il_valentino | This fair morn'...

"It's not so much a change of mind as a... temporary suspension of disbelief. An amnesty for delusion, if you will. We all suffer those, from time to time. It probably wouldn't do to accord less reality to yours than I'd be willing to grant mine." Alex is bristling, which makes Cesare bristle in turn. He's too tired to fight it out in a ditch now.

"Has anybody else of your acquaintance mentioned the thing?"

"It wasn't a delusion." Granted, he'd been drunk and desperate, but it was hardly a dive off a cliff. He's cold, and huddles into his jacket, dismayed, tired, pouting, even. He needs a drink or a fuck, but what else is new.

Staring at the broken asphalt, he shrugs. "Ianto." It comes out a little forced, a little fucked.

"Oh well then. That makes it a little harder to verify, seeing as the gentleman isn't at hand." Cesare bares his teeth in travesty of a smile, thankful for the chink in the other man's armour. "Tired of you, has he."

"Don' tthink it was a wall for him either, so just as well he isn't here."

Cesare's smile cuts a little, but it is hardly unexpected. He finds himself refusing the nod and "What makes you think it wasn't me who fucked him over and left him to beg?"

And it had been. Where had the black and white gone.

"He's a vampire, much like the toy you're fucking." He smirks.

Cesare shrugs loftily, watches birds wheel. "Donna Isabel hardly is a toy, and if anything, although the admission greatly hurts my pride, it's she who is fu-... having me." He sighs, shrugs again. "The frisson of potentially having your throat ripped."

Then Alex's words filter through, slowly. "A vampire, è vero? Physically? You don't mean that, do you? Would that explain the state I picked you up in?"

"You-" It pulls him out of his reverie, the moody pouting and pining and moping, a suggestive eyebrow. "You let yourself be fucked." Interest gleams happily, messily, and the wry smirk of having one up on Cesare. "No shit." He laughs.

At Cesare's question he gives a sharp shake of the head, the sole of his boot catching on the curb and sending him stumbling for a moment. "Not physically, no. Not that I know of." He sounds more like a wounded dog than anything and it irks him.

"Ma che fai?" Cesare reaches out, a reflex, lest the other falls and bashes his nose into his brain. Not that he'd care. Well, perhaps in the way that one enjoys licking and sucking a sore spot in one's mouth, and hates to see it gone.

"Not what you're thinking," he frowns. "Sorry to disappoint; Madonna does not take me from behind. I would disapprove of that. But, if she'd so much as touch you with a ten foot pole, you'd discover, perhaps, provided you're not too drunk on your virility, that she has ways of twirling you around her finger - all the while allowing you to believe yourself master of the universe." His voice grows scratchy from the cold.

"So, what you mean to say is, you feel taken advantage of." Sharp, bleak laughter. "Oh the irony."

Alex turns forcibly as the fingers close around his arm, poised to strike but restraining himself, fingers clenched into a fist at his side. "What!" he snaps, then shakes his head sharply and pulls his arm away.

"As if I would touch her," he replies coolly. "You can keep her count for you to drown in. Like to burrow in her juices?" He rolls his eyes, smirking. "Tongue her til she screams?" He laughs.

The laugh dies in his throat. He shrugs. "Shouldn't be surprised, you mean? Yeah well, fucking thanks."

"Tongue her 'til she screams, yes." Cesare smiles, not unfondly, and quite disinclined to return the barb. It didn't sting, after all. Actually, come to think of it, Donna Isabella doesn't scream all that much. But she's got other ways to show her pleasure. Oh, does she ever. He grows fidgety, simply thinking of it.

Alex has yanked himself away with a ferocity Cesare recognizes; he senses the other must've been this close to lashing out. It had been like that with Miquel; never one to handle overbearing fussing well. Lend a hand in help and feel the bridge of your nose break in thanks.

"You're welcome." Cesare shrugs, trudging on, lost in thought and looking at his feet. "You know what the oracle at Delphi said? Gnothi seauton. 'Know thyself.' Saves one a whole lot of trouble, I'd wager."

"Ewww," Alex comments dryly, not sure he wants to think too much about it either. Cesare's fidgeting is curious, hilarious even, and he snorts. "Getting a hard-on just at the thought of her cunt?"

