[Wildwood Music] The Games We Play [Seven]

[Victor Lark]

63 Spring, 511

Victor’s days in Syliras had adopted a painfully predictable pattern. He had grown tired of the city’s stodgy and impatient inhabitants, who were either too reserved in propriety or too boring to bother. Any real fun he ever had was followed by at least three days of tedious recovery. In the meantime, he had taken to spending hours alone in futile meditation, but he was weary of the faith required in expecting that anything would come of it. One day, he tried to break the routine by revisiting his favorite dining establishment, which he refused to call anything but The Stallion’s Rear. Of course, that early afternoon produced no one to amuse him.

Seven always managed to, though. With his mind on the spider-kin, Victor returned to his little hole of a home in hopes that he might find him; but he was not there, because he was working. He always seemed to be working. Victor wasn’t even entirely sure what he did there. Maybe he should—why hadn’t he thought of it before!

He could see that white head through the window before he even entered the establishment. So, naturally, as his steps pulled him faster forward for anticipation, so did they swerve him out of the window’s sight. When he reached it, he peeked for an instant to see if Seven was looking, then quickly stole behind the door again. A mischievous smile beamed across his face as he slowly pushed it open and ducked quietly into the small, cluttered room. There he stumbled noisily against a nearby table, but even then did not look towards the man at the front. His hands leaned heavily on the unpolished surface as he waited for the table’s quivering contents to settle. As he moved further into the haphazard aisle of half-finished wares in a sloppy attempt at browsing, his feet seemed to stray beneath him.

The summer heat had already left a thin sheen of sweat around his hairline, but this room seemed even hotter than the air in the narrow corridor outside. Though he would not dream of exposing his blemishes elsewhere, he unbuttoned the sleeves that hugged his wrists and rolled them to his elbows. The effort did little to rid him of the heat. With a sigh, he lifted a hand to inspect the wooden skeleton of a harp, then dared to steal an instant’s glance to where he had last seen his pale friend.

Certainly he could have greeted him outright, but where was the fun in that? He would let Seven approach him; Victor was confident that he would not be ignored.

[Seven Xu]

As if it wasn’t enough to bring a glistening sheen to white skin, humidity had to dig its balmy claws into every piece of woodwork Seven had laid his hands on that afternoon. A coat of veneer that had been applied to a guitar the better part of three bells ago was still wet beneath his probing fingertips. Had he the strength to open one of the jammed windows or a reliable doorstop, he may have freed his lungs from the thick musk of Wildwood Music’s workshop. Instead, the halfblood’s modest frame was folded over itself, trying to coax music from mandora.

Thoughts deviated from the insufferable heat as one hand pressed and released courses of catgut while its partner fussed along worn tuning pegs. Eventually, Seven’s mind settled on the forced homebody that more often than not occupied his—their—small hole in Stormhold. The gorgeous face that so often drifted through his mind wore a sardonic grin befitting of nobility, and it influenced trouble. It influenced a lot of things. Seven felt guilty for leaving Victor behind so often; not that he thought his bird would sing within the confines of yet another stone cage, but at least he could keep an eye on him, if he were here.

A blemish ran diagonally across Seven’s far upturned palm, disrupting the natural bend of lines that some claimed determined a man’s future; self-inflicted the night Victor returned to him with a pair of bloodied hands. “There, now we’re both marked,” he’d assured a weary face beneath ebony bangs. The sting of wounded skin and blood loss melted away and was forgotten in favour of unrelenting passions.

By some stroke of divine coincidence, the face in his mind manifested but for a moment on the other side of dirty glass. On a second pass it was gone; but with a tinkle of golden bell and weathered scrape of wood on stone floor, the door had flown open and produced the aimless wanderer himself. Seven swallowed a cry of surprise, drooping forward over crossed legs and muted instrument. “Victor?”

Futile attempts to capture Victor’s stormy gaze within his own beget a wide frown, and Seven left his perch in favour of a less conventional greeting. When his visitor feigned interest in the curve of an unfinished harp, leather-bound footsteps that had memorized every square foot of the shop floor made their silent approach. Moments later, a pair of slender white arms snaked around the waist of his interloper, and the push of snowy bangs trailed across the back of a sweat-damp neck. Seven’s deep exhale seemed to laugh at the expense of hops and stale bread that lingered in the wonted scent of the Ravokian. “You smell like a Stallion’s Rear.”

