#all. nikandros

[witchernjal]

The Keep. It was true that it shouldn't have been taken from them. He certainly didn't need a Vanguard of the Light telling him that information. Njal didn't like where they were now, but he also knew that there was no turning back. The best way forward was indeed forward. Focusing on the past didn't do anything but piss him off and remind him that mistakes had been made. He never took kindly to his own mistakes, let alone the ones of others. Nevertheless, he focused on what the Vanguard was saying, a brow raising once the other was done talking. Ah, he did have him for a bit there. Alleviating him of the pledge he had made sounded good in theory, but then what would he have? He'd still have the same amount of time left in his life, wouldn't he? He didn't even know why he gave it a second thought in the first place. "I've never much cared for the Light or the Dark. I just care about me."

"The Dark One has agents everywhere," Nikandros acquiesced, "take the Keep, for instance." This man was a witcher, young as he was, he'd know that the people of Nornwatch shouldn't have been overcome so quickly - that the gates should have held. "Iskaldrik." The nation fell in a fortnight, caught completely off guard, its people scattered - did they truly have no means of knowing an enemy was rising in the West? "Your King swears you to his service, and if he should fall to the Dark, then who does your Lord become?" A darkfriend with a formidable army. Orhan had been taken, sick for a long time, it would be better if he was dead. "You and your kind are strong, proud, and formidable. Lysara is your chance at freedom, true freedom- and there's no one standing in your way now." Nikandros stood confidently in front of the other and appraised him, "The Light can always use more able-bodied warriors to cull the tide of the Dark, among our oaths, there may even be a rite to alleviate you of your pledge."

[ninicaise]

when they first met laurent and nikandros's rivalry was one-sided bc laurent was just like really busy at the time with what he believed to be his impending inevitable death and whatnot. post-canon though when nikandros has warmed up to laurent it is laurent who now has beef with nikandros bc laurent's best friend is damen 100% but damen's best friend is nikandros. so you see the issue. "but damen is laurent's husband!" laurent doesn't give a shit. his best friend has another best friend who isn't laurent that shit is embarassing!! and nikandros must die about it

[lucky-clover-gazette]

kings rising highlights & annotations

chapter 5

indented text is from the book. some quotes have commentary, some do not. some comments are serious, and some are definitely not. most of them will only make sense to people who have read the series. and, like, there are spoilers. so please read the books first if you're interested!

also: part of the reason i'm doing such a close reading is to study cs pacat's style, especially in terms of how she does romance and erotica. there are "craft notes" that might seem weird, like i'm being redundant or restating something rather than analyzing, but those are more things that i want to remember/take away from the writing!

i'm going to tag these longer posts with "sam reads capri" in case anyone wants to read them all at once.

this is a google doc i wrote with overall content warnings for the captive prince series. it's not perfect, but i do think it's important to include.

Meetings of this kind could take months to arrange; the speed at which it happened now was dizzying, if you did not know Laurent.

i like how damen has immediately fallen back into his book 1 & early book 2 habit of giving laurent backhanded compliments

He sat on the audience throne, with a single oak seat empty beside him and Nikandros standing behind him.

you know, damen, i can think of someone who has recent experience with oak chairs…

When prince met prince there were protocols to observe. You did not greet each other alone in a diaphanous tent. Or thrown to the ground in chains in a palace viewing chamber.

and yet, given the choice between protocol and hanging out with laurent in a tent… i think damen is seriously struggling with which he would truly prefer. if not already decided, in his heart

The last time Akielon and Veretian royalty had met ceremonially had been six years ago, at Marlas, when the Regent had surrendered to Damen’s father, King Theomedes. Out of respect to the Veretians, Damen had not been present, but he remembered the satisfaction of knowing that Veretian royalty was bending its knee to his father. He had liked it. He had probably liked it, he thought, about as much as his men disliked what was happening today, and for the same reasons.

“he had liked it.” ouch. but also showing the subjectivity of damen and laurent’s shared history

It was not like the ecstatic entries Laurent had made into the towns and villages of Vere. No one swooned or cheered or threw flowers at his feet. The camp was silent.

Laurent strolled in, beautifully;

He came down the path that was cleared for him, as though walking unmolested through an Akielon camp was simply his right.

because it is, because he made it so 💅

Damen’s own men watched as a man might watch his enemy sauntering into his house, unable to prevent it.

“sauntering” perfect word choice

‘My brother of Akielos,’ said Laurent.

i know the “brother” thing is part of the “language of kings,” but it’s extra awkward between laurent and damen because 1) damen killed laurent’s actual brother and 2) they’ve literally fucked

Everyone knew that in the Akielon language, princes of foreign nations addressed each other in the fraternal.

and everyone also knows that damen killed laurent’s brother, and that damen and laurent fucked, so it’s weird for them too!

‘Our brother of Vere,’ said Damen.

oooh, damianos has to use the royal “we” since he’s king, further removing himself from his individual identity as damen. part of the kingship/“kingdom or this” theme, which we’re seeing a lot in book 3, for obvious reasons

He recognised Guion, the Regent’s most loyal Councillor, who, sometime in the last three days, had switched sides.

don’t worry about it

Damen lifted his hand, offering it palm up, with fingers outstretched. Laurent lifted his own hand calmly, resting it atop Damen’s. Their fingers met. He could feel the eyes of every Akielon in the tent on him. They proceeded slowly. Laurent’s fingers rested infinitesimally above his own. He felt the moment when the men around him realised what was going to happen. Reaching the dais, they sat, facing outward, the twin oak seats now twin thrones.

of course they had to make this announcement in the most dramatic, shocking, and tense manner possible. like idk, someone could have explained the alliance with words first, just to make sure everyone’s on the same page when the two leaders sit down beside each other. i get that this wordless performance might simply be the appropriate protocol, but damen and laurent still somehow manage to make it feel inappropriate for the occasion.

‘We have called you here today to witness our accord,’ said Damen, in a clear voice that carried over the noise.

i think i read somewhere that pacat compared this scene to a wedding, and that would totally make sense, both with the way its written and the way damen and laurent are allergic to conventional romance story plot beats. like yeah, this WOULD be their wedding, wouldn’t it.

‘Today we mark the alliance of our nations against those pretenders and usurpers who seek to assail our thrones.’

same energy as suspended twitter user donald j trump saying “i would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, september 11th.”

Laurent settled in as though the place had been made for him, and adopted the posture he typically favoured, one leg straight out before him, a fine-boned wrist balanced on the arm of the throne.

cunt (affectionate)

Explosions of outrage, furious exclamations, there were hands on the hilts of swords. Laurent did not look particularly concerned by this, or anything.

Coiled and personal, Laurent’s gift was a Veretian whip, made of gold.

i remember reading this for the first time and saying “GIRLLLL” out loud to my cat

He remembered Laurent’s hand giving a little tug on the rod, infuriating, more than that. He remembered having his legs kicked apart, his hands bound, the thick wood of the post against his chest, the lash about to fall on his back. He remembered Laurent, arranging himself against the opposite wall, settling his shoulders there, positioning himself to watch every slightest expression on Damen’s face. His gaze swung to Laurent. He knew he had flushed, he could feel the heat in his own cheeks. In front of the gathered generals, he couldn’t say, What have you done?

there is a strategic advantage to this move on laurent’s part (to be revealed in a minute), but it’s also just him being a petty bitch and trying to make damen flustered/triggered on the throne

Inside the tent, Akielon men and women were looking at one another questioningly, others craning their necks to see.

and actually, this gesture from laurent also tells damen something else: “you thought i was evil for flogging you, my brother’s killer? then refuse my offer for revenge against men who murdered your people, in front of your bloodthirsty nation who want to see it happen. where’s your moral high ground now, bitch.”

‘The whip and the men are Vere’s gift to Akielos,’ said Laurent, and then he turned his melting blue eyes on Damen. ‘The first fifty lashes are my gift to you.’

wouldn’t be the first time laurent gifted damen laurent lashes out of spite. which i’m sure laurent is very smug about, saying this now.

He couldn’t have stopped it, even if he had wanted to.

i do think some of laurent’s revenge here is putting damen in the same powerful/powerless position he (laurent) had been in for seven years in arles. just because laurent was a prince, doesn’t mean he wasn’t a captive too. ultimately, it was laurent's innate responsibility to his people, felt as a prince, that kept him from just leaving entirely. but in order to stay and survive, he had to play dirty and adapt with his uncle's depraved court.

now a king, damen finds himself similarly bound to his duties, in a time of war without the support of his father. and laurent gets some kind of satisfaction in reminding damen of this fall from grace by forcing him to endure the depravity of his own court.

A part of Damen’s mind recognised how perfectly this gift had been judged, the exquisite virtuosity of it: Laurent was delivering him a backhanded blow with one hand, and with the other, caressing his generals as a man scratches a dog under the chin.

isander foreshadowing. the ethical implications of that entire thing are going to be soooo tricky to unpack when i get to it

Damen heard himself say, ‘Vere is generous.’ ‘After all,’ Laurent held his gaze, ‘I remember what you like.’ The stripped men were tied down.

jesus FUCKING christ.

okay. here’s the thing. there’s literally no plausible interpretation of “i remember what you like” that makes this diplomatic or professional. the contrast of damen being so careful and disciplined with his language, and laurent just shooting out these insanely personal disses like it’s no big deal, is SOOOOOOO…

like. what the fuck is the audience thinking when they hear that line. it would be like watching a broadcast of two real-life world leaders doing a diplomatic ceremony, and one of them is like "i look forward to our partnership" and the other goes, at full volume and in the same exact tone of voice, "i know. you told me that last night."

Damen felt his pulse speed up as he realised he was going to watch Laurent have ten men flayed alive in front of him.

although i do seem to recall damen saying to himself back in like book 2 that he’d seen plenty of akielion soldiers flayed (flogged? is it the same thing?) as punished, and even commanded it once or twice, so…

‘Furthermore,’ said Laurent, his voice pitched to carry, ‘Fortaine’s bounty is yours. Its physicians will tend to your wounded. Its storehouses will feed your men. The Akielon victory at Charcy was hard-won. All that Vere gained while you fought is yours, and it is deserved. I will not profit from any hardship that befalls the rightful King of Akielos or his people.’

laurent is so smart. he knows how to work a crowd, even when it’s full of people who despise him. and he’s not even breaking a sweat.

You will lose Straton. You will lose Makedon, Nikandros had said, but he hadn’t counted on the fact that Laurent would arrive, and begin, dangerously, to control everything.

Bloody and pulped, the men, who were no longer men, were cut from the whipping blocks. That took time too, because more than one handler was needed to lift each man, and no one was quite certain which of the men were unconscious and which were dead.

you know, maybe no one should flay or flog anyone else. like, as a general rule. have we thought of that?

Damen said, ‘We have a personal gift too.’

the return of the antagonistic lamen “yes, and!” one of the few things from book 1 i truly miss

(also, i’m glad damen didn’t come into this tableau full intending to be professional and respectful. like he planned some petty freak shit too, in advance. he is still ant with a bindle, but he has his pride. he’s always had pride, even as a slave, especially as a slave. and if damen can’t have laurent as a lover or a friend, he can at least “enjoy” engaging in weird mind games with him instead. in a way, it’s kind of enrichment for them both.)

Last night, in the evening darkness of the tent, he had pulled this gift from his packs and looked down at it, feeling its weight in his hands. Once or twice before, he had thought about this moment. In his most private thoughts, he’d imagined it happening with the two of them alone together.

okay, never mind, i massively overestimated the spiteful pettiness from damen here :( he wanted to do this in another way, lovingly and privately. he's only doing it here and now because he has to, in order to earn his army's respect. ant with a bindle, through and through.

it’s okay buddy, you can marry laurent again post-canon. and then you won’t even be figuratively divorced while doing it!

He hadn’t imagined it like this, the private made public, and painful. He didn’t have Laurent’s ability to hurt with what mattered most.

and that's why this series works. see my long essay about damen as the heart of the series in chapter 4.

‘Every man here knows that you kept us as a slave,’ said Damen. He said it loudly enough that all those gathered in the pavilion tent could hear. ‘We wear your cuff on our wrist. But today, the Prince of Vere will prove himself our equal.’

THE ROYAL “WE” 💀 💀 💀

you know, technically it was kastor, an akielion, who made damen a slave and gave him specifically to laurent. they didn’t even have slaves in vere before akielos gifted them one. just sayin

He gestured and one of his squires came forward. It was still wrapped in cloth. He felt the sudden tension in Laurent, though there was no outward change. Damen said, ‘You asked for it, once.’ The squire drew back the cloth to reveal a gold cuff. He felt rather than saw the tightness in Laurent. The cuff, unmistakably, was the twin to the one Damen wore, altered last night by a blacksmith for Laurent’s finer wrist. Damen said, ‘Wear it for me.’ For a moment he thought Laurent wasn’t going to do it. But in public, Laurent had no recourse to refusal. Laurent extended his hand. And then waited, palm outstretched, his eyes lifting to meet Damen’s. Laurent said, ‘Put it on me.’

the fact that this isn’t even damen being mean, but just painfully earnest and hurt and yearning, clearly not what laurent expected at all… :( damen is refusing to play dirty, no matter how hard laurent goads him. and he doesn’t even want to hurt laurent, in fact he almost seems to long for him. that’s probably what surprises and confuses this self-loathing mean girl era laurent the most. he keeps trying (and succeeding) to push damen away, but damen still refuses to push back.

also, lamen hr complaint #7, made by everyone present besides damen and laurent. nothing specific, but just a vague feeling of "uh, was it professional to make us watch and participate in this?" after the fact

Every pair of eyes in the tent was on him. Damen took Laurent’s wrist in his hand. He would have to unlace the fabric and push the sleeve back. He could feel the devouring gazes of the Akielons in the tent, as hungry for this as they had been for the whipping. Rumours of Damen’s enslavement in Vere had spread like fire through the camp. To see the Veretian Prince wear the gold cuff of a palace bed slave in turn was shocking, intimate, a symbol of Damen’s ownership.

i love how these books manage to make things unbelievably hot, even when they have nothing to do with sex. they might as well be fucking right now and it would feel less intimate and personal. which actually might be the entire point of the veretian pets and akielion slaves being so horny on main all the time, to serve as a contrast to the deep eroticism of this.

Laurent’s blue eyes remained cool, but under Damen’s thumb, Laurent’s pulse was rabbit fast.

laurent came here expecting to control a crowd, not to be emotionally compromised and vulnerable in front of one. and he’s probably even more flustered/upset about the fact that damen was able to make him feel and react like this so publicly, without even appearing to have malicious or vindictive intent. what laurent serves as poison, is what damen serves him back as medicine. and while laurent can handle an angry crowd just fine, he has no means with which to defend himself from damen’s endearing love and care.

He pushed back the fabric. It was more bare skin than Laurent had ever shown in public, on display to the entire tent.

“you look like a whore” <3

another accidental damen reverse card, calling back to the way damen was publicly exposed in book 1. not even meant to hurt laurent but still probably landing like revenge.

‘Help me regain my kingdom, and I’ll see you King of Vere.’ Damen fitted the cuff to Laurent’s left wrist.

his teeny tiny little wrist…

‘I’m overjoyed to wear a gift that reminds me of you,’ said Laurent.

he may be flustered, but he’s still That Bitch.

The cuff locked into place. He didn’t withdraw his wrist, just left it leaned on the arm of the throne, laces open and gold cuff in full view.

it’s like they have those matching t shirts that say “i’m hers” and “i’m his,” except damen’s would say “i’m his” and laurent’s would say “i’m terrified of attachment” and then “i’m his” in significantly smaller text

Horns were blown the length of the ranks, and refreshments were brought. All that had to happen now was for Damen to endure the rest of the welcoming ceremony, and at the end, sign their treaty.

damen and laurent just invented divorced marriage! truly trailblazers of their time

A series of display fights were performed, marking the occasion with disciplined choreography. Laurent watched with polite attention, and underneath that, possibly real attention, as it would suit him to catalogue Akielon fighting techniques.

they should have a homoerotic fight sequence instead of a first dance

Across from Makedon, Vannes was taking refreshments. Vannes had been the Regent’s Ambassador to the all-female court of the Vaskian Empress, who it was said ripped men apart with her leopards for public sport.

