Chapter 90
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 89
Arthur can’t help but give Quincy a sideways look- can it really be coincidence? Darcy’s missing memories, the maybe-vampire attack… And now here’s a minstrel dhampir?
But… but Quincy really doesn’t seem to know anything about being a dhampir. And his eye colour changed. It could be some kind of spell, hiding that before, but if it’s a ruse, it’s a very elaborate one.
Surely he wouldn’t have let himself be drained to fainting if he was just pretending not to know anything. He’d have found some way out of it. No, probably Quincy really doesn’t know anything about being a dhampir.
“…You don’t want to be able to shapeshift?” he asks instead. That seems… very odd to him.
~~~~
“No, I’m pretty as I am. Why mess with perfection?” Case in point, Quincy shows that he is being the sensible eater here, that bowl of salad clearly was too big, he’s full already and why keep eating after that? He has to hold on to some principles, even when he knows what it means to be hungry.
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“But shapeshifting sounds so… cool?” Arthur offers, looks at the bowl Quincy is pushing away. “Well, you clearly have the dhampir appetite, anyway,” he observes, and goes to finish his bowl of soup and third sandwich triangle.
“Not any idea about proper dhampir food, though.” Giving that salad bowl a wrinkled nose, Darcy keeps chewing on her beef jerky. “There’s not even bacon in there. Maybe his drac isn’t wolf-shaped? Is that how it goes with minstrels?”
“Oh, good question!” Arthur agrees. “I don’t know? But the drac is, like… the manifestation of a vampire’s soul or something, right? Linked to the person’s character in a way, anyway. So maybe you have a salad-eating drac,” he tells Quincy with a chuckle.
“I’m vegetarian, thank you very much. If there’s a drac in here I don’t notice it complaining, or notice it at all. But I guess I have time to figure that out.” Quincy smiles at Darcy and inclines his head slightly. “And a mentor in how to be a dhampir. Clearly one who takes this drac business very seriously.”
“Maybe it’s a bird,” Arthur wonders. Quincy is kind of… bird-like? “Probably not a rabbit,” he adds with a snicker.
~~~~
“Oh, I can fuck like one, that’s for sure.” Just about to waggle his eyebrows with a grin, Quincy suddenly finds himself with Darcy growling loudly at him and being right up in his face.
“No! You can’t say things like that in front of Arthur! They make him uncomfortable! Apologize and promise to never do it again!”
~~~~
Arthur is feeling the immediate discomfort, his entire being going “no!” and trying to erase those words from his memory, not think about it, but Darcy’s words surprise him, and send a warm feeling through him that dispels some of the clammy, nauseating feeling.
Clearly taken aback, Quincy puts his hands up but turns to look at Arthur. “Sorry. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. It’s a bit of a habit because, well, society tells me that I’m wrong and sinful and shouldn’t exist so I spit back where I can. But I’ll try hard not to say things like that where you can hear them. Again, sorry.”
Arthur takes a deep breath to try and settle himself, nods, tries to give Quincy a smile. “It’s, um, okay, I’m… kind of silly about it, I guess.”
~~~~
Gesturing Darcy to sit back down, Quincy wags a finger. “Nah uh uh, honey, you aren’t. We all have our topics that go over a line. Yours is what we just said I won’t name anymore, mine are creepy crawlies, and clearly, Cycy’s is salad.”
Oh, this place is a den of need! On the inside Quincy is gleefully grinning. So many things he could make better here. So many ways to get them all on his side… Manipulation. Hah, of course a man like Arthur wouldn’t get it, but to him, yes, that makes perfect sense. Not all manipulation has to be for evil (idiotic concept really). It’s just about knowing what to say and how to say it for the best effect. It’s called being social and it’s a dance of fighting for who gets to lead and who has to follow. He refuses to follow if he can do anything about it.
