Ten days and ten nights. They've ticked by, haven't they? For Hansl, they have...
     The sun has set again. Tonight, he ventured forth to feed. And he has returned, flushed with blood, cheeks ruddy as if from the cold. He has an open-necked white shirt paired with black trousers, and tall black riding boots; his hair is a little rumpled, spiking in front, by accident or by design. He is also just a little less put together than he was when he left.
     He enters the estate, booted heels clicking quietly on the hard floors as he makes his way through, looking for the owner of the manse. "Lord Grey?", the German calls softly. Vampiric hearing is excellent; he should not need to shout. "...Are you to home?"
     Six hours to sunrise...

     "Here." calls Greydon from the study. It is a room covered in bookshelves, done in the english style; solemn old oak everywhere, with the lights kept muted. A fire burns in the fireplace at the edge of the wall, shadows dancing over the room, and upon Greydon's pale skin.
     He is sitting behind it, a series of papers before him that he was looking over a moment before. When Hansl returns, he glances up and regards the young man with his intense gaze, before a single brow arches. "You look as though you have taken your fill; and come back worse for it, though it is difficult to imagine that you are ever anything but delicate strength in your beauty."
     A faint smile is offered, and a hand rises, making a vague gesture for the boy to approach, "Has anything happened of interest?"

     "I have fed," Hansl agrees, stopping in the doorway and licking his lips uncertainly. He passes a hand over his hair, then takes a deep breath, crossing into the room and to where Greydon sits.
     "There was ... considerable energy tonight. I met a clansman of yours - at least, I believe that he was, though I could misremember." His hand lightly goes to Greydon's shoulder, fingers caressing for a moment, then squeezing. "But in the end, it made me think of you, and hasten my footsteps here to you. Have you been very busy?"
     Translation : Are you busy now?

     The Lord Treveylan shifts backwards, pushing away from his chair and turning towards Hansl, gazing up at him with a faint smile. Amused, perhaps, but also perhaps a touch intrigued. "Oh? Perhaps I know this mysterious figure; who was it?"
     He reaches a hand out towards Hansl's waist, slipping up under his shirt to caress at the skin slightly there, and then the boy is tugged, pulled down into the elder's lap. "I have been busy enough, but it appears as though my affairs for this evening have shifted directions. Perhaps you will tell me why such a frantic feeding has brought you so quickly to my side?"
     His other hand slips around Hansl's waist as well, offering him a faint grin.

     He makes a small sound at the caress, only too willing to be pulled down; that strength something to which he reacts, always in the affirmative, he reacts. "Valan Montague - we had not, I think, directly met before, but our paths crossed in Paris." Hansl answers readily, one hand lifting to touch to the Englishman's cheek, a fingertip drawn downwards against his lips.
     Hansl smiles, a quirk at the corners of his mouth, it thawing his eyes from their wintry state. So quickly, winter moves into spring, now; so quickly does heat make kindling of his reserve. "The club was in chaos, my lord," he murmurs. "Everywhere, it was a rutting bacchanal, with men and women falling upon one another in desperate, gasping relief. Gott - I thought I would fall prey to it myself, or otherwise, be torn to bits as some follower of Dionysus."
     One hand falls to Greydon's thigh, massaging strongly for a moment, then lifting to rest, just so, against his chest. "So I returned here. To your home. To you." Hansl encapsulates it neatly, eyes gleaming. "I slaked my appetite - quenched my thirst for blood, mein herr. But the pleasures and passions of the Kiss have left me longing only all the more for you."
     Temptation... desire... The moment he arrives, it surges and demands; the strength of which has been rare since life... And he, but a childe, he who can not fathom a time before cars, machines, and these modern toys...

     "Valan? Ahh... Edward's childe. Interesting; both of you with such prominent sires. Edward is one to be respected; one can only assume he will choose a worthy childe, though I have little contact with the boy." murmurs Greydon, almost offhandedly, as if he were somewhat distracted.
     Distracted by what? Perhaps that hand that slips up along Hansl's side, beneath his shirt, feeling the smooth, soft skin... "Mmn. The Kiss, with all of its primordial intensity that transcends flesh, does not satisfy you and leave you blissful?" he inquires.
     Greydon leans forward, a faint kiss touching to Hansl's jaw, before his teeth are felt, the scrape of fangs, the hint of it.

