001. renaitre: guess who's coming to dinner

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ancient france

001. renaitre: guess who's coming to dinner

"You know, the oddest thing happened, this evening," Mozart found himself desperate to declare, as he pushed open the château's door. There were too many thing wrong with it, though. For starters, if he had learned anything at all, it was that silence would swallow up any announcement and he would have to be content with talking to himself. Moreover, how odd was the occurance? Noteworthy enough, at least, that he felt it worth mentioning. On a grander scale? Maybe not so. Maybe vampires were predisposed to noticing visual motifs, patterns, reoccurring faces in crowds.

That, he had not learned. He knew basics, but only as theory; practical application only extended to food and silver. Well over a month in and his understanding of vampire lore still depended completely on questionable stories and the account of another.

To whom could he write a letter, to profess the absurdity of being more knowledgeable on the subject of his maker than on the rest of his existence?

Case in point, he couldn't say what would actually happen if he managed to fight the pull of sleep long enough to properly face the sun, but he knew with no uncertainty that there was no point announcing anything upon returning home because Salieri would not answer.

The other man had become even more of a ghost in the nights that followed Mozart's last attempt to win his favour. (No, that was dishonest. To seduce him. Again. Which had failed, and that was unfair.) Salieri did not want the things he wanted. Another lesson learned! Offering him everything he asked for resulted in the same solo sleep arrangements Mozart sought to rectify and, worse, now brought him equally as empty nights.

In the foyer, he thought about the odd thing, the girl with the plaited pale-fire hair, lurking somewhere in every crowd he passed through. The word, the concept his brain kept trying to apply to her was "Wicht", but what were the real chances that she was anything more than human? Hers wouldn't be the first pretty face to follow him. Where was her omnipresence now? Ah, if only he had caught her eyes even once. Maybe he would not have come home alone.

Bitterly, he thought her still worth mentioning to Salieri. That was a game he and Stanzi played, when one was displeased enough to not speak to the other. Even a shriek of jealousy might be better than silence. But Salieri was well-practiced with indifference and full of assumptions. No matter how Mozart conducted himself, this evening, his sire would be filled with convictions and accusations of debauchery, murder, indecency.

Mozart put his hand back on the door handle and, for an audience of no one, made a performance out of tapping his lips in thought. Here was the real curse: the acute, eternal loneliness Salieri wanted to damn him to. (Wanted to? Or, perhaps, didn't care if he suffered. Salieri claimed both malintent and genuine disinterest. The latter was an intolerable thought.) But! A simple cure waited for him. He could go back out. He could dissect eternity into one night and find the company - any company! Brooding, fiery, or something altogether different! - he missed. He could -

Answer the door. His hearing, his focus was no longer as scattered as it had been fresh out of the grave, so how had he missed the approaching footsteps? The knock, even with all its hesitance, took him by surprise.

What was the rule, here? Did vampires have to give their own permission to others. If only there was someone who could answer his questions.

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The latest seduction attempt did nothing but deepen the pit between them. This time, at least, Salieri made no attempt to obscure the truth from himself: he wasn't avoiding Mozart; he was avoiding his own weakness.

Cloistering himself in an upstairs study, tearing through every book on its shelves, to keep his mind busy, he wasn't unaware that his motivations for staying away didn't matter. He could say, all he wanted, that he wasn't particularly angry with his companion, and that wouldn't change anything. It wouldn't bring him downstairs, wouldn't let them talk, or hunt together, or experience anything resembling companionship, and that meant Salieri was still wrong, in Mozart's eyes. He began to understand that his promise of forgiveness was useless, hollow. It didn't matter at all, if he couldn't trust himself with the potential ramifications of embracing it. Maybe that did make him a liar.

The sound of the front door opening caught him staring at a page he'd read four or five times over, at least, without absorbing any of its contents. Reading was supposed to draw his mind from the inevitable conclusion it was barreling towards: He could resolve everything - the guilt, the ugly dreams, the tension between them - if he would give up his place upon his pedestal, and fall for his companion's attempts to seduce him. It wasn't working. It didn't matter how many pages he turned, how many books piled up on the floor beside the desk, how many times he read the same words over and over until they looked like a foreign language. The thought kept coming back. It had, for days.

He heard Mozart's voice, then, and barely looked up towards the closed study door. His stomach churned on nothing. He felt half sick all the time, now, and it had nothing to do with feeding, or lack thereof. Still, he thought to do nothing. Look back at the book, try not to think of what he would say, one of these nights, when he did turn on himself, did decide to give up. Foolishly, he'd believed he could do this forever. He couldn't.

Then came the knock on the door. Adrenaline bolted through Salieri, and he was up from the chair, and into the hallway, in a blink. His first thought, the one that raised the initial alarm, was that Mozart had brought someone with him, uninvited. Why, then, would they knock? The flash of anger slowly drowned under dread, as he walked to the steps, to see his companion standing in the front of the hall. Knocking, and able to approach the house without either of them hearing? If he had a heartbeat, it would have skipped.

"Who followed you?" he asked. Salieri would have expected to feel afraid. He didn't. If someone found them, finally, then he only felt resigned. It was inevitable, wasn't it? He descended the rest of the stairs. "Are you going to open it? You can't stop them getting in."

...And so what if Mozart had brought someone back with him? If he and Salieri never spoke, there could be no setting of ground rules on that subject, ergo there were none. Furthermore, this was just as much - this was more his home than Salieri's! Who had done all the legwork to procure it? The very individual who needed the company that he would have been very much within his rights to acquire and put in his bed for the evening.

