Reciprocation [Victor Lark]

[Seven Xu]

Seven’s expression was drawn flat, and no color came to his cheeks as Victor’s palms pushed warmth on his thighs through the thin fabric. He thought to pull away in protest, to wipe that smirk from those pink lips with harsh words - but his heart would not allow him to be so cold. Instead, he followed after Victor in silence for a few strides. Even the experience of walking in the dress was foreign; he felt naked, little but the stale air in the shop and a hint of fabric touched his thighs as he moved – where there should have been the comforting wrap of trousers there was nothing. Crimson eyes grew narrow, starving Victor of those gorgeous irises before cutting him off completely when he turned on his heel and the face turned to feathered white hair. Attempting to push discomfort from the front of his mind, Seven gathered a collared shirt as blue as a midsummer sky from a nearby rack into his arms as Victor cheerfully planned out their day. It wouldn’t be long before Victor had noticed that Seven was no longer trailing him and as his vapid gaze focused on the shirt suitable for a young man that he cradled in his pale arms, he felt the familiar warmth of a body at his back.

When Victor closed in, Seven’s ear met those grinning lips that dared him to finish the day in the dress. The dress he only donned on a whim in a dressing room game the other had started; a game that had gone sour before it even began. Pink flared on his cheeks and his chest rose in a deep breath before he broke the contact and turned to face the teasing countenance. “Why are you doing this?” The question was accompanied by a free hand that reached up to fuss with the dark lining of Victor’s linen jacket. Then, the inquiry morphed into hurt accusation: “You kiss me only in the darkness of my room and dress me like a woman.”

“I’m a man,” Seven swallowed; the statement was absurd coming from a boy impersonating the likeness of a Konti whore, and he seemed to be convincing himself as much as Victor he took a step closer to narrow the gap between them. He cleared his throat, splayed white fingers now pressing his heat against Victor’s pinstriped chest. “And I like you; I like you a lot. Enough to wear this ridiculous thing outside for you but I need to know one thing,” his voice cracked, and digits twitched, feeling around the rim of a button before dipping momentarily between the folds of the crisp linen shirt to touch the skin beneath. Seven’s eyes narrowed again, boring holes into those that stared back at him, infinitely darker. “Will you have me as a man, or will you hide me in skirts and the blackness of the citadel?”

Seven would never admit that he would comply with Victor’s requests regardless of the outcome of his answer; his adoration for the man he had nursed back to health bordered on obsession. It was all he could do not to give in to Victor’s whims without questioning them first. Seven longed for that curious hand on his face; Victor had fussed and obsessed so many times in their dark world with the soft skin of Seven’s lips, his cheeks, and the subtle curve where his chin meets his neck. Exhaling, he resisted the urge to lean forward and close the small gap of air and clothing that still separated them and looked up at Victor again beneath heavy white lids with a hopeful, but thin smile.

“Prove to me that you accept me as I am, and I’ll wear whatever you want me to wear.” The smile grew as he searched Victor’s face for a modicum of sincerity, praying he would find more than manipulative charm in his response. Then the demand turned desperate as Victor got his flushing prize: Seven’s cheeks attracted enough burning red to match his flickering irises and his lips moved in a breathless murmur. “Please.”

[Victor Lark]

All unconscious efforts to stand over and impose on the slight, white man shrank with Victor’s posture. Genuine surprise was only a fleeting glimmer on his eyes. His smile fell, but did not quite turn into a frown. He was not in the mood for an argument, and any show of negativity on his face would lead to just that. Their eyes met and he did not think once to look away. It was nearly impossible to gaze too deeply into his eyes, which were forever slaves to shallow whims and changing thoughts, but in that moment they might have peered with an unusually intense desire—to understand.

Seven’s beautiful hands had wandered over his chest, which now responded with a swell of similar heat despite how he had resisted returning the touch. He saw red eyes glisten with tears, while the once happy and hesitant voice whispered with sadness. The poor man was as bright as a cherry. Through his faint smile, Victor’s brow furrowed. He was silent for a few long moments, thinking.

Then both of his hands shot up from where they ached to hang as his sides, cupping Seven’s delicate chin harshly. His face felt warm on his palms. It was all he could do not to kiss him, not to strip him where he stood and ravish him, as he had not done for so long, because he was weak, or because it was inappropriate. Victor had never meant to hide whatever it was they had. He had fallen into the habit of teasing; it had not occurred to him that public affection would not offend his blushing, careful companion. “This is no good!” He said, eyes wide and confused, as he gripped onto soft flesh, “I only want to play.” If Seven were smart, he would realize how much of a promise it was.