     He thinks in pictures; in images, rather than words, at times like these. As his intense control slips, so away does slip the need for such lengthy and bitter self-recriminations. He thinks in a juxtaposition of light and shadow, shade and colour; a hand here, an eye there. Composite parts, brought together summarily into a coherent whole.
     "He was alone - well. I say alone, but nein, not alone in that sense. He was the cynosure of all eyes; everyone looked at him. I do not think many could even fathom looking away." Hansl's gaze is rapt upon Greydon's face, though, and not upon the inner eye of memory. He draws his hands slowly along the English lord's shirtfront, finding buttons and caressing them as if they had a skin of their own. "It was an ... interesting image. He burned as a dark sun. I ... would not trust him with my soul, I do not think, if I had one. But it made me wish to paint. Not him, perhaps. But to paint."
     His eyes have drifted almost closed during this little speech, and now snap open. Intense blue - summer's heat visible as a blaze at Greydon's question, at the hint of sharp thorns against his skin. His lips part, his own fangs distending against the inside of his upper lip, and absently, he reaches up with one hand to press at them, as if to force them back into hiding. "I feel pleasure from it, Lord Grey," Hansl murmurs, voice lowered, husky. "I could lose myself in it, if I were incautious. But it lacks depth; it is passion, but meaningless passion, spent and wasted upon kine, upon food. It leaves me longing for the depth I find in your gaze - and left me longing for your touch and for your companionship, mein kommandant."

     Greydon seizes to Hansl's hand, tugging it away from where he urges those fangs away, and instead he slips it about his neck, even as his other hand finds the trail of his spine, teasing upon it. "Ahh.. Such beautiful words; you speak of an image of passion and power, and I find myself wishing that I were there to see it. To see you in its midst; to find you in the crowd as they lose themselves and seize you and pull you to me. There is perhaps a hint of foolish emotion-- jealousy, a desire to possess absolutely, to tear to shreds any who may touch you."
     He chuckles softly, and gives a languid shrug of his shoulders, "Baser thoughts and images that I have not felt in a very long time. An unworthy thought; but one that is so easily cast aside when you speak of deeper loss, drowning in a maelstrom of being. You wish to paint?"
     "You may paint me. I open myself to your eyes, to capture what you may; but when it is done, I will seize you again."

     "I would not knowingly make you jealous. Such games are that which women play; I have no interest in placing myself among their rank." Hansl allows an arm to slip about Greydon's shoulders, his hand brushing the elder's neck with a slow, graceful undulation of his fingers. "And yet - it is very strange. I have an urge to see you jealous, mein herr. To see, thus, this is what an English lord is; this is how his passion conquers, how his interest is harried and hunted home to bay! And, ja - of course. I wish it to be myself that is the target of your hungry intent, my lord Grey. A conundrum, nein? Something of philosophers' bent..."
     His other hand has remained there, at the buttons; caressing slowly turning to sliding between where buttons hold cloth folded shut, fingers slipping in to brush against cooled flesh. "A painting only takes place as a series of events," Hansl murmurs, leaning his weight heavily against the other man. "When I begin, I will draw you; I have begun that already. I sketch your form upon paper, and I study you - sleeping and waking, moving and still. I take note of your expressions - what you reveal to me knowingly and what you do not. When you are pleased, the corners of your mouth deepen even before you smile, whether or not you smile. The corners of your eyes crinkle only after the movement of your mouth - as if you have not yet committed your eyes to that telling. These things, I make note of - not in words, but in pictures. And then, when I have learned, I have you sit for me... arranged in position, and then once I have your form captured, I begin to paint."
     Hansl grins, suddenly - an open, spontaneous expression that betrays his youth, living or otherwise. "...If you are to wait until I have painted you, you will have a long wait. It can take months or even years, my Grey lord!"

     If Hansl can see the subtle plays of pleasure upon Greydon's lips, then he sees it come now, before a faint smile, brightened by the boy's open grin. Arms tighten about his waist as he leans, his form like soft steel that enfolds and is then unyielding in its strength. "So be it."
     His tongue flicks out to trail along Hansl's jaw, towards his ear where a whisper is offered: "I appreciate the watchful eye; it pleases me. And if it takes you months or years to do justice to your art, then I am patient. How could I not be, having seen centuries rise and fall-- empires wax and wane. Generations burst forth only to wither and be forgotten."
     "And what if I am dissatisfied with but one portrait? Am I not worthy of more? Perhaps I will keep you until every wall is filled with a likeness of me, and people will come and think: How vain is Lord Grey! When it is really: How Lord Grey glories in being seen by his Hansl."