~~~~
Arthur finds his smile becoming more firm at Quincy’s words, blushes a little at having it taken so seriously. “Thanks,” he says, then manages a snicker, looks to Darcy. “Yeah, I think we could chase you with salad…”
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“I’m not five anymore. I wouldn’t run any longer,” is Darcy’s pouted answer as she crosses her arms in front of her chest, only for Quincy to chuckle.
“So, tell us the story about when you were five and did run, Cycy.” There, just like that. Use peoples’ names often, engage on little aspects they let slip about themselves, get them to disclose more and more information to you. Oh yes, and of course, play on their emotions.
That blush is so very nice on her, he wonders if that’s a dhampir thing, blush would mean more blood after all, but she’s giggling and telling the story.
Well, how she heard the story from her Papa, (and another point of information,) who had brought her a type of vegetable from another country, and she took one sniff and apparently ran to the other side of the room.
~~~~
Arthur can very well imagine five-year old Darcy doing that, and joins in the chuckling at the story. That sets the mood for the rest of their meal. Arthur concludes it with some cake, Quincy with that hot chocolate he spoke of, and he lets Darcy try a sip of it, too. She pulls a face and waves a hand in front of her mouth and declares that it bit her, so clearly, no, dhampir tastes aren’t universal any more than human ones are just because they don’t like sweet things.
Then Darcy decides that Quincy, of course, needs a room in the castle. Quincy doesn’t look too enthusiastic about it until she mentions how he can decorate it however he wants, the house will oblige!
That’s how Arthur finds himself in a bedroom on the fourth floor, the top of the house. They rarely go here, but if Quincy prefers it and doesn’t mind two extra flights of stairs, sure. His sense of decorating is as dramatic as expected, with lots of nice fabrics.
Also lots of pictures of naked people, and that makes Arthur kind of uncomfortable. Quincy notices, of course, and points out how that’s perfectly normal and lots of classical art has naked people.
Which, yes, Arthur’s aware of, but… but for one, just because the classical people did it, doesn’t mean it’s automatically great (they nailed people to crosses and other horrible things, too…) and also… Well, intentionally hanging the naked people on your wall to look at them makes him uncomfortable.
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“I appreciate beauty in all its forms. The spark of the Divine in life and living things. And the pinnacle of that is people. So beautiful people are the truest expression of… who was that, Plato I think, with his cave analogy, of the true concept of beauty. Looking at these people, at their beauty, is my way of being able to take a glimpse outside the cave,” Quincy explains as he walks between the paintings and runs soft fingers over the one statue he decided he wants to have in a corner.
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Arthur gives Quincy a very confused look- okay, that makes everything more… abstract and less uncomfortable, but… “The pinnacle of beauty are… people?”
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While Quincy nods with a happy sigh to that, Darcy sticks her tongue out, wants to vehemently disagree, but then remembers that actor… or John, for that matter. Where is John anyway? It’s not like him to be jealous. Or, at least, not to do something about it. He’s her ‘do-guy’ after all. Now she’s wondering if he’s setting up the most elaborate date for them in his dreamscape and… of course, he doesn’t have to, but she’ll still enjoy it, so she ends up just tilting her head outwardly because she should hold her comment.
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Arthur glances at Darcy, catches her sticking out her tongue and feels inclined to disagree. “Um… I mean, I like some people… And I think we should be nice to each other on principle. But, um… also many people are awful. I don’t think I’d call people in general ‘beautiful’ or, like… something of a… higher meaning?”
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“There is beauty in darkness.” Realising how much more meaning there is to that statement now that Quincy knows he is part of the kingdom of the night, or however this works, he chuckles but goes on: “Yes, people are awful. But they also are the only ones capable of not being grey. People as in society are grey and terrible, people as in individuals are the only real way to see the Divine. To see a spark of true beauty when they show their passion, their emotions, their creativity. You won’t find art and expression out in cold, barren stretches between civilisation. No, you’ll find beauty in the stitch of an elaborate dress, in the stroke of a brush on a grand painting, in the words of an actor on the stage. That’s beauty. And it shines only harder against a backdrop of awful.”
