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Victor Zsasz doesn't know much about art. There hadn't been a lot of art in Debrecen, during the eighties. Mostly it had just been concrete cinderblocks and bedraggled looking businessmen stood in long queues. Sometimes the odd old woman who would spit tobacco at you if you got too close to her stoop. But not a whole lot of art - evidently colour and expression hadn't been high up on Stalin's list of priorities when he'd occupied the fucking place.
Regardless of his novicehood, even Victor gets the distinct impression that the work hung before him is less than spectacular. Completely unintelligible, might be a better descriptor. The placard on the wall says that it was painted by an Italian artist, in a kind of style called impasto. Layers upon layers of heavy-bodied acrylics, lathered on so thickly that the image appears to rise from the canvas.
'Yeah, but what's it of?' he mutters, causing the good-looking couple beside him to titter to themselves.
Not for the first time this evening, Victor wishes that he had his scalpels. Not to kill anybody - they're in public, and there are security cameras. Just so he can flash the handle of one of the blades. Nobody recognises him in the stupid monkey-suit Roman had wrangled him into. If he showed them his tools, maybe they'd put two and two together and show some fucking respect.
Before he can open his mouth to snap something of equivalent menace, Roman appears beside him with two champagne glasses in hand. Sometimes it's as if he's had an app installed that pings him whenever Victor's about to do something embarrassing.
'You're late,' he murmurs, smiling to the couple as they pass him by.
'Wouldn't have been if you'd put Marco in charge of opening up the club.'
'Marco couldn't pour water out of a shoe if the instructions were written on the fucking sole.' Roman peers at him from out of the corner of his eye. 'What? Are you sulking now? Have I done something wrong?'
Victor tugs at his tie. 'Don't like places like this,' he mumbles.
'Places that aren't a gutter, you mean.'
Victor ignores the jab, instead gesturing expansively to the painting before them. 'I mean, what the fuck is this supposed to be? Trees?'
Roman squints down at the placard. 'Sprezzatura. Elegance.'
'Huh.'
Roman takes a sip of his champagne, crinkling his nose. 'I know. I don't see it either. Abstract fucking bullshit.' Their level of the gallery having cleared for the moment, Roman finally gives Victor his undivided attention, stepping back a couple of feet and surveying him carefully. 'Not bad. Did Kiko pick that out for you?'
(Roman's vacuous stylist. Victor had spent a whole day with her trying on various suits. She'd been unhappy with all of them, eventually coming to the conclusion that Victor didn't carry himself well enough to truly embody any of the outfits. Victor would have skinned her there and then if she hadn't been one of Roman's favourite employees).
'She said I could choose.'
'Well then! To Kiko,' Roman says, mildly impressed. He clinks their glasses together. 'That's a Van Noten, by the way - not that you'd know who he is. For special occasions, not for hits, you hear?'
'Sure, boss.'
Roman relaxes minutely then, a winsome little smile on his face. He likes it when Victor calls him boss. 'Come here, you big lump - you've done your tie wrong.'
Victor sets his wineglass down and approaches. A small part of him enjoys being picked over and prodded by Roman, as if he were some kind of life-sized Barbie. Not that he'd ever admit it. Roman uses their position to lean in and sniff him, discretely.
'Aw, darling,' he purrs, 'You washed.'
'Fuck you,' Victor snaps.
Roman laughs, tugging his tie back into place. He's in high spirits tonight. High spirits in Roman's case often tend to precipitate some truly crushing lows. Victor finds it difficult to share in his mirth - difficult, even more so, to relax. If Roman winds up depressed then, fine, Victor can just take him back to the loft and fuck him out of it. But if his reaction is more explosive, then. Well. They're in public, and there are security cameras. Victor will have to do damage control.
'Come on,' Roman says, looping his arm through Victor's, 'They'll be starting the speeches soon. And there's somebody I want you to meet.'
Traditionally, Roman doesn't turn up to these sorts of events. Partly as some sort of a fuck you to polite society and partly because, Victor suspects, he's embarrassed. Roman is cash rich, sure, but he used to be moneyed. There’s a difference. The only other criminals present at the gallery are people like Pan Xiulan, whose family has been bribing judges and rubbing shoulders with senators for so long, it's easy to forget that they’re not actually blue-blooded themselves.
