***

Sidney is not terribly surprised when Zhenya digs his heels in and doesn’t want to leave the horse behind to return home.

Sidney does not brook any argument, but merely sets their carriage horses up in the stables as well, and sends word back home to expect their return in a day or two.

“Sorry, Sid,” Zhenya tells him, abashed. He’s still fussing over the horse, overseeing the stableboy’s treatment of her sores and making another attempt to untangle the knots in her mane.

“No trouble at all, my dear,” Sidney reassures. “We can get some shopping done and I can meet with our solicitor.” Sidney does not need to meet with his solicitor and there is nothing they presently need to buy, but he supposes he will think of something.

At the very least he can order Evgeni more waistcoats.

***

Another problem presents itself when they speak with the innkeeper. When Sidney inquires into a set of rooms she wrings her apron in her hands and apologizes over and over that she only has the one singular room fine enough for “gentlefolk.”

“Please, do not trouble yourself for a moment,” Sidney says, with an alarmed glance over her head at Zhenya.

Zhenya rescues him with a charming smile for the innkeeper. “I hear man in stables say you have best saffron buns in Truro?”

“Oh, well!” she says, fluttering and blushing as she tells Zhenya that they do their best, what with the price of saffron, keeping good old Cornish traditions is important, et cetera. Zhenya listens attentively, nodding and agreeing with her until her fit of nerves is quite subsided.

“Thank you,” Sidney says as they climb the stairs. Zhenya makes a low, amused laugh that sends a shiver down Sidney’s back.

“Poor Sid,” Zhenya teases. “Scare old ladies. Fancy lord, big inconvenience.”

“Oh, come now,” Sidney protests, with a glance at the maid leading them to their room. But she merely deposits them at the door before curtseying and scurrying away.

Sidney almost stops short in the doorway. The room is plainly furnished but clean, and the singular four poster bed it contains is on the small side. He swallows. In the hubbub of speaking to the innkeeper, he’d forgotten this would most likely be the case.

“Will this be alright?” he asks Zhenya. Zhenya takes a long look at him.

“Alright with you?”

Sidney feels a flash of irritation. Why turn the question back around to himself? But he answers truthfully with, “If you don’t mind, I don’t mind.”

Zhenya just shrugs, and Sid walks into the room with a sigh. It really can’t be helped.

***

They eat supper at the little table and chairs in their room. Zhenya had looked tired around the eyes and Sid had decided to ask for food to be sent up to them instead of eating in the public dining room. The sitting area features a large diamond-paned window overlooking the street. Sidney sits back and watches a lamplighter ply his trade as dusk falls. He glances at Zhenya who looks lost in thought, and considers their kiss at the ball, and the subsequent lack of any and all overtures since.

Sidney wonders sometimes if he embarrassed himself that night, too lovelorn and drunk to control himself. He wonders what will happen now, with the two of them sharing a bed for the first time since their wedding night.

Zhenya, however, seems far away. He picks at his food, and joins Sidney in staring out the window as the town goes to sleep and the light dies in the west.

“What is it?” Sidney asks, the “my love” he’d wanted to add lying tender and unspoken on his tongue. “Is it the mare? Are you worried?”

Sidney watches their burry, disjointed reflections in the window glass, watches Evgeni’s shoulders rise and fall as he sighs deeply and leans back in his chair.

“She’s remind me of a lot of things,” Evgeni says, but doesn’t explain.

***

They undress for bed. Ordinarily Sidney might be beside himself at the sight of Zhenya only in his shirt and smallclothes, the breadth of his shoulders and the vulnerable nape of his neck as he bends to splash his face with water from the ewer on the dressing table. The way the lamplight makes soft shadows in the hollows of his neck and collarbone. The way Sidney wants to press his mouth there.

He does, briefly, think about those things, but he also marks the continued distant expression on Zhenya’s face, and he wishes most of all he could take that look away.

“My dear,” he says, and catches at Zhenya’s sleeve. “Can I do anything for you?”

Zhenya covers Sidney’s hand with his own, but does not look at him. He just tugs him towards the bed, and gets in, sitting up against the pillows, staring at his hands.

Sidney moves about the room, blowing out all the candles save the one burning at the bedside. He pulls down the coverlet on his side of the bed and slides in. And then he waits, watching Zhenya’s face until he feels ready to speak.

“Do you know what крепостной is?” he finally says.

“Krepostnoi…” Sidney tries out the unfamiliar word. “No, I’ve never heard the term before.”

“People who live on land. Belong to land. If land is sold, people sold also. They cannot leave. They have to work or they starve. Sometimes starve anyway. Man who owns land can do anything he want to them.”

Sidney’s blood runs cold. “That sounds like slavery.”

“Almost,” Zhenya says. “My family, we were крепостной.”

He stares off into the dark of the room, and Sidney reaches over to take one of his hands in his own. He hadn’t liked how they looked, laying still and empty on Zhenya’s lap.

“Winters so hard,” Zhenya says, voice rough. “My mama always give us food first. Always tell us she’s not hungry.”

Sidney tightens his grip on Zhenya’s hand. Zhenya has never mentioned his mother before.

“One year, harvest is bad, and snows are so deep after that. Many die. Mama get thinner and thinner and she cough more and more. I’m too small to notice she doesn’t eat, just give food to us. Then one morning, she doesn’t wake up.”

Sidney makes a soft, involuntary sound and brings Zhenya’s hand to his lips to kiss it.

Zhenya continues. “Father die when I’m baby. My brother try to take care of me after mama die, but he’s also young. Hard life makes people hard, too. He has to work in the fields, and when I’m big enough, I do too. I’m always angry, in here.” He bring a fist to the center of his chest. “So angry. But I’m small and I’m young and alone, so I can do nothing. Only kind person is village priest. He’s teach me to read, he’s tell me about other places. About the sea. And I’m think, no one can touch me there. Nothing but water and sky. I can go far, far away.”

Sidney gently kisses Zhenya’s hand again, and Zhenya goes on. “One summer I’m grow and grow. I’m always short before, but I’m get tall very fast. I think the landowner was little bit scared of me. I’m get beaten a lot, maybe I’m talk back, or maybe not, he doesn’t care. Just want me to keep working and not make any trouble. One day, I’m watch him beat a man almost to death. I’m done. I run away that night.”

Zhenya pauses again, and Sidney cannot do anything but stroke his thumb against Zhenya’s hand.

“Best and worst thing I’m ever do. Worst, because I leave my brother. Best, because I am free.” He looks down at Sidney, finally. “She’s remind me of that time, the horse. They use us like that.”

Sidney slides up on the bed, settling in close to Zhenya. He hesitates a moment, then rests his head on Zhenya’s shoulder. To his relief, Zhenya raises his arm to tuck Sidney under it.

“We can look for your brother,” Sidney offers. “Perhaps try writing to the priest?”

“We can?” Zhenya asks, voice small. “And if we find, we buy?”

Sidney shivers in revulsion. “He’d have to be bought? That’s monstr— of course Zhenya. Of course. My god.”

He turns his head, and kisses Zhenya’s chest, right over the heart, as it turns out. “I’m so glad,” he murmurs. “That you’re safe now. That you’re here.” He hesitates a moment, wondering if he’s going too far. But he feels scraped raw by Zhenya’s story and he is tired of pretending he feels less than he does.

“Here, with me,” he adds. Zhenya’s heart beats faster underneath his ear.

“Sid,” Zhenya whispers shakily, followed by a long, liquid fall of Russian, the deep burr of it impossibly sweet to Sid’s ears.

“Люби́мая,” Zhenya croons, as he slides a hand into Sid’s hair. It’s a word Sidney recognizes. He thinks it might be a name, or a term of address.

He wonders dizzily if this— if perhaps— but he feels Zhenya’s hands tremble a little and when he sighs it’s deep and exhausted, not amorous.

“Come here,” Sidney tells him, and arranges the pillows, blankets, and Zhenya to his satisfaction. He curls up behind Zhenya, one arm over his waist, pulling his back into Sid’s chest. “Is this all right?”

He feels Zhenya relax into him, and thread this fingers through Sidney’s. “Thank you, люби́мая,” Zhenya says.

“Sleep,” Sidney tells him. Then, a little nonsensically, “I have you, darling, right here.”

Zhenya drops off to sleep in moments, it seems like. Sidney lies awake for a long, long time, Zhenya in his arms and his heart aching with hope, and with pain.

#Meurgerys #sidgeno #sidney crosby/evgeni malkin #hockey rpf #dana writes a thing

183 notes · View notes

knifeshoeoreofight · 5 years

Photo

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Mr. Heinze shakes his head as he pours Sidney a glass of brandy. “His other lordship was difficult to persuade, my lord. It did take some managing to get him to admit a single sartorial preference.” He looks off into the middle distance, as close to perturbed as Sidney has ever seen him. “He has alarming taste in waistcoats, my lord.”

Sidney accepts the glass from him and laughs. Mr. Heinze had accompanied Evgeni to the tailor’s and had apparently had a trying afternoon. “Let him get the most eye-searing waistcoat in the whole of Britain. I don’t care.”

“You may eventually care,” Mr. Heinze warns, and Sidney laughs again. He’s happy. Evgeni came to see him for a reading lesson and it had been a pleasant, if torturous hour of bending close and guiding Evgeni’s hand as he formed the letters. He’s very intelligent, and is picking written English up exceedingly quickly. Forming the letters himself is still proving difficult, however, hence the need for Sidney’s help.

It fascinates him, the glimpses he gets of Evgeni’s brilliant mind, sweeping emotions, and big, expansive heart. He wishes, more than almost anything, that he understood Russian. But Evgeni is surprisingly cagey about teaching him and Sidney has only been able to wrest the barest bits and pieces of vocabulary from him. Half of which are completely unsuitable for polite company. But nothing makes Evgeni snigger and grin his wide scoundrel’s grin like Sidney butchering Russian sailing profanity. And so he indulges him.

He would indulge almost anything that would make Evgeni happy, and it’s an almost frightening thing to learn about himself.

“At least teach me that thing you always call me lately,” Sidney had complained, and Evgeni had barrelled on as if he hadn’t heard, teaching Sidney instead how to thoroughly question the legitimacy or even humanity of someone’s parentage.

Now, he takes another sip of brandy and contemplates the fire, unable to keep the corners of his lips from curving upwards at Mr. Heinze’s long suffering tone.

“I had to manage him a little, my lord. Tell him you would be disappointed in my service if I did not extract his true wants in regards to his evening attire, and provide him with as much of it as was fitting for someone of his rank. He has a loyal heart. He would not hear of either disappointing you or allowing myself to fall in your bad graces.”

Sidney smiles, feeling wistful. “Yes, he is a good man.”

“With questionable taste in clothing.”

“Even so.”

***

Sidney eventually settles on attending a ball held by the Barrie-Landeskogs. He’s not close to them, but his friend Sir Nathan Mackinnon is and he supposes they’re tolerable enough. The Viscount and his husband typically put on a raucous but well-appointed event. They employ a talented kitchen staff, at any rate.

Two weeks before the ball, Sidney is in Truro on business when he pulls Cole up short outside the window of a jewelers, struck by a sudden whim.

Not all men or women are fond of jewels, but he has a feeling his husband might be, given the opportunity. He spends rather more than he is used to in one sitting, at least when not purchasing fine horses or the like. The thrilled jeweler cannot seem to bow deeply enough on Sidney’s way out.

***

When the day itself arrives, Sidney nervously slides the velvet case containing his gift across the table to Evgeni at breakfast.

Evgeni sets down his tea and blinks. “What’s this?”

Sidney clears his throat. “Something to wear for the ball tonight, if you wish.”

Evgeni’s eyes go wide and his mouth falls open when he sees the cravat pin. It’s an ostentatious thing- the Crosby family crest worked in bright enamel, inlaid with jet and citrine and bordered with glittering diamonds.

Evgeni’s eyes go to where the family crest is also carved into the marble mantlepiece. “This…”

“The family crest,” Sidney says, suddenly terribly nervous that he’s made the wrong decision here. “Gold inescutcheon on a white field.”

“Who’s him?” Evgeni asks, a smile beginning to bloom. He’s reverently cradling the pin as if he expects it to break, and Sidney breathes a sigh of relief.

