Draco Malfoy (original_snake) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2014-03-05 17:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | caterpillar, draco malfoy |
Who: Andrew and Trystan
What: IDEK - being them
Where: Andrew's Winter Palace
When: January
Warnings/Rating: M (mentions of drug use, swearing)
Andrew didn’t have to wonder if the blond was coming. He knew the pattern already. It was familiar to him, as much as the young man was. He wasn’t surprised by much anymore, even the recent hotel twist, which allowed him to view a memory. It explained a lot, perhaps even confirmed suspicions as to how he was treated in his younger days. Andrew had stopped questioning the hotel activities long ago. It was useless to question those events that were also becoming normal.
He walked to the bar, making himself a drink before sitting on the sofa. The news was on in the background, droning on about international events and then the whole American health care issue. He had lost interest in that quite awhile ago. He scanned through the paper as well, keeping an ear out for the door. He had allowed Trystan to keep the key, a show of trust if ever there was one. He knew his way in well enough.
As he waited, a thought hit, causing him to pause and consider it. A year - it had been over a year really since they had met quite accidentally on the streets of Las Vegas. A year. He had gotten Trystan some matches from a club. He wondered idly if he still had that same matchbook that had come out of his pockets much later, and what that one little thing had created. What a difference a year made.
The key wrought the closest thing he could ever come to a homecoming. It was never one looked upon with any sort of significance, but every time he crossed the threshold of that lavish mansion it seemed a little more familiar, a little bit smaller and closer to a cage.
The taxi had deposited him a block away -- there was something about uttering that address that settled unease deep in his gut, so instead he offered all he could, a purr of the nearest intersection. From there he always walked, slipping between the bars meant to keep cars at bay, and up that winding drive to the man who -- for reasons unbeknownst to the blonde -- kept calling.
He made his way to the bar with little intention to run into Andrew first. Sin first, syntax later, and as he saw the man lounging nearby, he offered nothing, just a purr of acknowledgement as he reached for the vodka and a bottle of diet sprite he’d harbored in the mini-fridge some time ago.
“You look positively enthralled.” It dripped with sarcasm, a burn lacing his lips as it slithered down his throat.
“The news is just riveting. How Americans complain about politics when they elected the man in charge is beyond me and really, they should have seen this coming.” He shrugged and put the paper aside. Honestly, he was tired of the same news daily.
His eyes rolled over Trystan, watching him take what he wanted. He had no objections to it, the opposite actually. If someone had told him that this bloke would have still been around a year ago, he would have laughed. Trystan had been an experiment at that time. He was a dirty little secret, who should have been discarded. Yet, somewhere in those pockets, there was a key that belonged to him.
His finger ran over his lip thoughtfully. “Do you realize that I met you well over a year ago?” He wanted to know Trystan’s thoughts on the matter. Surely the man was in a far better position now. It could improve even further, but he couldn’t make any business related offers just yet.
“Oh?” It was met with a quizzical inquiry -- noncommittal and airy as the whore rounded the bar once more. The question invoked a response lilted in little consequence, and when Trystan had padded to where Andrew sat, irritated and restless, he dropped to his knees on that plush and expensive floor, drink in hand and chin coming to rest along the heir’s knee like the good little bitch he pretended to be.
“I didn’t realize that.” He raised his head, sipped at the vodka and sprite. Envy eyes scanned the television emptily, paying the noise that was screeching up his spine little mind aside from unconscious and secondary invocations of irritation resulting from it.
“Yes, a year,” he said, hand sifting through the strands of hair, thin yet silky against his smooth skin that had still never seen a days hard work. “Who would have thought that we would be here?” he asked, arching a brow. He had suspected that most of the people Trystan encountered ran in and out of his life with barely an acknowledgement of their name unless they served a purpose. He knew he held some position in it that was different from anyone elses. Trystan might never admit it, but it was true.
“So, there was a bookstore for sale by an elderly couple who are going to use the money and sail off into their golden years with a few thousand more than the asking price,” he began, waiting for the familiar tilt of the head. “I figured it would be a decent investment.”
“Any investment that rids us of the tax obligations of the elderly is a decent one.” The blonde scoffed, remaining content to be petted like a cat. Sweetened sin breached his lips once more, staining them slick in the glass’ absence.
“What are you saying, exactly?”
Andrew laughed at that look. They had come a long way. It was possibly the hospital that had changed them. He had some of the trust he had sought, and that was a hard fight. “They will surely enjoy cruise ships and foreign beaches. You can choose your position, if that is what you want. Personally, I think you are most suited for acquisitions, and inventory. What really is a store without rare finds that are hard for a collector to pass up.”
He thought for a moment, idly running through the ideas that had been around for some time. “There is always the option of getting some of your own work published. I wasn’t sure if you would ever want to leave that out for general public consumption.”
The whore remained still, jaw clenching against Andrew’s knee as he spoke. The vodka slipped past his lips, lubricating those vitriol words that followed. He pressed back, anchored on his knees and arched like a stray cat.
“I can’t do that,” his voice was strained, shaking and acrid around its edges. His eyes remained fixed on Andrew, unblinking and unyielding to the uncertainty that crept up that stepladder spine.
“You know I can’t do that.”
There were things that Andrew knew and a few that he didn’t. He knew this was a touchy subject from the fight about the library, and in the end Trystan had agreed. He was pushing that boundary again, but keeping it light. There was no real force behind the words, although it did bring about the same questions. He returned the gaze with a much gentler one, the same that he used in the hospital. “Which one?” His brow arched, fingers still sifting through the ends of his hair, trying to get him to relax a little after hitting that nerve. “You can do what you want, write your own ticket, not stand on the outside watching.”
