i think the only world here i don’t actively approve of how you look is one where i am suddenly blind so in that scenario i don’t know you look good for a fact, technically but i can still assume
it’s a keen observation. knife-sharp, catching on his not-so-impenetrable skin. easy, maybe, in the sense of taking what he’s given. easy like an assumption, severing the need for true understanding. ]
maybe other people make it easy
[ the passive deception. easy like writing off an addict. or easy like thinking he’s all sad or all sun, no shadow.
(but the serum enhances what you already are, always. it makes rogers the best version of the man he always was. it takes walker’s anger, his turmoil, and bloodies the shield.) ]
not you obviously
[ putting on the moves or putting him through his paces. huh. he finds himself aching to impress, just as he had upon waking, impossibly grateful for armand’s care. tucked between the messages: i like the challenge, too when so few have bothered to issue it to him. ]
[ Easy like letting people see a delicate young man with dark skin. Letting them believe he's breakable. Or ancient and powerful. Easy like being what they expect, what they've told you to be, because it's easy. Because it means you survive.
Because sometimes it means they don't. ]
There's something terrible and beautiful inside you, Bobby. The darkness behind the burning sun. But the boy from Sarasota Springs exists, too. The boy who wants to please everyone. Who wants to stop hurting. I'm interested in all of them.
[ about sarasota springs, specifically. the detail that twigs, when stephen said more than enough for the crowd. he mentioned it in the diamonds chat once, he thinks, but it still feels like val saying, i know everything, robert. i know about your mother. i even know what your father would do to you. words on a screen seem suddenly less invasive than a glimpse into his head. or maybe they’re the same, and their intended effect is all that differs. i know, robert, i know what you’re capable of, i know what you’re for, i know i know i know.
his shoulders square. he tries to examine the idea of interest, in place of all that knowing. ]
i think anybody would be a little frightened less of you more of what you might find in there
but i guess you already have a better idea than i do, of the shape of things
[ that gap, preceding armand’s hand at his back. easy, like pretending he didn’t know what it meant. like armand letting him hold onto a boyish lie, in exchange for a few days in the sun. ]
Perhaps. The truth is rarely so simple, even to ourselves.
If you don't want me to look, I can stay out of it. I can't promise to be unaware, it happens without trying. But I will remain outside the door until you open it, if you decide to.
[ An offer he rarely makes at all, let alone decides to respect. But something about Bobby feels different. Not only because of the boy-shaped hole cut out of him, like a paper stencil in front of a screen. He'd enjoyed those days in the sun more than he'd expected to. And at least he's used to agreeing to ignore the shadows gathering in the corners of the room. ]
[ it takes him a long moment to respond, in part because he sets his phone aside and paces the floor. anything to burn off the sudden burst of energy that almost made him throw the damned thing.
finally, ]
if you tell me when you’re really looking and about whatever you find you can i mean, you could anyway, i guess but i’d let you
[ his hands feel shaky after typing that. jesus, does anybody else with super strength have that problem? probably not. ]
I'm asking you out because I like you. And part of that is because you're interesting. And part of it is because you're a good kisser, and you make me laugh. And your eyes are quite beautiful. And I believe I can offer you something that nobody else can.
[ another pause, as he reads the text once, twice, three times, thumb arcing across the glass. over the course of this exchange, armand has been more straightforward with him than anyone else, except yelena (who is honest by nature, despite the widow training, blunt in her brilliance). more complimentary, too, in a substantial way. and too specific to deny.
he takes a screenshot of the text, even though it’s right there on his phone. just in case. thinks about armand laughing at him every time he knocked into the coffin or his sharp jaw. about all of you, blinking a few messages up. ]
you’re offering me a lot
[ whatever it is that nobody else can, whether armand means his singular vantage point or something else. bob thinks of more immediately. the challenge. the insight. the attention. that gentle hand climbing his back and threaded through his curls. ]
i’ve never really had that much so i don’t know how i’ll do with it
[ that plenty. if his behaviour as the sentry is any indicator, the answer is nothing good. ]
but i like you, too and i really want to see what you’re wearing tomorrow
[ It's challenge and attention and understanding. The awareness that there can be a shadow in the shape of a boy, or a boy pretending to be a shadow, and they can both be the same boy, the same shadow. That there's brightness and darkness, and laughter, and the way the sky looks through a plate glass window a thousand feet above the ground. Blue skies and white clouds, and the sun. Everything you can reach out and take, if you give up enough of yourself. And the price you pay.