Pan Xiulan is present, incidentally, and resplendent in a backless, silvery slip of a dress. Victor is gratified to see the puckered exit wound just above her left shoulder blade, from where Roman had shot her six months ago. When she spots them, she smiles her wide, perfect smile and raises one bejewelled hand. Victor admires the woman’s ability to channel so much unbridled hatred into what would otherwise be considered a benign expression. Mentally, he makes a note to have Roman leave the gallery in a different car, lest they both meet with an unfortunate accident on their way back to the club.
'Oh, fuck me,' Roman mutters, and Victor tenses, readying for some kind of confrontation. But it's only Bruce Wayne – tall and well-built, but essentially harmless. More and more lately he also seems unusually harried, as if always running ten minutes late for some important meeting. Even now, he’s checking his Rolex, and nearly crashes into them as he passes.
'Roman!' he exclaims, feigning surprise, 'Didn't think I'd see you here.' (Of course you fucking did, Victor thinks, seething. The Wayne family name is all over the Gotham Metropolitan Gallery. Bastard probably co-wrote the guest list).
'Oh, I had to put in an appearance,' Roman replies, speaking – as he always does in Wayne’s presence – just a little too quickly, 'Didn't you hear? I'm one of the installations.'
'Oh, right, right, the statue! I thought he looked familiar. Fantastic stuff...’
Victor listens, silently, while Roman and Wayne make small talk. At no point does Roman ever make a motion to introduce him – and why should he? Victor is nobody. He's certainly not a billionaire fucking philanthropist.
(Victor doesn't like Bruce Wayne. This dislike has nothing to do with the fact that he and Roman used to be playmates as children. And it certainly isn’t at all inspired by Roman’s rather sheepish admission over breakfast one morning that Bruce had been somewhat integral to his realisation he might like boys. He and a young Keith Richards.
No, Victor just thinks it would be fun to peel that handsome face off with a rusty paring knife. Sometimes the urge just arises, completely at random).
Eventually, Wayne leaves, citing some mix-up at the valet’s station. Victor gets the distinct impression that he’s lying, although Wayne’s so fucking bland, he can’t imagine the truth would be particularly interesting either.
Roman seems oddly put out. Actually, he’s close to tears. ‘That utter shit,’ he growls, wringing his gloves like he’d rather be wringing Wayne’s neck, ‘The nerve. The sheer nerve.’
‘What’s the matter?’
Victor is treated to one of Roman’s trademark are-you-a-fucking-simpleton? looks. ‘He’s wearing Valentino!’ he hisses, ‘He’s wearing the exact same suit.’
‘Oh,’ Victor says, glancing over his shoulder. He honestly couldn’t tell. They both look just plain black to him. But that’s not what Roman wants to hear. ‘You wear it better than he does,’ he offers, and, after a moment’s pause, ‘His isn’t even fitted right.’ (Thank you, Kiko).
‘Really?’ Roman sniffles.
‘Do I ever lie to you?’
Roman wipes his eyes and takes a moment to check his reflection in a nearby display cabinet. Then he turns back to Victor and says, very softly, ‘Say it again.’
Victor rolls his eyes, checks surreptitiously over his shoulder and then leans forward to whisper into Roman’s ear. ‘You wear it better than him.’
Speeches are made. Something about generous donations. Something about patronizing the arts. Blah, blah, blah. Victor takes it as a welcome opportunity to canvas the room, wandering around the outer edges of the gallery. He passes a couple of other goons, including some of Pan Xiulan’s. They’re easy to spot: they, like Victor, look uncomfortable in their expensive suits and dresses, and bear an array of grisly physical defects the truly rich would have had lasered away by now. Misshapen noses, broken and then poorly set. Prison tattoos. Scars.
Victor stops for a moment beside a woman he used to work with. She hides her hurts well, but Victor knows for a fact she’s wearing prosthetics. Both of her pinky fingers have been amputated, and doubtless her current employer is unaware of this. Disloyalty doesn’t exactly look good on one’s resume.
‘Kaoru.’
‘Zsasz.’