     The artist groans quietly at that embrace, pale eyelashes flickering down as strands of molten gold. "I will have to learn such patience," Hansl murmurs, his fingers curling against the back of Greydon's neck. "For if I am not to have you until my work is complete, I will become sullen, my lord. Do you intend to deny us both such union? Nein; that, I fear I must protest."
     His fingers tighten and then release, lifting away to join his other hand on the Englishman's shirt. Buttons begin to be undone now, even as he leaves his head tilted for those whispered words, a faint answering smile curving his lips. The tips of his fangs glisten against his lower lip, deadly white points pressing into the soft flesh. "You are worthy of as many paintings as please you, my Grey conqueror. But this I promise you - no matter how long we may both remain upon this earth, I will never stop painting you. Even if you do not always recognise yourself, I shall; the curve of a hip, the shape of your jaw. It will be there. It will be shown."
     Hansl turns his head to meet the Brujah's eyes, his own eyes open with that sudden blaze. "I have all but forgotten Germany because of you," he accuses softly, working his hands into the opening of that shirt. "In so few hours, my lord, you have undone work of decades - nearer to a century than not. How is it that you have unmade me? How is it that you will remake me, and in whose image?"

     There is a low growl, and Greydon's hands lift from Hansl's waist to seize to his shirt; fabric that was once so fine, so solid, is made undone.. Torn asunder in a sudden moment of heat, revealing Hansl's soft skin. "Deny myself such endless passion as is found within you? I could not, even if I wished it. I do not."
     Lips strike to Hansl's shoulder, suckling softly there, the hint of his fangs felt, but the warmth of his mouth sweeping the sharpness away. "I would not see you made in any image but your own; I would break not you, but the bonds that hold you, and see you blossom into the exquisite essence that I can see within. Though I wish to consume you, take you; I wish also for you to be free to become, to rise high in the night, reach for the moon and wrap about it."
     He pulls back once again and looks up into Hansl's eyes, "I am no puppetmaster, I am no artist; I do not seek clay to forge to my will and into a shape that is in my mind. Instead, I am an explorer; a searcher for depth.. I look into the darkness for the light which is there, that core of tranquility and chaos swirling about itself, that truth... You said again, 'if I have a soul'-- I seek to free you of such foolish thoughts. I seek the bloom of your soul, and wonder at what it will become."
     "And, as ever, I am driven by indomitable desire to possess you. So beautifully"

     He is going to have to make Greydon take him to Saville Row. At this rate, he will run out of clothes before the month is out. Hansl makes a soft sound as the fabric is torn from him, and any words he might have spoken are silenced by that suckling; only a low sigh escapes him. "I desire you, my Grey conqueror," he murmurs, a hand going up to the elder's head, fingers stroking through his hair. "By you, I am fascinated; held in thrall, ja, as to some strange fate. Each night, I look into your eyes, I listen to your words, and I watch how things flow and click into place. And I am swept once more into longing. Into feeling."
     There is a sharpness to his gaze, usually lacking - an awareness without self-consciousness. His attention is focused upon the man who so holds him. "I have felt emotion before," Hansl whispers, his other hand coming up now to touch Greydon's chin, the sensitive fingers sliding up to his cheek. "I have been stirred by it; made helpless by it, swept away alone upon its currents with nothing to cling to, no safety or surprise. Everything presaged only my downfall. And in you, my lord? In you I find solid stone, unyielding; stone which seeks to support and not crush. I feel, with you, as I have never felt before; nein, not when I was a living man that breathed in thin air and expelled piss and sweat, nor any time until I have stood with you upon English soil. I feel assured."
     "That is not to say that I do not have longing - questions - concerns - fears. But I have changed. I am changing. And yet, amidst all these changes, my lord?" Hansl smiles, laughs soundlessly, letting his hands fall to the other's shoulders, lets his gaze travel down, then back up; and his smile is gone. "If I have a soul, then it does not matter, for I have given it away with my heart. To you, my lord Greydon Trevelyan. It is strange, that one of the things that I have feared the most, I now come to desire. From you."

