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An Ordinary Man	By : firefly124 Category: M through R > Miles Vorkosigan Saga Views: 3052 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Miles Vorkosigan Saga, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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“I have to say, Ivan, after the way you left last week, this is unexpected,” said Byerly, as he took in the carefully laid table.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> He strolled over to pick the bottle of wine out of its bucket, and raised an eyebrow as he examined the vintage.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> “Very unexpected.”
Ivan reached for the bottle, which he then opened, and poured a glass for each of them. He was very impressed at how little his hands shook, doing this.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> Awkwardly, he motioned for Byerly to sit. He didn’t suppose one pulled out the chair for one’s male date, after all. He wheeled over a cart with several covered dishes on it, and began to serve them both.
“Really, Ivan, it’s quite gallant of you, but I assure you that I can ladle my own peas,” Byerly protested after a moment.
“Right,” Ivan gave in and sat down.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> He contemplated his own plate, and more to the point his glass of wine. Appealing as it looked, he had no intention of having too much. The whole point was style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>not to add another bunch of muddled half-memories, after all. He had quite deliberately set only the one bottle to chill.
He had put a lot of thought into this dinner, ever since his conversation of two nights ago with Kareen. It was now exactly a week since the night he and Byerly had spent together, which seemed appropriate somehow. He’d pulled out one of his few sets of stylish civvies and gotten them cleaned up for the occasion. Normally he preferred to show off his dress greens, but By had mocked him on more than one occasion in the past for it.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> The apartment was spotless, the dinner was from a prime Vorbarr Sultana caterer, the wine was a fine Vorkosigan vintage, and he’d set a table even his mother would not be able to fault.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> The one thing he hadn’t worked out, of course, was what he was going to say. He took a large swallow of wine.
“So what’s this about, then, Vorpatril?” By was asking.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> “The last thing I expected, after the way you stormed out of my flat, was an invitation to dinner.”
“I … I thought probably we should talk,” Ivan said hesitantly.
“You didn’t seem like you wanted to talk,” Byerly’s eyes narrowed. “Before or after, actually.”
Ivan wilted. “I don’t … remember a whole lot about that night,” he admitted.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> “And I wasn’t ready to talk the next day.”
“Really?”style='mso-spacerun:yes'> Byerly’s voice had a tone Ivan did not much care for. “How disappointing.” He sliced into his vat-steak, and made sure Ivan was watching him as he carefully popped it into his mouth. Ivan decided the safest thing to do was to eat something himself. Maybe if he did that, By would keep talking. Why did he want class=GramE>By to keep talking? Normally he wished Byerly would stop talking, or better yet stop breathing anywhere nearby. But now he wasn’t sure if he just wanted to avoid speaking himself, or if he actually wanted to hear the man’s voice. class=GramE>His sneering, annoying voice.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> Ivan took another bite of his dinner and forcibly kept his gaze on his plate.
After a few moments during which they both ate in silence, Ivan decided glumly that Byerly was a bit too well-trained in espionage to start giving away vital intelligence just to fill conversational deadspace. He was also surely constitutionally incapable of giving a straight answer to any of the questions Ivan had. Ivan stole a glance at him, and thought he surprised a very un-Byerly expression that quickly reverted to his far more customary air of arrogant superiority.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> Surely an optical illusion, because Byerly never looked concerned or vulnerable, much less some combination of the two.
Byerly did finally lean back from the table, wipe his mouth with his napkin, and break the silence. “So, then, Ivan, what do you want to talk about?”
Ivan set down his fork, wiped his own mouth, and answered, “I want to know what the hell happened, and why, and what’s supposed to happen now.”
Byerly raised his eyebrows at this uncharacteristic bluntness, but rose to the challenge. “So, start with a play by play then? Well, we started with some kissing …”
“I don’t mean that.” Ivan waved this off, flushing.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> “I figured out the essentials, at least some of who did what to whom.”
“Ha, so you do remember something.”
“Bits and pieces, plus physical evidence,” Ivan parried. “I’m more interested in what we were doing before we … started any of that, and then why.”