They exchange even smaller talk than Roman and Wayne had. Who they’re accompanying tonight. When they last got shot. Kaoru is noticeably icy. Most people are these days, with him. Roman subscribes to the Machiavellian prototype that it is better to be feared than loved, and Victor is his red right hand. He’s done a lot of nasty shit these past few months. Things that would make his old buddies in the Slovak mafia go white with terror.
Eventually, Roman calls him over with a wave of his gloved hand. Victor bids Kaoru a curt goodbye, which the Yakuza woman doesn’t even bother to acknowledge.
‘Who was that?’ Roman asks, lowly, and Victor can’t help but feel a little flattered.
‘Why? You jealous?’
Roman grips him firmly by the wrist, unconcerned, for the moment, with public appearances. And besides, there’s nothing loving in the gesture. At least not in the traditional sense. Victor thinks he feels his bones grind together.
‘I don’t pay you to shoot the shit with our competition,’ Roman murmurs, ‘I don’t pay you to have friends. I’m your friend. I’m your boss and your mother and your confessor all rolled into one. You exist within my parameters, is that understood? You belong to me.'
‘Okay, okay, I get it.’ Victor wrenches himself free. ‘Jesus, what’s up with you tonight? You’ve been fucking antsy since I walked in.’
Roman tugs at his gloves again – a nervous tic. ‘It’s… Dad.’
‘Come again?’
‘Dad – my dad. Here, tonight. Both of them – him and Mom. They’re who I want you to meet.’
‘Oh.’ Victor is flummoxed. Caught of guard. A rare occurrence for him. In fact, this is about the most caught of fucking guard he’s ever been in his life. ‘And I'd be meeting them as your…’ he scratches at the back of his neck. Boyfriend sounds so foolishly saccharine it makes him want to gag.
‘I don’t know!’ Roman exclaims, running his hands through his hair, ‘This whole thing is – stupid. It’s stupid. I wanted to fuck with him, to show him I… But it won’t work. It never works. He’s like a brick wall. We should – we should just go.’
‘Wait. Wait.’ Victor presses a hand to his chest, stilling him. ‘You wanted to show him what?’ Roman mumbles something under his breath. Victor cocks his head. ‘Hm?’
‘Wanted to show him that I’m not a failure,’ Roman mutters, flushing red, ‘That I can – have a statue in an art gallery and my name on the donations list. That just because what I do is… illegal, technically… It doesn’t mean that I’m some kind of loser.’
Victor can feel the grin spreading across his face, unbidden. ‘You want to show your dad that you’re a fucking baller?’
‘I mean, that’s putting it ineloquently, but – yes.’
‘Well, okay then.’ Victor steps back, inviting Roman to lead the way. ‘Then let’s go fucking show him.’
Richard Sionis is not a particularly cruel looking man. Victor is aware of the numerous anecdotes surrounding him, gleaned from gossip columns and the Internet. How cold he had been during Roman’s childhood, parcelling him off to some European boarding school at the age of twelve. There had been some sort of an altercation, or scandal, and Roman had been sent back before graduation. Richard Sionis hadn’t even deigned to meet his son at the airport.
Other titbits he’d been treated to by Roman himself, usually when he’d had a bad day and was feeling tearful or vindictive. Always after sex. Victor would lie there and listen while Roman described the weird, arcane punishments his father had enacted upon him. Being made to rise at four a.m. and swim laps of their estate’s frigid lake. Cross-country marathons in which Roman would become horribly cold, wet and lost. It all sounded very elaborate to Victor, whose own father’s notion of discipline had culminated at the end of a belt.
Having heard all of this, and having borne witness to Roman’s various neuroses for the past year, Victor had been expecting some gaunt, cigar-smoking sadist, but the man Roman deposits him in front of is appallingly normal looking. He has a broad, open face that once must have resembled Roman’s own but is now going to fat. Grey, well-groomed hair. Heavy eyebrows. His blue, pinstriped suit reminds Victor of something a real-estate agent might wear, rather than a wealthy CEO.
For a moment, he wonders if Roman’s terrible childhood is just a part of some larger, concocted persona. If he’d only been exaggerating. And then Richard Sionis opens his mouth.
‘Ah, Roman,' he drawls, 'We were wondering when you were going to show up. If you were going to show up. Your mother’s been frantic.’
