Silk Silk Silk

[Myk]

Familiarity wasn’t something Myk was all that familiar with. Certainly he grew to understand places well enough; sometimes he knew spaces so intimately that he could prowl blindly like a mole in a spider’s hole without triggering so much as a single silken trapwire. Myk was also very habituated to other people’s habits; he watched them come and go and live out their rituals from his secluded perch like the veritable fly on the wall. Yet, he had never been one of those people; those who settled, those who were still, those who merged with the masses and connected and felt like a part of the world. He had always been isolated from the crowd - from Humanity as a species and now even from Vampire kind - and in that sense of separation, Myk had learned to become comfortable with being so unfamiliar with familiarity that when its tendrils slipped through his defences, an icy chill had raced his spine in response.

He sat up with a soft gasp; the duvet sheets tugging with the sudden movement. Pewter eyes regarded the dark room with suspicion; those white walls were now tomb-like banks all around him and he didn’t much like staying in his coffin - even if the scent of star anise, mandarin oranges, olive blossom, and cedar wood was still as heady and as inviting as it always was. It was only just past dusk - he could feel time now, feel the tug of the moon and the sun in his whole being like he was a new body of water - and so it didn’t come as any surprise that he was waking alone this evening. The shutters were still down, curtains drawn, and so only artificial light crept in through the base of the door making very little advance over the plush cream carpet. Myk was at least appreciative of that small comfort as his toes sank into the warm pile and he tip-toed toward the door.

From his new perspective, a fresh wave of consciousness washed over him. Myk pressed his palm and cheek against the surface of the wooden door; the glossy veneer warming to his minimal body temperature in a matter of seconds before he closed his eyes. He focused and heard voices - two distinct voices, their exact locations, and the entire conversation. A frown pressured the Telepath’s brow and he straightened. Honestly, the whole thing should have been tedious by now. He should have run far, far away from this one. He should have stayed clear. Because there are two types of people in this world: those who run and those who chase - the predator and the prey locked into an eternal cycle of destruction and devourment. In this instance, despite its inexhaustible pleasures, this was one of those unfortunate instances where Myk had found himself prone to the will of another predator and now he was trapped between the jaws of seduction.

Silent footsteps paced the room as emotions and thoughts clashed thunderously in his mind and then spilled from between his wolfish teeth.

“But I have never been the rabbit,” he growled. “I have no desire to be the rabbit.”

The sound that left Myk’s mouth was more akin to a hiss than a whisper.

“And he is so inflexible,” Myk continued. “To mount me like a ***** every single time.”

He paused his march when he eyed the kimono draping over the chaise lounge, deciding that his tirade would be far superior if delivered dressed. The robe was then wrapped and tied so tightly around him that one more tug would have caused a rib to snap. Hair the colour of milk splashed down his front to meet his abdomen in beachy waves and loose braids, contrasting sharply against his straight-cut, all-black attire. Along with leaving his hair down, he had also decided that he couldn’t go into battle without a little bit of war paint. He applied a heavy coat of make-up to complete the androgynous appeal; though in Myk terms, his make-up was hardly ostentatious enough to make RuPaul lift even one of her drawn-on eyebrows. He only wore a single pair of fake lashes to give that wide-eyed, feminine fluttering effect and layered on black eyeshadow to give that smokey look. There was only enough contouring to bring that dangerous, striking beauty of his up a notch, and he kept the white foundation at a fine layer so that it only unified his pale complexion. His lips, like his hands and feet, would be left bare and ready to be painted with blood should the need arise.

He left the room with the same silence that an owl would leave its hunting perch. The apartment was large and open, with little to divide the first floor from the second but for the landing area that framed the square space and the glass staircase. With the modern chandelier that descended between the floors, and the exhausting amount of bookcases on the first floor, the apartment was more reminiscent to a library than somebody’s living space. There was, of course, a modern kitchen and all the other amenities that came with the average apartment, but they were seemingly for show because Myk had never seen Claude prepare a meal or enjoy anything that wasn’t in liquid or paper format. There was a piano too, this pristine ebony and ivory gigantism that sat in the back corner of the main room, but Myk had never seen the man play a tune either. The apartment was New York City meets Victorian Britain - leather, wood, and metal that is polished and housed in the finest crystal-cut glass.

