yeah yeah bucky got me a real one before christmas after razzing me about it for weeks
[ sorry the florida winter is SUNNY and SEVENTY DEGREES. ]
see you soon
[ and he will, in his gifted coat, a little more old-fashioned than the would have picked himself, but beloved already. he does a little wave on approach, hand gloved and everything, though he dons a baseball cap instead of knitwear. one step at a time, right? ]
[ Out in the winter-stripped rose garden, Armand waits in his own somewhat unnecessary coat, watching Bob arrive through small orange-tinted sunglasses. He smiles as Bob approaches, lifting a bouquet of dusky pink hellebores. ]
It's occasionally useful to be awake with everyone else.
[ He offers the flowers out, almost tentatively. ]
[ an arch of his brows in surprise (always surprise, at being thought of). he accepts the bouquet carefully, feeling a little clumsy in comparison to something lovely — not unlike how he feels around armand, in general. ]
Useful.
[ an amused echo. armand’s turns of phrase are often both unusual and precise. he gentles a petal between thumb and forefinger. ]
[ lightly, though his eyes go squinty. ] You plotting something?
[ A flicker of genuine hurt crosses Armand's expression, here and then gone, gentled over by a tolerant amusement. Without anything else to hold onto, he slides his hands into the generous pockets of his coat, watching Bob's face. ]
Have I earned so much suspicion? Perhaps I just wanted to see the sun. [ He glances up at the overcast, grey sky. ] As much as I can.
[ his smile goes soft in answer to that wounded flicker and the question both. bob keeps the flowers safe in one hand, while the other reaches out to squeeze armand’s shoulder through his coat. ]
Thanks for the invite, and the — [ he tips the bouquet toward his face, only his eyes visible over the tops of the flowers, lifted to meet armand’s in apology. ] I was getting a little stir crazy, so. Better cold, fresh air than none, yeah?
Only so many rooms to visit. It's easy to feel trapped in there.
[ So easily reassured by that strong grip on his shoulder; Armand's expression softens in echo, pleased to have pleased him. He gestures ahead of them down the gravel walk that will take them through the rose garden and out into the wild planting towards the lake, a mute suggestion that they proceed.
As they walk, he watches their surroundings. ]
It feels as though it's been one thing after another, lately.
[ a quick nod as armand puts another of his feelings into words. hand lingering at first, then sliding around armand, settling there as they walk. thinking that armand should be warm, even if the cold doesn't bother him.
he tilts the flowers in his far shoulder. ]
Think that's the point of this place. [ tipping his head. ] If you listen to Koby, anyway.
[ of the mind that the house feeds on their suffering and pleasure in alternating moments. with the void hungry for something similar, the explanation tracks, in bob's mind.
he'd say more now, about how armand seems to have returned to himself (with the rummages' bags packed), but for all he was joking about plotting, he does suspect armand invited him out for a reason. might be that said reason is just to talk to him, and so bob gives him the space to do so. ]
[ Truthfully, there's no real reason for it, except that he'd wanted to see Bob, somewhere beyond the shadows and candlelight of their recent rendezvous. Too many nights and not enough days between them, the blue of his eyes different in the winter sunshine.
He angles his steps slightly to stay close to Bob, enjoying the warmth and weight of his arm across him. The chill in the air isn't an issue for an ancient vampire, dead flesh numbed to the temperature, but like any other cold-blooded creature he finds himself seeking the heat.
A lapse into comfortable silence for a moment, filled with the crunch of gravel, the calls of birds in the woods, the occasional rasp of crows as they drift overhead. Over by the house there's the sound of a champagne cork popping and a scatter of faint laughter.
Armand senses the curiosity in Bob's mind, the desire to know his thoughts. He glances sidelong at him, admiring his profile. ]
I hear Set found you. I'm sorry if he was.. imposing. He takes these things very seriously.
