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Post by Armand on Jan 28, 2009 18:03:38 GMT -5
Armand didn't miss a beat. "Come, then." He turned back to the elevator, without looking back.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Jan 29, 2009 9:29:10 GMT -5
Nicolas left the books, all of them already forgotten, as he followed Armand into the elevator. These were really the first elevators - of their kind, anyway, of the new sort, rather than the old-fashioned electric kinds - he'd ever been in, and he was quickly distracted by the buttons, leaning against a wall and slumping down into a sitting position as he stared at them, lips parted.
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Post by Armand on Jan 29, 2009 16:22:38 GMT -5
Armand glanced over at him, a small smile playing on his lips. "Press B1," he said.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Jan 30, 2009 14:49:26 GMT -5
Nicolas looked up at him in mild astonishment, but moved forward - unconsciously simply scooting forward on his knees - and gingerly pressed it with his index finger.
"Can we go to the stores alone?" he asked after he'd leaned back and looked at it, glancing up at Armand again, referring to the drivers.
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Post by Armand on Jan 30, 2009 15:22:39 GMT -5
"We won't have an escort," Armand said after a beat, which had consisted of him figuring out what he thought Nicolas had meant. "We'll walk there. There are places in the villa that led to the backs of shops, multiple exits and entrances where the public is not allowed."
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Jan 30, 2009 15:45:10 GMT -5
Nicolas smiled at him with relief and reassurance on his face in a nearly-shy manner - which was of course as bold and brash as he usually was - and then his expression changed to one of disbelief and delight as the elevator began to move.
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Post by Armand on Jan 30, 2009 16:19:56 GMT -5
Armand almost laughed at him. It was so pleasant to watch his reactions to these little things- had he really never been in an elevator before? Doubtless Armand had been just as delighted when he'd first discovered them, but he disregarded that in favor of watching Nicolas.
When the elevator stopped, thus began a brisk walk through white-painted corridors and past numbered doors, a series of surroundings different from the main floors of the villa above in their blank efficiency and sparse decoration. Armand stopped at a door and placed his hand on it; the faintest click, and it opened to a room like a large broomcloset. Then another door, and another room, and another short corridor, and then Armand led Nicolas out into an office and, finally, the back of a store.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Jan 30, 2009 16:42:01 GMT -5
It was like a little maze, a little man-made labyrinth quite unlike any he'd ever actually been in (and he had been in a few). Nicolas' posture was unimpressed and indifferent, his walk careless and a little proud, but he stole secret smiles occasionally and his mouth was never entirely shut, and even a mortal could have seen his infinitely growing delight, even without the benefit of knowing how defensive he was or feeling how he brimmed with adoration and satisfaction.
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Post by Armand on Jan 30, 2009 19:39:52 GMT -5
They came out in a men's clothing store, stepping in by the dressing rooms and surrounded by ties and suits and dress shirts. But Armand went to the front of the store immediately, turning his head to the side to survey the throng of humanity.
It was the Night Island's busiest time. The shops had been open several hours but it wasn't yet the dim and weary morning hours of 4 and 5, when all but the most enterprising tourists had usually retired to their hotels. There were people everywhere, the tourists with their cameras and brightly-colored shirts, the denim-clad youth, here and there the shuffling of the careful, trembling old. Tinny music blasted from speakers hidden in potted plants or poured from the openings of shops, and lights bobbed from strands or bleached out the crowd from the regularly spaced lamps.
Armand was a still, pale figure in the middle of the stream. No one stared for more than a minute without seeing the faint flush to the cheeks, the steady up-and-down of his chest, and the heavy human step, when he moved. The garments he wore, simple but undeniably well-made, were not unusual in this part of the Night Island where even the shop they had just come out of had Brooks Brothers and Armani in the window. He was passed by in the midst of a crowd where such dazzling color and life held sway, where the heavy-lidded teenage girls with their walkmans, or the babbling army of a family that swept by, was infinitely more tender than he could imagine himself seeming.
The shop that sold stringed instruments was down and to the right. Armand glanced back at Nicolas, as though ensuring that he was still there.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Jan 31, 2009 17:59:27 GMT -5
((The new avatar is hot. *thumbs up*))
Nicolas, who had been avoiding big cities deliberately for an extensive period of time, had a hard time following Armand, getting too easily distracted by every little thing that he saw. The flamboyant lights, garish although they were in this little southern consumer's Eden, seemed like something out of the next world, and even though Nicolas had more experience with the supernatural than those who had made them, he could not help but feel that he was the one behind.
The multitude of people enchanted him as well. Unconsciously reaching out to touch one of the fragrant mortals near him - a young wife out shopping for a honeymooning husband - he became aware that he was cupping her cheek, which was pink and hot from blushing, staring into her eyes. He took a step back, almost reeling, and disappeared into the crowd again.
In a moment he started to panic, not knowing where he was, and almost too shy to speak to anyone. Although an eye or two was cast his way for a moment, no one noticed him. He had the sudden strong sensation that he was a ghost, that if he reached out to touch someone, they would not feel him, that his hand would merely pass through the arm or the hair or the throat that it was extended towards.
