Embrace snippet
Jun. 2nd, 2008 06:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maderrSince Gille & Streg is what Avalon asked for. It's not finished, I'll finish it tonight, but I figured I'd post what I've got while she's around (esp. since there's no gaurantee I'll have the energy tonight to finish it)
Stregoni had always been an insomniac, a trait he had acquired from his mother. So many nights they had sat up together, grateful at least not to be alone in their sleeplessness, both envying those who could sleep effortlessly through the night – including his father, who slept like the dead.
He hated it, not least of all because he always did incredibly stupid things when left alone in the dark of night.
Like wander the halls, hoping and dreading that someone else might be awake.
Do you want me?
He balled his hands into fists, and tried to convince himself he should go back to his room and resume work annotating his Pharmacopoeia. But brandy settled warm in his belly, buzzing in his head, and he could not stand still.
The halls were empty as he wandered them, his every step a thundering echo on marble tile, mercifully muffled whenever he trod over rug.
Go back to bed, idiot, he tried to tell himself. He didn't know why he'd bothered, it had been a lost cause from the moment he'd left his own home to stay at the Sangre estate for a few days.
As he reached the east wing, music filtered toward him. Piano, the music a slow, heartbreaking piece. A thousand times he'd wanted to ask why it was always sad music, why nothing happy ever came out of that piano, but it was one in a thousand questions he never managed to voice.
Because like the ones he did dare voice, it would only met with some cold, cruel reply.
He was always cruel, had been from the first, but Stregoni had never been able to walk away, and stay away.
Why do you always act so cool, doctor? Do you think you're deceiving me? Your eyes are blue fire, when you look at me. Do you want me?
Like the proverbial moth to the flame, Stregoni wandered down the hall the music room. Their eyes had met for only a moment over dinner, but it had been enough to let him know that they both would be drunk tonight.
He pushed the door open, and tried one last time to remind himself of all the reasons this was a bad idea. It had never worked before, not since that first night, and it would not work this time.
All manner of potions and tonics and syrups cluttered the shelves of his apothecary in town. He knew the recipes for more medicines than he could count – and nearly all of them could also be considered deadly poisons.
None of them was as potent or addictive or potentially fatal as what drew him time and again to the cruel embrace of the beautiful man playing a mournful song on the piano.
Gille was the very definition of breathtaking, especially now when there was no one around to look down upon or impress, no social engagements pending, no visitors looming. No, he was dressed only in black breeches and a white shirt he had not bothered to lace, his long hair loose around his shoulders, hiding the elegant lines of his face and the bewitching gold-flecked pale green eyes.
Stregoni hovered in the doorway, part of him knowing he should flee, the rest of him too addicted to even think of it.
The music room was a somber place, the floor all black marble tile, the paneling a deep, rich red. Silver candelabra were scattered about, though only the one nearest the piano was actually lit.
Just behind Gille was a massive portrait of two men. It looked as though someone had simply painted Aubrey twice, but it was in fact Karl and George Bathory, the respective fathers of Aubrey and Gille. Twin brothers, and Stregoni recalled his father saying they had once been quite close. Though George Bathory lived only a few miles away, in a nearby estate, Stregoni had never met him. The man had become a recluse since the death of his wife in childbirth.
So much of a recluse, in fact, that Gille had come to live with his uncle. Beyond that, Stregoni knew nothing about the situation. No one knew anything, except Gille and Lord Sangre.
All Stregoni knew was that Gille could be and often was cold and cruel, and that he never got kinder than merely condescending.
Except sometimes…
He shook his head and looked again at the portrait. Gille had much in common with the twins, much in common with Aubrey, but there was a beauty to his features that they lacked, and that had likely come from his mother.
The two men were only in their mid-twenties at the time of the portrait. Handsome, severe, hinting at the over strict Lord of the manor Lord Sangre would eventually become – though, at that, Stregoni could not tell which was which.
One was seated, hands clasped over one knee, as though he were listening attentively to an unseen speaker. The second twin stood over the seat, slightly bent, as if to whisper to his brother when the speaker turned away for a moment. The chair was black velvet, matching their dark clothes, cuffs and throats displaying lace that was almost garishly white by contrast. To the right of the chair was a marble planter, from which tumbled the long, deep red blossoms of the flower Stregoni knew was called love-lies-bleeding.
He was stirred from his musings by the sudden absence of music, and dropped his gaze to see that Gille had turned to look at him.
The green eyes drew him like an opium addict to laudanum.
Love Lies Bleeding
(chapter two)
(chapter two)
Stregoni had always been an insomniac, a trait he had acquired from his mother. So many nights they had sat up together, grateful at least not to be alone in their sleeplessness, both envying those who could sleep effortlessly through the night – including his father, who slept like the dead.
He hated it, not least of all because he always did incredibly stupid things when left alone in the dark of night.
Like wander the halls, hoping and dreading that someone else might be awake.
Do you want me?
He balled his hands into fists, and tried to convince himself he should go back to his room and resume work annotating his Pharmacopoeia. But brandy settled warm in his belly, buzzing in his head, and he could not stand still.
The halls were empty as he wandered them, his every step a thundering echo on marble tile, mercifully muffled whenever he trod over rug.
Go back to bed, idiot, he tried to tell himself. He didn't know why he'd bothered, it had been a lost cause from the moment he'd left his own home to stay at the Sangre estate for a few days.
As he reached the east wing, music filtered toward him. Piano, the music a slow, heartbreaking piece. A thousand times he'd wanted to ask why it was always sad music, why nothing happy ever came out of that piano, but it was one in a thousand questions he never managed to voice.