“It’s a Great Auk,” Sidney explains. “A seabird. You rarely see them now but they used to live all along the coast here. The estate is named after them. Ydhyn Dhu means ‘black bird’ in Cornish.” It’s an unusual animal for a coat of arms, but his family has always been a little different.

“They can’t fly, but they can swim like fish,” Sidney continues. “Do you like it?”

“I’m love,” Evgeni says softly. “This is yours?”

“Oh, no, I had it made especially for you,” Sidney hastens to explain. “Consider it a late wedding present.”

Evgeni’s head is bowed, and he doesn’t look at Sidney, but he traces the auk with his thumb so gently that it makes Sidney want to saddle Cole this instant and go purchase every last bauble the jeweler has.

When Evgeni speaks again his voice is rough. “I’m also get you present. Not so fancy like this, but maybe, think you like simple?”

Sidney is not a child, the prospect of a gift has no business making him this giddy. “Oh! You didn’t have to-- yes, I do prefer fairly simple attire.”

“Should still have something nice for party,” Evgeni says, head still ducked shyly. “Maybe you already have. But I see and I think, maybe you like.”

He pulls from the pocket of his coat a box not dissimilar to the one Sidney had given him. Sidney accepts it from him with eager hands. Inside, on a bed of tissue paper, lies a delicate gold chain. It has a pendant on it, also gold, in the shape of a ship under sail.

“I see you have many ship things, in your study. Painting, compass, sextant. Think maybe you like.”

Sidney flushes, both from Evgeni noticing his alarming weakness for nautical objets d'art and from pleasure in being understood so well.

“It’s absolutely perfect,” Sidney says fervently. “I love it.”

“I know is mostly ladies wear necklace,” Evgeni goes on, looking pleased but still rambling a little nervously. “But I see some ladies wear cravat, some gentlemen wear necklace.”

Sidney unhooks the necklace clasp and drapes it around his neck. The pendant rests where a cravat pin typically would, and it looks very well. “As I said, perfect.” He fumbles with the delicate closure for a moment, and Evgeni stands, and goes behind him to do it for him.

Sidney closes his eyes at the brush of Evgeni’s hands on the nape of his neck. Evgeni fusses with it for a moment, running a finger along the chain to make it lie smooth and perfect. Sidney wants to lean back into the touch, but does not.

“Thank you,” he tells his husband.

“Thank you too,” Evgeni returns.

***

In the carriage, Evgeni cannot stop jouncing his leg up and down from nerves, and Sidney cannot stop noticing how fine a figure Evgeni cuts in evening dress. The coat of arms pin twinkles expensively from Evgeni’s cravat, and Sidney is a little ashamed of how much he likes seeing his crest worn on Evgeni’s person. Not to say that Evgeni belongs to him, but rather that Evgeni belongs with him.

He touches the ship necklace where it lies over his own cravat, and Evgeni’s eyes follow the movement. He smiles.

“Look so good, Sid,” Evgeni says, low, and it makes heat pool in Sid’s belly.

“It was a lovely gift,” he says, and Evgeni shakes his head and gestures vaguely at Sid’s entire body.

“Everything looks good,” he says, and Sid wills his face not to flush scarlet. He smooths a hand self-consciously down his waistcoat. He’d come to the conclusion that if he dressed as plainly as he was wont to do on his own, Evgeni in his resplendently embroidered waistcoat and fine lace cuffs might stand out a little too much. So he’d enlisted the help of Letang, who exhibited an ungentlemanly amount of glee in finally being allowed control of Sidney’s wardrobe.

He’d insisted on a russet velvet coat and a gold silk waistcoat. Sidney was intensely skeptical but Letang had only said some nonsense about his eyes and had insisted. At least he would approach Evgeni in spendor somewhat, this way. And it did go well with the necklace.

“You as well,” Sidney said, after perhaps too great a pause. “I mean, you look very well, also.”

Evgeni lifts his arm and turns his wrist to admire the gold embroidery on the wine-red velvet of his sleeves. “I’m like,” he says, pleased. “And Mr. Heinze say is fine to choose.”

“I’m glad you chose something you liked,” Sidney tells him, and Evgeni looks over at him. He has this way of looking sometimes, like his eyes are smiling even more than his mouth is. He’s looking at Sidney that way now. Sidney wishes--

Well. There is much Sidney wishes for.

He’s suddenly reminded, so clearly that he practically hear his voice, of his father gruffly intoning that “wishes have no practical use, son. What are you going to do to make them come about, instead?”

What indeed. Sidney has been assuming this entire time that, in effect, romancing his own husband would be an egregious abuse of power. But, would it? Under the thrall of Evgeni’s warm, dark-eyed gaze, Sidney begins to wonder.

***

The Barrie-Landeskog estate is ablaze with light when they arrive. Torches line the drive and gleaming carriages wait to disgorge thier dazzlingly dressed occupants. When their own carriage draws up before the wide marble front steps, Sidney meets his husband’s eyes.

“Ready?” he asks.

Evgeni looks a little green but Sidney watches him swallow, close his eyes, and open them with an expression of fierce resolve.

“Yes,” he says firmly.

Sidney steps out first, and turns to extend a hand to Evgeni and help him down. It’s a rather useless gesture, given how long Evgeni’s legs are and how little he needs the help. But Sidney is determined to let society observe him awarding his husband every courtesy.

Evgeni slides his hand into the crook of Sidney’s elbow, as smoothly as if he’d been escorted into ballrooms all his life.

He grins at Sidney. “I’m practice with Mr. Heinze. What you think?”

“Very elegant,” Sidney replies, helpless to do anything but grin back.

They ascend the steps, and are bowed inside by the footmen. It is a riot of color and sound: chandeliers glowing with hundred of candles that glint off gilt scrollwork amid a ceiling of painted cherubs and divinities. The guests below gleam in a rainbow of velvet and silk, jewels flashing, ostrich plumes fluttering from hair ornaments and fans. Strains of music rise above the murmur of voices.

Sidney glances at his husband to see him gazing about himself with an expression of dazzled wonder. He smiles at Sidney, joyous as a child.

“Sid!” he exclaims.

“You like it?” Sidney asks.

“Most beautiful thing I’m ever see,” Evgeni breathes, mouth dropped open. He glances down at Sidney for a fleeting instant. “Almost.”

“Well. if you like it so much, we should open up the ballroom at Ydhyn Dhu. Maybe hold a ball ourselves.”

“There’s ballroom at Ydhyn Dhu?” Evgeni goggles incredulously at Sid.

“Well. It’s shut up since it’s used so seldomly,” Sid explains.

Evgeni raises his free hand to pat Sidney’s arm, laughter in his eyes. “I know, I know. Sid doesn’t like big noisy party.”

“If you like them, we shall have them,” Sidney insists. He’s not completely stodgy.. He can throw his husband a ball, for god’s sake.

Evgeni’s gaze is fond, and he leans down and brushes a kiss across the back of Sidney’s hand. “Maybe. But now, first?” He cocks his head at where the hosts are greeting all of the new arrivals.

“Lord Crosby!” The Viscount exclaims, when they draw near. Heads all around turn with alarming alacrity at the words. “And your husband—”

“Lord Evgeni,” Sidney supplies. Evgeni takes and bows over the hands of the Viscount and his husband with careful politeness.

“We were all astonishment, I must say, to hear of the wedding. Our congratulations, however,” the Viscount continues, bright-eyed and merry. “Nate had precious little information, for all that you are close friends.”

“There is not much to tell,” Sidney replies, and the Viscount nods sagely.

“I understand, I understand.” He leans closer, with a conspiratorial air. “Tall, handsome, and foreign. An irresistible combination, I know.” He leers at his own husband, who rolls his eyes, but also looks a little smug.

“Well-” Sidney is sure he is blushing. “I daresay-- oh look, it’s Nate, I must say hello. Many thanks again for the invitation.”

He angles for where he caught a glimpse of Nate in the throng but before he gets there they are accosted. Inwardly, Sidney groans, for Sir McGuire is one of the most tedious men he has ever had the misfortune to know. Outwardly, he just smiles blandly at the man’s overly familiar greeting.

“And this, this is the husband? Well, it was certainly a surprise to us all when the news reached us,” Sir McGuire burbles. “Tell me, Lord Evgeni, what was your family name again? I do believe I forgot.”

Sidney’s stomach tightens in sympathy for Evgeni and he prepares to intervene, but Evgeni merely lifts his chin, gracing Sir McGuire with a look of such perfected aristocratic boredom that Sidney has to stifle a laugh.

“My name is Evgeni Vladimirovich Malkin-Crosby,” Evgeni proclaims. “Of St. Petersburg and Moscow. But my family spend most of our time on our land in the Ural Mountains.”

Sidney knows for a fact that Evgeni’s family owns no land and that he’s only been to Moscow once in his life. He wants to smirk at the look of confusion on McGuire’s face as he tries to figure out a way to be snide about Evgeni’s origins without knowing the slightest thing about what he’s talking about.

“Ah. And was your family able to visit the royal court in St. Petersburg?” McGuire asks with an oily smile. Sidney wants to roll his eyes.

“Dear Katya would not hear of us staying away,” Evgeni replies, with a condescending smirk Sidney should not be finding attractive. Gratifyingly, Mcguire’s jaw drops.

“By Katya, of course you cannot mean--”

“So nice, English education must be better than I’m think, if you know of the Empress Yekaterina,” Evgeni says patronizingly. “Maybe hope for you all, yet.”

Sidney cannot stifle a snort, and bites his lip to try and keep his smile in check as McGuire takes his leave with gratifying alacrity.

“Rogue!” Sidney hisses delightedly. “You know he is a horrible gossip, the entire ballroom will be hearing about that in a matter of minutes.”

“Good,” Evgeni says contentedly, and Sidney bursts out laughing at the serene expression on his face.

Just then the music issuing from the ballroom changes to a minuet. It would probably be a good idea to start off with a couple’s dance, instead of the more complicated dances involving multiple sets of partners. Sidney inclines his head toward the open ballroom doors inquiringly and Evgeni nods. Sidney takes Evgeni’s from its place on his arm and holds it in his own, as correctly as his dancing master would have insisted upon, and leads Evgeni forth.

***

Sidney had not, perhaps, fully considered the ramifications of dancing with Evgeni. The minuet is slow, and stately, and there is nobody to watch for or pay attention to besides one’s partner.

The ballroom is lit up by more chandeliers and candles, and heady with the scent of hothouse flowers. Evgeni’s hands are enormous and strong in Sid’s, and his eyes never seem to leave Sidney’s face. Every time they meet after a pattern of separate steps, Evgeni seems to pull Sidney a little closer. Almost too close, for propriety’s sake. Sidney chalks it up, perhaps, to a lapse in Mr. Heinze’s deportment lessons.

The turns are a little amusing. Sidney can step easily enough under Evgeni’s arm, but they have to get a little creative when it comes to Evgeni getting under Sid’s. They laugh at themselves a little, and it strikes Sidney that he has never had such a pleasant time on a dance floor before. Dancing had always made him feel stilted and awkward, too busy trying to remember the steps to really enjoy himself.

Now, he has Evgeni, who he can laugh with if either of them make a mistake, smiling at Sid like there’s nowhere else he wants to be in the world. Sidney cannot help it-- every warm brush of his fingers to Sid’s own makes him want.

When the music ends and the ballroom breaks into applause, Sidney blinks as if awakening from a spell.

“That was--” he isn’t sure how he is going to finish that, because they are accosted by Letang and Catherine for a quadrille, and the dancing resumes once more.

***

They take a respite from dancing to refresh themselves with glasses of orgeat and negus. Sidney has the taste of rosewater and almonds on his tongue, and Evgeni near him, leaning close to joke about this dandy’s particularly elaborate cravat or that haughty woman’s peculiar hair arrangement. He cannot remember ever enjoying a ball so much.

They are interrupted by Nate, arriving to clap Sidney on the back and cheerfully complain about his inability to convince any young ladies to dance with him.

“It’s because you tread on their feet and are an unromantic lout,” Sidney says dryly. Nate throws his head back and laughs.

“Hilarious, coming from you. Although, I suppose, you do have the higher ground now that you have managed to convince someone to marry you!” Nate toasts Evgeni with his glass of negus and Evgeni frowns a little.

