"𝐓𝐇𝐔𝐒" ▣ MAY TDM

[saltburnmods]

MAY 2024 TDM

Welcome to SALTBURNT, a panfandom smut/thriller game based off the film Saltburn, where characters are encouraged to indulge their deepest desires. The money never runs out and the liquor never stops pouring, so you may as well indulge from the bounty. Of course, things are rarely what they seem, and the manor itself seems to have a consciousness of its own. Throw parties, trash the house, engage in youthful merriment, but remember — dangers come out at night, and no one, no matter how rich you are, is safe from demons lurking in the shadows.

Threads can be considered game canon, provided the players agree. Players can also start fresh upon acceptance into the game. Prompts on the Test Drive can be used for in game logs.

WELCOME TO SALTBURNT

It's the hangover more than the light streaming in through half drawn curtains that wakes you up, your brain rattling in your skull, your mouth dry and cottony, your stomach churning with whatever it is you drank last night. If self preservation is your strong suit, you might turn over in bed and see a few painkillers laid out for you on a silver dish, accompanied by a glass of water. If it isn’t, stay in bed and wallow — eventually a maid will be in to tear your curtains open, saying, "Breakfast is served," and scurrying out quietly, invisibly. Breakfast? Maybe it’s normal for you. Maybe it isn’t.

You're drawn from the room, either by the mystery, or an undefinable urge that could be supernatural in origin, or could be your hunger catching up to you. It's almost nostalgic, the walk to the dining room — have you been here before? Were you drawn up to this estate in a car? Haven’t you done all this already? Maybe you mosey around a library, maybe you run into your suite mate in your adjoining bathroom. Regardless, seemingly all hallways, covered in priceless artworks and ancient relics from times long past, lead to the dining room, where a comically long table houses the Balfours and their many guests, who seem just as disgruntled and confused as you. No matter. "The breakfast is self-serve," they say. But not the eggs.

If you want to leave, you’ll have to tell Giles, the housekeeper, who will arrange a car for you that mysteriously, or perhaps suspiciously, never arrives. Unfortunately, confronting Giles about it is near impossible, as he’s as good at being invisible as the rest of the house staff. Of course, there’s no reason why you can’t just walk out. The front gates are easy enough to jump over, even if the walk towards them gives you a strange sense of foreboding, or just outright discomfort, as if the ground itself doesn’t want you to leave. Those more sensitive or fragile might find they can’t make the jump, no matter how physically able, or desperately wanting. Still, a strong person could continue on, over the fence and into the lush English countryside. The feeling doesn’t dissipate, though — this sense of wrongness, almost sickness, like a weight on your back. Walk into the evergreen, carry on, but the strongest will make it perhaps a mile or so before the weight of dread and paranoia brings you to your knees, and then to your face, flat in the middle of a dirt road. What were you thinking? Is this really better?

Wake up with a hangover, in a bed, the curtains drawn, the maid saying, "Breakfast is served," before scurrying out. The painkillers are there, just like you remember. In fact, it’s all exactly how you remember, as if you never left an imprint the first time, or any mess you made was cleared away while your back was turned. Walk to the dining room, find everyone there eating away at their breakfast. It’s self serve, naturally. Just not the eggs.

"We dress for dinner," says Portia, with a kind, if discerning smile. "Black tie."

LET THEM EAT CAKE

CONTENT WARNINGS: sex, drugs, alcohol.

Up until now, the outdoors of Saltburnt have seemed immaculately well groomed, landscaped until not a leaf is out of line. However, on the night of a planned party you were all informed of, the grounds have transformed into a psychedelic fever dream before your eyes, with very little resembling the polished exterior you’ve become acquainted with. Large fixtures have been erected around the grounds in a paid homage to Roman architecture, huge columns set up in invitation to the party beyond. Everything is bathed in pastel colors of pink, blue, yellow and green, opulent and gaudy in equal measures, everything decorated with golden filigree. The theme? Rococo. And yes, you’re expected to arrive in costume. (0 points awarded for historical accuracy — this isn’t school, you aren’t being graded on anything but your appearance.)

