Chapter 25
A fortnight later, Claudio felt restless.
The good kind of restless. What he was supposed to be doing a bit more in the world, that was the right way to put it.
It was definitely a Tower sort of restless, seeing something that had hardened and needed changing.
He was not, however, entirely certain what to do with it.
Perhaps he just felt a tad unsettled because they weren’t meeting in their usual room. That had been pre-empted for a day-long preparation meeting in advance of the Midsummer Faire. The materia discussion had been pushed into a meeting room at the opposite end of the floor from Matthew’s office.
It was decidedly not optimal, but it had shaken some of the usual patterns up.
Claudio had spent the first half of the discussion chiming in here and there.
That was about the schools and the orders they’d be planning over the summer.
Then they got onto what was going to be the first in a series.
Or so Claudio thought until Matthew put down his pen three minutes into the next topic.
“Wait. Let me put all of this together properly. You’re saying that when it comes to the materia harvests, the forms go through twelve different departments here, then they get hung up waiting on four other people to sign off, and then it’s another three rounds of paperwork before anyone can even consider putting in requests? ” He looked, honestly, stunned.
“It’s all necessary. Surely you’ll see that if you take a look at it.” Aldous Short rummaged in his portfolio, pulling out a file. “Have you not seen the chart since you returned?”
Matthew took a breath, the sort that Claudio marked but that probably didn’t show to others. He took the chart. “I have, but let me glance at your copy.” There were a few moments where he did just that, pointedly quiet, then he set it down. “We can do better, surely.”
“But that’s how it’s been done for twenty years now.” Isa Brown cut in. “More than that. Longer than you’ve been at the Ministry, I think.”
“Then, surely, it is due for a review.” Matthew looked down again. “Thoughts?”
There was utter silence. Claudio could see the way Matthew was looking at the room, a steady, stubborn resilience.
He’d started counting automatically as soon as the silence began.
He didn’t want to jump in too fast. Or rather, he wanted to, but it was strategically the wrong thing.
One of the Penelopes had told him during his training that if you waited seven seconds, you’d find out if someone else was likely to speak.
Give them twelve or fourteen, and it wasn’t likely.
Now, Claudio could hear his heart thumping with each beat, but he waited.
He made himself wait. Doing this right mattered most. He knew Matthew understood that.
Understood that the waiting was deliberate.
It wasn’t that Claudio didn’t want to back him or wouldn’t.
Claudio would, because it was a bloody good point.
But if they were to see it through, that took strategy.
Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Then Claudio spoke, using every bit of what he’d learned from Mother and Father, from Isembard and Thesan and Gabe and Ursula.
And from Gabe’s parents, and from so many other people, about how to persuade with words alone.
“I agree it’s overdue for a review. May I see it?
” Matthew turned the page so Claudio could see it.
Claudio made a point of tracing a line or two with his finger.
“There are at least three unnecessary inefficiencies I can spot without any effort. That suggests there are more. What would you like to propose, Lawson, about how to go about it in this particular case? We won’t manage it in time for this year’s harvest, probably.
But aiming for next, with some initial controlled trials for specific plants this cycle?
” He added before anyone could argue. “Something with an August or September harvest, not the solstice ones, obviously.”
There was a moment of silence, and then everyone else at the table was talking over and around and through each other’s words.
Claudio leaned back, listening intently to the words as much as to the patterns.
It took the rest of the meeting time, but Matthew got everyone to settle and to be willing to consider further discussion.
He said he’d have notes by the end of the week about which points he felt should get priority for re-evaluation.
Matthew even worked around to a couple of people agreeing that it was worth some attention.
Those agreed they’d help with a specific piece, and had stubborned everyone else into going along with it.
It did mean that everyone was glad to flee the meeting when time was up.
Also, someone else needed the room. Claudio hung back, taking his time gathering his papers.
“Pub?” He made it casual, but he could see Matthew was still in a state of some arousal.
The way both Orion and Claudio could be after a duel or solving a problem that desperately needed it.
Orion swore arousal was the right word, that there was something sexual about it as well, at least in quality of intensity. Claudio had to take his word for it. Until now. There was certainly a spark in the air, something intangible but present.
Matthew looked up quickly, the way Cammie looked when she’d been hunting. “Mmm. Yes.” He seemed a hair distracted. “Minute, I’ll need something from my office. Maybe the supply closet. Mind coming along?”
Claudio shook his head, wordless. They slipped out of the meeting room, everyone who’d been waiting piling in, and the hallway was empty.
Matthew glanced along, then stopped at a door a few doors down from his own office near the far end.
“Here.” He didn’t actually touch Claudio, not here and now, but the word caught as firmly as if he had.
It was, in point of fact, a broom closet. Matthew pulled the door shut, then said. “Charm. Please, gods. Charm?” His voice cracked on the last bit. “Door and sound?” There was light from a narrow window, facing the grey stone wall of another building, but not so much as to be glaring.
Claudio blinked at him, but the charms were not a great effort.
He got the door to lock from this side, got the privacy charm up.
And then he turned back to find Matthew looking straight at him from perhaps six inches away, pupils wide.
Matthew had his hands behind his back, his shoulders suggesting that he’d got one hand in the other, the little signs of pulling tension.
“Charm. You were brilliant.” All of that was truth.
“You were as well. You backed me, too. Backed my play as perfectly as any bohort match I’ve ever seen you play.
Is that what you’re like when you’re being a Penelope with your whole self, nothing else in the world?
