Victor Bahorik (in_control) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2023-03-20 18:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | #july 2018, aidan, aidan x victor, victor |
Who: Victor & Aidan (sorta)
Where: Victor’s house, Overlook
When: evening, Monday, July 16
Status: complete
Victor had a busy couple of days, without much time or desire for leisure reading. When he wasn’t busy with work in some form, he was daydreaming about Aidan. Catching up with Sebastian had been a welcome distraction from both, but as soon as his thoughts were free, they veered right back to his new lover. Victor hadn’t felt so fixated on any one person in a long time.
So it took him a while to find the notes. At least he thought it was a while -- Aidan had already proven himself to be sly, it was difficult to know just how long ago he’d snuck in to set up this literary rabbit trail.
After a shower, Victor stretched out in bed and reached for the book he’d been working on. Tucked inside of it, alongside the bookmark, was a scrap of paper. On one side, scrawled in blue ink, was the quote:
“If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.”
Victor’s heart instantly picked up speed. He sat up slowly and stared at the note, the letters small and neat. He instantly knew it was from Aidan, and it was a clue, even before his logical brain caught up. Victor knew a game when he saw one, and scavenger hunts were one of his favorite kinds.
Abandoning his current read, he hurried out of the bedroom and downstairs in his boxers, all drowsiness blown away in the surge of excitement. He knew the quote, of course, but the first clue was always an easy one, and he was already eager to see if Aidan could challenge him as a fellow reader.
Victor reached the right bookshelf and crouched, scanning titles until he found it. Just inside Fahrenheit-451, tucked next to the epigraph, was another note. On one side, in blue ink, another quote:
“Do not be afraid; our fate
Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.”
On the other side, written in red ink of the same handwriting:
If you have an issue with me coming and going as I please… that’s unfortunate.
Punish me for it as you see fit.
A different type of excitement surged through Victor’s system as he scanned the red ink. Not just a quote-hunt then. Another tease, a nerdy type of seduction? Was he going to find Aidan in lingerie at the end of this? No, he knew the other witch wasn’t in the house, Victor knew what his presence felt like now, but the idea made him grin. He murmured the blue quote to himself a couple of thoughtful times before it clicked and Victor moved to another bookshelf.
Stuffed in the middle of Dante’s Inferno was another note. Different paper this time, this one unlined, off-white, and torn neatly along the left side. The handwriting was the same, a blue inked quote on one side, a red inked note on the other:
“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”
Bondage sounds fun. FYI - I can escape from conventional handcuffs in 10 seconds or less.
As he read the red side for the third time, Victor realized this wasn’t a way to get him riled up -- at least not just that. Aidan was telling him what he liked, what he wanted to try. That tingle in his stomach deepened and spread, and Victor took a moment, the smooth paper resting lightly against his lips. It smelled faintly of Aidan. He drew in a deeper breath and went to the next shelf.
Turning to page 42 of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Victor found another scrap of paper wither another quote and another note written in Aidan’s small, precise handwriting:
“This inhuman place makes human monsters.”
I like a bit of pain. I don’t know my limits, so I can’t share them.
Flipping through Stephen King’s The Shining, Victor found another note:
“The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”
If you tickle me, I will lash out and cannot be held responsible for the damage.
Another note was tucked inside Frank Herbert’s Dune:
“Poor strangers, they have so much to be afraid of.”
I like fighting with you. The struggle is a facade. I’ll use a safe word if real.
Opening Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Victor found another set of quotes and notes:
“Reality, however utopian, is something from which people feel the need of taking pretty frequent holidays.”
The traffic light system is fine.
Inside Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World was another set:
“I can resist anything except temptation.”
I will never shock you on purpose. Except to annoy you.
Folded and marking the very center of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan was more:
“How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure.”
Am I a fucking brat?
Victor laughed aloud, that flutter in his gut deepening and spreading. Aidan wasn’t in the house, much less the room, but Victor still felt like he could reach out and touch him. It had taken him the better part of three hours to recall every quote and find every breadcrumb -- he’d gotten himself a cup of coffee with some Baileys in it, but he hadn’t touched his phone, that felt like cheating. Something about the work made it feel even more intimate, like he’d earned the right to know these things.
He found the last note The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. There was no quote this time—just Aidan’s phone number in red ink. Victor sat down on the plush rug and slowly read through all of the messages again, then a few more times after that, something different sticking out to him each time. It wasn’t a very thorough roadmap to his new sub, but Victor understood Aidan was just starting to explore the terrain himself. It was a damn good start, and delivered in such a perfect way, he was a little awed by all that it made him feel.
Finally, after processing it all for a while, Victor got up to fetch his phone. He saved Aidan’s number and just gazed down at it for a moment before he thumbed in a message, a smile curling his lips.
”I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.” You tell me.