Vanilla flavored cocktails line elaborately decorated banquet tables, and while alcohol seems readily in supply, any food other than snacking Doritos and caviar with mother-of-pearl spoons is hard to find. Of course, that’s other than the dessert table, which is sorted with an arrangement of confections: macaroons of all colors, cupcakes, cookies, and of course, cakes. Some are imperially designed, with frilly icing decorations and sprinkle pearls on top, but the real showstopper cakes are the anatomically correct ones, shaped in the imagine of naked bodies. On first glance, the lifelike realness of them makes the bodies look like peaceful corpses laid flat against the sugary delights — some, potentially, with an appearance uncannily like a guest like you, currently residing in Saltburnt. But, when someone cuts into one, it's plain to see the flesh is just fondant, the insides all cake and cream and jam. There is enough detail on the inside of the cakes that gives the impression, if you were to cut one horizontally down from head to toe, you'd see the perfect snapshot of the inside of a human body, organs, bones, and all.

Seeking other entertainment? In homage to the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, small diamonds have been hidden around the party, in red solo cups, in full liquor bottles, in plain sight, in trees and bushes. Collect, steal, and pickpocket as many as you can — anyone with diamonds at the end of the party has been guaranteed a special prize from Portia herself, but you'll have to win to figure out what it is. (A replica of the Queen's necklace, lucky you!)

In addition, on the grounds there is a lifesize version chess, alternating colors between light and hot pink. Anyone interested will quickly be informed, this is SlapKiss Chess, where the rules are simple enough to follow. Chess as usual, only when one piece steps on the square of another piece, the first person to step off the square loses the ground and is kicked from the game. You can knock your opponent off however you like, through whatever means available to you. Naturally, things get pretty bloody and pretty PDA, depending on your poison of choice — with the name of the game comes two very frequent weapons against your opponent.

Of course, the night does come to an end eventually. Pass out where you are or drunkenly make your way up to you room in a drug-induced stupor. Either way, you'll wake up hungover, in bed, trying to fill in all the blanks from last night.

A MIDNIGHT'S DREAM

CONTENT WARNINGS: body horror, cannibalism, sex.

Things feel normal, for awhile. The first day after the party anything brewing inside feels like the byproduct of intoxicants ingested, so it's likely you're expecting to feel a little off. The next day, you wonder just how long this hangover is supposed to last. By the third day, something feels indefinably wrong, and you ache down to your bones.

Did you eat the cake? Probably, yes — but did you find it a little… addictive?

There's an urge inside you, to taste it again. What part of the body did you eat before? The fingers? Suddenly, you need to sink teeth into whoever has fingers closest to you, even though you know what'll happen. You'll find flesh, blood, and bone, hardly any of it appetizing. And yet. The compulsion is undeniable, and once you get what you want, you bite down on someone's body where you feel the need and, shockingly, it tastes good. Sweet. Moreover, it feels good to be consumed. Eater and eaten alike, all of you want some more, gluttonous down to your core.

It seems a curse has overtaken Saltburnt, turning everyone who ate cake into cake. Bones turn to cracked caramel, blood into loose icing. Oddly, it seems the only people safe from the curse, other than the people who didn’t eat anything, are the ones who won and wear their gifted diamond necklace, though that doesn't necessarily mean people won't try to take a bite out of them anyway, and it doesn't mean they wouldn't like being eaten too, depending on what they're into. It's all a frenzy, a fever dream. You eat and eat and eat and are eaten, shocked by how much flesh — well, cake — someone can lose.

On the fourth day, you wake up in your room again, as you have every other day, whole and unblemished, offended by the scent coming from outside your windows. Look, and find the sight of rotting cake abandoned in heaps, taking the form of errant limbs, spotted with mold and decorated with buzzing flies. Look for long enough, and you might once again find some weirdly similar to your own body, feeding hornets that flock to your sugary sweet flesh.