What difference would that make for Salieri, squirreled away in some obscure corner of the castle. Possibly not even in the main house! Again Mozart reminded himself that he was now more free than he ever had been. Opening the door, leaving again, bringing home an entire inn full of guests - he was freer than he'd ever been. Nothing he did could possibly have any effect on the near-invisible stranger (by choice!) on his property. And the results would be the same, wild orgy, quiet snack, or none: tiresome contempt and disapproval.

"Ha!" With such hasty delivery, too. Could vampires read each other's minds? That was an awfully quick appearance by someone desperate to prove Mozart's point. He had seen neither hide nor hair of Salieri in days, yet here he suddenly stood, ready to accuse him of one more wrong-doing.

Of course he was going to answer. His sire's response made something all the more obvious: a person hadn't followed him home, another one of their kind had.

"Who says I have any intention of stopping them?" It never occurred to him to think, let alone worry, about what had frightened Salieri away from Schönbrunn. Exaggerations and the man's own distaste for...everything. Joseph's court had certainly been an unpleasant bunch - save for a few - but not a scary one.

Before any more protests or chiding, Mozart pulled their front door open. With his eyes spitefully fixed on Salieri, in case it was necessary, he was already halfway through saying, "Please do come -" when a pair of hand shot forward and pulled his attention away.

The young woman - younger than both of them, at first glance - on the doorstep pressed her cold fingers into Mozart's cheeks. To see her now, even with her messy ginger braids and smiling so uncharacteristically happy for a genuine monster, he felt embarrassed to not have recognized her immediately for what she was.

"Oh," she uttered, leaning close as if she was breathing him. "You're beautiful," she told him. "I understand, now. He had to." Her hands dropped to his shoulders, but she still held on when she looked towards the stairs. It seemed like she knew who to expect when she turned her head, but actually seeing him there softened her expression. "Hello, Antonio."

The flurry of a greeting was quick, but Salieri saw it at half speed, dragged out, an attempt by his mind to give him time to react. That imagined, extra time brought him nothing. His heart fell into his stomach, and his stomach into somewhere so deep it was beyond his grasp. Of course they would send her. She was the only one who could find him, really.

His fingernails dented the banister. Long after he vacated this house, those impressions would still be there, marring the wood as long as the house stood. The moment would be trapped there. Part of him would be trapped within it. He stared at his maker like he had never seen her before, and wished it was true.

Somehow, he descended the rest of the stairs. His legs weren't shaky, he couldn't feel them at all. "Mozart," he said, "this is Jessica." He should have said something else, demanded to know why she was here, or who sent her, or that she leave, but his mind still hadn't caught up to the rest of him, and politeness might buy him more time. "She is most likely here on some unpleasant business that should be dispensed with as quickly as possible."

Well! Jessica. So Mozart should have expected something from his odd little anecdote, but this! Best, then, that they did meet on his own doorstep instead of in the streets. Without the heavy tension that descended the steps with Salieri upon the woman's greeting, he would have been robbed of the context when her interests inevitably turned to his maker over him. That might have been devastating, thinking of her as his distraction from Salieri instead of knowing she would be his summoner.

His grin grew bright enough to replace hers as it faded. Did he recognize her from the Emperor's harem? Not by name, not from the theatre.

Before he could make her acquaintance proper, she squeezed his hand and dropped him altogether to move at a human's pace, like she was approaching a skittish animal, towards Salieri. "Oh. Oh, no, no," she said. "Antonio, I wouldn't. You know I woudln't -" She figited, wringing her hands in the space she left between them. "I came alone."

"He believes everything is an unpleasant affair," Mozart piped up, pulling the door shut now that Jessica had crossed the threshold. "I suppose you know that. Did the palace send you? They must miss him."

Here, out of context, Jessica seemed smaller than usual. It felt like some trick, like a venomous animal disguising its shape to better lure you into coming close to it. Salieri folded his arms, and one hand gripped the outside of his own sleeve. "I haven't said you brought them here." And did he think she would? No, maybe not. Not of her own choosing, but that didn't mean they couldn't compel her to find him so they could mete out whatever justice they saw fit.

He shot a look at Mozart. The two of them were not supposed to be in the same place. For all his early concerns that he would be found out, Salieri had never assumed this, exactly, would happen. Somehow, he had to get rid of his maker, and he realized he had no idea how to do that. If she bothered tracking Mozart back to the house, and especially if she was on business (and she had to be), she wouldn't be easy to remove. "Don't entertain her," he said. "What did I tell you, about avoiding the court?"

"He's not wrong," Jessica said. Her eyes lingered on Salieri, but it was clear that she meant to address his statement for Mozart's benefit, not the other way around. "They only have suspicions, but they're furious. They want you in the worst way," she added, almost apologetically, directly to Mozart. "Both of you."

"Hm," Mozart snorted. "A little late for that." If there was anything to take seriously, it was the insult of it all. They'd all but had him for years and turned him away every time. Why now? He flicked his fingers dismissively. "Tell them -"

Jessica's smile came back, only a little. "It is."

Something interesting was still happening with her hands and Mozart had to admire her restraint. What a monster she was, with her respectful distances and commitment to not grabbing the other man when, clearly, it was killing her not to. He only knew her through allusion and this instance, but if this was another soul Salieri was hellbent on not forgiving, what hope did he have?

"I came on my own agency," Jessica was rephrasing. "I thought you would understand that. Doing something you think will be unpleasant, but necessary." Her gaze flickered back to Mozart and he caught her lips trying not to curl too much. "For yourself."

That was unfair, and Salieri's face twisted into a brief look of disgust. Drawing a comparison between his flight to her sudden, invasive appearance was flimsy at best. Moreover, she was only saying it to try and get him to empathize with whatever her reason for being here, to make it sound like their motivations were in some way similar, and they were not.

