Things one might find in Balfour's room
Title: Things one might find in Balfour's room
Author: sweetjerry
Rating: PG-13
Parinings: Ivory/Raphael, Balfour/Adamo, sort of
Note: I blame this completely on the Havemercy twittering. Ivory and Raphael break into Balfour's room to find proof that he's a cindy. And they certainly do find it.
***
”Hey, I didn’t know you could pick locks!”
Ivory gave his lover a skeptical glance. “And how did you suppose we’d get into Balfour’s room, then? You know he always locks the door.”
Raphael shrugged carelessly. “Improvise?” he said, grinning, and Ivory gave him a look full of disgust before once more bending to his task. “Oh, you sneaky bastard,” Raphael continued after a while, frowning down at Ivory’s blond head, “that’s how you found all of my bastion-damned poetry, wasn’t it?”
“Of course,” Ivory said smoothly, and then grunted in satisfaction as the lock clicked. “There. We have gained entry. After you, sir,” he added, opening the door and bowing mockingly to his disgruntled lover. Raphael smacked him over the head as he went past, and Ivory rolled his eyes, muttering something about the emotional maturity of a twelve-year-old.
“So, where do we look?” Raphael demanded to know.
Ivory shrugged. “There aren’t that many places. If we go through all the places you used, we’ll be sure to find something.” Raphael grimaced at him, obviously intent on being miffed about that old intrusion of his privacy for quite a while now, just because he could. But at least he set to work looking directly thereafter, so it seemed he hadn’t lost focus.
Everyone had broken into Balfour’s room except for them so far; most of them more than once. It was a sort of rite of passage among the airmen to allow the new recruits absolutely no personal space, just to let them know how truly fucked they were. It didn’t interest Ivory and Raphael as much as it did the others, because when there were no new recruits, they were usually on the receiving end of the majority of such pranks. After all, they were asking for it, being openly cindy about each other and all. And while it was true that they did enjoy this respite that Balfour’s addition to their group had given them, they still had no real interest in making the boy more miserable than he already was.
That wasn’t why they were there.
The reason why they were there was that Raphael was nosy, and Ivory didn’t mind going along on his plans because he knew that doing so would result in a Raphael that was very eager to show his gratitude. So they looked through Balfour’s room for signs that he was, in fact, what all the airmen were claiming about him.
Not that they generally listened to what they said when they were like that, because most of them just parroted what Rook said, and well, Rook was an idiot. But during these last few months they had noticed signs, real signs, of that Balfour might in fact be just as much of a cindy as they were saying, and of course that had made Raphael itch to know the truth. Thusly they were in Balfour’s room in the middle of the night while he was out on a raid, looking for clues.
“Here we go,” Ivory murmured, fishing a slim volume out from under a false bottom in a drawer. It was black leather, undecorated; nothing like the night-blue, gold-painted abomination that Raphael kept most his poems in, yet when he flipped it open, that was what he found. Poems. All written in small, neat script on the crisp white pages, and almost filling the entire book.
“What is it?” Raphael asked curiously, fishing out a folded paper from inside Balfour’s mattress and then letting it down again.
“As if it wasn’t bad enough with one poet,” Ivory said in reply, handing him the book. Raphael opened it, started to read, and then exhaled softly in wonder, his face lighting up in a way that made Ivory want very much to not be in Balfour’s bedroom.
“Oh, but this is beautiful,” Raphael said, his eyes aglow. “Who knew it? The kid’s a genius.”
Ivory raised his eyebrows, trying to indicate that he doubted it, but then Raphael read a few lines out loud, and he had to concede that he had a point. Balfour was a gifted poet.
“Bastion, I wish I could write like this,” Raphael said wistfully, running his finger down a page. Ivory started, and then glared at him.
“There’s nothing wrong with your writing,” he hissed.
Raphael gave him a surprised look. “You always tell me that I’m pretentious and melodramatic, and that I use too many words,” he pointed out.
Ivory shifted position somewhat, looking a bit embarrassed. “Well, yes. But that’s poetry, right? That’s the point of it.”
Raphael blinked, and then smiled warmly at Ivory, shaking his head, before returning to his reading. After a few pages, his eyes suddenly went wide, and he seemed to be re-reading the same passage over and over again. “Oh fuck,” he whispered, staring down at the paper like he couldn’t believe what it said. “Shit, Ivory, I’ve found out proof alright. Oh, the poor kid…”
“What?” Ivory demanded, curious now, and stepped closer so he could look over Raphael’s shoulder. He read the passage that Raphael pointed out, and then read it again, slower this time, to make sure that it said what he thought it said.