VANNES HIIIIIII VANNES!!!!! THE GIRLS ARE HEREEEEEEE!!!!!!

(can you tell that i'm getting tired of the almost entirely male cast)

He thought of the delicate dealings with the Vaskian clans that Laurent had engineered, all along their ride south. He said, ‘Are you going to tell me what won Vannes to your side?’ Laurent said, ‘It’s no secret. She is to be the first member of my Council.’

laurent feminism win. any person of any gender can be politically valuable.

(i have more complex thoughts on women in this series, which i’ve written about before. i do think laurent feels a genuine sense of solidarity with most women in this series, specifically the disempowered ones like loyse and the sex workers at the brothel. but vannes is a special case, because she’s cruel and sadistic just like the men in power, so i don’t think laurent promising her a place in his council has anything more to do with her gender than the fact that the misogynistic regent wouldn’t do the same.)

‘And Guion?’ ‘I threatened his sons. He took it seriously. I had already killed one of them.’

“i had already killed one of them.”

laurent says this flippantly, but it's kind of freudian slip. laurent admits here that he sees himself as directly responsible for aimeric’s suicide. which is… a very laurent thing to think, and then to weaponize against himself inside his own head. i think a big part of the reason laurent is able to take insults so carelessly, and even insult himself as a deflection, is that he knows that nobody knows him better than himself, and that he’s thought worse things of himself than anyone else possibly could.

‘If this is truly an alliance between equals,’ said Makedon, ‘it’s a pity we can’t see a display of Veretian fighting.’ You are seeing one right now and you don’t even know it, thought Damen.

wait the first dance thing was a joke, but maybe i just vaguely recalled it actually happening??

also, love that thought from damen. perfect read of the scene, although i think people are probably a little more aware of their freakiness than damen seems to assume.

‘Or a contest,’ Makedon said. ‘Veretian against Akielon.’ ‘Are you proposing to challenge Lady Vannes to a duel?’ said Laurent.

kind of a desperate thing for laurent to say. a weak snarky deflection, basically admitting that he does not want to fight damen in front of everyone right now.

Blue eyes met brown. Laurent was relaxed on the throne, and Damen was too aware of what Makedon saw: a youth, less than half his age; a princeling who shirked battle; a courtier with lazy, indoor elegance.

despite appearances, damen knows that laurent is an excellent fighter and a suitable match for himself. again with the backhanded compliment!!

‘But we are like brothers.’ Laurent smiled. Damen felt Laurent’s fingertips touch his; their fingers slid into one another.

“alive brothers, to be precise. not that i’d know anything about having one of those, right, husband?”

side note, i 100% see post-canon laurent calling damen “husband” just as much as his actual name. it’s the perfect mix of condescending, performative, affectionate, and possessive. between them it would almost feel like an inside joke, which we all know damen and laurent enjoy. perfect.

He knew from long experience when Laurent was repressing everything into a single hard kernel of distaste.

for a second i was like, “why is laurent so against this, when he’s a good fighter?” but then i remembered that he got fucking stabbed in the shoulder like two days ago

Heralds brought the document, ink on paper, written in two languages, side by side so that neither one was atop the other. It was simply worded. It did not contain endless clauses and subclauses. It was a brief declaration: Vere and Akielos, united against their usurpers, allied in friendship and common cause.

not the marriage certificate…

He signed it. Laurent signed it. Damianos V and Laurent R, with a big loopy L.

oh of COURSE laurent makes a big loopy L, and of course damen makes specific note of it.

also, help. what the fuck do the letters stand for. they don’t have last names. i thought “V” could be like a roman numeral or something, but what the fuck is “R.” i know i could look this up and probably figure it out on my own, and so i will momentarily, but i did just want to say here that i’m stumped.

okay, got it. apparently R stands for “roi,” the french word for king, and v stands for “vasileus,” the greek word for king. fair enough!

‘To our wondrous union,’ said Laurent.

CUNT

And the Akielons were filing out too, the officers and the generals, the dismissed slaves, until he was alone with Nikandros, whose eyes were on him, furious, and with all the flat knowledge of an old friend.

nik private twitter vent #9, he livetweeted the lamen divorce wedding. also, a note on the nik private twitter bit: damen follows him, and is just happy that nik has a space to express himself :)

‘You gave him Delpha,’ said Nikandros. ‘It wasn’t—’ ‘A bedding gift?’ said Nikandros. ‘You go too far.’

to be fair, laurent would totally be down to negotiate land ownership with weird sex games

‘Do I? I remember Ianestra. And Ianora,’ said Nikandros. ‘And Eunides’s daughter. And Kyra the girl from the village—’

HE HAS A LIST.

‘That’s enough. I won’t talk about this.’

nikandros: why does the prince of vere call you babygirl damen: that’s enough. i won’t talk about this

‘You don’t need to talk, I have seen him,’ said Nikandros. ‘I don’t care what you’ve seen. It’s not what you think.’

nikandros saw that laurent was blonde and immediately heard the vine boom sound effect

‘I think he is beautiful and unobtainable, when your whole life, you’ve never had a refusal,’ said Nikandros.

not wrong, but not right either. damen genuinely loves and respects laurent, like as person and not just as a fuck. and pretty much anyone damen has wanted to have sex with in life has immediately agreed, because he’s a prince. being disinterested in sex without deep personal connection, and being a prince himself, laurent is different from damen's previous partners. he's less unobtainable, and more just, like, evenly-matched.

‘You have committed Akielos to an alliance because the Prince of Vere has blue eyes and blond hair.’

… multiple things can be true. those aren’t the only reasons.

damen likes blondes #9

And then, in a terrible voice, ‘How many times does Akielos have to suffer because you can’t keep your—’

nik private twitter vent #10:

Damen was angry, he wanted to smash the glass beneath his fingers. To let the pain of the glass cut into him.

having a “hurt” by nine inch nails moment. a “no children” by the mountain goats moment. yeah, i should make the lamen divorce playlists

‘Do you think—for a moment that I’d . . . Nothing,’ he said, ‘is more important to me than Akielos.’

i don’t want to be neglectful of the “kingdom or this” theme, because it does come up a lot. it’s just that, at this point, i don’t have much to add.

‘He is the Prince of Vere! He doesn’t care about Akielos! Are you saying you aren’t swayed by the thought of having him? Open your eyes, Damianos!’

nikandros, the slave sex user, should shut the fuck up about damen yearning for his “unobtainable” equal. damen isn’t the only one here with a blind spot.

‘You want him. It’s natural. He looks like one of the statues Nereus has in his garden, and he’s a prince of your own rank. He dislikes you, but dislike can have its own appeal,’ said Nikandros. ‘So bed him. Satisfy your curiosity. Then, when you have seen that mounting one blond is much like mounting another, move on.’

this is fucking infuriating. laurent is so much more than his pretty appearance, and a lot of his insecurity and problems with vulnerability revolve around the way people view him as a sexual object. his relationship with damen was founded on mutual respect and personal understanding. and damen knows this, and i’m sure he’s infuriated too. looking forward to his response.

The silence went on a moment too long.

looking forward to his response.

He had no intention of putting any of it in words. I told him I was a slave, and he pretended to believe me. I kissed him on the battlements. He had his servants bring me to his bed. It was our last night together, and he gave himself to me. He knew all the while it happened that I was the man who killed his brother.

right, damen is still confused by laurent more than anything else at this point. he doesn’t know where either of them stand. the only thing he recalls here is a sense of disorientation, trying to align what he’s learned about laurent’s internal workings with the way he’d interacted with damen physically and emotionally. and the puzzle pieces don’t fit, so he doesn’t want to think or talk about it. and he doesn’t really blame nikandros for his confusion or crass description of laurent, because damen still doesn’t understand how laurent could have even allowed any of the sexual things between them to happen in the first place.

also, unfortunately, i think we can gather from the way nikandros speaks here that damen has spoken this way about partners in the past. and that’s probably part of why it doesn’t bother him as viscerally as it bothers me.

‘Yes I lay with him,’ said Damen. ‘It was one night. He barely relaxed the whole time. I will admit I—wanted him.

and this probably isn’t how damen is used to talking about sexual partners, so it comes out awkward and insecure and weirdly earnest. better than being a douchebag, so i’m calling it character development.

'But he is the Prince of Vere and I am the King of Akielos. This is a political alliance. He approaches it without emotion. So do I.’

ngl this is frustrating, esp when i’m reading so slowly and taking notes… not a problem with the writing at all, but just 😬 😬 😬 how many times do i have to point out that these two men are emotionally unintelligent and needlessly evasive before they figure out their shit, put down their defenses, and talk to each other

‘It’s not the same.’ ‘Laurent is not Jokaste?’

😬 😬 😬

i am trying not to waste too much of my time with this scene but he’s wrong, we all know nik is wrong by implying they’re the same because we know laurent better than nik does etc etc etc oh my god this is exactly why there’s a trial scene at the end and damen gets to be laurent’s defense attorney isn’t it

‘I do. I know,’ said Damen, ‘who he is, and that it means I cannot have him.’

you’re literally a king, if anyone is qualified to CHANGE THAT it’s you

‘No. Listen Damianos. You trust blindly. You see the world in absolutes—if you believe someone a foe, nothing will dissuade you from arming up to fight. But when you give your affections . . . When you give a man your loyalty, your faith in him is unswerving. You would fight for him with your last breath, you would hear no word spoken against him, and you would go to the grave with his spear in your side.’

this is true, at least. nik knows damianos well, he just doesn’t know laurent or our damen. but as i myself have commented, damianos and damen are ultimately both the same guy, even though he’s evolved throughout the series.

‘And are you so different?’ said Damen. ‘I know what it means that you are riding with me. I know that if I am wrong you will lose everything.’

“i will fight for him just as you fight for me, so i suppose that makes us both noble fools.”

He said, ‘The Prince of Vere.’ When he looked at Damen again, it was a sidelong glance under his raised brows, and for a moment they were boys again, on the sawdust, throwing spears that fell six feet short of the men’s hide targets.

“i can’t believe you hit that.”

‘Can you imagine,’ said Nikandros, ‘what your father would say if he knew?’

this feels more playful than the previous conversation, a bit lighter. both an admonishment and like a “ooooooh you’re so baaaaad >:)”

‘Yes,’ said Damen. ‘Which girl from the village was called Kyra?’ ‘They all were. Damianos. You can’t trust him.’

having a hard time reading this. my best interpretation: damen’s question is a reference to the chillest part of the previous conversation, nik’s list, in order to un-harsh the vibe. poking fun at nik for keeping a list, and poking fun at himself for having a type.

nik’s response is still pretty unchill, implying that all the people on that list are interchangeable and harmless. unlike laurent, who damen needs to get over because he’s untrustworthy and dangerous, despite also being pretty and blonde.

‘I know that.’ He finished the wine. Outside, there were hours of daylight left, and work to be done.

damen has been pretty consistently self-aware about the fact that he can’t trust laurent to be entirely honest about his intentions or plans, but he (damen) still cares for him (laurent) regardless. and he’s been living with that conflict and just kind of saying “this is fine” like the dog in that meme. this scene, i think, is nikandros basically walking into the room and trying to extinguish the fire. which nik is uniquely capable of doing, because he understands damen enough to notice the things that his friend is ignoring.

‘You’ve spent a morning with him and you’re warning me off. Just wait,’ said Damen, ‘until you’ve spent a full day with him.’ ‘You mean that he improves with time?’ ‘Not exactly,’ said Damen.

damen loves his blonde nightmare malewife so much <3 nik is going to scream into a paper bag

[delfeur]

[laurent-ofvere]

post canon nikandros/laurent fic

Nikandros did not like the Prince.

That was the case, simply put. He didn’t like his temperament, he didn’t like his arrogance. He didn’t like his overly opulent clothing, his overly complicated nature, the way every part of him made it impossible to forget for one, singular moment that he was Veretian.

Frankly put, Nikandros could not stand the Prince. He thought he was a viper of a man, not much more than a pretty face and a too sharp tongue. Every one of Akielos’s kings would kneel over if they saw the glamorized pet that had taken their throne. His way of solving the problems his country was faced with were underhanded. Disgraceful. The fact alone that he’d stepped foot into the Kingsmeet brought shame to his country.

But he was Nikandros's better. Rank was not something Nikandros could ignore, nor was the incessant reminder that the Prince would not be going anywhere, not anytime soon. And so, Nikandros tolerated him. He ignored him when he could, and ignored his own better judgment when he could not. And throughout it all, he did not like him.

Come Springtime, the Prince would ascend and become the King of Vere and Akielos, alongside Damianos. It would be a week of celebrations, a week of watching the country cheer and chant and rejoice over the wondrous union.

It would mark the half year of when Nikandros had started fucking him.

[leynaeithnea]

The emotions Im feeling right now

[austenwazright]

I particularly just find Nikandros aversion to Laurent hilarious. Like, stop and think about it, his king was murdered by his own brother and that traitorous blonde snake, his country is being stolen and he doesn't even know which one of the main players are worse, the hateful jealous brother? The blonde bitch? The fucking veretian?! And HE is having to work with Vere!! With their stupid prince!! And he has to deal with all the border problems, and Makedon, and he just lost his brother, his brother the one true king!! And then there he is, keeping up his side of the bargain and OH MY GOD is that Damianos??? How can the gods be this kind??? Things will be ok now, the fucking kyros who were all so happy to roll over for kastor will change their minds, the future is bright again, his best friend is alive, Akielos is saved!! Oh no who's that?? It's blonde and blue eyed and... and a bitch!! And Damen has his puppy eyes out!! No not again, I can't deal with it all again!!!

[laurents-laces]

It's funny how you can tell when Laurent has really managed to take someone off guard in Akielos because they get so flustered they call him Exalted instead of Your Highness. Like that time an Akielon bannerman tried to argue that no one could possibly be ice-cold enough to sleep with their brother's killer, and Laurent revealed the cuff on his wrist and announced that yes, he actually is that heartless. Or that time Pallas walked in on him and Damen.

Then there's Nikandros, who doesn't ever actually address Laurent by a title. I guess he'll have to once they're in a more formal setting, but for now Laurent is just you, said very angrily.

Damen doesn't provoke people like Laurent does so it's less of a thing with him. But he once showed up unexpectedly at the medical tent and startled Paschal into calling him Your Majesty. And Guion insists on calling him Your Majesty all the time, probably because he's being an ass and he doesn't want to use an Akielon title.

[rosyandraw]

Please write the damen thesis

I fucking love a good Captive Prince meta and as you didn’t give me any direction or specific topic that you wanted to see I’m just going to have a play around with the narrative themes and Damen's arc, so here’s a 3k late night caffeine induced ramble about Damen that might not be 100% coherent:

Damen and the Sword of Damocles or: The Burden of Duty.

In the legend Damocles made the mistake of commenting about the apparent happiness of the tyrant king Dionysus. Dionysus who, in actuality, is terrible and a big fat emo, figured he’d invite Damocles to dinner where Damocles was pampered, spoilt, and treated to a good time. However, Dionysus had hung a big ass sword over Damocles, hanging by a single hair and it could fall at any moment. Once Damocles noticed, he realised he couldn’t enjoy any of the dinner any more or any of the amazing things happening to him and around him.

The sword of Damocles has come to mean imminent danger. In the legend it was a symbol of the price of power. Power is a burden and as long as you have it you must constantly be vigilante, no desire or earthly pleasure will come without the knowledge that at any moment it can disappear, it might even mean very little because of it. Almost as if the ultimate price of power is the sacrifice of the things you might want.

And therein lies the central themes of Captive Prince: power, and duty vs desire.

Damen, much like Damocles in the beginning of his tale with Dionysus, was completely blind to the danger that was hanging over him. Damen didn’t so much notice the sword hanging over him as Jokaste pointed a big neon flashing sign at it in all its horrendous glory.