Where was Armand? It was a dry cry in his throat. He was momentarily tempted to try and call out to him mentally, but here, around all these others, it seemed mad to do so. He didn't know who he'd speak to, who would invade his mind, if he opened it up. He felt vulnerable and insecure - but, anticipating madness - he was about to do it anyway.
And thus his relief was heightened when he caught a glimpse of him, cold and hard and untouched, even the soft hair possessing a gleam and a radiance that was unnatural. These lights might have been someone's paradise, but it was not his, and not Armand's. They were part of a separate world, and it had a separate religion - Armand was an angel, the light hardly doing justice to the little halo outlining his head, which was tilted in the most charming, almost open way. How intimate seemed the auburn curls then, that old-fashioned cut, the hair becoming finer and turning to down over the neck, behind each exquisite ear. Nicolas moved towards him as though drawn there, and, shaking his hair into his eyes without meaning to, lifted a trembling hand to brush it out of them.
"May I take your hand?" he asked, almost hesitantly, his eyes passing over the crowd unreadably, with a strange sort of comprehension, more still and sombre than he might have seemed capable of, if only because of how possible hysteria was at that moment.
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Post by Armand on Jan 31, 2009 21:52:52 GMT -5
(( Heh, I'm glad you think so. ^_^ ))
Only yards from where they'd emerged, and Armand watched Nicolas flounder. It should have occurred to him that Nicolas would be lost in this; as enchanted as he had seemed by the idea of the place, Armand shouldn't have assumed Nicolas' distaste for public places didn't extend to reeling in them. He took a step closer to Nicolas and took ahold of his hand without comment, tilting his head towards the strings shop down the way and watching Nicolas with an intense, almost demanding gaze. If Nicolas needed something to focus on, it was not beyond Armand's ability to give it to him.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Jan 31, 2009 22:33:49 GMT -5
Oh, but Armand was beguiling. He'd always been good at that. But Nicolas was not trembling in adoration just now, thankfully, nothing excessive; simply relief, pure fervent thankfulness. And this was not romantic mortal hand-holding, after all - they weren't warm little lovers, the heartbeat pounding and joining in the flesh pressed against flesh, although there was nonetheless some connection there between them. Nicolas was totally silent, but the need poured from him like a fountain, that shameless need for Armand right then, mixed with the knowledge that if he disappeared in the next moment, Nicolas would be pitched into panic and misery and despair - and at the same time, it was fully obvious that if Nicolas did not have something to fix on, to hold onto - Armand's eyes, or Armand's gentle hand - Nicolas fully believed Armand would disappear. The impossibility of it didn't matter. Nicolas didn't think he lived on the same plane as the rest of them. And he had disappeared once, been so gone from Nicolas' life for so long, and left him so lost...
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Post by Armand on Jan 31, 2009 22:56:08 GMT -5
Armand was not cold towards this need, and he was patient, but he was also intrinsically demanding and his patience only lasted up to a point. He did not coddle. Nicolas, while trembling and enticing in his vulnerability, his need, was not in the right place to be so lost. Although, Armand did soften towards him- had he really never become accustomed to this? Had he and Eleni really managed to be so recluse? It amazed him.
Nicolas was holding his hand very tightly, but Armand broke the grasp regardless; too quickly for the other to panic at the lack of contact, he had slid his arm around Nicolas' waist. The press of his arm and side, and the spread of his fingers against Nicolas' hip, was intimate and solid. About to led Nicolas forward, to break his panicked, desperate stillness and urge him to collect himself, a thought occurred to Armand with all the subtlety of a freight train. He stilled, tilting his head up. "Have you eaten tonight?" he asked, frowning a little and minding his words in the crowd. It would not be unlike Nicolas- the Nicolas he had known- to have forgotten. It wasn't kind to bring Nicolas here, to surround him with mortals, if he hadn't.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Feb 1, 2009 14:26:54 GMT -5
The new pose was intimate, but not reassuring; Nicolas needed to have his hand grasping Armand, and if he could not have it tighten on his hand, his wrist, or his shoulder, or something like that, he was very likely to cling to him instead, a little embrace that Armand would doubtless not appreciate. Nicolas, after all, still understood and communicated first and foremost with his hands, which Armand had understood about him from the start, and used to brutal advantage.
The words confused him at first, and it showed, softly, in his features, his trying to understand, before he realized what Armand meant - had he fed - although why Armand had used such a curious phrasing, Nicolas didn't at all understand. He shook his head gently. "I haven't - Had the time, that is."
After all, he'd met Armand's jet almost first thing after getting up, then gotten here. And he knew he wasn't to feed on the Night Island. Armand had said he could take a boat and go elsewhere, look for smugglers or head to the nearb cities. Perhaps Armand might be persuaded to go with him. After they got the violin. He could play for Armand on the boat, then, the old and the new, which he needed desperately in order to make this newness work.
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Post by Armand on Feb 1, 2009 16:49:20 GMT -5
Armand's lips made a little moue. He was considering whether or not this had any bearing on the crowd, whether Nicolas would handle it, that later they would have to go out on the water and find the smugglers that came to Miami from Cuba and the Bahamas with guns and drugs. But did they need to rush out and do that now? There was the slightest nudge from Armand's arm around Nicolas' back- "Are you ready to continue?"
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