[Introduction] All boundaries are conventions

[waiting4_6smith]

[Spoiler (click to open)]Made it to limbo. Blew my brains out in the bathtub with Ayr's handgun. Only felt the slightest pinch. Much greater pain seeing Sixsmith catching him at the last minute. Worlds of regret, but it's only a matter of waiting

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[alcuin_delaunay]

Alcuin follows the music into the ballroom, enchanted by it. He pauses in the doorway, seeing a young man at the piano: someone he recognizes. Frobisher, though he thought that was only a dream. The dream stayed with him, though, and he'd spent a few days melancholy that it was nothing but a dream. The music is beautiful and he doesn't want to interrupt.

Smiling happily, he returns to the kitchen and prepares a tray with a pot of English tea, some watercress sandwiches, and a couple of little creme brulees with fresh raspberries that he just finished making. He brings it to the ballroom, setting it down on a small table at the edge of Frobisher's sight as an offering, and then curls up on a sofa on the edge of the ballroom, admiring the music and waiting to be noticed.

[waiting4_6smith]

Smiling while playing - it's a better world and one he's wanted to see for a while. Odd how his hands have more feeling now than they did moments ago - but eternity is confusing. Could have been ages ago, he wouldn't know.

And odd, too, how it seems that everything is more real.

Is that the smell of tea? Tea, and caramel? No, crême brulée - hasn't had it since Paris and that wild adventure with those insane Americans. Didn't stay long - the music was vulgar.

Takes him a while to stop, until he does, eventually, come to the major chord - it's barely a breath of a chorus he finished playing, and the only reason he stops is he can feel a cramp. Hadn't felt that since Ayrs whipped him into dictation for hours and hours.

Makes no sense at all, none at all.

Looks up, spots the teapot. A movement, very slight, in the distance. A flash of blond hair, so fine he wonders if this isn't one of those angels from engraved catechisms.

Alcuin.

"You're back," he says, simply. "I did wonder how long it would take."

[alcuin_delaunay]

"I'm not back," Alcuin says, with a happy, shy smile. He's delighted to be remembered, since he does have a bit of a crush. "You're here. You came."

He rests his chin on his hands on the arm of the couch, resisting the urge to run and hug him. His shyness holds him back, and his fear that Frobisher isn't real at all, that he's only dreaming again. "I thought I dreamed you."

[waiting4_6smith]

A couch. For a time there was nothingness - shadows and shades but nothing as detailed or defined as this - aside from Alcuin, and the memory of his lips.

"I'm not a dream," Frobisher replies from the piano bench. He does recall, mutedly - how he was told, come with me, come to this place.

A covenant.

"You are though," he says. "Still as perfect as before."

A beat.

"Do you recall our arrangement?"

[alcuin_delaunay]

Alcuin rises, all perfect grace, and walks over to him as if beckoned. He stops a step away from Frobisher, looking down at him on the piano bench, his pristine white hair falling like a curtain around his face.

"You must mean your promise to play me Satie's Gnossienne," he teases, his sweet, flirtatious smile making perfectly clear that he knew what Frobisher had meant.

Court me, Alcuin had asked, and Frobisher had agreed. Their terms had included, among other things, that Frobisher would try to be sweet, and that neither of them would expect to be exclusive. Alcuin remembers very well.

[waiting4_6smith]

Can't stop looking - too lovely, that sway of the hips. Remembers very keenly the way he batted his eyelashes, like some demure virgin, contradicting everything else about himself.

You don't know what you're asking me to do, he'd said, and meant it.

"The third," Frobisher says, eyes on the other man's lips. "The rest is noise, though his Gymnopedies are tolerable."

Wants to touch him, in case he's... some figment or other. Does it matter? No. Alcuin makes this non-world better, so it's fine.

"Sit with me."

Not an order. Close to a plea.

[alcuin_delaunay]

Alcuin sits without hesitation, obedience trained very deep in his nature. They're sitting opposite directions on the bench, but facing each other. He rests a hand on Frobisher's thigh--reassurance, affection, and just a touch of flirtation--and keeps his eyes on Frobisher's. "Are you hungry? I brought food."

[waiting4_6smith]

Hadn't realized the sensation went all the way down to his feet. Presses the sustaining pedal reflexively. Hands still on the keys, pressing D major. Sustained. Left foot on the una corda. Dampened. Everything responds as it should, including Frobisher.

Little thrill sent up his spine like a chromatic scale.

"I haven't felt hunger in ages," he admits. "Didn't even feel thirst, aside from the time I had tea with you."

I will try to be sweet.