Damen is, for the first time, confronted by the idea that power is not a stable or steady notion. Or state of being. And he had, until this point, taken it for granted. Blind to the reality of what it meant and the sword hanging over him.

That’s not to say I think Damen is completely naïve. He knows power has costs, but his own specific psychology allows it be far away, it just is what it is for him. Something he just has to do and so locks it away. It’s the battle at Marlas: a job to be done. It’s being separate from others both personally and professionally (separate from his men, separated from Nikandros and not being able to serve at the Kings Meet, no close connections etc), it’s having to be perfect (clearly extensively trained and educated) and working hard and duty above all. But the threat?

The throne lies in the shadow of the gallows and Damen is for the first time recognising how precarious power is, how poisonous, how close the threat can fester.

Damen’s entire journey from then on, he is in a continued state of fight or flight, and that sword hanging over him does not get any lighter or any less perilous. (I could likewise talk about Damen and Laurent’s super interesting fight or flight reactions but that is a topic for another time lmao)

Damen’s journey, and his arc throughout the trilogy, can be stripped back to the notion of power and his attempt to regain his own. It’s loss, it’s meaning, how he defines himself and the world and what he understands of it: all of these relate to Damen’s understanding of, and struggle with, his own power. In its most basic form Damen loses his crown and his journey is about retaking it. The crown, we know, is the ultimate symbol of power. It’s all very blatant. Especially when coupled together with power in its most physical sense as one of Damen’s most frequented attributes from scene to scene. Damen is powerful, strong, and wilful, people listen to him, he has an unshakeable determination and has a pretty astounding effect on those around him even when he is unaware of it. Damen, we are told, is a King. Not just by birthright but in action. He has all the makings and markings of a leader. Because of this Damen always has some sense of power.

We see it over and over in a myriad of different scenes: Damen’s true sense of power is innate to himself and his abilities. Especially with a sword in hand. Damen is all wrapped up quite obviously in the theme.

However, though Damen’s journey to regain his power is the main focus of the narrative, it’s not his arc. Damen’s real journey, his internal struggle, is all about his identity.

Again, at its most basic, it seems heavy handed to say so: Damen spends the mass majority of the books hiding his identity after all, so of course it’s a theme, of course his slow decisive fight for his own power walks hand in hand with clawing back his identity. However, as we know, by the end of the trilogy we are very much aware that Damen’s identity journey was never about the crown. It was never about coming clean or using his real name and title. It was never about the unveiling of himself to all of those around him to be known. It was about discovering himself. Damen the man and not Damianos the prince.

And this dichotomy sets the stage for the real journey of Captive Prince: duty vs desire.

Damianos of Akielos: the rightful king, the son and heir, The Noble Man. He is the consummate Crown Prince, a military commander, an astute -almost legendary- warrior. The Perfect Son. The man who cares what people see of him, who is bound by tradition and expectation. The face of power and duty.

Damen the man: gives no fucks what people see of him, desperate for affection but afraid to ask for it, lost and full of doubt, empty no matter how he indulges himself. Almost self destructive and negligent with his own safety as if he has something to prove, as if he’s always striving for something, mad at his father, confused by his brother, indulgent of his own wants without thought because it’s easier than questioning. His dead mother’s son, his father’s hope. Compassionate and protective and innately aware of other peoples vulnerability. This is his internal face, the man and not the crown. Full of desire and emotionally broken.

Damen has, for a long time, kept himself at arms-length. Nikandros is his only real friendship, his tragic family life is nothing but duty and trauma. His love life is full of sex and no emotional intimacy. He never, not once, considered Jokaste as anything but his mistress. It wasn’t Jokaste that broke his heart, it was Kastor. She is explicitly his mistress; someone he is intimate with only during sex. She’s not his future and she knows this. She will never be Damen’s queen; it never even crosses his mind.

I assume Damen, like most princes, thought he’d marry for duty. A political marriage that would ultimately not be his choice, so why bother getting close?

This is where the masculine culture of Akielos would come into play and we could spend hours here playing around with the heteronormative aspects of both Akielos and Vere (normalised queer sexual relationships aside there are deep underlying mentalities here surrounding the themes of submission and masculinity and what is Acceptable. I liken it to Rome in this respect: totally cool to stick your dick wherever if you are a citizen, not so cool to take a dick unless you are in a category Roman's viewed as inferior, but that's an entire essay unto it self). This is yet one more place wherein Damen struggles and where his wants don't necessarily align with the expectation of him. Bottom line: Damen doesn't really personally give a shit, but Damianos does. And we see this by the Akielon (Nikandros and Makedon) reaction to Damen's cuffs, scars and circumstance and how Damen reacts to these things both as his own person, and as a man who knows how Akielos will perceive it.

Segregation, compartmentalisation, and separation. These three are the main components of Damen’s trauma manifesting in his personality. I could talk about his psychology, his trauma, how and why this happened. But that is a different discussion for a different day. Right now, all we need to be aware of is that Damen does this in every single aspect of his being and within the narrative.

He does it with sex (separating the physical and the emotional), his trauma (stowing it away and dismissing it instead of feeling it, as if acknowledging and feeling were one and the same), with politics (slavery, Akielos vs Vere), with his father (the king vs the man), with his brother (the resentment he is aware of vs the desperate want of his brother), what he thinks he needs vs what he wants.

Damen never sees himself as a slave. Never not once, does he doubt himself in this regard. He doesn’t feel it. He doesn’t allow himself to feel it. Not truly, there is never a breakdown, never a moment in the first two books where this terrible tragic traumatic thing gets the better of him.

This is because Damen has always split himself in half this way. We see it again and again, explicitly, and implicitly, Damen is a man of two faces.

Damianos the Crown and Damen the man. This is how he keeps himself so separate from the shackles he finds himself in. Because it’s not him, not really, and only someone used to compartmentalising aspects of themselves could do what Damen does in Vere as easily as he does.

It is no surprise that the real meeting of those two faces is what causes Damen to (finally) spiral. Not well, of course, Damen’s too controlled to spiral fully, but Damen only loses his shit a handful of times in all 3 books (and considering his chronic fight or flight is popping the fuck off it's actually super impressive but I digress).

I’m talking the out-of-control kind of loses his shit, and almost all of them are for Laurent. These are: the kidnappers in Vask when they lay suggestive hands on Laurent and Damen reacts to Laurent’s innate sense of vulnerability in this regard, it’s not jealousy, it’s because Damen is, at heart, a protector.

The Kings Meet, where Damen’s rage for Laurent sees him absolutely lose it at one of his Kingdoms most sacred places. Again, it’s not jealousy, it’s not even something he digests because fundamentally Damen already knew. He just hadn’t confronted it, allowed himself to think of it, so when it’s spelled out for him he doesn’t question, he just reacts. With rage. For Laurent.

There are only 2 other times Damen really loses it on page where it comes out as pure Viking Berserker rage: Charcy and with Makedon. Both of these times he has been pushed to the end of his emotional tether and he snaps.

Which is odd for Damen, who has so much control. It’s no surprise these things occur after the clash of his two faces when Nikandros and an Akielon army kneels for him at Ravenel. Charcy, where the man in love is determined and worried and willing to hope for Laurent. Where the Rightful King is very fucking aware that he should be heading south and this battle is not tactically something he needs to do or even that he should do and that his men are certainly not on board with.

Makedon, we know, is a target for Damen’s rage because he is there. But he’s not really attacking Makedon, it’s everything, the accumulation of hit after hit that breaks because, again, Damen is at the absolute end of his emotional tether. With Laurent, with Kastor, with Jokaste, with his position, with the future opening up before him where he knows he can’t win the way he wants. Because at that point, his real wants are impossible. And the prospect opening up before him is cold and empty and a crown he should never have had to fight for, against a man he loves even now despite everything. Abusers, we know, are good at getting that response from their victims.

If Damen had had those two aspects of himself confronted before he fell in love with Laurent then nothing would have changed. He could have walked away safe and sound and kept his world view and his deeply unhealthy coping mechanisms entirely intact.

But that’s not what happens. Damianos the Crown and Damen the man can no longer hide from each other by the time reality comes calling at Ravenel.

Because he does fall for Laurent and he recognises that it is directly in conflict with his mission, with his duty and his crown. Damen’s narrative journey to regain his own power is tied explicitly and irrevocably to his identity struggle and his love story. His love for Laurent is the trigger that bursts the dam in his head and he sees himself, finally, as a man split in half. Is forced to confront the dissonance within himself as Laurent’s lover and as his own man.

In the end of the legend Damocles decided he would never want to trade places with the King, realising that power was, in fact, a burden, and he would rather enjoy his life.

But Damen is the King. Unlike Damocles he already has power. His struggle then, is not only about recognising the burden that comes with power, but reconciling his world view to include the sword he had been fortunate enough to never really notice.

It becomes a struggle between the opposing wants within Damen: duty and power vs love and desire and how to reconcile them.

In other words: A kingdom, or this?

Damen, like Damocles, learns his lesson. Hard and fast but it takes a while for him to frame that in his reality. More importantly, to frame Laurent in that reality.

Because Laurent is not blind to that sword. He has been painfully aware of that sword for a long time. His though, his less of a burden and more of a threat, he lets the sword hang or he dies. There is no alternative for Laurent.

Laurent’s struggle, similar and yet so contrasting to Damen, is that he has ignored the feast entirely. He indulged once, saw the sword and concentrated on nothing else from then on. Laurent’s reconciliation between duty and desire is not the same as Damen’s, in fact it is much more blatant. He doesn’t let himself feel desire but for life (power) to mean anything he has to let it in eventually or else it’s empty. Nothing but the constant anxious vigilance of waiting for danger and despair.

It's no life.

A kingdom or this then, duty vs love, becomes a motif for Damen reconciling the parts of himself that are newly discovered to him with the man his father, Nikandros, Akielos, wants or needs him to be. To Damen, duty and his fight for the crown is Damianos the prince. It’s his birth right, it’s who he is, who he was raised to be and Akielos is his home. His everything. Except Damen, the man, knows that it’s empty, that being perfect meant nothing in the end and as a man, he wants love. Would throw everything else away for it.

Reconciling those two opposing but equally as devastatingly consuming wants becomes the focal point of King’s Rising.

The merging, of course, narratively, comes at Ravenel. When Damen watches Nikandros and his men go to their knees for Damianos. The internal merging however, the reconciliation, comes at Karthas. With Laurent, when he uses, for the first time, both of Damen’s names in bed. That is the moment we see Damen stitch himself together, realign himself, a camera coming into focus. Damianos the King, the representation of duty, meeting Damen the man and the representation of desire. Quite literally, coming together.

We know this is the moment for Laurent too, for vastly different reasons, but Laurent makes his choices here too. He already knows what he’s going to do here, and so does Damen. The choice has been made, the stage is set, the final ball is in motion.

The readers are, of course, rooting for both. For Damen to win his crown and keep Laurent. We know there will be a choice now and when it does finally come to that choice Damen and Laurent are on the same page and make the same choices. Winning their crowns was a happy accident. Because they both choose this.

Laurent gave himself up for Damen without hesitation. He chose love. Damen throws himself on the mercy of the court knowing he was likely going to die just so that Laurent would not be alone. Those are not the choices of Kings. It’s not duty. Those are the choices made with love and with little regard for anything but that love.

Laurent, we know, knows that Damen can beat the Regent. The Regent has not won against him yet. It’s somewhat tactical but it’s hypothetical, a conciliation or justification of the sacrifice he’s making. Getting the Regent out of Akielos, giving himself up, makes Damen safer, because Laurent knows that Damen retaking the throne in Akielos is a matter of time, they won’t stand against him for long, he knows this. The Regent muddies the waters. But Damen is, canonically, the only person who has baffled and beat the Regent from day one. Laurent is that confident in Damen. But, as I said, those are his justifications. Not his reasons.

Damen doesn’t even try to justify it; he goes so that Laurent is not alone. That’s his choice. Winning their crowns was an afterthought.

Damen doesn’t do it blindingly, he is painfully aware of the sword hanging over him, the consequences of those choices, but it is the moment where Damen decides that the feast in front of him is still worth it. If the sword falls it falls. It doesn’t matter what he does, if it’s going to fall it will fall regardless but if he doesn’t take what’s in front of him then the rest will mean absolutely fucking nothing. It is, for them both, a very conscious decision.

It does, of course, end with the bells. A two-fold symbol we all have been conditioned to accept as an ending: a Disney inspired Pavlovian response. It’s the hero’s arc complete, it’s the journey’s end, the signal of both a victory, and in every fairy-tale ever: a wedding.

Or: a kingdom and this, the real merging.

So there we go, hope you like it dear. You're lucky it was this and not word vomit about the sword throw scene because it very nearly was my dude.

[aspoonofsugar]

Have yo read Captive Prince? What do you think of Laurent's character? Does he foil any other characters (besides being mind to Damen's heart)?

Hi!

Yes, I have and I love Laurent <3 He has the most complex arc and is at the centre of the major conflict, so he foils several characters, who are used to explore his personality and to progress his arc.

In general, I would say three major jungian archetypes are used in Laurent's story:

Inner Child = the childish and most vulnerable part of a person, which is influenced by one's younger years. Laurent's inner child is embodied primarily by Nicaise, but also by every boy abused and raped by the Regent.

Shadow = the repressed part, which the person doesn't want to aknowledge. Laurent has severals: the Regent himself, Aimeric and Jokaste. They all embody Laurent's most negative side.

Anima/Animus = the anima is the female side of a man and the animus is the male side of a woman. It is usually used in romantic subplots to show two characters growing closer. Here, it is embodied by the bond between Laurent and Damen.

Laurent's arc is one where he integrates with Damen, but to succeed he also needs to save his inner child and to face his shadow. Or to fail and try again.

BROTHERS AND LOVERS

Laurent and Damen foil each others' brothers:

Laurent foils Kastor: both are the unfavourite child, but Laurent adores Auguste, while Kastor resents Damen. At the same time, Damen perceives them in opposite ways. Damen initially doesn't aknowledge the good in Laurent, while he doesn't see the evil in Kastor. It is as Nikandros says. At the beginning of the story, Damen sees things in black and white. By getting to know Laurent he learns complexity and that the world is in shades of grey. He integrates his own heart with Laurent's mind. His own idealism with Laurent's wisdom.

Damen foils Auguste: both are strong fighters and beloved leaders, able to inspire others. The moment Auguste dies, Laurent loses his heart and it is only with Damen that he learns to trust and to open up again. It is also through Damen that he overcomes Auguste's death and his sense of inferiority, which is carefully nurtured by the Regent. Laurent is brilliant, but his arc is about showing vulnerability and find new faith in others. He integrates his mind with Damen's heart. His wisdom with Damen's idealism.

So, as you said, Laurent is the mind to Damen's heart and has to rediscover his own interiority. He needs to love himself again. Only by doing so he can truly escape the Regent and grow up. This process of growth is the main focus of the trilogy and it happens twice:

Laurent fails to grow in the second book

Laurent succeeds and completes his growth in the third book

Let's see how.

NICAISE AND AIMERIC = LAURENT'S DARKEST HOUR

Laurent's darkest hour happens at the end of the second book. This is common for a trilogy. It is not rare for the second installement to end in a negative way. Now, The Prince's Gambit doesn't end badly. Laurent and Damen win and grow closer. Laurent even frees Damen and they have sex for the first time. Still, psychologically, Laurent risks a huge brakdown because of Nicaise and Aimeric's deaths.

Nicaise and Aimeric are two parts of Laurent:

-Nicaise is Laurent's child-self. He is petty and capricious, but he cares deeply. And yet, he can't show any vulnerability. The moment he does, he is killed. Moreover, Nicaise plaids for Laurent because he deep down thinks the Regent won't kill him. This is true for Laurent, as well:

"I didn't think he's really try to kill me" Laurent said "After everything... even after everything".