“Come on, Sid,” Nate continues, wheedling. “Don’t let me be utterly humiliated. Stand up for the next dance with me, just the one? I’m sure Evgeni wouldn’t mind, would you?”

Evgeni looks taken aback, perhaps by Nate’s jovial noisiness, but nods, and carefully takes Sidney’s glass when it is handed to him.

“I’ll be back soon,” Sidney promises, and leaves to line up with Nate and a bevy of others for a country dance.

The liveliness of the particular dance means that it is long minutes before he has a moment to stand still as he waits to take his turn in a series of steps, and look back to where he left Evgeni waiting.

He’s startled by the dark look he sees leveled at him, immediately smoothed out to blank nothingness as soon as Evgeni sees that Sidney is looking back. It shakes Sidney, and he can barely concentrate on the rest of the dance. He treads rather badly on poor Nate’s feet, and he knows he is in for an exceptional amount of ribbing from that quarter later.

“Well,” Nate says breathlessly, as the dance finally draws to a close. “I daresay marriage has only worsened your dancing. I would not have though it possible for you to get worse!”

Ordinarily, Sidney would have liked nothing better than to exchange friendly repartee with Nate- the friendship they have has always included a great deal of good-natured teasing. But he is distracted now. During the very last series of steps, he’d spent much of the time craning his neck to see if Evgeni was still staring at the dancers like a thundercloud, but he seems now to have vanished. He take his leave from Nate, and makes his way through the throng to find out where his husband has gone.

A man of Evgeni’s height is not easily missed, so Sidney need only make a few inquiries to find out he has gone outside,to the wide stone veranda running along the back of the house. Tall windows spill light from inside, and it is easy to make out Evgeni, leaning on the balustrade and staring moodily out onto the Barrie-Landeskogs’ extensive lily pond.

Sid comes up beside him, feeling once again wrong-footed and unsure of what to say. The night air holds the promise of spring. It smells of damp earth and green growing things, and there is a chorus of frogsong loud enough to be heard over the strains of music from inside.

“Hello,” Sidney says softly, and Evgeni turns, and gives him a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Where you displeased, that I danced with Nate?” Sidney asks, a little conflicted as to how it makes him feel. Deep down, he fears he might actually...enjoy the idea of Evgeni being desirous of his time and person, at least when it comes to dancing. “Perhaps it was bad of me to leave you alone?” To face the gossips without Sidney at his side. The more he thinks about this the worse he feels. But Evgeni is shaking his head, and his expression has gone rueful and soft.

“No, Sid,” he says. “Is good, to dance with friends. I’m should not--” He doesn’t finish.

“I like it when you’re honest with me,” Sidney says. “Did you mind very much?”

Evgeni doesn’t answer, and he doesn’t look at Sid. Instead he asks: “You like him, Nate?”

“Our parents were good friends,” Sidney says, wondering what Evgeni is getting at. “I’ve known him since he was a snot-nosed infant. How he used to squall! He’s a good lad, if hopeless with the ladies. I fear it may be years before he finds a girl with the fortitude to become mistress of MacKinnon Hall.”

Evgeni looks intently at Sid, as though trying to gauge his emotions. So Sid continues. “And I hope you don’t take his teasing seriously; heaven knows I don’t. He’s just lively, is all. He means no harm.”

“He’s only like ladies?”

Sid shrugs. “As far as I know.”

“And you all right?”

Really, Sidney isn’t sure why Evgeni is looking at him with so much concern.

“Why should I care who Nate likes?” Sidney says, frowning. “He’s like a little brother to me, I’d just as rather not think about his romantic inclinations, at all.”

Evgeni’s shoulders slump and he shakes his head, laughing soundlessly, seemingly at himself.

“What is it?” Sidney says, concerned. “Did you think...did you think I had a tendre for Nate?”

Evgeni buries his face in his hands with a groan. “Don’t tease, Sid. I’m just be little bit foolish.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Sidney protests. “I don’t. Have a tendre for anyone, I mean.” A horrible thought strikes him. “Wait, do you?”

Evgeni shakes his head and sighs. “Only person here I’m want be married to, is you.”

“Oh good,” Sidney says, feeling relieved his anxiety was for naught. “Me too.”

Good god, he sounds a right fool. He wonders bitterly if, had the circumstances been different and he’d met Evgeni at a ball like this, he’d been able to get someone as naturally charming to look at him twice.

“Mean that, Sid?” Evgeni is saying, voice hushed. He is suddenly standing very, very close. Sid can smell his sandalwood shaving soap.

Sid has to clear his throat before he can speak. “I’m not in the habit of saying things I don’t mean.”

Evgeni’s lips are softly parted, as if he wants to say something, or even, perhaps, lean forward and press them to Sidney’s.

Sidney’s heart pounds, and he finds himself swaying ever so slightly forward into Evgeni’s space. Please, he wants to beg. Kiss me. Kiss me because you want to.

“Sid,” Evgeni says huskily. He raises a hand and softly touches Sidney under the chin, tilting Sidney’s face up towards his own. Sidney cannot breathe. There is only Evgeni’s heavy lidded gaze, and the warmth of his touch. He slides his other hand down Sid’s side to rest at his waist, and--

There is a crash as one of the sets of French doors from the ballroom violently swings open, expelling a couple obviously in their cups, giggling and loudly shushing each other. Evgeni drops his hands and steps back. Sid wants to curse at the loss.

“Go back inside?” Evgeni inquires, tilting his head towards the lit-up windows. “Dance more?”

Sidney wants to protest, but one of the young ladies who’ve disturbed them sighs out “Oh, Annabelle” in tones that suggest vacating the premises with alacrity to grant the young lovers some privacy might be in order.

“Always a flurry of engagements after a ball,” Sidney mutters as they walk in, still a little miffed.

“Romantic,” Evgeni says indulgently. “Very sweet.”

“Yes, quite,” Sidney says, feeling considerably less charitable.

Inside, the musicians are playing something totally unfamiliar, and there is rather a lot more standing around and tittering going on than usual. Sidney has to crane his neck and practically stand on his toes to see past the crush of people standing around the dance floor. When he sees what the precious few couples dancing are doing, his eyes widen. It is one thing to have a genteel rendez-vous with a spouse or a betrothed on a darkened balcony away from prying eyes, but this?

“Good lord,” a woman says to his right, fluttering her fan vigorously. “How..Continental.”

“Very...daring,” says her companion.

“That’s one way to describe it,” huffs a portly older gentleman.

Sidney glances up to see what Evgeni is making of all of this but he looks completely unperturbed.

“I’m know this one,” he says, pleased. “Waltz. They dance like this in Vienna. I’m have friend on ship who teach me.” He looks down at Sid and holds out his hand. “Dance?”

Had he asked earlier in the evening, Sidney would have most likely said no. The idea of taking such liberties, in full view of society? But he is still flushed and disappointed from the ruined moment outside, and he feels reckless. He wants Evgeni’s arms around him and if a scandalous dance in front of all their acquaintance is the only way to get it, then, well.

“Why not,” Sidney says, with a sangfroid he does not feel. “You will have to teach me, however, I do not know the steps.”

Evgeni lights up. “I’m best teacher, come.”

And then he leads Sidney into the open space on the floor, and tugs him close in front of all the staring eyes around them. He slides one arm close about Sid’s waist, and takes Sid’s hand and lays it on his shoulder. Their free hands he clasps together, not extended a careful distance like in a minuet, but pulled close.

“Watch feet,” he murmurs in Sidney’s ear. “It’s count of three.” Sidney shudders, heat blooming through his whole body. He is certain his face must be scarlet.

Evgeni counts softly under his breath for a moment, to show Sidney how, then begins to move.

Sidney is consumed for a short while with attempting to replicate the movements of Evgeni’s feet, and then Evgeni says “turn now,” and swoops them around to the music so quickly it makes Sidney’s head spin.

It is like no dancing Sidney has ever done. There is nothing stately or decorous about this. There is instead the warmth of Evgeni’s arms around him, pulling him so close that their bodies press together at times. There are twirls and turns that send them flying around the dance floor and turn the ballroom around them into a blur of light and color.

When the music stops, Sidney’s chest is heaving, both from exertion and from having Evgeni so close. He cannot look at Evgeni’s face, he cannot, for surely everything he wants will be clear in his expression, and he does not wish to share with the entire ballroom how desperately he wants to ravish his husband.

“Good?” Evgeni asks, and Sidney can only nod.

“You’re a magnificent dancer,” he says

Evgeni shrugs. “When I’m know dance better, I’m not so bad. You want more drink?”

“Please.” He could drink a gallon or orgeat, he really could.

On their way, they encounter the Letangs. Kris gapes at Sidney.

“Lord Sidney Patrick Crosby,” he exclaims with a smirk. “Did I just see you waltzing? In front of God and this entire assembly?”

Evgeni looks puzzled. “What’s wrong with waltz? It’s nice dance.”

“Ooh, I see now,” Letang drawls. Then smirks. “Godspeed, my lords.”

“Whatever do you mean,” Sidney says flatly, and practically drags his husband the rest of the way to the refreshment table.

***

Sidney stays well past the usual hour when he usually make his excuses and leaves. He’s never seen a ball to its end before, but he is actually enjoying himself immeasurably with Evgeni at his side.

He drinks rather a lot of negus, and the cook must have made it uncommonly strong. The drink and his exhaustion cause him to list sleepily into Evgeni’s side after they step wearily into their carriage for the ride home. Sidney had gone to sit in his previous position opposite his husband, but Evgeni had pouted and tugged him down next to himself, instead. Highly satisfactory arrangement.

The first blush of dawn is pinking the eastern sky and the morning chorus of birdsong serenades them as Sidney gives in to his tipsy weariness and lets his head rest on Evgeni’s shoulder. Evgeni hums and tilts his own head onto Sid’s.

All is peaceful quiet, save the birds, the jingling of the harnesses, and the creak of the wheels for quite some time.

Eventually, though, Evgeni sighs softly and tilts his face so that his nose brushes Sidney’s hair.

“Why you stop call me ‘Zhenya’?” he says, so quietly Sidney wonders if he was meant to hear it at all.

“It seemed...an impertinence,” he says sleepily into Evgeni’s lapel.

“Don’t know what’s mean, ‘impertinence,” Evgeni grumbles.

His accent is so much thicker when he’s this tired. It’s delicious.

“Do you want me to?” Sidney says, laboriously blinking his eyes open, because this seems important. He squints muzzily up at Evgeni.

“I’m want. It’s close name. Was want… we be like family.”

The soft hurt in his voice makes Sidney sit up to look at his face better. Evgeni’s expression makes Sidney feel like he’s swallowed a stone.

“Darling-- I’m so sorry,” he exclaims, drink and exhaustion wringing full honesty from his lips. “I never meant for you to-- I want that too, Zhenya, I want that too.”

Zhenya stares at him, eye wide and lit up rich wood-brown in the morning light. Sidney reaches up and cups Zhenya’s face in his hand. He tugs lightly, just enough for Evgeni to know what he wants.

Zhenya obliges, leaning down and brushing a kiss to Sidney’s cheek. Sidney makes a dissatisfied noise.

“No?” Oh, Zhenya’s voice just then. A deep caressing purr that Sidney feels in his very bones. “What you want, Sid?”

“More,” Sidney breathes. “You.”

Zhenya groans and leans down, his lips finally against Sidney’s own, warm and desperate. He groans into the kiss as Sidney yields to him, lips parting to let him take.

When Zhenya moves from Sidney’s mouth to his neck, Sidney makes a sound that’s almost a gasping sob. Zhenya stills. He presses a series of chaste, gentling kisses to Sidney’s throat, his jaw, the corner of his mouth.

“You drink a lot,” he says. His voice is hoarse, his tone regretful.

“Not-- so very much,” Sidney protests, when he can find his speech again. But Zhenya presses one last kiss to his forehead, and tugs Sidney back down onto his shoulder.

“Rest,” Zhenya insists.

Disappointment floods him, thick and stinging. “If you wish,” Sidney says.

Zhenya, however, makes no answer.

Part 9

#meurgerys #sidgeno #sidney crosby/evgeni malkin #hockey rpf #sid/geno #dana writes a thing

210 notes · View notes

knifeshoeoreofight · 5 years

Photo

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Sidney awakens to thunder outside, and his husband regarding him gravely from across the pillows.

