[Mature] A Rainy Night in the Stacks

[Genevieve De Silver]

Night, the 9th of Loshis 2720.

When Niccolette indicated the array of bottles Jean got up from the bed, as he stood his head swam briefly. Once he was steady he walked over and looked through the bottles and selected the bottle of port and read the label and nodded appreciatively, then he picked up the bottle of whiskey as well.

As he turned to walk back to the bed and at Nicco’s mention of a bath he suddenly became aware of the itchy dried blood crusted on his back.

“A bath really does sound rather good I must say.”


At Niccolette’s suggestion he paused, baths forgotten, could he do it? Could her really fake Genevieve’s death?

“Would that work? I mean I have money, so paying off a doctor wouldn’t be an issue. I’m not sure I could tell another person, even a doctor…”


However when Niccolette offered to wash his back his mouth went dry once more and a flush came up his chest from under the bandages and to his neck and his pale cheeks bloomed with heat.

“I.. yes.”
His eyes went to where Niccolette’s robe had slipped and he struggled to pull his gaze back to her eyes. Then he said softly.

"I think I would like that."

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Night, Loshis 9, 2720
Niccolette's Room, the Palazzo di Rhodon

Niccolette’s gaze was steady as Jean’s slipped down to the bare shoulder and collarbone exposed by the slipping of her robe. When he looked back up, she was still watching him, evenly, from across the room. She smiled, and left the cigar behind in the ashtray, a thin trail of smoke winding up from it. She eased herself off the bed, gently readjusting her robe so it closed as it should, hands smoothing the tie of it for a moment. She was well aware of the red flush of his skin, creeping over what she could see of his bare chest and his cheeks as well.

Niccolette disappeared into the bathroom for a moment; there was the creak of the pipes, and then the rushing of water as the tub began to fill. “You shall have to tell me how hot you like it,” Niccolette called over the sound of the water, more than a little amusement thickening her voice.

It had not escaped her notice, of late, that she had a different tolerance for heat than she had before; she knew she liked her water at a temperature that others found scalding, and that a cold bath had become nearly unbearable, at least for more than a few minutes time.

Niccolette came back out of the bathroom, leaving the tub to fill behind her – she knew from her own experience it took a little while - and went back towards Jean. “For me, whiskey,” she said; she picked up one of the cut-glass tumblers, and held it for Jean to pour into.

Niccolette leaned against the nearby writing desk, her hip resting against the surface of it. She crossed her legs over one another, the robe shifting just enough to reveal a hint of her bare lower leg; she ran her fingers through her hair, pushing the long strands of it back off her forehead. “I do not see why it should not be as simple as requesting from a doctor,” her finger tapped lightly against the glass, her chin tilting slightly to the side. “I do think you should have to tell them,” she shrugged her shoulders once more. “This is why I suggest a Mugrobi; there are many in Thul Ka who so live, or else reject the idea of gender altogether.” Her lips quirked, lightly; some of the best assassins in the world are such, she might have said.

“You can always simply say she has died,” Niccolette went on, “but it seems to me… questions might be asked, in such a case; it may invite more scrutiny. She is a professor of Brunnhold, after all. You are, that is,” Niccolette raised her eyebrows lightly at Jean, a little curious; she was not entirely sure how to speak of such things, but neither was it her way to go delicately at the edges of this or any such matter; rather, she preferred to cut to the heart of it.

[Genevieve De Silver]

Night, the 9th of Loshis 2720.

Jean walked over to the bedside table, placed the bottles down and retrieved his cigar and took a lazy drag. He watched her move through to the bathroom and listened to the water.

“Well, hot but not hot enough to cook me.” He grinned.

With the choice made he retrieved the whiskey bottle opened and stepped over to Nicco and poured her a generous measure. Then he grabbed another tumbler and poured himself one as well and sat on the edge of the bed. He took a drink and closed his eyes as he savoured the taste of the excellent spirit.


When he opened his eyes again he looked over at Niccolette where she was leaning against the desk, as she crossed her legs. He dragged his eyes back to her face, cursing himself internally, what was wrong with him? He needed to focus on what she was saying.

Jean’s mind was a whirl with alcohol, cigar smoke, thoughts of finally being free of Genevieve and finally thoughts of baths and glimpses of skin. He took a long drink of whiskey and nodded slightly.

“Yes, I’ll go to Vienda and see about a doctor. I can’t believe I could be free.” He let out a sigh. “Well free as I can be I suppose.” Jean smiled slightly.