-Aimeric is Laurent's shadow. He is a young man, whose life is defined by the Regent's sexual abuse. Aimeric confuses the Regent's imitation of love with true care and fights to get it back, even if it means hurting people, who truly love him. Unconsciously, this is true for Laurent too:

"You play his games like you want to show him you can. Like you're trying to impress him. Is that it? You need to beat him at his own game? You want him to see you do it? At the expense of your positions and the lives of your men? Are you that desperate for his attention? Well, you have it. Congratulations. You must have loved it that he was obsessed enough with you that he killed his own boy to get at you. You win."

Damen's speech to Laurent is basically the same one Laurent gives Aimeric. Aimeric shines light on this specific aspect of Laurent. Laurent too still loves his uncle. He too wants his attention and on some level thinks of his uncle as his only family:

"When you lost your brother, was there someone to confort you?" "Yes," said Laurent. "In a way".

So, Nicaise and Aimeric embody Laurent's vulnerability. Nicaise is the child who still feels safe with the Regent. Aimeric is the young adult, who wants the Regent back. Both are Laurent. This is why Laurent wants to rescue them both. He grows close to Nicaise and tells him he will buy his contract and free him. He accepts Aimeric into his guard and refuses Damen's advice to send him away. And yet, the Regent uses them both against Laurent. He kills Nicaise and has Aimeric betray Laurent.

Laurent wants to help both Nicaise and Aimeric and the Regent tells him he can't. Just like he can't save himself.

According to the Regent's narrative:

Laurent is fond of Nicaise, but eventually leaves him alone out of selfishness

Laurent welcomes Aimeric in, but this is a blind spot that is used against him

By using vulnerable and abused kids, the Regent conveys to Laurent two messages. On the one hand Laurent isn't selfless enough to truly save anyone. He isn't good enough to be a protector like Auguste. On the other hand he is still foolish enough to trust others. He isn't smart enough to be a mastermind like the Regent. Too cruel and too foolish is how the Regent wants Laurent to see himself. So, that Laurent would feel trapped and cut others out.

And Laurent almost gives in, but is stopped by Damen:

"You tried to hurt me, and you have. I wish you would see that what you have just done to me is what your uncle is doing to you."

Damen goes through to Laurent and stops him from losing himself. He saves him from turning into a copy of the Regent.

THE REGENT

The Regent is Laurent's negative foil. He is who Laurent could become if he gave in to his worst instincts. As a matter of fact Laurent shares many similarities with his uncle:

Both are very intelligent master manipulators

Both are able to seize people's weaknesses and to use them

Both can be cruel and ruthless

Both tend to complicate things

This isn't by chance because the Regent does his best to break Laurent's heart and to warp his mind into a frailer copy of his own. He needs Laurent to think like him and to follow his rules, so that he can beat his nephew. This is why the Regent spends the years after Marlas by abusing Laurent in different ways.

The Regent's abuse has a double nature:

It has a sexual component: the Regent rapes Laurent multiple times as a child and shows possessiveness of him as a young adult. For example, many of his assassin attempts come with a sexual element. The assassins instructed to rape Laurent by using a drogue the Regent clearly used on his nephew as a child. Having Laurent and Damen sleep together, so that Laurent would eventually kill himself. Twisting Laurent and Damen's love story, as if to frame Laurent as dirty and despicable. Spreading voices about Laurent's supposed romantic feelings for Auguste. And so on...

It has an emotional component: the Regent keeps mentioning Auguste, which hurts Laurent in two ways. On the one hand it doesn't let him move on from his brother's death. On the other hand it drills into Laurent he isn't as good as the previous prince

"I hate to see you grown up like this," said the Regent, "when you were such a lovely boy."

The Regent basically blames Laurent for both growing up (physically) and not growing up (psychologically). He manipulates him by treating him as a child, while implying he isn't pure as a child anymore. The result is that Laurent hates himself.

This self-hate manifests itself in recklessness, suicidal tendencies and self-destroying behaviors. Like Laurent lashing out at others, when he is actually furious at himself. This is why specifically Laurent breaks Aimeric by using their shared trauma as a weapon. He hurts both Aimeric and Jord (who hasn't done anything, but being loyal to Laurent) because to truly face Aimeric means to accept himself and he can't.

Symbolically, Laurent kills Aimeric like he is slowly killing himself. This is why Aimeric's death happens after the reveal of Nicaise's murder by the Regent. Laurent kills Aimeric, just like the Regent kills Nicaise. Both victims are abused kids with frail and unstable senses of self, who deep down seek love and vulnerability. The lesson Laurent needs to learn is that he can't save the Nicaise within himself, if he doesn't help the Aimeric too. This is why it is important that Laurent is able to express empathy for Aimeric and to recognize he is a wounded person, just like Nicaise:

"Nicaise knew that when he got too old, he would be replaced." "Like Aimeric," said Damen. Into the long silence that stretched out between them, Laurent said: "Like Aimeric."

It is the first step to aknowledge his own hurt too.

AUGUSTE WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH

The second step is instead to face Auguste's ghost. Laurent's big brother is a double edged sword for the Prince. On the one hand Laurent deeply loves Auguste and is devastated by his dead. On the other hand his idealization of Auguste is unhealthy and leads to Laurent undervaluing himself.

These powerful contradictive feelings come to the surface in his "sparring" match with Damen. There, Laurent for once is able to show all his anger and grief. He lets it all out and is forced to accept he would have never been able to kill Damen in a fight. Still, another realization comes to the surface:

"I know," said Laurent, "that I was never good enough." Damen said, "Neither was your brother." "You're wrong. He was -" "What?" "Better than I am. He would have -" Laurent cut himself off. He pressed his eyes closed, with a breath of something like laughter. "Stopped you." He said it as though he could hear the ludicrousness of it.

Damen's words might seem cruel, but they are actually necessary because they break Laurent's internalised idolisation of Auguste. Laurent has been brought up with the convinction that Auguste is somehow better than him. This idea is present even before Auguste's death because of their father's favouritism. The early loss of his brother and subsequent abuse only makes this feeling stronger. Hence why Damen refusing this helps Laurent grow. Damen is the first one to see Laurent as his own person and to give him a choice:

Damen picked up the discarded knife, and when Laurent's eyes opened, he put it in Laurent's hand. Braced it. Drew it to his own abdomen, so that they stood in a familiar posture. Laurent's back was to the post. "Stop me," said Damen.

Laurent chooses to give up on his revenge. He chooses his present relationship with Damen over Auguste's ghost. He starts wishing for something positive for himself. He starts caring for himself. He starts looking toward a possible future.

JOKASTE = OPENING THE DOOR

To reach this future Laurent has to face Jokaste, who is really another version of Laurent:

"You're lucky we're alike," Jokaste said, stepping down. She and Laurent looked at one another like two reptiles.

Not only that, though, she is Aimeric and Nicaise combined in a single character:

Like Aimeric, she betrays a lover for selfish reasons (apparently)

Like Nicaise, she is caught up in a power struggle and has to choose the side, which ensures her survival, even if it means negate her heart to do so

"You mean, the only difference between us is that I chose the wrong brother?" As the stars began to drift across the sky, Laurent thought of Nicaise, standing in the courtyard with a handful of sapphires. "I don't think you chose," said Laurent.

This time Laurent is able to see this. He empathizes with Jokaste and gives her freedom. He opens her the door:

"We're alike. You said that. Would you have opened the door for me? I don't know. But you opened one for him."

In this way Laurent understands the Aimeric he could not understand and saves the Nicaise he could not save. By the end, Aimeric (Jokaste) is shown mercy and Nicaise (her baby) survives. Laurent gives Jokaste and her family a future. And in this way, he symbolically gives himself a future and a family. He opens his own door.

THE TRIAL

The climax of the trilogy is Laurent's trial in Ios. This choice is interesting on multiple levels:

It is an inversion of the ending of book 1, where Damen is blamed for the assassination attempt on Laurent's life and Laurent protects him. In fatc, it is not by chance that Damen mentions the episode in his initial defense of Laurent.

It shows Damen and Laurent's integration. As a matter of fact Damen is the one who realizes Paschal has the key to dethrone the Regent. He is able to do so because through Laurent he has learnt to observe others, to understand them and to empathize with them. Laurent instead selflessly gives everything up for the person he loves and bravely faces off the Regent with no plan, but simply with his heart. The Regent tries to turn it into a weakness and to force Laurent to give it up, but fails. Finally, he and not Damen is the one who fights Kastor and kills him. He uses the skills he has learnt for his revenge and uses them to protect Damen, instead. He chooses life and love over death and hate.

Most importanlty, though, the trial starts as a farce, but by the end it becomes a fair administration of justice, which punishes the criminal and recognizes the innocent. Let's see how this change happens.

NICAISE = VICTORY

Laurent wins not because of his mind, but because of his heart. Specifically, he wins because of the relationships he builds and of his ability to empathize with the humblest people, those nobody cares about.

First of all, Laurent obviously wins thanks to Damen. It is Damen choosing him over his kingdom that makes it possible to the tides to turn. So, it is because Laurent overcome his internalized hate for Damianos and slowly comes to accept and love him, that he is saved in the end. In a sense, the night where he has to choose if to let Damen die or to save him out of loyalty in volume 1 is when Laurent chooses who he wants to be. He can let a man he hates die without risking anything, like the Regent would. Or he can save that man our of a sense of fairness, like Auguste would. Laurent chooses the latter and makes the first true move towards his victory.

Secondly, Laurent is able to touch the councilors' sense of morality thanks to Loyse, Aimeric's mother. She reveals that her husband basically sold Aimeric to the Regent in exchange of power. She also explains how the Regent conspired with Kastor to kill Theodemes. This testimony isn't decisive because the assassination of Theodemes is a matter of Akielos. Nonetheless, Loyse re-opens the trial and gives importance to Aimeric's story and pain. It is also important that she is a woman because the Regent hates women. She is the character nobody considers, as everyone is focused on Guion's, the powerful councilor. And yet, Laurent does and convinces her to break free from her husband influence for the sake of her son.

Thirdly, Laurent is saved by Paschal's testimony. That said, Paschal is only able to reveal the truth about the Regent's murder of the King only because of Nicaise. In general, Nicaise is a character, who ends up being important in the finales of all three books:

In book one, Nicaise goes to Laurent's apartments after the attempted murder. He is clearly worried and can't decide if to openly switch sides and tell Laurent the truth or not. He also appears to tell Laurent goodbye and to give him his earrings. Symbolically, Laurent is saying goodbye to his younger and most innocent self, as he prepares to enter war with his uncle.

In book two, Nicaise's death is revealed in the climax and it leads to Laurent's decision to march on Charcy. It also kickstarts Laurent's deepest psychological crisis, as he struggles to keep a clean mind and shows how deep he is hurt and desperate.

In book three, Nicaise is the one who indirectly hands Laurent victory, as it is him who stole Govart's papers and gave him to Paschal.

In other words, Nicaise is the one who leads to victory, which fits his name. As a matter of fact Nicaise means "victorious", the person who brings victory and he delivers.

Thematically, this is very important, as Laurent initially regrets to have grown close to Nicaise:

"I killed Nicaise when I left it half done. I should have either stayed away from him, or broken his faith in my uncle. I didn't plan it out, I left it to chance. I wasn't thinking. I wasn't thinking about him like that. I just... I liked him."

He believes that because of their sibling-like bond Nicaise is now dead. He believes his influence isn't enough to break the Regent's control over Nicaise. And yet, it is precisely because of Laurent's love and care for Nicaise that the boy is able to rebel himself enough to steal key documents and to hand them to Laurent's side. Nicaise dies tragically, but his life and Laurent's kindness to him are not in vain. They change the destiny of two kingdoms. Laurent isn't able to save his child-self, but his child-self is strong enough to save him. Just like Laurent might not cancel what happened to him in the past, but can still move forward:

"Stop it, you're hurting him. You're hurting him. Let him go." A soldier was holding him back, and the boy was fighting him. Laurent looked at the boy, and in his eyes was the knowledge that some things couldn't be fixed. He said, "Get that boy out of here."

The new Regent pet once again mirrors a part of Laurent. The side of him that still sees the Regent at family. And yet, Laurent is finally able to accept this part of himself, but is strong enough to start healing. Just like as King he has now the chance to help as many children as the Regent hurt. Laurent ends is arc by growing up. He isn't a child anymore:

"You think you can defy me?" the Regent said to Laurent. "You think you can rule Vere? You?" Laurent said, "I'm not a boy anymore."

He isn't a boy anymore, he can't be controlled by the Regent anymore. He can now start a new life as his own person, free from the Regent and from Auguste's ghost. A life of love and new relationships.

[ninicaise]

laurent, loudly within nikandros’ earshot: akielons didn't build the kingsmeet. those big pillars are way too heavy for humans, how'd they get those just standing up there? no way. it was the beasts

[tototalks]

And so here we are, the final ramble! I just wanna say a huge thank you to everyone who has been on this lil reading voyage with me and put up with my dumb memes lol. You’ve all been awesome! Special thanks go to @evilovesyou for getting me to read! 💙

(HAHAHA WTF DO I DO WITH MY LIFE NOW?! 😂)

My final King’s Rising thoughts 👑👑

- Gotta love Damianos, King of Akielos, looking down at a broken cart and being like “I’m too privileged to know how to fix this” while Lazar and Pallas fuck unsubtly in the background.

- LAMEN. CRYING. 😭😭😭 Laurent really chose Damen’s high school bully nickname.

- Charls is an actual MVP. He took one look at Laurent and understood the assignment. He’s a cousin to the King of Vere now. He is actually a part of the royal family. Ring bearer at the wedding. I don’t make the rules. And the absolute best part about it is that he never fuckin finds out 😂

- Laurent is having the absolute time of his life. He’s sat there TRASHING Nikandros and telling all these Akeilon sluts to cover their arms and accidentally reinventing the cloth trade. What a legend 😂

- The night they spend at the inn is so so significant. Laurent realising that he’s allowed to have desires and finally being asked what he wants. But also the undercurrent of being scared and confused by what turns him on because of his history. Damn I love that his traumatic experiences don’t disappear just because he has Damen now.

- I also need a whole book about their trip through Akeilos - Laurent being too pale and northern for the heat is SO real lol

- King Damianos promising to end slavery 🥲

- I need Laurent and Nikandros to become friends who tease each other ruthlessly.

- Okay so the kid is Kastor’s. I have to admit, I really do appreciate Jokaste and her sacrifices to a certain degree - not the whole degree - but a certain degree.

- Laurent giving himself over for Damen’s sake and the child. Holy shit the symbolism. Damen hearing the Regent confirm what he already kind of knew about Laurent and going apeshit, and Laurent realising he’s defending him. 💔

- “Throw up quick, we need to go.” Nikandros, I love you.

- Damen just WALKING IN to surrender. He really said all eyes on me you’re not gonna forget this.

- He stands up for Laurent against all the odds and I cannot even imagine what that felt like for Laurent.

- GUION YOU RAT ASS MOTHERFUCKER (I should have seen this coming.)

- And this is why you NEVER cross a mother about the ones she loves - the Regent is being taken down by every child he abused and that is exactly how I wanted him to fall. So satisfying.

- Paschal’s testimony and it all coming together. I ADORE how no character is forgotten or irrelevant once they die. Nicaise, Aimeric and even Govart were significant to the Regent’s downfall. The perfect evidence for the council to acquit Laurent and charge the Regent.

- I have to mention the 11 year old boy and how Laurent protects him when he sees him worry for the Regent upon his execution. He truly doesn’t understand what’s going on and the manipulation runs deep. Laurent broke that cycle of abuse.

- Kastor vs. Damianos - another fight that was always meant to happen and solidified that Kastor cannot be redeemed, even by Damen’s kindness.

- Laurent being the one to kill Kastor was only fitting. He’s fulfilled himself, Auguste, and Damen, and he used something so himself to do it. His wits. I really love that.