He blinks, opens his mouth to say- good morning? To ask if everything’s alright? When Evgeni speaks first.

“Sidney, you snore most,” he says solemnly.

“I- what?” Sidney says, flushing in mortification. “My apologies, I—“

Evgeni laughs softly. “Sorry, sorry, it’s joke. You sleep very quiet, very sweet. Go rest more, is early.” He reaches out a hand, and hesitates just the barest moment as some nameless emotion flickers across his face. Then he rests his hand on Sid’s head, pushing it gently back down to the pillow.

Sidney’s eyes slide closed of their own volition. Evgeni is very still, but then cards his fingers softly through Sidney’s hair. It settles something in Sid. Surely Evgeni could not touch him like that if he was resentful about spending the night in Sidney’s bed. He sighs, and lets himself sink into his eiderdown pillows.

Evgeni says something quiet in Russian, and Sidney hums.

“Your native tongue always sounds so lovely.”

Evgeni’s hand stills for a moment, then the gentle soothing motions resume. Sidney drifts, listening to the rain outside and letting himself, for once, stop thinking about what is to come.

“Storm,” Evgeni says softly.

Sidney makes a sound of acknowledgement. “When I was young, my favorite thing to do on rainy days was to read in the library. Anything with a good naval battle in it. Or lots of illustrations.”

Evgeni sounds like he’s smiling when he speaks next. “Very serious little boy.”

Sidney mulls it over. He had never been a wicked or spirited child but he didn’t think he’d been totally devoid of boyish energy.

“Not always.”

“Do everything very serious, still.”

“I do not,” Sidney protests, and wants to yank the coverlet over his head when he realizes how petulant that sounded.

Evgeni laughs. “Of course, of course.”

There’s another long silence as they both listen to the storm beat itself against the windows. Evgeni’s hand finds it’s way to Sidney’s hair once again and he tries not to lean into it like a cat.

A cat.

Sidney sits bolt upright. “Koshka!” He pushes back the covers and slides out of bed, moving to throw open the door to the hall and peer out. Sure enough, there she is, crouched on a decorative table, eyeing him with a look of profound betrayal.

He makes soothing noises at her, ands she deigns to stretch and jump down from her perch to twine about his legs and vociferously protest her exile. He picks her up and hoists her over one shoulder, closing the door and moving to open the curtains to let in what watery light there is.

He returns to the bed a little sheepishly. Both at hauling the cat in and choosing to continue to laze around.

But it’s cold, and Evgeni is lying back against the pillows, looking warm and sleep-rumpled, and disinclined to rise.

Sid will allow himself this indulgence, he decides. Evgeni does not seem to mind and if a man is allowed to lie about at all, it is the morning after his wedding.

He resolutely quashes all thoughts regarding why newly married couples traditionally spend a lot of time lazing about in the mornings, and gets back into bed, depositing Koshka to tromp all over the bedding before settling herself in a round, purring ball on Evgeni’s chest.

Sidney tries not to be jealous that Evgeni now keeps his hands occupied with stroking the cat, and not Sid’s hair.

“Our village priest teach me some reading but I don’t…” Evgeni says continuing their conversation as he frowns absently down at Koshka. “I don’t read English letters.” The tips of his ears and the back of his neck are flushed a dull red. With shame, Sidney realizes.

“I can teach you,” he offers, gently. “If you like.”

Evgeni looks at him, assessing. “Not shamed, husband can’t read?”

“Not at all.” Sid meets his gaze steadily. “But I’d love to teach you. If you promise to teach me some Russian.”

Another long, inscrutable look. Then he nods. “Can start with my name. At home, never use whole name with family. We use short names. Did your family do?”

Sidney thinks, with a old, familiar ache, of his parents. His mother had died giving birth to Taylor, and his father had never been the same after, finally joining his wife after a long, lingering illness. But there had been some times when their family had been happy, and always they had loved each other.

“Sid. My parents and my little sister used to call me ‘Sid’.”

Evgeni smiles, looking as though he understands what Sidney means in the spaces between his words. “My family call me, ‘Zhenya’.”

It’s beautiful, a soft blur of sound that somehow suits him perfectly.

“Zhenya,” Sidney attempts, and Evgeni closes his eyes for a moment. Sidney is afraid he got it wrong and insulted him somehow, until he opens his eyes again and they’re wet.

“Good to hear after so long,” Evgeni-- Zhenya, says, and Sidney wants so badly to lean over and kiss him, but he cannot.

So he just smiles, and reaches over to soothe a hand over Koshka’s soft fur instead.

***

Sidney is called away later, to some urgent business at Wheal Fortitude. But he carries with him the sight of Zhenya, tousle-haired and supine in his bed. Just what he’d always wanted, someone to come home to. Just, not in the way he’d always imagined it.

If nothing else, though, he is cheered and relieved by the quiet, friendly intimacy of the morning, after the stilted strangeness of the night before. Marriage to a friend is, he supposes, preferable to some idealized notion of a great love. This morning gave him hope that they can, indeed, have a warm and cordial marriage. It will be, perhaps, more than he, or many, can hope for and very likely more than he deserves.

He isn’t able to return home until the murk of the day darkens further into evening. It begins to rain again, and he is soaked to the skin by the time he returns home. He’s never been so happy to see his room: a fire crackling merrily in the fireplace, the prospect of seeing his husband.

He shrugs off his sodden wool coat and waistcoat. The linen of his shirt is plastered uncomfortably against his skin and he’s freezing.

There’s a stifled noise from behind him, and Sid turns to see Zhenya standing in the doorway..

“Zhenya,” Sidney exclaims. “I must compliment Mrs. Bullano on keeping the door hinges so well-oiled, I didn’t even hear you come in.”

Zhenya blinks, then shakes his head, reminding Sidney of Cole when he wants to dislodge a fly from his ear.

“Come to to tell you goodnight,” Zhenya says, and Sidney’s heart begins to sink.

“Other rooms ready, sleep there. You say, one night,” he continues, face rigid, as Sidney’s fledgling hope curls painfully in on itself.

There is a long pause, and Evgeni stares at Sidney, waiting.

“I see, of course-“ Sidney must regain his composure and marshal his disappointment, he must. He cannot allow Zh- Evgeni to think he has to do anything for Sidney, to bend to his will. “I would have you do as you please.”

Evgeni frowns a little at that, as if the English phrases aren’t making much sense. And then his shoulders slump. Sidney feels a little ill at the idea that it might be in relief. Evgeni nods slowly, and turns to go.

He pauses, just before stepping out into the hall again.

“Dumo keep some food warm for you, you need eat,” he says, without turning around. “It’s cold. You need not get sick.”

“I will,” Sid promises softly, and watches as Evgeni walks away without looking back.

***

The next morning, Sidney is first to arise and make it to breakfast. He is looking over a letter from one of his friends from Oxford and halfway through his second cup of tea by the time Evgeni shuffles in, looking a little sleepy still. His hair and attire are carefully arranged, however, thanks most likely to efforts of McCann, the new valet Sidney has engaged for him.

“Good morning,” Sidney offers, unsure all over again of where they stand with each other. Evgeni scrubs at his face, and mumbles a reply. Sidney cannot help but find the fact that he has difficulty rising in the morning terribly charming. Unless--

“Did you sleep well?” Sidney asks concernedly.

Evgeni studies him as he sits down, arriving to some conclusion Sidney has no hope of sussing out.

“Sleep fine,” he says, and it feels like a peace offering of some kind. What they need a peace offering for, Sid isn’t sure.

Evgeni busies himself with making himself tea, and Sidney stares as he stirs a spoonful of damson preserves into it instead of sugar or milk.

“Russian way,” Evgeni says when he notices Sid’s incredulous look. The corners of his mouth twitch like he wants to smile, and it is good to see. “You go to mines again today?”

“No, I was able to finish my business there yesterday, thank god,” Sidney replies. “The rain is still dreadful. No, today I have letters to write. And invitations to deal with.” He makes a face. He hates tedious social engagements. He loves his close friends, but he’s been inundated of late with letters from even the most tenuous of acquaintances.

“Invitations?” Evgeni asks warily.

“Yes, I suppose the whole county wants to get a look at who I married.”

Evgeni’s mouth is a tight line, and he looks down at his hands. He looks upset, and Sidney wonders what it was he said wrong. Maybe Evgeni feels the same way he does. “If you don’t want to go, I won’t make you go. I can tell people you feel unwell, if it comes to that.”

For some reason that just makes Evgeni’ expression darken further, and he just nods curtly and bites into his toast as if it had personally insulted him. Sidney is bewildered, to say the least.

He had wanted to ask if Evgeni would like to start reading lessons with him today, but now he feels off-kilter and unsure in asking.

“I will be in my study for most of the day, if you need me,” he offers, but Evgeni just nods, and turns his attention to his food.

***

Sidney sits down in his study and applies himself to the frankly terrifying task of writing to his sister and his best friend in order to inform them of his marriage. He wouldn’t put it past Taylor or Marc-Andre to immediately set out to see him and give him a piece of their minds, state of the late winter roads be damned.

He finds himself at a bit of a loss as he carefully pens his explanations. He had thought that he was doing the right thing by Evgeni, but his clear unhappiness this morning is making Sidney doubt everything.

He has worked himself into a miserable state by the time there is a knock at the door some time later. He turns from where he was pacing in front of the window to see that it is Cullen, Evgeni trailing along behind him. Evgeni looks mildly panicked, as if perhaps he does not want to be there and Cullen dragged him in anyway.

What has happened? Is the sight of his own husband so distressing to him?

“Ah, there you are, my lord,” Cullen says. “Evgeni was asking me to teach him about the estate, and the maps weren’t in the library.”

Sidney’s heart turns over. It’s a good and admirable thing that Evgeni wants to learn more about the workings of his new home, but painful that he would go to Cullen over asking Sidney himself.

“That’s a wonderful idea,” Sidney says. His desk is a little inundated but he manages to find several maps of his lands, and another of Wheal Fortitude. He spreads them out on a table.

“We can take them to the library, my lord,” Cullen tells him. “So as not to disturb you.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” Sidney says, but Evgeni is already rolling the maps carefully up.

“Library,” he tells Cullen, and then they’re gone.

Sidney is left still standing uselessly in the middle of the room. He looks over at the two green damask chairs, and folds up the idea of an evening of companionship like a treasured but painful letter.

He tries to get back to work but cannot bring his concentration to bear on his correspondence. Restless, he gets up, and makes his way to the library.

He does not disturb Evgeni and Cullen, but he lurks a little in the hall outside, watching them. Their heads are bent over the maps, Evgeni frowning in deep concentration as Cullen points out this feature and that landmark.

He watches Evgeni’s eyes flicker from the maps to Cullen’s face, frowning even harder as he struggles to parse what Cullen is telling him It fills Sidney with an aching fondness, tender as a new bruise.

He steals quietly away, without interrupting them at their work.

***

A spate of good weather and dry roads bring with them the welcome return of Sidney’s butler, Mr. Heinze. He had been called away to visit a sick relative, but is back again and heralded with great relief by all.

His eyebrows fly up when he is introduced to Evgeni as Sidney’s new husband, but follows it only with an even tempered “very good, my lord,” and a deferential nod of acknowledgement.

“Ask him for whatever you need,” Sidney says, clapping Mr. Heinze on the shoulder. “He’s an absolute wonder.”

“You are too kind, my lord,” Mr. Heinze responds, with a reassuring smile at Evgeni, who is looking a little apprehensive and exactly as if he planning to avail himself of Mr. Henize’s help a grand total of never.

Sidney pulls his butler aside later, when Evgeni is out of earshot.

“Please, see to Lord Evgeni. He is unaccustomed to this life, and, I fear, unlikely to ask for anything on his own accord. Take care of him, Heinze.”

Mr. Henize’s eyes soften and he pats Sidney on the arm. “Leave it to me, my lord.”

***

After that, Sidney feels like he never sees his husband at all, save at mealtimes. He catches glimpses of him, usually with Mr. Henize or Cullen or McCann, but conversations seem to wither when he nears them and he doesn’t know what can possibly be occupying Evgeni so completely. He chides himself for feeling out of sorts about it; he told himself he would never be one of those spouses who is jealous and controlling of the other’s time. Yet another thing to feel ashamed about, he supposes.

