blueprints_bloodstains | Death Stalking Abroad

Entry tags:

Death Stalking Abroad - The Masquerade

Dusk has barely arrived but the Upper City is alight with life and fervor. The glow of lanterns and candles, and the sparkle of dancing lights mingle with the shimmer of fine banners and hangings, all filling the square with color even as all but the natural light of the moon has begun to fade from the sky. All manner of coves and dark corners, alleyways, passages for the more adventurous and indulgent to sneak off and play in.

Tonight is about excess in a way only the especially wealthy could devise.

The guests, all dressed in opulent costumes and masks, each unique and many so intricate and many-layered as to completely obscure the identity of the wearers. Even those who might be easier to tell -- public figures and the like -- well unless they were conducting duties within the event themselves, the rule was that you don't TRULY know who they are until the unmasking. Workers from the lower city consider the yearly soiree a life-changer for one's business, positions here whether it is vending, serving, or performing, are highly coveted and sought-after, as well as sorely guarded. Falling out of favor one year meant being replaced the next.

At the start there is a murmur of excitement, discussions of the city's goings on of late, none so fervently and favorably mentioned as the unveiling of the first completed Steel Watchmen, designed by none other than tonight's Master of Ceremonies: Enver Gortash.

Truly an honor and a sign of one moving up in the world, celebrated here with greater zest owing to his more recent contributions to city security and a commendatory reputation among some of the elite -- rumors of why were known and kept track of with interest. However, there were still a few who only looked on the news with...polite acceptance. Blue bloods through and through, unsurprised at persisting whispers that a pretty face can get you far when you are useful.

Dressed in coppers and carnelians and a mask that obscures the top half of his face, he commands rapt attention as he declares the evening's festivities open, to thunderous applause. The rise in voices and the din of music overtakes the space as he descends to mingle.

Tonight is about establishing a calm. Things going right at a point that will elevate them before the more grisly aspects of the plot are to begin. Establishing trust. Comradery. Ownership.

And the people of the upper city play this game with ruthless precision. No one better to parry, really.

By the time he has made himself visible and available, he is settled into the evening, able to identify far more magisters and patriars by voice and body language than he is sure rules allow, but it allows him to know them, carve a place among them, and forget anything else he had been considering for the time being.

When he and the Dark Urge had more than just a meeting of the minds a couple weeks ago, he resolved that it need not have been more than that. It was deeply satisfying, sated a number of curiosities, and even if it said nothing of how a life of eventual rule might contain a few lively diversions? It was also fine as just a memory that would warm him on occasion.

He didn't expect the subject to suddenly come up again, or to leave it as angry as he was. Even if it concluded that it, apparently, WOULD be happening again.

Probably not for the better when it wound up not occurring at all. And Enver Gortash was not the sort to simply wait in the wings and pine.

Especially when the Dark Urge all but alluded he might as easily seek out the same ends with anyone else.

So perhaps the Black Hand's Chosen might follow suit. Already he's caught a few curious gazes. A few charming introductions. Even the offer of a drink of two (too early yet, at first). But why not? Everyone was here to have fun, after all.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Because Gortash is Gortash he is making a mental inventory of every written missive and map he sees and where they are meant to be. A task he can see to later. Much later. The ink is all dry, and nothing appears to be missing or damaged, so that is all that matters about that.

But he can imagine the Dark Urge smugly stretching out over his work as he's attending to business matters, languid as a cat while still demanding attention. Just a breath away from a kiss all while the man insists on finishing the last of his notes before any indulgence will be allowed.

Never liked that mental image, a different flavor from what was also likely: that once the half-drow decided he tired of waiting, they would both wind up on that tabletop anyhow.

And he would do that if he let him, damn the mess. The thought is dizzying on its own, and Gortash sets the candelabra on the mantle to give himself a little more balance.

"Yes, I believe I did. A moment or two worth the price of admission alone."

Unlike his usual attire when he's visited the man in the past - and in contrast to his party outfit - he's wearing something casual, soft and comfortable. As much as he has to look the part when he's enacting worship to Bhaal, there's no need here and now. The dark coloured tunic and equally dark coloured trousers are simple cotton, pleasant enough to the touch to indicate quality.

