Alone with an Ex

[Hakon]

16th Glade 4623

It had been a few days of being on the road with Ajax, and things were going tolerably well. Hakon was disused to traveling with people who were not members of the Scarlet Watch, and had expected that being with Ajax would be annoying. He thought that Ajax would whine about the pace, would throw a fit about Hakon's choice of lodging or choice of food being the cheapest available bed and the cheapest available hot meal, respectively, but if the lad was upset about it, he didn't let on.

Hakon had not yet brought Ajax in to who exactly they were hunting. There hadn't been a good time to have the conversation, and also he had some misgivings about involving him more than was necessary. Andros had asked Hakon to teach him to fight, but he hadn't started doing that, either. Putting his hands on Ajax or having him swing a weapon around under Hakon's tutelage felt weird. Intimate. The thought of it made his heart beat faster in a way that he felt wasn't appropriate.

Ajax wasn't his boyfriend, or even his friend. He was his friend's grandson, a criminal whose theft Hakon was overlooking solely out of friendship and a curiosity to see if Ajax could acquit himself in some way and prove useful. The boy had been quiet, for the most part, which Hakon didn't mind. Beyond giving him a greeting in the morning and some cursory chitchat during meals, Ajax wasn't chatty, and Hakon was not overly garrulous, so they coexisted in companionable silence, or a silence that Hakon thought companionable.

On the third day, though, something seemed different. Ajax's eyes were red-rimmed; he'd been crying. He attributed it to a bit of a cold, the kind many people got at the start of Glade, but Hakon observed him carefully during the morning's ride and found no other evidence of a cold. No sniffles, no cough, no sneezing.

The obvious conclusion was that he was making Ajax miserable, which he didn't particularly care about, but he didn't want the boy to run back to Andros and say he'd treated him poorly again. With that eventuality in mind, Hakon broke their morning silence.

"You were lying about having a cold. Is my company so abominable that I bring you to tears? Did I do something to make you worried?" Both questions were asked sincerely and without rancor.

If he'd done something wrong, he wanted to know.

[Andros]

It hurt when Jan dumped him. Ajax had never really been broken up with before, mostly because he’d never been in a relationship that lasted more than a few weeks up to this point. He hadn’t been in love with Jan, that was true, but it was still a hard blow to the ego. Ajax was so proud of himself for not fucking it up, for showing his family he could hold on to someone, that he was marriage material. And he had cared for Jan, that much was true.

But there wasn’t time to deal with any of it. His saddlebag was already packed when Jan came to kiss him goodbye, got a good look at Hakon and called off the relationship on the spot. It was so sudden and shocking that Ajax had trouble believing it had really happened. Hakon, for his part, didn’t say a word despite standing in the room with them. It was so unexpectedly polite that Ajax wondered if that had really happened, too.

As they said goodbye to his family and rode off just twenty minutes later, Ajax had no choice but to put it all out of his head. He wanted to do well as Hakon’s assistant, and he devoted himself to it. His motives weren’t entirely noble. He wanted to stick it to Hakon by showing him he could be useful and honest, and he wanted to stick it to his mother by showing he could be…a worthwhile human being in general. But those were powerful inspirations. Hakon wasn’t asking much of him so far, but he took his duties seriously and performed them diligently. If they were ever in danger, he planned to face it bravely, just as he know Hakon would.

He tried not hard to think about Jan, though he was aware of how quiet and subdued he must seem. Maybe it was normal for Hakon to ride all day without talking, but for Ajax it was a radical personality shift. Hakon politely didn’t mention that either.

Ajax thought he was making some progress when, on the third day, he started crying out of nowhere. Well, not out of nowhere. It got cold and he put on the hat Jan gave him first thing in the morning, then bawled his eyes out. He was under control by the time they hit the road, but it was clear he’d been crying..

Ajax didn’t want to explain himself to Hakon and thought the mage could put two and two together anyway. But he’d overestimated his traveling companion. When Hakon asked if he’d made Ajax cry, Ajax just stared at him for a moment. The question was so bizarre that he couldn’t quite process it. But Hakon looked completely earnest (naturally). He meant it. It was a little sweet, actually, that he didn’t want Ajax to be upset with him. But it was also very stupid.

“No,” he said, shaking his head vigorously. “You’re fine, Hakon. It’s Jan, the man who dumped me - well, you know, you saw it. I’m feeling sad about it today. I’m sorry, it’s childish. I’ll be back to myself soon I think. I’ve been no fun at all, I know.”