One morning, Mr. Heinze deposits the morning post with a little more vehemence than usual at Sidney’s elbow as he eats breakfast.

“Your lordship. An answer must really be made to at least a few of these invitations. It would not do to attend no social events at all.”

Evgeni, Sidney sees, is staring down at his plate as if he is trying to bore a hole in it with his sight alone.

“Evgeni?” Sidney asks, hating how hesitant he feels any time he addresses his husband these days. “Would you mind it very much, attending one of these balls with me?”

Evgeni’s head jerks up, and he frowns at Sidney. “What you mean, if I’m mind? Do you mind?”

Sidney could be on the deck of a storm-tossed ship with the way his stomach suddenly feels. He barely registers Mr. Heinze slipping from the room.

Is Evgeni still viewing their marriage as unequal? Does he still think he needs to defer to Sidney in everything?

“Evgeni,” Sidney says, voice rough. “You know that you can decide things, for yourself? I would never force you.”

Except when you manipulated him into marrying you under false pretenses, a small, nasty voice in his head says to him.

Evgeni is frowning, head tilted a little in confusion. “I mean, you don’t mind go with me. To ball.”

Sidney stares back in equal bafflement. “I mean, I hate balls, all of them. But of course if I had to go, I’d like to go with you. You’re-- you’re my husband.”

“Hate go to party?” Evgeni asks. “I’m think--” he buries his face in his hands, and lets out a long, shuddering breath.

Sidney cannot bear it, he rounds the table and takes Evgeni’s hands in his own.

“Zhenya, what is it? Please tell me,” he pleads.

Evgeni won’t look at him. “Think maybe... you ashamed to go, with me. I’m not lord, don’t know manner or dance or good English.” He lifts his head, eyes fierce. “I’m try, I’m practice. Get help from Cullen and Heinze. Work hard. Don’t want to embarrass you.”

Sidney cannot move. When he finds his voice again, it shakes.

“Oh, Zhenya. Forgive me--” He raises Evgeni’s hands to his lips and kisses them. “Forgive me. I never meant for you to feel this way and I should have taken better care. I’m not ashamed of you, not in the slightest. I just-- I love gatherings of close friends, like our wedding, but I hate tedious events with supposedly important people who I don’t like or barely know, and who all want something from me. That was all. If you like parties, we will go to a dozen balls together, I swear it.”

A small, pleased smile is curving Evgeni’s lips. God, how long has it been since Sidney has seen him smile? Weeks, it feels like.

Hands still cradled in Sid’s, Evgeni strokes his thumb across Sid’s knuckles.. “Don’t worry, won’t make you go to a dozen balls. We go to one, make Heinze stop worry. We dance, I’m step on your feet. Everyone say poor Lord Crosby, new husband most handsome, but terrible dancer.”

He grins roguishly up at Sidney, eyes twinkling, and relief sweeps through Sidney, cool and sweet.

“Yes,” he says, unable to sound anything but painfully sincere. “Very handsome. They will all feel sorry for you instead, as your new husband is not only very likely a worse dancer still, but a fool.”

Evgeni is blushing, and he shake his head. “Not a fool.”

Sidney begs to differ, but he doesn’t want to debate anything right now, even this. Evgeni stands, and now he is looking down at Sidney instead of up.

He looks hesitant, but he’s so close.

“Thank you,” Sidney tells him, low. “For doing all that for me. You do not have to, but I am touched by the effort.”

“Want to be good husband for you,” Evgeni says quietly. “What you want, Sid?”

You Sidney thinks. You beside me, and you in my bed at night, you in my arms.

Aloud, he says: “For you to speak your mind. To not be afraid to do as you like. For you to be well, and happy.”

Evgeni’s eyes are soft, and as warm as they’d been on their wedding night, before things had gone wrong.

“Do as I’m like?” he says, voice nearly a purr. His hands slide to loosely clasp Sid’s wrists, and he strokes his thumbs across the thin, sensitive skin there. Sidney, undone in an instant, quells a shiver. He wills himself to prevent his want from being writ plain as day across his face.

Evgeni studies him, and sighs, smile going a little sad as he gently squeezes Sid’s hands and then lets go. The loss of his touch is agony.

But he is here. And he is looking at Sidney, and they are talking.

“Maybe--” Sidney blurts, then pauses. Evgeni waits patiently. “If you’re free, come to my study this evening? Koshka misses you. And, if you wanted, we could work on your reading, like we said we might.”

“Koshka?” Evgeni says, the grin back. “Fine, we read, I come sit by fire with Koshka. You can write many dull letters.” He waves a dismissive hand.

Sidney beams gratefully at him, but protests: “My letters are fascinating, I’ll have you know.”

“My esteemed other dull people, I want talk for long time about crop rotation, please tell me all things about livestock breeding project--”

While Sidney sputters in protest, Evgeni laughs, and it is the best sound Sidney has heard in a long time.

“I’m just make fun, Sid, is good. You best, take good care of estate,” he says warmly, and, hesitating for only a moment, presses a chaste, gentle kiss to Sidney’s cheek.

Sidney closes his eyes, and something very like happiness and a little like hope settles tentatively in his chest.

Part 8

#sidgeno #sidney crosby/evgeni malkin #hockey rpf #meurgerys #dana writes a thing

202 notes · View notes

knifeshoeoreofight · 4 years

Note

I would be so into any fic you choose to bless us with. I’ve re-read meurgerys about 5 times is just adore it! No pressure to keep writing but I think I can speak for everyone else when I say that fic is amazing!!

Uuuggghhh yeah I’m so sorry for the slow progress on that one. It’s very near to my heart but I’m Extremely Stalled on it and then got busy with the spookfest, etc. I do want to finish it though, not to worry. When things aren’t working it can help to set a project aside for a while, but I’m committed to finishing it. And thank you 😊😊😊

#dana's post #hockey rpf #sidgeno #meurgerys

14 notes · View notes

knifeshoeoreofight · 5 years

Text

Meurgerys Geno POV Timestamp

All the stages of Zhenya’s life had been marked by hunger, of one kind or another. As a child, simple hunger of the body. A stomach so hollow and aching he’d wasted what precious strength he had on fretful tears that made his poor mother weep too.

As a gangly youth, swinging a hoe in some rich boyar’s field, cursing the names of his masters and the rocky soil below him, the vast unfeeling sky above, and the endless, endless furrows still left to hoe. Wanting something more out of life so badly he though sometimes it would drive him mad.

As a man grown, finally tasting some of the freedom he craved, but staring out into the endless blue of the sea and feeling empty. Seeing the world, as he’d always dreamt, but beginning to realize that he wanted some little corner of it to be his. A home, where there were people who loved him and he could be called “Zhenya” again. Someone to hold at night when the winter was cold. Someone to grow old with. Children to carry on their names and their stories.

He looks across the glistening china and twinkling silver adorning their breakfast table, and sometimes thinks he will awaken and find that this has all been a dream. That he’ll wake up and be back on a ship somewhere, lucky to get a maggoty piece of hardtack to eat, or in Russia, facing a bowl of congealed kasha in the morning that that you felt blessed to receive.

Zhenya is never hungry for food, these days, so his body and his heart have the time to be hungry for other things .

He looks at his husband, his beautiful, beautiful husband, and wonders if Sidney has ever been hungry for anything in his life.

#meurgerys #sidgeno #sidney crosby/evgeni malkin #hockey rpf #dana writes a thing #what is a sentence structure #forgot i has this kicking around my google drive

104 notes · View notes

knifeshoeoreofight · 5 years

Photo

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Sidney’s wedding day dawns iron grey, the sky heavy and threatening. Far out on the horizon, there are already misty curtains of rain painting the sea underneath the thickest cloud banks, as the storm drags itself closer and closer to land.

Sidney tries not to be susceptible to belief in omens and ill portents, but he cannot help but wish that it was sunny and mild today. As Jake fusses with the last touches to his wedding attire, Sidney comforts himself with the thought that it’s not unfitting that as he arrived in a storm, so shall Evgeni be joined to this place, and to Sidney, in a storm as well.

As Sidney descends the stairs he can see that Evgeni is already waiting in the foyer. He’s pacing a little, cutting a striking figure in the new bottle green coat and snowy white linen shirt and cravat Sidney had insisted he accept. He’d sent him to his own tailor’s shop in Truro with Letang, who had an eye for these things, and Letang had outdone himself. The green of the coat looks well against Evgeni’s pale skin and and brown hair, and he looks like a gentleman from the toes of his polished boots, to his close-fitting breeches, to his beautifully embroidered waistcoat. Letang told Sidney that it was the only article of clothing that Evgeni had chosen explicitly for himself, without self-effacing reluctance.

If he wants it. Sidney will buy him a hundred waistcoats, each more brilliantly decorated than the last. Sidney himself was unable to resist a lilac waistcoat under a more subdued grey coat. He enjoys the color, and seldom has the excuse or opportunity to wear it.

Evgeni spots him when he reaches the bottom of the stairs. His shoulders relax and he smiles at Sidney. It relieves Sidney more than he can say to see it. The cold weight of guilt has not left him entirely since the moment he first claimed Evgeni as his fiancé.

“Are you still willing?” Sidney has to ask, for his own peace of mind.

Evgeni’s brow furrows. “You?”

“Of course,” Sidney says quietly. Evgeni’s eyes search his face, but finally he nods.

“Yes,” he says, and ducks his head, pink blooming on his cheeks. It is an arresting sight, and Sidney, to his chagrin, gapes at him until broken from his reverie by the noisy arrival of Baronet Letang and his family.

Letang gives Sidney a long, assessing look as Evgeni goes to say hello to Alex and little Victoria. Sidney knows his friend likes Evgeni but is not certain that Sidney is being wise.

Sidney gives him a firm nod. His friend shrugs, and says nothing more.

***

It is strange to be in the church on a weekday. Their words echo against the stone as young Father Murray gravely shakes their hands and precedes them to the front of the church. They’re early, but Julie and Caro are already there, as well as a goodly number of those servants and villagers not needed in preparing the wedding breakfast.

He feels a pang at the absence of his sister. There had not been time, however, for her to make the journey, and truthfully, he wants to wait until all is said and done before he tells her of it. Maybe she will forgive him for it in time.

The importance of their haste is underscored by the late arrival of Magistrate Bettman. Uninvited, he nonetheless sits himself in a back pew to scowl at the proceedings. Sidney sees Evgeni’s eyes dart nervously to Bettman, and he squeezes his soon-to-be husband’s hands. When Evgeni looks at him, Sidney leans close and says, too low for anyone else to hear: “I promise you. I will not let him touch you.”

Evgeni closes his eyes for a moment, but nods.

The sun comes out from behind the clouds just as the vicar calls out the words, “dearly beloved.”

Later, what Sidney remembers most from the ceremony is that soft morning light, falling in shafts front the clerestory windows, and odd little details, like how the sun made a glowing shell of one of Evgeni’s ears, and threw glimmering reflections from the font onto the grey stone walls.

Evgeni’s hands tremble a little in his own, or maybe Sidney’s hands tremble, he isn’t sure.

Father Murray pronounces them married in the eyes of God, and Sidney blinks away sudden tears from some indescribable emotion. His wedding. His husband. He’d tried to imagine this day in the past but those boyish fancies have nothing in common with the reality: Evgeni’s dark eyes fixed on his, the soft, hesitant brush of his lips when the vicar tells them that they may kiss each other.

They sign the register, Sidney’s narrow, looping script above Evgeni’s blocky Cyrillic.

“Congratulations, Lord Crosby, Lord Evgeni,” Father Murray says, and Sidney has to laugh softly at the startled look on Evgeni’s face.

“Had you forgotten that you’d gain a title today, my dear?” Sidney says. His face flushes— the endearment had slipped out without his permission, quite naturally. For Evgeni is already dear to him.

Evgeni shakes his head, wonder writ across his expressive face. “I’m forget.” He shakes his head again, and offers his arm to Sidney. Sidney takes it.

“It’s going to be very noisy in a moment, are you ready?” he warns, and they step outside into the late morning chill as cheers break out from their assembled people, and rice is flung with cheerful abandon into their faces by the children.

Sidney had elected to walk to the church, in concession to Evgeni’s discomfort with horses and his own dislike of the fanfare and ostentation of a coach. It was not a far distance, but their way back leads them through the village, where everyone is assembled in gleeful enjoyment of their holiday, all work in the mines and fields halted in honor of the day.

