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It had been stupid of him, really, to think it would work. That the obscene amounts of fruit he wanted to put in his body would join his bloodstream, affect his flavor. It had felt like a good idea, head suddenly mismatching with his form at the thought. He could be sweet. He could be lovely. The pineapple sat in Armand's stomach like a curse, sending up occasional flares of nausea to the rest of his body. He could feel it there, even from the outside. His hand running over the slight distention that he very well could be imagining. A curve in his stomach that hadn't been there for nearly five hundred years.
He was kneeling on the floor in front of the platter he had eaten the fruit off of. It had felt like the worship he needed. At some point he would have to throw up, but he would have to avoid the platter. It was ornate and beautiful in a way that felt cruel to sully with his mistake, and the leftover pieces of pineapple and the bowl of honey still sitting there glistened so beautifully.
It would taste the same coming out, vomiting like he was a boy again, drunk on too much sweet wine and nauseous from touch. It had been like eating chalk, the honey still sticky on his fingers even now in a way that made him want to wash his hands for hours. He felt young, and stupid. Where was Louis?
–
Riccardo laughed for a surprised moment before he realized the extent of things. Amadeo watched his face change like a series of sketches in study. Young man makes a social blunder. If Amadeo were a better artist, he would have been able to create it from memory; the way the expressions burned into the backs of his eyelids. It was mortifying.
“Should I call for the priest?” Riccardo asked, still teetering on the edge of humor. It took Amadeo a minute to recognize it.
The cooks had brought seemingly endless fresh fruits and berries into the palazzo a fortnight before, and they had made their way from kitchen to dining rooms to great tables in the courtyard, to high-ceilinged rooms where his Master would paint, letting the boys slack off from their smaller duties to pick at the abundance before them. Someone had mentioned that it was fruit season and Amadeo hadn't understood that there was a season for such beauty. He had only been at the palazzo for a handful of months and had spent more time shivering in his Master's chambers than otherwise. He had not yet been taught the finer points of Venetian foods. So, witnessing the left over fruit being thrown away into great troughs, and feeling some deep-seated terror manifesting from some recess of his mind that he was no longer allowed to recall, he had snuck into the kitchen and gorged himself on the same beautiful fruit that had been sustaining him for weeks, only now, different. Softer. Uglier.
“Have I been poisoned?” Amadeo asked, feeling stupid all the while. He was hunched in a hallway, sitting against the cold stone. He was resting in his own sick, cold and stinking now. It had eased his stomach slightly, but he still felt pain and churning, and he was shivering again, a habit of his body that could only be cured now by a hot bath, or his Master's sharp kisses. A show of what had changed, his mind wiped near eerily clear and peaceful by his Master when he received his comfort.
He couldn’t look Riccardo in the eye, but Riccardo was kneeling in front of Amadeo to speak to him on his level. It was awfully kind. “You've just eaten rotten fruit, Amadeo. Didn't anyone ever tell you that you can't do that?” His voice was soft. Amadeo was pretty sure he was being earnest. “It made you sick, but you'll be fine. It's like too much wine,” he said, smiling again now. “You know what that's like. Just let it pass itself through.”
“I still feel it inside of me,” Amadeo said, voice small enough that Riccardo had to lean in to hear. His heart was beating faster than he could reasonably account for. “Can you find the Master? He could help me. Please find Him?”
Riccardo sighed. “It's barely past noon. Come on, I'll get you to someplace nicer than this.” He coaxed Amadeo up to standing. Though Amadeo's body had grown a layer of soft fat in the months he had been at the palazzo, it had also grown in height, and his limbs were as long and ungainly as ever, so it was more of a feat to organize them than Amadeo's wounded pride wanted it to be. Riccardo handled him patiently, holding him up with a strong arm around Amadeo's back once he made it to his feet. Amadeo was struck with the sudden desire to kiss him thanks, but compromised with the rot on his breath and only kissed him on the cheek.
“Keep your mouth away from me!” Riccardo laughed, not unkindly, but pushing his face away all the same. “You smell like death.”
“Sorry.”
“Don't tell me sorry. You're like an angel, Amadeo. An angel and a newborn foal.”
Riccardo led him to the courtyard, and Amadeo had to squint his eyes to adjust to the sun that was shining in from above. He hadn't been out very much in the days before, and in the overwhelm of sensation from the heat and light and voices shouting after each other as the younger boys played a game that mostly seemed to involve everyone trying to catch everyone else, Amadeo was remembering why. His stomach felt like a thorned ball inside of him.
“Sit down and let the sun bake it off of you. At least it should stop your shaking. I'll fetch you some wine. Sit!”
–
If Armand pulled his knees up close enough to his chest, he could imagine the feeling had gone away, but as soon as the nausea left the forefront of his mind, there was room for a new thought, bubbling up from behind it like a dead fish to the water’s surface. He was hungry again.