Salieri unconsciously stepped closer to Mozart. "Be grateful," he told the other man, "their change of heart came when it did." Though honestly, if that were not the case, and they had decided to replace Salieri with Mozart from the beginning, both of them would probably be much more content, now. Mozart might have been perfectly pleased in the castle, but that wasn't a potential future he liked to think about.

"What do you want?" he asked his maker. There was no point beating around the bush, even in the name of being courteous. It wasn't rude to ask someone what they were doing in your own home. "If it was to leave them behind, I see you've accomplished it. If it was to see me, you've done that, as well."

No, this was good. His father, Constanze, probably even Salieri and every single person he knew would accuse him of being too trusting, but look at the way she - his, what, grand-maker? - smiled. His loved ones could keep their skepticism, Mozart knew a shared joke when he saw one. No maliciousness, not even at the knife-sharp tips of her fangs. Now he was the one aching to press hands, to hold her and confirm all that he learned and suspected of their mutual friend.

He chose, though, just to roll his eyes. That move, Salieri's side step towards him, did not go unnoticed. "Am I?" His thoughts were the same: wouldn't that alternate path have suited them both so much better? Vampries or none, Mozart had spent his entire life trying to put himself in the favour, in the service of the Viennese court. Increasingly, as he learned the limitations of his...arrangement with Salieri, so waned his gratitude. "I don't think you care."

Jessica shrugged - sympathetically? Mozart would have thanked her for the kindness, but he could already see that thread of conversation rolling out before him. It curled back in a circle: Salieri snapping all over again about not speaking to her, and no progress to be made, no further secrets to uncover.

"Of course I wanted to see you," she confirmed. "But you think that's unpleasant, all on its own, don't you?" Her tone stayed so pleasant. "I'm sure you know, Herr Mozart, how much he hates me."

Salieri's stomach must have returned to its proper place; it twinged when Mozart spoke. He did care. At face value, the other man might have been happier in the midst of the court, but that couldn't last forever, even for Mozart. It wouldn't be any better - worse, even - than living a life under Leopold's thumb. Salieri didn't want it for either of them, maybe not for anyone, on principle.

Not even for Jessica, ultimately, though the tone of her voice rubbed him wrong, and he wished she would get to the point. Was she waiting for him to give it up, acknowledge what they all knew - that he didn't know how to be rid of her - and properly invite her into the rest of the house? He thought he wouldn't, but he also thought she wouldn't give him much of a choice.

"If I did not care, I would never have mentioned it," he told the other man. "Likewise," he looked to Jessica, "if I wished to see you, I would have told you where I was going. If you want something from me, give a proper answer." Not vague appeals to emotions, or politely mocking twists of his own words.

Salieri was a selfish creature, hiding in dark corners, sleeping in his own bed, and only caring so far as it would affect him now. In life, neither of them had the information they did now. And now? They traveled together, inhabited (roughly) the same space, were in collusion with one another to escape. Should Mozart be found, Salieri would be also. And they would both suffer and a man who couldn't forgive slights that were never done to him in the first place couldn't possibly care what happened to the offender he was captured with!

Was this what mistrust felt like? He wondered.

"That is my answer," Jessica told them. "You hate me, Antonio, but you're my -" She faltered, as if she couldn't find the right word. "My responsibility. And you'll just have to forgive my curiosity but I had to know if you'd done it. Oh, I had to." She reached to brush her fingers down Mozart's sleeve. "It's really just rumours in Austria and I only had guesses as to your plans. I don't think they know you've kept him."

"I haven't," Salieri was quick to correct, even though that was hardly the point of what she said. It was important, he thought, to make the distinction that Mozart was under no obligation to stay with him. "He's followed me."

Would that upset her, to know that Mozart seemed to value his maker more than Salieri did his? He wasn't sure it bothered him, if it did. Not that he sought to upset her. He wished no more genuine ill-will towards Jessica than he did most people. His resentment, his failure to love her, didn't negate that she was a person, and worthy of happiness. Just not with him.

"No one is responsible for me," he said, but he was looking at the man by his side, when he said it, as if Mozart, now, would be insulted, when he spent so much time attempting to assert some sort of responsibility of his own, for Salieri's living and feeding habits. "I should think my leaving would have made that clear." And then, addressing Mozart, "Do you wish for her to remain here?"

Jessica's eyes got big and the little chirp in her throat made it obvious that she was not expecting that, but neither was she disappointed to hear it. "That's - ooh." She beamed at Mozart. "That's nice. Is that - ? Do you like that?" Again, for Mozart's benefit, "Isn't it so hard to tell with him? Well, maybe not for you, if you're - you know." She wriggled her fingers together with intention, to show whatever, exactly, she thought they were.

Mozart's lips scrunched, barely closed to hold back a laugh, but he returned Salieri's look. Or Look. What was tha supposed to mean? He put his hand to his chest, didn't even have to feign innocence. He presumed nothing over his maker. On the contrary! Whatever he'd thought the nuances of their relationship were, he was learning that they weren't.

"Am I to believe you care about that, also?" He didn't, but even if it was just for polite appearances, the other man did make the mistake of asking his opinion. "I like her! Why would I wish for something else?"

It physically pained him, but Salieri was not going to respond to Jessica's inference. He wasn't even going to pull a face. Of course, in order to stop himself, he had to look up at the vaulted ceiling, make himself very consciously aware of just how noteworthy it wasn't, to blank the impulse to react out of his head.

He wasn't going to look at Jessica yet, either. "I do," he told Mozart. "If you want her company, I will be unable to remove her." He was already unable, and having an excuse would put him off the hook, just a little. To that extent, he did care for the other man's opinion on the matter.

"Tell me," he said to Jessica, "are they expecting your return?" Whether or not they were, if any of them had any idea she'd left, they might have tasked someone with following her.

