Cigar smoke and the sound of glass. There is a post-war elegance to The Vicar. Located not far from The Old Vic, The Vicar is as it has ever been, an establishment for The Establishment. Here, relaxing with cigars and cigarettes, bourbon and brandy, are the beautiful sons and daughters of Power and Privilege.
All dead... of course...
The private club is recognizable from outside only by its classic green door, the golden trim. No other feature, apart from the doorman in a fine black suit, who is less doorman and more security. The interior is post-war, thoroughly ensconced in 1946-1955 opulence, right down to the smallest feature on the least viewed wall.
The Vicar also boasts a piano, and on every Friday night, the oldest pianoman in the world.
Cigarette smoke winds upward from his mouth, where the cigarette is lodged, held by his mouth and clinging onto it for dear life. He fiery copper hair is full of Welsh wave, but tamed by a shortened life. He shaves these nights. Wears suits -- this one a really nice one, a classic black and white number. Damn that man his face, damn that man his deft fingers, his musicality. And damn him for expecting tips.
The signature door opens to let in a blast of frigid air; not literally, but figuratively, as the Ice Queen adds her presence to the presences already here. It's been awhile, hasn't it? Rose has dressed for the occasion, expensive opulence taking her right to the very brink of extravagance without teetering over. Blonde locks are twisted up into a complicated and impeccable up-do, making her look as though she hasn't long ago left an expensive beauty salon.
Her gown sweeps the floor as she makes her way into the parlor, nodding at those who should be nodded at, polite nothings murmured at the more deserving as she makes her way past. The piano. It sinks into her consciousness slowly as she takes care of these social niceties. Something familiar about it, perhaps, or simply an appreciation for the music, but something causes her to look over. And freeze a moment. And then like a glacier rolling over the freezing waters, her smile forces its way back into place. Nothing to see here.
A cold shiver crept up his spine, even before the door opened fully from outer parlor to inner salon and bar. It ended in a taste of acid on his tongue and made those forest green eyes lift, half expecting to see the headless Mithras standing before him demanding justice.
He couldn't be that lucky...
Instead he comes face to face with Rosamund Clifford Caermichael. The cigarette droops a bit, before he rolls it in those dextrous lips (like another pair of hands really). Why do I always have to be the fucking polite one? "Rose," Davydd croons, his fingers moving independently, playing Gershwin while his mind and eyes are on you. Fine. There. I took the upper road...
"Davydd," the coifed woman replies, tone almost polite, almost managing to feign pleasantness, if it weren't for that sharp edge of ice right beneath the veneer.
A dainty hand in a dainty glove comes up to pat the edge of her hair back into shape. Of course, she doesn't actually touch her hair. It's perfect and she knows it only too well. The gesture, as with so much else about her at the moment, is nothing more than an act.
As he placed the opening bid, it's her turn to up the stakes; or continue this conversation, such that it is. "You look well." Of course, I look better. Another demure smile as the gloved hand returns to its perch on her clutch. Perhaps 'conversation' is overstating it.
You're trying to hard, darling. You're going to strain something. "For a man completely lacking in ambition?" Davydd lifts an eyebrow. Unable to speak with you without fighting. So it seems. "You look impeccable as ever. Waiting for Mortimer?"
Those dark green eyes quite nearly roll. They lift to you beneath his eyebrows, giving you a: Why are you still fucking him? You can do better, look.
Course, you'd say you could, and did, do worse...
Rose arches an manicured eyebrow right back at him, a smug smirk gracing those lips as she loftily shrugs her shoulders in a sort of agreement. He said it, not her. It's always novel when they agree, isn't it. "He's otherwise engaged this evening. I thought I would perhaps take the opportunity to revisit some old haunts." And what a mistake that's turning out to be.
She would say, wouldn't she. But here, in front of witnesses, she'll just let her look reaffirm that thought for him. It stopped being your business who I fucked the moment I stopped fucking you, luv.
Oh, you'd like to think that that was true. But with Welsh princes, particularly this Welsh prince, once he's fucked you he has full rights to talk about your business. He's an old school misogynist. From waaaaay back.