He joins the smaller man at the fireplace, an elbow propped on the mantle as he fully embraces the heat from the fireplace warming him immediately. The orangey-glow plays across his features and catches in the metal of his piercings as he casts his gaze upon Enver, as though he hasn't seen him for some time.

It's impossible not to allow his eyes to drop further, the open neck of the robe the man is wearing certainly leaving enough on show for him to feel the stir of want again. A heat far surpassing that of the flames that crackle and dance to his side.

"I assume the additional, private invitation implies a continuation of the conversation we started earlier." Conversation very much engaged in using their bodies rather than their words. A mere starting point is what he's been contemplating for the past few hours, something that perhaps the other man could also assume has been something the bhaalspawn has been revisiting regularly in his mind.

"It would have been rude of me to leave matters unfinished," Gortash answers smoothly. Because he had asked specifically about attending to him, yes. And of course he inwardly hoped he would take him up on it, even if there was no longer the same finery to unwrap from his body. (It felt nice to be free from it himself; he wasn't weighed down by nearly as many layers as some, but it all feels like a lot, even to him.)

Right now, this feels lighter. Comforting even.

The Dark Urge is radiant in the dim light, pinpricks of illunination caught by his piercings, his eyes, the glow illuminating his pale skin in all is perfections. Even though they are both standing near the fire, Enver feels suddenly chilled.

"I hope you're of a similar mind."

Of similar mind and still deeply curious about more than just what Enver's version of 'attending' means. The kiss is even more memorable than the climax that had spilled over and that's something he's unused to. Big, intense sensations are what he usually takes away from experiences that get his pulse racing. And yet the tingle is still barely a moment's recollection away.

A hand reaches between them, fingers brushing over the knot of the tie keeping the robe together before stroking down the length of it. Eventually he takes a hold, but he doesn't yet choose to tug. His eyes lift back to Enver's face, drift around his features slowly before back to his eyes, question inbound. Yet he doesn't ask it with words, his brows pulling together in such a way to ask 'may I?'

It is only when the Dark Urge reaches for the wash at his waist to untie it that it dawns on Gortash that he knows he's marked from earlier in the evening. He's always been easy to bruise, not that he is sure that could have been avoided either way. He felt them rising and dull through the night, even itching on occasion but by the time he had gotten out of his clothes and into the tub there they were: near-purple marks that perfectly matched the grasp of his lover in the throes of passion.

Not as egregious as the first time, where the Dark Urge had left deeper and larger marks in similar places.

But in the moment, he had to ask himself for several reasons whether it was safe to reveal that. Would it induce the bhaalspawn's bloodlust to override any other and seek deeper marks? The kind that leave scars? The kind that kill? Does it make him appear weaker, perhaps too frail to handle?

Are they ugly?

There's hesitation, and a blush forms in his cheeks as his eyes cast themselves toward the fire.

But the pause there pulls his eyes back to his companion's. That he was waiting. That he was asking, if wordlessly.

Enver takes a steadying breath, and finally a short, assenting nod.

He watches as Enver's eyes move fluidly to the fire, catches the flames dance in the reflection before they're back on him. The hesitation is confusing, the lack of understanding at why the other man seems to need a moment to consider. As though there's a reason to not want the fabric slipped from his frame as a precursor to something that feels good. Chasing that has become his favourite want and, in a reality where he's governed by his need, it makes it all the more attractive.

Enver's pause gives him pause too, a moment where a pinch of that confusion tugs at his features and he waits a beat more as though unspooling extra rope to create some slack. A space in which Enver can decide if he really means that nod.

Without protest, he satisfies that thought to wait just a breath longer, eyes not leaving the other man's face as he starts to pull. The fabric starts to slide almost immediately, the folds of the robe getting looser as the tension evaporates. He's still watching Enver's expression as each side falls away, creating a strip of nakedness right down the middle.

"Is there something you wish to tell me?"

Finally a question, a query as to what the hesitation had been about. It prevents him from going much further as he dips his head as though trying to keep the man's eye contact if he thinks about letting it drop away again.