The embrace was short-lived; Seven released his customer and swung around to face him with that derisive spider grin and a pair of rubies no less striking in their familiarity. “You must really be sick of this town, if it’s come to visiting me at work.” Seven’s hands found the rough texture of a work table as he laid his weight against it and canted his head briefly in the direction of the door. He was giggling by the time their eyes met again, “So what can I do for you, sir?”

[Victor Lark]

That familiar embrace, as slender as it was solid, rescued the hermit of all residual ennui. A sigh steamed out of Victor’s melting body, and he moved his arms to take hold of those that held him. Before he could, an isabelline blur replaced the sensation of blind envelopment and settled into a smirking face. His brow found a similar grin at the sight of the man which he had not let himself see for so many seconds. The voice that itched in his throat paused for the sake of Seven’s jests, but in the face of the lousy charade, he weakened.

As quickly as the contact had been broken, so it was made again with a single sweeping step. Victor laced his fingers against the small of Seven’s back, basking in the feel of their adjoining hips. If Seven were any other clerk, he might have played the game with pretense and decorum, but here he did not have to; he relished the freedom of it.

“A lot of things,” he answered lowly, as if there were some ear around that would notice the suggestion. The smile that sprawled over his lips told how thoroughly impressed he was with the cleverness of his own retort, and the stench in their proximity explained the sentiment. Whatever could be smelled at Victor’s back was augmented on his breath: too many rounds of ale, bought by boredom and a heavy purse, swam thick in his warm veins. With that unspoken confession hanging between them, Victor stole the sardonicism from Seven’s lips with an enthusiastic kiss. He pushed at his jaw as he pulled his pelvis close, insisting attention on the unmistakable fire which had begun to rise there.

A sudden flourish tore Victor from their contiguity. It was against his better instinct, but even in intoxication he could appreciate and participate in a good game. He spun around and ran a finger idly around the circle of a small drum, but ultimately returned to the table where Seven had once leaned. He hopped onto it, clinging to its edges as it rocked on uneven legs and again stirred the precarious objects atop it. He reached out to pull his fingers through a mat of sweaty alabaster strings, then dropped his hand to clutch the table again. “Why don’t you tell me what you can do,” he said with a glassy-eyed grin, “so I can choose from my options?”

[Seven Xu]

The unmistakable taste of ale washed into Seven on an eager tongue, and the hot spark between the press of their hips was not lost on him. A blithe chirp took its first chance to escape when lips parted to exchange stale, breathed-in air, and venomous burn tattled on a blossoming desire otherwise well-hidden by the snug wrap of clothing. “I’m working.” the argument was weak at best; even Seven was not sure he believed it. Eight fingers weaved across a hot scalp and drove cool air between obsidian strands, a gesture that disagreed with the voiced reluctance.

Victor retreated. Seven exhaled. The trembling clatter of displaced wood pulled him out of floundering reverie. He was positive those instigative lips had said something, but Seven had to comb his mind to piece together their significance. “You want me to list everything?” Light brows bent incredulously at the request above almond-wrapped garnets that rolled in submissive amusement. “Of course you don’t.”

A set of fingers splayed wide across the span of one thigh and was used as leverage to hoist a second body onto the protesting work table. There he lingered, thumb tracing along the bony curve of Victor’s closest knee. “Well, sir,” Seven’s diluted sarcasm wafted away on a clever smirk and halting laughter. “There are many things I can do.”

Seven had learned a wealth from his time dutifully holed up in the stuffy workshop. From intonating stringed instruments; rigid swans with their fat wooden bottoms and graceful long necks, to the intricacies of making a flute sing properly—though he knew that Victor’s interest lay in impudence, not ability. Had Seven been a bolder man he may have padlocked the door and let Victor take him on the tabletop they shared, but he was a sober and prudish coward. If the game were to advance, its rules would have to change.

Oh, how he wanted to pull down that well-used mask of feigned drunken interest in favour of another in Victor’s ever-growing collection. Pallid digits receded from the warmth of one invisibly-scarred thigh. “Let’s start with a tour,” Seven finally offered, feet slapping against the floor as he left the wobbling table behind, “if you see anything that interests you, speak up.”