He laughs and kicks a pebble clear across the street where it bounces off a car and takes some of the paint with it. "Think I deserve it then? Think I deserve to be fucked over? Whatever. S'not worth the thoughts. Or words. Or anything. Fucking bastard."

He's not sure where they are going, or where he wants to go, either. Somewhere, that should be enough.

With a twitch and a scratch, he's got himself sorted at last. "For shame, Sandro. It's no secret that you're not fond of members of the gentle persuasion. Molto bene. That just means there's more for me." He scratches himself again, then resolutely walks on. "Madonna is a most gracious host," he continues, smiling.

He lets the other remark go; it's no use, squabbling with a heartbroken man; his remarks will hardly hurt or bite anyone who feels he's already been mortally wounded.

"So, do I drop you off at the nearest clinic, get yourself checked out? Because otherwise I'm headed home."

"So you are fucking other cunts in Margate besides her? Regular holes to fill, eh." He laughs out loud as he continues next to Cesare. "You'll have to let me watch sometime. I'm sure it would be entertaining." It wouldn't, and the words are off the cuff and out before he can think about. It is he who fidgets now like a teenage boy. He smirks. "Do you undress for her, at least, or romp about in sweaty pants and shirts, too?"

"What's to check out." He shrugs, he's beaten up, sure but nothing he hasn't seen or felt. A bit like a lost puppy trailing about the town he follows Cesare without another comment. To be fair, there is hardly another place to be at.

"Depends. Undressing or not, I mean," he says distractedly. "Doesn't make a whole lot of difference." Of course it does. It's a world of a difference. Idly thwapping a hand against the seam of his pants, playing a mute chord, he is aware of Alex's shambling after him. He does not mind. In fact, what with all this talk about sex... he welcomes it.

"Would you?" Cesare looks at him obliquely, over the shoulder. "How entertaining would that be, I wonder, when you don't even like women?" A strange dilemma of sorts, and it intrigues him. As for other encounters, he keeps silent. It's the gentlemanly thing to do, after all.

A half step closer takes him right up to Cesare's back. He leans forward. "Will you undress for me?" The whisper comes out a little hoarse, and is followed by a chuckle that denies any kind of serious intent. "Nevermind," he adds easily, "I think I like you dressed."

"I'd see you scream. Should be worth it? Her cunt on your cock as you lose it-" He doesn't exacttly want to think of her, her juices spilling over Cesare's cock, drenching him. It sends a faint twinge to his stomach.

"Oh?" Cesare half-turns. "As matters stand, you have seen me undressed. Or was it a slow, sensual dance you had in mind? Sorry to disappoint in that case." He pats the stubbly cheek that's digging into his sore shoulder. Motherofgod. Fuck. "Women are better suited for that."

He grimaces under Alex's pointy chin, then manages to twist away from him and hide the gasp in his voice. "Gesù, look at yourself, you're all green," he says eventually. "What an aphrodisiac that would be, you quietly vomiting into your hands while I'm nearing completion. No, I think I'll pass. You may always put the suggestion to madonna, provided she allows you to get close enough for her to incline her ear." He clears his throat.

And then Cesare's smile grows slow and dark and dirty. "What says I make you scream, this fair and mistful morn'?"

"A bit of seducation, a few tender kisses," he simpers into Cesare's ear, sarcasm coiling around the words, the underlying chuckle. "You'd be good at it, I bet. Lovely." He smiles, turns his face into the touch of the fingers. "De-licio-us."

"Oh but I could ask her for sure." He smirks. "Any chance you can arrange a meeting?" He laughs, amused by the idea more than the actual fact, if only to play cat to the woman's mouse, or possibly vice versa if he ignored pride.

Alex raises an eyebrow. "You think you could?" he responds, his voice sliding into the same tone, arousal curling in his stomach.

He's the very last man to handle jokes about his own august person well, but this doesn't smart. "Quite," he chuckles. "Like playing an instrument. And it's delicious, indeed."

Ducking away from Alex, he briskly walks on; the sooner home and back in bed, the better. "No art in arranging a meeting; she's my landlady. Try and knock at her door anytime after nightfall. She might welcome you as breakfast, you know. And yes, I intend to make you scream. Now. - Coming?"

