impure_tale

[Pavi wishes he could ask the man to choose one bizarre nickname and stick to it, but he can't; he'd hardly be one to talk, himself. They're still all better than the catalogue of abuse his siblings use.]

Grazie. [He accepts the glass and raises it in a small, somewhat theatrical toast before taking a sip. It's not what he's used to, but it's good. It occurs to him that he has no idea what to say or how to say it and that hasn't been an issue since his adolescence.]

Bottoms up. [The Marquis takes a sip from his own glass, himself. Much, much better wine than what his old room had -- that had been spirits from the asylum cellar, after all.] I forgot what real wine tasted like. [This is not to say that he hasn't had drinks in Pavi's room, but wine that he knows? Wine that he remembers, and savored? That's another story. There's such a huge difference.]

Then it is good that you have been so promoted, si? These small luxuries are a very terrible thing to forget. [There are things he's forgetting - missing - already. The experience of the opera. His brother's entertainingly impotent taunting. The feel of fresh skin on his scars. They fade so fast. By the month's end they might all be gone - but they're making port soon. He can deal with the latter, certainly. He'll have time.]

But things were not so poor even before then. [A small smile.] I do not think I thanked you for the use of your chambers during the last flood. Not suitably, anyhow.

Oh? [The grin he offers is actually agonising. Maybe the synthetic replacement his warden offered...no. A poor substitute.] And what would you think of as suitable thanks, Marchese? The Pavi is very curious.

[He's not one to have someone turn the situation around on him. This is his territory, and he brushes past that question with calculation.] Did you enjoy our liasons in that time, Paviche?

[And it actually turns out that hearing his own full name actually puts him more off-kilter than the Marquis' nicknames. Pavi traps the tip of his tongue between his teeth for the barest second, drawing a deep breath through his nose so as not to open his mouth and let anything stupid fall out.]

Is this thing not obvious? [But he knows he isn't going to get off that easily.] Yes. Of course.

I am not one for riddles and unspoken things, pet -- this is something you will learn of me if you have not already. [Besides, he hadn't had sex since October; of course he doesn't mind reliving the event.]

Si. I am learning this. [Pavi's own appreciation of riddles and unspoken things varies wildly, just as much as his appreciation of everything else. Right now it sounds really, really nice, though. He takes a sip of wine but it doesn't do much for the dryness in his throat.] About what would you like to speak, then?

I am -- [He rolls the glass in his hand, watching the deep liquid shift and tremble with that movement] -- grateful that you would welcome my company, much less my presence in your bed. That is a silly, self-conscious response on my part, the endearments of someone much younger and less certain of themselves than I am. As I told you, it had been long for me. Very long. [He takes another sip.] That you were concerned in my passing is -- warming, to say the least. I write about monsters, predators, beasts in fine clothing. I do not write about loneliness.

[For a long few moments, Pavi says nothing. For someone who's just said they have no interest in riddles, the Marquis' wording seems ludicrously circumspect. As for beasts in fine clothing, well. When the Marquis had once said that Pavi's world was something he might have written about, those words stuck with him.]

Naturally, why would you write of this? I could not imagine a less worthy subject.

Then you are too young to have truly suffered from it, and I wonder what might have happened had I stayed away longer. [He says this plainly, and with a kind of firmness that is not uncommon for him. He does not avoid eye contact; his tone of voice does not turn softer to make the words easier on the ear.] You are very postured. You make your home in massive luxury, saturated in finery and color. You wear a face that is not your own. I must either wonder whether what lies beneath is something that shames you or whether what lies beneath is simply incomplete.

[Pavi stares at him as if he's been slapped. Nobody has ever spoken to him in this way, never...judged him. Nobody back home would ever dare. He is a Largo; an heir to the world's most powerful corporation. You just...wouldn't. And from anyone else Pavi would be tempted to channel his older brother for a few seconds just to shut up the offending party, but this is the fucking Marquis de Sade and he can't.]

In... [He feels his throat freezing. No. No. His smile is rigid.] Incomplete, Marchese? I am not a child, and I do not have anything that shames me.

[He's smart to mark the strain in that smile. He's seen it before from others.] I would welcome knowing you either way, Paviche. [He says this seriously.] And I do not smile when I am unhappy, pet. If you are displeased then say so.

Displeased? No. Why would the Pavi be displeased? [He takes a long, fortifying sip of wine, nonetheless.] The mask...my face, it is...some would find it ugly, si? It is not what it once was. [A careful shrug.] That is all.

There are many ugly things in the world, dumpling, but beauty fades. Always. [He raises his glass as though in toast.] However, the older a man becomes, the wiser, the less attractive, and thereby the more successful. I'm a shadow of the beauty I was in my youth, not even that. But I can make anyone want me if I so desired.

[Pavi gives him a sly look.] You are fishing for compliments, Marchese, si? You can make everyone want you because you are still extremely beautiful. If you think that age makes a man ugly then you are not as wise as you think.

I do not need compliments, kumquat; I know I'm good. [He chuckles a little.] It's personality, and I know it. Even the people who are repulsed by me find me alluring in some way or another.

Yes, I have noticed this. [But it still bothers him a little that an attractive man won't just accept a compliment on the virtue of its basis in fact. Pavi had been beautiful once, as well, and he doesn't know if having that beauty forcibly stripped from him is better or worse than being able to slowly watch it fade. He sips his wine.] And you will stop calling me strange names, perhaps?

Why? [There is no reproach in his voice. He watches the man with decided interest.] Do terms of endearment bother you?

Why would I be bothered? [Pavi's being more defensive than he needs to be, but really, the Marquis really has to stop asking him about how he feels. It's a bank of questions which he has never had to answer to anyone else.] They are simply...bizarre and confusing.

But I am bizarre and confusing. [Now he's just quibbling, but he's testing the man's boundaries.]

Si, this is true. As you will, then, Marchese - the Pavi will simply have to become used to it. Va bene. [After spending his formative years with a mass murderer and a junkie, Pavi's learnt to pick his battles. He had to. He glances in his wineglass and is disappointed to find it empty.]

More, then? [The Marquis picks up the decanter. He's won that argument for now; he always does.]

I do not think I should. I got...a little drunk during your absence, si? [And the Marquis would probably infer that the latter had caused the former, but Pavi was prepared to let him. It had, after all. Sort of.] Your warden - your former warden, so sorry - he was handing out champagne to celebrate your graduation.

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