” Matthew— no, this must be Matty, could only be Matty— was breathless with it, a racing eagerness.
“I don’t have the best perspective on myself.
” Claudio pointed out, then he leaned back against the bit of wall behind him.
It got Matty to edge a hair closer. He didn’t know how to ask the next thing, but he knew he needed to say something.
“You, though. Fresh eyes on— gods, how long has that been so awful?” Then, daring, he said, “Why are we in here?”
“Because,” There was a sucked in breath, a little arch of his shoulders, but he didn’t shift his hands, not yet.
“I desperately want to kiss you. And I’m not.
Won’t. You don’t want it. But it’d show if we were out there.
It’d shine.” His words got a little faster, more urgent, as he went, something in them pulling Claudio along into them like the purest bit of Incantation magic he’d seen or felt.
Matty was working so hard not to do anything Claudio didn’t want.
And now, here, like lightning striking, he did want.
But there was something he had to say first. He knew if he didn’t, it’d shatter everything beyond mending.
This moment was so fragile, as delicate as any bit of crisis he’d ever been near, and there had been plenty of those.
He sucked in a breath, then said. “I— can you hold that thought for just a couple of sentences? Need to say something before—” His own voice caught. “Before we do.”
Matty’s eyes went wider at that. There was a stronger pull at his shoulders, as if he were wrestling himself into submission. Then he rocked back just a hair. “Go ahead. Please. Whatever you need to say.”
Now, he had to. He owed Matty that. He owed himself that.
Claudio owed the Tower that, in as much as an archetypal concept could be owed anything.
He took a breath, calling on every scrap of composure and control he had left.
“What I’ve been circling is making a challenge for the Council.
In August. We can talk more about what it means, after.
But I needed to tell you before. In case it changes anything for you. ”
“Gods,” Matty rocked back on his heels a bit. “Why— no. It can wait. It can wait?” He checked it again, and Claudio nodded three times, jerking his chin and watching Matty the entire time. “Actually, I think that makes me want to kiss you more. Need to, maybe.”
“Kiss me, then,” He managed a quick breath.
“Show me.” It wasn’t an order. He never wanted to give an order, well, not without talking that through rather a lot more.
He certainly didn’t have time now, because fast as fire, Matty’s hands were on either side of his head, framing, as Matty leaned forward, wide-eyed.
“Sure?” It was the fiercest whisper he’d ever heard.
Claudio just managed a nod, and then Matty was right there, his left hand coming around the back of Claudio’s head, the better to sense the angle.
There were lips, then heat, and any sense of thought or analysis fled.
Claudio felt himself arching up against the wall, an unbearable tension rising in him.
Matty pursued it eagerly and demandingly, as if he were on the hunt.
Skilled at the hunt, as skilled as he was at his work.
And oh, Claudio wanted to lose himself in that.
Competence, this kind of sheer demanding competence, was like everything he’d learned to love with Orion.
There was no false move, no hint of hesitation now that Matty had permission.
Claudio could hear himself groaning, now, a whimper as there was a chance for a breath.
Then, though Matty didn’t move his hands, there was a pressure against his body.
Something warm and strong— so strong, unshakeably strong.
Matty didn’t try to grind or change that pressure once it was there, but it was just the two of them, ignoring every other bit of the world.
It occurred to Claudio, finally, that he had two hands that were doing absolutely nothing.
He shifted carefully to bring one to the middle of Matty’s back and against his shoulder, and that just encouraged everything.
Finally, panting, Matty pulled back. “More. Gods. I want more.”
Claudio pulled his hand away to wipe his forehead— he was suddenly dripping with sweat.
As he did, he banged his elbow on something, a broom handle by the shape, and grunted, then let his head fall back against the wall with a soft thump.
He closed his eyes for a moment, then when he opened them, Matty was watching him intently. “All right?”
“Yes.” There were things that ought to be said in the aftermath of passion.
He’d listened to Isembard talk it through with Orion, all the parts that were manners and consideration and encouragement for more good times.
They’d entirely flown out of his head now.
Claudio sucked in a breath, trying to figure out what to say.
“You said Cammie had comments about broom closets. Are you going to tell her you have some new experiences?” It had a definite teasing tone to it, and Matty’s expression backed that up.
When he wasn’t being professional, he had quite a mobile face, dancing eyes, eyebrows that arched, and a dimple at one side when he smiled, like he was now.
Claudio let his head shift. “Mmm. I’m thinking we should go somewhere private, talk through a thing or two. And then give me some more new experiences once we’ve figured out where to start?” There, that covered what was necessary.
Matty’s eyes lit up. “Right.” He pushed back from the wall, finally, and cast a charm before asking, “You know the charm to, um, hide the obvious interest?”
“Been well taught.” He glanced down and added.
“Never needed it before, mind, not since I was seventeen and my body stopped thinking everything was interesting, even if it was, y’know, a bit of slightly suggestive art.
Actual art.” He glanced at the door. “How do we get out of this closet and— where are we going?”
“My flat?” Matty ran his fingers through his hair, tidying, then peered at Claudio.
“You look fine once your breath slows a little. I should be envious, but I like looking at you, so I shan’t bother with envy.
Waste of time and energy.” He then glanced at the door.
“How about I go out, get my things, and if there’s no one in the hall, I’ll knock and you can come out? ”
It was a perfectly fine plan, and Claudio nodded. “That.” He waited for Matty to disappear, and the additional minute or two gave him a chance to get back in control of himself enough for the moment.