Byerly crossed his arms and studied the man across the table as though he’d just seen him for the first time.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> “Not quite as thick as you look then.”
Ivan trusted that wasn’t a typical Byerly double-entendre. Clearly not complimentary in any case.
“We ran into each other at a bar down in the caravanserai,” By continued. “We were both on our own, didn’t know anyone else there, and evidently got drunk enough we decided not to be each on our own anymore.”
That was a straighter answer than Ivan had expected.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> It even sounded true, mostly.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> He had been trolling a few new locations lately. Still, there had to be more to it than that.
“So that’s why we were drinking together.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> Doesn’t explain the rest.”
“Doesn’t it?” Byerly countered archly. Ivan squirmed.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> After a moment Byerly continued, “That isn’t what you really want to ask anyway, is it?”
“It’s part of it.”
“Ah, yes, then there’s that last bit you asked: ‘what’s supposed to happen now?’” Byerly’s eyes narrowed and Ivan’s breath caught in his throat.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> “How the hell do you expect me to answer that, Vorpatril, after the way you acted?”
“I’m sorry,” Ivan managed. “I told you, I wasn’t ready to talk yet that day.”style='mso-spacerun:yes'> He paused, straightened, and said rather more firmly, “It’s not like you were making it any easier, either.”
Byerly gestured towards himself with a look of feigned innocence, then relented.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> “No, I suppose not.”
“Well, what did you, do you want to happen next?” Ivan pressed.
“Honestly, I had expected you to just pretend it never happened,” Byerly admitted.
Ivan swore he caught a glimpse of that odd expression on his face again, though it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> He thought about what Byerly had said, and remembered Kareen’s response to a similar evasion he’d made.
“That’s not what I asked, though, is it?”
“You’re the one who invited me to this intimate little dinner, Vorpatril,” Byerly said, glaring, “so how about you tell me what style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>you want to happen next.”
Ivan was taken aback. He had sort of assumed, on some level, that Byerly had been the one who had initiated things that night, and that he must have some sort of idea what he wanted to come of it. Granted, the attitude was pure classic Byerly, but something about this conversation was just off. Ivan pinched the bridge of his nose. Barely a glass of wine in him and he had a headache starting. It was bloody unfair, that was what.
“You mean to tell me that night wasn’t part of some twisty scheme of yours? To ruin my career, or my reputation, or possibly to distract m’mother with when she got mad at you for some stupid thing you’d done on your job?”
Byerly looked frankly aghast, now.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> “You think I’d tell Lady Alys Vorpatril that I’d screwed her son?style='mso-spacerun:yes'> Madness may run in my family, Ivan, but I’m neither mad enough nor suicidal enough to do anything like that.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> Distract her? That’d just give her more ammunition!”
Ivan had to allow as how that was true.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> He also noticed that odd hitch in his breathing had come back when By had come right out and said what they’d done. He covered this with a shrug.
“Anyway, I’m not the one continually caught up in twisted schemes. You’ve been around your cousin too much, Ivan.”
Ivan stared down his nose at By for that one. “Right, because setting up an ambush for your cousin, so that you could foil it, but then lost control of it so I got to deal with it, that’s not a twisted scheme at all.”
It was Byerly’s turn to shrug.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> “That was nearly two years ago.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> And we’ve gotten pretty far off the point.”
“So we have.” Ivan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He squared his shoulders, set his jaw, and said, “Fine.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> I don’t know what I want to happen after tonight. But I do want to know whether what happened last week was just because we were drunk – orstyle='mso-spacerun:yes'> just because I was drunk, I’m still not convinced you were nearly as far gone – or whether there was anything more to it than that.”
“Meaning?”style='mso-spacerun:yes'> By raised his eyebrows.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> Ivan took a deep breath and forged ahead.
“Meaning I want to see what happens if I’m not drunk, and find out what I want when I can remember what happened.”style='mso-spacerun:yes'> Ivan ran down and had to force himself not to slump as he felt whatever energy had propelled that out of him dissipate.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> He watched Byerly intently to see his reaction. He did catch another unguarded expression fleetingly, but a different one this time, and too fast to interpret before his face reverted to its usual cool aloofness.