[ he takes these things very seriously. an interesting note, when set seems to take nothing seriously, from where bob stands. ]
Not imposing, exactly. [ strange, to be sure. friendlier than he was in the games. a curiosity that bob has no reference for outside of literature and, well, avengers 101 — thinking of set as a mischief-maker, a being of chaos, more like loki than thor. armand’s affection has secured set a chance to build a relationship with him, but his trust is a faraway thing. bob won’t forget his cruel behaviour in october. the way he spoke to astarion, trying to bleed out more of his pain before all. the torture he put wanda through, knowing she was vulnerable and likely innocent.
but he isn’t thinking about that now. he’s thinking, ]
We have gods where I’m from, too. [ maybe that’s surprising. bob reckons as much, when the first avengers were largely experiments gone wrong or right, or covert agents like the people he most treasures now. his gaze tilts skyward. ] Good ones, bad ones. [ he clicks his tongue. ] The notes from the trial said that I — when I’m Sentry. That I’m stronger than Thor, the one we know best. [ he doesn’t know if that’s true. what’s the sun in a storm? hidden by the clouds, like it is now? (but then what’s one million suns, five million —) bob half-shrugs. ]
It’s just weird to think about. [ and impossible not to with set on the board. after meeting him, bob had returned to the memory of val showing him sketches and marketing taglines in that narrow shipping container. leaving him there like an action figure in a box. the golden god of good. ]
[ Armand can almost see it, when Bob looks upwards into the cold January sky. Another day in another place. The glass, the edifice of corporate success. The buildings scattered around them like an overturned box of children's toys, a view he knows well. Gentle sounds of traffic. The tower creaking. A page turning.
I'm stronger than Thor. Such a large thing, to put on such young shoulders. He's right, it is weird to think about. Horrific, but beautiful. A terrible possibility to have wrenched into being, if that's what they did. And of course, no sun without shadow, no light without dark.
No golden god without the void.
He watches Bob in silence, lets him think about it. Just a boy with an arm around him, looking up in search of the sun. But not a boy. Far more than a boy. For a moment he feels it, the weight of it, how strange and impossible it should be that they're together, in this place, talking about gods who walk the Earth. It prompts a small smile from Armand, memories of standing in the cathedrals of Paris and Venice, awe like a great expanding thing inside his chest, awe like pain.
After a moment, he pauses his steps, turns to Bob to look at him properly, still smiling a little. ]
[ some people fill in your sentences as you talk. assume they know your mind. armand doesn’t do that. he waits. sometimes he unspools bob’s thoughts from their tangles, anyway, with nothing but his lovely hands. but he always gives bob time to try and voice his version first. or even just to think.
it’s appreciated, in the silence that settles between them again. he wonders if it makes armand question his faith, with flawed gods and man-made challengers among them. bob has never believed in much of anything himself, with his every prayer unanswered.
and yet the fact that he lives at all is a miracle. bob feels armand turning towards him — shifts in the air, in attention — before it happens, meeting him there, eyes true blue, even on a day as overcast as this. ]
You’re, uh, looking at him. [ because the light is much easier to accept than the dark, in part because he understands it better. a tangible shape, its every contour described in the scientist’s notes. by contrast, the void is an unknown entity. ]
It’s me, just — more. The power is, like. [ his tongue presses against his teeth until the analogy comes to him. ] It’s like a nuclear reactor, I guess. I have to engage it one control rod at a time. And if I do it wrong… [ the glass he’s trying to move shatters instead, the beam of light cleaves a building a two, he breaks what he only intended to hold. ] When I’m using it, especially, all at once, I get a little. [ a noise substitutes for the description — ehhhh. ] It’s a lot. Goes to my head, y’know.
[ His turn for a little amused teasing, despite the seriousness of the subject, or perhaps it's just because he can't help but smile when he's around Bob for long enough, light bleeding out under the door, an infectious playfulness. Easy to forget, otherwise, that he's supposed to be the younger of the two of them. He raises his eyebrows. ]
It wouldn't scare me. [ He reaches up to tug lightly at the lapel of Bob's coat, smoothing his fingertips over the heavy wool. Gives him a look, under the inky fan of his eyelashes. ]
[ bob loosens his grip, shifting his hand to the nape of armand’s neck and turning to face him fully. his mouth goes crooked. ]
Uh-huh. [ the flowers rustle with a roll of his shoulders. his palm slides further, caressing armand’s throat, cupping his jaw. he gets that intent, focused look in his eyes once more. not considering whether armand believes those words to be true but whether they should be — whether they would be still, if he took too much of the power and let it loose. armand is almost too comfortable with his darkness; he knows that.
but the light isn’t a vampire’s friend. ]
Me, but more. [ teasing, again. ] You sure you can handle that? I’m already a handful.