- And finally we have two legitimate kings, friends, and lovers. Ruling over two kingdoms that will probably end up one. An absolute perfect ending. ♥️

What an absolute ride. Shoutout C.S. Pacat for an awesome story ♥️…. I start the side stories Friday 😂 Y’all on tumblr have one more job, and that’s to fill my inbox with AO3 links 😉🥰 I have a character song playlist to curate lol

[lucky-clover-gazette]

kings rising highlights & annotations

chapter 3

indented text is from the book. some quotes have commentary, some do not. some comments are serious, and some are definitely not. most of them will only make sense to people who have read the series. and, like, there are spoilers. so please read the books first if you're interested!

also: part of the reason i'm doing such a close reading is to study cs pacat's style, especially in terms of how she does romance and erotica. there are "craft notes" that might seem weird, like i'm being redundant or restating something rather than analyzing, but those are more things that i want to remember/take away from the writing!

i'm going to tag these longer posts with "sam reads capri" in case anyone wants to read them all at once.

this is a google doc i wrote with overall content warnings for the captive prince series. it's not perfect, but i do think it's important to include.

The Regent’s forces were rivers of darker red, driving inroads into their lines, mingling their armies together, like a stream of blood hitting water, then diffusing.

He killed, and it was simply that men got out of his way, or were dead.

He had grown used to something that had been temporary, like the flash of exhilaration in a pair of blue eyes for a moment catching his own. All of that tangled together inside him, and tightened, through the killing, into a single hard knot.

something about the way this is written just hits me in the abandonment issues

‘If the Prince of Vere shows himself, I will kill him.’ Nikandros half spat the words.

nik private twitter venting moment #2

The ground was wet, his legs were mud-spattered above his knees—mud in dry summer, because the ground was blood.

i don’t know man i feel like after a point you have to just be like. hey. why are we doing this again? like yeah i get that fighting in a military force can be for A Cause but unless you’re directly involved in enacting ideological change, aren’t you basically just cannon fodder

On the far side of the field, he saw the flash of embroidered red. That is how Akielons win wars, isn’t it? Why fight the whole army, when you can just—

i’m guessing the part in italics in a previous laurent line, about damen killing auguste at marlas?

He used the little name that Damen had been called as a boy; the childhood name, reserved for intimates.

the fact that is was kastor specifically asking the veretians to call him that…

Damen realised that he was on his knees, his own chest heaving like the chest of his horse.

laurent’s horse will be glad to know that damen’s horse lived. because, as we all know, they’re in love

‘Over?’ The word grated out of him. All he could think was that if the Regent still lived, nothing was over.

it is interesting how, even when he thinks laurent screwed him over (see previous chapter), damen has this uncontrollable rage towards the regent rather than laurent. i think this has more to do with the regent killing his men and trying invade his country, though. and maybe just that it’s easier to hate him than laurent. “regent = bad” is something that’s easy for damen to comprehend right now, while laurent’s whole thing is a lot more confusing and intimate

And with returning awareness, he saw as if for the first time the bodies of the men that he had killed to get to the Regent’s decoy, and beyond that, the evidence of what he had done. The field was a rutted earthworks strewn with the dead. The ground was a churned mess of flesh, ineffective armour and riderless horses. Killing ceaselessly, for hours, he had not been aware of the scale of it, of what he had caused to happen here. He saw flashes behind his eyelids, faces of the men he’d killed. Those left standing were all Akielon; and they stared at Damen as at something impossible.

damen holy shit… i guess that’s one way to reclaim your authority. and he didn’t even mean it as a sign of intimidation, he just wanted to get to the “regent.” who by the way was just some random guy RIP

‘Find the highest-ranked Veretian still living and tell them they have leave to bury their dead,’ said Damen. There was a fallen Akielon banner on the ground beside him. ‘Charcy is claimed for Akielos.’ As he rose, Damen wrapped his hand around its wooden pole and planted it in the earth.

not sure if calling it an akielion victory despite the combined forces is just customary, or intentionally out of spite. i’m leaning on the former, since it’s damen and not laurent we're talking about

The herald came cantering across the devastated landscape on a white, glossy mare with a curved neck and a high, flying tail. Beautiful and untouched, he made a mockery of the sacrifice of the brave men on the field. His banner streamed out behind him, and its blazon was Laurent’s starburst, in blue and shining gold.

here is an excerpt from a post i made while reading king’s rising for the first time:

“damen when he realizes he’s not in a slow burn romance with problematic beginnings, but a complex psychological thriller in which the smartest fictional character i have ever personally encountered has decided to make his life a living hell and also they’re in love with each other but the psychological thriller stuff is way more important to his bitchy blonde nightmare malewife and he is SO down bad and just has to deal with laurent’s mean girls 4d chess petty nonsense bc it’s enrichment for him and damen will kill anyone who gets in laurent’s way and he can’t even pick up the very very VERY clear implications of laurent’s trauma that would probably allow them to reach some kind of vulnerability equilibrium in their relationship”

on a re-read, i think this is a great time to dig into that a little more ;)

SO what i love about so much of laurent’s choices in the next few chapters is the fact that much of what he says and does is entirely petty. like, yes there’s always strategy and trauma and depth as usual, but i think it’s not denying him depth to say that he is 20 years old, this is his first love in the midst of an extremely stressful and messy situation, and despite his own wishes he cannot prevent his emotions from affecting his actions. laurent has had control over so much of the situation with damen thus far, both with the power dynamics between them as master and “slave” and the fact that damen didn’t know that laurent knew who he was. but now laurent knows that damen knows, so all of his previous and future actions are going to be under damen’s scrutiny in that context. they’re equals now, and the secrets reinforcing laurent’s prior cognitive dissonance have dissolved. that leaves laurent vulnerable (especially after being tortured and genuinely letting damen down even if by accident) and emotional compromised (he has no choice but to see damen as damianos, and with that comes all of the auguste baggage and the fact that they’ve already fallen in love and had sex under different circumstances).

all that is to say, the next few chapters are laurent’s mean girls era. he is, again, still being smart and strategic (4d chess), and his feelings are valid and his trauma is real. however, he is also just being MEAN, for the same reasons classic high school movie mean girls tend to be: he feels insecure and vulnerable about his romantic attachment to damen, stressed out by the insane amount of power he definitely should not have, and self-righteous about all the ways the world has conspired against him. regina george might have been the villain of the movie, but she was the hero of her own story. janis and cady methodically dismantled her life as a popular, powerful, and confident person. that’s why she got revenge with the burn book instead of looking inward and acknowledging her own issues, of which there were many. she had a machiavellian view of life, in which mean people always won, and so being mean in retaliation was how she could protect herself from being a victim.

that is laurent’s perspective too, for a lot of this series. we don’t know anything about regina’s backstory, or heather chandler’s (another great example), but we do know exactly why laurent has the worldview he does. he used to be sweet and it made him a victim. so he is mean to protect himself, even if that robs him of his sweetness. damen’s integrity and honor have challenged laurent’s worldview, though, and that has been the source of a lot of laurent’s slow reconsideration. but now that laurent can’t just pretend that damen isn't damianos, now that he has to accept this situation in its full interpersonal and political messiness, he isn’t nearly as inspired. laurent assumes, now that laurent has gone “mask off,” that damen will realize that laurent doesn’t deserve the love he has shown him in the past. because laurent has been mean to damen, by lying about his awareness even at the times damen thought he was being earnest and sweet. that makes damen a victim and fool—two things laurent deeply fears being, and therefore assumes everyone else also fears in themselves. two things the regent had wanted laurent to consider himself, by placing damen in his life in the first place.

therefore, in his insecurity and vulnerability and anger, as a 20 year old just experiencing his first love, as someone with a lot of power and stress who cannot waste time or energy on genuinely confronting his own flaws in good faith, laurent is gearing up to be sososososo mean to damen specifically in the next few chapters. like comedically mean. aimlessly mean. pathetically mean. on purpose. ultimately, if he must be alone (which he obviously must, says laurent's brain), laurent would rather be the villain of someone else’s story than a victim in his own. that, at least, is similar to book 1 laurent—but while he was a cat playing with a mouse in book 1, in a position to do serious damage to his opponent, now he’s more like…. a cat, slapping another cat. evenly matched, but still throwing hands. transparently insecure and pathetic, only effective in doing emotional damage in ways he doesn’t intend. damen isn’t hurt by the petty things laurent says and does, because he sees through them for what they are. he’s hurt because laurent sees them as necessary to protect himself and keep his distance, when all damen wants is to make things okay between them. which laurent would never expect, because he assumes that damen wants nothing to do with him, and would be happier and better off if they stayed apart.

basically: unstoppable force (damen's persistent caring) meets unmovable object (laurent's refusal to be genuinely cared for). the only way for this cycle to end is for damen to choose to stop, or for laurent to choose to yield. laurent will eventually make that choice, but he still has to be a huge bitch about it first. he's going to lash out at damen and challenge him to stop caring, but ultimately fail—both because damen is just built different, and because he's lowkey written as a fantasy partner for emotionally volatile people with attachment and abandonment issues.

rest assured, laurent’s genre is still psychological thriller, but it’s also now a high school drama movie. and damen is about to get a bitter taste of that, with pretty much no choice in the matter. this poor man will have to deal with laurent’s bitchy theatrics as they try to co-parent an army, and he’s already too emotionally invested and aware of laurent’s habit of lashing out when he’s in pain to genuinely fight back.

this could also be called laurent’s s1 catra era, but i’m not sure what the venn diagram of capri and she ra enjoyers looks like. to those who get it—laurent is doing what catra did at princess prom for the next several chapters, down to the “hey adora” = “hello lover.” this dynamic is very fun to read because it doesn’t overstay its welcome. it’s different from laurent in book 1, or catra in general, because it’s so clearly pathetic, damen and laurent are on the same side of the war, and damen could technically make it stop at any point. so i think it’s very very fun, while it lasts >:)

The herald reined in in front of him. Damen looked at the mare’s shiny coat, not dirt-covered, not heaving or darkened with sweat, and then at the herald’s livery, in immaculate condition, unflecked by the dust of the road. He felt it rising at the back of his throat. ‘Where is he?’

damen showed up to the prom laurent planned with him to unite their rival high schools, only to find himself dateless and laurent’s promised fancy party decorations missing. this is the moment where damen checks snapchat (i was in high school from 2013-2017) and sees everyone from vere high at their own immaculately-decorated prom, where laurent is being crowned king. little does damen know, laurent was blindsided by the vere-only prom and forced via social pressure to be there since everyone elected him prom king. they’re mad at each other for a high school drama pacing-typical period of time, and then make up when they realize the misunderstanding and reassert their dedication to each other.

laurent did still murder someone with a chair, though. but like a metal folding chair from the band room

The herald’s back hit the ground. Damen had dragged him bodily from his horse into the dirt, where he lay dazed and winded, with Damen’s knee in his stomach. Damen’s hand was around his neck.

His grip tightened before it opened enough to allow the herald to speak. The herald rolled onto his side and coughed as Damen released him. He pulled something from inside his jacket. Parchment, with two lines on it. You have Charcy. I have Fortaine. He stared at the words, written in familiar, unmistakable handwriting. I’ll receive you at my fort.

lamen hr complaint #5 (unnamed herald): ragdolling this guy over what should be impersonal, professional correspondence

also, because i can't help myself:

Fortaine eclipsed even Ravenel, powerful and beautiful, its towers high-flung, its jutting crenelles biting the sky. It rose to a sheer, impossible height and, from every vantage, it was flying Laurent’s banners. The pennants seemed to float on the air effortlessly, patterned silk in blue and gold.

WELCOME HOME, BROTHER KILLER

Rows upon rows of peaked, coloured tents were pitched on the field outside Fortaine’s walls, the sun lighting the pavilions, the banners, and the silks of a graceful encampment. It was a city of tents, and it camped a fresh, intact force of Laurent’s men, who had not fought and died through the morning. The constructed arrogance of the display was intentional. It said, exquisitely: Did you exert yourself at Charcy? I have been here examining my nails.

this is funny and i wouldn’t put it past laurent, but also i’m not sure if he like. really meant this part of it specifically to piss damen off. he was just tortured idk he probably just wanted things nice. a good part of the fun of lamen divorce era is remembering that damen’s interpretation of events isn’t necessarily accurate, and that it’s hilarious how he interprets things as petty personal slights even when they might not be. they’re both so obsessed with each other and it’s great

Nikandros reined in alongside him. ‘Uncle and nephew are alike. They send other men to do their fighting for them.’

nik tweets this verbatim on priv (#3)

Damen was silent. What he felt in his chest was a hardness like anger. He looked at the elegant silken city and thought about men dying on the field at Charcy.

but not exactly anger—betrayal? heartache? self-consciousness?

Some kind of herald’s greeting party was riding towards them. He gripped the Regent’s bloody, torn banner in his hand.

the phrase “greeting party” just made me imagine them rolling up with like confetti and a speaker blasting the celebration song. while damen holds the bloody torn banner

‘Just me,’ said Damen, and put his heels into his horse. About halfway across the field, he was met by the herald, who arrived with an anxious party of four attendants saying something urgent about protocol. Damen listened to four words of it. ‘Don’t worry,’ said Damen. ‘He’s expecting me.’

lamen hr complaint #6 (more unnamed heralds): disregarding protocol

(also “he’s expecting me” girlllll)

Without even pulling off his gauntlets, he strode to the tent. He knew its high scalloped folds; he knew the starburst pennant. No one stopped him. Not even when he reached the tent and dismissed the soldier at the entrance with a single order: ‘Go.’ He didn’t bother to see if his order was obeyed. The soldier let him through: of course he did; this had all been planned. Laurent was ready for him whether he came docilely behind the herald or, as he did now, the dirt and the sweat of the battle still on him, blood dried in the places where a cursory swipe with a cloth had not reached it. He swept the tent flap back with an arm, and stepped inside.

again i do have to question, beyond the drama, how much of this is as intentional and petty as damen thinks it is. like, the heralds literally cite protocol, damen knows this is the correct way for a camp to be run. i think he is assuming a lot here, although it’s reasonable to do so. we have seen in the past that damen assumes things of laurent that laurent is just like, “uh. not everything i do is on purpose” about, or damen is just WRONG about. i just wonder if damen’s approach here confirms things laurent was worried about (damen thinking poorly of him now that they’re on even ground), further fueling the fire of his rejection-sensitive bitchiness. not that it’s an excuse, or even undeserved, but it’s good to remember that there are two sides to the story.

like to damen, this is an angry post-battle rush of a moment to confront laurent and speak his truth (he doesn’t know laurent knows who he is), but to laurent this is like. post-torture and escape, and basically being thrown into the deep end of vulnerability with damianos and what this all implies to auguste’s memory. we’re not getting the best or most rational version of either of them right now, which is great for the drama but also makes the narration less reliable

This was the place Laurent had chosen.

right. damen thinks laurent chose this place to hear the truth about him, because the “you have charcy” note implies that at some point laurent probably figured out that damen is damianos. therefore laurent chose this occasion for them to meet each other, as they truly are by birth, for the first time. damen just doesn’t know the twist that laurent has always known who he’s been, and has chosen everything else before now with that knowledge too

There were a few furnishings, low seats, cushions, and in the background a trestle table hung with its own coverings, and set with shallow bowls of sugared pears and oranges. As though they were going to nibble at sweetmeats.

the same guy who ordered the “sorry you were given a severed head and discovered a suicide” fruit basket in prince’s gambit had to order a “sorry i gaslighted you for 2 books but not really because you also technically gaslighted me” fruit basket in kings rising

He lifted his gaze from the table to the exquisitely attired figure leaned with a single shoulder against the tent pole, watching him.

lucky number laurent lean #13!

Laurent said, ‘Hello, lover.’

It was not going to be simple.

this being the follow-up line to “hello lover” is such a good combination of funny and tension-building. like laurent’s cunty tableau immediately put out damen’s fiery righteous indignation and now he’s just like “oh this is going to suck.”

