Work Text:
Tasks given by Cilius are fun. Intentionally risky. Could potentially cut his cord short if he slips up, but fun. Whether it be by the target or the genius himself, he doesn’t mind. Now if you add Lucilius himself to the task, then it’s even better. Sprinkle the embellishments of a fancy party into the equivalent; Belial can’t help but to let loose a little.
That’s where he runs into a brick wall in the meanwhile.
"Do you think this is some sort of party?" Lucilius turns his head to Belial, steely eyes so quick to judge like they might just slice him in half if they blink.
Belial is the only one resistant to it—he meets his gaze. Waits the champagne from spilling, resting the rim of the glass on his bottom lip.
“It technically is, isn't it? What's the harm in having a little fun. I'm almost offended that you'd think I’d drop to my knees here with just two drinks, Cilius." Belial says, faking hurt in his voice but the joy of tonight and everything he knows what’ll happen bleeds thicker than his poor ability to lie.
“You do that without any.” dourly, Lucilius grunts, "I have started to expect less of you as of recent."
Brows raising, Belial takes a sip. "Oh? How sweet."
"Don't swell your head up. You have well proven to me that you're incapable of doing the bare minimum."
Under his words that burn with a sense of threat that Belial loves to hear, there's a gentle squeaking of a sealed thumb rubbing at the glass stem. It grows a pleasant shiver to thumb at his spine—expensive hands so dangerous, forever tainted deeper in the darkness than the blackest shadows themselves, yet delicate to not snap the thin glass stem forward.
Belial laughs softly, eyes fondly drinking Lucilius' soft features and bright skin that challenges the moon’s gorgeous pale from the side more than he’s drinking his actual champagne. This is his second glass already, it’s only been two hours. He’s not going to be greedy as much as he’d like to be, but with this- it isn’t so bad.
He's so pretty. It's a furious scrutiny as to why Lucifer, his underboss, is so-called superior in the art of grace,
When clearly-
"No need to be so deprecatory, I just like fooling around sometimes. I'm still young, not the grouchy, withered and emotionless mob people you see in movies about us. Unless you think I'm sexy enough to be—” Lucilius cuts him off with a brief kick to the shin, but he's too far for him to actually make it hurt other than a smiling sting.
"Enough with your blether.” Lucilius warns, leaning to the side of Belial’s bulk. From the outside he probably seems like he’s just leaning for the fucks of it, but where Belial’s black suit blocks, he’s prodding him in the rib. It tickles. “Move."
"Move where?" Belial likes playing dumb. Prefers it, actually. It just makes his true cunning all the more precipitous.
Not for Lucilius. Never if its not dire. He still likes to stay in character—consistency is his thing.
"To me."
So simple. The ambiguity, it can be interpreted in. Belial would go hell and back if it meant he would be, in theory, back to him. That's an instinctual decision and obedience of order.
"Follow."
But following him through the villa garden is easy too.
Belial smiles low as his alternative of nodding, understanding, and follows behind where Lucilius' steps clicked prior.
The sound of dry wine being clinked together and scenery of numerous separate symposiums talking of civil subject matters over live music of whining pianos tells an attentive Belial that they’re close. He’s not sure where Lucilius plans on going—what he wants to do, but all he knows, cares for is two simple rules: blend in and don’t talk to anyone.
Were this a social function, he might have a little more fun to top off the night and defy. No, not today though. He recognizes this is important, and because he can follow, he will.
Less in jeopardy of the situation, more for Cilius. Unpredictable and sudden Belial is, really he could knock out who Lucilius needs and bridal carry him out of here in the span of five minutes, give or take. Risk is his raison d’etre, yet he wouldn’t dare oppose what Lucilius wants. A calmer approach—precise it seems, careful. Foreign it may be, but he has no reason to doubt.
Resisting the urge to take hold of a speeding Lucilius’ thin wrist through the crowd of powerful men and women of Naples’ court is something he silently regrets when he rationalizes that Lucilius probably wouldn’t have repelled if he did. They’re now standing beside a table of complementaries, rather barren from the mass.
Not much is there to observe other than how the bubbles of Lucilius’ champagne has gone warm. He would’ve offered sensible words: Your glass is still full. But on cue, he finally takes a sip. His Adam's apple bobs with an elegance cherubs peering down from twelve-foot trompe-l'oeil ceilings would envy.
“He will be here soon.” Lucilius notes. “They both will.”
“Sounds like enticing news,” he humors, stealing a tart from the table behind, making sure to bite into it enough so to catch the strawberry slice with his teeth. “How long?”
“Roughly an hour.”
“Oh? I know our perceptions of time are very different, but y’know, that doesn’t sound all that soon.”
Belated, Lucilius turns to look at Belial, yet doesn’t actually look at him. “Then go and make a scene like a buffoon to kill time. You getting shot down in no less than a second would be the quickest burden I have ever gotten rid of.”
