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“You can’t use the stick one.”
“I can. It will work.”
“You can’t. You won’t. I won’t hear it again.”
Rictavio and Adonis stand in front of the tower, exhaling steam into Barovia’s frigid air. Unlike someone, Adonis has his hands warm in his gloves, at least. He considers for the fourth time this day offering them to Rictavio; he doesn’t.
“I think we could use fresh material,” he presses. “Surely you’ve got a few tucked away.”
“No, no,” Rictavio says, hands held in snarky resignation. Knowing what he knows, it’s more than a little amusing to see him move in the form of a fresh-faced, blond-haired pretty boy. He watches the show often. “You give it a whirl, if you’re so pressed for originality. We can find out if that was a spider bite or a very small vampire.”
Adonis snorts. “See, that was good. Why don’t you just use that?”
“It’s the principle of it now.”
He sighs. He’s good at witty comebacks, not planned jokes, but he’s as stubborn as he ever was. It’s always somehow worse when he’s around someone of his own sense of the world. Rictavio, taking silence as agreement, raises his eyebrows and leans against the wall, observing. Adonis gives a self-aware adjustment to his hat.
“A middle-aged man, frail and fearful, spent most of his days wondering when death would come for him. To satiate his obsessions, he communed with the Raven Queen and begged for insight into how much life he had left.”
Rictavio opens his mouth to comment, but holds his tongue when Adonis turns his dagger stare to him, despite what was certainly his better judgement.
“She humored him,” he continues, a pointed edge to his tone, “and told him the year of his death: ninety-seven. He was thrilled to hear of how much longer he had left and decided to turn his life around with a makeover. He changed his hair, made himself a new face, and purchased an entirely new wardrobe.”
They’re locked in a staredown now, Adonis cracking a proud smile.
“As he exited the fashion district, he was struck and killed by a passing cart. When he reached the Shadowfell, he asked the Queen: ‘how could this be? How could I have died?’. She looked him up and down, cocked her head. ‘I didn’t recognize you’, she said.”
Adonis shakes his fingers as a confirmation to the story—which, already, should have been a sign of how horrible it was. What sells him on that harsh reality is the complete silence that comes from the door. His hands drop and his glare runs cold, the god damned traitor, the cursed—
Rictavio’s laugh cuts through the brutality of the quiet in every way, drowning Adonis’ pride in a chorus as the door itself follows thereafter. He can’t tell what’s being laughed at, so he pulls the mask up over his flushing face and squishes his way through the opening rather than revel in his loss.
“It’s—the Jergalites love it,” he calls out. “You just don’t get it.”
“No, I get it,” Rictavio says, never far behind. Adonis is able to catch a glimpse of him shifting back into his true form: weathered hands and greying hair, a blade nose and a mouth meant for words. Rudolph van Richten is a battleground of a man, someone no artist could ever capture in all his truth. Adonis, as always, makes note of him.
“It wasn’t bad,” Rudolph contends, the humor slipping from his mouth but settling in his eyes.
“Better than the stick,” Adonis says, smoothing his coat and ego along with it. They step into the elevator, a calm settling over them.
“What does the doctor vampire say when he calls up a patient?” Rudolph asks as the music kicks in.
“Something about the land,” Adonis muses.
“Necks, please.”
*
*
*
Rudolph van Richten is not an interior designer. Adonis knows this; he recognizes it, recognizes that he is ridiculous for being bothered by the dull walls and creaking floorboards. Still, he can’t help himself when his hands move to pick up the makeshift clothes bin and place it in a space that gives them more foot room.
“If you set off a trap and blow your leg off, I won’t patch you up.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Adonis says, wiggling the mechanical joints of his arm.
Rudolph looks him up and down with a frown. The height disparity between them somehow felt more pronounced in a place like this. The confines, in general, crush tight against them; secure, though, and impossibly still, save for the winds. The utter lack of magic adds a strange layer of comfort, despite it leaving Adonis trying and failing to flick flames into lights or prestidigitate dirt off of skin.
Still, any movement echoes, no matter how slight. Adonis feels, in some ways, like the magic kept out brought new force in; as if Rudolph could hear his thoughts, if he thought them too loudly. Rudolph turning away after he thinks that thought does not help him dismiss such a baseless idea.
“Since you’ll be staying, you should test out the bed.”
“What?”
“The bed,” Rudolph repeats, flicking his thumb against his lighter as he tilts a candle. “Take it. It’s a little bit shit, I’ll warn.”
Adonis raises an eyebrow, snapping from his thoughts and returning to a forgotten goal of removing his coat. “I’m not going to steal your bed.”
“Like I said, it’s not good enough to fight about. Take it.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m the guest; I’ll take the floor.”
“No. Take the bed.”
“Think about your back. I'm—”
“Adonis, just take the bed.”
“It’s big enough to be shared,” Adonis says, despite himself.