How it is to be powerful enough to climb into that sky, and to still be alone.
Armand smiles over the message he gets back. Simple things. ]
[ a few disparate thoughts occur to him. some about the nature of armand’s power and how much he gathers from bob standing there just, well, thinking. others about this room and how it doesn’t feel like his yet, the same as the one he’d been given at the watchtower. bob wishes he had something finished to show armand — but then, armand has already seen exactly how unfinished he is, as a person. ]
yeah no chance i’m figuring out any of the bow tie situations on these without you
[ typed and deleted: you can stay over, if you want. maybe armand will hear him thinking it, clearer than he would have said it: i hope you stay. ]
[ It's an endless ocean, the noise of the many voices in the manor, the constant orchestra of minds and hearts of mortals and immortals alike. A great, throbbing pulse, like waves breaking on the shore. Armand barely hears it any more, except when he wants to, keeping watch over those he likes to know about. It hasn't been difficult to tie a line around Bob, an almost familiar shape by now, so he can be watchful of the way it twitches and thrums over time -- happy, sad, curious, angry. But he's promised, so he doesn't pry, only becomes aware when a particular note rises above the rest. Less words than a desire, aimed at him.
Stay, it says. Stay.
Daringly, Armand reaches out, a voice and a sensation rising in the blood. Pleasure. Amusement. Gratitude. ]
[ armand answers. in the attic, the corner lamp flickers to life, warm light flooding the room. the shadows scatter.
something like an exhale across the line, as surprise melts into understanding. a feeling more than an explicit reply. hello you. it’s the same sensation he experienced on waking beside armand. closeness that goes beyond the physical. recognition of the self in the other, or so the last book he read says.
gratitude, returned. heat, from his rising flush or the glare of the sun. thank you i like you i’m glad you’re here i wanted to see you i like you so much. it all rushes together, clumsy and sincere. ]
[ It's been so long since someone was genuinely, without complication or agenda or distraction, glad to see him, that Armand almost doesn't know what to do. There's a flicker of genuine surprise, a single glassy note of fear, before control reasserts itself again, and it melts away into warmth. Happiness.
Thought-presence reaching, like a hand outstretched, to comb tenderly through the tangle of Bob's being, curving into him like an embrace from behind, a nose against the nape of his neck. Breath over his skin. A kiss. ]
Hello. Close your eyes.
[ An attic in a quiet house. The lamp in a golden circle, a record on the turntable, volume turned down low -- the Platters singing 'Ebb Tide'. Arms circling Bob's waist. First the tide rushes in, plants a kiss on the shore. Armand hums softly, nosing over the back of Bob's neck. ]
[ it’s harder for bob to identify the distinct aspects of armand’s reaction, but he follows the rhythm of it, like tiny blips and a singular spike on his heart monitor. the image imprinted on the backs of eyelids, when he closes them now. the pattern steadies as armand solidifies around him. instinctively, trustingly, bob leans into him in turn. he folds a hand over armand’s bicep, fingers sliding to feel the tendons in his wrist. the other reaches backwards to skim his curls. as real as everything else in this room.
so i rush to your side, huh. ]
You just saw me.
[ with the rumble in his voice that comes from bottled laughter. said even though he knows he felt it, thought it, shared it first. when was the last time he wanted something and got it? he can’t remember. ]
— I like what you’ve done with the place.
[ is what he says at the same time he thinks, nobody ever comes here. the light never clicks on, no matter how many times he twists the knob. there’s never music, in place of seething whispers or shouted warnings. he sways a little, with the music — with armand. ]
[ It's a dream or a memory made tangible, both more and less than reality, an art that Armand doesn't get to practice often. But something can't be made out of nothing, skeins of thought and imagination from both of their minds knitted together. Somewhat be more of Bob than of himself, in this case. ]
It's yours. I only embellished it.