May it be a partially sarcastic—mostly serious task of recommendation from Lucilius, it’s not totally out of line what Belial would do. ‘All for Cilius’ is his quota for a reason, is it not?
But he wants to see how this’ll go down. Lucilius in action—how exciting! He’ll have to pursue that order another time.
Belial is quick to pop the rest of the tart in his mouth. “Hey, hey,” he tries to soothe, “As much as I love how eager you are for me to be your Romeo so early on, I’m still willing to wait and see this brother of yours. Besides, I’ve felt a little more obedient as of recent.”
A twitch, Lucilius tapers. “Do not even begin to fantasize that you have absolutely any liberty deciding that.” a treacly riptide weaves Belial’s blood. Words so honed, distinctively sharp yet reserved enough where this already turn-on-ish banter just induces him more. He has no liberty both by Cilius’ terms and his own vows. Never will. He just likes the retort he gets slapped on the wrist for.
“Right, right… how foolish of me.”
He leans aside to sneak a hand onto Lucilius’ waist but the second he can even get a finger comfortable, he’s already being seared by cold eyes. His tolerance is a ticking time bomb. One bomb anointed, another one surely would tarnish the planned sync, so this is no place to be playing it out.
—if he weren’t, Belial.
“I’ll keep that a mental note just for my Messiah.” Belial squeezes his waist. Grinning, he pulls away. His heart grinning a bit more.
Iceberg nearly tipped—a miffed grunt from Lucilius neuters the conversation into silence, only to be filled in by a soft transition into Nocturne, Op. 9: No. 2. The waiting game is still in session, quietude only churning the volatility of the ballroom’s—Lucilius’, actually, aura tighter, so the tune of a crying piano lulls it all. Less uncomfortable but no more pleasant.
Dancing's also been added to the session. Footsteps of waltz that spells out grace upon the coinciding sways of women’s dresses’ and soft clicks of heels are steps that Belial knows just as intimately as he knows fight, and admires it fondly for. It should be something tragic knowing the calamity’ll rise, but his eyes savor it for now as a display.
The look on Lucilius’ face tells him that it’s not the same. Probably is a foreign act for him, and one that will stay foreign divulging from the small wrinkle between his eyebrows. Still, a minimal line of intrigue lingers.
“Want to?”
Lucilius bites. “What?”
On spot, does Belial decide to go for another drink, leaving Lucilius aimless for however many seconds he feels like emptying his glass—glaring him down with a pint of impatient perplexity that could kill. He looks nice like that. Even closes his eyes to further vex.
He suppresses a laugh through his nose, opening his eyes. “To dance.”
“Are you a fool?”
“Come on. Everyone’s dancing, and the music is so inviting—”
Lucilius ends the conversation with a, “No,” or rather, he wants to end the conversation. Belial isn’t done.
He’s never seen him dance, actually. Nor has he, himself ever gotten the chance to dance ever since he’s met Lucilius. Lucilius, the irrevocable genius in which will always know who or when things have gone north or south of his plans. Lucilius, the one who makes Belial, who had just broken the necks of two men right before their night began, weak to the knees. Surely, he’d know how to dance. It could be a little moment, their moment. Beforehand celebration of their undeniable win that will happen in approximately fifty-three minutes and some-whatever amount of seconds—?
“I don’t know how to anyway.” he reveals. Tone just as threatening but different too, like he’s making sure he’s not revealing much. The way he swirls the champagne in his glass tells the right story.
Oh, but, that’s as much information Belial could’ve ever been blessed with. One that makes his heart race through his tailored suit.
“I’d love to teach you. It would certainly burn off this hour in no time, really.” he’s careful when he leans his glass to Lucilius. “We could even introduce your brother with a little tango of ours? We do a twirl, fall into a dip where you could easily spear a bullet through your doppelganger. It’d be the romantic conclusion to our film.”
Disdain, Lucilius scoffs. Turns his head away, only to look back at Belial.
“If you think giving me a dancing lesson in the middle of a unison blends in more than standing like civil beings, you must be more of a fool than I had thought.”
“Your critical thinking is strong, Cilius, but staying here really makes me feel a bit dull. You don’t want your knees to lock while we wait for him, do you?”
Unanswered.
“We could go to another room,” he quips.
With each break of silence he almost misses the feeling of being jabbed in return, nearly waiting for his glass to be smashed into his arm.
“It can be a quickie.”
There! Belial seems to have hit a standpoint. Lucilius isn’t contemplating, no, those icy eyes whose enveloped the darkest of demises’. Those eyes who could chisel someone’s spine up to a slow and agonizing mental breakdown just stare off to a dead-end. But he isn’t rejecting either—he doesn’t do it like that. He knows. He only nearly has a PhD in ‘being denied by Cilius’, both formally and in the bedroom, so he waits.
When he goes to grab another tart, is when Lucilius hikes up a sleeve to look at his watch that no longer has a crack embellishing the glass. He sighs.
