[ 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. ]
[ maybe he could have been the type of boy you picked up at the door or danced with at homecoming before the accident — before the drip, drip, drip into his veins, the first thing to ever make him feel better — but that isn’t his story. or it wasn’t, until the thunderbolts found him. until he awoke in this place. or in armand’s arms.
bob has always given more of himself than asked. than wanted, sometimes. but this is a two-way street, information and sentiment flowing back from armand. an intentional allowance, he assumes, from one in greater control of his power.
his eyes flit around them as the light shifts. as armand’s world bleeds into his own, lightening the floorboards and altering the soundscape. bob unlocks his hands to splay them at the small of armand’s back, pressing him closer. safer. here or wherever they are. attention back to armand in the end, as if pulled by a string. drawn in by the sweep of ink-dark eyelashes. the flash of firelit eyes, in the dim of the room. ]
Me, too.
[ in the matter of loneliness, perhaps, or the need to be set apart, despite that. on armand’s exhale, bob noses over the apple of his cheek. a check-in, of sorts, before he goes for the kiss. ]
[ A memory of a kiss, or a wish for one, but it feels as real as it can in this place. Armand closes his eyes again, gladly, as Bob's mouth meets his. His arms tighten around him, snugged in close, lips parting as he lets out a shallow breath into the kiss, a sigh of release. Safe. Wanted.
Me, too. Understanding like hands on him, holding him, pressing together the parts of himself he doesn't understand. The shadow and the boy that looks at him in worshipful pleasure. A boy who hides in an attic and will dance with him. ]
Bobby. [ A soft noise between them. He kisses him again, then again, pressed into the corner of Bob's mouth. ] I'll come to you. Outside. Help you with your bow ties.
[ I'll stay, thinking it into the walls around them, into the glow of the lamp. I don't want to leave you. ]
[ in the room that isn’t a room (the memory that isn’t a memory), he feels armand give into his hold — into the moment they’ve built together. armand’s affection floods through every point of taction, into the very floor and air in the room. the fabric of its unreality ripples with it.
where he might normally hear the voices rise below them or a whisper from the darkest corner of the space, there’s only armand’s breath — an affectation? a habit? — and the gentle thrum of the record. ]
Outside. [ agreed warmly, against armand’s lips. trying to steal one last kiss for the road. ]
[ but for once, he feels assured. no doubt in his mind that armand will come find him and stay and be happier for it. it rings too clear, too true. all around him. so his answer comes, suffused with gratitude and appreciation. i know. ]
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no subject
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. ]
no subject
bob has always given more of himself than asked. than wanted, sometimes. but this is a two-way street, information and sentiment flowing back from armand. an intentional allowance, he assumes, from one in greater control of his power.
his eyes flit around them as the light shifts. as armand’s world bleeds into his own, lightening the floorboards and altering the soundscape. bob unlocks his hands to splay them at the small of armand’s back, pressing him closer. safer. here or wherever they are. attention back to armand in the end, as if pulled by a string. drawn in by the sweep of ink-dark eyelashes. the flash of firelit eyes, in the dim of the room. ]
Me, too.
[ in the matter of loneliness, perhaps, or the need to be set apart, despite that. on armand’s exhale, bob noses over the apple of his cheek. a check-in, of sorts, before he goes for the kiss. ]
no subject
Me, too. Understanding like hands on him, holding him, pressing together the parts of himself he doesn't understand. The shadow and the boy that looks at him in worshipful pleasure. A boy who hides in an attic and will dance with him. ]
Bobby. [ A soft noise between them. He kisses him again, then again, pressed into the corner of Bob's mouth. ] I'll come to you. Outside. Help you with your bow ties.
[ I'll stay, thinking it into the walls around them, into the glow of the lamp. I don't want to leave you. ]
no subject
where he might normally hear the voices rise below them or a whisper from the darkest corner of the space, there’s only armand’s breath — an affectation? a habit? — and the gentle thrum of the record. ]
Outside. [ agreed warmly, against armand’s lips. trying to steal one last kiss for the road. ]
[ but for once, he feels assured. no doubt in his mind that armand will come find him and stay and be happier for it. it rings too clear, too true. all around him. so his answer comes, suffused with gratitude and appreciation. i know. ]