Best Left Forgotten [Brenner]

[Stefan Dornkirk]

Stefan grinned at his brother's reaction, wholly pleased. In his heart he had worried that a similar reaction to the one Brenner had had to the announcement of his marriage might be forthcoming. What he was given instead replaced the worry with joy, though he tried to suppress it.

Holding up a hand in warning he tried to hush his brother even as he couldn't help but be drawn into the emotion of the moment as he was into Brenner's too-warm arms.

"Not so loud, dear Brother, we haven't told anyone." They had told Eitan, but it would have been hard to live with the man without him noticing, so Stefan didn't even think of it.

"We decided to wait till after Eitan's celebration so as not to steal what little limelight he is allowed. I'll go to Mother and Father in a day or two but I wanted you to know."

Lady Sylana would be happy, but in truth, it was their father's reaction that Stefan had thought about first. Melchior's dreams had almost all been accomplished, but this; continuing the family line, was likely the last major hurdle in the Dornkirk patriarch's fulfillment.

"Would you like to be there when I do? I would happily wait till you are available." Any meeting with their parents was better for Brenner's presence. "Delia will go to her family the same evening. Wouldn't want to start a generational feud over who got precedence of announcement."

He was joking as they slid from the long embrace, but, also, he wasn't. Who knew what sort of revenge might be enacted upon the young couple for choosing one family over the other. Stefan found it all quite silly. The child would be the scion of House Dornkirk, of course they should be informed first. But House Angevin had deigned to allow one of their own to be married to new money, so, in their minds, they should have all news of their daughter first. Shunting all such thoughts away for the time being Stefan lifted his glass, clinked it against Brenner's, and said, quietly,

"To the House we build."

[Brenner Dornkirk]

"Sorry!" Brenner stage whispered, "Sorry, sorry..." He repeated, grinning more broadly than he had since they discovered the cave that housed the Hexenfresser. That was a difficult moment to beat, but this one was worthy indeed and the two instances had something paramount in common: They were about the future. The expedition had been about conjuring a world of peace and equanimity out of the chaotic realm in which they'd been brought up. Now that the work was starting, Stefan's son- For Brenner automatically assumed the child would be male- would come up in a better world for humans. His eyes welled at the pride of being part of the endeavour that promised to bring about those brighter days.

"Thank you..." Brenner inclined his head in gratitude. Stefan seemed to have learnt his lesson from the belated nuptial announcement and prioritised informing Brenner. Really, in the end, all the Air Commander wanted was a bit of preferential treatment.

"Yes, of course. I wouldn't miss the look on mum's face for all the world." He sniggered, turning to collect his drink from the table as Stefan proposed his toast.

"Hear, hear!" He affirmed, "To the architects of the New Ransera who shall supplant negligent gods with Human ascendancy!" He tipped the drink back to take a hearty swallow. He lowered his voice again, to add:

"I look forward to a new little Dornkirk entering that hallowed pantheon we build." And with that, he reclaimed his seat, gesturing for a passing servant to approach.

"Fetch us a bottle of Gelerian schnapps." He instructed, before waving the footman away and returning his attentions to Stefan. "No sense running back and forth to the bar, and now that we're celebrating something else there's more cause to indulge."

[Stefan Dornkirk]

The grin's infectious quality did not seem to wear off even as they both took their seats again. Glasses, emptied by the toast, were filled again as soon as the servant returned with Brenner's requested bottle.

Preferential treatment had always been Stefan's way, as well as his intention, toward his brother. The lapse surrounding his nuptial intentions had been a product of being overly busy and also in a bit of a muddle concerning his own emotions. A muddle was the normal state of Stefan's emotions when he was having any strongly, but typically it was Brenner who discovered them before anyone else. In the race of preparations that Searing had been, Stefan had tripped over Eitan instead. The thought brought a blush to his cheeks as his first inclination was to repress his affection for the non-Dornkirk man. But then...

The memory of what Eitan had told him the very first time Stefan had been inside the very house they were currently sitting in came back to him like an airship at full steam. In the moment he had needed to repress his reaction to Eitan's revelation of his relations with Brenner, and he had tried to keep the knowledge repressed since. But now, alone with his brother, and quite deep in his cups, Stefan couldn't keep his feelings so deep.

A burning sort of boldness, not pleasant at all, flared to life in Stefan's chest and he glanced back to where Commander and Mrs. Angevin were currently dancing in a manner far bolder and more obvious in its intention than anything that had been seen at the earlier Masquerade.

"Odd to think," He said, in a voice quiet, low, and just shy of choked for how utterly calm it sounded, "That you and I both know him so much better than she does. But then, you two have been close since you were children. Schoolboys often find themselves sharing even such intimacy as a wife might know."

[Brenner Dornkirk]

Brenner's eyes had been resting idly upon his brother, so he noted the shift in his expression even before the shift in his tone of voice presented itself. The look in his eye was stark enough that Brenner squirmed a bit until he was sitting upright. His eyes darted away at Stefan's words and fixed themselves at a point on the floor between Stefan's feet.