[ He says it matter-of-factly, cheek against the side of Bob's head as they move together, side to side, to the slow melody. His hand moves idly, stroking up and down Bob's belly, enjoying the shape of him.
His gaze wanders over the wallpaper, the wooden eaves. ]
Where are we?
[ He could go and look, could open that door, but he wants to hear it from him. ]
[ another unfamiliar intimacy, this dance. these tender touches. the press of armand top-to-toe, cheek-to-cheek.
at the blurred edges of the space: stacks of books, blankets, a rubik’s cube he managed to solve. ]
Mm. [ he drops his lifted arm, instead following the line of armand’s to his middle. his gaze chases the motion and walks past it, down to the wooden slats that gap ever so slightly. enough to glimpse the mundanity of the empty living room and kitchen below. ] It’s my house in Sarasota Springs. My parents’ house.
[ which is funny-sad in and of itself, right, when he ought to have moved well past this place. thirty-odd and still upright, instead of dead in a ditch like he — like oxe — figured. the age at which one gets over these things, perhaps, and shuts the door on them evermore. ]
But it’s not just that. [ he pushes through the thickness in his voice, his throat. ] It’s — the least worst room of all the rooms you can get in here. [ not the house, but his head. a place where the door behind them doesn’t always lead to the squeaky topmost step he so dreaded creeping over. sometimes, the threshold opens on the principal’s office at his high school. the miami gas station bathroom where he thought he was going to die. the laboratory that he tells the others he barely remembers. ]
[ simply, ] I’d hide up here a lot. [ when he really needed to, and sometimes when he didn’t, just in case. it was hard to know when he would be damned for doing something as often as he was for not doing it. ] Still do, I guess.
[ The memory-space firms around them the more Bob concentrates on it, taking on fine details. Scattered belongings, dust motes turning in a column of light in their own stately dance. The faint ghosts of parental arguments, fried onions and meatloaf dinners.
Armand turns his head to nose over Bob's ear, letting his voice and his memories move around them as they move within it. He spreads his fingers a little, inviting Bob's into the gaps between, so their hands are joined over his sternum. Protective. His hold tightens a little.
He understands. He has his own rooms, his own labyrinthine memories spiralling down into the darkness. Most of them bad, some of them worse.
From the speakers, the Platters fade into Édith Piaf singing 'Hymne A L’Amour'. ]
You were afraid. [ Armand says it softly, without judgement. Fear is a state of being, a natural reaction to the violent world around them, and to the violent things that they are. He loosens his arms, letting go of Bob enough to encourage him to turn around within his embrace so he can look at him, studying him carefully. He's dressed simply, in an old fashioned style.
Gently, he drapes his arms over Bob's shoulders. ]
[ it’s easier with armand. the light and the warmth in the space come from his presence, not bob’s. here, his dead hands aren’t cold — not when bob thinks of them as a balm, marvelling at how his fingers slot into place between armand’s own. ]
Yeah.
[ bob looses a soft sound and squeezes back. no denial of it, when he would describe himself as so fucking scared or numb or stupid-angry enough to fight back and make things worse. an endless loop.
not so, with the addition of an untempered variable. given space, bob turns, head ducked out of habit, the romeo cut of his hair falling in his face. dressed in dark corduroys and a burgundy jumper, too big even for the broad set of his shoulders. a mimicry of the hand-me-downs he would wear, if he were in this time and place. as he lifts his gaze, he notes the classical silhouette armand takes (like the music that must be his, too). his hands hover, confused and out-of-place until armand takes his shoulders. right. a step closer, and bob loops both hands around his waist, fingers interlocked at the small of his back. shy, maybe, but not afraid. ]
Most people just say “that sucks, man.”
[ but then, they don’t have armand’s curiosity or intensity, carrying them deeper in the quagmire. in any case, bob knows his answer immediately. ]
Myself. [ even when it’s reynolds senior out there, it’s still bob. he glances sideways. ] You miss old music, Armand?