He released him and stepped away, leaving white lines on the red skin. His arms stretched behind him and the thin white jacket fell soundlessly into his hands. “The room is dark because you made it that way, darling,” he mentioned idly as he stepped forward again. He had always hated the darkness. He depended so much on his eyes that it almost pained him to be without them. The statement, though, was less an accusation and more a reflection of Victor’s need to control the situation, to make himself seem the sole wielder of responsibility and power.

He brought the jacket to Seven and pulled his pale arms through it, straightening the lapel with an unnecessary tug. The small padding in its shoulders sharpened and broadened the dainty femininity of Seven’s body, but Victor could still feel the bareness of his legs, when he reached. And, holding those hips beneath his fingers, he pulled the weightless half-blood against the rack of ugly blue shirts. Victor embraced Seven in the hot and hungry kiss which he had not even known he craved, which had waited on his begging lips since he had first felt the hot breath behind the inspection of his suit. Honest, unrelenting passions filled many seconds.

The old woman walked by and cleared her throat, but Victor would wait even longer than that to stop himself, if he were not opposed. When he did, the shirt that had caught Seven’s longing eye was clutched in his hand. He tossed it into the pile on ground and ruined the warm mood with a forlorn look and a sigh. He said, “I like it, but I won’t have you blue all day. If you don’t like it, don’t do it.” It was a half-truth, and in it lingered the dare. “I don’t want you to wear anything.”

When he realized the alternative meaning of his own words, his smile grew again, then turned into a snorting laugh.

[Seven Xu]

Everything that touched Seven’s life seemed to have an inevitable expiration; the presumption that the ties of family and friendships would always end had become less a fear and more an exhausting reality that he could only prepare for. It was what it was – Seven could only assume that he had been measured and found unfit for such luxuries by the gods when he was born. As tears stung the corners of unfocused eyes and the pressure of cool fingertips left his jaw, Victor’s voice pulled him back into reality and his aspect lightened. He may have even smiled. In their time together, Seven had gotten competent at reading the subtleties in the man’s voice; his inflection, aided by touch or a fleeting smirk often meant something else entirely from the words he spoke – and he knew a promise when he heard one.

“I did.” Seven mumbled the admission of breaking his lantern in response to Victor’s crooning defense – and that would be all he would manage to utter before the warmth of Victor’s white suit jacket starved the shop air of his creamy shoulders. A light tug closed the space between them, and the wandering digits that slipped expertly beneath the delicate folds of his dress to rest on his bare hips brought out jubilant exclamation and a ripple of rising heat beneath his stomach. The fear of losing Victor had long since melted away from the front of his mind by the time his back pressed against crisp blue linen and their mouths met in a hungry embrace.

And then the dare returned, masked by a double entendre and an undeniably adorable snort brought on by self-surprise. Seven shared in the laughter only a moment before silencing that teasing response in a reciprocal kiss. Thin arms snaked around Victor’s neck and he relished in the warm grip around his fleshy thighs as venom burned on pink lips, wet from a mixture of their sweet saliva. Only when the tingling arousal between them threatened to contradict the illusion of Seven’s femininity did he break the kiss to leer in carnal adulation at Victor. Never had he been so bold, even in the privacy of his apartment. Seven’s hips strayed from Victor’s fingertips and the mirthful sincerity behind a growing smile flourished. “I’m going to need proper shoes.”


All things considered, Seven was delighted to no longer have the roof of the tailoring shop looming over his head. After they had broken their shameless embrace the halfblood had added a pair of cream-brown pants and another white shirt to their pile of purchases before the conglomeration of linen and silk and chiffon had been paid for in full – what they hadn’t worn out had been wrapped up for pickup when their day had come to an end so that the pair were not bogged down by bulky bags as they continued their adventure. The Warehouse District was abuzz with activity, of merchants in and outside of large structures showcasing wares both local and foreign. It reminded him of the Great Bazaar, but it was much easier on the lungs to shop in the open air rather than beneath ground by torchlight. The dress hung obediently around Seven’s thighs despite wafts of salty air that rushed between free standing buildings; and the shoes he had chosen were little more than flat white sandals held on by thin strips of silk wrapped and tied around his ankles.