     Perhaps Greydon was thinking just that: there is something to be said for showering someone in gifts, and something delicious about watching someone try on various outfits to find what is pleasing. Then again, more likely, he was just lost in the moment...
     "Stone? Your words are stirring; and not displeasing, though there are few words that one wishes to hear from a lover then unyielding and stone.. To many, they would find this unacceptable; but you find support, a foundation in it? So be it." His hands slie down over Hansl's revealed chest; now that the skin blossoms before him, the ferocity that led to the shirt's ruin has passed, and he simply caresses gently.
     "Souls. Ephemeral ideals to some, superstitions to others; I do not know the state of such things, but that they exist seems so very obvious to me... but your soul? I refuse the gift of that, and insist instead you hold it within and see where it flares.. If your roots grow here in the foundation you find, so be it. But though I may accept many things; your company, your body-- and even your heart-- your soul is that spark of power within that I will not see handed off. Not to anyone."
     He leans in to brush lips softly against Hansl's neck, the faint scrape of his fangs felt as they draw along his skin.

     He is aware, on some level, that he should fear that passion; treat it with caution, as one does a wounded tiger whom one finds oneself alone with in a room, a cage. Aware - and yet unaware; his own passions running so deep, becoming so entwined, it seems, with Greydon's own. Hansl watches his lover's hands travel across his skin, eyelids lazy in their half-closed position. "You do not yield. You grant concessions. There is, in my own mind, at least, a difference."
     His hands knead at the other man's shoulders, caressing, then briefly forceful, and then stopping. "If I have a soul... then let it remain where it pleases you best, where it pleases me best. I do not intend to be a slave, mein herr." Hansl's eyes flare blue, summer in them again. "I have seen the world turn far less than you - but what I have seen convinces me that not all men, even living men, have souls. You have a soul; you have something of this earth in you. It makes you sturdy, strong, at times, perhaps, rigid; I do not yet know. But it makes you hard, ja?" He laughs soundlessly at his joke, head tipping back with that involuntary habit of the living, the indrawn breath at your sharp teeth against him.
     "What I wish? I wish to remain." Hansl allows one hand to slide from your shoulder to clasp at the back of your neck, and he dips his chin down in a slow nod as he attempts to meet your gaze. "The future will come, whether I will it or not. I have marked time, my Grey lord; spent time in pursuit of avoiding empty nothingness. In doing so, I was emptied. I have had so little passion in which I could delve. And now... now this world has been for me made again. Renewed. Through your presence, your existence, your truth. I wish for more. I wish for knowledge, for truth. I wish for you. I am becoming a driven being, and I am driven in this towards your company... as a man among men. As a night-creature - as many things."
     "How may I turn my existence to benefit us both?"

     Our Lord Treveylan's hands slip to Hansl's waist, and there they take a firm grip, tugging the boy closer; The elder's lips rise up and touch very slightly to Hansl's own, and then as he speaks against those lips... "I wonder if I would let you go if you wished d to depart; would I loosen my arms from about you and allow you to slip away."
     A faint smile touches his lips, and he shakes his head a moment later, "Perhaps, perhaps not; but it doesn't matter, for the decision made-- the accord made." He is silent a moment, an d then a vague shrug of his shoulders is made, "Take what passion has awoken in you; take the strength that comes when one finds purpose, and divert it to seeing what you may. Se e, and from sight, make. Forge what you find."
     Greydon chuckles softly, one hand freeing from Hansl's thigh to slip up along his back, teasing upon the ridges of his spine, "After all, you are my painter, are you not? Create for me; and you will benefit. Beyond that? As the wind blows, we shall see."

     "I do not wish it."
     Hansl smiles faintly, the barest quirk of his lips, one hand still massaging so slowly at the nape of the elder's neck. "I imagine that there are those who will claim I am a traitor to my clan," he admits candidly. "The Toreador and the Brujah, ja? But the artist reinvents what one sees; the philosopher interprets it. You are potent. You drag upon my senses as the strongest Rhone wines, the strongest fruit of the valley. My dread lord - what I am, I am. But you are a bridge. Your intellect fascinates me; your wit stuns me, mein herr. Your touch - ah, that paralyzes me."
     He laughs, a low sound, deep in his throat, poorly suppressed. And he leans forward, bracing both hands now against the back of the chair, behind Greydon's shoulders. He slides his mouth against his lover's, then nuzzles down along the line of his jaw, planting a delicate kiss to his throat; there is the presence of those thorns there, briefly, prickling.
     "I wish to taste you," Hansl murmurs, voice going husky. "As you have tasted me... do I have your leave, mein Grau kommandant?"