[Victor Lark]

His knuckles went white against the edge of the table as it shook beneath him, like an earthquake that threatened to throw him onto the hard floor below. Seven’s charged bite and wandering touch did little to assuage his distraction, but he refused to be confined to his seat; as soon as he was sure his precarious balance was steady, Victor fell from the table and stumbled after his coherent half. The room moved around him for a moment. As he clung to the narrow shoulders that moved ahead of him, an affectionate squeeze attempted to conceal the weakness in his balance.

Victor’s arms slithered forward to cross over a chest which he hoped might contain a swiftly beating heart. There he hugged him, drooping, and muttered against the hot beads on Seven’s neck, “Mhmm. Will do.” With a laugh, he stepped awkwardly after him, offering the occasional languid glance around the room from where he preferred to roll in the darkness behind his eyelids and the smell of salty white hair. Already, he was losing the will to indulge in this new game, which Seven had created in place of the vulgar exchange proposed by his visitor. It was impossibly hot.

He came up with a way to discourage the game by playing it, by showing Seven that it was no fun—and in the process, perhaps ignite a spark of irritation that could lead to a deeper flame. His hand strayed to reach out for a cornett, which Victor’s mind only recognized as a large, curved, gloriously phallic flute-thing. Slipping reluctantly from his favorite pair of shoulders, he took the instrument in both hands. The slope of cobalt could only trace its edges in idle examination; the mind behind cared little about the craftsmanship. But he guessed that Seven cared, and so he said, “Did you make this? If I broke it, could you fix it?”

And, true to his word, Victor’s hands tightened around both ends. His elbows twitched, his arms flexed, and the strong wood began to bend.

[Seven Xu]

Another exhale of hop-sweetened alcohol drifted past Seven’s ear and a set of arms closed in on his chest, successfully capturing the melodic thump of the heart that beat there. Seven nearly stumbled; the onus of a body denser in mass—despite their similar size—fell unceasingly against him with each step and made walking difficult. He had made such an effort to distract Victor’s crude mind, but the seed had already been planted in his own. With every uncouth push of chest to back, every laughing, breathy comment left on clammy skin, it flourished and nagged on his stoic countenance.

When favour was found in that of a horn rather than the halfblood’s narrow chest, Seven stopped his deliberate march and pivoted on one heel. “No. Wait, what?” The revolting crack of wood cut Seven’s bewilderment short and both hands snapped upward in an attempt to wrench the cornett away from Victor’s hazardous grip. It had looked like it belonged on the head of a bovine, but had been meticulously carved, with a diamond pattern adorning the slick black shine of paint—that was now splintering and bending impossibly between the forearms of Seven’s brazen fool.

Snap.

Tension of muscle melted away while the instrument—and Seven’s hope for diversion—clattered to the dirty floor in two large pieces. Crimson arrested insipid grey, and for a moment, anger flourished beneath a layer of desperation and fangs glistened from between lips that opened and closed and said no words. The white hands that failed to reprimand a now-mangled instrument pushed Victor’s hips and pressed his back against the near stone wall, unsettling nearby shelves. If there was aggression behind the action it was only fleeting; Seven peeled back his sober inhibitions and swallowed their next breath in a defeated kiss. Roaming digits pried back the hem of trousers and wrapped the root of Victor's burning arousal.

“You’re drunk,” the accusation was accompanied by a firm squeeze, “and you’re going to get me fired.”

Seven tore himself away from the victor. All signs of previous irritation had melted away and he pointedly kicked the hollow shell of the former instrument beneath the clutter of a far table before leaning into the tall and dirty window only a step to Victor’s right. “I can show you something.” The heavy wooden latch that held the window shut had swelled in the heat; Seven grit his teeth as he strained to open it, exhaling only when it gave and a glorious late summer afternoon wafted into the boiling workshop. A breath was caught before he spoke again and his eyes smiled. “Something you don’t know about me.”

[Victor Lark]

Barely had the slack of air swarmed between two newly separate pieces of instrument when Victor found his feet fumbling out in front of him. He was limp to the slight man’s brief hostility, both for the mesmerizing passion in the gesture and for his own failing fortitude. Rolling mercury shimmered around expanding pupils as he witnessed the prize of Seven’s anger, trying in vain to examine the red emotion before it inevitably faded. His hands rose to embrace the man that had assaulted him, tongue rifling wildly for a contender between lips that were not his own—but his fingers froze before they could grasp the face that had granted him sweet success.