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“Um… forests are beautiful?” Arthur offers, remembering some of the nicer things he’s seen since he left London. “Or… the sunset from the cliff? Or horses.” Really, he hasn’t ever thought much about what’s beautiful to him, or how other people might think differently, but it seems that you can have very different ideas about it? He gives Quincy a sheepish look. “Um… I guess I’ll leave the people and the art and such to you…”
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Nodding, Darcy agrees, then backtracks. “Actually, no, you’re both right. Beauty is smells! It’s taking something or somebody into you and enjoying it. Beauty is meaning. So… Arthur smells beautiful because his smell is meaningful to me!” To make her point, she turns wolf and sticks her snout against him, sniffs several times and allows herself to just float in all the associations and feelings that gives her, making her wag her tail and relax.
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Arthur looks at her in surprise. “That’s another different take… They do say ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’, or I guess in your case the nose, so I suppose it really is a bit different for everyone?” Also, he kind of likes that he smells beautiful to Darcy because he means something to her.
“Mongrel,” is Quincy’s giggled comment at Darcy’s display, which she seems to take as a challenge because a moment later she has a wolf-grin on and is doing her best to pretend she’s a dog trying sniff at Quincy’s behind to say hello. He has both his hands on it and is backing away, whining about his poor image, but can’t help laughing.
“That’s quite rude,” Arthur says to Quincy, a bit astonished he’d call Darcy that, but he’s also laughing at their antics because clearly, Darcy isn’t insulted.
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“That’s because I mean it as an acknowledgement of her personality being different from mine and am calling it out as a seemingly odd quirk from my view. She’d know if I actually was rude.” Sticking his backside to a wall to keep safe from wolf noses, Quincy explains while keeping an eye on Darcy and reaches over immediately to stroke her face (it would take a special brand of oblivious idiot to not notice she loves that) once she turns human again.
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“Ah,” says Arthur, like that makes sense to him, even though it doesn’t really. If Darcy doesn’t mind, well, clearly Quincy knows what he’s doing and picked the right word, but still… couldn’t he do the same thing with a nicer word?
~~~~
Holding on to Quincy’s hand to keep it on her face, Darcy cuddles up against his side, rubs her face slightly against him, and smiles as she tries to hand the playful insult back. “Socialite, ew.”
~~~~
With a snort, Quincy leans down to kiss her hair. “Cute. I’ll get you there, Cycy.” If she has to teach him how to be a dhampir he’s getting more and more of the impression that he has to teach her how to pass as human.
Mongrel was the nicer word… He had thought ‘bitch’, after all. Wait, Arthur didn’t say that out loud, did he? He doesn’t think he saw his lips moving. This whole mindreading thing is going to be as amazing as it might get him into awkward situations. One more thing to learn to monitor in ‘proper’ company. Eh, not as if he didn’t always know he doesn’t fit in. Now he just has an ever better reason.
That better reason doesn’t automatically make him immune to his earlier problems, and isn’t Cobb walking into the room with the most obvious ‘give me attention’-face ever a perfect reminder of that? Ugh, fine, he started this day with plans to seduce his way out of financial problems, and if anything it worked out better than planned on the lady of the house. She gave him a room, for crying out loud!
Not that he intends to stay around for long. He’s not one to settle down and he has a theatre career he cares more about than any single person in the world. But still, a room, full of decor he could pick and on a higher floor than he ever could call his own window before. It should be easy to climb up to the roof from here and he was looking forward to doing that, get his private time in, declare his triumph up directly at the Divine. Nothing between him and the stars… But it looks like he has some more work to do before then.
Very well, on goes the spiel again, he’s good enough to do two parallel ones, obviously. He can juggle Darcy and Cobb. Not that they aren’t both easy in different ways but, ouch, this marriage is going to need more than him reminding Cobb to not ignore his wife. If anything, now he’s wondering if he should recommend him ignoring her more.