He indicates a pout he doesn't mean. "Ah, but you won't ever show me, will you?" A put upon sigh, hand to the heart and dramatically rolling his eyes is followed by a smirk. "Too bad."

That he prefers the dark seduction that is none is no secret.

"I will." For the sake of the controversy and the conversation, her little outraged bouts and what she'd do to Cesare at retribution. "I mean it," he laughs, getting drunk on the adrenaline of a boyish thrill.

He snorts. "Good luck with that." But even then his feet catch up with Cesare's strides, matching his, hands in the pocket of his jeans. His body is still smarting from the beating, but it's coalescing into that aroused ache that is neither clearly pain nor pleasure, already.

Sensing that Alex does his best to keep up with him, Cesare smiles to himself, well pleased. "Why show you when it disgusts you?" he asks insouciantly, loftily, as if addressing larger Margate. "Performing for your benefit would only make sense if you were willing to learn from it. Not make the pugnosed 'ewww'-face you do so well."

Oh, wouldn't he love to watch, too, when Isabella rips into Alex. He'd chivalrously ask her to spare him, of course. It'd almost be worth it to make the introduction, later tonight.

If he makes it up the stairs to his appartamento, that is. No sleep, nightmares, and fucking morning chills, mille grazie. "After you," he smiles sweetly.

"Learn from it?" He laughs. "What am I? Thirteen and just learning how to push my cock into some hole? I don't think so." There's a bit of a swagger to his step, only broken by his wincing as it pulls on bruises.

By nightfall he'll be at that door. He grins. Oh yes, he will. She's just another hole to fill if he felt like it.

The walk drags on longer than he quite remembered and the lack of any kind of rest or painkillers catches up with him. He sets his jaw and tries to take the stairs up with as much grace as possible - possibly none - and a winning smile back at Cesare. It pulls tight around the corners of his eyes but he doesn't let up.

That he's uncomfortable with Cesare behind him, now, that too, shouldn't be a surprise.

Cesare pats the lean bum in front of his nose, an arse that seems to drag itself or possibly even drag its owner, in his entirety, up the steps.

"Learn to appreciate the fair sex, my friend." There's no rancour in it.

Alex bats for the hand fondling him. The landing looms two steps ahead and he leans against the railing, waiting for Cesare to unlock the door, let them back in. He wonders if the place still stinks of sex and booze.

"When hell freezes over, probably." But then- that thing's a vampire. That hardly counts for one or the other.

He lets them in - not a minute too soon, with weariness catching up with him again.

"Please excuse the mess?" he simpers, as if showing Alex in for the very first time. "It's so hard to find good staff these days." Grain of truth in that; for most of his life he was used to drop his things wherever, only to find them washed, folded, clean, neatly draped the next time he looked. In prison... well, not so much.

Walking over to throw open the panoramic living room windows, he stumbles over the empty grappa bottle. Shame about that one; nonna Pellegrini had chosen well. "Mhhh," he hums noncommittally, glances at Alex while kicking things under the table, "so not any time soon then. But, you know, there are times when even dead men swim upriver." Lowly chores done, at least as much as he can be bothered to care at this point, he flops down and closes his eyes, sinks into the sofa, all reason stilled for a moment in the rapidly cooling room.

"I'm sure," he comments, wearily, leaning against the doorway to the kitchen stepping out of the way when Cesare cleans around him, strangely amused by the show of domesticity, a little put off maybe since he hadn't cleaned before.

"Fucking freezing," Alex grumbles, hand shoved into the pocket of his jeans. He's frowning at Cesare, at the grappa bottle, would have liked to see it full with something, would have liked another sip, would have liked a lot.

Staring at the back of Cesare's head, glaring at it really, he eventually moves to the sofa and drops down onto his, half landing on Cesare half off the Cesare and huddles close. "It's fucking freezing," he hisses into cesare's ear.

"Oof." Cesare wheezes as Alex lands on him. He looks down at the huddled bundle and raises one eyebrow. "Of course it's freezing. I opened the windows."

Reluctantly raising a hand to Alex's hair, he just sits there, watching their breath curl in the air. Now that he's Alex on his lap, what does he do with him? The question bears asking.

"Don't give me that Pass the Courvoisier look," he grumbles. "Or can't you bite the pillow without having a drink first? Liquid courage?"

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