[ when armand is older still than these melodies. ]
[ Armand hums thoughtfully, resuming their swaying dance, like two teenagers in a gymnasium on a Friday night. As Bob glances away, his gaze lingers, an artist's eye taking loving note over and over of the details: the angle of his jaw and nose; the fine, thick sweep of his eyelashes; the faint lines of tension around his eyes which will deepen with age. ]
I miss the old world, sometimes. [ He lifts a hand from where they're loosely tangled behind Bob's head, stroking over his nape and into his curls, watching his expression. ] The quiet. The darkness of a night unblemished by sodium bulbs. Skies which had never known jet engines. Watching the ships arrive in harbour, not knowing what they might contain, where they might have been. The discoveries in science and art and philosophy, each waking up the world anew. A sense of wonder and excitement. It's still like that, a little, but it's.. noisier, now. Even the quiet places are full of chatter.
[ He pauses briefly, then continues. ]
I grew up in Venice, in the 1500's. I remember more of it now than I once did. How it felt to be a young man, in that time. To have freedom of a kind. I loved to go out drinking and gambling, to cause my Master to worry about me, only to be glad when he discovered my mischief. [ A smile, somewhat distant, over those memories. ] I would go to the great cathedrals and spent hours gazing upon the faces of the icons, the saints and the angels. I wanted to know what they saw. How they could gaze upon us in such beauty and calm. What it would be like to be one of them, cast in eternal beauty.
[ bob nods first, at the acknowledgement of missing what came before. it must be a lonely kind of nostalgia, when no other remembers all you do. armand himself seems out-of-time, with the voice and bearing of an actor in a film he’d surely never recognise. do they make people like this anymore?
his lashes flutter, when armand drags nails from his nape to his curls. ultimately, bob can’t help but look back to him as he talks, drawn in by his strange rhythms. the turns of phrase that would make him hold his place in a novel, committing the shape and structure of the page to memory. maybe you have to learn to tell your stories, when no other can. and so bob tries to catch the details that might matter later in the book. the weight of modernity. freedom of a kind. a master. the seeds of the religious interest armand retains, if those who testified against him are to be believed.
even so, he finds he relates to pieces of it. the noise that drives him inward. here. an attic in the suburbs, where you can still hear the cicadas and the lovebugs at night, or venture into the true dark of the neighbouring green to see the fireflies. there’s the loneliness, too, and the dream of being more that still haunts him. ]
The 1500s. [ blowing out a breath. the library must have good books on the subject, and he makes a mental note to pull them next time. ] I haven’t even been to regular Venice. [ meaning “modern.” his family didn’t really travel abroad, even if he managed to by his lonesome eventually. mostly southeast asia. though he also inter-railed through europe for a spell. places where a little cash and a backpack are enough. ]
It sounds nice, in some ways. [ the quiet and wonder, especially. ] And a little lonely. [ both life in a crowded city and the exalted role of the icons, above others. ] Is it?
[ it would have been for him, if he’d accepted val’s first offer to play the golden god. ]
[ With so little space between their minds, it's easy to pick up on the turn of Bob's thoughts. Armand smiles fondly at his notion of doing research, fingers still gently carding through his curls, alternately rubbing his thumb lightly up and down the back of his neck. Édith Piaf has turned back into The Platters, now singing 'Only You'. ]
Yes.
[ Agreement with his words and the thoughts in him, the notion of allowing oneself to be used for a great cause. He remembers a wooden throne above a burning pyre, the moans of his poor doomed coven as he dispatched another heretic on their behalf. He remembers watching Marius one night before he was turned, happening upon him on a balcony during a celebration for one of his patrons, a rare moment of catching his Master lost in private thought as he gazed out at the city. How terrible and beautiful and alien he'd looked, a creature from another age.
Outside, the light shifts, the sun glowing in the windows of the attic taking on a different hue. From somewhere comes the raucous cries of gulls and the ringing of bells that's also somehow the hush-hush of traffic on a rainy day. A faint voice singing in Italian. Swaying into it, into the memories and the music, Armand closes his eyes.
Footsteps thumping up the stairs. An argument outside the door, men's voices raised in different languages. The light from the lamp shudders. A woman's drunken laugh --
Armand opens his eyes. The room settles back to how it was. He lets out a breath. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
is one where i am suddenly blind
so in that scenario i don’t know you look good for a fact, technically
but i can still assume
no subject
And those eyes are the only ones I want watching me tomorrow.
no subject
are you really putting the moves on me, armand?
you know i’m easy
no subject
no subject
it’s a keen observation. knife-sharp, catching on his not-so-impenetrable skin. easy, maybe, in the sense of taking what he’s given. easy like an assumption, severing the need for true understanding. ]
maybe other people make it easy
[ the passive deception. easy like writing off an addict. or easy like thinking he’s all sad or all sun, no shadow.