[Hakon]

Hakon's brow furrowed. He remembered seeing Jan before he and Ajax had departed Oxentide. He seemed like a nice enough fellow, with big, well-manicured hands of a fastidious workman and brown straight hair a bit like his own. Ajax had seemed fond of him.

He hadn't been paying attention to what Jan and Ajax were talking about, however. There had been an odd sound in the showroom of Andros' wine store -- a dripping of some kind -- and Hakon had been wondering if one of the barrels was perhaps leaking. He'd been listening for that, and the voices of Jan and Ajax had faded into the background. This happened not infrequently when he was in the company of other people. If he didn't focus his mind on them and what they were saying, he had a tendency to mentally wander away. WHen he did focus, however, he knew he found it unnerving. Apparently, he loomed over them and stared. It had been years since he'd been given that feedback by a girl in the tower who had later insisted he had a crush on her. Hakon had since then devised a method of methodical blinking that he was fairly confident gave less of an intense impression.

The looming, though, he was unsure what to do about. There was only so much one could do to appear smaller when most grown men in Jorikford came to his shoulder. He just stood up straight and didn't care if people complained.

"I hadn't known he ended things. I thought it would be rude to eavesdrop on a conversation between you two," Hakon lied.

He didn't want Ajax to know he had been subsumed in hunting for the dripping noise.

He looked over at Ajax, who looked, well. Sad, for one. Upset. Probably some other emotions, like heartbroken.

There was something he had to do, here. The right answer was to do something, not to turn away or not acknowledge it, even though it felt unbelievably awkward to think about comforting the man who had broken his heart a few years prior. It turned out that had been a bit of a misunderstanding, and it also turned out Ajax was a criminal who had been spared an execution largely because of who he was related to, but still.

"I'm sorry, Ajax," Hakon said.

It was about time to stop for their midday meal anyway, so at the next inn in the road, Hakon indicated that they bring their horses in instead of just hitching them and giving them some water.

"We stop early tonight. I'm going to get us a room with a proper bed, a hot meal with some meat in it, and enough mead to drown a legion of the Scarlet Watch. Cheer up."

[Andros]

Hakon and Ajax had spent four days together, first preparing to leave and then on the road. This was the first indication Ajax had that Hakon didn’t completely hate him. Ajax had never seen his grandfather fail in a social goal before, but the family dinner he insisted Hakon attend was painfully awkward. When Andros took the two of them fishing like some ill-convinced father-son bonding exercise, that was even worse.

Hakon avoided speaking with Ajax and kept getting digs in until Andros actually raised his voice to scold him about it, a very rare occurrence for the even-tempered old man. After that Hakon was outwardly polite, but the tension went nowhere. The only plus was that after all that time together in fairly ordinary circumstances, Ajax stopped being afraid to be around Hakon. That made the trip easier.

Now Hakon had acted completely out of character. He thought about Ajax’s feelings, imagined what he would want in Ajax’s situation, and took action to give it to him. It melted Ajax’s defenses. Not all the way, but it was a start. The ice was chipping off, anyway. For the first time, he had hope that maybe Hakon didn’t completely detest him. Ajax had been so distracted about Jan that he hadn’t realized how much Hakon’s coldness hurt. This small, kind gesture meant the world to him.

He beamed at Hakon when he made the suggestion, showing his smile for the first time in days. His whole face changed. Ajax could feel the muscles responsible for stretching after their inactivity. It was a good, tingly feeling.

“That’s really sweet, Hakon. Thank you. No more moping from me, I promise. Let’s cut loose. You too, ok?”

Ajax still felt the awkwardness when they sat down at a table and Hakon ordered them a chicken stew that turned out to be very tasty. He didn’t know where he stood with Hakon. THe mage thought he was criminal scum - he’d said so, repeatedly. But apparently even criminals get a treat when they’re sad. Or at least Ajax did.

He had no idea what to say. Hakon was his jilted lover, his savior, his assailant, his traveling companion, and his boss for the next few weeks. How do you make conversation with that person? And if anyone was less equipped to handle social awkwardness than Hakon, Ajax couldn’t imagine it. They sat quietly through dinner and two rounds of mead, Ajax watching the crowd and Hakon seemingly lost in thought. When he put down his cup for the second time, Ajax decided he couldn’t stand it anymore. There were two directions this could go. He could cry about his ex boyfriend to a man who didn’t want to hear it or he could have a good time and drag Hakon along with him. It was going to be the second.