At this juncture, it is not as though he has not been naked in front of this man. So it's strange that a few simple things can change the atmosphere so much as to leave him feeling a little rudderless. The moody darkness. The feeling of newness on your skin after a fresh bath. The brush of silk over bare, sensitive bands of flesh. The contrast of one of them being far more cloaked than the other.

Even the way the Dark Urge fills the full tract of his senses and won't let him avoid his gaze in a way that leaves him blinking more.

"No. Just...treading unfamiliar water, I suppose."

And that's more than once tonight that he's caught himself not thinking of important possible consequences until the moment it is really too late to do anything about it. That's a failing on his part that he can't afford to take lightly.

"You didn't remain long enough to have seen last time." And he only loses his eyes because he's using them for direction. A hand traces near one of his hips and the larger finger marks there.

It's been many years since he's felt hesitation within himself, a curious affliction that the cult had rid him of a decade ago, more most likely. When he stays his hand it is never out of hesitation. Control is something entirely different, and a measure he exercises more often than not.

But hesitant is what he feels now, hurtling him back to a time far before the cult. Before they had found him and inducted him after what he did to his adoptive parents. He feels a different kind of heat in his blood at that memory, one that has nothing to do with the fire or his desire for the smaller man. He's yet to even put his gaze remotely near where the man is indicating, taking a moment to get that spiked urge under control again. Bhaal fuels his need and it feels uncomfortable in this particular moment with Enver, and that feels even more uncomfortable.

So when he eventually does drop his gaze, for a moment he looks almost expressionless. As though his entire head full of thoughts has ground to a halt before starting back up again. The bruises look so fresh against the pink of newly bathed skin, a curved row of marks each side that would have corresponded with his own hands. His murderous hands.

"I..." didn't think he gripped that hard, usually able to control how hard he's squeezing with the precision of a killer with an interest in strangulation when he feels like a change from the blade.

He's acutely aware that this entire situation would be comical against the backdrop of cultists regularly dishing out and taking injures far more permanent. And yet he can't help but feel a squirm of something that feels deeply unsettling, something unfamiliar and itching beneath his skin.

Guilt.

Unadulterated, unbridled guilt, like a boulder in his stomach.

It throws his entire sense of this moment on its side, knocked off balance and not sure how to right himself.

I may have just ruined this.

But there is a symphony of emotions that swim across the Dark Urge's face that are at first hard to decipher because they simply do not belong there. There is the thought that perhaps he should have told him, but when this was up in the air and he did not expect for there to be a repeat performance -- well, that was a liability that did not need to be introduced.

But he thinks he understands. This man does his work with precision, and if he didn't know that for whatever reason Bane's Chosen had a body that did not respond normally to bruises and lacerations, then it looked like he had committed an error, in spite of his expertise.

That feels the most logical. It makes the most sense when considering the avatars chosen as their gods' mortal hands in the world, tyranny and murder, who did not shrink at the sight of blood, who did not turn away from the suffering they caused in other people. Who did not bare weak spots, or fail.

And yet.

A hand rests on the Dark Urge's cheek, guiding him to meet his gaze again. And now he was ducking his head to chase after it, to stay in his view. "You have committed no error," he says quietly. "This is me. I...saw no point in revealing it, when there was no certainty it would happen again." Even if he wished for it.

This is me.

The words hang in the air for longer than the rest of the other man's sentence, still curled in his ear and turning down the volume on the rest of the explanation, even if he may not recall until later what came after. Three words so incredibly powerful that, for a moment, he just returns the gaze and still can't find the words.

What eventually seeps deeper than the words is the cool hand at his fire hot cheek, shocking him out of his reverie and snapping him back to the present. He blinks, gaze sharpening on Enver's face.

"Your skin marks easily."

It's the first thing that can work its way loose from his brain, the first thought of a few that suddenly rush to the front of his mind the moment he can make his mouth work again. The flash of guilt might have fallen into oblivion but he hasn't forgotten it existed to begin with.

With the heat of the fire still baking them from one side, he takes the initiative in scooping up the candelabra from the mantle again with one hand, taking the wrist of the hand at his face in the other. He doesn't need the light, but he knows the human does. His touch is light, proof perhaps to both of them that he can control his strength.

"Will you show me?"

"Yes. Very."

So he has to be careful.