Roman smiles tightly and embraces his mother, a pretty, frail looking woman about twenty years younger than her husband. About her, Victor hadn't heard a word, beyond that she existed and came from a family of wealthy Swiss perfumers. That she’d been quiet. ‘Hey, Mom.’
‘Mio caro.’
‘And who is this?’ Roman’s father asks, gesturing to Victor, ‘A business associate?’ He sneers a little as he says it, clearly indicating that he knows exactly what sort of people his son associates with.
‘Oh. No, ha.’ Roman regards Victor with something like surprise, as if he'd momentarily forgotten his presence. ‘This is Victor, my PA.’
(It’s what they’d settled on, after Victor’s incredibly swift promotion. Bodyguard sounded pretentious, in Roman’s opinion, and needlessly worried some of the club’s flightier guests. And henchman was just fucking ridiculous.
'Cat's paw?' Roman had suggested, in a moment of post-coital frivolity.
'Meow,' had said Victor).
‘Victor?’ Richard queries, extending a hand.
‘Victor Zsasz,' he confirms, shaking it, 'A pleasure, sir.’
Roman's father recoils as if burnt. ‘The fucking – serial killer?’ he exclaims, rounding on his son.
‘That’s me,’ Victor chirps, Roman loudly interjecting in the same instant with, ‘Alleged.’ They share a look: Roman, pissed and vaguely horrified, Victor with his usual reptilian flatness. Trust me.
‘You saw the trial, Dad,’ Roman says nervously, chidingly, ‘It was a farce! GCPD just needed somebody to pin the murders on, and Victor happened to be nearby. Hence: no conviction.’
‘It’s very nice to meet you,’ Roman’s mother says, clasping his hand in hers, ‘I’m Lucrezia.’
‘Uh, yeah. You too,’ Victor replies, taken aback. Either she loves her son so much she’ll believe anything he says, he thinks, or she's just plain crazy.
‘And you two met… how, exactly?’ Richard demands, still side-eyeing Victor like he’s some kind of rabid dog, liable to bite.
‘Oh, Victor’s company lent him out to us on a temporary retainer, and Victor himself was feeling stifled, creatively. I just scooped him up.’
‘And you were in what field, exactly?’
‘Mergers and acquisitions,’ Victor answers, grinning toothily.
‘Right,’ Richard says, frowning.
‘We saw your statue,’ Roman’s mother gushes, suddenly, grasping Roman by the forearm, ‘Didn’t we, Dick? Roman’s lovely statue?’
‘Mm. Yes,’ Richard grunts, now squinting down at something on his phone, ‘I don’t remember raising you to be so vain, Roman.’
‘Funny, Dad,’ Roman snaps, ‘I don’t seem to remember you raising me at all.’
‘So handsome!’ Lucrezia coos, pinching Roman’s cheek. He bats her hand away with very poorly concealed irritation.
‘It took the sculptor three months,’ Victor offers, feeling as if he should say something.
Roman’s father snorts, still tapping away at his phone, and Victor feels that urge arise again, though this time he suspects it’ll take much more than a rusty paring knife to sate it.
‘Yes,’ Roman grits, ‘Steffi is one of Gotham’s great talents. I’ll have to send her your way.’
‘Oh, do! Please, do.’ Lucrezia gasps, clapping a hand to her mouth, ‘Oh, Roman, caro, I just had a thought. Could… we have it – the statue? Once the exhibition’s over? To keep? It would be like having you in the house again.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Richard decrees, and gives his wife a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. ‘I have to go take a call. Watch the boy for me, will you? Make sure he doesn’t… scurry off somewhere, cause trouble.’
‘Yes, darling,’ she says, demurely.
Roman glares at his father hotly enough to melt steel as he passes by, but if Richard notices, he doesn’t let on. Victor reaches out gingerly, wanting to offer some kind of comfort, but Roman jerks away before he can.
‘“Watch the boy for me,”’ he sneers, ‘“Make sure he doesn’t scurry off.” What the fuck does he think I am, a fucking gerbil?’
‘Oh, caro, you know how he is.’