Weird dream, right?

DIRECTORY

taken
activity check
setting

reserves
rewards
rules

applications
hiatus & drop
faq

Comments

[break]

"You weren't the one offering last time," Daniel says: he remembers being both curious and annoyed that Louis would try and action that curiosity, turn the humans against each other. Offer up his servant like wine. However much honey and pineapple Rashid consumed it would taste like blood to Daniel, raw copper. The appeal hadn't been in the experience but the way Rashid — Armand — had smiled as he was devoured.

Daniel's neck still has a fang scar that Armand can touch, but aside from the sound of the attack on the tape he doesn't remember how he got it, if it felt good. He sounded afraid, on the tape, but the guys in Louis' lap at the dining table weren't afraid.

"Do you normally like to be the drink-ee, or was that just to sell the Rashid thing?" Daniel asks, blue eyes fixed and inquisitive even as his heart thumps wildly. Armand may not be ready to dig up all his trauma but he seems just as down as Louis to overshare about his sexual predilections. (If Daniel feels any disappointment at being denied that past, it's fleeting; mostly his determination steels. He also likes a mystery, same way he loves an unsolved crossword.)

[nishtha]

"It was necessary to maintain the illusion that I was Rashid," Armand confirms. He caresses the scar on Daniel's neck with his thumb, then drifts his hand lower, tangling his fingertips in the front of Daniel's shirt. He could tear it from his body with barely any effort; for now, he just toys, flirtatiously, with a button. The excited flutter of Daniel's heartbeat is sweet music in his ears.

"In all ways, I was the willing servant. I didn't mind." His smile curls, secretive and suggestive, remembering. He slips his hand inside the collar of Daniel's shirt, cool against his warm skin. "Louis does drink from me, occasionally. It is restorative, for him. The blood of the elder, a more powerful vampire, imparts certain gifts to the younger. An increase in strength and endurance. Certain advantages in power."

"And," he adds, "I drink from him, occasionally. Though that is more.." Another lazy, evocative smile. "For fun."

[break]

Typically Daniel stands outside all this talk of blood and sex, keeping himself dispassionate. It's harder with a hand on him, light over skin that hasn't been touched by anyone except medical professionals in a long, long time. Armand's touch is cool, and inhuman, and his fingers are delicate enough that they evoke other touches from his past. Daniel's mind whirls, panic waxing, lost memories trying to bubble to the surface through thick tar. It's worse because he doesn't understand what's happening, how he can have whole fragments of experience he'd so wholly forgotten.

He reaches up and catches that marble wrist in his own grip. Knows he doesn't really want to stop Armand, and probably couldn't if he did. But he still breaks their eye contact, and it's not some kind of fluster. Daniel's not exactly a blushing flower. But he's touch-starved and deeply shaken. "If you don't want to expose yourself, I don't see why I should," he says sharply. There's a hint of the hurt he felt when the play of Rashid was revealed. He doesn't trust Armand, and no amount of tawny-eyed seduction is gonna change that. "Maybe fifty years ago a beautiful mystery would have been enough."

[nishtha]

"Maybe fifty years ago," Armand agrees, a shadow of that hurt in his own expression, though he doesn't remove his inhuman gaze from Daniel's face, "it might have been."

He doesn't pull his hand back out of Daniel's grip, though he could have done so -- and worse -- without thinking. His palm remains flat against Daniel's chest, the rise and fall of his breathing, the soft curls of grey hair. Beneath Daniel's fingertips, his own pulse beats lazily, impossibly slow but still present, stirring borrowed blood through his unliving veins. A cursed creature, feeling it no less because of his juxtaposition against Daniel's fragile human pride, his aging body. It's been a long time since Armand had cause to regret his dark gifts. He regrets them now, for a moment, as Daniel drops his gaze, unable to look upon him. Regrets what they did to that boy in San Francisco. How they broke him, and remade him.