(but the serum enhances what you already are, always. it makes rogers the best version of the man he always was. it takes walker’s anger, his turmoil, and bloodies the shield.) ]
not you
obviously
[ putting on the moves or putting him through his paces. huh. he finds himself aching to impress, just as he had upon waking, impossibly grateful for armand’s care. tucked between the messages: i like the challenge, too when so few have bothered to issue it to him. ]
no subject
Because sometimes it means they don't. ]
There's something terrible and beautiful inside you, Bobby. The darkness behind the burning sun. But the boy from Sarasota Springs exists, too. The boy who wants to please everyone. Who wants to stop hurting. I'm interested in all of them.
All of you.
I hope that doesn't frighten you.
no subject
[ about sarasota springs, specifically. the detail that twigs, when stephen said more than enough for the crowd. he mentioned it in the diamonds chat once, he thinks, but it still feels like val saying, i know everything, robert. i know about your mother. i even know what your father would do to you. words on a screen seem suddenly less invasive than a glimpse into his head. or maybe they’re the same, and their intended effect is all that differs. i know, robert, i know what you’re capable of, i know what you’re for, i know i know i know.
his shoulders square. he tries to examine the idea of interest, in place of all that knowing. ]
i think anybody would be a little frightened
less of you
more of what you might find in there
but i guess you already have a better idea than i do, of the shape of things
[ that gap, preceding armand’s hand at his back. easy, like pretending he didn’t know what it meant. like armand letting him hold onto a boyish lie, in exchange for a few days in the sun. ]
no subject
If you don't want me to look, I can stay out of it. I can't promise to be unaware, it happens without trying. But I will remain outside the door until you open it, if you decide to.
[ An offer he rarely makes at all, let alone decides to respect. But something about Bobby feels different. Not only because of the boy-shaped hole cut out of him, like a paper stencil in front of a screen. He'd enjoyed those days in the sun more than he'd expected to. And at least he's used to agreeing to ignore the shadows gathering in the corners of the room. ]
1/2
finally, ]
if you tell me when you’re really looking
and about whatever you find
you can
i mean, you could anyway, i guess
but i’d let you
[ his hands feel shaky after typing that. jesus, does anybody else with super strength have that problem? probably not. ]
no subject
you’re seriously interested?
that’s why you’re asking me out?
no subject
no subject
he takes a screenshot of the text, even though it’s right there on his phone. just in case. thinks about armand laughing at him every time he knocked into the coffin or his sharp jaw. about all of you, blinking a few messages up. ]
you’re offering me a lot
[ whatever it is that nobody else can, whether armand means his singular vantage point or something else. bob thinks of more immediately. the challenge. the insight. the attention. that gentle hand climbing his back and threaded through his curls. ]
i’ve never really had that much
so i don’t know how i’ll do with it
[ that plenty. if his behaviour as the sentry is any indicator, the answer is nothing good. ]
but i like you, too
and i really want to see what you’re wearing tomorrow
no subject
How it is to be powerful enough to climb into that sky, and to still be alone.
Armand smiles over the message he gets back. Simple things. ]
You'll see soon enough.
Shall I come to your room later?
no subject
yeah
no chance i’m figuring out any of the bow tie situations on these without you
[ typed and deleted: you can stay over, if you want. maybe armand will hear him thinking it, clearer than he would have said it: i hope you stay. ]
no subject
Stay, it says. Stay.
Daringly, Armand reaches out, a voice and a sensation rising in the blood. Pleasure. Amusement. Gratitude. ]
Of course.
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something like an exhale across the line, as surprise melts into understanding. a feeling more than an explicit reply. hello you. it’s the same sensation he experienced on waking beside armand. closeness that goes beyond the physical. recognition of the self in the other, or so the last book he read says.
gratitude, returned. heat, from his rising flush or the glare of the sun. thank you i like you i’m glad you’re here i wanted to see you i like you so much. it all rushes together, clumsy and sincere. ]
no subject
Thought-presence reaching, like a hand outstretched, to comb tenderly through the tangle of Bob's being, curving into him like an embrace from behind, a nose against the nape of his neck. Breath over his skin. A kiss. ]
Hello. Close your eyes.
