Fanfiction: Decisions and Revisions by Sharpeslass

I really wanted to do something with the crusades, but I wanted more to imagine what Philip and Richard's reunion might have been like when they banded together four years after the events in Lion in Winter. The crusades came after that, so perhaps a sequel is in order. Thanks for the prompts and for an opportunity to write in an obscure fandom which I adore.

Chateau-Gaillard, Normandy 1198

"If its walls were iron, yet I would take it..."

Richard looked down from his fortress stronghold at the familiar face of his once-lover, many times-ally and all-too-often enemy. The years had not softened the fierce beauty of Philip Capet's face and form, nor had they softened the man's razor-edged heart.

"If these walls were butter, yet I would hold them!" Richard shouted back, allowing his voice to carry, its conviction strengthening the hearts of his men. He lowered his visor and prepared for the coming storm as Philip II, King of France, wheeled on his mount and headed back to his lines.

Surveying the scene below him through the slit in his armor, Richard saw no sure cause for concern, yet he felt a momentary heaviness, weariness with battle and a sense of his age. In his narrowed vision, he saw for a moment all of the tangled roads that had led him and his friend/foe to this pass. He looked back across the years trying to trace the trail to its beginnings, skimming their first encounters with some little pain and dismissing them as unimportant. His mind settled instead on the Christmas of 1183, which marked the first of many betrayals-- the most public and painful.

"You loved me," his own voice echoed at him from the past, beyond pride, the sound of a wounded animal, not the sound of a King.

"Never."

So many years later and with everything in between, this recollection still pained him. He had thought it might fuel his desire for a fight, but instead it dampened and depressed him. He cast his mind four years forward along the trail of time, letting its distance distill new meaning from the memory.

***

Paris, France 1187

"You sent for me." Richard stood in Philip's audience chamber, resolute and removed, masking the wariness that was his leading emotion.

"I want reconciliation," Philip moved with the easy grace with which Richard was so familiar, stepping from his dais to stand beside him.

"You want another English prince to manipulate. Look elsewhere. I'm not your man."

"You came."

"I was curious."

"You need allies."

"It's you who've lost one." Richard noted the flicker of pain that passed through the French king's eyes at the mention of Geoff. A sincere emotion? Perhaps. Unbidden, jealousy rose within him.

"Geoffrey was a good friend," Philip said lightly, his tone an attempt at belying the telling expression that had fled his fine features as abruptly as it had appeared.

"Geoffrey was a snake," Richard said flatly. "I hear the funeral was moving... Will you throw yourself on my coffin, I wonder?"

"Then the 'lion heart' admits his own mortality?" Philip gestured Richard toward a chair at a large table, set for two. Richard remained standing as Philip sank down to sit himself.

"We all die," said Richard. "History will remember me."

"But how will it remember you?"

"I've not begun to write my own story," Richard stated, firm in the belief of his own worth, his inevitable greatness.

"I want to be a part of that story."

"You gave up that right four years ago."

Philip smiled conspiratorially. "Surely you didn't believe that little scene?"

Richard hesitated. He'd spent years trying to rewrite that evening in his mind and now Philip sat, holding out the preferred revision on a silver plate. Richard's wariness rose to the surface.

"You played it well."

"For the benefit of your father."

"At my expense."

Philip shrugged. "I thought," he said deliberately, "that you, at least, would know the truth."

"What truth is that?" We have so many-- his mother's voice echoed at him out of memory.

"How can you doubt my love for you?"

The words shot through Richard's heart like flaming arrows. He wanted this. He was, at heart, and in spite of everything he thought of himself, a romantic. But he wanted more not to be used, not to be manipulated.

"What are you offering?" He sat. It was conciliation, but a small one. He did not pick up the goblet before him. His arms were crossed over his chest.

"My love isn't enough?" The smooth façade never cracked and Richard realized how easy it had always been for this man to lie to him.

"Not anymore."

"I'm offering to make you King."

"I will be King."

"With my help."

"I don't need you." It wasn't true, of course, and even in his arrogance Richard realized this. With France as an ally, Richard would be stronger than Henry and Richard was tired of waiting for the old man to die. He had work to do, work that he could not do if he was constantly bound to England. And he was bound-- through fear of losing what he had if he stepped away for even a moment.

He hated England, but he needed her riches because he had plans that far surpassed the glory of king and country-- he strove for the glory of God. In his mind the battlefields of Jerusalem rose up before him and he saw the Saladins fleeing before his shining armies. And he saw, strangely, Philip by his side.

"Where have you gone?"

Richard's eyes refocused on the man before him and saw an unsettled expression on Philip's face. Philip was used to commanding all of Richard's attention, and was uneasy when he didn't get it. Richard observed Philip, revealing nothing.

Philip stood slowly and moved around the table toward Richard. He was startlingly beautiful, like a lean exotic cat. Richard watched him, unmoving as he approached. Philip reached out a hand, placing a palm to Richard's roughened cheek and Richard flinched visibly away from the touch.

"I never meant to hurt you," said Philip.