     "A traitor?" breathes Greydon, and once more his hands go to the young man's waist; holding him firmly and yet with a certain gentleness to it. "Such a silly thought. If one could betray their blood by giving into the nature of their blood; as if I would beat up one of my own and this would somehow betray them, instead of being expected..."
     He tilts his head to the side slightly, tightening his hands for a moment, the presence of his neck all the more real there, for that instant. "Cross the bridge then; take the step along the path. It is a dangerous step, if you go too swiftly; it is a maelstrom that will capture you and twist you around in a world of bliss and power... and if you do more then taste-- it may consume you and you may drown within what you ask.
     "But you have my leave."

     "I fear that you will look into my depth and find that I am too shallow after all, mein herr." The German smiles slightly, glancing down and then back up to Greydon's eyes. "Right now, I am calm. I find my thoughts have warmer tendrils - threads of yellow and red saffron moving through the cold of an ice bath. But I am calm; I am touched, but not yet beyond self-control, beyond hope of recollection."
     His lips shift, and he sighs, expelling unneeded breath against that cool skin. "It is a single step," Hansl whispers, closing his eyes; his hair rustling with movement, one hand sliding down to brush against the lord's stomach where it's been exposed by his impatience with the elder's clothing. "A single step out along an expanse over nothing known, with the unknown upon the other end. You are solid, mein herr..."
     His eyes are closed, and he sits unmoving in the Brujah's grasp, one hand against the flat of the man's stomach, the other lifting to trace gently through his hair. Slowly, his lips part, words whispered against unliving skin.
     "I do not fear the future. I have caution, but a blaze has caught at my spirit. The image of a challenge, a clash of swords; the smoke and fire of the field of battle, the cunning mind of a man of honour. The smith of wills, of men, rather than mere iron; mettle, and not metal. Copper is contained in you. But it is the essence of the man that I seek to slake my thirst upon, far more than your blood, Grey lord..."
     With those whispered, slow-metered words spoken, Hansl leans in. One hand curls closed in Greydon's hair, the other hand spreading, teasing, settling like a leaf upon a pond as his fangs pierce flesh, and he allows blood to flow into his mouth. To roll over his tongue, trickle down his throat.

     The elder leans his head into the kneading fingers at his hair, and Greydon sighs softly; he has no need to expel breath, but it is an age old habit, and what is this union but a remembrance of something long ago? New now, different then it was-- and yet, it harks back to life..
     And then, the moment of pain-- just an instant-- before his blood flows and the waves of sensation sweep over him. Pleasure, like sex but different; a sharing, a communion, a touch of deeper selves, a surge of life... Then Greydon's hands are upon Hansl's waist and pulling the boy back, away from his throat.
     He is wordless, silent in the aftermath. If he lived yet, he would pant with breath; but now he is simply in this place of warmth, though his body is cool...

     It is a taste as of nothing else.
     It burns where it touches the inside of his mouth; fire that scorches all along its path, burns away old things, cleanses and renews, leaving a tingling trail everywhere that it touches. Hansl sighs, sealing the wound with the dragging swipe of his tongue; sealing the wound, and caressing for the last droplets of blood as he's pulled away. It burns, it burns; he feels it throb within him as of a sudden heartbeat. As if his heart, so long stopped, suddenly beats again, the echo of the drum sounding from across long ago.
     Hansl straightens slowly, as if feeling again the hands at his waist, blue eyes vivid as he regards his lover. His fangs are still fully distended, and slowly, he licks the blood from them, from his lips. "...I am no poet," his voice is low, rasping in his throat. "But I taste England in you, philosopher. I taste rain and fog and solidity in the midst of turbulent waters. I taste the island; you are of this island, and you are the island. The island's childe, as much as anything else. You sweep forward, and you destroy and renew, destroy and renew, until all things are revived."
     His hand remains in Greydon's hair, and he leans forward, brushing his lips against the Brujah's, eyes going heavy-lidded. "I find myself resurrected by you," Hansl murmurs, lightly touching the tip of his tongue to first one, then the other corner of the Englishman's mouth. "I understand myself better. And I seek to understand you. And to be known by you."