‘Vile?’ Roman ventures, sarcastically, and Lucrezia purses her lips. She has a funny way of looking at the world, Victor’s noticed. Blinking a lot, as if perpetually holding back tears. Married to that bastard, she probably is.
‘Come now,’ she says, looping her arm through both his and Roman’s, ‘It’s been a long time since I was escorted by two handsome gentlemen, and I still haven’t seen those new landscapes.’
‘Actually, Mrs. Sionis,’ Victor says, extricating himself, ‘I have to use the little boy’s room.’
‘What? No you don’t,’ Roman blurts.
‘I, uh, think I know what my bladder’s telling me, boss,’ Victor says, smiling easily. He then adds, in a low voice, for Roman’s ears only. ‘Just you wait. I’m going to show him.’
‘Show him what?’ Roman hisses, and Victor taps the side of his nose, winking.
'That nobody messes with Roman Sionis.'
He finds him in an empty wing of the gallery, filled with white, Grecian busts that wouldn't look out of place in Roman's loft. It's dark, Richard's mobile phone a pale blue point of light beside his ear. Victor had half been hoping to find him placating an angry mistress, but the call is very much business related. Victor wanders beneath the wing's adjoining arcade while he waits for Richard to hang up, unnoticed. Az én kis árnyékom, his mother had called him, after Victor's habit of creeping about behind her, cat-footed. My little shadow.
Eventually, the conversation begins to wind down. Richard sighs, pinching at the bridge of his nose. 'Yeah... Yeah, I'll email them,' he says, sounding spent. Evidently, running a successful cosmetics company isn't as glamorous as their polished recruitment ads would lead one to believe. 'Bcc me first, so I can scan it for bullshit... Ha. Yeah... Right. Ok. Ok, bu-bye... Ah... Yep, yeah, you too. Ok, bye.'
He tucks his phone into his pocket and slumps, scrubbing at his jaw. He then turns and walks to fetch his champagne glass from one of the room's many pedestals. Victor's voice rings out after him:
'You're a very rude man.'
'Jesus Christ!' Richard chokes, nearly jumping out of his skin. Victor waits until he's somewhat recovered himself before stepping fully out of the shadows. When Richard sees him, he laughs, just once - a dry, humourless thing. 'Neat trick,' he says, taking a gulp of champagne, 'He train you to do that or is it just a, uh, factory setting?'
Victor smiles, thinly. 'You're rude,' he repeats, and moves so that he directly bars Richard's exit from the wing. 'Most rich people are.'
There is a certain pleasure to be had from watching Roman's father lower his glass, eyes darting over Victor's shoulder and back, wary. The satisfaction of finally having somebody's complete attention.
'They can afford to be, I guess,' Victor continues, reaching for his tie, 'Just like they can afford not to be. A guy has a certain amount of money and the consequences tend to just - fall away.'
'I'm sure you'd know all about that, working for my son.'
Victor chuckles lowly as he undoes the complicated knot Roman had tied for him. 'Roman understands consequences. It's what makes him different.' Now, he reaches for his shirt buttons. Richard clears his throat - uncomfortable, confused.
'What... exactly does my son employ you for?' he asks, and, when Victor doesn't immediately answer, 'Rat-catching?'
'Sometimes,' Victor agrees, mildly, 'Other times I drive him places. Run errands. Make sure things are running smoothly at the club. Lately, though, I just fuck him.'
Richard's carefully schooled expression doesn't drop, not immediately. Victor's words haven't quite sunk in. 'I beg your pardon?'
'You will,' Victor sighs. He's unbuttoned his shirt partway now, and slowly tugs it open. 'I mean, sometimes he fucks me. Although -' Victor adds, conspiratorially, 'Just between us, I think your son likes taking it up the ass more than he lets on.'
He can tell Richard isn't listening anymore. His gaze is rooted to the mess of tally marks strewn across Victor's chest. He's paled, noticeably.
'Now, I take it I don't have to tell you what these little guys represent?' Victor says, 'After all, you watched the trial. Heard what they said.'
Now Richard attempts to leave, rushing for the door. Victor lets him think he's taken him off guard, then at the last moment blocks his path, a warning hand fisted in his lapel. 'Whoa there, Mr. Sionis! Slow down! We wouldn't want you to spill your drink.'
'You're insane,' Richard sputters.