“That’s it. I’m done being sad - enough. Jan was sweet but he wasn’t the one. Did you hear what he said? He was jealous that you and I were going off together. He said you looked just like him - well that’s true, but so what? I told him to shove it, in those words, and that was that. Good riddance. I don’t need that jealousy bullshit in my life.”

He shook himself, as if he were shaking Jan out of his mind, and focused on the now.

“Here’s what I want to do. I am going to drink you under the table - I’m small, but I don’t get hangovers and I’m a fun drunk, not a sad or scary one, you’ll see. And while I do it, I’m going to ask for a lute so I can play and sing. I learned the whole suite of Northradican ballads from my father. Tell me your favorites and we can sing together if you like.”

[Hakon]

Hakon tried listening instead of nodding along, but it was hard. Matters of the heart were not a core strength for him, to put it mildly.

"I don't think we look much alike, except in that I suppose we're both Norunners." Hakon frowned, trying to recall the details of Jan's face. "For one thing, his face is more of an inverted triangle whereas mine is more oval, and he has a cleft chin but I don't. My nose is bigger than his, and I'm quite a bit taller, as well, though that's not unusual for me. And it's very silly for him to be jealous of this. You're on the road with someone you detest and are afraid of." Hakon said matter-of-factually.

He was pleased with the stew. Although he knew that seafood was more the norm here, he'd spent almost all of his life in Jorikford, and preferred land-based proteins as a result, though he did enjoy a nice seared river fish, as well. The mead, though, was fantastic. He liked the beers brewed near his home tower, but on the rare occasions he'd had mead it called to mind quiet, pleasant evenings with his father. He didn't have many memories of the man, but he remembered he smelled like mead sometimes, and it made him happy to imagine that he and his father were enjoying the same drink separated by many years. Compared to beer, it was quite sweet and a bit spicy, and had the pleasant fire of the fortified wine people in Daravin preferred.

"I don't know what he imagined would happen, but I imagine it's something like my seducing you and stealing your honor. The fact of the matter is, there's much to do, and not a lot of time to do it. If I spend my time composing sonnets for you instead of focused on my goal, I might fail in my duties, either to the tower or to the oath I swore to your grandfather. I have no intention of anything of the sort occurring, and you made it quite clear that you think I'm an unhinged, brutal tyrant. I don't know much about romance, but that doesn't sound like it would be particularly attractive."

[Andros]

Hakon confused the hell out of Ajax. Ajax wondered if he was just as baffling to the big man. Ajax had thanked him genuinely for his kindness. He had hoped they were turning a corner and now Hakon responded with what sounded like whining, like he was overwhelmed with self pity. Poor me, Ajax hates me because I beat him up for no reason..

But it couldn’t be whining. Hakon took a fireplace poker through the leg with barely a wince. He wasn’t about to complain to Ajax about feelings. So he must been stating what he felt was a plain fact. Granted, Ajax had said as much to him the other day, but Hakon had to know that was an extreme circumstance. Or did he? Was he as dense as he sounded right now?

Ajax was irritated and a little hurt. He’d thought they were turning a corner, but apparently not. Or not yet, anyway. Still, he put his irritation away and responded with gentleness. He touched Hakon’s arm just for a moment, enough to make a physical connection.

“I don’t hate you, Hakon, and I’m not afraid of you. When we argued the other day, you’d just scared me very badly. I really thought you were going to kill me on the spot. You’re an intimidating man, but you apologized and promised you’d treat me right. I trust you.”

He considered seducing Hakon again, pulling him upstairs to the bed he’d reserved and turning the stubborn man into jelly and forcing him to admit Ajax was a good person and not a criminal before he’d give him what he wanted. He could do it, he was almost certain. He’d only become more talented since the last time they were together. But the two of them as a pair was a recipe for disaster. There would be no repeat of last time, at least not now. Not to mention that it was manipulative. Ajax wanted Hakon to reconcile with him in an authentic way. He didn’t use sex to solve his problems anymore.

“I hope when we’ve spent more time together, you’ll come to trust me too. I wasn’t a criminal when you first met me, just a scared boy who’d lost his way. I’m not a bad person now either.”