“Maybe I should go to Mugroba, I have always meant too.” Once he was free then maybe he would learn about these people who rejected gender altogether.

Jean’s eyes moved over Niccolette and then towards the bathroom door.

“I should probably check the bath.” He coughed a little nervously and took a drag on his cigar.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Night, Loshis 9, 2720
Niccolette's Room, the Palazzo di Rhodon

Niccolette shrugged again when Jean mentioned the bath. “Of course,” she waved him towards it, staying against the desk for a few moments as he made his way into the bath chamber.

The room was filling up with steam and drifting heat; the tub was growing full, although it wasn’t quite there yet, and there was time for Jean to adjust the temperature as he liked.

Niccolette lingered a moment against the desk. Her cigar had gone out; she had, she thought, finished with the sweetness of it. She took another sip of the whiskey, studying the firelight shining through the pale liquid. She had always liked whiskey, Niccolette thought, idly; it was better without all that which so many added to it in cocktails, without any false sweetness to mask it, with only its own sheer intensity.

Niccolette rose and adjusted her robe, following Jean into the bathroom. She set the glass of whiskey down on one of the elegant stone counters, cool now to the touch with gathering condensation.

“I like to add a bit of scent to my bath,” Niccolette said with a little smile. She opened a small case, revealing several different little glass bottles, with stoppers and different levels of liquid in the bottom. “Rose,” she set one down, “frankincense,” another, “lemongrass,” she set down the last, “or arnica,” she lifted her gaze to Jean, smiling.

Niccolette had stopped adding scents for the better part of a year; she almost always bathed after meditation, not only to rinse the sweat from herself but to ease the soreness that it brought. She felt it even now, something like a tingling deep in her from the intensity of the casting, for all it had been only a few spells. The soft warmth of the air was soothing, all the same.

Niccolette brushed past Jean and turned off the water. A few last droplets tumbled from the faucets, rippling outwards. Niccolette studied the still, clear surface, dark with the reflection of the tub below, and then lifted her gaze up to Jean, a little smile curling the edges of her lips. She brushed back past him, taking her glass of gin once more, and sipping at it.

“What do you want, Jean?” Niccolette asked, her voice a low, soft murmur, drifting on the steam. She took another sip of her gin, her gaze lowering to the oils on the counter, and then lifting back to her friend of nearly a decade, standing now before her as she had never seen him. The remnants of the cast were in the rest of her as much as her bones, the excitement heightened by the alcohol, by the warmth, all of it rich and pleasant within her. She put aside all the rest, the lingering hurt and strangeness, the sorrow; whether or not her eyes were swollen from weeping, Niccolette could still see.

[Genevieve De Silver]

Night, the 9th of Loshis 2720.

Jean put a hand in the water to test the temperature and winced slightly at the heat, he turned off the hot water and let the cold run a bit more. He could feel the steam as it caressed his bare chest and arms and then it came to him how much of his skin was on show. He looked around the bathroom, then once more his gaze was drawn to Nicco as she asked about what scent he wanted in the bath.

“Frankincense I think.” He took a drink of whiskey and a final drag from his cigar and placed both down on the side, next to Niccolette’s. Jean stepped towards the bath, eyes still on Nicco, through the mist.

Jean’s mind was in turmoil, he didn’t know what to do, a war raged between desire and fear. Terror stabbed at his empty stomach and he almost turned to leave. Niccolette’s question pulled him out of himself.

He looked deep into her eyes, he didn’t see the tiredness or the sadness, all he could see was how beautiful her eyes were. Jean took a slow step forward, his highly polished brogue’s clicked softly on the tiles. A small smile pulled on his lips as he carefully almost nervously raised a hand and gently touched Niccolette’s jaw with his fingertips.

“I think… I think I want to kiss you."

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Night, Loshis 9, 2720
Niccolette's Room, the Palazzo di Rhodon

Jean had come closer, drifting through the steam, and then stopped, a little distant. His pale blonde hair seemed to blend with it, the equally pale cast of his skin lent color by the white of the silk wrap around his chest, the contrast showing it more subtle by far. His eyes had lingered on her, and then darted away.

Niccolette had asked her question, then, and she waited.

Jean came a little closer; he was, Niccolette thought, a little amused, still wearing his shoes; they clicked against the tile of the bathroom. Her own feet were bare, tucked now just beneath the hem of her long robe. His hand came up and touched her jaw, very lightly, fingertips lingering against the line of it.