[ The touch across his skin dredges through his soul the way it always does. Stirs the silt of fear and horror, the years of blood, darkness, huddled underground like rats. Armand doesn't pay attention to it; he's used to it. He focuses, instead, on the deep blue of Bob's eyes, the human sound of his heart beating. The warmth of him, like the spring sunlight lurking beyond the clouds. ]
I don't mind a handful.
[ Playful once more, a smile curving across his mouth. He plucks at Bob's lapel, then reaches for the bouquet of flowers, easing it gently out of his hand to place it on top of a nearby box hedge. That done, he moves into the cleared space between them, sliding his hands under the edges of Bob's coat, over his sweater, as if eager to prove his point.
[ he walked into that one, teeth dragging over his lower lip as the implications flash through him. attention lowering first to armand’s hands on him, then dragging back up to his mouth. once freed, his other hand finds its way to armand’s brow, fingertips lingering at his temple.
he clasps those little glasses, guiding them up to peak beneath. ]
[ fondly, ] Just the eyes, like you. [ a fragment of himself, reflected in another. the shadow in adam. the strength in bucky. a low rumble — ] Gold. [ a slight incline of his head, the air of gossip shared. ] Kinda on the nose, right.
[ like the dye-job val wanted for him.
it might have happened any number of times they’ve been together, light slipping through the cracks when he dips into that molten well to exert his strength (or when his emotions burn that bit brighter). ]
[ Flickers of gold in the dark. Light through the crack in a door, in a wall. Light glinting off a ring as a hand lifts, dust motes dancing in a sunbeam cast across the floor of a silent cathedral. Gold in his eyes as he moves above Armand, caught between the draped curls of his hair, as he rocks in deep and steady rhythm between his thighs, strong and sure and impossibly beautiful. Gold as he bends to kiss him. Gold, of course.
Armand takes a breath. Smiles. Not surprised. One hand slips along the edge of Bob's sweater, thumb finding a way underneath to touch warm skin. ]
A golden god. [ Echoes of the memories between them. Armand's expression grows more sober, firming with surety. ]
[ it’s what he read in every book before this place and after it. in the texts set transcribed for him. between the lines in the questions adam asks of him. dark and light, but still you. yes, all of it is. impossible, contradictory, unstable. ]
Careful, that’ll go to my head.
[ armand’s veneration, already intoxicating as any high. his acceptance, when few others can grasp what he is, let alone allow the fullness of it into their minds. maybe it’s a trick of the light, or maybe — it’s there, gleaming flecks in the deep sea of his eyes. ]
I’m not afraid of you either, for the record.
[ presented to the council without time for comment, when bob has needed to kiss armand for several minutes now and finally, finally gives in to the urge. ]
[ There might have been comment -- self-deprecation or denial, perhaps you should be the automatic response -- but Armand's mouth is captured before he can make it, the words dissolving into the helpless gladness and gratitude he feels over every moment spent with Bob, treasuring each kiss as a gift unearned. He leans into the kiss, eyes fluttering closed, lips parting to lick out a little, tongue soft and inviting. His hands tense beneath Bob's coat, catching hold of his sweater as if he needs to stop him from disappearing. ]
Unfair.
[ To have given him no chance to respond. The resonance in Bob's mind is amused and fond, the rest of him still trading warm kisses for as long as he's allowed, growing steadily more languid, like a cat being petted. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
after razzing me about it for weeks
[ sorry the florida winter is SUNNY and SEVENTY DEGREES. ]
see you soon
[ and he will, in his gifted coat, a little more old-fashioned than the would have picked himself, but beloved already. he does a little wave on approach, hand gloved and everything, though he dons a baseball cap instead of knitwear. one step at a time, right? ]
You're doing daytime today?
[ not the, uh, vampire schedule. ]
no subject
It's occasionally useful to be awake with everyone else.