He made himself breathe through that. ‘Your men think you’re a coward. Nikandros thinks that you deceived us. That you sent us to Charcy, and left us there to die by your uncle’s sword.’ ‘And is that what you think?’ said Laurent. ‘No.’ Damen said, ‘Nikandros doesn’t know you.’

this is really a testament to pacat’s cleverness, how in chapter 1 there are a lot of moments where it’s almost like damen is directly saying he thinks laurent screwed him over—nikandros and the herald saying it and him not disagreeing, him accepting the reality that laurent is not going to show up—but he never does truly say that he thinks the abandonment was on purpose. because he didn’t, and he doesn’t, which makes sense. but he’s still angry and confused and also just concerned about how laurent is taking the “news” that he’s damianos. how much of damen’s anger about laurent’s composed appearance is projection of his anxiety about laurent seeing him as he truly is, a powerful authority figure in his own right who just won a battle against insane odds?

it’s so ambiguously written that it’s almost like pacat WANTS us to spiral. which i did, and will probably continue to do, so well-played. these books are like evil catnip to anxious overthinking theater people with attachment issues and an interest in understanding complex fictional situations to cope with the fact that real life never makes enough sense. also kinky gays but let's be real that's just a trojan horse for the other stuff

‘And you do.’ Damen looked at the arrangement of Laurent’s weight, the careful way he was holding his body. Laurent’s left hand was still casually resting against the tent pole. Deliberately, he stepped forward, and clasped Laurent’s right shoulder. Nothing, for a moment. Damen tightened his grip, and ground in with his thumb. Harder. He watched Laurent turn ashen. Finally, Laurent said, ‘Stop.’

proving that he knows laurent well enough to pick up from his posture alone exactly where he’s been injured. also they’re both so messy, like let’s put pressure on each other’s literal and figurative wounds instead of just talking about our misconceptions and feelings, awesome

He let go. Laurent had wrenched back and was clutching his shoulder, where the blue of his doublet had darkened. Blood, welling up from some newly bandaged, subterranean place, and Laurent was staring at him, his eyes oddly wide. ‘You wouldn’t break an oath,’ said Damen, past the feeling in his chest. ‘Even to me.’

damen proving to himself, and proving to laurent, that he knows that laurent didn’t screw him over, and instead was injured and failed to show up. laurent is shocked by how quickly damen picked up on this. also ow

He had to force himself back.

he doesn’t want to see laurent in pain, or know that he’s causing it :( which is especially unfortunate given the conversation they’re about to have about damen murdering laurent’s brother

Laurent didn’t answer. He still had a hand clutched to his shoulder, his fingers sticky with blood. Laurent said, ‘Even to you?’

“you wouldn’t break an oath, even to me” (“even to me” being a sort of freudian slip, meaning “i killed your brother, and i’ve known that this whole time and i haven’t told you, and you have a good reason to hate me for that”) “even to you?” (to damen’s incomplete understanding: “well i know who you are now, and if i’d known before i would have broken every oath to you i’ve ever made”)

He made himself look at Laurent. The truth was an awful presence in his chest.

babygirl it’s about to get so much awfuller

He thought of the single night they had spent together. He thought of Laurent, giving himself, dark-eyed and vulnerable, and of the Regent, who knew how to break a man.

damen totally sees laurent as his “victim” right now, set up well by him re-opening laurent’s physical wound. damen fucked this man while knowing that he (damen) killed his (laurent’s) brother, and put trust in him. if they were normal, or this was a normal story, that’s where the confrontation would end. it would be that simple—damen didn’t mean to hurt laurent but still did, and laurent has to forgive him for that, and forgive himself for being fooled—and then it would get tearfully resolved because they love each other so much that it doesn't matter. but they are not normal, and this is not a normal story, so…

Outside, two armies were poised to fight. The moment was here, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He remembered the Regent’s constant suggestion: Bed my nephew. He had done that, wooed him, won him. Charcy, he saw, hadn’t mattered to the Regent. It hadn’t meant anything. The Regent’s real weapon against Laurent had always been Damen himself.

damen thinks the regent’s plan had been to weaken laurent by putting him in circumstances where he’d unknowingly make himself vulnerable with his brother’s killer, triggering him emotionally and destroying his judgment. i'm pretty sure that this was basically his intention, but had also made sure that it would also torture laurent even if he did recognize damen on the spot.

personally i think the regent knew that laurent knew in book 1 through observing his reaction, but had planned for both possibilities in advance. what he hadn't expected, though, was for laurent and damen to start genuinely working together instead of against each other. this happens early as the thing with patras, and really pops off during the botched assassination attempt.

charcy was meant to drive a wedge between them, to correct the regent's previous miscalculation. and given the inevitable truth damen must now reveal, there's nothing he can really do to stop laurent from being upset.

‘I’ve come to tell you who I am.’ Laurent was so keenly familiar, the shade of his hair, the strapped down clothing, the full lips that he held tense or cruelly repressed, the ruthless asceticism, the unbearable blue eyes. ‘I know who you are, Damianos,’ said Laurent. Damen heard it, as the interior of the tent seemed to change, so that all of the objects in it took on a different shape. ‘Did you think,’ said Laurent, ‘I wouldn’t recognise the man who killed my brother?’

the way i YELLED during my first read. i remember even like posting something before, like “oh my god damen just tell him put this poor man out of his misery,” and then after i got to this part i immediately went and deleted that post

Each word was an ice chip. Painful, sharp; a shard. Laurent’s voice was perfectly steady.

do you think he practiced this?

‘I knew in the palace, when they dragged you in front of me,’ said Laurent. The words continued, steady, relentless. ‘I knew in the baths when I ordered you flayed. I knew—’

he definitely practiced this

‘At Ravenel?’ said Damen.

“you knew when you kissed me and let me fuck you????”

‘If you knew,’ said Damen, ‘how could you—’ ‘Let you fuck me?’ His own chest hurt, so that he almost didn’t notice the signs of it in Laurent, the control, the face, pale at any time, now white.

he almost didn’t notice the signs, which means he still totally did. because even now, damen is attentive and caring towards laurent

‘I needed a victory at Charcy. You provided it. It was worth enduring,’ Laurent spoke the terrible, lucid words, ‘your fumbling attentions for that.’

LIARRRRRRR

It hurt so much it took the breath from his throat. ‘You’re lying.’ Damen’s heart was pounding. ‘You’re lying.’ The words were too loud. ‘You thought I was leaving. You practically threw me out.’ He said it, as the realisation blossomed inside him. ‘You knew who I was. You knew who I was the night we made love.’

tbh i think this kind of realization would make me have a panic attack on the spot. also do you think this is the kind of betrayal he’s been trying so hard to avoiding confronting, coming from kastor and jokaste? but here he has no choice to confront it, because laurent is forcing him to understand the depths of the deception. no avoiding it now

He thought of Laurent surrendering, not the first time, but the second, the slower, sweeter time, the tension in him, the way he had— ‘You weren’t making love to a slave, you were making love to me.’

very true, but laurent isn’t ready to deal with it. he can’t keep up the cognitive dissonance in the present, but that doesn’t mean he’s about to accept that it was real in the past. instead he’ll just lash out.

And he couldn’t think that through clearly but he could catch a glimmer of it, a glimmer of the edge of it. ‘I thought you wouldn’t, I thought you’d never—’

OF COURSE damen suspected, at some points, that laurent knew. but this tells us that he’d ultimately dismissed the notion because it would have been insane for laurent to kiss and fuck him, while knowing his real identity. “i thought you wouldn’t, i thought you’d never—“

this is similar to how i thought about it during my first read—i suspected for all of book 1, and some of book 2, but then figured that the story was taking a different direction because how the hell could the plot points of “laurent knows who damen is” and “laurent makes himself vulnerable to damen and does a romance/sex about it” possibly be compatible? laurent, a deeply traumatized and self-protective person, wouldn’t and would never. except i underestimated laurent’s capacity for self-delusion, and overestimated the amount of control he truly has over his emotions and impulses, beneath all the posturing. damen, here, is recognizing that he’s made similar miscalculations, and now he’s seeing laurent as he truly is. they’re both seeing each other, truly, for the first time.

‘Laurent, six years ago, when I fought Auguste, I—’ ‘Don’t you say his name.’ The words were forced out of Laurent. ‘Don’t you ever say his name, you killed my brother.’

i like the simplicity of this. just the plainness of “you killed my brother.” laurent’s language is so often clever and cagey and embellished, but that last sentiment is raw and informal, and what we the reader are probably screaming in our heads. because yeah, holy shit, damen killed laurent’s brother. it’s a pretty hard thing to argue against, or ignore. “you lied to me” “you killed my brother” “you flogged me” “you killed my brother” “you forgot to do the dishes” “you killed my brother”

Laurent was breathing shallowly, almost panting as he spoke, his hands rigid on the edge of the table behind him.

his practiced words are saying one thing, but his body is very obviously having a panic attack. this scene isn’t nearly as much of a laurent mean girl moment as it seemed during a rushed first read. that’s actually kind of a relief to me, bc it made me sad to interpret him as so heartless and unfazed the first time around. even if “hello lover” is an iconic moment, it’s a performance more than anything else. and pacat shows us this sooner than i recalled or first perceived. she’s not torturing us, the reader, as much as she’s torturing both damen and laurent. and it’s not even like a lazy misunderstanding kind of torture, this is genuinely complicated and they’re both in the wrong and they both are justified in this pain and hurt. i just couldn’t see that as well the first time, having binged like all of book 2 already and having no idea what would happen next and honestly just being shocked and betrayed and compelled by the massive mislead with laurent’s awareness of the situation

‘Is that what you want to hear, that I knew who you were and I still let you fuck me, my brother’s killer, who cut him down like an animal on the field?’

you know he doesn’t, laurent, that’s just what you’re telling yourself now that you’re forced to confront it. you started this scene with “hello lover” and your prepared speech, hoping to destroy damen emotionally, but once again you’ve just kinda played yourself. maybe just cool it with the emotional gambits for now, when it comes to damen, bc they only really seem to come back and hurt you (oh fuck he can’t hear me)

‘Shall I ask you how you did it? What he looked like when your sword went in?’ ‘No,’ said Damen.

laurent, shaking, pale, looks like he’s about to pass out: “you bastard, tell me about how you murdered my brother as i think about the fact that i let you fuck me in a similar way, go ahead just make it hurt more”

damen, not a therapist but still emotionally intelligent enough to know this isn’t really about punishing him: no, i don’t think i will. can you like sit down

‘Or shall I tell you about the illusion of the man who gave me good counsel. Who stood by me. Who never lied to me.’ ‘I never lied to you.’

that italicized “i” is interesting. is it an accusation of laurent’s own lying and hypocrisy, or a specification that damen never directly told laurent he wasn’t damianos? given damen’s well-established integrity, i’m guessing it’s the first option. again with the mutual moral arbitration. and damen wouldn’t want to take such a weak a cop-out as “well i never technically said it,” it’s just not typical of his character.

The words were awful in the silence that followed them. ‘“Laurent, I am your slave”?’ said Laurent. He felt the breath forced out from his lungs.

of course laurent takes it as the second option, though, and implies that by swearing himself to laurent and then bedding him damen was directly lying about his identity. because to laurent, damen =/= damianos. a slave can’t be a prince. so damianos, the prince, must have been intentionally lying about being damen, the slave. and that’s actually easier, and less painful, and less complicated to accept than any kind of nuanced alternative.

‘Don’t,’ he said, ‘talk about it like—’ ‘Like?’ ‘Like it was cold-blooded; like I controlled it. Like we didn’t both close our eyes and pretend I was a slave.’ He made himself say the exposing words. ‘I was your slave.’

he’s right. nothing much to add here. damen wasn't just literally laurent's slave, he had devoted himself emotionally as well, and he's admitting it here despite the fact that it makes him vulnerable—something laurent is too much of a (traumatized, understandable) coward to do himself. i love damen's characterization so much

‘There was no slave,’ said Laurent. ‘He never existed. I don’t know what manner of man stands before me now. All I know is that I am facing him for the first time.’ ‘He is here.’ His flesh ached as if he had been prised open. ‘We are the same.’

this gives us some insight to laurent’s actions in book 1—not necessarily excusing them, but making them fit better into what we’ve since learned about his moral code. it ties things together, which isn’t the same as making them simpler or easier to like. pacat is very very VERY good at establishing continuous moral ambiguity in her characters, and does not rush the slow burn of making ends meet. so when she does eventually begin to connect things, it’s satisfying, because it hasn’t been all been spelled out the whole time so readers don’t have to think for themselves. this, in reference to a lot of the series’s more problematic themes, is exactly why i think people end up seeing capri as apologism or glamorization. but by claiming that, i also think they’re exposing themselves as impatient, shallow, and (sorry) simply lazy.

but i don't just want to be reductive and uncharitable, because that would be shallow and lazy too. to be perfectly clear, i honestly can't blame people for disliking this series, and not being willing or able to have patience and understanding for its more problematic elements. this series is marketed as romance/erotica. it started as indulgent kink fic. it ended up evolving into its current state during its development—and i'm really glad it did, but that doesn't change the fact that so much of its marketing and premise imply certain things that it doesn't quite deliver. and if you look up the series today, as it's still being published years after its completion, it's still marketed in a way i find somewhat misleading. to the extent that when i picked it up, it was in an intentional attempt to expand my own horizons—i wanted to challenge myself with indulgent shameless problematic porn/romance, as opposed to the weak-ass "enemies" to lovers running rival bakeries gay romance novels with canva covers that haven't worked for me in the past. the logic was basically, "well, if i don't like romance on that side of the scale, maybe i'll like the opposite extreme, or at least learn more about what i don't like." and i did feel pretty challenged during book 1, to the point that for a while i only kept reading out of morbid curiosity and vague horniness rather than any genuine expectation of depth or satisfying storytelling. it was only around the assassination scene in book 1 that i started to see the book as something capable of more depth and intrigue than just like kinky debauchery, and it pretty much just snowballed from there. and as someone who frequently reads about these dark topics in other genres and contexts, i was familiar enough with the things happening on the page to at least stomach them and push foward.

however, if i was coming at the series from a different place—like if i loved cozy romance and had very little familiarity with reading about these topics—i can see the first book especially being very blindsiding and distressing, and not wanting to engage with it further. that's not laziness, it just means that the book wasn't for me.

and the nuance doesn't end there. one of the things i love most about this series is that, even if i was just looking for shameless slavekink porn and decidedly did not want to rise to the occasion of depth or thematic exploration, i would also walk away unsatisfied. because the truly problematic shit in these books is not shameless at all, and indulgence never comes without a cost. there are a few distasteful moments that make me roll my eyes, and the garden scene definitely prompts a Conversation—but as a whole, i think pacat is very aware of the moral implications of these themes. and i also think she's perfectly aware of the fact that many people get off on them.

this series almost feels like an accidental study of, like, the psychological implications of being a person compelled by dub-con and problematic kink, finding a sort of gratification in situations where those things ar kind of inevitable (like they are for damen in book 1). AND this is made even more complicated and brave by the fact that laurent is, very relevantly, a victim of serious sexual assault. like, as hot as some of the scenes in this book are, i really don't think it makes itself easy for people to just uncritically get themselves off to. it doesn't encourage shame, but it does encourage introspection. and a lot of people simply don't read erotica and romance to introspect. (couldn't be me though. if it isn't clear, i love the laurent of vere "having insane mindfucking sex fully clothed across the room" approach to eroticism).

i feel like it's actually kind of funny that i specifically got here, as a person who almost always reads books that force dark introspection, and assumed that this erotica/romance book would be mindless, but ended up with gestures vaguely instead. for me, coming across this series and realizing what it truly is was an incredibly happy accident. but for others, i completely understand how it could be the exact opposite, and it's not lazy or shallow to realize that you misunderstood what you were getting yourself into and step away.

what is lazy and shallow, though, is to either DNF and review based on those misconceptions, or keep reading simply to fuel your own disdain and discomfort. ultimately, i think that the true error of people who walk into capri wanting shameless porn or untroubling romance is the fact that they keep reading, even when it becomes clear that the book isn't doing that. and then they decide to evaluate the book based on expectations and standards that aren't the ones the author or fans have for the work itself. people seem to take out their anger towards the SUBJECTS of slavery or rape in fiction themselves on capri, rather then the way capri specifically portrays them. either because they fucking stopped reading the book and just wanted to go on a tangent on the topics in general, or hate-read to confirm their own pre-existing bias.

