oneman_onevote | Extremely melodramatic AU: The revenge!

The castle is chill, in the hallways, and dark apart from pools of light created by torches placed at wide intervals on the walls.

Havelock is moving, if possible, even more silently than usual. He'd be twitchy if that wasn't a surefire way to mess up your stealth. The shadows are blending obligingly around him, more strongly here than they had in the bar.

Puck can take care of himself, he knows that, but also holds out no hope that any of this is going to be particularly pleasant.

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Havelock sticks his head around as well, just above Puck's, and scans the room.

"There is a wardrobe in the corner," he points out. "Who knows?"

"--Ooh."

Puck disappears, reappears in said (shadowy) corner, pries open the wardrobe door, and rifles around inside.

After a few moments, there is a muffled "A-ha!" and he emerges triumphantly clutching something ...

Ah.

Well. It's definitely nightshirt-shaped. And ... potentially made of some manner of cotton.

Very ... gauzy ... sheerish ... cotton.

"What do you think?" he says with a grin, holding it to his chest.

(If the answer isn't ridiculous, Puck will begin to suspect that the fusty castle air has touched Havelock's wits.)

...

Well, Havelock doesn't say ridiculous?

But needness to say, the lack of expression on his face is expressive in itself.

"...Very pretty," he says finally, dry as a desert.

Puck laughs, folding it up into a little cloth bundle small enough to hold in his hands.

That may say something somewhat damning for the general actual-fabric content of this particular piece of sleepwear.

"I think I must. I shall never forgive myself otherwise."

His lower lip gives a faint quiver. "So long as it shan't drive you away?"

Outside, there is a low rumble of thunder.

... Apparently, the weather in Uberwald doesn't particularly care to stir itself by way of narrative aid for stray fairies.

Havelock tilts his head, apparently considering.

"Only for a little while, if it does," he says.

"I'll be be back soon enough, though."

Puck smiles, faintly, and drifts across the room to him-- though after a moment's hesitation by the four-poster bed, he tosses the crumpled nightshirt onto its emphatically large mattress covered in emphatically red bedding.

His smile, as he approaches Havelock, turns a little more crooked.

"You, ah-- you needn't visit, you know. If you had rather not."

Havelock raises an eyebrow, leaning sideways against the doorframe, and folding his arms across his chest.

"That's more or less the trouble," he says. "I would. Rather."

Puck can't really help brightening at that.

It's so romantic when after five years, your boyfriend still wants to have sex with you despite being recently undead.

... Admittedly, it is the 'recently undead' thing that seems to be creating some of the roadblocks.

"I should do," Puck says, coming closer in increments that do not appear to be at all calculated, "anything within my power to accommodate you."

Romantic.

Yes, that's exactly the word Havelock would use to describe it.

"That is both very kind, and extremely unhelpful," the former assassin points out, not moving from where he is.

Puck makes a face.

"Is it? I admit I did not specify the manner, but I meant rather to imply that--"

A beat, as he gestures vaguely.

"You know I've no desire to bring about a thing that you should not wish for."

Havelock shrugs, hesitates, then nods.

"Yes, I know," he says.

Unspoken is the point that Puck is kind of alluring in general (Havelock has not remained fascinated by him for five years for nothing) and because of his current proximity.

He has come to a stop several feet away from him, as it happens, as he now does whenever Havelock does not seem to be giving him an unambiguous green light.

And frowns.

"That is all I meant, then."

He does not fidget in any discernible way.

"That whatever I may have of you, or you of me-- that I shall grant with a glad heart, and neither more nor less."

Havelock glances up again, one corner of his mouth turning up into something that's close to a smile.

"Thank you," he says.

Puck glances down and away, another crooked smile tugging at his own lips.

"I have some small fondness for you, after all."

"That's nice to hear," Havelock says dryly, standing up straight again with some reluctance.

"Since I rather like you too."

Puck grins.

"Oh do you?" he says owlishly.

"How marvelous. I had wondered."

(In a version of reality that is not this one, Puck does not permit Havelock to move but instead presses him back against the doorframe--

Ahem.

As it's a reality that is not this one, perhaps it doesn't bear going into.)

"Now you know," Havelock says solemnly.

"I should go," he says after a short, regretful pause.

Puck's lips quirk ruefully.

"I suppose so," he sighs, in such a manner as to indicate that he supposes rather the opposite.

After that he manages to smile, though, deliberate.

"Shall I bide here 'til I am sent for?"

By which he may or may not mean 'run about the castle in a generally nuisancey fashion.'

"Do as you like," Havelock says, with the calm of one who cares nothing for antique furniture. "I will come back a little later."

That bears repeating, he feels instinctively.

"Call for Igor, if you want anything."

Puck makes a bit of a face.

"I shall be thertain to."

(Igor is, of course, right behind him.

He does not look amused.)

"You rang, young mathter?"

Havelock looks mild.

He's good at that.

"Ah, Igor," he says, with a practised upper-class drawl.

...Look, some things are in the blood. So to speak. In any case, Havelock knew this manner from a child.

Puck turns slowly to Igor, in the general manner of a lion presented unexpectedly with a weak-ankled baby gazelle.

(Havelock's upper-class drawl is always unsettlingly hot.)

"Hullo," he says, cheerfully enough.

He turns his attention back to Havelock. "Well-- I am sure you may conduct your business without fear. I feel I am in quite capable hands."

Igor looks pleased for the first time, puffing his chest out a little.

"They were my great-uncle'th," he says modestly.

"Quite," Havelock agrees smoothly.

(Knowing Igors, they probably are of excellent quality.)

"I do hope you have a pleasant evening. I know Igor will strive as best he may for you."