Roman x Caspian - Caspian’s Farm

If Caspian’s declaration of wanting Roman pleases him, he didn’t show it. His face had a guarded expression and even after Caspian practically begged him to stay, he still eyed the other man mistrustfully. A part of him knew that this wasn’t good for Caspian and if he truly cared about Caspian’s well-being, he would turn around and walk away. But Roman wasn’t that man - he wasn’t the type to go out of his way for the sake of others. Survival was inherently selfish, and Roman wasn’t shy about admitting his selfish motives. In fact, everything Roman did benefited him in some way. He hardly believed in altruistic motives and he didn’t believe in charity. So even though a small part of him knew what the right thing to do was, a much larger part of him didn’t give a fuck. If this is what Caspian wanted, then who was Roman to deny him?

“Will you still feel that way when you’re sober?” Roman asked tightly instead of answering Caspian’s question. Roman was used to doing whatever the fuck he wanted, whenever he wanted to do it. He usually didn’t care about what others thought or wanted. But now, it seemed that whenever Caspian was around, his morals decided to make a surprise appearance. It was extremely frustrating, to say the least. He knew that he should be alright with Caspian asking him to stay, but he needed to make absolutely sure that this is what he wanted. He wished he didn’t care, but he did.

Roman had more questions but the words never it out of his mouth. There was good way to ask if Caspian would look at him different if he knew the details. If they stayed together, he would undoubtably dig up more of Roman’s skeletons - and then what? When would it be too much? When would it get too dark? But he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answers, at least right now, so he kept those questions to himself.

Roman didn’t want to leave. And right now, even if Caspian wasn’t sure if he wanted Roman to stay, he probably would stay anyway because he was hopeless when it came to resisting Caspian. The air between them was cold and tense and he wanted to reach out and touch Caspian or say something, anything to break the tension, but he didn’t. Not until Caspian was sure that this was what he wanted. Roman was a lot of things, but he didn’t lie about who he was. If Caspian wanted Roman, he was going to need to accept him for exactly who he was.

Roman’s reaction to Caspian grabbing his hand was to pull away but Caspian must have expected that because he didn’t let him. He resisted for a second longer because he let Caspian pull his hand and place it on the other man’s chest. He splayed his fingers out, feeling his chest rise and fall with each breath. Now that Roman was touching Caspian, he ached to feel more. One hand wasn’t enough, he wanted to mold their bodies together until they were one.

Roman still didn’t move. All the walls that Caspian had knocked down where rebuilt and reinforced and Roman was much stronger about resisting temptation. He let Caspian’s affirmation slowly sink in and he realized he actually believed it. Even though Caspian shouldn’t want anything to do with him, he completely and undoubtably believed that Caspian wanted him - even with all the dark and ugly parts that came with him. He had never allowed anyone to see him in the way Caspian had, both physically and emotionally, and the idea of being completely accepted lifted a weight off of his shoulders that he hadn’t even known existed. The tension seeped out of him and his expressionless mask softened into something akin to relief.

Without another word, Roman closed the distance between them and pressed his lips to Caspian’s. The kiss wasn’t hungry and passionate like most of their shared kisses - it was delicate and slow. Roman pulled back after only a second or two, and besides his hand that was still on Caspian’s chest, he left the space between them.

“I might,” Roman admitted with a shrug, “but if I do, I’ll always come back. I can’t stay away from you, and trust me, I tried.” It might have sounded a little bit like a joke, but Roman meant it seriously. Caspian had magnetic draw to him and Roman wasn’t strong enough to fight it.

Now that he had calmed down a little and his anger wasn’t clouding his thoughts, it was easier for him to dissect why he had reacted the way he had when Caspian told him about the almost-treason. “I got mad because if you had gone through with that, the harboring fugitives, I would have tracked you down and I would have killed you.” Roman murmured, shifting his eyes to look down. The thought that they could have met those very different circumstances didn’t sit well with Roman. He hadn’t ever thought about how things could have been different between him and his other victims and it left an unpleasant feeling in the pit of Roman’s stomach to think that he could have just killed Caspian and gone on with his life without a second thought.