[ An attic in a quiet house. The lamp in a golden circle, a record on the turntable, volume turned down low -- the Platters singing 'Ebb Tide'. Arms circling Bob's waist. First the tide rushes in, plants a kiss on the shore. Armand hums softly, nosing over the back of Bob's neck. ]
I wanted to see you too.
no subject
so i rush to your side, huh. ]
You just saw me.
[ with the rumble in his voice that comes from bottled laughter. said even though he knows he felt it, thought it, shared it first. when was the last time he wanted something and got it? he can’t remember. ]
— I like what you’ve done with the place.
[ is what he says at the same time he thinks, nobody ever comes here. the light never clicks on, no matter how many times he twists the knob. there’s never music, in place of seething whispers or shouted warnings. he sways a little, with the music — with armand. ]
no subject
It's yours. I only embellished it.
[ He says it matter-of-factly, cheek against the side of Bob's head as they move together, side to side, to the slow melody. His hand moves idly, stroking up and down Bob's belly, enjoying the shape of him.
His gaze wanders over the wallpaper, the wooden eaves. ]
Where are we?
[ He could go and look, could open that door, but he wants to hear it from him. ]
cw refs to child abuse
at the blurred edges of the space: stacks of books, blankets, a rubik’s cube he managed to solve. ]
Mm. [ he drops his lifted arm, instead following the line of armand’s to his middle. his gaze chases the motion and walks past it, down to the wooden slats that gap ever so slightly. enough to glimpse the mundanity of the empty living room and kitchen below. ] It’s my house in Sarasota Springs. My parents’ house.
[ which is funny-sad in and of itself, right, when he ought to have moved well past this place. thirty-odd and still upright, instead of dead in a ditch like he — like oxe — figured. the age at which one gets over these things, perhaps, and shuts the door on them evermore. ]
But it’s not just that. [ he pushes through the thickness in his voice, his throat. ] It’s — the least worst room of all the rooms you can get in here. [ not the house, but his head. a place where the door behind them doesn’t always lead to the squeaky topmost step he so dreaded creeping over. sometimes, the threshold opens on the principal’s office at his high school. the miami gas station bathroom where he thought he was going to die. the laboratory that he tells the others he barely remembers. ]
[ simply, ] I’d hide up here a lot. [ when he really needed to, and sometimes when he didn’t, just in case. it was hard to know when he would be damned for doing something as often as he was for not doing it. ] Still do, I guess.
no subject
Armand turns his head to nose over Bob's ear, letting his voice and his memories move around them as they move within it. He spreads his fingers a little, inviting Bob's into the gaps between, so their hands are joined over his sternum. Protective. His hold tightens a little.
He understands. He has his own rooms, his own labyrinthine memories spiralling down into the darkness. Most of them bad, some of them worse.
From the speakers, the Platters fade into Édith Piaf singing 'Hymne A L’Amour'. ]
You were afraid. [ Armand says it softly, without judgement. Fear is a state of being, a natural reaction to the violent world around them, and to the violent things that they are. He loosens his arms, letting go of Bob enough to encourage him to turn around within his embrace so he can look at him, studying him carefully. He's dressed simply, in an old fashioned style.
Gently, he drapes his arms over Bob's shoulders. ]
Do you hide from them, or from yourself?
no subject
Yeah.
[ bob looses a soft sound and squeezes back. no denial of it, when he would describe himself as so fucking scared or numb or stupid-angry enough to fight back and make things worse. an endless loop.
not so, with the addition of an untempered variable. given space, bob turns, head ducked out of habit, the romeo cut of his hair falling in his face. dressed in dark corduroys and a burgundy jumper, too big even for the broad set of his shoulders. a mimicry of the hand-me-downs he would wear, if he were in this time and place. as he lifts his gaze, he notes the classical silhouette armand takes (like the music that must be his, too). his hands hover, confused and out-of-place until armand takes his shoulders. right. a step closer, and bob loops both hands around his waist, fingers interlocked at the small of his back. shy, maybe, but not afraid. ]
Most people just say “that sucks, man.”