[ He offers the flowers out, almost tentatively. ]
no subject
Useful.
[ an amused echo. armand’s turns of phrase are often both unusual and precise. he gentles a petal between thumb and forefinger. ]
[ lightly, though his eyes go squinty. ] You plotting something?
no subject
Have I earned so much suspicion? Perhaps I just wanted to see the sun. [ He glances up at the overcast, grey sky. ] As much as I can.
no subject
[ his smile goes soft in answer to that wounded flicker and the question both. bob keeps the flowers safe in one hand, while the other reaches out to squeeze armand’s shoulder through his coat. ]
Thanks for the invite, and the — [ he tips the bouquet toward his face, only his eyes visible over the tops of the flowers, lifted to meet armand’s in apology. ] I was getting a little stir crazy, so. Better cold, fresh air than none, yeah?
no subject
[ So easily reassured by that strong grip on his shoulder; Armand's expression softens in echo, pleased to have pleased him. He gestures ahead of them down the gravel walk that will take them through the rose garden and out into the wild planting towards the lake, a mute suggestion that they proceed.
As they walk, he watches their surroundings. ]
It feels as though it's been one thing after another, lately.
no subject
he tilts the flowers in his far shoulder. ]
Think that's the point of this place. [ tipping his head. ] If you listen to Koby, anyway.
[ of the mind that the house feeds on their suffering and pleasure in alternating moments. with the void hungry for something similar, the explanation tracks, in bob's mind.
he'd say more now, about how armand seems to have returned to himself (with the rummages' bags packed), but for all he was joking about plotting, he does suspect armand invited him out for a reason. might be that said reason is just to talk to him, and so bob gives him the space to do so. ]
no subject
He angles his steps slightly to stay close to Bob, enjoying the warmth and weight of his arm across him. The chill in the air isn't an issue for an ancient vampire, dead flesh numbed to the temperature, but like any other cold-blooded creature he finds himself seeking the heat.
A lapse into comfortable silence for a moment, filled with the crunch of gravel, the calls of birds in the woods, the occasional rasp of crows as they drift overhead. Over by the house there's the sound of a champagne cork popping and a scatter of faint laughter.
Armand senses the curiosity in Bob's mind, the desire to know his thoughts. He glances sidelong at him, admiring his profile. ]
I hear Set found you. I'm sorry if he was.. imposing. He takes these things very seriously.
no subject
Not imposing, exactly. [ strange, to be sure. friendlier than he was in the games. a curiosity that bob has no reference for outside of literature and, well, avengers 101 — thinking of set as a mischief-maker, a being of chaos, more like loki than thor. armand’s affection has secured set a chance to build a relationship with him, but his trust is a faraway thing. bob won’t forget his cruel behaviour in october. the way he spoke to astarion, trying to bleed out more of his pain before all. the torture he put wanda through, knowing she was vulnerable and likely innocent.
but he isn’t thinking about that now. he’s thinking, ]
We have gods where I’m from, too. [ maybe that’s surprising. bob reckons as much, when the first avengers were largely experiments gone wrong or right, or covert agents like the people he most treasures now. his gaze tilts skyward. ] Good ones, bad ones. [ he clicks his tongue. ] The notes from the trial said that I — when I’m Sentry. That I’m stronger than Thor, the one we know best. [ he doesn’t know if that’s true. what’s the sun in a storm? hidden by the clouds, like it is now? (but then what’s one million suns, five million —) bob half-shrugs. ]
It’s just weird to think about. [ and impossible not to with set on the board. after meeting him, bob had returned to the memory of val showing him sketches and marketing taglines in that narrow shipping container. leaving him there like an action figure in a box. the golden god of good. ]
no subject
I'm stronger than Thor. Such a large thing, to put on such young shoulders. He's right, it is weird to think about. Horrific, but beautiful. A terrible possibility to have wrenched into being, if that's what they did. And of course, no sun without shadow, no light without dark.
No golden god without the void.
He watches Bob in silence, lets him think about it. Just a boy with an arm around him, looking up in search of the sun. But not a boy. Far more than a boy. For a moment he feels it, the weight of it, how strange and impossible it should be that they're together, in this place, talking about gods who walk the Earth. It prompts a small smile from Armand, memories of standing in the cathedrals of Paris and Venice, awe like a great expanding thing inside his chest, awe like pain.