"Really. Shuffling Thierry's papers again is he? Well, he was destined for bureaucracy." Davydd grins, delighting in picking at Mortimer. But then, Mortimer was a Welsh Marcher Lord, his family sworn enemies of the Llywelns (Davydd's family). The fact that they are nightly not trying to kill one another is a major achievement, second only to the fact that they are both still on this planet.
"Is it going to be like this, hmm? For the rest of eternity?" Davydd wonders as his fingers wander over the black-and-whites. "I'm just askin'..."
Well, a girl can dream, anyway. At least the socialite is quite accustomed to her business being everyone else's as well - and vice versa, of course - but when it comes to old flames... well, none of the usual rules apply, do they.
His delight earns him a scathing look; that she manages it without ever dropping the smile is quite the feat. "That he has a destiny for anything is an improvement, wouldn't you say. Though I hear you've actually been a presence at court." It's a statement. There is no uplift at the end of the sentence to indicate a question. And yet it demands an answers through some quirk of tone and choice of words.
His question gets an innocent look, for almost a full half a second, before she thinks better of the 'like what?' route. "You ask me as if that's my decision to make." After all, as they say, it takes two to tango.
Davydd takes the cigarette from between his lips and he laughs as he tips away the ash. "I wouldn't, actually. God save me from paperwork. Who needs the worries? Besides, is it my fault that I fulfilled my destiny the night I was embraced?" By killing his would-be sire, arguably the most powerful vampire on the island. Rolling his forest green eyes, Davydd returns his attention to the keys, "It's all downhill from there..."
Another hand lifts from the keys, left and right switching off so that the music isn't completely interrupted. He takes up his bourbon and takes a healthy swallow. Davydd looks at you, he takes a long look at you. Remember when that look used to do it for you?
"And if I were to apologize for all of the French waitresses? What would you say to that?"
"It didn't have to be," Rose remarks simply, as to the direction of his destiny. But she isn't here to convince him of that. While she may not believe in the inevitability of his destiny's decline, there's certainly one in this particular argument.
As his attention returns to the keys, however fleetingly, she takes the chance to actually breathe a moment. Though the rod is right back in place by the time he looks back.
Remember when. Remember when. Life is fast becoming a series of remember whens. Still, there's no denying a visceral reaction at that look, for good or ill. Habit, perhaps; instinct by now.
"Just the waitresses?" she remarks with a wry twist to her lips. No, the apology probably would not go altogether well. After a beat, though, the guard is let down just ever so slightly, replaced by a sort of suspiciousness. "What would you have me say, Davydd? Making nice was never our strongest suit."
"Well now," his earthy voice rumbles, and if one didn't know these two better, one might say that it almost bears a kind of ... warmth to it. "... that is the Gods' truth, Rosamund. We were never good at that."
His mouth makes a bit of a sidelong smile, curving slantwise. "We were good at a few things, though. It wasn't always so grim. Though, I'll say, we were a bad choice for a couple, yeah? Me so old and set in my ways. You so much younger, wanting different things out of life. Ruinous, woman, we were ruinous."
Suddenly the music stops playing, he stops playing it. He takes up his cigarette, the drink. "Care to join me in a drink?" And without the safety of the piano, do you dare?
"Ruinous," Rose agrees with a nod and a distant smirk, perhaps looking back across those many, many years with the relative distance of their final parting. "Disaster. Nero fiddling while Rome turned to ash." A gloved hand reaches to rest atop the piano at that, perhaps subconsciously or perhaps intentionally trying to extend the metaphor to the here and now.
A dare? Even an unspoken one. Well, we can't have him thinking she isn't taking their split every bit as well as he is, now can we. "A drink then," she agrees with a slow nod. "But I can't linger too long." Why not, she doesn't care to explain. Maybe there is no reason and she just wants a ready escape. Her hand remains on the piano a moment longer before dropping back to her bag, her gaze staying on him now, watchful, perhaps yet a little wary.