Aha. Yes, one of those cares again. Same as they would be a packaged set, were the court to want them back, it would be Salieri's tolerance level tested if Mozart chose to entertain the elder vampire. Otherwise, Mozart's actual feelings were of no account. All the more reason to reach his hand out towards Jessica and make sure she accepted his invitation.

"Please stay," he asked of her, pointedly avoiding Salieri's eyes. "His unpleasantry only permeates halfway through the house, which leaves us no less than four bedrooms, at least." Did that answer her implication?

Jessica took his hand as consolation and gave it another squeeze. Touching! And without an accompanying hiss? How novel. By his judgment, that made them already well on their way to being more than whatever she would have liked him and his maker to be. "They should not be," she said. "But I am not looking for refuge. It was never my intention to stay long."

For only the span of a second, Salieri entertained the fantasy of the two of them distracting one another so completely that he could slip away unnoticed, finally. An attempt like that wouldn't succeed, but its futility wasn't what ended the thought. It wasn't what he wanted. This was his home. Things went a certain way, here. There was an established pattern to his bursts of interaction with Mozart, and subsequent marathons of hording himself away. It was established, a routine, and no one was going to come into his house and take that from him.

"I haven't offered it," he said, though they both knew that if Jessica was in any actual danger, he would find himself equally concerned with her safety, as his own. "You didn't come all this way to stay five minutes." To Mozart, he said, "It's a shame you've already eaten. You might have taken her with you."

Who was to say the wish had no chance? Mozart had some idea about Jessica, but he wouldn't speak for her - only for his own desperate self. Did Salieri want to run? Let him. Should they want him back, clearly the woman could find him. And if they really wanted him...

He chased the thought away with a flick of his fingers. Jessica probably had the power of age over, well, both of them, but that was all. Not a hint of bond between any of them. Shouldn't that alone have put her in Salieri's better graces? So impossible!

But at least Mozart didn't have to take it personally? Hmff. That made the offense worse.

"There's always tomorrow night," he said. Or the next. And all that followed. Maybe, if she would keep holding his hand like that, he would leave with her. "Or later. He fancies me insatiable."

"Aren't we all?" It was a sarcastic question, but not harshly delivered. Jessica just sighed. "He hardly ate for me. I hoped things would be different now. But they aren't, are they?"

Now they were simply going to talk about him, as if he wasn't there? Salieri cleared his throat. He expected them to speak as if they had no audience, inappropriately, or offensively. He even expected them to exclude him altogether, once they had each other to interact with, and that would have been fine. Speaking of him as if he was a child, or a pet, or some inanimate object that wasn't functioning properly, was less.

"You make a problem of something that doesn't concern you," he said to Jessica. It hadn't occurred to him that anyone else (Mozart, specifically) would find his feeding habits unsatisfactory. Mozart mocked him for it, but he mocked Salieri for most things. He would mock Salieri now, if he knew what was stopping him from plotting to sneak out.

"The rest of you may revel in violence all you like, but I have no part in it." He'd given up trying to convince Mozart to behave differently. Whatever attempt he'd made was never going to come to anything, anyway. He'd known that.

Did it not follow, then, that one's maker should show any care towards that which they made? Honest question, one Mozart would be delighted to ask Jessica - at least for her personal opinion, even if she did not speak for all vampire tradition. She, at least, seemed to exude warmth; no wonder Salieri despised her. He reveled in cruelty, welcomed it, got off on it. This girl was much too soft to him, much more so than he deserved. That had to be it.

"And when has your well-being not been my concern?" Her lips had flattened into a tight, thin line, but still she only looked exasperated. Like she already knew the exact depths of Salieri's stubbornness. Like she could commiserate. "Whatever he tells you, I did not teach him that. I'm sorry."

Mozart didn't mind. In fact, he was smirking. "Have no part in it?" he repeated. "That's not how I've heard it." In regards to either of them, Salieri with his fetish and Jessica with all the accusations against her.

Another conundrum was occurring to Salieri, such that he didn't immediately notice Mozart on the verge of calling him out inappropriately. He'd continued to speak to Jessica, not asked her to leave, to be polite, and yet he was leaving them all standing in the atrium. Without acknowledging it, he'd hoped Mozart would take the responsibility from him and invite her properly into the house, so he wouldn't have to. But he hadn't. And now Salieri was painfully aware of it.

"You haven't heard anything," he said, which was better than attempting to explain further or make distinctions, but not as good as saying nothing would have been. Nor was it literally true, but he thought he'd still avoided revealing enough details about his life that it was...not exactly lying.

Without giving either of them room for immediate rebuttal (not that that would stop it coming), he said to Jessica, "If you intend to stay any length of time, I'm sure the sitting room will be more comfortable than the doorway."

"I have heard plenty," Mozart countered, refusing to give Salieri room to finish his denial. Both eloquently verbalized and less so, he'd been given a fuller picture of his maker's predilections in a matter of only a few weeks than anyone else in the other man's life might have earned in years.

(What of Salieri's wife, he now suddenly thought. Surely someone he had to have met at least once, but very much a stranger. Not a woman he would know on sight. Did she know anything about this? Could she possibly know her husband even half as well as Jessica must, as even he did? More questions he may as well invent his own answers to...)

Offering his arm to their guest, he appealed to her instead. "Does that embarrass you?" She had a look on her face that he couldn't read as either bashful or smug without a blush in her pale cheeks. "I'm an offensive monster, I can't help myself." Over his shoulder, he raised his eyebrows at Salieri. "Are you coming?" Because they were going, taking the suggestion without waiting for him.

As they passed him, Jessica reached out finally to brush Salieri's arm. "Not everything you want to disdain is violence, Antonio."