The wedding party is met with shouts and cheers. Every woman and girl in the village, it feels, wants to come curtsy at them and extend their well-wishes, every man and boy to earnestly doff their caps to Sidney and “‘is new Lordship.”

They shake hands and bow and accept congratulations nearly all the way to the gates of Ydhyn Dhu, where a hubbub of a different sort awaits them.

Long tables have been laid, decorated with fragrant fir boughs and and bright sprigs of holly. If they’d been married only a month or two from now there might have been early spring flowers but Sidney finds he likes the greenery just as much.

A busy swirl of guests and servants enliven the ofttimes quiet rooms of the great house, with Mrs. Bullano presiding over all. Sidney had told her to try and enjoy herself but she remains convinced some calamity will befall the family silver and hovers vigilantly, keeping a weather eye on the serving maids as they work.

Dumo has outdone himself, somehow managing a wedding cake of sorts in so short a time, white with costly sugar on the outside and rich with dried fruit and brandy on the inside. He’d been cautioning everyone all morning that it wouldn't keep like a proper wedding cake, since he hadn’t had the time for the usual days and days of tending and soaking it in spirits.

“We will just have to enjoy it all today, Dumo, and give out any remaining to our tenants,” Sidney had placated him.

Sidney can hardly believe it, sometime later, that he’s sitting at the head of his table with his husband next to him. He keeps finding himself staring at Evgeni’s profile- his strong nose and generous mouth, his sharp jaw, the tiny scar high on his cheekbone.

Caro has to say his name a few times to get his attention at one point, resulting in laughter and much sly teasing about how taken he is with his bridegroom. Sidney turns scarlet and attempts to move the conversation on as quickly as possible. He cannot allow their perceptive teasing to make Evgeni uncomfortable.

“So, Evgeni,”Julie says, leaning forward, eyes sparkling wickedly. “Tell me. What is your favorite thing about your husband?”

“Is it his a-” Letang gets out before his wife elbows him to remind him of his manners.

Evgeni is blushing now as well, but he doesn’t duck his head or mumble anything noncommittal. He turns in his seat to regard Sidney steadily.

“Heart,” his says simply, and Sidney’s friends coo at them.

But Evgeni isn’t done. “Never meet anyone like Sidney,” he continues, drawing himself up as if to defend Sidney from the teasing. “Where I’m come from, no дворянин like him. They use-- “

He pauses, and turns to Sid, hand patting at his own waistcoat over his heart. “What’s part you can’t see, vicar talks about?”

“A soul?”

He turns back to the others, tone deep and serious. “The знать use people bodies and souls like wood.” He makes a motion like throwing kindling on flames. ”On a fire.” He shakes his head. “Sidney is different. He’s take care. Like whole village is his family.”

He reaches over and takes Sidney’s hand where it lies on the table. Gazing at him, he says firmly,”Want to be good family for him, too.”

Everyone is quiet for a moment, then Caro says, “Here, here. To Lord Crosby and Lord Evgeni, may your family be happy and blessed indeed.” There are sincere murmurs of agreement from all. Sidney cannot speak, his heart too painfully full.

***

It feels like the sky darkens and the day dwindles much faster than Sidney is ready for. He nurses a glass of port in the library with the other gentlemen until Letang kicks at his chair and jerks his head towards Evgeni.

“You should see to your husband, before he falls asleep right here.”

Sidney ignores the ribald waggling of Letang’s eyebrows and looks over at his husband. Evgeni is leaning against the high side of the wingback chair he’s sitting in, eyelids drooping as he gazes into the fire. His glass of Madeira looks ready to slip from his fingers.

Sidney feels a fresh stab of guilt join the rest that has taken up permanent residence in his stomach. It has been a long day. Heaven knows he feels as exhausted as Evgeni looks.

He stands, and rests a hand on Evgeni’s shoulder. “It’s late,” he says quietly, and Evgeni starts, turning wide, velvet-dark eyes to Sidney’s face. He follows Sidney from the room in silence.

***

Jake is waiting outside the door to Sidney’s private rooms, knuckling his eyes and yawning. Sidney sends him away to bed, and they go in alone.

After Sidney ushers Evgeni inside, he turns to close the door. When he turns back around, Evgeni has not moved, so close Sidney can smell his sandalwood shaving soap.

He reaches for Sidney’s hands, raising them to his lips and pressing a warm, lingering kiss to his fingers. Shame and heat flare together in Sidney’s middle. He wants that soft mouth all over his body, but he would never be able to forgive himself if he allows Evgeni to do this for him. Out of some sense of gratefulness or duty.

“Good day,” Evgeni says softly. He slides down one of Sidney’s cuffs and Sidney has to bite his lip to hold in a wanton sound as Evgeni kisses the sensitive skin of his wrist. “Nice party.”

“Yes,” Sidney manages, hoping his want isn’t conveyed in his voice. “Evgeni.”

Evgeni hums, fiddling with Sidney’s cuff and eying his cravat as if he’s strategizing at a chess board.

“Evgeni.” Sidney says, and something in his tone makes Evgeni’s hands still, and his gaze meet Sidney’s.

“I don’t. I do not expect this of you. Your-- favors, I mean. I would not. Tonight we must share a room so that the marriage is considered legitimate and unable to be annulled, but. You will not have to in future.”

Evgeni’s hands fall away. “You...don’t want?” He asks.

“I—“ Sidney shakes his head. What he wants is immaterial. His wants have been indulged enough.

Evgeni nods sharply and turns, striding to the glass to start tugging at his cravat like it will strangle him if he doesn’t get it off immediately.

“Here, let me,” Sidney says, and moves to untie it for him. He makes the mistake of looking up into Evgeni’s face. His eyes are intense as they bore into Sidney and his mouth is set in a firm line. Can he tell how badly Sidney wants him? Sidney wills his hands not to tremble as he unties the white linen from around Evgeni’s neck, his eyes not to linger on the sweet hollow at the base of his throat that he wants to—

No.

“I would never do anything to hurt you,” he promises, hoping Evgeni believes him.

“Can’t hurt me,” Evgeni says shortly, and Sidney shakes his head. The type of power he has over Evgeni has nothing to do with physical strength, but of birthright and wealth. And, even, Evgeni’s own sense of fealty or honor.

“Yes,” Evgeni says darkly after a long moment, as Sidney moves to the many tiny buttons of his fancy waistcoat. “Maybe, you can.”

Sidney masks a flinch. But it’s good that Evgeni is being reasonable.

“As I said, I will strive with everything in my power to see that you are protected.”

Even from myself, he thinks.

“Thank you, мой господин” Evgeni says woodenly, and the stiff address falls upon Sidney’s heart like ice.

“I said, you can call me Sidney,”

Evgeni just nods, and Sidney leaves him to undress the rest of the way himself.

As he rinses his face at the washstand. Sidney catches sight of Evgeni in the mirror, the fine cloth of his nightshirt made sheer in front of the firelight.The breadth of his shoulders, the graceful lines of his torso, the startlingly sweet curve of his ass. It’s almost worse this way than seeing him naked. He turns to hang something or other over a chair and Sidney’s breath catches at the pronounced swell of—

He tears his eyes away and splashes his face again. Enough.

Sid banks the fire, and goes about the room extinguishing all the candles his servants had lit in an endearing but unnecessary effort to make the room softly lit for a wedding night spent in the more traditional way.

Evgeni is hovering near the bed, glancing between it and Sidney. It pains Sidney to see. Only one night, he tells himself. Evgeni may not like it but it has to be done.

“What is it?” Sidney asks, keeping his voice low, as though soothing a nervous horse.

Evgeni’s face is still set blankly as he motions to the bed. “Which side you like?”

Oh. Sidney hasn’t gotten to the point of considering the practical details of two people sleeping in the same bed.

“Left?” He indicates the side nearest the door. Evgeni nods, then turns down the coverlet on the right. He curls up, surprisingly small for so large a man, with his back to Sidney, as far to the right as possible.

With a painful throbbing of his heart, Sidney gets into bed as well, doing his best not to disturb his husband. He takes his cue from Evgeni, and turns away.

He can still feel Evgeni’s warmth at his back. Evgeni’s breathing is slow, and Sidney can hear the moment it deepens into the unconscious rhythm of sleep.

He closes his eyes, but it is a long, long time before sleep claims him, too. Just before it does, he dimly hears the storm out to sea make good on its threats, heavy rain beginning to pour outside the curtained windows as it makes landfall.

Part 7

#sidgeno #sidney crosby/evgeni malkin #hockey rpf #meurgerys #dana writes a thing

161 notes · View notes

knifeshoeoreofight · 5 years

Photo

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Bettman’s face scrunches in displeasure like a late-season crabapple. “My lord, I have to admit, this seems… unlikely. And if it is not so-”

“The banns are being read this Sunday,” Sidney interjects, desperate to get Bettman to take his leave.

“I...see,” Bettman says peevishly. “Well. You understand that I will be monitoring the situation very closely. Not that your lordship would ever stoop to something as low as a sham marriage-”

“Once again, you offend,” Sidney barks, pointedly leaving off the ‘sir’. “If you have no further business on my land, I must insist you leave at once. We have urgent matters to attend to.”

Bettman looks as if he’d just bitten into a lemon, but he bows his head with a oily “good day, your lordship” and raps sharply on the roof of the carriage to his driver.

As the carriage pulls away, Sidney slumps. Good god.

“Oh, my lord!” It’s the old woman. Mrs. Briar, Sidney remembers. She has tears in her eyes, to Sid’s momentary alarm. But then she takes Sid’s free hand in both of her gnarled, wrinkled ones and pats it.

“I was just thinkin’ the other day, what a shame our Lord Crosby hasn’t got a lovely wife or a handsome husband yet. Faith, I’m glad you’ve found someone. Every since you were a wee lad, you’ve never been one for bein’ alone. Used to follow me ‘an the other servants around like a duckling when I still worked up at the great house, my dear.”

Sidney feels his face flush. “I- thank you Mrs. Briar.” There is a murmured chorus of congratulations from the assembled people.

Face still burning, Sidney clears his throat, and starts delegating the necessary tasks. The roofs of the other cottages still need guarding, the doctor must be fetched. Provision must be made for the family whose cottage burned- who they will stay with, and such. Sidney promises to have a hamper with extra food sent round from the Ydhyn Dhu kitchens.

Through it all, Evgeni says nothing, just keeps hold of Sidney’s arm, watching the proceedings with a face like stone.

“You must take your young man home,” tsks Mrs. Briar. “After his heroics. Let him have a good rest. Take care of him proper, like.” Then, horrifyingly, she winks.

Sidney takes Evgeni back to Cole.

“Are you burned anywhere?” he asks. Evgeni’s hair smells a little singed, but not badly. “I will tell the doctor to see to you after he has taken care of the babe.”

Evgeni shakes his head, slow. “Just arms, little bit. Not bad.”

Sidney takes a look, and he can see some red patches on Evgeni’s forearms, the hair singed off. They will most likely blister.

“We’ll have that seen to,” Sidney promises. Evgeni still isn’t making eye contact and it’s frightening Sid. “Evgeni?”

He raises his face, and he looks afraid. Sidney’s heart sinks.

“I...I’m sorry, Evgeni. In the moment I couldn’t think of any other way to save you.”

“He want to hang me,” Evgeni says. He’s still trembling. “I see in his face. He’s kill me and smile.“

Maybe what Sidney has done hasn’t sunk in through Evgeni’s shock. Once problem at a time, then.

“I won’t let him,” Sidney says. “This, I swear.” There is too much feeling in his voice, even for the vow that this is.

Evgeni nods, and sags against Cole like a marionette with its strings cut.

“Let’s get you home,” Sidney says. “The doctor can come there after easily enough. Come.”

Evgeni lets himself be helped into the saddle, and Sidney stays on foot, taking hold of Cole’s bridle to begin the careful walk back to the great house.

***

Once there, they are met by a flurry of worried servants. Sidney dispatches several to go help in the village, and directs one of the kitchen maids to tell Dumoulin to prepare food to be sent down, after he has prepared a strong cup of tea for Evgeni.

