"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

[nishtha]

Trailling Daniel through the house, Armand barely notices the rest of the party. It happens in the periphery of his vision, young people meeting each other, laughing, kissing, smearing cake frosting and blood across each others faces. Decadent. Raucous as a flock of tropical birds, their hearts locked behind fragile cages of bone, convinced they will live forever. But to Armand they might as well not exist; he walks in the wake of Daniel's presence like a shark in a slipstream.

When needed, Armand takes over, leading Daniel with an inclination of his head and a tiny, sympathetic smile. He manages to find the study, but the layout is different than he remembers -- the desk had been on that wall, the glass case with the stuffed fox is new. He pauses over the details, interested in the way his perceptions have been warped, or perhaps the house itself has warped around them.

Daniel is made of simpler stuff, and seeks out a drink. Armand crosses to the low mid-century couch and sits down, twitching the lines of his brocade coat, arranging himself as he crosses one leg over the other and watches Daniel.

"Do you miss being young, Daniel?" He muses on the palsy in Daniel's hands, the tremble of the glass and decanter.

[break]

Daniel barely notices it these days, is used to adjusting his pour or the way he holds his knife and fork to compensate for the tremor, keeps his shoulder loose, elbow tight. The question calls indirect attention to it, which annoys him the same way it always does when the vampires bring up his sickness — it feels like a rich guy asking where a poor guy bought his clothes. A tacky little power play.

To that end,he turns with his drink: "Why bother wishing for the impossible?" he says. "Am I nostalgic? Sure. But nothing's gonna turn back the clock." He brings his glass over to join Armand, sitting closer than he should, the chairs set for intimacy. Has a moment where his eyes fall closed where he's grateful for a seat and the first warm hit of the alcohol; the stairs took more out of him than he wants to admit, and he eases twitching back muscles slowly, talking through the ache. "Even you guys, you're not young. Though I dunno if you get what it means to be old, either. You've been frozen into something else, some third thing." He remembers waxing lyrical about that in his notes at some point, the nature of age with regards to Claudia, girl-bodied immortal but dangerous and powerful beyond any real young woman from the moment she was turned. Real youth didn't need to hide from the sun.

[nishtha]

For the moment Daniel's eyes spend shuttered and closed, Armand's remain trained on his face, studying the passing of pain and discomfort across his features with an artist's interest. He imagines how he would render those lines, in charcoal and ink and oil. How he would light the portrait and place the subject, just so, to call to attention the beauty of his mortal fragility. The stubborn power of his soul that shines through the aches of his joints and failing body. His thigh is a warm pressure, laid alongside Armand's own. He doesn't move away.

At Daniel's comment, he removes his gaze and looks out into the room instead, smiling softly to himself.

"We understand age," he says, idly musing in the back of his mind on the way Daniel has of making him want to explain himself, "though not as you know it. We mark, by habit, the passing of years, decades, centuries. We count them and remember, as best we can, the dates of our mortal birth, and our rebirth as vampires. We brag of our age to each other and reckon it makes us powerful. But time, for us, is different. A year passes in the blink of an eye. A decade, like a long afternoon."

Armand turns his head to look at Daniel again. The windows of the room pulse with the lights from the party outside, glowing green, blue, pink.

"You turned it down, in Dubai, when Louis offered it to you. The Dark Gift. Leave it for the rent boy, as I believe you put it." Armand's smile curves upwards again, a wry twist that softens as he gazes at Daniel.

"We missed our chance," he says, and doesn't hide the regretful note in his voice.

[break]

The rent boy, who had turned out to be the long term relationship who didn't need it besides. Daniel feels a touch of ruefulness at being reminded of that particular turn of phrase, but he's never been a guy to really think before he speaks, especially not now he's older.

"You think I want to be tied to Louis indefinitely?" Daniel asks, the sardonic irony of that question written all over his face: "That's your deal."

Making it about who the offer came from, rather than the offer itself, tantalising and abominable the more he hears about it. When he considers it, it's not because he's afraid of death, but the infirmity coming. The possibility that vampirism wouldn't cure that and he'd be signing up for immortality as a cripple is a risk he can't even verbalize the horror of, becomes tetchy at the thought of being made to.

He's ruining the moment with it though, knows it and does it anyway. Can feel the unpleasant tension between them, the way that 'we' and 'our' in Armand's small mouth, those tangerine eyes, pulls something sharp below his stomach that does, yeah, feel like regret. "And I get the impression that despite that bullshit offer he doesn't actually expect me to live long once we're finished with the memoirs," Daniel deflects lightly. "Isn't that why I'm the perfect choice of whore-journalist? Less guilt when the rest of vampire-kind knocks on my door with their fangs out."

[nishtha]

"He likes you." Armand points it out without a trace of jealousy, or perhaps a jealousy so carefully practised at not being jealousy that it's worn to transparent thinness, the sharpness of the blade no less for the delicacy of the cut. There's a smile on his face that's no artifice, but the same warmth which appears whenever he has a chance to talk about Louis.

"I suggested getting rid of you. He objected, until I pointed out that I meant to put you on a plane and send you home." This, of course, doesn't mean that Daniel is wrong. Only that he had been wrong about their dynamic at that particular time.

"And," he adds, his gaze growing a touch more shadowed. He plucks at the hem of his sleeve, a froth of lace. "It is not you, they will be after."

[break]

"Right, right. I'm chronicling a suicide." A more meaningful accusation now that he knows about Armand, and the rules of the coven.