"Ask a question," he suggests. "One question. Off the record."

[break]

That pulls Daniel back immediately from wherever his mind has wandered. Eyes a little narrow as he lifts them, wondering where's the catch, but he's also stupidly hopeful. Idiotic, to live seventy years and still have the capacity for something other than cynicism, in the face of a predator no less. But he wants to know Armand, and trust Armand — more than anything he wants to be able to say yes to this overture of touches and see where the hell that's going, even if he feels particularly breakable under one stern hand.

There are questions he wants to ask that he shouldn't even be able to shape, based off glimpses of file names, but why jump feet first into all the vampire history stuff if it's just gonna be off the record anyway?

"Which city's your favourite?" he asks instead. "Not because of whatever happened there, don't say Paris just because it's where you met Louis, she's gotta stand on her own merits."

[nishtha]

"That's it?" Armand seems honestly surprised at Daniel's choice of question, phrased like the gentle investigative reporting of a pop culture magazine. But he also takes a moment to honestly consider it. He also doesn't remove his hand from down the front of Daniel's shirt, listening and feeling the thump of his heart, apparently happy to stay there for as long as Daniel will allow him.

"Mm," he hums, pensively. "Venice." So: none of the locations Daniel already knows him to haunt, instead a sliver of his previous life, a name, a city. The place where he was changed, where he knew love, and born again, and again, and again. Not because he loves it, the city, but because of what it was at that time. Shelter, inspiration, gateway. Because of what it means, what he became, why he will never go back.

"Paris is beautiful," he explains, falling back into that habit of explaining to Daniel. "I was at home there. But it was just a city. Venice.. was everything."

[break]

Truly this is the point where their surroundings would fade away while Armand began to paint a picture of Venice for Daniel to surround them instead, and Daniel gives him that space, to share a story from that time, avid and interested in anything he has to say, regardless of the precise truth of it.

The main difference being, of course, Armand's hand on his skin. Daniel lets it stay, and when Armand has finished speaking for however long he wishes, Daniel rewards being given an answer by lifting his own hand to cup Armand's sharp jaw. His usual sceptical mien is all bright idolatry as he brushes his thumb over Armand's lower lip.

"And just like that, a little less of a mystery," Daniel murmurs.

[nishtha]

For the most part, Armand is light on the details of his actual life. Instead, he focuses on the city, telling Daniel about arriving in the midst of chaos, so different from his small and humble beginnings on the outskirts of Delhi. Venice was, at the time, stuck between a rock and a hard place, scrambling to war while trying to maintain its status and independence, fighting bitter naval skirmishes with the Ottomans that drained its coffers and took a heavy toll on its citizenry. Armand, renamed Amadeo, was flung into a world of polyglot languages, Spanish and Greek spoken over his head, Dalmatian patois and Italian provocations. He was lost and alone. But it was beautiful, for all that. He recalls to Daniel that he had fallen in love with the architecture, the frescos, the mosaics of fishes and gods.

He doesn't talk about the bitter times, the cruelty and abuse in the brothel. How close he had skirted to madness. He doesn't name the man -- the vampire -- who condemned him, but Marius' influence in the story is profound. His first love. His first in many things.

Eventually he runs out of words for the moment, his gaze shadowed with memory. He blinks when Daniel reaches for him, betrayed by a moment of surprise at the soft touch against his mouth. He allows it, lips parting slightly to show human teeth. A small gust of breath across Daniel's hand as his body responds.

Glancing down, then up again, to observe Daniel through the fan of his eyelashes. He tucks his chin a little, to follow Daniel's thumb and touch it with his tongue and teeth, to bring it into his mouth.

[break]

Daniel allows that in turn, finger barely trembling, neck prickling at the sensation, dick giving an interested twitch when he meets plush moisture, a little warmer than he would have expected — but then there has to be blood moving around in there, even moreso than Armand's delicate wrist, after talking for so long.