He smiled.

Niccolette smiled, too; her eyebrows lifted, just a little.

She had found him, Niccolette thought idly, very attractive, even the first time they’d met. She’d not been interested then, not particularly – not when there had been Uzoji. All the desire in her had burned for him, so long as he was there; he could have, Niccolette thought, with the faintest trace of an old familiar anger, always been enough for her. But for all she hadn’t particularly desired Jean, then, she’d found him attractive.

Genevieve, Niccolette thought, a little amused, never. She hadn’t been above schoolgirl crushes on her professors, naturally, and by the age she’d been when she’d met him, she’d been well aware that she was what Bastian called an Amante di Hurte, and what most Anaxi galdori seemed to pretend did not exist, which had always struck her as rather foolish. However strange they were on other counts, wicks at least had the right of that. Mugrobi had their own ideas on the subject, and they were backward in other ways, but that was not quite the subject of the moment.

It wasn’t just, Niccolette decided, idly, still studying Jean, the slope of his cheekbones or his chin, or the fullness of his lips; it was something in the way he was which attracted her: his confidence, his bravado, his nonchalance. Even now, Niccolette thought, a little amused, having been shot by an arrow not a house earlier.

Whatever else she felt, Niccolette thought, on the subject, she found him no less attractive now than she had then. She smiled. It hadn’t been so long, really; just a few seconds since he’d spoken, quietly, his voice more than a little hoarse.

“Go ahead, then,” Niccolette said, her gaze dropping to Jean’s pale, full lips. Her tongue ran very lightly over the edges of her own, and she tilted her chin up, just a little, to make the angle easier for him and just a little, too, against the touch of his hand, and smiled just a little wider.

[Genevieve De Silver]

Night, the 9th of Loshis 2720.

WTo Jean it seemed like an age passed, but of course it was only a moment. He half expected Niccolette to slap him, or storm out, or a reaction like he had had from Tom. The brief bitterness flashed up inside him, it was washed away by the surprise and relief at Nicco’s answer.

Jean looked at her face, the slight smile and the way she tilted her head up, ready and he leant forward and just like that their lips met. It was like a fire had been lit inside his head, though he was tentative at first, gentle and questing with his lips. His hand moved up her face and went around the back of her neck.

Her skin was hot to the touch, warmer than he expected, but at the moment he did not care. His other hand rested on her waist and he slid it around her back and he pulled her to him.

The kiss grew more intense and a small part of him expected her to pull away.
When their lips parted Jean was out of breath and his hands were still on Niccolette, and he still held her close. When he spoke his voice was husky and roughened with desire.

"Well, it would be a shame to waste the bath…”

Jean was fairly sure the bath was big enough for two.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Night, Loshis 9, 2720
Niccolette's Room, the Palazzo di Rhodon

Niccolette kissed back; there was nothing in her of Jean’s shyness, nothing like hesitation or reluctance or uncertainty. She knew who she was; she knew, too, what she wanted. She knew nothing of shame for choices such as this; if ever she felt it, she set it aside, for she could think of no reason to bother with it.

Jean’s hands came against her, one cupping her back and the other against her neck. Niccolette’s hands settled on his waist and shoulder, exploring, curiously; there were places she had already touched, earlier, as he had lain face down on the bed, unconscious, but it had been then with a wholly different awareness, and none of the thoughts or desire which now flooded through her. She let herself explore now, and though it was not purposeless, precisely, neither would she quite have called it deliberate.

When he pulled away to speak, for a moment, Niccolette thought he might have changed his mind. She would have been terribly disappointed, just then. He had not; far from it, in fact. She laughed, and shifted against him, her hand pressing lightly against his shoulder, easing him back. She lowered her own hands to the tie of her robe, then, and undid the loose knot which held it in place; Niccolette shrugged her shoulders, and let it fall to the ground, pooling against the cool tiles.

She grinned at Jean, standing there before him, as comfortable in her bare skin as she had been in the robe, as she had been in the elegant clothing she had worn in the rain earlier that night, as she had been in the shift and corset in which she had done surgery. The only surprise here, perhaps, was the handprint on her side – Uzoji’s handprint, burned into her skin, stretching from just above her hipbone to the bottom of her ribs.