He didn’t want to hear Hakon’s retort; once a criminal, always a criminal, only alive today because of his grandfather, blah blah blah. Fortunately he didn’t have to, at least not yet, because at just that moment the barkeep brought them another round of mead and a lute. He took a deep draft of the first, then picked up the second and began to strum it.

“Can I play you a song to cheer us up? I meant what I said - we need to loosen up, both of us. Let’s have a good time.”

[Hakon]

Hakon took in the counter that Ajax offered. Trying to make sense of it. Ajax had been afraid of him, but wasn't any more. Ajax had not trusted him, but now he did. Was all it took swearing an oath and having a few conversations? If that were the case, perhaps Ajax's impressions of him had not been so deeply seated. He found himself smiling back at Ajax for a minute, before recalling how the lad had tricked him before.

He hadn't been the only one. He recalled Vivian's treachery from just a few weeks prior. The lad had befriended him, talked to him, leaned on him for comfort, then stolen his face and used it to walk out of the tower. The only reason he hadn't taken a thrashing for that was his own alacrity in informing the authorities of what had transpired.

That was only the latest and greatest example. There had been others, through the years, who were kind. Sometimes a lot all at once, sometimes gradually. Inevitably, the time would come that they would need something from him. Inevitably, they would leave after they had it.

Still, this time was a bit different, and Hakon was cheered by that. Ajax was bound to him for the next six weeks, and then he would leave. There was a clear departure already set in stone, and so everything up to that point was being done just for its own sake. It was straightforward. Social interactions normally felt like the world during his Grave initiation: his normal senses useless, only the faint indication of which way was correct, and seemingly casual moments having severe, unexpected consequences. By contrast, this mattered less and it took the pressure off. Regardless of how he behaved, he and Ajax would part ways. There was some clarity in that.

So he smiled at Ajax, and handed him the lute. "A lute was why you were saved to begin with, do you remember? You'd left yours behind at your dear friend's house, and he'd hastened to give it back to you so that you could play for others. I'd always wanted to hear you play. I figured you would do so as and when you wanted to."

"As for trying to cheer me up or relax me, Lad, I'm not much for either of those things."

Then, he felt a pang. Something in Ajax's face told him that was the wrong thing to say, though he wasn't quite sure why. He didn't like seeing Ajax this way, though.

"That does not mean you cannot try," he said gently. "Merely that I have been informed I am a rather severe person."

[Andros]

“Severe?” Ajax repllied with a laugh. “That’s a bit harsh. I’d just say you’re scary when you’re angry. Cute when you smile, though.” He flashed his own grin, then lowered his eyes and began to tune the instrument. He couldn’t stop his flirting. It was just his way. Jan was reasonable enough to complain about it.

The choice of song was a no-brainer. One of Fell’s favorites, the Ballad of the Bandit was number five in the traditional Northradican cycle. Hakon should know it.

The ballad opens with a nobleman waylaid on the road and robbed of his treasures. The listener hears the nobleman’s terror and anger, his pitiful pleas alternating with dire threats. He’s sympathetic until the tenth verse. That’s when the victim reveals himself in a haughty, menacing tone as none other than the dastardly Earl of Sunderland.

Listeners know the Earl from previous songs in the cycle. He is a cartoonish villain, cheating a minor esquire out of his inheritance and, it’s implied, forcing himself on the esquire’s wife. And of course, the bandit is none other than the wronged esquire himself. He pulls off his mask dramatically and announces that he has come to collect his debt - an applause line. In later songs in the cycle, the bandit flees into exile then returns to overthrow his enemy and become the Earl of Sunderland himself. The reigning earls still traced their descent to this bandit, known by the bards as Carloman the Clever.

Ajax wasn’t Carloman the Clever and Hakon certainly wasn’t the villainous Earl. But the song showed that good men can be pushed into crime by desperate circumstances and that even a man condemned by the law can rise to greatness. Ajax picked it to tease Hakon, to poke gently in his stubbornness, and hopefully to make him laugh.

And of course, he picked it to entertain and entrance. Ajax didn’t have his father’s resonance but he did inherit the man’s voice and skill with instruments. Every conversation in the inn stopped when Ajax started to sing. All eyes turned towards the handsome young musician, and he gave his very best effort. His focus was on the music, but he was watching Hakon, hoping for a smile or a rhythmic tapping on the table or some indication that Hakon was enjoying the show.