'You're right, I am insane,' Victor says, speaking low and fast, 'I'm also very loyal. And I like Roman, Mr. Sionis. I really do. He's good to me. Better than most of the assholes in this city, anyway. And I really, really don't appreciate the way you speak to him.'
'Oh, Christ,' Richard moans, throwing up his hands, 'You think he's a saint! You really think my son's a saint. Tell me - did he ever say why he was expelled from boarding school? Because I could tell you some stories --'
Victor shoves him backwards. Not hard enough to hurt, just a firm push – but the promise of greater violence is there. ‘You need to settle down.’
‘Settle down?!’ Richard exclaims, ‘You’ve got some fucking nerve –’
‘I could gut you like a pig right now, and no one would know,’ Victor interjects. He says it gently - sweetly, even, like a lover might. 'And that’s not nerve, Mr. Sionis, that’s just facts.’
Richard closes his mouth, lips a thin, pale line. He’s trembling, just slightly.
‘I wouldn’t kill you immediately, though,’ Victor continues, ‘Probably, I’d stab you in the neck first. There’s a way they teach us to do it, back home. The blood, it drowns your vocal folds – causes an, uh… an oedema. We could have a lot of fun before anybody found us.’
‘What do you want?’
Victor shrugs, languidly. ‘Mm. Not sure. I don’t expect you to welcome him back into Janus Corp., if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s beneath him, at this point, and personally I think he has a lot more fun peeling faces than he would dolling them up.’ He taps at his bottom lip, thinking. ‘I suppose we could start with a little human decency, on your part.’
Richard, thoroughly defeated, buries his face in his hands. ‘What? You want me to – apologize to him?’
‘I’m sure you’ll think of something,’ Victor says, bending down to examine one of the busts. A gorgon, her mouth frozen in a silent snarl. ‘But speak to him in public like that again, make him hurt, even just a little, and I’ll find you. Your pretty wife, well. I’ll slice her open right away – but you? You I think I might keep alive for a couple of weeks. Experiment a little.’ He smiles at the bust and taps the glass, teasingly. Straightens up. ‘Oh, and, before you start going on about security teams and barbed wire fences, just remember: I’ve killed dozens of men in Roman’s name. How confident are you that you’ll be any different?’
Richard stares, unresponsive, but his eyes have the glazed, faraway quality of a man envisioning his own murder. Vividly.
Victor grins. ‘I’m glad we understand each other, Mr. Sionis.’
The rest of the evening runs relatively smoothly. Victor helps himself to copious amounts of finger-food, figuring that he’s at least earned a free meal out of this whole affair. Lucrezia Sionis attaches herself to him the moment he reenters the central gallery, slightly manic, more than a little drunk off of all the free champagne. She wants to know everything about her son’s club, and her son’s business, and whether or not he’s eating well, and if he’s found himself a nice girl yet.
Victor indulges her, for once enjoying the polite society pantomime (much of his enjoyment is gleaned for watching Richard watch them, looking perpetually as if he’s ten seconds away from having an aneurysm).
Eventually, Roman seeks them out, and announces to Victor that they’re leaving. His expression is unreadable. Lucrezia begs him to stay for another hour, but Roman cites some pressing business back at the club. He’s already said goodbye to his father.
His silence as they exit the gallery sends a shiver of anticipation up Victor’s spine. Either he’s woefully miss-stepped, and Roman is waiting until they’re in private to berate him, or…
The drive back to the club is interminable. Roman doesn’t speak – he’s looking over something on his tablet, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. Pieces from the gallery showing, most likely. Victor will be directing deliverymen around the loft all of tomorrow morning while Roman catches up on his beauty sleep. He half wishes some of Pan Xiulan’s men would attack them, if only to break up the horrible tension he can feel building inside him. But he’s swapped out Roman’s Rolls for a less conspicuous Mercedes SUV, just like he’d planned on doing earlier than evening. Victor Zsasz is nothing if not prudent.
When they arrive, Victor follows Roman up to the loft. He still sleeps in his own bed most nights, and Roman hadn’t asked for his company, but he’s got a feeling they’ll be having words anyway.