The young Blood Thief was a mystery wrapped in an enigma and the more the Telepath chewed on the idea, the more it made him seethe.

While the open-plan design might ordinarily have made it impossible to hide without employing any supernatural gifts, pewter eyes had spied an opportunity that was impossible to resist. Just as Claude had closed the door on his guest, Myk pounced. With unseen speed, the Telepath closed the gap between himself and the Blood Thief; his feet only connecting with the ground again once he’d reached the shadow of the other male. He pushed his nails through fabric and skin and muscle until they glanced off something hard inside Claude’s shoulder. The heat around his hand brought a satisfying tingle to his gut, but the look on the male’s face wasn’t meeting his expectations. Claude bit down on the pain and held his features with stoicism. With his spare hand then, Myk decided to grip the male’s waist and force his thumb into the meat there. However, hot, forceful hands grabbed his wrists; he knew from experience that they had the strength to break his bones or push him away, but they merely held him in place.

[Claude Lambert]

“Good morning,” Claude managed, though his husky voice quavered.

Myk hissed into his face like an afronted feline. Although his fangs glinted like ivory daggers, his metallic eyes were as dull as scuffed marbles. Truthfully, this wasn’t the first time that the Vampire had responded aggressively toward him, but it had been the first time that he’d been caught off guard quite like this. Claude could feel Myk pressing for further ground under his skin, with each push of his fingers causing his own body to tense and throb with fresh heat and agony. The intrusion of those cold digits felt uncannily like a blade and Claude had to continue to resist the urge to snap the Vampire’s wrists and shove him away. It wouldn’t serve him well to start a fight with this one, especially as the motive for the attack was a complete mystery to the German. Besides, Claude was not generally the type to fight fire with fire, certainly not when water proved to be a far superior method of extinguishing this type of hate-fuelled blaze.

Despite all outward appearances - from his boyish good looks to his manicured image - the German had been raised for battle. While his ancestral line was far more comfortable fighting in boardrooms, lectures, and political halls than on the front line, they had blessed Claude with a stellar education and the motivation to succeed on any ground of combat. The noble and military alike have used chess as both a metaphor and even as training for warfare from as far back as ancient India, but generals who compare themselves with grandmasters are exaggerating their control of combat. There is nothing more dangerous - or deafening - than warfare and there are few pursuits that are as safe and as quiet as chess. As beautiful a game as it is, and for all its infamous parallels with warfare and strategy, the game of chess is too simplistic a mirror to be compared with the true chaos of battle. Chess is what is termed a "perfect information" game - each player can see on the board everything there is to know about his opponent's dispositions. After all, war much like life and love, is infinitely messier than the calculations over 64 squares.

It was luck, chance, misfortune, and intrigue that had brought Claude the rest of the way toward his achieving victory on the battlefield. Being a Blood Thief had changed so much about the way he perceived life; its priorities, its valuations on things, and its attempt to control such things. It also changed the way he had changed; it brought him from mulling over theory and strategy to approaching what he had learned with the reality of physics. What he had learned about this Vampire was that Myk was volatile - sometimes resulting in violent outbursts - but was therefore very easy to distract. The pewter eyed devil reminded the German of a feral animal at times, perhaps something of a stray cat if ever one could consider Myk domesticated enough, and so Claude chose to redirect that volatile energy into something he could work with.

“You look lovely this evening,” Claude said with a soft albeit, pained, smile.

Myk growled; this guttural sound that came from the back of his throat. The tips of his wolfish teeth were still visible from the underside of his lips as they curled upward into a snarl. Eyes like discs of molten gold dropped briefly to the site of the wound, to see that Myk had paused his attack for now, and then he returned his attention to the other’s eyes. There was no relent in those orbs, however; Myk continued to glare at Claude as if he had stolen the world’s supply of candy and Claude had begun to wonder where he’d stashed it all without his own acknowledgement...

“Could you move your hand? It’s rather uncomfortable.”

“No,” Myk snapped.

Claude’s spirit dampened momentarily like clouds passing over a summer sky; his brow furrowed and his lips formed a line. It appeared that a storm might roll in as he fed into Myk’s tempestuous nature, but soon enough he had grappled with his own emotions and the sun had peaked over those cotton ridges once again.

