Raith let him reverse their positions with a glint in one eye, but was soon moaning in turn as By found that one spot on his neck and the access to his trousers at the same time. By knelt down and took him in his mouth, relishing the feel of the already-aroused cock and the sound of the little whimpering noises the other man was making, something he didn't get to do nearly often enough.
"Oh god," the Raith said. "Okay, I'd heard stories, but you're actually good at this--" he moaned again, and reached back, scrabbling at the shelves behind him for something to grab hold of. Instead, he somehow managed to knock nearly an entire shelf of books onto the floor.
They both jumped away, startled by the sudden noise of the falling books. By pulled off and rolled into a defensive crouch as Raith's hands went to places that By would have made large bets held concealed weapons. And then they both glanced down at the pile of books and chuckled.
Raith shook his head ruefully. "Maybe not the most well-considered position to start with," he said.
By glanced around. "Previous occupants would suggest the desk is suitable," he suggested. It was at almost exactly the right height, too.
Raith's eyes darkened. "Top or bottom?" he asked, without any of the freighted implications a Barrayaran man would have put into the question, and By shivered in anticipation.
"Do you have lube?" he asked.
"What kind of man do you take me for, Vorrutyer?" he asked, and then rummaged in a pocket, only a few inches from one of the concealed weapons. He held up a small bottle triumphantly. "Of course I have lube."
And they did make use of the desk. And, eventually, the floor as well, including an accidental tumble across the still-scattered books, which made By wince for a second at the possible damage to historical artifacts before Raith, very effectively, distracted him.
He woke up, afterward, flat on the floor, in a state of major déshabille, alone and feeling slightly off. By the sound of the party still filtering in through the walls, he hadn't been out for long, and he starting putting himself back in order while he tried to figure out what was wrong with him. Usually, a quick romp left him feeling sated and relaxed and recharged, and while the sated was certainly true - Raith had been amazing, By was tempted to keep trying to trace the accent just to find out of if there were more like him back home - he was feeling oddly drained rather than recharged. He felt stretched, and empty, and not entirely in the good way. And some of the details of the end of the encounter were indistinctly blurred, buried in his memory under an almost suffocating haze of pleasure. Passing out after sex wasn't exactly typical of him, either, even sex that spectacular; it was too dangerous a habit. He shook his head, sharply, trying to rattle his brains back in to place as he finished re-tying his neckcloth.
Raith had clearly left already, which was probably wise; he had to know that various people had been keeping an eye out for him, and a prolonged absence would be noted in a way that Byerly being typically irresponsible wouldn't be. And the two of them leaving together and returning together would have been a bit too blatant. Still, it wasn't exactly considerate, and By thought uncharitably that he was starting to understand why the man got on so well with Ivan.
He took a last turn about the room, making sure there was no evidence of the visit, and took the opportunity to wipe all the remaining incriminating dust off the desktop with his second spare handkerchief. The first one he found crumpled and soiled behind the desk, so he wrapped them both up carefully together and tucked them away with a note to toss them both into the nearest lit fireplace. Beyond that, there was no sign that anything untoward had ever happened to disturb the room's serenity, and he gave one last yank to shake the wrinkles out of his tunic before he rejoined the party.
He'd barely managed to acquire another glass of wine to rinse out his mouth before Vorkosigan appeared beside him with the kind of preternatural stealth that made him jealous at the same time he nearly jumped out of his skin. "Did you find anything out?" the little Lord asked.
"Find out? About what?" By asked him coolly over his wine.
"About Raith," Vorkosigan said impatiently.
"Oh, him," By said, lingering sensually over the word. "Oh yes. I think I was right the first time about why he's here."
By watched that tick over in Vorkosigan's scary brain, added up with the small but unmistakable signs of ravishment By had left on his person, and watched his lips curl in disgust. "I can't believe you'd do that," he said.
"I've no idea what you're talking about," By said superciliously, flicking a completely not imaginary bit of dust off of one of his sleeves. "Besides, I thought you were supposed to be all enlightened and Betan."
"I-- what-- I don't--" Vorkosigan sputtered. "The man could be dangerous, Vorrutyer. We don't know what his motives or loyalties are. And you just--" He threw up his hands. "Have you no sense of responsibility at all?"
"I've no idea whatever gave you the idea I did, my Lord," By told him, and faked an acquaintance calling his name.