"I haven't said it is." He followed them, without questioning whether he would have preferred not to. This, Salieri thought, was the real danger in Jessica's presence. Not some horde that might be following her, following him, but the way old habits died hard. The way he didn't think to do anything other than trail after her as she left. It disturbed him, a little. If only he could say there was some magnetic pull, something that emanated from his maker, lingered, even after his long-passed release, that made him follow.

It would be preferable, even, to say that he feared her, or that he was too concerned with what she and Mozart might get up to if left to their own devices. If someone (whom, he couldn't say) was going to ask him why he was going after them, instead of taking the opportunity to politely excuse himself and retreat back to the second floor, he would claim one or the other of these things were true. But it wasn't. It was just habit, and that was stupid, dangerous, weak. He could choose not to do it. Failing to choose was a type of laziness he particularly disliked.

After a pause just long enough that it might be obvious his mind was working something over, he said, "I am aware that you do not all view our feeding as inherently violent."

"Tell me," Mozart said, still over the tail-end of Salieri's protest as they moved through the room, "what do you know about bonds?" He led Jessica to the couch let her take her seat first. Did the power (or whatever) extend all the way back to a sire's sire? It must. He took the only space next to her, not that Salieri would put up a fight for it, and sat up on his heels, leaning in. "He won't command me, but I'm certain you could." Especially if she kept agreeing to hold his hand or fold her legs in so they could sit closer together.

Her fingers danced across his cheek, pulled gently at a longer strand of his hair. "Oh, no, not quite," she answered. The skirt of her dress draped over his knee as she settled and neither of them moved to fix it. "He released you? I released him. If we hadn't, I suppose I could compell him to compell you, but I don't think that would be necessary." She was smiling - though with the sour look on Salieri's face, Mozart wasn't sure how - up at the other man as he joined them. "I've seen plenty of vampires use it against their progeny, but not all of them. Most just take it for granted. Some find meaning in it."

Mozart made no effort to curtail the high pitch noise bubbling up in his throat. Before he could think of a smart reply, though, Jessica went on.

"And feeding is only as violent as you allow it to be." Though her mirth had not disappeared entirely, it was clear that trying to play Salieri's mother made her tired. But she cupped Mozart's face. "You're still a baby, it won't be how you think it is, how he tells you it is, forever. It can be pleasurable for you and for them. Or peaceful. And it doesn't have to be murder. That control comes in time. Sooner, probably, for you, if you want it."

Salieri sat across from them, his fingers pressed to his temple, his elbow resting on the arm of the chair. He was slumped down in the seat too far for his own liking, but this, watching them crowd together and touch one another without the faintest acknowledgment that they were strangers to one another, was tiring. If Jessica remained long enough to sleep in the house, what would she do? It would be proper to sleep alone, but Mozart would want to take her with them, and Salieri got the impression she might go. Or would she track him down? He didn't like to wonder what he would do, if she did. His eyes unfocused for a second, lost in the infinite series of possibilities.

He blinked back up at them, like there was too much light. "They can't consent. There is nothing you can do to remove the violence from the equation. I suppose you might find one or two to whom you could reveal your nature, who would agree to help you, but you cannot survive on that. The odds are too low."

Strangers! Nonsense, they were family. As desperate as Salieri was not to have anything to do with Mozart, let alone as his soul source of attention, affection, whatever he craved, he should have been overjoyed to see another person who at least appeared to move quickly past the barriers of propriety. Who would call them on it? There was no one else but Salieri, whose opinion on any kind of physical intimacy was something Mozart already knew well enough.

If this was what it meant to be a monster in the other man's eyes, maybe the insult wouldn't sting so bad the next time.

Mozart took Jessica's hand, kissed her knuckles, and gave it back to her. What would his wife think of all of it? Her turn to be jealous of the exploits she was missing out on. (Not for long, hopefully.)

"He survives on his resentments," he said, flipping his hand towards Salieri. "I've watched him eat perhaps only twice and once, it was from me. The other may have been a fever dream."

Regardless of what either of their wives would think, Salieri did feel something that creeped up alongside jealousy. It wasn't; jealousy implied Mozart and Jessica were doing something he wanted and lacked. They weren't, but he was too aware that if either of them were not present, he would be the one they tried to crowd against, he would be the one whose hand was caught.

And he would attempt to cast it off, at least for awhile, but it was strange to watch. It was strange to see two people who usually paid him so much mind, paying him so little. Not surprising, not even wrong, just strange.

It made him uncomfortable. He felt like a shadow. The longer they stayed together, the less they would notice if he left the room, surely. "You don't see it," he said. "That doesn't mean I don't do it. I would prefer not to, but it can't be entirely avoided. I would feed from you, if it did not cause such an adverse reaction." That was fine to say. It was true. It would be easier, if that were a viable option, even if Mozart would enjoy it too much.

Jessica's lips had parted before Salieri's anecdote, like she had something to say, but they folded in, caught between her teeth as he continued. She didn't smile again, but her eyes lit up like she wanted to. "So that's real?"

Mozart could only shrug. It seemed to be, although the implication that they shared the initial thought that Salieri had overreacted. "He seems to think so. I don't know what it is, either, before you ask. More than a few would tell you I drank too much towards the end. Perhaps some of it lingered."

"No..." Jessica looked unsure, but not of that as the potential cause, either. "But I suppose it doesn't matter. I fed him sometimes, too, but I preferred to bring him something when I could. I believe you're spoiled, Antonio, but you're still young, too. It's not always so dismal as you've decided."

It didn't matter, it only barred Salieri from an option he'd never counted on, anyway. Not that that was any more fair than hunting for food, to rely on someone else to sustain you. If you lived long enough, there came a time when feeding was barely necessary. Knowing that made it more bearable. Still, he missed food, and the idea that eating was something enjoyable.