He cannot really describe how this feels, mainly because even if there are moments of uncertainty, that is what they have been: moments. Plans change, and he can come up with another. This has gone on longer than a moment. The Dark Urge takes his wrist and he follows. He allows himself to be uncertain. Because maybe they both are but they are doing what they were put together to do: figure it out.

So he comes with him away from the heat of the flame, robe still open, his body kissed by the rush of cooler air taking over.

The question stops him short. The reply comes out a little more halted and uncertain than he planned. "You want me to?"

It's not difficult to understand where the halting hesitation comes from, especially given how familiar Enver is with bhaalist fascination with injury. A shortcut to arousal and excitement in a way that's very specific to the cult's incredibly gruesome manifesto.

And yet it isn't that driving his question, perhaps yet another black mark against his already dark title. The Dark Urge. He pushes aside the complications of trying to fit both Bhaal and his own curiosities in his head, never a problem before - not since the very early days, at least.

"I do."

So he leads the other man across to the small bedchamber made from a corner. The bed small as it was last time without a comment forthcoming this time. At least the lines of his frame don't suggest an excitement that would be something to feel concern over, whether Enver has learned enough yet to discern that.

Sitting on the bed, and parting his legs for the man to stand between them, he tilts his jaw up, eyes flicking up to Enver's face. He doesn't intend to remove that robe until the man signals that he'd like to.

For the moment, Gortash is allowing this to be as uncertain as it is. He sees the Dark Urge is working his way to some manner of conclusion, and as much as he feels tempted to say something to stop this whole thing from coming apart. But he has no idea what that something would even be at this point. So he has to trust; he has no choice. This alliance is nothing if they will not allow each other to do their own work.

So he follows him back, pulling the robe closed while they are in motion and drawing further away from the fire, but not re-tying it. He made a mistake in not saying anything. Everything in this moment feels up in the air because of this, and the nudity, the change in atmosphere, the silence, all of it leaves him feeling small in a way that does not reassure him. This isn't just about these momentary, pleasurable distractions -- it could harm the plan. And then his one mistake harms him, harms them, but it slights even their gods, and that is a good deal of weight suddenly bearing down on him.

He's waiting for the Dark Urge to let go.

When he doesn't and even when he sits, and keeps him near enough to touch but still standing, there for him to clearly see, to be shown, Enver Gortash does not know what he expected, but he will pursue it.

Whatever happens next, he bought it.

He lets the robe fall away, and it pools like shimmering ink at his feet.

The signal becomes clear when the robe slips off the man's frame as though water, rolling off his body to collect at his feet in a puddle. Eyes stay flicked up, though there's an urge tugging at the very fibres of his muscles, daring them forward until fingers meet bruised flesh. He swallows audibly, a strange response from a man whose very existence was made to maim and murder. Bruises are the very least of what he's left lovers with in previous times, and never the only thing.

It eventually occurs to him that this is quite the show of trust. The derobing at such a vulnerable moment. He's asked the man to show him his physical weakness and Enver is giving him that willingly. There hasn't been any strong-arming or pressure to induce a specific reaction, just a request and the return in simple terms that aren't simple at all.

In the end he releases the wrist his fingers are encircling, both hands reaching up and settling incredibly gently against the skin at his slender hips. He's careful not to go over where the bruises already are, but even as he looks he can see the bruises offset from where his fingers land in a mirrored pattern. This time he's holding Enver from the front, but earlier he had gripped him from behind and paid no mind to any damage he might be doing. Next time he'll remember.

"Does they bother you?" The bruises, he means. Whether that's in a physically aching sense or that it is his experience of a hard fuck either way, he's curious what impact this has on the other man and, more than that, his preferences.

It's a mixture of things that lets calm back into his bones: Being let go a gentle reminder that the Dark Urge hadn't until just then, and only for his hands to go elsewhere. The gentle touch of his fingers on his hips, a familiar place even without the bruises there. A correct place. It sends warm waves of hopefulness through him, radiating from there alongside that dull, insistent ache of the marks themselves. Then the question.

It puts him on more even footing. It gives him a chance to assert more control on the situation. And it allows him to ignore any silly feelings of self-consciousness that had no place here. Not in his domain. Not between them.