“And if that isn’t what I want?”
“You still haven’t said what that is,” Ivan pointed out.
Byerly appeared to consider that for a moment, then pushed back from the table and stood up. From long-trained habit, Ivan began to stand as well, wondering if class=GramE>By was just going to leave. But before he’d gotten halfway up, Byerly was there, cupping Ivan’s face in his hands, and kissing him with those lips, one of the few things he’d been able to remember. Ivan found himself responding to the caress far more intensely than he’d have expected.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> He sat back into the chair and pulled Byerly into his lap, parting his lips and letting their tongues dance.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> It was an eternity later, and entirely too soon, that their mouths parted, and they leaned forehead to forehead catching their breath.
“Didn’t you just say this isn’t what you want?” Ivan asked.
“Not exactly, no,” Byerly answered, reaching to trace the lines of Ivan’s neck and shoulders. “I meant I don’t want just another experiment. But since you don’t remember the last one, I suppose it’s only fair.” He lowered his mouth to Ivan’s again, and traced the outlines of his lips lightly with the very tip of his tongue. Ivan shuddered, and angled to catch that tongue with his own, burying a hand in Byerly’s hair and holding him still so that he could probe and explore. As his fingers gently stroked through By’s hair, Ivan was surprised to find he was already becoming very aroused.
There was something very freeing about knowing that this wasn’t the first time, even though he couldn’t really remember the first time. On the one hand, the lack of memory made it all feel new. On the other, whatever lines he was crossing, had already been crossed.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> This was just confirmation whether he wanted to keep crossing them. And whether he wanted to keep crossing them with By, who was certainly an excellent kisser, but was also still an extremely annoying person to be around. An annoying, but somehow quite impressive person.
A creak from the chair recalled them both to more practical concerns. Byerly stood up and Ivan followed, apologizing, “It’s not exactly built for two, I suppose.”style='mso-spacerun:yes'> They both looked around, as if to decide where to move to. Ivan glanced at the door to his bedroom, considering, and was surprised to feel Byerly tugging at his elbow in the opposite direction, guiding him to the sofa.
By answered his surprised look, saying, “We’ll get there, just not yet.” style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>Oh. Ivan allowed himself to be led, and watched with interest as Byerly arranged himself invitingly. How did he manage that? Every fold of his suit lay just perfectly to attract the eye to his various charms, and the angle at which he sat was somehow suggestive, but not as overtly so as Ivan would have expected of him.
Ivan sank down next to him, leaned over in search of another kiss, and took advantage of this new arrangement to explore Byerly a bit more. He was surprised that he was not more disappointed by the lack of breasts, but acknowledged with a vague sense of déjà vu that he must have dealt with that already.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> He was equally surprised, as he ran his hands under By’s jacket, that not only were By’s shoulders quite broad for such a slim man (he’d always suspected sartorial enhancement of some sort), but that he found them so enjoyable.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> He eased the jacket off.
After several minutes, Ivan was sure of at least one thing: he should never have given up on the marathon necking sessions of his brief virginal adolescence. How and why had he ever decided to race past this glorious and tantalizing experience with any of his lovers? He traced the lines of Byerly’s surprisingly defined muscles through his luxurious silk shirt, and marveled at the contrast, and just how exciting he found it.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> Though, nice as it felt, he realized he was beginning to get annoyed with it, too. He moved to slip it off, and was surprised when Byerly pushed him back.
For several seconds, found himself being examined with an expression that made him feel like some sort of scientific specimen, or perhaps like one of By’s informants that he’d been assigned to evaluate.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> Finally he appeared to come to some decision, and stood up. Ivan followed suit, and they walked towards his bedroom. Ivan noticed that his own clothing was surprisingly unmussed, and realized that Byerly had barely touched him, for all that he’d been an enthusiastic participant in the kissing, indeed had started it, and had made gratifying noises in response to Ivan’s explorations. Ivan wasn’t sure what to make of that.
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An Ordinary Man