After a moment, he pauses his steps, turns to Bob to look at him properly, still smiling a little. ]
Can I meet him?
no subject
it’s appreciated, in the silence that settles between them again. he wonders if it makes armand question his faith, with flawed gods and man-made challengers among them. bob has never believed in much of anything himself, with his every prayer unanswered.
and yet the fact that he lives at all is a miracle. bob feels armand turning towards him — shifts in the air, in attention — before it happens, meeting him there, eyes true blue, even on a day as overcast as this. ]
You’re, uh, looking at him. [ because the light is much easier to accept than the dark, in part because he understands it better. a tangible shape, its every contour described in the scientist’s notes. by contrast, the void is an unknown entity. ]
It’s me, just — more. The power is, like. [ his tongue presses against his teeth until the analogy comes to him. ] It’s like a nuclear reactor, I guess. I have to engage it one control rod at a time. And if I do it wrong… [ the glass he’s trying to move shatters instead, the beam of light cleaves a building a two, he breaks what he only intended to hold. ] When I’m using it, especially, all at once, I get a little. [ a noise substitutes for the description — ehhhh. ] It’s a lot. Goes to my head, y’know.
no subject
[ His turn for a little amused teasing, despite the seriousness of the subject, or perhaps it's just because he can't help but smile when he's around Bob for long enough, light bleeding out under the door, an infectious playfulness. Easy to forget, otherwise, that he's supposed to be the younger of the two of them. He raises his eyebrows. ]
It wouldn't scare me. [ He reaches up to tug lightly at the lapel of Bob's coat, smoothing his fingertips over the heavy wool. Gives him a look, under the inky fan of his eyelashes. ]
You, but more.
no subject
Uh-huh. [ the flowers rustle with a roll of his shoulders. his palm slides further, caressing armand’s throat, cupping his jaw. he gets that intent, focused look in his eyes once more. not considering whether armand believes those words to be true but whether they should be — whether they would be still, if he took too much of the power and let it loose. armand is almost too comfortable with his darkness; he knows that.
but the light isn’t a vampire’s friend. ]
Me, but more. [ teasing, again. ] You sure you can handle that? I’m already a handful.
no subject
I don't mind a handful.
[ Playful once more, a smile curving across his mouth. He plucks at Bob's lapel, then reaches for the bouquet of flowers, easing it gently out of his hand to place it on top of a nearby box hedge. That done, he moves into the cleared space between them, sliding his hands under the edges of Bob's coat, over his sweater, as if eager to prove his point.
A thoughtful hum. ]
Do you change, physically?
no subject
he clasps those little glasses, guiding them up to peak beneath. ]
[ fondly, ] Just the eyes, like you. [ a fragment of himself, reflected in another. the shadow in adam. the strength in bucky. a low rumble — ] Gold. [ a slight incline of his head, the air of gossip shared. ] Kinda on the nose, right.
[ like the dye-job val wanted for him.
it might have happened any number of times they’ve been together, light slipping through the cracks when he dips into that molten well to exert his strength (or when his emotions burn that bit brighter). ]
no subject
Armand takes a breath. Smiles. Not surprised. One hand slips along the edge of Bob's sweater, thumb finding a way underneath to touch warm skin. ]
A golden god. [ Echoes of the memories between them. Armand's expression grows more sober, firming with surety. ]
But still you. Dark and light, but still you.
no subject
Careful, that’ll go to my head.
[ armand’s veneration, already intoxicating as any high. his acceptance, when few others can grasp what he is, let alone allow the fullness of it into their minds. maybe it’s a trick of the light, or maybe — it’s there, gleaming flecks in the deep sea of his eyes. ]
I’m not afraid of you either, for the record.
[ presented to the council without time for comment, when bob has needed to kiss armand for several minutes now and finally, finally gives in to the urge. ]
no subject
Unfair.
[ To have given him no chance to respond. The resonance in Bob's mind is amused and fond, the rest of him still trading warm kisses for as long as he's allowed, growing steadily more languid, like a cat being petted. ]