"No." The answer is quiet, but firm. "It seemed better not to complicate matters at the time. You asked for pleasure without pain, it would have muddled things to talk of gray areas." With one hand he lets his fingers trace over the other man's. "I... enjoy how they feel in some places. Mementos. Reminders in the hours after."

But they heal. Sometimes faster if he applies a salve or takes a potion because work will not allow for time to wait.

It's clear that he allows the thought to permeate beyond his own set of assumptions and experiences, especially when it comes to the idea of pain. His relationship with inflicting it is oftentimes rapid and physically violent, not stringing it out before his final assault on life itself. The expectation of pain as a default is difficult to shake, and part of the reason he had approached the other man asking for something else. Something new.

Despite his own preference for not playing with his prey, the violence he has wrought on others in service to Bhaal has always been nothing but foreplay to the final act. The true climax. And yet here he's presented with the idea of life after pain. Of pain to serve as a reminder of something that had been overwhelmingly pleasurable. That had celebrated life and living, where everybody had walked away with a heart still beating. There's a complicated squirming in his stomach, as though a sensation he's very familiar with has had its wings momentarily clipped, unable to take flight.

The hand beneath Enver's stays where it is, the softness spiking such a different type of experience he doesn't want to not explore it. But his other hand reaches up, thumb brushing over the scar decorating the other man's chin.

"And this? Is this a memento?"

And his feet were very nearly cut right back out from under him again.

Sometimes, he forgot. The scars on his face and striped over different parts of his body never fully faded, but had been part of himself for so long that sometimes they were put out of mind entirely until something drew his attention to them. Rarely by someone else. But it'd be his eyes catching one in the mirror. Maybe an odd twinge when it was about to storm.

"For better or worse, I suppose," he admits quietly, his eyes for a moment finding some glint of light across the wall to hold their attention.

The Dark Urge was hardly without mark himself, unsurprising given who he was. For the both of them it hardly detracted from any real beauty. Enver himself drew an appreciative eye, even as he was getting on in years. So it wasn't a vanity thing, not usually. Most paid it little mind, a sign someone had been living.

But they are reminders, and not his mementos, not really.

Again, eye contact. With more certainty in his voice. "And unlike this, not something I'd a mind to ask for."

He understands cruelty. Has plenty of experience with it himself, the perfect impurity of his worship to his father pure in so much as it hasn't wobbled until very recently. Violence and murder need not be bedfellows with cruelty exclusively. But he's familiar enough with both to take Enver's words and hazard a guess. To mark somebody's face can be a cruelty as much as it can be desperation. He doesn't know which yet Enver's scars are.

Regardless he hears the message loud and clear; the bruises are acceptable, the scars are not. The realisation that he hasn't even thought about his blade once since he arrived here sets the squirming all the more insistent in his belly. He pushes on, his fingers brushed by the other man's chin as he speaks, only to allow them to drop away again to his waist.

A thought slams into him unbidden and surprises him enough that his lips part as though there's a gasp that hasn't been fully realised, even though the air in is sharp.

"I will never use you to worship my father." Perhaps it makes more sense to know that his preference is for blades. A blade skilled enough to end life quickly. Cleanly in its efficiency even if he does let the blood spill thereafter.

Gortash feels the weight of what is said but does not comprehend fully, his understanding incomplete because he would never know Bhaal's ultimate goal in all of this. But he still absorbs the importance, both what is apparent and sensing something between shadow and soul that he is not meant to know. The Dark Urge is making an accord known that he has no intention to slake his more -- lethal thirsts. Not here. And while the Bhaalspawn contains many things, the need to outright lie has never been one of them.

And that in itself frees his partner from a thought that has not been far from his mind, even if kept at bay. But just as much as he understands that, he also knows that to give it life through words is a grave show of trust. And inwardly Enver Gortash feels a similar truth.

"This place will not be an altar for my god, either."

Because they are allies. Because the Dark Urge it too much who he is to be something that has needed to be stringently controlled by anyone but himself.

Because in this, they are equals.

His hands find the Dark Urge's face, the warmth of his cheeks, tracing the line of his jaw. Gortash closes the distance between them even further and kisses him. More lingering now, venturing, a promise and something precious.