[Hakon]

While Hakon wasn't much for music, he was not as much of a boor as his reputation made out to be. He watched intently as Ajax's clever hands strummed the lute, and was surprised by how beautiful the lad's voice was: a clear high tenor with a bell-like quality to it that hit the high notes of the verses quite well.

It was a well-picked song. Ajax clearly knew it without really having to expend much effort. His hands found the chords and strummed the lute with no fumbling, and without even looking at the instrument. It was that, more than anything, that Hakon liked. It was appealing to see someone be good at something, even if it was something he knew very little about, like playing an instrument. The music itself was almost secondary to seeing Ajax in his element.

Not that the music was bad. Hakon did indeed know this ballad cycle about a corrupt Lord who was bested by a wronged noble underling. He liked it rather a lot. It was a good reminder, he thought, that just because someone held status, it did not mean they were above the law. Of course in practice, it often did. Nobles got away with quite a bit more than merchants, who got away with quite a bit more than peasants. Still, there was something very satisfying in hearing an overconfident blackguard get his just deserts. The crime had happened earlier in the song cycle, and the punishment happened later. It was just like where they were in their journey together: off to apprehend criminals who did not yet know their doom was coming.

He was not surprised to see the tavern get livelier in response to the music. Ajax was quite a player, and music during a midday meal was an unexpected treat; usually musicians in this part of the countryside would have day jobs and would play a partial set in the evening, with daytime entertainment reserved for feast days. Between that and Ajax being a fresh face and a new voice, the enthusiasm made sense. Still, when a few of the other patrons began singing alone, Hakon was delighted. Ajax had transformed the tavern from a quiet, workmanlike state to something festive and joyful. It was the first time he'd seen the boy do something truly inspiring that took skill and effort, clearly honed over years of practice.

He surprised himself by jumping in to sing the chorus with many of the other patrons on the third verse. His voice was terrible, and he knew it. It was a baritone with an effective range of about five notes. The nice thing about singing in a crowd, though, was that it added something to what everyone else who was more skillful was doing, and made him feel like part of a team. He didn't feel that way often, and he cherished it whenever he had occasion to be so.

[Andros]

Ajax felt on top of the world when he performed. It was deeply satisfying to know he was doing something special and have a crowd of strangers acknowledge it. Seeing Hakon get excited and join in the singing felt like a real victory. It wasn’t respect, exactly, or an acknowledgement that he didn’t think Ajax was a terrible person, but it was something.

When he put down his lute, Ajax accepted the well-wishes of those who’d enjoyed the show and then started imbibing in earnest. He and Hakon didn’t pay for another drink all evening. Mead just kept showing up, and as Ajax got increasingly intoxicated, he acceded to demands that he play again and again; another ballad, a bawdy song from Radenor, and finally several sea shanties from home to end the night on a high note.

He really did drink Hakon under the table. Well, not literally - he wouldn’t have fit - but Hakon couldn’t handle it like Ajax could. He started slurring his words fairly early on, then Ajax saw him nearly trip over his own big feet as he walked outside to relieve himself. Ajax, for his part, got silly and flirty, gossiped about his family, and told dirty jokes but no worse than that.

Hakon turned into more of a talker when he was drunk. He did some storytelling, plenty of boasting, even cracked a few jokes himself. It reminded Ajax of the way he relaxed after they slept together the first time, which brought back happy memories. Those were reinforced when he helped Hakon up the steps and Hakon leaned against him heavily, a huge arm around his shoulders. Their bodies were pressed together and when Ajax saw they’d be sharing a bed he was certainly tempted.

But it was a bad idea. Hakon was jealous and unstable. Not boyfriend material, and the last thing he wanted to do was lead him on. It would be both cruel and risky.

Ajax helped Hakon take off his boots, a surprisingly intimate gesture, then put him into the bed. He stayed fully clothed himself and got in over the covers to signal chastity. There would be no naked snuggles, no strategic wiggles this time.

Yet when Ajax saw Hakon lying next to him, a stupid grin on his face, some part Ajax melted. He felt bold, and quietly asked a question he’d wondered about for a long time. If Hakon was ever likely to answer honestly, now was the time. In vino veritas.

“Hakon, when we met and spent those few days together, did you fall in love with me? Tell me the truth. I won’t be upset either way.”