     Such desire...
     Desire like never before. It's one thing to want the body, to feel such passion for it; and its one thing to crave the soul, and what mysterious are found there... But when united, and the beast within rises up and calls out in hunger as well, and the need to feed upon the essence of what is before him...
     Greydon growls softly as Hansl pulls away, for a moment looking like a mortal in the aftermath of passion; lost, breathless. Of course, he's breathless for a very different reason... death does that to you.
     And then, his hands at Hansl's waist, he lifts the boy so easily and rises up, turning about to settle upon the desk and wrap the young man's legs about him. He is held there, and Greydon stares into his eyes. "You are all things."
     He leans forward, lips touching to the Toreador's, tongue seeking out to part the other's and taste a hint of his own vitae within Hansl's mouth, "Poet, artist; scholar, soldier. Even if some you have not yet realized, you will. You are a seed, and if knowing me, understanding me, lets your roots dig within and causes you to rise out and seek to the light.. Albeit.." A faint grin, ".. the light of the moon. Then so be it. Welcome to my library; the library within. It is open. Read until your eyes are weary and you can stand no more."

     "Mein kommandant," Hansl breathes out the words as his lips are touched, as his mouth is tasted. Blue eyes reopen, snap open, pupils flaring as do his nostrils as he wraps his legs around his lover's waist. It makes him impatient. There are too many layers, too many wafer-thin sheets of separation between one skin and the next.
     "There are plants which grow, which bloom by moonlight. My sire ... spoke of gardens. I remember. He spoke of transplants, and the difficulty of transplanting delicate flowers, fragile blossoms, of coaxing them to bloom in foreign soil." Hansl takes a deep breath, and continues, gaze fierce - attuned. He has never sought to conquer, to gain so much before. "But sometimes, I think - foreign soil is more welcoming than one's native soil. I dig in my roots, here and now. I claim this for myself."
     His hands reach up to Greydon's shoulders, and his smile for a moment is fierce, a touch of the wolf to it. He is held; and he holds. He is claimed - and he claims.
     "When my eyes grow weary, my Grey lord, I will find rest in your bed. When my arms can lift no more - I will allow myself surcease in your own. I have given you sovereignty over my person by dint of your hospitality, ja? Now I have given you one step closer to sovereignty over me in blood. I will need to be careful, for the taste of you commands my passions - it awakens new things in my own blood, Lord Trevelyan." Hansl lifts his chin, offering his mouth with that faint smile, eyes half-closed in hinted lust, hinted play, hinted passion. "I read on, and in reading, I dream, and in dreaming, I wake - and I wonder at what I find when I wake. Tomorrow night - I must begin to paint you. But tonight..."

     Greydon's hands are free of Hansl's waist, sliding up his sides with a firm possessiveness to his touch, before slipping between and gripping at his shirt, tearing it open and pushing it off of his shoulders. Skin to skin, he growls once again, his lips leaning in for a kiss.
     It is not soft; it is not kind... It is demanding and fierce, leaning into it and letting his passion go...
     There is a bed not so far away, and yet, it seems to be a journey so far he is unwilling to risk, and instead the elder rises up and turns the boy around. A hand sweeps the items upon the desk aside, sending them crashing to the floor...
     A glass globe shatters, something that cost him so much, that he bought in Venice when he visited once... It shimmers like a sun when the light is upon it.. and yet.. The light he sees is within, now. It is fire. It burns.
     Leaning down over the boy, he breaks the kiss and stares intently at him for a moment. "You are a blossom. But you are not fragile, you are not delicate. You are strong enough to endure me without shattering, without wilting. There is strength within you; strength from before, and strength gifted with the blood and teachings of your sire, even if his path is not yours... For yours has brought you here, and in this soil you are planted.. And in you, I find a fertile soil which is accepting of me, and I would cultivate it and see what comes."
     His hands stroke down over Hansl's chest, as he rises up somewhat, letting his eyes drink in the view of the young vampire, prone...