But what the fuck does he know about bodies, or vampires? His expertise is in pulling out ribbons of narrative. This is a classic one, he's gotta admit, even if he's a bit too old to be a convincing Bella Swan.

"That's good," he says, trying to sound in control, ludicrously. If he had any actual control over this situation he'd make Armand keep telling him about cities until the sunrise startled him to bed.

[nishtha]

The praise is rewarded with a slow, amused shutter of Armand's eyes, closing for a fraction of a second as he allows Daniel's thumb to rest on his tongue, tasting all the base salts and minerals of his skin. A tiny, impossibly tiny amount of time for anyone, let alone an immortal vampire, but it's enough -- for now.

Then Armand pulls back, lets him go, entirely. He tugs his hand out from Daniel's slackening grip, withdraws with a shifting of his weight, resettles on the end of the couch with the opposite leg folded over the other. Places his hands, folded, on his knee. He studies Daniel with his lambent eyes, a degree of warmth in his expression.

"As I said, Venice was everything. But we both know that it's a small part of a larger story. Far longer than Louis'. Or," a flicker of tension, "Lestat's. And my story is only a small part of an even greater one. Venice, Paris. Rome. San Francisco. New York, Dubai. They are modern cities now, but they've lived for a long time. Well, some of them. Dubai is a child, squatting on the edge of the desert. A fishing village with delusions of grandeur. But a good place to hide, in plain sight."

[break]

Daniel is only half listening, his brow furrowed as he watches Armand's mouth shape the words of cities. He feels like there's a word on the tip of his tongue, something just out of reach of his memory's grasp. Confused, a little flustered, trying not to care enough to be hurt by that withdrawal, failing.

It's been a point of pride for him to not be involved in all the homosexual drama. To have the remote control and the popcorn, safe behind his laptop and notebook. Enjoying it, sure, even when it got lurid. Sex isn't any less fascinating just because it's between men, is what he's been telling himself.

Now here he is, brushing his forefinger and thumb together to feel the tackiness, aware he's run hot. He doesn't need Armand calling Dubai a baby again to be reminded that the pretty young thing he's coveting is older and more powerful than he is.

Is there still brandy? He takes another desperate drink, reckoning with the disappointment that Armand isn't the one taking a drink.

"You don't need to read me a history book," he manages, annoyed that he feels dishevelled next to Armand's poise. It's gotta be late by now, it was late when they ran into each other outside. He should go to bed before he gets cranky. "I'm not looking to learn the long history of vampirism. I've got two particular points of interest, and one's on hold while I spend the advance."

[nishtha]

"No?" Armand's question is light, amused. He's enjoying himself a little, watching Daniel grope around the truth lodged inside him, blood pounding through his body, throbbing between his legs, flushed across his face. He notices the way Daniel touches his finger and thumb together and experiences an urge to lean over and sink his teeth into him right then and there.

But still, a mote of pity, an awareness of his own responsibility for the parts of Daniel carefully and surgically altered as he himself was once altered, a perversion of memory and time.

"My history is the history of vampirism," he continues, placid in the face of Daniel's unhappiness. "I am a vampire. I cannot be what I am not. You felt more comfortable, in Dubai, when you believed that Louis was the only one, and willing to be like you. You watched him enact his human rituals, the dinners, the schedules of rising and sleeping. Partially because he insists upon it, for his own reasons. Partially for your comfort."

He leans forward, eyes ablaze, canine teeth lengthening in his mouth. "You want to know me, Mr Molloy, but you are afraid to face the truth. You believe that I am, on some level, still human. Because, you believe, if I am not.. you are in love with something you can never possibly understand."

[break]

It's worse than the thing Louis does, where he pries unpleasant truths out of Daniel's mind in painful chunks and his whole body quakes with the intrusion. Armand is silent and effortless: there is no sensing him in there, no predicting what he might know or what he could twist and change. Daniel isn't even sure if he does feel love or if Armand simply speaks it into existence. Vulnerability flashes clear across his features, and it's not because of those predator's fangs.