He knows immediately after it escapes his lips what kind of statement it really is. They’ve both read enough books to fill a nation; they both know what it means, what it leads to, why it certainly cannot be done. But…
Adonis can’t see Rudolph's face well enough in the now-flickering candle he holds to make out what expression sits with him.
“I have work to do tonight,” Rudolph answers after the silence, no change Adonis has the luxury of picking up on. He sets the candle down and moves to another. “It’s for the best.”
For the best. Adonis hums in response, the button-up he wears now folded in a neat stack with his jacket and gloves. Could the gods blame him for trying?
“I could help you with your work,” he offers, adjusting the position of a few more objects with no fear of consequence. “I’ll be awake for a while yet.”
Rudolph’s scoff bounces off the walls. “By whose metric? For all the ‘old man’ talk, you sleep like a geriatric patient.”
“Hey,” Adonis scolds, even though he has no real defense. “I sleep completely reasonably.”
“Too reasonably," he says. "As if you have nothing to worry about in the waking world.”
“Well, I do my best work in my dreams,” Adonis admits, lured by the offer of testing the bed through his tired legs. He takes a seat at its edge and gives it a few testing bounces. “But I wouldn’t rest as I have if I were alone. I only sleep so soundly when I’m in good company.”
“You won’t be sleeping well tonight, then,” Rudolph mumbles, halfway under his breath.
Adonis can’t tell what intentions are behind the comment—a self-deprecation or something more—but the smallest of smirks escapes him just the same. “Promise?”
It’s another statement that leaves behind a palpable energy and another that is left wholly undiscussed. Rudolph contents himself with his lightwork, but Adonis watches as he grabs for his satchel with just a bit too much energy. For that, he can pull his feet up and simmer in a small victory.
He grimaces after a moment of attempted adjustments. “This bed is shit.”
“I told you,” Rudolph chuckles and takes a position at his desk.
Adonis props himself up on his side and watches the procession from a distance. First, he notices the movement of his fingers as they thumb through notepads and pull forward papers. Like his tower, it’s a risky, messy way of handling that only methodical professionals employ. If he worked with me back home…
The thought never completes. His mind follows naturally up his forearm and to his shoulders—which reveal a great deal of strength, even clothed, when he leans against the desk to get a better look. He wonders about what he does to keep himself in shape and amuses himself on visions of workout routines. More likely, he decides, the life he leads must simply be straining enough to chisel him in its image. Perhaps the chest situation is just a benefit of good luck.
It’s a dangerous game he plays to keep his thoughts like this. He knows better. He wonders if Rudolph never turns to look at him because he knows better, as well, or if he really does intoxicate himself with his own penmanship. Adonis understands either way, and finds that the focus Rudolph holds is too delicate for him to shatter with words. As typical, he watches for a while.
He retrieves his journal and scribes the events of the day, sketches the strange sights of the area, runs over his list of contacts, names, places. His notes are worth their weight in gold, so he counts this as a viable route of assistance, as well as something to protect the silence with, as well as something to distract his mind with.
The quiet reigns well into the night, warm enough to send him home.
*
*
*
Adonis walks halls, pours tea, lets music travel with him through every careful, flawless room. It’s a dream like any other, a reprieve from the living that he covets so sacredly. It’s a dream that, of course, is always changed with approximation to others.
It’s always a strange feeling, the leak of the outside world into his own little ‘demiplane’. It almost shatters the illusion of it; instead, it just presses down on the space, bleeds fragments of candles and Barovian stone into the home.
Naturally, there’s also the hazy, blue-glasses apparitions.
Adonis waves his hand through the form of the most recent one, the one who shot a bolt through his couch cushion. He disappears and reforms moments later, strumming a lute poorly to the tune of his violins. A voice emanates over the gramophone: “Are you undressing me with your eyes?”
“Do you ever sleep?” Adonis asks, uselessly, to the fresh spirit who grabs at his forearm and wraps an illusionary bandage over it. The walls of the hallway he walks manifest a few dozen ticking clocks, all approximating the time in the real world as being too damned late.
The clocks form a mouthpiece next: “Kiss me if I’m wrong, but I think vampires don’t really exist in Barovia.”
Adonis sits in the living room with a heavy exhale, distracting himself by flicking through a fresh stack of thoughts printed on floating papers. Having Rudolph fall asleep and enter his dreams wasn’t a flawless alternative to this, but it would cut through a few problems, kill off the body doubles. He glances over as a new Richten sits beside him on the couch, arm stretched over the backing, brushing Adonis’ shoulders. He breathes smoke from the cigarette in his fingers; when the scent hits, he knows that much is a real crossover from the waking world.
Adonis does his best to put it out of mind, but this apparition insists upon its presence more than most had. Adonis swats him away and he fades only momentarily, no change to his structure or posture. Really, he just seems to move closer.