He’s right. The moment the elevator doors slide shut behind them, Roman’s got him crowded up against the wall, hands clutching at Victor's lapels. Victor goes pliant, lets himself be manhandled. It’s for the best.
‘What did you do to him?’ Roman demands, not quite speaking in anger. There’s an intensity to his gaze that Victor can’t quite place. ‘What did you say?’
‘Why?’ Victor asks, ‘Was he angry?’
Roman shakes his head. A single, savage movement, like a wolf with a rabbit clamped between its jaws. ‘No,’ he says, hoarsely, ‘No, he wasn’t.’
Carefully, Victor forces his arms down. ‘So, what was he?’
Roman swallows, his eyes glinting, wetly. ‘He was… he shook my hand.’
‘Okay.’
‘He never shakes my hand. He's got this whole fuckin' thing about it. Says handshakes are for people he respects.’
‘What else did he do?’
‘He… said he was sorry, for being rude, earlier. That it had been a tough day for him. That he hadn’t meant it.’
‘Okay.’ Not quite the apology Victor had been hoping for, but it'll have to do, for now. Though perhaps Richard Sionis could benefit from a repeat visit some time in the near future. At night, within the confines of his estate, his guards incapacitated. Just to prove that Victor can.
‘Victor, what did you do?’ Roman asks again, his voice breaking, 'Fucking castrate him?'
Victor reaches up, cups Roman's neck in the palm of his hand, feels the pulse beat there, savagely, like a bird against a windowpane. ‘Would you believe me if I said we just had a friendly chat?’
‘Not for a second.’
‘Well then,’ Victor murmurs, eyes hooded, leaning in, ‘Let's just say I gave him a piece of my mind.'
'Your mind?' Roman snorts, 'No wonder he looked fucking terrifi--' He's abruptly cut off by Victor's mouth crashing into his own, by Victor's hands fisted in his collar. It's more of a head-butt than a kiss, all things considered. Different to how Victor normally is. Normally, he's almost too careful with Roman, as if he’s handling some kind of holy relic. More often than not, Roman will have to goad him into violence. Insult him, mock him.
Not now, though. Roman actually has to forcibly push Victor off of him in order to surface for air. Has to do it again when Victor decides, petulantly, to bite him, metal incisor punching a hole in Roman's bottom lip.
'Fuck!' Roman exclaims, fingers pressed to his mouth. 'Victor, what the hell?'
'Sorry,' Victor drawls, not sounding sorry at all, 'Got a little excited.'
'Fucking deranged, more like.' Roman scowls at him, an expression that's slightly undermined by the very noticeable tent in his pants. 'I should make you sleep on the floor for that.'
'You should,' Victor agrees, 'But what about my nice new suit?'
'It is a nice suit,' Roman muses, reaching forward to pull Victor's tie loose from his blazer. 'Makes you look like an actual human person.'
'Does it now?'
'Instead of a fucking animal.'
Victor lets himself be tugged forward, presses his mouth to Roman's ear. 'Do you think I'm handsome?' he asks, breathily.
'No,' Roman says, looping the tie around his hand a second time, tightening Victor's makeshift leash. 'But I do like to watch you.'
'Oh?' Victor says, and he sounds strangled, 'How's that?'
Roman grins against the side of his bodyguard's neck. There's always some pleasure to be had from exploiting Victor's weakness for flattery. He tries so hard to hide it, after all. 'It's like... watching a fox in a henhouse.'
Victor laughs, thinly. 'You saying I'm foxy?'
'Shut up and listen,' Roman says, pressing him, inexorably, back against the wall. 'When I watch you in a room full of people, I know that you could kill any one of them in an instant, and it makes me hard.' Victor moans, quietly. 'That you would kill any one of them, if I only asked you too. And I'm right, aren't I, Victor?'
'Of course,' Victor grits, attempting to roll his hips forward against Roman's leg, 'I - belong to you. Remember?'
'Hmmm,' Roman hums, and gives Victor's tie a firm downward tug. 'I think I might need some help recollecting...'