"Nothing's unknowable." That's his credo as a writer, to pin impossibilities and concepts onto paper, to make physical the complex mixture of philosophy and empathy and research that it takes to shape a man. Daniel's sole god has been writing since he was nine years old, it's the only tool he has to make sense of the world. Even "off the record" he still takes mental notes on their conversation, third thoughts analysing what he's told; it's not part of a secret plan to publish, that's just the way his mind works.

"Believe me, I'm well aware of what you are." Exciting and terrifying in all the ways he's different. Dangerous, much more dangerous than Louis. "But maybe vampires aren't as far away from humanity as you want to think." They both kill. They both love. They both spend too much time thinking about their own nature. They set up communities with rules and then break them. They fall in love. They go mad. More and more, listening to Louis' story, he's come to understand: "What's the difference between Dubai and Abu Dhabi aside from a few extra layers of detritus and some magic powers?"

Probably he should have denied the love thing instead.

[nishtha]

Chronicling a suicide, as Daniel has put it. An effective goad to Armand's rarely expressed temper. He has a point. Their penthouse is a shrine and a coffin, a tomb for the two of them to wait out the rest of the world, but it is steeped in humanity's trappings nevertheless. Armand is well aware of what they've become, the hermit vampires, shutting themselves off from their own kind, play acting at being the eccentric gay millionaires, becoming something of both worlds and belonging to neither at the same time. It's the price he pays for love. To have Daniel belittle it sets his nerves on edge; to have him acknowledge it, perhaps even pity it, is somehow worse.

He sits back, frowning unhappily. There's a certain irony to Daniel speaking of the unknowable, but Armand has ceased to be amused by it. Part of him wants to shatter those locks and throw open the vault and let it all stream out, if only to have someone to talk to who truly understands him. Another cost measured and paid by his traitorous human heart. He misses Louis with an almost physical ache.

"Have you wondered why you're not afraid of us?" He asks, petty in the way he wants to see Daniel flinch.

[break]

"Because fear isn't interesting to any of us," Daniel retorts; it's rare he really let's himself be afraid of anything. "I mean what are you gonna do, kill me? I'm already dying. Torture me? I already have to listen to a rose tinted recollection of some French asshole."

It's not wholly true, he's afraid of getting hurt, of the way old emotional scars threaten to rupture. But sitting here getting dick-teased by some twinky little vampire doesn't match the way it felt to get divorced, to attend the funerals of people he once knew - or worse, to turn down the invitation because there's a goddamn pandemic and he's too sick to safely travel.

[nishtha]

The reference to Lestat draws a brief and admittedly childish smile out of Armand, though it fades quickly. He listens to the beat of Daniel's heart, the mortal sadness in his thoughts, and considers the long journey that has brought them both here. The years and miles unspooling behind them. A linoleum floor in a San Francisco walk up. Curtains drawn across the windows. A desperate young man, young in a way that Armand and Louis had never been allowed to be young.

"Daniel," Armand murmurs, watching him. He moves on the couch, shifting his weight closer once more. Raises his hand to brush the backs of his fingers over Daniel's cheek. He's sorry, in a way, for how they've used him.

[break]

It splashes together, past and present, Armand close and Armand closer. Armand saying his name. Armand holding up a mirror to the worst parts of himself. Daniel trembles, and closes his eyes against both of them, memory and monster.

"He was right, you are a cunt," Daniel says, not sure whether he means Louis or the vision of Lestat that Louis had conjured so vividly, but remembering Armand's face when Louis had spoken of him, of his presence. A clear memory of Armand, clearer than all the time in between it, the hazy belief in being transported out of the penthouse to here. He doesn't know what airline he flew. He doesn't know what brand of cigarettes he was smoking, in that shitty San Francisco apartment with yellow light filtering through the newspaper they'd plastered over the window. Oh Daniel, now who doesn't know the meaning of his own story?

