Speakeasy [C]

"Then I'll endeavour to allow you your life of utter isolation," Ignacio responded stiffly.

He strode towards the hotel without so much as a backwards glance.

He didn't want to deal with this bullshit.

Dick's nostrils flared and he followed after Ignacio.

"You asked me why I was pissed off earlier, and now I'm trying to explain myself and say sorry for being so fucking pissy with you!"

He didn't sound sorry, voice sharp and loud.

"But all your being is a pissy bitch back."

"Sorry?!"

Ignacio span around, his eyes wide with fury.

Besides his foot, a discarded newspaper went up in flames.

"All I've heard since you left the fucking bar is what I've done wrong, and how much you hate what I do. I tried to leave you the fuck alone and you followed me to carry on the insipid victimisation of yourself!" The last sentence morphed from angry Italian to furious Spanish. He was too angry to translate.

"Fuck. Off. Stew over the fact that I'm a horrible person without involving me."

With that he span again, all but storming into the hotel.

The next day, Dick sat at the breakfast table assigned to them, waiting. A single coffee was set out in him and he was smoking again, even though the air of the restaurant could have satisfied his cravings.

He was waiting for Ignacio, holding on a limb that he would come down so they could talk. If not Ignacio, then Giacinto who might come down to judge and rip apart the breakfast. He hoped she might be able to then point him in the right direction.

He hadn't followed Ignacio straight up but lingered at the hotel's bar which was more like a cafe before he went up to their suit.

It was Giacinto that made her presence known.

She sat down gracefully in the seat opposite Dick, holding a large mug of coffee. Black but sweetened.

"You have fucked up royally princeling. Well, so has he," she mused. "Is it a prince thing? Fucking things up to royal proportions?"

Dick closed his eyes and groaned, slouching in his chair. He didn't have the energy to snip at the pun or the tinge of humour in her voice.

"What did he say to you?" He asked, tentatively. "I was going to speak to him this morning and I was hoping he would come down for breakfast."

"He says your a self-serving victimising whiny bitch," she responded without pause, the shrugged. "I say the same about him. But who's keeping score?"

Neither of them were a walk in the park on a good day, let alone the days like this.

"He wants to avoid you so you're going to have to pull your finger out if you want to talk to him."

She took a deep draught of coffee. "Piss water," she muttered to herself in disgust.

"I'd be nice. He's in one of his neck-snapping moods," she tutted lightly, lifting her fingers to her throat, which was just a tinge yellow with healing bruises.

Dick took a sip out of his own sweetened piss water coffee, avoiding looking at Giacinto's neck. He didn't want to think about how she received those.

"Is he upstairs now?" he asked.

He wanted to get this over and down with before feelings subsided he could pretend this fight never happened between them until the next.

"Yupp," she responded, then drained her coffee in one long swallow.

"Good luck," she crooned.

The boy would need it.

He stubbed the cigarette out before making his way up to their suit. It was large and modern; a balcony overlooked the city, a lounge attached the two double bedrooms together. They also had their own bathroom fitted with a bath and shower. No expenses had been cut.

Except on the coffee.

He knocked on Giacinto's and Ignacio's door, a slight wave of nausea overcoming him.

You could hear the sound of sex from the main doorway.

When his room was knocked on there was a long moment of silence before the door swung open.

A woman wearing tall heels and stockings, and not much else besides a few drips of blood at her thighs and throat, leaned against the doorway.

"Aren't you cute? How can I help you?"

He was going to strangle Giacinto for not forewarning him a little more clearly, but he had carried on, not expecting a naked woman to confront him.

Dick adverted his gaze, face red, attempting to ignore the rich smell of blood.

"Can you tell Ignacio that I want to speak to him when he is less... busy."

"Ignacio? That's his name huh? Thanks hun, I'll let him know."

A body pressed against the woman's back and a tanned arm wrapped around her stomach.

Ignacio stood behind the woman, bare and dishevelled. His lips were stained red, his hair a tousled mess.

"There's no need." His tongue ran along a line of blood on her shoulder. She giggled. "I'll get to you eventually, Richard." His voice was cold.

"I'll be in my room," he said stiffly.

He wanted to avoid the noises the that will be coming from their room. A did glace at the woman with some pity before he made his way into his room.

He picked up a book in an attempt to distract himself as he waited.

"Try to be patient."

Now he knew he was being waited for, he was going to prolong this as much as he could.

Dick would be waiting hours. And he was going to suffer a lot of noise while he waited, too. Ignacio wasn't going to be nice to him.

The first half hour was all he could tolerate before he left a note outside Ignacio's door requesting that he come down to meet him in the communal lounge after he was done.

He was prepared to wait.

If it was hours, so be it.

It was hours. Many hours.

By the time Ignacio strolled into the communal lounge, adjust the wrist cuff on his shirt, it was late afternoon.

He looked completely unapologetic.

Dick had drunk his weight in coffee, moved on to champagne and had to buy himself another packet of cigarettes. Lord have mercy if he didn't have one between his fingers at all times.

"Enjoy yourself?" He asked dryly, sat on a lounge seat in the corner of the room. It was cut off for only the most important guests.

"A little more so, I think, than her," was his response as he sat down.

He crossed one leg over the other and leaned comfortably back against the couch, arms spread out over its back.

"So?" he prompted.

He clicked his tongue, disapproving, but he didn't make a comment.

"So," Dick began and started to hesitate already. The intent he had earlier was lost. He had time to silently stew a little more.

He crossed his legs the other way, shifting in his seat and resisting not to cross his arms like a child.

"So, it wasn't right for me to speak to that man who was rude to you out of spite, then expect you to handle him and get pissed with your methods." There was an awkward pause. "I'm sorry."

"You're right," he agreed with a nod.

"It wasn't right. You asked me to do something then judged me for doing it. Doing things I've done a dozen times and you haven't complained about before."

One brow arched in condescending frustration. "You don't like me touching you? Since when. You'd been fine all evening."

Dick flushed, but held back his tongue, swallowing down the snip reply.

"That was... different. You hugging me and kissing my cheek with the conversation at hand, it was too much."

He rolled the dead cigarette between his fingers.

"Too much?"

Ignacio snorted. Too much. He was hundreds of years old and hugging and kissing him was too much.

What a load of bullshit.

Then again, it was an easy way to victimise himself.

Dick stared heavily at Ignacio, the crease between his brow deepening.

He stood.

"You know, I wanted to talk to you about this, but it looks like you're still being a child who needs to break a few things until they can be a reasonable adult."

"Since I have sat down, you've judged me for having sex, set an impossible standard for when and how I should touch you in certain situations without informing me those standards even existed, then accused me of being a child when I called bullshit."

He tilted his head to the side and raised a brow archly.

"Which of us is being unreasonable?"