my point is, nobody has to read things that trigger or upset them, and it's okay to just pass on fictional stuff that makes you feel bad or frustrated. aspects of this series made me feel bad and frustrated, even on re-read, but i enjoy the intellectual and emotional exercise of exploring those feelings and better understanding the true meaning and purpose of the art. but there are certain topics in other works of fiction that i'm unwilling to explore, which would cause me to simply stop reading, and if asked for a review i'd just say that i'm not the right person to say. and there have been many times where i've continued reading a book, hoping it would change directions, and ended up just being like, "yeah, that wasn't for me," and moving on.

the exchange "there was no slave, he never existed" "here is here, we are the same" is almost a meta-commentary on the reception of the series as a whole. it would be dishonest to deny how this series started, and some of the themes and subjects it intentionally confronts. you can't say "there was no slave [kink], [it] never existed" because the narrative proceeded to be more of a commentary on kink rather than an uncritical display of it. kink, and dark topics in fiction in general, do all have depth, and while they might not be for everyone, they are for someone. exploring that depth is entirely optional, and i understand why people with certain experiences don't want anything to do with that exploration. but our personal tastes don't change the fact that subjects like slavery and rape exist, and that reality is inseparable from the stories that come from it. ultimately, the choice is whether we're willing to take that specific reality thoughtfully on, or else just walk away.

the people i have the hardest time with are the ones who choose neither of those options. like, what do you even get out of continuing to read something that you're unwilling to explore in good faith, or that you straight-up hate? just read something else. we only have so much time in the day. stop wasting yours, and stop wasting the time of people who actually enjoy the thing with your useless bad-faith criticism. sorry this tangent has totally departed from the chapter itself, but that really is what pisses me off so much about current-day online book culture. like, i'm thinking about all of those smug-looking booktubers making 2 hour videos called "i read [name of book that doesn't appeal to the lowest common denominator of people] so you don't have to." i know how long it takes to read books thoughtfully, and then to write, film, and edit videos. maybe stop wasting your own time and dig into something you love instead, or even try to make your own thing, and just hope that some smug asshole on the internet doesn't decide to do to your work what you've done to other people's work. but no, lazy cynicism and appealing to the easy gimmick of cringe is way more profitable, i guess. and it makes you less vulnerable to people criticizing work that came from your soul, because the work you're creating is completely soulless.

anyway. i wonder what kind of totally normal things damen and laurent are up to in the chapter i'm annotating

‘Kneel then,’ said Laurent. ‘Kiss my boot.’

"if you really are still a slave, even though we both know you’re a king, then do a demeaning slave thing right now"

He looked into Laurent’s excoriating blue eyes. The impossibility of it was like a sharp pain. He couldn’t do it. He could only gaze at Laurent across the distance between them. The words hurt. ‘You’re right. I’m not a slave,’ he said.

can’t indulge in the kink anymore by circumstantial necessity, but i’m sure they’ll find something even weirder to do instead on purpose

‘I am the King.’ He said, ‘I killed your brother. And now I hold your fort.’ As he spoke, Damen drew out a knife. He felt rather than saw all of Laurent’s attention swing to it. The physical signs were small: Laurent’s lips parted, his body tensed. Laurent didn’t look at the knife. He kept his eyes on Damen, who looked right back at him. ‘So you will parley with me as with a king, and you will tell me why you called me here.’ Deliberately, Damen tossed the knife onto the floor of the tent.

okay this is just extra of him, but i mean laurent got to do “hello lover” so damen deserves to be dramatic too as a treat. i also like what this symbolizes, as opposed to their previous knife moments. as defined by their stations, they don’t have a power imbalance anymore, and they don’t have a reason to be enemies. they are a prince and a king, not a master and a slave. they are military allies, teaming up against the regent. any power imbalance and beef they have now is emotional, complicated, and abstract, nothing clear-cut (haha) enough to be represented by an instrument of simple violence like a knife. and damen summarizes this perfectly, in the context of their previous knife moments, by viscerally reminding laurent of those encounters and then just tossing the thing across the room.

honestly, i bet laurent feels jealous of the clever performative gesture. and maybe a little turned on, too, despite the horrors. that’s a fun reversal.

‘Didn’t you know?’ said Laurent. ‘My uncle is in Akielos.’

yeah, he got a really good all-inclusive deal at the akielion sandals resort and needed a vacation after all of the murder and [redacted]

[goldencuffs]

afterglow

inspired by the spectral files series by s.e. harmon!!

The ghost appears in his office after Damen comes back from his lunch break. 

Damen’s had a rough week already. The free pad thai in his belly right now is literally the best thing that’s happened to him in months. That’s not even an exaggeration.

The ghost in his office has been around before. He showed up a few weeks ago, at the start of summer, his expression boyish, sunny, hands in his pockets as he’d surveyed Damen’s office with visible interest. Then he had followed Damen to the kitchen and watched him make tea. And then he had pulled faces last Tuesday, during their morning briefings, gagging at the photos of Victor Reynold’s dismembered body. 

“I smell Thai,” the ghost says now. He’s pouting. “I want Thai. I love Thai food.” 

Damen ignores him, sitting behind his desk and logging into his computer. It’s only twelve in the afternoon. Damen wants to throw himself off the ledge of the building. 

The ghost struts about his office, still talking, listing off the other cuisines he loves (Mexican, Indian, Lebanese, Italian) as Damen pretends to read his latest case notes.

“Not going to lie though, definitely shat myself when I had that. I’m talking blocked pipes and everything.” The ghost shakes his head. “Man, that was a rough weekend.”

Damen sighs. 

The ghost perks up. “I know you can see me, man. You always get that face when I’m talking to you.”

Damen picks up a pen, just so he has something to do. So he can school his face into something more neutral. 

Of course Damen can see the ghost. He sees ghosts all the time. He’s seen them since he was seven years old. As a kid, he didn’t know the children he would play with were dead until Nikandros’ foot had gone through the football they were kicking around. 

Since then, Damen’s seen them everywhere. There was a widow who used to hang around Kastor’s old place, shrilly telling him off for painting the kitchen the wrong colour. Kastor had moved out three weeks after Damen had told him that. 

Most of the time, ghosts leave him alone. Sometimes they get excited when they realise he can see them. Sometimes they just want to talk. Some of them have harmless requests, like messages they want to pass on to a loved one.

And sometimes there are ghosts like the ones in his office, who don’t seem to have anywhere to go, who only seem to be attached to him.

The last ghost like that had been Aimeric Gaul, this skinny, baby-faced kid who had sad, wide eyes. He could only go where Damen could, and kept mentioning how much he missed his mother. 

Three months into watching Aimeric cry in the corner of his office, Damen had driven down to Fortaine to see his mother. Aimeric had sat in the front seat, wide-eyed as he watched the rolling landscape.

When Damen had told Aimeric’s mother that he had a message from her dead son, her husband had pointed a gun to his forehead and said, Get the fuck off my property.

Damen was placed on suspension after that.

So, yeah. He’s wary of the ghosts like this—the ones that are, inevitably, drawn to him. They’re the ones that cause trouble. 

Damen’s been through enough, thanks. He’s only just back from his suspended time off, and Jokaste has cleared the last of her things from their place, and sometimes he still panics when he can’t find the ring on his left hand, until he remembers that it’s shoved in a drawer in his closet. 

The ghost is still talking. “You know what I really miss though? Dumplings. Highly underrated, man. When’s the last time you had one? Take it from me—have as many dumplings as you can while you’re still alive. ‘Cause, one day you’re gonna be dead, and there’s no fucking dumplings here. Which is shit if you think about it, the least—”

Damen’s phone rings. He picks it up, glad for the distraction. 

Makedon’s voice is no-nonsense. “My office, now. Bring coffee.” And then he hangs up. 

Damen deliberately doesn’t bring the coffee. Makedon frowns at him, but doesn’t say anything else. 

He pushes a file towards him. “Welcome back, kid. Latest cold case is all yours.”

Damen groans. “Seriously? You’re assigning me to cold cases? What about Reynold’s murder? I hear they need more manpower.”

“Nah.” Makedon shakes his head. “Don’t think you’re in the right headspace for all that shit.” 

“That shit?” Damen repeats, frowning. “You mean, my job?”

Makedon stares at him for a few beats. “This is part of your job too, detective. Everyone gets assigned cold cases every now and then.”

“Bullshit,” Damen snaps. “You haven’t assigned me a real case in months, even before—” And here, he falters, too ashamed to bring up Aimeric. 

Makedon isn’t a soft man. Everything about him is rigid and unmoveable. But he does relax his shoulders a little. 

“This isn’t just about what happened in Fortaine. When’s the last time you slept, kid?”

Damen frowns.

“Yeah, exactly. Divorce ain’t easy, and it’s clearly been affecting you more than you realise. You’re so… angry all the time. You clocked the new intern so badly last week, he had to go home early.”

Damen sighs, heart twisting a little. Yeah, okay, yelling at Erasmus in front of everyone hadn’t been a good move, but Damen had his reasons.

…He just can’t remember them right now. 

“Work the case with Huet,” Makedon continues, “He’s good company, and isn’t afraid to step up.” 

Damen snatches the file. “Whatever,” he mutters darkly. “What’s the case?”

Makedon sighs. “Some kid drove himself into a lake about a decade ago. Was conclusively claimed as a suicide at the time, but his brother’s statement is pretty interesting, suggests foul play.”

Damen’s eyebrows raise. “Murder?”

Makedon shrugs. “The brother was thirteen at the time, and very close with the victim. So it could be an emotional thing. But…”

“But?”

“He pointed fingers at their uncle. Claimed he had strong evidence it could be a murder, but no one really looked into it too closely.”

“Hmm,” Damen says. “So, what, we’re supposed to go on the word of a teenager?”

“A very persistent teenager. Have a look—he’s called at least several times a year to see if the case has been reopened.”

“No shit,” Damen says in surprise. “He actually share any of this evidence, though? Or tell us why the uncle could be the perpetrator?” 

“That’s your job to find out.” Makedon yawns. “Where’s my fucking coffee?”

But Damen doesn’t pay attention to him. The first page of the case file is a headshot of the victim. 

Damen knows that face. He just left him in his office.

***

Auguste Henri Revere is—was—twenty-five when he died. 

He was incredibly popular, well-liked, and good at pretty much everything he did. Damen reads everything in his file: football captain, scholarship student at Arles University, part-time volunteer at the children’s hospital…

He doesn’t seem like the guy who would kill himself. Then again, the worst part about this job has always been that people can surprise you—in the worst ways possible. 

Nothing about his death is suspicious. It happened close to midnight, near a popular stretch of road in the city centre. There were several witnesses that saw a cream 1972 Ford Mustang veer off the road, straight into the lake. Police found a suicide note typed on Auguste’s laptop. He had cleaned his room the night before, donated things like clothes, jewellery, and sneakers. 

Damen reads what Laurent Gabriel Revere said. Now that statement is strange. Laurent was thirteen when Auguste died. Sources say they were close, that Auguste doted on him, especially since they were orphans, living with their uncle. Two years after Auguste died, Laurent showed up at the police station and accused their uncle of killing Auguste. He claimed he had evidence, but failed to elaborate. Witnesses said they had heard Laurent and his uncle fighting at the Revere home just half an hour before Laurent showed up at the police station. 

Police issued a search warrant at the Revere house. His uncle had readily complied. Nothing had been found. Nothing had been found in Auguste’s recovered car either. And there was never an autopsy done on his body. 

“Huh,” Damen says. 

He looks up at Auguste, who’s staring at the view outside his floor-to-ceiling windows. For the first time since he showed up in his office, Damen feels sorry for him. Auguste is twelve years older than him, but now here he is, forever twenty-five. Damen’s older than him now, and it’s strange to think about. What makes him more deserving of life? He isn’t even a good person—not the way Auguste is. Was. 

It’s not the most conventional way to start an investigation, but hey, he might as well. “How’d you die?” Damen asks.

Auguste turns to him blinking. His eyebrows raise. “That’s the first thing you say to me after all this time? Jesus, that’s cold, man.”

Damen bites his bottom lip. “Do you remember the day you died? Did you… er.” He can’t bring himself to say kill yourself. 

“The day I died? Hmm.” Auguste’s golden eyebrows furrow. “Let me see… I took Laurent out that day. We went to the fair, and he kept pretending he was too old to go on the rides.” His smile turns fond. “Then we… I dropped him home. I went to meet some friends but I don’t think I made it.”

“Fuck!” Damen scrambles up from his seat, and he’s grateful that his office door is closed. He doesn’t think he could explain to anyone why he’s so horrified. 

Blood streaks down from Auguste’s mouth, the corner of his eyes. His clothes are soaked through, turning transparent. His golden hair is matted and wet against his scalp.

Auguste moans. “I don’t feel so good. I don’t… I can’t talk about this anymore.” 

The blood starts pouring out of his ears. 

Damen stands, paralysed, unable to move. 

And then in a blink, Auguste disappears.

***

“Damn,” Huet says. “How much do you think this place will sell for? Three mill right? I mean, at least.” 

“Shut up,” Damen says. Huet is a new recruit and he is far too peppy and talks far too much. He is definitely not good company. 

Privately, Damen agrees about the house. It’s huge, a sprawling mansion adorned with steep, gabled peaks and chimneys, topped with slate tiles that glisten in the sunlight.  Ivy and climbing roses cling to the walls. As well as being Superman, Auguste was also apparently incredibly rich. 

The man who opens the door is undoubtedly related to Auguste. It’s the eyes—Damen has been staring at those blue eyes in photos and in his office for weeks now.

Richard Revere is in his mid-fifties. His hair is dark, coiled, and his beard is trimmed and peppered with white. There are rings on each of his fingers—giant gemstones that glisten as he shakes Damen and Huet’s hands as they introduce themselves.

He has no qualms about being questioned and invites them in. 

Damen’s eyebrows raise. They’re greeted by a grand foyer with a sweeping marble staircase, its balustrade intricately wrought iron, leading to the upper floors. The interior is a blend of opulence and warmth, with high ceilings, ornate moldings, and crystal chandeliers casting a soft glow over the richly decorated rooms. Antique furniture, plush draperies, and elegant tapestries fill the spaces, each room telling its own story of centuries past.

Richard has no issues with them being in his house. Damen has done this for long enough to go by his gut—and so far this man doesn’t seem like a murderer. He just seems like a rich man from an affluent society. 

Richard makes them tea, and then says, “So. You’ve opened my nephew’s case again?”

“We have,” Damen says. They’re sitting on the most comfortable armchairs he’s ever been, in a room with far too many books and far too many globes. 

“Interesting.” Richard sips his tea. For the first time, his tone is cold, disapproving. “May I ask why? I believe the last set of detectives were incredibly thorough.”

Damen nods. “I’m sure they were. But you understand we’re in a delicate position. We can’t brush off… certain statements.”

“Ah.” Richard’s mouth quirks in amusement. “So this is about Laurent, then.” 

It’s Huet who nods this time. He says, “He called the last leading detective just six months ago, sir. He’s still adamant about…” He awkwardly trails off. 

Now Richard looks very amused. “Oh, I see. Of course. Did you know Laurent happens to make those calls to the police station every time we have a fight?” 

“Well,” Damen says, as Huet makes a note of that. “We’d like to talk to him too. Is he around?”

“He is.” Richard nods. “Upstairs, sleeping.”

Damen doesn’t react when Auguste appears in the living room. He looks like his usual self, dry and golden, free of blood. 

“You need to go upstairs,” Auguste says, and for the first time, there’s a note of frustration in his voice. “I can only go where you go. I want to go upstairs. I want to see my room. I want to see Laurent.” 

“We’ll come back later then,” Damen says. He ignores Auguste’s No! 

Richard leads them back out into the sunlight. Auguste trails after them, eyes flicking over every inch of the house, his gaze wondrous. It fills Damen with pity. 

They make their goodbyes out on the porch. Damen can see some of the neighbours take interest in their police car, but Richard seems unfazed. 

