A drabble for these two...

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Gair and Cavan

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"Is that your cousin?" Cavan asked, his voice faintly annoyed, as he nodded at a handsome man across the room.

"Distant cousin," Gair muttered, wishing he hadn't told Cavan anything about his first crush.

"So it is him," Cavan said. "Are you going to introduce us?"

"No," Gair said, but Cavan was already pulling him across the floor. "Why do you want to meet him?" Gair asked as he was dragged along.

Cavan's reply was lost in the crowd as they drew ever closer to Gair's (distant) cousin. Suddenly they were face-to-face, and Gair had no choice but to introduce them.

"My valett has many fond memories of the summer you two spent together," Cavan said.

Gair nodded—what else could he do? "Up at Cloud Castle," Gair added to help his cousin's memory.

Cousin Telmin grinned at the memories. "How could I forget?" he asked. "The weather was wonderful, my parents were far away, and I had the Crown Prince following me around like a lost puppy. What else could a boy ask for?"

Cavan muttered something, but once again it was lost to the surrounding cacophony.

"Remember how we found that bird's nest?" Telmin asked. "And you wanted to put it back in the tree, in case the bird came home and found its house gone."

Gair sighed. "Well, just think how you would feel if you came home to find your house had fallen from where you'd built it?"

Telmin laughed and clapped Gair on the back as the two of them fell to reminiscing about old times.

After Cavan had been standing around silently for most of their conversation, he grumbled an excuse and vanished into the crowd.

Cousin Telmin watched him go. "So that's your husband?" he asked.

Gair nodded.

"In every sense of the word?" Telmin asked.

Gair glanced at him, and nodded. It wasn't a secret any more.

Telmin shrugged. "Doesn't surprise me," he said. "I thought, at the time—but you were too young." He shook his head while Gair gaped at him.

Had everyone known? He wondered. First his father and now his (distant) cousin.

Telmin clapped him on the back. "I'd better let you go back to your husband, then, so you don't get in trouble." He winked at his (distant) cousin and meandered off into the crowd.

Gair watched him go for a moment, before making his own way through the crowd after his valett.

He found Cavan out on a balcony, looking over a half-grown garden. "Valett?" Gair asked, stepping up beside Cavan.

Cavan looked at him, his eyes narrowed. "What happened to your cousin?" he asked.

"My distant cousin told me to go make up with my husband," Gair said. "I assumed he meant you."

Cavan snorted and turned back to the view. "What if—" he started.

"No," Gair cut him off. "There is no 'what if,'" he said. "He was a childhood crush, far less to me that Elenor was to you—"

Cavan pushed angrily away from the railing, but Gair forestalled his words with a finger to Cavan's lips.

"I mean no disrespect to you, to her, or to your feelings, valett, but you've been able to get over two very intense loves to find a third, and yet you're worried that I haven't gotten over a weak crush."

Cavan turned back to the garden below. "You were looking at him all night," he said.

Gair sighed and slid an arm around Cavan's waist. Cavan didn't shove him away, and that was a good sign. "I was comparing him to you," Gair said, "and in so doing he fell short in so many things, I wondered what I ever saw in him." He moved even closer and nibbled on Cavan's ear. "You're better than him in every way possible," he whispered. "And I love you."

Cavan caught his breath, and then turned to catch Gair's lips with his own in a kiss that Gair was sure his (distant) cousin would also fall short at trying to reproduce.

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And that's the end of it. Of my posting-spree, that is. I am leaving now. I might be back this winter.

Please review anyway!