Authors' Notes: This fic was written ages ago for a friend of mine who requested this pairing, and unfortunately, I lost a good half of it, so the ending up is not the original ending. The questionable parts are also hosted on my lj- which, due to lj cracking down on users, is friendslocked for entries which are R or NC-17. If you reach the end and want to keep reading, friend me and I'll add you. o/

=====

Arrangements

=====

The inside of the wagon was cramped and exotic, packed with pouches that hung swaying from the ceiling and bolts of cloth bundled in piles near the door. In a basket, a small mountain of orbs glimmered with a purple light reminiscent of twilight, and Ian watched them for a moment, nervously, before taking the opportunity to stare at a pendant swaying gently from a hook on the wall. The eye painted there stared back, and Ian glanced away, wondering for the fifth time in ten minutes why he had bothered to come.

He did not know the out-of-towner who had arrived just the week before with his portable shop and his ridiculous prices and his shaggy horse, but he had claimed, it was said, that he could obtain anything for a price- and Ian had already looked everywhere else.

He wasn't sure exactly when his brother had begun to fancy jewelry- for despite the younger man's protests that this was an emblematic ring, a symbol that would secure his place at the head of the vampire nation, Ian rather suspected he'd been a bit too intent on the description of the carving of the butterfly wings in the silver. In any case, it had been almost twenty years since he had gotten his brother a present of any kind, and if Louie wanted a ring, he would get a ring.

Finding it, however, had been something of a challenge; the shops in Barton had yielded nothing of the kind, and although he'd gone to Durem and the Isle de Gambino, and finally even Aekea in hopes that the paradise for mechanics would allow him to find something of a different metallic nature, he had been disappointed again and again. It wasn't until he had returned home, trying to work out how precisely he ought to tell his brother how spectacularly he'd failed, that he'd first heard of the strange new arrival.

And now, a day later, he was sitting in a wagon that he'd seen for the first time today, fidgeting as he waited for its owner to duck in through the door to join him. There had been something wolfish in the man's smile as he'd gestured Ian inside, and the longer he waited, the more certain he grew that he was being kept waiting because he was meant to fidget.

It was just as he was beginning to think that perhaps it wasn't worth the wait after all, that Rufus would be missing him back at the shop and that he really ought to be going, when the door opened. It creaked out with deliberate slowness, and suddenly in the cramped space of the wagon's interior there were two, and the man in his curious lop-sided hat was pulling the door closed behind him. Daylight vanished again, leaving only the cracks that slipped through to provide a dim brightness nearing candlelight, and the world was once more reduced to the close, heavy smell of spices.

"Now." There was a soft lilt to the man's voice, an otherness that served as a gentle reminder that Barton was not his place. "I do believe you wanted to arrange a deal?"

Ian's eyes widened, the slit pupils at odds with the childish hope that lit up eyes of vampiric grey. "You mean you can find it? That's- How can you-?"

The out-of-towner studied his fingernails, flexed his hands with catlike grace. "It won't be cheap, you know."

"I brought some gold," Ian was saying already, reaching for the pouch kept in his pocket- but he stopped mid-motion when the man's hand reached, almost casually, into one of the pouches hanging from the ceiling of the wagon. When it emerged, it had produced a ring of astonishing beauty, a butterfly engraved in silver, so lifelike it seemed likely to burst into flight at any moment. As Ian watched, the man skipped it along his fingers like a magician doing a coin trick, watched him slip it onto his smallest finger and then off once more.

"For you?" The man studied the ring, held it up for Ian to do the same. "I might be willing to part with it for a mil."

If Ian had been drinking something, it would have sprayed across the distance of the wagon; instead he sputtered and coughed, choking on air. "Are you insane? A million gold?"

The man's smile tipped up in the corners, bared teeth. "Cash."

"I can't- there's no way I can-" Despite himself, Ian actually flailed; the pouches above him swayed with the motion, and the out-of-towner smirked.

"You could take out a loan," he suggested. "I hear the Kuro family is quite accommodating with things like that. Until you miss a payment, of course." He waited a moment for that to sink in, then leaned in like a predator that's scented blood. "Or we could discuss... alternative payment methods."

Instantly, the flailing stopped; Ian latched onto the suggestion with visible gratitude. "I could recommend customers to you, or- I could do a bit of work! Or if you wanted to trade, I've got a gold metal from the Olympics last summer; it's got to be worth something."

"That is not," said the out-of-towner, and leaned in, eyes alight with mischief, "what I had in mind."

And with no more warning than that, Ian found himself being kissed. It was a deep kiss, a forceful kiss; a kiss that knew what it wanted and demanded just that; a kiss that, if denied, was like to press in nearer and find the help of roving hands. Ian froze beneath it; stiffened uncomfortably at the feel of hands on his back, on his chest, on his thighs, everywhere at once and doing so much at the same time that it left his head reeling.

Then one was at the nape of his neck, the long fingers stroking his hair, the metal of the rings on the man's hand surprisingly warm against his skin, and Ian found that even though he'd intended to break the kiss, the hold here was drawing him closer still, holding him in place so that a warm and searching tongue could probe his mouth at leisure.

It pressed against his own tongue, demanding and casual all at once, and then it moved on to trace the hard line of his teeth, lingering a moment to discover the pointed tips of his canines. It was a sensation quite unlike anything Ian had felt before- one that he had avoided for years precisely from the fear of just such a discovery- and yet here was this, this, person he didn't even know, inflicting it upon him like a lightning bolt down his spine.

It took a hand on the man's chest, firm and centered, to force some distance between them again, and Ian couldn't stop the flush that crept across his cheeks when he realized that the out-of-towner was smirking. Not subtly, not with any hint of decency- but outright smirking. For the first time, irritation crept into to join the discomfort the man had provoked, and despite the fact that he hadn't quite managed to control his breathing, Ian drew away as far as the wagon's interior would allow him. "Absolutely not."

The out-of-towner did not seem in the slightest disconcerted; if anything, the smirk grew broader. "It's a good deal." Somehow, that little bit of distance had been closed up again, and now his back was, quite literally, to the wall. "Not one I'd offer to just anyone, either."

"The answer is still no." Ian drew himself up, put on his sternest expression. It was the one he used for Rufus on days when he discovered the shop till had been raided for trips to the fish market.

And in reply, the man laughed. It was not a full-bodied laugh but a chuckle, warm and throaty, a laugh that proclaimed more than words ever could that the man was confident of getting his way. "You haven't heard the terms yet." In the close space, all it took was a shift of body weight to leave them chest to chest, to let Ian feel the warmth of the man's body through their clothes. "Let me lay them out for you, first."

=====

And this is where it starts to not be Gaia-appropriate. If you're still interested, follow the link, friend me, and I will add you so that you can read my adult-only fics. o/

Arrangements