milliways_bar | (no subject)

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There is in Milliways an immortal who is busy looking over papers and setting the affairs contained on them in order for an absence of his; at his elbow there's a large mug of coffee, brewed strong and black, but he's not drinking it.

No, on the contrary it has cinnamon sticks, black peppercorns, cloves and cumin powder in it, and while the smell is very aromatic, the taste isn't very good at all. But it serves its purpose as he's mixing henna dye paste, testing the mix every few minutes to see how easily and darkly it dyes. Depending on when you come by, he may be in progress of a tattoo on one hand up to the wrist.

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"You should've seen me when I was young," he whispers. "Climbing the rigging. I suppose if I'd had to retire from the sea, I could've made a good living as an acrobat; those are the muscles and skills that I have. You have to know your body, you have to depend on it in ways that people whose work keeps them on solid ground never do."

"Not all of us. I've tried to get used to the feeling of having nothing solid under my feet," Ganymede says softly, turning his hand over and working his way up his arm, fingers tracing the strange branching patterns of veins and muscles and tendons. "It find it...discomfitting at best, but I can stand it, in small doses."

He still hates it. "There's a way to move, that you learn when your existence depends on pleasing someone else. It's...like a dance. You know where your body is, and has been, and is going."

"I'm used to it," he says. "I grew up aboard a ship, and was climbing not long after I could walk. The most solid ground I generally have, still moves. And I like it that way."

Yeah, so being raised on a ship by a bunch of sailors and no women might have had its risks. He turned out fine.

"I like the way you move."

"I don't mind the ground moving--that, I can handle." Docks move, after all, and he's more than comfortable on those. Sand moves.

"I wish it was from a more pleasant source. I wish I could see you climb the way you talk about it."

"...surely there are things in your world that one can climb," he says with a small smile.

"It doesn't even have to be rigging; I can climb anything."

He hasn't had reason to, lately, but it's one of those skills you never really lose.

"Oh, there are," he says, grinning. "Trees, walls. All kinds of things."

"I haven't climbed buildings since... well, since before Armada. But I can do it. You'd be surprised how many footholds there are on the average building."

The better to use when hunting, either to find a meal or to make a discreet escape afterward.

"Would I? Would you show me, so I won't be ignorant in the future?"

He finds the conversation so alien that he has to ask questions, but it's new. Delightfully so, that's the entertaining part. Catching glimpses of his lover's world, the way he has to live, is endlessly enthralling.

"...well, architecture might be different where you're from," he says. "Or in better repair. Rundown buildings are the easiest to climb; parts of bricks have fallen away, or there are brackets for things that are no longer there. I've seen towns with ornamental woodwork on their houses, and those are quite simple also. And anything with a drainpipe. I've got excellent balance, and a very strong grip, so I can almost always find something to dig my fingers into."

"I've never tried climbing buildings. Not even the rundown ones, though there aren't so many here in that condition. Perhaps we should start with trees," he murmurs, tracing the pads of the vampir's fingers and touching his lips to each to punctuate his words.

"I'm terrible at it, I suspect."

"Trees are easy," he says. "I've climbed the trees outside here; if you go some ways up into the mountains, you can find some that are quite tall. In the moonlight, it's quite something."

It's not bad just by starlight, either, but harder to make things out. It gets dark here at night.

"We should find one," he says. "To climb up. Both of us, if you'll help me." He's used to the dark--that he likes.

"I'd like that," he says. "We can look out over the grounds, and no one else will even know we're there."

He likes that--a sort of isolation, being alone together.

He chuckles. "Well. Until one of us starts making noise, yes," he says. "And I think we will, sooner or later."

"...well, you might," he says with a quiet chuckle. "And I might be in some way responsible for that. But on my own, I'm very quiet."

"I didn't say it had to be our voices making the noise," he says innocently. Skin slapping skin is, he recalls, at least a little noisy.

...well, in what he had in mind, his own mouth would be otherwise occupied.

"I'm very quiet in other ways, too. I try to make noise when I walk, here, so as not to startle anyone--some people do get touchy."

"How quiet can you be?" he asks. He's damn near silent when he walks himself, but of course he doesn't have preternatural (or nautical?) abilities helping him cross those last few barriers.

"I doubt you'd startle me too badly."

"I can be silent," he says.

After a pause, he adds hesitantly, "I had to be, when I hunted. That's why I'm careful not to be, here. I don't want to make people uncomfortable."

It's neutral ground. He's not hunting anyone here, and they're not hunting him either.

"You can be silent near me. If that's how you normally are," he says. "I don't mind."

He takes one hand and turns it over, lazy fingers tracing the faint blueish lines of veins up to the crease of the Brucolac's elbow.

"I won't deliberately try to be silent," he says. "But I may not--"

He breaks off, with a bit of a shiver.

It stands to reason he'd find that spot, but he hadn't expected it quite so quickly...

"--may not make much noise."

So that's one, Ganymede thinks, and not without a soft smile.

Well, he does have a captive audience while the dye dries, doesn't he? Why not make use of that fact and explore a little? The Brucolac found one of his points like this rather unexpectedly, it's only polite he return the favor. "Found one," the boy whispers, looking up and smiling before he ducks his head to kiss that sensitive spot he's holding his fingers over.

"...so you did," he whispers, eyes closed.

It's not that the spot in the crease of his elbow is more sensitive than the one on the back of his neck, but where that one will always carry the faint tinge of--not fear exactly, but something in that direction; he's had a blade held there before--these are just pleasure.

"Do you think I'll find the others?" he asks conversationally, kissing the pale cheek in front of him.

"You look beautiful with your eyes closed like that. Like there's nothing else that can affect you but this pleasure." And he has the power to give it. It's a hell of a trip, Ganymede can't deny that. It always has been.

"Probably, if you're determined enough."

He smiles, tilting his head a bit into the kiss.

"That's what shore leave is about, you know. You leave your ship, and your time is your own. No duty, just... just pleasure."

It's yet another kind of power he is all too willing to hand over.