“Alright,” the young Blood Thief replied calmly; his voice unfurling like a fine wine.

But it was all too much for the Telepath. If there was one thing that he loathed more than not being in control, it was being ignored. It was apparent that it would take more than brute strength for Myk to break free, yet when he jerked away, Claude allowed him the movement. Myk stalked into the room then - a crimson trail following him like a comet - and Claude pressed his hand to the wound on his shoulder to stem the bleeding. In the time it took for the white-haired Vampire to pace and mutter to himself in French, Claude fixed his attention to the task of healing the wound and watching as the muscles, veins, nerves, and tissues stitched back together. It was mere moments before his skin had returned to its natural state, though his outfit would never be repaired.

Fortunately, he had not dressed in one of his more coveted attires this evening. When once the German accustomed himself to wearing only Brioni, Guuci, Burberry, and the like, he now found himself staring at a wardrobe filled with jumpers, trousers, and jackets with no particular name. The white t-shirt and pin-striped suit jacket that he adorned himself with tonight could be thrown away without a tear being shed, and now that his wound had healed over without leaving a mark, he could focus with the task at hand: the white wolf that paced the centre of his living room.

[Myk]

“C'est un bâtard pompeux et arrogant,” Myk growled the only comprehensible phrase amidst the tirade of verbal expletives.

“Charming,” Claude sneered in return, his golden eyes half-lidded in a vexed gaze. He had yet to move from the site of the attack and still had his hand pressed to his shoulder.

“Well, it is true.”

The white-haired Vampire’s stomping ceased; his bloodied hands found their respective hip bones and he glared over his shoulder at the other man with a wicked smile. Myk enjoyed this expression; the way anger tugged at his brows and made a nest of fine creases above the man’s distinguished nose somehow made those amber eyes even more glorious. But, it was more than just the physical reaction; it was the fact that Claude had mustered any symbol of genuine emotion at all that caused the Telepath’s still-beating heart to throb. Though, just as quickly as that flash of anger had appeared, it had been ripped away like lightning. Claude was soon smiling again and his smooth, even-tempered features relaxed like exquisitely sculpted bronze.

“I’m afraid that’s only partly true,” Claude offered with a haughty tone. The young Blood Thief made his way over to the black glass cabinet and took out a bottle of whiskey and a pair of tumblers before setting them upon the counter top; his right hand leaving bloody palm prints wherever he touched. “My father and mother were married before they conceived me, so I cannot be a ********.”

Myk rolled his eyes before strutting toward the sofa and throwing himself into it; the black leather Chesterfield was unyielding to his petite frame, yet was still a comfort somehow. “Of course you would respond literally,” he growled again, but his Parisian accent had melted only to be encased by a hard coating of guttural German. “Sie sind langweilig.”

“Boring you, am I?” Claude replied, his voice rising with mock-conviction. He filled the tumblers with the honey-coloured liquid and presented one of them to the Vampire as he spoke next. “Then you’ve clearly not been pampered enough.”

Pewter eyes looked at every square observable inch of the other male; down to the finest hairs that traced the contour of his cheek. Meanwhile, the sound of a steady heart beat and the rain lashing against the windows played in his ears like music, and the scent of Claude’s cologne mingling beautifully with his blood, teased his nostrils. It was suffocating to receive so much sensory stimulation and so, for a moment at least, the sound of Claude’s velvety voice mottled into the surrounding din like so many feathers inside a silk pillow held over his face. And then it was ripped away and he saw again as he would always see people; through rose-tinted spectacles. Myk’s smile transformed from wicked to seductive and he accepted the offered glass.

“True…” the white-haired man purred. His long fingers wrapped around the glass and brushed against Claude’s as he took it from him. For the briefest moment, it was like touching the sun. “But. The two things are capable of exclusivity.”

“Hmm. So what else can I do to entertain you?”

Myk brought the tumbler to his lips, hooking the hard rim behind his fangs and feeling the glass squeak as he applied some pressure. As he tipped the base back gently, waves of the golden liquor flooded into his mouth, burning flavourlessly on his tongue and down his throat. With just a few languid swallows, the glass was empty and Myk deposited the blood-stained tumbler on the ground.

“Come and sit with me,” the Telepath hummed, patting the seat beside him.