"I don't know what is real anymore," Richard answered. Then, for any excuse to unlock his eyes from Philip's penetrating gaze, he picked up his goblet and drank, feeling the burn of the brandy wine and remembering another time. An eternal, silent moment passed. Then, Philip slowly took the cup from Richard's unresisting hands and clasped them tightly in his own.

"This," he said squeezing the calloused palms, "is real. Look at me." Richard did.

"A chancred whore?" he said mildly.

Philip knelt beside him. "You remember the words?" His face showed something new then, something Richard had not seen before; he saw sorrow, regret and even pity in those intense blue eyes. He wondered if it was real and he wondered if he wanted it.

He pushed his chair back and, disentangling his hands from Philip's grasp, rose to his feet. Philip rose with him and the two men faced each other, slightly breathless with emotions both hidden and revealed.

"You loved Geoffrey," Richard stated. It was not a question.

"Not like this," Philip slid a hand behind Richard's neck and pulled him close. Their lips met with a sting of recognition. Richard responded slowly at first, and then with a building ferocity. He clutched at the other man, ravaging his mouth with his own, striving for and attaining dominance through the violence of the kiss.

His hands were already fumbling at Philip's trousers. A great need was on him, pressed forward by four years of unfulfilled longing. He was not inclined to be patient.

"Not here," Philip gasped, trying to extricate himself from the stronger man's embrace and glancing meaningfully toward the closed but unlocked doors of the chilly room.

"Here," said Richard, pulling Philip back toward him. "And now. Those are my terms." He spun the unresisting Philip around, pushing him forward to lie across the table. Resting one hand on the man's slender hip, he used the other to shove down Philip's trousers, reveling in the touch of Philip's soft skin beneath him. He leaned forward. "Do you want me?" he breathed the words into Philip's ear.

"Find out for yourself," Philip managed.

Richard reached for and found the evidence of Philip's desire, smooth and hot against his palm. Richard stroked roughly, and Philip groaned and twisted beneath him.

In days gone by, Richard had always been gentle with Philip. But now he was alive with past hurts and the need to punish, and Philip made no protest as Richard pressed him down onto the table, shoving the younger man's legs quickly apart with his own. He fumbled quickly at the fastenings of his trousers, letting them drop to free his own penis, leaking, straining, purple and angry-- Richard's own turbulent and violent emotions made flesh.

He pressed himself into Philip without ceremony and heard the other man's pained gasp as the tight flesh first resisted and then encompassed him. Within the instant onslaught of pleasure Richard felt a fleeting moment of guilt at the thought of the pain he was inflicting. But Philip's penis was still hard in his grasp, and Richard couldn't have stopped this even if he'd wanted to.

He had been sliding inevitably toward this moment and now he felt as if the act itself, like the reunion, had been scripted by God in a time long before either man had set eyes on the other. He thrust forward and Philip writhed and groaned beneath him, as Richard worked frantically upon and within his flesh. Bright lights sparked across the inside of his tight-shut eyelids as Philip cried out and spent himself under the ministrations of Richards unrelenting fist. His own cry of release followed Philip's immediately. And he collapsed heavily onto Philip's back. For a moment all was a blissful oblivion for both men.

Richard stirred first, lifting his crushing weight from Philip's limp form. He began to dress, turning away from Philip, lost in thought. He considered departure; use Philip and walk away. It would be revenge. It was no less than the other man deserved.

"Are we allies then?" Philip's voice was unruffled as ever. Richard turned and watched him dress, as casually as if supper-table ravishments happened every day. His gaze was open, almost trusting and Richard realized that no matter what happened he wouldn't do to Philip what Philip had done to him.

"More than that."

"Good!" Philip closed the short distance between them, smiling, and embraced his now and former friend.

"Do you love me?"

"Never doubt it."

"Will you betray me again?"

"That is for the future," Philip stepped back, smooth and sly again. Richard thought he'd spent perhaps too much time with Geoffrey.

Richard grimaced. "Is it too much to want something in this world to be simple?"

Philip walked over to the table and picked up one of the goblets. It had been knocked over, splashing its contents over the linen table cloth. Richard had not noticed when it fell. "This is simple," said Philip. "And what do you do with it?"

"Use it?" Richard hazarded, not paying much attention. He was transfixed by the young king's beauty, and wondering how long he might have to wait to hold him again.

"And when you're not using it?" Philip prompted.

Richard shrugged.

Philip came back to Richard then, still holding the empty goblet loosely in one hand. "You forget it," he said and let it drop with a clatter to the stone floor.

Two pairs of blue eyes locked and Richard and Philip reached for one another.

***

Chateau-Gaillard, Normandy 1198

In the here and now, a battle was inevitable, but for a moment memory lingered, refusing to wholly dissipate.

For most of his life, Richard had watched his mother make war on his father, his brothers make war on their father and on each other. There was more to it all, he thought, than a striving for power or predominance. Under the struggles and strains and ploys, pleadings and plots, there was an immediate demand to be recognized and respected-- to be loved. If Philip fought him now it was because he thought of him, because he saw him as worthy, and because the opposite of love was never hate.

Richard allowed himself a rare smile, that under his armor, no one could see, and signaled his archers. He sent a hail of arrows over the ramparts toward the troops below, each one a messenger bearing his dreadful love.

End.

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