All the same, it bothered him. The man was a god of sex, and apparently completely uninhibited in the best possible way, but that didn't erase everything that had made him suspicious in the first place, starting with the way the man had insinuated himself with Ivan. And his foggy memories of the encounter itself bothered him; he hadn't been that drunk, reckless disregard of good judgment notwithstanding, and it wasn't typical of him. Something else didn't add up from that night, either, something that was niggling at his trained observer's mind, and he sat down the next morning (well, afternoon, but it was over breakfast, so it counted) to think it out.
He worked through everything he did remember, in chronological and then, when that yielded nothing, in spacial order, which is when it struck him. There had been no sign that Raith had done any tidying before he left, but books that Raith had knocked on to the floor had not been there when By woke up. And-- he pulled the images up as best he could in his memory, and no, he was fairly sure that the shelf had still been empty when. The books had disappeared along with Raith. Well, shit.
He tried to remember everything he could about them. They'd almost certainly been rare antiques, like everything else in that forgotten room, probably an old Emperor's most private lair. They'd been mostly slender, hard-bound volumes, with the careful sturdy craftsmanship that meant pre-Cetagandan Invasion. The design on the covers had led him to assume classic fiction, probably some of the high-status stuff that had been remembered from old Earth since the days of the first colonization, and he winced. He knew there were long-standing rumors that some of the forgotton libraries in the old houses of Vorbarra Sultana held old Earth literature that was preserved nowhere else in the galaxy, and if Raith had managed to get his hands on some of that without By even considering the possibility - well, it would be embarrassing.
He needed to remember as much as he could about what the books actually were before it was worth bringing the suspicions to the notice of anyone of importance (which, he would like it to be noted, did not include Lord Vorkosigan.) He'd, understandably, not been at his most observant at the time, but he did have a vague recollection of thinking that the books were strangely appropriate for what they were doing. Some kind of pornography or sex manuals? Given some of the old Emperors, he wouldn't have been entirely surprised, but that didn't fit with the general look of the books. It was the author's name, he recalled suddenly. They'd nearly all been by the same author, and the name had been something like Sexwork or Art Love or something.
With that much, a few good hours at the University's computerized reference indices got him narrowed down to only a few dozen possible authors, and only one of them fit the rest of the criteria. 'Lovecraft', it turned out, had been a legendary writer of horror fiction early in Earth's Age of Information, widely referenced in contemporary and near-contemporary literature but almost none of his works known to survive to the present day. And there was a rumor,printed in the letters column of a recent Betan literary journal, that some of them were still extant in a few copies on Barrayar, and had been favorites of Mad Emperor Yuri in his last years.
A quick check of public palace inventories listed nothing of the sort, but that meant approximately zero in terms of what was actually there, and he didn't have the clearance to check any of the more private files without special authorization. He found himself nervously chewing on a knuckle before he gave in to the inevitable, compiled together everything he had (even the dreadfully embarrassing bits) and requesting a meeting with his Impsec handler about reporting a possible theft from the Imperial Residence.
The next morning - and this time it was actually morning, and far too early after a night spent at yet another Vor party, drinking rather too much and spending a lot of time hiding in corners with the excuse that he was surreptitiously observing Raith, whom By was fairly sure had spent the evening silently laughing at him - the next morning, he found himself standing at something resembling attention across a desk from Lady Alys Vorpatril, and telling her the whole story.
She nodded grimly at him when he mentioned Thomas Raith, and said, "Yes, I've unfortunately been well aware of his activities on planet," and rolled her eyes and said "I see my son has been acting out again," when he described the hidden room, but she kindly let him gloss over exactly why they had thought it appropriate to adjourn there together in the first place, and precisely how he had been rendered insensate. When he came to the part about the missing books, however, she straightened at every joint with the intensity of a hunting dog on a scent, and said, "Did you happened to recall which books they were?"
"Not in detail, but I got enough to do some research, and I'm fairly certain that they were--"
She cut him off. "I am also aware of what books they were, Byerly. While I commend your, ah, dedication to the Empire, I am afraid that this affair is well above your security rating, and it is extremely dangerous for you to know even as much as you know."
He stared at her blankly, trying to figure out how the theft of some minor works of fiction could be that vital to Imperial Security. Sure, they were probably valuable - possibly priceless - but they hadn't sounded exactly dangerous, Mad Yuri aside.
"Ma'am?" he asked.
"And I would suggest, for you own good, that you do your best to forget that you ever heard of them," she added. "Otherwise, there's a possibility that certain people might decide they need to ensure that you've forgotten. Now, did you have anything else to report?"
Far be it from Byerly Vorrutyer not to heed good advice from his elders.