The character of Myk’s voice was low, yet ethereal; this dark, seductive sound that a cat may make while it is fondly considering the canary before it. Claude frowned naturally, concern aging his perfect skin and making him more handsome still. Myk’s smile spread into something deeply scarlet and he decided to make his trap a little bit more appealing so as to snare his prey. He lifted a single leg, and with a ballerina’s grace, made a slow arc in the air before it came to rest over the other; the lace of his attire flowed like inky water with his movements, revealing the skin of his thighs. Pewter eyes observed the slow flicker of movement in Claude’s gaze with satisfaction, and what started as a few pebbles rolling downhill quickly became a mudslide, tearing that pristine facade from the Blood Thief. He put his untouched drink aside and descended on Myk like a shroud.

[Claude Lambert]

He grabbed the Vampire by the waist, pulling him up against his chest and claiming his mouth in a feverish kiss. The taste of whiskey was potent on Myk’s tongue as he rubbed it against his own, but there was also something else there; a faint tang of iron and a bitter-sweet flavour that was also uniquely his. Claude leant back toward the couch, pushing the male down and Myk tugged him along by the shirt - the material tearing at the seams - until they were lying flat across the sofa. They continued to kiss, Claude’s tongue dominating Myk’s mouth so he could savour the mingling of spice and blood and feel the point of fangs catch that wet muscle. He didn't pull back until the other man's lips were glistening with saliva and he could peer right into those entrancing eyes. With one hand still cradling a hip, the German’s other hand gently swept through the lengths of bone-white hair near Myk’s scalp before brushing stray strands behind an ear. As they lay there, the drizzle of rain rising to a steady beat in his ears overlaid by the steady thumping of his own heartbeat, Claude looked at Myk in a way he had never looked at anyone before.

Myk had been forced into the submissive position yet again, lying like a fragile bird nestled between strong limbs and black leather. His white hair was splayed around him, that buttery skin looked soft and edible against black lace as it pulled taut across lean muscle and prominent collar bones. The only part of him that did not look vulnerable in that moment was a pair of pewter eyes. They were candles in the night, their cool, grey light a reflection of guarded passion; like an animal running free with the raw power of pleasure, but always looking over its shoulder as if unsure of whether to trust the source of it. As a small but teasing smile crept upon the Vampire’s face, goosebumps prickled his porcelain skin, not the kind that one gets in the cold - though Claude was always keenly aware of how his own body heat leached away from him whenever they were together - but the kind of goosebumps one experiences when the excitement of the present confronts the obscurity of the future.

Ah, yes. Claude knew well enough that the white-haired Vampire had intended on luring him into a trap, but he wasn’t so helpless to this siren’s song as many an unseasoned sailor. As beautiful as the creature was - and Claude could admit that he found Myk’s unique physical attractiveness as confusing as it was evocative - the German was hardened beyond these foolish tricks. Still, he was curious about the Vampire’s motivations, about what drove him to be on the attack so frequently this evening. After the physical assault, Myk had proceeded to lecture Claude on a personal level, and so the German could only assume that whatever was troubling Myk was seemingly personal and inspired by something that Claude had done, or had not done.

There are entire schools of philosophy built around the belief that verbal communication makes up only a very limited part of what two people share; that words are nothing but information, and it's the body language, facial expressions, and the way people touch that relays true emotion. Claude was rarely very honest with anyone, and perhaps this was becoming less of a secret to the Vampire as well as something that was becoming a source of contention. Claude’s brows twitched into a frown at the thought.

“What do you want?” he asked.

The words were hushed, intimate and dripped like honey between them, but when it seemed like Myk had caught them on his tongue, he spat them back out at the Blood Thief.

“What do you want?” Myk asked venomously.

And then it all clicked and made sense to him.

“I take it you’re no longer satisfied with our arrangement.”

“No.”

“...And how might I remedy that?”

Rather than answer the question, in this instance, Myk clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and rolled his eyes. Whilst still holding onto the German’s shirt - a shirt that was by now stained crimson and torn to shreds - Myk dragged a long leg up the insides of Claude’s thighs until it met a particularly vulnerable area. He kept it there, pressing a knee against that flesh, and continued to keep eye contact until Claude was sure that he was about to experience further pain. It took a quick flip to get Claude completely onto his back, onto the floor beside the sofa with a hard whack, with Myk moving at speed and elegance too dexterous for the eye to detect in order to pin the Blood Thief between his knees. Their positions had completely reversed to leave Claude in the submissive state and Myk looked rather proud of himself as he straddled the other’s waist; sharp claws pinching into Claude’s bare abdomen as though he was ready to gut him.