He gasped. His eyes turned upward beneath faltering lashes. He was deaf to accusations that he might have otherwise been proud to accept; he could barely hear the moan that escaped his sagging mouth. The last of a warm shiver escaped through his toes as Seven’s glorious fingers receded, and Victor was left uncooled and incomplete. He was not even allowed a second kiss, only an unheeded lean that forced a foot forward. He scowled.

For as quickly as his impression of the world could change when he was sober, Victor’s face was a mess of fluctuating expressions at the ale’s whim. When his back thumped against the wall again, he smelled fresh air and breathed in the scant breeze greedily, forgetting his lover’s offense. His lips twitched away their displeasure and his undulating vision flitted behind relaxing eyelids.

Then, a proposal. It inspired a different sort of smile on Seven’s bird, whose eyes popped open again with a greater fervor than ever before. To offer up another piece of himself, of his insides, of his secrets, moved the man who advanced on him more than any physical stimulation ever could.

It did not matter whether the detail was exceedingly mundane or desperately enlightening. Victor became a panting dog on an invisible leash, consumed in the promise. He moved clumsily behind the poor clerk and wrapped his arms around his midsection, pressing their bodies together. “I thought you’d told me everything,” he complained, but he could not hide the anticipation in his tone. He felt his whole body pulse. He kissed the white neck beneath his chin as his impatience threatened to strangle the abdomen beneath his arms. “What is it?”

[Seven Xu]

“Have I ever told you that you moan like a Sunberthian whore when I touch you?” Seven’s jesting tone was forced beneath the vice-grip of arms around his abdomen, threatening to squeeze out whatever secrets the halfblood still kept, while instigating that nagging desire that had long since began to fester in his mind. He laughed a choking laugh. Victor’s hips grinded hard against soft, round flesh, inspiring another wave of heat that raced to the pit of Seven’s stomach. “If not, then I haven’t told you everything, birdie.”

A set of white fingers unlocked those limbs that had nearly taken the very air from his lungs with their silent accusations. Turning, he found a seat on the stone ledge where summer was still pouring in from the open window. Their thighs tangled, and Seven brought his Ravokian close again. “This isn’t the sort of thing you just go around telling anyone,” A joke turned into an apology, and white-hot lips fumbled across a row of olive digits as he spoke. “I needed to know that I could trust you.” Something invisible had infiltrated that soothing voice, manifesting itself in black spots across Victor’s fingertips. No, not black—but devoid of all light. It ran opaque like a matte layer of paint down towards his palm, before the sunlight there too was eaten.

Seven’s grip had become firm enough so that if Victor wanted to wrench away, he would have to put conscious effort into reclaiming his hand. “Look.” All hints of anger and regret had melted away in favour of a hubristic grin. Another white hand appeared above Victor’s, tracing along the length where a familiar scar lay. Violet shimmered and fussed beneath the intruding finger; the only visual manifestation of the shield Seven had erected. “I’ve blocked the very sunlight from your hand.” The warm rays of the aforementioned goddess still grazed Victor’s palm, as warm as it had ever been—and the shield that covered it was weightless.

“I’m not a strong person.” From Seven’s fingertips rose more shadow, painting down Victor’s exposed forearm. Beneath blond lashes, pools of determined vermillion found effect in his bird’s cloudy gaze. “But, I won’t have to be when no one can hurt me—hurt us.”

[Victor Lark]

“But you’ve never been to Sunberth,” was the best retort Victor had to offer, “and you’ve never bedded a whore!”

That he was anyone, the sort of whorish anyone that deserved any ounce of secrecy or distrust from the man whose bed he shared, carved a deep frown on Victor’s venom-red lips. His unoccupied hand smoothed the creases at the back of Seven’s shirt where his belt clung to the thin fabric, back and forth, anxious. It inevitably slowed to a distracted stop as the peculiar presentation began, hanging limp by a finger from a belt loop.