     He seems to find something in those reactions - in the depth of passion, that point where Toreador and Brujah natures may so easily overlap. That kiss does nothing to still his desires, his interests, but instead, the German youth leans into it, lips curling back for a moment at the point of impact. Sometimes .... sometimes one does not want kindness.
     Surprise flares into his eyes as everything is cast so swiftly away, dismissed so casually, so cavalierly. The globe - ah, there's a wince for that. It was Art. Almost, he protests, but then there is that stare upon him - and words being spoken. And he is being laid back - well, this part is not so unusual. But it grips his attention nonetheless, in that rather intimate fashion.
     "Let what will come, come. I will meet it with myself, and what ever skills I possess." Hansl's voice is hoarse, but clearly understandable. His fangs are still distended, his brain mazed with blood and desire and a certain passionate conviction of spirit as well as flesh. He speaks boldly; more boldly, perhaps, than he has ever spoken before. "I will remain with you. What challenges come, I will face with you - for you if you wish me to stand in your stead, but with you nonetheless. Partner to your goals. My courage will not break, my Grey lord, no more than my body."

     The Lord Treveylan, gifted with the vision of such a wonderful thing that has offered itself up to his dominion, pulls farther away, though it is not to leave the young man. It is to tug at his pants roughly, and pull them off of him.
     "Days. Weeks. Moments in time, a flicker of the heart-- if one's heart yet flickered-- a single beat of a hummingbird's wing... And yet, I trust you. Foolish, dangerous. What elder gives trust, especially after so short a time?" He leans down, brushes his lips lightly over the young man's chest, his tongue flicking out and teasing down along it... His own pants? Discarded, lost, somehow they are simply not there.. But who can say, who can care?
     "Do you understand that this is a dangerous thing for you? I am a young elder; but I am Brujah. My passion is like the sun; it burns so brightly. And yet, it can destroy as well. There is rage there... always rage..."
     He rises back up, and leans down against Hansl, pressing his hips against the toreador's own, his arousal evident as it weighs down upon the boy's body. Eyes are intent upon Hansl's, questioning. Challenging.

     "I am not afraid."
     Hansl smiles, a faint expression that nonetheless leaps into his eyes; his heat, his heart in his eyes, upon his sleeve. "I trust you to be who and what you are, my Grey lord. I do not offer myself on an altar. I offer myself, nonetheless - as your lover, as yours. You are an elder; more knowledgeable, more experienced. But I cannot remain a child forever, ja? My time as a neonate will come to an end soon enough, by how we who are not human, no longer mortal reckon time. Let me be prepared for it. Let me work with you."
     His hand lowers, stroking himself, blue gaze locked to green, those longer fingers so sensitive, skilled in their own methods, ministrations. "I do not seek to quell your Beast. I am not a fool," Hansl says simply. "I seek to understand it. To dance with it. Am I not a Toreador?" His grin is sudden, not without its flash of wicked mirth. "A Toreador may be a matador, nein? Come to me. Take me. Fill my flesh. Taste me, if you wish. Slake your passions, and I ..."
     His hand lifts away from himself, tracing up along the Brujah's firm stomach, up over his chest. "I will bear your weight," Hansl finishes. "I will take your passions, and add them to my own. And when we have completed our ruinous excess - we will pick up the pieces and see what we can build from them. Ja, my lord? What do you say? Will we burn Rome in order to build Carthage...?"

     "Then I will be your bull."
     The voice is husky, full. He lowers his lips to Hansl's chest, feather soft kisses accentuated by the occasional trailing of his fangs. As skin is moistened, his breath is felt against it, "So be it. We will sack whatever city is in our way to build what we will have, together. You are no fool, or you would not be here. You are not weak, or you would not be here. You are no flower, though you bloom; you are a sapling that will grow into a mighty oak, or I have misjudged you."
     There is the taste upon Hansl's member, the trailing of Greydon's tongue, teasing and soft... The suckling and descent as he consumes the young man, tastes of him and feeds a passion so similar to that which the beast within wants, and yet so eternally different.
     Fingers touch within, press inside, probe and demand entry, a warning, a promise...
     Breath that is heated from within, despite the coolness of death, is exhaled out against Hansl's sex, "You are mine."