“So,” those piercing eyes rolled sideways and he offered a knowing smirk; a reflection of excitement in the secret only they knew. Now that all traces of doubt had been abolished, it was a game again. A game of disguise and deception brought on by coy curiosity and teenage lust. A question bordering on rhetorical filled the air between them, for Seven could care less what they did so long as they were together when they did it. “What now?”

[Victor Lark]

As the jacket’s masculinity was stripped from fair Seven again, the heat of Victor’s affection did not change. The differences between men and women were far less interesting than the differences between individuals, and the individual whose tears had turned to lust beneath his hands interested him beyond the confines of his usual curiosities. His lip tingled in the arousing fire that only Seven could grant him, and he sank in the kindness that only Seven had ever shown him. He cupped a blushing cheek with a forgiving smile, and chuckled as the man embraced his game.

Arms hooked at the elbow, Victor lead his new date down a wandering route with many unnecessary corners. At first, he would give Seven a gentle push or move his foot too close to his sandalled foot, trying to see how far the skirt would stray. But the behavior became tiring soon enough, for it was boyish and did not correspond to his gentleman’s look. The suit straightened him and he eventually forgot those unsubtle inanities. Instead, his opposite hand sometimes crossed his body to caress Seven’s hip or his waist or the side of his chest where there was no breast to tease, dotting his ear and jaw with an occasional kiss or a burst of blithe laughter. If others noticed his antics, he did not seem to care.

Victor had mistaken the time. When they had set out, it was already late morning, and when they finally returned into high walls and narrow corridors, the sun had been descending for hours. The tower rang fourteen bells as he stopped in front of another door, clad in the ivorn paint that had caught his eye on his first day in the city. As the black-and-white pair approached, the door swung open at the hand of a well-dressed serving boy and Victor offered an obligatory bow. He pulled Seven into a great room with dainty glass lanterns and lace tablecloths, the ashy smell of a low fire and the pleasant tune of wandering violinists. A tall, dark-haired girl met them behind the door.

She said, “Welcome to the White Swan. Do you have a reservation?” She nodded at the affirmative. “Your name?”

His reply was greeted with a raised eyebrow. She bothered to look at her little paper before she said, “You’re late.”

“I’m not,” Victor replied without a beat. The thought crossed his mind to lean against the table and let some sort of charm trickle out between his teeth, but the energy of the moment kept his hand clasped in Seven’s. His posture matched that of a gentleman’s, and he was as well dressed as the lady beside him; they would not be turned away. He gestured at their surroundings. “You have plenty of tables.”

Her eyes did not follow his direction. That side of her brow rose to an impossible height as she considered the two a moment, then gave a glance to a passing girl with unoccupied hands. The second one immediately turned and, smiling graciously, invited the two to join her to a table.

Victor walked behind his girl, and pulled out Seven’s chair before his own. As soon as the girl had left, a man appeared with a few plates: bread, butter, cheese, and an empty dish for either side of the table. “To drink?” He asked.

Victor craved a knowing look from the man across the table, but he knew he might laugh if he sated the desire, so he stared at the server’s face as he replied, “White wine, please.” The server left quickly and Victor split a warm roll. He lifted his chin with a pompous affect, resting the tip of his knife against the cheese plate as he pulled his voice through his nose. He could barely push the grin from his lips as he said, “How do you like your bread, m’lady?”

[Seven Xu]

The White Swan was unlike anything Seven had set his eyes upon in the city. The delicate architecture, the well-crafted bronze candelabras and the lavish art that adorned every wall in the large room where tables seemed to swirl deliberately around a central hearth drew air from the halfblood’s lungs in a sound of awe. When they approached the hostess, Seven remained silent at Victor’s side, fingers wrapped delicately around his date’s arm and gaze cast downward; afraid that if any critical eye caught his face, their illusion would be ruined. They were a far cry from their first meeting, a perfect pair donned in crisp matching clothing as they were lead in a line between rows of chairs to one of the many empty tables set with fine silver that glittered beneath the flickering sway of candlelight. Relief came when the waiter finally turned his back at the request of white wine and Seven’s lungs emptied in a mixture between a sigh and a giggle.

Legs crossed at the thigh and teased the notion of light fabric slipping too far before a fragile hand reached down to fuss and reposition the feathery chiffon and maintain what little sensibility the situation afforded him. Seven leaned forward, that same hand dipping between the folds of the dress at his hip and that familiar blush offering Victor a window into the subtle fluctuations between amusement, lust and elation. The pink and flattened ‘m’ of Victor’s lips had him caught in their spell, urging him to lean across the table and take the bottom line of flesh beneath his teeth, to make it swell and burn with the weak sting of an adoring kiss. When the mocking nasal voice pulled him from his reverie, the remaining laughter that had been caught in the back of his throat erupted, genuine and soft.