"I think you should fuck off for a bit," he says, trying to keep his voice steady; he doesn't want to face the stairs again but he doesn't want to keep having this conversation anymore.

[nishtha]

There's the smallest pause.

"Very well."

All too easy, the withdrawal, falling back on Rashid's careful politeness, a subservient dip of his eyes as he takes back his hand. They have time, perhaps, in this place. Not much time, but enough that Armand doesn't mind taking a step back, knowing very well when a push in the wrong direction might be as good as a knife.

He stands, allowing Daniel to see him standing, and straightens his clothes. Casts a last, sorrowful look at the man on the couch. Regretful, perhaps, if Daniel wants to see him that way. Then, between the blink of an eye, he's gone, leaving Daniel with his thoughts, and the empty room.

[break]

Daniel wants to believe he's upset him, so that's what he sees in that sorrowful gaze, and he doesn't feel bad about it in the slightest.

After a few moments with his thoughts he also hauls to his feet and starts to search the study for something to write on and with, settles back in his seat with a fresh glass of brandy and tries to process what he's feeling in the only way he knows how.

He's hungover the next morning at breakfast, dips toast soldiers into his boiled egg like a spoiled British child and ignores all attempts at conversation; he's not the only one, more than a few people are all avoiding each other's eyes. Maybe writing about torrid gay vampire affairs has awoken the tabloid journalist in him, because he finds himself taking an interest in that shit, the petty relationships between the youths, real Red Top, Page Three kinda stuff. One girl oblivates at length about her dream where she was made of cake and someone ate her.

Daniel also has dreams of being eaten, in between the restless pain sweats. He doesn't see Armand again for a few days, which feels like a longer time than it is. He keeps turning over his feelings like a worry stone; but he's also starting to discover it's not just that the UK is backwards as hell. Trying to search stuff on the internet ("late life gay feelings" "age difference gay relationship issues") pretty quickly demonstrates everything feels back at the start of the millennium.

Getting to the bottom of this is the perfect excuse to bury all his awakening memories and feelings and the burgeoning concern that he might get really sick in this fucking place, and refuse to think about them. So Armand can watch as he turns social, chatting with the other people stuck here (now sources) and ambles about the manor and its surrounds looking for clues. Listening to a Spice Girls CD very seriously. Walking up and down way too many stairs for a guy in his condition. And then one morning, early, fully dressed in a black tshirt and golf pants, waiting by the pool when Armand finishes his rigorously scheduled swim.

nts get some titty icons

[nishtha]

It's more difficult for Armand to throw himself carelessly into the mix of the party. The youthful indulgence isn't particularly interesting and the boundaries of the house remain a cage no matter how far he travels. Finding himself awaking, again, in a welter of blood-spotted sheets and aching mortal self-disgust, he abandons his attempts to escape and resigns himself to waiting for an opportunity.

He can, at least, be about in the day, though spending too long in the sunlight drains his reserves and leaves him scalded about the edges. But it has the advantage of making it easier to blend in with the mortals in the manor house. And it allows him to watch Daniel, lounging in doorways and hovering on the stairs, making patient eye contact whenever Daniel happens to glance in his direction.

Armand knows how to wait for what he wants.

In the mornings, just after dawn, when the bite of hunger strikes hardest and the grounds are deserted, he swims, measuring his compressed fraction of time in lengths and turns and breaths between strokes. He becomes aware of Daniel's arrival at one end of the pool, but doesn't let him stop him, allowing his next set of laps to carry him towards the journalist.

Arriving at his end of the pool, he fetches up against the wall and pauses, treading water, clearing his eyes with a swipe of his hand.

"Good morning, Mr Molloy," he says, reaching up to set his hands on the edge of the pool so he can lift himself out, clad in small tight briefs that leave little to the imagination, water streaming off his body. With a singular lack of self consciousness, he crosses to a nearby sun lounger and picks up a towel, rubbing it over his face before he looks at Daniel again.