"Well." His jaw tensed and his teeth clenched together firmly enough to make an audible click. "It is well known amongst soldiers, that the bonds of brotherhood are often a stronger tie than is possible between two people who are as different as man is to woman." He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes somewhat.

"A young man is wont to lose himself from time to time in the might of such a bond..." He trailed off, but his gaze rose to meet Stefan's, and firmly locked into place there.

"But I am not longer a young man, and I have put away childish things." He stated with a staunchness that bordered on aggression. His gaze remained fixed there for a moment of emphasis, before his whole demeanour softened and he slumped back into his chair- reaching for his drink and taking a sip.

"Still." He said, as he held the tumbler up to the light and inspected the hue of the contents. "I love him as... Well, not quite a brother, of course, but perhaps a first cousin." He offered with a churlish smile that was a bit harder to conjure than moments earlier- before Stefan posed that pointed comment.

"And, thanks to you, he is truly family now." He lowered his drink and placed it back down on the adjacent table. "How do you find your new living arrangements?"

[Stefan Dornkirk]

"Bonds of Brotherhood."

Lowering his eyes to the glass held between his hands, Stefan nodded once, the smallest of broken, wry smiles sketching its way over his mouth. To the man who knew his expressions better than any other the nod was equivalent to many dramatics from another man. It was acknowledging the cut, accepting it into his body, but not submitting to the rightness of it.

He could feel his brother looking at him but it took a moment before he could rise to meet the gaze.

"Of course." Never had the phrase sounded as sincere, nor as wrested from his breast. The smile expanded into something resembling their normal camaraderie,

"I suppose the privilege of having you mostly to myself as children came at the sacrifice of having very little of you as young men."

They had attended the military academy together but in separate years, with separate groups of peers. Only on the worst nights had one of them slipped into the other's room to share comfort. Brenner had started his career in the ZADC only a year after Stefan had but, by accident or design, they had never served together. Now, well, Brenner was right. They were neither of them young men any longer and the time for boyhood battlefield bonding was beyond them.

The idea that wanting the closeness, and perhaps more than simple closeness, with his brother was a childish thing strung. While Stefan might normally have taken it for chastisement and pulled away from the topic, the wild mood he was in that night, combined with the fact that he was quite well into drunk now pushed the shame away harshly and reached in for more.

When Brenner fell away Stefan remained as he was, leaning forward in his chair as though what warmth he needed came from his brother.

"Mmm, I'm happy for him, and that you had each other in those times of need." Taking another swallow, not quite remembering when his glass had been refilled he summoned a tone near to playful and said,

"Would you have been angry, do you think, if I'd had the same thing with him while I served?"

He knew Brenner had asked a question, but was having none of the topic change.

[Brenner Dornkirk]

"Indeed." Was Brenner's curt reply to the repetition of the phrase he had very consciously used in devising his response to this unseemly line of cross-examination. His eyes darted about the room, finding it particularly confounding that Stefan should have chosen such a time as this to broach matters passing private. There may not have been anyone near enough to overhear them by any natural means, but even the tales told by their expressions were a liability in his opinion.

"I do not reckon it was a matter of 'need'." Brenner countered, "But one of indulgence. Adolescents are famous for their propensity toward indulgence, and sadly I cannot claim to represent an exception to that particular rule. It is easier, I think, for a man to err on the side of the civilised after his hormones have settled, and such has been the case with me. I have overcome my baser impulses." He pursed his lips at the furtherance Stefan pressed of this subject matter.

"I do not know how I would have felt in such a situation." Brenner lied. "I can only speak to the here and now, where the optics of your current living situation are of greater concern to me than what happens behind those walls in privacy. If you are inquiring because you brook uncivilised inclinations, then know that I still love you and will do my best to protect your privacy and thus the good name of House Dornkirk. If you are asking because you are worried after my predilections, then disabuse yourself of that entirely redundant concern. I have long since mastered my baser nature, which is why we are speaking of ancient history rather than recent."

[Stefan Dornkirk]

Stefan, as usual, nodded as he listened to things that felt like daggers of ice piercing his breast. All at once, the pressure built beyond endurance and, suddenly, he was standing. Speaking in a tone oddly devoid of emotion he looked down at his still seated sibling and said,

"You know, I believe I have a much better bottle in my chambers." Without any other word, he stared until Brenner too rose, then led the way, ready to drag the other man along with him to his own room if he was not followed. The hall twisted like Stefan's mind as they walked, and the journey seemed to last longer than it should have, but, at last, they arrived. Getting the door open, somehow, he thrust them both through and shut it firmly behind them. It was not as grand as the suite that was still, technically, his, at Dornkirk Manor, but it was enough for what Stefan used it for.

Walking had not been as easy as it should have been, but the anger burned hot enough in his head that his normal caution did not rise to suggest that he might have had too much to drink.