Afterwards, Roman takes a shower. Alone, because Victor will inevitably try to work an extra handy into the proceedings, and Roman can't sleep unless he feels properly clean. So Victor lays there atop the sheets, the shaft of light from the cracked bathroom door bisecting his torso, and wonders when he became such a fucking housewife. Wasn't so long ago he could put his clothes back on and drive back to his apartment, secure in the knowledge that Roman liked him well enough to screw him, and that expecting a fucking cuddle afterwards was pushing his luck. That if he really wanted sweet nothings, he should quit the business right now and find some nice, normal person to build his life around.
Instead, what he feels when Roman pads out of the bathroom, dressed in his luxuriant sleep-clothes, and collapses into bed beside him, is relief. The relief of being needed, the relief of being wanted - of maybe, even, being loved. Rolling onto his side, Victor is tempted to throw an arm over Roman's waist but, knowing he'd only be shrugged off, settles for simply staring at the back of his head.
'I can feel you squinting,' Roman grumbles, sometime around one in the morning.
Victor scoots closer, presses his nose to the soft hairs at the base of his neck. 'Would you let me kill him?' he murmurs, 'One day?'
'You'd get caught. Now that you've threatened him, he'll be even more paranoid. Security teams round the clock.'
'Don't care. I'd still do it.'
There's a long pause, during which Victor worries that he's misspoken. Then, the rustle of silk sheets in the darkness; Roman, rolling to face him, his breath tickling Victor's cheeks. 'Really?'
Victor nods.
'Mm. What about your ritual?' Roman asks, smoothing a palm over the parallel-running scars on Victor's neck, 'Couldn't do that in a jail cell.'
'Would it make you happy?' Victor persists, reaching up to cover Roman's hand, 'If he was dead?'
'Happier than anything,' Roman croaks, and Victor kisses him, firmly.
'Then nothing else matters.'
It's about as close to a marriage proposal as either of them will ever get.
('What about Lucrezia?'
'No,' Roman sighs, 'You can't kill my mom too, Victor.')
The next morning, Victor's awoken by a large package, wrapped in butcher's paper, tossed onto his lap. He props himself up on his elbows to find Roman standing at the foot of the bed, his arms crossed - somehow looking both annoyed and diffident at the same time. There's a faint smell of burnt toast wafting in from the kitchen. Victor has never seen him awake this early. Not of his own volition. His pocket square doesn't even match his socks.
(It is this last detail that makes Victor's eyes widen momentarily in horror, mind running wild with visions of a surprise attack by the Chinese mafia. The missing Bertinelli girl, come back to kill them all --)
'Well, go on,' Roman snaps, waving a hand, 'I didn't drag my ass out of bed and drive all the way to the Met just to watch you lay there and gawp.'
'Thought you liked watching me,' Victor says, preening.
'Yeah, yeah, yeah, hot stuff, just open your fucking present,' Roman says, already making a beeline for the walk-in wardrobe. He is, Victor thinks, embarrassed.
He reaches forward to tear at a corner, and then pauses. 'Present? What's the occasion?'
Silence, and then, muffled by several layers of suits, 'Let's say it's our six month anniversary.'
'Is it?'
'I don't fucking know,' Roman blurts, tripping over what sounds like a pile of shoes, 'Do I - shit - look like the kind of douchebag who keeps track of that sort of thing?'
Victor shrugs and tears into the butcher's paper. He's not sure what he's expecting. Sometimes, if Victor's performed a task particularly well, Roman will buy him a drink, or some designer piece of apparel Victor will never find any practical use for. Usually, he'll just fuck him, and - well. They already did that.
When he sees the familiar splatter of crimson and spruce, he can't help but laugh, collapsing back onto the mattress. A moment later, Roman sticks his head out of the wardrobe, glaring.
'Well you don't need to be a dick about it.'
'No, no, it's perfect. It is. I just -' Victor sits back up, smiling like an idiot, 'You remembered.'
'Of course I remembered, you made me stare at it for long enough. I still don't know how you got fucking trees.' Witnessing Victor's genuine pleasure, Roman relaxes a little, leaning against the doorframe. 'What do you want to do with it?' he asks, fondly, 'I thought maybe we could burn it. Or you could go at it with your knives. Hell, take a huge goddamn dump on it, I don't care, just don't expect me to buy you anything that expensive again.'
'No,' Victor muses, reaching out to touch the rough layers of paint. Sprezzatura. 'No... I think maybe I'll keep it.'