A portly woman at the end of the driveway asks them, “Laurent again? He’s a shame to the Revere name.”

Huet raises both eyebrows. Damen makes a mental note of that.

As they walk to the car, they hear a frantic, whispered. “Hey!”

Auguste gasps. “Laurent.” 

Damen follows his eyes. There’s a window at the side of the house on the second level. Someone’s opened it up enough to wave at them. 

Damen steps closer. Auguste rushes up to the window. “Laurent!” 

Laurent doesn’t hear his brother. But he does notice Damen approaching and beckons him over. 

Damen stands under the window, shoulder to shoulder with a dead man, and looks up at the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. 

Laurent’s hair is golden, falling across those same stunning, blue eyes, his lashes long and dark. His skin is luminous and sweetly pink. 

“Damn,” Huet says under his breath. 

“He’s so grown up,” Auguste whispers. 

“You’re here for Auguste’s case?” Laurent says. 

Damen has to strain to hear him. Laurent’s voice is low, anxious, like he’s worried about being caught. 

“Yeah, we are.” Damen clears his throat, which is suddenly scratchy.

Something bright sparks in Laurent’s eyes. He’s still whispering. “Great. You think you can meet me at the diner down the road in an hour? I can’t get away until he leaves the house.”

That instantly sets alarm bells in Damen’s head. He frowns. 

“God, he looks so different,” Auguste says.

Damen nods at Laurent, who’s still anxious, still waiting for a response. 

“Okay, we’ll see you.”

Laurent nods and shuts the window, disappearing from view. After a moment, Auguste does too. 

[winmance]

Swipe Right for Family Discount!

Damen looks at himself in his rearview mirror one last time, repositioning his hair correctly and checking his teeth to make sure no salad has gotten stuck into it. He’s not usually this stressed before going on a date, but he’s also not usually that interested. He hasn’t told Nikandros yet, refusing to see the disapproval on his friend’s face, but he thinks this may be it for him. He’s been talking to Laurent for less than a week and yet, he already can’t think of anything else. Every second of his day is spent thinking about him and even when he’s sleeping, his brain finds a way to bring Laurent in his dreams. Which is crazy, considering that today will be the first time meeting him.

Laurent is the one who chose the restaurant, and his choice surprised Damen, but he didn’t think much about it. Looking back, he probably should have questioned Laurent about choosing a family place for their dinner, but you don’t know what you don’t ask.

It doesn’t take him more than a few seconds to spot Laurent in the restaurant. It feels like a movie when the music starts to play and everything goes in slow motion. His hair is so blond that the light seems to reflect on it. His blue eyes are on Damen in an instant, deep and cold. He’s not wearing expensive clothes but he’s in all black, with not an inch of skin showing. He’s the most beautiful human being Damen has ever seen and he hopes Laurent is going to like him because there’s no way Damen will be able to live knowing that such beauty walks on Earth.

The slow motion stops the moment someone steps into Laurent’s personal space.

At first Damen frowns, until he realizes it’s a kid and then he thinks the boy must be lost but then - then Laurent’s eyes leave him and focus on the boy and he doesn’t seem to care that the boy is so close to him, that their feet are touching.

That’s when Damen realizes something is wrong.

“Hello Damen,” Laurent says.

“Hello Damen,” the boy next to him repeats.

“Hey, I… uh… You are…”

“This is Nicaise. My babysitter was sick. It says on your profile that you love kids.”

“I’m a kid,” the kid says.

“I do,” Damen says. “Nice to meet you. Both of you.”

He loves kids, yes, but on his first date? He’s not sure. Laurent’s profile didn’t mention a kid. Let alone a teenager. He’s not the best at math but even if Laurent had the kid at sixteen, it still would be impossible for him to be this big.

A normal man should have run. In fact, Damen is pretty sure that if he could google “What does it mean if your crush brings their kid that they didn’t tell you about to your first date?” he would find out that this is one of the biggest red flags ever.

But Damen is not a normal man and so he leads the way to their table and he pulls out the chair for both of them. Nicaise giggles while Laurent barely smiles. Damen tries to blame it on stress, but they’re barely two minutes into their date and Laurent is already holding his head, looking extremely bored, which is strange because they talked so much by text that Damen thought the conversation would go smoothly.

“I watched the show you talked about,” Damen says. His throat feels tight with how tense the situation is. “Into the fire? The documentary about the missing girl.”

“You did?”

Laurent seems surprised and for a few seconds, he even lifts his head to look at Damen.

“Yes. It was really good.”

“I thought you didn’t like true crime documentaries.”

“Yes but you said you liked it, so I thought I should watch it too.”

“Can I watch it?” Nicaise asks.

“Absolutely not. Do you hear me? It’s a no.”

“You may be a bit too young for that,” Damen says, and then he realizes he has no idea how young Nicaise is. He’s pretty, like Laurent, with big blue eyes and curly dark hair. He’s small, though, and slime. Damen has never been like that. He went straight from toddler to Viking, as his father used to say. At six, they were already dressing him with twelve years old clothes.

“Did you watch it illegally?” This time, the question is directed to Laurent. “So I can’t watch my favorite anime because it may give us viruses, but you can? You know that you can go to jail for that? And let me break it to you: orange is not your color.”

Damen never spoke like that to his parents and if he did, he wouldn’t be here to tell anyone about it. He should feel offended but he can’t, not when Nicaise’s words make him want to laugh.

“It’s on Netflix. He probably watches it here,” Damen says, trying to help.

“We don’t have Netflix anymore. The neighbor used to allow us to use his account but with their fucking new setting it doesn’t work anymore. Thanks fuck we can still use their WiFi!”

“Langage Nicaise,” Laurent says. “I watched it with Jord last weekend. Nothing illegal here.”

Damen has to force himself not to react. It would be disproportionate to make a fuss about a guy named Jord, who could very much be Laurent’s grandpa. In fact, he’s probably his grandpa. If Laurent forgot to tell him about his kid, he may have forgotten to tell him about his grandpa with whom he likes to watch true crime.

“Do you have Netflix, Damen?” Nicaise aks.

“I do, yes.”

“And Amazon Prime?”

“Yes.”

“What about Disney+? HBO?”

“Uh, yes. I think I got all of them? There was a deal when I bought my TV.”

Nicaise nods, as if taking notes, before focusing back on the menu in front of him. For some reason, Damen feels like he just gained some points and he smiles before turning back to Laurent, who’s looking at him with a frown on his face. He seems tense and Damen would like to blame it on the fact that it’s their first date, but he has a feeling it’s not it. There’s a hole in Laurent’s sleeves and he keeps playing nervously with it. It’s really cute.

“I read the book you mentioned,” Laurent mumbles. “I didn’t have anything to do.”

“Did you like it?”

“It was adequate.”

The book is one of Damen’s favorites. He read it when he was twelve and the loss of his mom was starting to creep into him. It’s a beautiful book about grief and he’s aware that only someone who had lost someone they deeply loved can appreciate it.

“You cried while reading it,” Nicaise says, his eyes still down on the menu.

“I did not.”

“Yes, you cried like a big baby and then you were like, all emotional and telling me that you loved me. It was disgusting. Damen, don’t recommend that kind of book again.”

“Notes taken. What should I recommend then? What kind of books do you think are appropriate for Laurent?”

“Erotics books.”

Damen bursts into laughter at the same moment Laurent shoves Nicaise away, his face turning a dark shade of red.

“What? It’s true! That would do you some good!”

“Focus back on your menu. You are not a part of this conversation.”

“We should order, actually,” Damen says, trying to distract Laurent again. “What does Nicaise eat?”

“You can ask me directly, you know,” Nicaise says.

“Oh yes, sorry. What do you want to eat?”

“I don’t talk to strangers.”

Laurent, having already forgotten the kid, can’t help but smirk and Damen is a weak man, so he does the same. He has a weird feeling in his stomach, something warm and familiar. He has to restrain himself from reaching out to hold Laurent’s hand.

“He’ll have a burger with extra bacon and a diet Coke.”

“Good choice,” Damen notes. “And you?”

“Cesar salad.”

Damen has never once ordered a salad while at the restaurant and he’s not surprised to see it’s the cheapest meal here. It does look good, sure. If you eat it while waiting for your burgers. Still, he’s smart enough to understand why Laurent chose it, and even smarter not to comment on it.

“I’ll take the burger too. They have onion rings and chicken wings that seem absolutely amazing so I think I’ll start with them.”

“You’re having all of that before your burger?” Laurent asks.

“Yeah, that may be a bit excessive… Would you be ok eating them with me?”

Laurent’s stomach is quicker to answer than he is, the noise reaching their ears before Damen’s sentence is even over. This time, however, Nicaise doesn’t laugh when he looks at his father and instead, a complex expression booms on his face.

“If you don’t mind…”

“Nah, I won’t be able to eat it all anyway.”

Damen quickly orders for them and they finally fall into an easy conversation after that. Nicaise helps a lot, throwing shades at his dad every time he can, and at some point, Damen thinks he insulted him but he’s not sure that he got it quite right. He hadn’t realized just how old he was until that moment, but apparently young people these days seem to have a whole new language.

“You should download TikTok,” Nicaise tells him. “I’ll send you videos to help you get some culture.”

“You’ll not,” Laurent says.

“Why?”

“It’s inappropriate.”

“Ugh, find. Damen, can I have your phone please?”

“Nicaise, that’s not-”

Damen unlocks his phone and gives it to him. Laurent looks at him as if he has grown a second head and it occurs to Damen that yes, giving your phone to a fourteen-year-old (Nicaise had told him he was eighteen to try and get a beer, to which Laurent had replied while pointing his real age) was quite dangerous. But he doesn’t care.

“Here. I added Laurent’s TikTok. He doesn’t post anything of course, but he’s always sending me those really not funny videos that I’m sure you’ll love.”

When they were texting, Laurent had told him he was not on social media. No Instagram, no Facebook and certainly no TikTok.

“Can I get a follow-back?”

“I… Yes.”

After sending a deadly stare at Nicaise, Laurent takes out his phone. The screen is broken and the phone seems like an old version of the one Damen has, but Laurent is still able to navigate through it, and like promised, he adds him on TikTok.

They get distracted again when the food finally arrives and after some convincing, Laurent helps Damen in eating all the things he ordered. It’s a nice family scene, Damen realizes. It looks like they’re just two regular dads eating with their teenage son who can’t keep his eyes off his phone. It’s domestic, the way they easily fall into silence without it being awkward. From time to time, Laurent will look at him with that weird expression on his face, but then he stays quiet or tells Nicaise to focus on his food. Each time, Damen smiles at him. Now that Laurent is more relaxed, he’s exactly like in his texts: sarcastic in a funny way, shy but not too much, interesting, and passionate when Damen finds the right subject. He loves true crime but also The Office. He lived in France for a while but has never been in another country outside of that. He works in a library, something he hadn’t told Damen before but that makes so much sense. He doesn’t talk about his family but when Damen talks about Kastor, both Laurent and Nicaise agree that he’s an asshole, which makes Damen laugh. They’re almost done eating when Damen realizes that he’s in deep trouble because there’s no way this was a one-time thing.

“So Damen,” Nicaise says once he finishes his burger. He cleans his mouth with the back of his sleeve, which earns him another complaint from Laurent. Unlike his dad, his clothes seem new. “What are your intentions towards Laurent?”

Laurent chokes on his water but Damen keeps it cool. He was expecting this question, for some odd reasons.

“They’re nothing but pure. Anything he wants, I’ll give him.”

There’s that deep blush on Laurent’s face again but he doesn’t say anything. They finish eating in silence, but it’s a comfortable one and when Damen’s fingers brush against Laurent's own, he doesn’t reach out but doesn’t push his hand away either.

Once it’s time to pay, Damen doesn’t let Laurent take his car out and immediately pays for the whole meal.

“You didn’t have to.”

“I did say in my bio that I was old school, didn’t I?”

They agree on a walk along the docks after. The air is fresh but not cold, just enough to make Damen sleepy. Next to him, Laurent shivers, which is no surprise because despite not showing any skin, his clothes are way too thin for the season. So of course, Damen takes his jacket off and throws it on his shoulders.

“Thank you.”

“Of course. I can’t imagine what Nicaise would do to me if I let you get a cold.”

Laurent smiles fondly.

“He’s a bit protective, sometimes. But he’s a good kid.”

“He is, yes,” Damen agrees. “Do you do that a lot?”

“Do what?”

“Bring the kid to a date so that you’ll get dinner for free. I’m not complaining, just so we’re clear. I had a really good night.”

Nicaise is in front of them, running after some poor birds to make them fly. Damen understood pretty fast during their date that he was just part of a scheme to get free food and while it did hurt his ego a bit at first, he can’t complain. Not when the night is so nice and Laurent is so close to him.

“I only did it once or twice,” Laurent admits after a while. “It’s not… Money gets tight sometimes and it’s fun. We’re not hurting anyone. The two times we did it, the men paid for the meal but didn’t stay with us. They kept apologizing but couldn’t stand to even try and have a conversation with us. It was laughable, I swear.”

“So you never mentioned Nicaise to any of them before the date?”

“No, but to be fair, you’re… I didn’t talk a lot with them, even through texts. We just chatted a bit and then they wanted to meet me right away. So it was easier to pretend like the question didn’t come up.”

“And with me?”

“I didn’t expect us to talk this much.”

There’s a strange feeling of pride booming inside of Damen’s chest and he’s smiling like a teenager, but it feels right to do so.

“You were not really looking for a boyfriend then?”

“No,” Laurent says. “I’m… I was not.”

“And now?”

Laurent stays silent for a while but his cheeks are red and he’s playing nervously with his hands. Still, when he turns towards him, his face is neutral.

“It was a great night.”

“It was,” Damen agrees.

They stopped walking some time ago. They’re standing in front of each other now, Nicaise’s presence not far away but not close enough to disrupt them. Damen won’t kiss Laurent, not now, but the way they’re looking at each other is better than any kiss he ever had.

“So, tomorrow at the same time?”

“I will have to bring Nicaise.”

And this time, he does seem sorry about it.

“Ah. See, it’s a bit awkward but it’s actually Nicaise I wanted to see… He’s really funny. But you’re free to tag along, of course.”

This time when Laurent laughs, he does so with all his chest and it’s the prettiest sound Damen’s ever heard. Well, almost, because then Nicaise, who has apparently been listening to the conversation, laughs too and the sound they make is the one Damen will be playing in his head on his deathbed.

“I want to eat sushi tomorrow,” Nicaise says. “Also, can we go and watch a movie before? There’s a new horror movie -”

“No horror movie for you.”

“What? You’re the one who gets scared! Not me! I’m sure Damen can hold you close so you don’t piss your pants.”

“Yes,” Damen says, “I’ll hold you close. Both of you.”

Damen has never been very lucky with love. He had a lot of girlfriends, including Jokaste, but none of them he felt deeply connected with. He loved them, to some extent, and they probably loved him back, but he always felt like he was searching for something else. Like his heart was made for more, and yet it always refused entry to any of the girls he dated. Like he had been made to love, fully, without any restraints, but without ever being able to do so. He remembers lying in bed with Jokaste and feeling like a fraud for not loving her more. He had thought that maybe something in him was broken. That his mother’s death, his father’s cold love, and Kastor’s hate had broken something in him, making him both craving and refusing love.

The moon is up in the sky. The stars are shining. Nicaise is taking a selfie in front of the water. Laurent’s hand is in his. And he thinks, for the first time, that finally his heart feels complete and opens.

Nikandros is going to give him so much shit for this.

[laurent-ofvere]

Rereading the training of Erasmus and I think Erasmus would’ve been able to describe everyone in detail had we gotten more of his pov. I wonder what he thought of Laurent’s appearance. I would love to have read their conversation bc it’s very obvious that Laurent asked Erasmus about what Damianos liked (as in his favorite epics, and stuff not the sexual stuff)

ugh dude YES!! I really enjoy the training of erasmus bc honestly I feel like we got more overall descriptions and little insights on all these things in that one short story than we did in the entire trilogy