A sip of his drink, pushing down the bitter scepticism he always feels when Armand gets lovey-dovey about Louis (read: possessive. Intense.) It's as flattering as it was the first time around, of course, the way they give away each others' intentions towards him. And it's useful, to Daniel, to have them jealous of each other rather than working as an impenetrable unit. That's why he allowed it, back in Dubai. (And in— when —)

"Well, now I'm busy in England, so we can put off worrying about that for a while." As with his memories of San Francisco and Paris, he doesn't want to look too closely at his reasons for being here, accepts the paper-thin fabrication of chasing a new interview, a vague recollection of a flight, masked at Heathrow, a long drive.

[nishtha]

Allowed it, as if he had any say in their contact, the idle moments between his jabs spent trading endearments or, once, memorably, an excruciatingly detailed accounting of how Armand would have rather spent his time with his head between Louis' thighs. Armand studies Daniel with his cat's eyes, flaring gold-red and blue-green as the disco flickers and thumps out on the lawn.

"We can," Armand agrees readily, acknowledging the change in subject with a cool acceptance. He shifts and re-crosses his legs, leaving one stocking and slipper-clad foot and ankle hovering dangerously close to Daniel's leg. A slight tilt of his head, still gazing at this scribe of his edited history, his mortal whore-journalist. Content, apparently, to just sit and watch him.

[break]

Daniel had a cat, briefly, when he was younger. She'd appear at the window of his apartment even though it was on the third floor, slide in through the gap next to the shitty box air conditioner, and make herself at home while he was trying to work. She'd had the same luminous orange eyes, and the same tendency to simply sit and watch him do his thing like he was the most enrapturing guy in the world, so this moment is weirdly comforting to him.

Later, he saw on some Netflix doco that cats watch humans because they're listening to their steady heartbeat, using it to orient themselves in the soundscape of the world around them. Daniel wonders what else Armand is listening to right now, alongside his rickety old heart.

He allows it until the questions that always pile up become urgent enough to override the pleasure of the silence, and he acquiesces in speaking first: "So what brings you to England? Kind of a coincidence you being here - or are you selling another painting?" Like he hadn't believed that story for some reason.

[nishtha]

For a flicker of a moment, Armand's smooth brow tenses, uncharacteristically, as he searches for the answer to that question, the lines of a frown sketching across his face. Then it clears, and he settles back again into his expression of patient calm.

"A painting, yes. The owner of the house purported to have an early Raphael, a Madonna with Child, rescued from the Italian war theatre. He is very private about his collection. I decided to come and see for myself."

He doesn't say why he chose to leave Louis in Dubai, despite his apparent vulnerability. Or why he has slipped loose from his habit of complete control, and travelled halfway around the world by himself to view a single painting, when the penthouse is perfectly equipped to handle video calls. It's too much of a coincidence, but his mind skips over the problems like a pebble skipping across a pond. Later, perhaps, that stone will hit an errant wave and plunge into the depths. But for now, this is enough.

His foot turns idly in the air as he speaks, pointed toes describing a circle. He shifts slightly, almost by accident, until it comes into contact with Daniel's shin. Eyebrows lifted a tiny fraction of an inch, he moves it, up and down. Up and down.

[break]

"Huh." He makes a mental note of that, wishing he could actually write the painting down instead of having to rely on his memory. Armand's interest in art has started to become something worth documenting in his mind, like he can piece together information from what paintings he owns and which he buys and sells.

If Daniel was intending to chase down his own answers to those questions and reconcile this decision, it's a thought interrupted by the touch of Armand's foot — well, shoe. The careful, deliberate motion slips all other thought out of Daniel's head. Such a subtle little touch with such a huge weight behind it — nobody does that accidentally or platonically. Daniel glances down at that connection. Back up to Armand. Tense, despite the way his brow quirks up in interest, fascinated by both Armand's motives and what he might do next.

The most annoying thing is that he doesn't get any mystique of his own. The man can read his mind, he knows Daniel finds him attractive, thinks about him when he shouldn't. It makes this little overture feel like he's being played.

"Would you unbury all those memories for me?" Daniel asks, continuing a conversation they'd had downstairs, unaware of the sheer irony of what he's asking. A glance sidelong, his body language nervously inviting despite the tension in his limbs. "Not for the book. Just 'cause I'm curious about you."

[nishtha]

Tedium is one of the foremost failures of immortality. Once one has lived for a certain amount of time, years turning into decades stretching into centuries, it becomes difficult to find new experiences. Everything has been done, witnessed, tasted, digested, fucked, enjoyed. Even suffering can become rote, simply another trauma, another loss to live through. Many vampires, Armand has learned, do not have the endurance for it. But some things remain, somehow, unique. Humanity, in all of its messiness and confusion, is somehow an endless process of discovery -- how each individual reacts, how they chart their path through life, how their pain and pleasure reflects the pain and pleasure of the immortal, the divine.

For that reason, Armand remains fascinated by it, despite himself. The small glances. The lines at the corners of Daniel's eyes. The stutter of his heart and the blood singing in his veins. The way his mind works around the problems Armand presents to him. He watches, and absorbs, and is amused.

Even the question isn't entirely surprising. Armand sees it coming, forming in Daniel's thoughts. It gives him time to prepare his own response.

"No," he says, softly. Regretfully. "Not here. Not now, no." He lifts a hand from his lap and, finally, inevitably, reaches for Daniel's face. The delicate points of his fingernails slip over his skin, down his jaw to his neck, dancing lightly over the throb of his major arteries. Encouraging him to lift his chin, so Armand can span his hand across his throat.

"I like being a mystery to you, Daniel," he murmurs. He draws up his thumb, caressing a gentle circle across Daniel's carotid. "One last great mystery, for a man who has spent so much time pursuing the truth." He pauses, pondering. "You declined a sample of my blood, once. Would you do so again, if I offered?"

[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.