     He moans wordlessly, eyes suddenly closed at the feel against his sex, at the pressure against his opening. It affects him as ever; deeply. Echoing with need. Desolation follows in the wake of parting, passion that is kindled and rekindled, over and over again. It is a tide which pulls him to the elder, parting only to be reunited. Again...
     "I will do justice to my heritage... and to my teachers. And to you, my Grey lord." His hands trail against exposed skin where he may, reaching to brush fingers through Greydon's hair, to brush the nape of his lover's neck. "But, too, I hope to give you pleasure. To take pleasure in you is no difficult task..."
     Speaking is becoming difficult for him, now. His muscles are straining, his body taut, tensed with desire. With need. He is in danger of forgetting English, and his words turn instead to French, more naturally than to anything other than German.
     "Votre, oui. Je suis a vous. Par droite de conquete - par droite de votre sang dans ma bouche. Par la droite de mon coeur plus ne battant, que vous tenez..."

     And to speak of conquest, Greydon as ever can have but only one response. To consummate again that, to take what is offered, and delve into its depths... Greydon rises up, and lifts the boy's legs to place them upon his shoulders, and pressing forward, his sex moistened by saliva while he was cultivating Hansl's own desire...
     Poised at the opening, Greydon murmurs, "Those words, my Hansl, border on the foolishness you spoke to deny, that I know you do not have... Hope to give me pleasure?" He chuckles softly, his body pressed against his opening in teasing temptation, eyes seeming almost dark...
     "Your every movement brings me pleasure; your every word, your every whisper." His voice is deeper, huskier, and he presses within, a low groan echoing through his lips, "As you open to me.. Pleasure.. as no other..." And then.. With strength, and power, he slams into the boy... He takes him, staring down at his face to watch every expression in it.

     Guttural the words which escape him; coarse, Anglo-Saxon rather than merely Saxon. Fangs are visible, glinting wet with saliva, wet with blood where he's bitten himself on the words. Hansl stares upwards, gaze heated, less in control than controlled; less aware than alert.
     It is well for himself that he's fed this night...
     Hands tighten, and there is the involuntary flush to his skin. Faint though it might be in unlife; some habits of life have never truly deserted him. The quickening of breath, the widening of his eyes, the contraction of his pupils. His heels bear down against those shoulders, and his breath hisses out of him abruptly. "Stachen..."

     A storm of passion, of desire; as are all things that are named conquest, this is a rite that is not lacking in its aggression. There is the hint of violence, but it does not reach that point; it is simply there, beneath the surface.
     Greydon leans down, bending the young man and pulling his body tightly to him, even as he thrusts within. Lips seek to Hansl's, a soft kiss, weak-- not from lack of passion, but instead from focus and intent.
     He groans deeply, but more coherent thoughts are lost...
     How can this one drive me so? How can he push me to such a limit, overpower me and make cause me to free the shackles that bind me so absolutely?
     And it is absolute, the passion that is the crashing of their bodies. Long after a hand reaches between them and he frees Hansl of his ecstasy, Greydon finds his own, a guttural shout echoing through him, likely heard downstairs.
     What will his servants think?
     Who cares?
     As it is done, Greydon manages through force of will to deny his body the desire to sink down into the bliss of the aftermath. He enfolds Hansl in his arms, and lifts him. The bed is found, and united still, they settle upon it.
     "My handsome Hansl." are the dreary, warm words that are offered then. Now is a time to rest.

     He spends more energy on this than anyone can even begin to know. His own passion, his own stubbornness which must be overcome in order for his surrender, no matter how willingly given...
     He has no thought for anyone else. Himself - he exists, alone with his lover. Two become one through a tenuous connection of blood and body, flesh and bone. That the desk dissolves to become a bed is barely noticed, blue eyes focusing slowly upon green, lips parted in the struggle to speak. His fangs have retracted at last.
     "Ja," the Toreador murmurs, a palm lifting to stroke his lover's chest. "I am here. As I have said I would be." He smiles slowly, drowsily, as if it is too much effort to deepen that smile, and he shifts only so slightly to lean into the solidity of his Other's embrace.
     "My sturdy English oak, ja? Tomorrow night, I will begin to paint you. Tonight... tonight, I dream within your home. English castles and German cattle, hm?" Hansl laughs, softly. But his laughter has a note of pleasurable triumph.
     Even if it is his flesh that was conquered...
     Still, he feels that he's won something. Who has conquered whom?

Posted by rowan at March 02, 2006 09:16 PM