Seven’s response was as enthusiastic and deriding as the question posed; two fingers dipped into his share of the oven-fresh roll to rip out the fleshy insides slathered with butter and popped a bite into his mouth, licking his oily fingers after swallowing. “The bread is quite delectable.” The waiter returned, presenting a glistening glass bottle filled to the brim with golden-white wine and filling their glasses before leaving the remainder for them to finish.

Several beats of silence fell between them before Seven’s sandal – scuffed by Victor’s shameless attempts to undermine the protection of his short dress – curled around the back of Victor’s calf and he drew the well-dressed man back into his crimson gaze. “So,” Seven lifted his own glass by its stem in a toast. “I don’t think I properly welcomed you back to the land of the living.” His tone dabbled between apology and convivial amusement before the thin curve of glass and gold-flecked liquid met his lips to punctuate the statement.

“It’s unfair, really.” Seven swallowed, wine lingering bittersweet on his tongue. “I feel like I know you better than you know me; you’ve been out of it for so long.” His heavy-lidded stare remained on Victor, darting between his dark eyes, his lips - hopeful for a change in the teasing expression, some modicum of a deeper emotion. Garnet eyes told of something that went beyond shallow desire; and when Seven’s hand crossed the small round table to grasp Victor’s hand with his own, the once teasing smile grew sincere.

“I want you to know everything.”

[Victor Lark]

As Victor took a large bite of the eviscerated bread, he evaluated the accumulating results of his secret experiment. Seven blushed hardest when he was upset, but that was not a good thing. The color also came when their bodies neared, complemented by a comfortable heat; he saw it increasingly in happiness, in nervousness, in drunkenness. For all he could tell, it meant passions which he loved to see (and did not realize he secretly envied). The trend was only the absence of contentment, and could only be used as a vague start-point if he were to learn anything.

But there were different sorts of things to learn, and they were not always as difficult as the indecipherable intricacies of expression. Seven suggested a new tactic, perhaps more wittingly than Victor could tell. The pair of dark, searching eyes quelled into something receptive and hopeful. A smoldering stone fell and rose again in his gut, leaving a trail of empty yearning in its wake, to be filled by Seven’s words. He turned his wrist and pulled his fingers through those that held his.

Victor’s head tipped as he tried not to seem too eager, forcing his eyes to avoid Seven’s so that he would not be distracted by the shine in them. “I remember so much and so little of what you said to me. Your new wall has most of it. It’s been a week, I think, since I have been outside, but I don’t know what the date was when I first arrived. I’m not even certain what it is I have revealed about myself, to be honest!” Honest. The word tasted sour.

In fact, he did not much care. In his attempts to ask eloquently, he found himself talking too much about the wrong person: his boring self, about whom he knew everything already. He took the neck of his glass and considered its contents, swirling it in precarious circles as his mind reached out blindly for some better way to begin.

“How long was it?” He said finally. There might have been hesitance in his voice, but as soon as he recognized it, he tried to hide it with casual unconcern. “How long did you let me sleep in your bed, without any payment or compensation? Why did you let me stay?” The last few syllables were punctuated by a short laugh. His attempt to lighten the heavy question exposed a breath of uncertainty, but he quickly drowned it in a sip of wine. It stung pleasantly in his throat, barely a fraction of that which he loved to feel beneath Seven’s fang. At the thought, Victor was drawn to look at white lips, and inevitably found himself swimming in red eyes. “I can’t say I deserve so much kindness,” he added with a joking smile and not an ounce of self-pity, ripping another bite of bread with his teeth.

[Seven Xu]

The well-planned responses and deliberate exclamations were not lost on Seven’s ears; he had come to expect it. To urge sincerity from Victor was an exercise in futility and one that he was coming to terms with. Neither charm nor blithe laughter was in short supply every time those dark eyes incited Seven’s passions from the deepest reaches of his mind. When he spoke of himself it was if he was reciting the tail end of a tedious book. Surely his life could not have been so painfully mediocre.