“Begone,” he commands to himself, mostly, since he’s ultimately the one bringing him here. If the spirit had a defined face, he knows it would be grinning, watching him struggle so much with his own thoughts.
Instead of a grin, he leans over Adonis, closing much of the lingering distance. ‘Rudolph’s’ hand—firm and impressively manifested this time—steadies his chin, rubs his thumb over Adonis’ slack-jawed lips. The radio on the table clicks on: “The only reason I would kick you out of bed would be to fuck you on the floor.”
He exhales another breath of smoke over Adonis’ face and he wakes up.
*
*
*
To call him disoriented would be a disservice; he awakens dumbstruck, breaths shallow, body aching for reasons beyond his horrible accidental sleeping position. He rubs his face and rolls back onto his side, trying first at some level of discretion. Fuck. He really has no idea how to come down from this; sneak into the bathroom? Escape out the window? Die?
His attention falls invariably to the last remaining candlelight that flickers below him, next to the only other person it could be next to.
He’s laying down, finally, legs crossed, one arm propping up a worn book and the other primed to flip a page or pull the cigarette from his mouth; whichever comes first. The red vest he generally wears is folded up as a makeshift pillow, leaving his shirt half-buttoned and chest exposed, rising with his slow breaths. His grey eyes flit to Adonis’ when he moves the book to turn a page, holding for a weighty second, but ultimately returning to read.
“It’s still early,” he says through an unoccupied corner of his mouth. “Go back to sleep.”
Adonis keeps his eyes on him long after Rudolph’s leave, his usual restraint sharply reduced by the sight he takes in. “You woke me up.”
“Sorry,” he offers in a gruff half-truth, and tries to sit up for a relocation.
He doesn’t get far; Adonis’ hand drops from the bed and down to his chest, pushing him back to his resting position. It travels up—taking time it shouldn’t—until it touches the cigarette. Adonis pulls it from his lips and sits up himself, loose hair falling over his lap.
“You’re fine where you are,” he contends, placing the cigarette between his lips and swallowing down the attention that returns to him. “This was the problem.”
It was not the problem. One of them; not the problem.
“You’re—you’ll need the ashtray,” Rudolph speaks quietly after another endless moment.
“Could you get it for me?”
The eye contact continues, Rudolph patting the floor beside him blindly until his fingers grasp the dish. He holds it up for Adonis, who holds onto his wrist as he taps the ash into it.
The problem was the notable increase in the rise and fall of Rudolph’s chest, the way it made Adonis’ cherished reasonability slam itself against a window in hopes of escape. Even for one as slow and methodical as him, it was becoming agonizing to keep this up, each breath a hot knife through his lungs.
“Bad dream?” Rudolph asks.
“No. Yes. No.” Adonis will not admit half of what he thinks about when he dreams; even less of what he does. But he can hint, with a smile: “You just distract me, that’s all.”
He uses his free fingers to pull the dish from Rudolph’s fingers and set it on the bed. When he releases his hold on his wrist, Rudolph grasps his fingers before they leave him.
“Adonis…”
Adonis is overly aware of his own racing thoughts, the foulness that pleads: say it again, wear it out, bleed it dry. His eyes no longer know where to sit; they flicker from his chest to his eyes to his—
“Come here,” Rudolph says; breathes; pleads, rubbing Adonis’ hand just slightly with his thumb.
He feels like he hears it wrong.
“Adonis,” he repeats, a low tone that one could mistake as a call for mercy. “Please.”
Any pretense of calm gained from a steadying breath or preparation for rejection is discarded in a swift kick to the teeth.
He’s on Rudolph in a series of practiced motions, hand now laced fully in his; he pins it against the floor as equally as his hips pin. Rudolph remains obediently patient, satiating wanderlust through roaming eyes, clearly granting Adonis a choice of procedure. Too many thoughts, too many thoughts; he doesn’t know where to begin, what to touch, where to kiss—
He knows when the shiver runs down his spine and numbs his mind that he’s stepped into the Hunger, the spectral tentacles twisting up from misty borders and writhing dangerously around him. A shame overtakes immediately at his overzealousness. He looks back to Rudolph in another anticipation of rejection and finds only reverence.
“Are you sure?” Adonis asks, for necessary reasons and for the reminder of circumstance. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
The maintained expression of desire in response tells him everything he needs to know. Adonis laughs and stretches back into a proper straddle, pulling Rudolph’s hand with him. “The things I would do if you let me.”
He releases the lace of their fingers and pulls Rudolph’s hand to his belt buckle. The cue is taken; he pulls loose the loop and releases the clasp, making a move for the zipper when Adonis guides him there. When he’s done, Adonis moves Rudolph’s hand back to his side and takes precious time to admire, taking a drag from his stolen cigarette.
“For caution’s sake,” Adonis hums, desperate hand almost trembling as it pulls against the tightness of his pants, “you could watch me work first. See if you find me worth the trouble.”