"It is," he confirmed, if either of them still wanted to question it. Why should they think he was overreacting, or exaggerating? He wasn't showy, slight physical discomfort wasn't something he chose to draw attention to. It didn't follow that he would make an exception for this one, oddly specific thing.

"I'm sure others share my opinion." Not many, from what he could tell, but someone, somewhere. Their common nature didn't make them any less individual people. "I may come to hate it less than I do now, I may not. I can only say for certain what I feel now."

"Hmm." Jessica pinched Mozart's chin and narrowed her eyes at him. Searching for something, maybe, not cross. "I've heard stories, but none I know well enough to retell. It's been a long time since I've smelled something that isn't vampire or human. I think I'm jealous, Antonio."

"Don't be," Mozart quickly dismissed. "You have the same open invitation that he does." To begin with. But, moreover, there was nothing supernatural about his blood. The significance of taste came from his talent, from his liveliness. Didn't it? He noticed the difference in his (victims) meals. Dull life gave way to dull, weak blood. The opposite must be true, as well. "And what he feels now," he added, emphasizing Salieri's own words, "is that I am inhuman. He doesn't need the validation."

"We're all inhuman." It was said with more bite than necessary, but the idea that Mozart was some third thing - neither vampire nor human - was ridiculous. There were no other things. Granted, if anyone had told Salieri that vampires were real, prior to being made so forcefully aware of their existence, he would have scoffed. Even so, the existence of one supernatural entity didn't mean anything, in regards to others.

Mozart had to have been human. If he wasn't, then the world was even more unfair than Salieri previously supposed it to be.

"Besides," he said, "the deficiencies in your nature are not physical. You would be as lecherous and ill-mannered, no matter what you were."

Oh, seconded. Salieri's bizarre reactions were his own; Mozart couldn't take the blame for every single thing wrong with his, with their life. And here, more fuel to that fire. Another stack of accusations thrust into his lap - of all the things the other man could do that with! He tossed a hand up. "Are things so flagrant at Schönbrunn on the other side? As I knew it -" His eyes rolled pointedly towards Salieri. "- they usually had the decency to slander you behind your back."

Jessica's brow furrowed, but not for long. "It's not the courtesy you think of it as," she said. "Believe me, I know how you feel, but be grateful he uses his words instead of his teeth." She caught herself, caught Mozart before he could protest. "Not as you'd like. They're the monsters. He's...the same as I've always known him. More or less."

"I am not Schönbrunn," Salieri said through a tight jaw, his spine going stiff, pulling him out of his slouch in the chair. "I have never been, and you know this." There was no actual malice in his previous insults, they were only observations that Mozart sometimes took offense to, and at other times, didn't. But to equate Salieri with the court was a pointed jab, and one he knew his companion was aware would nettle him.

If Jessica wasn't here, he thought, Mozart might have chosen different words. The palace would not be in the forefront of any of their minds. Its presence had followed her here, even in the absence of a physical pursuit.

He wanted to stand again, but didn't allow himself to. "You've always had half a mind to return. I'm sure Jessica would be delighted, if you followed her home."

Jessica looked nervous, chewing the inside of her cheek and avoiding the eyes of both of her hosts. "It's not home," she correcrted Salieri, steadying her gaze back on him. Squaring her shoulders, like she was making a decision all over again. "And I'm not going back."

For everything Mozart decided he had figured out about her based on what he could pry out of Salieri, here was a display of something his companion's anecdotes did not cover. He saw how gentel she was, how pleasant, and easily imagined glimpses of the dominatrix from Salieri's implications.

But none of those qualities, pleasant as they may be, set her apart from any other silly palace girl. All of them, he would wager, without exception were content in their creatures-of-the-night courtesan roles, content to stay put and let the simple joy of being part of the court carry them through their respective eternities. The darkened look on Jessica's face said that she and her - what was the word she used? Ah, yes - progeny had more in common than the latter would like to acknowledge.

"Neither am I!" he said, with a final flip of his hand. "If I return to Vienna, it is only to collect my wife and bring her to my palace. But! I could be swayed to follow you elsewhere, depending. That would delight him."

Edited 2018-02-09 06:46 (UTC)

Save for Jessica, the room faded out around Salieri. His posture straightened. Mozart's voice was a fuzzy hum. She was leaving? She...had left. This visit was a stop along the way to her destination, she was already gone, he had to repeat it to himself. A mix of emotions swelled in him, not the least of which was the feeling of stupidity, for fearing Jessica was on an errand to collect him.

"You're not?" he asked to confirm, but there was only the barest hint of questioning in his voice. Of course she wasn't. He knew her well enough to see that she was telling the truth. Also in truth, he wanted to speak with her about it, but this wasn't the time. If that conversation were to come, they would have it on their own.

Mozart's presence loomed back into his consciousness. "I suppose," he said, standing, because he was already on the edge of his chair, and wanted to look like the movement was intentional, "you could make some arrangement with her. If she doesn't mind your company."

"I'm not," the young woman echoed. The smile came back to her eyes, but the corners of her lips barely twitched. Honestly, if that didn't please Salieri then what ever could? He would never be satisfied, turning his nose up at both Mozart's exclamatory displays and Jessica's tempered ones alike. What better company she would make, with her appreciation of such luxuries as emotion.

Mozart sat up eagerly on his knees. "Arrange me! I'm no stranger to travel. And Paris is hardly a respectable place to settle. I had my sights set on England, for a time, but I'm amenable." All she need do was request his company and he would gladly follow anywhere. It broke the promise no one asked him to make (nor expected him to keep) to stay with Salieri, but it would be a welcome break.

"Oh, my sweet childe, no." Jessica caught his hands, though, before he could deflate entirely. "Not because I wouldn't love to steal you away. But you have no idea what he risked for you."