He sits Evgeni down and makes him drink an entire cup of very strong, sweet tea. Mrs. Bullano bustles in with some salve she says she swears by and gently spreads it on the burns on Evgeni’s arms, scolding him all the while about foolhardiness, the quaver in her voice betraying her worry.

Sidney leans on the mantle, looking into the banked coals and seeing instead the thatch falling in burning clumps to the cottage floor.

Fire and water. Evgeni has now had miraculous escapes from both.

When he turns to comment on this, Evgeni is staring at him, the sweet tea and the healing salve soothing his nerves and pain enough that he appears to finally be realizing the fullness of what has just transpired.

“Мой господин!” he exclaims, sitting bolt upright, the blanket that Mrs. Bullano had draped about his shoulders sliding to the floor. “What— “

Sidney swallows. “Ah, yes. Well. It would be the easiest way to make you untouchable. Beyond reproach.”

Evgeni waves his hand, as if Sidney’s words are so many spiderwebs to be swept away. “господин, what you say, no one would believe.”

Sidney looks out at the garden beyond the windows. “They would if...the banns were to be read this Sunday, as I said they would be. If we really did marry.”

Evgeni’s chair squeals against the floor in protest as he leaps to his feet. Sidney takes a step back in alarm. Evgeni’s hands are balled into fists.

“You can’t do this,” he says, eyes stormy and dark. “What the other Господин say? This would be worst thing for you, it’s bad, terrible— ” He shakes a fist in frustration at the word not coming to him.

“Scandal?” Sidney volunteers. He shrugs. “I don’t care about scandal. And I’m a peer of the realm,” Sidney says. “I can do as I please.”

Realizing how that must sound to Evgeni, he amends his words. “Your word, alone, can stop me. Say no and I will try to find some other avenue to keep you safe. Smuggle you out of the country, perhaps. There has to be some way.”

Evgeni runs his hands through his hair, tugging at it with a groan of frustration. “And, what? Even if you lord, get in trouble for that.”

“We’ll say you disappeared, if you want to go that route.”

Evgeni looks bleakly at Sid. “Why. Why do this? Why help me like this? Too much.”

Sidney looks at him for a long moment. “Because I was the one who found you on the beach, half-drowned, lips blue and barely breathing. Because I took you under my protection and I see that as a promise as solemn as vows. Because you have proven yourself a good and honorable man and I will not have the death of a good and honorable man on my conscience. Because you asked me if you could stay, and because you seem so happy here. Because the folk here already love you. Because--”

He stops speaking before he disgraces himself.

Evgeni stares at him, eyes wide and mouth fallen softly open. He makes an inarticulate noise and grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes. He takes a few shuddering breaths, and when he lowers his hands again, his eyes are reddened and wet.

“Don’t want to be hanged,” he says softly. “Or go to prison. Or leave— leave this place.”

Sidney nods. He walks over to him. Evgeni is standing before the window and the clear light of a perfect Cornish winter afternoon haloes him like an icon in a church.

Sidney bends down on one knee and takes Evgeni’s hand.

“Evgeni Vladimirovich,” he says. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my husband?”

Evgeni nods like a man in a dream. “Yes,” he murmurs. Sidney takes his hand and presses a kiss to his knuckles, mirroring the gesture Evgeni had so undone him with before.

Evgeni breathes in sharply, but does not speak, as Sidney rises to his feet and takes his other hand as well. Even now, there is a cold knot of guilt festering in his stomach, but he smiles at Evgeni and strokes his thumbs over the back of Evgeni’s hands in an effort to soothe his rabbiting pulse.

“I will do my best,” Sidney promises. “To make you happy.”

Evgeni shakes his head, with a strange, hitching laugh. “Crazy.” He takes a deep breath, then releases it, some of the tension going out of his shoulders.

“Me too, мой гос— ” he pauses, uncertain.

“Sidney, call me Sidney.”

“Sidney,” Evgeni says, and the sound of his Christian name on Evgeni’s lips is almost more than Sidney can bear.

“I’m promise, try to make you happy too,” Evgeni tells him.

He leans down, and soft as butterfly wings, brushes a kiss across Sidney’s forehead.

Part 6

#meurgerys #sidgeno #sidney crosby/evgeni malkin #hockey rpf #dana writes a thing

176 notes · View notes

knifeshoeoreofight · 5 years

Photo

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Sidney does not purposely seek Evgeni out in the subsequent days, but he cannot help but notice him as he happens upon him, being shown around the house by Cullen, following Mrs. Bullano with a heavy trunk lifted on his shoulder, and once, raking out the stables in his shirtsleeves. His neck and forearms had been bare, and his thin linen shirt had been soaked with sweat.

Sidney is not a little alarmed at his own reaction to the man. And Evgeni’s regaining his health has not helped matters. He laughs loudly and often, and he has a booming voice that is modulated more for a ship’s deck than a great house. His manner of speech is unique, and as he grows comfortable with his situation he speaks more and seems less afraid of using novel phrasing of his own invention to convey his meaning.

He’s a bright epicenter of noise and feeling, and he pulls people in towards him like moths to a flame. He teases the housemaids, but so as they laugh rather than grow fearful or annoyed. He jokes with the footmen and teaches Russian curses to the stable boys. He complains and whines when beset by Mrs. Bullano but then does what she asks, and more. He tells Dumoulin the food is much better in Russia but then falls upon everything he makes with such alacrity that it is clear how much he enjoys it.

Sidney is hopelessly charmed by all of it, and he shouldn’t be. Evgeni is under his protection and his employ. Sidney had decided from a very young age, suffering under the less than charitable attentions of the young men at Oxford who had outranked him, what kind of man he was going to be, and how he was going to treat those around him. He’d seen the kinds of things other young men of the nobility and gentry did to their servants. He’d sworn he’d be different.

He will be, he tells himself. Shipwrecked strangers may have all the broad shoulders and long legs and gentle brown eyes imaginable, Sidney will still hold fast by his principles.

***

For some reason Sidney cannot ascertain, Evgeni has taken some kind of stubborn idea in his head about Sidney’s habits, because instead of one of the maids, like as not, it’s Evgeni who brings him his supper tray on the nights that Sidney is absorbed by his papers for a proper meal.

Not only that, but if Sidney simply smiles and sets the tray to one side, Evgeni hovers and looms in a most unservile manner until Sid relents and puts down his quill and eats something.

How smug he looks then isn’t very servant-like either, but Sidney cannot find it in himself to take offense.

After a few weeks Evgeni seems to feel himself at home, because after bringing Sidney a supper tray he sprawls in the chair opposite the desk and grins at him.

“Isabella and her mama visit today,” he says conversationally. Sid raises his eyebrows. He privately welcomes any time spent in Evgeni’s presence, but he’s never made presumptions of remaining with Sid while he eats before.

Still grinning widely, Evgeni reaches into the pocket of his coat, and pulls out a tiny black and white kitten. It’s small enough for Evgeni to cradle in one of his hands. Or rather, Evgeni’s hand is large enough to cradle it.

It opens its mouth and emits an indignant, high-pitched mew. Sidney has always had a soft spot for children and animals alike and cannot suppress a smile as it bats the air with one miniscule paw. He reaches out for it and Evgeni gently places the kitten into Sidney’s hands. His fingers brush against Sid’s.

“Hello,” Sidney tells it as it mews again. “What a charming creature. How it is that you are so small and yet so loud, little one?” He scratches the kitten under its chin and it starts purring, also loudly.

Evgeni laughs softly, and Sid can feel his cheeks color. He should not let others see him getting soppy over a baby animal like this.

“Dumo was right,” Evgeni says. “Glad you like. Is little girl. No name yet.”

She is still purring and has started to knead at Sidney’s coat at he holds her to his chest. Her eyes squeeze closed.

Sidney clears his throat, trying and probably failing to regain his dignity, while still cradling the kitten to him like an infant. “Boudicca. She was an ancient British queen. Or perhaps Athena. Something fierce. She will be a great help in keeping vermin from the storerooms.”

“Of course, мой господин” Evgeni says, eyes twinkling as though he is attempting not to laugh. Sidney supposes he isn’t fooling anyone.

He gives up. “Or, Betsy.”

“There’s already cow called Betsy, in dairy shed,” Evgeni helpfully supplies.

“Well.” Sidney tries to look serious as the kitten attempts to climb his waistcoat. “What would you name a cat in Russia?”

Evgeni considers the kitten with a smile, as she hooks tiny needle claws into Sidney’s cravat, apparently not content until she is as close as possible to his face.

“Would maybe call, ‘Kошка’.”

“Koshka?” Sidney repeats. “It’s very pleasant-sounding.”

Evgeni laughs softly. “Just mean ‘girl cat’.”

“I like it,” Sidney says, half about the name and half about the way the syllables of it had sounded tumbling from Evgeni’s lips. “Very well.”

Evgeni is apparently satisfied that he has managed to induce Sid to accept both supper and cat. He takes his leave, and Sid tries to get back to work and not to think overmuch.

It is difficult to return to a treatise on agricultural drainage methods when where is a kitten on one’s desk, determined to maul one’s quill pen and to step in any and all freshly applied ink.

Difficult too, to apply oneself to so dry a task when one cannot stop thinking about wide, pleased smiles and the insolent sprawl of long limbs.

***

They have some weeks of cold, bright weather, freezing the ground and painting all with frost of a morning.

One particularly biting evening, Sid finds himself with a few quiet hours to pen a letter to Taylor. His younger sister and her husband live in Kent. Taylor is very happy with Lord Jarry and well-pleased with running a household of her own, but Sidney misses her terribly.

He first has all the news of the estate to relate to her, and then the doings of anyone he knows she would like news of.

It isn’t until he’s writing “I am glad Evgeni is settled so well, he is a great help to Mrs. Bullano as well as Cullen-” that he pauses, looks back over all that he’s written, and sees Evgeni’s name mentioned time and again,the letters of it leaping incriminatingly out from the page.

That letter finds its way to the fireplace, and he had to begin again.

***

Try as Sid might to keep himself from thinking overmuch of Evgeni, Evgeni seems to be everywhere he looks.

Sidney meets him on the road to Ydhyn Dhu, as he returns from a ride into Truro to speak with his solicitor. To Sid’s amusement, Evgeni, while willing to work in the stables, views horses with a very sailor-like mistrust, and leans away with a frown when Cole attempts to snuffle at his hair.

“He is very gentle,” Sidney says with a laugh.

Evgeni’s expression grows even more dubious. “Still big,” he says, side-stepping the beast as Cole starts to nose at the pockets of his coat in hopes of treats. “You let him do!”

Sidney has indeed been letting the reins hang completely slack on purpose. “Harmless! As good hearted and loyal as a hound.”

“Don’t like dog either,” Evgeni says. “You spoil, he’s look for candy!”

“I am, I admit, perhaps too lenient with him. It is a perpetual failing, I was often told,” Sid finds himself growing grave at the reminder of the censure he’d received on that score.

“No,” Evgeni says, aspect suddenly gentler. “It’s good.” He reaches gingerly out to stroke at Cole’s muzzle, then, emboldened, to scratch the star on his forehead. Cole closes his eyes and leans into him. Sidney stares down at the top of Evgeni’s head, willing himself not to feel anything.

The moment is broken by a sudden shout and clamor from further up the road, where a cluster of cottages belonging to Sidney’s tenants lie. Sidney’s blood turns to ice in his veins when he sees a column of black smoke belching into the sky. He curses.

“Go,” Evgeni cries, and Sid reaches an arm down for him.

“They’ll need everyone to hand. Hold on and you will come to no harm, I swear it.”

Evgeni gives him a sharply considering look, and nods. He takes Sidney’s arm, and gets one foot up on the stirrup so he can swing himself over behind Sid. Sidney thanks heaven in that moment that Cole isn’t some delicate hunter, but the result of a cart horse getting loose among his father’s thoroughbreds. Cole flicks his ears at the considerable added weight but bears it easily enough.

Sidney wheels Cole around to head back to the estate, at as fast a pace as is safe with Cole carrying two.

Evgeni has his arms clasped around Sidney’s waist but he cannot spare a thought for it, foreboding rising in him just like the smoke ahead.

When they reach the cottages, there is chaos. The buildings themselves are stone, but the roofs are thatch, and Sidney’s heart sinks when he sees that the roof of one of them is completely aflame. Sparks from a faulty chimney, perhaps, compounded by the recent spate of dry weather.