"For tea,that is."

Smiled a little to himself, to Alcuin. Unspoken things are the deepest promises.

[alcuin_delaunay]

"You will now," Alcuin promises. His hand presses just the slightest bit firmer on Frobisher's thigh, light enough that Alcuin doesn't notice that he's done it. "You're here now. This is the Mansion. It's home."

Leaving his hand in place, he turns, reaching for the tray. He manages to just hook the edge of the table with his finger, tugging it a little bit closer so that he can reach most of the items on the tray. Pouring tea left-handed without any evident difficulty, he sets down the teapot again and offers Frobisher the cup.

[waiting4_6smith]

Amazed by his gestures, the way he moves, everything he does. As if he was strictly made for Frobisher's pleasure. Bemusing and overwhelming.

Tea is accepted, tasted. Hummed his appreciation, E flat.

"Home. That is a strange word, Alcuin, very strange to me." Little smile, well-deserved. "But I'll take it."

Could do with a home. Hadn't had one in years before he died.

Deposited the cup with a soft clank, a dull A. Turned towards him. His lips are like coral waiting to be kissed. "And I'll take you." Barely murmured, a hand in his hair, more tempting than the piano keys just now.

[alcuin_delaunay]

Alcuin blushes, eternally demure despite how thorough his experience, but he tips his head up easily for the kiss. Frobisher appreciates him, wants and approves of him, and that's what Alcuin need so desperately. It's the one thing Alcuin isn't sure whether it's his own or something Delaunay trained into him. In all the other areas, Delaunay simply polished his natural talents, designing him to be irresistible. But the bone-deep need to be loved and appreciated, Alcuin isn't sure at all.

It's a part of him now, though, whatever its origins, and his heart has latched on to Frobisher in his need for adoration. He kisses sweetly, letting Frobisher set the depth and duration of it, and adapting his kiss to what he thinks Frobisher wants, utterly receptive and submissive.

[waiting4_6smith]

Heaven does not taste as sweet. Not that he's ever tasted heaven, but music is, to him, and a sextet that work, is too. And Alcuin just tastes better than all those things combined - at least in that instant.

Kissed him long and a bit hard in the end (not the only thing that was, but one must not be hasty), stayed close until the need to see his eyes was greater than the need to scent his breath.

"You are a symphony."

Somehow, it's easy to be nice.

[alcuin_delaunay]

Flushed and breathless from the kiss, Alcuin stares back at him, eyes a little wide. He forgets how deep some of his training goes, and has little clue that he perpetually gives the impression of being a blushing virgin.

His free hand has found its way to Frobisher's upper arm during the kiss, clutching his shirt a little too tight, as though he is afraid that Frobisher will vanish again if he lets go.

The flattery is the best he has ever received, without question, and it's one of the things that contributes most to his crush on Frobisher. Everyone who ever laid eyes on Alcuin agreed that he was a subject meant for poetry. It was just that no one ever had followed through on it before.

He smiles and ducks his head a little at the metaphor, pleased and flattered. Despite Frobisher's claim that he isn't a very sweet person, he has won Alcuin over entirely with it. Frobisher is welcome to attribute that to either Alcuin's standards, or the way Alcuin has of bringing out the goodness in people.

[waiting4_6smith]

Tempted to say he'll write him one - something grand and fabulous, to reflect Alcuin's many lovelinesses and his passion. Hasn't felt so taken by anyone since Eva - but Eva doesn't count. Eva was a mistake.

Can't imagine Alcuin would be. He comes with clarity, and that is a sign.

Lets the silence stretch for a few measures, only interrupted by my own gasp at myself, and an arm around his waist, a kiss to his hair.

"I did promise you someone else's music, didn't I?"

[alcuin_delaunay]

"You did," Alcuin agrees. He shifts around to sit parallel with Frobisher, their thighs pressed together, and reaches for the keys. He doesn't press any of them down--he doesn't know how to play--but his fingers do brush the white keys, as if to summon up music from them by his will alone.

If the piano had a soul, and could be seduced, it might play just to please Alcuin. Pianos being what they are, it will have to be Frobisher.

[waiting4_6smith]

Feeling all warm on one side and nigh freezing on the other. Is this what torturous need feels like? Probably. Worthy of a lament, but the cello is better suited.

Missed chances.

Better to focus on what is here, and now. Satie, then.

A slow and solitary beginning, low A-key, major chords but as directed by the composer, Alone a moment. And there comes the complex melody, almost an ode to Lawrence of Arabia and his exotic fetishes, but so lonely, one would expect a rising moon.