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“You look nervous.” Joseph’s voice was steady, businesslike.
Kurda smiled shyly. “I am. I mean… I’ve never been involved in something like this before.”
Delphine tilted his head, and took another step towards the other vampire. “You…” he kissed his cheek lightly, “who have passed the Trials of Initiation in Vampire Mountain…” a kiss on the other cheek, as he teased the frills framing Kurda’s exposed chest. “You, who have bravely rescued people from the most ruthless human armies…” He leaned up. The tip of his nose touched the taller man’s mouth, and their breath mingled. “You… are afraid of a little modeling?”
“Like I said…” Kurda drifted a kiss over his cheek in return. “It’s new to me.”
Click.
The next night, Kurda returned. He waited in the next room. When Joseph entered, carrying the box, he stood.
Joseph could tell he was nervous again — he seemed to hold himself back from straining to see what Joseph held. But when he laid the box down on the table and began to take the lid off, Kurda stopped him. “Wait— wait…”
“What?”
“Nothing, just… I’ve never seen a photo of myself before.”
Joseph smiled. “I’m honored to be able to give you your first time.” He placed his hands on the lid of the box, rather theatrically. “Ready?” he asked.
Kurda nodded. “Y-yes… ready.”
He opened it.
He’d developed ten different shots, all with different poses and angles. They’d been together for quite a while, taking them, posing as Joseph directed.
The concept was fairly simple, standard aesthetic stuff. Kurda was an archetypal figure, “The Artist”, and Joseph, the god Apollo — a force of creativity and passion, but a fiery and destructive one, a deity who would would possess, fulfill, and use up his chosen mortal without any concern. He’d dressed Kurda in his own clothes — though the General was slim for a mountain vampire, he was large compared to Delphine, and his muscles filled out the photographer’s clothes in a way that was very appealing. There were tears, but those could be mended. And the contrast between Kurda’s bone-straight hair and Joseph’s frilliest shirt (red wine stains almost completely vanished), open to show his chest… breathtaking.
“Ultramarine, darling, you really do need to come here more often—“ Joseph cut off his own flirtatious purr when he looked up to see Kurda, holding a print and staring at it in wonder. Then, abruptly, he put it down, only to pick it up again. He attempted to evaluate it coldly, but every time, it struck something within him.
“How…” his voice was barely a gasp. Realizing, he cleared his throat. “How is this accomplished?”
Joseph sighed. “To be honest, I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Luca — though I warn you, he’ll talk your ears off about it for hours and you’ll come away from it with nothing more than you came in with.”
Kurda laughed. “But it’s your specialty… you don’t…”
“Why don’t I make it my business to know?” Joseph asked. Kurda nodded. He shrugged. “I supposed I just have so much else on my mind… this is… well, you can call it my specialty, but it’s really just a distraction. It’s just for fun.”
“I see…” Kurda gazed at him with admiration.
Joseph blinked. “What?”
Kurda laughed. “Nothing, I just… I hope Vancha never finds out about this.” He nodded, as if considering. “He’d burn this place down for blasphemy, you know.”
Joseph blinked. “You’re… you’re joking, right?”