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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Feb 1, 2009 17:56:39 GMT -5
Nicolas nodded, though his hand dropped to Armand's over his hip, fingers gripping and lacing with his to pull them off. "Give me your hand again," he said insistently, although with no real heat or irritation. "Or, if you will, let me take yours."
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Post by Armand on Feb 1, 2009 18:26:46 GMT -5
Armand gave it to him, and tugged on the link their forged hands made, already striding towards the store. It was small, but lovingly arranged- inside the instruments gleamed against crushed velvet shelves or leaned on stands in niches in the walls. The back wall of the place was full of accompaniments- sheet music and stands, cases and rosin and bows.
"Pick one," said Armand.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Feb 1, 2009 20:55:15 GMT -5
Nicolas let go of Armand's hand without thinking, drifting further into the store, stopping, and then staring. To anyone watching him, he would hardly have seemed the sort to play a violin, still wearing what he'd come to Armand in - the shrunken sweater, the baggy pants, the untied boots. But, as was not uncommon with some vampires, Nicolas unconsciously convinced everyone who gazed upon him of his intensity. His fingers were shaking as he slid his fingertips over a nearby violin, his preternatural hands depositing no grease upon the strings. And he was still shaking a bit as he lifted, not enough for anyone to notice and ask him if he was all right, although it would be obvious to Armand - but he stopped after he lifted the nearby bow to it and cut into a song.
He began to play a bit of Mozart, tentatively, the Abduction of Seraglio, its feather-lightness seeming in stark contrast to him, which was a bit of irony he had contemplated before; then he switched to an Eastern European folk tune, and then to something strange that he made off the top of his head.
He then put it down abruptly, and strode, still holding that bow - for it was rosined - to the next that caught his eye. He played something sad on it, put it down, and continued on.
It was luckily for him that he chose the third style, glancing back at Armand with a soft look in his eyes and nodding, for an employee had begun to stride towards him, extremely annoyed.
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Post by Armand on Feb 2, 2009 8:58:39 GMT -5
It took only a glance from Armand to stop the employee mid-step. He stopped, hesitated, then turned away, looking a little dazed as Armand inclined his head towards the back of the shop and asked whether Nicolas wanted a case.
A little later, Armand pulled bill after bill of hundreds from his pocket to pay for the violin, the same clerk from earlier taking their transaction very pleasantly now that money was actually being exchanged. Armand had slipped the money in his pocket far before Nicolas had arrived, uncertain as to whether the other would want to go shopping or not.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Feb 2, 2009 11:26:18 GMT -5
Nicolas placed the violin in a red-lined case very comfortably, reminded suddenly of a coffin for his violin, reminded then that he himself had, obviously, not brought one along. No longer feeling a need - it didn't cross his mind, anyway - to take Armand's hand, he nonetheless brushed the back of it with his fingertips as he passed from the store, a slight smile his only thanks for what was surely something that he was grateful for. He had a great deal of gravity now.
The moment he had gotten out of the store, he opened it up again without thinking, running his hands over its body before lifting it out and beginning to play - not to the throng of people, nor to Armand, but simply playing, completely oblivious to everything else.
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Post by Armand on Feb 2, 2009 11:38:36 GMT -5
"People are going to throw money at you," Armand said softly, but he didn't really expect Nicolas to hear him or heed his words. He knew well enough what Nicolas was like with a violin in his hand, and there was no way to tell how long he'd been without one before now.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Feb 2, 2009 11:45:53 GMT -5
Nicolas indeed did not lift his eyes or pay attention even when they began to attract notice, which was not, after all, very unusual; he was an inhumanly gifted performer, and had drawn a crowd even before he'd become a supernatural fiend. And beyond the talent, there was something charmingly bohemian in watching a long-haired and generally attractive young man play this wildly, dressed as he was, dust-streaks on his pants. Night Island was completely forgotten as he played, and most of his history, as well.
So when he did chance to glance up to Armand in this carefree state, a terribly incongruous - not dreadful, but a surprise - picture came to his mind, of a different street with different lighting, the middle of the daytime, rather windy, with a rather different face looking back to him, and he looked startled and haggard and wan for a moment as he looked back at Armand, realizing, shortly afterwards (although he had abruptly stopped playing, which he too would realize belatedly), that he had rather violently forced this picture into Armand's mind as well, as though he had accidentally shouted the name Lestat at him while meaning to call him Armand.