“Fine.” Belial suddenly has no interest in going back for that tart. “Twenty minutes, Belial.”
“Oh-ho, not feeling a quickie?”
Lucilius growls. “Fifteen. Nothing more, don’t waste my time.”
Clearly a full victory isn’t something Belial gets. Though this, is a technical win he can keep. He will take it.
Before Belial can even set his glass down without making a clink, Lucilius is already halfway out of the center ballroom, and he catches up with him as though he were the flame following the detonation cord.
Lucilius feels like a detonation cord that might just combust with each step that goes west than the waltz’s written east.
It proves conscious thought is stronger than mental note, something he thought he beard six minutes before he let Belial taste what it feels to be in order. He hates to admit it, and never will actually admit it unless he wants Belial to use this one instance as a reference for all things convenient; as useless, as futile, as waste-of-space nobody Belial will always be, he’s a relatively decent teacher. It’s just that Lucilius isn’t an ideal student for this fatuous waste of patience.
Lessons are for people who have time to spare; Lucilius does not count himself as someone who has time to spare. Every second baled into sixty, every sixty minutes furled into an hour stacked needs to be burnt on thinking, time in which will decide if he will chase or run one day or the next.
These fifteen minutes are not spared time. Simply a widow’s mite to the creature Belial is for nagging him, is what it is.
He hits a rhythm where his steps finally correlate with Belial’s. He’s not looking at him, but can feel the sort of smile Belial must have—the teethy one where his canines show proudly. Nothing about this is celebratory, just a constant reminder of the time he’s wasting. That anchored hand on his waist which pays back for last time reminds him with a squeeze, so he must be asking to earn another tramp on the foot.
Belial cavils, “Yeowch! That was even harder than the other ten, Cilius.” yet his hand still stays.
“Get over it.”
“No, no, love.” he laughs sweetly, waits the second before clutching to his hand. “I’m eagerly waiting for the next.”
If he rolls his eyes one more time surely they’ll just get stuck at the back of his head. Truth be told, that might just be better than this.
Square one rolls back to haunt him again. Belial is once again purring directions he’s already blocked out after the second repetition, the low warbles of the piano making it harder to think in one of the many spare rooms he’s decided to defame himself in as he goes by what he first bothered to hear—
Step forward, right, follow close with the left, step back with the right, repeat with left, close with the left; rinse and repeat.
What a headache. Lucilius really has no idea why he hasn’t just walked off yet, why he hasn’t told Belial his time is cut short and they’ll return to waiting amongst the other dancers, but this sort of struggle bothers the fuck out of him because he doesn’t struggle. No, not in technical application. A nuisance of knowledge this is, and he recognizes that Belial's surprised by it too. That makes it all worse.
First step, second step, third just nearly—fourth, his polished oxfords catch Belial’s own, now scuffed ones. Lucilius digs his nails into the knuckles of Belial’s, grunts when he isn’t given a squeeze in return.
Lucilius’ hisses, riled. “Cazzo.”
“Y’know, we can simplify it if you’d like.”
“No, you fool.” Lucilius isn’t in the mood to learn something else. Easier or not, for all his intents, absolutely no purpose—he wants to get over with this. Avoid giving Belial another opportunity to even fathom he could tell him what to do.
Rinse and repeat, it is, then. But without an actual completion to rinse. The cycle repeats; he fucks up at the fourth step again where Belial, either by awareness or coincidence, avoids his crashing step. Conquering the fourth step is achieved after a long-overdue arrival, but then the fifth ruins the rhythm. He's stepping on his foot again, where he sighs when he finds that only a minute has passed.
“This determination of yours is such a turn-on, Cilius. Didn’t think this session would be so passionate.” Belial says, and he’s convinced if he were to look up he’d either look like an animal in rut, or is intentionally trying to make his temple burst.
Fourth time—fourth step must be the charm. One more step landing on Belial’s other unaccustomed foot, he yelps, laughs, to then stops all together.
Belial suggests the only good idea he’s had tonight. “How about you lead? It can be the same ethic we have in our downtime; you lead, I act.”
“It should have been like that in the beginning.”
“Sorry, you seemed so clueless though.” faintly, his lips notch into a sardonic grin. “Should we try again?”
Realistically, ideally, no would be the answer. He knows Belial will continue to be a vermin about it for the rest of the night, tonight requires all of Lucilius’ patience and concentration to assure his victory with his unfortunate waste-of-skin accomplice he refers as to his partner. He looks up to Belial, who interprets it as the closest yes he’ll ever earn, following their readjust.
Change is barely visible apart from mental note; Lucilius orders. Yet feeling Belial’s hand sneak to his lower back, inch closer to him, is objectively annoying—it is annoying, but, allows it. Why, he has no reason to dignify that question.
Rigid hands on his watch tells him there’s still five minutes he doesn’t spare. Isn’t sure if his ego and willpower can sustain another five minutes of this derision he hates being disgraced by.
“From the top.”
At least one part of him is willing to find out.