Title: Easy As
Fandom: The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Length: ~500 words
Content notes: Valentine & Proteus, pre canon
Author notes: I had a classic 1 A.M. idea last night because the male leads are super touchy feely in the recent RSC production, that this is a world where there's no taboo around men touching one another in friendships. This grew from there, because I feel their relationship exists in a space that's interesting to look at so I tried to look at it.



It's going on eleven one night when Valentine first mentions the idea.
"I'm going to Milan," he says, apropos of nothing, and Proteus wonders earnestly for a second if it was something he said. A minute ago they'd been snuggled up on the sofa, eating ice cream and watching stand-up, and now there's this.

"Wherefore?" is the only thing he can think of to reply to that. Valentine exhales and drops his shoulders in the way he does when he thinks Proteus is too slow in the head.

"Do you not think this place is too small for the likes of you and I?"

"You mean to say too small to contain both of us?"

Valentine leans his forehead against Proteus' and sighs.
"No, my loving friend, I mean - I yearn to see something different. Meet different folk. Find -"

"- love," Proteus finishes the sentence. They break apart.

"Maybe that too, yes," Valentine replies softly. Proteus nods and lets go of his friend's shoulders.

"When will you go?"

"Not for a week."

"Then let's fill your week with the best Verona has to offer, so you think on it when you are away."

Valentine hugs him with feeling and laughs in his ear.

"Stay," says Proteus. "Stay the night here."

***

They've shared a bed too many times to count, ever since they were small boys. Proteus is out like a light - as ever, thinks Valentine, and smiles at his sleeping companion, his features like marble in the moonlight.

There's something very peaceful about his friend like that. Valentine's seen this image a thousand times and it always used to calm him, but tonight it makes him restless and he does not know why.

He shuffles closer, picks a strand of hair or of Proteus' face. He has wondered, every so often, how a woman - any woman - could replace in his heart a companion like Proteus, who knows him so completely, who has been beside him as often as not, since childhood days. It is the way of the world, he supposes, and yet, he wonders why it should be.

And so he moves still closer and puts an arm around his sleeping friend. They used to fall asleep like this in days gone by, when one of them was frightened by a thunderclap or a noise in the house. They still did when that excuse was no longer viable, on colder nights or when in their cups, or, if they were being honest, sometimes just because they could and it felt nice.

Valentine relaxes into it, into the warmth and the heartbeat of the man next to him. If he felt strange about leaving before, he feels stranger now. After all, Proteus is as good as engaged to his Julia, and much as that gives Valentine joy for his friend, it also means nights like this will soon be a thing of the past. In fact, this may be their last - by the time Valentine returns from Milan, Proteus might well be a married man.

Of course Valentine wants to go there and seek his fortune, but there's a darker and more dangerous part to that wish, a part that's to do with what is happening here, between their heartbeats, in the way his hand plays with Proteus' nightshirt and the way his stomach drops to his knees when he thinks able saying goodbye.

Proteus stirs, moves in his sleep, nestles closer to Valentine and then laces his own fingers through Valentine's.

It's too deliberate a movement for a sleeping person. Valentine feels shocked for a second and only barely keeps from flinching. Proteus lifts their hands to his lips and kisses their intertwined fingers, then drops his hand again.

Valentine forgets how to breathe for a moment, expects he doesn't k ow what - maybe for Proteus to turn around and either slap him or loss him, and he finds he has no idea how he'd react to either.

Proteus however does nothing of the kind and for all Valentine knows is already fast asleep again when Valentine regains his breath.

Neither of them mention the incident in the morning, but Valentine's heart is lighter now whe he thinks about leaving. He may not return to be Proteus' bedfellow, but what they have, what is between them, will keep - he knows that for certain now.