"Are you here to swim?"

[break]

They leave enough to the imagination that the imagination is being put to work, Jesus Mary and Joseph. It's not like he has anything to be embarrassed about, yet Daniel is faintly embarrassed for him. He can hear Louis' voice in his memory, on days when he's a plump 139.

Still doesn't look away, though.

"Do I look like I'm here to swim?" he retorts. It would probably be good for him, but that's never really influenced his decision. His arms are folded, trying to seem unflappable and unflappéd. 'No, I'm here for you. To talk." To apologise, but he'll never admit that and it won't happen aloud.

[nishtha]

The lingering of his gaze is a private pleasure for Armand. Maybe not so private -- the faintest echo of a smile plays about his mouth as he carefully runs the towel over his wet curls. He has rediscovered his vanity over the last century or so; it no longer scares him, to be admired for his body, and he's well aware of how he appears to mortals. The way a bead of water can enthral, when it runs down the curves of a man's belly and onto the subtle weight of his cock in the tight cling of an expensive nylon and spandex blend.

Armand's eyebrows lift a little. He gestures with a wave of his hand to the sun loungers beside the pool, indicating that Daniel can sit down if he wants, a casual declaration of ownership in a space that doesn't actually belong to him.

"Please, go right ahead."

[break]

Daniel can't stop looking at the soft dip of his waist, the heft of his pectorals, things suggested by his expensive shirts and Rashid's elegant blacks but previously only an implication. Daniel makes himself think about how young he looks, to try and guess more concretely what age he was turned, instead of about what pool water would taste like if he licked it off his thigh.

Depravity. It's not the first time he's had to wrestle with these sort of thoughts, he's lives a life with a startling number of pretty young half-clothed men in it, but this is the first time it's felt real. Urgent. Dangerous.

He takes a seat on the deck chair. Thinks very hard about giving Armand the finger in case he's skimming to measure his effect on Daniel, the cheater. "Okay. So. This place. I'm pretty sure we've travelled twenty years back in time. Louis's here, out of his habitat for humanity, can we talk about that? Are you guys getting your takeout arrangements rerouted or just eating free range?"

That last: accusing, in the way Daniel gets about murder, but like his pretence at not noticing Armand's body, it's only skin deep. He has morals, and ethics, in theory — in practise, he's fascinated that Louis might take up killing again.

Also this isn't an apology. The apology is there in his heart, though, maybe.

[nishtha]

Whatever temptations Daniel is currently wrestling with -- and Armand doesn't doubt he's putting up a good fight, Jacob with his angel -- are clearly not enough to stop his sharp journalistic instincts. Armand is almost disappointed to have to return to such a practical subject. He doesn't move to sit down, standing with his towel in his hands and water darkening the concrete under his bare feet, letting Daniel look at him, framed against the pool and the windows beyond, the green lawns and the deep forest. Armand has little time for apologies when penance can serve just as well.

"The servants are providing for us, so far," Armand replies, a rare piece of honesty, since he assumes Daniel will find out about it soon anyway. He leaves the manner of their aid up to Daniel's all too active imagination. "But Louis and I are not the ones you need to worry about, Mr Molloy. Though I'm glad to hear that Lestat hasn't discovered you yet."

Assuming he would have mentioned it. Assuming that Lestat wouldn't have left him alone, if he knew.

[break]

"Lestat de Lioncourt?" says Daniel, snapping sharply away from all other thought. The house, the apology, the span of Armand's bare shoulders and elegant arch of his feet — forgotten. He sparks with immediate interest, pushing himself back up from the pool chaisse. "He's here? Alive?"

That this might be dangerous for Daniel, or bad for Louis and Armand both, is all a secondary concern to the possibility of a third primary source. He has to meet this guy. He has to. Daniel gets the impression Lestat likes to talk about himself. Even without his laptop, Daniel is capable of being a very good listener.

So up he gets, about to go throw himself into the Wolfkiller's maw.