The blonde arched away from each soothing digit, shied free from soft touches that would keep him complacently still in the rich man’s lap -- a spoilt kittycat that was becoming too accustomed to caviar and cream. He anchored back on his heels, a reach away from the man who was still -- in spite of all shirked promises and stolen opportunity -- offering moremoremore, always more.
“Either. I told you that when you offered up your library.” He clattered onto all fours to reach for his drink, slinking away before any further contact could be made, any further comforts could be offered.
“A few days later you did it anyway, and look at it now,” he said. He knew Trystan’s moods well. He withdrew when Andrew hit nerves, and Andrew knew where the nerves were. He pressed on them intentionally. The library had been stocked with much of what was on Trystan’s list, and more.
“Why are you so determined to stay right where you are, to never improve the situation?” he asked, leaning back on the sofa. “I know you want to say yes, but you don’t.”
Trystan laughed, arching into a sip on that vitriol cocktail that burned his throat so deliciously.
“You think I want to say yes.” The assertion was murmured past ice and glass, envy eyes settling along Andrew’s face as the whore spoke. He settled comfortably into where he was seated, far away from the touches he had so willingly invoked only moments ago. It was entirely different now -- he was on the defensive, back arched and ready to swipe with those red-lacquer claws at the surest sign of provoking.
“I don’t hate what I do,” he purred with absolute conviction, all confidence and sway. “I’m comfortable and well-provided for. Writing would never afford such a luxury.”
“You can write your own ticket, write or take up residence in the store with the books you love, buy, sell, trade with money that would keep anyone comfortable.” Andrew’s eyes stayed on him. He didn’t look away anymore. He had his own boldness that came across in that look. “However, it would mean no strangers shoving themselves into you for a few bucks, so you can get your next fix. There isn’t much in that life except waiting for death. Is that what you want?”
He took a drink, keeping his eyes on Trystan. “Whether you do it or not, you still want to be here, at least in some part.”
“Because you’re easy.” It provoked spite, a terse and singular laugh that resonated as more of a bark. Fawnfickle limbs untangled, brought him to standing as the vodka concoction sloshed out the glass onto the floor. Trystan paid it no mind, a few steps stalking him near to the heir once more.
“You give me whatever I want,” a canted head, a cruel sneer, “for nothing at all. Well -- perhaps at the price of some sanctimonious condescension every now and again -- but really, what is the cost of some time wasted for a wealth of resources I could never afford after heroin?”
&that glass -- that wretched glass found its way to the table beside where Andrew sat, clinking against rich varnish with a dangerous and ceasing thud.
“You want me to work on books for you during the day, fine. But I certainly won’t let it cut into what I’ve made of myself. I’m not stupid--” A laugh, as cold and curt as the former, “--or rich enough to fool myself into thinking I don’t need the income.”
Andrew’s eyes narrowed, although there was a trace of a smirk. “I have been. I have made few demands on you and your time, but yet, you do relent and do what I wish, at least in your own way.”
His finger ran over his lips. “Don’t think I am so blind to know that I can’t say no. Believe me, I can, but money really isn’t that important when I still have more than I could ever spend in a lifetime on twenty of you. You aren’t quite willing to let that go and go straight back to nothing with absolutely no backup plan.” In their time together, Andrew had gained a degree of confidence when dealing with Trystan that he hadn’t had when they first met. He had spent that time trying not to irritate or upset him, now he knew the triggers, pushed some of them, and dealt with the rest. “Just say the word if that IS what you want.”
“I told you,” he rounded once more, finger between them and pointedly keeping its distance. His eyes were narrowed -- dangerously so -- the edge in his voice a new aggression that had been vacant in any of his prior furies.
“I am not going to give up what I do for you! Just because you can afford twenty of me doesn’t mean you will keep the expenditure, and you can say I’m an idiot all you like but the one thing I ever learned with any conviction at all was the one thing that’s kept me safe and sound since I ran away at fucking thirteen--”
&he descended upon prey, all teeth&nail&fingers around that thick throat. Knees dug into Andrew’s hips on either side, and as the whore drew near, his breath swelled in the millimetres between them, vodka intoxicating its fury and stench.
“I don’t. Trust. Others. Not with something as important as my life.” Those fingers tightened -- oh, tightened -- before a quick release, followed by a sickening smack across a bronze cheek.
It was Andrew’s turn to be angry, but it stayed in his eyes. Unlike a year ago, he now had control. “You are an idiot, not to be so untrusting, but to think that I will tolerate you daring to put your hands on me like that.” His eyes stayed on Trystan. “How is your life important to you again? Was that when you were found after an overdose? Or was that after the latest john? I was the one who didn’t sell you out.”
He stood, heading to the bar. He took a bottle and poured. “There are a hundred of you. You know your way out.” He folded his arms across his chest, face expressionless, tone dismissive. No, he was not going to tolerate that. He had allowed Trystan to cross all the lines he set, but this was one that he simply wouldn’t allow. He wasn’t going to be choked and slapped by the whore. “We are done here.”
“Sure,” a scoff, airy and vapid. The two steps back landed off-kilter, a stuttered retreat that was anything but.
“‘Til you decide we aren’t in two weeks. Fuck you.”
The snap&spark of a lighter accompanied those hollow footfalls to the door, which severed them with a resounding clarity.