birdwithoutasong | We're facing the ceiling

We're facing the ceiling

Who: Valentine Wolfe and Stefano
Universe: who even knows
What: villains being villains together
Warning: violence, reference to murder, possible gore

Valentine considered himself a connoisseur of the finer things in life, and there were plenty of finer things to be appreciated. He couldn’t be much bothered by what other people did to themselves or others, unless it was interesting. Although he’d heard of certain rumors lately that seemed to be worth looking into.

He knocked at the door and when it answered, he held the newspaper ad calling for models in front of him.

“I’d like to submit an application,” Valentine said. He had pale skin, black hair, and bright red lips, and went more for a specific look. He didn’t look much like he’d make for a typical model.

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So few people understood his art. His galleries torn to pieces by critics and it left him feeling hollow. The shrapnel lodged in his right eye throbbed as though to add to his own emotional agony. They reject what they could not understand, could not comprehend in the beauty of the macabre. And so he attempts to show them the error of their ways using alternate means.

Hysteria caused by a serial killer.

Yet still, they cannot see! They see only the blood and none of the beauty! Stefano presses his face against the camera in his hands, feeling dejected and lost. How can they all be so stupid? So simple-minded? Were not the bodies positioned for even the feeble of minds to see the majesty of them? Like removing the head of a young lady and filling her gushing neck with a bouquet of flowers.

It is all right. They'll understand... the next model will have them understand. He realizes that it is more than a little bold to ask for a victim to come to his house, but he has grown tired of waiting to be recognized. When the doorbell rings, he feels a rush of excitement at the new art piece formulating in his head.

One, two, three quick steps and the door is open. His eye widens as he could not ask for a better medium to work with. "No application required. One look at you and I can tell, yes, I can tell... you are perfect." He moves out of the way so that the young man can enter. His heart skips a beat. Yes, not like the typical model. "I am wondering if that is what you expected to hear when just coming to answer an ad."

Edited 2017-10-30 01:59 (UTC)

“I figured that I would waste my time, but see what you were like in person,” Valentine said. “I couldn’t be more pleased to be wrong.”

He stepped inside the place without any second thoughts, his curiosity almost entirely focused on the man that was standing in front of him, the one who had asked for a model.

Valentine’s eyes were intense, and he stood like he was posing himself for Stefano’s regard. “Are we going to go ahead with it now, or do you want me to come back at a different time?” Valentine asked. “Wearing something else?”

"Pleased to be wrong, you say?"

His Italian accent is relatively thick and noticeable as he keeps speaking. He closes the door after his new model and it sounds final -- and good -- with how he latches the lock closed.

"Yes, I think there is nothing wrong with the present. The way that you look..." Stefano reaches his hand out to gloss his fingers underneath the man's chin, admiring him as one would a fine piece of art. Well, not yet real art. "... very little will even need to be done to ensure the shot's beauty is captured."

His eyes trail off as he thinks what would be best. He snaps his fingers as he pivots to start walking down the hall. "Something in white, yes. White would look best. White clothes on such pale skin. It will be a masterpiece." Stained in red. Stefano smiles pleasantly to himself as he heads deeper into his own house.

The walls are adorned with pieces of his own work. Photographs of bloodshot eyes and mouths. Of bouquet of flowers held in bloody hands. Images that are focused on the torment and fear felt just before death. As for the house itself, it is like an art gallery more than an apartment -- heavy curtains separating rooms, headless mannequins posed in empty rooms, and the only furniture are a few plush, expensive chairs and fainting couches.

Stefano is someone who wishes to live forever in art, and that includes his living arrangements, too.

Valentine relaxes a little once the door is shut and locked behind him, like he’s relieved that he’s not going to be shoved out the door now.

“I’m not sure that white is my color,” he responds, tilting his chin up at Stefano’s regard, for all the world preening in front of this man. “It tends to wash me out a little too much.”

He stops as they walk past one of the pictures, not hiding his interest as he leans in to take the bloody moments. “I’ve always wanted this sort of fame,” he says, flicking his eyes back to Stefano. “It seems like we can come to a mutually beneficial relationship.”

"Oh, you need not worry about being washed out." There is a half-laugh hidden beneath his words. He breathes out a happy sigh as he walks to one of the ornate dressers in the hall. His sigh twists and ebbs into soft humming as he wonders what would work as the best backdrop.

But Stefano pauses as he looks toward his model. "This sort of fame?" There is something about those words that bring him pause and pulls him out of his creative process. "Well, of course. There is always one between artist and muse." He feels something itching beneath his skin, and finds that it is not excitement at playing with new material.

No, it feels a little like apprehension.

"Being praised for my beauty, of course," Valentine answers. "So few people can recognize it, but you'll make sure they can all see it clearly in your work, right?"

Valentine paces when Stefano pauses, but he doesn't touch anything.

"I don't want to be mocked in art."

"Of course, I will." He rolls his shoulders as he eases the apprehension -- the nervousness -- that started to build. Stefano doesn't know where it came from. No, that is a lie that he tells himself. It came from the thought of being found out by this person before he even began his work.

But the door is shut and locked. There isn't anything to fear save that his model will end up ruined in some sort of skirmish.