There are people shouting and running about, buckets being hurriedly drawn at the well, and run up ladders to be thrown over the thatch of neighboring cottages to protect their roofs. Sidney can see that the one afire is a lost cause. He and Evgeni both slide from the horse. Sidney grabs on to the arm of a bystander.

“Is everyone out?” he asks, and the man nods.

“Far as we know, my lord.”

A lost roof can be repaired. People are irreplaceable. Sidney loops Cole’s reins over a fence rail and throws the coat he’d been wearing across the saddle. As he’s rolling up his sleeves, ready to lend his aid where Evgeni is already helping, a woman’s scream slices through the noise of men and flames.

“Where’s my Nessa!” the woman wails, and Sidney sees Evgeni’s head whip around.

“Is baby?” he shouts. “Inside?” The woman just collapses, sobbing. Before anyone can move, Evgeni has bolted, straight towards the deathtrap of a house and through the doorway, the lintel of it already wreathed in livid flame.

Sidney takes off after him, not sure what he means to do. Stop him? Help him?

Hands clutch at him and haul him back. “No, my lord! It’s suicide! We cannot lose you!”

Sidney watches in horror as a massive section of burning thatch caves in on the house below.

One second. Two. Three.

He’s not sure how long it’s been, when there’s movement at the window of the house, the sound of shattering glass and splintering wood. And there Evgeni is, handing a bundle of singed cloth off to eager hands and clambering over the sill. He falls, gasping, to the ground just as a gout of flame roils from the window like the seeking tongue of a demon.

“Evgeni!” Sidney cries, as two men haul Evgeni to his feet and drag him, coughing, away from the house.

“Baby?” Evgeni says hoarsely, when Sid reaches his side. Sid looks over at the cluster of people surrounding the mother and her babe, safely out of the reach of the smoke.

“Come,” Sidney says, taking Evgeni’s arm from the man holding it. He needs to touch him, needs to make sure he is well. “Let us go and see.”

When they reach the mother and her child, Sid goes limp with relief to make out the thin wail of a baby. The mother catches sight of Evgeni.

“Thank you,” she sobs. Evgeni shakes his head, but smiles as men clap him on the shoulder and an old woman takes his face in her hands to kiss his soot-smeared cheeks.

“All will be repaired posthaste, I swear it,” Sidney says, and the man of the house nods in thanks, his face etched with lines of fear and relief.

Sidney looks around him, at the faces of his people and at Evgeni as he leans down to stroke the cheek of the babe he saved. Despite the wan cast to everyone’s expressions the moment feels imbued with rightness. If Evgeni had needed to prove himself, this event would have sufficed entirely.

Everyone is so preoccupied that the sudden rattle and jingle of a coach and four take them all by surprise.

Sidney recognizes the vehicle and grits his teeth. Magistrate Bettman. What the devil is he doing here? Could there be a worse moment for that odious little goblin to come sniffing around?

Bettman leans out of the carriage, a lace-bordered handkerchief held delicately to his nose.

“Good heavens, Lord Crosby. What a ruckus.”

Sidney keeps his tone bland and even. “Indeed. What brings you this way, sir?”

“Oh.” The man sniffs. He’s pretending to be nonchalant but Sidney can see the smugness rolling off of him in waves.”I had heard some troubling rumors, my lord troubling indeed. I do not wish to offend—“

What rot. In Sidney’s experience, Bettman lives to offend.

“-but I’d heard insinuations that you, Lord Crosby, were harboring a foreign degenerate at your estate. A criminal, even.”

Bettman’s greedy little beetle eyes are glittering with malice, and he stares at Evgeni like a spoiled child eyeing a cake he is about to steal from the table.

Sidney’s heart pounds in his ears. Evgeni has gone stiff with fear beside him. Holding him up as he is, Sidney can feel him begin to tremble. He chances a look. Evgeni has gone palest white, and the faces of the people around them look stricken.

In the silence, the baby’s fussing is loud, and it reminds Sidney that this man just leapt through fire for someone else. This man wants to stay here. This gentle, big-hearted man will be hanged or transported if he is taken before the courts once again.

Sidney cannot bear it, and in desperation, does the only thing that comes to his frantic brain.

He draws himself up, adopting the cold sneer of command that he has seen others level as a weapon. He laces his tone with every bit of ancestral ice he can muster. In rank and in fortune he is far, far beyond Bettman, and Bettman knows it.

“You say you do not wish to give offense, Bettman. However, I am afraid, for your sake, that you do. How dare you speak of my fiancé this way?”

He has one beautiful moment of triumph, watching Bettman’s look of livid consternation, before full realization hits him, crushing the air from his lungs.

Oh god.

Oh, god. What has he done?

Part 5

#meurgerys #sidgeno #sidney crosby/evgeni malkin #hockey rpf #dana writes a thing

177 notes · View notes

knifeshoeoreofight · 5 years

Text

Meurgerys update tonight if all goes well. It’s written but I need my beta to look at it first.

#Meurgerys #sidgeno #sidney crosby/evgeni malkin #hockey rpf #dana writes a thing

30 notes · View notes

knifeshoeoreofight · 5 years

Photo

Meurgerys (Cornish, adj) beloved

TW: death (unnamed characters, “offscreen”)

Part 1 of (most likely) 7

It was passing late, but the midwinter storm outside and his own troubled thoughts kept Sidney awake, long after the fire had burned down to glowing embers and the servants had been sent off, yawning, to bed.

The wind was howling along the eaves like a rabid beast trying to claw its way into the house. Rain sluiced down the window panes, rivulets that glinted in the light of Sidney’s candle. A foul night, for foul thoughts.

Sidney was not a man who generally allowed himself to indulge in melancholy. But on nights like this, with the haunted moans of the wind and the mad roar of the sea beating in his ears, sitting alone with nothing but an empty, cold, bed waiting for him, it was a more difficult task than usual.

As a child he’d loved storms, thrilled to the feeling of danger and urgency they brought.

Now, as a man, he worries about flooded fields and damaged roofs and more tribulations for his tenants.

The fact that he wishes he had a pair of warm arms to slide into upon returning to his bed is of no consequence next to those concerns, and he chastises himself for it.

It has been seven years now since he took over the estate, far too young at the onset. It has been a weight of responsibility that he often privately feels unworthy to bear. But he has done his best, having no qualms about economizing in order to make sure the servants are well paid and his lands and tenants looked after.

His candle flickers. It has burned low and is almost guttering out in a puddle of wax. He should go to bed.

He has just untied his cravat and is about to begin the arduous process of tugging off his close-fitting riding boots when there is a pounding at his bedchamber door that makes him start in alarm.

He yanks open the door to his steward standing there, candlestick in hand. The light makes a grim mask of his face.

“Good god, Cullen, what is it?” Sidney exclaims.

“Your lordship,” the man says grimly. “There’s a ship run aground on the rocks.”

Sidney’s blood runs cold, and he curses as he flings his greatcoat on over his linen shirt.

“Lanterns,” he barks at Cullen as they half run down the corridor towards the front hall. “Torches won’t be any bloody good in this weather.”

“Aye my lord,” Cullen replies, and heads down a different corridor to rouse the other servants.

Ydhyn Dhu sits on a rise above ragged sea cliffs. There is a winding path down to a wave-battered cove below. The sheltering cliffs on either side make it look like a haven for a vessel to wait out a storm, but looks could not be more deceiving. Sidney cannot recall how many vessels have come to ruin over the years on the rocks that encircle the entrance to the cove like a maw of wicked, hungry teeth.

Those who have been born and bred on these shores know how to slip in between the rocks to safety but on a night like tonight, there is no safe harbor here for anyone.

Sid grimly leads his men with their flickering lanterns down the slippery path to the beach. He hates that there is so little they can do when there’s a wreck, besides line the beach with lights so that, God willing, some of the poor souls aboard the doomed vessel can perhaps see which way to try to swim ashore, providing the icy water does not claim their lives first.

The wind tears at them when they reach the sand. Sidney can make out the lanterns of the ship where it has foundered on the rocks, and even through the roar of the storm he can hear the creaks and groans of its timbers as they are strained to the breaking point.

Dread churns in Sidney’s gut. If the ship stays upright and her hull holds until the storm abates and dawn arrives, he can send some of his men out in boats to aid the poor souls on board. He will not risk their lives, however, with the sea and wind as wild as they are now.

If she breaks apart, there will most likely only be bodies to carry away from the sands tomorrow.

Sidney strides forward until the sea is foaming over the tops of his boots, straining his eyes into the darkness.

Dumoulin catches at his sleeve. “Take care, my lord. You’re no good to us dead from a chill.”

The words would be unforgivable insolence in any other noble house, but Sidney has always done things his own way, and has been proud of the bonds of loyalty and friendship he’s forged among his household and his tenants as a result.

“Poor sods,” he says by way of an answer.

Dumoulin shakes his head ruefully. “I know. But there’s nothing to be done.”

There’s a terrible groaning sound just then, carried on the wind from the ship. Sidney closes his eyes briefly as he listens to the timbers snap and the vessel tear herself apart against the rocks. He’s not sure but he thinks he can almost hear the terrified screams of her crew as they’re swept out by the snarling breakers.

He lifts his lantern as high as he can and shouts into the wind as the lights on the wreck wink out.

It is long moments before he hears a shout from down the beach. Flotsam is beginning to wash ashore. At first, just shattered bits of the ship, then casks and crates from her cargo.

The understood law of the land is that any cargo washed ashore from a wreck is fair pickings. Anything salvageable is hauled up onto the sand by eager hands. Sidney leaves the men to it. A wreck is a tragedy, but so are hungry children. He will not judge them for this.

A second shout. It’s Kris. There’s been a body spotted floating in the surf. Sidney directs his men as they haul the poor soul ashore. Someone must have run to the village to summon Christopher Stewart, their apothecary, because he materializes at Sidney’s side and and bends down to check the sailor’s pulse. He looks back up with a grim expression, and shakes his head. Sidney’s heart sinks.

It’s a long, bleak night. There are four more bodies to lay out on the shore by the time dawn comes grey and sullen. Two of them wear the red coats of soldiers, which gives Sidney pause. That, and how few bodies they’re actually finding.

The sixth body reveals the answer to the mystery. The man still has irons around his wrists and ankles, only the planks he’s still chained to affording his corpse the buoyancy it needed to make it ashore.

Prisoners. Sidney shudders in horror. The poor bastards never stood a chance.

The seventh man breaks Sidney’s heart. He’s in irons as well, curled up on his side on the sand like a child. One hand is still clutching at the chunk of wood he must have been using to try and stay afloat. Sid is reaching down to brush a strand of seaweed from the man’s face when he freezes.

There’s the faintest, barest brush of air against Sidney’s hand. The man is still breathing. Sidney shouts for some men to come and help him. He shakes the man’s shoulder and speaks to him, but he does not stir. When he’s rolled onto a piece of sailcloth and lifted up to be carried to shelter, one of his hands dangles loose, pale and bloodless.

Sidney prays that they aren’t too late.

***

Sidney has the shipwrecked man taken to Ydhyn Dhu itself. A pallet is hastily made up for him in the kitchens, as they are the warmest part of the house.

Sidney is of little help, able only to stand at the periphery of the swirl of activity as Mr. Stewart directs the staff to procure blankets and brandy.

“Your lordship.” It’s his housekeeper, Mrs. Bullano. She fixes him with a gimlet eye, somehow looking stern even in her nightcap and dressing gown. “You’re soaked to the skin. You should go get in some dry clothes before you catch your death. There’s nothing more you can do.”

He’s known her long enough to know that there’s no arguing with her, and so he retires to his chambers, and for once lets his valet fuss over him to his heart’s content.

Sidney gives in to his exhaustion, and allows Jake to convince him to don his night attire and go to bed, no matter that the sunrise is beginning to gild what’s left of the storm clouds.

“Tell the staff…” Sidney says sleepily. “To rest as well, after such a night. Just as much work as is required to take care of our guest and to feed everyone.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Sidney falls asleep thinking of the shipwrecked man’s pale, pale face, willing him to find the strength to live.

Part 2

#oops i couldn't wait #sidgeno #sidney crosby/evgeni malkin #hockey rpf #dana writes a thing #meurgerys

190 notes · View notes