[Myk]

It was a very good question though; one Myk might have considered out loud, one he might have even forced the young Blood Thief to engage with should he have let himself fall for the temptation of logic and rationality over cruelty. Myk was always the student first, the curious cat seeking out the cream in the mysteries of the Universe. It distracted him often, forcing him off of one path and onto the other. Really, Alice and her Wonderland had nothing on him. The drug-laced fantasies and twisted charm that made up the world of Lewis Carroll’s engagingly creepy masterpiece was a blink of surrealism to the eclectic, misguided world of this Telepath. The things he had seen and the things he had done could very well have made the Cheshire Cat green with envy, or, maybe just green out of nausea. It wasn’t entirely clear. After all, Myk was part marauding malevolent feline with a toothy grin, part acutely sensitive schizophrenic hatter, and maybe even a part or two of Jabberwock.

Beware the jaws that bite and the claws that catch...

The way Myk looked down at Claude in that moment was not unlike the look a cat might give a mouse as it considered the value of its life. Sometimes the mouse was food and sometimes the mouse was just for play. Even when death wasn’t purposeful, it didn’t mean a tooth or claw couldn’t slip, couldn’t puncture a lung or sever an artery. The cat had the mouse under its paw, its wide-eyed face apathetic amongst the shimmer of white hair. With claws gleaming as superficially as the smile he wore, Myk dropped his weight down slowly and crept down Claude’s body as sly as growing ivy, leaving kisses in his wake. The cotton of that tattered shirt slid with the movement, loosening and tugging away from bronze skin yet still clinging to Claude in patches where the blood remained damp and sticky. The Telepath had had quite enough of it and plucked the piece into two halves like his fingers were the blades of scissors. Claude grunted irritably in response.

Pewter eyes sank into the other male’s bare flesh, admiring how it stretched and bent around pectorals, down a breastbone, over abdominal muscles, and lower, lower before disappearing into mesmerizing black where his kimono and Claude’s trousers merged. Myk crawled back up the male’s body to continue what he was doing, to play out more devious teasing. Myk pressed his smooth cheek against the stubble of Claude’s jaw; he could feel the way the little hairs grated, sending a tingle straight down his spine. His chest heaved and his hands slid onto shoulders between them, bloody nails digging slightly. He heard a moan beneath him. Myk pressed closer, his lips caressing an ear while he breathed, and then he caught an earlobe between his teeth, biting down just hard enough for it to go as white as those fangs.

“Liebling,” the voice summoned from beneath; it sounded low, husky, yet affirmative. “Do answer the question.”

Myk clenched his teeth drawing out a sharp yelp as well as a few droplets of blood. The moment that liquid iron glazed his tongue, his nerve endings fizzled and he saw starlight bursting behind his eyes. It was just enough of a distraction that the German could exploit with ease. He reached up, took a handful of hair, and tugged; his wrist twisting so that he was able to guide the seething Vampire onto the floor, his legs kicking out. There were cold hands snared around his forearm again, those long claws scratching and leaving raw aching lines down his skin, but Claude didn’t let go. Gold clashed with pewter as the German pressed an arm across Myk’s thighs to restrain his fighting.

“Stop struggling,” he informed the Vampire patiently.

Claude’s tone was as calm and collected as it always was - even as the smallest trickle of blood danced down his neck from his ear. As his intention was to calm the flailing wolf, he wasn’t doing a terribly good job of it. However, he had begun to acknowledge his shortcomings as well as the behavioural patterns of his companion. Claude realised that the longer he stayed his temper and tried to neutralise the situation, the more it stoked the fires of rage in his lover and brought him to attack. And, for a man who had quite a lot to say as the Telepath did on a normal day, it seemed that Myk was being awfully reserved tonight. They had come to the root of the problem already, yet rather than talk about it logically and respectfully, they were rolling around on the floor like a pair of beasts drawing blood and pulling hair…