Cycy is a beautiful kaleidoscope of emotions at any moment, but that’s maybe a bit much, hm, suppressed anger, he thinks. Dug deep down, oh, put under a mask, yes, that’s it, he’d say… after only about five minutes in. Yikes, how does nobody else see how obvious she is? She’s not good whatsoever at pretending. That smile is so overplayed that he can all but hear his director’s scolding voice calling halt on the scene to reprimand Darcy’s performance. He’ll have to see to that, too.
But for right now, yes, yes, he knows what he promised, and Cobb couldn’t be more obvious if he tried, either. Maybe he had the wrong idea about Arthur there, with him being uncomfortable around the mere mention of sex. That just might be Cobb trauma.
So Quincy tries to guide the conversation, if he dares call it that, but Cobb keeps teasing and being hands-on and okay, change of plans. Get Arthur out of the room, because he can’t deal with three completely different goals at once. A quick mental check over what he has in info about him, notebooks, opened up over explaining a book, generally socially awkward, ah, scholarly type, good, gives him the idea to ask Arthur if he couldn’t make a list of what they know about minstrels so that they could check later. Yes? Good, thank you, honey!
And that’s one less he has to deal with, now to figure out how to stop this tornado of emotions swirling between Gregory and Darcy. He swears he can all but see little flickers of her anger ooze off her and bounce right into that grin of Cobb’s. When that hungry grin of his isn’t aimed right at him it seems somewhat less fun, he’ll admit. So, obvious solution, aim it back at him but not cut Darcy out. She was horny enough earlier, give the dhampir what she wants and placate the needy husband in one go.
Okay, he thought the hardest part would have been to start this three-way, but apparently that was the easy part. Not that Cobb needed more than one invitation formulated for a pre-school level of language comprehension to jump to it. Cycy, if anything, looked angrier, but at least didn’t just stomp off. Still, Quincy is nearly, nearly glad he never has performance issues, even with an audience, because this is awkward at best with her still fully dressed at the side of the bed.
He could fuck Cobb happy on auto-pilot, but having the wife, who no, he doesn’t think is jealous as such, just glare, uh, no, not his cup of cocoa. So how about setting that auto-pilot up and work more on her?
Seriously? Cobb is teasing her when he finally managed to get her in a bit closer? Is he wilfully trying to piss her off further? If this is some kind of danger fetish, then Quincy refuses to fuel that one.
Cycy is too valuable, too precious, he needs her to like him and he’s not letting Cobb undercut that. Wait… there might be a win-win to be had here. Oh yes, that gag worked. Not that Darcy doesn’t seem about ready to explode at seeing him tie the annoying husband down. There’s history there, there’s definitely history there, but for right now, auto-pilot one way and soothing the anger over the other way it is.
She does let him kiss her. Good, very good, now how about he takes control by pulling it over into dhampir territory with her? Clearly, he’s not getting anywhere on the sex front. She always reacts so well to being called anything non-human, so let him direct that. Can he lick at her fangs? Can he coax them out that way? Can he coax his own fangs out? How does that work?
Like a bloody charm is how that works! Divine, that ought to be the best kiss ever! Hell, not stopping anytime soon, that’s for sure. And yes, that does seem to break her out of her mood somewhat, and Quincy would feel smug about of course being able to orchestrate both of them, but really, he’s having fun. He’ll focus on being a social genius later, after he had an orgasm or three.
Okay, maybe four… This dhampir thing just might be a boon to stamina and he likes it! He also likes that Cobb is the typical image of male entitlement. Pump and dump much? Just means he gets him out of his room and out of his hair right after. Means he can enjoy his smoke in peace.
Peace, if not sweet solitude, but then, Darcy being a softly-snoring ball curled up against his side is so idiotic that it’s kind of cute. And he likes having a bed warmer, he freezes easily after all, so fine, she can stay the night. She’s not pestering him right now. And he supposes if lack of appetite is a dhampir thing, neither of them will mind missing dinner.