Roman wasn’t as easily pacified as Caspian at the notion that they could have met under very different circumstances. It was unsettling but Roman let it go. Even though it wasn’t worth talking about, the thought still lingered in the back of his mind. Right now, he needed To focus on the comfort Caspian was giving. He was having so much emotional turmoil that all he wanted was to be soothed by Caspian’s acceptance and understanding - two things he had never taken comfort in before.

Roman allowed himself to be led to the bed and sat down under Caspian’s pressure. He felt slightly dazed by everything that had just happened. Before, even though he had recognized how dysfunctional his infatuation with Caspian was, he didn’t really appreciate how unhealthy it was. Now, Roman felt like he was seeing their relationship for what it was - it was full of darkness and ugliness.

The worst part was that Roman didn’t care. He had never even been interested in romance before Caspian. He didn’t want the fairytale romance. He wanted this - this emotional, torturous, insanely addictive passion they had between them, even if it destroyed him in the end. If Roman could choose who ended him, he decided that he would be okay with expiring at the hand of Caspian.

The conflict between his rational mind and his emotions was starting to give him a headache. He rubbed his forehead slowly but the pressure didn’t help. He tried to think of a way to carefully word his answer to Caspian’s statement; Roman knew that at some point, he would lie to Caspian. If and when he lied, though, wouldn’t be for arbitrary reasons. It would probably be to protect Caspian. Even so, he figured that straight up telling Caspian that he might lie in the future would be poorly received.

“I promise that I’ll tell the truth,” Roman conceded. He would, he decided. To be fair, he was really going to try and not lie to Caspian. He valued integrity far too much to consistently practice lying to those he cared about. But if the situation arose, then he could be flexible with when he chose to reveal the truth.

His headache reminded him of the detoxing teenage boy locked in the abandoned servant’s corner in the back of the castle. Was he still even alive? Roman was going to need to go back and feed him at some point, even though he really didn’t feel like leaving. He nearly groaned but didn’t. Whatever - the boy probably couldn’t keep anything down anyway.

Roman lay back, grabbing Caspian’s hand to pull him down with him. He was emotionally exhausted. “I don’t understand why I need you. It’s very impractical and illogical.” He murmured, closing his eyes after a second in an effort to try and stave off the growing headache.

Roman let Caspian’s fingers work their magic and soon all of the tension of their argument was forgotten. It took a great deal of effort to push his eyes open but now that they weren’t fighting, he needed to shed his clothes. He moved only enough to slid his jeans and boxers off and his shirt followed a second later. He settled down next to Caspian, soaking up his body heat and appreciating the way their bodies fit together.

He chuckled at Caspian’s words. He had t realized it but his eyes had started to close on their own accord. The throbbing in his head hadn’t eased up and it was only making him more tired. He shifted so his head rested on Caspian’s chest and allowed the man’s breathing to lull him into an even deeper state of relaxation.

“And I’ll be the last,” Roman murmured, half asleep. He coiled himself around Caspian, any thoughts of Bo long gone by now. “I won’t leave.” He reassured, his words slightly slurred. A second later, he was passed out.

The first thing Roman was aware of was the incredible pounding in his head. Every beat of his heart resulted in a painful, searing pain across his head. He cracked his eyes open and the light almost blinded him and it took him another half a minute for his eyes to adjust. Roman hardly ever slept in but based on the amount of light out, he had slept kept a bit later than normal. He sat up in bed and the small movement caused his stomach to swirl with nausea. He groaned, rubbing a hand down his face - he needed to stop getting nearly black-out drunk with Caspian.

Roman shuffled his way out of the room, following the sounds and smell of food to the kitchen. He leaned against the wall, eyes squinting as he tried in vain to lessen the incessant pounding in his head. The smell of food caused him stomach to rumble but also induced another wave of nausea.

“I’m never drinking with you again.” Roman groaned, shuffling his way to the table and throwing himself down in a chair. He couldn’t even clearly remember what happened last night after they started drinking. He remembered a fight, but he couldn’t recall what for. It was coming back in bits and pieces but Roman’s head hurt too much to try and unscramble the memories now.

He caught sight of the raccoon in the window and scowled, shooting Caspian a look, “Do you know how unsanitary that thing is? It probably carries diseases.” He grumbled, but didn’t make a move to try and shoo the creature away. He was too hungover to move. He couldn’t believe that Caspian seemed a million times less hungover than he was - he hadn’t been lying when he said that his moonshine would knock him on his ass.