She did not give Jean so much time to look, not at first; her fingers crept into his hair, then, and she took his breath once more. It was not true that the wine and whiskey had caused her to shed her inhibitions; it was more that she had not had them to begin with. All the same, the lightness of her head was pleasant; it made such things easy.

“The water shall grow cold,” Niccolette said not too long a time later, grinning against his lips and easing back. She was sure, in fact, that it was very likely already colder than she preferred; nonetheless, she thought, smiling at Jean, the idea had more than a little appeal. Besides, one could always add more water as needed, and she was really in no particular hurry; there were such things which required one to take their time, quite thoroughly.

The water was still warm enough, at least, by the time they made it there; Niccolette did wash Jean’s back, as promised, and between the two of them they found a number of new promises to make as well, surrounded by the whirl of the drifting steam and the scent of frankincense.

[Genevieve De Silver]

Morning, the 10th of Loshis 2720

Jean woke up in stages, he wasn't sure what had awoken him. Maybe a noise on the street? First thing he was aware of was his headache, and the roughness of his tongue in his dry mouth. A hangover, that wasn't anything new.

He carefully risked opening an eye, thankfully the light didn't hurt too much so he closed it again and stretched in the warm soft bed. A smile spread across his face as his hand touched the soft warm body laying next to him and he relaxed back onto the pillow.

Then his eyes shot open in shock, he was naked, in bed with…

"Nicco?" Jean's voice was as thick and rough as his tongue, so it hadn’t been a dream they… Yes they had, he rolled over so he could see her and he could not help but smile.

When he was a student at university, well when Genevieve was, she'd been with a couple of people, not many as it hadn't felt right, with either sex.

This however had been the first time he'd made love, as himself, his true self. For a moment he felt tears spring to his eyes, happy ones for a change.

Jean sort of wriggled across the expanse of bed till he could take Niccolette in his arms and for a time he just held her. Unwilling to move, or even speak, afraid that if he did he would shatter this beautiful dream. Finally he said tentatively.

"Good morning." There was a certain note of sheepishness in Jean’s voice, though he could not keep the happiness from it.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Morning, Loshis 10, 2720
Niccolette's Room, the Palazzo di Rhodon

Niccolette dreamt of casting. She did not know the words which she spoke, but they came to her lips one by one, and dropped from them into the world, her desire and thoughts made real. She spoke monite which she had never before heard, and yet in her dream she knew the meaning of each and every word, and she knew, too, the shape of the spell she wove, and she knew that she could not stop.

She knelt – that was all she knew of where she was, though it was not dark, light streaming distantly through and gleaming in the flame all around her. There were no candles, here, but grooves traced into the ground, filled with oil and glowing with flame, and as she chanted they crept up, higher and higher. The warmth wrapped around it; she had no fear of burning in the midst of it. It called to something inside her, and that something burned, too.

Still, she spoke.

“… Nicco?”

Niccolette faltered; she woke, abruptly, with the dying memory of the spell on her lips. As if, she thought bitterly, if she searched – as if, in her mind, the spell might –

It was gone. She closed her eyes once more, lying on her back beneath only the sheet. In her sleep, somehow, she had thrown off the covers; they lay huddled at the foot of the bed and – on top of Jean, Niccolette thought, idly, as the man she’d gone to bed with reached for her.

His arms wrapped around her, and for a long time he said nothing. Niccolette drifted back towards sleeping, knowing that if she woke, there would be the throbbing pressure of a headache at her temples, the thick-tongued memory of her hangover creeping at the back of her mind. She was cold, and she eased against him a little, sighing, and her eyes fluttered open once more.

“It is morning, at least,” Niccolette said, sighing a little. Her eyes fluttered closed again, and she groaned and leaned her forehead against Jean’s shoulder. The light was terribly bright; she did not think it had been quite that bright the day before, or the day before that. Photosensitivity, Niccolette thought, irritably, was quite a common symptom of hangovers.

She let go the irritation; she had made her choices, the night before. She could not pretend ignorance; neither could she pretend that she would go back and do it differently, if she could. She licked dry lips, and yawned, squirming a little against Jean.

“Mmm,” Niccolette sighed, arching herself against him in a stretch, unrepentant and no more reticient than she’d been the night before. “I should do well for some coffee. Shall I have something sent up?” She felt in no particular hurry to have Jean leave, as of yet; she was quite enjoying the sight of him pink-cheeked and with mussed hair, and besides, they’d been friends for the better part of a decade.