He catches just a glimpse of what the other man is doing in response and it makes him quirk a brief smile before he slides into the shimmering waves. The shock of the cold water hits him instantly, making him gasp involuntarily as he dives deeper towards the open sea, constantly aware of a pair of golden eyes tracking his every move.
He's used to this. No, not the staring. The starting rumble of another's...hunger.
He closes his eyes, takes a breath. Lets the water drown it all out.
Only a short while after, he's back on the beach, breathing deeply, his dark hair sticking to his forehead as he shrugs his shirt and pants back on, leaving the rest of his usual accessories abandoned. He's vaguely aware that the other man is still orbiting him but Alecto refuses any more intimate interactions. For now.
"We'll head back in," he says with the ease of someone used to being wordlessly obeyed and followed, and he leads the way back up the path without looking back. "I'll see you in the drawing room, Mr. Archer."
And true to his word, he glides back into the house, walking a full circle around the kitchen table just to grab an apple to bite into and a carafe of wine before heading straight into the heart of the house, throwing open the doors of the drawing room, causing all of its curtains to billow around him in a dance of white fabric.
The drawing room itself must have served once as a living room or game room as it was large and hollow with slanted walls and floor-to-ceiling portes-fenêtres. The armchairs and the chesterfield in the center were upholstered in dusty brocades, threadbare at the arms: rose patterns on tan, acorns and oak leaves on mossy green. Everywhere were lace and fine, carved wood, dark with age. On the mantle of the fireplace (inoperable, in fact) glittered a pair of lead-glass candelabra and a few pieces of tarnished silver plate. Though not untidy, exactly, it verged on being so. Books were stacked on every available surface; the tables were cluttered with papers, ashtrays, used drinking glasses; fine shoes and leather trunks made passage difficult in the narrow hall leading into the room itself. Some of Alecto's own clothes were scattered on the rug and a rich confusion of accessories (ties, scarves and the such) hung from the door of the ancient wardrobe; a side table was littered with empty plates, leaky pens, dead marigolds in a water glass, and on a nearby footstool was laid a half-played game of solitaire.
The walls are bare of portraits, however.
Otherwise, everywhere you looked was some fresh oddity: an old stereopticon (the palmy avenues of a ghostly Nice, receding in the sepia distance); arrowheads in a dusty glass case; a staghorn fern; a bird’s skeleton. But chief among them was Alecto himself, the largest mystery of them all, wordlessly collapsing into a surprisingly graceful jumble of limbs on an abandoned chaise off to the side.
no subject
He's used to this. No, not the staring. The starting rumble of another's...hunger.
He closes his eyes, takes a breath. Lets the water drown it all out.
Only a short while after, he's back on the beach, breathing deeply, his dark hair sticking to his forehead as he shrugs his shirt and pants back on, leaving the rest of his usual accessories abandoned. He's vaguely aware that the other man is still orbiting him but Alecto refuses any more intimate interactions. For now.
"We'll head back in," he says with the ease of someone used to being wordlessly obeyed and followed, and he leads the way back up the path without looking back. "I'll see you in the drawing room, Mr. Archer."
And true to his word, he glides back into the house, walking a full circle around the kitchen table just to grab an apple to bite into and a carafe of wine before heading straight into the heart of the house, throwing open the doors of the drawing room, causing all of its curtains to billow around him in a dance of white fabric.
The drawing room itself must have served once as a living room or game room as it was large and hollow with slanted walls and floor-to-ceiling portes-fenêtres. The armchairs and the chesterfield in the center were upholstered in dusty brocades, threadbare at the arms: rose patterns on tan, acorns and oak leaves on mossy green. Everywhere were lace and fine, carved wood, dark with age. On the mantle of the fireplace (inoperable, in fact) glittered a pair of lead-glass candelabra and a few pieces of tarnished silver plate. Though not untidy, exactly, it verged on being so. Books were stacked on every available surface; the tables were cluttered with papers, ashtrays, used drinking glasses; fine shoes and leather trunks made passage difficult in the narrow hall leading into the room itself. Some of Alecto's own clothes were scattered on the rug and a rich confusion of accessories (ties, scarves and the such) hung from the door of the ancient wardrobe; a side table was littered with empty plates, leaky pens, dead marigolds in a water glass, and on a nearby footstool was laid a half-played game of solitaire.
The walls are bare of portraits, however.
Otherwise, everywhere you looked was some fresh oddity: an old stereopticon (the palmy avenues of a ghostly Nice, receding in the sepia distance); arrowheads in a dusty glass case; a staghorn fern; a bird’s skeleton. But chief among them was Alecto himself, the largest mystery of them all, wordlessly collapsing into a surprisingly graceful jumble of limbs on an abandoned chaise off to the side.