Victor had rested for seventeen days – he counted them – sixteen excluding today. Seven’s fingers withdrew from Victor’s upturned palm and he reached again for the delicate glass of wine. It had grown lukewarm in the absence of ice to chill it but it was not carelessly guzzled like the ale in the ‘Stallion’s Rear’, it was gracefully drawn from the glass and tasted. “More than two weeks,” he admitted as the fermented sweetness coated his tongue and made the air beneath his nose grow thick and fragrant in its presence. Victor’s flippant laughter had prolonged Seven’s initial reaction to his second question, but as his lips closed again and the tingle of alcohol flared in his throat he realized the austerity of the question imposed. Their eyes had locked again, steely irises piercing the sanguine leer that so often matched the cheeks that wrapped beneath it.

“Why?” Seven repeated the tail-end of the question in a vain attempt to draw out the sentiment and gain additional time to think before the silence grew stale and concernedly hesitant. Pink rose in him again; another fleeting reward for the Ravokian keeping tabs on his shifting skin tones. Then light eyebrows knit together and he drew his floundering expression into a closed smile as he asked in earnest, “Isn’t it obvious?”

It might as well have been rhetorical, as nothing seemed obvious with Victor. Seven paused, only a beat before white lips parted to betray the coy facade and endanger the comfort he had found in a relationship largely based on boyish lust and delightful ambiguity. “I like you. I mean, it’s obvious-” there’s that word again; “it’s no secret, I have said it before.” Mismatched nails pressed against Victor’s open hand again, craving his warmth. “But, there’s something more. Something that came with time; while you were recovering. I let you stay because I wanted you to stay, and I’m kind to you because I don’t want you to go.”

Worry flashed behind heavy-lidded eyes and the blonde lashes that framed them wobbled as his chin dipped, breaking the stare. His bleary gaze flickered over their entangled fingers as his words hung between them, threatening to shatter whatever inexplicable connection it was they shared. Red followed a trail of white linen to once again meet brazen coal, “It was no act of charity, and has nothing to do with whether or not you deserved it. I want you sleeping in my bed.”

[Victor Lark]

Victor’s hand remained lonely on the table as Seven removed his, waiting until it was filled again. His brow creased in confusion as those rosy gems shone with some unfamiliar emotion, then deprived him of any examination. But then he smiled with unusual softness, and pulled his hand from their mutual grasp to hold Seven’s face. He moved his fingers through the hair at the back of his scalp and ran a thumb over his jaw, not to invoke some reaction, but because he wanted to.

“I won’t go,” he said. This promise was more sincere than the one that had hung on beer-befuddled breath in stifling darkness, and more cognizant than that which had been said beside a dressing room not an hour previous. Nonetheless, it was not one Victor had the right or capability to make.

Still, in that moment, he thought he was being truthful. He wondered to what extent Seven could see, and if he could see that. His eyes darted, searching for the answer. When they found nothing, he turned away. There he saw that a pair of menus had been placed on the opposite side of the table, and he reached for one. His hand slipped over the black lines of chiffon that hung on Seven’s chest before it settled on a bare knee. “And I want to sleep your bed!” He added, smiling but unintentionally distant. It was the charm and grace that served as façade, and behind that were walls of courtesy and etiquette; Victor had rarely strayed much deeper than that, so that he did not even recognize the traits as dishonest. When his mother was at her kindest and most loving, she had been polite. “I like you, too. And I’m grateful for your hospitality.”

Silence settled for an instant. It was true; nothing was obvious with Victor. He turned every encounter into an exploration, because if he did not, the world was only a hollow series of images. Nuance escaped him, unless he looked for it. And though most might not believe it, he did not always have the energy. In Seven, he saw that which had already been told to him: affection, adoration, lust. As he considered what more he would like to know, the same insecurities that had once risen in the pale man’s cheeks swelled in Victor’s throat. He had easily wooed unsuspecting others for his own ends in the past, but rarely had he been at either end of such a prolonged devotion as Seven had shown. Was he unique in earning Seven’s infatuation, or did he take in strangers seasonally?

His expression rose to laughing charm again as he pulled his hand above the table and handed his date the other menu. “All that wine and you’ve not eaten anything. What’s the lunch here, five courses? I wonder if the bread counts.” His eyes scanned the page without reading a single line. He waited a few seconds before he resumed the investigation as discreetly as possible, leaning back and tipping his menu against the table. “So why is it you want me to stay? What is it that Seven sees in a man, that he would let him sleep in his bed for over two weeks, and longer?” Outwardly, it was a playful interview. Really, he was desperate for validation.