Salieri wasn't exactly pleased, but he was relieved. He'd told himself a thousand times that Jessica was no better than anyone else around them, that she was part of the conspiracy against him, that she was to blame. It wasn't something he ever entirely believed, even if it couldn't stop him from thinking of her as someone he hated. If she was leaving, she was no real villain. And even if she was, he'd never wished that place on anyone.

He stopped his pacing, not far from where his companions sat. Not close enough to appear to look down on them, not yet far away enough to look like he might be sneaking off. "You're free to do whatever you desire," he reminded Mozart. People, Mozart included, needed to leave off implying Salieri had any control over the other man. He didn't want it, it put a bad taste in his mouth.

To Jessica, he said, "If you prefer to go alone, say it. He has no obligation to me. He is not some reward, and I've done nothing to be rewarded."

Everything that Salieri did looked like slinking off. Even when he wasn't, Mozart had grown to assume they were always one or two steps away from that. So his attention stayed on Jessica - who wanted to hold him, at least, but also rejected his companionship - despite the acute awareness of his maker hovering around them, looking for any excuse to drift away.

Hmpff. Better that they should have all left him to die, when resurrection meant both isolating him from all those who did value his presence and denying him any manner of replacement.

But. Compared to the nothing he was expected to get accustomed to, Jessica's hands were - well, not warm, but tight around his. The pressure, the intention made all the difference.

"Don't listen to him," he pleaded. At least on the first few points. "You said so yourself, I'm a much sought-after prize. Has he been so good that you think he deserves that? Not to you. Not to me!"

Jessica squeezed Mozart's hands, but her eyes went to Salieri as he moved about the room. "That has never been my preference. I'd take you both with me, if that was at all possible."

"What does it matter, if you take only one of us?" If he really wanted to argue this point, convince her that she should take Mozart, or convince Mozart that he should follow her despite any half-hearted protests, Salieri thought he could. But there wasn't much intent in his voice, or passion in his phrasing. It filled him with the slightest dread, to think of Mozart actually leaving. It would be strange, even after this comparatively short time. Without someone else in the house, Salieri might cease to exist, fade so completely into the background of his own painting that he might as well never have been there, at all.

"Regardless," he said, straightening his shoulders, his weight shifting from one foot to the other, "I'm sure he will have as little trouble following after you, as he did after me."

"I could keep you safe," Jessica offered, looking more hopeful with the offer than she probably ought to have. "From Vienna, at least. If I could give both of you that, I want to." She reached out, held her hand open towards Salieri. "Can't you come sit with us? You have to know I didn't come here to disrupt anything."

Resigning to sitting back on his heels, Mozart allowed the woman to do as she wished. He thought to swat her hand down, but it did occur to him that it might be more interesting to her absorb the full hit of Salieri's dismissal. He would brush her off again and, then! Then, maybe, see what he meant. "He won't," he still voiced, though, not without a degree of sulking. "You have to know that everything that isn't silence and gloom is an interruption to him."

An interesting offer, coming from one of the people Salieri blamed most for this mess. She'd said this before, that she sought to protect him, and every time, he wondered when that feeling began, for her. It couldn't have been before all this happened. She couldn't have gone into it wishing for his safety, surely, or she might have warned him before it all started. Someone who wanted to keep him safe would have gotten him out of the court's sights, much earlier.

So he shook his head, dismissing her words. He didn't take her hand, but he did come and sit beside her, though there was barely room for all three of them. If he didn't, Mozart would have something mocking to say about it, and if that continued too aggressively, Salieri would leave the room.

"There's no disruption," he told Mozart. "She said she would be on her way, soon." Her presence, he realized, wasn't even entirely unwelcome in this moment, in that it had dragged him away from the dangerous train of thought he was flying along on, before she made her appearance. Perhaps, by the next time he was alone, the idea of giving in to Mozart would have started to sound unimaginable, again.

Less room, even, than there could have been. Mozart hadn't exactly spread out as much as he was capable of, but neither did he make the room that Jessica automatically did, even before Salieri granted her request. Why bother? he wanted to lean over the woman to ask. You'll be up again in no time, even if it seemed like there would be more give than anticipated.

"Don't chase her out," he warned, kicking a leg out so it crossed over Jessica's and near to where his maker perched. "She's at least staying the day."

Without breathing, Jessica's shoulders dropped like the weight of the world had finally rolled off. Poor girl, how could she still believe that proximity to Salieri meant anything? She'd known him more intimately for longer and still didn't know. "Maybe," she said to him and not Mozart. "I'll at least need to go, again, and eat. You two were my priority." She sighed again. "I missed you, Antonio."

"Take him with you," Salieri said, his attention trained on Mozart's foot, his heel so dangerously close to Salieri's leg. He wasn't surprised the other man didn't put more effort into kicking at him. Surprised and dismayed, as it would have given him an excuse to get right back up. Instead, he was forced to sink farther into the couch than he wanted, in order to stay on it at all, with so little room between its arm and his maker's skirt.

"You missed nothing," he continued. "Herr Mozart will attest to that." Except that he might not, came a sudden voice in his mind. He might decide to tell Jessica more about Salieri's behaviour, after drinking his blood. He might decide to tell her any number of things, and one of them might be the truth, that Salieri was steadily becoming the very picture of protesting too much. She might think something of that, and she might decide she needed to voice some of those thoughts, and Salieri hoped his face didn't betray that he was descending into an ugly thought spiral.

He should never have been thinking about giving in, to begin with. Then it wouldn't be on his mind, and he wouldn't fear it coming up, now. Fearing something real, with more tangible consequences, when Jessica first arrived, had been better than this. He looked from Mozart's foot, to his face. "You do love to be sure I know how boring I am."