So this is perfect. Good start into him dominating this place. So many needs he can see to here, he just needs to decide who his main stray here will be, and then he’ll surf it out for a few weeks until he can reap maximum reward, and then be off on his own again. Yes, that sounds good. So he tells the Divine, through the window where he can see the stars before flipping them off and settles in for a nap with Darcy.
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Arthur is happy enough to escape Quincy’s room and Gregory’s teasing (not directed at him, but, well, he’s not a complete idiot, he can tell what Gregory’s referring to) with something useful to do, and goes curl up in the corner of his favourite library sofa for a more thorough hunt on knight and minstrel information.
Not that he learns much more than they already know, and he eventually gives up with a huff- it’s just so hard to tell what’s bias and what’s real with these books! He wishes they could ask some nice vampire- well, one who knows about things, because Lucy doesn’t, really. How would she? She’s kind of… a self-taught vampire.
Speaking of vampires… There is, of course, still the question of Quincy’s parentage. Now that it’s confirmed he’s a dhampir, somewhere along the lines there has to be a vampire in the picture. Arthur makes a note to ask Quincy about his parents at the next opportunity- could one of them be pretending to be a human? Or maybe he’s adopted? Or one of his parents had an affair or something?
Either way, someone should know something, and Arthur’d rather know whatever that something is, too. If Quincy’s vampire parent doesn’t know about him, which is probably the best case scenario, it’ll still be good to know whose attention not to draw. If his vampire parent does know… why is Quincy alive? And does that have anything to do with the maybe-vampire attack on Darcy? Is that the same vampire lurking around?
Well, London is a big city… It occurs to Arthur to wonder how many vampires might be living there, hidden away. Vampires are predators of humans- or maybe parasites? Anyway, you’d think that a large accumulation of humans would also draw them. And there’s no larger accumulation of humans in this day and age. Also, with so many people around, the anonymity must help with hiding.
That’s a bit of a worrying consideration, Arthur thinks. But not much he can do about it now, maybe he’ll ask Art and Dr Seward and Lucy about it when they return? (It’s got to be ‘when’, and not ‘if’, he tells himself.) For the time being, he considers finding the others to report his findings. But he doesn’t have much in findings, and… well. He’s not a complete idiot, as said. He’s going to let them find him, he decides, and instead turns to some fun reading.
He’s only interrupted by the house pointedly popping up a plate of roast and mash and gravy on the coffee table, which is when he realizes he was so engrossed in his book that he missed that it was dinner time. And eating in the library where he’s warm and comfortable and can read as he does is about the height of luxury as far as he’s concerned, so he thanks the house and does just that.
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John’s been sitting in the study for hours now. He sort of knows that he’s spiralling down the drain, but somehow he can’t stop himself. He just keeps staring at a random spot of the wall, although he wonders if it’s the same one all the time, feeling completely powerless to so much as formulate a plan to not lose his girl. But what good is that going to do? He couldn’t win her. There’s no way he could win her back. He’s just helpless to not being enough man for her. He can just about do some of the work here, but he’s not entirely sure what the point there is, either.
The only consolation is the bottle of liquor next to him. Just a little bit of something nice in this fucking misery. Just one more. It’s just for taste, yeah, that’s all, nothing much else he can do anyway. And it’s getting late… eh, he can take the bottle, no use trying to use the glass in bed anyway. His lonely, cold, empty bed. Fuck that, the bottle is definitely coming with.
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The house is quiet when Arthur gets up the next morning- as it usually is, unless there’s a crisis. He enjoys this quiet time before the others are up, he realizes. He has Katharina for company, and she’s easily pleased with food and pets, often curls up on his lap once she’s scarfed down her own breakfast. (She’s learned not to jump on the table since the house unceremoniously teleported her off of it whenever she tried.)
Arthur’s just swiping up the last of his eggs and mushrooms with a wedge of toast when he hears steps in the corridor, and then Quincy’s voice, telling someone he’s not talking to them in that idiotic cat form- which makes that Gregory he’s talking to.