That the room was dark mattered very little. He could see the silhouette of whiteness against the opposite wall. The door had closed behind him, sealing the room as best as it could be for their privacy. He wanted privacy for this.

The silhouette against the opposite wall was tall, haloed in a white mist that intensified or faded depending on the nearby surface. His clothes were bright, his hair likewise, but his skin was barely visible. And yet he could picture every inch of him, could close his eyes and pretend that this other was standing in perfect light and see it as though it were true. He did, for a moment.

Stop that. This wasn't about his daydreams.

"Why are you here?"

"It is my duty to ensure that all in the Guard are healthy and able to perform their functions."

It had so many meanings, and Frost snorted at all of them. "I am fit. I am able, what more do you want from me."

Doyle's eyebrows arched. It lacked somewhat of the bite of his old friend's usual challenge, his usual stiff and upright demeanor. Even in the months since all the changes had taken place, when Meredith wasn't around he tended to fall back into his old reserve. No one thought anything of it, and he was sure the Guards hadn't said anything.

He was of the private opinion that it was Frost's last stop-gap measure in case things fell out ill and Meredith no longer had the power to protect him. His way of clinging to his armor. But if things fell out ill and anyone but Meredith won out, they would be dead. Their enemies would make certain that the two most feared of the Queen's, now the Princess's Guard did not survive and his emotions and spirit would be the least of Frost's worries. Doyle was inclined to size up the situation as long as he had the time to do so, examine every angle of it and consider all his options, and then make his choice. Frost.

Well. Frost was different.

And what of that? It was their differences that made them an effective team, able to interlock and work together and bond as few other fey ever did outside a willing marriage of love. That, they had not had in centuries.

"Why are you really here?"

"Galen and Rhys are with the Princess, Mistral is overseeing the arrangements. You were not with them."

Neither of them would come out and ask directly, what is wrong. It was too much of fragility to expect an answer.

Frost opened his mouth to reply but nothing came out, which was more worrying to his old friend than most of the answers he could have given.

It might have been a little of jealousy, but they had addressed that problem months ago and to his credit he had been trying. There had been no assassination attempts in recent weeks and even Taranis had been quiet. Planning something, no doubt, or taking more pains to conceal his activities from the other court than he usually did. But while Doyle enjoyed his vigilance he also was not about to go borrowing trouble until it presented itself for the taking.

Frost seemed to be taking the role of trouble for the moment. His face had settled back into its granite indifference and only centuries of habit enabled Doyle to look at him and discern anything but cool readiness. He, in turn, looked at his old friend in such a way as to tell him that he knew him better. He remembered everything that he was, everything that he had been, and their friendship was more than that.

Frost looked away first. Even if they had centuries to perfect their masks, one of them would still break first.

"Tired."

One word. Doyle's fingertips pressed underneath his chin and tipped his head up till they were eye to eye. He was cool to the touch, soft, a respite from the empty air.

"It is the hope of something different," he mused out loud, watching his old friend try to avoid his eyes. "We spent so long in our apathy of service, we forgot what it was like to hope for change. And now that we do, it exhausts us."

"This 'us' you speak of..." Frost didn't smile but he gave the impression of smiling, a little bit of crinkling around the eyes where the skin would never wrinkle or fade.

It was us as in the two of us, and he understood that. They both did. Something they never spoke of but something that had become sharper in recent months. Some need and thought and link that stretched between them and slipped around them and held them together without requiring anything but each other.

It was a desperate something. Galen was too young, far too young. Rhys threw himself into the modern world and embraced it, raced ahead too fast, was too progressive and when he wasn't he was far too old. Nicca was too broken, Meredith too feminine and she had never been a guard anyway. Kitto would never understand in ten thousand years. Mistral would never bend to anyone. On and on. Their new differences highlighted the old. The pressure and watchfulness off of everyone else highlighted the relief of understanding.

Somewhere in thinking this their mouths had met. In lieu of words there were touches, there were kisses and tangling tongues and the gentle moisture and tastes that they remembered. The crisp ice in Frost's mouth, like teasing water off of an icicle. The heat and earth in Doyle's.

Hands slid along bodies after centuries of practice. Court law forbade them spending their pleasures on other women but both of them had taken care not to suggest to Andais that they might take their pleasures with each other. She ignored Frost after his first term of service. Doyle had never been a candidate. What they did with the fruits of their labors didn't matter.

So they spent them on each other. When there was no one else around.

Doyle's mouth traced a wet line down the center of Frost's chest and he gasped, head flung back. Clothing stripped away so neatly that it was barely an afterthought by the time his mouth closed over skin. Wet worship, easy and enveloping. His tongue worked over him as he withdrew and caressed him as he took him in again. He could feel fingers through his hair, reaching for any point of contact he could manage.

"Doyle..."

Asked and answered, but rather than rise up he pulled Frost down into his arms and kissed him again.

There were a few tears. Just a few, softly kissed away without comment. Some movements and then they were both naked, pressed against each other and sliding skin against sweat-damp skin. One hand slid down someone's back and curved around muscle and squeezed and one hand slid up to cup the curve of a shoulder and one hand fisted in hair and held tight.

They pressed into each other and rocked for their pleasure, the physical only a part of it. The wanting that tightened parts and made other parts go liquid hot melting and nails claw into backs. The part that twitched when skin rubbed over skin and sparked lightning along nerves, it was because of the two of them. Any other two and it would have been awkward, painful.

One hand slipped between them and touched and hips jerked with a soft little cry. Just to touch each other like that. Yes. There. Intimacy that ran so deep they could touch and know exactly what it felt like. That if he pressed his finger here it would make the other moan and beg. That if he stroked just there in slow circles it would make the other whimper. Hands moved between them back and forth, in and out of their bodies and all of it with careful timing so that no one was trapped between for too long.

Frost might have been on top but it was Doyle who controlled the motion. Legs tangled together and he cradled as the other man clawed, tight against each other as desperation crept in and overwhelmed them both, eventually. There were sobs. There were sighs. There was a kiss with open mouths and tongues plunging in with demanding force and that last push to sink completely into each other, to not be alone for one shining moment. And then there was stickiness and exhaustion in the after.

It was loneliness, but it was a grateful kind of loneliness at least. The kind that happened afterwards while they both recovered their strength and Doyle's fingertips ran along Frost's spine until it tickled. Stolen, secret moments, just for the two of them. Letting down barriers and resting blockades the others would never have known existed unless they saw the two without them. The beginnings of a smile on Frost's face. Doyle's forehead without that quiet little furrow of watchfulness.

They both heard the sounds shifting outside, becoming animate and encroaching into their stolen time. There was no irritation as they dressed, quickly, hiding the evidence in a wadding of toilet tissue and underneath a pile of junk mail in the trash. The room always smelled of sex these days. It was dark enough that no one would be able to see until they had composed their expressions into something the rest of the guard was more accustomed to.

Doyle's fingers curled around his friend's, and when they opened the door to see his palm on Frost's chest there was very little expression at all.

Go to the top! For you have reached the bottom.