Because like the ones he did dare voice, it would only met with some cold, cruel reply.
He was always cruel, had been from the first, but Stregoni had never been able to walk away, and stay away.
Why do you always act so cool, doctor? Do you think you're deceiving me? Your eyes are blue fire, when you look at me. Do you want me?
Like the proverbial moth to the flame, Stregoni wandered down the hall the music room. Their eyes had met for only a moment over dinner, but it had been enough to let him know that they both would be drunk tonight.
He pushed the door open, and tried one last time to remind himself of all the reasons this was a bad idea. It had never worked before, not since that first night, and it would not work this time.
All manner of potions and tonics and syrups cluttered the shelves of his apothecary in town. He knew the recipes for more medicines than he could count – and nearly all of them could also be considered deadly poisons.
None of them was as potent or addictive or potentially fatal as what drew him time and again to the cruel embrace of the beautiful man playing a mournful song on the piano.
Gille was the very definition of breathtaking, especially now when there was no one around to look down upon or impress, no social engagements pending, no visitors looming. No, he was dressed only in black breeches and a white shirt he had not bothered to lace, his long hair loose around his shoulders, hiding the elegant lines of his face and the bewitching gold-flecked pale green eyes.
Stregoni hovered in the doorway, part of him knowing he should flee, the rest of him too addicted to even think of it.
The music room was a somber place, the floor all black marble tile, the paneling a deep, rich red. Silver candelabra were scattered about, though only the one nearest the piano was actually lit.
Just behind Gille was a massive portrait of two men. It looked as though someone had simply painted Aubrey twice, but it was in fact Karl and George Bathory, the respective fathers of Aubrey and Gille. Twin brothers, and Stregoni recalled his father saying they had once been quite close. Though George Bathory lived only a few miles away, in a nearby estate, Stregoni had never met him. The man had become a recluse since the death of his wife in childbirth.
So much of a recluse, in fact, that Gille had come to live with his uncle. Beyond that, Stregoni knew nothing about the situation. No one knew anything, except Gille and Lord Sangre.
All Stregoni knew was that Gille could be and often was cold and cruel, and that he never got kinder than merely condescending.
Except sometimes…
He shook his head and looked again at the portrait. Gille had much in common with the twins, much in common with Aubrey, but there was a beauty to his features that they lacked, and that had likely come from his mother.
The two men were only in their mid-twenties at the time of the portrait. Handsome, severe, hinting at the over strict Lord of the manor Lord Sangre would eventually become – though, at that, Stregoni could not tell which was which.
One was seated, hands clasped over one knee, as though he were listening attentively to an unseen speaker. The second twin stood over the seat, slightly bent, as if to whisper to his brother when the speaker turned away for a moment. The chair was black velvet, matching their dark clothes, cuffs and throats displaying lace that was almost garishly white by contrast. To the right of the chair was a marble planter, from which tumbled the long, deep red blossoms of the flower Stregoni knew was called love-lies-bleeding.
He was stirred from his musings by the sudden absence of music, and dropped his gaze to see that Gille had turned to look at him.
The green eyes drew him like an opium addict to laudanum.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 05:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 05:29 pm (UTC)I could end up butchering this.
Date: 2008-06-02 05:56 pm (UTC)There are moments, so few, so fleeting, that they would be lost in a sea of other, brighter moments if not for the difference a few looks cause, the softening of the mouth, a gaze that lingers half a second too long.
It is what leads him here in the night, fingers sweeping over ivory, over the ebony, and he waits, and plays the saddest song he knows, because he knows it makes him the puzzle the good doctor abhors, and wants to solve.
So he plays of moonlight, and stolen moments in the dark that never see the sun. And he plays and plays until he can sense blue fire, can see it even when he closes his eyes, and takes satisfaction those eyes burn only for him.
Re: I could end up butchering this.
Date: 2008-06-02 09:47 pm (UTC)Verra pretty, and not completely wrong ^_~ Man, this just makes me want to write so you can really see wtf is up. I shall fix dinner, and then perservere! \o/ Loveded you <<333
no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 10:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-03 01:02 am (UTC)And I is happy you got the nuance of that flower. I never know who keeps up with it, and who does not care. I figured you'd know it or find it out ^____^
Re: I could end up butchering this.
Date: 2008-06-03 11:49 am (UTC)I WRITE ABOUT FUTURE NOW, OKAY?(or what is hopefully the future)
~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~**~*~*~
The first thing that strikes him, as he enters the house, is the scent of flowers. He wanders from room to room, following the cloying scent until he is in the empty parlour, is standing in front of a bouquet of flowers left in a chair.
There is no card, no message, no need for it, because when you can express emotions in words, then you don't really feel them at all.
Stregoni picks up the bouquet, holds it gently in his hands, because all things from Gilles's is precious. (even every sneer, every smirk, and cruel word) He leans in and breathes the scent again, heady and floral, and smiles when he sees what flowers he hold in his hands.
They are not proficient in saying what they mean, In expressing it in ways that are not the harshness of lips on lips, because they are all need, and hunger and want, that there is no time to express anything else.
So he pulls away the Flos Adonis from the bouquet, then the common Almond flowers and lays them gently to the side. He smiles when his hand hovers over the yellow acacia, and rushes his fingers over the petals, the stalk before moving to the stalks of ambrosia. And when he picks them out, the only flower that remains is the one there is most of. He puts down the bunch of Globe amaranths, next to the Flos Adonis, and the almonds, and the acacias and the ambrosias, and he goes to find Gilles.
Re: I could end up butchering this.
Date: 2008-06-03 11:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-03 12:00 pm (UTC)