"I would never allow you to be mocked. Fools are the only ones who do not understand beauty, and your beauty will be remembered." Apprehension fades to anticipation, to excitement. "I would, however, like to know your name before we begin. I always like to know the name of the medium I am going to use."

So he says as he reaches into his jacket to pull a knife out from the hidden hoister. And there it is. All his desires for preparation vanish -- the desire to have his model change clothes leaves him. He can always change the corpse after. Yes, but he is being sincere in wanting to know the man's name. It's been such a long time since he's been inspired so to begin work before all prep work has been finished.

"Valentine Wolfe," he purred. He could feel his adrenaline kick up at the sight of the knife but he let his eyes stay calm as he tracked it.

He didn't move for any weapons of his own, didn't flinch away.

"Oh," he said. "That's not going to work very well."

"Oh, it isn't?" There is some amusement beneath his words. But he still can't shake off the feeling of danger that penetrates deep into his heart. Like he shouldn't do anything, like he should listen to the faint warning.

"Unfortunately, I've already decided that you shall become my next masterpiece. And then, the world shall come to appreciate the beauty I see before me." He takes a step forward and feels hesitation building up along the base of his spine, settling on his shoulders. Stefano doesn't understand it. Why is there such a call of panic and danger?

It's thrilling, but unwanted in the creation process. So he lifts the blade with the intent of bringing it down into soft shoulder.

Valentine is entirely still, as the knife plunges into his flesh. It parts his clothing and the skin underneath, and Valentine's blood spills out, garish and red.

Valentine reaches up for the hilt of the knife.

"I thought it would be a sublime shade, and--"

He cuts himself off when Valentine reaches to grab onto the hilt of the knife. He cuts himself off when he notices that there isn't a change in the other's expression. It causes something like a cold sweat to start to run down his neck.

"--what?"

Valentine curled his fingers and pulled the knife out of him.

The cloth that had torn stayed ripped. The skin did not, knitting itself back together until after just a moment there was nothing left of the wound Stefano had made.

"Did you want to try something else?" he asked, voice calm.

"That's not--"

The word "possible" hangs in the air as he takes a step back. He looks at the knife itself and it still is dripping red, but when he looks to the wound itself -- it's gone. Stefano wonders what most would do in this situation. Would some start driving the blade into the chest over and over to prove that the person can die? That would be the panicked response, and he feels the urge as he tightens his hold on the hilt of the knife.

Ultimately, he decides to ask, "How is that possible? Are you some vampire, perhaps?"

Valentine laughs, watching Stefano's face.

"Made a deal with a devil," he says, which has the advantage of being true on a metaphorical level, rather than the literal.

"But if you're asking me to drink your blood I could give it a try."

"As we all do." So he adds with a hint of a nervous smile. The blood on the knife drips on the floor -- too soft to be heard over the sound of the ticking of the clock down the hallway. But Stefano feels like he can hear each drop, as it reflects the state of his suddenly anxious heartbeat.

"Ah, but would become of my work if I can never step out into the light of day?" A beat. "You could tell... couldn't you? The way I wordered my advertisement what I was seeking. Yet you came here. Why?" Some sort of supernatural avenging angel? He wonders idly, and to his credit, he doesn't point the bloody knife at Valentine in accusation.

No, he merely stays frozen in place as he asks his questions.

If Valentine is meant to be an angel, then he's one who's plunged himself downwards, rather than simply falling. He doesn't make a move for Stefano or the weapon.

"I was curious and I wanted to see it for myself. To see if you had it in you to be great."

"To see--"

He breathes out half a laugh. "Are you saying that you don't recognize my genius? My legacy has been painted in flesh, blood, and silver nitrate." His hand raises to gesture toward the frames lining the hallway.

"I am more than capable of becoming great. I'm halfway there!" His anxiety and fear fade away as his ego bloats.

Valentine waved a hand, dismissive.

"You're relying on the shock of it too much. I agree that you still have to go again as far as what you've done already."

"You're sounding like those critics."

He stomped his foot and ignored the absurdity of his annoyance. Here he yelled at a being that cannot be killed easily because his pride as an artist was injured.

"They're beautiful. They're true art. There is so much beauty in destruction and that is what I am attempting to convey. How is that you can only see the shock of it?"

Valentine, on the other hand, was content to discuss this like a distanced, academic topic, as if Stefano hadn't tried to kill him for the sake of the art they were discussing, as if many others hadn't been killed.

"Because the shock is most of what you're doing. Take that away, and what do you have, truly?"

"It's not about the shock!"

With one hand, he strangles the air while he continues to tighten his grip on the dagger with the other. "There is beauty in death, and there is beauty in the destruction of the body. They all shy away from it like--"

The dagger is thrown but at the ground, like a line in the sand between them. "They can never understand the meaning behind it all. Every last one of them afraid and disgusted rather than looking at the broken bones and shattered skull... looking at them and seeing just how gorgeous the body looks at that moment when death embraces it."

"And is that the most beautiful thing, in your mind? The freshly dead?"

Valentine considered that, dismissed it. "There's potential in the living that can't be matched once they're dead."

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We're facing the ceiling

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