For a Welshman, he's enormous. He of far older stock than the current, still with some Brythonic size. Course, you in your heels always put you an eyelash above him. He always hated that. You always had the last word. As Davydd stands, he smoothes his suit, his mountainous figure moving out from behind the piano.
There he is, in all his glory, the murderer of Mithras.
He nods over to one of the horseshoe leather booths and motions to the bar, lifting his glass. Another bourbon here. "What would you like? A martini? Dry, stirred?" Davydd waits until you are seated before he slides into the booth himself.
Leaning in, he stamps out the cigarette. Another one will be lit in a manner of moments...
One might think she does it on purpose. They say that heels must have been designed by a man; but if you embrace that torture and make it your own, they become a girl's best friend. Rose watches him rise, stepping back a half-step as if to accommodate for his size. Even if stilettos grant her a not-quite-natural advantage, he still cuts an impressive figure. Not that she's about to tell him that.
The booth is given an appraising once over, but a quick one, before she settles herself daintily into it. "A martini would be fine, thank you." We're back to being the very portrait of propriety, nothing more, nothing less. At least until he starts getting personal again. "Still with that filthy habit, hm?" she queries with a smirk and a nod of her head towards the cigarette.
"We can't all be as perfect as you, Rose," Davydd waxes on with a smoky smirk. "And a man has to have some vices." Some more than others. Davydd turns to the bar. A hand motion passes between them, like sign language really, as Davydd also asks for a martini. They know his short-hand by now.
The Cymri piles into the booth as only he can, his hands reaching for pack and lighter. "Besides which, I'm dead." He grins broadly, fangs showing in the low light, a very toothy smile that, that trademark comet streak across his expression. "It's hard gettin' more filthy than that."
The drinks arrive without much of a word, and without payment. The alcohol is provided to clan members free of charge. It is a Ventrue establishment, after all. Davydd turns his glass of bourbon in his hands, his eyes on the liquid before landing their attention squarely on you.
"I know I was a dreadful man, and I did some things to you that I regret and that I know were hurtful. I don't expect your forgiveness. I just want to apologize. Nothing in it for me," Davydd smirks. "No ulterior motive... just... I thought it needed to be said."
He might be being sarcastic, but Rose's expression is nonetheless smug. Well, no, of course you can't. "Perhaps, but a man needn't collect them as though they were going out of style," she points out as her bag is set down beside her, gloves stripped off ceremoniously. "Death is but a starting point. Not everyone takes it as carte blanche." It's said without any real effort, another inevitable argument with an inevitable outcome; but she can't just let it pass without comment, no.
As the drinks arrive, she takes up hers, swirling it carefully in its glass, a show of dexterity as she lets it come so close to the rim, but of course, never spilling a drop. She can feel the eyes on her, of course, but that just seems to keep her attention on the liquor for longer.
His words, however... Not quite what she was expecting. It's subtle, but to one who knows her so well, her surprise is only too obvious. Finally, her gaze lifts to him, studying him in silence a moment, judging the words, their meaning. "So it's been said," she pronounces then, with an edge of finality in her tone. But then she goes and ruins that by continuing. "Turning over a new leaf? I hope this doesn't involve some sort of program with twelve steps." Philanderers Anonymous?
"Why can't you just take something, for once in your life, at face fucking value?" Davydd remarks, amused and exasperated all at once. "I mean, how often do I," he's grinning now, "...apologize for anything?"
Shaking his head as if to say 'woman, you drive me crazy', Davydd takes a swallow of his bourbon and finally lights that second cigarette. Like a proper dragon, he lets the smoke drift upward from his nostrils a moment before exhaling the rest, with a turn of his head even so as not to blow it right in your face.
"There're no leaves, Rose... just...an overdue apology. That's all." Davydd shakes his head slightly again, eyes drifting up to the ceiling as if waiting on advice from God. This woman! Sweet Jesus!
"So," he rumbles, "...apart from Mortimer," God, that man -- I hate that man. And to think he's had his hands on my former jewel. Davydd flicks ash into the waiting tray with a sudden sharp motion. "Not sure why I care," he waxes on with a smirk, "...but I suppose I have a vested interest...having known you most of your life." And shagged you for half of it.