[Seven Xu]

Seven’s blush flourished as the hand that fussed with his delicate skirt earlier found those fingers wrapped around his bare knee. The promise was heard and taken as it was; he cared little of the distant future that neither could predict and the impossibility that dwelled in such a bold claim. Any thoughts of apprehension dissolved in the thick honey that flowed from Victor’s mouth and left Seven with a look in his eyes that could be interpreted by the most illiterate of social critics as nothing less than unadulterated joy.

“Does it matter?” The coy retort rolled in buoyant laughter and Seven stood, plucking his dainty chair from its birth and moving it around the table to sit adjacent to his date, rather than having to stare at him from between ornate candles. A flurry of black and white brushed one corner of the menu Victor held before Seven settled down, content in his new arrangement. The move was not inherently obvious in its duality, but when he opened his mouth to speak of matters of his heart he did not want to be forced into those steely, inescapable eyes.

“The first thing you ever said to me,” Despite the newfound ease in his position to allow his gaze to wander, he nonetheless found his chin tilted in Victor’s direction, scanning rounded features in his peripherals. “You asked me, ‘why do your eyes look the way they do?’. I don’t remember what I said-,” in fact, he had never answered the question. A smile drew a dark line between fleshy lips, ripe with a blush, “Not once have you looked at me with an ounce of contempt or told me that I was something less because I was born of dirty blood. You don’t even know why your lips sting when I kiss you – but you don’t seem to care – because it doesn’t matter.”

Seven shrugged. It wasn’t a shrug of dismissal, and when he leaned his back against his chair so that their silent waiter could present them with identical bowls of steaming and opaque cream-based soup, those fingers shot out beneath the table to tangle around Victor’s in a firm hold. Their game was still afoot, and the amusement in the secrecy it demanded had not faded. As quickly as he had arrived the waiter was gone again, fading into a crowd of pretentious black ties and wailing violinists and gaudy flecks of gold.

A wildflower scent lingered briefly under Victor’s nose as Seven leaned in, close enough to whisper beneath the cacophonous murmur of dainty tinkling porcelain and conversations out of reach. “Some things feel better if you don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the ‘why’.” Warm lips found the line of Victor’s jaw, and as Seven exhaled the discerning aroma of wine laced his words, “That doesn’t mean I won’t tell you everything you want to know.”

[Victor Lark]

The answer mulled in his mind as he glanced up at the waiter with a silent smile of thanks. The moment his back was turned, Victor’s eyes returned to the leaning Seven. For an instant he let all talk ebb from his attention in order to steal a kiss of his own. With a mutual wine-tainted exhale, he moved to take Seven’s bottom lip between his own harmless teeth as if he could award him with a similar sensation. His hand found the white neck below, and lingered there as their faces parted. “And I want to know everything,” he replied with a half-joking grin. Even he was not sure what it meant.

With a short pause of consideration, he continued, “If not ‘why’, then what?” His eyes and hand both strayed to caress the bend in Seven’s shoulder where the delicate sleeve rippled to an end. “Most things feel better when you know why they are, I find.”

Even though his raised eyebrows suggested amusement, Victor sighed when he caught himself speaking in riddles. He glanced at the steaming bowl before him and dipped his last scrap of bread with an uncouth plop into the velvety soup. He did not want to slip into a conversation about words and thoughts; the intangibility of the subject usually disoriented him and made him feel unintelligent. He would have much rather talked about Seven. There was an inkling in him that suggested pretense or manipulation in such openness, but Victor tried to push it from the back of his mind. He had spent two weeks telling stories, had he not? He was just an open man. Eager to accept that conclusion, Victor gobbled up at bread hungrily and said, “I know some things about your race, and I remember pieces of stories. Why doesn’t it matter? It is a part of you, and I don’t know much about it, but I like it.”

He lifted his hand again, unable to resist the feel of the soft skin which did not hesitate against his touch. His first two fingers brushed away a bit of white hair which did not actually obstruct his view of Seven’s eyes, and with his thumb he traced the line of his lip before he dared to press it against the venomous point. A wince raked his expression as the skin was punctured and the burn poured in, but he recovered quickly with an affectionate smile. “You can’t say something doesn’t matter. Everything matters. Every piece of you matters.” He lifted a sip of wine to wash out the bite and distract his wandering thoughts from recurring anxieties. “But what matters to you? What do you do when you aren’t telling stories to strange men who pass out in your bed?”