Edited 2024-08-09 13:23 (UTC)

Unlike Enver, he knows what he's promised and how, in this moment, he's committed himself to failure. Committed himself to rebel against his god's plan, the one that came after the alliance with Bane's Chosen. The one where he ends the alliance with bloodshed and slaughters himself upon his father's altar. The realisation that he would slay himself before Enver is both shocking and freeing in the same breath.

The smaller man advances on him, warm lips pressing to his own and he's reminded of the existence of kissing. Of sharing a soft moment without words, and how kisses aren't always a battle. That he feels more able to comprehend this more readily, he doesn't inspect too closely. As though it will be a marker of how far he has drifted from Bhaal. The bubbling desire to confess to Enver is barely kept under control, and ultimately the only reason he says nothing of it is because he is almost certain soon enough they would be swarmed by bhaalists and both ended.

He stiffens in response to his line of thinking rather than the kiss, unable to just allow himself the experience despite his curiosity, the warmth he feels for the man, and eventually it pushes him to lift his own hands. He breaks the kiss, but not without cupping Enver's face, holding him just far enough away to be able to focus on him.

"This is... dangerous. I-- I cannot confess the truth of my heart simply to put you in harm's way."

"Then do not."

Enver knows, whatever he leaves at the threshold of this little copse of space he has carved out for himself still has ears to hear and eyes to see. That he has decided he will brook no commands about his bed with anyone he did not invite there does not erase who he is or who he serves in this plan.

He leans into that touch, breathes him in.

"Before this begins and after it ends, we return to our duties. We pay what we owe. We are devout and we are chosen. But together we will celebrate our victories, recoup our losses, and the plan continues."

Every word is as eloquent as he's come to expect from Enver, especially when they're outside the realms of the type of carnal lust they engage in together. Hardly surprising given what he's learned about the man, even before they took a step to deepen their alliance in a way that had been less expected, and yet still of value. It's an uncomfortable feeling to realise how violently perspectives can shift from one moment to the next. The deeply unsettling feeling at keeping the true plan to himself, of feeling the guilt at allowing Enver to continue referring to it as if he understands what it truly is.

That in itself digs into his chest in a way that does take his breath away. He can feel his grip on reality starting to slip, as though he's in a death spiral, losing his sense of self and inevitably ceasing to exist before he's supposed to. His only anchor is the smaller man keeping hold of him. His vision evaporates into darkness as he closes his eyes, simply rests his forehead against Enver's for a moment before coming to a decision. Damage control. As much of it as he can convincingly muster.

"Yes. I should return to my duties. I-- thank you for reminding me."

For the moment he allows himself to feel just that contact. Close. Such a small and innocuous thing, but it feels intimate in a way that is different from everything they have yet done. No expectation of anything else, which makes it sting less when the Dark Urge says what he does.

"You're certain."

He did offer further before. But something they found here already feels just as heavy on him, and he is feeling the hour more and more.

So it is to leave the door open for an answer. But also accepting if it stays as it is.

The question almost haunts him before the other man has finished asking it. Is he certain? He doesn't feel certain of anything, much less about whether he would prefer to take his leave or not in favour of his duties. Part of him understands well enough that it isn't just duty driving him from this place, but to sift through everything else beneath that excuse would be to unseat him all the more abruptly from the tenuous balance he has as it is.

So his hands slip to Enver's shoulders where he rubs circles with his thumbs briefly rather than squeezing, yet another moment he takes another step away from Bhaal. The choice to not cause pain, to not leave marks.

And then he starts to stand.

"I must."

Gortash took a careful step back to allow him room, his heels catching the edges of his robe waiting on the floor, an unseen signal to his position in the dim light. He does not argue. He has enough sense to know that whatever the Dark Urge is wrestling with, pressing the issue is likely to make things worse.

Perhaps more work is called for -- whether because it has already been too long, or perhaps this conclusion they have reached here has redoubled its potency early.

He cannot say, it is not his place to guess at this juncture.

"I'll look forward to hearing of your progress, then. However much is pertintent to share."

(no subject)

unspooling - 2024-08-09 15:31 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

closeyourfist - 2024-08-09 16:16 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only