What a dilemma. Unlike their pleasant surprise of a stalker, Mozart was able to get a meal (...or two) in during his outing. "I already ate," he said foolishly, with a lazier swing of his leg. Not nearly enough time had passed to justify seconds (...thirds, if you wanted to be precise), but what idiot would pass up dinner company like Jessica? Further reason that she must stay, even if she didn't plan to stay forever. What would it be like to eat with another real vampire, instead of the self-loathing disciplinarian he'd been stuck with?

"He's not wrong, though." With her preference already at default being for Salieri, how much stupider would Mozart have to be to talk up all of those flash-in-the-pan moments of interest? It interested him much more to know her anecdotes, anyway, since he could never quite get them out of his sire. As concentrated as Salieri's efforts to be dull were now, he must have done something to garner so much affection and favour from Jessica. "When you do leave us, I promise you'll miss me much more."

Jessica's whistful expression mostly disappeared and rightfully so. Mozart took pride in making it hard to hold that solemn of a face. She grabbed again for his hand with both of hers, but insisted, "I really didn't come to intrude. If you have other plans for the evening, don't change them on my account. I'd like to come back, if I'm welcome."

"We have no plans." Lying to her would be pointless, and Salieri tried to avoid lying as much as he could. If they dragged him with them, when they went out, so be it. It wasn't his preference, but neither was it anything new. The thought of eating in front of both of them made his stomach curdle. It wasn't more than he could brace himself for. Fighting them on it, if they made an issue of it would be even less pleasant.

Nor could he really say that Jessica couldn't come back. It might be better if she did, anyway. She could keep Mozart company. When he was distracted, he was literally off Salieri's back, and a distraction provided by someone who was, at least, a known quantity, was better than suffering a stranger in his home. But instead of saying so, he looked back at Mozart and said, "You've never been one to turn down a meal."

Mozart pulled a face and rolled his eyes, as the words speak for yourself! scrawled out in the forefront of his mind. Not that he had any of his own, and couldn't even imagine any more interesting than Jessica, but being included in Salieri's inevitably much duller schedule did not seem appropriate, either. What did, though, was leaning in to remind his grand-sire: "He never does, unless you count the nightly sulking in the chapel. But that's more of a routine by now."

And shouldn't that have happened already? Whether or not that activity had passed while Mozart was out for his first dinner, by his - or rather, Salieri's - watch, the other man should have scampered instead of coming when beckoned. Hm. Something else he - or a him from a week ago - should like to learn from Jessica.

His head dropped to his shoulder. "Haven't I? I don't think you would know that."

"You go out often enough," Salieri countered. It wasn't as if he couldn't hear the other man coming and going at all hours, often enough. Nor as if he'd never seen Mozart feed, running around sampling as much as the night had to offer him. It might have been his own imagination, but Salieri was hungry enough, often enough, that he swore he could smell not just the blood on Mozart's breath, but the distinct differences in the humans who provided it.

No, he thought, that was certainly his imagination. To say it wasn't would be bordering on admitting he had a problem, whether with feeding too little, or focusing too much on what his progeny did with himself. Either would be distasteful.

Speaking of focusing too much, he shifted his position farther back against the arm of the couch, though there was precious little space to occupy. Jessica's leg was too close to his, he could feel the almost pressure of its shape beneath the skirt between them, even without the heat a living person would have shed. His own leg bumped Mozart's foot, in the process of settling himself again. "The chapel is pleasant, as impossible as you may find that to believe."

Coming, going, as if any of that had to do strictly with his dining habits. Mozart came and went just as much, in his human life, and not all of it centered around want of food. The same could be true now - and was, sometimes. Yes, the house was huge, but the winter nights were long and rooms were only new once. Paris, though still Paris, had more to offer out his front door than behind it.

"What choice do I have?" Compulsively, he kicked back at Salieri's leg but missed. Of course. "By pleasant, he means sans moi."

"Sans tout le monde," Jessica sighed, putting a hand not quite on Salieri's knee but certainly near enough to it that it looked like she meant to hold them apart. "You really have to learn not to take it personally."

On that, at least, Salieri could agree with Jessica. He nodded as she said it. There were more than enough reasons to avoid Mozart, in particular, but it was foolish to believe Salieri wouldn't put just as much effort into spending his time without anyone else. He chalked the belief up to another expression of Mozart's vanity.

"I mean quiet," he said. "Its beauty is manifest, with or without you." It was actually unfortunate that Mozart, in his taste only for violent delights, couldn't appreciate something like that, all the silent ghosts, the lost reverberations of music that wasn't there, hadn't been, for a long time. Its energy was too subtle, and Mozart's too high. Salieri wondered how they were supposed to share anything, if they continued to occupy the same residence, when this was so. "You're free to make whatever choice you like, at any time."

That head-bob almost offended him as much as did the nightly avoidance. Mozart would grant Jessica the probable insight that he did not have himself, but for Salieri to nod along like he was so self-aware, like he hadn't spent their evening (never mind their entire French exilement) establishing that he could not agree less with this woman. As a near professional contrarian, he saw what Salieri was doing.

And had he not said this, already? It was, by default, personal. Who else did, would Salieri have to treat the way he treated Mozart? Jessica hardly counted. As much as he thought he wanted her there, she would not be a permanent fixture in this home. If anything wasn't personal, it was - regrettably - sort of that. Jessica seemed to be a delight, but anyone who gave him half the attention his maker intentionally denied him would have been welcomed with open arms.

"I do," he reminded Salieri, assured Jessica. Mostly. Less, since their last spar, but even in choosing to give up on the other man, he was still in complete control of the situation. "And I choose to recognize an offense when I see it."

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001. renaitre: guess who's coming to dinner

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