10th of Vortas, 2719
The Ayton House, Castle Hill
“Bedrooms? You certainly don’t waste time,” he teased simply, without care if it wasn’t very original. He just enjoyed seeing when Lars tried to pretend that he didn’t get as flustered as he did. Like he couldn't observe the blush that rose on those pale cheeks. At least in his blissful state, Meraki enjoyed it. It had once annoyed him, greatly, when Lars acted that way but that had been when he thought the passive was a tried-and-true harlot, not an entrapped naïve servant forced to remain in prostitution. He had thought it’d been some sort of coy act, and that had insulted him, but now he realized that it was simply Lars being Lars – and he loved that.
Admiring the other man in the low light, the Anaxi held still while Lars held his hand and then fixed his hair.
“Lead the way, Lucky.”
Meraki breathed quietly, arms full of the flowers, and uncaring for the low light. He could see Lars close enough to make out the gaze that looked back at him.
A glance to the stairwell door. A glance to the kitchen door. Meraki could no longer restrain his passion, not when they had a shadowed spot to themselves. He shifted the flowers to gather in one arm. With his freed hand, he cradled the back of Lars’ head and then he placed a desperately rushed kiss to the other’s lips. How he wanted it to last. How he wanted to throw the flowers down into a floral bed of which he would lay Lars against the petals; and they would do all manner of indecent things with each other.
As much as he felt this way, there were greater feats at hand. Vaster ambitions that suited them more. Meraki did not mind these. He had once suffocated and suppressed his dreams of such things, of his little flights of blood, bones, and a proper trail of bodies. It wasn't like he could truly do such things in the Stacks. He always had to be so careful, and the closer that murders got to each other, the more dangerous they increasingly became. There was only so many natts one could kill until the Collies started to feel the pressure from a fretful populace... which was why it had always been of the greatest importance to Meraki to make sure that there weren't any corpses to be found. Missing natts were a completely different story than murdered natts. A story that made it easier for the authorities to overlook. Of his years, less than a handful had actually been found by anyone and those had been during the early, unrefined times of his youth. As messy and rough as his first kisses.
With Lars, in the harbor, he no longer felt as if he had to avoid indulgence of pursuing such thoughts. That he no longer had to choke away his desires until they no longer whined in the back of his mind, until he could pretend they were gone like the flesh of natts who got underneath his brutal hands. He had once insisted to himself that he had no dreams, for the very idea was laughable for a impoverished bastard like him. What could he hope to gain as he was? His magic was weak, his coin was fleeting, his body failed him often, and his mind far more so. Dreams of ambition weren’t meant for a wick like him.
Yet Lars made him want to dream them anyway. To share them. Like now. And he took the other’s hand and led up the stairs. Through the door, which had a small lock for a skeleton key but was left unlocked, they entered a foyer hall that connected to the front door and the routes to the rest of the house.
It was a fine enough affair, with sensible wallpaper and frames. A musty scent of wood tinted by floral scents filled the place. It was also quiet and only lit with whatever daylight came through the various windows. No one else was in the house. A polished stairwell with carpeted runners led upward into two more stories.
Meraki walked past the various living and common rooms, a study and the like. He paused only to take out some dying flowers from a vase and replace them with a handful of fresh ones. The wick left the dead flowers on the table to collect on his way back. He glanced at the front door, then said, “Wires would work best there, or fishing lines with hooks. Still have some from- String it up with the coat rack there and nail it in place on the other edge. Anyone who tries to leave or enter, would get tangled up in it. Enough to make some noise...”
“Ah, but wouldn’t want to hammer it in, lest to be very quiet while doing so,” he thought aloud. He walked up the stairs with a jaunty bounce in his step, and only paused at the top to make sure Lars kept near. “There ent any side doors, so it’s the front and garden doors that lead out.”
He opened the first door in the hall, then gestured for Lars to go inside before he went down a way to switch out another vase's flowers. Meraki joined the passive quick enough and glanced around the plain bedroom that had a quilt on the top of the bed. He went across to switch out some more flowers in a scrawny vase on a vanity, then he slowly slid open the drawer and took out a jewelry box. His gloved fingertips traced over the top, then he opened and slid it aside for Lars to browse.
The tsat settled all of the flowers on the surface, then brushed off his sleeves and surveyed the bed. The blankets were wrinkled but otherwise looked clean… to him. Meraki lifted the corner of the heavy blankets and then just placed them flat. It seemed he believed this was making a bed and even though it remained lumpy, and wrinkled with the old bedding, not even a single pillow fluffed, he walked away from it as if that was that. It wasn’t like the tsat knew how to make a bed proper. He’d tried some during his work in the hotels, and Doris had shown him a few times, but what point was there to that? His own bed only ever was a bundle of thin ragged blankets and he felt lucky if he got a night where his pillow or bedding wasn’t soiled by some unknown wet or sticky stain left behind by the tenement youth who made use of his flat whenever he left it open to them.
Besides, Meraki was far more practiced in making a mess of a bed than he ever would be at tidying one up.