Re: OPEN PROMPT: Sweet Oblivion (Barrayar crossover, 2/2)
Raith let him reverse their positions with a glint in one eye, but was soon moaning in turn as By found that one spot on his neck and the access to his trousers at the same time. By knelt down and took him in his mouth, relishing the feel of the already-aroused cock and the sound of the little whimpering noises the other man was making, something he didn't get to do nearly often enough.
"Oh god," the Raith said. "Okay, I'd heard stories, but you're actually good at this--" he moaned again, and reached back, scrabbling at the shelves behind him for something to grab hold of. Instead, he somehow managed to knock nearly an entire shelf of books onto the floor.
They both jumped away, startled by the sudden noise of the falling books. By pulled off and rolled into a defensive crouch as Raith's hands went to places that By would have made large bets held concealed weapons. And then they both glanced down at the pile of books and chuckled.
Raith shook his head ruefully. "Maybe not the most well-considered position to start with," he said.
By glanced around. "Previous occupants would suggest the desk is suitable," he suggested. It was at almost exactly the right height, too.
Raith's eyes darkened. "Top or bottom?" he asked, without any of the freighted implications a Barrayaran man would have put into the question, and By shivered in anticipation.
"Do you have lube?" he asked.
"What kind of man do you take me for, Vorrutyer?" he asked, and then rummaged in a pocket, only a few inches from one of the concealed weapons. He held up a small bottle triumphantly. "Of course I have lube."
And they did make use of the desk. And, eventually, the floor as well, including an accidental tumble across the still-scattered books, which made By wince for a second at the possible damage to historical artifacts before Raith, very effectively, distracted him.
He woke up, afterward, flat on the floor, in a state of major déshabille, alone and feeling slightly off. By the sound of the party still filtering in through the walls, he hadn't been out for long, and he starting putting himself back in order while he tried to figure out what was wrong with him. Usually, a quick romp left him feeling sated and relaxed and recharged, and while the sated was certainly true - Raith had been amazing, By was tempted to keep trying to trace the accent just to find out of if there were more like him back home - he was feeling oddly drained rather than recharged. He felt stretched, and empty, and not entirely in the good way. And some of the details of the end of the encounter were indistinctly blurred, buried in his memory under an almost suffocating haze of pleasure. Passing out after sex wasn't exactly typical of him, either, even sex that spectacular; it was too dangerous a habit. He shook his head, sharply, trying to rattle his brains back in to place as he finished re-tying his neckcloth.
Raith had clearly left already, which was probably wise; he had to know that various people had been keeping an eye out for him, and a prolonged absence would be noted in a way that Byerly being typically irresponsible wouldn't be. And the two of them leaving together and returning together would have been a bit too blatant. Still, it wasn't exactly considerate, and By thought uncharitably that he was starting to understand why the man got on so well with Ivan.
He took a last turn about the room, making sure there was no evidence of the visit, and took the opportunity to wipe all the remaining incriminating dust off the desktop with his second spare handkerchief. The first one he found crumpled and soiled behind the desk, so he wrapped them both up carefully together and tucked them away with a note to toss them both into the nearest lit fireplace. Beyond that, there was no sign that anything untoward had ever happened to disturb the room's serenity, and he gave one last yank to shake the wrinkles out of his tunic before he rejoined the party.
He'd barely managed to acquire another glass of wine to rinse out his mouth before Vorkosigan appeared beside him with the kind of preternatural stealth that made him jealous at the same time he nearly jumped out of his skin. "Did you find anything out?" the little Lord asked.
"Find out? About what?" By asked him coolly over his wine.
"About Raith," Vorkosigan said impatiently.
"Oh, him," By said, lingering sensually over the word. "Oh yes. I think I was right the first time about why he's here."
By watched that tick over in Vorkosigan's scary brain, added up with the small but unmistakable signs of ravishment By had left on his person, and watched his lips curl in disgust. "I can't believe you'd do that," he said.
"I've no idea what you're talking about," By said superciliously, flicking a completely not imaginary bit of dust off of one of his sleeves. "Besides, I thought you were supposed to be all enlightened and Betan."
"I-- what-- I don't--" Vorkosigan sputtered. "The man could be dangerous, Vorrutyer. We don't know what his motives or loyalties are. And you just--" He threw up his hands. "Have you no sense of responsibility at all?"
"I've no idea whatever gave you the idea I did, my Lord," By told him, and faked an acquaintance calling his name.