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Post by Armand on Feb 2, 2009 16:13:47 GMT -5
Armand stared back at him. The expression on Nicolas' face- so startled, eyes almost comically round and the shape of his mouth gone soft with surprise- made Armand remember his comment the other day, about Nicolas being unintentionally funny. It would have been funnier if Nicolas had not looked so wan and wild at the same time, without the violin drooping from his chin, or his hair that was a mess of unbound curls or his shapeless pants cinched tight around his waist. As it was, Armand couldn't be sure Nicolas was so shocked at himself for his little slip-up or afraid of Armand's reaction to the flung mental image.
"Very pretty," he said, with no distinction whether he meant the song or the image.
Armand no longer hated Lestat, nor pretended to. If there was something unsettling about Nicolas somehow comparing the two of them, or lumping them together, confusing them for even a minute, Armand did not want to think on it. But, since Nicolas had stopped playing, Armand took advantage of his attention while it lasted- "You need clothes." There was something ridiculous about Nicolas playing a violin bought for hundreds of dollars and being dressed like a beggar at the same time, and Armand hadn't seen any in his bag.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Feb 2, 2009 17:25:00 GMT -5
Nicolas couldn't have known what he was defensively anticipating, but it was most likely a mix of all of the above. It was the last image he expected to see, for one thing, that strange glimmer of memory of morning sky and mortal Lestat, particularly since he rarely remembered this things, and was, as they all were, more often than not hard pressed to recall them. Nonetheless, he was naturally something in it of dreading Armand's reaction to it, for when Armand hardly reacted at all, he felt a tension that had gathered around his heart slowly relax, and, like an animal that had been fearing a blow from its master who has, incidentally, not been hit, he did not mind if his body naturally learned towards him, no longer fearing physical closeness might bring about disaster.
He gently went to put away his violin without thinking - the crowd dissipated; he hadn't even realized there was one until he had shut and cinched the case and realized only then that he'd placed the violin over dollar bills that had been tossed into the case - and, tucking back hair that had fallen into his face as he'd been bent over in a careless, scholarly, sensitive way, looked back up at him with a look of sweet surprise. "You don't like them?" he said with a thoughtless gesture of his hand towards his clothes, although he was already following Armand cautiously out, no longer quite so deer-in-the-headlights about the consumer paradise and cautiously peeking out of his shell to see what else there was.
He'd never actually been in a clothing store, boutique, or shopping mall in his entire life, although they were one of the most commonplace of stores. He had no idea what pleasure he was about to receive.
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Post by Armand on Feb 3, 2009 6:48:16 GMT -5
Armand's eyes flicked over Nicolas again, as though he was reexamining the other's clothes before he said anything. "Nicolas, they are dusty and worn. Let me buy you some new ones." Flash to Louis, to whom Armand had once said the exact same thing. "Even if you stay here for longer than one night you'll need a change of clothes." Several, if Armand could help it, although once he was certain of Nicolas' size and measurements he could procure more clothing on his own.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Feb 3, 2009 8:40:35 GMT -5
Was it Armand and Nicolas together on the Island that night, or were they each alone with their separate ghosts? It didn't matter. Nicolas felt they were together. He held his eyes a bit, nodding mildly. He did not think there was anything really wrong with his clothes, but he did not suppose he could judge easily. Nonetheless he absent-mindedly dusted them off with one hand as he followed, as though trying to prove something to himself.
"If you say. I never have before." The tone wasn't sulky, but the words shouldn't have been surprising.
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Post by Lady Jacqueline-Marie on Feb 3, 2009 8:50:08 GMT -5
(( Excuse the wrong profile. ))
"I say." There was a casual men's store nearby, and Armand nodded his head towards it rather than leading Nicolas back to a place like where they had entered. Oh, he would like very much to dress Nicolas up, but that would an issue best pressed another time.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Feb 3, 2009 9:06:51 GMT -5
Going to the front of the store this time. Nicolas was beginning to grow to like that. Carrying the violin case and looking, attire aside, like the most intense and intuitively gifted of Juilliard students, Nicolas headed towards the store.
He stopped in his tracks - not with an unwillingness to budge, but without realizing he'd even stopped to begin with - and stared in undisguised delight and fascination at the mannequins out front modeling the clothes. They appealed to him even more than the sexed-up, glossy posters did.
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Post by Armand on Feb 3, 2009 18:36:06 GMT -5
Nicolas stopped, but Armand did not. He flicked a glance behind him when he realized Nicolas was not beside him, but he continued his steady pace through the entrance, assuming Nicolas would follow when he finished being enchanted by the mannequins. Enthralled as he was now, Armand couldn't wait to see him after he stepped inside.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Feb 4, 2009 8:05:31 GMT -5
It was probably near ten minutes that Nicolas spent out in front gaping, and did not realize he had been doing so until someone knocked against his arm while passing into the building with a friend. Suddenly feeling the lack of Armand like a flash of cold, Nicolas entered in to seek him out, almost sombre.
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