"Because very few things," Rose replies primly, "Are what they seem. And even fewer people." She would know, wouldn't she. "You don't apologize. And while a scarcity may make something more valuable, it also makes it a great deal more difficult to believe." Her metaphor might have fallen apart in the middle there, but she continues along, pausing only to take a sip of her drink.
"Very well, you've apologized. A century of water under the bridge." With a flick of her hand, she indicates how it's all in the past. And if you believe that, she's got a tower in London to sell you.
That eyebrow goes up again as he mentions Mortimer, waiting to see if he's going to make something of that. When he lets it lie, she looks almost a little disappointed. "Not sure why you care either, but I suppose if you've a vested interest... I'm fine." Another sip of her drink. "And yourself?" What has brought on this change of heart? At least she keeps new leaves out of it for the moment.
Davydd rolls his eyes slightly, sitting up and exhaling smoke. "Well, as long as you're well. You look fine. I'm not going to give Mortimer any of the fucking credit by the way," his voice rolls as he looks to you again. "One night you'll have to tell me why the hell you bother with him."
Because he really doesn't get it.
Giving his body to the booth, Davydd takes a swallow of the bourbon. "Well, whether you believe it or not, it's out there. I can't make you believe it." Great shoulders lift and fall in a shrug. So be it. "It wasn't personal, just so you know. And the problems in the relationship... whatever they may have been," he interjects, waving the hand that holds the cigarette, "... were more due to me than you. Of course... you fucking Vincent in my favorite chair represented a huge lapse in judgment on your part."
Davydd shakes his head and sighs. "I loved that chair..."
"I think on that particular subject, we simply don't speak the same language," Rose replies with a wry smirk. In other words, she doesn't really expect him to ever get it. But then, that's part of the point, isn't it.
It comes to her turn to roll her eyes, and she does so with theatrical gusto, all the while taking another sip from her drink. "Still on that old chestnut, are you," she remarks, setting her glass down with a dainty plink. "Perhaps it sounded the death knell, but that wasn't an oversight on my part." Well, no, it rather had to be deliberate. "Still, it's very ... big of you to take the blame." She's not going to rush in and argue, that said. "Which once more makes me suspicious. If you weren't already dead, I would ask if you were dying. Are you sure this isn't about something?"
Davydd shakes his head as he blows the last of the smoke. He stamps out the cigarette and finishes his drink. All signals you recognize. He has said what he wanted to say and he'll soon be leaving. "No, no reason," he notes simply.
He neither comforts nor encourages your paranoia, which of course only serves to cultivate your suspicions. He imagines. Well, that's your cross to bear. "And bein' big has nothin' to do with it... though," he flashes a toothy grin, "... I am big."
Pack and lighter are put away, and his slides his glass aside. "I should go. I wouldn't want anyone to get any thoughts about us. Here, havin' a civil conversation. It'll be in the papers come morning, you know that. And the last fucking thing I need is to have Mortimer on my ass. You may like it, missy," he smirks, "... but I just as soon not speak with him."
The portents are read easily enough, Rose timing the last sip of her drink like clockwork. No, the suspicious are certainly not allayed by a lack of reason, but she can hardly be so uncool as to demand an actual explanation. Instead shoulders rise and fall in a ladylike shrug, empty glass pushed aside by a manicured finger on its base.
"Seeing as you've more or less conceded the battle, I thought a little compliment, perhaps. Something has to do with it." A last ditch attempt to get to the root of this? No, more likely just a warning that she's, she thinks, on to him.
"You're right," she agrees, failing to be struck down by lightning with that utterance. Of course, it's just in regards to them being seen together. "It won't happen again." A faint smirk of her own. "We'll have to make a proper spectacle next time." God, let there not be a next time. "I'm sure we'll be up to the challenge." Despite his words of parting, she moves to take her leave first, gloves once more back in place, clutch taken up. Whatever brought her here tonight, she got more than she bargained for. Time to retreat and process this new development.
Posted by rowan at May 15, 2006 07:36 PM