All the same, it bothered him. The man was a god of sex, and apparently completely uninhibited in the best possible way, but that didn't erase everything that had made him suspicious in the first place, starting with the way the man had insinuated himself with Ivan. And his foggy memories of the encounter itself bothered him; he hadn't been that drunk, reckless disregard of good judgment notwithstanding, and it wasn't typical of him. Something else didn't add up from that night, either, something that was niggling at his trained observer's mind, and he sat down the next morning (well, afternoon, but it was over breakfast, so it counted) to think it out.
He worked through everything he did remember, in chronological and then, when that yielded nothing, in spacial order, which is when it struck him. There had been no sign that Raith had done any tidying before he left, but books that Raith had knocked on to the floor had not been there when By woke up. And-- he pulled the images up as best he could in his memory, and no, he was fairly sure that the shelf had still been empty when. The books had disappeared along with Raith. Well, shit.
He tried to remember everything he could about them. They'd almost certainly been rare antiques, like everything else in that forgotten room, probably an old Emperor's most private lair. They'd been mostly slender, hard-bound volumes, with the careful sturdy craftsmanship that meant pre-Cetagandan Invasion. The design on the covers had led him to assume classic fiction, probably some of the high-status stuff that had been remembered from old Earth since the days of the first colonization, and he winced. He knew there were long-standing rumors that some of the forgotton libraries in the old houses of Vorbarra Sultana held old Earth literature that was preserved nowhere else in the galaxy, and if Raith had managed to get his hands on some of that without By even considering the possibility - well, it would be embarrassing.
He needed to remember as much as he could about what the books actually were before it was worth bringing the suspicions to the notice of anyone of importance (which, he would like it to be noted, did not include Lord Vorkosigan.) He'd, understandably, not been at his most observant at the time, but he did have a vague recollection of thinking that the books were strangely appropriate for what they were doing. Some kind of pornography or sex manuals? Given some of the old Emperors, he wouldn't have been entirely surprised, but that didn't fit with the general look of the books. It was the author's name, he recalled suddenly. They'd nearly all been by the same author, and the name had been something like Sexwork or Art Love or something.
With that much, a few good hours at the University's computerized reference indices got him narrowed down to only a few dozen possible authors, and only one of them fit the rest of the criteria. 'Lovecraft', it turned out, had been a legendary writer of horror fiction early in Earth's Age of Information, widely referenced in contemporary and near-contemporary literature but almost none of his works known to survive to the present day. And there was a rumor,printed in the letters column of a recent Betan literary journal, that some of them were still extant in a few copies on Barrayar, and had been favorites of Mad Emperor Yuri in his last years.
A quick check of public palace inventories listed nothing of the sort, but that meant approximately zero in terms of what was actually there, and he didn't have the clearance to check any of the more private files without special authorization. He found himself nervously chewing on a knuckle before he gave in to the inevitable, compiled together everything he had (even the dreadfully embarrassing bits) and requesting a meeting with his Impsec handler about reporting a possible theft from the Imperial Residence.
The next morning - and this time it was actually morning, and far too early after a night spent at yet another Vor party, drinking rather too much and spending a lot of time hiding in corners with the excuse that he was surreptitiously observing Raith, whom By was fairly sure had spent the evening silently laughing at him - the next morning, he found himself standing at something resembling attention across a desk from Lady Alys Vorpatril, and telling her the whole story.
She nodded grimly at him when he mentioned Thomas Raith, and said, "Yes, I've unfortunately been well aware of his activities on planet," and rolled her eyes and said "I see my son has been acting out again," when he described the hidden room, but she kindly let him gloss over exactly why they had thought it appropriate to adjourn there together in the first place, and precisely how he had been rendered insensate. When he came to the part about the missing books, however, she straightened at every joint with the intensity of a hunting dog on a scent, and said, "Did you happened to recall which books they were?"
"Not in detail, but I got enough to do some research, and I'm fairly certain that they were--"
She cut him off. "I am also aware of what books they were, Byerly. While I commend your, ah, dedication to the Empire, I am afraid that this affair is well above your security rating, and it is extremely dangerous for you to know even as much as you know."
He stared at her blankly, trying to figure out how the theft of some minor works of fiction could be that vital to Imperial Security. Sure, they were probably valuable - possibly priceless - but they hadn't sounded exactly dangerous, Mad Yuri aside.
"Ma'am?" he asked.
"And I would suggest, for you own good, that you do your best to forget that you ever heard of them," she added. "Otherwise, there's a possibility that certain people might decide they need to ensure that you've forgotten. Now, did you have anything else to report?"
Far be it from Byerly Vorrutyer not to heed good advice from his elders.