“Look.” That word, which he had spoken too desperately to too many people too many times, frequently left unheeded if it was not met with tired skepticism, seemed plain and redundant compared to the thing Victor witnessed in those moments. “You’re a wizard? How—” His other hand strayed over Seven’s leg as he pulled it towards his weightless black glove. He touched the shield and did not feel his own skin, but it was so close he might as well have. It did not look like his own hand any more. If he did not trust Seven, he might have thought himself infected.

But Seven did not trust him. Not yet, at least, or not fully. That terrible, itching notion, combined with the peculiarity of the blackness that presently crawled up his arm, unnerved Victor. His breath came short and his brow furrowed, but all he could show of himself was confusion; he did not entirely recognize the feeling that seeped into the front of his drink-befuddled brain. He tried to pull away, but Seven’s hold was stronger than he anticipated. He looked up at the garnets in his eyes, to which he felt so dreadfully attached, and gave another insistent tug.

The force of the partition knocked Victor backwards. His vision swam, but in channeling all of his attention to his balance he managed to rock forward again. His arms returned to their rightful place around his porcelain companion; if Seven had not already fallen into the air behind the window, Victor quickly pushed him there. He would hold him up from where he hung, and even though there were only a few feet between Seven’s back and the stone floor outside, he would show him what trust was. “You don't have to worry about that,” he said through a smile like fraying velvet, “No one will hurt you. I won't let them. Don’t you trust me?”

At the operative word, Victor’s hold slipped for only a second. His grin grew wide and playful as the small weight inside his grasp bobbed for the brief shock, then his face fell into drooping expectancy. Fear, anger, supplication: they were all things the intoxicated sociopath might have been satisfied to see. Above that, he wanted the old admiration, lacking any haughty chastisement or newfound confidence. He leaned down over the windowsill as far as his wobbling body would allow, and added, “Come here; kiss me.”

[Seven Xu]

A whirlwind of color overwhelmed Seven as Victor’s scowling face turned into an upside-down distortion of the thoroughfare below. A tongue that had been primed for explanation gave way to a cry of surprise before a pair of arms reached out to rescue—or delay—him from his inevitable fall to the cobblestone street below. Seven’s chest heaved, and his bird was awarded a second surprised gasp as his grip deliberately shifted and allowed the small of Seven’s back to touch the cold stone of the window sill. “I trust you!” He argued desperately, two sets of white fingers snapping forward to grab hold of Victor’s shirt. When Seven painfully craned his neck to stare at Victor, his brows were furrowed; his lips were tight with discontent; but when the accusation turned into a request, Seven’s eyes could only soften into familiar acquiescence.

Grappling fingertips found Victor’s bending shoulders; he hauled himself out of his precarious spot in the window and closed the gap between their bodies. “I trust you, Victor.” He repeated. Probing lips found the venom-cracked lines that retained an unreadable expression; their hot breath mingled, smelling of ale and the sweet staleness of a meal Seven had eaten bells ago. Long lashes fluttered beneath a chilly curtain of bangs and threatened to tickle smooth olive skin as parted lips and an exploratory tongue dove for Victor’s waiting mouth.

Eyes of flint and steel sparked the flame Seven had tried so hard to subdue, and he shut them out beneath trembling lids as his once chiding throat betrayed him in a muffled moan. “Gods,” an unheard plea accompanied the press of sweat-sticky hips and hot stifled excitement. There was little hope to continue the shield across Victor’s skin; his poor mind had fallen victim to preoccupations far more stirring than a degrading weave of djed. Without Seven’s constant attention, sunlight began to permeate the blackness, teasing the failing spell that had been wrapped so carefully around him.

“I’m not a wizard,” the belated argument rose when Seven finally managed to tear himself from that wanton mouth. His thumb rose for Victor’s bottom lip, and a nail as black as night fumbled along a pink rim, exposing two perfect dark circles. The moon-pale face settled into an amorous grin and he released the venom-marked flesh in favor of hooking Victor’s belt loops with a pair of thumbs. “That is all the magic I know; besides, I’m far too smart to be a wizard, wouldn’t you agree?”

The music of Seven’s laughter filled their small corner of the dingy workshop.

“I know that you’ll protect me,” a set of bony fingers slid between the buttons of Victor’s linen shirt to trace the outline of his navel, relishing in the stretch of balmy skin. “I just want to help.” Seven’s breathy retort was hot on the apple of a tight-collared neck and his rosy leer recaptured charcoal, begging for their initial game to resume.