“Fuck me like a ha’penny whore,” he whispered in disbelief. “The kid’s in love with… Adamo?”
“Glad to see I wasn’t going insane,” Raphael said, kissing Ivory’s cheek absent-mindedly. “No wonder he looks so miserable all the time. I mean, his brother’s dead, people piss in his boots, and he’s in love with our fucking sergeant. That’s about as miserable as things get.”
Ivory could only nod his agreement, and then he fished the book out of Raphael’s hands. “We shouldn’t be reading this,” he said flatly, closing it. “I feel sorry enough for the kid without accounting for us snooping in his private business.”
Raphael looked like he might protest, but then nodded solemnly, reaching out to stroke Ivory’s neck, before nodding silently at the still-open drawer. Ivory realized that he was probably mostly sad because he wanted to read more of the poetry, and wanted to be somewhere else so he could kiss his silly idiot of a lover properly.
When he turned back from returning the poetry book, Raphael had unfolded the piece of paper from Balfour’s mattress, and was reading it in actual open-mouthed astonishment. Then he broke down in a silent fit of laughter, sinking down on the bed as his legs gave way and wiping tears of merriment out of his eyes. “Oh, shit… If Rook saw this, he wouldn’t be so quick to call him a virgin,” he finally managed, and Ivory blinked in surprise.
“What exactly… is that?”
“Another poem. Here, I’ll read it to you.”
And read he did. Very expressively. After about half of the poem, Ivory tried to take it from him, but Raphael wouldn’t let him. He held it out of his lover’s reach, continuing on with a voice that broke with laughter every once in a while. When he was done, Ivory was looking profoundly disturbed, and Raphael was still shaking with laughter.
“Things like that are not meant to be made into poetry,” Ivory said flatly.
Raphael snorted, his eyes sparkling. “Always knew you were a secret prude. This is glorious. I could kiss the kid! I hope he gets Adamo, just so I can imagine the look of surprise on his face when he realizes that behind those big, innocent eyes, this is hiding!” He waved the piece if paper in the air expressively. Ivory quickly grabbed it and folded it again, lifting the foot-end of the mattress so he could shove it back in the hole again.
“There,” he said, glaring at Raphael’s grinning face. “We’ve got more than enough proof. Can we leave now?”
“Sure, love,” Raphael said, smiling wickedly at him. “Whatever you say.”
They didn’t get very far, however, because as soon as they were back in the corridor and Balfour’s door was closed, Raphael slammed a surprised Ivory against the wall and kissed him with all the force he could muster. Not that Ivory minded in the least. He groaned softly as Raphael went over to kissing a soft trail down his neck, his hand caressing its way up his thigh and brushing lightly over his crotch in a way that made his breath hitch.
And then someone cleared their throat. “This is not,” said the half-disgusted, half-amused voice of their Chief Sergeant, “something I particularly want to see when I’m going for a piss in the middle of the night.”
Raphael leaned slowly away from Ivory - who did his best to maintain his customary deadpan look - grinning at Adamo. “So sorry, sir,” he said, and from the laughter in his voice Ivory knew that he was recalling the very vivid descriptions of the poem they’d just read and applying them to the man. He promised himself that he was going to make Raphael suffer for that. “Won’t happen again.”
“I fucking hope so,” Adamo said, walking past them without further comment. The Sergeant had never had a problem with their relationship as such, more than when it was shoved in his face like this, and that, they suspected, had to do with what he considered to be decent behavior more than anything else. And since he’d stood up for them back when they had first been discovered by the other airmen, they respected this rule and tried to abide by it as much as possible.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Adamo said, startling them both. He stood turned to them with the dull red light from the lamp over the siren backlighting him, so they couldn’t see his face, but they heard gruff concern in his voice as he continued, “You ain’t planning on breaking into Balfour’s room, are you?”
“No sir,” Ivory said smoothly. “In fact, I think our plans were to break into my room, sir. And then to stay there, sir.”
“Good,” Adamo said, turning his back on them. “Kid’s got enough trouble as it is. And he could use someone who was nice to him once in a while,” he added pointedly, before continuing down the corridor. Ivory and Raphael looked at each other, and after just a few seconds the latter’s face once more broke into a grin.
“Well, what do you know. Kid might have a chance, after all.”
“I think he might,” Ivory agreed.