Roman’s glare matched the small, growling creature’s and he tensed up, completely prepared if it decided to launch itself at him. He was in mood for mercy and even if it upset Caspian, he was itching to snap the creature’s neck. The thing got lucky when Caspian stepped in and he shot it one more seething glare before it was ushered out. After it left, he settled back in his chair and closed his eyes, too grumpy to comment on Caspian’s ‘I told you so’.

“Trust me, I’m much cleaner than that fleabag.” Roman grumbled, clearly slightly offended that Caspian would even insinuate that. He only opened his eyes to glare at Caspian, “I don’t like it either.” He snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. He forced himself not to think about how many animals Caspian had allowed to roam the house. Roman knew that if he let himself go down that rabbit hole, he would never set foot in this house again.

Roman’s stomach flipped when food was placed in front of him. He didn’t touch it at first, only giving Caspian another seething glare when he teased him, and waited for the nausea to recede. Eventually, the nausea was replaced by veracious hunger and Roman started to eat. He only raised an eyebrow as Caspian shoveled food down his throat. - he was lucky Roman was too hungover to comment on his lack of etiquette. Roman slowly started to eat, working on the eggs first, then the bread, and finally the fruit.

“Do you remember what happened last night?” Roman finally asked, keeping his gaze locked onto the food in front of him. The longer he was awake, the more pieces he remembered but he still couldn’t remember enough to make any sense of it. He remembered being angry and trying to leave, and then Caspian asking him to stay but the details were still too fuzzy. He figured it was a good sign everything seemed to be normal between them this morning. Roman knew he had to leave today, for real, and he needed to make sure everything between them was okay before he left.

Roman noticed Caspian slow down but hardly thought it was because of his judgmental look. He was sinfully unaware of how much Caspian tried to appease even his smallest whims. The way Roman ate was very orderly. If he had to put his fork down or any reason, he placed it to the right of his plate on top of his napkin. When he finally made it to his fruit, he went through and ate one type of a fruit at a time, only moving onto the next kind when the previous kind of fruit had been completely finished. Even though Roman was hungry, the food settled like cement in the pit of his stomach and he forced himself to eat slowly lest he get nausea again. Thankfully, the more he ate, the more the hangover seemed to recede. By the time he finished his plate, his headache had been reduced to a dull throb and the nausea was completely gone.

Roman picked up on the spike of Caspian’s anxiety from his question. He brought the cup to his lips, drinking nearly half the glass before he put it down. The water gave him new life and the pain in his head dulled even more. Now that he wasn’t quite so hungover, the memories from last night came into focus. He tried to shift through them, tried to remember what he had told Caspian. He stiffened when he remembered going on a rant about the politics of Raevaryn. He looked at the man across the table from him, unsettled by how easily he could break through all of the walls Roman had set up to protect himself.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Roman muttered, keeping his gaze averted. Even though he trusted Caspian to keep the status of Raevaryn’s instability a secret, it bothered him that he had let it slip. It was a mistake, and mistakes were unacceptable. He had been far too lenient with himself. Even though it was evident that Caspian was becoming a fixture in his life, it didn’t accuse Roman from being careless. When he went home today, he would find a suitable punishment for himself. He needed the pain to push him to be better.

“I remember some of it. I’m clearly more of a lightweight than you are.” Roman kept trying to shift through the memories but even without the headache, there were indecipherable blurs and gaps. He remembered the anger and he tried to follow that, willing the memories to come into focus. He couldn’t remember what they were fighting about but he remembered the burning desire to hurt Caspian, but he hadn’t. Even nearly black-out drunk, he hadn’t been able to do it. More of the memory came into focus and what he remembered next stunned Roman so much that his hand that was still idly holding his water cup jerked, knocking the cup of water over. Caspian’s face materialized with the unmistakeable look of horror and disgust... all directed at Roman.

Roman cursed and scrambled to press his napkin onto the spilled water. Thankfully, there hadn’t been much water left. Even as he moved to clean up his mess, the look on Caspian’s face last night haunted him. He couldn’t remember the reason they fought, and he couldn’t remember what he had said to make Caspian look at him like that. He nervously glanced up at Caspian but the questions died in his throat. He wasn’t sure he wanted to remember the answer.