Not hungry, exactly. His body couldn't crave this, but the memory of it sang to him from somewhere in his chest. Somewhere beyond the heaviness in his stomach, the sluggish weight of his arms, the catch in his throat, he reached out to grasp another piece of pineapple.
He could feel the juice on his fingers; could imagine what it would taste like, what it would smell like if he was still able to process the stimuli. Louis savored this part: the reminder of what he couldn't have. The built in denial. Armand found that it made something pinch in his chest, in the space behind his eyes. It hurt him physically, the missing sensation. He imagined Louis felt the same way. He had to hold his breath for a moment to not throw up.
The pineapple had been cut into thick rings, and then wedges by some faceless member of the staff. Armand couldn't recall if this was how it had been done back in Venice, but it felt familiar to him all the same. A lot of his life felt like that; the prayers he used to speak, the men he used to know. It felt like trying to recall something he had read in a book when he was too young to pick up exactly on the meanings of the words on the page.
He would like to pray right now, but the words were caught somewhere near his esophagus, where the piping was periodically constricting and releasing as a response to the foreign objects that kept passing through it, trying to keep them where they were. The pineapple between his fingers was coming apart in his grasp and he brought it to his mouth quickly before it was entirely squished.
He could feel the juice in his mouth, tasteless as sand. He managed to swallow before the rest came back up, and brought each finger to his mouth, one by one, to suck the sticky taste of nothing off of them.
He should be on his knees again right now. This was a self-flagellation that could only exist for God or Louis. He couldn't remember now why he had done any of this if not for a greater purpose. He couldn't remember his reasoning now at all, only that he had done it and it was not over and it could not be over before he had completed the ritual. He took another piece of pineapple in his fingers.
–
The fruit hadn't been rotten this time, but he was in pain anyway.
“Is this to be as seasonal a condition as the fruit itself, my Amadeo?” His Master asked, watching him over his canvas with a sharp eye as Amadeo restlessly fidgeted in discomfort on the cushions he was positioned on. It was his third summer with Marius, and by most accounts he was growing more used to the conditions he was living in. It was just the fruit season that brought out something in him.
“Is it my fault you bring so many of the sweetest delicacies into your home for me to eat?” Amadeo whined, looking in Marius’ face for some much-wanted reaction to his tone. He would blame it on his upset stomach before it turned too sour.
Marius smiled in a tight line, his marble skin still as it always was. Amadeo couldn't see his sharp fangs behind his lips, but he imagined they were there. “No one has made you eat more than you can hold. I worry about this habit of yours,” he said. His voice was kind, but Amadeo felt cold inside.
“One season doesn't last forever,” Amadeo said, matter of fact. “I have to eat my whole year's worth before they're rotten. It's simple, Master.” His voice came out more fragile than he meant it to be.
“I would import the sweetest pineapples all year long if it meant you would stop gorging yourself to sickness as soon as you see a fruit.”
“Would you?” Amadeo asked, perking up. He had to clench his jaw and blink hard for a moment to stave off his sickness.
“No, I don't believe it would help,” Marius sighed. “I fear nothing could stop you from making yourself sick, little Amadeo.”
They lapsed back into silence as Marius turned his attention back to his painting. Amadeo tried to look like he wasn't still in pain.
When Amadeo woke the next morning, there was a small platter of cut fruit by his bedside.
–
Louis found him like that, curled into himself on the living room floor, empty platter before him. He had knelt and licked the platter clean, and then again because it hadn't felt like it was clean enough. He couldn't taste the difference. Now, with Louis' voice above him, he found himself with his knees up to his chest again, his face tucked into them and his arms wrapped tight around his shins as his stomach churned. He was shaking. He felt like a child in a rich house again.
“What did you do, Arun?” Louis asked, and Armand tensed for a second before unfolding himself just enough to throw up on the beautiful, clean platter.
Louis didn't like to bathe him, didn't like the associations Armand made in his head when he did, but he was kind and did just this once because Armand couldn't find it in himself to move at all. He would have stayed on the floor with that platter forever if he had been allowed.
When he was clean and dressed again, damp hair staining the collar of his sleep shirt, Louis settled him into bed and sat propped up on the pillows next to him. He didn't say anything.
“I wanted to be sweet for you, Maître,” Armand said, muffled slightly by his sluggish mouth.
Louis brought his hand down to gently stroke through Armand's hair. “You are sweet for me,” he said, sounding half convincing in his lying voice. “I just want to know what you thought would happen there.” Louis sounded tired. Armand was sure he hadn't been eating.
He tried to project the concept of it into Louis’ mind, but could only conjure the feeling of hunger and the need to end it. Louis might have got it. He said “okay,” and leant down to kiss Armand on his temple.
Armand wanted to do it again.