Once they were both behind a closed door the pretense of additional drinking was not even played at. Turning with the fire in his brain burning in his eyes he grimaced; a parody of a smile and said,

"Tell me," He loomed over Brenner, though not touching, "why, if your adolescence demanded indulgence, did you reach so far? You knew I wouldn't refuse you. I refused you nothing. I still refuse you nothing. Why would you go to him? What was I lacking that led you to take your secrets a half-breed boy instead of your own brother?"

[Brenner Dornkirk]

Between Brenner's level of inebriation and the abruptness of Stefan's tacit invitation, it took him a moment to register that he was expected to join his brother. At first he thought he'd just driven the man to retreat. It was late in the night and sometimes explosive moments led one to realise one would be better served retiring early. But then he stayed. And he stared. Brenner blinked up at him, bemused, until finally he lurched up.

"Well then." He grunted, "Let us indulge." That word might have felt more potent with how he'd just been using it, but none more apropos came to his cloudy mind immediately. He cast a sharp glare over his shoulder as Stefan pushed him bodily over the threshold into the more private setting and shut the door behind them. Now that they were alone, he whipped round to face him with eyes narrowed and a snarl answering Stefan's feigned smile.

As the elder Dornkirk initiated his line of questioning, Brenner's expression shifted promptly from ostensible anger to overt confusion. Why did he 'reach so far'? What could that have meant? Why would he 'go to him'? Brenner knitted his brow and shook his head.

"What? I..." He was staggered by this and it showed. Even after a long night of heavy drinking, it took a lot to stagger Brenner Dornkirk. Sometimes it was even harder to achieve in this state, but Stefan had achieved it in spades.

"I didn't 'take my secrets' to him..." Hadn't it been Stefan who'd given him a look not so many moments earlier for speaking pejoratively of Eitan's unseemly origins? "He was the secret. And I didn't speak with you about it because I was bloody humiliated. There's not a soul with whom I spoke on such things... Even when I was alone, I put it... Well, I tried to put it out of my mind. And I worked at that endeavour until I could. And now I have." Brenner turned away from Stefan and stalked toward the window, suddenly keen on some fresh air.

"Why are you harping on me about this? It's very old, irrelevant news."

[Stefan Dornkirk]

Stefan stood, mouth half agape, staring, as though he could not see his brother, or as though Brenner had suddenly turned into something incomprehensible and monstrous. The anger and frustration swelled, near to visibly, in his breast until he was sure, beyond his alcoholic haze, that he would come apart, burst all to pieces.

Instead, after a long moment of gasping silence, he deflated. Like a creature who forms its movements by liquid distribution, having been stabbed, is now slowly leaking out its ability to function.

Very quietly, as though all his air were gone, Stefan shook his head, swallowed the bile taste in his throat and said,

"Never mind. I'm tired, and drunk, and very likely a fool."

Moving to sit down, elbows on his knees, palms pressing into his eyes he took a breath and went on,

"Sometimes I feel as though, in all the effort and progress we've made toward the dreams of our youth I lost you somewhere. I don't know. The last thing I want is to humiliate or hurt you, I just thought that, between us, we were beyond such things. I could never find you wanting or judge you lesser for something like that. I already felt that we were pulling apart when you stayed in service while I retired. I know it was needed, I know it was the right thing, for both of us. I can say that I do what I do for Zaichaer, and partly its true but, Brenner,"

Here he took his hands away and looked up, eyes bloodshot and hair all in disarray,

"I only ever wanted all of this because you did and it feels like, the closer we get to our goals, the further we get from each other."

This was dangerous territory, and he knew it, but he'd jumped off that cliff before they'd even reached his room, so it might as well all tumble out so it could be trampled back down by morning.

[Brenner Dornkirk]

"Indeed." Was Brenner's curt reply to the repetition of the phrase he had very consciously used in devising his response to this unseemly line of cross-examination. His eyes darted about the room, finding it particularly confounding that Stefan should have chosen such a time as this to broach matters passing private. There may not have been anyone near enough to overhear them by any natural means, but even the tales told by their expressions were a liability in his opinion.

"I do not reckon it was a matter of 'need'." Brenner countered, "But one of indulgence. Adolescents are famous for their propensity toward indulgence, and sadly I cannot claim to represent an exception to that particular rule. It is easier, I think, for a man to err on the side of the civilised after his hormones have settled, and such has been the case with me. I have overcome my baser impulses." He pursed his lips at the furtherance Stefan pressed of this subject matter.

"I do not know how I would have felt in such a situation." Brenner lied. "I can only speak to the here and now, where the optics of your current living situation are of greater concern to me than what happens behind those walls in privacy. If you are inquiring because you brook uncivilised inclinations, then know that I still love you and will do my best to protect your privacy and thus the good name of House Dornkirk. If you are asking because you are worried after my predilections, then disabuse yourself of that entirely redundant concern. I have long since mastered my baser nature, which is why we are speaking of ancient history rather than recent."