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Any feelings of guilt Damen might have experienced for having assumed Laurent would know full well the effects the Akielon sun might have on his pale Veretian skin evaporated the first time Laurent glared at him.
The glare suggested that Damen's guilt was not only expected, but justified. That Damen had brought about Laurent's current state through willful intent, rather than negligent ignorance, by overestimating Laurent's knowledge of his (their) new home.
"Next time, you may wish to wear a hat." Damen tried to keep his tone neutral, but it was a difficult thing.
Men did not die of sunburn. Laurent might be experiencing discomfort for a few days, but it was not as if he had been wounded in a fight, or stabbed by an assassin's knife.
As these things went, sunburn was harmless. A teasing matter.
Which did not mean Damen could afford not to tread carefully, of course. Laurent in a good mood was sharp-tongued, impossible to predict and occasionally whimsical.
Laurent in a bad mood was all those things as well, save that he turned them to the purpose of making Damen's life more complicated than Damen would prefer.
"A hat." Laurent's tone was flat. "What useful advice."
There was more to the prevention of sunburn than hats, naturally, but the hat would be a start. It would cover Laurent's hair - not so much that it would remain out of sight entirely, yet Damen felt a certain thrill at the idea of Laurent taking it off at the end of the day, in the privacy of their rooms, where Damen might watch the sun's dying light illuminate all of him.
A pleasant enough fantasy, unlikely to come about if Damen failed to put Laurent in a more accommodating mood.
Thus, "I'm sorry. I assumed that you would know - that you had taken precautions."
"Yes," said Laurent. "My many previous visits to Akielos should surely have left me well-warned."
"I thought that you had studied us."
"Somehow, the matter of hats failed to come up," said Laurent. "I suppose I should consider myself lucky that my men managed to secure your throne for you without them."
They were alone, with no one else within earshot. It meant Damen might let certain things go unchallenged, for the sake of keeping the peace, without worrying about what the kyroi might say, were they to hear of them.
Laurent knew this as well as he did, of course. Better, possibly.
"Our throne," said Damen.
"Yet you don't walk around wearing a hat," replied Laurent, as if the two matters were even remotely connected to one another.
"I was born here."
"Really? I never would have guessed."
"You're not going to wear a hat because I don't wear one? That's - " ridiculous " - that doesn't make any sense." Damen supposed that he could wear a hat, if he so chose. Some might consider it a sign of weakness, or eccentricity, but as far as 'catering to the Veretians' went, Damen walking around wearing a hat seemed harmless enough.
"A bit of sunburn isn't going to kill me," said Laurent.
It was very nearly the same thing Damen had thought himself, not so long ago, and yet when Laurent said it, Damen wanted to argue with him.
"If it puts you in this sort of mood, it might end up killing me."
Perversely, that won him a small smile. "You're not that easy to kill."
Damen sighed. He might push, undo whatever he had said or done to bring about that smile and that acknowledgment of Laurent's feelings for him, however understated.
"Will you at least let someone apply some ointment to the worst spots?" He did not add that Laurent would be expected to sit by his side for the better part of the afternoon tomorrow, when they would be addressing the requests made by several of the northern kyroi.
"Someone?" Laurent asked, giving him an arch look.
Damen swallowed. "Will you let me?"
"Was this your plan all along? There are easier ways to get me into bed, you know. More difficult ones, too, I suppose," said Laurent, looking thoughtful. "I would suggest you not use the one where you get yourself presented to me as my personal slave again. Still, you are not a complete idiot. Surely you were able to conceive of something that didn't involve damaging my fair skin which you admire so much."
"If you think I only put up with you for your looks, you are - " the one who is a complete idiot " - wrong."
"You're not 'putting up' with me," said Laurent. "You are quite helplessly in lust with me. Straw, do you think, or some sort of cloth? For shading, I imagine straw to be the better choice."
"What - "
"We might start a new fashion. Again. Perhaps ... ribbons. That might gain Charls some extra business." Laurent nodded slowly. "It's a pity we won't be able to wear them to the meeting tomorrow."
"Why not?"
Laurent shrugged. "Oh, I suppose we might arrange something, but that would require you foregoing your chance to put your hands all over me, and I think we both know the unlikeliness of such a thing. In some aspects, you really are a giant animal. Not that I'm complaining, of course."
"Of course not. When have you ever expressed the least degree of discontent with anything?"
Laurent's expression suggested that perhaps Damen might best leave sarcasm to those who had learned it at the same time they had learned how to speak. "Well? Are you coming, or did you want to talk about hats some more?"
"I believe the subject of hats has been more than sufficiently discussed," Damen said.