[ but then, they don’t have armand’s curiosity or intensity, carrying them deeper in the quagmire. in any case, bob knows his answer immediately. ]
Myself. [ even when it’s reynolds senior out there, it’s still bob. he glances sideways. ] You miss old music, Armand?
[ when armand is older still than these melodies. ]
no subject
[ Armand hums thoughtfully, resuming their swaying dance, like two teenagers in a gymnasium on a Friday night. As Bob glances away, his gaze lingers, an artist's eye taking loving note over and over of the details: the angle of his jaw and nose; the fine, thick sweep of his eyelashes; the faint lines of tension around his eyes which will deepen with age. ]
I miss the old world, sometimes. [ He lifts a hand from where they're loosely tangled behind Bob's head, stroking over his nape and into his curls, watching his expression. ] The quiet. The darkness of a night unblemished by sodium bulbs. Skies which had never known jet engines. Watching the ships arrive in harbour, not knowing what they might contain, where they might have been. The discoveries in science and art and philosophy, each waking up the world anew. A sense of wonder and excitement. It's still like that, a little, but it's.. noisier, now. Even the quiet places are full of chatter.
[ He pauses briefly, then continues. ]
I grew up in Venice, in the 1500's. I remember more of it now than I once did. How it felt to be a young man, in that time. To have freedom of a kind. I loved to go out drinking and gambling, to cause my Master to worry about me, only to be glad when he discovered my mischief. [ A smile, somewhat distant, over those memories. ] I would go to the great cathedrals and spent hours gazing upon the faces of the icons, the saints and the angels. I wanted to know what they saw. How they could gaze upon us in such beauty and calm. What it would be like to be one of them, cast in eternal beauty.
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his lashes flutter, when armand drags nails from his nape to his curls. ultimately, bob can’t help but look back to him as he talks, drawn in by his strange rhythms. the turns of phrase that would make him hold his place in a novel, committing the shape and structure of the page to memory. maybe you have to learn to tell your stories, when no other can. and so bob tries to catch the details that might matter later in the book. the weight of modernity. freedom of a kind. a master. the seeds of the religious interest armand retains, if those who testified against him are to be believed.
even so, he finds he relates to pieces of it. the noise that drives him inward. here. an attic in the suburbs, where you can still hear the cicadas and the lovebugs at night, or venture into the true dark of the neighbouring green to see the fireflies. there’s the loneliness, too, and the dream of being more that still haunts him. ]
The 1500s. [ blowing out a breath. the library must have good books on the subject, and he makes a mental note to pull them next time. ] I haven’t even been to regular Venice. [ meaning “modern.” his family didn’t really travel abroad, even if he managed to by his lonesome eventually. mostly southeast asia. though he also inter-railed through europe for a spell. places where a little cash and a backpack are enough. ]
It sounds nice, in some ways. [ the quiet and wonder, especially. ] And a little lonely. [ both life in a crowded city and the exalted role of the icons, above others. ] Is it?
[ it would have been for him, if he’d accepted val’s first offer to play the golden god. ]
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Yes.
[ Agreement with his words and the thoughts in him, the notion of allowing oneself to be used for a great cause. He remembers a wooden throne above a burning pyre, the moans of his poor doomed coven as he dispatched another heretic on their behalf. He remembers watching Marius one night before he was turned, happening upon him on a balcony during a celebration for one of his patrons, a rare moment of catching his Master lost in private thought as he gazed out at the city. How terrible and beautiful and alien he'd looked, a creature from another age.
Outside, the light shifts, the sun glowing in the windows of the attic taking on a different hue. From somewhere comes the raucous cries of gulls and the ringing of bells that's also somehow the hush-hush of traffic on a rainy day. A faint voice singing in Italian. Swaying into it, into the memories and the music, Armand closes his eyes.
Footsteps thumping up the stairs. An argument outside the door, men's voices raised in different languages. The light from the lamp shudders. A woman's drunken laugh --
Armand opens his eyes. The room settles back to how it was. He lets out a breath. ]
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